The Captain had done what no man before him had managed: he had made her feel weak. And she didn’t know what to do with this frustrating thought. They were moments away from crashing. The end was here. And after a lifetime of stoic readiness, she felt absolutely unprepared.
She gave a low, bawling shout that startled Adam so badly he screamed in sympathy.
The wind at their back freshened, and the ship surged at the slight fissure in the masonry. Iren and Adam gripped each other, bracing for the moment when the ship’s envelope would bunch against the rock and be torn to shreds.
Then the fissure widened. The Tower began to crack.
Incredible as it was, the miracle was happening too slowly. The darkness behind the opening gates was not growing fast enough. The ship would be squeezed; their balloon would burst just shy of salvation.
Voleta scuttled down from the rigging, cheering with excitement, her cheeks aflame with fear and joy. At the fore, the Captain and Mister Winters held her engine over their heads as if in offering. The Tower showed its unlit heart.
The ship’s silks passed through the gates as narrowly as a cat darts through a cracked door. The wind perished at once, and before their eyes could adjust to the gloom or anyone could think to find a match, the gates closed again, snuffing out the living world like a coffin lid.
Chapter Three
“Had the Sphinx not existed, surely the mothers of the Tower would have had to invent him. Who better to encourage children in their studies than a ghoul who riddles you and eats you if you answer wrong? ‘Why should you study, my son? Because you never know what the Sphinx might ask!’”
- The Myth of the Sphinx: A Historical Analysis by Saavedra
One drizzly Saturday morning many years ago, Senlin bought a ticket and boarded a train without any luggage. He felt buoyant and impatient. He stared out the window but did not see the pleasant countryside flit by because he was too busy squinting at the future.
Two hours later, he debarked upon a rural station, which was little more than a few planks laid over a cow patch, and joined the crowd of townsmen tearing up the pasture with their boots.
Curiosity had called them all to the last stop on the main line to witness the excavation of a canal.
Senlin had seen canals before, of course, and while they were worthy feats of engineering, he had not been coaxed from his cozy armchair that dreary morning to watch the scarping of a ditch. No, he had made the trek, along with hundreds of kindred spirits, to catch a glimpse of something they had never seen before: a steam shovel.
The steam shovel looked a little like a child’s stick-and-ball drawing of a dragon. It had an iron boom for a neck and a boiler for a belly. A stoker fed it coal with a shovel, and it breathed steam through a great nostril in its back. In place of a head, the beast had a horned bucket that ate the earth by the barrowload. Amid the hundreds of spectators who doffed their hats and stood on tiptoe, Senlin elbowed a little room to watch the manmade leviathan chew straight through a hill. It was mesmerizing.
Yet, there was something at little unsettling about the engine’s inexhaustible strength. The stoker and driver had to be relieved, had to eat lunch and rest, but others took their place, and the steam shovel carried on.
By late afternoon, it had devoured three hills and five hundred yards of emerald grass.
He was surprised by the tumultuous feelings the machine inspired. On one hand, he couldn’t look at such rapid industry without feeling optimistic for the future of human progress. On the other, he couldn’t help but feel irrelevant to the effort. If one machine could do the work of so many men, what would be left for those men to do? In a thousand years, when the last human work was taken over by an automatic engine, would it conclude the liberation or the enslavement of the race?
These questions plagued him the whole ride home.
The machine that descended upon their ship under the cover of darkness dwarfed the steam shovel from Senlin’s former life. The immense engine resembled a leech. Its body was black and serpentine, its movements undulant. It curled down from the rafters to the unsuspecting Stone Cloud with terrifying grace.
With a throat wide enough to swallow a carriage and have room left over for the horses, it reached for them. Its maw of jagged gears began to whirl all at once. The metallic din turned to a roar. When the mouth touched the ship’s envelope, it locked upon it and siphoned off the gas in an instant. It sucked up the empty silks as if they were noodles in a bowl. The leech severed the tethers and the umbilical, and the rigging rained down upon the crew who stood stiff as belaying pins. They stared up at the furious mouth and its mill of teeth and waited to be devoured.
Then the grinder slowed, and the shrieking metal groaned into silence. Sagging with the exhaustion of a glutton, the iron leech left behind a quiet that was filled by the drumming of blood in their ears.
A tear of black oil splashed upon Senlin’s cheek.
Wiping it away, he studied the dark sheen on his fingertips. His shocked mind foggily acknowledged two facts. First, despite being closed inside the Tower, he could suddenly see as clearly as if he were standing under the sun. And second, a metal-headed leviathan had gobbled up their balloon, and yet his ship had not fallen from the air.
The electric light from hundreds of polished hoods beamed down from girders overhead. The great doors they’d passed through, which from the outside resembled stone, were backed with steel plates, warted with rivets as big as a man’s head.
They were inside some sort of hangar. A central trough connected a score of horseshoe berths, most of which held airships, hidden under immense white shrouds. The scene recalled a closed up country manor: spacious and haunted with covered furniture.
The bays and catwalks about them crawled with engines, great and small. Some resembled hermit crabs, with conical shells of iron twisting over hooked legs. Others seemed to have been inspired by centipedes and beetles, each armored in brass and puffing steam from mandibles and joints. Their eyes and abdomens glowed with a familiar red light. And indeed, they were beautiful in the way Edith’s arm was, and no less daunting.
Yet these scuttling machines, some large as coaches, were toys compared to the monstrous engine that held their ship aloft.
Craning over the rail to see what had kept them from falling, Senlin spied the iron feet of a colossus. The elephantine pads filled the floor of the channel. Its arms were as large as boxcars, and its monstrous hands cupped the hull of the Stone Cloud as if it were no more burdensome than a loaf of bread. The colossus’s face was a blank, white dial, big and glowing as the clock of a city tower. Though it had no eyes with which to peer at him, Senlin was quite certain the giant was studying him and coming to some conclusion.
The colossus began to stride.
The ship rolled with its gait, flinging Senlin back into the arms of his crew. The whump of the giant’s footfalls resounded through the hangar like a cannon fired again and again into a hillside. The slipcovered ship dashed by; the arc lamps above jerked and danced like drunken stars.
Then abruptly they reached the hangar’s terminus, and the ship pitched violently beneath them. They were thrown from the deck like dice from a cup and sent tumbling over one another across a platform of unyielding steel.
Senlin looked up from the tangled heap of his crew to see the giant already turning and retreating, carrying the shell of his ship with it.
He asked whether anyone was injured and was relieved to hear no one was, though it seemed quite possible that they were all concussed and bleeding into their guts, and only the indignation of being bowled out of their boat was keeping them from dying on the spot.
“So much for staying on the ship,” Voleta said as she squirmed her way out of the pile. Squit popped out the back of her shirt and ran around her neck twice before disappearing into her collar again.
Of the lot, Edith had the most trouble getting to her feet; her unslung arm upset her center of gravity. “Iren, would you please hold Vo
leta’s hand?”
“You must be joking,” Voleta said, and plainly saw the first mate was not. She took the amazon’s offered hand without further argument, though it made her feel like an absolute child to have her hand swallowed up so completely.
“Is that the usual welcome?” Senlin asked Edith.
“No. We must’ve done something wrong.”
“Already? That’s quick even by our standards.” Senlin helped Edith reset her arm in its sling. “The Sphinx has quite a doorman.”
The short landing they stood upon offered a spectacular view of the hangar, the tantalizing and hidden armada, swarmed about with walking, crawling engines. Adam gaped at a copper-shelled crab firing a blinding spark from its mouth into a nearby joint. “Look, it’s welding. I wonder if someone is guiding it, or if it has some sort of clockwork mind.” Entranced, Adam edged nearer the automaton. Iren’s firm grip drew him back abruptly.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Oh, come on, Iren. That’s one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever seen.”
“She’s right, Adam,” Senlin said. “Let’s not go touching anything,” Still off balance, he cupped one hand to his forehead and looked around. “Mister Winters, any of this jogging your memory?”
“Well, I definitely remember that.” She pointed to the green copper door that waited at the end of the platform. It was as round as a coin and tall as a house. An elaborate frieze raised the face of it. Figures walked heel to toe all the way around the wheel, each carrying a brick on their shoulders, or in the basket of their arms, or balanced upon their heads. The blocks were gilded and stood out from the oxidized scene. Center to their labor, set in proud relief, were the words, “The Brick Layer.”
Even as they studied them, the words tilted, and the frozen figures began to move. The door was rolling away, and someone waited behind it.
He wore a crimson military uniform, piped in black, with bushy gold epaulets set upon his square shoulders. His hands were made of brass, and yet appeared finer and more nimble than the hardy digits of Edith’s arm. But none of this seemed remarkable given the nature of his head, which was not a man’s. His was the head and neck of a stag.
The stag’s antlers branched and curled elegantly over his broad, active ears. The creature’s dark eyes were bright and probing and belied a startling intelligence.
“Byron.” Edith spoke the name as if it were sour.
“Edith. You came back,” the stag said without a hint of warmth. His voice was queer and creaking, like someone speaking beneath his range. The stag raised his arm, and though the sleeve of the gallant uniform concealed it, it moved with the too-perfect fluidity of a machine. “I see you broke the arm already. How surprising. Did you damage it while battering heads or perhaps it was headboards?”
Voleta gasped.
“I had completely forgotten you, Byron. It was a wonderful time in my life.”
“Yes, I hear that people who suffer from brain damage are quite happy. That’s what I always wanted for you, Edith: for you to be happy, no matter how many blows to the head it takes.”
“Excuse me, are you… are you the Sphinx?” Senlin said, stepping into the stag’s line of sight.
“Oh, what a jolly idiot!” the stag said. “You just heard her call me ‘Byron’ twice. Where’s Captain Lee? At least he could follow a conversation.”
“Dead,” Edith said.
“Dead? Well. I’m sure his lice are utterly heartbroken.”
“You’re horrible!” Voleta’s voice shook with laughter.
The stag raised the long, slender prow of its face in her direction and seemed to smile. He had such beautiful, curling eyelashes. “And you’re a little scrub brush.”
Senlin had been so surprised by the appearance of a talking woodland creature that he had momentarily been blinded to the environment. They stood upon a cobbled street, fronted on either side by stone buildings. The facades and old slate shingles were wet from the persistent drip of plumbing overhead. Great jade-shelled snails clung to the pipes, their silvery trails visible everywhere under the shine of sooty streetlamps.
A red macaw, perched atop the arm of a pub sign, croaked, “Time to go! Time to go!”
It took Senlin a moment to realize he stood on the cusp of the Basement, or at least however much of it fit inside a single, modest chamber. Unlike the Basement that was overcrowded with beggars and pilgrims, this model was uninhabited. Behind the buildings, which appeared to have been cut in half, rose the wall of the room itself. Ahead of them, at the end of the cobbled street, was a white door.
“Why did he take our ship?” Edith asked.
“Did Henry take your ship? How peculiar. You used the signal, of course?”
“Not exactly. We didn’t know what it was.”
“Well, then you’re lucky he opened the door at all.”
“When can we expect to have it returned?” Senlin asked.
“I’m sorry; I think you’ve mistaken me for the valet.” Byron clicked his boot heels together stiffly and undertook a quick march. “Come on, come on! You will have to explain all of this yourself. I’m not doing it.”
The crew looked to their captain. Edith gave him a reassuring smile he felt he did not deserve. He had been cavalier; he had brushed her doubts aside. And still she smiled at him. What a marvelous gift.
Senlin spoke at a confident volume to his crew. “We have survived stranger things. Stick together. Follow my lead.”
“Yes, please follow him following me,” Byron said over his shoulder with a snort. “Follow on, fearless leader! Edith, really, I don’t know where you found this donkey, but I miss the old rooster. Say what you want about Lee; at least his ears worked.”
Byron’s jibes continued even as he opened the white door.
Inside, cobblestones gave way to woolen rugs. Crown molding framed the room instead of mossy plumbing. Pelts, antique arms, and dusty heralds decorated the walls. Decanters and tumblers, lined upon a dark wood bar, glimmered in the firelight. A creature they all recognized loomed in a corner. One shaggy arm of the beast had been posed over its head like an eager student raising their hand.
“That spider-eater is posed wrong,” Adam said. “You can tell whoever mounted it never saw one alive.”
“I liked you better when you didn’t talk,” Byron said.
Senlin and Edith shared a different memory. With one step, they had returned to the Parlor and the start of everything. It made Edith feel wistful in a way she was unaccustomed to. Once, she had been a tourist; once, she had believed she could leave the Tower whenever she liked.
Another white door waited for them on the opposite side of the room, and they filed after Byron while he berated them for dawdling.
They stepped out upon a wrought iron bridge that clanged and shivered beneath them. Water flooded the floor, though it did not seem very deep. Low vents breathed upon the surface, raising ripples that were as fine as lace. Dangling from the ceiling, a ball of mirrors spun an ethereal knit upon their skin. A single mural spanned the four walls, depicting well-lit cafes and colorful changing stalls.
Senlin recalled his time in the Baths with a pang of embarrassment: he’d been such a naïve and bumbling pawn, and yet, inexplicably, unfairly, he had escaped while Tarrou was made a hod and Ogier was assassinated. What an absurdity.
“Will you stop showing off, Byron. They’re all very impressed, but nobody wants to tour the whole Tower.”
“I would like to,” Voleta piped up, but when Mister Winters lowered her brows at her, Voleta quickly recanted. “No, I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t like that at all.”
“Is there a room done up for every ringdom?” Senlin asked.
“Yes. It’s meant to make our guests feel more at home.”
Iren frowned at the kitschy scene. “It isn’t working.”
“Well then, you must not be a guest.”
“Why are we going this way, Byron?” Edith said.
Byron’s big calla lily e
ars sagged, and his mouth tightened. “You do realize that most civilized callers find the model rooms enthralling and my tour scintillating?”
“Can we please take the corridor?”
“I wasn’t going to take you through all the rooms,” Byron continued. Senlin struggled to interpret their guide’s pinched expression, but it looked as if the stag was pouting. “I just thought this way was more… pleasant.”
“Is Ferdinand in the hall?”
“Of course Ferdinand is in the hall! If he could fit through the door, he’d be standing on my toes right now. He’s such a monstrous stain! He follows me everywhere, and I can’t get a minute’s peace. He’s gotten worse, Edith. Much worse.”
“Who’s Ferdinand?” Adam asked.
“Come on, come on,” Byron said, turning right at the junction in the bridge and out another door.
Emerging from the minutely detailed model ringdoms, the corridor was a little astounding in its shabbiness. The floor, covered with layers of rugs that clashed and overlapped like wet autumn leaves, was spongy and smelled of must. Tears and scuffs marred the pink and white wallpaper. In between the parade of white doors, shallow alcoves were decorated with alabaster sconces and hazy paintings.
On the face of it, the hall was unremarkable, was the sort of thing one might expect to see in an abandoned hotel or an unpopular resort. But they only had to glance up to understand what distinguished the Sphinx’s corridor from those pedestrian tunnels, because just a few feet above their heads, stood an exact repetition of their level, right down to the procession of doors and filmy paintings. Above that iteration was another, and above that, another. They stood at the bottom of a pink-papered canyon, nested with a thousand white doors, all inaccessible to anyone trying to get in, and presumably deadly to anyone wanting to get out. It was a dizzying sight.
Arm of the Sphinx (Books of Babel Book 2) Page 23
