Arm of the Sphinx (Books of Babel Book 2)

by Josiah Bancroft

  *

  If you looked at it, if you really inspected it, the pink wallpaper had a pattern as fine as a fingerprint. Edith had never noticed it before. But marching with Byron ahead of her and the jangling Ferdinand at her back, the corridor took on a merciless clarity. The tattered rugs revealed their frantic mazes, the congested growls and clanks of the elevating hall and the juggernaut seemed to compose a song. She felt the pleasant pressure of a breath, the heart-like throb in her fingertips, all vivid symptoms of a mortal dread. She felt as one marching to the gallows.

  She thought of Tom, wandering through the recesses of the bottomless library. She and the crew had a routine to distract them, beds to console them, and a stocked kitchen to spoil themselves with. What did he have? A backpack full of cat food? His ghost? His habit? His memories? She recalled the moment he had grabbed her hand inside the Golden Zoo’s elevator, recalled the tense look she had given him, which probably seemed aloof or horrified or otherwise discouraging, though she hadn’t meant it to be. She had only been surprised. He’d done it so naturally.

  Byron stumbled ahead of her.

  The toe of his boot caught upon a hole in a rug, and he only had time to voice a single startled noise before he crashed onto his knees.

  Edith rushed to him without thinking, knelt beside him, and got his arm over her shoulder before he could disagree. They stood together and quickly disentangled.

  Byron couldn’t look at her when he thanked her in an emphatic whisper. He pulled on the points of his jacket and continued as before.

  But Edith couldn’t stand the silence any longer. Not now. Not so close to the end. “I’m sorry I got you drunk.”

  Byron turned his head a fraction. “And for Captain Lee?”

  “I thought you liked Lee.”

  “Awful man,” Byron said. “I shudder to think of the two of you petting each other over my inebriated sprawl.”

  “We absolutely did not do that. I fully admit to pouring the rum, but I wasn’t trying to poison you. How was I to know mechanical stags are allergic to liquor?”

  “I thought we were friends,” Byron said in a voice that shivered with emotion. “I thought we were sharing a drink. I was flattered. I didn’t know I was in the way. You could’ve just asked me to leave, to look the other way. Instead you had to humiliate me.”

  Edith was flabbergasted. In those early days of her recuperation from the loss of one arm and the addition of another, the stag had never, not once, shown her the slightest shred of kindness. In fact, every time she saw him, they bickered. He called her names, she called him names— back and forth like a pair of cooped-up children. She hadn’t thought anything of it. It was just banter to stave off boredom. But Byron, apparently, had thought they were becoming friends.

  “Wait,” Edith said, stopping, forcing Ferdinand to come to a clomping halt behind her. Byron paused, but did not turn around. “Why would you ever want me as a friend?”

  “It’s nice to be talked to,” he said over his shoulder, adding after a moment, “And you’re not the worst person in the world.” He hurried on before she could imagine what she should say.

  It was a room Edith had never been in before, which, in itself, was not very remarkable; the Sphinx’s home was mostly mysterious to her. And yet this chamber seemed especially odd.

  The main of it was occupied by a long, brass tank that resembled a silo lain on its side. Quivering, ticking plumbing curled between it and the ceiling. The floor, tiled in white and fitted with drains, would not have been out of place inside an abattoir. The air was warm and thick as a spring mist. It beaded upon the cluster of dials set over the porthole where the Sphinx stood, turning a large socket key as if he were winding up a toy.

  Byron seemed to be fighting the animal urge to run.

  Edith refused to be afraid. No matter how terribly the Sphinx scolded her, no matter what punishments he threatened, she would be contrite. In the end, she could only hope that he would not deprive himself of a useful subordinate just to begrudge her a second chance. She would have her arm back, Senlin would come home and be Captain, and all of this would be put to right.

  What else could she believe?

  “You look proud of yourself,” the Sphinx said. He moved the key to another bolt in the porthole. Edith realized he was opening it. She was close enough now to feel the warmth of the tank, to see the condensation on the window, the gold light within.

  “No, I am horribly ashamed,” Edith said. “I betrayed my oath, I—”

  “No, please, Edith, spare me; spare us both. Let’s not carry on like strangers. I know why you did it. You were being sentimental. All you could think was, save the boy! Save the boy! Save him from what? Save him from me.” The Sphinx’s metallic voice squawked like a crow.

  “Yes,” Edith said, lifting her chin. She was not ashamed of what she had done— disappointed at the result, perhaps, but not ashamed.

  “See, there. Honesty suits you. And I’ll forgive you the boy. The girl is more than enough.”

  “I’m sorry?” Edith said.

  “The girl. I have taken her under my wing.”

  “Voleta?” She felt lightheaded. She couldn’t tell whether it was from the closeness of the room or the thought that while she had been busily shielding Adam, his sister had fallen prey to the Sphinx.

  “Why are you surprised? Because she is young? Because she is small? Because she is willful? Edith, for someone so… untraditional, you certainly are judgmental.” The Sphinx shifted the socket key to a new bolt.

  “I have you to thank for that.”

  “Haven’t you outgrown that story yet? Do you honestly believe I did this to you, that I turned the world against you? I did not maim you, my good woman; I made you whole.”

  Feeling chastened and drained of her optimism, Edith’s voice sounded thin even to her own ears. “Will you put her in harm’s way?”

  “In a heartbeat,” the Sphinx said, pulling the last bolt free of the steel ring. “She wouldn’t love me if I didn’t.”

  “Could you pick someone else?”

  “No.”

  Edith was starting to feel as if she were drowning.

  “I’d like to show you something. Come here, Edith. Come look.”

  As Edith left his side, Byron pawed one boot on the tiled ground in agitation. The black Sphinx loomed before her, tall as a charmed snake. He opened the porthole and a great hiss of steam fogged the mirror of his face. Edith felt as if she were moving automatically. She set her foot upon the rail that encircled the tank, and pulled her face level with the window. Inside, there laid a man, his loins swaddled, his limbs posed in the formal attitude of a corpse. His veins were visible beneath his pale, white skin, and they glowed red as an ember.

  The man’s eyes fluttered, struggled open, and then moved to find her. The Red Hand smiled.

  Edith’s foot slipped, or her knee unlocked, or the Tower shook beneath her. Whatever the cause, she fell as if bucked from a horse.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “P is for prankster, picador, and peeve, or the young lad who keeps tricks up his sleeve.”

  - The Unlikable Alphabet, a Primer for Children by Anon.

  Iren and Voleta had agreed the moment they set eyes on the felt-topped monstrosity, with its fussy braided pockets and big claw feet, that billiards was furniture masquerading as sport. It was absurd. Iren found the cue sticks impossibly fragile, and Voleta couldn’t understand the game’s obsession with knocking the pretty candy-colored balls into the pockets, as if that was the only interesting thing to be done with them. Wasn’t it more fun to watch them ricochet about, pop over the rails, and roll across the floor? Why was juggling not allowed?

  It felt odd to be in the billiard room without Mister Winters and Adam, who both liked the game and had wiled the afternoons away racking and cracking the balls. Edith proved to be as good a shot with one arm as Adam was with two. She rested the cue stick on the bumper, and struck the ball with more finesse than fo
rce. Adam liked to play for a shekel a game, though neither of them had any money to gamble with. They ran a tab that they agreed would be settled next time they were paid. Presently, Mister Winters was ahead by 3 shekels. Voleta couldn’t help but wonder how long the debt would stand.

  They had come to the room because it was on the schedule, and neither of them was quite sure what else to do. They were nervous, and so to give their hands some activity, they began rolling the ball back and forth to each other. After a few minutes, Voleta said she was going to try to carom the ball past Iren and back to herself. It was like keep away, she said. Iren did not disagree, but neither did she try very hard to catch the girl’s volleys. Her thoughts seemed to wander.

  “Come on, Iren. That was an easy one!”

  “‘On your next visit.’” Iren said.

  “What?” Voleta rolled the white ball again.

  Iren watched the cue ball bounce between her hands and return to Voleta. “Byron said, ‘on your next visit.’ You’ve been seeing the Sphinx. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Voleta rolled the ball again, with more feeling. “Because I don’t like being told what to do.”

  Iren put her hands on the corners of the table to signal she had quit the game. “I don’t tell you what to do. I’m not your mother.”

  “You’re sort of like my mother.”

  “What do you mean? Big?”

  Voleta laughed. “No, my mother was really quite small. But you keep an eye out for me. And I often confide in you. And I know you worry. Doesn’t that sound like a mother? You seem the sort of friend who will be generally suspicious of young men when they start to come around.”

  “They’ll have to come through me first,” Iren said.

  “See, there you are. If mothers were elected, I would vote for you.”

  Iren’s expression seemed more appropriate to a toothache than a compliment. “How can you say that? I used to scare you out the door.”

  “In New Babel, you mean? Oh, none of us were ourselves there. That’s the trouble with prisons; they’re full of prisoners, people who have forgotten or surrender their character. I don’t think of who I was with any pride, and I certainly don’t blame you for being scary. I would’ve loved to be scary. Besides, you’re so reliable now. I depend upon you. You know that.”

  Iren did know it, and it only made her more certain that she could not afford to ignore the injury that plagued her: the anxiety, the dreams, the great vacillations of her temper and courage. Something inside of her was broken. Something needed replacement, and she owed it to Voleta to take care of it.

  “Do you consider the Sphinx a friend?” Iren asked.

  Voleta blinked like a cold wind had struck her face. Confused by the abrupt change in subject, she said, “I do.”

  “Would you ask him to come see me?”

  “Come see you? Why?”

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  Now Voleta was very curious. She held the cue ball on one palm and squinted at it like a fortuneteller. “What sort of favor?”

  “The private sort.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the Sphinx said, bolting the pane back in place. Edith, still humbled upon the floor, stared back in slack-jawed shock. “How in the world did he survive the fall? The succinct answer is, ‘barely.’ He was quite broken and drained by the time my engines found him and brought him to me. But he had just enough of the battery medium in his veins to preserve him. He’s made remarkable progress in recent months.”

  Byron helped Edith to her feet, and as he did, he whispered in her ear, “Don’t be afraid. He’s paralyzed.”

  “Yes, he’s paralyzed,” the Sphinx’s voice chimed against the tile of the room. He finished his work on the final bolt. “And it’s rude to whisper behind people’s backs, Byron.”

  “Forgive me,” the stag said, with a stiff bow.

  “I think what you did is very interesting,” the Sphinx said, turning his attention again to Edith.

  “What I did?” Edith asked.

  “Trying to kill the Red Hand, not by action but by inaction. You waited for my engine to run out of power, and let gravity do the murdering for you.”

  “He told you that?” Edith raised her chin to make swallowing easier. Swallowing had never been so difficult. “That’s not how I remember it.”

  “Stop it. How can I trust you if you insist upon lying to me? Do you want me to put you somewhere awful? Somewhere far from your friends? Yes, Tom too. Really, Edith, did you think I could make a wakeman out of him? Out of that?”

  “That’s not what I thought at all.”

  “Because it’s absurd. He’s another lost soul on a hopeless errand, which, if he ever sees the end of, will just be replaced by another hopeless errand, and on and on till the end. But you, you are not like him. You have a litigious mind. You broke your contract in spirit, but not in letter. That’s very clever. You get to keep your word and still do what you want.

  “No, don’t interrupt, Edith. Listen. I can improve a lot of things. I can replace lost limbs. I can give a body more might. But I cannot improve upon a mind. Believe me, I have tried. Any fiddling around in here—” the Sphinx pointed at his shrouded head. “And the lights do not come back on.”

  Edith cringed at the thought of having the Sphinx rummage about inside her head.

  “The trouble is, the Wakemen need to be clever. They must be,” the Sphinx said, vanishing the wrench key in the recesses of his robes. “Can you imagine giving an imbecile a tool such as your arm? It would be a nightmare. The trouble with intelligent people is that they always think they could do a better job if they were in charge. But intelligence is not the same thing as vision or shrewdness. What a prime example your captain is. Privately clever, perhaps even smart, but give him a smidgeon of power, and his incompetence is revealed.

  “I cannot trust the Wakemen for similar reasons. They’re generally obedient but not truly loyal. They might try to overthrow me if they thought they could do it. Who do you think Ferdinand and all my engines are protecting me from? It is you, Edith. It is your kind. Among others.

  “But I want to trust you. Do you know why? It’s very simple: because you let me take my arm back.”

  “I was just afraid.”

  “You were not afraid. Don’t say that. You were being good to your word. You may be litigious, but you are not dishonest. You are the first honest person I have met in years, decades. Think about that.”

  “I’ve been lying to you since I got here.”

  “Only to protect your friends. So, you are smart, honest, and loyal,” the Sphinx said, counting the qualities on his gloved fingers. “I need someone like you. Now, it doesn’t have to be you. Feel free to say, no, my dear. I can always put my favor elsewhere.”

  “What are you proposing?”

  “You become more than a Wakeman, more than a counter weight to keep the Tower from leaning toward one power or another. I want you to become my arm, Edith. Not just wear it, but become it. Because I think I am about to need a very strong and loyal arm.”

  “I would like it back,” she said in a dazed voice.

  “Of course you would, but how long do you want to keep it? How long do you want it to work? How long would you like access to fresh batteries?”

  “A long time.” This was not the direction she had thought the conversation would go. She realized with some despair she was a little drunk. She wondered how long before he started talking about contracts.

  “Yes, Edith, for quite a long time. But think about what would happen if someone were to get in here, someone with poor intentions. They could knock the Tower down.”

  “Impossible,” she murmured.

  “Don’t contradict me. Not only is it possible, it’s simple. I could tip us on our ear just by fiddling with the plumbing. The ringdoms are all so busy squabbling with one another, they’ve lost sight of what they were meant to protect: the system! The system! The Tower is susceptible to sabotage. If some ro
gue, someone like Luc Marat, were to begin to coordinate an attack of a few vital joints, the whole Tower might be brought down. Millions would die; the world would lose its lighthouse. Civilization would degenerate and an epoch of darkness would dawn. What do I need to say to you to get you to understand? I am not the villain. I am trying to keep this swaying pile of humanity upright!”

  “But what do you want me to do?”

  “The age of subtlety and diplomacy has passed. The Tower is infested, and you will intervene on my account. You will dispel the myths and remind the ringdoms of my power and their responsibilities. You will confront the threat of the hods. I have removed from your contract the restriction regarding other wakemen.”

  “You’re saying I can kill my kin?”

  “I’m saying you will probably have to. One Wakeman in particular. But don’t fret, my dear, I am going to make you the most formidable proponent of my will. I am going to give you the sky.” The Sphinx raised a finger at the stag, standing nervously by the chamber door. “Get your typewriter, Byron. I think we are ready to begin.”

  Despite her absence, Voleta and Iren dutifully followed Mister Winter’s schedule. They languished in the billiard room until the lunch hour, though Adam wasn’t there to prepare it. Neither of them had an appetite anyway, so they shifted to the reading room and resumed languishing until dinner. They were convinced she would be back. She would not miss dinner. Not if she could help it.

  They found Ferdinand in the elevating corridor. He waited outside their apartment door, steaming softly and playing sad music. He hardly looked at them as they squeezed past the iron trusses of his legs to their door. Hoping his presence heralded Edith’s return, they entered in a rush, Voleta already calling to her, boasting about how good they’d been while she was away.

  Byron sat at their table in front of a teapot and three teacups. “Let’s all sit down and have some tea,” the stag said.

  “Where’s Winters?” Iren said.

  “Sleeping.” Byron nodded at the closed bedroom door.