Gears of the City

by Felix Gilman

  Ivy’s part of the house was marked out by sigils painted on the walls, lines scratched in the floorboards, circles in the dust. There was something infantile about it—a child’s marking out of territory. KEEP OUT. KNOCK FIRST. TOP SECRET. MINE.

  He knocked. She answered. He went in.

  Brace-Bel

  Downstairs, in the darkened hallways, Brace-Bel staggered through a forest of pillars. When he stumbled he pulled himself along by the wires and tubes that knotted on the floor. He wasn’t sure where he was going. It seemed too late, too late to reinvent himself again; his small store of genius was exhausted. He thought it would be nice to find somewhere warm to sit, in the sunshine.

  The servants followed at a discreet distance, cleaning his blood from the floorboards.

  The machinery hummed all around him, and it sounded like music. He thought it would be nice to see fire again, and beauty, before he died.

  There were footsteps approaching. He slumped to the floor and took out his little pocketknife, and began sawing weakly at the cables. The footsteps came closer, and stopped. The cable in his hand snapped, golden coils sprung out, a shower of sparks rose up, and another cascaded from overhead. Small fires ran along the ceiling. As his vision ebbed, the cables in his lap glowed with the red light of a violent birth. His first memory! A perfect circle. Someone stood over him, now, a man, and a familiar voice said, “That’s going to make things a bit more difficult, isn’t it?” Then his head fell forward into his lap, and he felt nothing.

  Arjun

  Ivy conducted her business from a single bedroom. The room was sparely furnished, but clean. Morning light forced its way through shuttered windows, slicing precise diagonals through the closed space, denning angular shadows. The walls were pinned with maps, diagrams, mathematics, ciphers and codes, sketches of the gears of impossible machines, plans for new languages. Sharp instruments lay in a row on a well-organized desk. Ivy herself, sitting on a plain wooden chair, in a long black dress, her bare arm resting on the desk, seemed for a moment only one of the instruments in the room, only a part of the machine.

  There was something flat about her. Her eyes were full of calculation, estimation, contempt. Her charm had deserted her. She was beautiful like a statue. The stress of her struggle had reduced her severely.

  She said, “Where’s my sister?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You weren’t supposed to come, you know. What use are you to me? There are hundreds just like you, and none of you are worth a damn. I wanted my sisters.”

  “I’m sorry if I spoiled your plans.”

  “Never mind. Never mind.” She rubbed her temples. “I can make do. I have another sister, after all. What do you want, anyway?”

  “Can I sit?”

  She waved him vaguely toward the bed. Her fingers were covered in rings and charms. Strange marks were scribbled on her palms.

  “He sent me to kill you.”

  “Did he now? How were you going to do that?”

  “He gave me this,” Arjun said. He took a small black stone from his pocket. “He told me to come to you, offer my services to you, and hide this in your room. I don’t know what it does, how it kills. I imagine it’s horrible.”

  “I expect so.”

  “I doubt he trusted me. I imagine he hid other weapons on me, things I didn’t know about.”

  “I expect so. He’s not as clever as he thinks he is. He was first. That’s really all he’s got going for him. First to Break Through. But that’s just luck, isn’t it? That’s just a matter of wanting it more than anyone else. Doesn’t make him clever.”

  “Are you winning?”

  “Maybe. Bit by bit. It could take a very long time.”

  “Will there be anything left of the city when you’ve won, do you think?”

  “Well, I’m not really sure. But I can always make another. If I choose. I expect I will. It will be a fascinating exercise.”

  He looked again at the maps on the walls. Their geometries were rigid, unsympathetic. A plan for a tower, coiled, elongated, pierced by bridges, suggested repressed pain, outward cruelty. The scale of her design was both vast and claustrophobic. “I see,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  “Will there be music in your city?”

  She looked at him with interest for the first time. “I remember. You lost a musical thing. A God. Is that right?”

  “Don’t tell me what you think it really is—please.”

  “I’m very fond of music, too. In my way. What does it sound like? Is it pretty?”

  “Yes. Is it here?”

  “Maybe. The city runs on music, you know.”

  “So I’ve always thought. Others think differently.”

  “It depends on your definition of music. Most of it isn’t very pretty at all. It’s a question of what you can find beauty in. What you’re willing to face.”

  “Is it here?”

  “It may be. There are vaults. Down below. The old man hid things away. Will you be very angry if I say they’re only things?”

  “I won’t be angry. “

  “There are keys to the vaults. I know the way. Help me, Arjun.”

  “Is that the price? Murder your father?”

  “Get rid of him. Get him out of the way. Don’t you think it’s time? Help me and I’ll set your God loose. Fly free, you know? There’s not enough music in the world. I’m on your side, really, and you’re on mine. Help me.”

  Her face was flat, monstrous. Her eyes were the dull green of rusted metal. Her voice never wavered, and every word out of her mouth was blasphemy. Arjun was sick of haggling.

  “I won’t,” he said. “It’s not worth the price. It never ends.”

  As he left, she shrugged and turned back to her desk, without another word, as if she’d lost interest in him entirely.

  Arjun

  In the corridors outside, the wires in the ceiling pulsed and sparked. The pipes groaned. Cracks opened in the plaster, the drawers in the sideboards fell open, and a fractal stain blossomed on the carpet.

  A troupe of Shay’s monkeys scuttled frantically up the stairs, darting in and out of the balusters, scrabbling along the handrail; they leapt and passed Arjun by.

  And the servants stepped from shadow to shadow and their long weightless fingers brushed the cracks clear and swept away shattered glass and china.

  The strains of Ivy and her father’s struggle, Arjun thought, shaking the Mountain at last.

  What would happen when the whole thing fell apart? Would the Gods fly free from the wreckage, make the world anew? Or would they die with it? It seemed there was nothing to do but wait and see.

  The sound of straining machinery had ceased; then it started up again. The engines suffered …

  “Come in, come in.”

  The voice came from a room to his left; the door was open.

  “Come in. Don’t just stand there.”

  It was Shay, again, but … Shay stood by the far wall with his hands in his pockets, examining the pipes that twined around each other in the corners of the room. He was young, again—a man in his thirties, plump, pink-faced, his floppy grey-white hair only a little balding—dressed in baggy clothes, corduroy and tweed. He might have walked only yesterday out of Ruth’s old photograph of the Low family. His eyes gleamed. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” “Mr. Low?”

  “It’s been a while since I used that name. These days I mostly go by Cuttle, or Shay, or …” “Cuttle, then.”

  “I know you, Arjun. I’ve been watching you for a long time, now. You and that daughter of mine. Ever since that old bastard sent you tumbling back down the Mountain! I knew my clever, clever girl might find you a way back.”

  “And you followed? I thought I heard someone following us.” “I never could have done it on my own. I needed someone on the inside to find the safe path through all those traps. I needed someone cleverer than me. There! I’ve admitted it. I’m admitting my weaknesses here; take it a
s an earnest of good faith!” “What do you want from me, Cuttle?”

  “Look at this thing! Isn’t it wonderful? I can tell you what it’s for, if you’re curious. I can tell you who built it. What it does. How all the city hangs from it! I can tell you, if you make it worth my while.”

  “I don’t want to make any more deals, Cuttle.” “Were you in the old bastard’s room? The one where he drifts away his days? What was in it?”

  “I don’t know. Photographs, lamps, a mantelpiece.” “Describe the photographs. What was on the mantelpiece?” “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I wasn’t really looking.” “It’s a miracle you survived this long and got half this far.” Cuttle sighed. “My problem is this. Here I am inside, the consummation of all my dreams and wishes and scheming, the greatest and most secret treasure in all the city almost—almost—in my grasp, and I cannot seize it. I cannot wait. I cannot stand to wait for it. That old bastard doesn’t know how to enjoy it—it should be mine now. But he’s cunning, oh yes, I don’t get less cunning with the years and my travels. So,” he shrugged and smiled disarmingly, “I find myself stuck in these worthless upper floors. Below there are traps. How many? What kind? I have no fucking idea. But they must be there—if I’d held this place all this time I’d have trapped it. And of course I did, in a manner of speaking. I don’t dare go on. I need intelligence. I need an ally. So do you, Arjun. So I thought we could make a deal.”

  Arjun started to laugh; Cuttle pretended to join in, though it was clear he didn’t see the joke.

  “Ivy’s cleverer than me,” Cuttle explained. “The old man’s older and he knows more and he’s had fuck knows how long to learn this machine’s secrets. Why would you help me? Because I’m desperate. I need you. The others don’t, really. I’m weak, that means you can trust me. Help me and when I hold the Mountain I’ll give you whatever you want …”

  “No, Cuttle, no. No more deals.”

  The man’s smile stiffened and soured.

  And Arjun went wandering the house, calling out Ruth’s name, listening for the echo of his God, watching the disintegration of the machines. Something now was very wrong and getting worse, a discord echoing back and forth through the pipes and wires. What were they doing to the machines?

  He found his way back to Shay’s room by accident. He entered before he knew where he was.

  The old man lay in his armchair with his head back, his mouth slack, his throat slit from ear to ear, his grubby shirt bright with gore, his lap a pool of blood, his thin fingers twisted and stiff as if he had tried to fight.

  The servants hovered uncertainly.

  Bloody footprints led across the carpet to the mantelpiece, where a skinny little man with razor-stubble white hair in an out-sized black coat rooted frantically with bloody hands among the photographs and dusty bric-a-brac, swearing and muttering to himself, no, no, not this, nothing, fuck, the old bastard, not this, what the fuck is this?

  The man turned as he heard Arjun cross the threshold. His face was Shay’s. Neither the oldest nor the youngest iteration of that face Arjun had ever seen. Someone had once broken his nose, and his cheeks and eyes were sunken—this was not the happiest or most prosperous of Shay’s shadow lives. Even now, in victory, he looked bitter, resentful. His sharp vicious eyes sized Arjun up; he smiled thinly and said, “There you are. You and those daughters of mine did a good job leading me here.” His hand hovered near the long knife at his belt. “So I’ll give you a chance, how about this, I’ll give you a chance to be on the winning side. You were helping my daughter—Ivy, not the other one—you must know a thing or two about how this works. Tell me everything you know. Bring Ivy to me. Call me Mr. Shay, Arjun; this is going to be my house soon. So let’s make a deal.”

  Behind the walls, the machines were going mad. Blood dripped from the murdered man’s sleeve onto the carpet. The pipes throbbed and moaned and shrieked; the floor shook and one of the clocks tumbled off the mantelpiece. Shay-with-the-knife snarled and angrily swept the photographs onto the floor after it.

  Shaking his head—not taking his eyes off the angry little murderer—Arjun backed out of the room.

  “You’ll regret this! You’ll regret this, you little shit! When I’m in charge here you’ll …”

  The noise of the machines soon drowned out the man’s ranting.

  The Shadows Return-Little Murders-

  The End of the World

  Arjun

  He found Ruth on one of the upper floors. She sat on a balcony made of marble, on a stone bench. Ivy’s work—the sky above was cold and blue. It felt like morning. Nothing was visible below except grey clouds. Did the city still exist?

  A light rain fell on them as they embraced.

  She’d been crying. She smiled now, weary and exhilarated. “I couldn’t,” she said. “I didn’t.”

  He wasn’t sure what she meant.

  She leaned on the balcony. “It’s over. “

  “Is it? He’s dead, Ruth.” She nodded, bit her lip. “Not my doing.” He explained. “His shadows are returning now. We left the way open for them when we came. They were watching and waiting. They followed us home.”

  “Oh. How horrible. I suppose that was stupid of us.”

  “More will come.”

  “They’re not my father. My father is dead.”

  “They’re going to break everything. They’re reckless.”

  “Shouldn’t we try to stop them?”

  “There’s only two of us. There are more of him. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to deal with them anymore. It poisons everything, the compromises you have to make. Nothing bought this way is worth having. Let them fight, let the sickness run its course.

  Let the error resolve itself. Nothing can work right until they’re gone.”

  A gunshot echoed in the house below.

  “I want to see where he died,” she said. “Then we can go home.”

  The servants were busy clearing away every trace of the murdered man. A hundred of them closed in overlapping together to lift the body with their pale insubstantial hands. Others drifted on their knees across the floor, picking with miniscule pointless unappreciated care the blood droplets from the carpet, while a second shadowy wave of servants rolled up the carpet itself. Like black feathers on a slowly beating wing yet more of them swept through the room taking up the photographs, and dismantling the clocks, and slipping the ugly little ornaments into their pockets, and slicing the paintings from their frames, and plying the frames apart. The servants unpicked the wallpaper, which had been vaguely yellow, and vaguely floral, and left behind stark concrete.

  “His mirrors are prisons,” Ruth said. “The Beast told me that. So did Brace-Bel. There are souls still in them. Should we … ?”

  “Yes. I remember.” Arjun took the dusty mirror down from the wall. A few of the servants tugged at it, but he pulled it from their feeble grip. They stared reproachfully at him as he carried it away. Ruth closed the door; the old man’s room was bare and empty behind them.

  A man stood at the end of the corridor, in a charcoal silk suit, no tie, small, wiry, prosperously neat, vainly smart, white hair in a short ponytail. “Too late, am I?” A complacent drawl. “I smell blood. I smell excitement. Did I miss the action?” He had Shay’s face, but he introduced himself as Mr. Cruickshank. “Who invited you? This is a select gathering. Do you work here?” He removed a fold of vivid butterfly-green notes from his pocket, held in a golden clip, and he thumbed suggestively through them as if offering a tip to a doorman …

  They couldn’t find the way out. Was there a way out? The lower floors were full of steam, strange gases, collapsed pillars. Windowless, dark, the corridors turned inward. Buffeting pressures drummed on locked iron doors. Wires hung from the high ceilings, twitching like dreaming snakes. The machine was a closed system. It seemed to go on forever.

  They went upstairs, instead, onto the highest floor they could find. The air was clean there, and the process of disintegration
not yet begun. They found a small spare bedroom. They propped the prison-mirror up against the wall. Neither of them had any idea how to open it; perhaps it had something to do with the complex arabesques and intaglios carved and molded into the frame?

  The war went on below them. It accelerated. The house changed minute by minute. There was no way out but there were countless ways in—copies stepped confidently from every open door. The shadows flocked home like birds, in gathering numbers.

  They wrestled over control of the servants, made them into armies. They came with Beasts of all kinds, sharp-clawed, poisonous, cunning. The servants, confused and pathetic, torn this way and that by the claims of their countless masters, performed unnecessary tasks out of habit. They cleaned and dusted constantly. Every few minutes they absentmindedly brought little servings of dry bread and coffee up to Arjun and Ruth’s hiding place.

  Arjun went walking down through the corridors. He watched the place disintegrate.

  The rivals fought over the machinery. They twisted it and tampered with it. For short-lived strategic advantage they broke delicate things older than the city and beyond their imaginations. Perhaps they were shortsighted. Perhaps the nasty logic of their situation left them no choice. Now Arjun saw them in every corridor, skulking, scheming.

  He saw old friends from the Hotel—Abra-Melin of the shaking staff, and Longfellow of the hair shirt, and Cantor, who had no notable peculiarities. Gate crashers, late to the party, they were quickly cut down. He didn’t see St. Loup. He saw people he didn’t recognize at all—maybe there were other Hotels, other cliques and cabals. He saw a flock of someone’s servants strangle Cantor with hands of shadow.

  Moment by moment the Mountain was less and less like a house. There was very little furniture left, and no carpeting, and no curtains, and the floorboards rotted away to expose concrete, plastic, steel, hard alien substances with a dull unfriendly sheen. The walls were sometimes paper-thin and sometimes only arrangements of bars wrought from that alien almost-metal. There were no sconces on the sheer walls, no bulbs hung from the ceiling, and the dim light appeared to issue from the air itself—for the time being there was still air in most of the house. A maze of empty rooms; a machine of steel valves and chambers. Intestinal spills of cables sheeted in something like black rubber that stank of burning and bile. Steam shrieked from bent pipes. Strange and volatile liquids coursed down sharp channels, through glassy veins. The natural form of the hallways and chambers seemed to be roughly hexagonal; or sometimes curved, like a vast snail shell; or sometimes complex and unfolding, like a fern. An elaborate machinery extruded and snapped tightly into place. A mesh of bars and wires and gears and metal teeth. The Mountain, whatever it was, was slowly sloughing off the shabby domestic facade Shay-the-first-and-eldest had hung on it. An unearthly light shone from behind the walls. Arjun had a sense of some impossible vision battering against the form of the machine. The masks were coming off. The bars were breaking and the prisoners were ready to be released. He awaited the revelation.