by Lavie Tidhar
I was looking at their eyes and their hands, and I thought that the old Hwyrddyddwg was right: their eyes and hands indeed showed their intentions. For in their eyes there was cruelty and determination while their hands held swords. I didn't have my sword, that same sword I had offered to Iseult of the White Hands. Well, I thought, tough titties. After all, it's not a big deal to die fighting. It won't be the first time, will it?
I am Morholt! The one who is Decision.
"Your name, sir," repeated Marjadoc.
"Tristan," I said.
The chaplain appeared out of nowhere, sprang from the ground like a pukka. Groaning with the effort, he threw across the hall a huge, two-handed sword. Marjadoc leapt at me, raising his sword. For a moment the swords were up in the air—the Marjadoc's and the one flying towards my outstretched hands. It seemed I could not move quickly enough. But I did.
I cut Marjadoc under his arm, with all the strength, in half-swing. The blade went in diagonally, as far as the line dividing the fields on his coat of arms. I turned back, letting the sword slide out. Marjadoc fell down, right under the feet of the other three who were running towards me. Anoeth tripped on the body, which meant I could easily crack his head. And I did.
Gwydolwyn and Deheu rushed at me from both sides. I stepped in between them, whirling round with the stretched sword like a spinning top. They had to back off. Their blades were a good arm's length shorter than mine. Kneeling down, I cut Gwydolwyn on the thigh. I felt the blade grate on bone. Deheu swung his sword and tried to get to me from the side. But he slipped on the blood and fell on one knee. His eyes were full of fear now, begging for mercy, but I found none. I didn't even look for it. It's impossible to parry a thrust with a two-hander delivered from close range. If you cannot move out of its way, the blade will sink two-thirds of its length till it stops on the two little iron wings placed there especially for this purpose. And it did.
Believe me or not, but none of them let out as much as a squeak. While I…I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I dropped the sword on the floor.
"Morholt!" Branwen ran and clung to me, her body shuddering with waves of terror that were slowly dying away.
"It's all right now, dear. It's all over," I said, stroking her hair, but at the same time looking at the chaplain kneeling by the dying Gwydolwyn.
"Thank you for the sword, monk."
The chaplain lifted his head and looked me in the eyes. Where had he sprung from? Had he been here all the time? But if he had been…then who was he? Who the devil was he?
"It's all in God's hands," he said, and bent over the dying Gwydolwyn. "…Et lux perpetua luceat ei…"
Still, he didn't convince me. He didn't convince me with the first saying, nor with the second.
Then we found Iseult.
In the baths; her face pressed to the well. Clean, pedantic Iseult of the White Hands, could not have done it anywhere else but on the stone floor by the gutter meant for draining away water. Now this gutter glistened dark clotted red along its entire length.
She had opened her veins on both hands. With expertise. Along the forearms, on the inner side, and then, to make sure, on her wrists with the sign of the cross. We would not have been able to save her even if we'd found her earlier.
Her hands were even whiter than before.
And then, believe me or not, I realised that the rudderless boat was leaving the shore. Without us. Without Morholt of Ulster. Without Branwen of Cornwall. But it was not empty.
Farewell, Iseult. Farewell. For ever. Be it in Tir Na Nog, or in Avalon, the whiteness of your hands will last for centuries. For eternity.
Farewell, Iseult.
We left Carhaing before Caherdin's arrival. We didn't want to talk to him, or to anyone who might have been on that ship from Tintagel. For us, the legend was over. We were not interested in what the minstrels were going to do with it.
The sky was overcast again, it was raining, a drizzle. Brittany, the usual stuff. There was a road ahead of us: the road through the dunes towards that rocky beach. I didn't want to think what to do next. It didn't matter.
"I love you , Morholt," said Branwen without looking at me. "I love you whether you want it or not. It's like an illness. A weariness that drains me of my free will, that pulls me into the deep. I've lost myself within you, Morholt, and I shall never find myself the way I was before. If you respond to my love, you, too, will lose yourself; you will perish, drown in the deeps and never find the old Morholt again. So think well before you give me your answer."
The ship stood by the rocky shore. They were unloading something. Someone was shouting, cursing in Welsh, hurrying the men. The sails were being rolled. The sails…
"It's a terrible sickness, this love," carried on Branwen, also looking at the sails. " La maladie, as they say in the south, on the mainland. La maladie d'espoir, the sickness of hope. The selfish infatuation, bringing harm to everyone around. I love you, Morholt, selfishly, blindly. I'm not worried about the fate of others, whom I may unwittingly draw into the whirl of my love, hurt, or trample upon. Isn't it terrible? If you respond to my love… Think well, Morholt, before you give me your answer."
The sails…
"We are like Tristan and Iseult," said Branwen, and her voice came dangerously close to breaking point. " La maladie… What shall become of us, Morholt? What will happen to us? Will we, too, be joined finally by bushes of hawthorn and brier-rose growing on our graves? Think well, Morholt, before you answer."
I was not going to do any thinking. I suspected Branwen knew as much. I saw it in her eyes when she turned her face towards me.
She knew we'd been sent to Carhaing to save the legend. And we had. The simplest way. By beginning a new one.
"I know how you feel, Branwen," I said, looking at the sails, "for I feel exactly the same. It's a terrible sickness. Terrible, incurable malady. I know how you feel. For I, too, have fallen ill."
Branwen smiled, and it seemed to me that the sun had broken through the low-hanging clouds. That's what this smile was like. Believe me or not.
"And the pox on the healthy, Branwen!"
The sails were dirty.
Or so it seemed to me.
A Life Made Possible Behind the Barricades
Jacques Barcia
Jacques Barcia is an information technology reporter living in Recife, Brazil. He has written widely on Brazilian and international SF, and his stories have appeared in the Shine anthology and in the Steampunk Reloaded web annex, amongst others.
Beyond the aethership's window, Catalonia shone like a brass and crystal star, lost and alone in the vastness of space. Kilometric antennae cast to the void, flowers carved over its colossal hull and around the main station's atrium, beautiful stained glass and asymmetric lines. Art. Home, if everything went well. It had always bothered Fritz, this tick-tock speeding up inside his chest. It knotted his guts, tightened his pneumatics. And, of course, there was the noise, the clocks emphasising his anguishes, excitements, dreads and delights, right there, for everyone to hear. But now he tried to keep himself calm, the glassy-cold window against his icy, metal forehead, the battle breaking the silence in the cabin with a sharp sound.
"Soon it'll be over, dear," Chaya whispered, half asleep and still under the blankets. "Just a few more hours and we'll be there."
"Yeah, I know," Fritz whispered back, turning his head to his fiancée, giving her a silly, theatrical smile. "It's just, well, you know I'm easily stunned by beauty." He turned his back to the window and rested his gaze on the non-human girl. Stunning. She lay nested amongst baggage packed too quickly and clothes discarded in the rush of desire. A golem with roots for hair, all spread out over the pillows.
"I see," she said, stretching and finally sitting up, letting the blankets slide over her earth-and-wood skin, her breasts suddenly uncovered. "And I know you love to dramatise, too. Look, Fritz, don't forget that thing is a factory. And factories are always about smoke, sweat and the whistle
at the end of every shift." She scratched her brick-coloured forehead, chose a single root and used it to tie a ponytail. "Also, you should remember there's a war going on".
The war, the strike. Three years of insurrection. Fourteen months of controlling the best part of the aether mine-generator, Catalonia, as the Federalists had started to call it. However, even with rifles and deaths and Tesla-mortars, that sphere sucking mystical energy from the vacuum was the only place in the whole universe, or so it was told, in which a motolang and a golem could live without begging for the approval of their owner-creators? Even if it were true, it was something that'd never be possible anywhere on Earth.
He came closer to Chaya, gears grinding, engines almost frozen due to the cabin's poor heating, and sat on the edge of the bed. Chaya's face rested in her hands, as she did when she anticipated his over-romanticised tone. "There's beauty in the word, camarada Chaya," he said. "An untouchable kind of beauty, invisible to the eye. Something that exists wherever there's solidarity and—"
"What about the barricades?" Her voice came cold and as hard as stone. "Behind the barricades there are humans that never stop being human. Except when they're shot dead or die on the tip of a bayonet. That ain't beautiful, you know? And it's not beautiful when they sing The Internationale and look down on us because, in a way, they're still our lords. They're humans, Fritz. Unlike us."
"What's your problem?" he grumbled. "You chose to come along. You know this is our chance, Chaya, the only chance we have to build a life together. Any life. Be it good, bad, mediocre. What? You think we better get back to Mauritzstadt and serve House Goradeski?"
"They're good people. You know that."
"Humans. Lords. You've just said that. Your lords, your makers. And even if I'm thankful to Mr Goradeski for the decency of giving my goddamn punched cards back, I hate that bastard for not letting me buy you, for not letting me marry you." Fritz stood before her, joints creaking, an angry tick-tock, tick-tock coming from beneath his brass thorax. "A sin, he told me." As if I wanted that stupid rabbi's blessings."
Chaya punched the bed in anger, crushing the iron frame under the mattress. "Fuck!" The agonising screech of metal swallowed up their shouts. "I just don't want you to be disappointed, okay? Look, I've escaped with you. I'm here in this aethership, remember? With you. I know Catalonia's our only chance, but your dream may not be that sweet. And I love you too much to see you sad and let down."
Fritz observed the copper lines framing the cabin's velvety walls; adorned with so many organic motifs and engravings it was as if the room itself were alive. A completely unexplored jungle. Next to the inter-phone on the night table, Dr Cavalcante's letter gave his tense coils some relief. His occultist friend, well-known in Mauritzstadt's esoteric society, was serving as a field medic for Catalonia's international brigades. His missive had ultimately persuaded both non-humans to flee. Fritz turned to Chaya, accepting the truce, or their particular way of making a truce. After all, she was right. Again. As always. He really was just an automaton that dreamt of open fields, broken locks, sunny days and people's respect. He dreamt of being a hero, of freeing himself after fighting tyranny and oppression. But he'd never held a rifle. Not even to hunt with Dr Goradeski in the forests close to the Guararapes hill. His only duties were doing the accounts for his master's riches and tutoring the heirs to the clan.
"It'll work, Chaya. I believe— No, I'm sure it'll work. Trust me."
She did trust him. He knew it. It was written in her smile. But he also knew she was right. Life wouldn't be pretty. They made love for a few more hours.
Though it was an aethership station, it didn't behave like one. It didn't breathe like one. There was no smoking, no mink coats, no comings and goings of serfs, luggage or hats. Except for the brassy majesty of the Nassau, a true aether leviathan, there was nothing in it that mirrored the luxury found in the ports of Mauritzstadt or any other Earthly empire. But there were people. Lots of people. A Babel debarking with Genovese and Madrileño accents, others being Balkan and Ottoman, all too confused to be distinguishable. There were expatriates from the Brazilian empire, too, and many Mauritzes. Men wearing cheap, brown cotton. Their bodies kept together only by loose, rusty screws, steam leaking from their joints. There were women, too, with severe eyes, coal-stained dresses and calluses, guarding what little luggage they possessed. But they were all smiling for they were pleased to step on firm ground. Not ground, exactly, but that alchemical crystal shielding the arcologies sailing the Earthly seas.
Fritz was overcome with vertigo when he looked at the curves in the station's columns, each one preciously engraved in typical Art Nouveau style. He almost fell to the floor when, beneath his feet, he saw the city cascading down the inner walls of the sphere and, at the centre, the aether condenser, the heart of the factory, with its colossal tubes containing hundreds of pipes which, in their turn, carried thousands of pre-processed aether foam, so wild and volatile that a simple leak would open a metaphysical sinkhole big enough to swallow all God's Creations. At least that's what the Luddites said.
A mechanical arm waved over the caps of the volunteers coming fast in his direction. A whistle could be heard coming from the crowd. It was like an invisible teakettle leaving a trail of white puffs of smoke in the air. The immigrants started to give way as the steam got closer and closer. From them emerged a hybrid vehicle, something between a bicycle and a locomotive, a big wheel in front of a chimney and two small vulcanised pneumatics behind, too close to the stove heating the boiler. It made a hellish noise and Fritz couldn't help but agree with Chaya when she said that the thing stank of garbage tea. On the top of the vehicle, the pilot pulled the brake lever and turned the handlebar to the left, forcing the machine to slide for some metres before stopping just a few inches in front of the frozen couple. "I call it," shouted the man, forcing a dramatic pause, "the locomocycle."
The automaton laughed at the pilot's pomp and at his fiancée's disgusted expression. "It's beautiful, Emilio," he shouted back. "Your design?"
"Every single rivet." The man grinned behind a pair of pitch-black goggles that made him look like a juvenile insect wearing a waistcoat and greaves. There was a blue, spectral glimmer deep inside the blackness of his goggles. The crowd kept its distance from the locomocycle, mainly because its boiler gave off an unbearable heat. But they couldn't stop admiring that automotive marvel. The man called Emilio stepped down from the vehicle, leaning his arm on the boiler. He faced the golem with keen interest. "Is she the lucky one?"
"That's her," Fritz answered, holding his lover's hand, suddenly solemn.
"Did she bring the equipment I asked for?" His gaze was fixed on Chaya, who was uneasy at being scrutinised not only by the scientist's goggled eyes, but also by the judging eyes of the women at the station, condemning the bourgeois style of her housemaid's dress. Worse, she wasn't precisely a maid, for in their eyes she wasn't a woman, but a construct turned to life by the power of the one thing more terrible than the Holy Church: magic.
"You can speak directly to me, sir. I speak and decide for myself."
"My dear," Fritz intervened, "this is Dr Emilio Cavalcante, the one I told you about. Physician, engineer and member of the Order of Oriental Templars."
"Former member." Dr Cavalcante raised a mechanical finger as an exclamation mark, his gears spinning with the movement. "Apparently, my friend, the Order does not approve of my mystical theories, not to mention my political practices. And vice versa." Dr Cavalcante moved two steps closer to the couple, closer to the golem. "Salud, camarada! Forgive me if I sounded a little bit sexist, but I was concerned with the equipment. You see, it's not every day that—"
"Everything's here." She turned her back to the doctor and dragged two wooden crates, one in each hand, to him. The crates moaned, leaving deep scratches in the floor. She released the boxes and faced the insect in the way someone might look at an old, ill-kept and uninteresting daguerreotype. "That's all I could get. Fifteen carbines, some Prus
sian pistols and not much ammunition." The golem looked at the box to her left. "And here's the equipment you asked for."
Dr Cavalcante looked at the containers, but his gaze drifted to a point way beyond them, to a dozen crates being unloaded from the aethership's rear. They were somewhat different and had red marks painted on their sides. "Yeah. Excellent. That'll do," the doctor said.
The motolang looked at his boxes and held his friend's shoulder. "So, you think you can do it, Emilio? You think you can give us a child?"
Dr Cavalcante woke from his trance, extended his mortal arm and shook the motolang's metallic hand. "Fritz, my friend, if I were you I'd be scheduling the kid's baptism already. The only problem is to find a priest who hasn't been fusilladed by the revolution.
Chaya had spent the last three weeks in Catalonia, but the city-factory still fascinated her. The wreckage sacs, the barricades on every corner, the low-fluctuation trucks painted with the revolutionary parties' initials, and, especially, the strikers' colours. Everyone, absolutely everyone, either wore red or black and red kerchiefs tied round their necks. Even the mechanoids, their gears exposed on their chests or shoulders, insisted on showing off kerchiefs, ignoring the high chance of an accident. And there were the brick-and-metal buildings carved by bullets, bent at angles that far-surpassed the plans of Gaudi, almost destroyed by Mauritzes' mortars. However, most impressive was the fact that this place had become their home so quickly. Notwithstanding, it was her home. Sometimes there was no grease and she had to wind her husband, lubricating his gears with butter or fat stolen from the communal depot. And sometimes there was no food, which meant no leftovers for her roots. That was the siege, the embargo, the seldom-run blockade. As when they had arrived on the Nassau. But still, they enjoyed a normal couple's routine. He worked as a carabineer at the front, and she'd patrol the streets on foot with her Luger. Both came back home at the end of the day, sharing the little stories that filled up their quotidian days. A routine that included almost daily visits to the basements of Hotel Florida.
