by Ian Whates
Isaac slowly brought himself to his feet. The weight of the wings still racked his chest, but the wounds that had opened up when he hit the ground were starting to heal. As Isaac walked, the wings responded to his movements, their gleaming copper tips raising a trail of swirling dust in his wake. Isaac wrapped his arms around One-Ear and pressed against her back.
“Tell me,” Isaac whispered.
Isaac felt again the tension in One-Ear’s body.
“It was just a baby,” she said, staring out the window. “Not even that. But I already thought of it as a baby. I could feel it moving.” She placed her hands on her belly, which was flat and empty. One-Ear forced her face and voice to keep steady. “They captured us soon after someone revealed the location of our headquarters. Me and Iiris. The government troops…” She shut her eyes and shook her head. “Matias – he was my baby’s father – he heard us shouting. He tried to stop the soldiers, but there was nothing he could do by himself. They threw him to the ground. They pushed his face into a puddle outside the hut and held him under the water until he stopped struggling.”
One-Ear was surprised how impassively she could already think of the events of that day. As if they had happened to someone else, who was now speaking through her. Someone else had witnessed her friends’ death and torture, someone else had felt the kicks of the soldier’s boot, taken on her rounded belly as she lay helpless at the men’s feet.
“I lost my baby, its father, and my best friend. Iiris was always the most beautiful of us. They took her with them. Me they didn’t want, looking like this.” One-Ear pointed to the scar tissue on the side of her head and shrugged her shoulders. “It’s what saved me. The miscarriage made my slit bleed much more than Iiris’s. My whole body was shaking. They probably thought I would die anyway, there in the mud next to Matias. Liisa Iron-Hand died fighting. I don’t know about the others. None of us were willing to take the lead after that. We all ran off in different directions.”
“How long ago was that?”
One-Ear wrinkled her brow and rubbed her forehead with her fingers, irritated. “I found you soon afterward.”
“Do you think that your friend is still...?” Isaac asked.
One-Ear shook her head. “No. She was a Demon, too.”
“I’m sorry,” Isaac said.
“He was looking for you,” One-Ear said without looking at Isaac. “That Varjag that died. That the Demons were destroyed over.”
Isaac didn’t answer right away.
The clamour and crunching of heavy metallic legs sounded nearby, and they pulled back from the window, deeper into the shadows. But the machine moved quickly on, out of earshot.
Isaac began to speak in a monotone: “Bruno and I and several others of our countrymen were invited here as engineers for the air force. The offer was generous and included the upkeep of our families. I was made director of the research division. The Varjags already had large-class Gregorovian airships, but they wanted me to design machines that would be fast, small, and suitable for close combat. They wanted something unique, something no one else had.” Isaac smiled at the dwindling memory. “I came up with these wings after a night of drinking. I didn’t honestly believe that they could be of use to anyone. I didn’t think anyone would be crazy enough to...” Isaac fell silent.
“Something went wrong on your virgin flight,” One-Ear said. “I repaired your wing while you were unconscious. Your brother-in-law fastened the shoulder joints poorly, and they didn’t hold up under the stress of the long flight.”
Isaac stared at One-Ear’s delicate shoulders in front of him. “You’re an excellent mechanic.” Isaac had noticed that the wings were moving better, but he hadn’t known that he had her to thank for it.
“It was my responsibility in the Demons,” One-Ear said, as if she were speaking of something that had happened long ago and was no longer of any consequence. She pointed to the sky. Several government airships circled over the lower city, hellish things like giant dung beetles lit by gas lamps. “They brought their main fleet here after the underground managed to occupy the central railway station and declared Keloburg a free city,” One-Ear said. “Do you see those cables, with their tops hidden in the clouds? The elevator baskets that move along them?”
Isaac nodded.
“The Ormen Lange is hovering there,” One-Ear said. “The pleasure craft the high king of Godtborg built for his troops. It descends lower when they take a fresh batch of girls aboard. Before that, they throw the previous ones away. It’s a dirty war tactic they use to break the resistance and demoralize the rebels.”
“Good Lord.” Isaac stared at the clouds churning over the city.
“I’ve seen girls falling over the bulwarks more than once,” One-Ear said.
Isaac’s thoughts returned to the moment he heard of Mathilde’s disappearance. The hours he had lain on the operating table, worked on by Bruno; the time he had taken to recover from the operation; and finally, to the days in this apartment, of which he had no memory. “How long was I unconscious? How long did I lie here?”
One-Ear pulled herself from his embrace and turned toward him, but was unable to look him in the eye. “Who knows? The days drag by here and always look the same. A few weeks, maybe a month?”
Isaac gasped and braced himself against the wall.
“I’m sorry, Isaac,” One-Ear said. “No one lasts that long on the pleasure craft.”
Isaac felt the earth heave and gasped for air in an effort to maintain consciousness. The faces of Mathilde and Anneliese as he remembered them from happier days appeared in grotesque flashes before his eyes. As if through a haze, Isaac heard One-Ear say slowly, half to herself, “There’s more. Before the Demons were destroyed, there was talk in the city that the underground had received the support of certain entities in Europe whose goal was to break the dominance of the Varjags in the North Atlantic.”
Isaac shook his head. “But we don’t have anything to do with... We don’t...”
“I’ve thought about what the dead Varjag said,” One-Ear continued mercilessly. “He called you a Dutchman. He knew who you were. Someone must have noticed you’d left and sent word to Keloburg. If your wings had carried you, you might have made it to the city before anyone betrayed your departure. You might have even found out where they were holding your daughter. But now... The Varjags will consider your coming here a crime, the act of a foreign agent.”
The room spun before Isaac’s eyes and he sank to his knees on the floor. One-Ear crouched down beside him, stroked the hair of his temple, and said, “Your family is dead, Isaac. All you have left is revenge.”
They made love again that night, clinging to each other in a frenzy. They woke long before sunrise, and One-Ear told Isaac what he needed to do to cause as much destruction as possible. Isaac rolled his head as if in pain, but One-Ear brought him around again and again. With strong leather straps she bound to his arms the long metal talons she had constructed for him to wield. She led Isaac to the roof and kissed him goodbye.
“Do it for Mathilde,” One-Ear said. “For all the loved ones you’ve lost.”
When he had gone, One-Ear took a deep breath.
“To you, unborn one, I offer this sacrifice,” One-Ear whispered, stroking her empty belly. “So you know you aren’t forgotten. So you know I haven’t forgiven them.”
Isaac made use of air currents to fly higher and higher toward the airships. Not a single shot was fired. No one noticed when Isaac attached himself like a large bat or an eagle with hands to the hull of the slowly descending personnel ship. One-Ear saw how the creature – she couldn’t think of it as Isaac any longer – started to tear the envelope of the ship to shreds with its long talons, striking again and again, furiously, desperately, until the hull gave way. Then the creature pulled loose the piece of fabric draped across its chest and set it aflame. The burning scrap of cloth disappeared into the depths of the ship.
As the creature took flight again, an explosive bl
ue and red inferno surged out of the ship’s hull. The hot burst of air tossed the creature about like a leaf in the wind. The airship began to cant dangerously to the left. The roar of the fire could be heard all the way from the rooftop where One-Ear stood. She watched expressionlessly as small black figures jumped from the airship to their death. The airship tumbled into chaos. It drifted over the river and plunged ablaze into the centre of the city’s bourgeois quarter, a fiery slice of hell the size of an apartment building.
One-Ear refused to feel guilty for the deaths of the girls who were still on the ship as it fell. Not even for the fact that she may have exaggerated when she told Isaac how long he had lain unconscious. Who knew, maybe it would have still been possible to rescue his daughter from the Ormen Lange. But One-Ear would not feel guilt. She had decided as much when she lay bleeding, her face in the mud and a stillborn child at her feet. She had sworn that she would find the strength and the means. She had to regroup the Demons and meet them as the leader they needed. Because of Isaac, it had become clear to her that her time in power wouldn’t be like Matias’, and neither would she be a new Juhani Korpela. In One-Ear’s trained mind, every detail of the metal wings, every screw and joint, shone clear and bright as if the construction were still before her eyes.
One-Ear understood machines. It would be easy to reconstruct the wings. She also understood the sacrifices the new age would demand of the Demons, and she knew they were equal to them. Standing on the roof of the abandoned building, watching Keloburg burn, she swore on her still-born child’s grave that airships would never again blanket the sky over Keloburg like storm clouds, and that not a single child of theirs would die at the hands of the Varjags. The reign of Johanna One-Ear would be remembered as the time when the Demons earned a new name for themselves. This would be the beginning of the age of Angels, when the city’s rooftops would be governed by her creations.
The creature that had been Isaac died in an outburst of flame. One-Ear never went to look for the body.
Magdalena Hai is a Finnish author of SF&F. Her first novel Kerjäläisprinsessa (The Beggar Princess) was released in 2012, starting the appraised steampunk trilogy Gigi & Henry, to be followed by Kellopelikuningas (The Clockwork King) and Susikuningatar (The Wolf Queen). Hai’s prose, long and short, has won several awards, including the Atorox Award (2016) and Finnish Literary Export Prize (2018). Her children’s book Kurnivamahainen kissa (The Grumblebelly Cat) was nominated in March 2018 for the prestigious Nordic Council Children and Young People's Literature Prize. Her short stories have been translated previously into English, Spanish, and Estonian. A lover of cross genre and all things strange, Hai’s fiction often combines elements of sci-fi, fantasy and horror. Besides writing, Hai is an active member and editor at Osuuskumma Publishing.
The Cylinder Hat
Anne Leinonen
Translated by Christina Saarinen
Siiri
Siiri opened the vestibule door. Behind it stood a young gentleman in a black jacket with a laugh in his eyes.
“There was something particular I was supposed to say, but now I can’t remember,” the man said, looking Siiri in the eye. “Here’s this, anyway.”
Siiri curtsied and sputtered a greeting. Who on Earth was this man, and what was he doing at her mistress’ door? There had certainly been plenty of peculiar gentlemen calling at Mrs. Viljakainen’s house, but generally they went directly to the door of the shop, not around to the service entrance.
“Take it, now,” the man said, holding out a black top hat with both hands. Siiri took it without another thought. She ran her fingers along the hat’s surface. It was covered in silk, there was a terrible dent at one temple, and there seemed to be a stain on the brim.
“I’ll be going,” the man said, raising his hand to his brim and turning away from Siiri.
“But... ” Siiri reached out after the man, but he stepped purposefully towards the street. Siiri was bewildered. For a brief moment it felt as if the man’s visit was somehow both significant and familiar. Déjà vu.
When she went back inside, Mrs. Viljakainen had woken up and was stumbling on her thick legs to the kitchen door.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. A young gentleman. He brought this. Does it belong to some outfit?”
Mrs. Viljakainen humphed. “I only make hats for women. Maybe it was meant for you,” she said. “Maybe a suitor.”
“A suitor? Surely you would have warned me about something like that?” Siiri asked uncertainly.
The old woman laughed. “The universe warns us when it will,” she said. “Empty the chamber pot and prepare breakfast. We don’t have all day.”
Siiri did as she was told. Mrs. Viljakainen had treated Siiri well ever since the day she read the introductory letter that Siiri’s mother had prepared and agreed to hire her. For the sake of kin, she had said, but Siiri had seen something else in the woman’s eyes, too. The woman had seemed to see through her, as she did again now. It was rumoured she had the skills of a soothsayer, and indeed, Siiri had sometimes heard her predict the future. But Siiri wasn’t expecting a suitor – she was awaiting her brother Veerti. Siiri had promised to look after her little brother, and a familiar itch in her nose told her something was up. Veerti was a teller of tales and had a tendency to get himself into trouble. Could he have been kicked out of his boarding house or ended up in trouble with the bailiff?
Siiri took care of the morning chores as she had been instructed, cleaned up after breakfast, and checked in on the shop side to see that everything was in order. Her mistress designed custom clothing – elegant dresses and shawls. The work itself was done by hired seamstresses. Mrs. Viljakainen occasionally stepped in to produce a complicated bit of embroidery or bodice. It was Siiri’s responsibility to ensure that everything was ready for the day’s work.
On her way back to her own room, Siiri saw the top hat on the table in the hall where she had left it. She picked up the hat and turned it in her hands, examining it. Inside the hat she found the manufacturer’s tag. Hermandorff, it read.
Siiri knew the shop. It was right in the centre of the city. She could stop in when she went to the market for fresh vegetables. Maybe the hat maker would know who the hat should be returned to.
Master von Hermandorff
After the girl had laid the hat on the counter and left, the master sighed and wiped his bald head. How was it possible for the hat to appear like this on his counter? The hat was the work of his own hands, he was sure of that. And it was heavy, too. Stronger and sturdier than usual. The master turned the hat over and knocked on the base from the inside. Then he took his knife and pressed it carefully into the seam between the crown tip and the cylinder. He carefully pried the seam apart and removed the crown tip lining. Underneath was a second, thinner lining, which hid behind it all kinds of cogs and balance wheels – tiny masterworks of precision engineering that he had hidden within the hat when he made it.
He squinted and shook his head. Sometimes it was hard to think. . . What had he been doing? Ah. Yes, the hat was one of his own, one of his prototypes! But it looked strange indeed. Had he really managed to fit so many mechanisms inside? Cylinders, pistons, magnet wire, moving contacts, small field magnets... How did it go, again? He had the plans, they must be here. He went through the papers strewn around his desk but didn’t find a single one that even slightly resembled the mechanism in front of him.
He rose from his stool and walked to the back room, where his most important handiworks were set on a shelf in a row. He counted them, one by one. Yes, there were only six top hats. The seventh was missing.
The missing hat must be the one that had just been brought to him. But how had it ended up in the hands of that girl? In fact, how had it ended up anywhere? It had been here the whole time, under lock and key, and he had counted the hats carefully every evening. What’s more, the hat that had been returned was the latest in the series, the one he had worked on most recentl
y. Just yesterday, if he remembered correctly.
He pulled a stool from under the workbench, sat, and removed from his belt a handful of instruments, pliers, and screwdrivers. He put the loupe to his eye and checked that every cog, cylinder, and balance wheel was in its place. His instinct and experience told him they were, but at the same time he was delighted at what he saw, as if he were discovering forgotten aspects of his own work. That balance wheel! So skillfully placed! He had built and polished the parts himself, and hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work had gone into them.
He opened another hat, and a third, and had to admit that this runaway hat truly was more advanced than his earlier models. The first in the series contained a shoddy regular watch mechanism. But the latest model, which had just returned home, was something entirely new. How was that possible? He couldn’t say, because he didn’t remember creating it.
Finally, he straightened the dent in the side band and wiped away the blood stain. Now the hat was as good as new.
He placed the hat back on the shelf and admired it. Now he remembered. It had all come to him at night. A compulsion to make the hats and to build inside them a particular kind of mechanism. In a dream he had seen how the parts would be laid out, and, when he awoke, he remembered it clearly, which was uncommon. Usually he didn’t remember his dreams at all.
The hat’s mechanism was brilliant, inspired. It had to be – it was his work, wasn’t it? He burst into laughter and wiped the sweat from his brow. Something big and meaningful would come of this yet. Everyone would know his name – he would be famous!
Veerti
He had chosen the shop carefully. Iiris, who cleaned the place in the evenings, had informed him that most of the time her boss was either senselessly drunk or kicking up a din over nothing. “He’s sniffed too much of his own poisons,” Iiris said. “He says the strangest things. You’d think he were doing work for the Devil himself…”
