Ceaseless Steam: Steampunk Stories from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine

by Scott Andrews (Editor)

  Once, I saw a collection of faceless mechanicals working in an improvised outdoor foundry, shaping molten metals into copies of their own forms with automated caresses. I thought in terror of the rate of replication of the mechanicals, each of which on its own might make another self, their population doubling at will, never suffering loss due to accident or age, growing in perfect powers of two; then I thought of Olympia, and how Olympia and I could become one out of two.

  Nearing the Hofburg I heard a voice crying “Help! Help! Help me, for your living soul!” I whirled, to see a bedraggled Kreisler staggering down a narrow street toward me. “You! I know you!” he said. “Theodore! No—Ernst! Ernst, you must help me, Ernst. The Clockwork King has gone mad!”

  “What has happened?” I called to him in a whisper. He flung himself upon me and gabbled into my face.

  “The King! It’s all the King! All these others, mere extensions of his will! The King will conquer us all, for the sake of my question! And then—why, then the world is over, and there will be nothing under heaven but automation.” And he laid his head upon my shoulder in a swoon.

  I dragged him to an alley and did my best to revive him. When he began to show intermittent signs of consciousness I hauled him to his feet and set out with him for the Hofburg. Near any automata, I let my stride become as aimless as his own, and we passed as two drunkards. But meanwhile he had begun to gasp out his story, in whispers.

  “I made him,” Kreisler told me. “The King was my dream, and I made him a thing of the waking world; I made him, with his terrible organ, an organ of generation of thought, a device to answer every question, and I asked him my question, the question that consumes me, for I am an artist, Ernst, a poor one it may be, but an artist I promise you, and I asked him: Where is the art that shall perfect the world?

  “Art, Ernst, art the product of every desire, for lovers forge by their own heat within the furnaces of their brains the images that they desire, and in this they are the emblem of the artist, whose art must have at its base desire, desire to make a thing, to change the world, just as the lover must have his loved one and change what he loves by the addition of himself—and where is the love, the desire, that shall change the world so to perfect it? My question, Ernst, the only question that matters!

  “But from that, this! He means to answer my question, creating himself the art of perfection, automated sterility! He made the other automata, his army! They are not thinking things like him, merely his hands, his tools, guided and controlled by the profound notes of his organ—his tools, with which to remake the world. Now, now he begins to carry out his true plan!”

  “And you,” I whispered back, “did you know nothing of this? Did you not see?”

  “I saw nothing. I believed myself the King’s master. I cast myself as the master of the fair he had created. Until tonight, when I was outcast by my own creation.”

  “But why do they begin here? Why now? Why in V—?”

  To these questions Kreisler had no answer.

  Then we were at the Hofburg, where we found a direly confused situation. Barricades had been raised, and some battered automata twitching on the street before them demonstrated that the palace was in a state of siege. The defenders allowed us, as living creatures, entry; at which point I discovered, firstly, that the greater part of the city was under the control of the automata, which were advancing from all sides, and secondly, that while such soldiers as were left maintained a stout defense of the Hofburg, the members of the court continued a frantic revelry in a hall deep within its walls. With conquest inevitable, what else was left?

  I left Kreisler with the soldiers, to instruct them as best he was able, and ran to find the court. They were dancing to the frantic tunes of an improvised orchestra, mismatched instruments howling in the hands of semi-skilled players, while the aristocracy danced, their suits and dresses disheveled, the whole of them maddened, frantic with the awareness of oncoming death.

  “Olympia!” I cried. “Where is the lady Olympia?” They paid me no mind, though I shouted and shouted, and pried a flute from a musician’s hands and beat him about the head, and interrupted the couples at their play. “Has no-one seen Olympia?” I demanded of them all; and no, no-one had, or yes, someone thought somebody had; but they had not; but they had heard that she had been seen; she was in the palace, or she was not; but if she was, then she was not with the rest of the court. She must have run into another wing, to hide.

  The Hofburg had been built out from a Medieval core, like an oyster forming an irregular pearl around a fleck of grit. After a hundred years, it had developed into a grand edifice with any number of hiding-holes. But I was determined, I would find Olympia, I would uncover her secret place. So I wandered down empty, cold halls left dark by the exigencies of the siege. “Olympia!” I cried, again and again, “Olympia! Olympia!”—until I would break down in laughter at myself, seeking out of love a woman I hated with a passion. Then the thought of her fired my limbs, until I trembled and broke off my laughter and set out to seek her again. What did it matter if V— burned and the Empress and all her court were massacred? I cared not two straws for any of them. But Olympia, Olympia must be saved.

  I came in time to the great library of the Hofburg, and made the shadows therein echo with her name. I walked through the great ink-and-paper scented darkness, a hundred feet, two hundred, and still more stretching away before me. I stood between two globes, one of the earth, one of the sky, each half a man’s height in diameter, and once more I called out: “Olympia!”

  “She’s not here,” a voice replied. “She’s nowhere in the Hofburg.” A hand reached out of the darkness and set the earth whirling, wobbling on its axis. I stepped back, up against the stars. Theodore stepped forward, his sword drawn.

  “You’ve searched for her?” I asked. “Why?”

  “I mean to kill her, of course,” Theodore answered. “It’s the perfect time for it; always commit your murders under cover of an attack by a hostile army. One corpse more or less won’t be looked into.”

  “You can’t,” I said.

  “Can’t I?” asked Theodore. “I don’t understand. Why not?”

  I lunged forward and grabbed the wrist of his sword-arm. “I love her.”

  “You want her. There is a difference. I told you, I understand these things.” He tried to pull his arm free. I would not let go. “Ernst, the woman threatens my standing at court; threatens my life. How else should I deal with this? I’ll kill her. That’s only logic.” He wrenched his arm free, losing his sword in the process. I snatched it up. “Take it, then,” he said. “There are others.” He smiled at me, and strode away into the shadows.

  I tried to follow him, but was quickly lost. I walked among darkness for a time, Theodore’s sword in one hand, flute in the other; until I heard high echoing voices, and followed them to a gothic chapel where the Prodigy was playing with three young Archduchesses close to his own age.

  “Hello,” said the Prodigy as I approached. “Have you come to watch over us?”

  “I suppose so,” I said, sitting in a pew.

  “I was about to tell a story,” he said. “It’s one of Nannerl’s tales.”

  “Please, go ahead,” I told him. He began, his story punctuated by distant rifle-shots or cannon-shots shaking the stones of the old church. “Once upon a time there was a man,” he said, “who went walking through a forest at night. The man was great and noble and clever. But his shadow hated him. It wanted to lead him to his doom. The beautiful Queen of Elves saw this from the other side of the mirror, where the Elves have their kingdom.”

  “What mirror?” asked an Archduchess.

  “Any mirror. In fact, the man had a mirror in his traveling-pack,” said the Prodigy.

  “How can Elves live on the other side of a mirror?” asked a second Archduchess. “That’s stupid.”

  The Prodigy said, “It’s not stupid at all. Because they’re magical, and like to hide things, the Elves make spe
lls so that whenever we look in a mirror we only see ourselves, flopped around backwards. But really on the other side of any mirror is Elfland. Anyway the Queen of Elves decided to help the man. His shadow had become a wraith, which was leading him down all sorts of wrong paths, and before long he would be drowned in a bog, or killed by a pack of wolves. But the price of the Queen passing through the mirror from Elfland was that the curious King of Gnomes could come through as well.”

  “Didn’t the man notice?” asked the first Archduchess.

  “No, because the wraith had made the man drop his pack-pack with the mirror in it, because it was filled with flint and tinder, and clothes, and things which could have helped him in the forest. I forgot to say that before. Now the Queen of Elves made the man fall in love with her, and together they prepared to kill the wraith. But the King of Gnomes had gone looking for treasure, and he had woken up a big dragon. The dragon swallowed the King in one bite, and then it took the man prisoner and made him its slave!”

  “What did the man do?” whispered a third girl.

  “In the dragon’s hoard—that means ‘treasure’—he found a music-box with mother-of-pearl sides. And inside the box was an angel, which made the most beautiful music in the world, nothing like a regular music-box. The man set the angel playing, and it played and it played, it played such wonderful lullabies that the dragon went right to sleep! Then the man snuck into the dragon’s study, where it kept a set of books with all the knowledge in the world—because dragons, you know, are very old and wise—and he found the wraith that used to be his shadow there, and the wraith tried to distract the man, but the man killed him, and in the books he found the One Question that he had to ask the Elf Queen, and he asked it, and she fell in love with him, and she led him through to Elfland on the other side of the mirror and she married him and they lived happily ever after.”

  The Archduchesses thought about this. “I guess it makes sense,” one of them said.

  “I think it’s stupid,” said the second Archduchess. “It’s a stupid story.”

  “Is someone coming?” asked the third Archduchess.

  Someone was coming. “Kreisler!” I called out.

  “You?” he called back. “Here? Then you’re safe?”

  “Of course I’m safe,” I said. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “The automata have overrun the Hofburg defenses,” Kreisler told me. “V— is lost. We must flee.”

  “No,” I said. “No, not at all. I know exactly what we must do.” Save Olympia; and to do this, it seemed it would be necessary to save V—. And now I knew exactly how that would be done.

  I pointed to the Prodigy. “We’ll need your help.”

  ~ ~ ~

  V.

  Kreisler was skeptical of my plan, but nevertheless helped in its elaboration for the lack of a better alternative. The Prodigy listened to what I wished him to do, and agreed. He thought it sounded like fun. Kreisler did not.

  We found our way from the Hofburg and made our way carefully through the streets of the city. We were two men lugging a heavy chest between us. For the eyes of the Clockwork King were everywhere, flitting through the air upon a mechanical bat, or prowling the darkness upon a mechanical cat; and so we had found a large box for the Prodigy to hide in, safe from the King’s eyes. We appeared to be two refugees, bearing all their possessions between them.

  “What’s our route to the fair-grounds?” I whispered as we stumbled through the street.

  “I don’t know!” Kreisler whispered back.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “If I knew our route, he could predict it! Not knowing, improvising, we become invulnerable!” Kreisler laughed shortly; I thought, the man is mad. “The Clockwork King thinks we are weak, for he sees us all as divided in our minds against ourselves. But it is our division that gives us strength, for it is the parts of ourselves we hide from ourselves that make our art, the images of our beloved! And he, he does not dream . . . .” He laughed again; I thought, if madness will save Olympia, then I must needs go mad.

  In any event, a skip soon returned to Kreisler’s step. His familiar sardonic smile crossed his thin lips as we approached his fair-grounds unmolested. He guided us through the city of the automata, all silent now and deserted, for its people had gone to war. And so we came to the Palace of Wheels-Within-Wheels.

  We entered, to the strains of the mechanical orchestra. Underneath their music I could hear the low roar of the coiled organ, accompanying them, directing them. All fell silent as we walked into their high hall. The Clockwork King himself remained hunched over his organ; but every other glassy eye in the peculiar theatre turned to examine us.

  “Now,” I said, and we set down the chest, and opened its top, and the Prodigy sprang up. “Now, play!” I commanded him, and he set to his lips the flute I had seized from the musician in the Hofburg, and played a pitch-perfect repetition of the orchestra’s own music. Then he went further, and improvised a clever twist, turning the phrase back upon itself with a precise flurry of notes. The meaning was clear: it was a challenge.

  What did V— have that the Clockwork King should select it, of all the cities of the earth, for his first conquest? What had the automata been searching for with such thoroughness in the city? What but the Prodigy, the answer to Kreisler’s question?

  After a moment, the flautist of the mechanical orchestra raised his flute to his lips. He played a few notes, seeking to compete with the Prodigy’s improvisation. But he could not; in a moment the Prodigy had joined the tune, and then exceeded it, playing faster, better, and then directing the music with a skill the automaton could not match. The flautist dropped his instrument, and stood motionless, head slumped forward, arms at his side. The Prodigy had won his first duel.

  Then the others followed. One by one the other musicians of the orchestra attempted to duel with the Prodigy. One by one he overwhelmed them, improvising upon their tunes with a mathematical clarity greater than their own, at the same time making clear their soulnessness, their lack of emotion. While his own fervor only grew. Listening to him, I felt my own emotions rise in me, my own love, my own ecstasy, my vision of Olympia.

  Until at last all the mechanical men were defeated, standing silent with their heads bowed. There remained only the Clockwork King himself, sitting at the heart of the mechanical organ, the bone-white organ of no generation but entropy. He played no music, gave the Prodigy no challenge.

  “Now what?” asked the Prodigy.

  Then in a sudden movement the Clockwork King brought his hands down upon the organ keyboard; there was a crash of dissonance, and Kreisler, who had been staring in rapture at the Prodigy, blanched. I ran up to the Clockwork King. He made no move. I still clutched Theodore’s blade, but even so, what could mere human flesh do against the solidity of his artificial body?

  Yet I did not offer to strike him. Instead I thought of Olympia, whose behavior the Clockwork King had so entirely failed to predict when I had seen him last. Her image filled my mind. I recalled her scent, the curve of her lips, the sheer animation of her which tore my heart with lust; and I asked the infallible seer of all the created universe “What is the question you cannot answer?”

  The King stood, and swayed in the silence. He was built to give an answer to every question; it was a need, a part of him as much as the need to love is a part of every human being. But to this query he dared not reply. Ah, and yet he had to. He had to, just as I had to love Olympia and had to kill Theodore. Though to answer was to admit to his imperfection, to bring on his own destruction. Unable to resolve this contradiction, he fled from me.

  The Prodigy scampered forward at once and sat before the pipe organ’s keyboards. Kreisler was with him. Together they began to play, calling the automata back to their city. Just as we had planned. And I, I ran after the Clockwork King, driven, as ever, by the thought of Olympia. For I had more that I would know.

  “Who is Olympia? Where is she now? Is she still alive?” I shoute
d these questions as I ran into the darkness of the palace. The Clockwork King was stronger than I, physically so much more dangerous. Only, I had my questions to protect me, and his failure to understand Olympia. “Why did you lie to me yesterday? Why did you fail?” I chased him, quite mad, hurling questions, demanding answers owed me.

  Did she have other lovers? To whom had she granted her favors? Or was she yet virginal? How could I make her want me the way I wanted her? What things did she desire now, and what men? What gave her most pleasure in her mind? In her body? What should I do to win her love?

  Beyond the music of the organ there began to come the crash and thunder of shells exploding. The army had followed the retreating automata, and now as we raced past the windows explosions flashed in the distance. The violence inside my mind was made real, rage and lust and need, the lightnings in my mind. “What does she cry out in her moments of ecstasy?” I shouted.

  I paused. The Clockwork King had led me into a darkened chamber. Then a fire flickered in a hearth; and it was a familiar hearth. I froze, seeing, impossibly, my home. The sitting-room in which I had lain ill years before. In which I had contemplated murdering my best friend. And everything in it was reversed, as though I had crossed through into a land on the far side of the mirror. At once I felt again the fever of my childhood, felt thought recede, felt nightmare overtake me. “Why are we two and not one?” I muttered.

  A shell exploded outside; I understood three things at once. I understood that the mind of the Clockwork King was so powerful as to deduce the circumstances of my earliest life, and that nothing of me was unknown to him. I understood that he knew what would happen on this night, knew that Kreisler and I would bring the Prodigy to him, knew that I would ask the fearful question and chase him even so far—and so he made this room, to confuse me. But also I understood that for all his knowledge of what would come, he had found no way to evade it.