The League of Seven

by Alan Gratz

  An iron machine man lifted an enormous gear and cast it aside with a crunch that echoed through the cavern. The thing had a headless, bell-shaped body, with round porthole windows like different-sized eyes all over it. One side of it had two smaller arms, balanced against one larger arm on the other side. It walked on two spindly, piston-driven legs that psssshted as it walked, but the thing wasn’t steam driven, at least not that Archie could tell. There was no boiler, no exhaust pipe, no smokestack.

  Archie watched, mesmerized, as the thing stumbled down off the wreckage from the great machine like it had somehow been born from it. That wasn’t possible, was it? Or was this one last defense the Roman League had left behind? Beside him, Hachi stared at the weird thing too.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,” the thing said with a strange voice like the crackle of lightning. “Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.”

  “Edison,” said Fergus.

  Archie took a step backward. “What? Inside that thing?”

  “I think he is that thing. There’s only room enough in there for a brain. I’ve seen inside it. If Edison’s in there, that’s all he is—a brain in a jar. The poor flange must have lost his body in the crash of the Black Maria after all.”

  Archie shivered at the thought.

  “Brain in a jar, brain in a jar,” Edison said. His mechanical body began dancing a clumsy little jig. “Big jar. Bad jar. Strong jar. Edison jar.”

  “Oh, and the suit never really worked,” Fergus said. “Every brain they put in it went batty.”

  “And you worked for this man?” Hachi said.

  “I don’t anymore, all right?”

  “Just get that seal closed!” Hachi said. She let Archie’s mother back down. “Drag them over to a corner somewhere where they’ll be safe,” she told Archie.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “What I came here to do in the first place,” she said. She drew her dagger. “Kill Edison.”

  Hachi ran straight at him, her flying circus—what was left of it—bursting from her bandolier. Edison’s suit began to hum, and he raised the small pair of arms on his right side. Lektricity sparked between them.

  “Hachi, no! Stop!” Archie cried. Too late. Lightning arced from Edison’s iron hands to Hachi, blowing her off her feet.

  “Hachi!” Fergus cried. He pushed past Archie, his tattoos rearranging themselves furiously. He raised his hands, and lightning leaped from him too. The crackling energy caught Edison’s iron giant in the chest, but it didn’t seem to hurt him. Edison danced a little jig, then turned and redirected the stream of energy toward the pit. The cavern shook. Rocks broke off the ceiling and smashed to the ground. The thing in the pit squealed, an inhuman sound that gave Archie goose bumps.

  “When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing!” Edison sang crazily. “Wasn’t that a dainty dish, to set before the king?”

  “Stop! Stop!” Archie cried. “You’re helping him! Fergus, he’s just feeding it down to the Mangleborn!”

  The ground rumbled again, and out through the narrow crack in the last seal came an army of insect men. The Manglespawn of Malacar Ahasherat, the Swarm Queen. They were part man, part insect: hideous things with sharp, spiky hair all over their bodies and powdery brown wings that fluttered in staccato. Frum. Frum. Frum. Frum. Frum. Their giant compound eyes glittered in the gas light of the chamber.

  Fergus switched off his lektrical discharge and staggered back into Archie, but the damage was done. The cavern was suddenly crawling with the things. They swarmed everyone, even Edison, attacking anything that moved.

  “The seal!” Archie cried, running for Hachi. “Fergus, close the seal!”

  Hachi’s face and arms were black from the blast, and her hair and clothes were singed. Her Tik Tok animals hovered around her nervously.

  Archie kicked at one of the moth men, knocking it away. “Hachi! Hachi, are you all right?”

  She stirred, still groggy.

  “Hachi, Fergus is closing the seal, but these moth things came up out of the ground! We need you!”

  “Edison,” she moaned.

  “Edison’s got some lektrical suit. I don’t know how we’re going to stop him. But first we’ve got to keep these moth creatures away from—”

  Mr. Lion roared his little roar, and Archie looked up to see one of the moth creatures leaping at him, its jagged teeth aimed for Archie’s neck. He ducked and closed his eyes.

  Splurch.

  When he opened his eyes again, Archie saw Hachi pulling her dagger out of the thing’s chest. Yellow-green blood trailed from the end of her blade as the thing fell dead beside them.

  “That is for Talisse Fixico, the potter,” she said. Archie helped her to her feet, and she sent another moth man’s head flying. “And that is for Chelokee Yoholo, father of Ficka.” Her clockwork menagerie distracted another while she cut off its wings. “Hathlun Harjo, the surgeon.” She gutted another. “Odis Harjo, the poet!”

  Hachi fought her way toward Fergus to protect him, spouting her mantra as she slew moth men. Archie did his best to stay out of the way.

  Edison’s lektric stream stopped, and he put his hands up to dance among the insect men that chewed at his suit. “The king was in his counting house, counting out his money,” he sang as he danced. Crunch. He stepped on one of the insect men, squashing it without seeming to notice. “The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey.…”

  A clawlike green hand reached up through the crack in the last seal and grabbed the edge of the stone pit. Malacar Ahasherat was pulling herself up.

  “Ferguuuuuus! Fergus, you have to close that hole!” Archie cried. He fell down and rolled out of the way as another insect man tried to bite him.

  “I think I’ve got it. I think I’ve got it. Yes—yes!” Fergus yelled. He threw a switch on the console, and metal grated as the gears spun.

  Over the pit that was Malacar Ahasherat’s prison, the final stone seals pulled another few feet wider.

  “Oh, crivens,” Fergus said.

  “Fergus! Fergus, it’s going the wrong way!”

  “I know! I know! I can fix it! I can fix it!” He turned dials and flipped levers like mad. The machine stopped, but the seal stayed half-open. “Just give me a second!”

  Fergus didn’t have a second. He’d drawn Edison’s attention, and the madman’s iron suit was dancing his way. “Fergus was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,” he sang. “When down came Edison and pecked off his nose.…”

  “Look out!” Archie cried. He pushed Fergus out of the way just before Edison slammed his big left hand into the machine’s controls. Smash! Edison pulled his iron fist from the wreckage of the machine and came after Fergus again, arm raised high to bash him.

  “Hey! Hey, Edison! Look over here!” Archie cried, trying to distract him.

  Edison swung around. Wham! The big arm caught Archie in the chest and threw him across the room. He hit the cavern’s stone wall and fell to the floor with a sickening thunk.

  “No! Archie!” Fergus cried.

  Archie should have been dead, but he wasn’t. Every bone in his body should have been broken, but they weren’t. None of them. He looked himself over. His clothes were torn and ripped, but there wasn’t a scratch on him, just like before. He didn’t know why, didn’t know how he had been born or where he had come from, but he understood the truth of his power now. There was no denying it anymore. He nodded and stood.

  “Hey, Brain in a Jar. Is that all you’ve got?” he called.

  Edison turned, just steps away from the retreating Fergus.

  Across the room, Hachi stopped fighting insect men long enough to stare. “Archie? But how—?” Fergus was watching him too.

  Lektricity crackled between Edison’s two small arms, and he thrust them at Archie. Kazaak! Lightning caught Archie and two insect men who fluttered nearby. The insect men squealed and burst into flames, but it did
n’t burn Archie. The lektricity held him. Seared him. Burned his clothes. But it didn’t harm him. It couldn’t. He knew that now.

  He took a step forward, pushing back the lightning.

  “Twisted pistons,” Fergus whispered.

  Edison must have been thinking the same thing. The iron suit took a step closer and upped the amps.

  “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Archie yelled, taking another step forward. “That’s right. Let it all out. Burn it all up!” he told Edison. He took another step.

  Edison might have been crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. The lektricity stopped, and Archie staggered forward, no longer being pushed back. Edison charged him, his big arm windmilling. Bam. The blow knocked Archie to his knees, but it didn’t kill him. It didn’t crush his bones. It didn’t break his skin.

  Thoom. Edison stepped on him. Boom. Edison punched him. Wham. Edison smashed a broken gear on Archie’s head.

  Archie got up every time. It hurt a little. He felt pain, remotely, like the sound of a train in the distance. But none of it killed him.

  Nothing could kill him.

  Archie was unbreakable.

  He had known it once and for all when he’d survived the gears of the puzzle trap. When he had fallen with the broken pieces of the great machine, been crushed a dozen times, and still climbed out of the rubble without a scratch. It hadn’t been the Great Bear’s pelt that protected him. It couldn’t have been. He knew when it tore. When he had pulled it off and really looked at it. Seen, for the first time, all the gashes and cuts and raygun holes in it, hidden by the fur.

  It wasn’t the Great Bear’s pelt that had saved him in the fall from the Hesperus. The pelt hadn’t protected him from the raygun blasts at Lady Josephine’s Academy. It hadn’t shielded him from the crush of the gears when death had come for him up above. And death had come for him. Again. Archie had stood inside the empty cog, watching death come spinning toward him, but the massive gears hadn’t chewed him up and spit him out. They had choked on him. The gears had closed in around him and squeezed him, but his body hadn’t been crushed, hadn’t been broken. None of it—not his shoulders or his chest, covered by the pelt, or his uncovered head and arms and legs.

  The gears had closed in on him, locked tight around him, and squeezed him until he thought he would burst, but he hadn’t. He clogged them. Stopped them. Broke them.

  Because he wasn’t human. He was something else.

  He was unbreakable.

  Edison tossed him into the air, and Archie fell to the floor with a thud.

  Who was he?

  An insect man jumped on Archie and bit him. Crack. The moth man came away squealing with a mouth full of broken teeth.

  What was he?

  Nunyanuwi, John Otter had called the Shadow. The Stone Man.

  Jandal a Haad, rumbled Malacar Ahasherat. Made of Stone.

  Mangleborn.

  Monster.

  “No. No, I’m not a monster,” Archie said. “I’m not a monster!”

  “Archie! Archie, remember what you’re here for!” Hachi called to him. “Remember your mantra!”

  Save Mom and Dad, he told himself. But they weren’t his mother and father. Maybe you were adopted. That’s what John Otter had said. The old medicine man had known, or guessed. The Septemberists brought you to us as a baby, his mother said. But they didn’t know what he was. Where he had come from. Had Uncle John known? Is that why they were watching him? Studying him? Was he the child of a monster, like the Great Bear? Was even a part of him human?

  Smack. Edison’s big arm knocked Archie into the wall again. Rocks fell from the ceiling, burying him. When the last of the pebbles trickled down, Archie pushed his way up, unbroken. Edison’s iron giant was waiting for him, dancing back and forth.

  “So you’re the Jandal a Haad,” Edison sang. “Batty Blavatsky got something right! The Joke of Chuluota. But who’s laughing now?”

  “Wait, what did he say?” Hachi yelled, hearing the name of the village where her father had died. “Archie, what’s he talking about? Did he say Chuluota?”

  But Archie wasn’t listening. He was staring at something on his arm, just beneath his torn shirt. A cut.

  But not a cut.

  A crack.

  There was no other way to describe it. There was no blood. No muscle. Nothing pink inside. Nothing human. Beneath his skin, there was only gray, like stone.

  There was a crack in Archie’s arm.

  32

  Archie stared at the crack in his arm. What am I? Who am I?

  Jandal a Haad, the Swarm Queen whispered to him. Made of Stone.

  Mangleborn. Monster.

  “No. No, I’m not a monster,” Archie whispered.

  The Shadow, Archie heard John Otter say.

  “No,” Archie said.

  “Archie! Archie, remember your mantra! Remember why you’re here!” Hachi yelled to him. She was surrounded by insect men. Drowning in them.

  Save Mom and Dad, Archie told himself. Save—but he wasn’t human. He was … something else, his mother said. They didn’t know what he was.

  A monster. A beast. An abomination.

  Why hadn’t his parents told him?

  Not my parents. I’m not their son. I’m something else. I’m—

  Jandal a Haad. Made of Stone. The Shadow.

  Archie put his hands to his head. It felt like it was going to crack open.

  A crack. There was a crack in him. Like a crack in a sidewalk. A crack in a stone.

  The Great Bear. Heracles. Enkidu. The Golem. Always different, always the same, Malacar Ahasherat whispered. Strongmen. Shadows. Monsters.

  “No!” he yelled. “That’s not me. I’m not—I’m not a monster!”

  “Sticks and stones can’t break his bones,” Edison sang again, his iron body doing a strange little back-and-forth dance. “But words can surely hurt him!”

  Jandal a Haad.

  Archie pulled at his hair. The Mangleborn’s voice was unbearable. Visions of former League strongmen assaulted him, all of them raging monsters who had turned on their friends. Wave after wave of guilt and shame and agony. Relentless. His fists shook. His muscles clenched. He was a monster. He was a monster, and no one had told him. They had let him think he was a real boy, let him think he was normal, but all along he was something else. Something wrong. Something evil. He wanted to hit something. Wanted to smash things. Break bones. Crush skulls.

  “Archie!” Hachi yelled. She fought her way over to him. “Archie, don’t listen to it! You have to fight it, Archie. Fight it!”

  “Shut up,” he cried. He beat on his head.

  “I need help over here!” Fergus said. He swung the lead pipe at a moth man and missed. Moth men swarmed Archie’s unconscious mother and father.

  Not my mother. Not my father. Not my parents—

  “Sticks and stone can’t break his bones,” Edison sang.

  Not the same, but the same. Always different, never different.

  Hachi shook him. “Archie! Archie, you have to focus. Archie, listen to me!”

  “Shut up! Just everybody shut up!” Archie roared. He backhanded Hachi, knocking her across the cavern. She hit the wall with a thud and slumped to the floor.

  “Oy!” Fergus yelled.

  Archie picked up a boulder twice his size and hurled it at Fergus. The rock missed him and smashed into the machine’s console, destroying what was left of it.

  “Archie, no,” Hachi moaned from the floor. Her voice was weak. “Archie, you have to—”

  “Just shut up. Just everybody shut up!” Archie yelled. An insect man buzzed in Archie’s face, and he ripped an arm from its body and beat the thing to death with it. When there was nothing left of its arm he tossed the shreds aside and pulled a metal strut from the wreckage of the great machine, swinging it like a club at anything that moved. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

  Your destiny, the Swarm Queen sang to him. Your birthright. You are the Jandal a Haad. You have the strength of a hundred men.
>
  “Shut up!” Archie cried, cleaving an insect man in two with one swing. “Shut up!”

  “Mantra,” Hachi whispered. “Remember—”

  Archie rounded on her, panting, heaving. Fergus was there, helping her to her feet.

  “Save … your parents,” Hachi told him.

  “They’re not my parents!” Archie yelled. “They can’t be! I’m not human. I’m a monster!” He swung the great metal club at them, and the wall above Fergus and Hachi exploded into rock and dust. Hachi and Fergus limped toward the machine that sealed the tomb. Archie’s parents were there too, awake again, and struggling to fend off the insect men.

  Not his parents.

  Archie lumbered toward them, dragging his impossibly big metal club along like a caveman.

  “Archie. Please,” his not-mother said. “We love you. It doesn’t matter that you’re—”

  “What? That I’m what?” Archie cried.

  Something else. Something not human. Made of stone.

  Shadow. Monster. Jandal a Haad.

  “Only words can hurt him!” Edison crowed, still dancing.

  Not the same, but the same. Always different, never different.

  “Archie, listen to me. It’s the Mangleborn doing this to you. Malacar Ahasherat,” Hachi told him. “It doesn’t matter what you are. You’re Archie Dent.” She backed into the broken machine, beside the people he’d thought were his parents. “You’re our friend.”

  “Archie, listen to her,” his not-father said.

  He was nobody’s friend. Nobody’s son. Everyone had lied to him. He was a monster.

  “Shut up,” Archie said wearily. “Please. Just—everybody shut up.”

  But they wouldn’t shut up. None of them. Not the Mangleborn, not Edison, not Hachi and Fergus, not his parents. Not the voice in his own head that told him he was no different from the thing in the pit. That he belonged there with it.

  But he would make them be quiet.

  He would make them all be quiet.

  Archie raised his club, tears streaming down his face.

  “I just—I just need you to shut up now,” he told them all.

  Fergus ran away, but his not-parents and Hachi stayed where they were. Hachi drew her dagger, and Archie giggled through his tears. Like she could hurt him. Like anything could hurt him. He was unbreakable. He was—