The Wonder Engine

by T. Kingfisher

“What?”

  “Are you going through their pockets?”

  “I’ll wash my hands.” She held up a single coin and scowled. “They must have been hard up. Hardly worth rolling.”

  “We could sell their boots,” said Brenner.

  “A gnole knows a good place for boots,” offered Grimehug.

  “We are not selling anyone’s boots,” said Caliban. “We are informing the guards—”

  “Oh, the hell we are,” said Slate. “Have you forgotten what we’re doing here?”

  There was a brief pause.

  “…yes,” said Caliban. “I had, actually. All right.” He hastily signed benedictions over the men’s bodies. “Let’s go home, shall we? Unless there’s something else you think we can learn?”

  He inclined his head toward Slate.

  She’s in charge. Don’t take command just because you’re used to it. This is her world, not yours.

  “I think we’ve learned quite enough,” said Slate. She wrinkled her nose. “Good job, Brenner.”

  The assassin shrugged, but there was a glint of pleasure in his eyes.

  “I suppose now that we’ve seen one, we need to figure out how they’re made.” Slate glanced over her shoulder, in the direction the clocktaur had gone.

  “All come out of the Clockwork District,” said Grimehug. “You want a clocktaur, that’s where you go.”

  Six

  As they walked back toward the inn, Slate fell back a few steps. Caliban immediately dropped back to flank her.

  “Is this how you treat your liege?” she murmured.

  He was silent for a moment. Then, “No, I forget myself. But you should probably be used to that by now.”

  She glanced back at him, amused. He was smiling and it sent a familiar jolt through her.

  Dammit. No. Down, girl. This is not the time.

  “Do you plan to walk behind me like this forever?”

  “Would that be a problem?”

  “Frankly, yes.” She scowled. “I have worked very hard to be invisible. You are very visible.”

  “I could attempt to disguise myself.”

  He said it entirely earnestly. Slate remembered his suggestion of a disguise in the capitol. Had it only been a few weeks ago? She looked at him again. Still six feet tall, almost obnoxiously beautiful, armed to the teeth, wearing a white cloak, for the love of the gods…okay, they could maybe fix the cloak, but as to the rest…

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. It would be like disguising a war-horse as a donkey. Theoretically possible, but…

  “Caliban, there is no earthly reason for someone like me to have a bodyguard that looks like you.”

  He looked at her with total non-comprehension. “Like me?”

  “Militant,” Slate said. Why couldn’t you look a little less like a damn statue?

  “I could try to look less militant.”

  She gave him a skeptical look. “Uh-huh. Caliban, I am not a priestess. I am not a nun. I most definitely do not want to be mistaken for a Senator. If you follow me around like this, people will assume that I must be either a wealthy merchant or a courtesan. The first will get me robbed and the second will get me propositioned.”

  “I will not allow either,” he said.

  “Caliban…” She placed a hand in the middle of his chest and shoved. He moved slightly less than a quarter inch.

  “Or you could go walk up ahead and hover over Learned Edmund and then you can be a temple guard for a dedicate and I can be a secretary acolyte-type that no one notices.”

  He was quite good at the inscrutable paladin look, but she could see wheels turning behind it.

  “Very well,” he said finally. “My liege.”

  “Oh, don’t start,” she muttered, and glared at his back as he went to guard Learned Edmund.

  The perfect gentle knight. She had a strong urge to kick him in the shins.

  Which would do precisely nothing and he'd look confused at me. And then probably offer to take his shin armor off so I could try again without hurting my foot.

  He glanced back, a faint line of worry between his eyebrows, which smoothed out as soon as he saw that she was still there.

  I will not feel gooey inside, she instructed herself. I won't. And I most certainly will not think about kissing that line. I will go back to thinking about kicking him in the shins.

  She had absolutely no desire to kiss his shins. Shins were a distinctly specialized interest in Slate’s experience.

  This line of thought got her most of the way back to the hotel before her mind wandered again.

  Stupid paladins.

  And stupid forgers who want them…

  * * *

  Getting into the Clockwork District was easier said than done, at least for anyone that wasn’t three feet tall and covered in rags.

  They tried—delicately—to approach by five different streets, and there was a guard post and a gate at each one. (Well, for a value of “delicate.” Brenner and Slate drifted through the shadows, and Caliban stood on the corner looking as subtle as a siege engine. Learned Edmund, on the other hand, had gone to the library.)

  It didn’t matter anyway. While the main streets were full of people, the crowds vanished on the streets leading to the Clockwork District. Any guard who wanted to look would see all three of them.

  Each gate had a short rectangle cut in it. Gnoles streamed in and out, unbothered by the guards.

  It’s a cat-flap. They’ve got cat-flaps for the gnoles on the gates. Dear god.

  After trying all five streets—and getting some suspicious glances from the guards—they regrouped in a courtyard café off the main square. Slate ordered tea, backed her chair into a corner, and pulled her hat brim down.

  “This isn’t going to work,” she said. “We can’t get close and they’ve cleared a gap between the walls and the houses. There’s not even a blade of grass there, not that it would do us any good if there were.”

  “Can you go over the rooftops?” asked Caliban. “At least enough to look?”

  “Not in broad daylight,” said Brenner. “And if we get caught, there is a certain lack of plausible deniability. I’d rather wait until we don’t have a choice.”

  “High ground, then,” said Caliban, drumming his fingers on the table.

  “Eh?”

  “We take the high ground and spy out the land.”

  Slate stared off into space, stirring her tea.

  “There’s a church—” she began.

  Brenner gave her a genuinely shocked look.

  “—Not that church! A cathedral! A real one. Still a real one, I mean.”

  Caliban looked from one to the other. “What am I missing?”

  Brenner said nothing. Slate hunched one shoulder. “Nothing important. Not very important. But—well, if somebody mentions the Grey Church to you, I wouldn’t count on popping in for a sermon, all right?”

  Caliban considered this. “Is this an…underworld thing?”

  “Yes,” said Brenner.

  “No,” said Slate, at the same time.

  “Well, maybe,” said Brenner. He leaned back and folded his arms.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Slate. “Not relevant. Hopefully nobody’ll have to have any dealings with the Grey Church and no one will do anything stupid and no one will end up in a crow cage—”

  Brenner kicked her under the table.

  “So, a real cathedral!” Slate said hurriedly. “Bell-towers! Good view! Stained glass! Dedicated to the Forge God, but I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t let a dedicate of the Many-Armed God and a paladin of the Dreaming God in for a private tour.”

  “I’m not in service to the Dreaming God any more.”

  “And we’re not in service to any god at the moment. What does that have to do with anything?” asked Brenner.

  Caliban’s eyebrows rose.

  And then he smiled. It was, for a paladin, a very wicked smile.

  “Well,” he said. “I expect we’
ll be able to work something out.”

  Seven

  “I’m going to kill him,” said Brenner.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Slate surveyed the assassin. “Acolyte’s robes are very…you, somehow.”

  He flashed her an obscene gesture.

  “And didn’t you dress up like a monk once to get at that bishop? I seem to remember something about that…”

  “They wore brown. Brown is okay.”

  Acolytes of the Many-Armed God wore green. Brenner looked like a large, lethal shrubbery.

  “Just remember you’re under a vow of silence,” said Learned Edmund. “I shudder to think of the damage to our order’s reputation otherwise.”

  Slate was surprised at how accommodating Learned Edmund was about disguising Brenner as a member of the priesthood. She would have expected him to be more of a stickler about such things.

  But he had actually laughed. “The Many-Armed God knows his own,” he said. “And his scholars have done worse things in pursuit of knowledge, though we do not speak of it a great deal.”

  “Does this mean my genitals are going to fall off?” asked Brenner.

  “Women of the world, rejoice!” said Caliban, coming back into the room.

  “Don’t you two start now,” warned Slate. “We have to get into the church between services.”

  They made their way across the city, more or less without incident. (“Don’t lurk, Brenner. You’re an acolyte. Acolytes look worried all the time. Like they’re afraid they’ll do something the gods will disapprove of.”)

  At the door of the cathedral of the Forge God, Caliban took a deep breath and became a Knight-Champion.

  Slate would have given her ears to know how he did it. One minute he was Caliban, who always looked as if he were beating himself up internally for something, and who always carried a handkerchief.

  The next minute he was about an inch taller and seemed to be standing in a brighter light than everything else around him. Even his shoulders looked broader.

  Slate was quite sure that he was still wearing rather battered armor and a disgracefully grubby cloak, but he seemed to be…shining?

  Why did we even both dressing up? Nobody’s going to notice us at all.

  Nobody did.

  A Knight-Champion of the Dreaming God walked into the cathedral. Two lay-brothers saw him and shot to their feet. One ran to find a priest and the other approached, babbling.

  “Blessings be upon you—oh—oh—we weren’t expecting anyone—so sorry—blessings—can we help you, sir?”

  Slate was used to, “Can we help you?” translating as, “If you make me get up, I will have you drawn and quartered.” She’d never heard it mean, “I will throw myself off a building if it will make your day better, sir.”

  “I am an escort for the Learned Edmund, dedicate of the Many-Armed God,” said Caliban. (Which, Slate thought, was entirely true, which was probably why the voice came out so marvelously effectively.)

  “I am fascinated by religious architecture. Specifically bell-towers,” said Learned Edmund. “You have a marvelous example here of pre-Assignation architecture, and I am hoping to examine it more closely.”

  “I am certain that will not be a problem, sir!” said the lay brother.

  “I am certain that will not be a problem, sir!” said the priest, when he arrived.

  “I am certain that will not be a problem, sir, and we are furthermore very very honored to assist the Knight-Champion in any way that he may require!” said the deacon, when he arrived.

  Brenner said something under his breath and Slate stomped on his foot.

  “You can assist me best by assisting the dedicate,” said Caliban graciously. “My secretary, here, will take any required notes.” He waved a hand at Slate.

  “Of course! If you are sure—the bell tower has not been remodeled in some time, you understand—the pigeons have—well—” He kept up a stream of apologies all the way to the door of the bell tower, which he unlocked from a key ring on his belt.

  “It is quite all right,” said Learned Edmund. “I am interested in the original architecture, you understand. And I am quite used to pigeons.”

  “Oh, well, if you’re sure…”

  The door to the bell tower opened. There were approximately four hundred stairs in it.

  “He can’t do it in full armor,” said Brenner in Slate’s ear.

  “Bet you a copper?”

  The deacon looked in their direction. Slate immediately busied herself with her papers. Brenner tried to look like someone under a vow of silence.

  Caliban, disgraced former paladin, might have balked at four hundred stairs in full armor, but Caliban, Knight-Champion, never faltered. In fact, he went first.

  “Do you assign guards to the towers?” he asked the deacon, who was panting and trying to keep up.

  “No—oh—ho—not—usually—nobody—”

  “Demons have been known to fly,” said the Knight-Champion sternly. He gazed out of one of the arrow slits as if expecting an attack at any moment. The deacon slumped against the wall, panting. Slate toiled up the stairs after them. Her legs were starting to feel like that first day on horseback.

  “Should—we—assign—will see to it—”

  “You know your own defenses best, of course,” said Caliban, in a voice that indicated the exact opposite.

  The deacon held up a hand. When he had caught his breath, he said “It’s only—there’s no—demons—in Anuket City.”

  Slate saw the Knight-Champion mask waver for a fraction of a second. The line between Caliban’s eyes lengthened, and then it smoothed away.

  “A fortunate land,” he said to the deacon. “Not all lands are so blessed.”

  They reached the top of the stairs. The deacon collapsed. Even Brenner was gasping. Learned Edmund had come up more slowly, ostensibly making tracings of the carvings around the arrow slits. Caliban had a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead but that was all.

  Slate wrote You owe me a copper on a scrap of paper and showed it to Brenner. He struggled over the words, lips moving, then scowled.

  Learned Edmund went to work. This mostly involved wandering around the bell tower, gazing up at the bells and murmuring to himself. The deacon trailed after him, shooting occasional worried glances at Caliban, as if he might be called to account for not knowing the answer to the dedicate’s questions.

  Slate sidled over to the paladin and whispered, “How are you not dying right now?”

  “Pure willpower. I think I ruptured something on the last flight of stairs.”

  “Poor baby.” She suppressed a grin. It was nice to know that the Knight-Champion thing was mostly on the outside.

  She went to the window and gazed out over the city.

  Her smile faded. The Clockwork District was immediately obvious.

  Anuket City had, when she left, been roughly circular. But now, on the far side, there was a jagged new spur sticking out. An enormous roof reared out of the ground, like a beetle shell, and clapboard buildings had gone up around it.

  “Forgive me, deacon,” she said, as he passed, “but when I lived here some years ago, that was a river bluff, was it not?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the deacon. “A few years, now. They were mining, I believe. Apparently they found something, because it’s been roofed over. Archaeological ruins, they say, of great historical value. They moved the army barracks, and there was some grumbling, but you know the Senate is always very interested in preserving history—”

  “A fine body of men,” said Slate, with a straight face.

  “Very much so, very much so. Always very generous to the church.” He hurried after Learned Edmund.

  Caliban joined her. “Anything?”

  “No obvious approaches.” She made a quick sketch of the streets. “I see two ways. The rooftops aren’t clear—too much space between. Probably so the clocktaurs can move around, and they can get the carts in, but it’s not helping us much either. The roa
d to the old parade ground has to go through the old city, that’s why they need the gnoles, but the warehouse itself...” She shook her head.

  “What’s the best way?”

  “By the river. Maybe.” She chewed a thumbnail. “Problem is, they’ll know it’s the best approach…”

  Caliban gave Learned Edmund a meaningful look. The dedicate closed his book.

  “Thank you so much for the tour, deacon,” he said, with absolute sincerity. “I don’t think you have any idea just how helpful it’s been.”

  Eight

  They sat around in the larger of the two rooms in the inn and stared at the walls. Grimehug snored at Slate’s feet.

  “Archaeology,” said Learned Edmund.

  “River approach,” said Slate.

  “We’re screwed,” said Brenner.

  Caliban cleaned his armor. It didn’t help, but it didn’t hurt either, and was at least as useful as staring at the wall.

  “Suppose they did find an archaeological site,” said Slate finally. “Could they have found something in it?”

  “Like what?” asked Learned Edmund.

  “Oh…I don’t know…an army of clocktaurs?”

  The dedicate tapped his pen against his lips. “It’s possible, I suppose. I would have said that none of the ancients had such things…but someone made the wonder-engines, after all. An army of clocktaurs, underground?” He shook his head slowly. “Possible.”

  Glum silence reigned.

  “Look on the bright side,” said Brenner finally.

  “There’s a bright side?”

  “That would mean there’s a limited supply.” He tipped his hand back and forth. “Say they’re down there, and they found a way to wake ’em up. What stops us from going in and waking up a few of our own?”

  “I don’t know,” said Slate. “Maybe the fact that we don’t know how to do it?”

  “Details. Somebody will have written it down. If the Senate’s in on this—and they’d have to be, wouldn’t they?—surely they’ll have at least three or four guys who know how to do it, in case one falls down a privy shaft in the middle of the night. Bureaucracy thrives on redundancy.”