Clockwork Phoenix 5

by Brennan, Marie

  “I know my own rig best,” Ilsa said. To his credit, Dennis let her be.

  A neighbor had kept an eye on the place these past few months, but that did nothing to ward away dust, or to fill that empty place on her mantle. Walking through her parlor just about broke her heart, especially as she’d seen Bucephalus that morning for the first time in weeks.

  The wooden horse sat on the corner of Captain Mayfair’s desk in the command house. Bucephalus had a window view of soldiers drilling on newly transferred auquines.

  Captain Mayfair didn’t seem worried that Ilsa would try to escape on her trip into Richmond. He had Bucephalus, after all.

  She had noted that not a speck of dust was to be found on the carved horse, not even in the delicate whorls of his mane. In truth, he looked … loved.

  That pleased her and vexed her all at once.

  Her fingers had brushed his back. If Bucephalus had been of flesh, he would have scarcely flicked an ear her way. He was fixated on the auquines in the yard with an intensity she hadn't seen in years, not since they traveled the coast with the carousel.

  Bucephalus is mine. He should be home. I could move him from the mantle, give him a better vantage of the street.

  She directed her frustration into the carousel’s crank. She could already feel the wood-bound horses’ anticipation. They stewed with restlessness, just as they had in life at the first hints of spring.

  “Choose your horse and mount up,” she called.

  Culver ambled around the carousel. He stopped at the most ornately carved of the lot, a white stallion on the outside ring. The lead horse. Ilsa had designed the horse’s colorful barding like that of a medieval charger straight out of Ivanhoe. Culver tried to lift his foot to the stirrup and staggered backward.

  “Here, old man,” Dennis said as he gave him a boost.

  “Thanks to you, master.”

  The two men shared like smiles. It made Ilsa grin, too, to see how Dennis doted on Culver. “What about you?” she asked Dennis as he joined her in the center. He shook his head.

  Ilsa released the brake lever. The canopy shuddered as the mechanism activated. Slowly, the horses began to move.

  Culver gripped the red pole and looked to either side of his horse as it swayed. “This horse. It different.”

  “It’s a rare breed from Austria, called Lipizzaner. They’re taught to dance.”

  “Fancy that!” Culver’s eyes shone as he passed by.

  “Thank you for letting him do this, lieutenant,” she murmured.

  Dennis was quiet for a long moment, watching the horses spin. “One of my first memories is Culver standing alongside Mama, both of them holding me on a horse.” He sighed heavily. “I didn’t just bring him to Virginia because he’s the best artist with metal. I wanted to save his life.”

  “Save his life? By bringing him into the middle of a war?”

  “Safer than being near Papa. He’s never treated Culver well, and in recent years …”

  Ilsa thought of Culver’s escape, his layers of scars. The horses picked up speed as centrifugal forces began to pull them outward at an angle. Culver passed by, his gap-toothed grin brilliant. He circled again, and this time, his arms were flung wide, his eyes closed.

  “These are very different horses than the auquines, ma’am, and I don’t mean the contrast of metal and wood.” Dennis shook his head. “These horses—there’s a particular kind of happiness. Like foals in a meadow.”

  Proof again that the lieutenant had an extra sense of horses’ souls. Ilsa wondered who it carried through in his family.

  “You understand, then, why I told the captain I shouldn’t be making warhorses.” She paused. “I think you understood from the very start. Since you first saw my carousel.”

  He said nothing for a time, watching Culver. “You know, ma’am, things will get terribly confusing as we ship south. People might go missing.”

  Her breath caught. “The soldier in charge of those people might get in awful trouble.”

  “You’re set to ride on a civilian train part of the way. No guards. The captain believes Bucephalus is all the motivation you need to come along. I think that’s because he’d do as much for that horse. Captain even talks to him, there in his office.”

  The words hurt. “I used to do the same.”

  “What if I can steal the horse?”

  “I’m afraid to ask too much, lieutenant.”

  “What if you only took his soul, and left the carving behind? The captain wouldn’t know until he unpacked Bucephalus down in Alabama.”

  Tears of hope made Ilsa’s eyes smart as she nodded.

  Culver flew by, laughing. His eyes were still shut, his arms still out like wings.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him make such a sound.” Dennis’s voice was soft with awe. “You know what, ma’am? I changed my mind. I think I do want to ride.”

  As the horses slowed, Culver opened his eyes, his arms dropping to his sides. The carousel rocked to a stop.

  “Missus Klein, never in my life I had an experience like that.” He made to stand up, but she waved him down.

  “Sit. You get another round, and this time you won’t be alone. Lieutenant, mount up.”

  Culver craned around. “Master, you can’t be back there, you—”

  “I’m fine here. You lead me like when I was a boy.” Lieutenant Dennis took the horse directly behind Culver. It was a red unicorn with a gold-leaf horn. A goofy grin lit the officer’s whole face. “Mrs. Klein, don’t tell me this holds a unicorn’s soul.”

  “Why don’t you tell me once you’ve had a go?” Ilsa started the machine.

  She leaned against the central pillar and closed her eyes as the men laughed and whooped and eventually turned silent as midnight mice. Beneath the engine’s rumble, she heard the echo of hoofbeats.

  * * *

  Ilsa waited in a shed adjacent to the rail yard, her satchel at her feet. The gray blurs of soldiers constantly passed the window. The Provisional Cavalry was mustering a quarter mile away to load up for their journey south.

  The clock tolled eight times. Lieutenant Dennis was now late.

  Ilsa’s stomach twisted in knots, her fingers clenched with the need to hold Bucephalus again.

  A knock shuddered through the door. She gasped, a hand at her anxious heart.

  Lieutenant Dennis entered, Culver in his wake. “I got him, ma’am.”

  The lieutenant motioned to Culver, who held a worn leather bag. Ilsa reached inside and found those curves and nicks made by her own hand. She knew Bucephalus’s alarm—his frustration—at being in the bag, at this change.

  “It’s me,” she murmured. Her fingernail found the soft juncture where his left foreleg met his body. She pressed in just enough to know the heat of his soul there, lingering beneath the surface.

  Ilsa let her joys and hope flow through to him—how she would braid his soul and hold it close as she traveled, how she would carve him a new and even more beautiful body, how they would explore the frontier west together.

  He balked. His soul dug itself deeper into its wooden body.

  “Bucephalus?” she whispered.

  He told her without words, showing her the coziness of a body that he had known for twenty years, far longer than he had ever known flesh. He showed her the view from Captain Mayfair’s window, the auquines engaged in their drills. He knew they were horses—he recognized the scent and presence of like souls. Bucephalus was not a warhorse, but the bustle of the encampment made him feel alive again, even as a statue. He didn't comprehend that he was stolen; all he knew was that he was in good care and stimulating company. Bucephalus, in life, knew how to work a stall clasp open with his lips so he could get to an oat bucket. Now he saw something else he wanted that was just out of reach.

  He wants to stay with Captain Mayfair, not me. The betrayal stung her. He hadn’t even thought of the captain, not directly, but the implication was there. She gripped the wooden horse as if she coul
d convince him to leave through sheer will.

  Bucephalus coiled within his shell, alarmed. Afraid of her.

  What am I doing? Ilsa knew the feel of spurs and the lash. She would not—could not—be like that.

  Her son’s invisible soul had once slipped away. Now Bucephalus had escaped her, too, but only in part. He was still on earth. He had not dissipated. He is not lost.

  “I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand,” she said to the horse then looked to Culver. “Bucephalus wants to stay in this body.” Tears streaked down her cheeks. Culver nodded, expression thoughtful as he secured the horse in the bag again. “Captain Mayfair will take good care of him. So will you, lieutenant.”

  Dennis looked genuinely confused. “I—of course, ma’am. I just didn’t expect … Well, this will be a trade, then.” He pulled a stack of tri-folded sheets from his jacket and passed them to Ilsa. “Those are Culver’s papers. Take him with you.”

  “Master Dennis?” Culver blinked rapidly.

  “I gave her your papers, old man. You’re going west.” Dennis took the bag from Culver.

  Shock filtered over Culver’s face, then joy, then anger. “Master, no, I am not. I cannot.”

  “You must. Captain Mayfair’s sending you back to the plantation.” Dennis’s voice cracked. “You know how Papa is since Mama passed. I won’t be there to protect you, I …”

  Ilsa looked between them and thought on their like recognition of equine souls, their uncommon closeness, the similarity in their smiles. Their skins were of different shades, true—Culver’s dark as ebony, and the lieutenant’s the deep walnut tone of a man who lived in the sun—but their bearings would have established their disparate roles even if they stood in silhouette. Culver’s back was bowed by a life of hardship, whereas Dennis was the epitome of a Confederate officer, his posture ramrod straight and ready for a parade. They’re slave and master by reality. Father and son by blood.

  She took a steadying breath to hold back a new wave of sorrow.

  “You never ask me nothing, Master Dennis. You never ask me where I wanna go, what I wanna do.”

  Frustration twisted Lieutenant Dennis’s face. “Then what do you want?”

  “If I’m a-going anywhere, I’m going north. Got family I’d like to find again, if they livin’.”

  Dennis clearly tried to act stoic even as he blinked back tears.

  Ilsa tucked the papers into her bag and pried out stationery and a pencil. “I can smuggle him north.” Smuggle herself, too, so the Union wouldn’t use her as the Confederates did. “I know New York.”

  “Missus, you already gave me freedom on them horses the other day. I don’t ask for more than that.”

  “You shouldn’t just get one or two chances at such a thing, Culver. I promise I will do everything I can to help you find your daughter.” Ilsa scribbled words onto a piece of paper.

  “New York City.” Culver said the words like a prayer.

  “Thank you,” Lieutenant Dennis whispered, his voice breaking.

  A train whistle pierced the air.

  The two men stared at each other, saying everything in nothing. Culver brushed a gnarled hand against Lieutenant Dennis’s gray sleeve, then turned away, trembling.

  Ilsa steadied him. Even through layers of cloth, the scars on his back were hard lumps. “You’ll need to carry my bag for appearances.”

  “Of course, missus. Of course.”

  Ilsa sealed the paper into an envelope addressed to Captain Mayfair and passed it to Dennis. “When the war is done, Captain Mayfair is to expect company in the Low Country. I told him this is no giveaway. An old woman might be asking for room and board as part of the deal.” Culver opened the door.

  “I'll tell him you left behind this letter,” Lieutenant Dennis said, his voice thick. “And ma’am?”

  She looked back. He cradled the bag with Bucephalus as if he held a newborn baby. “It really was a unicorn I rode, wasn’t it?”

  Ilsa smiled. She turned away again, her gaze already northward.

  Pinions

  The Authors

  Jason Kimble left the tornadoes of Michigan for the hurricanes of Florida, because spinning air is better when it’s warm. He lives there with his finally legal husband. Other stories set in the world of “The Wind at His Back” have appeared in The Sockdolager and the anthology Twice Upon A Time: Fairytale, Folklore, & Myth. Reimagined & Remastered. Other recent work appears or is forthcoming in Betwixt magazine and Escape Pod. You can find more of his nattering at http://processwonk.wordpress.com or by following @jkasonetc on Twitter.

  About “The Wind at His Back,” he had this to share: “While nosing about for folklore to play with, the ‘tall tale’ struck me as something that might be interesting fodder. It was littered with giants: Paul Bunyan and Joe Magarac and Old Stormalong come to mind. It posited a world where a man could ride a tornado, or could blanket the countryside with fruit trees while protected by nothing more than a tin pot on his head. It populated the wilds with whiskey-drinking jackalopes and snakes that could put themselves back together if you cut them in half. Just how wild might the West have been, I wondered, if none of that was an exaggeration?

  “The tall tale, however, is pretty exclusively white, and even more exclusively straight. Anyone who doesn’t fit that model is either there to motivate or juxtapose with the awesomeness of the White Straight Dude The Story Is Really About.

  “Oh, screw that, I thought.

  “At the very least, I wanted to create a haven where those restrictions didn’t apply. Westerns have no end of little utopias, after all. Quaint little towns where Everyone Thrives. This is one of them, where Benito Guzman Aguilar sheriffs when he isn’t spending time with Casey, the warm-hearted farmer he fell in love with. Of course, this is a utopia in the center of a world with tornado wranglers and giants and supernatural critters and magic fruit trees, some or all of whom may already be part of the town. Besides, the thing about Western utopian settlements is, there is always, always trouble on the horizon. And it’s almost always personal.

  “In that respect, at least, ‘The Wind at His Back’ is no exception.”

  * * *

  Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, picked up (and mostly forgot) six languages, an addiction to running, and a couple degrees. Now she writes speculative fiction in Athens, Georgia, where she lives with her husband. A winner of Writers of the Future, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in many venues, including Shimmer, Lightspeed, Accessing the Future, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Crossed Genres, Diabolical Plots, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, The Drabblecast, and Daily Science Fiction. She is the coeditor of PodCastle, a SFWA member, and a secret android. Follow her on Twitter at @RachaelKJones.

  About “The Fall Shall Further the Flight in Me,” she writes, “What do you do when your whole worldview comes undone in a moment because you met someone who made you question the path you’d tried so hard to stay on your whole life? We don’t like unexpected detours, but in my experience, the straightest, quickest line to your destination doesn’t always bring happiness. Life’s about the surprises, the adventures, the unexpected friends you make along the way. This story celebrates finding what you really needed instead of what you sought. Because sometimes when faith shatters, it hatches love; and when you search for heaven, you arrive home; and when you fall, you fly.”

  * * *

  Patricia Russo’s stories can be found in many places, including Daily SF, The Dark, Not One of Us, Rich Horton’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, Clockwork Phoenix 4, and the collection Shiny Thing, published by Papaveria Press. She adds, “This is not an exhaustive list … ☺”

  About “The Perfect Happy Family,” here’s what she had to share: “My favorite band is New Model Army. They have been my favorite band ever since I came across an EP of theirs in the early eighties at the Tower Records on East Fourth Street in NYC, a store
which ceased to exist a very long time ago. New Model Army, however, carries on. One of their songs includes the line ‘looking for family, looking for tribe.’ I think I had this line in my mind when I was writing ‘The Perfect Happy Family.’ Other elements come from previous stories of mine (the six-sided world, the City of New Unity City), folklore, and the mysterious depths of my notebooks, the handwriting in which even I can’t read sometimes.”

  * * *

  Marie Brennan is the World Fantasy Award–nominated author of several fantasy series, including the Memoirs of Lady Trent, the Onyx Court, the Wilders series, and the Doppelganger duology, as well as more than forty short stories. More information can be found at http://www.swantower.com.

  About “The Mirror-City,” she shares that “this idea sat around in my head for the better part of a decade before finally getting written. The starting concept was simple—too simple. ‘What if there was a city like Venice, and its reflection in the canals was another city?’ The problem with that is, it has no plot. I don't know why it took me so many years to figure out what story I wanted to tell in that setting … but once I did, the words flowed like water.”

  * * *

  Benjanun Sriduangkaew writes love letters to strange cities, beautiful bugs, and the future. Her work has appeared in Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Clarkesworld, and Year’s Best anthologies. She has been shortlisted for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her debut novella Scale-Bright has been nominated for the British SF Association Award.

  She tells us that “The Finch’s Wedding and the Hive That Sings” is “one of my first stories where I overtly bring together the military and the domestic, a direct negotiation between war and relationship. I also wanted to see if I could put together fairly complex political intrigue in a short story, where every character has their own motive and each of whom is very intelligent, and I’m happy with the result. The bees are, naturally, practically a prerequisite. You always make room for bees.”