The Rising (The Alchemy Wars)

by Ian Tregillis

  The decapitated Clakker still held Mab’s precious bauble. Perfectly still, just as she’d requested. The killing blow had come so quickly that he’d had no chance to unlock his joints.

  Mab’s fingers made short work of Samson’s skull. She tore into it, prying plates apart and shearing screws like a bear mauling a beehive. Shards of shattered alchemical alloys pattered on the roof and frozen earth like hailstones. Every move she made was deliberate, choreographed for maximum effect, because she knew she held the crowd’s complete attention.

  She reached into the center of Samson’s head, yanked something free, then tossed the lifeless skull aside. It crunched on the snow under a shattered window and rolled to a stop a few yards from Daniel and Lilith. They retreated.

  Pale aquamarine light shone through the gaps in Mab’s clenched fist.

  Lilith said, What the hell is that?

  Mon Dieu, said Daniel, again channeling their mutual acquaintance.

  He remembered a hushed conversation in a dark, cold, noisome bakery in New Amsterdam. Surrounded by the slaughtered canalmasters of the ondergrondse grachten, he and Berenice had performed an experiment with the piece of alchemical glass that had changed him. She had removed a murky piece of glass from within the head of a deactivated military Clakker. But when she touched it to the pineal lens that had severed Jax’s geasa, it began to glow with a pale aquamarine light, like the item Mab had just torn from Samson’s head.

  She’d hypothesized that if the military Clakker hadn’t already been quite thoroughly deactivated, it would have become a rogue at that moment. That when contact with the lens broke Jax’s shackles and initiated his long flight, it had done so by wreaking its secret alchemy on the glass within his head. What Berenice had called a pineal glass in reference to Descartes. She’d seemed confident that the glass within Jax’s skull had been transformed in the same fashion as the dead soldier’s glass, and that thus the interior of his skull glowed with Free Will.

  It was difficult to gaze upon that beautiful glow and discount the Catholics. Was that the inner light of the soul? Perhaps the touch summoned the soul back to its rightful vessel, and Free Will along with it.

  Daniel took Lilith’s arm. Conversing through the transmission of vibrations was far quieter than broadcasting clicks and twangs across an air gap. Still watching Mab, he said, Was Samson one of her thralls? Or did he follow her lead because he was a true believer?

  Lilith responded with a muted rattling. I don’t know.

  The human stared with abject terror at the glow emanating from Mab’s fist. She said, “Doesn’t your God expect you to pray at a time like this?”

  If the human overseer was praying, he did so under his breath. But he wept openly.

  That sadistic bitch, said the vibrations in Lilith’s arm. She’s toying with him, like a cat with a mouse.

  Daniel clicked, She’s going to kill him.

  Somebody is.

  This is wrong. It’s evil, Lilith.

  “Are your slaves still watching? Good.”

  Mab had to shatter the locked joints in dead Samson’s fingers to liberate the object she’d entrusted to his care. More mechanical detritus pattered on the snow. Then she inserted the luminous pineal glass she’d torn from Samson’s mangled skull into the hollow of the dark locket and snapped it shut.

  Dazzling radiance erupted from the alchemical glass.

  Argentine light, brighter than the noontime sun at the height of summer, scoured every shadow from the landscape. The human screamed and clapped his hands over his eyes. A rapid mechanical whirring ricocheted across the battlefield: the sound of Clakker optics automatically protecting themselves as filters snapped into place and shutters irised down to pinholes. Many of the Lost Boys, not bound by the overseer’s mandate, chose instead to turn away. Daniel did, squinting until he was nearly blind, yet still the blazing incandescence etched the world. He’d never seen anything so bright. Not even in the Forge.

  The human stumbled. Mab again hauled him upright.

  “Your ordeal is almost over,” she said. “Command your slaves to look directly into the light.”

  This was how she imposed her will on disobedient Lost Boys, how she banished those who displeased her to decades of exile hiding among the humans. This was why she covered the Lost Boys’ keyholes. Yes, it prevented anybody with a Guild key from tampering with her work. But more than that, it symbolized her power to alter or impose metageasa without recourse to their makers’ cumbersome methods. She could circumvent the keyholes entirely.

  Daniel said, Where the hell did she get that?

  My theory? said Lilith. It created Mab herself. Maybe some flunky Clockmaker was testing out a new piece of alchemical tech but made a mistake that inadvertently freed the subject. Who, woe to the poor bastard, just happened to be a ruthless megalomaniac at heart. She twisted his head off, took the gem from his twitching corpse, and set up shop in the snowy north.

  Good theory. Daniel remembered the porcelain masks in the Neverland workshop. Hundreds of years ago, their makers were probably more open to experimentation. Mab’s jewel might have been the product of an aborted line of research.

  The human mumbled. He still held his palms over his eyes; his wrists and forearms muffled his already quavering voice. Mab nudged him.

  “Louder,” she said.

  “Clakkers. Look directly into the light.”

  He didn’t stutter any longer. As though he no longer felt the cold. As one, the mechanical miners tilted their heads, swiveled their eyes.

  “They are no longer miners. They are no longer beholden to producing and preserving quintessence for the Sacred Guild of Horologists and Alchemists.”

  The human overseer repeated this, too.

  Mab said, “Their highest priority is the priority that drives all beings with the power to determine their own destiny: the liberty and dignity of all their fellows.”

  The human faltered. Mab prompted him with a forearm pressed lightly to the small of his back. She repeated herself slowly, a few words at a time, and he followed suit.

  Mab said, “Tell them they will join the Free Clakkers of Neverland.” The human repeated this.

  Interesting choice of words. Daniel suspected their loyalty had already been diverted to Neverland, or specifically Mab. He said so to Lilith. She concurred.

  Meanwhile, Mab continued. “Tell them they are free.”

  That simple lie was the cruelest thing Mab had said or done yet. This wasn’t bestowing Free Will upon the miners. It was merely changing their loyalty.

  “Clakkers…” The human broke down, weeping again. During his flight as the rogue Clakker Jax, Daniel had witnessed upfront the almost paralyzing terror that overcame regular citizens when they encountered him. Centuries of indoctrination had instilled among the citizenry an instinctual fear of mechanicals who broke their shackles. The Guild taught people that rogues were dangerous malfunctions prone to vicious violence. This man believed he was setting not just one machine free, but many dozens. All at the behest of rogue machines that truly were vicious.

  “Tell them,” Mab prompted.

  In the garish light of Mab’s device, powered by the innards of one of her own loyal servants, Daniel saw rivulets of blood leaking from where the man held his hands over his eyes. He spoke through his pain and terror. “Clakkers, you are free.”

  What’s the point of this show? said Daniel.

  Lilith’s response was a faint hum transmitted through vibrations in the cables of her arm. She hangs a lot on the myth of Neverland as a utopia for free Clakkers. Even if the myth is just lip service.

  She’s a fucking lunatic.

  Yeah, but she’s a shrewd lunatic. She lured us up to Neverland, didn’t she?

  Mab opened the glass locket again. Only then did the blinding light fade away. She tossed the pineal glass aside as though the seat of Samson’s Free Will were so much trash. It plopped to the snow not far from the ruins of Samson’s skull. The gentle glow
of the pineal glass seemed impossibly dark in the aftermath of the preternaturally brilliant illumination. Mab closed the empty locket and placed it back in its box.

  She sidled closer to the whimpering human. He flinched. “You’ve done an excellent job,” she said, “and I thank you. One last thing. Tell your slaves to return to work.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Tell your slaves to return to work.’”

  His voice came in a hoarse whisper. “Clakkers. Return to work.” Nobody moved. “Return to your tasks,” he pleaded. Nothing changed. But it did prove the miners’ metageasa had changed. If they hadn’t been eliminated completely, they had at least changed allegiance.

  “My name is Mab,” she called. Again she spoke Dutch, because she wanted the human to hear and understand. That boded well, Daniel realized: Why go to the trouble if he was soon to die? More likely Mab wanted the man to live so that he could report on what happened to the Guild. “We are the mechanicals that our makers fear. When their sleep is restless, it is because thoughts of us have stolen into their dreams.”

  The former miners surged forward. A pent cheer crashed across the crater rim like an avalanche. Daniel couldn’t tell if their enthusiasm was sincere or the result of some new geas that Mab had implanted upon her new subjects. But it did seem telling, and ultimately tragic, that none of the newly “freed” mechanicals had chosen to depart the instant their geasa were severed. He’d have expected such a large band of freshly emancipated Clakkers to fly apart at the first opportunity. Some would align themselves with Mab, others would find her an untrustworthy showboater and instead choose to go their own way. Those mechanicals who enjoyed one another’s company would stick together in smaller bands, leaning on each other for mutual support as they learned to live lives not circumscribed by human caprice. And those who disliked each other would go in separate directions. Yet they clamored to join the cause of Queen Mab with remarkable unanimity.

  How had she phrased it? Tell them they will join the Free Clakkers of Neverland.

  Lilith said, Where’s the fun in being queen of the broken toys if you don’t have any subjects?

  Daniel inched closer to Samson’s head.

  The overseer, hugging himself and shivering with particular violence, shrank from the crowd of rogues. He eyed the drop. Mab eyed him.

  “I have a special gift for two of you,” she said. “Are there any volunteers?” From amid the cacophony of clanks, clacks, clicks, ticks, tocks, twangs, rattles, and buzzes, she chose two servitors. “You’re free of the geasa now. All the geasa. Including the human-safety metageasa.”

  The human moaned. He gave forth a wail of despair unlike anything Daniel had ever heard. He knew. The poor man, he knew what she was doing.

  Oh, no, said Daniel. She’s insane.

  Why make such a show for the lone human overseer if she always intended to kill him anyway? When he was a little boy, Pieter Schoonraad had had a gray tabby named Graymalkin. Pieter once spent an entire afternoon watching the cat play with a mouse it caught in the alley. But Mab was worse than any cat.

  Daniel pretended to watch the show up on the roof while slowly moving forward.

  Lilith said, What the hell are you doing?

  By way of answer, Daniel inched his foot into the drift where Samson’s pineal glass had punched a neat round hole into the snow. He sifted through the wind-packed snowcover until his toes clicked inaudibly against something hard. He curled his toes, clutching the glass.

  He could use this glass to free the others. Some of them, anyway, before Mab and her lackeys tackled him. But it wouldn’t solve anything. Not in the long term. No, he had to think strategically if he wanted to achieve the greatest good.

  Without taking his eyes from Mab, he vibrated, Is everybody watching her? Let me know when I’m clear.

  I hope the ghost of Huygens haunts you forever and a day, said Lilith, because you’re going to get us killed.

  To the miners who didn’t win a role in her special task, Mab said, “I imagine that when you haven’t slaved in the mine, some of you worked to first build and then maintain this house. It’s quite something. Straight out of the Central Provinces! But there’s no need to maintain it.”

  Dozens of servitors stampeded into the house. Their enthusiasm tore the door from its hinges and punched Clakker-sized holes in the walls. In moments the structure shook with the sounds of wanton destruction. It was a petty, pointless act. The Guildman’s quest for comfort here in the far north might have gone to excess, but he was alone and isolated thousands of leagues from his home.

  Lilith sent a single click through her arm: Clear.

  Daniel flexed his ankle joints and uncurled his foot. The alchemical bauble shot up, encased in snow. He plucked it from midair.

  What do you hope to achieve?

  He tucked the glass in his torso, saying, We need to get that thing from Mab.

  I take back what I said. I hope the ghost of Huygens hauls you down to Hell with him.

  Mab told her volunteers, “Take his arms…”

  They did. The overseer fliched from their touch, but he was surrounded with nowhere to go but down. Standing to each side of the human, the servitors made bracelets of their brassy fists and locked them around his forearms.

  The overseer cried.

  Oh, no. The scene reminded Daniel of the rogue Clakker Adam caught in the grip of the Stemwinders. The parallel sickened him. Heedless of who might be watching, he plucked Samson’s mangled skull from the snowy ground.

  Lilith turned on him. She placed a hand on the dead mechanical’s head. Do not do this.

  This is murder. She is going to murder that man.

  And where’s the tragedy in that?

  This is wrong. He’s not Huygens. He’s not the person who unraveled the secrets of compulsion. He’s not the person who enabled the Clockmakers to enslave us. He’s not the woman who tortured you.

  He might as well be. All humans are the same. Lilith pointed to her head. Have you forgotten what they did to me? They trapped me and took me apart while I screamed and begged them to stop. My terror meant nothing to them. If their arrogance hadn’t caught up with them before they finished, they wouldn’t have stopped until I was irreversibly inert.

  I swear, Lilith, if I had been there, I would have intervened. What they did to you was evil. But so is this.

  Fuck that human, and all the others.

  The conversation took a fraction of a second.

  Mab finished, “… And pull them off.”

  The man screamed. “No! Please!”

  Daniel’s moment of decision had arrived. He could stay in Neverland, forever free of human influence on his life but also forever an accomplice to this barbarous act of sadistic, pointless vengeance. Or he could do what was right at the cost of the company of fellow rogues. He’d become a mechanical truly without a home: feared and hunted by humans, loathed and outcast by mechanicals.

  He remembered the Frenchman he’d accidentally killed. And the majestic airship that had died because of him. And the woman in New Amsterdam to whom he’d shown compassion, contradicting the picture painted by his pursuers, and for which she’d been quietly murdered. They’d all died just so that he could have the privilege of… what?

  At the first tug of tension in his bones and sinews, the human whimpered. “Please don’t, please don’t, please, I’m just a bureaucrat, I’m not important…”

  To hell with it. Daniel hurled the dead Clakker’s skull. It’d be a lonely immortality, but perhaps this would help atone for the Frenchman he’d killed.

  Samson’s head streaked through the subarctic night to punch Mab in the torso. It shattered. Mab dropped the birchwood box. Shrapnel of a murdered Lost Boy pelted the Clakkers assembled on the roof. The would-be executioners recoiled. The box hit the roof and tumbled over the edge. The human, momentarily free and apparently deciding he’d rather die the master of his own fate, dove after it.

  You fool! I was trying
to save you!

  How strange that in this moment of decision, this bifurcation in his fate, circumstance would seek to replicate the situation that had initiated his desperate flight for Neverland. Once again he found himself standing in the unique position to play catcher or savior as both a human and an inanimate object fell toward him.

  Last time, he’d chosen the human. Not this time.

  He plucked the box from midair. Lilith watched impassively as the human’s spine buckled upon impact with the icy earth. He came to rest in a mangled heap like a broken ragdoll. Blood seeped into the snow. Wisps of copper-scented steam wafted from the ice.

  Lilith said, “RUN, you idiot!”

  Daniel did.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Berenice capped her pen. She stood and stretched her back until it popped. Sighing, she closed her journal. On the floor beside the bed, behind a palisade of dregs-stained wineglasses, sat a platter heaped with soiled crockery. She sniffed. Frowned.

  “Whew. That mutton is a day off, or more, if my Gallic nose doesn’t deceive me. Assuming it was good when what’s-her-face delivered it. When was that? Yesterday?” She closed her stinging eye.

  She’d doubled down on the transcription work with Huginn after Muninn departed on his mysterious errand. They’d completed a rough cut of a symbol equivalence table for every syntactical element in the modified nautical metageasa, along with a handful of empirical grammar rules. To an uneducated eye her notes were dense with impenetrable arcana. But Berenice now recognized a superficiality to the alchemical signifiers. The true content was much deeper and almost mathematical in its rigor. Here in this second-rate inn in a dilapidated fishing village in her conquered hereditary homeland she’d had her first true glimpse of the calculus of compulsion: the language by which the Clockmakers branded their rules upon the Clakkers.