The Impossible Cube

by Steven Harper

  “Don’t,” Alice said.

  “But she really—”

  “I said don’t,” Alice said again, and her voice floated to the high ceiling. She repositioned her backpack. “Monsignor Adames, I have a cure for the clockwork plague, and one of the people I helped told me to come here.”

  “A cure?” Adames repeated. “I don’t understand.”

  “Her touch cures the clockwork plague,” Feng said.

  “Her touch,” he echoed, then gave a small laugh. “I’m sorry if I seem doubtful, but… well, I’m doubtful. I believe in the holy miracles, including the ones that founded this very church, but—”

  “I play the fiddle,” Gavin interrupted, “and I sing.”

  Monsignor Adames fell silent. Then he said slowly, “There are rumors. I’ve heard of a beautiful woman with a sword and an angel with a golden voice who appear to cure the afflicted at night and who are pursued by brass demons during the day. I thought they were nothing but desperate stories from people who want comfort. But now…”

  “How can we help?” Alice asked.

  Adames hesitated only a moment. “This way.” He caught up a candle from the statue’s feet and led them to a door behind one of the carved, earth-colored pillars lining the cathedral. A tight spiral staircase twisted downward. Adames pulled back the skirts of his robe with his free hand and held up the candle with the other to light the way as they descended.

  “You’re an angel?” Feng said to Gavin on the stairs. “May I be the one to write your family about that? Please?”

  At the bottom was a stone passageway, low and cramped. The top of Gavin’s backpack brushed the ceiling. Soot from thousands of ancient candles streaked the walls. Damp darkness pressed in from all sides, hushing Gavin’s footsteps. A number of alcoves and rooms opened at regular intervals, some with doors on them and some without. Adames led them to one alcove, and pressed against the back wall. It turned on an axis, and he ducked through the opening, motioning for them to follow.

  The large room beyond was fitted out as a hospital ward. Iron bedsteads lined the walls, and about twenty patients lay in them, some asleep, some twitching or moaning softly. Gavin automatically pulled back from the smell of sickness in the place, then forced himself to enter. One corner was set up with cupboards and tables covered with medical equipment and supplies. Washtubs and buckets held both water and effluvia waiting to be disposed of. Lamps hung on the walls to provide soft light. A woman in a nun’s habit bustled over, and Gavin realized with a start that she was an automaton. The habit hid her body, but her face was metallic, as were her hands.

  “Vater,” she said quizzically, “wer sind denn diese Leute?”

  “English, Berta, if you please,” he said. “I don’t think our guests speak German. Are there any changes?”

  “Some.” Berta’s voice buzzed slightly, and the grill that made up her mouth didn’t move when she spoke. “Clarissa has become worse. I fear she won’t last the night.”

  Adames crossed himself. “Perhaps we can help now.”

  “Monsignor!” Alice said. “I thought the Catholic Church strictly forbade human automatons.”

  “That’s why we keep everyone down here,” he said blandly. “Berta can minister to our patients without catching the disease herself or passing it on to others, and she doesn’t require rest. I’m trusting you and God to keep the secret. We are the only hospital in Luxembourg for those afflicted by the plague.”

  “Is it not against priestly vows to disobey your Pope?” Feng asked.

  “It wouldn’t look good on our application to be declared a cathedral,” Adames admitted. “And if the Pope learns of it, we will forever remain a church, and I will never become an archbishop.”

  “It’s still a sin,” Alice said. “How do you reconcile that?”

  “We sin when we miss the mark of perfection,” Adames replied. “None of us can hit that mark, and we can only ask forgiveness from he who managed it. My heart tells me I’m doing the right thing, however imperfect it may be.”

  “They all have the clockwork plague?” Gavin asked quietly.

  Adames nodded. “Most of them die, but we save a few.”

  “And the ones who become zombies?” Alice asked.

  “It’s hard.” Adames looked away. “I have Berta put them in the catacombs, and she leaves food out until the plague takes them. A number of them come in from the street as well. They seem to understand that we will feed them at least a little.”

  “This explains why we saw none on our way over,” Feng put in.

  “It’s difficult to come up with enough food for everyone without arousing suspicion,” Adames concluded.

  Alice pulled off her glove and put her left hand on Adames’s arm. The spider’s eyes glowed green. “You don’t have the plague,” she said.

  He looked down at the spider with a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty. “I wouldn’t, no. I caught it as a child and survived.” He pulled back the sleeve on his robe, revealing a scarred, withered arm. Alice’s face tightened, and Gavin knew she was remembering her father, also scarred by the clockwork plague. “My mother said I owed God, so I entered the priesthood.”

  One of the patients cried out in pain from her bed. Berta turned, but Alice pushed past her. “Gavin, I want you with me. Please?”

  Gavin shrugged out of the heavy backpack, set the whip down, and accepted his fiddle case from Alice. While he was taking the fiddle out, something occurred to him. “Alice, when did you last sleep?”

  “I caught a few hours when you were in that fugue state in the train car,” she said absently, bending over the first bed. “Just play for me. It’s all the rest I need.”

  He played, and Alice led him around the room. She drew back white sheets and slashed each patient as gently as she could, spraying a bit of her own blood into the wounds while Gavin spilled liquid harmony from the strings. With Adames in the room, he felt nervous, pressured to play without making a mistake, even though he was sure the priest would never notice.

  I once had a heart as good as new

  But now it’s gone from me to you.

  For a moment he was somewhere else. His mother was sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby in her lap, and the man with pale hair—his father—was teaching Gavin a song. The fingers that pressed against the familiar strings felt tiny, and the gut bit into them. “Keep trying. Once day, you’ll play better than your old man, but only if you do better.”

  The moon picked you from all the rest

  For I loved you best.

  Where had his father gone? Was he dead? Had he run away? But why? He wanted answers, though the questions had only recently come to him. Maybe the plague was awakening old memories, or maybe he just wanted to remember now, painful as it was. Other longings rushed in, filled him like water in cupped hands. He wanted to hear his father’s voice, touch his hand, be a son instead of a grandson, protégée, or cabin boy.

  The memory faded, though he continued playing. Once his bow quivered and he made a mistake. A note—F—came out with a squeak, far below proper pitch. Gavin’s face went hot. He corrected and moved on as if nothing had happened. Had Adames noticed? Had Alice? Or even Feng? None of them reacted. Gavin continued to playing, forcing himself to concentrate harder. By the time Alice got to the last patient, the first one was sitting up and speaking. Berta hurried over with a cup of water.

  “Incredible,” Adames breathed. “Dear Lord, it is a miracle. The Consolatrix come to life.”

  Feng surreptitiously wiped at his eyes. “That was the saddest I have ever heard you play.” Gavin gave him a wan smile. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed the error, then. Still, he felt a little sick. It was stupid, he knew, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching, counting up every mistake, and one day he would be called to account for them.

  “Now, take me to the catacombs,” Alice said, but she was weaving.

  Gavin put his fiddle in its case. “You can barely stand. How much
blood have you given up in the last two days?”

  She hesitated. “The jar, then,” she said. “In my pack.”

  Feng set a stool behind her, and she sank onto it while Gavin pulled the jar from her pack without bothering to remove it from her back first. The fireflies glowed faintly within the glass.

  “You rest,” Gavin said. “Let Berta bring you something to eat. Monsignor Adames can take me to help the zombies.”

  Leaving Alice under Feng’s watchful eye, Gavin followed the priest out the pivoting door and down a short flight of steps. “The catacombs are almost directly under the altar,” Adames said, brandishing his candle. “When I conduct Mass, I sometimes wonder how the parishioners would respond if they knew what lies beneath their feet. Prepare yourself, my son.”

  He pulled open a thick door. It exhaled air heavy with rot and fear. Gavin let the darkness swallow him as they moved inside, though the fireflies provided pale green light. Niches carved into the walls like short beds held dry skeletons, many with ragged cloth still clinging to them. Some clutched rosaries in yellowed fingers while the skulls stared eyelessly at the ceiling, the leavings of death. Gavin shrank away from them, not wanting to touch. He felt like an intruder, one who would be caught and thrown out by some monstrous gatekeeper at any moment. He followed Adames’s candle down a side passage until he heard shuffling footsteps ahead. Bones clattered with a sound that crawled over Gavin’s skin. Ahead, he saw the passage widen, and a shadowy group of zombies huddled in the dark. They shielded their eyes from the candle with ragged arms and groaned like a choir of uneasy spirits. Two of them lay sprawled on the floor, motionless. Dead. Gavin flinched at the sight. If they had arrived a day ago, an hour ago, a minute ago, could they have been saved? There was never enough time. If only there was a way to make more.

  Gavin thought about what Adames had said as they entered the catacomb. He saw wealthy ladies in silk skirts and gentlemen in fine coats, their stomachs filled with a good breakfast prepared by paid servants. They spoke in hushed voices and smiled quietly to one another, their soft faces scrubbed pink, while below them moaned hungry, sick people.

  “What can you do for them?” Adames asked.

  The priest’s voice pulled Gavin back—he had nearly fallen into another fugue. With an embarrassed cough, he stepped farther into the bone room, opened the gleaming jar, and waved a dozen of the fireflies out of it. They streaked through the darkness and landed on some of the zombies.

  “What are they?” the priest asked.

  “I’m not completely sure,” Gavin said. “Alice’s aunt made them. They spread the cure, and anyone they bite spreads the cure as well. Alice’s cure works faster, but she’s not strong enough to help everyone. How will they get out once they’re better?”

  One of the zombies reached a tentative hand toward Adames, who handed it a chunk of bread from his pocket. The creature fumbled to accept it and eat. “The same way they get in—through the graveyard. There’s an entrance in one of the mausoleums. Are you sure this will . . ?”

  “Yes.” He looked around, feeling suddenly uneasy. “I think we should get back to—”

  A crash thundered through the catacomb and vibrated the very stones. The candle danced in Adames’s hand. Gavin swore.

  “They found us!” he said.

  Adames was already heading for the door. “Who?”

  “The brass demons. We have to run!”

  They met Feng and Berta at the spiral staircase. Berta had Gavin’s backpack, and a worried-looking Feng was half carrying Alice. Gavin cursed himself for letting her push herself so hard. Another crash thundered overhead. Wordlessly Gavin yanked on the battery backpack, slapped the whip onto his belt, and snatched Alice out of Feng’s arms. The clockwork plague roared through him, and he barely noticed her weight as he bundled her up the stairs. She clutched the firefly jar to her chest.

  At the top, he burst out of the transept and into the crossing of the cathedral, the enormous open space just in front of the altar where the Consolatrix stood on her crescent moon. Two of the priceless stained glass windows, one on each of the long walls of the nave, had been shattered, and the confessional booths standing beneath them were smashed to flinders, crushed beneath stomping metal feet. Standing in the nave, the echoing pillared hall where the congregation gathered for services, were the two mechanicals, their glass bubbles gleaming like captured moons. In front of them was Lieutenant Phipps. Her brass monocle stared coldly about the pale brown chamber.

  “How did you find us?” Alice gasped.

  “The good father’s secret hospital isn’t as secret as he likes to think,” Phipps said in a scornful tone. “The Ward has known of it for quite some time. It was just a matter of watching until you showed up with your cure—as you did.”

  “This is a house of God!” Adames roared, and before Gavin could stop him, he rushed forward to confront Phipps. One of the mechanicals—Glenda—leaned forward and almost casually knocked him aside. Adames slammed into a pillar and slid moaning to the stony floor.

  “N shì shénme d ngxi!” Feng exclaimed.

  A chill rage fell over Gavin, burning away all other emotion. “Why?”

  “You are criminals,” Phipps said through tight teeth. “You released a doomsday weapon and broke a dangerous clockworker out of custody. You are a menace to society, and I will bring you to justice.”

  “We don’t want to hurt you, Gavin,” Simon said. “Just… just come, all right? You’ll get a fair trial.”

  “Why did you hurt the priest?” Gavin’s voice was level and deadly. “He helped more people in one day than your Empire has in a hundred years.”

  “I’m not here to debate, Ennock. You’re under arrest.”

  The lieutenant dipped into her pockets and came up with the tuning forks. Time slowed. Gavin saw the length of the metal forks, heard the creak of the mechanicals’ joints, felt the weight of the cathedral ceiling high above. His hand moved smoothly down—impulses contracted muscle, shortened tendons, curled fingers—and came up with the whip. He stepped forward and swung. The lash sliced through the air. He saw the individual currents split and eddy away as the braid hissed them to pieces. At precisely the right moment, Gavin flicked his arm and the lash changed direction. Air swirled like water, and the tip of the lash broke an invisible barrier. Sound cracked as the tip flicked across the fork in Phipps’s right hand. The fork shattered. Phipps cried out and jumped back.

  “Get Alice out of here,” Gavin barked over his shoulder at Feng.

  “What are you waiting for?” Phipps snarled at Simon and Glenda. “Grab them! Grab her!”

  “No.” With one hand, Gavin drew his glass cutlass. With the other, he pressed the whip’s power switch. Blue energy flowed along the lash. He slashed the air, leaving a sizzling azure trail. “You won’t get past me.”

  Glenda’s mechanical lunged for him, but Gavin heard the pistons hiss, saw the machine’s posture change, felt the tiny shift of air, and he was already moving. He whirled the lash and struck the mechanical’s arm. Sparks flew where the braided alloy touched brass, sending a small jolt up Gavin’s arm, but the cut was clean. The arm thudded to the stone floor. Before Glenda could react, Gavin swung again, catching the mechanical at the shin. The mechanical, caught in midstep, lurched forward, leaving the lower part of one leg behind. She stumbled, fell sideways, and crashed into a pillar. It cracked, and bits of it crumbled. Glenda crashed face-first to the ground. Her glass bubble shattered, and Gavin caught the tail end of her scream. The cold anger, however, let him feel no mercy or remorse. Behind Gavin, Feng was hauling Alice toward one of the side alcoves and an exit, the firefly jar still in her hands.

  Simon raised his mechanical’s hand. The fingers clicked together into a gun barrel. He fired something over Gavin’s head with a whump that thudded hard against Gavin’s eardrums. The munition smashed into a pair of statues over the alcove and shattered them. Chunks of stone fell in front of the alcove entrance, throwing up a ch
oking cloud of dust and blocking any exit. Alice cried out, and Feng pulled back.

  “Don’t touch her, Simon!” Gavin snarled. A skin of black ice encased his heart, and he flicked the lash, but Simon’s mechanical was out of range.

  Phipps pointed a metal finger at Gavin. He heard the tiny fft, and barely brought up the glass cutlass in time to catch the dart. It shattered on the tempered glass.

  “You’ve lost your edge, Susan,” he said evenly. “I’m not a piece of street trash anymore. I’m a clockworker now, more dangerous than you can understand.”

  “And more arrogant,” she said. “I’ve captured dozens of your kind, boy, some who wanted to destroy the world. Mere pirate toys don’t measure up.”

  With that, she leaped at him, faster than a human should have moved. It caught Gavin by surprise, and then she was inside the circle of the lash, where the whip couldn’t touch her. Her metal arm batted aside Gavin’s glass cutlass and she gut-punched him with the other hand. The air burst from him, but he didn’t feel pain. Not yet. He grabbed her wrist (ninety-seven pounds of pressure), twisted upward (joint bending at 110 degrees), and planted his foot behind hers. To his left (nine feet, five inches), the cutlass clattered on the floor. With a flick, he brought his foot up to upset Phipps—

  —but she was already gone, leaping backward and away. She snapped her metallic left hand open, and a lash of her own snaked out of the palm. Gavin slapped it aside with the lash, and only then—

  “Gavin! Look out!”

  —did he realize it was a diversion. Simon’s mechanical stepped forward and almost delicately grabbed Gavin’s backpack. With easy strength he hoisted Gavin aloft. Simon’s face looked pale through the glass. Gavin swung the lash as his feet dangled over empty air. The whip wrapped around Simon’s forearm, but the blue glow flickered and died, drained of power.

  “No,” he whispered.

  “You’re mine, Ennock,” Phipps said from below.

  “Actually, he’s mine, Susan,” Alice called from beside the half-conscious Glenda amid the wreckage of the mechanical. With a deft motion, she spun a clockwork gear through the air at Simon. It trailed a pair of wires from Glenda’s machinery. Simon twisted in his chair in time to see, but not to react. The gear clanged against his mechanical’s shoulder. Electricity snapped and sparked. Ladders of it arced up and down the mechanical’s body, and inside it, Simon convulsed and shuddered. Gavin, who wasn’t touching metal, felt nothing. The mechanical’s fist opened, and Gavin dropped to the ground as Simon and his mechanical collapsed noisily to the cathedral floor. The backpack smashed Gavin flat, knocking the breath out of him just as Phipps’s punch had.