“On a count of three,” Alice murmured, face pale, “we’ll climb out the back of the gondola, slide off the elephant’s back, and sneak to the rear to get Kemp.”
“Why?” Gavin demanded in a whisper. “What is it?”
“Look, but do it quick. In the center, a little to the left. What would be Ivana Gonta’s right-hand place at her table.”
Gavin poked his head just high enough over the parasol to get a look, then dropped back down behind it and the gondola wall. “Shit,” he said. “Shit shit shit.”
Sitting at the place Alice had described were three familiar figures: Simon d’Arco, Glenda Teasdale, and Lieutenant Susan Phipps.
Chapter Eleven
“Quick!” Gavin took Alice’s hand, and they slid down the elephant’s backside even as Dodd called forward the Great Mordovo, Magician Extraordinaire. The circus had spread throughout the courtyard, leaving a wide space in front in an impromptu ring. Gavin wove his way to the rear of the waiting performers, his heart in his mouth. Bonzini, the clown whose wig and nose Gavin had borrowed back in Luxembourg, gave him a quizzical look as the banqueters gave light applause to Mordovo’s first trick.
“Did she see us?” Alice asked. She clutched at the whistle hanging from its chain from around her neck.
“I doubt it. Phipps wouldn’t have let us get away if she had.”
At the back, near the closed gate, they found Kemp standing not far from the automaton guard in his guard house. He came forward when he saw Alice. The animal cages and other performers hid them from view. The people stood around, waiting quietly for their turn. It wasn’t the entire circus, just the performers whose acts didn’t require much in the way of setup—clowns, the magician, acrobats, animal acts both living and mechanical, horse girls, and the calliope. The latter played bright, happy music, which had the effect of covering noise and conversation. The acts themselves were silent, anyway. No traveling circus depended on an audience being able to hear or understand the language.
“Madam,” Kemp said, “I don’t think I approve of—”
“I know,” Alice said, “but it’s necessary.” She faced the guard and gave the handle of her parasol a single turn. “You. I need to talk to you.”
The automaton took a single step forward. “Peasants are not allowed to—”
Alice touched its chest with the end of her parasol. Electricity crackled. The guard sputtered and sparked while energy coruscated up and down its body. Then it went stiff and tipped over with small crash. The lion tamer and his wife turned and stared. Alice put a finger to her lips while Gavin extracted a tool kit from his rucksack. The smell of oil and feel of metal brought a strange taste to his mouth, and he felt the clockwork fugue descending on him. Very little mattered now except the machines. In no time at all, he had the automaton’s head off. Alice turned back to Kemp.
“Kemp,” she said.
“Madam,” he said with resignation.
Alice took up the tools herself and also removed Kemp’s head. The lights that made up his eyes glowed with indignation, but he didn’t speak. His black-and-white body remained eerily upright. Gavin swiftly unbuttoned the front of the guard’s jacket and shirt to expose and open the access panel, where he saw frozen pistons and unmoving gears. Automatically he traced the line of machinery. It was simple to understand, easy as reading a navigation chart, though a part of him was aware that only a few months ago it would have been a meaningless tangle to him. While Alice set Kemp’s head on the automaton’s neck, Gavin set to work resetting power. He was vaguely aware that Alice was touching his tools, and he didn’t like it.
“It’s not a perfect fit,” she muttered, “but it’ll do for now.”
“That’s my wrench,” he said shortly.
“It’s called a spanner,” she replied, “and you need to keep control, please. You’re not a mad clockworker. You’re Gavin Ennock, and you love me.”
Her words and voice penetrated the fugue and pulled him back a bit. He shook his head. “Right,” he said. “Sorry. Thanks.”
“I am not at all comfortable with this,” Kemp complained as they worked.
“It’s for a good cause.” Alice connected a set of wires and tightened two bolts. In the background, a lion roared over the music and the banqueters made Ooooo sounds. “That should do it. Can you start the body back up?”
In answer, Gavin cranked up the spark generator and released the spring.
“Oh!” Kemp’s eyes flickered. “Oh dear!”
“Are you functional?” Alice asked, helping him sit up.
“I-I-I-I b-b-believ-v-v-v-ve th-th-th-th-things a-a-a-a-a-a-a-are working at c-c-c-c-c-capacity, M-M-M-M-M-Madam.” Static overlaid his voice, and he spat out a string of Ukrainian words. “I a-a-a-a-a-am adj-j-j-j-j-j-j-justing m-m-m-m-m-my mem-m-m-m-mory wheels.”
“Try this.” Alice reached into his chest cavity with a screwdriver. Something crackled and she jerked her hand back with small oath. “Ow! Is that better?”
“M-much, Madam. Spaceeba.” Kemp got to his new feet, a little uncertain at first but quickly gaining confidence. “This body is much stronger than my own, and more agile. More advanced, disloyal to my creator as that sounds.”
Gavin’s stomach went into knots as he shoved Kemp’s body into the guard house and set the guard’s lifeless head on the floor with it. As a final touch, he put the guard’s helmet on Kemp’s head. “I really don’t like the fact that Phipps is here,” he growled. “It makes everything too suspicious. The Third Ward has very little influence in Ukraine, but she’s crafty enough to worm her way into the Gontas’ good graces and persuade Ivana to invite the circus into a trap. I just wonder if capturing Feng was her idea or just a lucky coincidence.”
“We can’t call this off,” Alice pointed out. “We have to find Feng.”
“I know,” Gavin said. “And it’s exactly the kind of thing Phipps would count on. Let’s go. Lead the way, Kemp.”
The trio skirted the back edge of the circus and, following the high stone wall, came around to one of the jutting wings of the huge mansion that surrounded the courtyard where the lions were currently performing through the calliope’s incessant hooting. The banqueters were alternately watching and eating and talking. Through the crowd, Gavin could make out Phipps’s ramrod figure sitting next to Ivana Gonta’s plump one on a shared divan. She was holding a crystal goblet in one hand and watching the lion tamer while Ivana talked to her. A polite, attentive smile creased Phipps’s face, and it looked completely wrong on her. She was wearing a scarlet dress uniform with a gold sash that Gavin had never seen before. At any moment, she might turn in their direction and see them. But then they made the corner of the house and she passed out of sight.
“That’s a relief,” Alice sighed. “Crossing that courtyard was like walking on hot knives.”
“We’re only getting started,” Gavin replied. They hurried alongside the house. The windows were small and thick, as if the builders were trying to maintain a fortress wall but had been forced to put glass into it. They finally came to a heavy door. Gavin tried it. Locked.
“Allow me, Sir.” Kemp extended a finger into the keyhole and twisted. The door opened with a click. Beyond was a wide foyer with a stone floor faced with a number of closed doors and a large archway through which Gavin could see quite a number of human servants rushing back and forth, presumably to wait on the banquet. The moment they crossed the threshold, a pair of automatons stationed on either side of the door, duplicates of the one at the gate, instantly sprang to life. Sabers hummed in their hands and one of them said something in Ukrainian.
“Kemp,” Alice said.
Kemp came forward. At the sight of the gate automaton’s body, the guards lowered their sabers and the humming sound stopped. Kemp spoke to them. Gavin held his breath. This had to work. If it didn’t, or if the guards shouted an alarm, an entire army of clockworkers would come down on their heads. Worse, Phipps would find them. Gavin kept his face impassive as Kemp
talked, and Gavin’s inability to understand the language became an agony. There was a terrible pause. Gavin’s blood sang in his ears and his mouth was dry as sand. Then the automatons nodded and returned to their stations. The trio stepped quickly past the foyer. Gavin’s legs went a little unsteady.
“Perfect,” Alice murmured, appearing completely unruffled. “Now where?”
Gavin made himself regain calm. “Down,” he said. “Clockworkers usually like nice, safe laboratories underground. Remember your aunt Edwina.”
“She had two such laboratories,” Alice agreed. “Which way?”
“If I may, Madam,” Kemp said. He led them through the enormous house. Gavin forced himself to stand upright and act as if he had every right to be there, though he wanted to scrunch down and creep through the house like a rat. It wasn’t just that he was here to steal away something—someone—that the Gontas no doubt saw as their property. It was also that he had spent his childhood in a tiny, crowded flat that in this house would probably fit into a closet. Everything here spoke of easy, intimidating wealth. Brass and gold fixtures were everywhere, along with heavy furniture of brocade and velvet. Bejeweled metal statues with a definite clockwork air occupied a number of niches. Even one of them would have kept his family going for a year back in Boston, and he felt an urge to snatch, even though he’d never stolen in his life. One of the statues in a room they passed but didn’t enter looked to be of the Virgin Mary, though her face was stern, and her robes were jagged, as if made of lightning bolts. Over her heart was a cog. Two automatons knelt before the statue, hands clasped. They murmured in monotone.
“What are they saying?” Alice whispered as they went by.
“One is praying for the soul of someone, a deceased person, Dmitro,” Kemp said. It was strange hearing his voice coming from a Ukrainian automaton. “The other is reciting prayers in penitence for sins committed by Ivana Gonta.”
“The Gontas use automatons to pray for them?” Alice said, aghast.
“I wonder if it works,” Gavin muttered.
“I wouldn’t know, Sir,” Kemp said. “This way.”
They passed many servants, both human and mechanical, and neither type gave them a second glance with Kemp leading the way. One woman with a large set of keys did pause to ask something of Alice, but Kemp spoke to her, and she went on her way before Gavin even had time to get uneasy.
“What was that about?” he asked, shifting the pack on his back.
“That was the head housekeeper, Sir. She wanted to know who Sir and Madam were,” Kemp said. “I told her I was giving a tour of the house to a pair of important people attached to Madam Gonta’s special guests.”
“You’re a treasure, Kemp,” Gavin told him.
“Sir.”
“Where are we going?” Alice said. “I’m lost already.”
“I’m seeing a pattern,” Gavin said before Kemp could respond. “Many of the automatons seem to be coming from one direction, so I’m assuming the entry to the lower level is down that hallway.”
“A memory wheel inside this body agrees with Sir,” Kemp said. “Madam and Sir have their choice of a lift or a staircase.”
“Staircase,” Alice said promptly. “A lift is a perfect little cage.”
In a marble foyer they found a double-wide lift, complete with iron gate that reminded Gavin of the one that descended to the dungeonlike cells where the Third Ward housed its captive clockworkers, no few of which Gavin himself had brought in with Simon d’Arco. Next to it was an archway opening onto a staircase that spiraled downward out of sight. Two guard automatons drew their sabers and rapped out orders in Ukrainian.
“They won’t let anyone go down those stairs, Madam,” Kemp said. “Only members of the Gonta family may do so.”
“I see.” Alice stepped forward smartly and touched the guard’s saber with the tip of her parasol. A spark snapped and Gavin smelled ozone. The guard stiffened. Alice’s parasol flicked like a sword at the other guard, who parried it with the saber, but the touch was all Alice needed. The spark snapped, and the second guard went still. Alice straightened her hat, pushed a tendril of honey-brown hair out of her eyes, and caught Gavin looking at her.
“What?” she said.
Gavin was grinning from ear to ear. “You are remarkable, you know that? How many other women could fence with a pair of automatons and win?”
“Oh.” Alice looked flustered. “Probably not many.”
“And I’m glad.” He impulsively kissed her cheek. “God, I love you.”
“If Madam and Sir are quite ready,” Kemp said. “Someone may come at any moment.”
“How much time do we have?” Alice asked, still blushing a little.
“We have been in the house for thirteen minutes,” Kemp replied. “The circus was contracted for an hour’s performance, leaving us forty-seven minutes.”
Quickly, they posed the deactivated automatons in their original positions. Alice told Kemp to stay behind and run interference if necessary as she and Gavin headed down the stairs. The stairs, lit by a series of electric lights, twisted downward for a long, long time, and Gavin wondered how they’d manage the trip back up without using the lift, especially if they had to carry Feng.
Assuming he’s still alive, he thought, and then quashed the idea. Feng had to be alive. He would be alive. And unharmed. Ivana hadn’t held him prisoner for very long, and she must have been busy planning the banquet. Not much time to play with a new… acquisition.
They reached the bottom of the steps and emerged from the stairwell. Alice stopped dead and Gavin whistled under his breath.
“Good heavens,” Alice murmured. “What will we do?”
The space beyond was cavernous, easily large enough to store four full-sized dirigibles, in Gavin’s estimation. Worked stone arched up and away, several stories high. Rows of columns that looked too thin to hold up the ceiling—and the house above it—reached upward like graceful fingers. Staircases, ramps, doorways, and balconies studded the walls, as if a small city had exploded inside the giant room. More than forty hulking mechanicals two, three, and four times the height of a man and many times broader stood motionless on the main floor. One of them was Ivana’s giant bird. The cage that made up its head hung open and empty.
Gavin felt an urge to examine the machines more closely. The clockwork plague tugged at him, and his fascinated eye measured slopes and angles, calculated area, felt volume. Forges hissed from beyond the balconies, putting out thousands of calories in heat. The sharp smell of molten metal tanged the air, and the wrenching scream of it when it hit cold water bounced and echoed. Spiders scurried across every surface, and whirligigs whooshed through the empty spaces. Most of them carried bits of machinery or wicked-looking weapons. Electric lights lit everything, as did the red glow of coals emanating from the balconies. No actual people were visible, which both puzzled and relieved Gavin. In a flash of clockwork insight, he understood that the Gonta clockworkers didn’t spend much—or any—time out on the main floor, but worked in private laboratories that opened onto it. The clanking, hissing forges called to him, and the tiny laboratories on the Lady and in the Black Tent suddenly felt cramped and primitive. Here was a place where a man could work. Certainly there would be a vacant workroom somewhere in all this. In fact, he needed only to listen for empty space to find one. He could already feel the tools, see the machinery come to life under his hands. His fingers curled into fists and he started forward.
“What on earth is that?” Alice exclaimed.
Alice’s voice sliced through the terrible need, and it faded. Gavin shook his head hard. “What’s what?”
She pointed. “There.”
Gavin followed the line of her finger. Along one wall was a row of cages with square bars, ten cages at a fast count. Inside each was a child. Some were boys, some were girls. All were under the age of twelve, some were as young as three or four. They sat or squatted within the bars, eyes listless and downcast. Each had a dog bow
l of water.
“Good heavens,” Alice whispered. “Oh, Gavin.”
Gavin felt sick again. He didn’t resist when Alice took his hand and pulled him over to the horrible enclosures. Some of the children looked up and scuttled backward in fear. Most didn’t respond. A girl in a tattered gray dress reminded Gavin of his sister Violet back in Boston, and it made him want to tear the cages free of the walls.
“We have to get them out,” he said. “Now.”
“Look at that one,” Alice said, “and that. Their faces are flushed and their lips are cracked. It’s the clockwork plague.” She held up her spider gauntlet, whose eyes were glowing red. “I need to help them. I’ll cure them and we’ll take them out.”
Gavin hesitated. He glanced around the great room uneasily, feeling torn and not a little helpless. “Alice, how are we going to get them out of here?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We can probably get these cages open with minimal work,” Gavin said reluctantly, “but what then? How will we get all these children upstairs and past all the people and automatons in the house and over the wall outside? We’ll get caught, the children will end up back in here, and everyone will be worse off.”
Alice’s expression darkened and she looked like she wanted to argue. Then she nodded once, hard. “You’re right of course. But we’ll find a way later.”
“We will,” he agreed.
“And I can still do this.” She reached through the bars with her gauntleted hand and scratched one of the sick children before he could shy away. He barely whimpered, though he did shuffle to the rear of his cage, the scratches dripping blood. The others, seeing this, also drew back out of reach.
“Poor things,” Alice said. “I wish I spoke Ukrainian so I could explain what’s going on. At least the first one will infect the others with the cure.”
One of the children began to cry, and Gavin caught something that sounded like “Mama.” In that moment, Gavin nearly violated the good sense he had just quoted to Alice. He had to force himself to avoid tearing at the cages with his bare hands. His rubbed at his face and realized his cheek was wet with salt water. Damn it. He had been beaten half to death by pirates, locked in a tower by a madwoman, and infected with a disease that was killing him by inches, but this brought a tear to his eye?
The Impossible Cube Page 21
