The Clockwork Fairy Kingdom

by Leah Cutter

  Everything they’d said had fit his dad.

  However, Nora didn’t see it. Dad also hadn’t picked on her as much. Or when he had, she’d put him down in return. That was another thing Dale wouldn’t tell his sister: how much he admired her. “And no, you can’t call him,” he said, cutting her off.

  “It’s his birthday at the end of the month!”

  “Send a card to Grandma. Have her forward it.”

  Nora nodded slowly. “I could do that.”

  “Just don’t call. And don’t tell him where we are.”

  “But maybe if Mom and Dad talked—”

  “No.”

  “She never gave him a chance to tell his side!”

  “What part of ‘I’ll kill you if you try to divorce me’ should she listen to?” Dale asked, fuming.

  “But—”

  “No, Nora. Now just shut up for a second. Let me concentrate.” Dale used tweezers to move a delicate wire from one gear to a different one, then carefully coiled a spring. When he let it go, the flywheel spun on its own.

  The lights went out.

  “Damn it!” Dale said. “I hate this place.” The electricity went out on a regular basis. Even their cell phones only worked half the time.

  “Nor—do you remember where my penlight was?” Dale asked, patting the ground on either side.

  “Why? Afraid of the dark?” Nora teased.

  “No, I just like to see,” Dale complained. He wouldn’t tell her that he was a little frightened. It was so dark out here and they had no close neighbors. He turned and felt behind him, searching for the familiar shape.

  A light came on near Nora.

  “Did you find…” Dale let his question die.

  The little piece of machinery had kept turning and now glowed with a cool blue light.

  “Kids?”

  “We’re in here, Mom,” Nora called out before Dale could stop her.

  “Shhh,” Dale hissed. He finally grabbed his flashlight and tried to turn it on. When it didn’t light immediately, he tried a second, then a third time. Finally it lit up.

  The light from the machine softly faded.

  “Come on,” Dale said, standing.

  Mom appeared in the doorway. “Looks like candles and cards,” she said. She held a small flashlight as well.

  Nora turned to Dale. He knew what she was asking, and nodded. Mom needed them. It wasn’t like he’d be able to get any more work done, anyway.

  Dale closed the door to his room as he walked out, then grabbed Nora’s arm. “Don’t tell her about the machine,” he hissed.

  “Duh,” Nora said, pulling away. “You still owe me,” she reminded him.

  Dale grinned. Sometimes his sister was all right.

  ***

  Anger kept Queen Adele’s backbone ramrod straight through her husband Thaddeus’ funeral. She shed no tears behind her black lace veil; rage had burned them all away. Now, at the end of the ceremony, she stood on a makeshift platform supported by wooden scaffolding, above the white marble staircase leading into the depths of the hill and the catacombs.

  By watching over the proceedings from a high vantage point, Adele’s presence was meant to reassure her people of the continuation of her rule. She wanted to comfort them any way she could: though her loss was great, theirs was, too. She’d lost a husband, but they’d lost their king.

  Gray tombstones dotted the hill behind the queen. They fanned out on either side, crowding out any flowers that might have bloomed or brightened the graveyard. They’d lost so many fairies in this strange new land.

  Adele watched the funeral procession wind its way from the temple and through the village toward her. Like all things magical, her underground kingdom had three focal points: the golden temple in the East for birth, the graveyard in the West for death, and the dark brick palace, to the North, for order and life. Far above them, the dugout ceiling emulated the night sky and twinkled with half the light that normally shone there, another sign of what they’d lost.

  The two other important locations in the kingdom stood empty that day: the fields beyond the temple and the factory behind the graveyard. Tradition insisted that no one in the kingdom work for at least three days. Adele had given the order easily, though she’d hoped that the servant caste would do some work with the time off. From where she stood, she could see thatched roofs that needed repair, broken carts and rubbish blocking smaller streets, as well as abandoned areas of the village falling into decay. She’d heard the complaints: The servants were too busy working in the factory for simple maintenance. Too busy drinking and complaining, was what she thought.

  Six warriors carried Thaddeus’ body, including Bascom, their chief. Although Thaddeus had been born into the royal caste, Adele came from the warrior caste, so the warriors claimed him as their own. Each warrior had one or more of Thaddeus’ clockwork pieces imbedded into his or her flesh, such as a jeweled eye, a mechanical hand, or a piston-like leg. The warriors had shocked the court by arriving at the funeral wearing only loincloths, cloaks, and their fiercest paint. The younger royals had tittered nervously at such a frightening display. Adele had immediately quelled all dissent. The warriors honored Thaddeus as one of their own by their appearance. Too many in the court had forgotten how fierce a people they’d once been. The royal caste no longer bred tall and true.

  The only nod to current convention Adele had given was to instruct the warriors to do their bloodletting in the privacy of the tomb, after the others had left. Not all approved of, or wanted to honor, their cannibalistic past.

  Following the warriors came the contingent of royals from a fairy kingdom to the south, a place they called the Silicon Kingdom, after some human reference. They towered over the warriors, thin and ghostlike. They had arrived unannounced, three days before Thaddeus’ death, seeking an alliance. Adele didn’t trust them. Fairies met only in battle, or afterwards, paying tribute. She assumed they’d come to find the weaknesses of her kingdom. They wore traditional garb: white glittering scarves flowing from their wings, silver skirts, and pale blue jackets.

  Thaddeus’ apprentices and journeymen, led by Cornelius—Adele’s best friend and closest confidant—trailed after them. Adele found their somber, black silk coats, heavy brocade waistcoats, and white shirts comforting. Goggles, perched one on top of another, sat on the crowns of their hats. A number of gears and delicate tools hung from their pocket-watch chains. Many pouches bulged on their belts.

  Adele’s own clockwork wings stirred, the familiar ache of metal-on-bone flavoring her anger with fear. She’d refused all help, even her regular oiling and polishing, since Thaddeus’ death. None of Thaddeus’ underlings was worthy of her patronage. Not that Thaddeus hadn’t trained them well. All of them could copy a piece, once he’d explained to them, as well as fix almost anything out of improvised and scavenged parts. None of them had that spark to create, though, to design new machinery. Many had never passed the final apprentice test: creating their own gear-cutting tools.

  As the first of the warriors disappeared under the ground beneath Adele, she let out the traditional loud wailing cry of mourning. Everyone in the court joined her, as well as the servants massed behind them, their shrieks bouncing off the cliffs and rocks, rising to the dugout roof above them, echoing through the vast underground kingdom.

  Adele still refused to weep. The fierceness of her continued howling served two purposes: to show her broken heart, as well as to serve as a warning to that thrice-damned dwarf, Kostya. He would pay.

  ***

  After the entombment, Adele walked restlessly from one waiting room to the next. Cornelius trailed behind her like a sad cloud. She couldn’t blame him; he worried about her. They all were. The somberly dressed court sat in clusters on backless couches, their wings drooping with mourning, their eyes hooded and darting, not having the courage to speak with her and risk her anger. Servants, also in black, walked between them, serving chilled moonbeam wine. The southern contingent had been poli
tely directed to different rooms.

  The brightly painted, unmatched walls of the waiting rooms further set Adele’s nerves on edge, and her rage continued to build. Everyone in the fairy kingdom had forgotten how they’d once been. They should be tearing their clothes or destroying everything around them in rage, not politely talking in whispers. She ached to see how far they’d fallen.

  Only the priests broke the solid collection of fine black mourning-frocks. The priest of Anabnus, the sun god, wore brilliant yellow robes; while the priestess of Clotana, the moon goddess, wore only a white skirt, with glitter covering her torso and breasts. Matching streamers decorated their wings and floated in the air behind them. The priests eschewed all clockwork and followed even older ways, without gears or mechanics, as the southern court appeared to. Adele didn’t want to go all the way back to the bad old days. She’d grown up in the country, barefoot and dirt poor. She appreciated running water, clean clothes, and soft sheets. The priests didn’t present a threat, though; they came from the smaller servant caste and would follow her lead as they always had.

  Cornelius finally got Adele to stop for a moment in the far room, where few had gathered. The green walls reminded Adele of slime-covered water.

  “You need to rest,” he told her sternly, bending his gray head toward her. Most fairies never showed their age, and Cornelius wasn’t that old. He’d just gone gray as a young man. Adele had teased him that he thought too much. He wore a black-on-black striped vest with matching pants, and a blinding white shirt under his dark coat. Rings with precious rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other gems covered every finger. “You can talk with me, if you need to. He was my best friend as well.” As the Master Jeweler to the kingdom, he’d worked closely with Thaddeus, the Master Tinker.

  “Not—not yet. I can’t,” Adele confessed. She winced as her wings moved. A gear had slipped out of place on her left one, making the mechanism that opened them grind.

  “At least let me take care of those for you.”

  Finally Adele nodded. “Later tonight.” She looked around. The servants were now serving the cold mourning tea. “Help me escape,” she whispered. Her own petticoats and underskirts chafed her. At least she’d been able to remove her veil. Looking through it gave her the impression that everything was dirty. She longed to be as free as the warrior she’d once been, screaming and stomping her feet in anger, stripped bare of gown and corset. She consoled herself that soon she’d lead the raid against Kostya. He’d die more honorably than her husband, who had been killed with a booby trap while exploring one of the deep tunnels. Only the dwarf would have set such a trap.

  Cornelius pressed a finger against his nose in thought, and then nodded. “All right.” He blew on his cupped hands. A gray cloud filled his palms, wispy and light, then gained weight. He stretched the tendrils out, like a spinner carding wool, until a fine net was strung between his fingers. With great care he lifted it until it hung like a gossamer veil over Adele’s dark hair. It shimmered briefly, then faded from sight.

  “Thank you, old friend,” Adele said, briefly squeezing Cornelius’ arm before slipping out. Few fairies had the power to hide from each other. Some in the court didn’t trust Cornelius because of the strength of his magic, but Adele knew he always had her best interests in mind.

  Adele first went to her rooms, cast off the illusion, and then changed into working clothes: white overalls and a tight-fitting shirt. Her maid Clarissa sniffed in disapproval, but didn’t say anything. Then Adele went down back corridors and stairs, her bare feet moving silently over dusty wood and brick. All the servants she passed looked down and away, maintaining the illusion that she moved unseen, as the servant class frequently did for the royals. Many of the back halls weren’t lit, but Adele easily called a will-o’-the-wisp to dance beside her, bobbing and circling, lighting her way.

  Bright lights filled the machine room. Thaddeus’ greatest creation dominated the center of it. Adele walked slowly around it, then spread her wings and continued her circling, going higher and higher. She could identify only the major pieces: the mainspring, the four pallet levers, the primary motion works, and some of the balances. So much of it went beyond her, as well as Thaddeus’ assistants. That was partly through design; no one was supposed to know what their master created.

  The machine had been the main component in Adele’s plan to bring her people out of the shadows and into the world again. All the resources of the kingdom had been funneled into its creation. It had taken them decades to get to this point. So close.

  Electronics hurt Adele’s people. One of the clockworkers had tried to explain about waves and magnets, but Adele didn’t care. This modern world repelled her, literally. She was tired of retreating. She and Thaddeus had finally come up with a plan for fighting back. The smaller-scale models he’d created had been successful. Powered partly by magic, partly by machine works and cranks, they could stop all electronics, but only in a limited area.

  Adele wanted to kill them, all of them, for miles and miles. Then she and her people could rise from the ground, return to being the fierce hunters they’d once been. Not only the warrior caste would fight. All of them would return to their former glory, be as they’d once been. It was her fondest wish. They’d drive the humans out, then move east, send their machines ahead of them, and take back their world.

  Of course the humans would fight. Adele was certain her people would remember their skill at killing once they tasted human flesh again.

  However, Thaddeus had never finished his machine. Now he was dead.

  Adele floated to the floor, and then crumpled, finally weeping.

  Chapter Two

  Kostya woke with war cries ringing in his ears. At first he thought he was still dreaming, but his dreams had been bittersweet, not violent. He’d seen his wife, long dead, clearly for once. She’d called to him from behind foreign glass, the kind that smelled of chemicals and bitter gas. He hadn’t been able to reach her. He’d shouted and screamed, his words blending into the noises that had awakened him. Finally he recognized the sounds: the onset of battle by fairy warriors.

  “By the third eye of Hronthron’s pig,” Kostya swore. He stared at the rough rock ceiling of his underground home, thinking furiously. The fairies hadn’t trapped him—they’d been at war for too long and he’d dug escape tunnels out of every room of his long, shambling home. He calmed himself. His defenses would keep him safe for a while. Still, he sprang up from his bed, retrieving his vest and coat from the bedpost where he’d hung them, then shoving his feet into his boots.

  Piles of scavenged items littered the floor: books, plastic bags, dolls’ feet, wire, juice boxes, sweaters, broken cups, and so on. Kostya swiftly went from one pile to the next, stuffing things into a large leather backpack. He paused, smiling at the first explosion, and then gathered more things: another sweater, a handful of tools, and four long straws. He knew better than to think the fairies would stop. He had to leave, and for a long while, too. The last time the fairies had attacked his home, it had taken three years before they’d gotten distracted enough that he could return. He had no idea what had riled them this time. One of the deep tunnels had blown a few days before—he wondered if he’d killed someone important. He hadn’t expected such swift retaliation.

  A second, then third explosion echoed through the tunnels. The fairies were getting too close. One or two fairies Kostya may be able to take on, though he wasn’t much of a fighter. A war party would overrun him like water down a hill. Damn fairies didn’t look like much—all scrawny and thin—but they were tough. Only way Kostya knew to kill one was to cut off its head. Even though fairies couldn’t swim, drowning them only sometimes worked. He’d seen a warrior with her arm or wing torn off still come for him.

  The fourth explosion came from the side, to the south, not to the east where the others had sounded. More than one group was after Kostya. They’d hoped to trap him. Kostya abandoned packing his bag and ran to the wall containing a shelf
of radios all wired together. A piece of modern machinery stood at the far end. Kostya flipped a switch, then started cranking. The radios began singing static, one by one. The sudden buzz of electricity danced across Kostya’s skin. The dwarf could stand to be around electronics longer than the fairies, but he didn’t like it; it made him feel as though ants crawled across his skin.

  Kostya finished setting his trap. The radios would draw the attention of the fairies, distracting them from the bomb. He picked up his bag and looked around one last time. He wished he could take more. It would take a long, long time to make his next place feel as homey as this, with its piles of knickknacks and random collectables. It was one of the reasons why he hated the fairies: Their kingdom was so damn sterile. Queen Adele and her order—just unnatural, it was.

  Kostya pulled up one edge of the rug on his floor, then opened the trap door. He grunted as he stepped into it—he’d gained girth recently and escape route fit more snugly than it should. He forced himself down the stairs, scraping his thighs and hips against the rough-cut walls. Stupid, stupid fairies. He didn’t take much time to booby-trap the escape hatch. He’d be gone by the time the fairies got to his room.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Kostya trotted along the natural tunnel, heading toward the ocean. He twisted his knotted bracelet as he went, invoking his strongest protection against his enemy: his ability to see through glamours and illusions. No fairy lay in wait for him and no scouts glided through the air. Maybe they didn’t realize this was Kostya’s main escape route. He couldn’t fly as they did, and the tunnel did end abruptly in midair.

  Kostya could, however, swim. After checking the sky again, he retraced his steps, then ran full speed out of the tunnel, launching himself into the air. He wrapped his arms around his knees, making himself as small a ball as he could, and landed with an explosive splash.

  The shock of the cold water took Kostya’s breath away. He kicked for the surface, his boots, clothes, and bag weighing him down. A strong current pulled him further down. He refused to give up and struggled harder, pushing through the water with his arms now. Finally his head broke the surface, only to find that the waves had pushed him dangerously close to the rocks. Digging into the water with each stroke, Kostya drove himself through the waves, swimming away from the danger. A human wouldn’t have made it. He headed north, up the coast.