Corambis (28 page)

“No,” said Miss Leverick. “Well, maybe. But not on rails. The Automaton of Corybant could walk. It was the guardian of the city and walked the streets at night, keeping the people safe.”
“But,” I said.
“Yes, exactly. But. The story is that the Automaton went mad.”
“It went
mad
? How can a machine go mad?”
“They send people mad,” Mildmay said. “Like Nemesis.”
“Not the same thing. It went mad?”
Miss Leverick spread her hands. “It is the doom that came to Corybant. Their machine that they had built to move and act as people do went mad as people do. It destroyed the city down to its foundation stones, all in one night. And it slew every person who crossed its path. Some say the knocken are the descendants of those who escaped.”
“The knocken?” said Mildmay.
“I imagine Olive knows more about the knocken than I do,” Miss Leverick said, and Miss Bridger blushed and murmured, but did screw up enough confidence to speak. As we finished our meal, she explained the knocken, gnarled, anthropophagous creatures who lived along the course of the Wildar River. She even related how a childhood friend swore he had once seen a knocken peering at him from a sewer grating in Kilrey. “And a man my father knows who works for the Wildar Water Utility, he says that sometimes when they find bodies in the sewers, there are bite marks on them that don’t look like rat teeth. But,” Miss Bridger added scrupulously, “he may have just been saying that to scare me.”
Miss Leverick and I raised our eyebrows at each other, but held our tongues, letting Miss Bridger tell us how the knocken were supposed to come from the part of the forest that had been logged long ago. “I never heard that about Corybant. It’s the spirits of the trees seeking revenge,” she said.
We were all silent for a moment, and then Miss Leverick consulted the watch she wore at her lapel and said, “We’d best get back to the train.”
Corbie went ahead with Miss Leverick— pointedly
not
with Miss Bridger— while I waited for Mildmay to brace himself up. When I found a way to get letters to the Mirador, I would have to remember to write to Rinaldo and tell him how passionately grateful I was for the cane he had given my brother. “How are you doing?” I said, hoping it would be a more acceptable question than
Are you all right?
The look Mildmay gave me under his eyebrows told me he knew exactly what I was thinking, but he said amiably enough, “I’m okay. Think I slept better on the train than I did in bed.”
He looked better, no longer tinged with gray, but I was careful to let him set the pace as we went back to our compartment. He looked up and down the crimson length of the train with keen interest, said, “Hey, Felix, what runs this thing? Is it magic?”
“Steam power,” I said, remembering Miss Leverick’s comment, “but I have no idea how they generate it.”
“You mean like a laundry boiler? What if it busts?”
He looked genuinely worried; I said, “I doubt that will happen, but we can ask Miss Leverick. She seems to know a great deal about the railways.”
“She’s a nice lady,” he said neutrally.
“I’m sure we can find the money, if you want to attend her class.”
“You’re sure these hocuses in Esmer won’t just throw you in jail or something?” He looked even more worried; I hoped the idea hadn’t been preying on him all the way from Mélusine.
“It’s not heresy here, remember?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Later,” I said, for I did not want to have this discussion in front of an audience.
“Okay,” he said and let me steady him into the carriage.

There was a forest near Arabel; I had gone there with Malkar to be taught the names and properties of the trees and plants. It had been nothing compared to the Forest of Nauleverer, like a single ragged militiaman beside the massed and shining armies of the Emperor.

Within minutes of entering the forest, the train was wrapped about in darkness as thick and sharp as night, and a polite crimson and gold gentleman came to light the lamps in our compartment. Looking out the window, I could see only the shadowy and massive shapes of the trees, but I felt the mikkary with all the distinctness my eyes could not provide. “And it goes on like this?” I said involuntarily.

“Six hours,” said Miss Leverick. “And pray that nothing goes wrong.”

But, of course, something did.

It started, so far as any of us knew, with a juddering, screeching, howling halt, so abrupt that we had no chance to brace ourselves— and I was not sure it would have mattered even if we had. Corbie and Mildmay and I were thrown forward onto Miss Leverick and Miss Bridger, and there was nothing I could do about my elbow colliding with Miss Bridger’s ribs. There was a yelp from the direction of Miss Leverick, and then the lights went out, and all five of us were jerked off the bench and onto the floor. My back thumped against the opposite seat. Miss Bridger got inadvertent revenge for my elbow when her knee hit my groin an instant before the rest of her weight landed solidly on my solar plexus. I made a painful, keening whine between my teeth, lost under Miss Bridger’s scream, and then the train was finally still.

I couldn’t find
up
, but I shoved and scrabbled sideways out from under Miss Bridger and called witchlight. I would have liked to have claimed coolheaded pragmatism— if anyone had asked— but it was as much animal panic as getting away from Miss Bridger’s weight had been. I discovered I had pressed myself up against the door of the compartment, somehow crawling over Corbie in the pro cess; Corbie and Miss Bridger were a heap of dark cloth and straggling flaxen braids in the middle; and over by the window, Mildmay and Miss Leverick were as entangled as the last king of Cymellune in the coils of the Thalassant Wyrm. Someone was cursing in a steady and very inventive mutter; I realized after a moment’s blankness that it was Miss Leverick.

“Miss Leverick?” I said, although I could barely get enough breath to form the words.
Her invective broke off abruptly, and she raised her head. Nothing ever looked quite normal by witchlight, but I did not think that entirely accounted for the sallow cast of her complexion.
“Are you all right?” I said and winced. The question got more inane every time it fell out of my mouth.
Her mouth compressed into a straight line. “I seem,” she said thinly, “to have broken my wrist.”

Half an hour later, matters were not quite so dire. The lights were back on. Polite crimson and gold gentlemen had come around with complimentary cups of tea, and a practitioner had been found— a shabby, worn- out- looking woman traveling third class— to splint Miss Leverick’s wrist and encourage her vi. Remarkably, Miss Leverick was the worst of the casualties, along with a scullery maid in the galley who had been scalded. “Not too badly,” the practitioner said reassuringly. “The girl must have reflexes like a cat.”

The crimson and gold gentlemen also provided explanations: the train had stopped because of a fallen tree across the tracks. “It may be some time before we can drag it clear,” they said apologetically, from which Miss Leverick and I deduced that by “tree” they meant “behemoth.”

“Shouldn’t we help?” Mildmay said.
“By ‘we,’ of course, you mean me,” I said. “
You
couldn’t help lift a teacup at the moment.” Since he was holding his cup in both hands, he was hard- pressed to argue with me.
“I’d help,” Corbie said, but then looked worried. “But I don’t know what I could do.”
Miss Leverick said, “If they need help from the passengers, they’ll ask. But the engine- practitioner can probably handle it.”
“Engine- practitioner?” I asked.
“Every train has two enginists,” Miss Leverick said, “the men who actually drive the train. One is annemer. He deals with the throttle and the brake and watches the track for exactly such things as monumental tree trunks. The other is a magician- practitioner who watches over the magic which mediates between the steam boiler and the gears of the train. And, of course, they’ve found that having a magician along comes in handy more often than you’d think.”
“We’re like a pocketknife that way,” I murmured. Happily, Miss Bridger had at that same moment asked Miss Leverick how long she thought the delay might last, and Mildmay was the only one who heard me. He snorted and bumped my shoulder with his.
“I don’t know,” Miss Leverick said wearily.
“What if we’re stuck here all night?” Corbie asked, even more worriedly.
I said, “I observe that there are people strolling beside the train. Miss Bridger, Miss Corbie, why don’t we walk down and examine the situation for ourselves?”
“That’s an excellent idea, Mr. Harrowgate,” Miss Leverick said gratefully. “Go on, Olive. You can report back.”
Miss Bridger acquiesced, frowning. Corbie bounced to her feet. I said to Mildmay, “No, don’t even think about getting up. I can take a walk without your supervision.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. Just as we were leaving the compartment, he added, eyes gleaming wickedly, “Don’t get eaten by bears.”

In my dreams, I was still sighted; I dreamed of fighting: blood and the screams of horses and the terrible moans of dying men. And then I dreamed of the Usaran woman who had come to my tent in the middle of the night and offered herself to me if I would release her brother, who was a prince, a
cephar
as the Usara styled such things. In the dream I saw her clearly, although in truth the dark- lantern had shadowed as much as it had illuminated: wide hips, heavy breasts, everything in shades of copper and gold. She pushed her breasts up with her hands, showing me the dark discs of her nipples. She was beautiful, and it cost me nothing to deny her.

In reality, I had told her to put her dress on and go, and she had put her dress on and attacked me with the knife she had concealed in its folds. That night had ended with the cephar keening over his sister’s body and me getting seventeen stitches in my right arm. She had almost been fast enough.

But in the dream, she merely turned away for a moment, pushing her fingers through her long, dark hair as she arched her back, and when she turned again to face me, she was Gerrard, smiling at me as I’d seen him a thousand times, but naked and aroused.

I tried to protest, looked around frantically for something to offer him: a cloak, a blanket, anything to cover that rampant nakedness. And when he spoke, it was that Usaran woman’s words, though his own voice: “Do I not please you, Cougar- cephar?”

I realized that I was naked, too, and that he would see the truth in my body’s response. Was no sin to have a taste for the violet- boys; sin was a matter of the spirit, not the body. Was sinful to deny the body’s truth. Was sinful to make a mockery of the sacred love between men and women by confusing the body’s needs with the spirit’s, and I feared Gerrard would see that sin writ large upon my face.

He stepped forward.
I stepped back.
And the world crashed around me; I woke falling, woke blind, woke

cramped on the floor of a train compartment with someone’s elbow thumping painfully against my head.
“Ouch,” said Murtagh.

“What happens?” I said and winced at the plaintiveness of the question.

“I’m not sure,” said Murtagh. “The train has stopped and the lights have gone out. And I’m afraid I’ve fallen on top of you.”
“That part I had observed, thank you.”
“Well, it’s the best I can do at the moment.” He picked himself up, regaining his seat, and I began cautiously to follow suit, knowing it was possible I had injured myself and did not yet feel it. Gerrard had been particularly fond of the story of the Usaran ambush which I fought my way out of, then looked down and said to my sergeant- at- arms,
Is a bloody arrow through my leg. When did that happen?
I still had no memory of being shot, although I remembered with great distinctness having the barbed head pushed the rest of the way through my leg so that it could be drawn out.
“Wyatt!” called Murtagh.
“Yes, Your Grace?” Wyatt called back from the other end of the carriage.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Shaken but unharmed. As is Tinder.”
“Good, good. Would you go see if you can find out what’s going on?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
I managed to get back into my seat; as far as I could tell, I was uninjured.
“As if Nauleverer weren’t bad enough,” said Murtagh.
“Is that where we are?”
“Oh, of course it is. This sort of thing could hardly happen anywhere else.”
“Your Grace has no fondness for the forest?”
“No, My Grace does not. I hate it, to be perfectly frank, and if I’d been part of the Convocation of the One Hundred Forty- second, I would have stonewalled the railways until we
all
died of old age. What’s that word your friend Intended Marcham used?”
“Verlain,”
said I.
“
Verlain
, yes. That’s how I feel about Nauleverer. We shouldn’t be here.”
Was not as if, at that moment, we had anything in the way of a choice. After some time, Wyatt returned and said, “There’s a tree down across the line, Your Grace. It’s enormous. The enginists aren’t quite sure how to move it. But the porters are setting the train to rights, and they’re going to bring tea to everyone.”
“Because nothing is more suitable in a crisis,” Murtagh said, but he was gracious to the deeply apologetic porter, and I at least was grateful for the tea.
Murtagh was, for once, more restless than I, and after we’d drunk our tea he said abruptly, “I want to go look at this monstrous tree. Do you want to come? After all, a promenade in Nauleverer is not something one gets the chance at every day.”
“True,” said I. “Yes, I would like to come.”
I had learned, perforce, to trust Murtagh. He helped me down from the carriage, and I took his arm as if I’d been doing so all my life. The air smelled damp, of trees and rocks, of water and rot; there was only the very slightest of breezes, which after the relentless wind of Bernatha was almost a relief. I smelled the engine, too, as we neared the head of the train: hot metal and soot and a sharp crackling smell that I supposed might be the magic that made it run.
I walked in the direction Murtagh led me, and after a while, he said, “May all the angels preserve us. ‘Enormous’ does not begin to describe this tree. Lying on its side, it’s nearly taller than the engine.”
“How will they move it?” I asked.
“I imagine that’s going to be the job of the engine- practitioner, poor man. If I were him, I’d put in for—
shit!
”
“What?” I said frantically; he had gone tense as wire beneath my hand, and I had never heard him use an obscenity before.
“Nothing,” said Murtagh.
“You cannot actually expect me to believe that.”
“I, ah . . . I just saw someone I wasn’t expecting to see.”
“From your reaction, I would guess it was Clara Hume.”
He laughed, but it was shaky and not terribly convincing. “No, nothing like that. It’s . . . it’s no one you know.”
“Murtagh, you sound like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s not that bad,” he said, and he did sound a little better. “It was just the surprise. And I was afraid he’d see me, but I don’t think he has.”
“You could just tell me,” I said, and he twitched and went tense again. “Or not.”
“It’s not you. It’s . . . I don’t want Isobel to know.”
“Don’t want Isobel to know,” I repeated slowly, only half- convinced I’d heard him correctly.
“Ah, damnation, I’m just digging myself in deeper every time I open my mouth. Kay. As a friend, will you forget I said anything?”
It took me a moment to find any reply at all. “Are we friends? Truly?”
“I had hoped we were,” said Murtagh, and I was still caught between deriding his unexpected naïveté and asking him why in the world he would seek my friendship when the noise came.
It was like no noise I had ever heard in my life, and I could not, either then or later, find words that would describe it fully. It sounded something like a train engine, something like a rockslide, and something like a vast and vastly rusty hinge. I could not tell how far away it was, nor in what direction.
And then Murtagh was dragging me in the direction from which we’d come, his grip like iron and his voice muttering a hoarse prayer. The noise came again; I could tell that it was much closer, and now, underlying it, I could hear a ticking sound, like the cursed ticking of the Clock of Eclipses.
“Blessed Lady, be kind to us in this the hour of our extremity,” Murtagh muttered, and I recognized the Caddovian version of the Canticle of Desperation.
“Murtagh,” I said, desperate in my turn, “for the love of the Lady and the saints and the angels, what
is
it?”
“I think,” said Murtagh, in a thin and horrifically steady voice, “that it’s the Automaton of Corybant.”
And a voice cried,
“GET DOWN!”
Murtagh and I dropped like stones. I felt something pass over us, sharp and hot and indescribable, and then hands were dragging me again— away from the shriek of metal and fury, and I cooperated as best I could— and someone was saying, a light, breathless voice, strangely familiar although I could not think why, “That may distract it, but I doubt it will do more. How do I kill it?”
“I don’t know.” A woman’s voice.
“Not helpful, Corbie. Anyone? It’s
your
monster. How does it die?”
“There aren’t stories about that,” said another man’s voice, lower- class Corambin by the accent.
“That’s just
stupid
,” said the breathless voice, with a wealth of feeling. “Well, what about your train here? If it went mad, how would you kill it?”
The lower- class voice must belong to one of the enginists, the practitioner from the way he said promptly, “Burn out the thaumaturgic converter. But I don’t know if that thing—”
“I’ve got to try
something
,” said the breathless voice. The woman made an odd protesting squeak.
There was a noise like the end of the world, howling and banging and a rising steam- whistle shriek, and a terrible stench of burning metal, and then nothing. Even the ticking had stopped.
The breathless voice said, thoughtfully, “I think I burned out more than the converter.”