The Impossible Cube: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire (16 page)

A pair of horses clip-clopped from around the corner ahead of them. Gavin grabbed Alice’s hand and pulled her into an alleyway. Her backpack clinked slightly, and the noise made Gavin’s heart jerk. Feng seemed to have disappeared. The riders rounded the corner and trotted down their street. Gavin pressed himself face-first against the rough alley wall, leaving the pack’s uneven shape sticking out. He could hear Alice’s butterfly breathing next to him, feel her body heat mingling with his. She clutched his fiddle case, and he felt oddly comforted that she held it. When the pirate captain had threatened to throw it off the
Juniper
, it had felt like the man’s filthy fingers were running over Gavin’s soul, but Alice’s touch made him feel that the fiddle was safe, even with danger only a few steps away.

The horses clopped past the mouth of the alley, and moonlight gleamed off pistols holstered at the riders’ belts. Gavin held his breath. He had turned his face away from the street so his fair skin wouldn’t catch a stray beam of light, and he was looking right into Alice’s eyes, just visible in the scattered wave of photons. They were wide and brown and beautiful, even when filled with unease.

One of the riders paused at the alley mouth and said something in French to his companion, who also paused. Fear made blood pulse in Gavin’s ears. Alice’s lips parted, and her breath came in short gasps, but she didn’t move. The man spoke again, every word as harsh as a drop of melted lead.

And then they were gone, their horses trotting away to fade in the distance. The weight of fear vanished so quickly, Gavin thought he might float away. The tension went out of Alice’s body as well. Gavin surprised himself by leaning in and kissing her. She stiffened again, then kissed back, her mouth warm on his. When they parted, he pressed his forehead against hers.

“Why were we scared?” Alice murmured. “You could have torn them in half with that whip.”

“I could have,” Gavin replied. “That’s exactly why I was scared.”

The street was still empty, no sign of Feng. A cough over Gavin’s head made him grab for the whip, but Alice put her hand on his arm. Feng was perched on a windowsill two stories above them. His dark clothing made him look like the shadow of a spider. Carefully but steadily, using rough bricks and other windowsills for footholds, he descended to the sidewalk.

“I’m impressed,” Alice asked.

“I have climbed in and out of a number of windows in my life,” Feng said. “More than once with a husband in hot pursuit. It is interesting how well one can climb with the correct motivation.”

They hurried away, dodging the gas lamps. Occasionally, they heard footsteps or horses’ hooves a street or two over, and every time they hid in alleys or doorways or under stoops, though they didn’t have any more close encounters with police. The streets wound steadily uphill, and Gavin’s legs started to ache from the steady climbing, and the battery pack pulled at his shoulder muscles. After a while, he said, “Where are the plague zombies?”

That made Alice pause. “I don’t know. We should have seen at least one or two by now.”

“Perhaps the priest will know,” Feng said.

They finally arrived at the Church of Our Lady. The huge stone building loomed over Gavin, buttressed high and stiff, surrounded by a low wall and a square marked off from the street by a line of stone pillars that stretched between them like an iron lattice. Stained glass windows shut themselves against the night.

“It is… large,” Feng said. “I imagined a small stone church, not an entire cathedral.”

“I think they’ve applied for cathedral status with the Pope,” Gavin said.

“They have to apply to call it a cathedral?” Feng looked doubtfully up at the walls, which seemed half fortress, half heaven. “I would enjoy seeing the paperwork for that.”

“The Papists do have their ideas,” Alice said. “Where do we go in?”

The main doors, half large enough to admit a dirigible, were obviously locked and barred, and the idea of knocking on such enormous timbers felt ridiculous. They followed the wall around until they found a more normal-sized pair of doors in an alcove. Feng knocked hard, then pounded at some length. Gavin nervously dropped his hand to the whip. Time passed, and the door wrenched open to reveal an old woman in a dressing gown and nightcap. A candlestick glimmered in her hand. She demanded something in French, and Alice responded. Gavin caught the words
Monsignor Adames.
The woman looked doubtful, but finally gestured them inside and shut the door behind them. Gavin found himself in a small room, but he could sense a great echoing space beyond.

“She wants us to wait here,” Alice said as the woman padded away, taking the light with her. Gavin waited in uneasy blackness with Alice and Feng beside him. None of them spoke. The emptiness beyond seemed to eat words, or even the idea of speaking. Time didn’t move. Gavin sensed the weight of the pack on his shoulders, and the heft of the whip handle in his hand, and the pull of the cutlass at his belt. Alice’s and Feng’s breathing beside him pushed about tiny amounts of air that puffed against his face, bounced off and swirled away in chaotic forms that held patterns just beyond his understanding. He reached out and put his hand into one and felt it scatter and flee. Another swirl of breath bounced off him, creating patterned chaos on his skin,
and if he just concentrated hard enough, he might be able to understand it, perhaps even control it, even—

“Gavin!” Alice’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Are you coming?”

“Chaos swirls against my skin,” he said, “but the pattern remains out of reach. How can I touch it?”

“We shouldn’t stay up here,” said a man’s voice in lightly accented English. “Just bring him along.”

And then Gavin was within the great empty place, standing before a half-sized statue of a woman on a pedestal holding an infant—the Virgin Mary. Behind her, windows of stained glass rose above an elaborate altar. She stood on a crescent moon and wore robes of gold and crimson. In her right hand she held a scepter. The baby Jesus cradled a ball in his hand and stretched out the other in benediction. Both mother and child wore tall crowns of gold that sparkled with jewels. Candles flickered around her feet and in the candelabra behind her, lending her an otherworldly glow.

“Consolatrix Afflictorum,”
said the man, and Gavin noticed for the first time he wore a long black robe and a white priest’s collar. “Comforter of the afflicted. If you believe the legend, she dropped out of a tree trunk in 1624, right around the time the black plague struck, and she cured a number of people. In 1794, the clockwork plague appeared, and so many people overwhelmed the Jesuit chapel outside the city, we moved her in here.”

“But you take her out and bring her around the city just after Easter,” Gavin said softly. “Eight days afterward. The Octave.”

The priest blinked. He had receding gray hair and a thin build. “You’ve heard of it.”

“No. It’s just obvious.” Gavin flicked a glance at the statue’s pale brown hair and dark brown eyes and rounded beauty and machine-like scepter in her hand, then glanced at Alice. “She looks like—”

“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.

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.”

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.