Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

“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.