Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

Alice clutched the amber-handled parasol Gavin had given her and stole a reflexive glance down the street, as if Phipps-or a clockworker-might leap out of the smoking sewers to carry them off. Then she admonished herself for being silly. It was well after midnight, and the gritty street was empty of pedestrians, if brightly lit. This latter aspect had taken Alice by surprise. By day, Kiev looked dark and moody, ready to pounce on newcomers. But at night, the city gleamed with lights. Every street and byway was hung with them, and many doors and windows shone with a steady, unwavering glow. Alice actually found it more unnerving than beautiful. Light should flicker and pulse and live, not remain steady and dead as a granite statue. She wondered whether it existed to ward zombies off the main streets, or to let prowling clockworkers see better.

“Even if Phipps does make that connection,” Alice said, “it’ll take her a few days to track us down, and we’ll be leaving soon. How much money do we have?”

“Not as much as I would like.” Gavin took off his cap for a moment and rumpled his hair. “People didn’t donate much in Berlin. Dodd owes us some more for automaton repairs, and he won’t pay us until the circus has done a couple more shows here. But yeah-once we get that money, we should be able to buy enough paraffin oil to make a run for Peking. Ahead of Phipps.”

“Proschennia mene,” said a quiet voice. A young woman in a head cloth had emerged from one of the nearby houses and now edged uncertainly toward the trio, ready to run at the first sign of danger.

“That’s you, Feng,” Gavin said.

“I have nothing else to do,” Feng muttered half under his breath. “Nowhere else to go.”

Before Alice could say anything in response to this remark, Feng greeted the girl in careful Ukrainian and spoke with her at some length. Alice was glad Feng, someone she trusted, spoke a certain amount of Ukrainian-China watched the Ukrainian Empire carefully and many diplomatic families learned at least some of the language-but Feng’s behavior was different of late.

“The rumors have reached Kiev,” he reported, “just as Harry said. Lilya here heard Gavin playing, and she has braved the clockwork night to ask if Alice can cure the plague.”

“Lead on,” Alice said.

“Lady mine.”

“Feng,” Gavin said, “is something wrong?”

“No,” he said shortly. “Please, let us merely come along.”

Alice exchanged a glance with Gavin. He had noticed it, too-the closer they got to China, the more shuttered and surly Feng became. They needed to discuss this, but now was clearly not the time. In the tiny, low-ceilinged flat where Lilya lived, Alice cured the girl’s parents, who were both lying abed with fever. Gavin played until their pain lessened. Feng, whose facility with the Ukrainian language was the reason they brought him along, asked Lilya if she knew of anyone else who needed help. As Alice expected, Lilya did, and she threaded them through grime-laden blocks of houses lit by dead lights, chattering volubly with Feng, who listened with animated interest.

“What’s she talking about?” Gavin asked.

“Nothing in particular,” Feng replied loftily, and said something in fast Ukrainian to Lilya, who giggled.

Keeping a wary eye on dark sky and narrow street, they dodged beneath gargoyles to the next flat, where Alice cured three children, her parasol under her arm. The joyful parents pressed food on Alice and money on Gavin. She still felt odd about taking cash for curing the plague, but she reminded herself that they needed to buy paraffin oil if they wanted to reach Peking, and Gavin never asked for money. He only took what was offered.

“That went well,” Alice said as she brushed bread crumbs from her skirt and straightened her hat. She avoided trousers on most of these outings on the grounds that the spider gauntlet drew more than enough attention. A woman in trousers would only compound the problem. She looked about the flat’s tiny kitchen, which smelled of watery cabbage and rye bread. “Where’s Feng?”

They found him just outside the flat’s back door, which opened onto a stone courtyard shared by several blocky houses. He was caught in a passionate embrace with Lilya. Her skirt was hiked up to an embarrassing level and her blouse was open.

“Feng!” Alice gasped from the doorway.

Feng drew away from Lilya and blinked at her in the light that spilled from the door. There were no lights out back, and the shadows had half engulfed the pair. An oily smell wafted in from the river, covering everything with an olfactory patina of chemicals and damp. “Do you mind?” Feng said.

“Not this again!” Alice blurted, shocked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“The same thing you have done for weeks,” Feng said as Lilya straightened her clothes, “only you do it with Gavin.”

Alice became aware that the inhabitants of the flat were standing behind her, as was Gavin, and she felt her face redden. “You’re… This is…” She recovered herself somewhat. “Feng, we have to leave. Now.”

“Of course.” He nuzzled at the girl’s cheek. “Lilya knows of another house of plague and we must go right this moment, must we not? Exactly on your schedule, and no one else’s, because you are English.”

Either he was oblivious to Alice’s outrage or he was a master at ignoring it, which only added to Alice’s fury. The girl was all but hanging out of her blouse and Feng’s… arousal was all too evident. There was certainly no possibility she could reenter the house and face the looks of the two strangers, so she marched down the back stoop and around the corner of the house, her face growing hot again as she heard Feng bid the couple good night in Ukrainian. Gavin came after.

“You are quite a… What is it you say? A piece of work,” Feng drawled. He was holding Lilya’s hand, and she was all but skipping along beside him, apparently now enjoying her adventure. She was pretty, he was handsome, and they would have made an attractive couple under other circumstances.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Alice snapped. A few blocks away, a stack erupted in bright yellow flame, then went out with a whump.

“You and Gavin carry on very plainly, like two animals in-”

“Watch your words, Feng,” Gavin growled.

“Why? Will you strike me?” Feng shot back. “I am tired of hypocrisy. You two have no stronger a connection than sweet Lilya and I do. You are not married or even engaged to be married, so by the rules of your own society, you are a pair of”-Gavin inhaled sharply, and Feng shifted ground-“a pair of very bad people. Yet you enjoy yourselves together for weeks. And then you have the nerve to tell me I should not do the same?”

“Enjoy?” Alice whirled on the narrow sidewalk to face him, almost too affronted to speak. Smoky fog curled around her body, and the amber-headed parasol banged against her shin. “What do you mean by that?”

Feng made a scoffing noise. “That is so English of you. Perfectly willing to tell everyone else what is right while you ignore your own rules. You and Gavin sent me to hide with those acrobats so you could-”

“What do you mean enjoy ?” Gavin’s face was turning red. “What are you telling people about us?”

“I need speak not at all. Which is how well I get along with those smelly monkeys you forced me to live with.”

“We thought that you’d get along with them fine,” Gavin said.

“Just because they are Chinese? Ha!” Feng spat, and Lilya cast about uncomfortably, clearly uncertain about what was going on. “They are not fit company for the emperor’s goats, let alone his nephew. As much to hide you with a family of Scottish coal miners.”