Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

“Allow me, Sir.” Kemp extended a finger into the keyhole and twisted. The door opened with a click. Beyond was a wide foyer with a stone floor faced with a number of closed doors and a large archway through which Gavin could see quite a number of human servants rushing back and forth, presumably to wait on the banquet. The moment they crossed the threshold, a pair of automatons stationed on either side of the door, duplicates of the one at the gate, instantly sprang to life. Sabers hummed in their hands and one of them said something in Ukrainian.

“Kemp,” Alice said.

Kemp came forward. At the sight of the gate automaton’s body, the guards lowered their sabers and the humming sound stopped. Kemp spoke to them. Gavin held his breath. This had to work. If it didn’t, or if the guards shouted an alarm, an entire army of clockworkers would come down on their heads. Worse, Phipps would find them. Gavin kept his face impassive as Kemp talked, and Gavin’s inability to understand the language became an agony. There was a terrible pause. Gavin’s blood sang in his ears and his mouth was dry as sand. Then the automatons nodded and returned to their stations. The trio stepped quickly past the foyer. Gavin’s legs went a little unsteady.

“Perfect,” Alice murmured, appearing completely unruffled. “Now where?”

Gavin made himself regain calm. “Down,” he said. “Clockworkers usually like nice, safe laboratories underground. Remember your aunt Edwina.”

“She had two such laboratories,” Alice agreed. “Which way?”

“If I may, Madam,” Kemp said. He led them through the enormous house. Gavin forced himself to stand upright and act as if he had every right to be there, though he wanted to scrunch down and creep through the house like a rat. It wasn’t just that he was here to steal away something-someone-that the Gontas no doubt saw as their property. It was also that he had spent his childhood in a tiny, crowded flat that in this house would probably fit into a closet. Everything here spoke of easy, intimidating wealth. Brass and gold fixtures were everywhere, along with heavy furniture of brocade and velvet. Bejeweled metal statues with a definite clockwork air occupied a number of niches. Even one of them would have kept his family going for a year back in Boston, and he felt an urge to snatch, even though he’d never stolen in his life. One of the statues in a room they passed but didn’t enter looked to be of the Virgin Mary, though her face was stern, and her robes were jagged, as if made of lightning bolts. Over her heart was a cog. Two automatons knelt before the statue, hands clasped. They murmured in monotone.

“What are they saying?” Alice whispered as they went by.

“One is praying for the soul of someone, a deceased person, Dmitro,” Kemp said. It was strange hearing his voice coming from a Ukrainian automaton. “The other is reciting prayers in penitence for sins committed by Ivana Gonta.”

“The Gontas use automatons to pray for them?” Alice said, aghast.

“I wonder if it works,” Gavin muttered.

“I wouldn’t know, Sir,” Kemp said. “This way.”

They passed many servants, both human and mechanical, and neither type gave them a second glance with Kemp leading the way. One woman with a large set of keys did pause to ask something of Alice, but Kemp spoke to her, and she went on her way before Gavin even had time to get uneasy.

“What was that about?” he asked, shifting the pack on his back.

“That was the head housekeeper, Sir. She wanted to know who Sir and Madam were,” Kemp said. “I told her I was giving a tour of the house to a pair of important people attached to Madam Gonta’s special guests.”

“You’re a treasure, Kemp,” Gavin told him.

“Sir.”

“Where are we going?” Alice said. “I’m lost already.”

“I’m seeing a pattern,” Gavin said before Kemp could respond. “Many of the automatons seem to be coming from one direction, so I’m assuming the entry to the lower level is down that hallway.”

“A memory wheel inside this body agrees with Sir,” Kemp said. “Madam and Sir have their choice of a lift or a staircase.”

“Staircase,” Alice said promptly. “A lift is a perfect little cage.”

In a marble foyer they found a double-wide lift, complete with iron gate that reminded Gavin of the one that descended to the dungeonlike cells where the Third Ward housed its captive clockworkers, no few of which Gavin himself had brought in with Simon d’Arco. Next to it was an archway opening onto a staircase that spiraled downward out of sight. Two guard automatons drew their sabers and rapped out orders in Ukrainian.

“They won’t let anyone go down those stairs, Madam,” Kemp said. “Only members of the Gonta family may do so.”

“I see.” Alice stepped forward smartly and touched the guard’s saber with the tip of her parasol. A spark snapped and Gavin smelled ozone. The guard stiffened. Alice’s parasol flicked like a sword at the other guard, who parried it with the saber, but the touch was all Alice needed. The spark snapped, and the second guard went still. Alice straightened her hat, pushed a tendril of honey-brown hair out of her eyes, and caught Gavin looking at her.

“What?” she said.

Gavin was grinning from ear to ear. “You are remarkable, you know that? How many other women could fence with a pair of automatons and win?”

“Oh.” Alice looked flustered. “Probably not many.”

“And I’m glad.” He impulsively kissed her cheek. “God, I love you.”

“If Madam and Sir are quite ready,” Kemp said. “Someone may come at any moment.”

“How much time do we have?” Alice asked, still blushing a little.

“We have been in the house for thirteen minutes,” Kemp replied. “The circus was contracted for an hour’s performance, leaving us forty-seven minutes.”

Quickly, they posed the deactivated automatons in their original positions. Alice told Kemp to stay behind and run interference if necessary as she and Gavin headed down the stairs. The stairs, lit by a series of electric lights, twisted downward for a long, long time, and Gavin wondered how they’d manage the trip back up without using the lift, especially if they had to carry Feng.

Assuming he’s still alive, he thought, and then quashed the idea. Feng had to be alive. He would be alive. And unharmed. Ivana hadn’t held him prisoner for very long, and she must have been busy planning the banquet. Not much time to play with a new… acquisition.

They reached the bottom of the steps and emerged from the stairwell. Alice stopped dead and Gavin whistled under his breath.

“Good heavens,” Alice murmured. “What will we do?”

The space beyond was cavernous, easily large enough to store four full-sized dirigibles, in Gavin’s estimation. Worked stone arched up and away, several stories high. Rows of columns that looked too thin to hold up the ceiling-and the house above it-reached upward like graceful fingers. Staircases, ramps, doorways, and balconies studded the walls, as if a small city had exploded inside the giant room. More than forty hulking mechanicals two, three, and four times the height of a man and many times broader stood motionless on the main floor. One of them was Ivana’s giant bird. The cage that made up its head hung open and empty.

Gavin felt an urge to examine the machines more closely. The clockwork plague tugged at him, and his fascinated eye measured slopes and angles, calculated area, felt volume. Forges hissed from beyond the balconies, putting out thousands of calories in heat. The sharp smell of molten metal tanged the air, and the wrenching scream of it when it hit cold water bounced and echoed. Spiders scurried across every surface, and whirligigs whooshed through the empty spaces. Most of them carried bits of machinery or wicked-looking weapons. Electric lights lit everything, as did the red glow of coals emanating from the balconies. No actual people were visible, which both puzzled and relieved Gavin. In a flash of clockwork insight, he understood that the Gonta clockworkers didn’t spend much-or any-time out on the main floor, but worked in private laboratories that opened onto it. The clanking, hissing forges called to him, and the tiny laboratories on the Lady and in the Black Tent suddenly felt cramped and primitive. Here was a place where a man could work. Certainly there would be a vacant workroom somewhere in all this. In fact, he needed only to listen for empty space to find one. He could already feel the tools, see the machinery come to life under his hands. His fingers curled into fists and he started forward.