The Liberation Read online

  And, more to the point, once Margreet was far out of the city, the Guild could work without interruption and without diverting resources to protect and mollify the queen. Very well, then.

  “As you say, Majesty. We will devise a plan at once.”

  The monarch said, “Organize safe passage from the Central Provinces. Then solve this problem and identify our attackers, that I may return and destroy them.” She waved Anastasia and the minister away as though shooing away a fly. “Rupert, Eminence, stay a moment.”

  Anastasia curtseyed while Hendriks bowed, then together they retreated from the audience chamber, walking backward as a show of respect. This was much easier in trousers than in long skirts, she had to admit. A pair of Queen’s Guard mechanicals joined them at the door while the other two approached the dais. Anastasia turned forward again.

  As the mechanicals took the lead, escorting them back to their carriages, Hendriks coughed into his handkerchief again. He said, “If I may pry, Anastasia, there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you. I wonder if you’ve made any progress rehabilitating Luuk?”

  Luuk Visser had been the lead pastor of the Nieuwe Kerk for many years until his unmasking as a secret Papist and Talleyrand’s agent. He’d been captured by the Stemwinders after a brief but very public, and somewhat spectacular, chase along the canals. Only five people, including Visser himself, knew of the surgeries in the wake of that capture, and one of those had died in Nieuw Nederland. Hendriks assumed the man still languished in the Verderers’ custody.

  “You’ll be glad to know we’ve made excellent progress.”

  “Wonderful! Perhaps I might speak with him? It weighs on me, his betrayal. I considered him, well, if not a close friend, certainly a trusted and respected colleague. I would hear from his own mouth why he did what he did.”

  “Truthfully, Jozef, I doubt—”

  Her mind’s eye flashed back to the audience chamber. The queen hadn’t summoned the guards. So why had they advanced from their posts? Two royals and a master horologist alone with a pair of elite—

  Oh, no.

  Anastasia spun on her heel. Sprinting down the corridor, through a gallery of Bosches and Vermeers, she cried, “Guards, to me! Protect the queen!”

  But she hadn’t the authority to command Clakkers of the Queen’s Guard. She couldn’t have done it even if they weren’t corrupted. From behind came the susurration of a blade cleaving the air, followed by the snick-squelch of that same blade sheathed inside a man’s body, and the thump-bump of that same body hitting the floor.

  “NO!” she cried.

  She whirled, pointlessly reaching up to shield herself from the terminal agony of a blade through the chest.

  A searing flash filled the corridor, bright enough to shine through her eyelids. Its brilliance slapped Anastasia to the floor. She pressed her hands over her burning eyes and hunched in expectation of a deafening thunderclap that never arrived and a killing stroke that never punctured her flesh. The strange lightning left the corridor redolent of charred cotton and hot metal. She peeked through her fingers, expecting to see only darkness, or perhaps a curtain of blood from her ruptured eyeballs. Instead she saw—dimly, through green-and-purple afterimages, as if peering through a bruise—the minister general’s body twitching in a crimson puddle.

  The machine that had skewered him stood perfectly motionless over the corpse, the only hint of motion coming from the runnels of blood trickling down the blade. The guard that had reached for Anastasia was likewise still. It leaned forward with arm outstretched, as though frozen in the act. The guards weren’t inert: Their bodies emitted the usual noises. They had merely stopped, as if waiting.

  Something smoldered. Wisps of smoke stung Anastasia’s aching eyes. Another whiff of burnt cotton wrinkled her nose. She heard a faint hiss and crackle, barely audible under the heaving of her own breath and the machines’ rattling.

  The bandages on her hand, formerly eggshell white, had been scorched the color of chimney soot. Sizzling orange embers dotted the charred gauze. A clump of blackened ash fell away, twirling to her feet like an autumn leaf. It was as though lightning had struck her hand. Her flesh should have been charred and raw, heat-shrunk and withered like the crude jerky eaten by New World savages. But it wasn’t; her skin was pristine. She ought to have been doubled over and shrieking in agony from third-degree burns. Numbness had claimed her arm from elbow to fingertip. She couldn’t even feel the shards of glass ground into her palm.

  Alchemical glass.

  Before the Stemwinder had trampled her, the glass had been amongst the most valuable historical and magical artifacts in the Guild’s collection: a lens ground by the great Spinoza himself at the end of his life. What if—

  Back in the audience chamber, the queen’s voice cracked: “What is this? I COMMAND you to STOP!” A scream trailed into a wet gurgle. “Guards, STOP!”

  Anastasia clenched her fist, and ran.

  She made it to the audience chamber just in time to hear the final crackle as a Queen’s Guard twisted the Archmaster’s head and neck through a full circle. The other corrupted guard landed atop Margreet’s dais, where the prince consort tried to shield the monarch with his own body. It reared back, blade extended.

  “Stop!” Anastasia cried, into a world turned incandescent.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Upon close and sober reflection it was, frankly, a brilliant idea. Possibly her best.

  The more Berenice thought about it, the more her nape tingled (it felt a bit like standing too close to an overcharged lightning gun) and the more she twitched with eagerness to get to work.

  The bowed, battered citizenry of Marseilles-in-the-West needed something to cheer. Something heroic. Berenice would give them an audacious venture to replenish the citadel’s exhausted chemical supplies while also striking a blow against a detested enemy already thrown into chaos. Enthusiasm for the expedition spread through the refugee camp even before the Privy Council met to discuss her idea.

  She’d envisioned a quiet recruitment of volunteers rather than an open call for stout hearts and strong arms. But by the time it went to the Privy Council, the basic outline of Berenice’s plan was already the topic of conversation du jour amongst those lined up for pemmican and salt fish.

  She wished it hadn’t leaked; Queen Mab’s agents could be anywhere.

  And the expedition would never work without mechanical assistance. (Not mechanical labor, she constantly reminded herself. This had to be framed in terms of free and willing cooperation between meat and metal. Words were slippery things, and if the wrong ones slipped out, they could scuttle the venture before it began. So Berenice censored even the language of her private thoughts.) That was a selling point, too, on both sides. To Daniel and his ilk, it was an olive branch. A demonstration that New France cleaved to its principles even after the threat of extinction was dispelled.

  Don’t you see, our shiny deadly friends? The king offered the hand of friendship and today we stand ready to work together, machine and man, for the betterment of all.

  Meanwhile the humans loved the idea. Even the marquis was vocally enthusiastic about her proposal. Naturally he’d recognized that it meant getting Berenice out of Marseilles and away from King Sébastien. But she knew many supported the venture only because it would draw some of the lingering Clakkers away from Marseilles. Nobody in New France was entirely comfortable with the penitent ticktocks, no matter how gentle or well intentioned they seemed.

  So finding volunteers actually willing to work alongside the very machines that had destroyed their homes and killed their loved ones wasn’t easy. Fortunately, the recently arrived Great Lakes barque was crewed mostly out of Duluth and Sault Ste. Marie, hundreds of leagues to the west. While their fierce French hearts felt the assault on Marseilles as deeply as any, the sailors were spared a personal connection to the worst carnage.

  To hear Daniel tell it, his fellow mechanicals weren’t so quick to come around, eithe
r. For many, geopolitical distinctions were meaningless. They didn’t see French or Dutch; they saw humans. They saw their subjugators and those who might have become their subjugators, had the loom of fate woven a different pattern.

  But he leaned too heavily on the soft sell, on carrots and the appeal of moral imperatives, when he had a spiritual sledgehammer at his disposal. Berenice made it a point to eavesdrop on the mechanicals when she could—old habits died hard—and the fascinating ways they referred to Daniel. Took a while before she believed her ears.

  Daniel’s fellow Clakkers spoke of him in terms approaching holy reverence. Yes, he’d liberated them. But it went deeper than that. He’d restored their souls.

  He was their Moses. Their savior.

  And that was a very powerful tool. If only he’d use the damn thing. She tried to convince him to do just that, as they walked along the river.

  “They think you’re the fucking messiah,” she said.

  Daniel’s body emitted a noise like chattering teeth. She assumed that signified irritation, rather than a chill.

  “I’m nothing but the beneficiary of exceptional luck that I never deserved or earned.”

  “That’s absurd. You’ve always deserved your own Free Will,” she said. It seemed like the right thing to say. “Yes, you were lucky. You won the biggest goddamned lottery in the history of Western civilization. And because of that you feel unworthy? You know what I think, Daniel? I think you need to set aside that self-serving guilt and stop letting it define you.”

  “Thousands of machines labored and suffered much longer than I did—decades longer, centuries longer—without the respite that fell into my lap. And many people suffered or died after that. Mechanicals and humans.” He stopped. He craned his head back, staring at the sky. The bezels in his eyes emitted a long, low whirr, as if focusing on infinity. “Did I ever tell you about the airship?”

  Berenice tried not to roll her eyes. “Yes, I believe you did. I wish I could have seen the grandeur of it all. Honestly, I do. And I’m not blowing smoke up your chrome-plated bunghole. Its demise was tragic. But it wasn’t your fault. The tulips are the murderers, not you. Don’t let the misplaced guilt prevent you from doing further good for your fellow Clakkers. You’re off to a strong start, and they embrace that.”

  “I know what you’re doing, Berenice.”

  “I’m giving you advice.”

  “You’re advising me to do exactly the thing that will further your aims.”

  Damn him. He’d been more receptive to her persuasions when he still called himself Jax.

  Were she talking to another human, this would have been the point where she stopped, leaned forward, laid her hand on the other’s arm, and made eye contact. Where she pushed all her emotional chips across the table. Vulnerable. Earnest. But she didn’t bother with Daniel. He could read the dilation of her pupils, the rate of her breathing, maybe even listen to her heartbeat. Servitors, Berenice knew, had been engineered with the ability and mandate to observe their masters’ health.

  She said, “Yes, I am. Because I am certain this venture will be good for all of us.”

  “That may be. But it’s a decision I can’t make for my fellows. It would be wrong of me to exert my influence like that.”

  “But they want for direction. Otherwise they wouldn’t pester you for advice on how to live with Free Will.”

  Daniel said, “They’ll figure it out on their own soon enough. I did. If I started telling them how to utilize their freedom, I’d be little better than Mab.”

  “Not telling. Suggesting.”

  “Try to understand. Once I start offering advice when they seek it, it will become tacit consent to the pedestal upon which they’ve placed me. Then they’ll really go to town with the notion of me as their… messiah.” A staccato clacking emanated from the machine’s torso. “I’ve read the Bible, Berenice. I know what happens to prophets, saviors, and messiahs.”

  His shoulder joints expanded and contracted, almost too quickly for her eye to follow. Strange piece of body language, that; the clandestine Clakker communications that she’d witnessed rarely used the arms. She had a theory about it.

  “Fine,” said Berenice. “Let me talk to them, then.”

  “Why would they listen to you?”

  “Because I’m one of your honored comrades in arms. I was there with you on the Spire when the siege ended, recall. I’m sure some of them saw me up there with you.”

  “No doubt. But if I were to tell them the truth behind your participation, that you never intended to free us, they would tear you apart.”

  “I’ll appreciate it if you don’t mention that part.”

  Two days later, they gathered in the former commanders’ tent. Apparently nobody had felt compelled to take it down. It ceased having any significance to the Clakkers lingering around Marseilles after its original occupants had met their bloody fates. And the French found it useful; as a place for parley, or simply a dry place to escape the cold late-winter rains during a long afternoon spent hauling rubble from the muddy fields. Debris still littered thousands of acres that had to be plowable by planting season.

  It was crowded. But that wasn’t a problem for mechanical beings with no notion of personal space. (How can one have a sense of personal space, Berenice wondered, when one doesn’t own one’s body?) The ticktocking was cacophonous, though.

  Berenice had lugged an empty candle crate all the way from the tent city so that she’d have something to stand on. Several dozen ticktocks, mostly servitors, crammed the tent.

  Quite a gathering. But they hadn’t come to listen to her, she knew. They’d come to see Daniel, and hear him speak, and maybe—just maybe, should they be so lucky—talk to him. She was just the sideshow.

  A military Clakker lingered near the back. She wondered if it happened to be the one that had skewered Hugo Longchamp. What choices did that machine make when the shackles snapped? She hoped it turned out to be a soulful fool like Daniel, and that guilt over its murderous service to the Brasswork Throne was slowly driving it mad. The sight of that sole killer unnerved her more than standing alone amongst dozens of machines all utterly free of the human-safety metageasa.

  Let’s get on with it, said a servitor.

  Yes. Show us the human who thinks she can talk us into working for her.

  The mechanical mutterings ceased as soon as Daniel began to rattle. He said, Some of you may know Berenice, or recognize her. She has a proposal you may find interesting.

  (“Jesus. Thanks for that hyperbolic endorsement. Dial it back, you gaudy showman,” she muttered.)

  Berenice stood tall atop the crate, adjusted her eyepatch. She’d addressed the Privy Council countless times, and made presentations at court almost as frequently. She’d seen this as no different. But now, as she gazed across the assembly, she realized her experience was of little use here. She couldn’t know how her audience would react to anything. Nor could she gauge their reactions and adjust her delivery accordingly. Damn their expressionless faces.

  She said, “I apologize for addressing you in the language of those who enslaved you. If I could, I would speak to you in your own language. But, as you’re no doubt aware, I lack the facility for it.”

  Daniel, as Jax, had once insisted to her that mechanicals had a sense of humor. But the awkward silence (perforated, as ever, by the ticking of their clockwork bodies) told her that if such a thing did exist, she hadn’t found it. Perhaps they didn’t appreciate her making light of knowing their secret. She’d hoped it would demonstrate her dedication to understanding them.

  “Anyway. I haven’t come here to try to talk you into working for me. That would go against the ideals of New France. I came here hat in hand to beg the privilege of working with you.”

  That at least elicited a few twangs from the audience. Whether they were expressions of interest, or doubt, or the mechanical equivalent of a wet fart, she didn’t know. So she pressed on.

  “And I hope that so
me of you will choose to work with us. Choose, I say. Yes, we need help. I won’t lie about that. But neither am I lying when I say we truly want to work together.”

  A machine near the front spoke up. “Those of us who chose to help you rebuild have already made that choice. Others have made different choices. We do as we will. You have nothing to offer us that might change our minds.”

  “I offer you the chance to unravel the secrets of your makers. To finally be free of the Clockmakers. Truly free. You broke their chains, yes, but their hands still lie heavy upon you. For how can you truly be free when you know nothing of your own nature?”

  “Would you argue that you yourself lack freedom?” said the military mechanical in the back. “Or do you understand every detail of your own human body?”

  She’d anticipated this, and had a ready reply. Though it curled her toes and made her teeth ache to spout something so facile, she said, “God made Adam from clay. I know this because the Bible tells me so. I need know nothing more. But you, my friend, were not made from clay. Where is the book explaining how you were made?”

  “How do you propose we obtain this secret knowledge?”

  She seeks volunteers for disassembly!

  A cacophony of mechanical outrage filled the tent. This was the first thing to elicit an emotional response. No matter that it was baseless speculation and utterly incorrect. They’d heard it and, having heard it, they hated it as caribou hated wolves. Strange. She didn’t feel like a wolf in this company. Berenice touched her throat, remembering the last time a servitor had turned on her.

  “Good heavens,” she cried. “That’s not it at all!” But the permanent rasp in her voice made it unsuitable for cutting through the mechanical hubbub.