The machine breathed.
It should have been impossible, that this construct of cut gemstones and shaped pieces of metal the size of a building breathed like a living being of flesh and blood would… but it breathed nonetheless.
And Evdoksia was here to kill it.
Taking a deep breath of her own, she looked around the vast chamber in which the machine loomed, standing from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. This far underground, the summer sunshine was only a distant rumor, and what light there was came from the numerous cut crystals set into the machine and the walls. The sleepers below, who would operate the machine when they woke, lay on their padded cots, dim stones sitting next to them, ready for that moment of waking and their return from dreams.
Evdoksia didn’t envy them. Quite the opposite, actually, for she planned on them finding a nightmare when they awoke.
Moving in a crouch, she slipped over to the back frame of the machine, her padded feet making naught but a whisper on the wooden floorboards; while the machine’s breath was loud enough to keep the vast room, at least fifty feet deep and high, from being completely silent, she wasn’t taking any chances. Thankfully, the large sandy pit in the center of the chamber, near the sleepers, was easy enough to avoid.
Reaching down to her belt, she pulled out the keyring she’d stolen from her uncle only an hour before. Finding the correct key among the padding she’d folded around them to keep them from jingling, she slipped it into the lock and opened the panel.
The inside of the machine beckoned.
Taking a deep breath of her own, followed by a silent prayer to whichever gods would hear it, Evdoksia shimmied in and closed the panel behind her, just in case.
A maze of bronze gears greeted her, with the sound like that of a heartbeat.
She shivered; what her family had wrought was alive. A dreaming beast made of bellows and bladders, clockwork, and other more arcane devices, somehow summing to more than their parts. It slumbered around her, but its sleep was not innocent.
And for the sake of millions, the unending faces she saw in her dreams, she needed to kill it.
Swallowing, she crawled along the access space, deeper into the machine, past gears of bronze and glass etched and inked with arcane symbols and spools and spools of copper wire that seemed to glow in the dimness. Drafts from the bellows and the leather bladders teased her hair and whispered across her skin.
Time was of the essence. The guards would be changing soon, and her uncle would wake and find his keys gone when he went to use the machine. By then, she intended to be gone from the city; she had a smuggler with a boat ready to take her across the strait, and from there…
Well, she didn’t know what future would be waiting for her. But she had to do this.
She couldn’t live with herself otherwise, knowing the cost of their ambitions.
Space was cramped, and she had shifted from crawling to having to pull herself along through the passageway. With one final pull along the metal bars that supported the interior of the machine, she entered its heart. Above and around her, the machine’s appendages unfurled like the arms of a spider. There was the orrery that showed the world, the moon, the sun, the Night-Light, and the planets above. Then there were the mobile slats and bars along the chute. And then the pipes and tanks filled with flowing water, and more that she didn’t know the function of. But here…
Here was the heart of the machine.
Here was the six-sided clear gemstone which sat in its cradle of glass and copper and gems glowed with a muted brilliance of green and yellow. It was only the size of a couple of fingers pressed together. For a moment, Evdoksia considered the gem; for something so powerful and significant, it was smaller than it seemed it should be. Where it had come from, she didn’t know, but she did know that out of the entire machine it was the only part that couldn’t be replaced.
Bracing herself, she reached out and pulled it free. There was some resistance, but it smoothly slid free of the cradle in which it sat… and as soon as it was out, the machine faltered. The glowing lines of copper and glass that led to the cradle faded instantly, some of them even giving off little curls of smoke. Around her, she could hear some of the clockwork seize up, pumps and bellows stuttering and wavering.
Her eyes went wide; she hadn’t been expecting the reaction to be that noticeable!
Throwing the crystal into her belt pouch, she then hastened back out of the guts of the dying machine—and froze when she heard voices outside.
Including that of her uncle.
“Get the guards! Someone is inside—”
She bolted, scrambling on hands and knees for another exit.
A clang echoed up the access space and she felt the jolt as someone else entered.
“Saboteur! We have a saboteur in the Machine!” her uncle shouted from behind her, and she redoubled her pace, fear bringing speed to her limbs. The machine was his creation, and he knew his way around inside like none other.
Finding a ladder, she hauled herself upright and started climbing at speed, the wooden rungs round and slippery under her nervous fingers and padded feet. She needed to get out of here! There were plenty of exits from the chamber, but not that many, and she still had to get to the surface, hundreds of feet above, or all of this would be for nothing.
Below her, she felt her uncle reach the same ladder and begin climbing after her. “I’ve found the saboteur! Fifth access ladder, back quarter!” he bellowed, the sound echoing through the chamber. Around them, the machine was shuddering and shaking; gears were groaning with the sound of warping metal, and the clanging of other parts against each other was growing louder and louder. In front of her, visible through the ladder’s gaps and the open frames of the machine’s guts, she saw a pair of bellows burst open, as the cams that drove them flailed first in one direction, and then the other, ripping the leather and cloth from the wooden backings with the force of their blows.
“Who are you!?” her uncle demanded from below her, even as he climbed after her, closing the gap; all of the years he’d devoted to bringing the machine to life were apparently paying off in strength and familiarity that outstripped her youth.
She didn’t answer, instead focusing on reaching the top—only to yelp as a tank or pipe burst near her, showering her with warm water. The water rendered the ladder slippery under her fingers, but somehow, she managed to hold on, and another six rungs higher, she was free of the gushing water.
Below, her uncle continued in pursuit.
The last few rungs passed, and she emerged onto the catwalks at the very top of the machine. Around her, she saw gears being ripped from their mountings and going flying through the air. One of those nearly clipped her in the head, and she yelped and ducked.
“Saboteur!” came the shout behind her. “Do you know what you’ve done!? Do you know what it took to build this!?”
She scurried over to one of the doors that led to the catwalks, even as she heard marching footsteps moving at double-time towards the nearest door. She needed to get out of here now.
“It took us years to build—” Her uncle’s head emerged from the innards of the machine… and spotted her. “Evia?”
Reaching down, she found a broken bronze gear-shaft that had just flown out of the machine, and jammed it under the doorknob. With that blocked off, she jumped away from the catwalk to another. “Sorry, Uncle!”
“What are you doing!?” he demanded, hauling himself up onto the catwalk she’d first emerged onto.
“Saving lives—from you,” she screamed, even as she balanced herself on the new catwalk, which was tilting to alarming degree. “I know what you’re planning, Uncle.” She scrambled on all fours over to another door. “You and my parents and the rest of the family, and I have to stop you!” She tried the doorknob.
Locked.
She watched his expression twist from shock to fury. “Traitor!” he bellowed, and he snatched a metal wand from his belt.
Before he could do anything else, she pulled the keyring from her pouch, along with the heart-crystal she’d stolen. “I wouldn’t! If I fall, it’ll shatter!”
“That gem has survived far worse than a fall!” he said.
“Are you sure?” she said, holding it up in front of her with one hand, even as she scrambled to find the right key with her other hand. “Are you willing to risk your life’s work on that?”
He grimaced, shoved the wand back onto his belt, and started to run towards her across the pitching catwalks. Behind him, the door she’d blocked was shuddering, but the broken metal bar was holding it shut.
The third key on the ring was the right one, and she shoved it into the lock just as her uncle tried to tackle her, but his charge was upset by the catwalk moving under his feet. Instead of knocking her to the ground, he only caught her in a grapple, his hand on hers, the heart-crystal inside.
“How could you betray your own family—your own homeland!—like this!?” he demanded, his bared teeth inches from her face.
“Because I’ve seen the cost of your victory!” she panted, trying to push him off. “And the price for it was too high for anyone to pay!”
“You insolent, weak—”
His words were cut short when she twisted, using what leverage she had, and pulled him into a joint lock. He could have escaped if he’d relinquished his grip on her hand holding the heart-crystal, but he didn’t.
And then the catwalk fell from under them.
Already off balance from her joint-lock, her uncle fell into the guts of the machine he’d built, even as she caught herself on the ledge of the door.
The gears below showed no mercy for their creator.
She screamed—from seeing him die, from the pain in her shoulder as she dangled from it, from everything.
His mouth moved. She couldn’t hear his words over the sound of ripping metal… but, as she hauled herself up to the door, opened it, and fell into the stone passage beyond, she felt them nonetheless, as they settled into her soul.
Imprudent | Next
What a compelling beginning!