Shadow Conspiracy (18 page)

I held up my left hand, the one with six fingers. “I see things. Not just the future, but also...
things.
” My eyes lost their focus and I forgot where I was. “I started life as a climbing boy, back before automata put the chimney sweeps out of business. My friends and I squirmed into tiny spaces with little brushes, and Scar—the man who owned us in all but name—forced us to scrub them clean. The chimneys were narrow and black as night. It was hard to breathe. Sometimes you got stuck. Trapped in the black bricks with no way to move.”

Nathan shuddered. “It sounds horrible.”

“And then there was the Thin Man,” I whispered.

“Who was he?”

“I still don’t know. Sometimes I think he was just a figment created by my own mind, a personification of the terrible futures I saw for my friends. Sometimes I think he really existed.”

“But who was he?”

The whole world faded away now. For a moment, I felt poised again, held between devotion and destruction as I had outside of Kalakos’s wagon, unnerved and unsettled. Nathan stood before me, solid and complete, and I turned my focus on him, ignoring the other sensation, refusing to examine the choices. Nathan’s blue eyes and sunset hair became my universe. Words poured out of me, desperate for something to connect with. Nathan drank them in for me, and I felt grateful for his presence.

“The Thin Man killed you,” I said. “He hid in the dark places and made you slip and fall three stories into a stone fireplace. He loosened bricks that crumbled under your knee so you dropped downward a little and became wedged in place until you suffocated. He started chimney fires that roasted you alive. All the climbing boys told stories about him, but I was the only one who could see him. I was the only one he talked to in the dark. Finally he burned one of my best friends to death, and I realized running away was safer than staying. Just before I scarpered, the Thin Man begged me not to go, so I knew it was the right choice. Maybe he only existed because I could see him. I haven’t seen him since.

“In the meantime, I had to eat, and climbing boys make good thieves. We can get into all sorts of places. I never got caught, either—I knew when the mingers were coming. But I was still living in shadows. Then I came here, to the Emporium, looking for something to steal. Kalakos caught me, but instead of beating me or arresting me, he put me to work. I swept his forge and cleaned his workshop. With the automata I found my true talent.” I remembered where I was and shook myself free of the memories and of Nathan’s blue gaze. “Sorry. I ramble sometimes.”

“You needed to. I like listening to you, Dodd.”

He was so ingenuous, so calm and carefree. I envied and desired it at the same time. “Come along,” I said. “I’ll show you the Black Tent.”

The Black Tent was always erected some distance from the main Emporium due to the risk of fire. It was called the Black Tent not for its colour, which was canvas grey, but because Kalakos and I did a fair amount of blacksmith work there. I held the flap aside for Nathan, my eyes on his face so I could catch his reaction.

Nathan didn’t disappoint. His expression lit up with wonder, like a josser in the front row. The Black Tent was lined with machines of all shapes. Gears spun, keys twirled, steam puffed, whistles peeped, wheels whirled. The half-completed elephant head I was working on opened and closed its mouth. The iron cat batted at the bars of her cage. Other animals—goats, dogs, rabbits, frogs, even a small dragon—lay on the ground or on shelves, waiting to be repaired or activated for a performance, but a few pairs of eyes summoned the energy to swivel sleepily in our direction. Most were prototypes—the working automata were housed elsewhere in Henry’s care.

Worktables, benches, storage cupboards, trunks, and tool racks occupied the central area of the Black Tent, and a serviceable forge with a carefully-designed chimney took up part of one wall. Beside it stood a tall rack of Leyden jars, each labelled with letters in Kalakos’s careful handwriting: WM, CG, MD, HW, AD, though several jars along the bottom were left blank. Beside that stood a long table with an electrical apparatus attached to it.

My windup spiders, all twelve of them, skittered across the ground and various work surfaces to greet me. The two smallest clambered up my trousers into my arms like small children wanting a kiss from Papa while the others leaped and cavorted round my ankles. I reached down to pat the big red one and give it a windup.

“Hello, Red,” I greeted it.

“I always miss the main show,” Nathan said. “Joseph runs us back to Kalakos’s railcar or the wagon.”

“Why do you stay in there all day?” I asked.

Nathan hesitated just noticeably enough. “Joseph isn’t sociable. I finally persuaded him to let me out for a while. Do your spiders perform?”

A pointed change of subject, and I couldn’t resist showing off. I said, “Juggle spot three!” All the spiders but Red rolled themselves into little balls. Red snatched his brothers up with his forward legs and juggled them. He bounced them off the ground or off his own body, and they leaped back into formation. Ten of them linked themselves into five balls in mid air, let Red toss them about again, and they split back into ten.

“End!” I said, and they all dropped to the ground. “Bow!” The spiders turned to Nathan and bent their legs.

“Amazing!” Nathan applauded, and I felt more pleased than if I’d received a standing ovation from the Royal Court. “And you invented them?”

“I did.” An idiot grin spread across my face at his enthusiasm.

“You’re a genius.” Nathan put out his hand and a spider scuttled toward him to investigate, its key spinning merrily. “What are all those jars on the shelf for?”

At that my face hardened. “They belong to Kalakos. They store...electricity. I prefer spring and steam, myself.”

“And this one?” He reached for the lynx-sized cat in her cage. Quick as a flash I grabbed his hand and yanked him away. The cat lunged, her sharp iron claws swiping the air his flesh had occupied a split-second before. She hissed angrily and lunged again. The metal of her flesh rattled against the scratched and battered bars of her cage. Nathan went pale.

“What happened?” he asked, backing away.

“Kalakos created her years ago, but she became more and more unstable,” I said. “Now she threatens to disembowel anyone who opens the cage.”

“Why not destroy it?”

“It’s...complicated.” In that moment I realized Nathan’s hand was still in mine, warm and strong. Our eyes met, and he made no move to withdraw. I started to do so myself, then my choices opened up in front of me. If I pulled away, I saw myself frightened and alone. If I kept his hand, I saw myself frightened and
not
alone.

I kept Nathan’s hand and squeezed it. Nathan squeezed back, and the other choice vanished. We didn’t say a word about our new arrangement as I went on explaining different aspects of the Black Tent—the forge where Kalakos and I created our own gears, the ink-stained tables where we drew plans and made calculations, the intricate workings of half-built difference engines of the sort first built by Charles Babbage and perfected by Ada Lovelace. He kept my hand throughout, and I thought my heart would burst from that tiny gesture.

“But what’s it all for?” Nathan finally asked.

“For?” I echoed. My mind was mostly on the fact that I was still holding his hand.

“Why do you build these machines for a circus? Surely you could find a position at a large shop or even a university.” He touched one of my spiders with his free hand, and it bobbed up and down for a moment. “The same applies to Kalakos. Why does he spend his time here?”

“I never thought about it. Kalakos has always been here. And he took me in and educated me, and so I stay. Without him, I’d still be dodging mingers.”

“What’s Kalakos dodging?”

I pursed my lips in puzzlement. Nathan had the disconcerting habit of asking simple questions that required complicated answers. “I’ve never—”

“I want the other half now, damn it!” The tent flap burst open and Joseph Storm strode in, closely followed by Victor Kalakos. I dropped Nathan’s hand as if it were poisonous and stepped away from him.

“And I’m telling you,” Kalakos replied, “the procedure should be spread out among at least three sessions. Doing it all at once creates an enormous risk.”

“I don’t care. Do it all
now.
”

“Mr. Kalakos?” I said uncertainly.

“And you,” Joseph growled at Nathan. It continued to astound me how exactly alike they looked. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Didn’t I tell you to go to the wagon?”

All of Nathan’s earlier charm and inquisitiveness drained away. “I...I didn’t...”

“As for you—” He stabbed a finger in my direction. “You will do as you’re told and help Kalakos.”

My mouth dropped open at his audacity. “Remember your place, Mr. Storm,” I snapped, “or perhaps you’d like to find another position?”

“Would that please my brother?” Joseph countered in an oily voice, and my blood chilled. “There’s so much you don’t know, Dodd, so keep your mouth shut and remember
your
place as street trash.”

My fists were already up. The spiders, sensing my agitation, surrounded me like a pack of iron dogs. Their claws clicked in a sinister chorus that didn’t seem to bother Joseph in the slightest. He snatched up the smallest from the ground and held it pointedly before him. The spider struggled in his grip like a kitten, its delicate legs waving impotently in the air. I froze.

“Joseph,” Nathan pleaded, “don’t.”

Kalakos, apparently ignoring us, had moved behind the table near the Leyden jars. “Mr. Storm. If you please?”

I turned to stare at him. His deferential tone frightened me more than the possibility that Joseph might destroy my beloved spider. Kalakos, meanwhile, took up a blank Leyden jar from the bottom shelf and a fountain pen from the drafting table. A cold draft washed over my body as he wrote “NS” on the label. I now knew what Joseph Storm meant when he said I would “help.”

“No,” I said. My teeth were chattering.

“Yes, Dodd.” Kalakos replied, his eyes boring into me. He hadn’t spoken to me in that tone since I was a youth. “I will perform the procedure, and you will assist, just as Mr. Storm says.”

I moved toward him, my spider forgotten. The other spiders hovered between me and Joseph, uncertain what to do as I grasped Kalakos by the elbow. “You promised you wouldn’t do this any more,” I whispered hoarsely. “You know what it does to people. Leave Nathan alone.”

“I brought you up from the gutter, Dodd,” he said.

“Please!” I was begging now. “Not him. I...I care about what happens to him.”

Kalakos’s eyes softened. “I know.” Then they hardened. “Now do as you’re told or I’ll put you on this table as well.”

I wanted to refuse him. I looked to Nathan and then to Kalakos, caught between them. I remembered Nathan’s hand in mine. But I also remembered the way Kalakos rescued a street thief worth less than the rags he wore.

Woodenly, I accepted the Leyden jar Kalakos handed me. I connected it to the casing while Kalakos had Nathan remove his pullover and shirt, exposing a sleekly powerful chest and abdomen. He lay down upon the table and let Kalakos strap him down. Joseph watched, still holding my spider. Nathan accepted the treatment without comment, obeying his brother here just as he did in the ring, but with none of the sly digs. I wanted to ask why, but I couldn’t even bring myself to meet his eyes.

“The jars all contain the souls of your performers, is that right, Doctor?” Joseph said.

“Doctor?” I asked.

“They do not.” Kalakos drew a buckle across the smooth skin of Nathan’s chest. “It isn’t easy to remove a soul from a human being and house it in something else, either organic or automatic. Most say it can’t be done.”

I glanced involuntarily at the cat in her cage. Kalakos took up a helmet-shaped device made of copper netting and fitted it over Nathan’s head while I took a metal plate and pressed it against his breastbone. Nathan looked at me with that strange child-like acceptance in his eyes, and I looked away. I had wiring to connect.

“You said your device can do it,” Joseph accused.

“It can,” Kalakos replied. He set straps round Nathan’s ankles. “At one time, it was exceedingly difficult, but it’s become easier in this modern age, thanks to Babbage and Lovelace’s difference engine. The engine allows us to calculate the exact frequency for the soul, which is nothing more than a form of electromagnetic energy. A sufficiently complicated electrical device”—he gestured at his machine—“has the power to move a soul from one place to another, just like we can move current from a generator to a Leyden jar.”

“I like that you keep their souls in jars,” Joseph said pleasantly. “It’s a brilliant way to keep them under your thumb.”

“I told you those aren’t souls,” Kalakos said. “They’re pieces. I once had a machine in Geneva that would transfer a complete soul all at once, but that device was destroyed. I did rebuild, but without the proper inspiration—”

“His name was Georgie Byron, as I recall,” Joseph interrupted. I stiffened and turned to stare at Kalakos.

“—without the proper inspiration, I couldn’t get it right,” Kalakos continued as if Joseph hadn’t spoken. “My new machine failed to transfer the subjects properly, and they were...damaged. Then I realized I could simply dial back the voltage and not take the entire soul. It does no immediate harm to the owners, though they tend to age faster and die sooner. And it does make them more pliable. I don’t worry about them snooping among my machines. Or asking questions about my past.”