Behemoth

TWENTY-ONE

“I’m a fool,” Alek whispered to himself.

The Germans had, of course, investigated the other men who’d disappeared the night he’d run away. Bauer, Hoffman, and Klopp were all Hapsburg House Guards, with photographs in their military files. But somehow Alek had forgotten that commoners could be hunted too.

He looked frantically around the room. Two more German soldiers stood at the door, and the coffeehouse had no other exits. The soldiers who’d noticed Bauer were talking to each other intently, one glancing at their table.

Malone leaned back in his chair and casually said, “There’s a door to the alley in the back.”

Alek looked—the back wall was entirely covered by the glowing screen, but it was made of paper.

“Hans, do you have a knife?” Alek asked softly.

Bauer nodded, reaching into his jacket. “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll keep them busy while you run.”

“No, Hans. We’re escaping together. Give the knife to me, then follow.”

Bauer frowned, but handed over the weapon. The two German soldiers were signaling to their compatriots at the door. It was time to move.

“Noon tomorrow at the Blue Mosque,” Alek said, reaching for his fez …

He leapt to his feet and ran through the tables toward the glowing screen.

The bright expanse of paper parted with a swift stroke of the knife, revealing whirling gears and gaslights behind. Half blinded, Alek crashed through silhouettes of ocean waves, stumbling against a large, humming contraption. His hand banged against one of the hissing gaslights, which burned like a branding iron against his hand. The light crashed to the ground, spilling naked flames and shards of glass across the floor.

Shouts exploded from behind them, the crowd panicking at the smell of burning gas and paper. Alek heard one of the soldiers yelling at the customers to let him through.

“The door, sir!” Bauer cried. Alek could see nothing but the spots burned into his vision, but Bauer dragged him along, their boots skidding on machinery and broken glass.

The door crashed open onto darkness, the night air blessedly cool on Alek’s burned palm. He followed Bauer, trying to blink away spots as he ran.

The alley was like a miniature version of the Grand Bazaar, lined with market stalls the size of closets, and crowded with small tables piled with pistachios, walnuts, and fruit. Surprised faces looked up at Alek and Bauer as they ran past.

Alek heard the slam of the door bursting open behind them. Then a gunshot boomed through the alley, and dust sprayed from the ancient stones beside his head.

“This way, sir!” Bauer cried, dragging him around a corner. People were scattering now, the alley turning into a tumult of men and overturned tables. Shutters flew open overhead, and cries in a dozen languages echoed from the walls.

Another shot shook the air around them, and Alek followed Bauer into a side passageway between two buildings. It was narrow and empty, and their boots slapped through a runnel of drainage that ran down its middle. They had to duck beneath low stone arches as they ran.

The alley didn’t lead back to the Grand Bazaar, or to an open street—it seemed to wind around itself, following the hissing spirals of steam pipes and wiring conduits. Only the barest hint of moonlight made its way down to the paving stones, and soon Alek had lost all sense of direction.

The walls here were chalked with a tangle of words and symbols—Alek saw the Arabic, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets mixed together, along with signs he didn’t recognize. It felt as though he and Bauer had stumbled into an older city hidden inside the first, Istanbul before the Germans had widened its boulevards and filled them with polished steel machines.

As they turned a corner, Bauer pulled Alek to a halt.

Above them loomed a walker, six stories high. Its body was long and sinuous, like a snake rearing up, a pair of arms jutting out from its sides. The front of the pilot’s cabin looked like a woman’s face, which seemed to be staring down at them, absolutely still.

“Volger told us about these,” Alek whispered. “Iron golems. They keep the peace among the different ghettos.”

“It looks empty,” Bauer said nervously. “And the engines aren’t running.”

“Perhaps it’s only for show. It doesn’t even have guns.”

There was something magnificent about the walker, though, as if they were staring up at a statue of some ancient pagan goddess. The expression of the giant face seemed to hint at a smile.

Shouts came from the distance, and Alek tore his eyes from the machine.

“We could break in somewhere and hide,” Bauer said, pointing at a low doorway in the alley wall, an iron-grilled window at its center.

Alek hesitated. Crashing into a strange house would only stir up more trouble, especially if the owners of the motionless walker were about.

The shriek of whistles echoed around them, as if pursuers were closing in from every direction.…

Almost every direction.

Alek looked up at the steam pipes climbing the stone walls. They sweated and trembled with heat, but he dashed down the alley, testing them until he found an old tangle of pipes that was cold to the touch.

He thrust the knife into his belt. “Let’s try for the rooftops.”

Bauer gave the pipes a shake, and brick dust floated down from the rusty bolts. “I’ll go first, sir, in case it breaks off.”

“If that happens, Hans, I suspect we’ll both be in trouble, but be my guest.”

Bauer took a firm grip and pulled himself up.

Alek followed. His boots found steady purchase on the rough stone wall, and the rusty pipes were good handholds. But halfway up his burned palm began to complain, throbbing as though a splinter of flame were trapped beneath the skin. He let go with that hand and shook it, trying to put out the fire coursing through his nerves.

“Not much farther, sir,” Bauer said. “There’s a rain gutter just above me.”

“I hope there’s some rain in it,” Alek muttered, still waving his hand. “I’d kill for a bucket of cold water.”

His right boot skidded a few centimeters, and Alek grabbed the pipes with both hands again. Better a little agony than a long fall onto paving stones.

Soon Bauer had hauled himself over the edge and out of sight. But as Alek reached up for the gutter, shouts came from below.

He pulled himself closer to the wall, and froze.

A group of soldiers was running down the alley, wearing German gray. One called out, and they came to a ragged halt directly beneath Alek. The man who’d shouted knelt, lifting something from the ground.

Alek softly swore. Bauer’s knife had fallen from his belt.

It was Hapsburg Guard issue, the hilt marked with Alek’s family crest. If the Germans had been wondering whether he was here in Istanbul or not, this would remove all doubt.

The men stood there talking, but none of them paid any notice to the steam pipes climbing the wall beside them. The officer was pointing in all directions, splitting up his men.

Go away! Alek pleaded silently. Hanging there motionless was a hundred times harder than climbing. His burned hand was cramping, and the week-old injury in his ribs was pulsing with his heartbeat.

Finally the last man had passed out of sight, and Alek reached out and grabbed the rain gutter. But as he hauled himself up, metal groaned, and the gutter pulled itself from the stone with a series of pops.

Alek felt a sickening lurch downward, the rusted bolts spitting out into his face. The gutter held for another moment, but he could feel it twisting in his hands.

“Sir!” Bauer reached out from the rooftop, trying to grab Alek’s wrists, but the gutter had pulled too far away from the wall.

Alek kicked out, trying to swing himself closer, but the movement only tore more bolts from the wall.

“The walker!” Bauer cried.

Alek realized that a huge shadow was moving beneath him, steam huffing from its joints into the cool night air. One of the great claws was reaching out.…

He fell, dropping into the giant metal hand. The impact knocked the breath from him, sending pain shooting through his sore ribs. He skidded for a moment, the buttons of his tunic snapping against steel, but the claw closed into a huge bowl around him.

He looked up—the arm was still moving, carrying him closer to the walker. Its face was splitting open, like a viewport cranking wider and wider. A moment later the pilot’s cabin was exposed.

There were three men inside. Two stood leaning over the edge, peering down at the alley, pistols gripped tightly in their hands. The third sat at the walker’s controls, a curious look on his face.

Clouds of steam swirled around them, puffing from the joints of the machine. Alek realized that its engines were still silent; it had used stored pneumatic pressure to spring to life.

“You speak German,” the man at the controls said. “And yet the Germans are chasing you. How interesting.”

“We’re not Germans,” Alek answered. “We’re Austrian.”

The man frowned. “But still Clankers. Are you deserters?”

Alek shook his head. His allegiances might have been tangled lately, but he was no deserter. “May I ask who you are, sir?”

The man smiled and worked at the controls. “I’m the fellow who just saved you from falling to your death.”

“Sir, should I …,” came Bauer’s voice from the rooftop, but Alek waved him silent.

The giant hand drew closer to the walker’s head, and opened flat. As Alek rose to his feet, one of the other two men said something in a language he didn’t recognize. It sounded more like Italian than the Turkish he’d heard on the streets today. It also sounded unfriendly.

The first man laughed. “My friend wants to throw you back, because he thinks you’re Germans. Perhaps we should pick another language.”

Alek raised an eyebrow. “By all means. Do you speak English?”

“Exceedingly well.” The man switched effortlessly. “I studied at Oxford, you know.”

“Well, then. My name is Aleksandar.” Alek bowed a little, then pointed up at the rooftop, where Bauer was staring down, wide eyed. “And this is Hans, but I’m afraid he has no English.”

“I am Zaven.” The man waved a hand dismissively at the others. “These two barbarians speak nothing by Romanian and Turkish. Ignore them. But I can see you are an educated gentleman.”

“Thank you for saving me, sir. And for not … throwing me back.”

“Well, you can’t be all bad, if the Germans are chasing you.” Zaven’s eyes twinkled. “Did you do something to annoy them?”

“I suppose so.” Alek took a slow breath, choosing his words carefully. “They’ve been hunting me since before the war started. They had issues with my father.”

“Aha! A second-generation rebel, as am I!”

Alek looked at the others. “So that’s what you three are? Revolutionaries?”

“We are more than three, sir. There are thousands of us!” Zaven snapped upright in his piloting chair and saluted. “We are the Committee for Union and Progress.”

Alek nodded. He remembered the name from six years before, when the rebellion had demanded a return to elected government. But the Germans had stepped in to crush them, keeping the sultan in charge.

“So you were part of the Young Turks’ rebellion?”

“Young Turks? Fah!” Zaven spat into the alley below. “We split off from those cretins years ago. They think that only Turks are true Ottomans. But as you can see, the Committee takes in all kinds.” He gestured at the other two men. “My friends are Vlachs, I am Armenian, and we have Kurds, Arabs, and Jews among us. And plenty of Turks, of course!” He laughed.

Alek nodded slowly, remembering the chalk scratchings in the passageways below, some sort of code assembled from the empire’s jumble of tongues.

And all of them fighting the Germans—together.

For a moment Alek felt unsteady on the giant metal hand. Perhaps it was just an echo of his near fall, but his heart was racing again.

These men were allies. At last, here was a chance to do more than simply run and hide, a way to strike back at the powers that had murdered his parents.

“Mr. Zaven,” Alek said, “I think you and I are going to be friends.”