Behemoth

TWENTY-SEVEN

Lilit and Zaven led him to the far corner of the balcony, which overlooked a huge courtyard within the walls of several warehouses. The windows of the surrounding buildings were boarded up, and the whole courtyard covered with camouflage netting to hide it from the air.

In the shadows five walkers stood silently.

Alek knelt at the balcony railing, peering down. Over the last few days, he’d seen them in the streets, the motley array of combat walkers that guarded Istanbul’s ghettos. These five were marked with the dents and scrapes of old battles, their armor decorated with a multitude of signs—crescents, crosses, a Star of David, and other symbols he’d never seen before.

“A committee of iron golems,” he said.

Zaven raised a finger. “Iron golems is the Jewish name. The Vlachs call them werewolves, and our Greek brothers call them Minotaurs.” He pointed at the walker from two nights before. “I believe you’ve met Şahmeran, my personal machine. She is a goddess of the Kurdish people.”

“And they’re all here together,” Alek said.

“Another excellent observation,” Lilit muttered.

“Hush, girl,” Nene said, her bed making its slow way toward them. “For too long we were content to look after our own neighborhoods and let the sultan run the empire. But the Germans and their mekanzimat have done us a favor—they’ve united us at last.”

Zaven knelt beside Alek. “The machines below are only a fraction of those pledged to us. We use these five to train, so that a Kurd knows how to pilot a werewolf, and an Arab an iron golem.”

“So you can fight together properly,” Alek said.

“Indeed. My own daughter has mastered all of them!”

“A girl piloting a walker? How utterly—” Alek saw Lilit’s expression, and cleared his throat. “How exceptional.”

“Fah! Not so strange as you think,” Zaven said, raising a fist. “Once the revolution comes, women will be the equal of men in all things!”

Alek stifled a laugh. More of the family madness, it seemed, or perhaps the influence of the iron-willed Nene on her son.

“How does that Tesla cannon work?” Lilit asked.

“My man Klopp says it’s a lightning generator.” Alek cast his mind back to Klopp’s explanation a few days after the battle with the Goeben. “Mr. Tesla is an American, but the Germans fund his experiments. They’ve been working on this cannon for some time. How do you know about it?”

“Never mind that,” Nene said. “Can it stop our walkers?”

“I doubt it. The Tesla cannon is designed to be used against hydrogen breathers. But the Goeben still has its big guns, and walkers like these are the perfect targets.” Alek looked to the southeast, where smoke plumes rose from the sultan’s palace—near the water. As long as the German warships waited there, the palace was safe from a walker attack. “That’s the real reason those German ironclads are here, isn’t it? To keep the sultan in power.”

“And to starve the Russians.” Nene shrugged. “A hammer can pound more than one nail. You’ve had a bit of military training, it seems.”

“More than a bit, when it comes to walkers.” Alek straightened his shoulders. “Give me the trickiest one you have, and I’ll prove it.”

Nene nodded, a slow smile spreading across her face. “You heard the boy, granddaughter. Take him to Şahmeran.”

Alek flexed his fingers, looking over the controls.

The instruments were labeled with symbols rather than words, but the purposes of most were clear. Engine temperature, pressure gauges, fuel—nothing he hadn’t seen in his Stormwalker.

But the saunters were a different matter entirely. They rose up from the pilot’s cabin floor, like huge levers. The handgrips looked like the armored gloves of a medieval knight.

“How am I meant to walk with these?” he asked.

“You aren’t. The saunters control the arms.” Lilit pointed at the floor. “You use the pedals to walk, ninny.”

“Ninny,” the creature repeated, then chuckled.

“Your pet knows you quite well, doesn’t it,” Lilit said, stroking the creature’s fur. “What’s its name?”

“Name? Fabricated beasts don’t have them. Except for the great airships, of course.”

“Well, this one needs a name,” Lilit said. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

Alek thought for a moment, then frowned. “The Leviathan’s crew always said ‘it’ when speaking of beasts. Perhaps they’re neither.”

“Then where do they come from?”

“Eggs.”

“But what lays the eggs?”

Alek shrugged. “As far as I know, the boffins pull them out of their bowler hats.”

Lilit looked more closely at the beast while Alek stared at the saunters. He’d never piloted a walker with arms before. This Şahmeran might be trickier than he’d thought.

But if a girl could pilot the monstrosity, it couldn’t be too difficult.

“How do I know what the arms are doing? I can’t even see them from in here.”?

“You just know where they are, as if they were part of your own body. But since this is your first time …” Lilit spun a crank, and the top half of the pilot’s cabin began to move upward, huffing with pneumatics. “You can try it in parade mode.”

“Parade mode?”

“For when Şahmeran marches in the Kurds’ religious festivals.”

“Ah, that sort of parade,” Alek said. “This is a very odd country. All the walkers seem to be symbols as well as machines.”

“Şahmeran is not a symbol. She’s a goddess.”

“A goddess. Of course,” Alek muttered. “There certainly are a lot of females in this revolution.”

Lilit rolled her eyes as she pulled the engine starter. The machine rumbled to life beneath them, and the creature imitated the engine noise, then climbed from Alek’s shoulder to peek over the front edge of the control panel.

“Will your pet be all right?” Lilit asked.

“It has an excellent head for heights,” Alek said. “When we escaped the Leviathan, we climbed across a cable much higher than this.”

“But why did you steal it?” she asked. “To prove that you’d been aboard the airship?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Alek said, placing his boots carefully on the foot pedals. “It insisted on coming.”

The creature turned to face them and seemed to smile at Lilit.

“Somehow, I almost believe you,” she said softly. “Well, show us how clever you are, boy. Walking is the easy part.”

“I doubt it shall be any trouble,” Alek said, watching the instruments come to life. When the pressure gauges steadied, he pushed down on the foot pedals, slow and steady.

The machine responded, moving forward smoothly, the spiny legs along its belly moving in automatic sequence. He lifted his left foot from the pedal, guiding the walker into a slow turn.

“This is easier than my four-legged runabout,” he exclaimed. “I could pilot that when I was twelve!”

Lilit gave him a strange look. “You had your own walker? When you were twelve?”

“It was the family’s.” Alek reached for the saunters. “And boys have a natural gift for mechaniks, after all.”

“A natural gift for boastfulness, you mean.”

“We’ll see who’s being boastful.” Alek slipped his right hand into the metal glove and made a fist. A great pair of claws snapped shut on the machine’s right side.

“Careful,” Lilit said. “Şahmeran is stronger than any mere boy.”

Alek pushed the saunter about, watching how the walker’s arm followed his movements. The arm was long and sinuous, like a snake’s body, its scales sliding against one another with a sound like a dozen swords drawn from their scabbards.

“The trick is to forget your own body,” Lilit said. “Pretend that the walker’s hands are yours.”

The saunters were amazingly sensitive, the giant arms mimicking every movement of Alek’s, but slowly. He paced himself to match the walker’s scale, and soon he felt twenty meters tall, as if he were wearing a huge costume, instead of piloting.

“Now comes the tricky part.” Lilit pointed. “Pick up that wagon over there.”

In the far corner of the courtyard, an old wagon lay overturned. Its wooden side was scratched and gouged, like an ill-treated child’s toy.

“Looks easy enough,” Alek said, guiding the machine closer among the motionless forms of the other walkers.

He stretched out his right hand, and the machine obeyed him. From the control panel the creature imitated the sounds of hissing air and metal as they echoed from the courtyard walls.

Alek closed his fingers slowly, and the claws shut around the wagon.

“Good so far,” Lilit said. “But stay gentle.”

Alek nodded, remembering Volger’s rule on how to hold a sword—like a pet bird, tight enough to keep it from flying away but gentle enough not to suffocate it.

The wagon shifted in the Şahmeran’s grip, threatening to fall.

“Turn your wrist,” Lilit said quickly. “But don’t squeeze!”

Alek turned the claw upright, trying to settle the wagon in its metal palm. But the wagon had other ideas, tipping from its side onto its wheels. It began to roll.

“Careful!” Lilit said, and the creature repeated the word.

Alek twisted his hand in the saunter again, trying to flip the wagon back onto its side. But it wouldn’t stay still, like a marble rolling back and forth in a bowl. The wagon reached the edge of his palm and teetered there, and Alek squeeze a little harder.…

The giant metal fingers shut with a sharp hiss of air, and he heard the crack of wood splitting. Splinters flew in all directions, and Alek ducked as something large sailed past his head. Tiny wooden needles stung his face.

He opened his eyes in time to see the wagon’s pieces crashing to bits against the paving stones below. He stared at the empty claw, annoyed.

Lilit sat back up beside him—a few tiny splinters were caught in her black hair. The creature stared up at him from the pilot’s cabin floor, making a sound like the creak of shattering wood.

“Having the power of a goddess is quite a responsibility,” Lilit said quietly, flicking at her hair. “Don’t you agree, boy?”

Alek nodded slowly, turning his wrist and watching the giant claw rotate on its gears. He still felt it, the connection between himself and the machine.

“I don’t suppose you have another wagon,” he said. “I think I’ve got it now.”