“What about your father, Hans? He must think you’re a deserter.”
“My parents sent me off a long time ago.” The man shook his head. “Too many mouths to feed at home. It was the same with Hoffman, I think. Your father only chose men without families to help you.”
“That was kind of him, I suppose,” Alek said, struck by the thought that he and his men were, in a way, all orphans together. “But once this war is over, Hans, I swear you’ll never go hungry again.”
“No need, Fritz. This is duty. And besides, one could hardly go hungry in this city.”
The coffee arrived, smelling of chocolate and as thick as black honey. It certainly tasted better than anything that could have been cooked up over a fire in the freezing Alps.
Alek took a long drink, letting the rich flavors sweep away his dark thoughts. He eavesdropped on the surrounding tables, hearing complaints of delayed shipments of parts, and censored letters from home. The conquest of Belgium was almost complete, and the engineers were celebrating. France would fall soon after. Then would come a quick campaign against Darwinist Russia and the island fortress of Britain. Or it might be a long war, some argued, but Germany would prevail eventually—fabricated beasts were no match for Clanker bravery and steel.
It didn’t sound as though anyone cared if the Ottomans joined the war or not. The Germans were confident in themselves and their Austrian allies.
Of course, the high command might have a different view.
Suddenly Alek’s ears caught the sound of English. He turned and saw a man moving slowly among the tables, asking questions that drew only shrugs and uncomprehending stares. The man was scruffily dressed in a traveling coat and a shapeless hat, with a folding camera strapped around his neck. Some sort of fabricated beast rode on his shoulder—a frog, perhaps, its beady eyes peering out from beneath the man’s jacket collar.
A Darwinist, here, in what was practically German territory?
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” he said when he reached Alek’s table. “But do either of you speak any English?”
Alek hesitated. The man’s accent was unfamiliar, and he didn’t look British. His camera seemed to be a Clanker design.
“I do, a little,” Alek said.
The man’s face broke into a broad smile as he thrust out his hand. “Excellent! I’m Eddie Malone, reporter for the New York World. Do you mind if I ask some questions?”
The man sat down without waiting for an answer, snapping for a waiter and ordering coffee.
“Did he say reporter?” Bauer muttered in German. “Is this wise, Fritz?”
Alek nodded—this was the perfect opportunity. The job of a foreign reporter, after all, was to understand the politics around him, the maneuverings of the great powers here in the Ottoman Empire. And talking to Malone was much safer than trying to extract gossip from a German, who might notice Alek’s aristocratic accent.
A few men at the other tables had glanced at the reporter as he’d sat down, but no one was staring now. The streets of Constantinople were full of stranger sights than a fabricated frog.
“I don’t know how much we can help you,” Alek said. “We haven’t been here very long.”
“Don’t worry. My questions won’t be too tricky.” The reporter pulled out a battered notebook. “I’m just curious about what they call the mekanzimat—all the new buildings the Germans are putting up in Istanbul. Are you here to work on something?”
Alek cleared his throat. The man had assumed they were Germans, of course. He probably couldn’t tell an Austrian accent from the croak of his own bullfrog. But there was no point in correcting him. “We aren’t in construction, Mr. Malone. At the moment we’re just traveling. Seeing the sights.”
Malone’s eyes scanned Alek up and down, coming to a halt on the fez on the chair beside him. “I can see you’ve been shopping already. Funny thing, though. Men of military age, on a vacation in wartime!”
Alek swore silently. He’d always been hopeless at any sort of lying, but pretending to be a tourist was absurd when every man in Europe was reporting for duty. Malone probably thought they were deserters, or spies.
Of course, a certain amount of mystery might be useful.
“Let’s just say you needn’t know our names.” Alek gestured at the camera. “And no photographs, if you please.”
“No problem. Istanbul is full of anonymous people.” The man reached up to scratch his bullfrog’s chin. “I suppose you came in on the Express?”
Alek nodded. The Orient-Express ran straight from Munich to Constantinople, and he could hardly admit they’d arrived by airship.
“Must’ve been crowded, with all the new workers coming in.”
“The train might have been crowded, but we had our own cabin.” As the words came out, Alek cursed himself again. Why did he always find ways to make it obvious that he was wealthy?
“So you didn’t talk to any of the folks working on that wireless tower, did you?”
“Wireless tower?” Alek asked.
“Yep. The one you Germans are building on the cliffs out to the west. A special project for the sultan, they say. It’s huge—has its own power station!”
Alek glanced at Bauer, wondering how much the man was following with the English he’d picked up aboard the Leviathan. A large wireless tower might need its own power station, but so would a Tesla cannon.
“I’m afraid we don’t know anything about that,” Alek said. “We’ve only been in Constantinople for two days.”
Malone looked at him closely for a moment, a gleam in his eye, as if Alek had just told a subtle but clever joke. “Not long enough to start calling it Istanbul, I see.”
Alek remembered Dr. Barlow saying that the locals used another name for their city, but the staff at his hotel hadn’t seemed to mind. “Whatever the city’s called, we haven’t seen much of it.”
“So you haven’t been down to the docks yet to see the sultan’s new warships?”
“New warships?”
“Two ironclads, just handed to the Ottomans by the Germans.” Malone’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t seen them? They’re pretty hard to miss.”
Alek managed to shake his head. “No, we haven’t been to the harbor at all.”
“Haven’t been to the harbor? This is a peninsula, you know. And doesn’t the Orient-Express come in right along the water?”
“I suppose,” Alek said stiffly. “But we were quite tired when we arrived, and it was a dark night.”
The man looked amused again—this was hopeless. Next, Malone would tell him that the moon was full, or that the Orient-Express never arrived at night.
But what did it matter? He didn’t believe a word Alek was saying anyway. Perhaps it was time to change the subject.
“It’s odd, seeing that creature here,” Alek said, pointing at the bullfrog. “I didn’t know the Ottomans allowed Darwinist abominations in their country.”
“Oh, you just have to know who to bribe.” The man laughed. “And I wouldn’t go anywhere without Rusty. He’s got a much better memory than me.”
Alek’s eyes widened. “He … remembers things?”
“Sure. Ever seen one of those message lizards?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Well, Rusty is a close relation. Except he’s all brain and no hop.” The man patted the bullfrog on its head, and the beady eyes blinked. “He can listen to an hour’s worth of conversation and repeat it back to you, word for word.”
Alek frowned, wondering if the newborn creature back at the hotel was some sort of recording beast. “Is this animal memorizing what we’re saying right now?”
The reporter shrugged. “In as much as you’re saying anything at all.”
“As I said, we’ve just arrived.”
“Well, at least your English is easy on the ears.” The man laughed again. “It’s like you’ve been practicing up, just for me.”
“You’re too kind,” Alek said. For the past two weeks, of cou
rse, he’d spoken more English than German. “And you have a sharp ear. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Sure. Why not?” The reporter licked his pen.
“Do you think the Ottomans will join the Clankers in this war?”
Malone shrugged again. “I doubt the Germans care, one way or the other. They’re here for the long term. Defeat the Darwinists in Europe, then expand across the whole world. They’re already extending the Express to Baghdad.”
Alek had heard his father say the same, that the Orient-Express had been built to spread Clanker influence into the Middle East, and then deeper into the heart of Asia.
Malone gestured up at the propaganda poster behind Alek. “All they want now is for the Ottomans to close the Dardanelles, so the Russians can’t ship food in from the south.”
“It’s easier to starve a man than to fight him,” Alek said. “But can the Ottomans hold the strait against the British navy?”
“Surface ships can’t make it past the mines and the cannon, and they have nets to keep the krakens out. That’s everything but airships, and the Ottomans may get one of those soon.”
“Pardon me?”
Malone’s face brightened. “That’s a sight you’ll definitely want to see. The Leviathan, one of the great hydrogen breathers, is here in Istanbul.”
“It’s still … I mean, there’s a British airship here? Isn’t that a bit odd, with a war going on?”
“I’ll say it is. And what’s odder still, the British are thinking of giving it to the sultan!” Malone shook his head. “Seems the Germans donated a pair of ironclads to the Ottomans, and the British want to up the ante. The sultan himself will be taking a joyride tomorrow, along with some of us reporters.”
Alek was almost too stunned to speak. That the Leviathan might be handed over to a Clanker power was absurd. But if the airship hadn’t left yet, then Count Volger was still in Istanbul.
“Are you going on this … joyride?”
Malone beamed. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. We’ve got hydrogen breathers in the U.S., but nothing half that big. Just watch the skies tomorrow, and you’ll see what I mean!”
Alek stared hard at the man. If he was right about the Leviathan, then Volger might have another chance to escape. Of course, Volger thought that Alek and the others had already disappeared into the wilds.
It was madness to trust this strange American, but Alek had to take the chance. “Perhaps you could do something for me,” he said quietly. “There’s a message I want delivered to that ship.”
Malone’s eyebrows rose. “Sounds interesting.”
“But you can’t put any of this in your newspaper.”
“I can’t promise that. But remember, my paper’s way off in New York City, and I use messenger terns to file my stories. Anything I write will take four days to get back to New York, and it’ll take another day or so for the news to find its way back here. See what I mean?”
Alek nodded. If Volger really could escape, five days would be plenty of time for them to disappear.
“All right, then.” Alek took a slow breath. “There’s a man aboard the Leviathan, a prisoner.”
Malone’s scribbling pen came to a halt. “A German fellow, I presume?”
“No. Austrian. His name is …”
Alek’s voice faded—the gaslights were suddenly sputtering around them, the room plunging into darkness.
“What’s happening?” Bauer hissed.
Malone held up a hand. “Don’t worry. It’s just a shadow play.”
The coffeehouse went silent, and soon the back wall was flickering to life. Alek realized that it wasn’t a wall at all but a thin screen of paper with powerful gaslights burning behind it.
Dark forms came into focus on the paper screen, shadows in the shapes of monsters and men.
Alek’s eyes widened. One of his aunts in Prague had collected shadow puppets from Indonesia, leather creations with moving arms and legs, like marionettes with sticks instead of strings. But the shadows here danced in perfect clockwork patterns. They were Clanker puppets, moved not by hand but by machines concealed behind the wall.
The hidden actors spoke in what sounded like Turkish, but the story was easy enough to understand. Across the bottom of the screen, waves rose and fell, and a sea creature bounded among them, a Darwinist monster with flailing tentacles and huge teeth. It approached a ship where two men stood on deck talking, unaware of the kraken coming for them. Alek caught the name Churchill among the unfamiliar words.
Then suddenly the creature leapt from the waves, snatching one of the men and dragging him into the water. Oddly, the other man only laughed.…
Alek jumped as someone squeezed his arm. It was Bauer, who nodded at a pair of German soldiers making their way through the coffeehouse. The two were going from table to table, checking faces against a photograph in their hands.
“We should go, Fritz,” Bauer whispered.
“They’re here for someone else,” Alek said firmly. No photograph of him had ever been taken.
Malone had noticed their nervous glances, and turned to look at the German soldiers. He leaned forward to whisper, “If you two are busy, perhaps we should meet tomorrow. Noon, at the gateway to the Blue Mosque?”
Alek began to explain that there was no need to leave, but then one of the soldiers stiffened. He glanced down at the photograph in his hands, then up at Alek.
“Impossible,” Alek breathed. Then he realized that the soldier wasn’t looking at him after all.
He was looking at Bauer.
“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.
&nbs
p; 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.