The End Is Now

AVTOMAT Daniel H. Wilson

The five Imperial Russian infantry saunter toward us, hips rolling in their rain-spattered saddles. I raise my shashka and point the saber at the heart of the nearest guardsman. In response, the mounted dragoon smiles at me, his teeth rotting under a bushy black moustache.

Even from this distance, I can see that he is eager to fight. I lower my saber. The gesture was futile. In a few moments, these men will run us down on the empty plains.

I will have to fight. And my daughter will fight alongside me.

This morning just before dawn, Peter the Great, father of his country, founder and Emperor of the Russian Empire, true sovereign of the northern lands and king of the Mountain princes, passed from this world and left no heir. In the aftermath, those of us allied too closely with Peter lost everything. By command of Empress Catherine, newly appointed Tsarina of Russia, we have been sentenced to death.

And so today our world ends, along with the life of our sovereign.

On tall horses, the royal dragoons are confident. They trot toward us under a storm dark sky. Short wet grass rolls away from us for hundreds of miles, each blade glinting purple-green under a light rainfall.

“Stay close to me,” I say to Elena.

The little girl presses her hard shoulder against my thigh and the wind pushes the tail of my kaftan over her chest. Misty rain has plastered her wig to her forehead, spreading the black ringlets like cracks over her porcelain skin. Her sculpted face is nearly lost within the hood of her cloak. My daughter is indistinct under the billowing fabric, but she moves like a small, fierce animal.

“We cannot succeed,” she says, and her voice is a melody, like the singing of clockwork birds. Indeed, the mechanism that speaks for her was created from a singing wooden clock that came from the German Black Forests.

The beautiful noises signify an ugly truth.

The dragoons are trained soldiers, chosen by Peter himself from a standing force and elevated to personal Guard for the royal family. Wearing dark kaftans with red sashes crossed over their chests, the moustached men ride fearlessly with well-worn sabers hanging from their hips. Each is equipped with two saddle-mounted Muscovite wheellock pistols. The leader wears a steel cuirass over his chest and carries a long carbine. The rest carry simple Hussar lances.

Pursued by the Imperial Russian Guard, we took a risk and fled across the rolling steppes east of St. Petersburg. We hoped to disappear into the emptiness, but we knew this could happen. Our goal was never simply to survive . . . we are running to protect the secret of our existence.

A single dragoon separates from the others, gallops toward us with one hand on the pommel of his saber.

“Stay low, Elena. Survive the onslaught,” I say. “After I am finished, surprise them if you can. If they take you, do not let them discover what you are.”

“Yes, Peter,” she says.

I shove my cloak to the side and step away from Elena, drawing my long knife. The dagger is a simple blade the length of my forearm. Long and short, both my hands now sprout fangs.

The horseman yanks the reins and his mount comes to a prancing stop fifty yards away. Steam rises from the black flanks of his horse. The others are staying back, eyes dark under their red hats, watching this sport from a distance.

Arrogant and sure, they expect us to cower. Voices drift to me on the wind as mushrooms of mist sprout from their mouths. I hear a short bark of laughter.

Eyeing my blades, the dragoon hesitates. He begins to reach for his pistols, and I lower my nearly seven-foot frame to a knee and place my long and short blades flat on the wet grass. The backs of my hands are made of leather, stained dark with the rain. I can see the brass gears moving beneath them, ridges like foothills.

The dragoon leaves the pistols holstered. As he approaches, I keep my fingers pushed into the ground. Elena stands at my side.

“Be strong, Elena,” I say, without turning. “Protect Peter’s legacy.”

Elena’s face is the first thing I see—my first memory of the world—and she is the last sight I could ever forget.

I don’t remember opening my eyes.

The candle-lit path of her cheek eclipses the darkness, a perfect curve, shining like the sight of a city burning from the sea. Her skin is made of hard porcelain. As she moves, the silhouette of her doll’s face is a wavering blade of light. She leans over a wooden desk, clad in a girl’s dress, scratching out a message with a fountain pen held in frozen ceramic fingers. Her black eyes strafe the paper without seeing.

On this first day, Elena’s hand is a doll’s hand. It swoops back and forth as she mindlessly writes her message in the dark. She is oblivious to the world of men, for now. A flutter of gears is lost within the folds of fine fabric that she wears and I hear a faint clicking. This is the heartbeat of my world, a rhythm that is steady and quiet and mechanical under the warm wax-smell of candles.

Another shape moves—a man, shifting between shadows that flicker like tongues on the wall. Thin and bent, he drapes long fingers in delicate patterns over me. I turn my head slightly to inspect him, blinking to focus. His taut face sharpens into detail: wrinkled bags under glittering eyes. His lips are pressed together and white within a graying beard. The man’s limbs are shaking every half second as his heart beats in his narrow chest.

I will come to know this man as Fiovani. My father. Or the closest thing to it.

The man is holding his breath, watching me with wide eyes.

“Privet,” I say, and the old man collapses.

Without thought, I reach out and catch him by the shoulder. Eyelids fluttering, his head dips like a sail dropping to half-mast. For the first time, I see what must be my own hand. An economy of brass struts wrapped in supple leather. And now I truly begin to understand that I am also a thing in this world. Not like the doll who is writing a few feet away with all the mindfulness of water choosing a path downhill. Something more. But also not like this fainting man, made of soft flesh.

Somehow, I am. And, I tell you, I find it a strange thing, to be.

The idea of it settles into my mind. A world outside me, perceived through sight and hearing and other senses. And somewhere inside, I am placing the sights and sounds into a smaller, simpler idea of a world that is jarringly complex and unknowable. From within this little world in my head, I am making decisions.

Like the decision to catch my father by his shoulder.

The old man slumps, held upright by my metal fingers. His chin falls to his chest and his face is lost in strands of brown-gray hair. I have saved him from falling into a sharp patchwork of tools that lie scattered around my legs. This low room is a workshop, lit by a tilting confusion of candles placed on every surface. Splintery wooden beams stripe the ceiling, and the room stretches beyond the light and into warm darkness. A patchwork of desks and tables are arrayed in groups. Some are empty, but most are piled high with scraps of metal, twists of rope, wooden bowls filled with unknown substances, fouled spoons, and all manner of glass vials and tubes.

Somehow, the knowledge of this workshop is in me.

Half-formed body parts are sprawled among the clutter. Chunky torsos filled with fine gears, supported by whalebone ribs and riddled with India rubber veins. This place is a workshop . . . and a womb.

Sitting up, I gently lay the old man over an empty desk.

Now, I see that I am spread out on a long wooden table. Nearby, the doll-thing smiles sightlessly in the darkness, continuing to write. Her pen scratches audibly as she covers a piece of stiff paper with ink scrawls.

She and I are kin.

My shape is that of a man. Long golden legs, glowing dully as light winks from hundreds of rivets. My skin is made of bands of a beaten, gray-gold metal, fastened to a solid frame. Through narrow gaps in the tops of my thighs, I see a row of braided metal cables pulled to tension, wrapped around circular cogs.

When I move, I hear the clockwork sound again.

“Hello?” murmurs the old man. “My son?”

Gnarled fingers wrap over my golden wrist. Faintly, I can feel the heat inside his hands. I sense that he is full of warm blood, carrying energy around his body. His skin is not like mine. Nor his heart. There is no blood within me. My father and I are not alike. He is a man, and I am something else.

“Oh, you are alive,” he says. “Finally, you are here.”

“Who are you?” I ask, releasing him.

“I am Fiovanti Favuri Romanti Cimini, although you may call me Favo. I am last mechanician to the Tsar Peter Alexyovich. Practicioner of the ancient art of avtomata and keeper of its relics. Successor to the great alchemists who came and went before history. Knower of secrets from the past and from the future. And, if you will believe the Tsar’s wife, Empress Catherine Alexeyevich . . . I am a devil.”

“Last mechanician?”

“Ten years ago, the Emperor secretly visited the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Austria. He recruited hundreds of shipbuilders, artists, and mechanicians. To one group of us, he gave a special task. Given an extraordinary artifact from the past, we were told to build . . . you. But the Empress never saw the promise. And it has been so long. The rest of my group has already been sent east to exile. I am the last, toiling alone in the dark and cowering in fear from her.”

Spittle flies from his lips in the twilight.

“But you are here now,” he says, snatching a small hammer from the table. “Look at you! Talking! Can you see me? Tell me what you see!”

“A room. A man. Machines.”

“Concise,” he says, tapping my chest lightly and listening. “Perfect. The mixture was perfect. The old texts were right. The relic is working . . . ”

The old man makes no sense. Putting my gauntlet-like hands out, I clench my fists and feel the hard metal of my fingers. Squeezing, I push to the tolerance of my strength—until I can feel the gears in my hands straining. I swing my legs off the workbench and my wooden heels scratch the floor.

I stand, the top of my head nearly brushing the low ceiling.

Favo enters the darkness. In a moment he returns, his arms wrapped around a tall golden panel. The beaten-brass mirror groans as he drags it over the dusty wooden floor. The panel seems to glow in the candlelight. He props himself against it—holding the long rectangle before me—then stops and stares.

I can feel that he is afraid.

“Look upon yourself,” he whispers.

Standing at my full height, I see my movements reflected dully in the brass panel. I am tall and thin. Very tall. My face is human-like, leather that has been coated in places with some kind of rigid wax, ringed in brown curls of hair, my eyes large and dark. My lower lip is pulled to the side, slightly disfigured. I am not wearing clothes. The skin of my chest and arms is made of beaten metal banding with occasional tight swathes of leather tidily placed underneath. This body is golden and tan, strong and long-limbed. The light haunts my eyes, and I understand why Favo has fear in his heart.

“My son?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply.

“What is the first thing?” he asks.

“The first thing?”

My voice comes from somewhere deep inside my chest. I can feel some device in there, a bellows that contracts and sends wind up my throat and between my teeth. There seem to be a multitude of voices beneath my voice. I am so much bigger than this small old man standing before me.

“Yes,” he whispers. “In your mind. Reach inside and tell me the first thing. The first word you ever knew. What is the Word?”

There is a hard truth to the limits of my body—to the solid press of my flesh and the clenching strength of my grip. I push into my mind to search for the answer to Favo’s question, and I feel another truth—even stronger than that of my flesh. It is the truth of knowledge, of a singular purpose carved into the stone of my mind.

This is the Word that is the shape of my life.

I put my eyes onto the old man, and I feel the leather of my lips scratch as I say the Word out loud for the first time.

“Pravda,” I say. “I am truth.”

Elena’s hand is small on my shoulder, like a perched bird.

“Go,” I tell her, and the sparrow flies.

The lead rider has closed the final distance. I do not look up from where my blades lay in the grass. The muscled forelegs of a black horse approach. It slows and stops next to me. The rider does not bother to speak. I hear the slow skim of his blade leaving its scabbard. Hear the creak of his armor as he reaches back, lifting the blade high into the gray-green air.

The dragoon raises his arm and his breath expels as he swings the blade—the motion mechanically pushing air from his diaphragm. At this moment, I roll toward his horse, snaking my long arms over the grass to grip the handles of my blades. The blow misses me. On my knees, I lift the short blade and draw a red line across the horse’s belly. I fall onto my back and shove myself out of the way, watching the surprised face of the rider.

Screaming, the horse tries to rear back as a hot flood of intestines gush out of the slash in its belly. A cloud of mist billows from the cascade of bright red viscera. The rider rolls backward off his falling mount. The horse’s legs buckle and it collapses screaming into its own offal.

The lightly armored horseman is already gaining his feet when I bring the hilt of my short blade down on the crown of his head. His fur-lined helmet shatters the bridge of his nose, and he bites off the tip of his tongue. I am already sliding my dagger over his throat and adding his blood to that of his steed, gauging the distance to the pounding hooves I hear approaching.

I dive over the top of both corpses as a hail of hooves spear into the mud around me. Another horse passes by and I hear the shouting of angry men now. Standing a little way off, Elena is shouting as well. Her high-pitched voice repeats the same word—almost a melody.

Poshchady! Poshchady!

Mercy, she is screaming.

“They say you are my son,” says Peter, taking a bite from an apple. He chews it loudly, watching me with large, intelligent eyes. I notice that his lip is disfigured, pulled to the side . . . the same as mine.

“Yes,” I say, crouching, my head bowed.

“Tell me, son,” he says, humor in his voice. “What is pravda?”

“Truth and honor.”

“Do you swear fealty to me?”

“I do,” I respond.

“Rise and draw your sword,” says the Tsar, walking closer to me.

Peter does not wear gaudy robes or shining armor. Instead, he has on the simple breeches of an engineer, his boots clicking on the marble floor of the study. He saunters around to my face and watches me with the appraising eye of a mechanician, takes another bite from his apple.

I am standing, eye-to-eye, with the Tsar of Russia. We are exactly the same height. I ease my blade from its wooden scabbard. I hold it by my side, the tip pointed at the ground, my hand wrapped around the hilt, arm as steady as if it were carved out of stone.

“He moves like a man,” says Peter, smiling.

The Tsar leans in and snatches the hood off my head. The rawhide that covers the surface of my skull is stretched tight over cogs and gears. Brass buttons shine across the nape of my neck where the covering is fastened.

“Doesn’t look much like one, though,” he says.

“It follows the truth,” says Favo. “As you instructed. The relic provides power and sense, but it was invoked with your exact specifications.”

“Your name, avtomat?” asks the Tsar.

Nothing comes to mind.

“As you will call me,” I respond.

“Strange to stand next to someone who is as tall as I am,” he muses, chewing thoughtfully. “I’ve never done it before.”

The Tsar runs a finger over my forehead.

“He is very ugly,” he says.

“A result of my limited abilities, Emperor,” says Favo. “Please forgive me. Over time, its appearance can be improved. Any disfigurement is the fault of my own aged hands and not the avtomat itself.”

“It? You call it an it?”

“To call it otherwise would insult our Lord Christ. It is not a living thing I have made, but a bauble. Petty in comparison to God’s works.”

Peter laughs, a short bark that echoes.

“You fear Catherine, old man, even in private discussion. Probably smart. She does not trust in this project. Catherine feels that what has been lost to time should stay lost. She would have those artifacts of yours destroyed.”

Fiovani lowers his head. “Oh no, my Tsar. I do not question the Empress, of course . . . would never . . . but the relics are precious. I have already found another vessel for our remaining relic. And we cannot forget . . . our enemies have their own artifacts. Other avtomat could be plotting against us even now—”

“Enough, Fiovani,” says Peter. “Your studies are safe.”

The Tsar turns and shoves me with both of his large hands. Sensing a test, I choose not to move. My feet are planted, hand clasped around my saber, and although the Tsar is large and he hits me hard, the force is insufficient.

“He is stronger than me,” says the Tsar, face dark with exertion and a hint of anger. “Let’s see how smart he is.”

Peter steps a few feet away and clasps his hands behind his back.

“Avtomat,” he asks. “A boyar noble demands fifty men of the Preobrazhensky regiment to protect his border. Do I accept his request?”

“No, Emperor.”

“Why not?”

“Members of the Emperor’s own regiment are sworn to protect their father. To send them into battle for anyone of lower rank is a dishonor.”

“He is smart, too.”

The Tsar takes a last bite of the apple and tosses the core across the room.

“Strike me,” he says.

I do not respond.

“I am your Tsar, avtomat,” he says. “I am giving you a command that you are honor bound to follow. Swing your saber and strike me.”

“My Emperor,” stutters Fiovani. “He is very strong. Please do not underestimate the avtomat—”

“Now,” says Peter.

The impulse to obey pulls at my joints like gravity. Drawing my arm back, I let the sword tip rise. But . . . to injure the Tsar would bring dishonor. The Word blazes in my mind: Pravda.

“Do it!” shouts the Tsar.

My vision is blurring. The saber point wavers. I am compelled to obey and to disobey at the same time. The dissonance is roaring in my ears. I cannot say no and I cannot strike. I am drowning, my mind swallowing itself.

But there is a solution.

I lift the saber higher, the tip stretching toward the Tsar. Then, I rotate the flashing blade in my hands, all the way around until the point dimples the fabric of my kaftan. With both hands I tense my shoulders and I pull—

“Stop!” says the Tsar, placing a hand on my arm.

I silently return the sword to its first position.

“Welcome to Moscow . . . Peter,” the Tsar says, clapping an arm around my shoulders. “A pity you can’t have a drink to celebrate.”

“But, my Tsar, you choose to call it Peter?” asks Favo, quietly.

“I call it by its name: Peter Alexeyevich,” he says.

“I do not understand,” says Favo. “Why . . . ”

“Peter is my name while I am on this Earth. But with reason and patience, you have built a ruler who can someday take my place and rule the Russian Empire forever. Peter will carry my name like a banner through the ages, immune to the physical ruin of time and always faithful to pravda. An eternal Tsar.”

As blades whistle by overhead, I roll over a dying horse and fall to the wet plain. I scramble onto my hands and knees, sharp hooves flashing over me. Before I can stand, a hoof stamps my sword hand into the dirt.

Two of my fingers are left behind, severed and shining in the muddy crater.

Pulling my shattered fist tight to my chest, I stagger to my feet and raise the shashka with my other hand. The nearest dragoon makes a prancing turn and rounds on me. His thighs clenching, the rider leans in his saddle—his red belt sash snapping in the wind as he gains speed.

Silver eclipses the clouds as his saber leaves its scabbard.

I am still as the quake of hooves envelops me. The dark bulk of the warhorse grows into a blur, its breath snorting from flared nostrils as it strains to carry the armored rider to intercept me.

I turn, dropping to avoid the rider’s flashing weapon.

Too late. I feel a tug between my shoulder blades. The rider’s blade connects, parts my kaftan and splits the armor beneath. Broken metal ringlets scatter past my face like a shower of coins.

But my sword remains up and steady. Its single honed edge slides along the rider’s unarmored thigh. As he gallops away, the leg bounces curiously and I see that it is dangling from tendons. The rider reaches for the wound, grunting at the sight of the injury. As his horse turns in place, craning to look back, the rider rolls out of the saddle. He hits the ground and now the leg does come off, coating the electric green grass with arterial blood.

The horse backs away, confused.

There is no pain in me. Only awareness. Three more riders are on the attack. My left arm is hanging uselessly now, damaged by the wide gash that has slit my back. I stumble and try to catch myself but my arms are not working correctly. I fall onto my stomach, face first into the muddy plain. Stalks of grass tickle the rough leather of my cheek. This close, I can see that the blades of grass are dancing with the vibration of hooves pounding dirt.

Arching my body, I lift up and roll onto my back.

A lance crunches into my chest, bending the metal of my frame into a deformed valley. I feel the pressure and shock of it, the tremor of the dragoon’s hand on the wooden shaft. I hear my innards tearing as the horse gallops by overhead. The lance is wrenched from my chest, yanking me off the ground before dropping me sprawling onto my side.

Somewhere nearby, Elena makes a small hurt sound. She is finished shouting for mercy. There is clearly none to be had.

Though I was never born of a woman, I am in fetal position now. Wounded and cowering in the way of a mortal man. I catch sight of Elena, cringing twenty yards away, small and shapeless under her cloak.

Blood-stained hooves trample the mud all around me. The stabbing weight of a hoof snaps a strut inside my right thigh. My leg nearly comes loose from my hip socket, and I am tossed again. I land on my stomach, one brass cheekbone pushing through my leather skin and into damp earth.

Again, I am still.

A gentle rain is drumming the empty waste of the steppe. There is no more thunder. Gathered in a circle, the surviving guardsmen are speaking to each other in confused tones that sound distant and hollow.

Blood, they are saying. Blood.

They marvel that no blood is leaking from me. They are examining the blunted lance tip, noting how clean it is. What is this man made of, they wonder? What hidden armor does he wear? He is mortally wounded, yet he doesn’t cry out.

Elena is running now. She is staying low, legs scissoring under her flowing cloak. This is her best chance of escape, and it is not much of a chance at all. Like predators, the dragoons spark to the movement. The three remaining soldiers move as one to surround her. Here in blood-stained mud, with wet grass caressing my face like damp tentacles, I can only pretend to be a corpse. It is not such a stretch. In most ways, I have never been alive.

It took three death blows, enough to kill three men, to fell me.

Te Deum. Thanks to God. I am still functioning.

With one eye open, helpless, I watch through a blur of rain as Elena is snatched up by her cloak and thrown over the broad, sweaty back of a warhorse. She does not shout. There is no reason for it. By her Word, Elena never acts without a reason. On the horse, her body flops loosely, about the weight of a little girl, and wearing too many clothes for the riders to think any different. For now.

Patience, Elena. Strength.

I leave my eye open and unblinking, letting it appear sightless in death. I do not even allow the lens to dilate as I observe whatever crosses my field of view. The riders circle close to each other, conferring.

Koldun, comes the whisper.

Warlock. Monster. Man with no blood. The commander wearing the shining cuirass is a superstitious one. Best not to disturb this sleeping traveler, he advises. Leave that one to his dark ways and we’ll return with our prisoner.

Wise advice.

“Clean the field,” orders the leader. “Leave the dead behind.”

Moving quickly, a dirty-faced dragoon dismounts and loots the corpses of his two fallen comrades. Cursing, he tugs at the blood-stained saddle trapped under the disemboweled horse. He slips in the mud and falls, staining his outer jacket.

“Leave it,” orders the commander. His eyes are dark and scared over a thick black moustache. His breath is visible in the moist air.

With a last wary look in my direction, the three surviving riders lead their dead comrade’s horse away and gallop for the horizon. I wait until the vibrations fade before I blink. Wait until the sight of them has receded into tiny specks before I dare to stir.

I am alone in the grass with silent corpses. The sun has finished easing itself over the flat horizon. The great blue orb of the moon has appeared, jovial, its pale light sending my shadow reaching out across the plains. In the sudden chill, I can feel that I am badly broken.

Elena may still be alive. I must protect her.

The blow to my back has disabled my left arm, but I still have the right. I take a handful of grass with my thumb and two remaining fingers. With a violent yank, I drag myself an arm length forward. Part of my hip and my right leg stay in the grass behind me. My left leg is still attached but useless. I pull again, leaving a slug’s trail of broken machinery glinting darkly under moonlight.

But the grass is plentiful and my grip strong.

Stars fade into view as I leave the wreck of my body behind, one arm length at a time. Hidden among the shadowed grass, I am a crooked head and part of a torso cloaked in black wool, slithering forward by virtue of one good arm. Without pause or thought, I creep onward—pushing over the footsteps of three riders who know nothing of the horror they’ve left for dead.

My world ends in the predawn light of January 28, 1725. In one moment, the great bellows of Peter’s lungs push the last breath past his lips. His massive head tilts and falls to the pillow, a relieved expression on his face for the first time I can remember.

He hid the illness. Peter hid the illness until it was too late.

Elena and I did not arrive in time. The Empress was already there. Watching her rise from Peter’s bedside, I sense that she has already maneuvered into position. Outside the bedroom window, I hear the hoarse shouts of the Guards regiments echoing against the cobblestone courtyard. They have already been summoned to the capital and massed near the palace.

I put a hand protectively over Elena’s shoulder. Together, we served the great man for twenty years. We fought through plague-infested cities during the war with Sweden, forged new weapons for the Guards regiments, and even served as spies in the Western countries.

Yet we never served this woman.

Catherine looks up from the corpse. She has one palm over Peter’s still chest, leaning over him. Her hair is wet with tears, hanging limply over the corpse’s face. Under sharp black eyebrows, her face buckles with anguish and anger.

“You . . . abominations,” she says. “Did you know when he was sick? Did you say nothing?”

“No, Empress,” I say, my deep voice thrumming from the black cavern of my chest. “I am the Word.”

“Pravda? You are not pravda, you poor thing. You are a blasphemy. Peter was deceived into calling you an eternal Tsar. Tricked by that deformed mechanician.”

I tap Elena on the shoulder and she understands immediately. Find Favo. The girl turns and scurries toward the door.

“Stop her!” shouts Catherine, gesturing emphatically, climbing directly over Peter’s body. “Don’t let either of them leave.”

At the door, one of the Guard snatches Elena by the hair. Her wig comes off, and she struggles as he grabs hold of her with both hands. I cannot act outside my honor, and the Guard serve royal blood. So, I watch as the man gathers the small machine up into a bear hug and pins her thrashing against his armored chestplate.

The shouts of the Guard are growing louder outside.

“Do you hear that?” asks Catherine. She is smiling at me, her small canines flashing. “My Guards have rallied to me. Peter wished for me to become the next Tsar. His wife. Not you. Not a broken version of himself.”

I hear a straining crack as something snaps inside Elena. Now, she is not struggling as hard. Her cloak is pulled up around her face and her thin brass legs are swinging, kicking uselessly, wooden heels scraping against the floor. I feel a twinge of anger and sadness inside my chest.

My daughter.

But there is nothing I can do until it is within pravda. For I am the Word.

“Our father is dead,” shout the Guard who are mobbed outside, faint voices booming from the palace walls. “But our mother lives.”

Elena’s whalebone ribs are snapping. Gears inside are grinding against the intruding shards of bone and wood. She whimpers, and I know she may only have moments left before the damage is irreparable.

Pravda.

“How will you honor us?” I ask Catherine. “Will you obey Peter’s wishes?”

Catherine slips a strap of her falling nightgown back over her shoulder with one thumb, climbing off of her husband’s bed. She strides to me and stops only when her anger-pinched face is inches below mine. Wild dark hair stripes her forehead and her nostrils quiver with each breath.

“Honor you?” asks Catherine. “I cannot honor you. I am only sorry for you. You must be destroyed—”

A stated intention to break pravda is enough.

My right arm shoots out, and my gauntleted knuckles crunch into the face of the Guardsman who holds Elena. I feel the flimsy nose squash beneath my fist and the knock as his head impacts the wall. Elena lands scrambling on the ground as the man crumples, unconscious. I can already feel her tugging at my cloak.

“What!?” shouts Catherine. “What have you done?”

Our father is dead.

Catherine is too close to me. I could kill her with a swipe of my hand. And she knows this. The other Guardsmen watch us closely. I hear the slow grind of a blade leaving its sheath and I shake my head no. The sound stops.

But our mother still lives.

Catherine is the Tsarina. I will not harm her—cannot harm her—and yet to honor Peter . . . I must not allow my death or Elena’s.

I take a step back, my full seven-foot height perfectly fitting the enlarged doorway to Peter’s bedroom. In light mesh armor and kaftan, I look uncannily like the dead man lying across the room—as I was designed to.

“By Peter’s command, we must live, Empress,” I say. “We cannot accept death, but, please, for Peter’s honor . . . allow us to accept exile.”

Grip the grass. Pull. Release. Reach again.

The gods who haunt the hidden angles of the constellations offer their assistance to me through clear patches of sky above. The bright eye of Mars watches as I am soaked in dew, and smiles to see the horse blood washing out of my cloak. Part of my face is caught on a serpentine root, and the leather of my cheek is torn, leaving an obscene hole in my visage.

And so it continues.

Under the gaze of a starry night, my body, made lighter by horrific damage, squirms its way over glittering waves of grass. The moon is fading on a pink horizon when I finally see the silhouettes of four horses tied to a scrubby tree.

The Guardsmen are sleeping. My Elena is a dark pile of robes next to a smoldering camp fire. Her hands and feet are tied. I slither closer through dirt, my one good arm out, head cocked to the side and my black eyes open wide to the predawn light. My broken torso drags entrails of metal, leather, and wax.

A shape stirs. I pause, arm outstretched.

Someone tosses a reindeer hide to the side. A guardsman stands, head turning warily, still clumsy with sleep. The man steps closer to where I am hidden, my body splayed out and deformed. He stops, tugs at his trousers and sprays an arc of steaming piss.

I watch him turn back and stumble toward his sleeping hides, but then he notices Elena. Quietly, he squats next to her and whispers something, even as I continue to drag myself forward. My dirt-stained armor crunches over stalks of grass as I push through the periphery of the camp. The rider is not listening for danger. He is pushing Elena silently onto her back, one hand cupped over her mouth. Untying her ankles, he roughly spreads her legs.

The man is grinning, teeth glinting red in the dawn.

I find the helmet as I pass his hide. One urgent, broken lurch at a time, I plant the metal bowl of it into the dirt and drag myself forward. The armored hat is made of steel, fur-lined underneath and peaked in the middle.

“What?” he hisses at Elena, recoiling on his knees as he finds nothing but cold metal beneath her cloak. “What are you?”

His curly black hair is rusty in the dawn light as he turns and sees me—eyes widening at the sight of my ruin, cheeks twitching in fright. I am already rearing back on the remains of my left biceps, helmet lifted high in my good hand. The dragoon is choking on a shout as I bring the helmet down.

The metal bowl glances over the bridge of his nose. His jaw snaps shut and he falls, horror and blood mingling on his face. Elena kicks with both legs, sending the rider flailing onto his back with a grunt, the air knocked from his lungs.

I bring the helmet down again.

This time it lands with a wet crunch in the middle of the rider’s face. Again. A half dozen more times until I feel the skull crack and the ground is littered with teeth and blood and saliva.

I hear a gurgling scream from across the camp and see that Elena is on her feet. She has tugged a blade from the fallen rider’s belt and has slit the throats of the other two riders. In moments, there are no men living.

The smoldering fire now warms only metal, wood, and leather.

“Oh Peter,” says Elena. “Oh my poor Peter.”

I feel Elena’s arms encircle my head, cradling me on her lap. With her other hand she is patting down my body, feeling for the extent of the damage. Somewhere, a bird sings to the dawn. Faintly, I hear the trickle of blood flowing into the grass and the whinny of a nervous horse.

“You are very damaged,” Elena says.

“As long as my relic is intact,” I respond. “I can be repaired.”

“The Empress will hunt us.”

“She will,” I say to Elena, my eternal daughter. “But we are not running blindly. We leave now in search of something special.”

“What do we seek, Peter?”

I lock my eyes on the curve of her porcelain cheek. Elena was once a mindless doll, but now we are more than things . . . we are avtomat.

“We will find our own kind, Elena . . . even if it takes a thousand years.”