Unbound (11 page)

“The one in blue and gold,” said Echo. “With the silver long-gun. I remember.”

The courtyard should have been filled with blue and gold guardsman, but instead there was no one to stop them. Soon they were in the entry hall, a frozen tunnel hung with paintings and tapestries, the floor stained by rain and snow. Echo chirped with excitement at the artwork, swiveling his metal head to see it all.

“There’s so much!” he exclaimed. “Where should we start?”

“I want to see the throne room! My father told me it’s all made of gold . . .”

River dashed forward, leaving Echo to clank on behind him. The lamps on the wall had all burned out, but the light from the stained glass windows was enough. River followed the big hall forward, spotting the enormous doors of the throne room. A roaring lion’s head was carved into each of the open doors. Beyond them, River caught just a glimpse of something sparkling . . .

“God!” He stopped at once, putting his hands over his mouth and nose. He knew the smell at once. Echo shuffled up behind him.

“What is it?” asked Echo.

“If you could smell you’d know.” River pointed into the throne room. “There’s dead people in there.”

So far most of the dead they’d encountered had been out of doors, where the cold had let their bodies decay slowly and the wind could steal the worst of the stench.

“You want to go inside?” Echo asked.

River grimaced. “I thought they all went to the wild camp. My mother and father said that’s what the king wanted.”

Echo walked up to the doors, through them, and into the throne room. He looked straight ahead, his blue eyes glowing in the dim light. “Oh.”

“What?” asked River. He brought the tail of his coat up to cover his face. The stench was the worst he’d ever smelled, but he couldn’t help himself—he followed after Echo into the throne room.

And there he stopped and stared at the throne, and saw the king upon it, slumped and dead, with his eyes rotted out and jaw open wide, the crown crooked on his fleshless skull, and the weird look of anguish on his boney face . . . and River puked his breakfast onto the golden tiles.

“Oh my God!” he gasped, gagging and retching and wiping his face with his sleeve. “Why’d he stay?”

Echo had no trouble at all looking at the corpse. “Because he was king.” Slowly he walked toward the throne, across the blood-crusted floor, and when he reached the dead king he plucked the crown off his head. With his prized velvet cape he wiped it clean—clean until it gleamed—then headed back to River. River, who had fallen to his knees in sickness, waved him away.

“Put that back!” he cried. “You can’t steal that!”

Echo rarely disobeyed River’s orders, but this time he ignored them completely. He stood over River and placed the polished crown upon his head.

“You’re the king now,” he said.

River touched the crown. He looked at Echo as if his friend were mad. “I’m a boy. Just a kid. You know that . . . don’t you Echo?”

“A king doesn’t kneel,” said Echo. “Get up.”

* * * * *

During his first week as king, River wore the crown wherever he went. He knew that as long as he stayed alive, the city and its knowledge was safe. Each night he and Echo went to the gate and looked at the campfires surrounding the city. They watched the numbers grow, fascinated by the way they inched ever closer. But River had no fear, for he knew the plague was in the city, the only weapon he needed to keep the enemy away.

And so he and Echo explored the city and lit bonfires and slept in strange beds. River ate whatever he wanted, cursed when he hurt himself, laughed inappropriately, and rode hogs like they were horses. Echo gloried in the library and its many, many books, studied the paintings in the castle and the royal museum, wore the baubles that nobody wanted, and made maps of the stars. Together they sang in the opera house and banged the instruments to make music. They slept late every morning, watched the enemy at night, and wondered.

But they never, ever went to the wild camp.

A week passed, and then two more, and soon the winter was fully upon them. River chased the snowflakes when they came, just as Echo had taught him. He did everything he could to forget his mother and father, but sometimes at night they visited him in dreams. The cold came like a tiger, stifling the stench of the dead completely, and because he was so haunted by his dreams, River finally set out for the wild camp.

Just as they were told, the camp was far in the corner of the city, a two-day walk for a humaton. River did not know what he expected to see there, but when he saw the barbed wire he could go no further. Beyond it, hills of bodies sat snow-capped. Dead soldiers guarded the iron gate, slumped and frozen. River knew then—in a way he’d never really understood—that his parents were gone.

Together, he and Echo treaded home.

They went to the gate every night and made sure the enemy saw them. River stopped wearing the crown. He didn’t like being king.

They slept late every morning, read books and set bonfires, and waited for the spring.

* * * * *

River awoke to the sound of melting snow. In the room with the big chair where he slept, Echo had opened the window. Echo’s face glowed as he tried to sniff the air.

“Do you hear that?” he asked. He leaned forward the way he always did when listening. “A bird!”

River was groggy but excited. He rolled out of the chair and went to the window, shielding his eyes from the stabbing sunlight. “I hear it,” he said. “The sun . . .” He took a deep breath. “So warm.”

“Spring,” pronounced Echo.

“It’s too early for spring.”

“Nature makes its own calendar.”

“That’s not true and it makes no sense.”

Echo’s face flushed and whirred. “I want to go to the castle greenhouse and see if the lily bulbs are sprouting. Get your shoes on.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Later. Hurry.”

There was no hurry at all, but River did as Echo asked, slipping into his shoes and his coat and stepping out into the warm day. The snow that had piled up outside their door was turning to slush, and the avenue that led to Castle Hill dripped and glistened. Over the winter they had cleaned up all the bodies they could find, burning them in their bonfires, and so the way was clear and empty now. They walked through the castle and its once-inspiring halls, no longer noticing the great artwork, and went straight for the greenhouse where Echo had spent much of his time. Someone had planted a row of lily bulbs, and Echo had tended them like a mother hen, protecting them from dangers that didn’t exist and talking to them about the spring. River let Echo take the lead, hanging back among the pots of dead plants and loving the way the sun looked through the glass panes. He watched Echo clang toward the bulbs, bending over to inspect them. There was a long pause.

“Well?” asked River.

Echo stared at the dirt. The fleshlike side of his face turned the color of joy. “Oh.” He had never sounded more human. “River, come see.”

River went and examined the soil. It took a moment, then he noticed the tiny shoots of green sprouting from the dirt. “Wow.” He looked closer. “You did it, Echo.”

Echo beamed. River smiled at him—then saw something strange. A tiny stream of fluid dripped from Echo’s nose.

“What’s wrong, River?”

River stared but couldn’t find his voice. He looked closer. He knew the drip was spirit oil, but it looked like blood.

“Your nose . . .”

Echo put his hand to his nose and wiped at it with his metal finger. His blue eyes flashed with realization, but somehow he remained perfectly calm. “River,” he said. “You’ll have to look after the lilies for me.”

* * * * *

The plague didn’t work the same on humatons as it did on people. The nosebleeds they got were really just leaks, and by the third day Echo was leaking everywhere. The spirit oil that kept him alive seeped out of every joint in his metal body. River tightened each one with bandages to try and keep the oil inside, but no matter what he did, more and more of the precious liquid dripped away. By the fourth day Echo could no longer walk, and by the fifth he couldn’t see. He sat in the big chair, letting River tend to him and listening to the growing choirs of birds outside the window. Unlike the way humans died, the plague caused Echo no pain at all. River read to Echo to pass the time, stopped going to the gate, and only ventured outside at night to briefly watch the campfires.

On the sixth night of Echo’s illness, River knew the end was near. Echo could no longer move his arms or legs; he could barely swivel his head. They had spent the day talking about little things, and River had yet to ask the question that truly frightened him.

“Will I get sick?”

The night was particularly quiet, and Echo’s blue eyes still glowed softly.

“No,” said Echo. “Don’t worry about that.”

River sat at the base of the chair, like he’d done so many times when his father sat in it. The pipe still rested on the table, unused since that first time River smoked it. The hearth was cold.

“Echo, are you lying to me? You do lie sometimes.”

Echo was completely still. “I protect you,” he said.

“So, is that the same as lying sometimes?”

“Parents love their children very much. Professor Nous wanted me to look after you. I hope I’ve taught you enough.”

“You’ve taught me everything,” said River. “But I’m afraid.”

“You won’t get sick, River.”

River didn’t know if Echo was telling the truth. “Tell me about the day you were born. I like that story.”

Echo liked the story too. “I was born like all humatons are born,” he said. “I was made in the mechaworks and brought to life by a piece of your fingernail and a tiny drop of blood . . .”

River listened, entranced. Echo had always been a very good storyteller.

* * * * *

Two days after Echo died, River dragged him on a cart to the gate at Concourse Square. He had dressed his friend in his beloved velvet cape and decorated his arms with bracelets Echo had collected over the years. Once again he rigged up the ropes and hoisted Echo onto the catwalk, standing him up beside the humaton with the blond hair. He didn’t bother giving Echo a weapon. The enemy hadn’t come, and River knew they never would while he was alive. It had been nearly a week since he had come to the gate, and River stood on the catwalk waiting for the sun to go down and the campfires to arrive.

“I’m here!” he shouted to the hills. “It’s just me but I’m not gonna die! Not ever, ’cause I’m the king!”

He tried to sound defiant but felt empty inside. Not weak. Not sick. Just empty. He watched the sun die behind the hills and the shadows creep across the city. Straight in front of him, a single campfire came to life in the distance.

“Still there,” River muttered.

He waited for the other fires to join the first. The minutes passed and the clock in the concourse chimed, but no other fires appeared. Instead the single fire grew and grew, like one of the bonfires he’d lit with Echo, soon glowing so brightly it was hard to look upon. The strangeness of it perplexed River. He thought it might be a threat, but nothing about it was frightening. In fact it was beautiful, like a beacon, and he was glad he’d brought Echo to see it.

“What are they doing?” he asked as if Echo could hear him.

He wondered if they knew he was alone on the wall, and that the humatons around him were all just metal containers now, like cans or buckets.

“They’ve been watching us so long . . .”

River squinted at the fire.

“Waiting for me to die . . .”

They were always watching—everything he did.

“Or . . . watching me live?”

Suddenly he wished he’d paid more attention to Echo’s lessons. People communicated with fire; he remembered that, at least. He remembered a story about a queen who died, and how her body had been laid on a pyre and set aflame, and how the people watched the flames and cried because they missed her. River put his hand over his heart and wondered if it was broken.

He moved in close to Echo’s cold body and put his arm around his dead friend’s shoulder. He smelled the pipe smoke on Echo’s velvet cape. He remembered the day when the plague came, and how afraid he was, and how his mother and father were frantic, and how the city was full of screams. And how Echo, peaceful and composed, had taken the book with the monsters in it off the shelf and explained it all to him . . .

Like it was just another story.

Mary Robinette Kowal

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