Ages of Wonder Read online

  She waited with her hand on the door latch. The eternal gloom of the hallway settled around her. No sound came from within; Nadya feared that, while she wasted the morning with the professor, her mother had come to that final crisis alone.

  At last a rattling breath and spasm of coughing dispelled that fear. But no money for medicine, she thought as she pushed the door open.

  “How did it go?” Her mother half-sat on the cot, propped up by old blankets rolled into makeshift pillows.

  “Not well. I think he means to cheat me.” She bit the inside of her mouth. Tears would serve no purpose.

  “Perhaps you’re too hasty.” Her mother listened as Nadya poured out her tale of the morning. “Go see him tomorrow, as he said. Allow him the chance to make it right. Remember, in the tales fortune favors those who don’t despair.”

  Nadya nodded and stared at her hands clasped over her knees. Like the woman in the stone sphere, she felt herself fading bit by bit. Soon, she thought. Soon I’ll be no more than smoke, haunting this place.

  When she went back to the professor’s office the following day, it was empty. The door stood open, and the air smelled of stale tobacco and old paper. After a moment, she eased the door closed and poked through the drawers of his desk. Surely he wouldn’t begrudge a kopek or two—he’d as much as promised. But she found only the half-sphere, which she settled in the crook of her arm.

  A book on the desk caught her gaze; it was open to a portrait of a dark-haired woman with a lion’s eyes. ‘Princess Elena Vorozhenskaya in a portrait painted in 1825,’ read the caption.

  She pushed away the book and sat. Her feet ticked against the floor like the beating of a heart. A cough brought her out of her seat; a stout man with a wide red face glared at her. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” He sounded as though he spoke around a mouthful of gravel.

  “I’m waiting for the professor.”

  He looked her over. “You’re not a student.”

  “I’m . . . assisting in his research.”

  The man spotted the half-sphere and clamped his fingers around her wrist. “You brought him that?” She nodded. His eyes narrowed. “If you find any more like it, you might bring it to me. He’s a cheap wretch.”

  Nadya pulled her arm free; for all his heft, he had soft, plump hands. “Do you know where he is?”

  “That old fool left here about an hour ago, heading west.” He didn’t touch her again, but bullied her out the door with his fat belly, and slammed it closed behind her.

  West, she thought. That meant Yelagin Island, and the orrery. She thought of the woman waiting in the shadows and shivered. But though she wanted nothing more to do with the lost garden or the orrery, her empty stomach twisted in a knot. She had to follow.

  Nadya took a roundabout route from the university to the island, avoiding the food shops. Further along, she still smelled roasting shashlik, rich borscht, and kasha boiled with honey, but the ripe stench of bodies living and dead overlaid the more pleasant odors, and her appetite dwindled.

  When at last she reached the island, afternoon shadows had lengthened, giving the gates and roofs an odd elongated cast. Dust stung her eyes and the air vibrated with the hum of hordes of flies.

  The gate of the abandoned palace still hung offkilter from its hinges. Yet the husk of the palace showed signs of life. Here and there lamps glowed, gold against the charring of the fire. New vines crept up the walls, tendrils winding into every doorway and window.

  Nadya pushed aside a looming branch. “Professor Barshansky?”

  “Help.” A pale hand stained with blood emerged from the foliage. At first she hesitated to take it. “Please,” he said, and leaves rustled as he struggled to free himself.

  She gasped when she saw his face, and stepped back. He’d fallen among the thorns, and they’d torn his skin mercilessly. When Nadya appeared, they snaked in her direction, but snapped back as soon as they touched her. “How is this . . .” she wondered aloud.

  She leaned closer, and bit by bit the vines released the professor. He had paid a price for his trespass, though, and blood streaked his face. Worst of all were his eyes, for the spines had dug in, and his wounded, sightless gaze focused somewhere to the side of where she stood. She took his hand and winced at the sticky blood on her fingers. Gently she freed him until he could crawl into the more open space of the courtyard. “You shouldn’t have come alone.”

  “It must be mine. If someone else found it—”

  “No one will find the machine,” she soothed. “But now we must go back to the university and your friends.”

  “Not without the orrery.” But when he tried to touch it, some force held him back, so his seeking hands scrabbled at the air. “I hired a cart—”

  “It’s gone.”

  “So you reconsidered.” When the professor took a step forward at the sound of the woman’s voice, Nadya held him back. “Please let him come to me. Poor man, I can help.”

  Nadya let go of Professor Barshansky’s hand. His blind eyes focused on a point somewhere over the woman’s head until she reached out with shadowy fingers and brushed first his cheekbone, then the line of his jaw. “The thorns are cruel.”

  “The orrery,” he whispered. “Such beauty—it should not be hidden away.”

  “Some things are not meant for mortal eyes. I also have paid a steep price.” Her fingers slid down to his and his hand clenched, but he couldn’t quite grasp the princess.

  Nadya took the half-sphere from her pocket. “He stole this, highness. And he hired a cart to take the rest.”

  Princess Elena stepped back. “But he can help me. He must! You said yourself, professor, one of the planets is missing.” She pushed the arm of the machine closest to her. It groaned and stirred and ground to life. The air shivered. “The energies Salitsev built into it remember a different time—a time when there were only seven planets.”

  “So it’s linked to the past—like you?”

  “I am not linked. I am trapped.” The princess pushed at an arm as it swung past, and the pace of the orrery’s turning picked up—and kept increasing, though no one exerted force on it any longer. As it sped in circles, Nadya found she could not look at it straight on—the air quivered, and the trees and house on the far side rippled. For a moment, the shattered hulk of the palace regained its windows, the pristine white of its bricks. She gasped.

  “The girl sees. Tell him.”

  Nadya described what she saw. “It’s impossible. Yet . . .”

  “Have a care,” the woman said. “If you move beyond the boundaries of my time, there is no telling where you might end up.”

  “Adrift in time?” Professor Barshansky’s voice was thoughtful.

  “And no way back.”

  “Why do you wish to leave here?” Nadya asked. “To never age or die . . .”

  “Once, my garden rang with the voices of friends and family, guests and servants. Now . . . the silence in which I live is not to be envied.”

  Nadya thought of the crowded tenements, the stench, the cries seeping through the walls. Her mother’s wracking cough. “There are worse things.”

  “Enough chatter,” the professor said. “How can I see this miracle? How can I see at all?”

  “One step,” the princess said. “No more than two, and I will take your hand, bring you to my time. But you must promise—promise—to help me. I cannot bear to stay here alone any longer.”

  The professor dabbed at the smudges of blood on his cheeks. “And I would have to stay until the orrery was repaired to your specifications?”

  “I would like to think that is not a hardship. You will not hunger or grow sick.”

  “And then the orrery is mine? Your word?” He smiled, one gold tooth winking.

  Nadya gritted her teeth.

  “So be it.” The woman reached out. “Take a step.”

  “He means to cheat you,” Nadya said. But the princess gave no sign that she’d heard.

  As Profess
or Barshansky lifted his foot, Nadya seized his arm. “Wait.”

  He stretched until his hand reached into the distortion and a shiver passed over him.

  Nadya turned to the princess. “He promised me money. He said he’d pay me if I found such things as this for him.”

  “I’ll pay once I have my sight—or the machine.” He wiped at his bleeding eyes.

  “Pay her.” The shimmer in the air dimmed.

  “Not yet. Not now.”

  “Pay her.” The machine creaked, slowed.

  “Fine.” He took his leather wallet from his jacket and held it out. “I know how much is there,” he told Nadya. “Even blind, I could count it. No thieving.”

  “Now,” the woman said.

  “Go find that cart,” he told Nadya. “We shall need it for the machine.” He drew in a shuddering breath and stepped forward. The world shivered around him. “I . . . I can see again.” He looked at his hands, kissed his fingertips. Then he looked up and caught sight of the palace. “It is true.”

  “Come.”

  Princess Elena beckoned to him, but he shook his head. Still smiling, he took a step back. “I apologize for disappointing you, dear lady, but I have other plans. I—”

  Nadya came up behind him and gave him a shove. He vanished.

  The machine screeched and stopped, so abruptly it might never have moved. Nadya’s hands crept out and swept the emptiness in front of her.

  “What have you done? Now there is no one to help me. My hope—my freedom . . .” The princess began to wail, a sound like all the grief in the world.

  Nadya clutched the professor’s wallet. Coins clinked faintly, cushioned by a thick sheaf of bills. “He meant to take it, highness. He would have left you here alone.”

  “I cannot bear it. But wait! You could stay. What is there for you out there?” Princess Elena gestured, and the vines inched into the courtyard, their leaves a feather-brush on Nadya’s legs.

  She flinched. “I must care for my mother.”

  “She is dying?”

  “I can’t leave her.”

  “No, you mustn’t. But is there no way you can help me as well? I have waited so long.”

  Nadya pondered the princess’ question. “There is another man at the university, a colleague of Professor Barshansky’s. He, too, is interested in the sphere.”

  “And he could help?”

  “Perhaps.” She stared past the woman, to the crumbling brick of the palace. “I can try.”

  The princess smiled again like the lonely end of winter. “I would be grateful.”

  “I am glad to help.” She pocketed the professor’s wallet and gave the machine a push. As the arms spun, faster and faster, the palace of the past appeared once more in all its beauty. Everywhere time passed, everywhere death was inevitable—except in the garden. “May I ask a favor?”

  “Name it.” Princess Elena stood with a vine draped over her shoulder. The leaves caressed her cheek.

  “My mother—may I bring her here?”

  “To stay?” The princess clapped her hands. “A guest! Delightful. And the fresh air will do her good. Yes. Fresh air—and a little time with me. You could both use a little time, I think.” She gestured, and the vines snaked back, leaving the way open. “Come soon.”

  “I will.” Nadya waved and hurried to the gate. She might still catch Professor Barshansky’s rival in his office. But first she meant to stop at the apothecary’s for another bottle of medicine, and perhaps Filippov’s for a cream puff. Two cream puffs, she corrected, as she crossed from the garden into the sharp light of noon. At the gate she looked back and caught a glimpse of gleaming metal, and a shadow that might have been the lonely ghost of a princess.

  Sphinx!

  Tony Pi

  7th of Floréal, Year 117 of the Graalon Revolution

  I was fussing over the final bone articulation of an Archaeosphinx hierax skeleton when the sound of echoing footfalls broke my concentration. I set down the hollow carpometacarpus fossil in my hand and turned to see who had disturbed my work.

  A mustached young man stood at the archway, bathed in the ruddy light of the foxfires-in-amber that illuminated the exhibition hall. His short frock coat and the sword at his side marked him as a sergeant from the Prefecture of Police. Though he obviously came to speak to me, he seemed momentarily struck dumb by the mounted giant falcon-headed sphinx skeleton I had been assembling.

  “Dawn is an odd hour for a museum visit, Sergeant,” I said. “How may I be of assistance?”

  The policeman doffed his cap and smoothed down his mop of straw-like hair. “You are Professor Tremaine Voss? Chief Curator of Aigyptian Magic?”

  “I am.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Sergeant Carmouche at your service, Professor. Your housekeeper directed me here. Chief Inspector Lebret urgently requires your expertise. Please come with me.”

  The name “Lebret” sounded familiar, though I couldn’t place it. “All I want is to go home and sleep, Sergeant,” I told Carmouche. “Could the Inspector wait?”

  “I’m afraid not, Professor,” he replied. “If you do not help Inspector Lebret now, in an hour’s time a sphinx will be loose in the city.”

  Sphinx!

  My weariness fled when he mentioned the word. “A living sphinx? But they’re extinct!”

  “If you say, Professor. The Inspector will explain.”

  The hieracosphinx reconstruction could wait. I grabbed my walking stick. “We mustn’t tarry then, Carmouche. Lead on!”

  Carmouche drove us through the streets of Ys in the horseless carriage, heading northwest. I was impressed by the machine’s speed, less so by the foul alchemical smells issuing from its alembic engine.

  “When did sphinxes become extinct, Professor?” the sergeant asked.

  “The archoleons prospered ten thousand years ago. It was an age when griffins terrorized the skies, merlions ruled the waves, and androsphinxes challenged one another with riddles of blood,” I said. “But the basilisk plague ended their reign, turning their flesh to sand and their bones to stone. Their fossils are all we have left to prove they once lived.”

  Indeed, it had been the prospect of working with newly unearthed Archaeosphinx fossils that lured me to Le Musée d’Ys a year ago, though it meant relinquishing my archaeological chair at the University of Carlyon and moving to the Continent.

  “Then sphinxes couldn’t possibly exist today?” Carmouche asked.

  A shrewd director from Chimère Studios had asked me the exact question six months ago, during a consult on a silent film.

  “There are a few mad theories to the contrary,” I admitted. “Lost worlds. Beasts frozen in glacial ice. Hidden empires at the center of the earth. Excellent fodder for the flickers, but generally dismissed in academic circles.”

  “What about Aigypt?” Carmouche asked.

  Everyone always asked about Aigypt. “Some scholars believe a few sphinxes may have survived there, worshipped as living gods,” I said. “The pharaohs had sphinx colossi built to venerate them, and archaeological evidence from the ruined city of Criopolis does seem to support the theory. Ancient Aigyptian might even be the language of the sphinxes. However, any sphinxes in Aigypt likely perished long ago. Some might even be mummified.” Now there would be a find for the museum!

  “I’d pay to see sphinxes on the silver screen,” Carmouche said.

  “So would most of Graalon,” I said, thinking of the country’s two new vogues: palaeontology and that marvel of modern alchemy, film. The director from Chimère certainly saw the potential.

  The Seawall, a magnificent feat of Ysien engineering, loomed before us. The great dike had kept the forbidding waters of the Atlantean Ocean from flooding Ys for countless centuries. Carmouche stopped the horseless by the foot of the north Seawall stairs. “Inspector Lebret awaits us up top, where the view to the sphinx is best. Do you need a hand up the stairs, Professor?”

  I gave him a light thump with the head o
f my walking stick. “You may think me a fossil, young man, but I spent my youth traipsing the world in search of lost ruins. I have the constitution of an ox.”

  As we climbed, I remembered where I had heard the name Lebret before. “Heavens! Is Lebret the hero of the Tarasque affair?” I asked Carmouche.

  “The same,” the young sergeant replied.

  Five years ago, a string of murders held the city of Ys in the grip of fear. For months, the killer taunted the police with letters signed Tarasque. Lebret was the genius who finally solved the villain’s identity, shooting him dead during a deadly rooftop struggle. “Chimère made a film about him, didn’t they? Le Mort de Tarasque?”

  Carmouche chuckled. “Yes, but you shouldn’t mention the film to the Inspector, Professor. He was aghast that Chimère would make a film about the murders. Said it glorified crime.”

  Wind whipped the scent of the ocean to the top of the Seawall where the grim and hawkish Inspector stood stone still, peering through a spyglass at the sea. A gaunt man in his forties, perhaps ten years my junior, Lebret bore only a slight resemblance to the actor who portrayed him on the silver screen.

  With the naked eye, I traced the source of his focus. A ship had run aground on a rocky isle in the shallower part of the bay, far from the deep waters of the western harbor. A scattering of small rowboats skimmed across the waves, heading towards the waking city.

  Carmouche cleared his throat. “Inspector, I’ve fetched Professor Voss as you instructed.”

  Lebret lowered his spyglass and turned to me, pumping my hand once. “Professor. Forgive my brusqueness, but we have little time before that thing escapes into the city.” He pressed the spyglass into my hand. “Tell me, what do we face?”

  I raised the spyglass and sought the islet. I knew sphinxes were long extinct, but what if this one happened to be real? A living specimen could change everything we thought we knew about the fearsome creatures that once ruled the planet.