Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables Read Online Free PDF Page B

sharp exhaust from paraffin oil. All the houses they had passed sported plates of food, but here several of the plates had been emptied, and a number had been flipped upside down, as if someone moving at great speed had snatched the food from them without pausing.
    “This way.” He led Petro down the street, following the trail of empty plates, until he came to an intersection. The plates on the street in three directions were still full. Vasyl peered nervously down the narrow fourth street. It was dark as a wolf’smouth. The plate on the first doorstep, just visible in the pale light at the intersection, was empty.
    “I didn’t think to bring a light,” Vasyl whispered. “Did you?”
    Petro shook his head. “How do we—?”
    A rattling noise made Vasyl jump, and his heart beat at the back of his throat. Broom scuttled up, bobbing anxiously.
    “Broom!” Vasyl gasped. “What in God’s name?”
    “Did you order him not to follow you anymore?”
    “I forgot,” Vasyl admitted sheepishly. “But as long as he’s here, we can use him. Broom, light, please.”
    There was a
pop
, and from the spot where Broom’s staff belled outward a beam of blue light speared down to illuminate the cobblestones. Broom bounced up and down, apparently pleased.
    “Very nice, Broom,” Vasyl said. “Walk beside me.”
    They entered the street with Broom lighting the way. All the windows were shuttered, and every doorstep plate was empty. Stony walls pressed inward, and the air dripped with smells of urine, garbage, and paraffin oil exhaust, which told Vasyl they were going the right way. The street made a dogleg and ended in a square. Vasyl sucked in a breath and Petro put a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder. Even Broom’s little light quivered.
    Before them stood a fence made of bones. Electricity arced in ladders up fence posts made of femurs and snapped off the skulls that sat atop them. The bones were inlaid with iron, and sparks snarled around the metal, bringing to Vasyl a mixture of fear and admiration. He swallowed around his pounding heart and wiped sweaty palms on oil-stained trousers. The fence blocked the entire alley, and beyond it…
    A creak and a thud, and another creak and another thud pounded the cobblestones beyond the fence. A metal cottage occupied a square beyond the awful fence. Rust streaked the sides and the roof, and a heavy iron bar held the door shut. Strange enough that a cottage should be made of metal and sitting in the middle of a little square in Kiev, but this house was supported by a pair of enormous bird legs made of brass. Exposed pistons creaked and hissed as each leg moved. The feet came up anddown, thudding and thumping and creaking and hissing on the cobblestones, ready to crush anything that dared come close. Vasyl stared at the structure, simultaneously fascinated and frightened.
    “How do we get past this fence?” asked Petro in a hushed voice. “If we touch it, we will die.”
    “If
I
touch it,” Vasyl replied, also hushed. “You are staying here.”
    “You aren’t going in there without me.”
    “Yes? And who will take care of little Olena if you die?”
    That silenced Petro, though his face clouded and it was clear that he wanted to disagree further. Vasyl pulled off his tinker’s pack and rummaged through it until he found some wire and a pair of wooden tongs.
    “This will do.” He used the tongs to connect one end of the wire to the fence, while the other end dragged on the ground. With a pop and a shower of sparks, the electric current vanished.
    “It’s a simple series circuit,” Vasyl said to Petro’s unasked question. “Easy enough to interrupt if you know what you’re doing.” Still, he used the tongs instead of his hands to push at a section that looked like a gate. It swung open with a tooth-grating screech. At the sound, the cottage beyond stopped moving on its strange bird legs. With a dreadful creak, it turned toward Vasyl as if the front windows were