The Impossible Cube

Please?”

At the bottom was a stone passageway, low and cramped. The top of Gavin’s backpack brushed the ceiling. Soot from thousands of ancient candles streaked the walls. Damp darkness pressed in from all sides, hushing Gavin’s footsteps. A number of alcoves and rooms opened at regular intervals, some with doors on them and some without. Adames led them to one alcove, and pressed against the back wall. It turned on an axis, and he ducked through the opening, motioning for them to follow.

The large room beyond was fitted out as a hospital ward. Iron bedsteads lined the walls, and about twenty patients lay in them, some asleep, some twitching or moaning softly. Gavin automatically pulled back from the smell of sickness in the place, then forced himself to enter. One corner was set up with cupboards and tables covered with medical equipment and supplies. Washtubs and buckets held both water and effluvia waiting to be disposed of. Lamps hung on the walls to provide soft light. A woman in a nun’s habit bustled over, and Gavin realized with a start that she was an automaton. The habit hid her body, but her face was metallic, as were her hands.

“Vater,” she said quizzically, “wer sind denn diese Leute?”

“English, Berta, if you please,” he said. “I don’t think our guests speak German. Are there any changes?”

“Some.” Berta’s voice buzzed slightly, and the grill that made up her mouth didn’t move when she spoke. “Clarissa has become worse. I fear she won’t last the night.”

Adames crossed himself. “Perhaps we can help now.”

“Monsignor!” Alice said. “I thought the Catholic Church strictly forbade human automatons.”

“That’s why we keep everyone down here,” he said blandly. “Berta can minister to our patients without catching the disease herself or passing it on to others, and she doesn’t require rest. I’m trusting you and God to keep the secret. We are the only hospital in Luxembourg for those afflicted by the plague.”

“Is it not against priestly vows to disobey your Pope?” Feng asked.

“It wouldn’t look good on our application to be declared a cathedral,” Adames admitted. “And if the Pope learns of it, we will forever remain a church, and I will never become an archbishop.”

“It’s still a sin,” Alice said. “How do you reconcile that?”

“We sin when we miss the mark of perfection,” Adames replied. “None of us can hit that mark, and we can only ask forgiveness from he who managed it. My heart tells me I’m doing the right thing, however imperfect it may be.”

“They all have the clockwork plague?” Gavin asked quietly.

Adames nodded. “Most of them die, but we save a few.”

“And the ones who become zombies?” Alice asked.

“It’s hard.” Adames looked away. “I have Berta put them in the catacombs, and she leaves food out until the plague takes them. A number of them come in from the street as well. They seem to understand that we will feed them at least a little.”

“This explains why we saw none on our way over,” Feng put in.

“It’s difficult to come up with enough food for everyone without arousing suspicion,” Adames concluded.

Alice pulled off her glove and put her left hand on Adames’s arm. The spider’s eyes glowed green. “You don’t have the plague,” she said.

He looked down at the spider with a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty. “I wouldn’t, no. I caught it as a child and survived.” He pulled back the sleeve on his robe, revealing a scarred, withered arm. Alice’s face tightened, and Gavin knew she was remembering her father, also scarred by the clockwork plague. “My mother said I owed God, so I entered the priesthood.”

One of the patients cried out in pain from her bed. Berta turned, but Alice pushed past her. “Gavin, I want you with me. Please?”

Gavin shrugged out of the heavy backpack, set the whip down, and accepted his fiddle case from Alice. While he was taking the fiddle out, something occurred to him. “Alice, when did you last sleep?”

“I caught a few hours when you were in that fugue state in the train car,” she said absently, bending over the first bed. “Just play for me. It’s all the rest I need.”

He played, and Alice led him around the room. She drew back white sheets and slashed each patient as gently as she could, spraying a bit of her own blood into the wounds while Gavin spilled liquid harmony from the strings. With Adames in the room, he felt nervous, pressured to play without making a mistake, even though he was sure the priest would never notice.

I once had a heart as good as new

But now it’s gone from me to you.

For a moment he was somewhere else. His mother was sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby in her lap, and the man with pale hair—his father—was teaching Gavin a song. The fingers that pressed against the familiar strings felt tiny, and the gut bit into them. “Keep trying. Once day, you’ll play better than your old man, but only if you do better.”

The moon picked you from all the rest

For I loved you best.

Where had his father gone? Was he dead? Had he run away? But why? He wanted answers, though the questions had only recently come to him. Maybe the plague was awakening old memories, or maybe he just wanted to remember now, painful as it was. Other longings rushed in, filled him like water in cupped hands. He wanted to hear his father’s voice, touch his hand, be a son instead of a grandson, protegee, or cabin boy.

The memory faded, though he continued playing. Once his bow quivered and he made a mistake. A note—F— came out with a squeak, far below proper pitch. Gavin’s face went hot. He corrected and moved on as if nothing had