Steel Dominance Read online

  Here it is.

  Bun lady gripped the wheel and strained; then the guard joined her. After a jolt, the wheel turned. The door clicked. Together the two women pushed it open.

  Beyond… Sofia sucked in a shuddery breath, then stepped forward and found a huge enclosed garden with blue sky marked far overhead by the hexagons of a dome of glass. The scents of water on foliage, of rich well-composted earth, and of flowers newly opened to the world overwhelmed her. She breathed deep and smiled.

  Raucous parrots launched from a grove of palm trees, scattering leaves into the air and screeching as they wheeled across to a broad tree of deep green foliage. They tucked themselves away in the branches, arguing with each other as loudly as a mob of hawkers at a market.

  Like the spokes of a wheel, stone-paved pathways led to the center where a smaller glass dome that rose up twenty feet housed her goal—the Clockwork Warrior. Rays of late morning sunshine struck gleams of gold and cherry red from his metal skin.

  The movement of her feet across the pathway seemed as distant as those of a ghost as they journeyed closer.

  A glass door led in.

  The guard opened the door.

  And there he was. Two yards to the top of his head, bent at the waist, with his legs stretched out before him, and his golden sword buried where his legs joined to his body, as if he’d stabbed himself. The warrior had been set in a pose that defied realism. Red mosaics climbed up his sides and arms to form a helmet with gleaming red spikes projecting from the top. A single red tear sat below one eye.

  “Oh Lord,” she whispered. “It is him.”

  “I have heard you know much about him.” The guard removed her helmet.

  “I do,” she said, awe tincturing her voice.

  There were no plants in here. The white-tiled floor was precision clean. Not a drop of rust soiled the Clockwork Warrior. Time had not touched him at all. Four hundred years or more, and he was still perfect. “I have studied him for five years from every copy of every possible document and lithograph. And I see what I thought to see.”

  “What is that?”

  “Lines. Shapes. Things that were meant to change.” So hard to explain. “I need to draw him and study it to be absolutely sure. Can you get me paper and pens, and a magnifying device?” All that equipment Dankyo had left behind would have come in useful right now.

  “Yes. I can. They say our warrior holds the solution to the ultimate fighting machine. Do you agree?”

  “I don’t know, yet. I know he holds a puzzle, and I will, I can unravel this.”

  “The emperor-bey desires this answer of yours, very greatly.”

  Sofia trailed around the outside path marked in slightly creamier tiles, itching to reach in and touch him. All the engraved verses found on the outer edge of the plinth ran under her fingers. They were recorded in nearly every text about the warrior, and whole books had been devoted to studying the whys and wherefores behind the verse. She ignored them.

  Though the verses might be pretty, the answer lay in front of all those scholars, and they’d not seen past the mystery and myth to the purity of his physical presence.

  “They say you know puzzles and can unravel riddles faster than any?” said the guard. “Can you see the answer in those?”

  “Hmm.” Sofia shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  She didn’t need to look to know the words of the verses.

  “Drink from the cup and truth will be revealed unto your soul.”

  “No man or woman understands their depths until they have met their inner workings.”

  “Shuffle minutes with your fingers, multiply the fractions of the seconds, find the clock algorithms. Then time shall be yours.”

  And the final most cryptic one of all: “Taste your blood and ashes.”

  Yes, all utter twaddle, as far as she could tell. But she never rated anything as useless.

  The guard sat on a small timber stool that waited among a tribe of similar stools next to the door.

  When Sofia returned to the start, she asked again. “Can you find those things for me? Please. I need to draw.”

  The guard nodded. “Of course. There is a telegraph here.” She turned to a small metal desk near the door, and unhinged the cover, revealing the key of a transmitter. Her helmet went down on another stool. The tapping of the message punctuated the muffled noises of the garden outside. The glass was thick.

  It’s quiet in here with him. She stared again at the Clockwork Warrior, then looked at the guard. Asian. That darker tone to the skin, the slight tilt to her pretty eyes—no doubt at all, with the helmet off. Could she be a refugee from the Greater Asian Monarchy, like Dankyo?

  “What is your name?”

  “Excuse me?” The guard raised her eyebrows and swept some strands of her glossy black hair from her cheek.

  “Your name. I can’t keep thinking of you as the guard. May I have it? I am Sofia.”

  The woman seemed to gnaw her lip a moment, staring avidly with her honey-colored eyes as if Sofia had suddenly transformed into something odd, something to be studied in detail. “I am not supposed to say my name to you. If I tell you, you must not tell anyone that I told you. No one at all. And, in return, I will ask a favor of you.” She nodded. “I am Xiang.”

  “Xiang. Good. I won’t tell. Thank you for being kind…before.”

  “You are welcome.”

  Though she was dying to begin her examination of the man, her curiosity about Xiang won out. “What favor would you like to ask?”

  She smiled. The scar shifted. “I need advice on love, and you”—she waved vaguely—“seem to know more than I.”

  “Ah.” The party. Her face flushed with heat. Me, give advice on love? Oh well. “Go ahead. I can but try. But I’m no expert.”

  “No?” Xiang sounded as if she thought that a lie, then sighed. “I have a friend, a man, who in the past has wished to bed me. This is private, you understand?” She peered at Sofia.

  “Of course.” Odd. And this woman had seen her tied down at a public party while Dankyo licked her to orgasm? And now she was asking advice about her love life? Definitely odd. My life is so topsy-turvy. Maybe I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole?

  “Xiang, before you tell me more, I’m curious, but don’t say if you don’t want to. I have a friend who you’ve seen already…” Hold in that blush. “His name is Dankyo.” No reaction appeared on the woman’s face. “He escaped from the GAM many years ago. Do you know him?”

  “No. Though I am from there, I know of no such man.”

  “Ah. Go on, then.”

  With her elbows on her knees, Xiang rested her chin on her hands. “This man who wishes to bed me, he did me a great wrong many years ago. I almost died.”

  Sofia frowned. “Really? Not deliberate, I hope?”

  “It was, in a way. He chose his own life over mine. Although I still adore him, I also can’t help this itch that tells me to stick a knife in his guts.” She laughed. “I joke, a little. What do you think?”

  “Goodness.” What an unusual question. Sofia sat on a stool to give herself time to think. “My. Well, I wouldn’t kill him, if that’s your inclination. Perhaps you need to talk? There might be something you don’t know?”

  “Ah yes.” Xiang nodded. “My thoughts too. I will talk and then”—she smirked—“perhaps I will kill him.”

  Eeek. If this woman was a friend, she was still rather bloodthirsty. Perhaps that came with the job?

  “I’m glad I could help.” Now what do we chat about while I wait for the drawing implements to arrive? Where best to stab your boyfriend? Dankyo would be so at home here.

  Once the drawing materials arrived, she spent the rest of her time diligently recording all the details the other paintings and sketches had lacked. There would be no room for error. She had to be as sure as possible before disturbing anything. Four hundred years of history and all the messy political stuff here meant a mistake might cause heads to roll. Not hers perhaps, but someone’s
, and she didn’t want that on her conscience.

  While she worked, Xiang ventured into the garden. Every so often, from the corner of her eye, she’d catch sight of the guard leaping about, pirouetting, slashing her sword, and basically killing lots of air. Without the sound of her movements carrying through the glass, it was strangely beautiful and relaxing, like a lethal ballet.

  Like always when she worked at a puzzle, time slid past without her noticing, and she only stopped when her vision blurred and she caught herself rubbing the ache in the middle of her forehead. The two hours she’d been allocated had somehow turned into three. If she studied the Clockwork Warrior any longer, she’d have a headache that would last a day.

  When she opened the tomb’s glass door and stepped out into the vast garden, Xiang came forward, wiping the blade of her sword with a rag.

  A small gray pile sat squarely in the middle of the path leading to the main steel door.

  “You are finished?” Xiang stood at ease, with only the light sheen of sweat on her neck speaking of the long bout of exercise. She glanced casually at where Sofia was staring. “Ah. I have done well, have I not? They are a pest in here, but they gave me good practice. Hard to catch too.”

  Sofia swallowed. Rats. A pile of dead rats with blood trickling over their fur and pooling beneath them. “Yes. I can see how they would be.”

  Damn the woman is so calm. Yet, I guess they are only rats. She frowned and picked her way past the little corpses. Ugh. Xiang was a mean swordswoman. Fast at the least.

  Going through that final door that led outside the harem felt like breathing in freedom. But she had no time to savor it. A janissary was there—bearded, tall, in a brown and red robe with sword at one hip and heavy rifle swinging at his shoulder. She knelt automatically.

  A soldier this one, not some bureaucratic file waver. She glimpsed his frown-hardened face before Xiang pushed her head down until her forehead bumped the floor. They spoke as if she was not there at their feet.

  “She is not well trained.”

  “No, sir. She belongs to the man from House Kevonis who came to teach us about security.”

  “I want her better trained. She’s coming to the harem for this? Yes? Make sure we are not shamed before this foreigner. See she has a good instructor.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Then he walked away. Training. Here?

  When she crawled to her feet, Xiang eyed her as if expecting some outburst. But it wasn’t worth it to her. Whatever he meant, she would do it. Far simpler to agree than to argue. Such a time-wasting exercise, though.

  “That was the janissary of the gardens. He is an important man and in charge of all the slaves of the palace. He was told you come here for training. The emperor-bey commanded this before your arrival. And so it will be best and cause less suspicion to do as he orders.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  When she returned to the main part of the palace, bubbling with enthusiasm, Dankyo met her in the waiting area near the audience chamber.

  The man she’d met at Salonica airfield had returned—grim, distant, with his eyes like dark glass.

  “Why were you late?”

  Puzzled, she shrugged. “Time got away from me. I’m sorry.”

  His reply was as dry as paper, as cutting as a blade. “Walk with me.” All the way back to the gate in the wall, she hurried with him, waiting, hoping, for some further answer, but he said nothing. Questions hammered at her. Was it just the time, or had something else happened? Surely it wasn’t just her lateness?

  While they stood waiting at the back of a crowd for their limousine, she gave in to her niggling curiosity. No one was watching, but she spoke quietly.

  “What has happened?” He said nothing. Darn, the man was being utterly grumpy. If something else had exploded or died or whatever, surely he’d have said? “Cat got your tongue?”

  His gaze sent cold tunneling into her veins. Did he think she was some idiot, not to answer her?

  “Let me guess…someone put too much starch in your suit? Your pet hamster died…you have rust in your bullets…the emperor-bey got you to dance on—”

  “Sofia! Stop. You go too far.”

  Her excitement at her examination of the Clockwork Warrior had leaked away and left confusion and a churning sick stomach.

  What was going on?

  * * * *

  “So. How does it go? Well?” The emperor-bey took the first long knife from the table, then the second. Both were made for hand fighting, not throwing. They had plain leather-bound hilts and blunt blades. Still, if he didn’t trust Xiang, he’d not allow even this. She could likely kill a man with her fingernails and teeth if she wished.

  “It does.” Xiang took up a matched pair, stepped away, then settled into a knife-fighter’s stance. Her armor had been stripped off, and she wore only a leather top and leggings. The timber-floored training room had been cleared, and they were alone. “Sofia is intelligent, but I fear she is developing an attachment to Dankyo. I may want to kill them both. After I finish playing with them.”

  The quiet ferocity in those words bothered him. His assassin functioned best when detached. He sighed, flipped the knives, and caught the hilts again. “She is pretty. You know I hate killing those. I’ll consider it if you present me with a report detailing all your reasons. Ready?”

  “I will do this. Yes, I am ready. You are off-balance. Your right foot is too far forward.”

  “Oh.” The misplaced foot was deliberate, of course. He shifted as if to fix the problem and smoothly extended the move into a lunge for her left eye.

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the time they pulled up beside the gate to the compound, she was resigned to waiting for him to explain. He tugged her from the car by the hand and hurried her inside. It was past four in the afternoon by then. Their only conversation in the limo had been when Dankyo asked if she’d had lunch. When she’d told him she vaguely recalled eating, he’d narrowed his eyes, grunted, and gone back to silence.

  They reached a door, and she realized he’d brought her again to the sword-practice courtyard.

  “Why are we here? I’d like to get washed and changed.”

  “Here.” He dragged her into the small side room. “This is yours.” He handed her one of two wooden swords. “It’s a practice sword. And we are going to practice until you learn some swordplay. And this can go too.”

  Ruthlessly, he ripped the train from her costume and most of the attached diaphanous silk.

  Ruined, and so pretty too. She gaped. “What…why did you do that?”

  “It would have gotten in the way.”

  Without waiting for her to turn aside, he stripped off his clothes until he was naked, then put on a pair of the cotton training pants he took from a small cupboard.

  My, my, my. She put her tongue to her top lip while he tied the drawstring. The image of his perfect, toned lower body refused to leave her mind. But…no. Mind off that. He is being a bastard.

  She followed after him back into the courtyard. Shadows already darkened the shaded niches. “Practice? Now? Why now, Sir?”

  “Because I say so.” He came behind her and pulled her arms up so the sword faced forward, then went to her front, turned, stamped his feet and took up a fighting stance. “I am going to teach you the basics of using the sword.”

  “Now? I’m tired.” She pouted. “How long does it take to get good at sword fighting?”

  “Years.” He readjusted his feet.

  “What! God. I quit already. You stay and practice killing petals. Tomorrow, please.” She let the sword lower until it pointed at her feet.

  The growl he made was fearsome enough to alarm her. She squeaked and took a step back. My God. Her heart did a frightened gallop.

  “Sofia. Raise. Your. Sword.”

  She did so.

  For the next hour, she swung the sword and danced about, learning footwork, riposting, and thrusting, and battering her wooden sword against his. At firs
t it was fun—she recognized patterns quickly. Though her muscle strength and speed were pitiful, she loved this new branch of learning. Especially when a gleam of approval showed in Dankyo’s eyes at her fast improvement. Then her untrained muscles tired, and she tripped and fell.

  “Come,” he said. “We’ll stop awhile.” Awhile turned out to be a ten-minute break to drink, and wipe off sweat.

  Dusk had arrived. Red and orange tinted the sky above Dankyo’s head.

  “Again.” He drew her out into the middle, and they danced about and fought some more. Over and over and over. Voltaic sconce lights flickered and buzzed as they came on, then cast blue circles across the yard. Now and then, when she made a mistake, Dankyo smacked her butt, hard, with the flat of the blade. Though she hissed at the small pain, she refused to yelp or complain.

  Damn him.

  He showed her a new stance.

  “Again.”

  Weary, she raised her sword, then moved her grip, and firmed her jaw. As she stood there panting, sweat ran down the side of her face and over her stomach. She would not let him beat her. The man was being a bastard. She adjusted her weight from foot to foot, staying springy and ready for movement.

  “You’re fit,” he said, grudgingly.

  “I was on the running and the rowing team at college. I’m not a pushover.”

  He eyed her, lowered his gaze a moment as if thinking, then straightened, and let his sword point fall. “Enough. We are done.”

  Annoyance kept her from tripping again on the way to the low table.

  He poured her a drink, watched her swallow it, and then poured another. “This too.”

  Once she’d drained the glass, he took it from her and placed it on the table with the swords. Fatigue crept in, and she swayed. Crossness kept her from lying down on the cushions and pretending to be a rag doll…a very sweaty rag doll.

  “Why? Why did you push me? Why now? Are you trying to turn me into a pile of mush?”

  He smiled.

  Dumbstruck, she stared back. At last. It was like the tide coming in on a deserted beach. Life returned. Tears came to her eyes. Angrily she scrubbed them away with her forearm, then sniffed. “Damn you. Why do I care? You just made me so unhappy.”