Of Dreams and Rust

  “He is a secret I am used to keeping,” I murmur.

  Something flares in his eyes. “I need to give the men an explanation, or they will shoot him out of sheer terror.”

  “Tell them he will not hurt them.” I look at Bo’s face as I say this.

  Bo’s lip curls. “Unless they come closer.” His shoulders are covered in a row of metal bumps, and each of those bumps has eight eyes—dormant, fanged spiders, ready to attack. He is wearing the frames he’s been working on for the past year, and they cover both legs, his remaining arm, and his torso. They envelop him, making him wider than and nearly as tall as most of the Noor. There is sheet metal contoured over his limbs, covering the inner workings of his artificial body. His fingers are spindly, too long for his hands, with too many joints. His head is covered in a helmet, with that one side that swings open to reveal his actual face. I have no idea how many terrors he’s tucked into the arms and legs and belly of this suit, but I think he could kill half this village if he wanted to.

  And he looks like he wants to.

  “You have traveled a long way,” I say.

  He lets out a hard laugh. “So have you. Guiren is distraught, Wen. He thinks you’re dead.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand, my eyes stinging. “In the train?” I force out.

  He nods. “But I was not willing to let it end there.”

  Melik’s eyes narrow. “You were in Kegu, weren’t you?”

  Bo tilts his head, his suit letting out an eerie hum. “I was told that’s where she would be.” He looks back to me. “Your bag was found in a demolished dining car along with over a dozen dead Itanyai soldiers. Guiren was scared to hope.” He focuses his gaze on the ground. “But I was scared not to.” His joints whir as he stands straighter. “I came through the canyon.”

  “And you met five Itanyai soldiers who had escaped the vicious Noor rebels, but with only nine fingers each,” says Melik as he gently nudges aside the barrel of a rifle aimed at Bo’s face, then puts his hand on the back of the young man wielding it and gives him a reassuring nod.

  “Correct, Red,” says Bo. “They described the girl who cared for their wounds and cut them free. They also told me of the Red One, who sliced off their fingers to save her life. They said the girl was being taken to Kegu.”

  “But we were at Kegu only three days after I left the Ring,” I say. “It takes at least a week to hike the canyon.”

  Bo rolls his eye. “Wen, I have warned you about underestimating me.”

  “So you ran through the canyon, all the way to Kegu, in less than four days.” Melik glances at Baris, whose forehead is crinkled as he listens to a conversation in a language he doesn’t understand. “And then you blew up the municipal complex. How many did you kill?”

  Bo shrugs, the metal spiders on his shoulders shifting under the moonlight. “I have no idea, and I truly don’t care. I needed everyone completely occupied so I could get out with Wen.” He bares his teeth at Melik. “But she was gone.”

  “Are you sorry I rescued her?” Melik asks in a hard voice. “She was going to be executed at dawn.”

  “She didn’t need you,” Bo snarls. “She had me.”

  “She doesn’t need you,” says Sinan. “She has my brother.”

  I put my hand on Sinan’s arm. Once again he is too open, too frank, too willing to say exactly what he’s thinking. “Sinan . . .”

  “Wen, your father needs to see you,” says Bo, stepping forward. The Noor men raise their rifles again, and they keep glancing back at Melik, waiting for any signal. But Bo does not seem the slightest bit concerned with them. “It is time for you to come with me.”

  “I’m not going to—” I begin, but Bo raises his arms, glaring at me.

  “You are,” he says. “We’re wasting time. The first war machines were already assembling at the eastern mouth of the canyon when I left. You cannot be here when they arrive!”

  Melik’s eyes meet mine. “You were right,” he whispers.

  “Did you not believe me after all?”

  His gaze is both fond and full of regret. “I did, but I hoped you would be wrong at the same time.”

  I can certainly understand that. I was hoping I was wrong too, but now Bo has confirmed that the nightmare is reality. “How quickly can they move through the canyon?”

  Bo looks down at his body. “If it took me four days, it would take them no more than two. We must go,” he says to me. “Truly, if they are not here by now, it is only a matter of time.”

  “Taslar,” Melik mutters under his breath. He grabs the shoulders of two of the young men with rifles and speaks very quickly, pointing to the gaping maw of the canyon that leads east. While he talks, several other young men cluster around him. They ask him a few questions and then jog away, along with their women, heading for their respective cottages. “They will set up a scout line all the way to the Quebian Falls. They will leave as soon as their supplies are packed. We’ll have signal fires to warn of the war machines’ approach.”

  “It won’t save you,” says Bo. “Nothing will.” He holds out his spindly metal hand to me, but even if I wanted to go with him, I would be scared to grasp it. “Come on, Wen!”

  Melik moves so that his body is half in front of mine. “You want to leave with her now so that you can meet the machines in the canyon?”

  “We could go high enough into the hills to avoid them,” Bo snaps.

  “Even if you don’t freeze, you are likely to get lost. The high passes are a maze,” Melik retorts. “Is that likely to mend her father’s heart? When her body is found frozen in a crevasse?”

  “If the alternative is being crushed along with a bunch of Noor, then perhaps.”

  “A bunch of Noor?” Melik laughs. “Is it somehow better if she dies at your side?” My stomach tightens as I hear the bright, overfriendly tone in his voice, as I see the cold look in his eyes. His hand travels to the hilt of his knife.

  I put my free hand up, trying to calm the rising storm. “Please. I can speak for myself. I—”

  But Sinan steps forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with his older brother. “Wen married Melik. She is part of our family now. Her place is here with him.”

  I inhale a sharp breath as Bo’s face loses all of its tension. He looks as if Melik has slipped that knife between the plates of his armor. His gaze slowly traces my body, my bloodred gown, my embroidered cap, as if he is only just noticing them. “Is that true?” he asks me, his voice trembling.

  “Bo, please, you and I should talk,” I sputter. “Someplace . . .” Without all these eyes on us. “I want you to understand.”

  Melik’s features flicker with raw hurt as he hears my words, but it’s gone in an instant. “Yes, perhaps the two of you should talk,” he says in an even voice. He raises his arms and speaks in Noor, gesturing at Bo and at his own body, as if he is explaining that beneath the armor there is a man. Then he turns back to me. “Take all the time you need.”

  “Melik—”

  “No,” he says softly. “I need to meet with the village council anyway. We must find a way to prepare for what’s coming.” He stalks past our wedding tent, and the people follow him, leaving me and Bo alone. Sinan jogs after the crowd but nearly stumbles over his large feet because he keeps turning back to stare at Bo.

  I ache as Melik walks away from me. It feels like whatever step we took in those minutes within the tent has been erased, leaving us stumbling back in the wake of Bo’s arrival. But my new husband, if that is indeed what he is, has disappeared from my view. I turn back to Bo.

  “Can you imagine . . . ,” he begins, then clears his throat. “Did you think for one moment about how it might feel to me as I waited for you on First Holiday morning?”

  I watch his spindly fingers twitch. “It was very hard to leave, Bo.”

  “I thought . . . I thought you had chosen me. But the whole time, the entire time, you were planning to leave, weren’t you? It wasn’t a beginning. It was a good-bye.?
??

  “I couldn’t tell you,” I say, my voice breaking as I raise my gaze to his.

  “You are the cruelest girl.” His expression is tight with pain. “Why did you let me believe you cared?”

  Because I will never stop caring about him. But it is a soft feeling tangled around all the jagged edges of the metal boy who stands before me. “You must be very angry at me.”

  He stares at my face. “You have no idea how deep it goes. How could you do this?”

  “The same way you could come after me instead of leaving me to my well-deserved fate, Bo.” It is difficult to return his gaze because he is horrifying like this. He does not look like my Bo right now. He looks like a war machine. “Your heart is not that cold.”

  “I wish it were,” he says, his voice rough. “You can’t stay here, Wen. These people are going to die, and you will die with them. The outrage over the train attack energized everyone in the Ring, along with the rest of the country. If any of them were sympathetic to the rebels in the west, this atrocity has changed their minds. They will cheer as the war machines destroy these villages.”

  “I cannot walk away from this!” I take a step toward him, wanting to dismantle his metal armor, wanting to touch him, not his machine self. “These people just want to live and rule themselves. They are just like us.”

  “They are not,” he shouts. “Shooting unarmed girls and injured soldiers! Burning a train car full of innocent civilians! They are animals!”

  “Then we are too!” I shriek. “Do you not hear what you are saying? Machines made only for killing could march through that canyon and into this village at any moment! There are children here, Bo! Pregnant women and little boys and grannies and toothless old men. Mothers and fathers. And our machines will shoot at them and crush them and burn their lives to nothing. Not for the first time, either. How are we not the same?”

  Bo’s mouth opens and closes, and then he yells, “Because we are Itanyai!”

  I rock back, astounded by how horrid that sounds to me now. “For such a smart man, you have an incredibly small mind,” I say, my voice shaking.

  His metal fists clench. “I can make you come with me.”

  “You would only have my body. The rest of me would be here. And the part you had wouldn’t be worth much.”

  “It’s worth everything to me!” he roars, advancing on me.

  I hold my ground. “If I am worth so much, then help me.”

  “I’m trying.” He throws up his arms, which clank and click with the movement. “You’re right—I am shamefully shortsighted. Here I thought you were a prisoner. The soldiers said you were being treated poorly.” His eye flames with hatred. “And one of the rebels who hurt you is now your husband?” he shouts.

  “Melik protected me however he could. You heard what the soldiers told you.”

  “It’s been only four days since I last saw you, but you look as if you’ve been starved and strangled.” He clenches his teeth and points at my throat. “If he is your protector, you need a new one.”

  “We are in a war, Bo. Melik defied his own general to save me.”

  His eye narrows. “Save you? If he cared about you at all, this is the last place he would have brought you. I know he is a Noor, but I thought he was smarter than that, so I am assuming he is more selfish than stupid. But I am also assuming he is a great deal of both.”

  “Stop talking about him like that. My opinion of you decreases with every word.” I feel as cold as a peak in the Western Hills. Every muscle in my body is tight. “If you think so little of him—and of me—you can leave.”

  “I won’t leave without you!”

  “Then stay and help,” I say quietly. “They need us, Bo. If anyone can help, it’s you. I can stitch wounds, but you can prevent them.”

  He takes a step back. “What are you talking about?”

  “If we were somehow able to stop the machines in the canyon, or at least cripple some of them, wouldn’t that make our government reconsider?”

  “I have no idea, Wen, but stopping them is more than these Noor can do.”

  “You don’t know what they can do. But you understand those machines better than anyone.”

  “I will not betray my country.”

  I point to the huddled crowd near the large celebration fire. Melik is speaking to them, his long-armed shadow thrown against the thatched roof of the nearest cottage. “They are your countrymen, Bo. They were born here. This is their land. They claim no other nation as their own, and no other nation would shelter them because they belong in Itanya. Please. Help them.”

  “I will never do anything for anyone but you and Guiren,” he says. “You are the only two people in the world I care about.”

  I lay my palm on his cheek, warm in the cool air of the night. “Then do it for me, if that makes it possible.” I close my eyes and breathe deep. As my next words take shape in my mind, they cut to the bone. Am I betraying Melik, or am I saving him? Am I cursed to do both at once? “And if you help, I will leave with you once the threat is over.”

  He stares down at me for a long time, distant Noor words washing over us. I lose count of how many times I hear the word “kuchuksivengi” before he speaks again. “Promise me,” he murmurs. “Promise me you will leave here and return with me.”

  “I swear to you,” I say, my voice strained as it tumbles over the lump in my throat. Leaving Melik will not be easy at all, if the pang of longing in my heart is any clue. But not doing everything I can to ensure his survival would be worse. “I will leave here. But only if you help.”

  He bows his head. “All right. I will do what I can. We need to talk to them. I need to know what they have to fight with.”

  “Thank you.” My arms rise to hug him, but I don’t know where to touch him. All of him seems like a weapon. “Would you . . . like to take your armor off?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t feel safe without it,” he says quietly.

  I will not push him now, because I remember how the people of Dagchocuk responded when I arrived. Melik was my armor, and Bo must supply his own. “Come, then. Melik can translate whatever you need. So can Sinan and their mother.”

  “How old is that boy?” Bo asks.

  “Sinan? He’s fourteen now.”

  Bo grunts. “He was at the factory last year.”

  “Yes. He is a very unusual boy, I think.”

  Bo makes another noise in his throat, and we begin to walk. His footsteps are heavy on the dirt as he makes his strides.

  “Is it tiring, having to carry all that metal around?” I ask.

  “No. It carries itself. And me.” The weariness in his voice tells me he is making it sound easier than it is. “The movement sequences are set, and all I must do is spur them into motion before they do the rest. Like my spiders, the mainsprings are self-winding. It is not perfect, but—”

  “It is incredible, Bo. You are incredible.” And terrifying. I had no idea he had traveled so far in his journey to become a machine.

  As we approach the crowd of Noor, Melik sees us coming and slowly lowers his arms. He watches Bo, his face expressionless.

  “Are you arguing about how many rocks you will throw at the war machines?” Bo asks, the edge unmistakable.

  “No,” says Melik, even and deceptively calm. “We are discussing how much blasting powder will be required to bring down an avalanche of rock on them.”

  Bo’s eyebrow arches. “You have black powder?”

  Melik folds his arms over his chest and lifts his chin. “Three crates.”

  Surprise glitters in Bo’s eye. “That is encouraging.”

  “To whom, exactly?” Melik asks.

  “I think I’m going to help you, Red.”

  Melik scowls. “We do not need your help.”

  “Really?” Bo chuckles. “What is a war machine’s weakest point?”

  Melik’s mouth is tight as he says, “Its leg joints, I would imagine.” Sinan leans over quickly and whispers somethi
ng in Melik’s ear. “Or maybe the hatch that leads to the engine.”

  Bo smirks. “Your little brother understands them much better than you do.”

  I don’t miss the way Sinan stands a little straighter. Melik doesn’t either, and he nudges his brother and gives him a small smile.

  “But you are both wrong,” Bo says, erasing the brothers’ pride in an instant. “The machines are built for uneven terrain and dusty conditions. Raining rocks on them with blasting powder is possible, if imprecise and risky, and three crates will not bring down enough to do more than temporarily slow them. Their leg joints are actually the most protected and well-constructed parts of them. And though their hatches are more vulnerable, they are still armored. A better strategy is to attack from the ground and stop their beating hearts. I know exactly how to get to them too. Now tell me again that you do not need me.”

  Melik’s nostrils flare. “We might. But we also do not trust you.” The men and women around him may not understand my language, but that wariness and dislike is etched into their features. Not only does Bo look like a war machine—he is clearly Itanyai, and clearly unfriendly. They would not hesitate to shoot him if Melik gave the word.

  Bo’s smile does not warm the cold look in his eyes. “Under most circumstances, Red, you shouldn’t trust me.” His suit hums as he looks down at me. “But in this case I have every reason to help you.”

  Melik’s gaze crosses the distance between Bo and me, and from his frown, I suspect he believes that space is smaller than it is. “You have tried to kill me twice before—for the same reason.”

  “And I also saved your miserable life.”

  “Which makes balance between us. Now you are free to try again.”

  “I’d love to do more than try,” Bo says. “But I won’t.”

  “Because of Wen.” Three words, and their weight on me is crushing.

  Bo nods. “Because of Wen.”

  Melik stares at me for a long moment. One during which I wish he would say exactly what he is thinking, but he doesn’t. “Very well,” he says softly. “We will accept your help.”