The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year One by Scott H. Andrews (editor)

Author:Scott H. Andrews (editor) [Andrews, Scott H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: scifi and fantasy, Fantasy, fantasy adventure, literary fantasy, Fantasy Fiction
Publisher: Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Published: 2011-07-13T08:32:45+00:00

We entered, to the strains of the mechanical orchestra. Underneath their music I could hear the low roar of the coiled organ, accompanying them, directing them. All fell silent as we walked into their high hall. The Clockwork King himself remained hunched over his organ; but every other glassy eye in the peculiar theatre turned to examine us.

“Now,” I said, and we set down the chest, and opened its top, and the Prodigy sprang up. “Now, play!” I commanded him, and he set to his lips the flute I had seized from the musician in the Hofburg, and played a pitch-perfect repetition of the orchestra’s own music. Then he went further, and improvised a clever twist, turning the phrase back upon itself with a precise flurry of notes. The meaning was clear: it was a challenge.

What did V— have that the Clockwork King should select it, of all the cities of the earth, for his first conquest? What had the automata been searching for with such thoroughness in the city? What but the Prodigy, the answer to Kreisler’s question?

After a moment, the flautist of the mechanical orchestra raised his flute to his lips. He played a few notes, seeking to compete with the Prodigy’s improvisation. But he could not; in a moment the Prodigy had joined the tune, and then exceeded it, playing faster, better, and then directing the music with a skill the automaton could not match. The flautist dropped his instrument, and stood motionless, head slumped forward, arms at his side. The Prodigy had won his first duel.

Then the others followed. One by one the other musicians of the orchestra attempted to duel with the Prodigy. One by one he overwhelmed them, improvising upon their tunes with a mathematical clarity greater than their own, at the same time making clear their soulnessness, their lack of emotion. While his own fervor only grew. Listening to him, I felt my own emotions rise in me, my own love, my own ecstasy, my vision of Olympia.

Until at last all the mechanical men were defeated, standing silent with their heads bowed. There remained only the Clockwork King himself, sitting at the heart of the mechanical organ, the bone-white organ of no generation but entropy. He played no music, gave the Prodigy no challenge.

“Now what?” asked the Prodigy.

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