Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables by Stephen L. Antczak, James C. Bassett Page A

This unsettling possibility hadn’t occurred to him. Broom was the only remnant of his mother he had left. Letting Baba Yaga fiddle with him felt like a violation.
    “What if I said Broom doesn’t want to think for himself?” Vasyl hedged.
    Baba Yaga showed her iron teeth. “Then I would say my little machine here is unnecessary. Look, boy, we made a deal. Either you get your mechanical in here so I can finish my job, or I’ll just have to feed you.”
    “Feed me?”
    Vasyl realized the witch was holding a butcher knife. The same butcher knife Broom had used on the beef. A spot of blood on the blade made a splotch of red chaos near the handle. “Feed you,” she said, “to myself.”
    “Broom!” Vasyl shouted. “Come!”
    Broom bustled into the workshop, barely pausing at the intersection of floor and wall. He halted at Vasyl’s side and saluted. A puff of steam escaped from one of his seams with a small squeak.
    “Drat.” Baba Yaga set the knife down. “I could have done with a nice head cheese.”
    “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?” Vasyl asked anxiously.
    “Not at all. I just need a little help to complete the process.” Baba Yaga pressed a button, and another table rose from the floor. Chained to it by his wrists, neck, and ankles was Petro. He was also gagged. The table tilted, and Petro’s terrified dark eyes met Vasyl’s blue ones. Vasyl cried out and ran toward him, but Baba Yaga shoved him backward and he landed flat with the wind knocked out of him. Broom quivered but didn’t move. A spider crawled to the edge of the table and peered quizzically down at them.
    “Don’t act so surprised, boy,” Baba Yaga said. “I told you the Tatar was mine if I wanted him.”
    Vasyl hauled himself gasping to his feet. “You said you were just playing.”
    “Yes.” Baba Yaga dropped the spider on Petro’s shoulder, where it set the tips of two of its sharp, pointed legs against Petro’s skull. His eyes widened, and he tried to lean away from it, but the fetter at his neck didn’t afford him enough movement. Muffled noises emerged from the gag.
    “Don’t you touch him!” Vasyl yelled.
    “I don’t have a choice,” Baba Yaga replied calmly. “We have a deal. In order for me to make a mechanical that can think for itself, I need living nervous tissue. The procedure won’t kill him. Quite.”
    “Broom! Attack!”
    Broom charged. The iron point of his staff speared toward Baba Yaga’s heart.
    Baba Yaga was caught off guard. She screeched and jumped back. Vasyl didn’t watch what happened next. Instead he snatched up a hammer from another worktable and struck at one of the locks on Petro’s fetters. The lock at his right wrist cracked. Then a hard hand yanked him away from Petro’s table and flung him down to the floor (wall?) several paces away. Baba Yaga’s ugly face pushed into his.
    “You think making a deal with me is a joke, boy?” she hissed. Behind her, Broom lay motionless on his side. The tip of his staff was bent. “There are rules even I cannot break. You will complete the housework and leave this cottage with a mechanical that can think for itself, or I will boil you screaming in my cauldron so I can peel meat from your long bones.”
    “I won’t let you hurt Petya for me,” Vasyl snarled from the floor at her feet.
    “Why not?” Baba Yaga barked.
    The lump came back to Vasyl’s throat. The spider on the side of Petya’s head pressed its sharpness through his dark hair, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck. Vasyl felt the pain as his own.
    “You know why,” he whispered.
    Her smoky breath burned his lungs and droplets of warm spittle spattered his cheek. “Say it, my little automaton.”
    Vasyl shook. His teeth chattered and he clutched his hands to his sides. But he couldn’t disobey. He said, “Because I’m in love with him.”
    The entire workshop fell silent except for the rhythmic thud and thump of the dancing feet outdoors. Vasyl’s face burned