The End Is Now

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jake Kerr began writing short fiction in 2010 after fifteen years as a music and radio industry columnist and journalist. His first published story, “The Old Equations,” appeared in Lightspeed and went on to be named a finalist for the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. He has subsequently been published in Fireside Magazine, Escape Pod, and the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology of humorous SF. A graduate of Kenyon College with degrees in English and Psychology, Kerr studied under writer-in-residence Ursula K. Le Guin and Peruvian playwright Alonso Alegria. He lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife and three daughters.

AVTOMAT Daniel H. Wilson

The animated figures stand,
Adorning every public street,
And seem to breathe in stone, or
move their marble feet.

—Pindar, 450 BC

GREAT EUROPEAN PLAIN, 1725

The five Imperial Russian infantry saunter toward us, hips rolling in their rain-spattered saddles. I raise my shashka and point the saber at the heart of the nearest guardsman. In response, the mounted dragoon smiles at me, his teeth rotting under a bushy black moustache.

Even from this distance, I can see that he is eager to fight. I lower my saber. The gesture was futile. In a few moments, these men will run us down on the empty plains.

I will have to fight. And my daughter will fight alongside me.

This morning just before dawn, Peter the Great, father of his country, founder and Emperor of the Russian Empire, true sovereign of the northern lands and king of the Mountain princes, passed from this world and left no heir. In the aftermath, those of us allied too closely with Peter lost everything. By command of Empress Catherine, newly appointed Tsarina of Russia, we have been sentenced to death.

And so today our world ends, along with the life of our sovereign.

On tall horses, the royal dragoons are confident. They trot toward us under a storm dark sky. Short wet grass rolls away from us for hundreds of miles, each blade glinting purple-green under a light rainfall.

“Stay close to me,” I say to Elena.

The little girl presses her hard shoulder against my thigh and the wind pushes the tail of my kaftan over her chest. Misty rain has plastered her wig to her forehead, spreading the black ringlets like cracks over her porcelain skin. Her sculpted face is nearly lost within the hood of her cloak. My daughter is indistinct under the billowing fabric, but she moves like a small, fierce animal.

“We cannot succeed,” she says, and her voice is a melody, like the singing of clockwork birds. Indeed, the mechanism that speaks for her was created from a singing wooden clock that came from the German Black Forests.

The beautiful noises signify an ugly truth.

The dragoons are trained soldiers, chosen by Peter himself from a standing force and elevated to personal Guard for the royal family. Wearing dark kaftans with red sashes crossed over their chests, the moustached men ride fearlessly with well-worn sabers hanging from their hips. Each is equipped with two saddle-mounted Muscovite wheellock pistols. The leader wears a steel cuirass over his chest and carries a long carbine. The rest carry simple Hussar lances.

Pursued by the Imperial Russian Guard, we took a risk and fled across the rolling steppes east of St. Petersburg. We hoped to disappear into the emptiness, but we knew this could happen. Our goal was never simply to survive . . . we are running to protect the secret of our existence.

A single dragoon separates from the others, gallops toward us with one hand on the pommel of his saber.

“Stay low, Elena. Survive the onslaught,” I say. “After I am finished, surprise them if you can. If they take you, do not let them discover what you are.”

“Yes, Peter,” she says.

I shove my cloak to the side and step away from Elena, drawing my long knife. The dagger is a simple blade the length of my forearm. Long and short, both my hands now sprout fangs.

The horseman yanks the reins and his mount comes to a prancing stop fifty yards away. Steam rises from the black flanks of his horse. The others are staying back, eyes dark under their red hats, watching this sport from a distance.