Clockwork Angels: The Novel (32 page)

The Anarchist gestured around the motley collection of wrecked ships, exuding pride. “When I told them my great mission, they saw the potential, and they’ve embraced it wholeheartedly. Now they seize every opportunity to sink cargo ships and prevent vital alchemical materials from reaching Crown City. We cut off the Watchmaker’s supply. I want to deprive that evil man of everything he needs so that his own coldfire grows dim! As for the Wreckers”—he shrugged his narrow shoulders—“well, they’re just happy to plunder the ships.”

Owen was at a loss for words. “
Yo u
told them to save me? You knew I was on that ship.”

“Our life journeys intersect often, my good friend, usually by design,” the Anarchist said. “I’ve mapped out all the branchpoints, tracked what you would do.” His eyes sparkled. “Until we break the stranglehold of the Watchmaker, nothing is random, no matter how much you think it might be. And I understand how important you are, Owen Hardy”

“I’m not important to anybody!”

“Which is exactly why you are so necessary.”

When the Anarchist smiled, the pointed ends of his mustache jabbed upward like two sharp rapiers. “I am the Mysterious Angel, the Watchmaker’s greatest nightmare. And you are the lynchpin—exactly what we need to destroy the Stability.”

B
y the next day, Owen’s injuries had stopped bleeding, though the ache was still there. He did not feel any safer among the Wreckers, nor any more welcome. Even the Anarchist left him alone, knowing his prisoner could go nowhere. Owen slept in the recovery cabin where he had awakened. No one gave him other instructions, no one seemed to care.

The hodgepodge raft drifted far from the treacherous reefs; with large engines and powerful screws attached to the mismatched hulls, the Wreckers could propel their island wherever they wished.

The following morning, the Anarchist met him on the decks of the raft city. He strode forward wearing a bright, sharp-edged smile, and his dark eyes glittered like sunlight off chips of obsidian. “A lovely morning. Today, we continue your education.” He put his arm around Owen in an unwanted gesture of comradeship. “Soon we’ll begin our real work, my good friend.”

With distaste, Owen squirmed out of the man’s embrace and spun to face him. “You’re a stranger, a
dangerous
stranger—not some long-awaited friend. I don’t want to be here, and I certainly don’t want any of your ‘education.’ ”

The Anarchist chuckled. “I would never force you.” His pointed moustache drooped. “But any truly free man should not be afraid to listen to other ideas. Are you afraid?”

“Not afraid,” Owen corrected. “Just not interested.”

With a jaunty stride, the Anarchist climbed over the edge of one deck and dropped onto another captured ship. Against his better judgment, Owen followed the man. He still did not understand why he was here or what his place among the Wreckers was meant to be. How was he a . . . lynchpin?

“You’ve been brainwashed by the Watchmaker. There’s nothing dark and evil about anarchy. The word simply means a society without a defined leader. People making their own decisions, leading their own lives. We don’t need a dictator to rule every second of every day.”

Owen didn’t believe him. “And what are you known for? Disruptions and deadly explosions. You and the Watchmaker are two extremes.” He hurried along, but the other man didn’t seem to care whether or not Owen kept up with his pace.

“And you have experienced two extremes. You’ve had your eyes opened.”

At the edge of the conglomeration raft, the Anarchist stopped to watch the scout airship inflate its main canvas balloon and two outrider levitation sacks; he paid no attention to Owen beside him. The scout pilot tugged on her patchwork jacket and fingerless gloves before stoking the engines so she could take off. Two pairs of round wheels stabilized the scoutship on the deck, rocking back and forth as the balloons inflated, and a blocky coldfire engine sent steam exhaust chugging through nozzles.

Though the air vessel operated on the same principle as Commodore Pangloss’s steamliner, its pilot had a different mission. She would drift high among the clouds, scanning the expanse of ocean for other victims. On deck, a helper detached mooring lines, and the scout airship lifted off and flew away, with a triangular rudder sail dangling below.

The Anarchist followed his gaze. “Airships usually can’t travel this far out to sea, but the pilot uses this giant raft as a base, a place to take off and land. She doesn’t need rails or a pivot point.”

“What if she gets lost?” Owen asked. “If she flies beyond her range, won’t she crash into the sea?”

He shrugged. “A life without risk is a life without . . .
life
. She loves to fly free up in the sky, and we all benefit from her efforts. Otherwise we’d have to find our prey some other way.” He gestured Owen to follow him. “But we would still manage—the Free People of the Sea are good hunters.”

The Anarchist took him toward a skeletal scaffolding tower built on the deck of a salvaged cargo steamer. Suspended from the framework was a dazzling blue-white alchemical globe, like a captive star. The beacon was dim and quiescent now, but with the addition of concentrated fuel Owen guessed the dazzling light would be intense enough to pierce any storm.

And signal false salvation to any unsuspecting sailors.

The Wreckers must have maneuvered their cluster-raft into position on the far side of the reefs, then lit their tantalizing beacon to draw Captain Lochs onto the jagged rocks.

The Anarchist wrapped his tattooed hand around a slat on the skeletal crane structure. “As a farm boy, you climbed apple trees. I know you climbed ropes, buildings.” Smiling, he seized one of the rungs, swung himself up, and reached back down with his burned hand. “Come on—you need to see this.”

Owen chose to resist. “I can see just fine from here.”

“You can see fine from the top of the tower, too.” Rather than offering further assistance or encouragement, he continued to climb, assuming Owen would follow.

The young man heaved an annoyed sigh and scrambled up after him. He was not afraid of the height, and even with his bandaged arm the climb was no more difficult than ascending the pole to Francesca’s trapeze platform.

At the top of the tower, the Anarchist stood free, extending his arms to embrace the open sky and the brisk breezes. “Can you feel it, Owen Hardy? No safety net, no harness, just the wind and freedom!”

Owen wrapped his arm around one of the high bars to stabilize himself. Back in Barrel Arbor, he would have felt nervous to be so high. Now, having walked tightropes, both willingly and by accident, he felt confident in his balance and his grip—but the Anarchist seemed more dangerous than a fall from any height.

“Why don’t you smile? Feel it, in here.” The stranger pounded the center of his chest. “You’re free now. You should rejoice.”

“Rejoice?” Owen couldn’t believe the man’s attitude. “I’m miserable! I just watched innocent people from my ship
die
just so these thieves could rob them! I’m lost. I have no place to go.”

“No encumbrances. The purest definition of freedom!” the Anarchist said. “You just needed a nudge, and all was for the best.” His grin seemed snide. “I chose you long ago in Barrel Arbor, watched your sleepwalking life, and I sensed there was a spark in you that needed to be fanned into bright flames.”

“You . . . watched me?”

“It was easy to slink around your village. No one saw me because they had long since forgotten how to look for anything out of the ordinary. Why do you think your sweet, vapid Lavinia failed to join you that night under the stars? She was such a creature of habit it was easy for me to slip a potent sleeping draught into the cup of warm milk she drank every night before she went to bed.”

Owen stared at him, wide-eyed at the revelation. The Anarchist gave a flippant wave to trivialize what he had done. “It was probably unnecessary. I very much doubt she would have been bold enough to join you anyway—even such a tiny straying from the rules seemed beyond her abilities. On the other hand, she might not have had the imagination to disagree once you told her what to do. So, I needed to make certain. I had to give you your complete freedom.” He grinned. “If Lavinia had come out after all, you wouldn’t have had the incentive to leave, and you wouldn’t have had . . . all this!”

Owen couldn’t stop himself. “I hate you!”

“Yes, it’s good to feel something, isn’t it? Think about where you are. What do you lack now? You have no responsibilities, no obligations, no expectations. No anchors dragging you down! I gave that to you.” He seemed to expect applause.

Owen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You gave it to me? You
did
it to me.” He couldn’t articulate all the pain and heartbreak, the tribulations, everything he had endured since leaving his village. “You wrecked my life just like these people wreck ships.”

The Anarchist remained smug and unsympathetic. “Oh? And having lived such an adventure, do you regret it? Would you give it all up? There’s world enough out there and time.” He gestured to the open sea. “The Watchmaker imprisons time. We have to free it and free ourselves.”

His dark eyes became distant and unfocused, and he absently toyed with the stickpin at his collar. “I destroyed the Alchemy College, and that was just the beginning. Once we get back to Albion, you and I can continue the campaign of disruption. It’ll be like shaking a sound sleeper awake. Difficult, yes, but tough times demand tough hearts.”

Owen shrank away. “I’m not your apprentice! Being reckless is not the same as being free. You’re insane.”

The Anarchist looked at him with withering disappointment. “Insane . . . That’s what the philosopher-professors and analysts said about me back at the college, when they stripped me of my robes and banished me. I told them the Watchmaker himself had sent me secret messages, egged me on so that I could be his successor one day, but they assumed something was wrong with me. They said I suffered from malignant narcissism.”

His anger cut the air like a sword blade. “They tried to understand me, analyze me. They assumed that once they found the malfunction in my mind, they could
repair
it. I had nothing but contempt for the ordinariness of their minds.”

He leaned back, held onto the tower with one hand and recklessly swayed out over the open drop to the deck below. “The Watchmaker never defended me, never admitted his role. Only later did I realize that he
wanted
me to fail! Oh, but he wasn’t prepared for what he created.”

Laughing, he swung himself around again. Owen hoped he might slip and fall to his death, thereby saving hundreds,
thousands
₂₆₄
of lives from his violence. With one quick shove, Owen could send him plunging off the tower. . . .

He was horrified at himself for the very thought.

But the Anarchist’s grip was firm. He seemed to be testing Owen. Giving the young man a look that was a strange combination of satisfaction and disappointment, he pulled himself back to a stable position. “Analysts, doctors, philosophers. I baffled their orderly diagnoses. They didn’t comprehend my mind or my heart, but the one sure thing is that they will never forget me.”

Owen’s head pounded, and not just from his injury. “And now you’re the leader of the Wreckers? I thought you said the very definition of anarchy means to live without leaders.”

The man chuckled at Owen’s clumsy trap. “These people need my guidance, but it’s only a step. They’re more interested in themselves and their treasure. They’re driven by simple greed, not ideology, but I can work with that. You, my good friend, are a much more important piece in the game. The true revolution has to come from simple, everyday people like you. Not from grand pronouncements, but a quiet and building roar from a small crowd whisper. And you’ll be the first one. You’ll be a hero.” “I’m nobody’s hero,” Owen said, “especially not yours.”

He looked across the water and saw the scout airship returning. Knotted steam spilled out in a vapor trail, and Owen could tell that the pilot had pumped up her engines to the highest capacity, racing headlong back to the floating island. Faintly through the open air, he could hear a clanging bell.

“I suppose she’s found another ship to wreck,” Owen said bitterly. “More innocent victims.”

“That’s a different sort of alarm. Something interesting is about to happen.” He sounded disturbed, and then hungry. “We should climb back down.”

By the time they worked their way to the deck, the scout airship had landed, wheels bouncing on the deck. Tied by a single mooring rope, with its levitation sacks still inflated, the vessel bobbed haphazardly. As the pilot jumped out, waving her gloved hands, her face was filled with concern, even panic. “They’re coming—a full force! To arms!”

“Who’s coming?” Owen asked.

The Anarchist’s significant eyebrows drew together, and his expression was grim and determined. “The Watchmaker, of course.”

The first airships appeared on the horizon: big war dirigibles larger than the majestic steamliners that carried cargo and passengers throughout Albion; each of these was emblazoned with a bold honeybee, poised to sting. A force of armored battleship steamers cruised across the waters, belching so much white smoke and vapor that it looked like a fog bank rolling toward the Wreckers’ raft city.

“It seems we’ve been found.” The Anarchist stood with his hands on his narrow hips; he raised his voice to all the scurrying people, “Embrace the opportunity! Draw your swords and prepare to fight! You are the Free People of the Sea!”

The Wreckers yelled to one another, scrambled to their quarters or rushed below decks to arm themselves with swords and cutlasses. Owen spotted his “nurse” Xandrina taking up a long butcher knife and standing firm; she had tied her bright magenta scarf in place. The scoutship pilot in her patchwork jacket tapped a long cudgel against her gloved palm—just like the ones the Wreckers had used to club his shipmates to death on the stormwashed reefs. . . .