Clockwork Angels: The Novel (5 page)

The clanging bell and hiss of steam grew louder as he raced to the tracks. Upon landing on the glowing rails, the train transformed into a narrow stampede of mammoths, a long line of heavy cargo boxes and passenger gondolas lit with phosphorescent running lights, balanced by graceful balloon sacks. A geyser of exhaust bubbled out of the lead engine like the breath of a sleeping white dragon. Steel wheels rolled along the metal lines, and the engines huffed.

As Owen reached the tracks, the sound built like excitement and laughter, energy and applause rolled into one. He stared as the steamliner thundered past. It came from mysterious lands he had never seen, rolling across the landscape toward Crown City . . . which he had also never seen.

He stood transfixed, watching several cargo cars, then a dim passenger gondola filled with the silhouetted heads of sleeping passengers, then more cargo cars. He felt the breath of wind as it rolled past, smelled the steam and sparks and hot metal.

He wished Lavinia were there beside him but knew she would never be. She’d never even think of doing this. His father had shown no interest in watching the steamliners either; they were just a part of daily life, like the sunrise and sunset, coming and going on schedule.
All is for the best.

Albion was vast, and Barrel Arbor was not. Would he ever see Crown City and the Clockwork Angels? Ever meet the Watchmaker in his tower? Ever sail the Western Sea? Soon he’d have to put away his mother’s books, never again look at the pictures. It seemed impossibly sad to him.

As a battered old cargo car came toward him, he saw the shape of a man hanging out of the open door, the silhouette of a head peering out, a waving hand. Owen was startled as the man shouted over the noise of the steamliner, as if he
knew
Owen was there. “Hold out your hand, and I’ll pull you up.”

He froze. He could get aboard the steamliner! He could ride the rails into Crown City. He could see the Angels with his own eyes, before it was too late.

“I shouldn’t,” he yelled back.

“But do you
want
to?” the man called, hurtling closer.

The car was upon him, and Owen instinctively—impulsively— reached out to grab the man’s hand. The stranger was strong and yanked him off the ground. Owen felt his feet lift away from the siding of the steamliner track, and before he knew it, as quickly as a sudden sneeze, he was pulled up and into the cargo car.

“You did it, young man,” said the stranger. “I’m proud of you.”

Owen looked back with a dazed feeling, watching as his village rolled away in the distance. The stranger gripped his shoulder to keep him steady.

He couldn’t believe he had actually done it, even though he didn’t yet grasp
what
he had done. Owen felt the brisk night breeze on his face, as he turned his gaze away from the receding view of Barrel Arbor to look forward, toward Crown City and the future.

“On my way at last,” he said.

I was brought up to believe

L
istening to the humming thunder of the steel wheels on the tracks, Owen couldn’t believe he was riding the rails that had always beckoned him. He laughed out loud—just one quick laugh of astonishment at where he was and what he had done.

Then he drew in a hitching breath, and an avalanche of realization hit him: what had he done? Owen’s legs went weak, and he slumped to the side of the cargo car. The prickle of excited sweat sent an icy chill along his skin as it evaporated in the night breeze. His heart hammered, not from the danger of climbing aboard a moving steamliner, but from the danger of doing something he knew was wrong.

His father had always chided him that his head was so full of pointless dreams that he had no room left for brains. Yes, Owen had prayed just to get away, but that had been a fantasy, never meant to be made real, regardless of the strong grasp it had on his heart and his imagination. It was like those stories of mythical dragons and lost cities; he had never believed he would actually
do this
, never made plans that were anything more than wistful imaginings.

And if he ever did go on an adventure, he had assumed Lavinia would be with him, that they would run off to exotic lands together. Instead, his companion was some stranger who had extended an arm out of the darkness, offering an invitation that Owen hadn’t thought quickly enough to refuse. . . .

Panic set in.
What did I just do?

As the steamliner pulled along, he peered out at the passing shadows and cast a longing glance at the silhouetted buildings, the Barrel Arbor clocktower he could barely see, the slumbering hulk of the orchard hill. His father was already so lonely with his wife gone . . . and now Anton Hardy would have to do the work in the orchard, press the cider, wind all the household clocks by himself. And Lavinia, who had expected to marry Owen (or so he assumed, once they both had their printed cards from the Watchmaker, wishing them happy, stable, contented lives), would be alone, too.

But Lavinia hadn’t come to meet him at midnight as she’d promised. . . .
Had
she actually promised, or had that been his own assumption and hope?

So often, the assistant apple orchard manager had buoyed up his days with hope, while everyone else in Barrel Arbor simply had faith that the world was as it should be.
All is for the best.

But Owen wondered if all
was
as it should be. His father had said he would put away the remarkable books on Owen’s birthday.
Put all this foolishness behind you.
To the young man, that meant more than just cutting a fond, last connection with his lost mother—it would lock away his dreams. Owen had never stopped thinking big, and this was his chance, even if it was an accidental chance, to see the wide world. Perhaps
that
was for the best.

He slumped down and looked up through the tattered canvas hood that covered the cargo car, seeing a swatch of constellation speckled sky through a gap. “On my way at last,” he said again.

He remembered his companion—host? fellow traveler?—and blinked at the man, who had been waiting patiently for Owen to settle himself and catch his breath. The stranger had a lean face, a sharp nose, a razor-thin mustache, and a pointed goatee. His expressive brown eyes had a piercing intensity even in the shadows of the cargo car. The man had shrugged down his hood to reveal wavy, dark brown hair and eyebrows of some significance. His traveling clothes looked comfortable but impeccably tailored, much finer than the garb Owen would have expected from a man riding a dirty cargo car.

“I wasn’t planning to do that,” Owen said. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“You can say thank you, young man. Sooner or later you’ll realize what I’ve done for you . . . or, more accurately, what you’ve done for yourself.”

Owen extended a hand, suddenly remembering his manners. “I am Owen Hardy from Barrel Arbor, assistant apple orchard manager.” He waited, and when the man didn’t speak, he said, “And what’s your name?”

The stranger shrugged. “Names are so confining. They put you in a box. I’m
me
, and you can see who I am. I may change later. Why would I want a name to lock me into somebody I once was?” Without asking, the man reached into the satchel Owen had brought aboard and took one of the apples. His left hand was puckered and scarred, the skin angry red in places and too white and waxy in others. The man shifted and hid the burned hand in his sleeve. “We’re traveling companions—let’s leave it at that. I saw you there, and I knew you wanted to come. So I invited you to join me.”

“How could you possibly know I wanted to get away?”

“You were outside at the steamliner track after midnight.”

“That doesn’t mean—“

“Yes it does, my good friend. You should have been in bed, ready to get up early in the morning for your everyday . . .
everyday-ness
. Because you were out where you wanted to be, I knew you were a seeker of freedom instead of an adherent to mundane rules. Maybe I know you better than you know yourself.” He raised his impressive eyebrows.

Owen felt flustered. This was the strangest conversation he’d ever had. “I’ve never heard the Watchmaker’s way called
mundane
before.”

The stranger took a bite of the apple. “If you’ve listened only to the Watchmaker and no one else, then there are a great many things you’ve never heard. Good for you to escape the rules! Now you can go where you want, do whatever you decide to do. All people should be free like that.”

Owen swallowed in a dry throat. “That’s not what the Watchmaker says.”

“This is your chance to break from the past. The devil take the Watchmaker!” said the man, and then laughed at his bravado.

Uneasy, Owen glanced around the cargo car. He realized that the sweet, resinous smell came from stacks of pine lumber harvested from the forests to the north—he had read about them in school, as nothing more than a list of the products and resources from across Albion, but Owen had never visited the dark, tall forests. Sawmills processed the logs into thick boards, and now the lumber was heading into Crown City, where it would be used to construct new homes, new businesses, new . . . everything.

As he settled against the stacked pinewood, looking for a comfortable position, the second half of the realization struck him—not only was he traveling away from the home he had never left before, but that he was actually going toward Crown City, the glorious metropolis of his dreams, site of the Watchmaker’s headquarters, where the Clockwork Angels graced Chronos Square and gave their magical blessings. The center of the world.

“You’ve been to Crown City before?” he asked the nameless stranger.

“As often as I like . . . or more often than I prefer.”

“What takes you there?”

“Business.”

Owen waited, but the man did not elaborate. “Tell me about the Clockwork Angels.”

“Wind-up contraptions. Symbols of oppression.”

“Oppression! But they’re . . . the Clockwork Angels! They’re beautiful.”

The man took a moment to consider, then admitted reluctantly, “They have some aesthetic merit, and they function smoothly enough. But to worship them because the Watchmaker activates them and lets them deliver pre-printed announcements? People believe such nonsense.”

Owen was no longer comfortable riding beside this odd, intense man. “But that’s our loving Watchmaker!”

The man’s voice dripped with scorn. “Yes. He loves us all to death.”

“But . . . we’ve had more than a hundred years of peace and stability.”

“Yes, the Stability. A statue has stability. A living creature requires freedom.” The stranger finished his apple and hurled the core out through the open door of the cargo car. Owen had only one left.

He drew his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs, hugging himself. The adrenalin was wearing off now. He’d never had an intellectual argument with another person before. Even in school, he hadn’t been taught how to debate. There was no need when everyone believed the same thing and the Watchmaker always provided the answers. What was there to debate?

As he knew from the pedlar’s book, in times past, the world had been torn apart by chaos and unpredictability, warfare, famine, poverty, starvation, and disease. But the Watchmaker and his alchemist-priests had brought order to Crown City and the surrounding lands. He gave them a map, gave them Stability. Without the Watchmaker, anarchy would rule the land. No one would know his place. Lawlessness would abound.

Thinking about the frightening old tales, Owen gathered his courage. “That’s not what I was brought up to believe.”

“You were brought up to believe—how easy for you!” the man said with an edge to his voice that could have peeled an apple. “It’s easy to
believe
. But now you should learn the truth. See Crown City for yourself.”

Owen squared his shoulders. “That’s exactly what I plan to do. I’ll see what there is to see. I’ll go where I want.”

The steamliner rolled on for hours and Owen felt overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all, by his own inexplicable audacity and his companion’s bizarre beliefs. Outside, the faint light of dawn seeped into the sky.

Back home in Barrel Arbor, the ticking alarm clocks would ring within the hour, rousing his father for another day’s work. But the alarm clock in Owen’s room would ring and ring. His father would think he had overslept, would come in to rouse him, would find the bed empty. . . .

People would be worried about him, but Owen couldn’t regret it, not now. He would tell them everything once he came back home. He closed his eyes and pictured the buildings of Crown City from the chronotypes in his mother’s book. Now that he thought about it, this was what he’d wanted most in his life. Certainly, it was for the best. Owen could jump aboard another steamliner and ride back to Barrel Arbor whenever he liked. But first he would have a grand adventure that he could one day tell Lavinia and eventually their children and grandchildren.