Cogs in Time Anthology (The Steamworks Series) (3 page)

****

Amelia laughed with other women, standing before the hearth, a glass of champagne in her hand. She had become a bit tipsy, and was bidding her farewells to the other partygoers. The Victrola played a soft melody, and her fiancée waited patiently by the door, smiling. Amelia hugged the last woman, her bodice catching on the jewels from the other woman’s corset, as they laughed. She gave one last wave before joining hands with her fiancée, and leaving through the large mahogany door.

They laughed as he held her hand to help her balance while holding up her skirts as she descended the stairs. Amelia turned to him and placed a gentle kiss on his full lips before they headed in the direction of her home. His large hands had warmed her smaller ones, and they talked of their upcoming nuptials as they walked. His large green eyes sparkled as he gazed down at her from his six-foot-seven-inch height.

Lost in conversation, they never heard the man approach from behind. Turning the corner, the couple encountered four more gentlemen waiting on the street, blocking their progress.

“Excuse me sirs, but let us pass,” her fiancée ordered in his deep baritone voice.

The men laughed as one, as a pack of hyenas might sound in the wild.

Amelia turned with a worried look at her man, and finally caught a glimpse of the giant behind them, right before he reached around and drew a blade across her fiancée’s neck.

Blood unlike anything Amelia had ever seen spurted from the wound, as he immediately went down, losing his comforting grip on her hand to grasp his throat. Gurgles erupted from his open mouth as his eyes widened and rolled in his head. Amelia screamed, fleeing for her life down the road opposite of the attackers. She ran until she couldn’t breathe, finally turning down another road before being snatched backwards by the laces on her bodice.

Amelia fell, smacking her head. She watched as her fiancée’s murderer walked in front of her to leer down, running a blade over his tongue, the blood and saliva dripping on to her dress. She screamed as he raised his arm and slashed downward, slicing her from sternum to hip. A scream unlike any she had ever uttered emerged from her lips before she died.

****

Amelia’s eyes snapped open as she gazed at the silver-eyed guardian, and tears dripped from her eyes to splash on the stone. She stood, her limbs finally obeying her commands, and choked on her words. “But you saved me! I saw you save me!”

“You saw what you wanted to see,” the stranger finally spoke. “You died in the alley, but your spirit was not yet ready to embrace the reality. Your mind created a different scenario.”

“Then explain to me how I am talking to you and walking around,” Amelia challenged, more confused than ever.

“You are in-between. Your soul must make the choice to move on to the next life, to be reborn.” He spoke as if he were explaining weather patterns to her. He tilted his head towards the clock tower, which prepared to strike twelve. “You have only minutes. The clock counts down the time you have to move on to your next life.”

Amelia glanced at the hands, still moving in the opposite direction, and realized that he was correct. She didn’t understand, and her brain had picked that moment to falter.
Reborn? I’m dead? What is going on?

The stranger pointed towards the glaring fire, still burning, as large silver wings sprouted from his back, tearing his coat in two. “You may enter the flames and choose to move on to the next world, without the opportunity to live again and find your soul mate once more. You may also choose to take my hand, and begin anew in a new body. The choice is yours, but know that if you do not make a choice, you will never move on to either, and you will cease to exist.”

Amelia knew in her heart that the choice was no choice at all, and she reached to clasp the stranger’s hand. Bright light engulfed her, and her existence as she had known it ceased to exist.

“We will call her Susannah,” the proud new parents beamed down at their baby girl, a maturity in her eyes shining back at them.

Amanda Gatton

By Cindy J. Smith

Crank rusty handle

Cogs start to turn

Steam building up

As the fuel burns

Increased pressure

Pumps out steam cloud

Balloon fills up

Amazing the crowd

Clockworks engage

Hands start to move

Jump in basket

No time to lose

High above Earth

In Time Balloon

Wish to find dreams

Left far too soon

Pull on lever

Must reverse hands

Travel back through

Time's shifting sands

I’ll float
along

To ages past

To discover

Ones to make last

Surely some need

To be reborn

Life breath given

To wishes torn

By Emma Michaels

Dear Thomas,

I wish I knew who you truly were, so that this letter might reach you before I leave. I have made a promise to my father, and it has not been one easily kept, but one that I must hold true to. I fear my letters may stop for some time now, but hope that one day I shall write you again, my dearest friend. You have always been the soft voice in my ear reminding me that I am not alone, and I thank you for your kind words over the years. They have given me more strength than you know. I am sorry not to write more, but I have run out of time. Goodbye, my ever present Thomas. I will miss your words where I go, but rest assured, I won’t forget them.

I am sorry.

Yours,

Ashe

Daniel Thomas Kirby read the letter for the fourth consecutive time as the council argued over the fate of Ashe, the young boy who so many years ago had written the simplest of letters that had started their correspondence.

Daniel never meant to know his true name, but as fate would have it, now he sat on an upper balcony fully aware that his own father was deciding whether or not to send the prince he had loved since boyhood to his demise. Only, his father didn’t know he would gladly go with him and planned on as much.

The council went silent as the doors opened, and the man the boy he remembered so well had become, stepped through them. For a moment, Daniel wished they weren’t on the air fortress, that this fate could have been decided some other location than the one where they had met.

“Has the council reached their decision?” Daniel’s father, the Count of High North, stood half-stooped before his prince, his tall top hat nearly toppling off.

“We have, your majesty.”

There was a silence in the air as Prince Charles A. Larkin closed his eyes for a moment. Daniel knew this trick. He had taught him. He was clearing his mind, preparing himself for what would come next and thinking through what he was going to say. Daniel thought back to the first time he had met the boy he had only known as Ashe.

Daniel walked through the gardens of the air fortress, the ground beneath his feet constantly rumbling with the effort to keep the massive ship airborne. He didn’t like it. He missed his
father’s house and the room he had scattered with random pieces of machinery. Cogs, gears and engine pieces spread through his own personal library so that he could put them together like puzzle pieces that had never before fit one another but once together brought new meaning. He missed his fidgeting—the feeling of creating.

Finding a
bench, he sat and his servant, Amity, sat next to him. She was closer to him than his own mother and constantly by his side. She reached into her dark dress pocket and pulled something from it.

A small lotus he had made. He wanted to be angry that she had touched his creation, but relief swept over him at seeing something familiar. He was winding it and watching the petals dance when Amity quickly stood to the side of the bench as she was meant to in formal situations. Daniel looked around only to find a boy about his age running towards him. 

It took him a moment to realize the boy hadn’t seen him, he didn’t realize he was in the garden, or that his servant had been sitting with him as an equal. Daniel stood to leave, but the boy fell, his foot caught on one of the large round stones that framed the walkway.

As he looked up their eyes met. The boy looked as though he might cry, and Daniel couldn’t help but move to help him up. Reaching his hand down to him, the boy looked at it curiously before taking it and smiling widely.

“Tha-a-a…thank-k-k  you-u-u.” He said, a stutter, or possibly the quivering lip from having hurt his knees, lengthening his words.

“You’re welcome.” Daniel answered, returning his smile. Somehow, talking to the boy made him less homesick. He had never gotten to speak with someone his own age before.

“I…uh….” The boy fumbled again, dropping a small toy on the path.

The boy had an exaggerated reaction, but instead of picking it up, Daniel wound his lotus flower soundlessly and smiled seeing the younger child’s reaction as the petals spun and danced around the base, the fallen toy forgotten.

The boy looked at it with wonder where Daniel only saw a beautiful pattern. “How does it do that?” When the boy spoke without thinking his voice was clear and crisp.

“It has a small engine, like the giant one that powers this fortress. Only the small one is made to be beautiful instead of helpful.”

“Beautiful is helpful.” The boy responded, his voice still crisp as he lost himself in the motions of the small mechanical trinket.

“I guess you are right.” Daniel hadn’t thought about it that way but it was true. When he was forced to work on strategy or the languages he studied, it was to make it to the end of the day where he could work on his trinkets or learn about the mechanics that stabilized so much of their world. “My name is…” Daniel paused, realizing if the boy’s servant had seen his, she might be reprimanded.

“You don’t have to tell me your name. Let’s not. I don’t want you to.” The boy continued to speak clearly, and Daniel noticed the woman standing behind him was shocked. “Let’s call each other something else. You can call me-e-e Ashe.” The boy smirked as though he had come up with the cleverest of names.

Not knowing how to respond, Daniel simply said, “Thomas.” His middle name might make a good substitute.

“I am happy to meet you, Thomas. You aren’t from here.” He was matter of fact about the statement.

“No, I’m not.” 

“Let’s be friends.”

“I would like that.”

They had spent the entire day together, and at the day’s end, even Ashe had noticed he didn’t stutter around Thomas.

As Daniel sat watching the same startled boy he had given the lotus to and spent an amazing day with, he remembered his own words to him. His advice was to say it in his mind before saying it to anyone else, and he would never falter.

The decision to write one another had been made at the end of the day, and on order of Ashe, the servants had set up the correspondence, but were never to reveal to either party the true name of the other.

“Ashe….
No
.” He whispered to himself, stepping towards the edge of the balcony, knowing that no one would bother to see him. He knew the look on his father’s face. The news he feared had arrived.

“Your majesty, we have decided in favor of ‘The Enemy Lines’ mission.”

“I thought you might,” Ashe responded and gave a small smile as he paused, “Not to worry. I will be successful. You have made the right choice, and I am sure my father will be pleased.”

Daniel watched his smile, wondering what he could possibly be happy about when he was being told to march to his death, then turned and ran for the stairs. He needed to make it to the ship, his position would grant him access, and he could request assignment on the ship directly from the commander.

He raced from the higher grounds of the fortress to the docks as fast as his legs would take him. He had to beat Ashe there. He needed to be a part of this command. He couldn’t let Ashe do this alone. Ashe didn’t seem it to the world, but part of him was still that fragile boy who looked at simple beauty with wonder.

As he found the ship from his father’s paperwork, a scout class vessel, he approached at a slower pace, preparing himself mentally for his meeting with the commander. He would need a reason to join this mission—a good one.

***

“I forbid you.” The Count of the High North shouted from inside a small room in the scout class vessel.

Daniel regretted sending for his things now, as his servant had stepped onto the ship to deliver them, his father had quickly followed.

“You can’t. I am already assigned and classified.” Daniel said, keeping his voice strong. He wouldn’t let his father think he had any regrets or any notion of staying here with him as Ashe rode to his death.

“You are a viscount. You don’t understand. This is a suicide mission. No one is coming back alive if it isn’t successful.”

“And if it is, we save an entire country from further war. This mission is important and you are the one who has always told me I am the best in my many fields of study. Give me a chance to prove that, and to make a different to our prince.” Daniel’s reasoning had impact; his father was rubbing his beard thoughtfully until the anger overcame his other emotions again.

“How did you get Jules to agree to this hair brained scheme?”

“I told her the truth. I wished to be assigned this vessel out of loyalty to our prince and to our country.” Daniel stood at attention to get the point across, and his father’s anger was replaced with defeat, a look not common for a man so accustomed to victory.

“I cannot stop you.” He said, but something in his expression showed that, while he was feeling defeated, he was also terribly proud of his son, “I can help you though. There are no commands left on this ship, my boy, but there are a few extra odds and ends in the engine room now. You will be manning upkeep of this machine on your own. Remember what that means. If this ship goes down, so does the prince.”

Daniel was startled by the kindness hidden within his father’s words and smiled. “Thank you.”

“None of that nonsense about promising to come back safely. Just do your best, that is all I ask.” He said and quickly left the room.

His father had never been one for outward shows of emotions, but somehow the exchange made Daniel feel cherished. He had expected his father to try to stop him, but he never expected the man to understand and let him go. Whatever was in the engine room was a show that, somehow, his father had already known he wasn’t coming back with him and had gone to try to fetch him anyway.

Amity was still putting things in the drawers of his room, having gone unnoticed during the exchange as always. “Master, your things are ready. I set aside the middle drawer of the bureau for your letters and parchment. Your cogs are in the engine room’s work office, along with as many of your tools as we were able to get aboard. We had a weight restriction, so we did our best.”

“Thank you, Amity, and how many times must I tell you to just call me Daniel?”

“Master, I am sorry, but that would not be proper in my position, and you already are far too lenient with me.” Daniel smiled at her fondly.

She had always been there for him, and even when they were parting ways for what might have been the last time, she still would not relent on that one thing, something as simple as a name. He would have liked to have heard her say it at least once. 

“I will miss you, Amity.” Daniel said and surprised her with a hug. Instead of pushing away, the woman, small in comparison to his stature, leaned towards him and whispered, “You come back now, ya’ hear?”

“I’ll do my best.” Daniel responded, and she took a step back to look into his eyes.

“You do better than your best, just come back. You and your lad.” A tear came to her eye, and she hurried from the room, leaving Daniel truly alone for what felt like the first time.

As much as he hated to admit it to himself, it was nice to have the sense of freedom. He was on a ship with Ashe, and no matter what happened next, he was going to get to be close to him and help protect him and their country. The weight of it all should have felt stifling, but it was somehow thrilling.

***

After a final check over the engine, tools, and paperwork, Daniel made his way to the top deck, starting the slow spin of one of his mechanical globes that sat on his desk as he walked by it. He wasn’t worried about having his hobby tools and projects out in the open, knowing no one would bother to come down there. After all, he was going to be the only mechanic. He pushed through the bronze door and climbed to the top platform, so he could give the all clear to the pilots. As he motioned the ready, he turned and saw Ashe standing at the front of the bow on the main deck.

He descended as the pilots started the engines and watched Ashe for a moment, wondering if he might stay on board even as she ship took off. If so, he had grown brave over the years. Take-off and landing were always the most dangerous parts of being on any airship deck. The winds were intense and unpredictable.