Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (6 page)

So tall and brutally ominous.

A tumbleweed of mechanical barbed wire fencing as tall as the windmills, jiggers back and forth in front me, separating Brethren from Gears. Its thorny spiraled curls loop in and around one another, like a massive thrasher, separating chaff from wheat. It marches side to side, tracking me like a giant soldier stricken with rickets, mimicking my every move. Shifting left when I move left and right when I move right. I don’t understand how it’s possible. How it even knows I’m here.

I suck in a breath and hold very still. The fence line stands still, too. Squinting, I scan its length, searching for clues, my eyes locking on the answer. Hidden in a bank of quills just beyond the limit of the fence on the opposite side, built into the face of a man-made ridge: heat sensors. Just like the ones my father used in the eyes of the Security Sorcerers—the mechanical gate ravens back at the Academy. I guess I was wrong—they
weren’t
the last of their kind in the Commonwealth.

Looking around, I spot a hole dug by a small animal at the base of the fence, about half a meter away. Tufts of fur dangle from the tips of the wire’s barbs. A gopher, I reason. It doesn’t look big enough for me to squeeze through. But there isn’t any other way.

I turn back to the fence and stare hard into its bright red sensors. The piercing light sears my retinas. I squint against the pain, holding my gaze just long enough to confuse the sensor into thinking I’m a stationary object, then thrust a quick hand before my face to sever the connection, just as Archie did with Simon at the Academy gates earlier.

Confused, the mechanism scans the fence line, jerking noisily left to right, until at last its beams cross, canceling each other out.

I seize the moment, throw my hood over my head for protection, jam my bumbershoot into its mechanical guts, and dive headlong into the hole. Kicking and squirming I claw my way through the tiny space, catching the button of my cloak on a barb. I look back, breath spiraling through the misty air as it holds me hostage.

The Brigsmen. They’re racing through the field toward the fence line, gaining on me. They’ve broken free of the woods.

I yank on my cloak, sacrificing a button and heave forward with all my might. The barbs seize me several more times, tearing holes in my clothes, before at last I’m released. Retrieving my bumbershoot, I run at the city, sirens sounding off behind me, as I zigzag my way through the back city streets in the heart of Gears.

“Wortley. Wortley. 1460 Wortley Rd, Warehouse #47,” I chant, finding myself in centre of the marketplace—the city’s square. I must not stay here long.

My eyes dash quickly over the street options on the main post. Blenheim right. Chatham left. Louisville straight on.
Wortley. Wortley. Where do I find Wortley?
The wooden board points confusingly into the middle of the market. I turn and race headlong into the square’s busy centre hoping I’ve interpreted the sign correctly. Over my shoulder I spy the throng of Brigsmen who broke through the forest, charging through the main gate, forcing their way past the guards. Soon they’ll be upon me.

Slipping through a hole in the crowd, I stumble along trying to act as casual as possible, weeding my way toward the perimeter, so as to read the building numbers as I go. 1290. 1330. 1421. At the end of the street, the breastplate armor of three Brigsmen glints. A metal cart trundles noisily through the silvery fog, catching one of the Brigsmen off guard.

I lower my gaze and dash across the street, throwing myself into a second crowd, realizing almost instantly that I’ve made a grave mistake. I’ve thrown myself into a crowd of leery-eyed and boozy-breathed men letting out of a tavern. Or being thrown out, I’m not sure which. Their voices are loud and throaty, their comments grand and lewd.

“Fancy this bit of luck!” A stranger grabs me, his fist full of my behind.

I gasp as I’m pulled away by a second, his arms wrap tight about my middle as he reels me in, my back thrown up against his chest.

“Please,” I cringe. “Let go of me!” The heels of my boots climb his shins.

He laughs, unaffected, hissing in my ear. “Where d’you think you’re going, anyway?”

I struggle to free myself, but it’s no use. His hands are everywhere. Groping me, pinching me, sifting through the layers of my skirts. His hot-liquored breath falls heavily over my chest and I cringe. “Please,” I beg. “Please, don’t do this.”

“Come on sweet’eart.” He nuzzles close. “Give us some fun.” He scratches the contours of my neck with his scraggly chin. I jerk my head to the side as he kisses me, his wet rough lips smearing across my chin.

“Please,” I say, as he pulls me in closer. “My father waits for me.”

“Your father, eh?” He laughs in my ear, his fingers fondling me from behind, slowly making way to my breasts. “What father? I don’t see any!” He throws his head back in a laugh and I seize the moment, raising my heel sharply between his legs.

“Oh!” He gasps, clutching his groin, releasing me in the exchange.

I throw him off and push my way up the street, slapping down the hands of the others. “Don’t you dare touch me,” I spit. “Or I’ll cut you, I swear!” I swing around, producing a blade from my boot. A special one, masked inside a seam. I back my way out of the crowd, flip my hood up over my head to disguise myself, and race up the road through their howls, unsure if the men will tolerate what I’ve just done.

I race down the center of the street, keeping watch out of the corner of my eye for them, as well as Brigsmen, buildings blurring past me.

Thirty-three, thirty-five, thirty-seven...

“Stop!” someone shouts.

Turning, I see the drunkard from before stumbling along behind me, clutching the centre of his drawers. “Come back ‘ere, or I’ll call the Peelers! You belong to ‘ol Barnaby now!”

I thrust myself forward, boots charging after me.
Thirty-nine. Forty-three. Forty-five...Forty-seven...
I slide to a stop, hurling open the wooden barn doors, pigeons taking flight. Red chips of paint flake in my hands as they rattle across the tracks. Electricity runs through my blood as I slip inside, closing myself in behind them. Laying my back to the door, I wait for the man to pass. Hearing the shouts of others gathering close by. I bend, gasping for breath, pinching a stitch from my side, my eyes straining to adjust to the darkness.

A dark, empty, dirt-floored room spills out before me. Nothing but cedar rafters held up by cedar posts. No metal. No machine. Nothing.

“This can’t be. It has to be here,” I chant, rushing forward. “It just has to be.”

A low-pitched squeal draws my head around, the rumble of train wheels over tracks. I dash behind a beam for cover and hold my breath, squinting toward the opening revealed after the noise. At the opposite end of the warehouse, stands the illuminated shadow of a man pushing something out through the now open door. A heavy red velvet drape hangs over it. Concealing it.

The
Illuminator.
It has to be. Whoever this man is, he’s stealing it. My father’s machine, right before my eyes! Or perhaps not, perhaps he owns it. Perhaps
this
is whom my father sold it to.

Whatever the case, I can’t let him have it. Not after all this.

I don’t even think. I race across the warehouse floor, following the man out into the street. Only then do I fall back against the jut in the building, realizing it could be Smrt. Twisting my face around the bricks, I’m relieved to see it’s not him, but a young man, dressed in top hat and tails. He stands with his back to me, next to a peculiar-looking horse-drawn vehicle that looks more like a box on wheels than a carriage.

Try as I might, I can’t get a glimpse of his face. It’s as if he’s hiding it on purpose. He can’t possibly know I’m here, can he? I lean out, staring at the carriage, constructed of solid sheets of black metal. Ink-stained rivets freckle its gurney. A thick circular lens serves as the only window in back, blown from what appears to be blackened glass.

What sort of person travels in such a creation? Why, it doesn’t even appear to have seats.

I crane my neck a little farther as he throws open the side door, fighting to load up the machine. I can’t let him do it. I can’t let him take it from me. Not after all this.

My eyes fall on a needle-nosed tube resting up against the side of the window. Memories flash like lightning through my brain. The carnie. From the carnival. The one who demonstrated the Illuminator all those years ago. That tube. It’s a Crookes Tube—like the one that hovered over Mrs. Benson’s head. That’s the Illuminator. It has to be. That man.
He’s stealing it.

I step forward just as an angry crowd rounds the corner, pressing in on the young man, hollering and slinging obscenities his way. They call him a pillager, a vagrant, a thief, and rock his carriage, trying to steal the contents within it. They pound on the doors, even trying to jimmy the wheels loose from their axles. The young man fights them off, throws the doors shut and hauls himself up onto the driver’s mount. Something falls to the ground. He takes up the reins, slaps them hard over the horse’s back.

The horse rears up, driving the crowd back, creating an opening for the carriage to thread through.

“Wait!” I shout, surging forward, shouldering my way through the angry crowd. “Wait!” I pound at the doors. “Please! I need to speak to you!”

A second crack of the whip and the horse surges forward.

I hoist my skirts and start to run.
“Wait!”
I shout, struggling to keep up at the side of the carriage. “Wait!” I pound. “Please, wait!”

The stranger brings his whip down hard over his horse’s back. I dig in, thrusting forward, stretching my legs out farther than they’ve ever been stretched before. “Please—” I shout, losing ground. “Please, I beg you,
stop the coach!”

If I lose him, I’ve lost everything.

I can’t let that happen.

Won’t
let that happen.

I’ve no hope without my father’s machine.

I lunge, throwing myself at the back of the carriage, barely catching a toe on the edge of the running boards, embedding my nails into the carriage’s seams, and hang on with everything I’ve got. The carriage surges forward, the streets of Gears fast becoming a memory.

“Stop!” I plead. My boot slips from the running boards. I swing out to the side of the carriage, dangling by one arm, struggling, trying to kick my way back up onto the platform, slowly losing my grip. “Stop, please!”

The stranger at the mount turns his head. “What are you doing?” he shouts. “Get off!”

I hang by the tips of my fingers, shocked, staring at him. I don’t know whether to scream or cry. The face of a monster stares back at me, framed in a mop of curls darker than a raven’s wing. His skin is ghostly white, marred by raised and purpled bruises. One, in the shape of an open-mouthed snake, devours his face—while the other, a purple hand, wrings his neck. He stares back at me through eyes as pink as a rabbit’s. A strange and single lock of pure white hair cascades down over his left eye. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not even in a book. It’s as though he’s escaped a freak show.

“I said, get off!” he shouts again.

I purse my lips, trying not to cry. “I won’t!” I shout, hoisting myself up higher onto the back of the coach, my eyes still shamefully glued to his startling face.

My foot slips again and I sink beneath the rooftop, striking my chin hard on the way down. Grasping for a seam, I try to pull myself up, only to lose my grip with the other hand. My heart lodges in my throat as I swing off again to the opposite side, the toes of my boots burrowing twisted trenches through the dirt behind.

The stranger’s face appears over the top of the cab. His eyes are lit like flares. “For the love of God,” he cusses, teetering on hand and knee, then disappears, only to reappear a second later, the reins clenched between his teeth. “Give me your hand!” He reaches out for me.

My heart staggers in my chest. “I can’t,” I shout up at him. “I won’t!”

“You
won’t
?” His brows fold. “Are you mad?”

My fingers slowly begin to slip from the seam; my heart squirrels into my throat.

“You are in
no
position to be negotiating, now take my hand!” the stranger insists.

“But—”

“Take it!” he shouts. When I still don’t, he clamps his hand around my arm. “Now,” he says, “on the count of three, I’m going to pull you up—”

“Oh
no,
you’re not!” I clench my teeth.

“Then I’m going to let you down, which is it?”

I drop my chin, surveying the speed of the terrain rolling beneath my feet. “Up,” I say, turning my chin toward him.

“Rational choice,” the stranger says. “On the count of three. Ready?”

The carriage hits a bump, tossing him haphazardly off to one side.
“Confounded!”
He struggles. The horse spooks, picking up speed, ripping the reins loose from the stranger’s teeth.

My stomach sinks as his grip slips, then re-tightens around my knuckles, his legs floundering dangerously over the edge of the coach. He’s sprawled on his back, kicking and flailing until at last he thrusts into a roll, flopping onto his belly again.