Steamscape (3 page)

“Crypter! Yer a crypter!” The greasy little man hauled on Theo’s wrist, trying to spin him about. Theo just stiffened and planted his feet.

“What? No! Piss off, old-timer!” The nineteen-year-old set his teeth and shook his arm. His hair was a light brown, but the grease had stained it darker, so that it matched the color of his eyes. He eyed the constables down the street, but they hadn’t seemed to notice. Then again, even if they did, he wondered if they’d care. Two dirty workers fighting in the street was nothing rare in Valhasse, especially since the start of the mass conscriptions.

He glared down at the street dweller. Then again, the constables might yell at them just to prove what scum they thought the workers were. Let the machines break their limbs instead, he’d overheard last night in the guardhouse.

Exactly where he wasn’t supposed to be, and now he was attracting exactly the eyes he wanted to avoid.

“Crypter! Crypter!” The old man danced in place, roaring. He pointed at Theo’s chest and cackled in triumph.

“Just a bricoleur.” Theo turned and marched away.

“Bricoleurs are crypters!” the man snapped like a whip.

And it stung because there was truth in that. Almost all of the tribes of itinerant machinists and smiths did boast fortune-telling powers through the ghosts in the steam. So-called polite people ostracized them for it, but their bricolage arts made them useful, and they could make just about anything from whatever scrap happened to be littering the floor.

Theo’s gloved hand went to his chest, where he’d felt the swing of a tiny counterweight. His old necklace had slipped out. It was only an old brass coin he’d drilled a hole through. It was worthless, but it was the only thing of home that had survived the fires.

It certainly wasn’t a cipher medallion like the crypters were always hunting, whatever those were. How did those fringe fanatics expect to communicate with the ghosts in the steam through jewelry anyway? Not to mention their secret order, the Priory or whatever it was called, that ruled them all supposedly. He yawned before he finished the thought.

He spat, “I’m just another man pounding out drums for the war machine.”

The old man tugged at his gloves. “Then why ain’t you–?”

“Shove off!” Theo swung away and walked down the next block, rounded a corner and took off sprinting down an alley.

He pulled around another corner and pressed his back against the wall, listening. No hasty footsteps echoed off the brick walls anywhere near him.

A steam whistle screamed from the nearby train yards. Theo flinched and wished he didn’t know what those calls meant. He breathed, trying to slow his heart. Maybe it wasn’t
that
train. After all, Valhasse’s traffic had increased tenfold since the start of the war. Maybe it was just a regular cattle car or something.

He shaded his eyes from the blackened ash that choked the entire city. Smokestacks and boiler towers had been thrown up against any old warehouse-cum-factory now. He coughed out some of the ash into his glove.

Turning up his collar, Theo walked out of the alley into the droves of people floating down the avenue. Everyone wore black or brown, or rather, all their clothes had been stained black and brown, and they let themselves be dragged along by the crowd.

That icy, calculating part of Theo’s mind pointed out that it was possible to slip by unnoticed as he focused on his target. He ground his back teeth. He hated when his inner voice that spoke that way, but it did make life easier…

Before the war, Codic had paid Steampower to do almost all of its manufacturing, so now they were hurting to learn to bend metal again. The capital owned thousands of war machines on paper, but Steampower had stopped deliveries well before they launched their attack.

That meant that these poor bastards lost their limbs and lives churning out weapons and machines.

Another day, another atrocity.

Well, today some workers might get a break. Theo smirked to himself as he sauntered toward the boiler tower. He didn’t dare raise his eyes to it though.

This boiler had been constructed inside the decaying remnants of an ancient castle. Only the keep had remained after the centuries, and even that was half crumbled. The shiny, newer tower rose up through it in stark contrast, resting thirty feet higher than the old stones. This boiler was one of a dozen around the city’s industrial zone, now in operation all day and night.

If the city was a body, these points would be various hearts, pumping out the lifeblood steam to all of the factories and driving their conveyor belts and machines. Of course, smaller heating substations were everywhere, but those were really just fires to keep the steam active, and the ghosts happy.

Theo leaned his back against the old castle wall. He rubbed his shoulders between the blocks. They felt smooth and worn by the ages. He pulled on his cap and slid seamlessly into a line of downcast workers dragging their feet into the boiler tower for their perilous shift.

He kept his eyes pointed at the floor and shuffled inside. A soldier shoved his shoulder with a rifle butt, but Theo just rolled with it and kept on walking.

While the men trudged on toward the furnace, Theo slipped out of line and started to circle alongside the central pillar of the boiler. He hopped onto a thin metal line of stairs and moved up to a catwalk.

With his back pressed against the stones, he put his boots against the metal central pillar and started to walk his feet horizontally up the wall.

After a couple of minutes, he could feel the heat through the soles of his boots. He’d coated them with ceramic plating, rubber and thick leather too. He tried not to imagine the thousands of boiling gallons on the other side of the metal. His protections might not be enough.

Theo wiped his sweaty forehead, and it dripped freely off his glove. He frowned at the steel plate in front of him. Some worker had drawn the Hexagon before this panel had been placed. Theo guessed he must’ve been scared of something.

The artist had even drawn in each warrior’s individual symbol at the points of the shape. It had been common –was still common – for the last thirty years to make the mark of the Hex.

Theo’s mother had often charmed all the clan’s kids with tales of the Hex’s heroics in the border rebellions. But she also chided the youths that the Hex would come and steal them away if the kids didn’t learn to pick pockets better. He had grown up with those stories just like everyone else, in total awe of invisible, fearsome soldiers.

People drew the Hexagon for protection, to ward off intruders, and even as a charm against evil spirits or as a curse on someone. The Hex. Elite warriors trained by Steampower for Codic’s pleasures. Theo wondered which side they’d fight for now.

His eyes traced the symbols surrounding the shape. The Death Spinner – a soundless assassin, marked by a silhouette of a spider. Flame – Theo squeezed his eyes closed at his fiery stamp. Parrot – who was said to be anyone he chose to be, represented by a winking bird. Ghost – as close to a crypter as one could be – whose symbol was only a white circle. Silvermark – the leader, with his silver shooting star. And the Steam Slayer – the warrior depicted by claws.

The young man breathed in the coal-laced air and reopened his eyes. “Ghost, if you’re out there, lend me your ability today.” He had grown up believing that Ghost could just talk to the machines and make them fail. Of course he knew better
now
, and felt instantly stupid.

Talking to the ghosts in the steam. Ridiculous. The crypters claimed that they could send messages without a telegraph or radio, and even scry distant lands through the steam.

Theo scowled and re-secured his footing. He climbed a few more feet between the pillar and the tower wall. Glancing overhead, he saw he was running out of the old castle’s wall to the place where the boiler continued up on its own. He hoped he was high enough.

He dug out a device from his pocket. He’d spent three months building this contraption to do two minutes of work. It was a heavy cylinder with a large, hollow screw in the center. He jammed it up against the boiler tower and waited for the coating of heat-sensitive glue to melt it into place.

Then again, this thing was hot enough it just might melt the glue entirely. Theo lifted his other hand to the handle rising out of the other side of the tool. He gripped it, squeezing his fingers as tightly as he could.

But he could not turn it.

Theo’s breath came in gasps and he ground his teeth against it. The tool wavered in his vision and fires rose up in front of his eyes.

His boots splashed up the mud as he sprinted through the downpour. They knew by the look on his face. His mother had buried his face in her stomach and held him tightly. It had been the first embrace from her that he could remember.

She hustled him into the smuggling compartment of the wagon with several other children. He’d curled up toward the front, his hair sticking to the top of the false floorboards.

It was raining, but that hadn’t stopped the fires.

Flame…

Theo gasped as he slipped down the wall. He scrambled to stop himself from falling. He felt one drop of sweat slide down his cheek, linger for a moment, and then fall toward the catwalk below.

He cursed himself. This was not fire. This was only steam.

But it could still burn, a traitorous thought flared.

His hand cranked the handle with all the force of his internal anger. The auger chewed through the deep wall of the boiler. It wasn’t a large hole, but it didn’t have to be.

The young man reached toward the base of the tool and pushed the valve closed. No steam seemed to be escaping. He unscrewed the handle from the tool and replaced it with a plunger. He dug back down into his pocket and pulled out a handful of small capsules.

Each capsule was comprised of thick, hard gelatin which would melt soon after exposure to moisture and heat. He shook one of the pills, listening to the waxy blocks rattle inside.

White phosphorous. It was so expensive during this war that he’d had to break into a mansion and steal someone’s collection of sapphires.

The powder was incredibly flammable, and even better yet, pyrophoric. It would ignite upon contact with air once the thick gelatin melted far enough down the steampipes – and then it would also turn into phosphoric acid, causing even further damage.

Even more sweat ran down his cheeks. It was already so hot here, and the sweat made it dangerously slick. He glanced down at the capsules in his gloved hand.

He froze. Two more men passed below. These carried wrenches and their shoulders slouched forward as they walked. They weren’t soldiers.

Theo mouthed, “Get out of here!”

His hand started to punch down the plunger, but then he paused. He wondered who he would really be hurting – Codic or those conscripted workers?

He shook his head and steeled his eyes. His inner, dark voice said, the only thing you owe is your anger. Besides, if the machines stopped turning, the slaves wouldn’t have to work.

“They say the ghosts in the steam love fire. Well, here ya go, boys.”

He tipped the capsules into the tube and closed it up with the plunger. Then he breathed deeply, opened the valve and slammed the plunger down, hurling the capsules into the steam-stream. He pumped the second dose into the tower.

He almost breathed out when he heard from below. “Hey, up there!”

***

Solindra lifted her skirt to step over a puddle of what she could only hope was muddy water topped with rainbow sheens of oil. She wrinkled her nose – it smelled like the privy.

Valhasse stank. She’d always dreamed of visiting a city, but now she was dreaming that she could just go home and return to pretending what a city should be. It wasn’t supposed to be noisome, clogged with ash, or so downright dreary.

She’d always pictured people laughing in front of flower shops. There was supposed to be color and light! Instead there was fog, coal-smelling air and herds of people like animals.

Jing, limping along behind her, tapped her shoulder. “Remember, your name is Marissa Clifton and you’re from Codic.”

Solindra bunched her skirts. “I’ve seen how those women dress, and I don’t look like them.”

“Smart. Okay, you’re from Chimney Rock. It’s a frontier town.”

She gasped indignantly. “The border?”

Jing frowned and started walking again.

“Okay, okay.” She pointed at a large, tall structure with pipes coming in and out of it at all angles. “Jing, what’s that?” It looked like it had been constructed out of a rotted castle’s core.

He blew out a sigh. “Boiler tower. Helps propel steam around the city.”

They kept walking through the down-facing droves of people.

“Where’s Drina?” she asked.

“Behind you.”

Solindra whirled. There was Drina, standing there with a bag of bread and cheese in her hands.

“You always do that!” The girl’s face glowed red.

Jing chuckled while Drina tore off a piece of bread and held it out. But the mechanic’s expression quickly darkened. “Dinghy can’t carry enough coal for a long journey.”