Steamscape (8 page)

Behind her was a ramose metal tree filled with jewels. The sculpture was as tall as Solindra and branched out farther than she could stretch her arms. It twinkled with multi-colored light. Steam drifted up from holes throughout its frame, and the roots were as extensive as the branches at the top. She frowned when she saw the candles and the water boiler at its base, and then noticed the gems were just overly large, shiny stones. But they glittered like diamonds and rubies if she didn’t look carefully.

The others blinked in the brighter light as they walked into the chamber behind her.

Solindra glanced back at Merlina. Her jewelry was just the same shiny stones over painted tin. The woman’s hair was a mess, but it was hard to notice behind all the feathers. A few wrinkles lined her eyes that Solindra hadn’t seen at first, and now she couldn’t tell if this was a younger or older woman. She’d been swallowed by her pageantry. Solindra glanced back at the tree, it was the same.

Merlina followed Solindra’s line of sight. “This tree connects this world to the underworld below and heaven on high.”

Behind the girl, Theo groaned deep in his throat.

Solindra licked her lips. “But, but what about the ghosts in the steam? Aren’t they here?”

“Yes and no,” Merlina replied evenly. “Oh, did you want to talk to someone who has passed? I can ask the other ghosts if they can find him.”

“Knock it off.” Theo crashed down on the couch opposite of the smuggler. “We’re not here for your show.”

The bricoleur crypter leveled her gaze at him. “I’m for real, my boy.” She rolled off the couch and swiped a candle holder off a table in one smooth motion, and then fitted a new, tall candle into it. She struck a match. The wax on the wick sizzled and spat as it caught fire and started to turn black.

Merlina smiled and returned to the couches, setting the candle between them. She stared at them over the top of the flame. “Now, what services of mine do you need? Palm reading?” She passed her gaze onto Drina and Jing. “Love advice?” She turned to Solindra. “Talk to the ghost of a loved one perhaps? Your father?”

Solindra gasped. “How did you know that? How did she know that?”

Jing grunted. “She didn’t, Cylinder. She guessed and you confirmed it.”

Drina sighed. “I wish we could’ve taken you off the mountain before now. You should have learned.”

“I’m learning now.” Solindra leveled her gaze at Merlina. “We want passage out of Eliponesia. Quietly.”

Merlina raised her glittery eyebrows and leaned away from the party. “It will be expensive.”

Jing tossed down a small leather bag. Several gold nuggets spilled out of it onto the card table.

The fortune teller held out her hand. “And I want to see it.”

Theo shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

She ignored him and beckoned at Solindra with her fingers.

Jing nodded. The young woman retrieved the glowing sancta from her pocket. She said, “But you don’t want to touch, or stare too hard at it.”

As fast as a serpent, Merlina plucked the item from her fingers. She grinned as she rolled it onto the palm of her own hand.

Everyone else gasped, but the crypter only chuckled and stared deeply at the cipher medallion. “Do you know how much these things are worth? The Priory doesn’t bother us bricoleurs much, you know, doesn’t consider us a threat. And why should they? Not when they use these things.”

Theo rolled his eyes. “The Priory is as scary as your so-called abilities.”

Merlina chuckled again.

“Okay, there might be a bunch of crusty old geezers, but their power isn’t real.”

The fortune teller shrugged and dropped the sancta casually back into Solindra’s grasp. “You’re probably right. But the stories say that Steampower stole their most ancient, sacred texts about how to control the ghosts. Tried to use them as a weapon, even.”

“And it’s a great fireside story, Merlina.” Theo exhaled and glared harder.

Her gaze passed onto the older pair. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that?”

Jing remained totally motionless. Drina locked her eyes with Merlina’s. “No, we would not.”

“Of course not,” the crypter purred. She rolled off the couch and retrieved a pen and some paper. She started to scribble. “Be on the river. Flatboat leaves at midnight. You’ll have to work as part of the crew and pay them for passage too, but the River Eld–”

Solindra chimed in, “–Flows straight south out of Eliponesia and into Mekani and then beyond the Steamscape. But the flatboat won’t leave Mekani, if it’s even allowed out of our country.”

“It will be.” Merlina reached out behind her for an engorged perfume bottle and started to spray the letter.

Solindra and the others slammed their hands across their noses, but the perfume still burned the backs of their throats.

Merlina rolled up the letter and tucked it inside a small tube. “This is the only way the flatboat captain will know it’s real. He’s memorized my scent.”

Drina coughed. “We’ll be smelled out by the sewer rats and thieves before we get there!”

“Now, now. I know you’ll find a way to avoid them. Of all people, you know what it’s like to be caught in a web.”

Drina’s eyes widened for just a fraction of a moment.

Solindra snatched up the tube and stood. “Thank you for your time and this letter.” She turned and pushed her way through the heavy curtain. Jing and Drina followed.

Theo was behind them when Merlina called, “A moment, please, little love.”

He made a face, but stopped.

She dropped into a much heavier bricoleur accent. “I fear I won’t be here for you much longer.”

“What? Are you leaving the country too?”

“Yes, but I waited to see you one last time. I knew you’d come.” She let her fingers play in the candle flame, passing through it but not burning. “You’re not going with them.”

“No. Going to Redjakel to cause trouble for Steampower now.”

“Don’t steal the cipher medallion.”

“What?” He grinned innocently and squirmed in place. “It’s worth a mint.”

“Now I know your momma taught you how to steal true and proper, but not this time, little love.” She pulled her hand back from the candle.

“Merlina, thanks, but I will do what I need to do and–”

“They will lead you to Flame,” she interrupted.

Theo froze, and then immediately uncoiled with a feigned smirk. “How could you possibly know that? I know I told you what happened, but you can’t
know
that.”

Her voice sounded more like a whip now. “I’m for real, my boy.”

He remained motionless.

“And you need to go. Now.” As he shoved aside the curtain, she turned her gaze and fingers back to the tall, slender candle.

***

The candle had burnt down to nearly a stub. Merlina’s painted eyes fluttered open. She glanced up to see the curtains slapping against a strong wind. Then she cursed under her breath. She hurled her skirts to the side, jumped up from the couch and lunged for the curtained door.

She stopped and her breath caught in her throat.

The heavy curtain barring entry to the room twitched. A long glass length pushed it aside, smearing the fabric with the fresh, hot blood on its length.

“Glinter,” Merlina groaned.

Steam and smoke rolled inside as Smith strolled into her sanctuary.

She deflated and retreated back to the couch. “You’re here sooner than I expected.”

Smith frowned. “If you suspected my arrival, why are you here?”

She wiped a tear from her eye, rubbing away some glitter and makeup. “Fate, I suppose. I was leaving on the morrow.”

He shrugged, indifferent, and rubbed a piece of a tooth off from his sleeve.

Merlina crashed back down on the couch. “Get on with it then.”

Smith smiled and took a seat on the opposite couch. He set the glass cane upright and rested both hands on top of it. Glinter’s blood rolled down its length. “First, tell me about the man with the mechanical leg.”

Solindra could hear the splashes better than she could see the water rushing against the side of the boat. She glanced up. The stars shone like crystals and the moons were mostly dark tonight. She squinted. There wasn’t even a lamp on the prow of the flatboat.

If it could be called a prow. The boat was just a rectangle. It had no steampowered paddlewheel, unlike all those pictures she’d seen with ladies lounging on decks of multi-storied floating hotels. No, these were bound logs that were piled high with crates covered in canvas. There was no roof or shelter. They would sleep between the crates and could only hope to outrun the rain.

Jing shuffled up beside her, his limp causing the boat to rock. His jaw was clenched.

“Something wrong?” Solindra prompted.

“I don’t like being on the water.” He raised his metal leg, then lowered it. The boat rocked ever so slightly as the weight came back down. He forced a smile. “Everything will be sold in southern Eliponesia and Mekani. Even the boat.”

Solindra raised her eyebrows.

“Lumber that makes up the boat. Everything goes.”

“Oh.” She glanced in direction of Ganther, the captain of the rectangle, and his two boys. She didn’t know if they were his sons or just another pair of conscripted orphans.

She looked back down at the dark waters, but could only make out a few starlight reflections on the mutable surface. “We’ll run aground when the river curves. We can hardly see where we’re going.”

Jing chuckled. “It’s a risk, certainly. But I don’t think Ganther wanted to stay in Consequences. We’ll probably stop for the night after a few miles.”

Ganther whistled from out of the darkness somewhere nearby. The form of a man built like a bear waved his arms. “Steam man! You come here and steer this hog for a while.”

“On my way!” Jing replied. He patted Solindra on the shoulder before limping off.

After he’d left, the young woman sneaked a look over her shoulder. She set the tips of her boots into one of the edges of a crate underneath its canvas cover and peeked over the top. Eventually, she could make out the murmuring forms of the two boys and Drina off to the side. That other shape had to be Theo on the far end. Jing and Ganther were at the large rear paddle that served as the rudder.

Soon, the singing of the crickets on the nearby bank overwhelmed the splashes of water against the flatboat. The winds carried fresher-scented air from downriver.

Solindra slipped off the crate and pulled out a folded paper from her pocket. She’d wrapped the sancta in it, but replaced the item quickly. She pressed the paper against her thigh, trying to smooth out the creases.

She tilted the poster into the starlight and sighed. The girl knew that she shouldn’t have gone back to steal it, but she couldn’t live with herself with the thought that it might be defaced like the other one.

She really didn’t know why she’d carefully cut out Steam Princess Adri Saturni’s face from the propaganda poster. Solindra sighed again. How many years had she spent pretending that was her? All those years suspended on a mountain, never knowing anything about the real Codic or the real Steampower. The steam princess couldn’t turn out to be any different than what she had dreamt, not like the others.

She glared ahead into the darkness. The River Eld pulled at the logs beneath her feet, but she barely even noticed the swaying of the raft anymore. This river that drained half the continent was deep, lonely, and cold.

She shivered as the craft shifted underneath. The world moved on, and she with it. Solindra wanted to cry. She wanted to clutch the poster to her chest and hold herself.

Instead, she held out the piece of poster at arm’s length and slowly, achingly uncurled her fingers.

The paper fluttered off into the darkness. The singing of the crickets and the splashes of the water immediately overcame any papery sounds in the wind.

Tears started to press against her eyes, but she ignored them and turned her back on the river. She crept to the center of the boat, jaw set. Her fingers slid along the canvas tarps, guiding her more than her sight. She felt a corner.

Drina’s fist came sailing around it.

Solindra gasped and bobbed back out of the way. “Drina! What–?”

The cook swung again. Solindra could hardly see her hand moving! She threw up her arms and felt the heavy thud all the way through her shoulder blades as Drina’s hand came crashing.

“Remember those games we used to play when you were growing up?”

Solindra gulped. “What? Now? No!”

“You’d better!” She struck at the girl again. Solindra managed a weak block.

A shrill whistle echoed around the flatboat. Ganther jogged up between the crates, shaking his own fist. “Hey now! Don’t rock the boat!” The two young boys trailed in his wake, giggling and jostling each other.

Back at the rudder, Jing only sighed. “Oh, Drina.”

Solindra dusted her skirts and straightened. She tried to glare at the older woman, but memories were starting to crowd her thoughts.
Games we used to play. With them. With Dad. Like the one done hopping on one leg while everyone tried to strike with pillows, and she had to dodge. Or the one where she had to duck and weave through the maze of ropes. Or the other one where she had to take a running person and shove him off balance…

She glared at Drina’s current smirk. She had been convinced up until this very moment that she knew this woman. The cook had never been much of a mother, but that was all right because she’d had Dad. But Drina had never attacked her before.

Solindra dusted off her skirt again and launched herself at Drina’s knees. They both went down on the narrow path between the rows of crates. The younger woman growled the entire time.

Drina’s laugh shattered her concentration. She patted Solindra’s hair. “Well done!” She disentangled her legs from the teen. “It’s not quite the same, but you know the basic motions.”

“Teaching the steam princess to fight?” They looked up to see Theo crossing his arms and frowning. He scoffed.

“I’m not the steam princess!” Solindra pulled herself upright and swayed a little until the dizziness passed. “I… Wait, what’s that?”

Around the entire flatboat, steam suddenly rose off the water on the deck and even across the river around them. It hissed like snakes. The sancta started to glow inside her pocket, its light escaping the fabric.

Theo gasped and pointed at her cipher medallion. “You
are
a crypter!”

Ganther inhaled like an angry swine. “Crypter! I don’t take truck with no crypters.” He raised his hand as if to strike, but then suddenly held his breath at a very slight thump of weight behind him. The boat shifted a little.

“Crypters don’t exist,” Jing said quietly from behind. “Therefore, the girl is not a crypter.”

“Then what about the steam?” Ganther was breathing heavily now, his chest bobbing as much as the boat. The boys were silent on either side of him, their eyes wide.

“Fog, heated up by a nearby swamp. Maybe some of the flammable gasses had been sucked into the river.” Jing smiled tightly and steered the captain toward the stern. The boys followed.

Ganther scowled. “There aren’t any swamps around–”

“I’m sure there are.” Jing thumped a heavy hand on the other man’s shoulder, causing Ganther’s knees to sag involuntarily. The captained stomped to the back of the boat with the boys.

Theo still glared at Solindra. He shook his head and turned away. “I should’ve just gone on to Redjakel.”

“Alone? Even if you weren’t, what could four of us do against Steampower?” Jing asked. “We only have one
professional
saboteur here.”

“Hey! I don’t appreciate the sarcasm.”

“Are you so certain that was?” Drina purred. She looked up at Jing. “We could do it, you know.”

The mechanic shook his head. “With the vessel?”

“What is a vessel, damn you?” Solindra demanded.

“Vessel?” Theo snorted. “You mean that old Steampower conspiracy story?” He froze and then swung his head directly at Solindra. “To create a born crypter.”

“No,” Drina said.

Theo kept staring.

Solindra found herself blushing.

“Who are you people?” he asked, leaning away from them.

Drina smiled flatly. “I’m just the cook.”

He shook his head and stomped across the boat to its edge. After a moment, he struggled to unlace his boots and then dipped his sweaty feet into the dark Eld. The water pressed his feet down under its current. To the east – and he just now realized which way
was
east after riding the large turns of the river at night – dawn was beginning to glow. There wasn’t any sun yet, and wouldn’t be for a while, but the darkness was losing its grip.

Solindra sidled up beside him. “I want to hear the story.”

Theo shrugged. “Not much to it. I mean, there are lots of stories, but the only thing they have in common is that Steampower wanted to make a crypter.”

“Make a person? Why not just teach someone? Why
make
a crypter?”

He tossed up his gloved hands. “Like I know.” He scowled ahead into the darkness. “All I know is that both sides deserve what they’re getting.”

“Not those people on the train.”

“Not them,” he growled. “But the lords of Codic and President LaBier and Boras Saturni and all of his board members! Them,
they
deserve worse. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Why?” she asked softly.

Theo coughed, surprised. The fiery wind, the screams of the dying and smell of burning meat assailed his memory. He looked down to see his gloved fists bunching. He didn’t even feel anything anymore in some places. There had been too much damage to his skin.

He swallowed. “I– We, that is, bricoleurs move around all the time, especially between Codic and Redjakel and the areas in between. So both sides tried to pay us or force us to spy for them in the months before Steampower’s assault.” He sighed. “And
both
sides punished us. I don’t know which one, but one side sent Flame.”

“Of the Hex?” she asked.

He nodded.

She shivered. “But the Hex has been gone for nigh on twenty years.”

“Not Flame. Both Steampower and the government used us and threw us out like trash. And what do you do with trash? Burn it to make steam.”

Solindra shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for me. I’m not sorry for me. They are the ones who will be sorry. Codic, Redjakel and Flame.”

The logs that made up the flatboat groaned. Theo and Solindra rolled forward as the raft suddenly slowed.

Theo jerked his feet out of the water. “Did we hit something?”

“It’s still so dark!” Solindra’s hand went straight to the cipher medallion.

“Cylinder!” Drina called from the other side of the flatboat.

The boat stopped. Solindra squinted. “Is that a net? Across the river?” She couldn’t be sure, and the idea was too foreign to frighten her. Her eyes explored the webbing, and she covered her nose from the oily smell.

The net exploded into flame.

Solindra felt the wind from the sudden heat push her hair back. Her jaw dropped. Even parts of the river were on fire! She sniffed; it was oil. Barrels of oil, and the net had been soaked in it too.

Someone was reclining in the fiery net, a foot propped up against the flatboat.

Theo’s breath caught in his throat.

He’d seen that face before, whistling to itself. Strolling down the road toward the caravan like a man wasting a lazy afternoon. “Flame.”

Flame jerked forward as if propelled by some explosion behind him. His arms spread out like the fires and the short man was smiling like a god. His chest and hips were covered with crisscrossing bandoliers holding pistols, a saber, two rapiers and other devices haphazardly stashed together. The stench of burnt flesh rolled off of him like a perfume.

The dark red-haired man jogged down the edge of the flatboat to Solindra and Theo.

Theo froze. He tried to grab the knife hidden in his boot, but his hand wouldn’t respond to the screams of his mind.

Flame reached down and yanked Solindra up by her shoulder. She tried to roll out of the way, but wasn’t fast enough. He clutched a rope in his other hand. It led off into the river, where a canoe with an engine bobbed in the fiery waters. All the while, the short arsonist hummed to himself. He moved as if dancing to music inside his head.

Ganther was yelling. Splashes rose up behind him as the boys jumped for safety into the Eld. Jing and Drina both brought up their small pistols from hidden pockets.

Flame’s head bobbed up toward the movement. He blinked and the hum died on his lips. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh no,” Drina breathed. Jing blinked in surprise.

That gave Flame enough time to draw his pistol and shoot Ganther in the forehead, using the same hand that held the cord. Solindra tried to elbow him, but only bruised herself on his armaments. He resumed humming and jerked his canoe up to the flatboat.