The Dragon Men

Praise for

The Doomsday Vault

“Harper creates a fascinating world of devices, conspiracies, and personalities. . . . Alice and Gavin fight to survive and to find love in this steampunk coming-of-age story. Harper's world building is well developed and offers an interesting combination of science and steam.”

—SFRevu

“You'll have great fun exploring the Third Ward, and the author created such a rich and lavish world for his characters. . . . Twists and turns abound, and the author managed to lob some shockers at me that I'll admit I didn't see coming. . . . If you love your Victorian adventures filled with zombies, amazing automatons, steampunk flair, and an impeccable eye for detail, you'll love the fascinating (and fantastical)
Doomsday Vault
.”

—My Bookish Ways

“
The Doomsday Vault
is a good way to start off a new series in a highly specialized genre. Its combination of science and fantasy and good versus evil works well . . . a clever and worthwhile take on the steampunk universe.”

—That's What I'm Talking About

“A fun and thrilling fast-paced adventure full of engaging characters and plenty of surprises. . . . I particularly enjoyed all the interesting and unexpected twists that kept popping up, just when I thought I had the story figured out.”

—SFF Chat

“The great thing about having all these awesome characters is that [they're] all snuggled up against a really great plot, several intermingling subplots, and pretty dang great steampunk world building. And excellent writing. . . . [
The Doomsday Vault
is] fun, funny, and a damn fine romp of a read.
So
much goodness packed into this book! Highly recommended.”

—Lurv a la Mode

“A goofy excursion in a style reminiscent of Foglios's
Girl Genius
graphic series . . . a highly entertaining romp.”

—
Locus

“Paying homage to the likes of
Skybreaker
,
2D Goggles
, and
Girl Genius
,
The Doomsday Vault
is
awesome
. One of my favorite steampunk-zombie novels. Abso-freaking-lutely recommended.”

—The Book Smugglers

Books by Steven Harper

THE CLOCKWORK EMPIRE

The Doomsday Vault

The Impossible Cube

The Dragon Men

THE

D
RAGON

MEN

A
N
OVEL OF THE
C
LOCKWORK
E
MPIRE

STEVEN HARPER

ROC

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2,

Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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New Delhi - 110 017, India

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New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, November 2012

Copyright © Steven Piziks, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

To my son, Maksim, who sees adversity and keeps on going.

You're the bravest little boy I know.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks must go
to my long-suffering editor, Anne Sowards, and my hardworking agent, Lucienne Diver.

THE STORY SO FAR

Once again, we
feel it necessary to pause our thrilling narrative to catch our readers up. Friends familiar with events in
The Doomsday Vault
and
The Impossible Cube
should immediately flip to chapter one and begin there. Those who have not read those most excellent and fascinating volumes are discreetly encouraged to find and peruse them forthwith.

However, should those books (enthralling though they are) be unavailable, or should the gentle reader simply need a reminder about the various events leading up to the ones in this volume, the following information may prove useful.

In 1750, a new plague entered the world. Most who caught it died of fever and respiratory distress. Those few who survived this stage were often left crippled or scarred. A great number experienced dementia, loss of muscle tone, photosensitivity, and thinning of the skin, which led to open sores and necrotic tissue. These unfortunates were inevitably dubbed
plague zombies
, and they lurched through towns and cities, spreading the disease even further.

However, for perhaps one plague victim in a hundred thousand, the disease made the brain come together instead of fly apart. For these rare people, fields of study such as physics, mathematics, biology, and even art became simplicity itself. They created wonderful and terrifying inventions with the power to touch tiny microbes or rend the world in two. These men and women became known as
clockwork geniuses
or
clockworkers.
Unfortunately, their grip on reality inevitably slipped, and they thought nothing of destroying human life, or even the entire world, in the pursuit of their own experiments. Within three years of contracting the plague—often sooner—each one went utterly mad and died, allowing others to rise.

Most countries feared plague zombies and clockworkers, but China and the British Empire cheerfully set about harvesting the latter, using their inventions to divide the world between the empires. The delicate balance of power was maintained by England's captive clockworkers and China's hidden force of Dragon Men, which is the name by which clockworkers were known in Asia.

As a precautionary measure, the British Crown created the Third Ward, an underground police force dedicated to hunting down clockworkers anywhere in the world and bringing them back to London, where they were sequestered in hidden laboratories and encouraged to create their fantastic inventions for the benefit of the Empire. One of the more notorious examples was a German clockworker named Dr. Clef, who created a device known as the Impossible Cube, with which he could manipulate time itself.

The Third Ward worked hard and in secret to maintain the balance of power between the two world empires. After all, with balance comes peace. However, recent events have threatened this balance.

In 1842, England managed to gain a distinct advantage through a conflict that eventually became known as the First Opium War. In the aftermath of this conflict, England forced China into a number of trade concessions that severely damaged China's economy. Most notably, British merchants were now allowed to sell their (much cheaper) goods to Chinese buyers. The conflict also demonstrated to China that when it came to war, the British clockworkers had gained a definite edge over the Dragon Men. By 1857, China's economy had only recently begun to recover.

It was then that Gavin Ennock and Alice, Lady Michaels, accidentally destroyed the British Empire.

Perhaps
accidentally
is too strong a word. The destruction was actually more of a side effect. The reader must understand that, for reasons detailed in that most compelling of books,
The Doomsday Vault
, Gavin became infected with the clockwork plague, and Alice learned that the Third Ward, fearing an upset in the balance of world power, had locked the cure away in that eponymous repository. The only way to save Gavin's life was to steal the cure from the Doomsday Vault.

This Alice and Gavin did quite handily. In the process, Gavin destroyed Dr. Clef's Impossible Cube (much to that clockworker's chagrin), and Alice found herself in possession of an iron gauntlet that used her own blood to cure plague victims. Recipients would also spread the cure each time they coughed or sneezed, allowing the cure to diffuse more quickly.

Unfortunately, this meant the end of British clockworkers and the end of new clockworker inventions. In the four or five years it would take for the cure to spread to Asia, China would gain an insurmountable advantage over Britain and forever rule the world.

With no more clockworkers to hunt or guard, it was also the end of the Third Ward.

All this meant very little to Alice Michaels and Gavin Ennock, for the cure had one catch—it didn't help clockworkers. And Gavin turned out to be one of the few.

While the clockwork plague elevated Gavin's intelligence and eroded his sanity, Alice determined that if the Third Ward held a secret cure for plague zombies, China's Dragon Men might have one for clockworkers. Alice and Gavin fled across Europe toward China in the
Lady of Liberty
, Gavin's own airship. Joining them were Dr. Clef and a clockwork cat named Click. Pursuing them with the intent of bringing them to justice was Lieutenant Susan Phipps, at one time the head of the Third Ward and more recently out of a job.

During an eventful stop in Luxembourg for events chronicled in a delightful book titled
The Impossible Cube
, Gavin heard an astonishing rumor that his father, thought long dead, might still be alive, and Alice heard a dreadful prediction that if she didn't let Gavin go, the world would perish in flood and plague.

When the group arrived in Kiev mere steps ahead of Lieutenant Phipps, Dr. Clef managed to open a portal through time and reach backward through the time-stream to snatch his Impossible Cube at the moment it was destroyed. A related outcome would also have destroyed the entire universe, a possibility which caused everyone concerned a certain amount of alarm. Alice and Gavin did manage to stop him, but only at great personal cost.

Unfortunately, the time portal, which proved deadly to all who touched it, remained open and was drawing Alice and Gavin in. They were rescued at the last moment by Lieutenant Phipps, who had come to realize saving millions of actual lives from the clockwork plague took precedence over her perceived duty to the British Empire. Once the consternation of the near destruction of the universe faded, Phipps insisted on accompanying Gavin and Alice to China and on helping them spread the cure along the way.

The clockwork plague continues its terrible march through Gavin's mind, and time is running short. Dr. Clef once estimated Gavin had at most three or four months to live, and their journey to China would take a minimum of ninety days. Gavin might, of course, go mad and die much sooner.

Meanwhile, the Impossible Cube sits in a cupboard aboard the
Lady of Liberty
while Gavin pilots the ship to China and Alice prays they make it in time.

We also wish to let the reader know that when transliterating Chinese into English, it is customary in some circles (including this one) to render the
sh
sound with a
q
or an
x.
Therefore
Qing
is pronounced
shing
and
Qilin
is pronounced
sheelin
, while
Xianfeng
is
sheeanfeng
and Cixi is
keeshee
. Why transliterators use a
q
or
x
instead of the more straightforward
sh
, we cannot hazard a guess, beyond the possibility that both letters simply look smashing.