Metal and Magic: The Steampunk Adventures of Hanover and Singh

by Chris Paton

  ҉

  Najma pulled the last saddlebag from the back of the packhorse before tethering it together with the others. Leaning the bag against the other packs, she opened the flap and pulled out a small bag of rice. The wind tugged at the long grasses of the plains before the town of Lalpura. Najma watched as the stems bent down to the ground only to bounce back as the wind gusted out of reach. The stars pricked at the black blanket above the mountains flanking the valley. Najma carried the sack of rice to the fire.

  Lev Bryullov smoked a long pipe as the fire crackled. The soft glow from the pipe bowl lit the hairs upon the Russian’s cheeks, smoothing away the hard lines and travel creases. He closed the wooden box at his feet as Najma sat on her heels on the opposite side of the campfire. He locked the box with a key on the end of a chain. Bryullov slipped the chain over his neck and fished a small leather pouch from one of the many inside pockets hidden within his stolen British Burberry coat.

  “Won’t you join me, Najma?” Bryullov gestured at the spare blanket with the stem of his pipe. “I won’t bite,” he smiled. “Not yet.”

  Najma lifted her head and nodded. “What is that you have in your hand?” Bryullov looked at the pouch and then tossed it through the flames of the campfire. Najma caught it with a quick flick of her wrist. Opening the pouch she withdrew a smooth sphere of metal. Turning it in the firelight, she gave Bryullov a quizzical look.

  “Open it,” Bryullov sucked at his pipe.

  “It is a compass. No?” Najma opened the hinged lid.

  “Not a compass,” Bryullov patted the blanket. “Come, bring it here. Sit with me.”

  Najma picked up the bag of rice and walked around the fire. Lowering herself onto the thick horsehair blanket, Najma emptied the bag of rice into the pot of water. “It is not a compass?”

  Bryullov held out his hand. “It is a pocket watch,” he held it by the lid as Najma passed it to him. “Do you know what it is for?”

  “Like a compass?”

  Bryullov laughed. “Not quite,” he handed the watch to Najma. “It tells the time.”

  “Time?” Najma turned the watch in the light and studied the hands. She held it to her ear. Bryullov smiled as her eyes lit up.

  “Time is everything,” Bryullov placed his pipe on the ground. “And nothing,” he shrugged.

  “Everything and nothing,” Najma held the watch in her palm. “You are not making any sense.”

  “Time is something few Russians have enough of, and something you and your people can never run out of.” Bryullov waved his hand at the black outline of the mountains beyond the campfire. “Unless we take it from you.” Picking up a stick, Bryullov dug at the coals glowing at the edges of the fire.

  “You will take something from me?” Najma closed the lid of the pocket watch and placed it on the corner of the blanket.

  “Keep it, princess,” Bryullov pointed at the watch. Sucking at his pipe, he studied Najma’s face in the firelight. The glow from the flames lit her soft cheeks and played across large pupils in her youthful brown eyes. “People from the sea will take everything from you, Najma. From you and your people.” Bryullov watched as Najma curled away from him. Drawing her knees to her chest she watched him, her eyes dancing with sparks from the fire beneath a frown on her forehead. She doesn’t understand, Bryullov thought. They never understand.

  Chapter 4

  The Cabool River

  Afghanistan

  December, 1850

  Sitting on his heels, Hari traced a finger in the snow around one of the emissary’s footprints. Hari stood and placed his own foot by the side of the track by the river and whistled. “Three or four times the size of my own foot, British. Truly, he is a very big bugger.” He scuffed the print with the toes of his boot and turned to Jamie. “We will have to do something before we can take up the hunt. I have not seen a caravan come through the pass for a few days. I do not want the emissary to meet one before we do.” Hari opened his cloak and reached inside the layers to his belt. “Now, about your leg.”

  “You’re not coming near me with that meat cleaver,” Jamie raised his hands.

  “It is your own fault, British. You should have let me do this last night,” Hari unfastened a pouch and pulled out a small scissors, needle and thread. He set them on the ground by the side of Jamie’s leg. “It is probably best if you tell me something while I work.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jamie watched as Hari cut away a large square of his trousers to expose the wound. Hari reached for Jamie’s powder horn next.

  “Tell me about Trafalgar.” Hari poured a measure of powder into the wound.

  “What are you going to...” Jamie held his breath as Hari struck a match and lit the powder. “Damn you, Hari,” Jamie grabbed his thigh with both hands.

  “No, British, it is clean now.”

  “Clean?” tears streamed out of Jamie’s eyes. “You set fire to my leg.”

  “And now I will sew it shut,” Hari licked the end of the thread and pushed it through the eye of the needle.

  “What about the bullet?”

  “Oh, there is no bullet, British.” Hari pushed his finger through a hole in the back of Jamie’s trousers. “It came out here.”

  “Are you going to sew that too?”

  “Uh hmm,” Hari pushed Jamie’s fingers away from the wound. “After I clean it.”

  “Hari,” Jamie gasped as the mystic pushed the needle through the skin around the blackened hole in his thigh.

  “Trafalgar, British.” Hari pressed his finger hard upon Jamie’s skin and tugged the thread through the hole. Jamie turned away as Hari closed the wound, his fingers pressing and pulling as the midshipman grimaced.

  “It was fifty years ago,” Jamie gritted his teeth. “Admiral Egmont commanded Magnificent.” My first ship, Jamie pictured the frigate tied up at the docks in Portsmouth, splintered with tattered sails and charred decks after his first engagement, many years after Trafalgar, off the coast of Denmark. “Egmont was under the command of Nelson during the battle of Trafalgar. Everything was going as Nelson had planned, until that frog bastard Villeneuve unleashed his secret weapon.”

  “A secret weapon?” Hari pulled Jamie’s skin closed and tied off the thread; he clipped the end with the scissors.

  “Yes,” Jamie took a sharp intake of breath, ran his fingers over the wound. “Looks good,” he nodded at Hari.

  “It is not the first time I have done this, British. Tell me about Villeneuve’s weapon before we close the exit wound.”

  “It came from within the fleet. There was more than one.”

  “More than one what?”

  “Egmont says it was a squall, the strongest he had ever seen.”

  “A squall? What is this, British?”

  “Like a hurricane, Hari. A katabatic wind blowing suddenly down the length of a mountain valley.”

  “Ah, yes,” Hari nodded with a grave look in his eyes. “Djinn.”

  “Is that your word for it?” Jamie opened and closed the fingers of one hand. “Squalls should be natural, but this one, these squalls, the admiral says it was like they had hands, fingers gripping our sails and holding onto them tight.” He closed his fingers around Hari’s wrist. “We were winning, we had the French on the run and the Spanish were firing on their own ships inside the gunpowder clouds. That’s when the French conjured up their demon squalls.”

  “Not squalls, British. Djinn.”

  Jamie shook his head. “Egmont told me the squalls took form in the powder clouds, they dwarfed Magnificent.” Jamie remembered Egmont’s description of them as they swirled up inside the British fleet, closing their vaporous fists in the sheets and shrouds of HMS Sirius, Exeter and Nelson’s command Victory. Sailors jumped, Egmont had told him, from the rigging as the masts were torn from their hulls. Sharpshooters on the French and Spanish ships picked off survivors as they clung to the flotsam and jetsam, the remains of the British ships. Jamie sighed. “Admiral Egmont gave the signal
to retreat to Gibraltar shortly after the squalls ripped into the fleet.”

  “And Nelson lost the battle?”

  “Yes, and Gibraltar fell shortly after.” Jamie looked up at the grey snow clouds pressing down upon the dawn landscape. “It was a dark day for the Empire and the day the Royal Navy lost the seas.”

  Jamie fell silent as Hari tidied up and bandaged his leg. The mystic gave Jamie a knowing look. “Djinn,” Hari patted the midshipman on the leg. “The worst kind.”

  Jamie looked at his leg. He rubbed his fingers over the stitches. “How old are you, Hari?”

  “How old am I?”

  “Yes,” Jamie gestured. “When were you born?”

  “Hari thought for a moment. “I was born on the banks of the Indus.”

  “What year?”

  “What year?”

  “Yes,” Jamie shook his head. “You know. When?”

  “In the wintertime,” Hari shrugged. “It was cold.”

  “That’s it?” Jamie studied the mystic’s face. Beneath the wispy beard, Hari had smooth brown skin with what could be dimples in his cheeks. Jamie guessed that Hari was younger than he was. “You are an enigma, Hari Singh.”

  “An enigma?” Hari laughed. “I knew an enigma once.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, she was a complete puzzle to me.”

  “A she, Hari Singh?” Jamie fidgeted his leg into a more comfortable position. “I should like to know more about her, Hari. But...”

  “Wait a moment, British,” Hari walked over to the body of a raider lying closest to where Jamie sat. Sitting on his heels beside the body, Hari tore open the raider’s shirt and examined the man’s chest.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for something,” Hari tugged the shirt over the man’s chest and stood. “He does not bear the mark,” Hari scratched at his forehead beneath his turban. He walked over to Jamie and squatted beside him. “These men are not Pathaan. The Pathaan believe in the old ways,” Hari patted his chest, “as do I.”

  “Then where are they from?”

  “I do not know,” Hari paused. “But they must have seen the emissary, and they ignored it.” Hari looked up at Jamie. “That means they were looking for you,” he took a breath, “or me.”

  “It must be you they are looking for, Hari. I am a nobody.”

  Hari chuckled.

  “What is so funny?”

  “After fighting with ten raiders trying to kill him on the Khyber Pass,” Hari gestured at the walls of rock either side of them, “only a British man would imagine he was innocent, a nobody.”

  “I am innocent, Hari,” Jamie shrugged. “Unless it is a crime to be British.”

  “Truly?” Hari shook his head and laughed. “I am travelling with a madman.”

  “That makes two of us, Hari.” Jamie picked at the flap in his trousers.

  ҉

  Flicking his riding stick on the neck of his horse, Bryullov dismounted as the beast bent its forelegs and kneeled on the snow covering the track leading to and beyond Lalpura. The Russian’s boots slid on the ice beneath the inch of snow. He reached out to break his fall, the riding stick snapped as he leaned on it.

  “Damn,” Bryullov cast the broken stick into the scrub to the side of the track. Pulling at the rip across the knee of his trouser leg, he poked his fingers through the hole, smearing the blood between thumb and forefinger. He turned as Najma approached and dismounted.

  “What did you do?” Najma peeked around Bryullov’s back.

  “Nothing,” he wiped his hands on his Burberry coat. Bryullov bent his knee and grimaced. A stupid mistake, he thought. Just as the trail starts to get difficult. “It is slippery,” he turned to face Najma. “And I am an old Russian.”

  “You are not so old,” Najma bent down and examined Bryullov’s knee. Rocking on her heels, Najma poked at the bloody cut.

  “Stop that, girl,” Bryullov pushed Najma’s hand away. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” Najma stood up. She stepped onto a flat rock and stared at Bryullov, her eyes an arm’s length from his own. “I am just wondering if you are ready for the mountain?” she pointed up the narrow track winding its way steeply along the contours of the mountain. “You said you wanted to visit the lookout post above Adina Pur?”

  “I was walking these mountains before you were born, girl.” Bryullov took a deep breath of cold air. Najma was perhaps as old as his youngest sister, fifteen or more years younger than his wife. Pretty. Dark-haired. He allowed himself a smile. Mischievous.

  “You only call me girl when you are feeling old or stupid.” Najma stepped back off the rock and walked into the scrub by the side of the track. She came back carrying Bryullov’s broken riding stick in her hand. “It was stupid to throw this away,” she waved the stick in Bryullov’s face. “Anyone can find it. Then they can follow us.”

  Bryullov shook his head. “I was stupid,” he reached for the stick.

  “No,” Najma pulled it out of his reach. “I will put it in my pack.” She walked off to where the packhorse stood tethered to the pommel of her horse. Bryullov watched the young Afghan woman snap the stick in two and slide both pieces inside a saddlebag. She walked back to Bryullov and pointed at his knee. “Can you walk?”

  “Yes.” Bryullov tugged at the sleeve of Najma’s quilted jacket.

  “What are you doing?” Najma took a step toward the Russian as he tugged her closer.

  “Just how old are you, Najma?”

  “Old enough,” she stuck out her chin. “If I want to be.”

  “And do you?” Bryullov ran his hand up her arm and rested it on her shoulder. “Do you want to be?”

  Najma looked up at the Russian’s face, studied his grizzled beard, black flecked with white. “Are you old enough?”

  “What? Me?” Bryullov laughed. He slipped his hand from her shoulder and stepped back. “Of course I am old enough.”

  “How old?”

  Bryullov nodded at the mountain peaks ringed with grey snow clouds. “I first walked these paths when I was twenty years old.”

  “And now?”

  “Twenty years later and I am still walking them.”

  “You do not need a guide.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “Hah,” Najma laughed. “You are younger than my uncle and he has three wives, two of them are younger than me.”

  “I am not looking for a wife, Najma.” Bryullov thought back to his house on the banks of the Neva in St Petersburg, his two sons, the daughter who died of consumption. “I have a wife.”

  “And my uncle has three,” Najma paused. “What is it you are looking for?”

  “A companion, perhaps.”

  “A companion?” Najma stood on one foot and twirled in the snow. “Am I not better than a companion? Am I not magnificent?” She laughed. “I could be your second wife. Your Afghan wife.” Najma poked Bryullov in the chest.

  “Magnificent? Where did you learn to speak English?” Bryullov closed her finger in his fist. “Where did you learn such a word as magnificent?”

  “From the British, of course.” Najma tried to pull her finger free of Bryullov’s grip.

  “What British? When, Najma?” Bryullov gripped her finger.

  “Stop, you are hurting my finger.”

  “When did you see the British?”

  Najma slapped Bryullov on the chest and pulled her finger free. “Why should I tell a brute such as you?” She turned her back. “You are just like my uncle. The way he treats his wives. Maybe I would be better off with him?”

  “Najma,” Bryullov place his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. “I am sorry, Najma. But it is important. You must tell me. Slowly, so I can understand you.”

  “I might,” Najma crossed her arms over her chest.

  “You will,” Bryullov spun Najma by the shoulders. Gripping her upper arms, he drew her close. “Was it this spring, after the snow? Before the rain? Was it in the
summer?”

  “No,” Najma shook.

  “No? No what? The summer?”

  “After the rain,” Najma shuddered in Bryullov’s grasp. “Before the snow.” He released her. She ran to her horse.

  “After the rain,” Bryullov walked along the path, the pain in his knee forgotten. “After the rain, before the snow.” Reaching into his coat, Bryullov fumbled a notebook free of the deep pocket sewn on the inside of the sleeve of his right arm. Licking his thumb and brushing the pages of the notebook, Bryullov paused at the whir of a priming handle. He turned as Najma pushed the long barrel of the ornate lightning jezail in his face.

  “You will not hurt me,” her voice quavered. The rifle did not.

  “No,” Bryullov lowered the notebook, “I will not hurt you, Najma.”

  “Never?” She took a step forward.

  “Not ever,” Bryullov shook his head. “Never.” He watched Najma lower the barrel of her father’s jezail. “I imagine you know just how to use that,” he pointed at the rifle.

  “Yes,” Najma gripped the charge lever between her fingers and thumb and lowered it to the contact pad. She rested the jezail in the crook of her arm, the tip of the long barrel inches from the snow. She nodded in the direction of the steep path leading into the mountains. “We should start before it gets too dark. There is a good place to stop for the night just around the bend. Up there,” she pointed. “But maybe you already know that?”

  Bryullov slipped his notebook inside his cloak. “I am ready.” He walked toward his camel. Reaching Najma he stopped. “I am sorry, Najma.”

  Najma gave Bryullov a cold look. She shrugged. “It does not matter.”

  “It does to me, Najma,” Bryullov paused. He reached out and brushed snow from the stock of the jezail. “It is a fine weapon.”

  “It has killed many foreigners,” Najma hefted the rifle in her arms. “See the notches in the stock?”

  “I see them,” Bryullov ran his finger over the rough scratches in the dark wood. “Russian?”

  “Some,” Najma turned the stock to reveal more scratches on the other side above the crank handle attached to the power cylinder. “Mostly British and Indian.”