Dark Iron King II: Arcadia Falls (Unreal Universe Book 5)

by Lee Bond

  “Blast.” Agnethea tucked her precious fan away, then headed down to ground level. There was nothing she could do. Her hands were tied. The best option was hardly the ‘best’ anything, but leave Garth to himself was about the only thing that was going to work.

  She just hoped the man had enough going on upstairs to protect himself out of sight, and that he kept the bloodshed to a minimum.

  ***

  As expected, Idle Eric was a veritable font of information. When the little weirdo wasn’t busy staring at him, trying to get an illicit view of the Geared Armor like a pervert trying to look down a woman’s top, Garth learned more than a little bit about what made Ickford tick.

  In addition to Dark Iron, bits and pieces of copper that the tinkerers used to ply their trade were also used as a form of currency. The pieces held no actual denomination; value was determined on the spot by both the buyer and seller, based on what everyone seemed to agree was the likelihood of any given tinkerer finding use for a gear or cog or whatever was on the table.

  It was an ingenious response to the relative disparity between the people living and working in Ickford. Not every man or woman who ran a business would find themselves dependent on Dark Iron; a clothier, for example, really only needed muscle power to run their machines, whereas a tobacconist might have Dark Iron fueled mechanisms to force the growth of their plants. A whorehouse could work with both Iron and gears, but a bread baker would have little need for Dark Iron.

  The breaking point between Iron and copper seemed to be the relative level of irritation ‘tween squeezing meticulous drops of ‘sblood out for payment versus saucily tossing someone a cog and shouting ‘’ere Wotcha, mate’ on your way out.

  It was a brilliant concept mirroring the invention of true currency, but it wouldn’t work anywhere else in Arcade City; Estates relied solely on trade and barter for their livelihoods and everywhere else did what they could to eke out a living. The only anomaly had been the Kingspawn Pub, the bar catering solely to gearheads and accepting only Dark Iron in payment.

  “Oh aye, aye,” Eric pulled on his chin and hopped about a bit, “heard about that place, I did, true enough. Bar had itself a visit, I did hear that.”

  Garth shouldered his way through a crowd of people eagerly bidding on what appeared to be bolts of shimmery red cloth. The similarities to an Old Home kind of place grew stronger, and for a thankfully brief moment, a poignant stab of longing for Reality-as-it-could’ve-been sliced through him. “A visit? You make it sound like something awful happened there.”

  “Well it did, didn’t it?” Eric demanded loudly. “Wouldn’t’ve said it like that if it weren’t true.” He hopped over a broken bucket.

  “Calm down, friend, calm down.” It was weird, seeing Kingsblood spawned anger boil out of the diminutive freakish gearhead; the attitude was completely at odds with the whole ‘cor blimey I is an honest man, guv, yes I is’ demeanor Eric worked so hard at exuding.

  The geek was good with the patter, leaving Garth to wonder just how many ‘seasoned’ gearheads had fallen prey to the little locust, regardless of his slight stature. “So this pub I heard about and was going to visit is out of business now or something?”

  “Naw, nothin’ like that, mate.” Idle Eric shook his head. “Had a spot of bother a month ago or so. Some new King monster stopped by for a quick pint of Dave’s Legendary Brew and had itself a high old time stomping and killing all of everyone save Dave hisself and a few others flat. Were quite a mess, to hear it.”

  “And how,” Garth wondered idly, doing his absolute best to keep the burning interest in him to a dull roar –for all his hilarious hopping and misunderstanding of other people’s tones, wee Eric was fretfully decent at picking up other people’s tones-, “do you know that?”

  “One of them musicians old Dave hired comes from here. Born and bred, don’t you see?” Eric’s ears picked up the sounds of The Spinner. The lad was in for a treat soon enough, yes he was. “She come back down in a hurry, hired herself a gearhead she did, paid in whatever she could, just to get well away. Bloke carried ‘er on his back the whole way. Made the journey in just a few days. She’s in hock to the Queen now, but I reckon she’ll be in the clear soon.”

  Garth steeled himself against the grief that flowed through him. The carnage at Dave’s bar wasn’t his fault. The blame for any deaths, any … unkind payment scheme the poor musician had had to endure … all that rest on Nicked Jimmy’s destroyed skull. He doubted the woman would find solace in the fact that Jimmy had suffered an unendurable amount of agony and fear as Dark Iron tendrils had brushed across his ugly mug, but it was something.

  “That’s impressive.” Garth said at last, keeping his voice neutral.

  Idle Eric nodded and spat. “Too right, mate. Girl’s making a fortune over in Dog’s Hollow Pub and Eatery, tellin’ the tale. She’s done set it to music, sings it out like a proper bard or summat. We can nip over after you’ve taken a gander at Ickford’s main method of policing itself.”

  There was absolutely no way in hell Garth was going anywhere near where Dog’s Hollow Pub sat. If the woman –Garth was sure he knew who it was, for in the middle of his drunken stupor, he’d danced a bit of a jig with her before going full Iron on everyone- was making a living off singing the story, she’d remember his face very clearly.

  The thought of wandering into Dog’s Hollow while she was singing and having her start shrieking about the dark evil monster that’d killed and ripped his way through forty or more full-Ironed gearheads made him nauseous.

  Because lest he forget, Ickford was home to a population of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of gearheads of all shapes and sizes. All of them were apparently a step above those he’d already run into, as well, which was definitely food for thought.

  Loathe Barnabas as much as he might, the old codger’s admonitions towards good behavior were already proving beneficial. As long as he kept reminding himself that his P’s and Q’s needed serious minding at all times, none of the heavy-handed gearheads would find any reason to look his way.

  “Maybe.” Garth’s ears pricked up, faintly detecting regular clicking sounds. They were far too consistent to be anything but a machine. Well, naturally it would be some kind of machine. “So. This ‘Spinner’.”

  “Hm?” Idle Eric pulled a smile. “Oh, yes indeed, squire, the only method of law enforcement the folks’ll approve of, end of day. We tried jails and whatnot, tossing scallywags and ne’er-do-wells in a small room for a time to reflect on the errors of their ways, but it never seemed to work. Nat’rally, should all else fail and someone gets the Queen riled up, well. That’s that and no two ways about it. Spinner is better than all that.”

  “Because gearheads can live forever and are unrepentant assholes so it takes the threat of full death and nothing but?”

  What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  Idle Eric gasped and held a hand to his heart. “I resemble that remark, squire.” Then he laughed, a hearty guffaw sounding odd coming from someone so small. “But aye, that’s the truth of it. We gearheads are unrepentant assholes, true. When you’ve done as we have, stared into the churning metal guts of a Big’Un … changes a fella, it does.”

  Sounds of The Spinner in operation grew louder still, and as they got closer, Garth knew exactly what the damn thing was, and he grew ever more certain that someone in Arcade City was fucking with him.

  Wee Idle Eric, Arcade City’s smallest gearhead and Ickford’s preeminent –if momentarily disgraced- thief of thieves, gestured broadly and grandly as they rounded a corner and walked into Spinner Square. “Squire, I give unto thee, The Spinner.”

  Garth ignored the flock of Ickfordians filling the square. They were unessential.

  Besides, there were dozens of hardcore metalheads in attendance, all of them flaunting their cruel dis-ease. Paying them too much attention would only get him going and until the process by which the Queen ruled her city so efficiently, the wisest course wa
s to keep calm and carry on.

  The first thing he noticed was that whatever else Spinner Square was, it was home to the only Geared Door for hundreds of miles in either direction. This, then, was where he was going to come when it was time to leave both Barnabas and everything horrible thing he’d done to get to this point. According to the blacksmith, everyone making passage inwards found a kind of redemption for their sins and excesses as they made their journey.

  Just the sort of thing a weary Kin’kithal sought.

  Beyond marking it’s position on his mental map of Ickford, Garth paid scant attention to the Geared Door; when you’ve already made the unholy journey from Outside, when you’ve stood before the truly amazing Door leading into a world of mystery and misery, everything else paled by comparison.

  Now he had nothing occupying him, it was time to move on to Ickford’s primary source of punitive control. Even though he’d already worked out what the damn thing was by the strange noises emanating from the square, it was always best to double check.

  Garth rolled his eyes. Yep. As he’d expected.

  A goddamn Thunderdome Wheel.

  But where Auntie’s Dome and punishments had only ever been for a single type of criminal, Queen Agnethea’s needed a complexity above and beyond all that: there weren’t just ordinary men and women in Ickford. Hell, there weren’t even ‘ordinary’ gearheads in the gritty city. In order to assure everything and everyone was treated with a fair hand, Agnethea’s Spinner was complex enough to put a Geared Door to the test.

  Ickford’s Spinner was actually five … no, six wheels, bolted together to form one gigantic wheel. There was a central main hub categorizing the criminal, ranging from ‘pure human’ to an ominous sounding ‘greyskin’. Choosing a type of perp unlocked the crime wheel, choosing the crime wheel –clamps along the ring indicated you could choose more than one- unlocked the punishment wheels. Once all that was done, it was just a simple flick of the wrist.

  Whatever popped up was the rule of the land and that punishment was meted out right there on the spot.

  From where Garth and Eric stood at the edge of the square, the ex-Specter read some of the punishments. “Lose a limb. Spin again. Hot Pants. Tooth Tickle. Head Smash. Crush the Groove. Spin again. Spin the next. Hammer and Tongs. Where’s Willy? Good Christ almighty.”

  The outsider had never felt more outside... He read the ‘People’s Wheel’. “Well, at least here, it’s fair. Crack o’ the Whip. Nude Walk. Wiggle the Willy. Well, okay, that one’s kinda fucked up. Banged Up. Snap, Crackle … who thinks these things up?”

  “See, wot happens is…” Idle Eric hopped from foot to foot, occasionally shooting up high enough to see over the heads of all the blasted tall people as were loitering about doing nothing all.

  “I got it figured, thanks.” Garth dismissed Idle Eric’s look out of hand. The wee fella was really quite good at lulling people into a sense of confidence and friendship. Unfortunately for the miniscule bandit, the occasion for them to stick together was fast coming to a close. “Only Spinner I can’t read is the smallest one… does that … does that say ‘something something Wall’? What the fuck?”

  Idle Eric chuckled. He’d never heard the word ‘fuck’ before, but it were a great curse. He planned on using it. “Oh aye, squire. That’s the worst one of all, yes indeed. There be two choices on the Little Spinner of Pain, as us who’s geared calls it. One option be ‘At the Wall’ and the other be ‘Over the Wall’. It’s that wheel as keeps most of us on the shy side of actual crime and crime related activities, hey?”

  Garth turned away from The Spinner and gazed speculatively at the Wall. First and foremost, anyone living in Ickford was more than a little batshit insane. Anyone choosing to live next to a feature that was –whether they knew it or not- solidified nanotech capable of growing to any height necessary and electrocuting the ever-loving shit out of anyone who got too close had to be at least three quarters insane.

  Secondly, and only because you could only have a single ‘one’ of anything, Garth figured if he was a gearhead and he knew the shit that he got up to could result in him being somehow flung at or over the Wall … well, Garth scratched at his ear. He’d probably still do all that shit, but only on account of how he wouldn’t get caught and if he did get caught, he’d bust skulls until he could run away.

  “Oh, ‘ere we go then, take a look, Squire Nickels.” Idle Eric tugged on Garth’s jacket sleeve and pointed to the stage. “I know you was wonderin’ how Ickford’s coppers kept us gearheads in line, hey? Take a peek there. The poor sod being pulled about by his ear is Slamford. Tricky Slamford, they call him. Eighty year old gearhead. Pisses Dark Iron tails out ‘is rod.”

  “Wow.” Garth swallowed noisily. “That’s fucking disgusting. And I’ve seen shit you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Either way, best way to tell a fella ‘ow rough an’ tumble old Slamford is. Up there with poor old squashed Nicked Jimmy. Right tough bastard.” Idle Eric pointed to the man doing the pulling. “And that, my inquisitive friend, is Andrew.”

  “Not All-About Andrew or Shivering Andrew or Fuck-Me-Running Andrew?” Garth quipped, staring at the man. “Just Andrew?”

  Idle Eric gawped nervously, grabbed hold of Garth’s jacket and pulled until the man condescended to bend forward. “On your … fucking … life, mate, do not make mock. He’s … one of them. Like Agnethea. Our Andrew has got a temper. And is quite, quite prideful.”

  Garth pulled Idle Eric’s hands off his jacket and rose to his full height. On-stage, Slamford was refusing to spin the wheel. From where they stood, Garth could just make out what the gearhead was saying, which was essentially what every criminal claimed; he hadn’t done it, it weren’t his fault, things had gotten out of hand. In this particular instance, Tricky Slamford was begging to spin one of the other wheels. Twice.

  “What’s he done?” Garth watched, in awe, as Slamford panicked.

  The heavily Ironed gearhead swung at Andrew with one massive paw, and Garth flinched in commiseration with the obviously underpowered ‘cop’. The open-handed slap struck Andrew right in the face.

  Andrew stood there, staring back at Slamford with poorly disguised distaste. He turned to the crowd, eyebrow raised dryly. He spoke. “Our friend Tricky Slamford has chosen to give me the right to determine his punishment.”

  The crowd oohed, cheered loudly.

  “The fuck?” Garth replayed the attack over in his mind while everyone in the crowd went full retard. Whatever was going to happen next was going to be super awesomely exciting.

  Even if Andrew was an Obsidian Golem as Idle Eric was claiming –and there was every reason to believe the man-, Tricky Slamford was undoubtedly one of these ‘greyskin’ gearheads hinted at by the Spinner’s perp-wheel. The blow he’d delivered was surely capable of knocking a King’s head from it’s metallic shoulders. A blow which Andrew had not only withstood –not so surprising, honestly, given Meechy’s fear and Idle Eric’s healthy concern towards not pissing Andrew off- but ignored altogether.

  “Oh aye.” Idle Eric nodded sagely. It was always a bit of a shock, that first time seeing one of the Golems shrug off a full strength attack from a respectable gearhead like Slamford. “You begin to understand, hey?”

  “Yeah, but.” Where before he’d exuded a ‘let’s get this over with, I got shit to do’ vibe On-stage Andrew was now playing to the crowd; he was leading the assembled host of lookie-lous excited to see a gearhead get what was coming to him in a rousing chant about spinning wheels.

  Everyone except Slamford was having a great time. Slamford was looking every which way, determining methods of escape and calculating odds of achieving that goal. Andrew walked by in the middle of a particularly boisterous stanza and slapped the much larger gearhead in the face so hard the crowd gasped in instant sympathy: the sound of that slap echoed through Spinner Square like a gunshot. Slamford shook his head muzzily, bell rung so hard he’d be hearing chimes in his next life.

&
nbsp; Andrew went back to singing, his pale features flush with excitement.

  “No buts about it, squire.” Idle Eric shrugged. “Them … folk. Some says the King says they shouldn’t be, that they’re abominations before the King himself, but there one is, handling a gearhead who once finished a King on his own while his crew lay cracked, battered and bleeding into the dust. Old Slamford come to Ickford two years ago, didn’t he just, grown tired of killing Kings and not willing to move inwards. When you get to that stage, friend Nickels, you are tough as anything this world has to offer. Slamford worked the door at one of the slattern’s domiciles, wound up falling for one of the whores.”

  Garth watched Andrews’s antics with mystified awe. Agnethea was an Obsidian Golem and she was in charge. She’d built Ickford. The implication there, then, was that she was tougher than Andrew. That explained a lot. “Let me guess,” Garth said sadly, “she died.”

  “Oh aye, squire, that Missy Dollop did indeed.” Idle Eric hopped up high enough so he could get a good long last look at one of his oldest friends. “Gearhead like Slamford, been through what he’s been through … filled with metal and all. Touching ‘is skin was like to running your hand across a cheese grater, hey? Now, were stupid old Slamford to’ve fallen in love with a lady gearhead, all is well and proper, right? A lady gearhead’s minge, right? Built to take that kind of punishment. Missy Dollop were a proper person, though, and …”

  Garth raised a hand, cutting Idle Eric off. “I get the point. Believe me. So how do … people like Andrew get that way?”

  “Oh, I hain’t the one to tell you that.” Idle Eric gestured around him. “That’s one of them topics no one talks about, right? Oh. Look. They’re gettin’ ready.”

  “For what?” Garth watched two more people he assumed were Obsidian Golems start working two humungous cranks. The square filled with the sound of huge gears being turned, and as Garth watched, part of the stage off to one side popped up to reveal what was best described as a steam-driven cannon.