Of Steel and Steam

by Pauline Creeden et al.

But it got their attention. It ensured that they saw. Gasping, she drew her shotel and slipped out the way the others had gone, but in the opposite direction. She kept a slow pace, one hand against the wall to guide her, in part to be certain they were all following her, in part because the pain was spreading. She felt breath on the back of her head and claws raking her coattails as she looped back around to where the tunnel forked.

  “That’s right. This way.”

  Then down the side branch, the engine’s howling growing louder and louder.

  “Right, this way. Follow me…”

  She dug into her pocket, fingers closing around the flask. The glass was cool against her burning skin. It was a small thing. The ennoea it contained was processed, refined, pure. Infinitely more powerful than the stuff churning out of that hellish engine, and infinitely more stable. Unless you did something foolish with it.

  There was that stench. There was the door.

  But a light flickered inside.

  She skidded into the chamber with the flask clenched in one hand and her shotel in the other.

  Magnus looked up from his work. The broken spout lay on the floor, and the hole it had left bled ennoea in a steady, pulsing stream. It gushed over his hands and drenched his gloves. The pool on the floor was growing.

  His eyes flicked over her sword, and then over her face.

  And suddenly, he was Magnus.

  His face went slack with horror and grief, and the sound of the engine faded and died. The chaos of pursuit outside slowed and stopped, suspended, waiting.

  “Magistrix, you… You’re…”

  “Dying? Was that not the point?”

  But she could see in his face that he could not remember what the point had been.

  “The reaction… It’s quick, but there’s time. I need… I need ice. Lower your body temperature. And blood, a complete transfusion. And ennoea… But there’s no shortage of that. Come on, hurry. I’ll fetch the boy. My hands are no good for these things, anymore.”

  “You want to help?”

  Confusion. Why wouldn’t he try to help?

  “You were my teacher,” he said, voice full of pain. “And I’ve already lost everyone else…”

  Hope swelled, even as the pain redoubled. He was still Magnus. If she could only get him out of that place…

  But she could see the memories rearranging themselves, each of those losses returning to him, and all the blame he desperately needed to place. Remembering Henryk, Miel, failure, fury.

  The engine began to rise in pitch again, and outside, she heard the swarm of monsters moving.

  But they were moving away.

  Hunting.

  If they moved too far, the blast wouldn’t catch them.

  The engine was screaming, twisting and splitting open, a terrible mouth throbbing blue-green and scarlet. She dropped her shotel and ripped the stopper from the bottle with her teeth, tasting power. It sailed past him, trailing shining droplets onto the pool below, and into the engine’s maw.

  “I love you, discipule.”

  Her shoulder caught him in the chest, and they tumbled together into light and fire and nothing.

  Chapter 17

  She was hot.

  Aurelia listened to her own heart beating and realized after a while that she was probably not dead. How long would that last?

  And how was that possible?

  She opened her eyes slowly onto complete blackness, the kind that comes from inside rather than from without. She held a hand up in front of her face. Nothing.

  But no pain, either, except for the knot at the back of her head. She sat up gingerly and felt at it. Skull probably not broken, but it was the sort of injury that could result in blindness. Of course, so could having one’s eyes seared by an explosion. Blind, or merely totally dark?

  “Magnus?” she whispered.

  No answer.

  Nonsensically, tears sprang into her eyes. The tears were hot, too, almost scalding as they slid down her cheeks, but they washed away the darkness.

  The light was worse.

  The engine was nothing but a mass of seared and mangled tissues, smoldering quietly with blue-green flames that were gradually shifting to orange and red. There would be no way to identify Magnus in all of that, and she chose not to look.

  She looked at herself, instead. Blisters gone, though her clothes were charred. A little blue-green spark dripped from her chin and splashed onto her knee. Ennoea. Violent, volatile, unpredictable.

  The candle had survived, in a manner of speaking. It had been knocked over and rolled away, lodging in a chink in the floor. The heat of the blast had melted it down into the crack, but it had re-hardened in roughly the shape a candle ought to be. She pried it out and applied the wick to the flames, picked up her shotel and sheathed it, and wandered out into the tunnels.

  She picked her way between heaps of corpses that seemed almost to have melted like the candle, all of them dead, now, and going to stay that way. She had hoped for a simple explosion, just fire and force that would stop those things before they could catch up with the others, but she had gotten a more complex reaction than that. The ennoea burned. It burned itself out of the engine, out of the air, and out of the monsters. Out of everything nearby except Aurelia.

  Flames flickered along the piles of nearly-carbonized flesh and flowed in rivulets through the tunnels. She followed the current downstream, down and down and down until they met up with an underground stream. She splashed some of the soot from her face and hands and gave her blade the cleaning it deserved.

  Then she followed the stream until it trickled out of the mountainside and into the gray pre-dawn.

  But was it the dawn after the day she killed her student, or many dawns later?

  How long would Helena have waited?

  Soon, it wouldn’t matter.

  She staggered down toward the road and toward the village. These people wouldn’t open their doors until the sun was risen. Did they know they were safe, now? She almost laughed. How perplexed would they be by the thought of someone afraid of the light?

  She broke out of the trees and onto the road and at once heard a gasp.

  “Aurelia!”

  Helena nearly flew at her, racing up the path with her lantern bouncing. By the time they met, she was sobbing.

  “Four days,” she croaked. “Four… The flames had just died enough that I thought it would be safe to try to retrieve your…”

  Her voice broke. She swallowed hard. “Here. You’d better put this on.” She untied the heavy cloak she was wearing and handed it to Aurelia. “You’ll be pleased to know that Miel doesn’t seem bothered by the…”

  She trailed off again, shook her head, set the lantern down, and folded Aurelia in a crushing embrace. “Thank you.”

  Aurelia stiffened and returned the gesture awkwardly. “For?”

  “Not you. Our Lady.”

  Aurelia slept through the day and the night in an empty house Helena seemed to know well. There was food and fire and fresh clothes that almost fit. Helena was safe. Henryk and Miel were safe. Helena had even pulled the pony from the stable before the flames reached it.

  Dawn was lightening the sky once more when Aurelia threw on her cloak and belted her sword around her waist. Helena closed the door and locked it and dropped the key into her pocket, and the four travelers passed silently through the dark village and climbed the valley’s far slope.

  They looked back as they neared the pass for a last glimpse of the mountain. The castle still flickered with blue-green light, fading now, and flashes sparked and guttered between the trees and licked the slopes. Aurelia drew her hood up over her head as the first ray of sun touched the north tower.

  They turned their backs on it, and Helena reached out and took Aurelia’s hand.

  “Show me Africa.”

  Turn the page for the epilogue if you plan to remain in the world of Strange Aeons a while longer.

  Thanks for reading!

 
Epilogue

  January, 1810

  In the heart of a dark, misty, and mountainous land was a vale sheltered by rugged peaks. It was green with fragrant fir and pine, and through it flowed a silver river, upon which thrived a little village like a jewel, painted in all the bright, rich colors loved by its bright, poor people.

  Above the village, on the slopes, where the fir and pine began to grow stunted and sparse, stood the ruined shell of a castle where there had once lived a man. Even though he was dead, the people spoke of him only in whispers, and when they whispered, they called him Count Death.

  Beneath the castle, in chambers seared by the chaotic fires of Life, itself, a motionless form lay dreaming amid the bones of terrible things.

  This night was like other winter nights, cold and biting-sharp. The frost curled into the earth, stretching down into the mountain that sometimes still burned.

  In the dark, the sleeper stirred.

  Continue the Strange Aeons Series in A Library of Flesh.

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  About the Author

  quiestinliteris.com

  USA Today bestselling author M.R. Graham is a native Texan who traces strong cultural roots back to Scotland, Poland, and England. A mild-mannered PhD student during the day, Graham transforms at night into a raging Holmesian loremaster and rabid novelist. Though passionate about all scholarship and academia, Graham’s training and true love lie with anthropology, particularly the archaeological branch. Their writing explores the uncanny, the mystical, the mysterious, and the monstrous, seeking to capture the beauty of strangeness.

  The Clockwork Dragonfly

  J. A. Cummings

  The Clockwork Dragonfly © 2020 J. A. Cummings

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  The Clockwork Dragonfly

  Lady Victoria Almeston sat before the mirror and fussed at her black hair, deeply displeased. The back was satisfactory, swept back into a chignon at the base of her neck. The sides were acceptable, curled into tight tendrils. The front, though… the front was a fright, with erratic pieces sticking out in all directions.

  “Ugh, this looks horrible!”

  Ida, her nurse and companion, patted her shoulder with one hand while she readied the hot curling pin with the other. “Well, what do you expect when you burn off all your front hair leaning over an engine?”

  Victoria frowned. “How was I supposed to know the silly thing would catch fire? And if I hadn’t been leaning over that engine, it would have burned the whole house down.”

  Ida smiled. “Not a ringing endorsement for your activities.” She straightened, and a pinging sound emanated from deep within her body. “Give us a wind, will you, dearie?”

  She took a key from a desk in her vanity. Ida turned, and Victoria stood up. She opened one of the buttons on the back of Ida’s dress, revealing a small brass slot set into her nurse’s otherwise unremarkable-looking white skin. The key slid into place with a quiet click, and Victoria gave it several twists.

  Ida was an automaton, built by Victoria’s father, Lord Charles Almeston, the Earl of Westbrooke in Somerset. He was an inventor and inveterate tinkerer, something that his only child had learned to emulate. For as long as Victoria could remember, Ida had been there, first as her only mother figure, then as her lady’s maid and friend. Whatever Victoria needed, Ida was there to provide it.

  “Ah, that’s better. Thank you ever so much.”

  “You’re welcome.” Victoria pulled the key back out and closed up the buttons on Ida’s dress.

  “Now sit so that I can see to that hair of yours.” Victoria obeyed, folding her hands in her lap while Ida worked, curling her shattered forelock into a riot of tight curls. “I saw this style in a shop front. It’s perfectly acceptable, I think, and if it looks too harsh, we can soften it with a few little flowers.”

  “If you say so…”

  “I say so.” She hummed while she worked, and Victoria smiled. The song was an old children’s rhyme that they had sung together when she was only a girl. Now that she was grown, she sensed a certain nostalgia in the choice.

  “I hope you find a husband tonight,” Ida said wistfully. “You’re being presented to the very cream of society this evening, and I’m sure that all of the eligible young men will be smitten with you.”

  Victoria picked at her fingernails, which were far too short and with splintered edges from her time in her father’s workshop. Ida gently smacked her hands to make her stop, and she clutched her dressing gown instead, needing to do something with her hands.

  “I don’t want a husband. Whoever it is will probably prevent me from continuing my work, and my life will devolve to be children and tea parties.”

  “And what’s wrong with children and tea parties?”

  She made a face. “Everything.”

  Ida stopped and stared at Victoria’s reflection in the mirror. “Charming. Don’t do that again.”

  The girl smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” She watched Ida work, then asked, “So is my coming-out ball the only reason we had to come to London for the season?”

  “You have reached the age when you needed to be presented at court, and you were. And now you need to be presented to the sons of your father’s peers, and you will be.” She finished her labors. “There. Not the best, but it’s not bad, either. At least it brings attention to your eyes.”

  Victoria looked at her reflection. Her eyes were her most striking feature, large and doe-like. Her father said that she had inherited them from her late mother. She had seen a portrait of her mother, and she had to agree that they looked very similar. In fact, except for a few differences around Victoria’s nose, they could have been sisters.

  Ida bent and put her hands on the girl’s upper arms, pressing her warm cheek to Victoria’s. She could hear the pneumatics inside her companion pushing the heated water that warmed Ida’s flesh.

  “Your mother would have been very, very proud of you.”

  The words should have been reassuring, but they caused a pang, and Victoria looked away to conceal the sudden hurt. “I wish she were here to be the hostess instead of Lady Anne.”

  “Your brother’s sister is a worthy replacement, and you should be grateful that she’s taking the time to do this.” Ida straightened and began tidying the vanity. “She never had daughters of her own, so this is the only time she shall have the pleasure of hosting a debutante ball. Permit her that with as much grace as you can muster.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “That’s all we can ask.”

  Victoria rose and walked to her bedroom window and looked out. A steady drizzle painted the glass pane, and fog was clinging to the garden below. “Doesn’t look very festive,” she observed.

  Ida chuckled and pulled her gown out of the wardrobe, hanging it up and brushing invisible lint from the white skirt. “That’s all right. When you see the ballroom, with all your bouquets and all the candles and the crystal chandelier set alight, it’s going to be festive enough.”

  “If you say so.”

  She saw her father rushing in from the garden gate, rain dripping from the brim of his top hat to s
patter on the shoulders of his woolen coat. He was consulting his pocket watch while he hurried. Lord Charles was always late for everything.

  Ida looked out the window, too, and made a clicking sound with her tongue. “There he is. And the guests are already starting to arrive!”

  “Are they?” Victoria raised her eyebrows. “We ought to get me dressed, then, I suppose.”

  She removed her robe, and Ida helped her into the evening gown she would be wearing for this momentous night. It was white with silk flowers at the shoulders and a pale blue satin sash that would highlight the narrowness of her corseted waist. The skirt itself was pure white and unadorned. Her slippers were white satin, and she pulled on white gloves that extended all the way past her elbows. When she was dressed, she considered her reflection once again.

  “I look like a bride,” Victoria finally said, “and a dowdy one at that.”

  “Dowdy? Heavens, no!” Ida shook her head and tied a blue ribbon around Victoria’s throat. A delicate cameo settled into the notch between her clavicles, and she touched it. The cameo showed her mother’s face. “You look like an angel, dearie.”

  A sharp rap sounded on the door, and Victoria picked up a white lace fan from the vanity. “Come in.”

  Lady Anne, dour in her black widow’s weeds with her steel gray hair swept up into a bun on the top of her head, stepped into the room and closed the door. She looked at her niece appraisingly. Victoria waited to be taken to task for something.

  “You are most becoming this evening, child,” she admitted grudgingly.

  Victoria curtsied as well as she was able. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Clumsy, but adequate.” She clasped her hands in front of her waist. “The gentlemen at this party are here to be charmed by you, so do attempt to be other than what you normally are. They expect a young lady who is sweet and biddable, with a level head. Someone who will be a good mother to their children and who will run their households well.”