City of Steam (Blackburn Chronicles)

by Dominic K Alexander

"Why didn't you let me help you earlier?” Mac asked.

  "Wasn't sure it was still you in there." Walter replied tapping a finger on the grip of his 6 shooter. "You seem a bit more confident since you watched that assassin kill the Doc back in the city." Mac looked at him confused.

  "But I killed the Doctor." She said head cocked slightly.

  "Good girl." Walter replied and threw an arm around her giving her a hug. "There have been rumors that bodies can be taken over. I was just making sure." He stepped back with a sympathetic look on his face.

  "You're a dick." Mac said with a smile. Walter snorted out a laugh. "Wait. If you're here, where is my father?"

  "He's back at the well." Walter said.

  "You left him alone in that place?" Mac said angrily.

  "Not exactly." Walter held his hands up in surrender. "I went searching for you and came across some friends who could help. I sent them to take care of your father and I continued looking for you."

  "Who could you have possibly trusted my father with?" Mac said shaking her head.

  "You'll just have to come and meet them for yourself." Walter replied still smiling.

  "Great, more surprises." Mac said and turned back towards the city digging back into her thoughts as she mindlessly walked on. Walter fell in next to her.

  "You sure you're all right?" He asked.

  "Nope." Mac said. "But I can't see things getting any better, so there is nothing worth complaining about."

  "Fair enough." They walked without another word between them.

  Mac didn't look up until they were back at the city gates. The city seemed slightly brighter and less ominous than it had been earlier. She noticed the hairs on her arms no longer stood on end, the feeling that something was going to jump out and kill her was absent, and the city was unexplainably inviting.

  Walter's horse stood silently at the gate waiting for his master. Walter mounted the mechanical beast and held his hand out to Mac. She paid no attention still walking quietly toward the cities center. He just followed behind allowing her all the time she needed to think.

  As the evenings shadows fell on the ruins green grass came under foot. She had reached her destination without ever looking up or taking herself from her thoughts. The silent walk was a much needed one, but as with all things, came to an end. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked up to see Kris leaning over their father's heavily bandaged body, holding him close. He looked like a mummy with all the bandages she had wrapped him up in. Tears ran down her face and Ed lay his hand on her shoulder.

  Kris looked up from her father seeing Mac standing across the way. Mac couldn't help think she was going to be yelled at for something as Kris gently lay her father down and ran towards Mac. For the first time, Kris wrapped her arms around Mac and embraced her like a sister. Mac froze.

  "Thank you." Kris cried. "Dear God. Thank you for bringing him back to me." Mac stood terrified of the unexpected teary attack from her sister. She waited for something bad to happen, but nothing came and Kris showed no signs of letting go. Mac awkwardly wrapped her arms around Kris hugging her back and she began to cry even harder mumbling words that Mac couldn't understand, but Mac didn't interrupt. It was a good feeling to not be screamed at for once.

  "Where did you find the rest of dad, anyway?" Mac felt awkward with her sister squeezing and crying on her shoulder. It was not something she was used to.

  "It was in a chest in one of the shops." Kris choked out while crying harder.

  The Kodak moment was ruined when Mac saw the guardian of the city glide from the ruins towards their father. The guardian paid no attention to the people around her instead focusing on the man lying on the ground. Ed was startled as she approached and moved quickly to intercept the new threat, but the guardian was unfazed by the large man in its path and didn't slow in its movement.

  "Ed, STOP!" Mac yelled as he moved in for an attack. He froze mid step looking to Mac. She shook her head to let him know it was all right. The commotion snapped Kris out of her sob filled greeting and she pulled away from Mac looking to see what was going on. She stepped towards her father, but Mac grabbed her arm pulling her back. "It's all right."

  "Who is that?" Kris demanded. "And what is she doing to our father?" The anger Mac knew so well began to well up in Kris as she watched the guardian kneel over their father.

  "It is the guardian of the city." Mac said in a whisper, watching. "She can help our father." They watched as the guardian knelt over Issac's badly damaged body and it seemed as if she was shaking slightly. Golden tears rolled off the guardian’s face landing onto the bandages and fading away. It then ran long frail fingers over the bandaged areas leaving a dim blue glow with every pass.

  After several long minutes watching the guardian tend to their father, Mac sucked in a gasp as realization hit her. She gripped Kris' arm and leaned to the side trying to see the figures face.

  "Grandma?" Mac whispered. The guardian stopped mid stroke and looked back towards Mac. She leaned back onto her feet staring, then with two hands, reached up pulling the hood from covering the frail old face of their grandmother. She gave a small smile to her wide-eyed grandchildren before going back to healing her son. The area was quiet with the stunned onlookers frozen and unable to comprehend what was happening.

  As Mac cocked her head to the side to look at her sister, she would have given anything to have a camera. Kris stood in disbelief, jaw dropped, and unblinking at their grandmother. Every few seconds she would try to speak as she looked at Mac, but her words would fail her and she would just point before looking back at their grandmother. Mac let out a small chuckle and finally released Kris' arm.

  The minutes passed and the sun fell over the horizon leaving only the glow from the well and their grandmothers attempt at making their father better. Then their grandmother embraced her son in a deeply satisfying hug, but he remained unconscious. She then released him and stood gliding over to Kris, Ed, Walter, and Mac.

  "I am happy to say, Issac will fully heal with time." Their grandmother said with a smile. "He was one of the lucky ones. He was only buried for a few short years, so it should only take him a few months to fully recover. I have done what I can to speed the recovery and the rest is up to him." Mac thought about Abel being buried for three hundred years and what she had been told about being able to feel and sense everything going on around them. She fell to her knees and started puking violently.

  "Oh, calm down you dirty prat." Kris said shaking her head. "She said he was going to be fine. Get a grip."

  "And, she's back." Mac said looking up at Kris and wiping her mouth onto her sleeve. Her grandmother reached out a hand and helped her up. Even though she looked frail, their grandmothers grip was strong and steady. Mac stood considering her grandmother's eyes with so many questions.

  "I thought you were dead." Mac finally blurted out.

  "I was." Her grandmother responded.

  "Then...how are you here?" Mac asked.

  "The city needed me."

  "You're telling me the city just plucked some random person from the afterlife to watch over things?" Mac asked with raised eyebrows.

  "I am not sure you will be capable of understanding." Her grandmother replied calmly.

  "Yea, she's a dolt." Kris said with a smile stretched across her face. Mac replied with a rude gesture before turning back to her grandmother.

  “All right, ladies." Their grandmother interjected. "Let us be civil." She paused and though about her words very carefully before continuing. "Every life is capable of magic since energy runs through everyone and everything. With that said, not everyone is capable of being open-minded enough to use magic. It is who we are and how our mind works that allows us to bond with the elements."

  "So, if someone saw a Thauma doing magic and thought they could also do magic, then they could in fact do magic." Mac said.

  "No." Her grandmother said holding up a finger. "Let me see your ring." Mac looked down at the ring that gave her
so much power and reluctantly slipped it off her finger. She held it tight for a second before passing it back to her grandmother.

  "I found this ring hidden in the rubble and thought it so pretty I kept it for my own." She looked at the ring and smiled at its beauty.

  "You mean to tell me this amazingly powerful artifact was just laying around here?" Mac said amazed.

  "No." Her grandmother said with a smile.

  "So... you added the power to it yourself." Mac said. "Or, the massive amount of power you hold flowed through the ring as you wore it."

  "No." She said again smiling even wider.

  "If it didn't have the powers when you found it, and you didn't give it more energy, then how was the ring able to give me all of that extra power."

  "It didn’t.” Her grandmother rocked back and forth practically giddy with the questioning.

  "But..." Mac started before Kris finally cut her off.

  "Please stop trying to think, you're going to hurt yourself." Kris said. Mac scowled, but before she could start arguing her grandmother once again cut her off.

  "Let me ask you a question." Her grandmother said. "Did you have great and old powers before you put the ring on?"

  "No." Mac said quickly. "I could do some small things with the elements, but I would become exhausted quickly and had to stop. I was learning, but it was going slowly."

  "Another question." Her grandmother continued. "Do you know how long it takes our people to acquire any bit of skill with their powers?"

  "I'm not really sure. It took me a couple weeks to be able to use my powers." Mac said.

  "For most of us it takes many years." Her grandmother replied. "We are capable of using the elements, but not strong enough to work with them fluently until we are in our early teens. You were able to do in weeks what takes a normal person years."

  "Abnormal." Kris said, but Mac was too deep in thought to reply.

  "I have seen into the world in which you were raised. It is a world that believes magic is pulling rabbits from hats and cards from pockets, where boys learn trickery in mysterious schools and witches brew hexes in cauldrons." Her grandmother said. "You have been told your entire life that magic was a thing of trickery and science. Even surrounding yourself with ageless books on the topic, you still didn't believe it."

  "When I looked upon you for the first time, there was hope. A glint of light in your eyes showing me you were capable of great things, but there was a wall stopping you from reaching your full potential. So, I gave you my ring. There is nothing particularly special about the ring outside of its beauty, but you didn't know that. As far as you knew this ring was the source of great powers far beyond your own and it would allow you to fight an enemy beyond your skill level one hundred-fold. In fact, all the ring really did was destroy the wall of doubt that had been instilled into you." Her grandmother raised a hand and pointed at a half-fallen wall. "Without the ring, I would like you to make the rest of that wall fall."

  Mac looked at the wall and thought about what her grandmother had been telling her. She raised her hand and closed her eyes. The earth shook violently and several walls fell around them. Mac took a deep breath and looked at the damage she had just caused. "But, I thought this wasn't possible without the ring."

  "Your subconscious has seen you work with the elements, and it knew the ring was fake." Her grandmother said smiling again. "Once you know deep inside that you can use magic, then you can use magic. What your brain tells you when you are overthinking things and what is burned into your subconscious memory are two very different things. Your thoughts will say 'no you can’t,’ but your subconscious will say 'watch this'. Once you did great magic your mind knew you could and always will be able to do so."

  Mac looked at her hands still unconvinced and called to the winds. She rose slightly off her feet gliding over the ground weightless.

  "Cool." She blurted out.

  "Show off." Kris said rolling her eyes. Mac smiled and a burst of wind quickly lifted Kris off the ground also. She screamed in terror as she tried to balance herself as if she were standing on a large rubber ball. Knowing she was already going to get yelled at for picking Kris up off the ground she decided to have a little fun and flicked her wrist. Kris flipped completely over with her dress flopping down over her head. Their grandmother laughed as Kris screamed obscenities at Mac. Finally, Mac slowly turned Kris over and brought her to the ground hard while letting out a little giggle of her own.

  As Kris landed and began to leap forward going for the attack, Ed wrapped a large arm around her and held her back, a small rare smile of his own stretched across his face.

  "So, what does all this have to do with the city picking you as its guardian?" Mac said looking away from Kris who pulled violently away from Ed then stopped to listen. Their grandmother again taking a moment to think about how to word things for them to comprehend.

  "There are some people who are so closed minded they will never be able to bond with the elements no matter how hard they try. They pass this unconscious stubbornness down through their family’s blood line. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, there are families who are not only extremely hyperconscious, but their bodies can handle a great deal more energy than another elementalist. Our family’s roots run all the way back to the first families to walk this earth. The abilities that run through us are beyond what others are capable of. It is the difference between being able to use a shot glass worth of energy, or a barrel full of energy. We are capable of doing great, or at times, evil things." Mac thought of her grandfather.

  "When my body was laid to rest here, the city welcomed me with an eternity of peace and tranquility." Their grandmother continued. "Once the fires came and the walls fell, she needed protection while she healed. Untold amounts of energy saturated the land when millions died. She knows there will be those who come to take that energy from her, so she asked for my help and in turn I get life while she gets a protector."

  "You talk of this place like it's a living breathing thing." Kris said frowning.

  "The world is every bit alive as you or I." Their grandmother said. "Life is nothing more than the energy which flows through us. What lies within these walls is something more. It has been given all the powers of those who were killed here. These walls breathe with a power of their own and they are ready to once again flourish. The city longs for people to walk its streets laughing and playing. Because of you, this is now possible."

  "If you are so powerful and this city is so powerful, then why couldn't you kill Devin?" Mac asked.

  "I am afraid there are some secrets I must keep for my own." Their grandmother said. "For now I think it is time to find my son somewhere a bit more comfortable where he can heal himself. There is a long road of recovery ahead of us and the quicker we get started, the quicker things will brighten."

  "But-” Mac started to protest.

  "Now!" Her grandmother said with a thunderous boom. Mac covered her ears as the echo of her grandmother’s voice shook the half standing walls sending rocks to the ground. Her grandmother did not wait for Mac to recover, but instead turned and went to her son. Mac stared for a second then went to her father.

  They made up a gurney from pieces of wood and metal strewn around and placed Issac upon it, then they made their way to their grandmother's house. The walk was long and they weaved in and out of alleyways following no path as far as Mac could tell.

  The buildings started out almost destroyed, but Mac noticed as they moved closer to their destination that the once blackened walls were now a light grey in color and they stood much taller and undamaged than the ones she had become accustomed to. In fact, the buildings on the path they currently followed were not damaged in the slightest. They were bright white stone with large glass windows and looked as if they had just been built.

  "Was this area of the city able to avoid damage from the fires?" Mac asked.

  "I have lived among these ruins for a short time." Their grandmother said.
"In that time I have rebuilt as much as possible, but even I am not without limits. This city will once again see the greatness it is capable of, but until your people are able to wander these lands again, without fear, I am afraid much of the city will remain dark and broken."

  Mac looked upon the buildings in awe as they moved past them. Her grandmother had been very busy. Beautiful white stone framed dark red woods which gave the area a sophisticated, yet rustic look. The small shops and eateries hung signs with pictures of store wares and foods offered. The bakery showed a loaf of bread, the tailor showed a needle and thread, and the local pub showed an overfilled mug of mead. There were no catchphrases or silly names, only what service were offered. The rubble and blackened stones were nowhere to be seen and, more important, the smell of burning flesh no longer hung in the air. There were no torched bones and bodies, only a clean and beautiful city street. Mac couldn't help but feel at home.

  The newly reconstructed area was not large in comparison to the size of the city, but Mac could tell the time her grandmother had put into every intricate detail was great. She had put her heart and love into this city and it showed. The thirty or so buildings sitting within the sea of destruction was something of a diamond in the rough.

  As the group neared the end of a long stretch of shops there lay a small cottage style home lined with brightly colored flowers which gave a perfumed scent to the entire area. The house looked completely out of place within the cities walls, but it was inviting none-the-less. Mac could see a home like this in a movie accompanied by a large open field and several small animals.

  Their grandmother invited them into the house where a fire was already burning in the fire place and a plate of dried meats sat on the table in the middle of the room with a jug of wine and glasses ready for the guests. Mac had been so busy she forgot how hungry she was and her stomach growled at the sight of the food and drink. Her grandmother sniggered at the sound.

  "Please, help yourselves to the food and wine on the table." Their grandmother said pointing to the table with a smile directed at Mac. "Ed, would you please put my son's body on the bed where he might be a bit more comfortable." Ed obeyed without question, lifting Issac off the gurney and laying him on a soft bed covered with handmade quilts. Issac shifted uncomfortably as he sunk into the bed until coming to a stop and stilling once more.