by Trish Telep
The large black leather seat was easily wide enough to accommodate both Royston and Silka. She sat at his side, feeling the engine vibrating under her as he explained the banks of controls that spread in front of them.
He spoke of running gears and of axel rods and driving wheels. He pointed to levers and treadles and knobs and triggers, explaining how they operated the tender's conveyer belts, bringing coal to the fireboxes, and he pointed out more gauges and dials that showed the automated steam pressure and water levels in the storage tanks.
And all the while that he spoke, she did her best to pay attention and nod and look like she understood even a shred of what he was telling her. And all the while, she had one eye cocked through the wide window above the bank of controls, seeing how the houses and factories of Scunthorpe flew by faster and ever faster as the road train gathered momentum and went roaring away into the night.
"In the old days, there was always a crew of two on a road train," Royston continued. "But then they automated this and mechanized that and pretty soon the machinery was doing half the work." He cocked his head over his shoulder. "See the bunk bed? That was so that one man could catch a nap on longer journeys. Not needed now." He smiled into her face. "Not while we're on the road."
Soon, the thundering road train came out from under the ugly pall of Scunthorpe and Silka was delighted to see a wide starry sky spreading above them, hazed with white steam, of course, and made glorious and spectacular by sparks from the smokestack, looking like shooting stars spat out from the roaring belly of the beast.
There was light enough for Silka to see the iron road that stretched out ahead of them across the rolling countryside. It was twenty feet wide and constructed of jointed slabs of black cast iron. It skirted the hills and vaulted valleys and rivers on high viaducts of wrought iron. Occasionally it would plunge into a black tunnel, and the darkness would roar and seethe and smoke would filter into the cab and all conversation would be rendered impossible.
"What is that?" Silka asked, pointing to a flare of eerie blue light that whisked and wavered on a far hilltop ahead of them.
"Do you not know, Silka?" Royston asked in obvious surprise. "Why, that's Teslagraph, that is. Have you never seen it before?"
"Never," breathed Silka, enchanted and intrigued. As they closed in on the lights, she saw that they were atop a dark tower--the flaring electric-blue lights attached to the far ends of long moving arms. The four arms were in constant motion, spinning this way and that, leaving a bright blue stain in the air that shimmered and died, flared, shimmered and died. And far off, another set of lights swished and swept in the darkness. And another, and another, all across the countryside.
"What are they for?" Silka asked.
"They send messages," said Royston, looking askance at her. "Silka? Where do you come from that you've never seen Teslagraph before?"
"I would rather not speak of it," Silka said. "It's enough to say I will never go back there. My mother died giving birth to me, and my father ... died ... of ... of sin. I have no one. I am going to London to find my true love." She looked at him and smiled carefully. "And you are my friend for taking me there. My only friend."
"I hope I shall be, Silka," said Royston. "I hope you'll let me be a good friend to you. I truly do."
There was a slightly odd light in his eyes as he said this, but Silka decided it was just the reflections of the swirling blue Teslagraph and thought nothing more of it.
* * *
The road train thundered on through the night, its plume of steam outdoing the clouds, its gush of sparks outshining the stars as it hammered its way down the spine of England. Silka became used to the noise and the endless vibration and she even dozed off.
She awoke at the touch of a hand moving spiderlike on her thigh.
She sat up from an unintentional sleep. Royston Hoof smiled at her and his hand was gone from her leg.
"It's almost dawn, sleepyhead," Royston said. "We'll be in London soon." His eyes pierced her. "And how might you wish to recompense me for bringing you all this way, Silka?"
She rubbed her eyes, trying to gather her drowsy wits. "I have no money," she replied uneasily. "I have nothing."
His smile widened and he seemed heartily entertained by her. "I don't want your money, my pretty," he laughed. "And it's not true to say you have nothing. You have something I would like very much indeed."
Silka frowned at him. "And what might that be?"
"The smile of a pretty girl," said Royston Hoof, a thin white light coming into his eyes as the sun crept over the horizon and the shadows of night fled into the west. "I have kept the throttle on full all the way, and we're an hour early. What say we stop for a while and ..." he tipped his head toward the bunk bed behind the big leather seat, "... and you let me be your friend a while longer."
Oh, the wickedness and perfidy of the world! Would she never learn?
"And if I say no?" Silka asked quietly.
"I am stronger than you, my pretty." His eyes hardened to blue diamond. "I will be your friend, Silka, whether you wish it or no. Did you not come to London to find true love? I'll show it to you, by my lights, I will."
Silka lowered her head and for a moment her black hair fell over her face. She wasn't afraid of him, but she was terribly disappointed.
"You want a smile, do you?" she asked in a subdued voice. "A smile and a kiss?"
"For starters," said Royston Hoof.
Silka lifted her face and the dark curtain of her hair was swept back as she spread her lips. "Then you shall have them!" she said. "You shall have them in abundance!"
* * *
It occurred to Silka that she might have been wiser to have let Royston Hoof bring the road train to a halt before the smile and the kiss. She stood in the cab, wiping her bloody mouth on her sleeve and watching the world flash past. They were climbing a long hillside into a dawn-white sky. The horizon was closing in on her and she had no idea how to stop the road train.
But she did remember the lever Royston had used to bring the shutter down over the entrance. She pushed it and heard it click and saw the slab of dark iron rise. More early light flooded the cab, turning the spilled blood to copper and making the train driver's eyes glow with fake life.
She moved to the entrance. The wind whipped her hair and tore at her clothes. The crest of the hill was fast approaching. She climbed down the ladder of iron hoops. Steam hissed at her and sparks flew past. At the side of the iron trackway, grass grew thick and lush.
Silka hung for a moment then leaped. She hit the ground hard, rolling and rolling, her limbs tucked up as she bounced and bounded like a flung stone in the road train's wake.
She got to her feet, dizzy and aching. The last of the carriages were thundering past her; the front of the train had dipped over the breast of the hill.
She jogged along the black iron track, smelling hot iron and coal dust and smoke.
A wonderful sight met her eyes as she came to the hilltop. Nestled in a deep river-threaded valley, glowing like gold in the day's early light, was a huge city of towers and spires and steeples and domes. And sailing gloriously above the town in skies of purest blue were a host of dirigibles and steam-balloons and airships and ornithopters, brightly coloured, trailing flags and pennants, shining in the new-risen sun and more miraculous and beautiful and alluring than Silka had ever dared to hope.
"London Town!" she sighed, for truly the vision before her eyes could be none other.
And as she stood there astounded and amazed and delighted and thrilled, the road train went thundering down the black iron track, gathering speed all the time, and with its dead driver at the helm.
PART THE THIRD
Tobias Hart and the Beadle of Bow
Illustrated London News, 25 April:
HORRIFIC ROAD TRAIN CRASH AT ST. PANCRAS
A most terrible accident occurred on Friday last when the William Murdoch, a fully laden road train travelling overnight from Scunthorpe, dashed into St. Pancras T
erminus in North London at high speed, smashing through the barriers and exploding, killing fourteen officers and workers and causing an extensive fire. The crash of the collision was heard throughout North London and the dreadful light of the resulting conflagration could be seen for many miles. The body of the driver, Mr. Royston Emanuel Hoof, an experienced road train engineer, was utterly destroyed in the disaster, and to date no explanation has been forthcoming with regards to how this terrible event could have come to pass.
* * *
London Times, 9 August:
CANNIBALISTIC FIEND AT LARGE IN ROTHERHITHE
The police investigation of the deaths of up to fifteen male residents of the Rotherhithe area of London took a gruesome turn in the early hours of Monday morning when officers were called to an address in Stew Lane. The building was an abandoned warehouse from which strange-smelling smoke had been exuding for several days. Upon entering an upper room in the building, police officers were confronted by an appalling sight. The bodies of several men were found, hanging upside down over a low fire and engulfed in the rising smoke. Initial reports from the shaken officers suggested that the scene resembled nothing less than a food-curing smokehouse, and that the bodies appeared to be in the process of being prepared for consumption. The perpetrator of this abomination was not at the scene at the time of the police incursion, and although several officers secreted themselves in the building, he did not return.
Although no proof has been forthcoming, the more sensational organs of the gutter press have already termed the killer "Jack the Kipper," ghoulishly referencing the Whitechapel murders of the recent past.
If these remains are indeed the work of the same cannibalistic killer whose fearful activities have blighted the streets of Rotherhithe over the summer months, then we urge the Beadle of Bow to redouble his efforts in capturing this fiend and bringing him to swift and final justice.
* * *
"I have you this time, Toby Hart. I have you to the rightabouts, sure and simple!"
The Beadle's fruity voice, aggrandized to a bullish roar by a megaphone, reached Toby as he squatted precariously on the sloping rooftop. "Give yourself up, or face the consequences, Toby Hart. I will not warn you a second time!"
Toby inched closer to the forty-foot drop and peered down into the dark alley. Large, tripod-mounted teslights beamed up at him, blue and eerie in the deep of the night. There had to be a dozen or more Runners down there with the dratted Beadle--and he guessed even more of the Bluebottles were probably already in the building, swarming up the stairs-- cutting off his retreat.
And all for a Kennedy's pork pie.
Toby licked his lips. It had almost been worth it. Almost.
"Toby Hart, surrender yourself now!"
Toby leaned a little further over the edge. "I thought you weren't going to warn me again," he called down. "Make your mind up." He could see the Beadle's big tricorn hat of office, its silver badge shining in the electric blue light. He plucked a clod of muck from the gutter and slung it down.
"Rats!" It missed the Beadle, splatting instead on the tunic of some lesser Runner.
He heard a scraping noise at his back. He snapped his head around. The helmet, face and shoulders of a bearded Bluebottle were emerging through the skylight a little way up the roof. An arm came up and a blue spark flickered.
The Bluebottle was armed with a vorpal lance. Nasty things. They could send lightning crackling through the air-- accurate to twenty feet or more in experienced hands.
The Bluebottle aimed the vorpal lance and a thin tongue of flickering blue-white electricity stabbed through the air. Toby flung himself flat and the searing lash of electricity exhausted itself a fraction above his head.
Good. Now he had a short amount of time while the Bluebottle had to rewind the lance to recharge it. He saw the man's arm working as he twisted the key. He heard the familiar clockwork whizzing noise.
He got to his feet. He took three wobbly steps away from the edge of the roof, his eyes fixed on the guttering on the roof opposite. It was a long jump, but if he hesitated he might as well resign himself to a life chained up in the Floating Hulks--the prison dirigibles that hung like black-hearted storm clouds above the Thames Estuary--because that would be his only other option.
"Don't do it, lad!" he heard the Bluebottle call.
"I think I will," he shouted back.
And then he did. His heart pounding, he bounded forward and leaped. For a long, long while he hung over fathoms of blue air, windmilling his arms, pedalling furiously with his feet, willing his thin body to keep moving forward.
Then the far rooftop came smacking hard into his chest. He snatched at a rusty iron spike. He scrambled and scrabbled and somehow slithered up onto the roof. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard shouting and bellowing from below.
He went up the slope of slate on all fours like a monkey. He straddled the spine of the roof, waved once to the infuriated Bluebottle behind him, then drew his trailing leg over and went racing off into the night, rooftop to rooftop, cupola to gable to parapet to peak, bounding away over the smoky roofscapes of London Town until all fear of capture was far behind him.
Grinning to himself, he spotted a handy skylight, blinded by a century of grime. He took out his knife and prised it open. He could see nothing through the black hole. But he'd already faced down death and worse this night--what did he have to fear here?
He lowered himself into the square hole. Finally he hung for a few moments by his fingers before releasing his grip and dropping into the dense darkness.
It was not a long fall, and he landed, fortunately, on something soft.
Or maybe not so fortunately.
The soft thing let out a high-pitched yell and twisted under his feet, tossing him headlong to the floor and sending the knife spinning out of his hand. Something quick and lithe and very strong pinned him down. The narrow beam of a hand-held teslight burned into his face, making him blink and pull his head away from the sudden brightness.
"I mean you no harm!" he choked, uncomfortably aware of a vice-like grip at his throat. "On my word!"
"Is that so?" said a sharp female voice. "And what if I mean harm to you?"
Toby couldn't see the face behind the teslight, but he saw the shadowed head dip toward his throat. He heard the girl sniffing him in a very similar way to how he had sniffed the Kennedy's pork pie that he had so unwisely stolen only a few hours previously.
That was disturbing in so many ways.
"And are you tasty, boss?" asked the girl. "Is your blood sweet?"
There was cold laughter and warm breath on his neck.
And it was in this manner that Tobias Hart made first contact with the Cannibal Fiend of Rotherhithe.
* * *
A rank smell filled Silka's nostrils and she bridled back from the boy's neck. If he tasted as bad as he smelled, she'd rather take a swig from a chamber pot!
"Watt's Wheels, but you stink." she gasped, lifting her head and loosening her grip a fraction. "What is that foul reek?"
"That's low-tide Thames River mud, that is," said the boy.
"It's putrid!" said Silka. "How do you bear it?"
"With honour and fortitude!" replied the boy, and before she could make another move, he jerked his knees up, striking her hard in the stomach and sending her tumbling head over heels across the floor. The beam of her teslight swung wildly, flashing over peeling walls and a mould-encrusted ceiling, over bare rotten boards and over the bundle of ragged blankets upon which Silka had been sleeping.
They were both on their feet and ready for combat in less time than it takes to tell. Silka held the teslight beam steadily on his face. A slither of blue light glinted in his fist. A knife. He was crouching, arms spread, watching her carefully. She had the feeling he would know how to defend himself if it came to a fight between them.
"Were you going to bite me?" the boy asked.
"What's that to you?" Silka retorted.
"A
great deal, I'd say," he responded. "I apologize if I frightened you, but I really meant no harm. It was all quite accidental, I assure you."
"Why did you attack me?" asked Silka. "Are you a Runner sent by the Beadle?" She narrowed her eyes. "You don't look like a Runner."
"I'm no Bluebottle, I'll have you know. I was in the act of escaping from them when I came upon you." The boy sounded affronted, and she had to admit he did seem young to be a Runner--in fact, he seemed to be no older than her. His eyes narrowed calculatingly. "And why would the Beadle be sending Runners after you?" he asked slyly.
"For that matter, why would he be sending them after you?" asked Silka.
There was a pause, and she got the impression he was thinking hard. "Because I am the Cannibal Fiend of Rotherhithe," he announced. "I kill people and I eat them. So you'd be wise to show me the door and let me go, before I feast on your flesh!"
Silka gave a gasp. "You are not!" she declared. "That is such a colossal fib."
"And why are you so certain of that?" the boy asked. "Anyone would think ..." His voice trailed off. "Oh," he said, as though enlightenment had struck him hard between the eyes. "Ohhh ..."
There was a protracted silence between them.
"My name is Tobias Hart," the boy said at last. "Toby to friends and enemies alike. I'm a Thames Mudlark, and I can assure you I taste as bad as I smell."
"Silka MacAlindon," Silka replied, bobbing her head politely.
"The Cannibal Fiend of Rotherhithe?"
Silka gave a great sigh. "Apparently so," she said. "But in my own defence, I have eaten almost no one who didn't deserve it." She peered into the boy's bright eyes, shining as blue as sapphire in the teslight beam. "And I have to tell you that I am very disappointed in London Town. The streets are most certainly not made of gold--and I have come nowhere close to finding my true love!"
There was another pensive silence. "Do you dine exclusively on men?" Toby asked. He slid a hand into some pocket in his clothing and drew out a wedge of pie. "Kennedy's make the best pork pies in London," he said, holding out the portion of pie on the flat of his hand. "Try it. It'll taste better than me by far."