Ceaseless Steam: Steampunk Stories from Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine

by Scott Andrews (Editor)

  Jesper kissed her.

  The clockwork ants carried away nearly half of the sugar before they were willing to let each other go.

  ~ ~ ~

  “You know,” said Lady Zuhanna cheerfully, as they walked arm-in-arm on the Silver Path to the castle, “my dress is now absolutely covered in these oily black marks. Perhaps you should have washed your hands before expressing your intentions. Oh, look! The sky is turning light. You can just see it through the. . . the. . . my word, what is that, exactly?”

  “It’s a hedge maze. The solution changes, depending on where the spiders decide to weave their webs. A gap in the bushes one day becomes an impassable wire net the next.”

  She squeezed his arm, urgently. “You must make one for Papa and I that is twice as large.”

  “My Lady, it will be my dearest pleasure.”

  She did not lessen her grip. “And you must make us a timekeeping redwood. And a whole pack of wolves, and coyotes, and—and a herd of unicorns, with diamond horns that grow themselves. I am certain you will devise a way. And! Papa and I have a frightfully unattractive swamp. Can you do something to our swamp?”

  Jesper rubbed his chin thoughtfully to hide his smile. “Could your father have use for some hydroelectric mangroves?”

  “I am certain he could.” The light in her eyes rose more brightly than the awakening sun. “And, of course, you must teach me every single thing you know about every single thing you do. And all about hydra-eclectic mangroves, and nightingales made of gold, and ferns that water themselves. Or oil themselves. Whichever.”

  Jesper squeezed her hand, his joy too overwhelming to articulate.

  They exited the Arboretum. Lady Zuhanna pulled away and set her hands on his arms, as if instructing a child. “Now. You must meet Papa and I in two hours, right at the castle gates, and—you said all you needed to bring was seeds and a number of papers?”

  “My stock, blueprints, and notebooks. All else is replaceable.”

  “And we shall sneak you away and go for a long voyage on a ship, and we shall arrive in South Tairee—” her eager grip tightened anew as she spoke—”and you shall build us the most fantastical Arboretum that the world will ever know, and my elder sister can do whatever she likes about ruling the country someday, but you and I shall live in the same little house at the center of your new strange and magical woods for ever and ever and ever.”

  Jesper’s eyes clouded with tears.

  “Won’t that be fun?”

  He kissed her again.

  When he could finally bring himself to pull away, he hastily wiped his face and said, “But there is one more thing that you must do before we leave Holdt.”

  “There is?”

  Jesper nodded. “Before you leave to meet me at the main castle gates. . . touch the column I planted last night outside your bedroom window.”

  “Touch it?”

  Jesper pointed. From where they stood, the Perennial Tower was visible; Jesper’s accompanying creation, swaying precariously, sparkled in the new light. “Yes. Don’t you remember what happened when you touched the first ringauble I made you?”

  Lady Zuhanna’s lips curved into an impish grin. “If I’m not there to touch it a second time, that stupendous tower will just sing on and on and on until they figure out how to dismantle it, won’t it?”

  “Well. . . .”

  She laughed. “Oh, Kanna will hate that. It’s the sweetest gift you could give to me. Stars, but my cousin is a great crashing tedious bore, isn’t she?”

  Jesper laughed as well. The tireless Arboretum sang at his back, the sun climbed higher, and the lawn came alive with servants, page boys, guards, and curious Gentlemen and Ladies who had heard the furtive midnight rumors and come to gawk at the audacious result. “She certainly is, and I am more than glad to leave her. In fact, I’m sure I will miss nothing at all about this place.”

  “Not even your old Arboretum? It’s so lovely.”

  Jesper made a dismissive gesture. “It is mechanical and empty, a mere echo of the living. But my new Arboretum—that one will finally have a soul at its heart.”

  Lady Zuhanna cocked her head. “How does one cultivate such a soul?”

  He gave her one last parting kiss. “That, my Lady, is what you will be teaching me.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  K.J. Kabza’s work has appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction, and others, and has been dubbed “Delightful” (Locus Online) and “Very clever, indeed” (SFRevu). He is a two-time Finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest and an editor-nominated writer for the 2011 Million Writers Award. If you liked his piece here, he suggests that you check out www.kjkabza.com for links to more.

  COLD IRON AND GREEN VINES

  Wendy N. Wagner

  I CRUMBLED TO MY KNEES on the front steps of the church as the hinkypunks closed in on Danny O’Neil. In the twilight of the village square, their bodies were like whirling balls of smoke and light, each one’s single foot hopping almost too quickly for me to see. They had brought the smell of the bog with them, thick as sludge and duckweed.

  I clung to the wrought iron railing balled tight in my fist, but my fingertips had gone numb a long time ago. Not that the iron was much proof against enchantment. I could hear the jangle of Danny’s anklet as he whirled in time to the bog spirits’ dance, testimony that iron could bend magic but nothing could break it.

  But magic can be bound, something whispered inside me. I thought of vines creeping across a stretch of mud, piecing together bits of land in the slime-slick marsh. For an instant, I thought I might be able to do it, might be able to reach into the hidden depths of myself and call upon my own green magic. I could almost touch its warm glow. But something inside me flinched away.

  Then Danny O’Neil’s anklet jingled in the darkness beyond the village square, following the balls of light toward the bog. I couldn’t pull myself free of the cold iron railing to run after him.

  My mother wouldn’t have been afraid.

  Behind me, the church door groaned and lamplight spilled out onto the stairs. “Miss Yaricka, I’ve been worried sick.” Father Doogan’s wheels creaked over the flagstones as he rolled toward me. His joint-oil smelled strong as he leaned down to pat me with a dry wicker hand. “Come inside, dear.”

  “But Danny O’Neil—” I shook my head and tears flew off my cheeks like tiny guilty birds.

  Father Doogan leaned out over the railing, his inner steamworks chuffing as he caught a sound in the distance. “Oh dear.”

  Somewhere out in the darkness, something splashed. I choked off a sob.

  “Oh, child, don’t cry.” His voice trembled. “This is my fault. I didn’t send for the sooleybooley men soon enough. There are so many parishioners ready to pass on to a wicker body; it’s just too bad the mountain passes closed so early this year.”

  “I could have helped him. I should have helped him.”

  “And when you’re ready, you will. When you’re older. Now you should come inside and have some dinner.”

  I wiped my cheek on my shoulder. “Father Doogan?”

  “Yes, child?”

  “I’m frozen to the stair rail.”

  He gave his chest plate a sharp rap to open it and leaned over my pale frost-twined fingers. “Oh, Yaricka, you do miss your mother.”

  His steamworks glowed berry-red inside him and heat roared out on my hands. It wouldn’t be so bad to take a wicker body. They must never feel cold. I thought of my mother, facing the cold Wild winds out by the ward-walls.

  “I do, Father.” I might have cried a little, but any tears dried in the heat of his steam engine. “She would have reminded me to wear my gloves.”

  ~ ~ ~

  A crowd packed the village square the next morning, wicker grandfathers and grannies creaking and steaming in the chill air and children organizing games around the winter-stilled fountain. The younger women, still able-bodied and clinking with s
tacked iron anklets, made little knots of chit-chat, their babies clinging like burrs to the bottoms of their skirts. The Council of Elders was meeting in the church to discuss Danny O’Neil’s disappearance.

  I didn’t know where to stand. Fourteen was too old to play in the dry fountain and not old enough to talk about babies. I belonged in the church. After all, it was my home now. I nudged a russet-colored leaf with my boot toe and scowled at its crunch.

  “You look like you could use a second breakfast.”

  I spun toward the rough voice. “Mother Hawthorne!”

  Mother Hawthorne offered me a muffin, brown and spicy enough to prick my nose. I sniffed it long and deep before biting into it. It smelled just like my mother’s best muffin recipe, and it was still hot. “Thanks,” I mumbled, mouth full.

  She settled against the nearest tree trunk, studying the closed church doors on the other side of the square. “Are you ready to go into the bog this morning? I imagine they’ll cancel lessons.”

  “You really think so?”

  She rubbed her knee, making a face. There was no one else living in Oakridge who’d kept their own body as long as Mother Hawthorne. Her ankles were huge with iron anklets and charms. “I’m sure of it. Iron’s too valuable to let it sink to the bottom of the bog. And with the enchantstorms hitting the mountains so early, spring thaw is bound to be bad. We’ll need every ounce of iron we got.”

  I took an extra big bite of muffin. I didn’t want to talk about spring.

  Mother Hawthorne mused on. “You’ll want to find another anklet yourself. You’re getting of an age to worry about hinkypunks. Myself, I could use another anklet—but I’m not eager to find Danny’s.”

  The thought of finding Danny O’Neil’s cold white leg somewhere in the mud and trying to work the anklet off it made the muffin lose its flavor in my mouth. “Me neither,” I whispered.

  She found another muffin in her pocket and bit into it. She had one gold tooth, bright as trouble. I wondered if Angus Cooper had cast it for her on his anvil, or if she’d had it made on one of her travels. But most people outside of Oakridge didn’t bother replacing teeth; they all went wicker-and-cogwork as young as they could.

  She caught me staring. “You got a question?”

  I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “Why do you still have your own body?”

  She looked at me hard. “You ever touch a piece of velvet before?” She didn’t wait for me to nod. “You think those wicker-men can feel velvet with those fake fingers of theirs? You like the idea of being stuck to the pavement the rest of your life ‘cause your feet won’t roll anyplace with rocks or mud?” She shook her head. “I’d rather risk the bog than give up living a real life, no matter what the sooleybooley men tell you.”

  The church doors sprang open and the Council of Elders came out, most of them creaking in steam-powered steel-and-rattan bodies. The whole village jangled and creaked as it hurried toward them.

  Mother Hawthorne patted my shoulder. “I’m going out to the bog. I’ve got traps to tend. And at my age any head start I can get is a good one. If I find Danny’s anklet, I’ll save it for you.”

  I didn’t follow her. After last night, I knew I needed to go out to the oak grove before I did anything else.

  I cut north up Main Street, the houses and shops all silent with their folks gathered in the village square. I wanted to hurry, though. I didn’t want to hold up my trip to the bog too long—soon it would be full of people working and whistling, their faces friendly but their eyes probing my back. Ever since Father Doogan took me in, people had been watching for signs that I had my mother’s powers. I rubbed my hands together and stuffed them in my pants’ pockets. They still felt cold this morning.

  And I really didn’t want to look at Angus Cooper’s smithy as I passed. I knew the ward signs around the entrance were faded and scuffed. They’d need to be refreshed before spring thaw, and it would probably be better to paint them before the snows began to fall. More of the work my mother had left for me.

  But the orange flames of Angus’s forge called my eyes. My feet stopped moving and I was looking straight at the huge hearth, Angus and his apprentice adjusting the bellows in the ruddy light. The half-finished tattoo on Angus’s back, the bare outlines of ward sigils, stood out like a garden plot left unplanted.

  The green magic inside me roiled.

  Clutching my belly, I broke into a run. I couldn’t stand the sight of those uncolored ward sigils, no protection at all. The thought of Angus Cooper facing spring thaw with that half-made mess of magic on his skin hurt as bad as the energies twitching loose in my body. It drove my legs faster, faster, blurring the houses as I reached the end of our town.

  The magic settled itself a little and I slowed to a walk. Here at the edge of warded civilization, the houses clumped more tightly, backs to the ward-walls, shrinking side-yards squeezing the gardens forward until the kale lapped over the street’s cobblestones. This close to the Wild, winter’s storms battered these cottages with waves of glamour that the outer ward-walls only weakened. It took a lot of iron to keep people inside safe on those nights.

  Already the wind felt stiffer. It tugged at my hair where my hat and collar didn’t meet, and its touch on my neck burned. Tomorrow might only be Yule, but the air smelled like midwinter. I passed the last of the cottages, and I was alone with only my goosebumps.

  Ahead of me, the oak grove moved in the wind. The trees butted right up to the great brick and iron walls that held back the Wild.

  My footsteps slowed. I hadn’t come out here since last Yule, when I helped mother repaint the sigils on the ward-walls. She hadn’t been herself when we’d cut through the oak grove. Her eyes glowed chartreuse and her hair stood on end. I hadn’t understood that it meant she’d been called. That the last and greatest of the green-binder’s power was growing inside her. I just knew it was Yule and it was time to paint the ward-walls and bake spiced muffins.

  My shoulders shook as I reached the smallest of the guardian oaks, but I blinked away my tears. Mama always hated it when I cried.

  I set my fingers against the gray bark, finer and smoother than the other oaks. This tree was young, its body slim and supple. It would be years before its limbs stretched out over the top of the wall, branches softening the cruel north winds as they carried their load of enchantment. The older trees groaned as the wind rubbed their great branches together, and green power flickered along their twigs.

  “I miss you, Mama,” I breathed. I pressed my cheek against the trunk. “And I’m changing. I don’t know what to do.”

  The tree’s leaves rustled over my head, almost like words.

  “I don’t know how to be a green-binder. I didn’t think I had the magic inside me, and now that I do, I don’t know how to get it out. Danny O’Neil’s dead because of it.”

  Outside the ward-walls something nameless sang in a thin falsetto that made the hair rise on my neck. The old oak trees grumbled as the wind sawed at their branches. And the young oak said nothing. I hugged it tight.

  ~ ~ ~

  After that, there was no place to go except back through the village to the bog. There were lots of folks out today, fishing and harvesting bog-berries, the last press of outdoor work before the snows fell. Oakridge went quiet in the winter. It was safer to stay inside with the iron bolt slammed home.

  A fisherman waved at me, and Gina Wells offered me a handful of bog-berries from her collecting basket. When she smiled, she showed rust-stained teeth. An iron-eater. Some said it helped, but I couldn’t imagine what it must taste like. Like a mouth full of blood, or fear. There was enough to be scared of without tasting it all the time.

  I walked on. Further out, boys probed black pools with sticks, looking for Danny O’Neil and his iron anklet. I waved at a couple but kept walking. I didn’t want to find Danny, and I had someplace I needed to go.

  I passed the last of the white sticks that marked dry ground and followed memory deeper into the swamp
. The birds gabbled to themselves, unconcerned by my presence. On either side, pools bubbled and hummed with gases and creatures, but ahead were solid hummocks of marsh grass. Anyone else would have carried a stick to test the ground, but I knew the right places to put my feet. All of the marsh was outlined inside me, down in that strange green power I wasn’t sure how to tap.

  Then I came to my plank bridge, algae-slick but still strong. A deep pool separated my little island from the rest of the marsh, and as I crossed over to the rocky nubbin, I felt a weight leave me, like taking off my iron anklet before a bath. I sank onto the ground and looked up at the cap of willow branches. The scent of mud hung over everything.

  I closed my eyes and breathed it in. When newcomers arrived in Oakridge, they complained about the mud smell, but to me, it was the smell of home. Even after soaking in the tub, I could still smell the sludge-scent on my skin. It reminded me of growing things and birdsong and frogs calling in the night.

  I focused my mind on the growing things.

  Things were always growing in the bog. Only winter could slow the encroachment of tree roots and vines and duckweed and algae, and this far from the mountains, winter only lasted two cold months. I could feel the willows’ awareness of the cooling days, their crankiness snaking through the thin soil along the threads of their roots.

  The sound of leaves on leaves called my mind away from the willows and out to the vines, which were always impatient for attention. “I’m listening,” I murmured. And they sprang up, straining their tendrils to my fingers, twisting around my wrists, rubbing against my skin. They had a lot to say. The hinkypunks had kept them up all night, singing and dancing. The crows had fed this morning, and their shit stung the newest leaves. Darkness was coming too early.