Skyborn

by Eric Asher

  “It’s the oath!” Alice said, her voice rising with excitement. “The oath of the Steamsworn. Find me in that Steamsworn grave.”

  Jacob twisted the bronze spokes, raising an eyebrow when the copper letters rose and turned, revealing another ring of words under them. The language beneath the upper ring, Jacob recognized. The words were in the more familiar script common in Ancora.

  “Flames,” he said, tracing the lower ring. “Hell, steam.”

  “The lower ring is the first verse,” Alice said.

  Jacob pulled on a spoke deeper inside the mechanism. The lower plates spiraled around each other in a mad dance like the workings of a clock. They came to rest with more words from the oath, but now in a different order.

  “If it’s supposed to spell out the oath, it’s never going to match up. The ratios are wrong.”

  “Look closer,” Alice said, picking up the lever once more.

  Jacob frowned as she dug the metal into the gap on another side and lifted. But he did look closer. He’d almost missed it in the shadows, another layer to the mechanism, but one that didn’t appear to have a knob or lever or anything to manipulate it. He pushed on it gently with a finger.

  “It’s thoroughly stuck.”

  Samuel held his hand out and took the lever from Alice, pulling up the last stone flanking the puzzle lock. “Something here.” He let the lever clatter onto the stones, then pulled a switch on the side.

  Nothing happened.

  But when Jacob turned the knob again, the words no longer moved at the same rate. Still, there was no possible way to line them up.

  “Anything on your side, Alice?”

  “A button, I think?” She pressed it in and something clicked. Now with the turn of the knob, a copper plate etched with “Through the” slid in behind the plate with “black we.”

  “That’s it! Alice, your side shifts the tracks, like tumblers in a lock. Samuel’s lets me rotate the options, and there has to be another.”

  “There is,” Drakkar said, sliding out a slender lever on the fourth side.

  Another turn, and now only the topmost layer moved. Jacob’s brow furrowed, trying to piece together in his mind which options needed to be switched to get the remaining spiral of words in order.

  “Drakkar, you’ll have to help me with the top. I can only read the bottom layer.”

  “Tell me what it needs to say.”

  “I think it’s the oath. The entire oath.”

  They spent nearly an hour crouched over the puzzle box embedded in the floor, reciting the lines of the oath and Drakkar translating the old script as they went. One mistake would send the entire order into chaos and they’d have to reset the puzzle, which in itself took time.

  Finally, after much cursing and more tries than Jacob expected it to take, the bottom layer was complete.

  Through the black we ride once more

  Within the flames our fortune’s told

  The gates of Hell lie broken wide

  Within the steam, no hold abides

  Drakkar directed him, getting the last of the top layer in order. Though he couldn’t read the words in that odd script, he knew the meaning of them all. Under his breath, he recited the last lines with two final twists of the knob.

  Feared and cast upon the stones

  We fight to save the sacred lives

  When all is done and all are safe

  Find me in that Steamsworn grave

  A quiet click followed by two loud thunks was the only indication something had changed.

  Samuel wrapped his fingers under the edge of the puzzle lock and lifted. Hidden hinges squeaked, and Jacob half expected the room to explode in some kind of mad trap. Thankfully, no such surprise waited below—only empty darkness.

  Until Alice held the lantern over the hole.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “What is this?” Jacob asked, looking down into the slender chamber underneath the observatory. He slid over the edge and dropped down before Samuel could so much as shout a warning not to.

  A small ladder led back up to the lip of the hole. But behind that ladder sat an aged set of armor. Crumbling leather propped up a bronze helmet and the Steamsworn Fist on the pauldrons.

  “There’s a ladder,” Jacob said. “Feel it out with your feet. It’s hidden just below the lip. I don’t think we’ll all fit down here, though.”

  “I’m coming down.” A moment later, Alice’s boots clicked on the ladder rungs.

  “What is it?” Samuel asked.

  “Old armor,” Jacob said.

  “Jacob,” Alice said. “Look behind you.”

  He turned and froze. Carved into the wall was a shelf not more than three feet across. And on that shelf sat a haphazard pile of books. One Jacob recognized immediately. Another copy of The Dead Scourge, but as he thumbed through the pages, he found notes in Charles’s tight scrawl.

  Alice looked at another title and shook her head. “What is this?”

  Jacob glanced at the odd design. A building like a pyramid with the top cut away. Huge pipes flowed into it from either side with some kind of formula written above it. It was math Jacob didn’t know. And it was either more complicated than anything he’d learned, or it was from another language.

  Alice took her pack off and started sliding books into it. “Come on. We can read them in better light at Samuel’s.”

  “Charles left them locked up here for a reason, Alice.”

  “Maybe so the wrong kind of people wouldn’t realize he was Steamsworn?” she said. “I don’t think that’s a worry at this point, considering you’re a Biomech.”

  Jacob held a finger up to protest, then thought better of it. She had a point. He slid his own pack off and took a few of the books.

  It was beneath the last that they found the torn pages. Pages that matched the journal Jacob had been reading.

  “Oh, wow.”

  Alice leaned closer. “More Mech designs?”

  “It’s the rest of the Titan Mech specifications. Alice, we could build one using these. I mean, it would take years, but it could be done.”

  Alice pursed her lips. “Jacob, Charles stopped building things like that for a reason. I don’t think he’d want you going down the same path.”

  Jacob rifled through the other pages. There were more than Titan Mech designs in those lost journals—the final air cannon specification, half a dozen Burner variations to create firestorms and scour buildings, and something not unlike the chainguns Smith added to the airships.

  The last page was a design for a hidden blade, built for assassins, and mounted on a spring strong enough that it would both strike and retract faster than most people would notice. There was no use for something like that outside of killing, and the thought sent a chill down Jacob’s spine.

  He nodded to Alice and slid the last of the pages into his pack. “Just for research.”

  Alice rolled her eyes and started up the ladder before she paused. “That’s not a wall.”

  “What?” Jacob asked.

  She hopped off the ladder and reached over to the wall by the armor. It fluttered when she touched it and the curtains slid away when she pulled.

  “Okay, now I can see why Charles kept that hidden.”

  “Kept what hidden?” Samuel asked from above.

  “Weapons. Lots of weapons. Looks like a chaingun, something like the air cannon, and cartridges for long-range bolt guns.”

  “Leave them. No one needs to know that’s here.”

  Jacob reached down and took the bronze Steamsworn Fist off the collar of the old armor before sliding it into his pocket.

  Alice grabbed a device that looked much like the wrist launchers she wore before holding a finger to her lips. She slid it into her backpack along with several of the curved clips filled with bolts.

  Jacob eyed Charles’s stash before grabbing a small version of the air cannon. It was no bigger than his forearm and likely couldn’t hold enough air to do any serious damage. Bu
t any chance to explore Charles’s inventions was a chance for him to learn. A chance for him to get better.

  Samuel sighed with relief when they finally exited the hideaway. They set the puzzle lock back in place and scrambled the knobs, sealing Charles’s small armory back into the shadows.

  “Why wouldn’t he have used that stuff against the Butcher?” Samuel asked.

  “If it’s all as old as the armor,” Alice said, “I doubt any of it still works.”

  Drakkar dropped the stones back into place, and once more, it looked like no one had been there.

  * * *

  Other than sighting a Carrion Worm from a distance, the trip back to the Highlands was mercifully boring.

  Alice grimaced and readjusted her backpack as they crossed into the city. “Sometimes I forget how heavy books can be.”

  “Only when we drag half a library with us,” Jacob muttered, sweat pouring from his brow.

  “We did offer to help,” Samuel said, raising a hand in the air and taking a stilted, far too formal tone. “But no! What noble mission is this? When dragging a crazy inventor’s notebooks around, help would be dishonorable. Who could accept help such as that?”

  Drakkar chuckled when Jacob and Alice nearly set Samuel on fire with their glares.

  Alice frowned and raised a hand to shield her eyes. “Is that Baddawick?”

  Jacob squinted at the group of a dozen or so people gathered along the far side of the street inside the city walls. “Unless my mom’s old duster came to life, I’m pretty sure that’s him.”

  “That’s not very nice, Jacob,” Alice said.

  Jacob thought about the semi-soft wiry brush she used to dust their old home, and it seemed like a perfect description of Baddawick’s hair. “Well, I didn’t say it to be mean.”

  “Just don’t say it to him.”

  Jacob blew out a breath. “Fine, fine.”

  Their steps slowed as they grew closer to the group around Baddawick. Jacob could make out the words now, and they both hurt his heart and made him want to help rebuild the Lowlands as fast as they could.

  Baddawick pulled a family of three to the side. “Now, you three can share a room at the hospital. You don’t have to be separated, but you, sir, need to get that leg checked out. Tell them I sent you. And tell them I’ll pay for any medicine you need.”

  He didn’t wait for the teary-eyed family to thank him before he turned to the next group, dragging only two small, worn pieces of luggage with them. “You two. I have a small closet with a bed above the bar at the Wild Horse. Come, stay with me. Whatever food and drink you need is yours.”

  “Baddawick!” Samuel shouted, drawing the old tinker’s eye.

  “My boy! What are you doing here? I thought you all were off with Ambrose?”

  Samuel gestured to Jacob and Alice. “The kids needed to bring some supplies back to Bat’s … back to my house. Who are these people?”

  “Refugees from Dauschen.” Bat lowered his voice, but Jacob doubted the words were missed by anyone nearby. “Situation is bad over there. Not enough food to go around, I’m afraid. And the last airship they’d been using to transport people crashed into Bollwerk’s docks. It’s still floating, but it will be a week or more before it’s airworthy. Which means it’s not leaving Bollwerk until then.”

  “Can’t Archibald send another ship?” Jacob asked.

  Baddawick smiled. “I’m sure he would if he could spare it. Alas …” He gestured to the shadow of the massive warship above them. “They only send supply ships back and forth, and they aren’t large enough to meet the demands. Perhaps you should visit Bollwerk and see what can be done. I’m sorry to be rude, but the rest of these folks have traveled on foot from Dauschen. Along the old tracks where they could, but not all the tracks have survived. Maybe you could build some of your storied gliders for them? It could help them move around the collapsed city and perhaps through the mountains themselves.”

  Jacob was well aware of the damage done to the tracks. They’d been bombed out to keep Fel’s army at bay. It hadn’t exactly all gone to plan. He listened closely to Baddawick’s words as they walked past the sweets shop and back toward Samuel’s.

  “The rest of you are with me,” Baddawick said to the refugees. “We’ll give you one room per family where we can, but some will need to pair up. I’m afraid the Lowlands here in Ancora fared even worse than much of Dauschen.”

  Jacob wasn’t so sure of that. They’d dropped the entire base there off a cliff, sending the main airship docks into ruin. With a start, and a gut-wrenching realization, Jacob contemplated the fact he had made Dauschen’s situation worse. He glanced back at the trail of people heading toward the Wild Horse. That was something he’d have to set right.

  Perhaps when they were done helping Ambrose, he could help Dauschen as well.

  So much to do, and only one lifetime to get it done.

  * * *

  Jacob and Alice dropped their bags in the workshop before crashing onto the barstools.

  “I’m done,” Alice muttered. “Bury me now, or build a funeral pyre from this mountain of books.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Jacob said with a laugh. “About the books anyway.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Samuel said as he and Drakkar made their way through the workshop. “I’d like to host more people here. If Baddawick is doing it, I feel like I should do more.”

  “Help guard the wall,” Drakkar said. “Or at least those who are rebuilding it.”

  “If they could get it done sooner, I’d feel better about opening my doors to more people. I don’t want anyone already sheltering here to go hungry.” Samuel frowned and then raised his eyebrows. “Drakkar, don’t you have masons in Cave? Artisans who could help with the reconstruction?”

  “Theoretically, but many in Cave are not particularly fond of Ancorans.”

  Samuel dismissed the thought with a wave. “Even now? After they’ve been sheltering with them for weeks?”

  Drakkar crossed his arms and nodded slowly. “It is … possible.”

  Samuel stepped closer to the Cave Guardian. “That’s what I need to do, Drakkar. Come with me, back to Cave. We can recruit masons and anyone willing to help.” He lowered his voice. “Bat didn’t just leave me his house. There’s a small fortune hidden inside the walls. We can hire them.”

  Drakkar relaxed and a slow smile spread across his face. “Now you speak the language of pirates. Language that all the people of Cave will listen to.”

  “Then you’ll come with me?”

  Drakkar nodded. “I would have been returning there in a matter of days, regardless. As much as there is a burden on Ancora from the damage of the Fall, a different burden has been levied against Cave. You may not have noticed the strain on the temple while we were there, but I fear it is dire. They need more hands, and more supplies.”

  “I can give them some money if it will help.”

  “Of course it will help.”

  “Good. Then it’s settled. We make for Cave.”

  “I have to help Ambrose,” Jacob said. “I can’t go back with you. Not now. And what Baddawick said about returning to Bollwerk? Maybe working on the gliders? I think it could help too.”

  “Do what you need to,” Samuel said. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you need.”

  * * *

  As much as Jacob wanted to explore Charles’s old journals, he wanted to help more with the reconstruction. Alice sat beside him at the workbench, hunched over an old book on climate theory. Jacob didn’t understand the attraction. If it was wet, it was raining, and if it was sandy, you were probably in the desert. Predictions and forecasting didn’t seem all that necessary, and he said as much out loud.

  Alice tapped the top of the book and sat up straighter. “You say that now. But over a century ago, they used to have huge sandstorms in the Deadlands, and far more flooding around the coasts. So much I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s p
art of the reason Ancora was built in the mountains.”

  Jacob grunted and leaned all his weight into the tensioner he’d mounted to the workbench. A heavy spring slowly gave in to his coaxing as he worked the lever in a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. When the spring snapped into place on its designated post, he turned back to Alice.

  “We have sandstorms in the Deadlands now. It doesn’t sound so different.”

  “These lasted for days. They were entirely different, Jacob.” Alice eyed the length of spring mounted to the tensioner and slid down to the far end of the workbench. “That’s massive.”

  Jacob plucked the spring, and it sang like an out of tune piano wire. “It’ll save Ambrose loads of time if it works.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  Jacob pursed his lips. “Best not to think about that, really.” He settled a long U-shaped piece over the spring until the threaded holes lined up with the base. Satisfied, he stuck a bolt through either end. One side—by the square plates that would drive an anchor into stone—had the bolt cut short to allow more clearance.

  “Do you remember the bombs Charles talked about?” Alice asked.

  “How could I forget?” Jacob asked. “Practically the last thing I heard before a Tree Killer ate my leg.”

  “Well, this book talks about a wasteland in the far west.”

  “Like the Skeleton?”

  “No, Jacob. The other side of the sea. Past Ballern in the deep forests.”

  Jacob whistled. “Okay, but if it’s in a forest, how is that a wasteland?”

  Alice blew out a breath. “It’s not a wasteland now. But centuries ago, it was. Scorched to nothing like the ruined city of the Skeleton.”

  “And why is that in a book on climates?” Jacob asked, tightening the last nut.

  “Because they tried to fix the climate.”

  Jacob blew out a laugh. “Fix the climate? With what?”

  Alice turned the book around and held it up. On the page was a squat-looking building with pipeworks surrounding it.

  “How big is that?”

  Alice frowned. “It uses a unit of measure I’m not familiar with, but it says it took hours to walk the perimeter. I’d guess it’s nearly the size of the Lowlands.”