The entire kitchen was trembling by the time he arrived, and Meng frantically drained off steam. When the worst of the danger was past he grabbed a cup and eyed the spigot below the machine. If too much pressure remained, the coffee would erupt with the force of a flying back-kick. There were marks on the opposite wall to prove it.
Meng held his breath and eased the spigot open. A dribble of dark fluid leaked out, and he wrinkled his nose at the burned smell. He flushed the pipes and started over. The machine trembled as the pressure built, a light sweat sprang out on Meng’s forehead, and he muttered, “They better be damned thirsty.”
The front door creaked and Meng hurried into the hall. The Englishmen were putting on their hats, Havisham’s whiskers bristling indignantly beneath his red cheeks. “You’re making a mistake, Carter,” he snapped, and stomped out. Sir Henry was a sleek shape in pinstripes scurrying in his wake.
Wilson, the youngest of the Englishmen, hung back. Wilson and Carter were superficially similar, tall, clear-eyed men in their thirties. But Wilson was every inch the businessman, with a tailored suit and plump, soft hands. Carter was in his shirtsleeves, and his broad shoulders, plus a smear of grease unnoticed beneath his left eye, spoke of the time he spent in his workshop.
Wilson fiddled with his hat. “Mr. Carter? I’m sorry to bother you after you’ve given your answer. It’s just… My family fortune is on the line, you see. The last of my capital is tied up in opium, and this Chinese ban is killing me. I know they’ll capitulate if you withdraw your airships.”
His face was twisted by shame and desperation. “As a personal favour, to a man who’s about to lose everything, will you help me?”
Carter murmured, “I wish I could.” His gaze lifted, he saw Meng, and he smiled. “Well, at least you can have a cup of coffee before you go. Is it ready, Meng? Did you remember the milk?” Carter turned to Wilson. “He always forgets the milk.”
Wilson jammed on his hat and stalked out. Carter looked at Meng, shrugged, and said, “Never mind the coffee, I guess.”
Meng turned back toward the kitchen. The pressure would be rising to dangerous levels by now. Then his feet slowed, and he frowned. His instincts were telling him there was a danger even greater than the coffee maker, but from where?
It was Wilson, he realized. Wilson’s face had shown not just desperation but a terrible resolve.
The front door crashed open and Wilson stood there, wild-eyed, with a strange contraption strapped to his back. There were brass cylinders, leather straps, gears and knobs and dials, and for an awful moment Meng thought he was going to brew coffee. Then he saw the tubes running up Wilson’s arm, the brass cuff, the barbed points of half a dozen metal darts.
“What the—” Carter stood frozen in the doorway of the library, and Wilson snarled and pointed his arm. Three steel darts shot from his wrist cuff, straight at Carter.
Meng sprang into action, snatching the darts from the air in mid-flight. Then he shoved Carter backward, sending him stumbling into the library.
Wilson snarled and touched his wrist. A jet of hot steam shot out, and Meng flinched back. Wilson advanced, his snarl changing to a grim smile. Each time Meng tried to approach, Wilson drove him back with a jet of steam. Meng looked around, frantic, and darted into the kitchen. Wilson followed, implacable.
Meng shot a glance at the coffee maker. The main pressure gauge was scarlet. If he didn’t take care of Wilson soon, all three of them would be blown to Kingdom Come.
Wilson strode forward, firing gouts of steam with every step. Meng snatched up a bowl of oranges, threw one, and nailed Wilson on the forehead. That wiped the man’s smile away, but only for a moment.
Meng threw the next orange at the wrist cuff, hoping to clog the jet, but the orange was impaled on the barbs of the remaining darts. The next blast of steam vaporized the orange, filling the room with a citrus smell.
Wilson took another step, coming even with the coffee spigot, and Meng threw his final orange. He banked it off of the milk pressure valve and hit the spigot handle.
Every ounce of pressure in the machine released in one terrible, chicory-scented jet. A blast of dark fluid slammed into the contraption on Wilson’s back, spinning him around and knocking him to the floor. Coffee sprayed the far wall in a torrent that quickly slowed to a dribble, then stopped.
Carter peered in through the kitchen doorway, then stepped inside. He was pale with shock, but he grinned and said, “Someone finally had coffee, I see.” Wilson struggled into a sitting position, and Carter picked up a milk bottle from the counter and thumped the would-be killer over the head. Wilson slumped, and Carter said, “Meng, you always forget the milk.”
Meng sagged onto a stool, spent, as Carter surveyed the devastation in the kitchen. “Meng,” he said, “it’s not that I’m not grateful. You saved my life, after all. Still, this coffee maker is a delicate piece of machinery, and I wish you would treat it with more care.”
He looked down at Wilson. “Just keep an eye on our guest for a moment while I put in a call to the police. I suppose we better tie him up. Oh, I’ll have to ask you to tidy up the kitchen a bit, as well.” He pursed his lips. “It seems like a lot of bother, when there’s all this steam power right here. I wonder if I could design something that would…”
He wandered out, still mumbling, and Meng shook his head, stepped over Wilson’s unconscious form, and went to get a mop.
* * * * *
Brent Nichols is a notorious mad scientist who builds steam-powered doomsday devices in a secret lair deep beneath the city of Calgary. He also teaches software courses and writes lurid tales of fantasy and science fiction. His wife Tammy is his biggest source of inspiration.
A Hero Faces the Celestial Empire; A Death by Fire is Avenged by Water
Julia A. Rosenthal
Ai Ouyang, Hero of Eight Rat Mountain, supreme genius of steel and fire, was at the end of his patience with the woman on the train tracks.
She sat cross-legged. Her knees, hidden beneath the pale purple silk of her embroidered trousers, rested on the steel rails of the narrow-gauge tracks. The rails were burnished to a gleam by the wheels of steam engines that rolled over the metal at twenty-five miles per hour, six times a day. Her hands were curled around the rails as if she were about to lift herself out of a sedan chair.
The woman faced south, toward Shanghai Station and the Celestial Empire, which was due in — Ai Ouyang reached into his surcoat and pulled out his brass pocket watch — eleven minutes.
“I have a grievance,” the woman said. Her eyes were fixed on a point far down the tracks.
Ai Ouyang leaned over, took a deep hero’s breath and addressed the single jade bead hanging from a gold clasp at her earlobe.
“Honorable Lady,” he said, “you managed to send word to me at the teahouse. Couldn’t we have met there?”
The woman said nothing.
A fragment of cloud drifted across the sun. The breeze, which still carried an edge of April-morning chill, stirred the white flowers growing along the tracks.
Ai Ouyang listened through the whispering of the breeze for the approaching train. He heard only the foreign concessions surrounding the train line: the thudding of horses’ hooves pulling carts through the muddy streets, the calls of street vendors in Shanghainese and English, and the laughter and shouts of children running past on the other side of the stone wall that followed the tracks.
“I have a grievance, Hero Ai.”
Ai Ouyang glared.
He stepped between the steel rails and crouched before the woman. The words of his teacher, Master Hu Guofan, the Seven-Clawed Tiger, echoed in Ai Ouyang’s ears:
Never turn your back on your enemy.
He looked over his shoulder. No train coming.
“In the stories,” Ai Ouyang said, “people bring their grievances to the heroes.” He turned back to the woman, who was now looking at him. Her eyes, though set in a face no older than sixteen, had a quiet sorrow that he had
seen in grandmothers mourning the loss of entire families. “Yet you, Honorable Lady, asked me to meet you out here. Why? We could have discussed this at the teahouse.”
The woman’s mouth pressed into a thin line before she spoke. “Yes, Hero Ai. I could have met you anywhere. But I needed you to understand how my brother died.” Her chin lowered. Ai Ouyang had to lean forward to hear her speak. “He was walking here — it was back in August — and a train came. It struck him. It — his head was — he died right away.”
“Right here?” Ai Ouyang asked.
The woman nodded.
“I remember this. I saw it in the newspapers.”
“Yes. The newspapers. They called my brother a lunatic.”
“Well…” Ai Ouyang started to say. He stopped. The woman’s unnerving stillness was making him wonder if her brother’s lunacy ran in the family.
“He was sad,” the woman said. “All the time. Ever since he came back from the army. He was empty. I would call him by his name, but it no longer felt like his. But he loved the trains, especially the Celestial Empire.”
Hearing the woman say the train’s name out loud made Ai Ouyang murmur, “Honorable Lady, speaking of—”
The woman ignored him. “He would walk to the tracks and watch the trains. Always, he would put on his uniform. We were saving up cash to take a ride. I had almost enough strings of it for both of us. I think, now, if I had maybe just … taken what we had, and given it to him, and told him to…”
The breeze rose again. Ai Ouyang could smell the faint perfume of the white flowers next to the tracks.
“You have a grievance,” he said.
The woman blinked.
“Yes,” she said.
Ai Ouyang waited several seconds. Then he said, “Well?”
“Hero Ai,” the woman said, “I want you to avenge my brother. The Celestial Empire must be killed.”
Under the woman’s white knuckles, the train tracks shifted once, then twice. The clang of the rails nestling against each other was muted, as if the steel was being pressed down against the earth by her hands. Or by the weight of something much heavier.
The air was charged. Ai Ouyang could feel it rising, lifting the hair on the back of his neck, which had grown damp with sweat.
“Lady,” he said. “Please. The railway company will pay you for your brother’s death. All you have to do is ask them. I’m sure his life was worth at least — I don’t know, fifty silver liang. Maybe a hundred. But you can talk to them—”
“I don’t want the railway company’s money,” the woman said. She shut her eyes. “I want justice. I want a life for a life. That’s why I sent for you, Hero Ai. You are the Hero of Eight Rat Mountain. You understand—”
“But — a train isn’t a life!”
Behind Ai Ouyang, down the tracks, the whistle of a steam engine echoed. It dipped in pitch, then rose and billowed through the air, proudly, as if a dragon’s breath sustained it. The sound was growing louder.
The woman spoke too quietly for Ai Ouyang to hear.
“Get off the tracks!”
He stood. He wanted to reach for her and pull her out of danger. Only the taboo against men touching women without permission stopped him.
The woman released her grip.
Ai Ouyang cried out with relief.
The woman’s hands shot forward — and curled in a grip around Ai Ouyang’s boot.
“Take my grievance, Hero Ai,” she said. “Avenge my brother’s death or I will kill myself. If not this train, the next one. If not today, tomorrow. And if not the Celestial Empire…”
A vision, like a spell, blasted across the inner eye of Ai Ouyang’s mind.
The vision was of Shanghai, its streets and rivers glowing orange as if lit by fire. Tendrils of white-hot metal snaked from the city’s center and grew, twisting outward toward the city walls and beyond, through the villages, out into the countryside. The lines seared Ai Ouyang’s inner eye and nearly blinded him. The tracks were writhing and burning, filling the air with billows of smoke and soot and flames.
Ai Ouyang tried to breathe in the April morning air. His lungs felt as if they had been coated with a thick, black poison.
He roared and lunged down toward the woman. Throwing his arms around her waist, he hauled her to her feet. She was so light that his force lifted her feet off the ground. One of her embroidered purple slippers, a shoe the size of a child’s, tumbled from her foot and fell between the rails as Ai Ouyang tossed her over his left shoulder.
He dashed to the stone wall. With one hand and the tips of his toes, he climbed the wall, balancing the woman’s body on his shoulder under his curled right arm.
On the top of the wall, Ai Ouyang set the woman down on her feet. She winced and bent slightly, reaching for the U-shaped curve of her bare foot.
“You are a devil!” shouted Ai Ouyang.
“No,” said the woman, pointing at the train. “That is a devil.”
A moment later they were engulfed in smoke as the Celestial Empire rolled past on the tracks below them. The roar of its steam engine filled the sky.
When the smoke cleared, Ai Ouyang was still breathing hard. His mouth tasted of ashes. He wanted to spit on the tracks, but didn’t because of the woman.
Now that they were both standing, Ai Ouyang could see that she was as tall as he was. She was looking him in the eye.
“I won’t have your blood on my hands,” he said. “I’ll face the train. I accept your grievance. Are you satisfied?”
The woman raised her hands and clasped them together in a gesture of thanks. When she bowed her head and shoulders toward Ai Ouyang, she was smiling.
First, Ai Ouyang tried steel.
He chose a spot near one of the curves in the Woosung Railway where he could wait for the train without being seen. His sword rested in his right hand. He held a dagger in his left.
Beyond these weapons, Ai Ouyang did not have a plan. He had spent an hour praying in a temple that morning trying to think what the Seven-Clawed Tiger might have advised him to do. The effort gave Ai Ouyang a headache. So did the incense, which also made his throat itch and sent him to the inn down the street in search of a drink.
The last train of the evening left Kangwan at 6 o’clock. It was now nine minutes after 6.
The woman sat atop a stack of wooden crates piled next to the tracks, and watched him. Ai Ouyang had put her up there himself. He knew her tiny feet would stop her from jumping down to run onto the tracks if the idea seized her.
The rails twitched and clanked.
Ai Ouyang sighed. He stepped out onto the line.
The fading light caught the sharpened edge of his sword as he lifted it above his head. His left arm was extended, dagger raised. He faced north toward the oncoming train.
When the Celestial Empire rounded the corner, Ai Ouyang heard the Seven-Clawed Tiger’s voice over the puffing steam engine.
Look your enemy in the eye.
Ai Ouyang’s fear melted away. The approach of the train, now less than one hundred yards away, had hypnotized him into a state of calm acceptance.
It was honorable to fight steel with steel.
Distantly he felt, rather than heard, the force of the train’s whistle and the squeal of the brakes being thrown on the engine. The eye of the engine’s light was growing brighter and warmer. He could not pull his eyes away.
It looked as if he would lose the fight.
But, Ai Ouyang thought, it would be an appropriate death for a hero. Death facing an enemy would not bring shame to the woman or to the Seven-Clawed Tiger who had taught him since—
You’ve seen your enemy. Steel won’t defeat it.
Ai Ouyang said aloud, “But, Master…”
This is a creature of fire.
The blade lifted above Ai Ouyang’s head faltered.
You’re enlightened now. Run!
The force of the Celestial Empire’s draft as it roared by knocked Ai Ouyang into a spin when he sprang o
ff the tracks. His blades sang, striking the gravel on the railroad bed and throwing up sparks as he rolled and tumbled. He staggered to his feet before the woman without a shred of grace. Even less of his pride remained.
The woman looked down at him, her head tilted.
Ai Ouyang sheathed his sword and tucked his dagger back into his belt.
“I have another idea,” he said.
The following evening, Ai Ouyang stood in the same spot on the tracks.
He had had an argument about it with the woman that afternoon. She had wanted him to return to the spot where her brother was killed. Ai Ouyang did not want that; he preferred the presence of the Seven-Clawed Tiger’s ghost to that of her dead brother. He also wished she leave him alone to fight the train rather than watching him. The previous night’s defeat had been humiliating enough.
They compromised in the end. Ai Ouyang went back to the curve in the tracks. The woman watched.
This time she stood hidden by the wooden crates. She held a flaming torch. Ai Ouyang held no weapons but a drinking gourd in one hand and his brass watch in the other.
It was twenty-three minutes past six.
The last journey of the day, from Kangwan to Shanghai, was late.
Ai Ouyang felt the breeze on his face at the same time that the torch in the woman’s hand flared. The tracks clanked and shuddered.
“Now?” the woman asked.
Ai Ouyang shook his head. He tucked the watch into his surcoat pocket.
The Celestial Empire glided around the curve. Ai Ouyang counted his heartbeats, waiting for the whistle to split the air when he was spotted. He opened the gourd.
“Now?” asked the woman.
“Soon,” Ai Ouyang said.
The whistle shrieked.
Ai Ouyang lifted the gourd and poured the clear liquid into his mouth. It splashed over the front of his surcoat.
“Now?” the woman asked.
Ai Ouyang nodded at the same time. He held out his hand.
The woman handed him the torch.
Ai Ouyang raised the flame to his lips.
He exhaled.
Shanghai Steam Page 6