Steamscape

by D. Dalton

  They could be stolen off of almost any steampowered buggy in town. Why would Smith demand that they build their own? Especially these extra-large models.

  Theo’s fingers danced around the glass bulb with its two exposed wires and dollops of mercury. He pulled up on the string, causing the bulb to tilt. The quicksilver completed the electrical circuit inside.

  Sparks popped on the top of the switchpack. A small pillar of flame rose up in the cotton that Theo had stuck there for demonstration.

  The bricoleur stepped back and breathed out.

  Smith hovered over the table. Finally, he shook his head. “Not enough fire.”

  “I hate fire.” Theo snarled and glared at the Reaper. “This is already bigger than most switchpacks. Let alone homemade ones.”

  “The flame needs to breathe, Mr. Meilleur.” He rapped Theo’s scarred knuckles with the cane. “Something of which you didn’t understand well at some point.”

  Theo shoved his hands out toward Smith. “This is Flame’s signature.”

  Smith nodded and pushed forward the burner on the table. “And fire is something you possess, too. But you hate it.”

  Theo didn’t move his heated glare. “I do.”

  “And so you hate yourself.”

  “You’re as bad as the rest of them.”

  Smith ignored him. “Tell me, don’t you find fire fascinating?”

  The bricoleur trembled with both rage and fear. “You… This is it. I’m done. I’m done with this war. I’m done with the Steamscape. I’m out.” He whirled around and flew across the room. He raised his hand to open the door.

  “You walk out that door and you won’t make it two steps down that hall.”

  Theo waited for that vicious voice to tell him what to do. It always knew how to survive. It had led him here, after all. Then again, it had such a bright, husky, burning voice.

  Coldness blew in from the door with only the empty, silent corridor beyond.

  He dipped his chin to his chest, and then turned to see the cheerful crackle of the flames on the burner. In that instant, he felt a flicker of comforting warmth. He shivered, but in the moment, everything was clear.

  He was right. Smith was right. Theo cupped his hands around the fire and gulped. “I think I love the thing that I fear.”

  “Tsk.” Smith frowned. “You just fear power. Fire was power for centuries, and still is in the barbarian lands. Here, it is steam that is stronger than fire.”

  Theo snapped, “Without the fire, there is no steam.”

  The Reaper chuckled to himself. “As you’ve seen, fire is not always required.” The cipher medallion clinked on the table beside the burner. Smith’s hand hovered over the device.

  Then he tucked the sancta back into the folds of his jacket. “Currently, we use steam as a medium to transfer energy. The real trick is bringing the dissolved aether in the water into an energetic frenzy to power our more complex machines. Steam can do it alone, but not nearly as powerfully. But for decades the Priory has known how to ignite the aether itself, but it takes a much bigger spark.” He pushed the switchpack toward Theo again. “Hence, make the fire larger.”

  ***

  Boras Saturni leaned back in his high-backed chair. Silver and gold plated his office walls. His desk had been polished until it could be used as a mirror.

  He stared at the old lithograph on the inside cover of his pocket-watch. The image was cracked and fading. Helen’s face and smile had been split in twain because of a wrinkle in the picture. He remembered the original portrait. Infant Adri was somewhere at Helen’s feet, but he’d cropped this copy so that his wife’s face would fit inside the cover.

  He caressed his thumb over her face. “I told you not to go yourself. Last year, I sent the best ten soldiers I had to get you, but they weren’t enough. So I sent everything I had and you’re still not here with me. Without you, I have nothing.”

  The lamplight glistened off of platinum candlesticks, just sitting there collecting dust under the expensive electric glow.

  He gently slid the cover of the watch closed. “Sometimes, I wish the Hex hadn’t vanished,” he said into the silence.

  “Your wish is granted.” Drina uncurled herself from the shadows near the ceiling tiles. She slid down on a silk cord.

  “Only half a wish. There’s only the three of us.” Flame jumped down behind her through the hole they had made. “Seriously, half a wish, folks.”

  Jing descended last. His metal leg clinked against the metallic floor.

  Saturni kicked back in his chair and stormed to his feet. He slammed his palm on the emergency bell.

  Jing held up a small pair of scissors. “We thought of that, sir. We apologize.”

  Drina held up her empty hands.

  The head of Steampower scowled, but he straightened his shirt and merely glared at them. “You’re not here to kill me. I know you, Ms. de Avila, you were never one for excess conversation.”

  She shook her head silently.

  “We want work, Mr. Saturni,” Jing said plainly. “Times are tough these days, and with a war back on, our skills are back in demand.”

  Flame leaned forward on the desk, his knuckles smearing its impeccable polish with grease. “I know you want me dead. But I’ve already detailed how to kill all the little kings of the board. In fact…” He reached into one of his bandoliers and struck a match.

  Drina swatted it out of his hand. “Play nice.” She turned back to the steam baron. “And Mr. Saturni always was a crack shot.” She nodded to his hand.

  Saturni lifted the pistol into view. “Indeed. Mr. Flame is correct, the board did vote in favor of his termination. I told them that they didn’t know what they had ordered.” He reached down with his other hand and brought up his tobacco pipe. He took a drag and puffed out a smoke ring. “Tell me, whatever happened on that day that you betrayed us? Some of those experiments could have led to the future of steam.”

  Drina wrinkled her nose. “Adri’s infants?”

  “The lot of stillborns? No.” He puffed up some more smoke, its sweet haze lazing about his beard and face. “The Priory’s notes. Those misers were onto something well before the Steam Age.” He pointed with his gun. “Now, where’s Canon? He’s the one who orchestrated burning the Priory’s manuals before stealing a baby.”

  Jing shrugged. “We had commands to go to ground. We followed those orders, Mr. Saturni.”

  “We did catch up with him eventually,” Drina cooed. “Long after we’d gotten his death warrant.”

  “And what of him?” Saturni drawled.

  “I got him.” Drina shrugged. “But there was no body left and we didn’t think that our word was currency anymore.”

  “It still isn’t,” the Steampower head replied crisply.

  She raised up her hands again. “Which is why we didn’t come back.”

  “Which begs the question of why now. After all these years.”

  The Death Spinner opened her mouth, but Jing placed a hand on her shoulder. He said, “Because we need to pay Codic back in blood for recent transgressions. We hear that you’ve got the war machine to do it, and I bet you’ll need someone who isn’t afraid to squeeze the trigger at its helm.”

  Saturni chuckled dryly and leaned back down into his chair. “Yes, we do. But you’ll get nowhere near the helm.” He sucked on the pipe and set the pistol down on the desk, although within easy reach. Flame watched it like a cat. “The Hex is still currency. I’m sure you know that people are still afraid of you after all these years, which must speak something to the nature of your atrocities.” He paused to see the wince around Jing’s eyes. He cleared his throat and added, “Or at least to the imaginations of the little folk.”

  “We need to get to Codic,” Flame whined. “I need to set someone on fire soon.” He was bouncing in place.

  “Not in my house, you won’t.” Saturni frowned. “No, I need you to make some showing to the troops, wave at them, that sort of thing. Mr. Flame, you
may set a few prisoners on fire if you need to, but please do it in public, and then only the worst ones.”

  “Sideshows?” Drina rolled her eyes and sneered.

  “Propaganda. Visible demonstration of your skills, and then being with the troops in a very decisive battle. You know the business code, only choose the healthy risks. They have more troops, but we have better machines, so we’ve chosen a machines’ battlefield. You just need to give our boys’ morale a kick.”

  “That’s not what we want.” Drina pushed off from the desk. “Our payment better be some damned fine information.”

  Saturni frowned. “Information is what will be kept from you.”

  Jing narrowed his eyes. “This battle is just a distraction, isn’t it? Why else would you publicize the Hex joining it?”

  The president of the company flicked a silver letter opener across the desk to the mechanic. “Keep it as a bonus, Mr. Li.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  Jing twisted the wrench and grunted in satisfaction. Sweat ran together on his forehead in tiny rivers, but he was grinning. He thumped the wrench against the armored shell of the titangle. It had horrifying talons painted on its bottom, so it would look like a swooping bird of prey from above. “This.”

  Drina raised her eyebrows.

  “This feels more like home than that mountain ever did. Newer models, too.”

  “This is not why we signed back up with Saturni.” The assassin tossed a glance at Flame, who was lighting matches and tossing them over the side of the platform. Then she turned back to Jing and shrugged. “Although this is how we grew up. You remember the orphan barge. Workers for hire, cheap. Especially for the military.”

  “Ugh. I don’t think that beast could fly faster than a walk.” Jing limped around the titangle, eyeing every rivet. “I remember having two legs then. But, I suppose if it wasn’t for the accident, Mark would’ve never noticed my mechanical inclination like he did.”

  “Blood,” Drina said. “Not a great hydraulic fluid.”

  “We survived. And it wasn’t just mine.”

  Her eyes unfocused. “All those dying children. I remember doing the only thing I could to help some of them along.” She looked down at her hands, spreading open her fingers.

  “They were beyond repair, just like the barge crashing down from the sky.”

  Flame’s grin flickered. “I remember meeting my friend fire for the first time. So magical. It set me free from that box I was in.”

  “Yeah,” Jing sighed. “You were on the barge because you’d murdered your family. That’s why you were locked up like that. Mark only rescued you because you weren’t afraid of any of what was happening.”

  “Terrified everyone,” Drina remarked.

  “Not you,” Flame replied.

  “You’re still terrifying everyone,” she murmured, pointing with her eyes at the staring soldiers. They never came closer than fifty feet, but they never faded.

  “We don’t know any of them.” Jing set down the wrench. “But they all think they know us.”

  Drina chuckled. “I could kill one. Then they wouldn’t stare so obviously.”

  Flame smiled. “I like that.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ve gotten old. No practical use for it.”

  “I don’t believe that.” The pyromaniac rolled his eyes. “I also can’t believe we’re ordered to just stay here.”

  “Orders again,” Jing sighed. “That’s all we grew up with, on the barge and then in the military. But now, I’m not liking them. I didn’t like Mark’s orders over the last seventeen years either, apart from one or two things. One or two significant things…” He looked to Drina for help.

  Drina stretched. “I thought coming home would be, well, coming home. Back to our old selves. But this doesn’t feel right either.”

  “Probably because the people that used to give us our orders are at war with each other now.” Flame threw another lit match away. “But it’s all about money, innit?”

  “It never was about the money,” Jing corrected.

  “It is now,” Flame retorted. “We can only afford honor, integrity and all that shit when we have civilization and that runs on money.”

  “Steam Slayer better not have heard you say that. Were you asking for a two hour lecture on honor and death and duty while he slowly beat your brain outside your skull?” Drina asked.

  Flame stiffened. “He’s not here. He probably is living it up killing barbarians. Hell, he’s like them enough anyway, thoughts about honor and a good death and those punching gloves with electrical wires sewn into them. But now it’s all about getting paid.” He shrugged.

  A helicopter platform’s shadow glided over them. A woman was flying it. Her petticoats and emerald satin dress blew as if in a windstorm. The mountain of cloth was enough so that nothing could have been revealed, even if under attack by a tornado.

  The pilot gracefully twirled the platform around and tilted it forward so that the woman could look directly down at the members of the Hex. She thrust one of the levers forward and the platform leveled out to begin a descent.

  The skids didn’t bounce or screech but gently kissed the ground. As soon as it touched, the pilot killed the engine, but like all platform pilots, had to wait for the dual set of blades beneath it to stop spinning.

  Drina shaded her eyes. “That can’t be.”

  “Adri!” Flame straightened up. He spat into his hand and patted his greasy hair.

  The steam princess smoothed down her skirts while she waited. Behind her, the soldiers stared in awe. Adri Saturni and the Hex.

  The blades finally slowed down enough that she could pull the brake lever. They jerked rigid in their tracks. She pushed back from the controls and daintily stepped down from the platform, using the blades as stairs. She pulled her shoulders back, raised her chin and walked over to the Hex. Her parasol snapped open like a pistol shot.

  “I had to see this for myself.” She looked them up and down. “My little birds had mentioned that you were back, but I thought it was pure propaganda from the board.”

  Jing looked away. “You hardly look a year older.”

  Adri laughed. “Thank you, Mr. Li, but flattery failed on me long ago.” Her expression faded to a smirk. “I’m sorry to see that you are no longer the secret weapon my father has.”

  Drina frowned. “Do you know what the secret weapon is? You seem to hear of most everything.”

  Adri laughed again. “No.”

  “No, you don’t? Or no, you won’t tell us?”

  “Just no, my lady.” She twirled the parasol on her shoulder. “I just couldn’t believe that if the Hex were back, well, halfway back, that Steampower would advertise you like a new airship. If you don’t draw a battle in your direction then I am not the steam princess.”

  Jing slapped the wrench across his palm. “We’re not here for a battle.”

  “No, you’re here for the vessel.”

  “Where is she?” Drina stepped forward, her hands out of sight.

  Adri shook her head. “Not even I know that one. Quite probably dead.” Her eyes glowed. “But it worked. Out of all of them, one vessel worked. Truly worked, not just survived. After this war, we can start again.” She turned as if to leave, and then called over her shoulder. “And if Ms. Canon is still alive, you’d better hope to find her before I do.”

  She raised her hand toward the gathering wall of Steampower soldiers and waved. “And don’t forget to smile for your audience. I do pray you’ve learned how to play for the crowd since last we met.” She blew a kiss toward the waiting soldiers.

  ***

  Solindra glared at the waiting soldiers. There must have been a score of them, most of them walking behind the engine-cart. Her boots sank lower into the mud and the stream behind her gurgled. She lay flat in the yellowed grass and watched through the stems.

  The carriage’s water container on the boilerbox was glowing cherry red.

  As she watched, the
y changed from their neat Steampower uniforms into farmers’ overalls.

  Freezing water coming off the mountains pulled Solindra’s attention back to her knees. The water was creeping up the fabric of her clothes and screaming to be noticed. Her chattering teeth might be enough to give her away. She wondered if she were sporting icicles off her boots. The rifle rested against her back, weighing her down. She wished she had it ready to shoot, but she’d barely had time enough to dive to ground.

  Presently, one of the soldiers cussed and banged on the overheated engine with a spanner. “Thought this was their finest equipment!”

  “Maybe something happened when we unloaded it from the train,” another speculated. “It crashed down those last few feet.”

  “But it worked fine when we fired it up!”

  “Get some water,” a third voice called. “We need to cool this beast off. I don’t think we’re gonna make the rendezvous with the others.”

  Solindra started shaking her head. No! she thought. No, you don’t need any water!

  Two of the men trotted over to the stream, several yards away from the vessel. Solindra pressed herself further into the mud and held her breath. She heard them splashing into the creek and filling something metal, like a bowl or a helmet.

  Footsteps squelched in the sucking mud and trotted back in the direction of the engine-cart.

  Solindra started to exhale.

  “Hey. There’s something shiny over there.”

  The vessel cursed, but still didn’t move.

  The footsteps squelched closer.

  I could probably get one shot off if I rolled over now, she mused. But then what?

  She heard the metallic click of a rifle’s hammer. “Hands up! If you’re alive that is. Hey, boys, I got someone!”

  She cussed again and raised up her hands, pulling her face up from the mud. She looked up the barrel of a gun to a face that couldn’t have been much older than her own. His dark eyes were wide.

  She kept eye contact with him while the rest of the soldiers surrounded her. Two of them grabbed her arms and dragged her away from the stream. She left a slimy trail of mud dripping off her clothes and boots.