by John Eubank
He was shown up stairs to the main deck, which was built into the front-lower part of the airship’s main structure. His uncle waited for him in the stateroom, a richly appointed space with finely carved furniture, dark red carpet, and large, angled windows. An elderly man in a long black leather coat so glossy that it resembled rubber, Viktor Rasmussen clamped a steel-framed monocle over his left eye and studied Bram critically. Strong vertical lines in his gaunt cheeks framed an undertaker’s slit of a mouth, and his only hair, a short-cropped gray forelock, grew thick at the peak of his otherwise bald scalp.
Bram noticed a streak of dry, crusted white residue on his arm and an acrid chemical smell. As Head Necrologist, Viktor constantly experimented with strange and dangerous concoctions. If that weren’t intimidating enough, he was a younger brother of Zander’s long-dead father and perhaps the only person the High Leech truly respected. Sensing trouble, Bram forced himself to be cautious.
“I hear you’re working with a Steemjammer,” Viktor said icily, “or a young man foolish enough to have made that claim.”
“Yes, Uncle Viktor,” he said. “You almost never leave the Shadoverks. What are you doing here?”
“Asking the questions,” Viktor replied. “This boy. Where is he?”
“Boarding with someone in the city.”
“Show me his photograph.”
Bram grew uneasy.
“No one bothered to capture his image?” Viktor asked dubiously. “What has he told you? Tell me everything.”
Frightened, Bram reached into his pocket and showed him the lump of metal. His uncle demanded to know how he he’d obtained it, and the young Rasmussen told him.
“In a Steemball trophy?” he sneered at his nephew’s story. “Ridiculous.”
Snatching the object in a gloved hand, he briefly inspected it before handing it back.
“I must commandeer the airship, Uncle,” Bram dared to say, “and take this to my father immediately.”
“Skyshadow is here on specific orders from Zander,” Viktor said, “and no one is commandeering it.”
Bram stopped himself from making a face. “Uncle, do you understand how important this is?”
“I understand a great many things. More than your immature mind can possibly comprehend. I want you to trust me, Bram and do what I say without argument, because I have neither the time nor the patience to explain it to you now.
“Clyve Harrow is going to ask you for that piece of metal. You’re going to give it to him.”
Bram wrapped his fingers around it protectively. “The Tracium?”
“I told you to trust me.”
“Uncle, with all due respect, I found it! I deserve the credit!”
Viktor laughed, and his monocle fell from his eye, caught by a thin chain. Wiping it on his shirt collar, he replaced it and gave his nephew a critical look.
“Listen,” he said, “if any credit is due, it will be awarded accordingly.”
“You’re taking him back? You want Clyve to have the honor of presenting this to my father?”
“He’s going without us, and he will run the risk of presentation for you.”
His nephew made a face and looked away, stubbornly clenching the lump of metal.
Viktor’s countenance softened, and his voice became soothing. “When you let your emotions rule your head, Bram, they cloud your vision. At your age this is normal, but as a Rasmussen, you’re expected to rise above that.
“Only intellect - keen awareness devoid of feeling - grants clear sight. If this sample is real, it won’t matter who hands it to your father. You’ll get your reward either way.
“If it isn’t genuine, having Clyve turn it in puts the blame on him and grants you protection. Now do you see?”
Bram reluctantly nodded.
“If you can’t hand it to him,” Viktor said, “then give it to me, and I’ll do it for you.”
***
“We’re docking in ten minutes, sir,” the captain said late that night.
Clyve Harrow stiffened. Much had changed since dinner, which had been interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the Rasmussen Protectorate’s fastest airship, Skyshadow. Uncle Viktor, who almost never left his laboratories, handed Clyve an urgent summons from Zander Rasmussen – and the Tracium. He had to depart immediately.
The six-hour night flight had been filled with turbulence until they reached Britannia, a large island west of New Amsterdam where people of English descent had settled many years ago. He saw the lights of New London, his boyhood home, and then, after crossing a range of steep hills, the darkness of the Brigantine Swamp. This was where the Shadoverks lay, a place that filled him with mixed emotions.
It was the seat of Rasmussen power. Something in the damp soil, some yet-to-be-isolated element or alloy, kept Steemjammers from opening verltgaats there, so they’d been safe from surprise attacks. It also served, in some poorly understood way, to allow the family’s main talent and prime source of power: Necrology, the science of death.
The dismal swamp filled with vast bogs, strange creatures and decay. It was where Rasmussen scientists had learned to force a spark of unlife into dead brains, to train them to obey instructions and to carry out amazing deeds in powerful new machine bodies. Here, they also performed attitude reconditioning on Protectorate members in need of correction.
Sudden summons like this, Clyve knew, usually meant trouble. Was Zander displeased? Had Bram told his father some vicious lie?
If so, why had Viktor given him the Tracium? Was it the old man who was in trouble? Was he hoping this would appease Zander? Surely it would. The Tracium was the answer to all their problems.
Clyve forced himself towards optimism. Perhaps this was merely an urgent briefing. He realized, however, looking through the windows at the black swamp below, that this might be his last glimpse of B’verlt.
***
“He’ll see you now,” a black-uniformed commander said.
There’s hope, Clyve assured himself, wondering if the shaking he felt in his knees was noticeable. The Skyshadow hadn’t taken him to the Shadovecht-making side of the complex. Instead she’d docked at a tall spire reaching up from a windowless, dark stone building called The Mansion, where top administrators worked and where Zander resided.
Hooded so he wouldn’t know the way, he was led by a series of different silent guards in black leather uniforms down to Zander’s audience chamber. They took off the hood, and he was left alone in a dark, cold, high-ceilinged stone room. Behind him, a steel door clanged shut ominously.
A row of swamp-gas lamps burst into flame along the walls, startling Clyve. The room was designed to make visitors feel small and powerless, and he fought the creeping fear that wormed its way through his mind.
On the back wall of the room hung a large portrait of Zander Rasmussen, painted at his prime. Dark-haired with a broad, white forelock combed back, high cheeks and hard, intense black eyes, he’d once been a handsome if stern-looking man.
Clyve couldn’t help wondering what the family doctors and scientists had done to him. His wounds, earned at the conquest of Rasmussenfort, had never healed. He’d seemed doomed to an early death, but they’d managed to save him.
How? He imagined Zander’s body jabbed with tubes and pumped full of leech-craft’s most potent serums and elixirs. Clyve shuddered.
To buy more life, what price had he paid? He imagined warped skin, bloated flesh, and deformed features. It was obvious that Zander looked hideous now, physically broken and at the mercy of doctors. Hating this image, Clyve reasoned, he refused to let anyone, even his own son, actually see him.
“Welcome, cousin,” Zander’s voice said.
The last thing Clyve felt was “welcome.” The voice, which sounded detached and overly loud, came from a device in the walls.
“Thank you, Hoeg Bloodzoyger,” he said with a curt bow, wishing his voice hadn’t cracked. High Leech.
Clyve tapped the Tracium in his coat pocket, making s
ure it was still there. If problems arose, the Tracium, presented at the right moment, might save his life.
“I trust your flight was without incident,” Zander said.
“Smooth and fast, as always, on the Skyshadow.”
In truth he’d become ill and thrown up because of violent winds and internal turmoil. He felt so strained, talking to a painting. What was really going on?
“I’ve seen reports,” Zander intoned. “You recently interrogated a young man who claimed to be Wilhelmus Steemjammer.”
Clyve felt his mouth drying up. Had he made an error? He’d reported everything, he thought, and had given the man’s son most of the credit.
“Bram is the one who heard him say that and took him into custody,” Clyve said. “Your son also told me the subject may have been joking. Under Glass Dragon this was confirmed.”
“What was confirmed?” Zander asked.
“That he’d been joking. He denied that his name was Wilhelmus Steemjammer.”
“Will Stevens is his real name?”
“Undoubtedly. The dose of Glass Dragon was increased, almost to the point of killing him. It is impossible that he lied.”
Zander’s voice grew cold and accusatory. “This was not in the report.”
Clyve stammered, feeling like a hole had suddenly opened in the floor under his feet. He deliberately hadn’t added that detail for fear of scrutiny, and now he’d betrayed himself by speaking too hastily.
“I’m sorry, cousin, but I don’t recall omitting that,” Clyve said, trying to restrain his panic. “I must have considered it trivial and not worthy of your time. My apologies.”
“Why did you increase the dose?”
Clyve started to lie that he’d done so only to make sure of the boy’s truthfulness, but he remembered Dahlia. This was why he’d felt the instinct to silence her permanently. If Zander’s agents had already interrogated her, then he knew everything. A false statement now, Clyve knew, would mean a quick trip to the nearby Shadoverks and the harvesting of his brain.
“He showed surprising resistance to the truth drug,” Clyve said, realizing he had no choice but to reveal all. “He’d been near death, and I thought this might have suppressed his mental functions, making it harder for a normal dose to work.”
“My son sustained this boy with a draught of Noftalekt anti-venom, did he not?”
Clyve hesitated.
“Did he tell you this?” Zander’s voice pressed.
“He did. You’re concerned the Noftalekt dampened the Glass Dragon? It doesn’t have that affect.”
“This was Bram’s own special brew, which he made himself. Did he not tell you this?”
Clyve felt ill but knew he had to answer quickly. “I can’t recall.”
“Didn’t he ask you specifically to get rare and expensive ingredients he needed?”
“That was months ago. It slipped my mind.”
“Sloppy, Clyve.”
Clyve felt an ache in his gut. If the decision had already been made to kill him, how painful would it be? Was there any way he could earn a quick death?
“There’s a chance,” Zander said at last, “that Bram’s anti-venom acts against Glass Dragon. This will have to be investigated, which may take some time.”
“I assure you,” Clyve countered, at last seeing where this was going, “that Will Stevens is a drifter, a fatherless thief.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“Even if your son’s special brew works on Glass Dragon, there couldn’t have been enough left in his system to neutralize the second dose. Besides, Steemjammers can’t lie. I heard him directly deny that name!”
“There is much on which you are confused.”
In the ensuing silence, sweat that had been beading on Clyve’s forehead ran into his eyes, forcing him to pull out his handkerchief to wipe it away.
“Steemjammers can misdirect,” Zander startled him, “and even tell direct falsehoods, when they must. Hendrelmus lied, and so did his father, about many things.”
Clyve felt his heart racing. “I had no idea.”
“Their very name is a lie. Surely you hadn’t missed that. Do you really think they’re failures, when they alone hold the key to verltgaats?”
“Of course, you’re right. I should have thought it through more carefully.”
“Indeed.”
Silence ticked by, leaving Clyve to fight his growing fear. He resisted the urge to glance back at the door and see if black-uniformed guards were coming for him.
“What may have happened,” Zander said after what seemed like an eternity, “is that our enemy’s son, Wilhelmus Anselm Steemjammer, was dying from our newest and most subtle poison, delivered by a Shadovecht that went through a verltgaat they opened into Rasmussenfort. The boy was later sent to New Amsterdam for a cure, which his body converted into the real toxin. He was about to asphyxiate when my son came upon him.
“Unwittingly, he revived this Steemjammer spawn, and then you, hoping to prove his identity under interrogation, cured him. However he did it, this bothersome youth fooled you. Blinded by your lust for fame and favor, you made ridiculous assumptions and let him go.
“A Steemjammer boy – a mere child – deceiving a forelocked member of the family? I’m tempted to laugh at the irony, except that I’m so aggravated. You let Wilhelmus Steemjammer slip right through your fingers!”
Clyve found himself about to collapse to his knees.
“No,” he managed. “It couldn’t be. His nose – it was too straight.”
“Like his mother’s! I read the description of his face! Don’t you remember hers?”
Clyve panicked as an ancient memory fluttered through his mind like a frightened moth. Hadn’t there been a rumor of Zander’s interest in a brilliant young woman of Scottish descent? Then, he’d gone into a rage. He remembered anxious whispers that she’d rejected him and instead married the enemy.
“I may have seen her once,” Clyve admitted, forcing himself back to his feet, “but I don’t remember.”
“That boy,” Zander’s voice boomed, “is Wilhelmus Steemjammer. I’m absolutely certain!”
Clyve cringed until his fingers brushed against the lump in his pocket. You idiot, he thought, show it to him. Surely it will turn the tide.
“With all respect, Hoeg Bloodzoyger,” he said, reaching into his pocket, “there’s been no error. The boy is Will Stevens, a particularly effective little thief, whom your son persuaded to find this!”
He held up the Tracium in his hand.
“Now I understand the letter,” Zander said, “that Uncle Viktor sent with you. Drop it.”
Clyve hesitated. Had they gone insane?
“What?” he said, trembling. “This is the Tracium!”
“We’ll see.”
Hand shaking, Clyve dropped the lump of metal to the stone floor. It landed with a thud and sat there.
“Wait,” Zander said.
For what seemed like an eternity, Clyve waited, glancing between the sample on the floor and Zander’s painting. At last the door opened to allow black-uniformed guards to wheel in a mechanical device. It was not the verltgaat machine, as he’d been expecting. He shuddered as he realized it might be meant to torture him.
“It could be real,” Zander said, “but if that boy is Wilhelmus, it would make more sense that it’s not.”
Clyve felt like dropping to his knees to beg for his life but managed to resist the urge.
“If it’s fake,” Zander continued, “what possible good could it do them?”
“They’d expect us,” Clyve ventured, “to waste a lot of time studying it. Perhaps they want to distract us while they try something.”
“That makes little sense. It’s clear they’d expect us to examine it cautiously and then test it on our world hold machine. We’ll do the opposite. Put it in the clamp.”
Clyve found a clamp on the device and attached it.
“Tighten it,” Zander ordered. “This Tracium
, how would one go about making it work?”
“I’m no expert,” Clyve said, “but I think it has to be near or touching a verltgaat machine.”
“Is that all?”
Clyve pursed his lips, thinking. “It has to spin!”
“Do it.”
Finding a crank on the device, Clyve turned it, causing the lump of metal to quickly spin.
“Nothing,” Clyve said, wondering what he had in mind.
“Faster.”
He turned the handle faster.
***
Inside the false Tracium was a small steel box that Donell had carefully machined. He’d then immersed it into a lump of molten metal, allowing it to harden inside a mold to look like the real thing. Within the box sat many bits of Incendium capped by chips of Moderacium, which kept them cold.
The chips of Moderacium, however, were only held in place by delicate strips of paper, which tore from the force of the spinning, just as Donell had intended. Now free, the bits moved to the other side of the little box, and the small pieces of Incendium glowed fiery red, suddenly hotter than lava escaping from a volcano.
***
Noticing smoke coming off the wooden clamp holding the metal lump, Clyve smiled in triumph. “See? It’s working!”
“Step back,” Zander replied.
“Look at all that energy!”
“Get away, you fool!”
To his horror, Clyve saw the lump beginning to droop, and bits of molten metal flung away, some of them hitting his coat. As he backed away, it glowed cherry red, and small pieces of Incendium came flying out.
He cried out as one glanced off his shoulder.
Zander’s guards pulled him away and put out his flaming coat. His shoulder ached, but he realized the chip of Incendium had bounced off and landed on the machine, along with many of the other pieces.