Steampunk Tales, Volume 1

by Ren Cummins

  Wall, she wondered? What wall is that?

  “Yes, Rom?” Cera asked her. “You seem confused.”

  “Well, there was… something. But it’s not there now, and I can’t figure out what it was supposed to be.”

  Cera was looking at her strangely – she finally realized that she wasn’t looking at her in the eyes, but that Cera’s eyes were actually fixed above Rom’s own – instead looking at something above her eyebrows.

  “What?” Rom’s hands rose to her forehead, but Cera caught them.

  “No, Rom. Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

  The animal on her shoulder dug his claws into the fabric of the dress, a deep growl curling up from his chest.

  “Where is this place, Cera? Where am I?” Something was indeed feeling out of place, like an itch Rom couldn’t quite find to scratch.

  One of the things that had been bothering her finally clicked into place. In spite of all the animals and farmlands, there were no people here. Only her and Cera.

  Thunder boomed in the distance, in spite of the cloudless sky.

  Cera looked more annoyed by the thunder than anything. “We have to go, Rom. I have to get you inside, where it’s safe.”

  “Safe from what? Where are we?” she asked again, more insistently now that she realized the woman did not wish to answer.

  Thunder shook the ground again. It felt so near – near enough that she should be able to see the lightning – or at least the clouds they sprung from. Cera grabbed her by the wrist and began to pull her inside. Her face seemed to shift from the kindly woman into something younger and darker – less sparkling lights in the eyes.

  “Let go of me!” the creature on her shoulder was a blur of grey as it leapt from her to strike the woman in the face, causing her to let go of Rom in the confusion. The woman’s hands began to glow, and she struck the animal hard, sending it rolling back to Rom’s feet.

  She picked him up with one hand – and realized that her other hand was holding her parasol. She spun it out reflexively, opening it and sending hundreds of sparks flying in all directions as a burst of energy erupted from the woman’s fingertips.

  Miraculously, the parasol remained intact.

  “Run, Rom!” the animal said.

  “Wait, what?”

  “Run! Back towards those trees – hurry!”

  “You can talk??” she screamed above the noise as a second blast struck the opened parasol.

  “Later!” he promised. “Now, run!”

  She began an awkward backwards run, holding the parasol out as a shield as blast after blast sent trembling vibrations up her arms. Cera began to run towards her, her voice becoming a constant howl of rage.

  Rom knew she couldn’t turn her back and run at her full speed, but she kicked off strongly from the packed ground and covered some twenty feet in a single leap – but she landed off-balance, rolling to a stop. Her parasol had been wrenched from her grasp and lay too far to collect in time.

  Cera slowed her pace, laughing with her hands outstretched, energy visibly arcing between them.

  “I’ve been looking for you for a while, now, child. I knew if I just kept watching the new arrivals, one day you would show up, and I would have you!”

  The animal hissed at her – but suddenly turned his head back behind them and gasped. Cera sensed it also, and raised her hands defensively – as a wall of invisible force struck the ground at her feet, sending her and a cloud of dust all the way back past the house Rom had awakened in.

  A woman with short blonde hair landed on the ground in front of Rom, facing away from her. “Get her and go!” she barked. “Come back and get me when she’s safe!”

  The person she was issuing her commands to appeared at Rom’s side – a young man not much taller than Rom, but with spiky black hair and skin the color of copper. He lifted Rom to her feet and swung one arm around her waist.

  “Forgive my familiarity, miss Romany,” he said. “But do hold on to your pet.”

  “Pet?” it responded, obviously offended.

  “My whaaaa - - !” The rest of her response was lost in a rushing of air as the ground – and forests and mountains, and the largest body of water Rom had ever seen – rushed past them in the space of a breath.

  In a moment, the movement stopped – just as suddenly as it had begun – and she found herself in the middle of a forested canyon at the base of a large, flat-faced mountain cliff.

  “Go on up, Memory is there. She’ll make you comfortable while I’m gone,” the young man said. “I have to go collect Force.” He pointed towards a small but easily recognizable path up through the trees, which seemed to meander its way up the base of the mountain. When Rom looked back at him, however, he was already gone with only a swirl of wind to mark his passing.

  “Okay, this day is just getting more and more strange,” she whispered.

  “Tell me about it,” the creature said.

  “You’re not helping, you know. You speaking isn’t normal.”

  “It isn’t?” He shrugged. “It seemed normal to me. Don’t all feranzanthums speak where you come from?”

  “All what?”

  He shook his head. “You are hopeless,” he sighed. Placing one paw on his chest, he repeated. “Feranzanthums. Oh never mind, you don’t seem the scholarly set.” He paused a moment. “Actually, now that I think of it, I don’t think feranzanthums do generally have the knack for human speech. So I must be unusual.”

  “Uh-huh,” Rom agreed.

  “Oh, ha ha.”

  Rom lifted him from her shoulder so she could get a better look at him without straining her neck. “So what should I call you? Ferazana-whatever is too big a name.”

  He frowned in what Rom decided must be a decidedly feranzanthumous way. “First, it’s Feranzanthum,” he corrected her. “And secondly, my name is Mulligan Quireelik Orivallus Perithallireiman.”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Finally, she responded, “Can I call you Mully?”

  Mully sighed. “That will do, I suppose.” He was already certain that there were going to be some battles he was never going to win with this girl.

  Rom smiled and looked back up the trail. “So, Mully, what do you suggest we do?”

  Mully looked over her shoulder and back up the trail as well, finally suggesting, “The boy did suggest that someone was up there, waiting for us.”

  “Memory,” Rom replied. “You think that’s a person or a thing?”

  “He did say the yellow-haired woman’s name was Force. Should things remain consistent, Memory could just as easily be another person’s name.”

  Rom agreed with the logic. “Okay then. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 9: Only Mostly Dead

  The walk was a gentle grade up flattened stone steps, all positioned in a comfortable pattern for the entire course up the bottom of the mountain. In spite of the current dramatics, Rom was forced to admit that it was quite lovely – it seemed unusual, but the thoughts of things like “usual” were beginning to fade away like the morning fog. And yet, if she’d lived her whole life in this place, why did it all feel so fresh, and so wondrously new?

  They turned the last bend into a flattened plateau high enough up to overlook the valley, broad enough to offer sufficient space for fifty people to stand side by side with room to spare. Against the rock wall, dead center, was an unnaturally even hole that deepened into darkness. Leaning against one side of the cave entrance was a slender woman with long flowing light blonde hair, holding a tall staff in one hand.

  Rom stopped dead in her tracks at the end of the steps. Nothing about the woman seemed dangerous – unusual, perhaps, and breathtakingly beautiful. Something seemed almost too perfect about her, unrealistically so. But Rom’s eyes were drawn to a row of three gems that shone a pale gold across her brow, all but concealed by the gentle curls of her hair. Rather than distracting from the woman’s beauty, however, they only seemed to enhance the otherworldly quality she e
manated.

  The woman extended her hand to Rom. “I see Inertia has collected you successfully,” she said. Even her voice was angelic, Rom distantly noted.

  “Inertia?”

  The woman nodded. “The young man who brought you here. He is called Inertia; his companion is Force, and I am Memory.”

  Rom felt strangely clumsy and tomboyish in the presence of this woman, and was briefly overcome by a sense of self-consciousness to which she was unaccustomed. And yet, something in how the woman regarded her made her feel more significant, as well. All in all, it was unsettlingly overwhelming.

  But one look at the dark patch of shadow behind the woman made Rom pause in the clearing. Cera wasn’t, clearly, what she seemed to be – who was to say this woman was any different?

  Her head leaned slightly to one side, and her eyes moved from Rom’s face to Mully’s and she lowered her arm. “No, you are correct,” she said quietly. “Let us sit here until Inertia and Force have returned.”

  With the end of her staff, the woman traced a pair of squares in the thin layer of dirt on the stone and struck the stone gently between the two figures and slowly raised the end of the staff to the height of Rom’s knees – as the end of the staff rose, so did the stone within the drawn squares, forming two simple stools from the rock.

  “Please, sit,” the woman gestured, taking the other rock as her own seat.

  “Wow,” Mully breathed, echoing Rom’s sentiment.

  She sat on the makeshift stool and tried not to stare at the woman’s staff.

  “You have strange names,” Rom said without thinking. She instantly felt foolish for the statement, but Memory smiled.

  “They are not so much our names as they are our titles – they give a certain sense of our responsibilities. Also, they adapt to the language we speak, or the people among whom we live.”

  Rom was about to ask another question, but a noise behind her startled her - - it was the man and woman – Force and Inertia, appearing in a small cloud of dust. Force leaned heavily on Inertia, her right leg bent at an odd angle.

  Force was spouting a seemingly inexhaustible string of words Rom couldn’t remember ever having heard in such an emphatic sentence, while Inertia lowered his head apologetically to Rom and Memory.

  Memory and Rom stood, Memory dissolving the stone seats with a slight wave of her staff. She stepped to Force’s other side, and without another word, the three moved as quickly as they could into the cave. Rom stood alone with Mully for a few moments, looked around her, and, feeling suddenly exposed to whatever nameless dread might still be pursuing her, followed them into the darkness.

  The space inside the cave was not at all what she’d expected. There were multiple rooms leading off from a large, main area – which was furnished with a central table and chairs, and comfortable chairs at odd intervals around the perimeter. If it were possible for the fine, elegant furnishings to feel more out of place within a hole in the side of a mountain, Rom couldn’t imagine it. And yet, though the structures were polished and delicately ornate, they had a sense about them as if they had been planted and meticulously grown and coaxed into cooperative functionality. Glowing sconces provided a fair amount of light to the room, giving it a warm atmosphere. Even a few artistic elements offered a sense of aesthetic comfort to the place – paintings, sculptures, and several potted plants.

  Force was being lowered gently to one of the chairs at the main table, where Memory was taking a closer look at her leg. Their focus was intensely drawn to Force and her injuries, and Rom took advantage of the moment to glance around the room and feel significantly uncomfortable.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” Memory observed of Force’s leg. “Though I’m surprised she managed to do this much damage to you.”

  “She threw a cow at me.” Force winced as Memory adjusted the bones. “And a horse.”

  Frowning, Inertia said, “She appears to have discovered your reluctance to harm animal life.”

  “Appears so,” Force growled. “Ouch!”

  “I am sorry, but I must align the bones first before we mend them. This should do it.” She gripped the leg above and below the break and sang a few wordless notes from an eerily beautiful song. Force called out through gritted teeth, but only for an instant.

  Rom silently watched the exchange. She felt increasingly less apprehension around these strange people – something in how they interacted seemed familial in nature – and somehow familiar, as well. While they tended to their friend, Rom found a soft couch on the other side of the room. It looked completely out of place, but was soft and inviting.

  “There,” Memory said, “the bones are set. Inertia, please hold them in place.”

  The young man nodded. He slowly placed his hands on Force’s leg and began to hum softly. The notes didn’t seem so much long a song as much as they felt like some sort of language – it was as if she could almost understand him, even though she knew she didn’t know what he was saying. He continued this strange song-that-was-not-a-song for more than a full minute, and when he stopped, the notes seemed to float about the room for another breath or two before dissolving into the air.

  When he released Force’s leg, she cautiously bent her knee, then smiled. “Good as new,” she said. She nodded in thanks to the other two, then looked back at Rom. “Now then, to business. Are you ready to fight?”

  Rom’s mouth opened, but she was too surprised to speak.

  The young man they called Inertia smiled and approached her. “Force, be nice. The poor girl’s been through a rough few hours.”

  “She has?” Force spat. “Did anyone throw a horse at her?”

  Ignoring Force’s outburst, he sat next to Rom, giving a conspiratorial smile to her and Mulligan. “Don’t mind her, she’s just angry she didn’t get to stay and fight. Now, Memory tells us you only just arrived here today, yes?”

  “Seriously,” Rom said, coming back to herself – or at least feeling some familiar sort of mood filling her, “who are you people? Where am I? Nobody’s telling me anything!”

  Inertia looked to Memory, who nodded back to him. He took a slow, deep breath.

  “Well,” he began, “what is the last thing you remember before you woke up here in this world?”

  She bit her lip. It was getting fuzzy, everything that was from before. She knew somehow that she used to remember it well, but it seemed like the longer she was awake, the more distant those memories were becoming. “I was…fighting something, I think. And it was raining – I definitely remember the rain. And… lightning.” She shook her head. “It’s all vanishing now. I can’t remember it.”

  He placed one hand on her knee, and she didn’t pull away. It felt comforting, the contact – like it was helping her to hold on, or something. “It’s okay,” he explained. “What you’re going through is normal, considering the circumstances. But we will help you remember.” He pointed a thumb over towards the woman with the long, golden hair. “It’s what you might call her specialty.”

  Rom nodded. “Please – it feels like I’m losing something… something important. Can you help me?”

  Force’s brows came together above her eyes. “What’s wrong with her? She wasn’t always like this.”

  Inertia shushed her. “Artifice found her first, wrapped an illusion around her, like she did to me. It’s made the amnesia take hold.”

  Memory stood and crossed the room towards Rom. “I can help – I can unlock the doors where your memories have gone, but you have to select them; you have to find them. And in the end, you must follow them.” The gems in her skin began to glow more brightly, seemed to fill the room. The light filled Rom’s field of vision, filled her lungs, covered her skin, and found its way into her mind. The fragments of images she could recall – the rain, the fighting, all the countless details – emerged from the mist and returned with clarity to her mind. All the remaining elements sprang to life within her remembrance – her friends, her life, and all the aspects of he
r time in Oldtown-Against-The-Wall.

  Her eyes sprung open. “Kari!” She stood up, causing Mulligan to dig in his claws lest he fall to the ground. She looked around the room, as if seeing it all for the first time. She had to blink her eyes repeatedly as memories sorted themselves, but Memory held her for balance.

  Rom stepped away, determined to stand unassisted on own feet. At last, she turned to face the other three. “Okay. So where am I and how do I get home?”

  Force smiled. “Now I remember why I liked you,” she told Rom. “You remind me of me: right to the point.”

  Memory nodded, and took her seat once more while Inertia rose and took a step closer to Rom.

  “Well, where you are is a tough question to answer. You’re technically still on your home planet, the world we call Aerthos.” he explained, a bit of struggle apparent in his voice. It was clear to Rom that this was not going to be a simple explanation.

  “But you’re kind of….well, dead.”

  “Dead?” Rom’s eyebrows furrowed – it actually made her head hurt a bit less to do that, she noticed. “How can I be kind of dead?” More memories rushed back, of the loop her mind had been making before she’d appeared here, and the field of white air that had surrounded her. She nodded, allowing the thoughts to struggle to organize themselves.

  “Ah, well…” Inertia’s mouth remained open for a moment, suddenly unsure of how to continue. “Memory?”

  “Your body sustained injuries – through being struck by lightning and then falling from a great height – which would have killed anyone. The shock of these events all but severed the connection between your body and your spirit, which resulted in your spirit” Memory gestured at Rom’s form, “appearing here.”

  “Where is here – Heaven, or something?”

  Inertia’s chuckle was polite, but still annoyed Rom. She didn’t like not knowing something, particularly something which directly involved her – it was the kind of thing that usually irked her when anyone but Kari did it.