Dark Age (The Reckoning Turbines Book 1)

by Robert T. Bradley

  IV

  Sat in a row opposite Hans, an attractive lady’s face fluttered, her head firmly pressed against the seat. He watched intently as her eyes blinked away, signalling some form of biological Morse code, receiver unknown, but the message was clear enough; “get me off this cable car!”

  Sat next to him was the girl, less filthy, but perfectly behaved. Unlike the passengers, she sat happily with her hands resting in her lap, looked at Hans and smiled like she knew every word to follow the other out of his mouth.

  He tapped his top pocket, but the fabric of the jacket was too thick to detect what he searched for. He pressed his hand inside, thumbing the test tube full of the orange fungi and the instructions on how to get to Gerald’s. He hadn’t seen his old friend since his marriage to Poppy Plithen, the daughter of the shampoo tycoon evidently unaware, naming your little girl Poppy with the surname Plithen made her sound like a character you’d find scribbled on the back pages of the Gazette.

  They were uncomfortably high, suspended between districts. A thin green line of nature lay within the patchy cloud cover. Both the pollution and the concrete compressed, forming a limited grey spectrum.

  ‘Are you okay there, little miss?’ Hans asked, ‘It’s fun, isn’t it?’

  The girl responded with a wide-eyed heart-melt expression.

  Around them men had removed their top hats and replaced them with grins as fabricated as the felt lining on the crown of each of their overpriced, under-made bonnets. The women sat upright, perfectly postured, again pretending to have a good time while dangling from a box suspended over a thousand foot in the air on chains made of eastern steel, not replaced in a period too terrifying to contemplate. But no accidents reported, the Gazette pencil pushers jumped on such disasters like a pack of Rabids on an Uppers child. Their vampire thirst for gritty tales of severed limbs always sold the rag to the half-witted; a rag by hacks, for hacks. He envisioned the headline in tomorrow’s paper:

  Middle bunch dressed in mock garb decapitated on tour among the Uppers;

  The Lowers get a taste in a torrential downpour of wannabe blue blood. Oh, how the Lowers did poke at the Middles’ desires to climb the classes. It was a snobbish irony.

  The Uppers, although it being their level, exposed only so much to the touring Middles. Little stores showcasing how much better their chocolate tasted. It was a paradise to some, a kick in the teeth to others, the one-piece branded underwear ruled as a best seller, buyers ranged from women to men but men for the most part. The cable carriage was the tourist’s first introduction. Three separate brands of premium cigarette posters lined the roof and on three of the four top walls of the car. An advert for Maplecrafts with a painting depicting a handsome fellow looking over a balcony, dressed in a bright white lining shirt, chest tanned and unbuttoned, moonlight shadow lining the frame of his perfectly symmetrical jaw with a full and bushy handlebar moustache and smoke idly escaping his mouth. Behind a hotel room curtain, a voluptuous silhouetted figure sat on the bed, thin leg cocked, removing a stocking. The next advert featured a man in a dinner suit lighting his cigarette at a social event, taking some time out to enjoy the silkily soft caresses of warm smoke. Under the image, the caption read Thannuel Cigarettes. Nothing more, nothing less. The third was simply a logo, and in the fourth advert a lady enjoyed one of the finest bottles of Wormwood Reserve Absinthe. At eye level, the wall opposite bore an advert for the Seagrave Corps grand unveiling of the Gas Locomotive. Hans stared long and hard at it.

  V

  The carriage came rattling into the station platform and as always, full of people holding paper shopping bags. Bangtails posed as Uppers with flirtatious rhetoric’s they feasted on the carriages’ single male travellers.

  Hans paid little attention passed the quick body scan of their feminine shapes and looked at the signs while fiddling with the plugged glass test tube rolling around in his pocket. The main doors to the station’s hanger opened and in rushed the cooling air. City-tortured lungs coughed violently around him.

  ‘Oh, how the other half live,’ he said, looking down at the girl, who charmingly smiled back.

  The doors to the Batten District opened, revealing a street described in a Dickens tale. Mock Uppers were everywhere, wandering around, careful with every step to ensure their postures were maintained. Unless you weren’t close enough, you’d fail to tell the difference. But the real Uppers were easy enough to spot. A woman walking with a chained lion cub wearing a giant polar bear fur coat, her hairstyle as extravagantly over the top as the jewels she had wrapped around her neck. The men wore thick velvet overcoats, corded trousers. All real Upper men wore silk woven top hats, not the cheap imitations and felt carry-on’s the Middles sported. The Upper men stood differently, slaves to nothing other than strict social etiquette. Cigarettes were smoked in public, cigars in the gentlemen’s clubs and pipes when residing in one’s parlour, to see a man confused by the order would have him ignored or cast as a mocking Middle. They passed smoking gentlemen, the one nearest removed his hat and tilted it to the girl. Hans returned the gesture, only his hat being a little less averse to tilt in such a manner. The gentleman smiled politely and carried on smoking. Passing all the shops and traversing all the human donkey-bag carriers, two signs read Bond Street with an arrow to the left and Hubert’s to the right. Removing the folded paper, Hans studied the directions;

  Left on to Bond Street, then straight on past the sweetshop. Up Harringay Hill once over the ridge take another left and Ferns Lodge is on the right, past the red post box.

  Why they had to fabricate hills in their terrain was beyond Hans’ understanding.

  VI

  They followed the directions, stopping briefly for a bag of humbugs. The girl popped one in her mouth, her face tightened to a fist and she spat it out.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Hans, ‘more for me.’

  The door to Fern Lodge was bright green with a green man – the spirit of nature and springtime – cast in copper carbonate within the bronze. It had cast the doorknocker green, a charming consideration and attention to detail for its ageing effect considering the subject, typical Gerald, always bright and creative, Hans thought.

  The door opened and the grey-bearded fellow appeared, his large red head giving the girl a shock.

  ‘Hans! You made it!’ he said.

  ‘Good afternoon, Gerald.’ Both men smiled excitedly at each other.

  ‘It has been too long, my old pal.’ He grabbed Hans’ shoulders and held him in front, narrowing his eyes and taking in the changes of his features. ‘Been busy adding a few extra rail networks to your face’s terrain, have you? Ah, but it is good to see you again, at last.’

  The girl looked at the door knocker and back at Gerald, noticing the resemblance.

  Gerald gave her a grin revealing two rows of horse-sized teeth. ‘And this must be?’ The girl’s bright brown eyes, full and unblinking, took the bearded man in. She didn’t say a word.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Gerard said, calming his voice, ‘still not talking?’

  ‘No.’ Hans removed his hat and ran his hand through his thinning hair, noting to himself the lessening resistance. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Gerald took the hat. ‘My dear fellow, I have an ointment for you.’

  Hans blushed. ‘No ointments, please, old friend.’

  Gerald shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Does your companion here have a name?’

  ‘She, we, no, she doesn’t, I mean, she hasn’t told us yet.’ His words struggled out of his mouth regardless of the mind feeding them substance.

  ‘Let’s give her a nickname – are you happy with it, young lady?’

  The girl, still in awe of Gerald’s beard, nodded her head.

  ‘Great, now let’s think.’ Gerald crouched, and his large belly hung over the top of his trousers. ‘Do you like fairies?’

  The girl’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Well, I think fairies are the most beautiful creatures in nature. Highly secretive be
ings. If they had it their way, they’d have us all believe they were myths.’ Looking up at Hans, he asked, ‘Where’s her village again, on the Moor?’

  ‘No, she, we found her in a small hamlet, beyond Orgotten Forest.’

  ‘Wow, all the way out there, you have been on quite the adventure, young lady. This settles it.’ He rubbed his fat hands together. ‘I grant you...’ He closed his eyes and held his hands up in the air like performing a naming ritual. Hans mimicked his friend’s arms. ‘Pixie!’ He tapped her on the head and squeezed her nose. The girl smiled, her cheeks turned pink.

  ‘Cup of warm tea for you and Pixie, Hans?’ He got back to his feet.

  ‘Delightful.’ said Hans.

  ‘Right this way, follow me.’

  Inside his old friend’s home, plants and flowers covered the walls, and vines broke out from the ground smashing through clay tiles, gripping the walls to the ceiling.

  ‘Love what you’ve done with the place,’ Hans mocked as he pulled a vine, only to snap his finger back as he caught it on a thorn.

  ‘You think so?’ replied their host, unaware of Hans’ sarcasm. ‘When I first got here the house was soulless, no plants or flowers. So I got hold of some seeds, dug out the basement level, filled it with compost and whatever else and now it’s like I have my own tree house. Like it, Pixie?’

  The girl was mesmerised, looking around the walls and ceilings. On one of the vines, a small white flower had sprouted. She stroked it.

  Hans noticed, bent down and plucked it. ‘Here you go, Pixie, put it in your hair if you’d like?’ Hans inserted it. ‘There, you look like a real Pixie now!’

  ‘Taking a bit of a liking to her, have you?’ Gerald asked as he leant in closer to Hans. ‘Be careful, they’ll take her off you eventually – oh, yes Pixie, you look delightful!’

  Gerald filled the kettle with water as his two guests took a seat. ‘You got the orange stuff?’

  Hans hurried into his pocket and pulled out the tube. Gerald held it up to the light, turning it on its side, and rotated the glass. ‘This looks most unnatural.’ He reached out to a nearby table and found one of many monocles. ‘And you say it burnt wood?’

  ‘Correct,’ Hans said. ‘I had a herbalist with me, but the chap soured. I think this stuff and our mutual friend here has something to do with it.’

  The kettle boiled, Gerald made the tea and handed a cup to each of his guests.

  ‘Come with me.’ He led them both to another room with telescopes rigged together in a network of tubes wrapped around the rounded walls of the chamber, a man-made counterpart to the vines in the other room. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? I’m calling it the mini-scope.’

  ‘Mini-scope?’ Hans tilted his head, trying to fit the size of the contraption within his field of view. ‘Doesn’t look particularly micro to me.’

  ‘Still running in your third dimensional prison, old boy?’

  ‘You know me and traditions.’ His cigarette case rattled. ‘Gerald, it’s–’

  ‘–marvellous.’ He cut a tiny amount of the orange onto a glass plate and held it under a lens platform. He walked up the iron steps to the viewing level and gazed in the scope. Making a few adjustments to the wheels, Gerald shouted, ‘Ah-ha.’ He paused, rotated to a nearby notebook, stroked his beard and scribbled. ‘What you have here, by the looks of things, is Mellowline Peroxide. It’s a toxic compound, synthesised to kill humans.’

  ‘How on terra can you tell of that old buy, from a single glance?’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune.’ Said Gerald.

  ‘I’m just a bit…’

  ‘A bit what?’ Gerald climbed down from the platform and gave Pixie a look of reassurance.

  ‘How are you able to tell such things from a single glance that is all I’m saying, it seems, well, it’s–’

  ‘You see Hans, I told you this would happen, you’re beginning to sound like them.’

  Hans thought for a moment about which group he referred to. ‘Which them, I appear to have several thems, currently.’

  ‘The royal order of course, full of doubters and questioners, why do you think I’ve ended up living all the way up here? I can’t seem to escape them lot…’

  Gerald continued to talk, Hans listened but also remembered how his old friend enjoyed a good rant. Best to let him go, get whatever old man niggle he had off his chest, some of what he said was right, but for the most part it was the same sentence repeated in five, no six different ways.

  ‘And that is why I decided to live here.’ said Gerald, ‘And what of the village?’ Was there any of this stuff around?’

  ‘You could say,’ Hans flattened both eyebrows. ‘I found some, in her home.’

  ‘I see.’ Gerald picked up the test tube, opened it, dipped his finger in and tasted it.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Hans hesitated to smash the tube away.

  ‘Calm down man, it’s perfectly safe. It’s missing one vital ingredient.’

  Hans regained his composure. ‘What in heavens is it?’

  ‘Wood.’ Gerald patted Hans on the chest and winked; not an arrogant snap of the eyelid, but one convincing Hans to confidence, he was indeed dealing with the best Herbalist in the city.

  ‘What happened to the rest of the village?’ Gerald asked.

  ‘It burnt down,’ Hans said. ‘A pile of embers lay in the square, looked like a stack of books.’

  ‘Did you manage to recover any of the pages or the bindings?’

  ‘No bindings. I picked one up, it crumbled in my glove.’

  ‘No wonder they thought it a witch.’ He handed back the test tube. ‘Let me guess, were these books as thick as the Mothers’ Guide?’

  ‘No, they weren’t.’

  ‘Do you have the paper with you?’ Gerald asked, peering down at the pockets of his old friend.

  ‘Yes, here.’

  Gerald removed a pair of half mooned spectacles and struggled with the thin arms to wrap them around his ears. ‘The holy language? Are you sure this isn’t a section from the Vulgate?’

  ‘It reads something to do with a Kingdom.’

  ‘A start.’ Gerald twilled a corner of his moustache.

  ‘I was hoping,’ Hans rocked backward on his heels, ‘seeing you’re now living among the Uppers, you might know someone who can read the words–’

  ‘Hans,’ he interrupted. ‘Blue blood and clergy don’t just wander around up here waiting to be your friend, they stick to their own. You’re best holding on to it.’

  Hans looked at Pixie, watching her peer up through the microscope. ‘A strange thing happened, Gerald,’ Hans said quietly. ‘Pixie was chanting words, when I entered her house.’

  ‘Has she said any since, in her sleep perhaps?’

  ‘No, but I’ve not checked her sleeping.’

  ‘You best be on your way. There’s little else I can do to help you.’

  Hans leant back, nearly standing on his friend’s toes. ‘Gerald, you know more about this, I can tell. If you still have your friends at the Order, contact them, find out why this little girl’s family and village have vanished.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Hans,’ he said, lowering his head and picking up the tea cups. ‘I can’t help you any further than what I already have. Best thing; get this little lady to talk.’

  VII

  The passageway back to the sky cars which Gerald had suggested to avoid the pandemonium of Middle tourists, had an arch of crumbled, carbon-stained black bricks. Had it not been for the spandrel mounted on the pier of pillars and Sootrail gutter, Hans could have easily have mistaken the lane for one found in the Lower districts. Stale air tussled with grit in a clammy wind, neither cold nor hot. Even all the way up here, you couldn’t escape the filth. He peered down the darkened passage and his stomach turned. The narrow pavement with sunken curbs, poorly cut stone slabs with edges uprooted like a miniature mountain pass arranged to trip and capture giants, was the most uninviting passageway Hans had seen to date. ‘Let’s go the other way
,’ he said, agreeing with his stomach’s hunch, and pulled Pixie closer to him.

  They headed back to the Upper District’s high street, getting barged, heel scuffed and stabbed by shopping bags. Hans kept his patience cooled under the delight of sweets they’d bought earlier.

  ‘Humbug?’ he said, offering Pixie the open bag of treats. She shook her head and frowned.

  ‘It suits you,’ he said, laughing, ‘your nickname. It really does suit you.’

  She replied with a strained smile covering her sweet filled mouth.

  ‘I had a nickname once, you know. They called me Lofty.’

  She looked at him, her eyes narrowed as though puzzled.

  ‘Lofty, with reference to how tall I am, tall enough to be in a loft? Or, at least I think that’s what it means. Anyway, it was a long time ago. Back when I did my conditioning, so a very long time ago.’

  Pixie’s smile retired into a tense clasp of her lips.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He looked around to see if it was anything nearby, but her eyes fixed on his lips. It must be the word, thought Hans. Conditioning. It terrified her.

  He held out his hand. ‘It’s safe with me, Pixie.’ If she had a shell, she’d have retracted into it.

  Other men walking with young children ambled past them. A man had one of his girls on his shoulders. She repeatedly knocked her father’s hat so it covered his eyes, testing his patience, but the man laughed, grabbed the girl, and gave her a cuddle and a tickle. Hans smiled, looked back down at Pixie and offered his hand for her to hold once more. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you.’ he said.

  VIII

  A flash of sheer blue washed between them like a water dragon chasing a fish. Hard velvet whipped Hans in the face, knocking off his glasses. He fell backward, stumbling. In the blur, Hans saw a mixture of colour meander through the crowded street.

  ‘Pixie?’ he said, ‘can you help me find my glasses?’ He searched the gravel for their metallic frame. ‘Pixie?’ The blurs around him, blobs of dull browns, blacks and greys. None matching her white blouse and bright purple skirt. ‘Pixie?’