CLOCKWORK CANADA
STEAMPUNK FICTION
Edited by
DOMINIK PARISIEN
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Clockwork Canada : steampunk fiction / Dominik Parisien, editor.
(The Exile book of anthology series ; number twelve)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55096-579-7 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-55096-587-2 (pdf).--
ISBN 978-1-55096-580-3 (epub).--ISBN 978-1-55096-581-0 (mobi)
1. Steampunk fiction, Canadian (English). 2. Short stories, Canadian (English). 3. Canadian fiction (English)--21st century. I. Parisien, Dominik, editor II. Series: Exile book of anthology series ; no. 12
PS8323.S73C56 2016 C813'.0876808356 C2015-908657-4 / C2015-908658-2
Copyrights to the stories rest with the authors © 2016
Design and Composition by Mishi Uroboros;
Cover art “Autumnal Equinox” by Steve Menard;
Published by Exile Editions Ltd ~ www.ExileEditions.com
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For Ann, who made me love clockwork.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Dominik Parisien
LA CLOCHEMAR
Charlotte Ashley
EAST WIND IN CARRALL STREET
Holly Schofield
THE HARPOONIST
Brent Nichols
CREW 255
Claire Humphrey
THE CURLICUE SEAHORSE
Chantal Boudreau
STRANGE THINGS DONE
Michal Wojcik
BUFFALO GALS
Colleen Anderson
OUR CHYMICAL SÉANCE
Tony Pi
THE SEVEN O’CLOCK MAN
Kate Heartfield
THE TUNNELS OF MADNESS
Harold R. Thompson
LET SLIP THE SLUICEGATES OF WAR, HYDRO-GIRL
Terri Favro
EQUUS
Kate Story
GOLD MOUNTAIN
Karin Lowachee
KOMAGATA MARU
Rati Mehrotra
BONES OF BRONZE, LIMBS LIKE IRON
Rhea Rose
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
DOMINIK PARISIEN
Canada is often described as a mosaic, sometimes a patchwork. I would add that it might also be described as a great lumbering automaton; it is an absurdly large mass, a construct made of widely different cogs and gears that sometimes work together and sometimes don’t, that is physically connected by the railroad – one of the great embodiments of the power, ingenuity, and crushing ruthlessness of the steam age. It is a perfect setting for steampunk.
Steampunk is constantly being reinterpreted, reimagined. Authors, makers, artists, cosplayers, and musicians are all breaking down the components of this seemingly infinitely malleable genre and reassembling them to explore new avenues, to tell new stories. What started as Victorian retro-futurist fantasy has gone global and now spans across multiple historical periods. With this anthology I wanted to bring steampunk to Canada, to give Canadian authors and readers a chance to see their stories told through a versatile genre, and reimagine our history in order to provide glimpses of other Canadas.
Many of the elements traditionally associated with steampunk are featured in Clockwork Canada. Some of the stories contain steam, others don’t; clockwork frequently appears, as do automata, airships, trains, copper, brass, goggles, mechanical limbs; the works of Jules Verne inspire a character or two; the magical and the mechanical sometimes coexist; alternate history is often at the forefront; and great and fantastical inventions abound. While all these are important, they makeup only the physical manifestations of steampunk. The grinding heart of the genre lies in the themes, in the communities we build, the drive of the maker movement and the do-it-yourself culture, the interrogation of industry and empire, the engagement with revolutionary and creative ideas, and the celebration of the adventuring spirit. Stories that focused first on the spirit of the thing, and then the thing itself, were what I looked for when I began assembling the book.
From stories like Charlotte Ashley’s “La Clochemar," Holly Schofield’s “East Wind in Carrall Street,” Kate Heart-field “The Seven O’Clock Man,” and Colleen Anderson’s “Buffalo Gals,” to Claire Humphrey’s “Crew 255” and Brent Nichols’ “The Harpoonist,” many of the narratives in Clockwork Canada take place on the edges of “high” society, of empires, of the great metropolises of the industrial world, and show us the lives of the working class, of aboriginal characters, of those out in the Canadian wilderness and in burgeoning villages, and of those striving to build communities. Other tales, such as Tony Pi’s “Our Chymical Séance,” Chantal Boudreau’s “The Curlicue Seahorse,” and Michal Wojcik’s “Strange Things Done” revel in adventure and a sense of wonder.
As a movement that is both forward-looking and retro, steampunk also allows us to play with what-might-have-been, sometimes even what-should-have-been. It gives authors like Terri Favro, Kate Story, and Rati Mehrotra the chance to reimagine historical figures like Laura Secord and Isaac Brock in “Let Slip the Sluicegates of War, Hydro-Girl,” Sandford Fleming in “Equus,” and Gurdit Singh in “Komagata Maru,” or gives Harold R. Thompson the opportunity to explore Canada’s role in the American Civil War. It gives us stories like Karin Lowachee’s “Gold Mountain” and Rhea Rose’s “Bones of Bronze, Limbs Like Iron” and helps us explore, even question, the idea of Canada as a safe haven for immigrants.
No story exists in a vacuum, so although these tales are set in The Great White North, they are nonetheless in dialogue with the global steampunk communities. With that sense of community in mind, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the world of Clockwork Canada.
LA CLOCHEMAR
CHARLOTTE ASHLEY
Here is what happened on Suzette’s first run:
The living map they called the lifeclock – manidoo-dibaigi-sisswaii – woke her party up before dawn. Amidst the usual slow movements of the badges representing caribou, white-fish, rabbit, fisher, bear, lynx, and moose, the brightly beaded symbol of Mishiginebig, the Horned Serpent, had started to move. It was still distant, a spear of blood-red beadwork lancing over the lifeclock’s mosaic face, but Mishiginebig was fast. At the rate he was moving, he’d be within sight of Baawitigong, their home, in less than an hour.
“Suzette and Makoonse, go. Now,” their party leader, Shogamish, croaked. “Meet Mishiginebig here…” He pointed at the map at the crook of the Root River. “…and draw him up to the little lake—”
Suzette snatched up her gear and was out the door of the Hall of Migration before Shogamish could finish. When one of
the big monsters moved, there was no time for curiosity or questions. There was only time to run.
With her rifle tight on her back and her partner, Makoonse, lagging in her wake, Suzette sprinted the entire way to the Root River. They caught sight of Mishiginebig at a narrow crossing where the tree line had been pushed back by spring flooding. His striped, yellow-and-green hide was nearly indistinguishable from the wall of pines, smooth scales locking together like bark. Only the motion of the lines, like a forest under the ripple of a paddle, gave him away. His head was obscured by underbrush somewhere to the north, but his forked tail lashed out of the tree line to the south, barely a half-mile back.
“Be the wind, Soofoo,” Makoonse gasped at her, unslinging his gun once they’d forged the river. He raised the rifle and fired.
The bullet ricocheted uselessly off Mishiginebig’s hide into a tree, kicking up a spray of splinters. The explosion from the shot did its job. The serpent’s bulk slithered to a halt. Upstream, his four-horned profile, snouted and fanged like a wolf, emerged from the woods, his snake’s body trailing behind it.
Suzette ran.
She bolted down the riverbank, ducking under Mishiginebig’s tail as it whipped out at her. Her leathers were painted bright red and white, her face too; all the better to be seen when she wanted to be. The noise and the smell of the gunshot could attract a Mandimanidoo – one of the big ones – from miles off, as the first visitors from France discovered a hundred years ago. Keeping its attention and losing it again when you needed to – that was an art the Anishinaabeg had perfected. An art Suzette had spent the last ten years learning. An art that would be put to the test now. She gained five hundred feet on the beast before it turned, and lost a hundred when she dove into the forest, taking a well-worn deer path. She ducked and leapt, a crazed jackrabbit without a hole, until her lungs screamed and her toes dragged. She tugged free the roll of camouflage secured abouther waist, turned abruptly into the undergrowth, and fell into a crouch beneath it.
Then she closed her eyes and settled into niiyawaa, stillness, as she had been taught.
Her heart slowed instantly. Her scalp prickled with an icy cold and her fingers went numb, but she willed her body to push further. Her laboured breathing calmed to a nearly imperceptible murmur as she felt her spirit lower deep into her self. She felt her consciousness waver, her constitution badly taxed by lack of air and an overabundance of excitement, but she held tightly to her spark of life. Niiyawaa was a dangerous state, but necessary if she was going to trick Mishiginebig into passing her by. She had to be another lifeless thing on the forest floor.
For fifty long, slow heartbeats, Mishiginebig hurtled down the deer path past where she was huddled beneath her scant camouflage, then the rattle of the bush retreated. Suzette let another ten beats pass and, with a heave of her spirit, she pulled herself out of niiyawaa, surfacing with a gulp. Her head felt light and dark spots crowded her vision like night blossoms, but that was all the rest she got.
Suzette ran.
She launched herself back towards the path, over it, and into the uncut bush. She ploughed through the sharp branches clasped in each other’s grasps, letting them scratch her cheeks and tear her braids. In a clearing between two old beeches, she unshouldered her rifle, cocked the hammer, and fired into the air to draw the serpent back towards her.
But what roared in response to her rifle was not Mishiginebig.
Through the thick canopy, Suzette could see the shape of a mountainous moose’s head with a distinctive crest of feathers rising up over the forest, no more than a league distant. The monster’s angry cry was part bear’s roar and part eagle’s shriek – Pamolai, who should have been far east in the distant lands of the Panawahpskek this time of year. The earth shook as Pamolai clambered to a stand and began its lumbering progress towards her. Suzette’s measured, trained breath rattled and accelerated as she realized she was trapped.
Suzette panicked – and ran. Wild, she tore herself on sticky-sharp pines thick with webs and fell over half-rotten cedars hidden under the rusty needle coating of the earth. She gasped for breath and forgot how to calm her heart and her mind. She ran faster than she had ever run before, away from Pamolai but towards Mishiginebig, heedless and lost.
A gun fired in the distance behind her. Makoonse’s? Her partner was not as quick as she was, could not outrun these monsters. But he could gain her time.
Suzette stopped. She forced herself to breathe, to turn, to remember her training. Between the broken crowns of the trees, she saw the back of Pamolai’s head. The beast was heading the wrong way, towards the gunfire – and the town.
The little lake could not be far.
Her rifle was still in her hand. Suzette regained control of her breathing as she reloaded it, keeping one eye trained on Pamolai’s silhouette. She would fire again, she told herself; bring both monsters back towards her. She would draw them towards the lake. Then she would lose them with niiyawaa, as she had been taught. That was the plan, the technique she was supposed to have perfected. She pointed her rifle into theair.
Mishiginebig’s tail lashed out of the bush like a whip, catching her completely unaware. Her body folded around it, limp with surprise, before being launched into the air by the impact. Her world became a bird’s nest of shattering, stabbing, lacerating boughs followed by a crooked impact, bottom-first.
That was the end of Suzette’s first run. But it would not be her last.
* * *
Suzette woke to another thrashing. A thin man with horse-tailed black hair shook her shoulder with one hand, jostling her very tender skull. He was so preoccupied with the golden contraption in his other hand that he continued to shake her even once she had opened her eyes and convinced them to focus in the same direction.
“Oooh,” she groaned, drawing his attention. He glanced at her only briefly, but ceased rattling her brains.
“Madame,” he said to her in French, “if you can stand, you must come with me now. We are in great danger.”
“Mishiginebig,” she gasped, finding it difficult to speak. The man looked relieved.
“Yes, exactly. The serpent is…” The man studied his golden contraption. “…not two miles west of here, but on the move. We cannot stay here.”
“How do you know that?” Suzette replied in Anishinaabemowin out of habit. She struggled to a sit, which she was pleased to find she could.
The man ignored her question. “Up with you, then,” he said, placing his device in the pocket of his coat and wrapping his arm under her shoulder. “Weashcog is not far from here.”
“Pamolai,” Suzette blurted, almost an expletive, as a sharp pain in her chest robbed her of her breath again. “Pamolai was here as well. Did she—?”
The man’s hand twitched towards the pocket that held his device, then he made a fist, scowling.
“She was headed north when last I saw her,” the man replied. “Someone drew her up towards the little lakes. Can you walk?”
Suzette nodded. She took a few experimental steps and found it was not a lie. Her head ached and she could not catch a proper breath, but by sinking into a light niiyawaa trance, she could move well without requiring much air. She started to jog but soon found her rescuer was not following. She glanced back at him inquisitively.
“I’m not a runner,” he said, gesturing at his outfit as if that explained everything. Indeed, he was garbed in the French fashion: a long woollen coat over hose with severely impractical heeled shoes, all sewn with beadwork. “I’m a map-builder. Dibaabishk,” he introduced himself. Weight Measure.
“Soofoo.” She gave him her own nickname.
“‘Foo.’” Dibaabishk smiled. “From the French: ‘An ill-considered journey.’ A French runner. That’s new.”
Suzette shrugged. “Treaty,” she said. “A dozen of us have been trained at Baawitigong. I was – young when my king sent me here.” In truth, she had been a woman fully grown when she’d been caught poaching, arrested, and shipped o
ff to the Americas. But she had long since learned that the Anishinaabeg did not like to hear an honoured role like runner conflated with a punishment for criminals. “This was my first run.”
“You lived,” Dibaabishk said. “Congratulations.”
Weashcog was known to her, as one or two runners from her party had been recruited there. She had only stayed long enough to share a little food and drink those years ago, but she remembered the little place’s sunny banks and rabbittrimmed wigwams, rich and growing from the fur trade. Weashcog had its own lifeclock as well, smaller than the one at Baawitigong, but daintier. The badges depicting the area’s lives slid smoothly over the map’s surface without the rattle and grind she’d become accustomed to. The interlocking pieces on the lifeclock’s backside were better made here, the metal friendlier with the spirits tied to it.
Dibaabishk’s doing, she realized. He was the map-maker. She wondered again about the device in his pocket.
“Our midewikwe – Wazhindoon – lives just here,” Dibaabishk said, breaking their long silence. “She’ll get you medicine.” They turned off the path they’d been following and pushed through a thick wall of ferns to reach a lone building in a clearing demarked with stark white birch logs. Suzette followed Dibaabishk in.
“Dibaabishk! Come, I need your little hands for – oh, huh, welcome.” The woman inside was tall and as thin as knotted rope, wearing a sleeveless dress dyed bright blue with no underclothes or moccasins. She stood, paced in spot a few moments, studying Suzette, then returned to a crouch in front of an elaborate bead loom hanging from the wigwam’s unusually tall ceiling boughs. “Well, what is it you need, then? Grooveburr?”
“Actually, I’ve brought you a patient.” The map-maker gestured at Suzette.
The midewikwe swivelled on her heels and looked at Suzette again. “A runner. Only one? Where are the others?”
“She was separated from her party, hit by Mishiginebig. She needs something for her bones, I think—”
“Mishiginebig?” Wazhindoon interrupted. “You were out while the Great Serpent was prowling?” She squinted at the map-maker, her eyes finally coming to focus with a sharpness that betrayed her keen mind. “You’ve done it,” she said suddenly. “You’ve got a manidoo-dibaigisisswaii.”
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