My father’s tales…
We stepped onto the black sands of the shore, our weapons at the ready, listening to the darkness. And do you know what we did next, Charlie?
The lay of the land, Papa. You watched with keen eyes.
Yes, Charlie. No greater weapon than a sharp mind.
I took a deep breath, forced myself to calm, and then did as I had learned. Movement and motion slowed before me as I noticed instead of simply seeing.
The stalls in the west corner were food. Men argued at a counter drifting under a vast patchwork balloon. Pushing coin back and forth, they each grasped an end of a hunk of dried meat. Next to those, sundries. Two women bantered as they gestured, one with a few rolls of wound yarn, the other a bolt of material. Coming to an understanding, they traded goods and parted with satisfied faces. Across the marketplace a man aloft in his zeppelin called down to someone. He placed a sheaf of herbs in a basket, lowered it, and received a jar of honeycomb−apothecary. All around me people bartered for specific goods or services. There was rhyme to this chaos I just had not noticed before.
Perhaps there was a place to barter for information? I had the lorgnettes, my father’s cloak, I was not without currency. But where? Who would know a tinkerer or how to locate one?
Another vibration rattled through the south tower and I stilled. Pistons, gears, drive shafts…the care and maintenance of those vast towers needed a mech-man or a trained engineer. Surely I would find someone there.
I cast a final glance in the direction of the lawman and headed toward the still smoking tower. The din of the driving rotors grew louder as I pushed past people, the occasional mother scolding her child, and clots of filthy privateers huddled in smoky groups.
When I reached the tower, it did not connect to the walkway at all. It hovered more than fifty feet away with thick, chorded cables snaking out from either side. The anchors of the port. Most likely, a safety measure. The only way to reach the door more than thirty feet above was with a lighter-than-air craft. Staring up at the fish-scale siding, I decided it did indeed resemble an old lighthouse, though with a bit more grace to its lines. Disappointed, I watched the propellers slice through the sky. The consistent chug of the inner steam engine was somehow comforting. It was a sound from home.
A familiar whir and click caught my attention and I turned to see a child looking at me with rapt attention. A single mechanized lens covered one of his eyes, the strap encircled a riot of golden curls atop his head. He smiled at me and the mechanism focused when I waved. Despite the device, he reminded me of little Tommy back home and I wondered how Moira fared and if she ever secured treatment for the cuts to her hands.
The little boy giggled and I noticed the line in which he stood with his mother. Every person in the queue possessed some form of mechanical-aid device. Gloves with metal hinges to work paralyzed fingers, whole arm prosthetics, eye lenses…all of them waiting in front of a small stall just off the rest of the market pathway.
I walked over and peered around the crowd.
An older man, his head encircled with a silvery gray halo of hair, spoke softly to a woman.
She lifted her arm, extended and retracted the arm encased in a mechanized brace, and smiled. “Much better, Mr. Berkley,” the woman commented. She slid a man’s shirt and a canister of dark powder across the counter.
“It’s the damp, Mrs. Pare,” Berkley muttered. “I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping the gear-works dry and well oiled.”
She nodded and moved on with a look that showed she’d heard that same exclamation many times.
A young man, about my age, limped up.
Berkley frowned, leaned over the counter and shook his head. “This is not a leaping leg, Timothy,” he said with a click of his tongue, but he rounded the barrier and peered through his pince-nez at the joint. Reaching into his apron, he produced a tool unlike I’d ever seen before. Brass and wood, it ratcheted as he twisted the bolts on the boy’s knee and ankle.
“I knew you could fix it, Mr. Berkley. I knew it.” Stepping back, the boy bounced on both feet and slapped the old man on the shoulder. He offered over a handful of wooden nails.
“Yes, well…” Berkley muttered as he climbed back into his stall. Small and simple, it was little more than the width and breadth of a horse stall, if that. Yet all he seemed to need were the tools in his pocketed apron and the lone oil infuser on the counter.
He addressed each patron’s complaint, taking what they bartered with no comment.
I wondered if the offerings were truly as random as they seemed or if he had a standing list of things for which he was willing to trade work. Deciding I had no other ideas, I stepped in line. His fingers, though wrinkled with time, were nimble, and before I knew it, I was face to face with the old mechanic. He looked at me, leaned over the counter to peer at my feet, and then favored me with a puzzled look. “What do you need?”
“I, uh, nothing…”
“Then why are you in line?” Berkley looked down his nose and the lenses of his glasses made his eyes appear enormous. His silver hair ruffled in the breeze like duck down.
I stared at him, unsure. “I have something to trade.” I pulled the lorgnettes from my side pocket and offered them.
He glanced at them before fixing me with a narrowed gaze. “Trade for what?”
“I’m not sure, really.” Befuddled and unsure of how much to reveal, I simply stared at him.
Behind me a few groans of impatience sounded.
“You got something to trade, but you’ve no metal parts that I can see,” he said and raised a brow at my cloak.
“Maybe she’s got gears for brains and needs a few knocks to get them going again,” a voice floated from the rear of the line.
Snickers followed.
My face burned with embarrassment. I grabbed the opera glasses, but he caught my wrist, his grip a painful clamp.
“What do you need?” He fixed his rheumy gaze on mine and I stilled. “You came here. You waited. You thought about how to get it…now what is it you’re after, lass?”
I caught the glint of metal peeking out from his ear. Miniscule gears clicked and trembled just inside the shell of his ear. I blinked, curious. “A tinkerer made that,” I murmured.
“Of course, a tinkerer—”
“A tinkerer, not just a mech-man slapping together chunky, serviceable machines,” I interrupted. “A true inventor, someone artful, inspired.”
He considered me with a curious expression. “What would you know of artful?” He pulled the lorgnette from my pinned hand and inspected the knobs and small attachments. Raising a brow, he let out a low murmur, “Something, maybe, after all.”
“Are ya goin’ ta get on with it, Berkley?” A man called up. “The day’s half over and I’ve got to get to Port Healy by dusk.”
“Keep your temper, Stan,” Berkley yelled back. Leaning forward, he pulled me close by my wrist and whispered. “You are recognizable even in those goggles and hood, Charlotte Blackburn,” he hissed.
“What? I—” Panic barreled through me and I struggled to free myself from his deceptively strong grip. He nodded over my shoulder and I followed his gaze to a lawman talking with a group of women.
The parchment of an aether missive fluttered in the women’s grasp.
I could just make out an image of a face on the paper. “Oh, no.”
“What do you want?” He hissed. “Speak up and make it quick before someone in this line recognizes you and shouts about it.”
“C—Collodin. I need to find Signore Collodin, the tinkerer. I have a message from my father.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Berkley pulled me closer. His hot breath smelled of mint tea. “Why would you seek that madman out? Do you know who he is?”
“He’s a tinkerer who knew my father. I must find him.” Fighting the rise of worry, I eased my hand free. “Can you help me? It is a matter of the utmost urgency!”
“Yes, fine.” Berkle
y regarded me for a moment from behind his lenses. “Meet me at the northern slips. There is a black vessel docked.”
“What?” I looked at him, not sure what he was telling me.
“Go and hide on the craft and wait for me.” He released my hand and reached up, tugging my hood down further over my forehead. “Stay out of sight. There are bulletins with your likeness in the hands of many who would not hesitate to make a shiny coin off of your capture.”
I blinked back tears, my entire body shaking. I nodded, backing up and clutching my father’s cloak tighter. I turned and headed away, unsure if he meant to hide me for his own profit or if he truly intended to help. There seemed no reason to trust him. Nothing in his gruff manner or rough handling of me felt particularly honorable.
My mother’s face flashed before me and I took in a shuddering breath. The last time I’d felt alone and exposed was during her last days in the hospital. My father, unable to watch her die, disappeared into his lab and books, desperate to save her. But I sat next to her and wiped her brow with a wet cloth as I fought to keep the growing earth tremors outside from shaking the basin off my lap. She held my hand, stroked it with her soft skin, and smiled with eyes lined with encroaching defeat.
Faith is more than what you feel, Charlotte. It’s stepping out onto the waves despite the danger. You’re a scared girl, but a strong one, and help comes from the most unlikely of places.
Berkley frightened me, but he’d warned me as well, something he did not need to do. And, I’d seen what he had on his shelf. Jars of useless and broken trinkets, more shirts and rolls of yarn than anyone needed, and bruised fruit past the time of eating. He helped those who needed him, but not for any profit that I could discern. The polished stones in the jar at home flashed in my mind; payment from a grateful boy for baskets of food. I glanced toward the slips. The sails and bulbous shapes of the air-ships cast long shadows on the planks.
No, Berkley was not genteel or even kindly, but perhaps that was not what I needed in this place.
12
Ashton pushed through the crowd behind the food hut, alarm blaring through him as he searched for Charlotte. He chided himself for falling victim to her sweet smile and innocent gaze as she pilfered the journal from beneath his nose. What was she thinking, traveling unaccompanied in this dangerous territory? She was the type of young lady who would never travel without a chaperone for the sake of decency, if not safety. At least he thought she was. She was either very brave or very stupid.
He should have anticipated this. Her stubbornness rivaled his own and she was dead set on securing her father’s release despite the hazard and improbability. Her open-mouthed wonder at the port should have been an indication to him that she did not fully realize the risk she was in just walking amongst the rough characters of Port Rodale.
A raucous round of laughter pulled his gaze and he squinted at the cluster of privateers. They squatted in a huddle, the game of chance and free-flowing liquor keeping them busy.
Ashton continued. He ducked into stalls, searched underneath carriages and between floating buildings, desperate to locate her.
He would find her, no question. He just hoped it was before she got herself in any more trouble. He did not see anyone resembling Charlotte. He sought the faintest hint of her; the way she tilted her head before asking a question or the swaying gait of her walk. He’d quickly lost his focus around her, she was unlike any of the fragile, preening girls at the gatherings in New York. And that was the crux of the issue. He did not pay attention to the task at hand. So taken, he had not noticed when she poached her father’s journal and slipped out the rear of the food hut until too long afterwards.
He took in the tanned skin and wind-chapped faces of the women around him. Although she wore the garb of a sky dweller, she obviously did not belong. Her pale skin and genteel manner gave her away along with those long, dark tresses. Charlotte’s hair, though worn down like the custom of the port dwellers, was glossy in the sunlight, like black silk.
He twisted his wrist sharply, the shackle of his mandate clinking against his skin. He was bound to The Order. He had no right to think of her that way. Ashton shook his head, disgusted with his own short sightedness. Instead of hiding her and keeping her safe, he managed to deposit her in the heart of one of Outer City’s wildest ports. If he found her…when he found her, he would never take his eyes off of her again.
He could not simply wander the port aimlessly.
What could be her aim? She wanted to find Collodin. That was evident. How might she go about it? An aethergraph message to someone in New York, perhaps? He eyed the closest saloon, debating. Hand going to the utility pouch at his side, he lifted the silver coins, counting them. She had not taken any.
Turning in a circle, he ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. Perhaps she returned to the docks to search for Lizzie and the Stygian. Heading in that direction, he whispered a prayer. Keep her safe, Lord. Shield her from harm. Help me find her before danger befalls her.
As he rounded a corner, he stopped, stepping behind a carriage full of children. Eyes on the lawman just ahead, he felt a small hand on his shoulder and turned. A little girl, chestnut curls cascading around her small face, slipped a flower beneath his collar and giggled.
“Thank you, my lady,” he said and bowed slightly, his gaze over her shoulder at the lawman. He put his finger to mouth. “Shhh…”
She giggled, her freckled nose crinkling as she smiled and Ashton could not help but smile back.
The lawman barked a command at an older man, using a boot to cajole a faster pace.
Ashton recognized him; an enforcer, the man was no stranger to violence, particularly against the weak. Choosing a path that took him away from the lawman, Ashton’s hand went to his pistol out of habit as he gauged the angle of the sun. The sooner he found Charlotte, the better chance they both had of leaving Outer City in once piece.
13
I huddled next to the sleeping woman near the slip harboring Berkley’s air ship. She snored while propped against a crate, her ratty wool cape snug about her frail frame as a hand hewn pipe dangled from weathered lips. She whistled through missing front teeth with each exhale and it was driving me mad, but my position at her side, with my face hidden beneath a blanket I’d found in her basket, gave me an undisturbed vantage point of Berkley’s ship.
Matte black, the vessel’s hull, the dirigible balloons with their rope netting, all reminded me of the flat coloring on a beetle’s carapace. The air ship seemed to deflect the angled rays of the sun long past its zenith. I wondered at the purpose of the obvious work it took to coat the entire vessel as such. One could surely spot an all-black ship amid the blue and white of the open sky.
Speculating what Berkley used to coat the ropes, I nearly boarded the ship out of curiosity, but my fear of betrayal kept me rooted. Though I endeavored to trust him, I did not know why he offered assistance, and I fully expected him to stride down the gangway with lawmen in tow to turn me in. And yet he did know Collodin, at least, he knew of him, which was significantly more information than I had this morning.
He’d called Collodin mad, and the idea sent uneasiness flaring through me. Still, I needed to find this tinkerer and until I felt satisfied of my safety, I opted to watch from a distance far enough for a running start.
Now, almost an hour of waiting, the cooling wind pushed the assurance from me and replaced it with shivering doubt. Did Berkley intend to show up at all? I looked up toward the deck of the ship, spotted the flapping corner of my father’s cloak, and smiled to myself. Hoping to give the impression I had already boarded, the pleasure at my own cleverness faded when a familiar sight sent my heart vaulting.
Three lawmen strode down the pathway, their heads turned up toward the black vessel.
I had no doubt they searched for me. Betrayal burned in my gut and I stilled, my hand to my mouth as they stopped in front of Berkley’s ship.
People watched them warily, muttering
and crowding around.
Several men pushed their cloaks back behind their hip holsters, their tense posture worrying me.
“Captain of the vessel,” a lawman called up. “Berkley!”
Something seemed off and I stood slowly, letting the blanket drop.
When no answer came, they pulled on the rope ladder and climbed aboard.
Where was the tinkerer?
I backed away from the scene, scanning for the older man, apprehensive. An arm snaked around my waist and pulled me against a muscled body so swiftly I did not have time to cry out with surprise.
“Do not move, Charlie,” Ashton hissed in my ear. “Do you understand? Not even a whimper.”
My breath caught with both relief and fear, and I nodded, my heart ramming.
He eased back until we were behind a make-shift stall. The repurposed carriage felt rough against my back when Ashton turned, pinning me in place with a frustrated look on his face. I’d never seen anything more wonderful in my life. Relief flooded through me. “How did you find me?”
“The same way they did,” he said and nodded toward the lawmen. “The bounty on your head is enormous and rumors of a lady tinkerer run amok up here. It’s a wonder you weren’t captured already. Did you really flash your altered opera glasses in the middle of a crowd?”
“I’m so glad to see you!” I truly was. As determined as I was to get to my father, I realized how relieved I felt just to be near him.
“I…” he began, his voice stern before he paused, blinking. “What?”
“Mr. Berkley is in trouble. We must find him.” I scanned the crowd, uncertain of where he could be hiding.
The Tremblers Page 11