Chainbreaker

by Tara Sim

  Whack. Danny smacked it far into the field and rushed to the other side, grinning victoriously. But just as he was about to score, he lost his footing, slipped, and fell face-first in the mud.

  He rose, sputtering and cursing, to the sound of laughter. He shook his hands, dislodging bits of muddy grass. The rain did little to cool his burning cheeks.

  Daphne recovered first and made to help him up. “Sorry, Danny. But you ought to see your face.”

  Danny took her hand—and tugged. She yelped and fell into the mud beside him, splattering him all over again.

  “Daniel Hart!” But he was laughing too hard to hear, and she couldn’t help a rueful laugh of her own. They tried to get up and slipped again. When Akash and Meena came to help, a conspiratorial look passed between Danny and Daphne. They each grabbed a hand and pulled the siblings down with them.

  “Foul!” Akash yelled as he crashed into the mud. “The British are sore losers!”

  “At least we don’t melt,” Danny said, and threw a lump of mud at Meena. She squealed and hurled one back.

  They played in the field like children until Lieutenant Crosby yelled at them to get to the baths immediately before they took ill. “What do you think this is, a school yard? Remember your stations!”

  They hung their heads and made for the baths, but quick glances around revealed that they all wore the same small smile.

  “Danny,” Meena asked one night as they were playing bridge, “may we ask how you came by your scar?”

  Danny looked up. Meena had tilted her head forward slightly, and Akash was watching over his cards.

  “It’s not really a secret,” he said. “I was in a clock tower when it … um, exploded. The gears …” He mimed something flying through the air, and Daphne shuddered.

  Meena looked aghast. “The tower fell?”

  “No, only the clockwork was harmed. Well, and my chin.” He touched the hard, white line. “I managed to reattach everything, though, and get time started again.”

  It was easier to talk about the accident now, a year later and half a world away, but Danny couldn’t stop the dread that crept up his spine, or the pulse of heat in his stomach. He still remembered how vibrant a red his blood had been, a flash of crimson against a world gone black and white. The flicker of time all around him like a struggling heartbeat. Suddenly, he could feel his own heartbeat in the palms of his hands, twin rhythms of panic.

  “Why did the clockwork explode?” Akash asked.

  Danny didn’t understand him at first, too wrapped up in the memory. He shook his head to clear it and tried not to look at Daphne, who was suddenly fascinated by her bridge hand. “A man was targeting towers, and I happened to be in one at the wrong time.”

  “Was this the terrorist I heard rumor of?” Meena asked. “The one in London?”

  Again with that word. “Yes.”

  “Why did he do it? Wasn’t he a clock mechanic, too?”

  Is, Danny wanted to correct them. “He lost sight of what was right,” he said to his cards. “He was so preoccupied with what he wanted that he didn’t think of anyone else.”

  A short silence passed. Then Akash murmured, “I wonder if he could be working with the bombers here.”

  Why did everyone have to jump to that conclusion? Yes, Matthias was a terrorist, but all of that was behind them. Now others were trailing in his footsteps, and doing a much better job of it.

  The question, of course, was why.

  “Well, I happen to like it—the scar,” Akash said. “It adds a bit of mystery. Daring.”

  Daphne snorted, and that was the end of that.

  The only person in the cantonment who didn’t seem confused by the new friendship between the four of them was Captain Harris. He actually passed time with the Indians beyond his requisite handing out of orders, and spoke their language with the ease of one who was born there. He had been stationed in India for five years already, and said he didn’t miss England very often.

  “Victoria’s going to be named Empress in a couple months,” Harris said one night as they drank hot milk before bed. “Everyone’s excited about it, even the Indians. Well, the rajas are, anyway. The princes love any excuse to dress up and parade about.”

  Meena rolled her eyes in agreement.

  “Are you going to the ceremony?” Danny asked. “We heard there might be an attack on the Delhi tower.”

  “There’ll be a guard around the tower for certain, but I won’t be part of it. And the Queen won’t actually be there, of course.”

  “Who will be there?”

  “The viceroy will be attending as Victoria’s representative.”

  Akash’s eyes narrowed. “Viceroy Lytton?”

  “That’s him. Not a popular fellow, I’ll admit.”

  “Why would he be?” Akash made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “He is incompetent, a fool. He prefers poetry and gold over the running of this country. No wonder they call this the Black Raj.”

  The atmosphere at the table suddenly grew tense, the silence that fell after Akash’s words taut and accusing. Danny exchanged a worried glance with Daphne.

  But Harris deftly changed the subject. “We’re all serving Queen and country, in the end. It’s a decent living. They even pay me more for acting as a translator. Did you know this country has twenty-three languages? I only know Hindi and Urdu, but maybe I’ll make my way to the rest one day.”

  “Too bad they don’t pay for being a sharpshooter,” Meena joked. Harris looked down at the table with a pleased smile.

  “Are you good with a gun, Captain?” Daphne asked.

  “He’s the best,” Akash said. “I’ve seen him at the range behind the cantonment. You should show them, Captain.”

  Danny wondered how to politely decline the demonstration, but he liked Harris, so he mumbled something about being eager to see it.

  Indian vendors frequented the cantonment, including one who walked around with live animals dangling from a bamboo stick he perched across his shoulder. He sold his wares to the soldiers who had greyhounds that needed exercising, or those who were in need of live targets for shooting practice. Danny worried that Harris would use one of these creatures to show off his skills. A couple of days later, when he saw the stationary target situated at the far end of the range, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  Akash was out running an errand, but the other three ambled toward the range. Danny longed to go back to his notes—he was working out a complex theory about the rain’s effect on the clock towers—but Daphne’s interest and Meena’s wariness made him stay put. He hated to admit it, but he was a bit curious, too.

  The rains held off in the mid-afternoon hours as Harris cleaned and prepared his rifle. It looked new, and dangerously close to the models Danny had seen being made in the Enfield factory.

  A sepoy stood at Harris’s side, holding the captain’s rifle equipment. His dark eyes were keen as he studied the three of them. Danny noticed the man’s own rifle was an older, clunkier model than Harris’s. Danny had read that ever since the rebellion, the Indian soldiers weren’t allowed to have the newest guns.

  “Partha,” Harris said, addressing the sepoy, “would you mind moving the target farther away?”

  Partha adjusted the wooden stand. A crude canvas target was stretched across it, painted with five scattered red dots.

  “Good, thank you.” Harris waited for the sepoy to return and gave him a handsome smile. Cocking the rifle, he brought it up to his shoulder. He took a deep, steadying breath, then fired five shots one right after the other.

  The three mechanics jumped at the report. Partha brought the target back and Danny’s breath caught. Every point had a bullet neatly blown through it.

  It was one thing, Danny thought, to see the rifles being assembled in the factory back at Enfield. It was quite another to see them in action.

  To see their full, deadly potential.

  “Well done, Captain,” Daphne said. Even Meena looked impressed.<
br />
  Harris ruffled his hair, then smoothed it back down again. “Thank you.”

  The group heard a scoff behind them. Lieutenant Crosby had been watching the exercise as well, arms crossed over his chest.

  “If you want a real demonstration, use a moving target,” Crosby said.

  “Would you care to give us your own demonstration, sir?” Harris asked. Partha, who had been cleaning and loading the rifle, shifted so that he stood a little closer to Harris, eyeing the lieutenant with thinly veiled dislike.

  Crosby snapped his fingers at the animal vendor close by. The Indian man hopped forward and presented his struggling wares for Crosby’s perusal. The lieutenant chose a particularly frazzled hare, which dangled by its foot.

  “Gun,” he ordered Harris. The captain handed over his rifle without complaint, but Danny caught the gleam of indignation in his eyes.

  Crosby primed the gun, then nodded to the Indian vendor. He released the hare, who streaked across the field in a blur of gray.

  A clear shot rang out, and this time everybody jumped. Everyone except Harris, who looked on coolly. Crosby handed back his rifle, the barrel faintly smoking.

  “There you are,” the lieutenant said. They all looked at the small form of the hare’s body, now lying motionless. Daphne frowned and Meena turned completely away. Danny continued to watch the silent battle between Harris and Crosby until the latter turned and strolled away, hands in his pockets.

  The monsoon let up a few days later, though the sky was still churning with gray clouds when Meena offered to finally make good on her promise to show them the city.

  “We need a break from all this thinking,” she said. “Also, there will be fewer people after the rains.”

  Danny was fairly certain she took this precaution because of the stares they had drawn in Khurja. Thinking back to how exposed he’d felt, he silently thanked her.

  They asked for an auto to take into the city, as it was much too far to walk and—mercifully, in Danny’s opinion—too short a journey to take Akash’s plane. Danny stared out the window as the plain dissolved into buildings, from women walking with baskets and children on their hips to men carrying wood and goats in their arms.

  Outside the safety of the cantonment, however, Danny felt his shoulders grow tense. He couldn’t help but wonder about the man on the Notus, whom they still hadn’t identified. Was he was still out there, plotting another attack?

  More questions that couldn’t be answered.

  The Taj Mahal presided over a garden divided into four quadrants with a cross-shaped pond intersecting them, which Meena called a charbagh. Danny looked at the vast building, awed and struggling to comprehend how human beings could create something so vast and beautiful.

  “Shah Jahan was a Mughal emperor who was married to a Persian princess,” Meena said. “They were deeply in love and had many children. But the princess died in childbirth. Before she passed, she ordered the emperor to build a monument symbolizing their love. Shah Jahan carried so much grief that he ordered this tomb be built in honor of his beloved wife.” She released a wistful little sigh. “The graves of the emperor and his wife are underground, but inside the Taj is the decorative tomb.”

  “Wait, this is a tomb?” Danny interrupted. “I thought it was a palace.”

  Akash laughed. “Too small for a palace, but too large for a tomb, in my opinion.”

  “No tomb would be big enough to contain the emperor’s grief,” Meena said, a slight edge in her voice. “Show some respect for the dead.”

  Properly chastised, they followed her to the central building.

  A latticework fence around the tombs was covered with gold and gems that formed twisting vines and flowers. The tombs themselves, however, were plain. Meena explained that it was Muslim tradition not to decorate graves more than necessary.

  Danny wished he could show this to Colton. That there was a way to shrink it down, put it in his pocket, and share it as he had shared so many curios with him. The only way to bring the world to Enfield.

  Although the Taj was Muslim in design, there were marble Om inlays carved onto the walls. Danny touched one and thought of the emperor’s despair. The maddening, aching loss that had driven him to fill a tomb with jewels and light and air. And grief. He could feel it here, almost as he could feel time passing in Khurja. Something sharp and powerful. Constant. But unlike the fulfilling sensation at Khurja, this was an ache—the sensation of something ripped away, missing.

  He thought of the tower debris and how he hadn’t seen or sensed a spirit. Cruelly, his mind supplied him an image of Colton’s tower as nothing but a pile of rubble, with no sign of Colton anywhere.

  Danny wandered outside and stood at the railing, facing the Yamuna River, which curved behind the Taj. Women dyed and washed clothes in the water, letting the current carry away streaks of red and yellow.

  Footsteps came up behind him. “Are you all right?” Daphne asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  She hesitated before asking her next question, but Danny knew it was coming all the same. “Do you miss him?”

  “Enough to build a second Taj.”

  “We’ll be back in England soon, I hope. If we ever find a solution to all this.” He heard the rustle of her clothes, then felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw that she had taken out the two little pills the attendant from the Notus had given her.

  “Do you need them?” she asked.

  “No. Why do you still have those?”

  “It seemed a waste to throw them away if someone else could benefit.”

  “You won’t take them?”

  “I don’t trust pills. I’ve watched my mother swallow too many to be comfortable with the notion.”

  He scuffed his boot lightly against the marble floor. “I’m sorry.”

  “No matter.” She tucked the pills away in her pocket. “One day, I’ll get her out of there.” When Danny gave her a sympathetic look, she shrugged. “Don’t bother pitying me, Danny. Your situation was far worse than mine.”

  He’d secretly longed to hear those words all throughout his father’s absence. Now, they offended him. “Of course it wasn’t. How do you reckon that?”

  “At least my father is dead and I know he can’t come back. You had to live without knowing one way or the other. I couldn’t have borne it.” She paused, then shook her head. “No, all that hope would have killed me.”

  Danny stared at the river again, at the women stretching their wet, dyed sheets out to dry on the rocks. “Speaking of your father … I noticed you haven’t told them. About you.”

  Daphne tensed. “Why would I?”

  The reason seemed obvious to him, but then again, Daphne didn’t tend to say anything about it in England. It made sense that she wouldn’t say anything in India. Still, he watched her out of the corner of his eye, taking in the longing on her face as she watched the women working below.

  “Are you two all right?” Akash had sidled up to them. Meena was still busy fawning over the inner dome.

  “We’re fine,” Daphne said. “Thank you. You and Meena have been so kind to us.”

  Akash smiled and scratched the back of his head. That wide, goofy smile was one Danny recognized; Colton usually grinned like that before he said something absurd, like Your eyes are so green or I like watching your lips when you talk. Danny had noticed Akash’s little glances, the excuses to hand Daphne something so that their fingers would touch.

  “You’re very welcome. I believe Meena wanted to show you the mosque as well.”

  He led Daphne toward said mosque. Danny was about to follow when he heard a metallic sound. He glanced at the marble railing and jerked back. A fat, black spider was perched there.

  Though something didn’t seem right about it. The spider was too precise. The eyes glowed faintly.

  Mechanical spider.

  “The bleeding hell is that?” he asked out loud. The others were too far away to hear. He considered calling them
over, but before he could, the mechanical spider scuttled back under the railing, out of sight.

  Hours later, Danny was still thinking about the spider as they rattled back to the cantonment. He knew the British had brought machines to India, but the creature seemed too advanced even for London.

  As soon as they climbed out of the auto, Lieutenant Crosby descended on them. “Major Dryden wants to see you three immediately.”

  You three meaning the clock mechanics. Akash shrugged and loped toward the mess, leaving the mechanics to follow Crosby.

  When they walked into the meeting room, Dryden nearly pounced on them in his excitement. “We received a cable not too long ago from the north and the south. Intel has been hard at work.”

  “Regarding what, sir?” asked Daphne.

  “We received word of suspicious activity around the clock towers in both Meerut and Lucknow. You’ve been sniffing at the tracks so far. Now it’s time to dart for the fox.”

  There were many books in Danny’s house, and it took Colton nearly an hour of deliberation until he picked one at random. The pages rustled pleasantly as Colton turned them for several long minutes, enamored with the sound they made, before going back to actually read the words on those pages.

  He had been with the Harts for two weeks. Though his presence had initially sparked tension, Danny’s parents had grown accustomed to him. Colton, however, still felt wildly out of place, a thistle in a field of poppies.

  It didn’t help that Christopher, though pleasant, put him on edge. He could practically read the man’s thoughts, from his puzzlement about Colton’s relationship with Danny to his worry over Enfield’s tower.

  Colton stared down at the words without reading them. He didn’t even know what book he was holding. His mind was still in Enfield, focused on another story.

  On Prometheus, the Titan who stole fire for the humans. Zeus, angry, wanting the humans to die off, chaining Prometheus to that rock, leaving him to suffer until …

  Until what? There was an ending to the story, but he must not have heard it. Even when he had read the myth in his tower, his eyes had skimmed over the conclusion, as if it were of no importance. He’d been too focused on the first part, trying to jog his memory.