Cogs in Time Volume Three (The Steamworks Series Book 3)
Page 10
“Calliana Lillith Mapper!” Marin returned my bark, but ruined it with a snort of laughter. No doubt our full names were hideous and using them always sent us into giggles as if we were six years old again and not seventeen.
“I'm done, silly, but it's late.” I pointed out the setting sun to Marin, and he rushed to his feet.
“We won't make it back before Clockstrike if we take the boat,” he groaned and reached for the rope. He untied it and turned to scramble rock to rock, towing the bobbing beast alongside. I followed carefully, not wanting to fall into the sea or lose my grip on the precious map and my father's tools.
“We have no candles, Marin. If it goes dark, we're in trouble.” I gasped as I stumbled to keep up with his long legs and easy jumps. He'd always forgotten that I was nearly half his size and keeping up had always been tough. But I’d never complained, and he'd never lost me.
“If we get off the rocky bit of this shore and reach the sand, we can move faster,” Marin bellowed over his shoulder at me.
I caught a flicker of worry in his green eyes as they studied my precarious progress over the giant tumble of sea battered rocks and driftwood.
“I don't suppose it's a good time to tell you that I cannot swim, right?” I wheezed as I pulled myself up a boulder smoothed by the rough waves. I pried my fingers into cracks and jammed my boots into crevices, thankful, for once, for the boys clothing that let me climb about so freely.
“What?”
I couldn't tell if he hadn't heard me or was horrified. Judging from the huge, terrified green eyes that peered down at me from the top of the boulder, I judged the latter. Worry and near panic etched lines in his sun-browned face, highlighting the vivid green of his eyes.
“I can't swim.” I blinked up at him, startled by the concern tightening his eyebrows.
“You can't swim? And you still got aboard . . . .” He sighed and shook his head before reaching down a hand to me.
I gripped it and gasped when he tugged me easily, one armed, to the top of the rock without as much as a twinge of strain.
“You got strong, Marin!” I stumbled when he let me loose and said the first thing that my idiot brain could think of to steer the topic from me.
“I fish all day, Callia, if you haven't noticed,” he barked, no longer awed, but angry. He scowled and turned, letting the tiny boat clatter and scrape along the rocky shoreline in a testament to his feelings.
“I . . . know that,” I whispered and stumbled to follow his quickly vanishing back. “I didn't realize that you were so strong is all, I'm sorry.”
My mumbling must have reached him because he froze and spun to face me. Wordlessly, he dragged his goggles to his forehead, and I instinctively mimicked him. He bent at the waist until we were face to face.
“I know you know that, but I didn't know you couldn't swim Callia,” Marin snapped.
I winced at the angry sharpness that barbed his words. My heart jerked, and my breaths tore from me like the wind tore at my hair.
“I didn't think—” I began only to be cut off by a furious green glare.
“You could have fallen in and died, Callia! Did you not realize that?” the words rushed from his lips, angry and frustrated, worried and frightened all at once.
“That didn't matter, Marin. We needed to finish the map.” I exhaled and closed my eyes, unable to stand the angry terror that glittered in eyes that had always been bright, happy, and teasing around me.
“Didn't matter? It matters to me, damn it!” Marin's voice shook, matching the shaking my entire body was now doing.
Tears burned my eyelids, and I blinked to hide them, like always.
The light dimmed abruptly, and I opened my eyes to find him staring mutely, his jaw tight, at the sliver of sun that was left atop the endless sea.
“We won't make it back, Marin,” I said the obvious, my voice drained of emotion.
“No. We're stuck,” he swallowed and sank to his knees in the dying light. I remained standing, watching the last inch of sun vanish with rising dread. No candles. No fire.
“Callia?”
“Yes?” I whimpered as dark, cold and crisp, ate the last of the light and everything visible faded from sight.
“You are truly the bravest person I know.”
A hand, chilled by the icy air and damp wind, gripped mine in the dark. Trembling, I sagged to the ground and let his strong arms wind across my shoulders, tugging me to him.
“The clock,” I licked my dry, wind stung lips and blinked in the muted darkness to little avail. The night was swift and consuming once the sun vanished, the wind sharp and unforgiving. “It'll be Clockstrike soon, Marin.”
“Yeah,” he shifted, and his arm tightening slightly about me. “We've got no choice but to wait for morning now.”
“Listen,” I breathed out with a shiver as the air before my face fogged. The cold seeping off the choppy black sea was growing icier by the moment, but the crashing waves and stinging wind couldn't hide the tell tale grind of rusted gears and wheels. “It's so far away sounding!”
I struggled to stare into the darkness, but the distant village nestled against the cliffs and clinging to the rocks of the Western rim of the island was dark, the meager candles within the ramshackle homes unable to send out even a faint glow.
“I've never heard it like this before,” Marin whispered.
I shivered and leaned against into his side. Worn flannel and patched trousers did little to keep out the cold, and I clamped my jaw tight to stifle the clatter of my teeth. I wanted, no needed, the reassurance of the familiar grind of gears and gong of the great clock.
The gears whined into their creaky silence, and Marin inhaled as the world went silent, but for the rush of wind and thunder of waves breaking just below our perch. I leaned forward and squinted past him to where the pillars rose out of the bay as inky shapes that blocked out the moon and starlight.
Bong!
I jumped and cracked Marin in the ribs with my elbow. He jerked, his breath hissing from him in pain.
“Oh, Marin I'm so—”
Bong!
I let my words fade beneath the goliath, echoing bell. In shivering silence, we listened to the chiming clock that had become as familiar as our own faces. Its deep voice vibrated the very rock we sat on, and the nearest stone pillar swayed, a black on black shape silhouetted against the sky.
Bong!
We listened to the remaining tolls, each one dragging our spirits and hope even lower.
The last one echoed into silence, and on cue, the great pillars whirred to life across the bay.
“You know, I've never seen them move before,” I sat upright and strained to see the center row of pillars. They were too far to make out in any detail in the dark, but the tracks moved against the sky, blocking out star and moonlight as they rattled, scraped, and groaned into position. A distant huffing, a mechanical whirring drew our attention to the mountaintop, where the Sky Train revved and chuffed in readiness for its quick flight from Sky Harbour.
“Me either, it's too bad it's so dark . . . I'd like to be able to see just how the gears move. I've never seen an engineer crank them,” Marin said, his voice low and quiet as we strained to see and hear.
The huffing and rattling swiftly became a throaty hum and something sleek and shiny glinted as it swept down the jagged mountainside in a rush of steam. It rocketed onto the newly aligned tracks, nothing but a smooth silhouette bathed in ethereal steam, and cleared the harbour before either of us could speak.
“That one was different.” Marin's hushed voice nearly drowned out the whirring and grinding gears as the tracks reset by some invisible hand.
The hairs rose on the back of my neck as his words sank in. He was right on both comments. “Why didn't it sound like a steam engine? It didn't . . . chug and rattle . . . I guess.” I grimaced, at a loss to describe the sensation of something I’d heard and known my whole life, but it had changed, and I wasn’t sure what it was.
The ribbon darted away, twisting and flapping, up the rocky hillside. I leaped for it. Ribbons were a precious commodity, and it didn't belong to me. Marin stood and scrambled up the rocks behind me, but I was lost in thoughts while I struggled to see in the dark and not be choked by my hair in the process.
“Do you see it?” I heaved myself up onto a goat path by pulling on a scrubby bush branch. The goat paths were numerous on the lower levels of the island, but the goats had long since vanished. I vaguely remembered Pa telling us about his aunt raising them or some such nonsense. Goats, however, weren't going to retrieve the ribbon.
“See what?” Marin appeared beside me, just a large shape in the dim moonlight.
I sighed and dropped to my knees to peer beneath the bush. “Your sister's ribbon blew away. Help me find it.”
“Oh, right.” Marin dutifully bent and raked his hands through the brittle leaves and stems of another bush before pacing away to yet another. “The wind is heading uphill, Callia, try over here.”
I turned to answer and stopped dead.
Faint blue lights glowed on either side of the goat trail, winding in tight switchbacks clear to the dizzying heights of the mountain. It wasn't moonlight. Moonlight didn't trail in glowing dots in the darkness.
“Marin! Lights!” my voice dropped away in awe.
Marin turned and froze, and I realized I could see him perfectly well.
“What's going on?”
“Look, they follow this old path,” I crouched next to the nearest glowing object. It was totally foreign to me, and I didn't dare touch it. It was small and flat, but rounded, and seemingly half-buried in the ground. The others like it were evenly spaced out along the path every ten feet or so. The blue light was bright enough to drag our shadows with us as Marin and I moved to another odd light to inspect it.
“What's making the light? It's not flickering like fire.” I bravely reached out a trembling finger and touched the object. It didn't bite, nor sting, nor burn. Instead, it was smooth and hard, and my inquisitive tapping made a sound, similar to that of a hollow log. “The blue is coming from deep inside, see?”
Marin's hand shot past my face, now ridiculously close to the flameless lights I studied in amazement, and dug into the ground around it. It didn't budge, nor extinguish.
“It's leading us up the path, Callia.” Marin stood so fast that his goggles sprang off his forehead and clattered to the rocky path, stirring a puff of dust. He stooped to retrieve them, his eyes still trained on the illuminated path.
I followed his gaze, and my lungs tightened as I recognized the determined look cast in the blue light on his face.
“Let's do it, Callia, it leads to the top . . . the forbidden area.” His grin gleamed in the blue light, his eyes glittering with purpose.
I frowned, uncertain and uneasy. Who or what had placed the magic blue lights? Just what was up there, and why did the train seem different tonight? The questions rattled in my mind, unanswered and pecking at me like a spoiled child begging for treats.
“Maybe we can find out who runs the trains?”
“Okay, let's go. Perhaps someone knew we were in trouble?” I swallowed and dragged my goggles down over my stinging eyes. The wind hadn't abated, and it was stirring dust and grit from the path and scrubby bushes that flanked the far eastern shore.
Marin grabbed my hand and tugged. I stumbled on numb feet after him, and it became apparent that, without the magic lights, we'd never have found the path, nor been able to climb it. As we stumbled up the rocky path in silence, I scanned the brush and rock outcroppings for the stray ribbon. I hated to lose it, and I could hardly afford to replace it. Along with the red scrap of fabric, I noted the other thing I didn't see. The town. We were climbing switchbacks up a path hidden behind the spine of the lower foothills.
“Marin, we're out of sight of town. No wonder we never saw this.” I wheezed and ducked beneath a stray branch of a low, wind twisted tree. Trees were pitiful at the low elevation, but higher up—not too much higher to my shock—they grew tall and plentiful, and smelled fresh and sweet.
“I noticed that too, no one can see us either.” Marin crashed through a bush trying to overrun the path, and I followed, gripping his suspenders and thankful for the protective goggles. In the dark, and with the blue lights, vision was interesting, but I could see at least.
“Let's stop here for a minute.” Marin seemed to sense my strained breathing and shaking legs that wanted to sag to the ground.
I gasped in gratitude and leaned on a boulder, breathing heavily. We had hiked far up the mountainside, definitely further than I'd ever gone before, and the air was not as good as I was used to. It was hard to breathe, and judging from the slight wheezing beside me, Marin was having the same problem.
“I don't suppose you've got any food in your satchel, have you?” I straightened as I watched him drop the bag to the ground with a wince. It was bulgy and hit the dirt with a solid thud.
“I do, in fact. I grabbed some tins while fetching Den's boat.” Marin grinned at me in the blue light.
My mouth stretched into a matching grin. “You think of everything, Marin. I'd be lost without you.” I laughed and mock punched his arm.
He chuckled and mock cowered, his shaggy brown hair hiding his eyes. Without thinking, my smile faded, and I reached out and tugged a stray strand from his face to reveal serious green eyes studying me in the eerie light.
“I'd be lost without you, Callia. Not the other way around.” He smiled again, and it was a long moment before his eyes crinkled and glinted with humor again.
I brushed off the sentiment and rolled my eyes, but something tightened in my chest, a foreign feeling that I wasn't sure how to explain.
So I crammed my mouth with a crusty hunk of bread before I crammed a foot in instead. Marin was a genius. He'd packed food fit for travel: breads, tinned and salted meat, and water skins full of fresh cold water that fell from the waterfall on the western slope of Sky Harbour.
The night wore on, growing windier and colder. It was plain that the entire town was asleep, having gone to bed on cue, and wasn't even bothering to look for us. Worry gnawed on the edge of my weary brain.
“What about Winna and Pa, Marin. What if they—”
“Callia, Winna cooks better than you do, so they'll be fine.” Marin raised both eyebrows, his eyes glittering with teasing humor that ill hid the tenseness of his lips.
I frowned. Winna could cook, yes, but what would there be for her to cook?
Did they even worry that I'd not come home?
Unanswered questions had to wait though as the wind picked up and carried with it a stronger scent. The smell of burned air and water. A storm was coming.
“We need to get to some sort of shelter, Callia. A storm is coming from north.” Marin looked up from the satchel he was repacking and caught my eye roll.
“Well, genius, tell me which house to hide in, and I will,” I snapped and dragged the overly long red flannel sleeves of the makeshift shirt over my white, numb fingers. My shivering had grown in the last half hour, and though he tried to hide it with his macho bravado, I knew Marin was painfully cold too. His lips, usually firm and wide in a grin, were pinched and nearly blue. Remorse skipped in my chest as green eyes cut to me in silent reproach. “Sorry. I'm so cold I can't think.”
My teeth began to chatter, and I wound my arms around my middle. Huh, I couldn't feel my arms against my sides, or my feet for that matter. Marin spared another startled look at me, one that switched to terror quickly.
“Quick, follow the blue lights. Maybe they pass by a cave or hut. Someone must live nearby to run the train, right?”
Marin's icy fingers pushed me toward the trail, and I tried to make my numb feet move. They insisted on stumbling me forward as if I was operated by one o
f Master Karris' puppets at the Theatre.
Marin stumbled behind me, using his remaining strength to push me up the winding path. I let him, no longer able to pretend that I could function. My body felt stiff and rusty, unable to move without the greatest effort—much like the rails on the pillars or the ancient Clock's gears.
The trail of blue lights continued to climb and wind. Unfortunately, the path followed the spine of the mountain, and nowhere did anything resembling a shelter appear.
A rock was my undoing in the end, it appeared out of nowhere and fashioned itself beneath my left foot. My toe clipped it, thankfully, I didn't feel it, and I hit the ground so hard and fast that the breath drove out of my chest and didn't want to return. Icy pain stabbed my lungs, and the blue lights flickered and dimmed. Are they going out? No! We need the light! Dark is death!
“Callia, can you hear me, sweetheart?” Marin's voice overrode the wheezing sound coming from my throat, the sounds of a girl trying to breathe while being frozen.
Violently shaking fingers trailed over my frozen, chapped face, and then surprisingly strong arms dragged me into the air and cradled me to a well-muscled and broad chest. Huh, Marin has muscles? How had I not noticed this? He turned, and the blue miasma of light swayed and faded. My broken lungs sucked in spastically, and the icy shards of pain dragged the blue away and replaced it with darkness.
“Callia, wake up! Come on, open your eyes,” Marin's voice echoed.
I vaguely wondered if someone had scooped out my brains and left my head hollow for words to rattle about in. Just as I wondered this, I recognized another bit that was odd. I was warm.
The pure shock of the warmth jerked my wire tense body upright and nearly out of Marin's lap. Images and colors assailed me, and I snapped my eyes shut with a moan as they blended and tilted. Fingers, no longer white and stiff with cold, tugged me back against a broad, warm chest. Marin.
My eyes shot open, and I wondered just then which of us was the brighter shade of red.
“What happened?” I would ignore my awkward sitting position. Watch me.