“Mother, hot water, towels, now,” said Pearl, her voice strained. “Alayna, help my mother. The baby is close to crowning.”
I wiped my hands on my tan pants. “Boy, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Pearl only nodded. “I’ve studied healing. Now go!”
I followed Madeline into the next room, a makeshift kitchen with only a sink and woodstove. She shoved a box of purple matches at me and instructed me to stoke the fire, then disappeared out of the room.
The logs were scrawny, not more than large sticks. I shoved as many as I could into the cast iron stove and threw in a match, watching it flame to life as I shut the heavy door. In the other room, I reached for a large pot above the stove, filling it with water from the pump next to the stove.
Madeline appeared with a handful of towels and sunk them into the pot.
I could hear Pearl’s calm voice from the back room. “Almost, Aila, almost there. Keep breathing. You’ll be fine.”
“She studied medicine?” I looked at Madeline.
“Aye, she was a fine tutor under her father’s hand.” Her eyes were sad.
“What happened to him?” I whispered.
“The Keeper happened, surely,” Madeline said, turning away from me. “He rounded up those of us who were educated—healers, scientists, cog-workers, star gazers, and had them executed in the square.”
“That’s awful!”
“It wasn’t long after that we found Victor and joined his cause. Pearl’s father would have done the same. Pearl was lucky enough she was a year too old to go to the mines. I kept her hidden these years, just in case.”
I nodded.
“The pot’s a-boil, come bring it.”
I hoisted the boiling pot with the edges of my baggy shirt to avoid being burnt and brought it to Pearl.
Her nightgown sleeves were rolled up to her shoulders, and her plaited hair was a mess. She brushed her sweat-covered forehead with one arm.
Aila was gripping the sides of the sofa so hard her knuckles were white. Another scream escaped her lips, this time in a name I could barely make out. “Wyatt!” She yelled.
Pearl looked at me. “The father?”
I nodded. Behind us outside the store front, the din was growing louder: Parents crying, children sobbing, even the muffled sound of Wyatt’s voice attempting to create some kind of order.
Pearl motioned to the pot, and I wrung out a towel and put it in Pearl’s lap. Behind her Madeline was holding another stack of dry towels.
I went to Aila’s side and grabbed her hand for support. I wanted to see none of what was happening. Despite the gore, the torture, and the death I’d seen since coming to this world, the thought of seeing a birth was too overwhelming. My stomach flopped in every direction, and I swallowed hard.
Aila’s grip was hard and firm and I winced as she clamped down on my hand. I tried to comfort her, wondering if she could even hear me.
“You’re doing fine, Aila,” Pearl crooned. “I’ve got the head, just one more push and this precious bairn will be free.”
“Go on, girl, you can do this,” Madeline urged softly. I looked up. Her hard-creased frown softened into a look of concern.
Aila squeeze my hand harder, pulling herself up slightly, and pushed with all her might. She collapsed against the sofa, her eyes rolling in the back of her head.
Pearl sighed then, and Madeline rushed over with the towels. After a few moments, the piercing cry of a newborn split the air and Pearl stood. “It’s a girl!” she escaped. “A wee beautiful girl!”
I turned to Aila. “A baby girl! Aila?”
She was unconscious.
“Pearl!” I shouted.
Pearl gently handed the baby to Madeline and rushed to Aila’s side. She grabbed Aila’s wrist, and then put her head to her chest. “She’s not breathing! Mother! What do I do?”
Madeline froze. “I don’t know. Your father never... oh, God of Gears,” she crossed herself in the pentagon shape of their deity. “Pearl.” I looked where Pearl’s mother pointed to see a crimson stain spreading across the ivory sofa.
Pearl quickly assessed the situations, using all the towels at her disposal. Her face was crunched into panic. “I don’t know what to do!”
I had taken first aid in high school. I remembered it well – those rubber dummies that we had to compress. The mouth to mouth actions. I thought it was stupid at the time that they made us learn such idiotic, useful things in school.
No more.
I started chest compressions, checked Aila’s airway, and pinched her nose shut. Three breathes only, I recalled my instructor saying. I moved to chest compressions.
“What in the name of gears are you doing?” Madeline shrieked over the cries of the newborn. “You’ll kill her!”
“It’s CPR!” I managed to say between breaths. “It’s the only thing that will save her.”
“There’s too much blood,” Pearl was crying. “It’s everywhere.”
It wasn’t working. God help me, she was going to die, and there was nothing I could do.
I closed my eyes with my hands crossed on her chest and felt the familiar cold surge through me. My hands numbed, and the blue energy swirled around her chest, down to her stomach, and up around her arms.
Aila coughed. Her eyes were still shut, but her chest was barely rising and falling. I sighed and sunk back onto my heels, my head in my hands. “She’s breathing.”
I heard Pearl and Madeline both gasp in relief.
“Healer,” Pearl whispered.
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Pearl,” Madeline was soothing the baby. “She’s got to push one more time.”
“Aila,” Pearl urged. “Can you hear me?”
One of Aila’s eyes flitted open, and then shut again, but she barely nodded.
“One more push, girl, and may the Gods shine on you!”
I gripped Aila’s hand one more time. “Come on, you can do this, Aila.”
Her breathing shallow and weak, Aila managed one more push.
“There,” Pearl sighed. “Now I can stop the bleeding.”
I watched as Aila collapsed, her eyes rolling in the back of her head. I gasped and looked at Pearl. “I think we are too late!”
“We are not.” Pearl smiled. She closed her eyes and pressed her palm against Aila’s blood-smeared abdomen. A small hum swirled around the room, no louder than the buzz of a honey bee, and around Pearl’s hands a shimmering blue mist rose into the air. It twisted and turned before evaporating.
Aila’s eyes opened and she looked at me. “Did I do well?”
I gaped at what I had just seen. I stared between Pearl and Aila. “You’re a healer?” I finally said.
Pearl nodded. “A gift from my father. You see why my mother kept me secret?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
Madeline stepped back in the room with the fusing infant. She looked at Pearl, who nodded. “Aila, would you like to hold her?”
Aila took the baby into her arms with Pearl close by. I could only imagine how weak the new mother must be after losing all that blood. Or had Pearl’s magic somehow helped that, too? Aila’s eyes certainly seemed alight with vigor and her cheeks had more color.
Aila managed a small smile up at me. “Isn’t she beautiful, Alayna?”
“Aye, she surely is,” I smiled back at her, rubbing my hand over the soft hair of the baby, who was quiet now, looking up at Aila. “Wyatt will be proud.”
“Good.” Aila’s smiled disappeared then, and she winced. Madeline swooped in and took the baby, just as Aila slumped down into the sofa. At least her chest was still slowing rising this time.
Pearl put a hand on Aila’s forehead. “She will be fine, but it will take a moment for the magic to spread.”
At the same time, the commotion in the courtyard reached a crescendo. Like an earthquake shattering the ground, a spark and concussion of metal landed on the remains of the tower. I thr
ew myself over Aila, as Madeline and Pearl hugged the baby between them. We all covered our ears as a roar shook the walls. Aila was awake now and screaming.
Pearl peeked over the corner of the sofa. “The Keeper. He’s here.”
Another sound washed over us. The crackle and spit of lightning.
Sebastian.
I looked from Aila’s barely rising chest and back to Pearl. “I have to go.”
Madeline nodded. “Go, we will care for the babe and her mother.”
I couldn’t see what was happening from the back of the store, but the noise was deafening. After the crash of lightning and metal, the screams of children filtered through the walls. Instead of walking right into the mess out the front door, I opted for the secret back entrance as my escape, turning left instead of right. Taking me right back to the rubble of Bailia’s bakery.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Courtyard Chaos
THE CHAOS WAS WORSE than I’d imagined as I stopped just short of the destroyed bakery. I rounded the corner of the two-story building next door, a cobbler. My mind still had to wrap around such an archaic phrase for a shoemaker, much like all the other new words I’d learned on this journey.
One those words was automatons. It seemed like a century ago Sebastian had explained metal creatures under the Keeper’s employ. I hadn’t believed him at the time, but then the dragons shredded Dinga’s tribe, nearly killing us in the process. The robots kept the children enslaved with deadly beams of light. Sebastian and I battled more metal dragons on our flight to the palace in Sebastian’s steam ship.
None of that prepared me for the metal dragon perched in the middle of the square. It was much larger than anything I’d ever encountered. The dragon’s wings spread across the square as it touched down, shimmering in the new light of dawn; a metal material I had never seen before that somehow gave off a rainbow hue. It reminded me of the force field I had destroyed that imprisoned my mother.
I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes, it looked like it was underwater, but it was standing right in front of me.
The Keeper sat just behind the silver head, pulling a variety of short and tall levels back and forth, left and right. The dragon’s wings tucked neatly at its side with a few cranks of one of the levels. Even tucked back in the alley, I spotted the beast’s red jeweled eyes, just like the smaller versions that attacked and destroyed Bailia’s bakery.
I reached behind me to pull the dagger from my belt. It was no match for a metal dragon that was two stories high, but it was better than nothing. Who brings a knife to a dragon fight? Apparently, me. I would have chuckled if I hadn’t been scared out of my mind.
As soon as I pulled the strap on the sheath the dagger began to hum. It was a droning sound, like the arrival of an airplane. I’d never realized how much I missed the sound of prosperity and technology in my world. And what they wouldn’t give to obtain of the technology for hover crafts like the one Sebastian had built.
The dragon, the same one I realized that had destroyed the bakery, turned it awful ruby eye on me. With a gasp I finally recognized the crimson hue, could it be the same that was on the Keeper’s staff, the one he always kept close at his side? We had destroyed the clock tower and we thought that was the seat of his power, but we had been wrong. It was the staff. Somehow it was embedded in the dragon’s metal head, and while it was linked to the Keeper, we could never destroy it.
To the right of the square, a blaze of lightning appeared just out of sight.
Sebastian.
He marched in front of the dragon, roaring with an inhuman yell that sent a shiver down my spine.
I threw the dagger up in front of me, a poor shield for the electricity that bounded off the nearby walls and crashed into the stones beneath our feet.
He was such a small figure compared to the dragon, so tall it blocked out the sun behind it. The square was thrown into shadow.
“You cannot beat me!” The voice atop the dragon was screaming at Sebastian. Through all the swirls of light I could see the Keeper wasn’t anything like he appeared before. This was his true face: a human-shaped head with gears that ticked where his ears used to be, interlocking cogs making up the skull. His hat was gone, and his green vest in tatters. The remnants of his purple coat streamed out behind him like awful tentacles.
“You killed my mother, and who knows if you have taken my father’s life as well!” Sebastian yelled. Without hesitating, he reached out and splayed his fingers, sending an arc of light between him and the dragon. It bounded off the shimmering field and struck the building to the side, a horrendous explosion of brick showering Sebastian. It didn’t seem to faze him.
The dragon pulled back, the Keeper throwing levers and a crank as the mouth opened. I knew that hiss of gas anywhere. It was going to light up this entire square in deadly fire.
I ducked back into the alley. I didn’t know what to do.
What could I do? I was armed with a dagger for God’s sake!
I was frozen in terror, gripping the dagger, and pressing against the brick side of the building. The fire flew by the alley, heating up the brick so hot I stepped away, putting my hand over my eyes again.
Sebastian!
If the Keeper killed him, I couldn’t bear it. In that instant I realized I loved him. I wanted to keep him safe.
Was it already too late?
I dared to peek around the corner. The tiles were scorched black all around me, and the crackle of fire on the door frames was so loud it drowned out the metal monster in the square.
There was Sebastian, hovering under his light shield, his knees bent as he threw it up around him. It had protected him, but he wavered, looking like he was not going to stand for much longer.
His light power wasn’t powerful enough to penetrate the Keeper’s force field. He was going to die, and I was powerless to do anything but watch.
The dagger hummed loudly in my hand. I’d heard that hum before, when I’d brought down the purple protectors in the tower, but it was much quieter. This time it was alive. “This is the only thing that could defeat the Keeper,” I murmured, even though I knew I was alone in the alley.
“Ow!”
The dagger shocked me, and I dropped it, where it fell with a clatter to the cobblestone. I reached to pick it up and I was met with a three fingered claw that shoved my hand away.
“Dinga?” I remembered the first time I’d touched the dagger. He’d stopped me then, too.
“Mistress,” his smile spread wide. “It is Dinga’s turn to save the day.” He scooped up the dagger before I could stop him and raced toward the towering metal beast.
“Dinga, no!” I called after him. Without thinking I raced into the open to follow him.
The dragon turned its awful eye on me. “You!” The Keeper shrieked. “You’re the one who destroyed my tower!” The Dragon’s mouth opened again. Sebastian looked at me, he was too far away to protect me before the fire would hit.
“Alayna!” He called.
“I love you, Sebastian!” I threw my arms up, knowing today would be the day I died. I would die powerless and afraid, just like every time my father had raised his hand.
“Alayna, look!” Sebastian was running toward me.
I peeked between my arms to see Dinga scrambling up the tail of the dragon.
I threw my arms down at my side.
I wasn’t powerless. I had my friends, I had my family, I realized, around me. Even if I died, it would be a hero’s death. I couldn’t let Bailia’s death, I couldn’t even let Victor’s demise, be for naught.
My brother, slain by his father’s hand, had been a good man before he was corrupted.
I had taken my mother’s life. Had that been for nothing? I wouldn’t let him kill my spirit.
I had power. I just didn’t know it.
“Keeper!” I yelled up at the beast. “You may kill us today, but your reign is at an end! There is no where you can go, no where you can flee that you won’t be found and destroyed.”
“Your hold on Elestra is at an end!” Sebastian shouted. He was a few feet away from the base of the dragon, spinning his hands in a circle of light bigger than I had ever seen.
The Keeper just laughed. “You think you can kill me? I am everywhere! I will have all of Elestra, and there’s nothing you fools can do to stop me!”
I looked directly into the mouth of the dragon and saw the fire directed at me. Squeezing my eyes shut, I braced for the end. I didn’t know what Dinga would be able to do against such a monster, and Sebastian was no match for him. It was over, but what we had started couldn’t be quenched.
The Keeper would fall, even if it meant my death was only the beginning.
“For Elinar!”
His small voice was almost lost in the roar of the fire around us. I opened my eyes to see Dinga’s amazing nimble legs carried him behind the Keeper before even the Keeper knew what was going on. Dinga held the dagger high, even though it was nearly the size of his scrawny arm and shoved it into the back of the Keeper’s neck.
A screeching metal scream came from the Keeper, like tires squealing to a stop on a rainy night, the crash of brass against brass.
He threw out a metal arm behind him, right into Dinga.
I screamed as Dinga fell from the top of the dragon, straight to the cobblestones below. With one awful bounce, he landed, not moving, sprawled on the ground ten feet from the dragon.
Sebastian was under the beast now, holding his ball of light in one hand. He reached up and shoved the light into the belly of the dragon and rolled out of the way. When he cleared, he shot another arc into the dragon, right at his ball of light.
I watched as the lightning spread everywhere around the dragon, spreading from head to tail in arc like tendrils of amazing power.
The Keeper’s metal frame was still screeching as the dragon began to topple.
A huge burst of light, terribly quiet, exploded in every direction. The silent blast knocked me from my feet, and I landed hard with my head bouncing off the ground. Stars exploded across my vision and I barely had time to register the flying metal debris cascading all over the courtyard.
Clock City Page 30