Dead Iron: The Age of Steam

by Devon Monk

  “It will be no burden in my hands.” Mae stepped forward and touched Alun’s arm.

  His eyebrows shot up, but he did not pull away. Looked for all the world like he had suddenly been frozen in ice.

  “You will find me the weapon that will destroy my husband’s killer. The cost will be bartered between us. There are promises I can make you that are worth more than any coin.”

  Cedar took a step back. There was something in her words, a push, a power. It reminded him too much of the Pawnee god, and the curse the god had invoked. Fear, instinct, a good head for danger, made Cedar lift his gun, barrel tipping just up from the floor. He took a breath, ready to level the gun at her if need be.

  Mae Lindson let go of Alun’s arm. He exhaled like he was coming up from underwater. His face flushed red as a hot coal. “Keep your hands to yourself, witch. Our kind have no quarrel with you. But I’m not unwilling to reconsider my stance.” He turned on his heel and barked at his brother. “Bring the gun she wants, Bryn. I want her out of here.”

  Bryn scurried across the room and through the same door into the room Alun had entered to retrieve the tuning forks.

  Mae looked after him. Unconcerned. Calm, except for her fingers that tapped against the purse she held in one hand. At that motion, the clink of coins rubbed like spurs inside the purse. Between Cedar’s and Mae’s offerings, the Madders would be making a grand wage today.

  “Will the coin cover your price, Mr. Madder, or will other agreements be necessary?” Mae asked.

  “Agreements,” he muttered. “Curses, more like. And you of the white magic. What would your sisters say if they saw you bargaining for a gun?”

  “My sisters are not here, Mr. Madder, and I would thank you to keep them, and any mention of them, out of our business.”

  Alun opened his mouth, but Mae spoke first.

  “Please, Mr. Madder. Some mercy.”

  He paused, then clamped his mouth shut with an audible click, and stomped to the table. He filled the cup again and drank the moonshine like it was water, shifting his glower between Mae and Cedar.

  “You, Mrs. Lindson, are too quick to offer up such things that are in your power. And you, Mr. Hunt, are too reluctant to do the same. But when you both come to my mountain asking my favor, on the same bright morning after the full moon, it is I who sets the price.”

  He rolled the cup between his palms as if kneading his temper down to a soft lump. When he spoke again, his voice was even, controlled. Weary. “These times about us,” he said. “They can’t be escaped. There are dark things walking the soil, burrowing into the heart and marrow of the earth, and of the living. You have a part in this, Mrs. Lindson. I didn’t think so, but now, seeing you here . . .” He nodded. “You have a part to play.”

  He set his shoulders in a hard line, pulling his chin up. He somehow looked more noble, more regal, than a dirty miner who banged around inside rock crevasses, scraping for a nugget and spark. He looked like the sort of man who had not only fought in wars but had also led men into battle and on to victory.

  Cedar always knew there was something odd about the brothers, and now he had suspicions that they might be very closely tied to the dark things that burrowed in bones and walked this land. The Strange.

  “If I’ve a part to play in anything, it is for my own benefit,” Mae said. “And no other.”

  Alun pressed his lips together, something like sadness crossing his eyes. “I’d think two times before taking the weapon you asked for from this hill. If you want a life with joy left to it, leave the gun here and walk away from any involvement with myself and my brothers.”

  “There is no joy left for me, Mr. Madder. There is only death.”

  Bryn walked into the room, short-barreled shotgun held low in one hand, a box of bullets in the other.

  “Pity, that. Then this gun will bring you what you ask for.” Alun poured more moonshine, slugged it back, washing away the steely resolve of a commander and becoming once again a miner and mad deviser.

  Bryn held the gun out for her, butt first. It was the color of wet stones, gray and black steel, stock and butt, as if it had been hammered out of one piece of metal. But the glint of brass cogs, worked in a clockwork fashion all along the forestock, and the copper tubes that created a cage around the trigger with room for a hand and finger—much like the hand guard of a swashbuckler’s cutlass—gave the steel some relief. It was the copper tubes that most caught Cedar’s eye as he tried to reckon their use. Each tube lifted up from the hand guard, like the head of a snake, right behind the bolt handle. And atop each tube was a thumb-sized glass vial.

  “There is only one gun of this devising,” Bryn said. “Chamber the shot, and this lever will lock these gears into action.” He pointed at the gears. “A very small vial of oil within the gun will heat with the friction of the gears, fill the tubes, and send a gas into these vials, which is released on squeezing the trigger.

  “It will take some time for a full charge, but as soon as you can no longer hear it whining, and you see the needle of that gauge there on the stock holding on the red, you can blow a hole straight through the great divide.

  “These,” Bryn added, “are the shells.” He opened the wooden box and withdrew a cylinder as long as his hand, balancing it between two fingers. “A blend of mineral only we brothers know. There are only five bullets. That’s all we’ve made, and all we’ll ever make.”

  “All we’ll ever make,” the other two brothers echoed quietly as if it was a vow that needed repeating.

  “This shot,” Alun picked up now that Bryn had gone silent, “this gun, will kill any man, woman, child. It might even kill things that walk this land dark and hungry, so long as the gun is fully charged. Might kill the things that had a hand in the killing of your husband.”

  Mae took the weapon without hesitating. She looked natural to the heft of the gun, determination setting her jaw as she pivoted and lifted the butt to her shoulder, sighting right between the center gap in the copper tubes. She lowered the barrel to the floor and inspected the box of shot. She nodded.

  “This is worth more than the purse I brought.”

  “That’s true,” Alun said. “The purse and a favor.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be here long enough to settle a favor,” she said.

  “Coin. And the favor, to be repaid whenever our paths should meet,” Alun countered.

  She considered it. “Done.”

  Cedar thought she might have agreed to almost any terms to keep hold of that gun.

  She held out the purse, and Bryn exchanged the box of bullets for it. He loosened the strings and looked inside. “Done,” he said.

  “Done,” Cadoc, to one side, echoed.

  “Done,” Alun pronounced. “Cadoc, see her out.”

  Cadoc gestured toward the door with the slightest bow. Mae looked askance at Cedar. If she was offering him to follow, or looking for him to challenge her on her fool quest for vengeance, he didn’t have the right to act on either request.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Hunt.”

  “Ma’am,” Cedar said.

  Mae walked with Cadoc toward the door. Cedar started off after them.

  “Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “One last thing.”

  Cedar glanced over. “I think our business is done, Mr. Madder.”

  “All except one question that lingers with me.” He poured two cups of moonshine, holding one out in invitation.

  “There’s a boy gone lost, Mr. Madder. Your curiosity will have to carry on without me.” The door swung open behind him. He could tell the door opened only because a wash of air filtered into the room. The door itself, a slab of stone that ten men couldn’t shoulder closed, moved silently on those well-oiled rails.

  Mae stepped through the doors and Cadoc closed them quickly behind her. The youngest Madder moved over to stand in front of the door, fists on top of his hips pulling back his duster just enough to let Cedar see the guns holstered there.

  “Tell me, M
r. Hunt,” Alun said. “How did you repair the watch?”

  The question was unexpected.

  The Madders had said they’d tried to fix it and couldn’t. And now, just a day in his keeping, the watch was running again. It appeared the Madder brothers didn’t take kindly to being out-tinkered.

  “Dropped it.”

  “That so?” Alun said.

  Bryn, who stood near Alun, cleared his throat and held both hands up to show no weapons were within them. “Might I could see it, Mr. Hunt? Timepiece deviled me for weeks. Won’t go so far as to open it up, but it’d be a pleasure to see it working as it should.”

  “That door behind me going to open up if I show you the watch?”

  Alun chuckled. “The watch. Now, Mr. Hunt.”

  The brothers were spread about the chamber. He’d be lucky to get off three clean shots, luckier if they did enough damage to keep the Madders from pulling their own weapons. He gritted his teeth, swallowing back a growl. Easier to give them what they wanted and walk out of here than to waste daylight digging their graves.

  He reached in his pocket and withdrew the watch, letting it dangle off his knuckles.

  Bryn walked nearer, his hands still held upward. When he was an arm’s length away, he tucked two fingers into his vest pocket and withdrew a pair of brass spectacles. He perched those on his nose, folded his hands behind his back, and leaned in, squinting at the watch face.

  He breathed a word, not English, then craned his neck to meet Cedar’s gaze.

  “How?” he asked, honestly perplexed. “It was broken. More than broken. Irreparable. If any hands could fix it, it would have been mine.” He stretched out the fastidiously clean fingers of one hand, waited for Cedar’s assent.

  Cedar nodded. Bryn gently placed his fingers at the back of the watch and tipped it to catch the light.

  He frowned, then ran a thumb over the crystal face, running his nail at the seam.

  “Blood,” Bryn said. “Yours?”

  “Don’t see that it matters. This watch is none of your concern.” He pulled the watch away. But Bryn was just as fast as his brother. He snatched the watch out of Cedar’s hand, breaking the chain in two.

  “Think it might yet be ours,” Bryn said. “And our concern to boot.”

  “I’ve had enough,” Cedar said. “There’s deals been made and word been given. I’m as good as my word to settle my debt. Give the watch back.”

  Bryn took a step away, shaking his head. “You’ve done something to it we couldn’t. Way I see it, the neighborly thing is to let us take it apart, see what moves it.”

  “Way I see it,” Cedar said low, “is you’ll give me back what’s mine, or I’ll break your jaw.”

  That did it. The brothers, grinning and always hankering for a fight, were on him. His gun was knocked out of his hand, as fists meant for breaking stone slammed into his head, his ribs, his stomach. Their laughter filled the chamber.

  Cedar swung, connected. Swung again. Pulled his hunting knife from his belt, sliced through air, snagged the edge of cloth, hit flesh. A flash of light filled the cavern as one of the brothers set off a charge. Cedar blinked, trying to clear his vision.

  A hand caught his wrist, twisted. Yanked his wrist up behind his back.

  Cedar yelled. Another fist, then too many to count, rained down. A boot slammed into his chest. He fell back. He could just make out Alun’s face as he dropped on him, a knee pushing all the air out of his lungs.

  The brothers gave one hard cheer, Bryn and Cadoc holding down his arms and legs and utilizing rope they must have stashed in their coats to bind his boots and wrists.

  “Didn’t realize you wanted to get in a scuffle with us, Mr. Hunt,” Alun said. “Not over something as small as a watch. Brother Bryn was just ribbing you. The watch is yours. We Madders are true to our word too. But now I’m hard curious as to why you’d be willing to come to blows over it, and why, exactly, your blood seems to have fixed it up, when all our skills did it no good.”

  Alun Madder grinned big enough to split his head in half. “I believe we’re inviting you to extend your stay with us awhile.” He wiped the blood off his mouth with his sleeve, then gave Cedar a mostly somber look. “With my apologies.” He pounded a fist across Cedar’s jaw.

  The blow hit so hard, sparks filled Cedar’s vision as the brothers’ laughter filled his ears.

  He tasted blood even before his head snapped back and hit the stone floor. His ears rang, and blood ran down the back of his neck mixing with the dirt.

  Cedar struggled to stay conscious. He didn’t know what would happen if he passed out. Didn’t know if the beast that lingered just beneath his skin would break free, moonlight or no moonlight, to tear the brothers apart, or if he would simply fall unconscious.

  The Madders finished binding his feet, legs, arms, then picked him up as if he were no more than a suckling pig trussed up on a pole. They dropped him into a chair.

  “Now.” Alun licked blood from his split lip and rolled up his sleeves. “Let’s see what, exactly, you’re made of, Mr. Hunt.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Shard LeFel carried a lantern hooked on the end of his dark, curved cane. The blacksmith’s boy stumbled along beside him, holding the hem of LeFel’s coat as they walked the enclosed split between the two train carriages to the boiler car. The boy was slow-eyed, dreaming on his feet, caught in the drugs LeFel had forced upon him, unable to think or speak. Not that it mattered for what LeFel intended to do to him.

  He pulled open the door, which he never locked. The only man who had ever tried to steal from this carriage left the rails in a meat bag. His blood still stained the wooden stairs.

  At night the shuffling, clicks, and huffs of steam from the windowless carriage rattled out beyond the walls as the things he kept inside stirred, restless. Pipes from this car ran to the other two cars set here on the rail spur, and the steam in those pipes kept LeFel’s living quarters and private bath heated.

  LeFel and the boy stepped inside. Even though the sun was in the sky, the interior of the boiler car was dark as a grave. He raised the lantern, but shadows hung heavy and thick, unmoved by the sweep of light.

  “Wake, my sweet. Wake, my beasts. Wake and do your king’s bidding.” LeFel walked deeper into the room, placing the lantern on a small table to the right of the door. The boy followed.

  LeFel pressed down on the boy’s shoulder. “You will sit here, child. And dream.” The boy dragged one hand down the wall as he folded upon the floor, curling up like an infant, his thumb tucked in his mouth.

  So fragile, these human young, LeFel mused. So unable to defend themselves.

  He walked away from the child and over to a heavy handle that jutted up to shoulder height from the floor. Made of black iron and brass, the contraption looked like a pump for water except for the gears and woven pulleys that ran from its joints up to the walls, wrapping among the pipes and valves and yet more gears and pulleys that flowed over the entire inside of the carriage like a fishing net made of metal.

  LeFel drew his black silk gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. He detested manual labor, but waking his menagerie gave its own reward. He pumped the handle at a steady pace, allowing the complicated system of pulleys and gears to warm. Bellows pushed air through pipes down into the burner in the underbelly of the train car, fanning the coals there, and setting water to boil, then steam to push through smaller pipes—steam that pushed levers and spun wheels.

  The lantern on the table reflected glints of brass, silver, ruby, diamond from the shadows.

  Creatures stirred in that darkness. Creatures shifted and creaked and moaned, filling the carriage with their hot, wet exhales.

  Metal creatures. Gears and steam. Matics. From all corners of the world, created by all manner of men’s hands to do his bidding.

  Pipes fastened to the walls of the carriage groaned and clicked. It didn’t take long before that power was pumped into the matics, giving the tick to the shuffling
beasts’ hearts.

  When the moaning and stirring was replaced by the huffing chug and tapping metrics of matics under full power, Shard LeFel flipped the wall toggle on the gas lanterns, bathing the entire space in light.

  Metal creatures pivoted toward him. They had no eyes with which to see, but they each contained a drop of glim mixed with a handful of powdered chemicals—a mix LeFel had stumbled across years ago. The mix of chemicals and glim gave the creatures a curious sort of awareness—not intelligence, but just enough rudimentary thinking skills to imprint upon them their single function: to kill.

  They were not quite alive, and he preferred them that way. Killing machines with no room for remorse or reluctance were very useful to a man of his ambitions.

  The matics had been constructed over the last two hundred years. Built by men he rewarded richly by giving them a quick death at Mr. Shunt’s discretion. Mr. Shunt did not always kill immediately. Some of the men had lived for years before Mr. Shunt found them and paid them a most final visit. Still, LeFel had been assured their deaths were swift, if not entirely painless.

  Looking upon his servants set fire to LeFel’s pride. This collection, this zoo, this army, suited a king, a conqueror.

  One creature was made of metals and riches from the Celestial Empire, ivory and gold, inset with jade and rubies and the jewels of an ancient emperor’s crown. Another beast was pieced together with thick welds, hard steel torn from the narrow veins of the distant mountains of Germany and forged by the fire of volcanoes.

  Hulking monstrosities creaked at every joint, wielding hammers and pistons for arms, threshers for hands. Delicate tickers sculpted to resemble animals and birds, some so detailed to the natural world, they would be accepted by the creatures they imitated. Warped, twisted globs of metal, misshapen heads and gears, leather-accordioned bellows, potbelly burners, and great hinged chest-plate furnaces—they were matics, tickers, horrors made of steel.

  And all of them, from the largest bent half over, to the smallest the size of a rat, waited for his command. He would need only half of them this night, free only half of them on this task.