by Anthony Ryan
“Trying to fire her up when the Greens broke in,” Braddon said, eyes roving the engine with considerable interest. “Looks like we got us another job for Mr. Scriberson.”
“What is this thing?” Clay asked.
“A railway-traversing locomotive, if I’m not mistaken. Seems Briteshore put a sizable investment in this place. Must have been expecting to shift a whole lotta ore to the coast.”
“Why not do it by boat?” Clay wondered. “The lake connects to the sea, right?”
“The water-way’s choked with rapids for much of its length. The main reason why this region’s been so sparsely explored till now.” Braddon’s gaze shifted to the rails and he followed them to the doors at the rear of the structure. They were buttressed and barred like the main gate and would clearly take considerable effort to open.
“Go get the others,” Braddon told Clay. “And check the bodies and store-rooms for ammo, plus anything else we can use.”
—
They scavenged another three hundred rounds of ammunition from the settlement, though some of it had to be discarded as it failed to match the calibres of their weapons. Still, Clay took no small measure of comfort from the additional twenty rounds Foxbine handed him. Scriberson spent a good hour going over the locomotive engine before pronouncing it functional but in need of slight repair. “Then don’t dawdle, young man,” Braddon told him. “I aim to be gone from here by nightfall.”
The doors proved to be so well buttressed that Braddon quickly called an end to their attempts to hammer apart the reinforcing beams and resorted to making use of the bounty provided by the lake. “Been a good while since I did this,” he said, carefully cutting an inch-long segment from one of the sticks of explosives. The others had been quick to retreat from the shed but Clay lingered to observe, reasoning this to be knowledge he may have use for when they got to their destination. “First thing to learn is make all your movements real slow,” Braddon told him, slotting the segment into the gap between beam and door. “This stuff don’t take too well to any herky-jerks.”
He repeated the process with the other three beams, using up half a stick in the process, then uncoiled a roll of black wire Skaggerhill had found in one of the storehouses. “This here’s the fuse,” he explained, cutting four equal lengths from the wire and braiding them together at one end. “Makes it go boom.”
“Where’d you learn all this, Uncle?” Clay asked him.
“Once took a job escorting some bone-hunters to the western plains. Ironship and Consolidated Research both pay good money for the bones of long-extinct creatures. There’s a plateau in the plains rich in such things, but you have to blast them out of the rocks.”
“Drake bones?” Clay asked.
“No, like Mr. Scriberson says, you don’t find drake bones that old. Hold this.” He handed Clay the braided length of fuse and then pushed the other ends into each of the segments of explosives. After that he tied the braid to the remaining length of wire and spooled it out as they backed towards the entrance to the shed.
“Everybody best find something to get behind and hunker low,” Braddon told the others as they emerged into the light. “Cover your ears too.” He and Clay took shelter behind a stack of scorched wood where he snipped the fuse from the coil and lowered a match to it. The fuse lit immediately, Clay watching the smoking cluster of sparks trace along it, leaving a trail of ash behind as it disappeared into the shadowed recesses of the shed. The explosion came a heart-beat later, sending a wave of displaced dust through the settlement accompanied by a boom powerful enough to make Clay glad he had jammed his fingers in his ears.
“Briteshore sure has been busy,” Skaggerhill commented as they surveyed the track leading away from the now-shattered doors. The gleaming steel rails made an incongruous contrast to the landscape they traversed, winding across the grassy slopes in a series of gentle inclines before disappearing into a steep-sided valley some three miles away.
“Gives us a path to follow,” Braddon said, then turned to where Scriberson stood atop the engine platform fiddling with a dial. “Young man, time to point the way.”
They had found some Briteshore charts amidst the wreckage but they were badly burnt and only partially complete. Fortunately, Braddon had had the foresight to pack some Ironship charts of the region, though they lacked the more fulsome detail of those produced by the mining concern.
“So we know where we’re at,” he said, pointing to a dot on one of the Briteshore maps, clearly identifiable as the settlement from its position on the lake-shore and the bisected line tracing away from it towards the south. His finger followed the line into the mountains to the point where it ended in a charred edge. “Gives us maybe forty miles of charted country.” He unfurled one of the Ironship maps and pointed to an area circled in pencil. “Best as I can figure this is where we’ll end up when the Briteshore map runs out. Question is, does it take us where we need to be?” He looked expectantly at Scriberson.
For the first time since meeting him, Clay detected a marked reluctance in the astronomer’s demeanour. Before he had tended to exhibit an endearing if unwise confidence, but now, watching him lower his gaze and shift from foot to foot, Clay knew he was looking on a young man suddenly out of his depth. “I don’t know,” he said in a low voice.
“I beg your pardon?” Braddon straightened from the map, a hard glint creeping into his gaze. “Say that again, if you please?”
“I don’t know exactly where it is.” Scriberson raised his eyes and quickly lowered them again on catching sight of Braddon’s expression. “Just what it looks like.”
“I see.” Braddon’s voice was way too even and reasonable for Clay’s liking. He took a step closer to the astronomer’s side as his uncle went on, “I seem to recall, however, you telling of a lost map of the region your exceptional memory had captured so well you didn’t require a copy.”
“It wasn’t a map.” Scriberson swallowed. “It was a sketch, of the point where the alignment could be viewed. It’s a very distinctive place. I’m sure if I caught sight of it . . .”
“Caught sight of it?” Skaggerhill said, his voice holding none of Braddon’s deceptive calm. “You thought we were just gonna wander about these mountains for however long it took you to catch sight of it? You any idea the size of this range, boy?”
“The account states that it’s close to the highest peak.” Scriberson gave a hopeful and short-lived grin, adding in a mutter, “Shouldn’t be too hard to find that.”
The silence that followed was long, broken only by Firpike’s dry comment. “And I’m supposed to be the fraud here.”
“We need him to drive the engine,” Clay reminded Braddon, increasingly perturbed by his stillness.
“I can drive the Seer-damn engine,” Skaggerhill stated, levelling a stubby finger at Scriberson. “We had a contract based on honest statements now revealed as false. That ain’t a small matter for folks in our profession.”
Clay’s gaze roamed the other Longrifles, finding disappointment and judgement on every face; even Silverpin’s tattooed brow had taken on an uncharacteristically stern frown. Loriabeth, however, appeared the most crestfallen, folding her arms and refusing to look at the astronomer, her face taking on the sullen, girlish aspect he thought she had lost on the trail. A contract is more than just a piece of paper to them, Clay realised, wondering why it hadn’t occurred to him before. It’s what they live and die by.
“Apologise,” he told Scriberson in a soft but insistent murmur.
Scriberson looked up at them all, blanching visibly under the weight of their collective judgement, all confidence apparently vanished. Now he wasn’t the most educated mind amongst a group of people who had hardly ever lifted a book. Now he was a scared and weaponless youth confronted by five angry and very dangerous people. “It . . . wasn’t my intention to mislead,” he stammered after a moment. “I just
. . . need to observe the alignment. It’s all I’ve thought about for the better part of a decade. But, for any offence caused, I offer my sincere apologies.”
“Don’t fix it, son,” Skaggerhill replied before turning to Braddon. “I vote we leave him here, Captain.”
“Seconded,” Loriabeth said, still not looking up.
“Be kinder to put a bullet in him first,” Foxbine put in.
Loriabeth’s eyes flashed at Scriberson for a second. “Got no mood to be kind.”
“Wait.” Clay stepped between them, turning to Scriberson. “This sketch of the viewing point, you recall it well enough to draw it?”
Scriberson gave a wary nod.
“Then,” Clay said, addressing Braddon, “we don’t need a map. We got us a pair of eyes up aloft, remember? The lady can find this place.”
“The range is vast, Clay,” Braddon replied. “Even her pet drake couldn’t cover it all before the alignment.”
“There’s Miss Lethridge also,” Clay ploughed on. “I’ll trance with her tomorrow. See if there’s any fresh pointers from that device she brought back from Morsvale.”
“Device?” Firpike asked.
“Mind your own, Doc,” Skaggerhill told him in a tone sufficiently threatening to make the scholar retreat, though not so far as to stray from earshot.
“It’s your choice, Uncle,” Clay told Braddon, moving to Scriberson’s side. “But I seen enough wrong on this trip. You leave him here, you’re leaving both of us.”
Braddon said nothing for some time, though his previously placid features had taken on a decidedly grim aspect. When he spoke his words were addressed entirely to Clay, and they brooked no discussion. “He’s your charge now. You vouched for him so you’re responsible. Any more misleadings, and I’ll expect you to deal with it.”
Clay glanced at Scriberson, noting the sheen of sweat on his skin, and nodded. “I understand, Uncle.”
Braddon switched his gaze to Scriberson. “Guess you better get drawing.”
—
Scriberson, possibly in a well-reasoned effort to curry favour, proved as capable with the railway engine as he had with the River Maiden’s blood-burner. They were obliged to off-load a good deal of the coal in the tender to accommodate the others, but the astronomer reckoned they still had enough for a good hundred miles’ travel. Clay joined him on the platform, taking on the task of shovelling coal into the flaming maw Scriberson had named a fire-box. After a long vigil spent in close examination of the few undamaged or unmelted dials, during which time a thick pall of smoke had filled the shed to near-choking levels, Scriberson raised the largest lever amongst the bewildering array of controls. The engine issued a great hiss, steam blossoming to mingle with the smoke, as it began a slow exit from the shed. There being no way to turn the thing around, they were obliged to push the coal carriage ahead of them, the engine reversing along the track and away from the ruined settlement.
“Nicely done, Scribes.” Clay complimented the astronomer with a clap to the shoulder.
Scriberson, however, was plainly too tense to do more than nod. “Your words of advice back on the boat,” he said, just loud enough for Clay to hear over the engine’s huffing and clanking. “About taking off. I think I’ve come to see your point.”
“Little late now.” His uncle was engaged in a careful examination of the sketch Scriberson had provided. It showed an expansive, flat ledge protruding from the flank of a tall, conical mountain. Clay had been somewhat disappointed to find it lacking any other distinguishing landmarks and the others remained singularly unimpressed.
“You really intend to shoot me, Clay?” Scriberson had forced a jovial tone but Clay saw the fearful cast to his eyes.
“You heard the captain.” Clay attempted a reassuring grin. “Only if you’re lying again.”
The engine made steady if ponderous progress up the successive inclines towards the valley. Scriberson’s keenness as a driver didn’t prevent him misjudging the speed needed to successfully traverse the repeated bends in the track, seeing them forced into an unwanted backslide or two before they finally came to level ground. Once free of the slopes the engine seemed to leap forward, smoke streaming from its stunted stack and the surrounding landscape becoming a blur of green, soon transformed into grey as they entered the valley. The track formed a straight line as the mountains rose on either side. Clay felt a rush of exhilaration as the engine fairly pelted along, experienced only once before when he had ridden on Lutharon’s back.
They covered over ten miles before the track began to wind once more, following the course of the narrow stream that traced along the valley floor. Braddon waved his hat upon sighting something up ahead, a small cluster of buildings surrounding a squat wooden tower of some kind. Scriberson duly reduced speed and they glided to a gradual halt alongside the tower, Clay recognising it as a water tank from the pivot and spout affixed to its side. A half-dozen sheds and storehouses had been constructed nearby, all revealed as unoccupied after Loriabeth and Skaggerhill conducted a brief reconnaissance.
“No bodies,” the harvester reported. “No burning either. Looks like whoever Briteshore posted here just took to their heels.”
Braddon cast a glance at the dimming sky. “We’ll lay up here tonight. Clay, I’m expecting to hear something of use come the morning.”
—
She wasn’t there. All he could see was his own increasingly detailed rendering of Nelphia’s peaks and valleys. He fought down an unfamiliar sensation, taking a moment to recognise it as panic. The trance, it transpired, could be a scary and lonely place without the company of another mind. His memories stirred in response to the momentary loss of control, dust rising from the moon’s surface to form into the varied images conjured seemingly at random from the recesses of his mind. His father’s head beyond the old pistol’s sights. Derk counting loot. Speeler’s murder at Bewler’s Wharf. And Joya, of course. Joya dancing . . .
He reasserted control with some reluctance, wanting to watch her dance but knowing it an indulgence he couldn’t afford. He had to think of what to tell his uncle. The dust settled and Nelphia’s surface reverted to its usual serene starkness, spoilt only by a passing shadow, expanding and contracting as it traced across the moonscape.
At first Clay assumed it to be some vestige of memory that had escaped his control, Lutharon’s silhouette perhaps, but then saw it to be a formless thing, its shape constantly changing. Also, it was dark. Dark enough to swallow all light wherever it passed.
A faint warning began to sound in Clay’s head as the shadow came closer. Something Miss Lethridge had said back in Carvenport, an answer to a question he raised during their first lesson. A dumb question he realised when she replied in a tone that had been partly amused but mostly dismissive. “It’s in the nature of the trance to give birth to outlandish notions. Please set aside whatever silly stories you have heard from a drunken mouth. There are no portents in the trance, Mr. Torcreek.”
Portent . . .
The shadow grew as it came closer, its edges becoming less diffuse, the shape re-forming, coalescing into something recognisable. It stretched out before him, a human figure, the proportions distorted as if cast by a low evening sun, the shape comprehensible but still vague, his mind fumbling towards recognition as it became more real. It’s holding something, he realised. It’s holding . . .
—
The trance shattered around him as the last of the Blue dwindled to nothing. The abrupt shift in sensation made him convulse and cry out from the shock of it, like being plunged into ice-cold water but much worse.
“Claydon?” He felt his uncle’s hand on his shoulder as he hunched over, drawing in deep ragged breaths. “Something happen in there?”
“Ran out of product sooner than expected is all,” he replied after a moment, forcing a smile.
“What’d she have to say?�
��
Clay lowered his head farther, groaning as he played for time. He had hoped to linger in the trance whilst he concocted the right lie. “Madame has people working on the device,” he said, sensing Braddon’s growing impatience. “They ain’t got anywhere yet, but she says they may have something by tomorrow. In the meantime we’re to keep going, trust to Scribes’s sketch.”
Braddon gave a grunt of frustration and went to the door of the small shed they had retired to till the morning. Outside Scriberson was replenishing the engine’s reservoir with water from the tower, balancing on the huge cylinder as he held the spigot over the port without any offer of assistance from the others. Ethelynne had returned the previous night, Lutharon finding them with ease as he followed the tracks from the settlement. She looked over Scriberson’s sketch of the viewing point with a careful eye before cheerfully announcing she had never seen it before.
“We’ll scout ahead in the morning,” she promised. “The highest peak isn’t hard to find, but it is a good way off. It’ll be at least a day before we can return to you.”
Clay checked the vial of Blue Ethelynne had given him, finding only a few drops left. Enough for maybe two more trances. “Might be better to wait for her to come back,” he suggested as his uncle continued to linger in the doorway.
“Could be she never comes back,” Braddon replied. “No, we keep going. Stay on this track. It’s gotta lead somewhere.”
—
The track grew ever more winding the farther into the mountains they went and, although Clay hadn’t noticed until they found themselves traversing the edge of a deep ravine, they climbed higher with every mile. The stream they had followed since the settlement had grown into a frothing torrent and the valley walls now rose in sheer cliffs, the heights veiled by the perennial mist that seemed to plague the Coppersoles.
“This is really quite the feat of engineering,” Scriberson commented as they neared the end of the ravine. “The expense of building it must have been enormous.”
“Equal to the reward, I’m guessing,” Clay replied. His gaze lit on something up ahead, a row of posts following the course of the track. The engine moved slow enough for them to gain a full appreciation of the sight as they passed by. Spoiled, Clay realised, eyes flitting from one part-rotted and impaled head to another. He counted over sixty by the time they came to the end of the row.
