The Boundless

by Kenneth Oppel

  Light crashes over them again, and Will is coughing and blinking.

  “Roald!” Maren cries out again, and her brother springs up from his crouch, holding his one remaining stilt.

  “I’m fine!” he shouts, and launches the stilt along the rooftop. “Heads up!”

  Mr. Dorian steps deftly out of the way, and the stilt hits Mackie and knocks him off his feet. Brogan lunges at the ringmaster, and then recoils, blood welling from a cut across his cheek.

  The two brakemen who’ve been manacled together charge the Zhang twins and hurl themselves against their stilts, snapping one in half. The Siamese twins crash to the roof. Like a crippled spider, they try to rise. Suddenly they’re up on just two stilts, pirouetting like a ballerina. One of the manacled brakemen screams as Roald’s knife buries itself in his shoulder.

  Will turns to see Roald with another knife at the ready, but before he can hurl it, a great gust of smoke and steam from the locomotive rolls over, making the world disappear. Wrapped in pungent fog, Will feels dizzy, there is no up or down, and he drops to his knees and clutches at the roof.

  When the smoke clears, Will catches sight of Mr. Beauprey giving a howling brakeman’s arm a twist. The giant then picks the man up, roars, “I will throw you from the train!” and does just that.

  Will looks forward. They’re steaming straight for the stone flank of another mountain.

  “It’s the Connaught!” one of the brakemen shouts.

  Will has heard of it—a tunnel that makes three complete spirals through the heart of the mountain—and here it comes, the gaping black hole lunging toward them.

  The darkness is total. Three blasts of the locomotive’s whistle nearly blow his head off. He’s aware of the ceiling overhead, roaring past.

  A faint glow from the train’s side lanterns illuminates the shape of the tunnel. The roof is higher than he thinks, for the locomotive needs to pass through with its tall smokestack. As it begins its long, looping descent through the mountain, the train slows considerably—though not as much as it should, with so many brakemen missing from their posts.

  “I’m here,” he hears Maren say beside him, and she takes his hand.

  Icy droplets patter down on him from the ceiling. Without his coat he’s starting to feel the deep cold. The roof is getting slippery.

  Locomotive smoke funnels densely through the tunnel, and ash stings his eyes. He can’t see more than two feet in front of him. He wants to roll himself up like an armadillo and disappear. Shivering, he tenses, afraid of who might touch him. The smoke clears.

  “Look out!” cries Maren, gripping his shoulders and twisting him out of the way. A large shadow blurs past. In the fading light he sees a tortured green and brown icicle of stone.

  “Stalactite,” he breathes, and ducks as another one rushes past.

  Around him, in the steam and darkness, he hears shouts and has no idea what’s going on. He tries to figure out how many brakemen are left. Five? Six? The two manacled together, but one of them has a knife in his shoulder. The one with the big wrench. Then there’s Brogan and Mackie and Chisholm. . . .

  Another long gust of blinding smoke, and then a shadow looms over them. Mr. Beauprey bends down, smiling.

  “I tossed another man from the train,” he says happily.

  He sits down suddenly, and Will sees the dark spreading stain on his chest.

  “You’re hurt,” Will says in horror.

  “One of them had a knife,” he says matter-of-factly, and then his head lolls as if he’s falling asleep. Will and Maren try to cushion his fall as he crumples against the roof. As the train continues its sharp turn, his body rolls. Will grabs at it, but it’s too heavy and Will has to let go or else be dragged off with it. With a sob he watches Mr. Beauprey’s body slide off into the tunnel and disappear.

  Another bank of smoke washes over them, and when it clears, this time Will sees Chisholm stooped before him with a knife.

  “There you are,” he says, coming at Will.

  He scrambles back with Maren. The knife quavers in Chisholm’s hand. The brakeman is not altogether steady on his feet as the train turns and turns. Behind him, a pale aura begins to spread. They must be nearing the tunnel’s end.

  Will sees the wickedly curved form of a stalactite spiking down from the side of the tunnel.

  “Look out!” he can’t help shouting.

  Chisholm’s smirk of disbelief is frozen on his face as the stalactite smacks him off the roof and against the tunnel’s wall.

  The Boundless bursts from the tunnel, and Will is momentarily blinded by sunlight and mountain snow. Squinting, he rises to a wary crouch, looking quickly about. He sees the two manacled brakemen in retreat, limping back across the neighboring car—and a third jumps the gap, hurrying after them. There is no sign of either Brogan or Mackie. Have they already fled, or were they thrown off in the tunnel? Will lets out a big breath, and his shoulders drop a bit. The Zhang twins hold the remnants of their broken stilts. Mr. Dorian looks about, his eyes wild, the hide-scraper still clenched in his fist. Roald retrieves one of his knives from the roof and hurries over to his sister.

  “Mr. Beauprey . . . ,” Maren begins to say, then bursts into tears.

  “I know,” says her brother, hugging her. She presses herself against his chest, and Will feels a sharp pang of longing.

  “What happened?” Mr. Dorian asks, his face ashen.

  “He was stabbed,” Will tells him numbly. “We couldn’t hold on to him. He slid off in the tunnel.”

  Heavily, Mr. Dorian sits down.

  “Did you get what you came for?” Roald asks him.

  For a moment it seems the ringmaster hasn’t heard the question, but then he nods. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “I hope it was worth it!” Maren says hoarsely. “You spent someone’s life to get it!”

  “Shhh,” Roald tells her gently, but Will notices that the Zhang twins are watching their ringmaster a bit warily. Mr. Dorian says nothing, and Will wonders what he’s feeling, if anything at all.

  It starts to snow, huge beautiful flakes flashing past, hitting Will’s clothing and melting instantly.

  “I need to get back to first class,” he says. “We’re done.” The idea seems impossible. The last four days have expanded into an entire lifetime. He has survived—but he doesn’t feel exultation right now, only hollowed-out with exhaustion and sadness. He takes a breath. He will enter the first-class cars. He will tell Lieutenant Samuel Steele what happened in the Junction, and everything afterward. At the next stop he will see his father in the locomotive. And then . . .

  “We’re not done,” says Mr. Dorian, looking at Will. “Not quite yet. I need your skills, William.”

  Frowning, he asks, “What for?”

  “I need my portrait done.”

  “But what about Madame Lamoine?”

  “It has to be you, William. And it has to be now.”

  With effort the ringmaster stands.

  Will swallows. “Your heart?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” Will says desperately. He doesn’t just mean he’s worried about his skill as a painter. He’s not sure he wants to help Mr. Dorian any longer.

  “You listen to me,” says Mr. Dorian, wincing with the effort. “I have spent precious years of my life, and a considerable fortune, working toward this moment! I have the canvas now, and you will paint my portrait!”

  “Why should I?” Will shouts back, his own fury suddenly flowing out of him. “Why should you get to live? When Mr. Beauprey died! When you risked all our lives? Maren might’ve died too! Do you even care?”

  “Of course I do,” he says wearily. If he looked ill before, now he looks deathly.

  “What’s this all about?” Roald asks in obvious confusion.

  “He’s dying,” Maren says
to Will.

  Will looks at Mr. Dorian, and his anger cools to pity.

  “Yes,” he says. “I’ll paint your portrait.”

  THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN

  * * *

  Maren picks the lock of the maintenance car, and they all hurry inside, Mr. Dorian leaning heavily on Roald. Pungent with grease and paint fumes, the space is tight. Crowded shelves line both sides. Maren lights a lantern. Will is already rummaging around, knocking things to the floor in his exhausted haste. He grabs brushes, several cans of paint, a jug of what looks like turpentine. His studio.

  Roald settles Mr. Dorian gently on the floor, his back to some shelves, then goes to Meng and Li Zhang.

  “Keep watch from the rear of the car,” he tells the twins. “No surprise guests.” He gives Will a confused look. “I still think he needs a doctor.”

  “No doctor,” says Mr. Dorian through gritted teeth. “What I need is right here.” He drags the canvas from his pocket and hands it to Will.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for Brogan and Mackie,” Roald says, and heads to the front of the car.

  “We need to mount it on something,” Will says, kneeling and unfolding the canvas, painted side down.

  “No time,” says Mr. Dorian with a cough.

  “I won’t be able to work it otherwise.” He looks around and finds a piece of plywood. He drops it to the floor and rummages in a few bins for some nails and a hammer.

  “Hold it tight for me,” he tells Maren, and proceeds to bang nails around the perimeter. He’s almost afraid to touch the canvas. But it doesn’t burn with cold or heat. His parents were never much for Bible learning, but he can’t help wondering if there is something wicked about this fabric. He finishes hammering. The canvas is still slack in places, but it’ll have to do.

  Mr. Dorian sits upright, as dignified as possible. “My left side is my best,” he says, managing a pained grin.

  Will looks at the scraggly brushes and paints. There is black and white, green and red—all the colors of the Boundless’s exterior. He can make more from the primaries.

  “How good does this have to be?” he asks, starting to worry now. Another man’s life is in his hands, and how does he know he’s skilled enough to make this work? He’s a good copier, but he’s never done a proper oil portrait.

  “This is the chance you’ve been waiting for, William,” Mr. Dorian says. “The birth of the artist.”

  Maren places the lantern beside him, and he shivers in the faint warmth of the flame. The shadows chisel Mr. Dorian’s features so his head looks almost skull-like.

  Will knows there’s no time to prime the canvas. He searches his jacket for his pencil stub—it’s a small miracle it’s still there. This pencil’s a survivor. If he can pull off this painting, he will keep the pencil forever as good luck. Hunching over the canvas, he starts an outline of Mr. Dorian, sketching in the features, capturing the angle of the head and shoulders.

  The truth is, he can’t paint. Not well anyway. His drawings are sound, but his paintings are dead—this is how he thinks of them. Once he starts putting the paint on, the picture loses all its vitality. He slowly buries it, killing it with every brushstroke. He forces his eyes back to his subject, working hurriedly.

  Maren pries off the lids of the paint cans. “How do you like them arranged?” she asks.

  “Just here to my right,” he tells her. “I can use the lids to mix the colors. Can you find me some rags for the brushes?”

  The touch of his pencil to the canvas has sent no spectral sparks through his hands. He wonders if this is all nonsense and Mr. Dorian has risked their lives for nothing. Mr. Beauprey is dead. Some of the brakemen are almost certainly dead. Will thinks of the man he sent over the edge. Is he dead too?

  “Will?” Maren says quietly.

  He realizes he’s just staring at the canvas.

  “Start,” Mr. Dorian wheezes.

  He’s terrified to start. The drawing’s a fair likeness. He fusses with it a bit more but knows he’s stalling.

  After dolloping some red onto a lid, he adds white, mixing until he has a passable pink. The light is so poor, it’s hard to tell how fleshlike the color is. On another lid he mixes red and green to make brown, and then adds a bit to his pink to tone it down. He thins the paint with turpentine. This way his lines can be finer and more careful.

  With the smallest brush, using his drawing as a guide, he begins painting in Mr. Dorian’s flesh. Maybe he should have made the color whiter, for Mr. Dorian’s skin is terribly pale now. The brush bristles are hard—they haven’t been cleaned properly. His strokes are impossible to control. Panic mounts within him. How will he ever manage the mouth and eyes?

  He keeps staring up at Mr. Dorian, trying to force his eyes to follow and feel, but his eyes don’t want to see right now. His head is filled with worry, crying out like a raven’s ceaseless cawing.

  “William, please hurry,” says Mr. Dorian, and he flinches again.

  Will knows he needs to get the paint down faster, but he’s worried about getting lost as he obliterates his drawing bit by bit.

  With a rag he cleans his brush and switches to dark brown to make a start on Mr. Dorian’s hair. Then he changes brushes and works on the shadows around the ringmaster’s nose and eye sockets. With careful strokes he chisels deep hollows in the cheeks.

  “Will,” Maren says, “are you all right?”

  He stares at his work, and it’s happening again, just like it always does.

  “The painting’s dying,” he murmurs.

  “He’s dying!” Maren reminds him.

  “Stop being so careful, William!” Mr. Dorian says, wincing. “Look at me, and paint me.”

  Will looks hard at the ringmaster. The shadows deepen and his pale face seems to hang, suspended in space. There is nothing but the blazing head in the darkness. And suddenly Will beholds Mr. Dorian for what he is, beyond his flesh and bones. It’s like his whole life is pouring out of him, and Will sees all the desperation and fear and longing and a terrifying will to live—like a fire that will burn everything in its path.

  Feverishly Will slops paint on a lid, mixing. He makes the colors he needs and does not thin them this time. He works wet on wet, putting more paint on the canvas, trying to keep it thick. The canvas seems hungry for more.

  The ringmaster is wheezing now.

  “Hurry!” says Maren.

  Something inside Will gets unlocked with these bigger, faster strokes. It’s as if he can feel Mr. Dorian’s face with the brush. He is mixing hastily, not bothering to clean between colors, just putting the paint down on the canvas.

  “I’m done!” says Will.

  * * *

  Brogan stares down at the coupling behind the funeral car.

  “You can’t do it,” says Mackie. “Not when we’re in motion.”

  “It can be done,” says Brogan. And he shows Mackie the vial of nitro he’s been carrying in his sand-filled pouch.

  Mackie’s all he’s got left. Chisholm disappeared in the tunnel, but Mackie had the sense to get himself hidden when the cavalry showed up with their stilts and throwing knives. They both retreated over the front of the funeral car.

  “We’ve gone too far to stop now,” he tells Mackie, sensing his doubts. “You’re with me or you’re against me. Decide now, but know it’s a bloody road we’re about to take.”

  “I’m with you,” Mackie says angrily. “I’m getting rich or going to hell.”

  Brogan spent years blasting. Drilling the coyote holes in the rock face, packing in the powder or the nitro, and running out the fuse. He’s seen men blasted to pieces more times than he can count. But he never got so much as a scratch. He’s like a cat. Nine lives.

  “We blow this coupling and leave the rest of the Boundless behind,” he tells Mackie. “We’ve got the funeral car, and then we take
the locomotive.”

  “How? There’s the firemen and engineers!”

  “We tell them to hop it. They’ll hop it.” He shows his gun.

  Mackie reminds him, “There’s no bullets.”

  “They don’t know that. Would you risk it? And if they don’t hop it, they get the knife.”

  Mackie says nothing.

  “Then we drive the locomotive into the foothills, near Farewell. We blow the funeral car to bits, get the gold out. We’re away down the river and across the border before the Mounties even saddle their horses.”

  He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s bloodied but not beaten.

  “And look at it this way.” He forces a grin at Mackie. “We got fewer people to share with.”

  * * *

  Will gazes down at the portrait. It’s good. What he’s painted is good. Despite his clumsy mixing, the colors seem startlingly vibrant. It is not careful and realistic. No one would praise its photographic accuracy. But it captures the man himself, his soul somehow.

  “Show me,” whispers Mr. Dorian.

  Will turns the painting round. It is a violent collision of colors and textures. Mr. Dorian’s face is still as he beholds his portrait. He smiles and nods.

  “Yes,” he says. “That’s it.” He exhales deeply.

  “Are you feeling better?” Maren asks.

  “I am,” he says. He begins to stand, and without warning his entire body jerks and he cries out, clutching his left hand as though it has just been seared.

  “Mr. Dorian!” shouts Maren.

  But he can’t hear her, because he is moaning, the most urgent and heartrending lament Will has ever heard. Mr. Dorian slumps over. Will helps Maren ease him to the floor.

  “What’s wrong!” Roald cries, hurrying over.

  “It’s not working,” Maren says, looking at Will in desperation. “Why isn’t it working?”

  “I’m going for the doctor!” Roald says.