Landquaker

by Dean F. Wilson

   “I need off auto-pilot!” the tribesman shouted down.

   “Brooklyn needs auto-pilot off!” Whistler repeated, glancing back and forward between the cockpit and the engine room.

   Rommond span the wheels and dials with a frenzy, trying to set it back to manual, while Taberah and Jacob fed the furnace with a fury of their own. The warwagon picked up speed, but the metal continued to buckle under whatever assaulted them.

   “Keep going!” Rommond cried, even to his own hands, which did not seem quick enough to crank the levers. Taberah joined him, readjusting controls he had just adjusted. Rommond might have helped make this vessel, but it was her baby, and Jacob hoped that meant she could operate it more effectively than him.

   Jacob continued shovelling coal, until he thought he was burying the flame instead of feeding it. The last thing he wanted to do was bury anything.

   There was a loud click, and then the warwagon stuttered. “That's it,” Taberah said. “We're back on manual.”

   “We might need some of your fancy driving,” Rommond told Jacob.

   Jacob raced outside, shuffling past Whistler, and launching himself up the ladder. He had squashed in there before with Soasa, and it was just as much a squeeze with Brooklyn. He seized the steering sticks and pushed them forward, only to feel the warwagon sputter and stop dead, as if the Silver Ghost had truly earned its name.

   Jacob removed his hands from the sticks and looked at them as if they might be cursed. “What did I do?”

   The furnace went dark in the engine room, and not a cog spun, nor a piston pumped. They heard Rommond and Taberah calling up to them, but in the cockpit everything was silent.

   “The machine spirits are angry,” Brooklyn whispered. “There is spirit-talker out there. He makes the spirits angry—angry at us.”

  7 – WAGON WAR

  Suddenly the machinery came to life, but it was not the life its maker ordained. It was a new life, instilled by another world. The dials went crazy, and the compass needle span, as if it had been sucked into the spirit plane, where there was no east or west, or north or south.

   “We can't stay in here,” Jacob declared, just as a level came down upon his head. He wrestled with it, but it became stiff and immovable, while others tried to reach out for him, like the material fingers of spectral forces.

   Jacob reached for the door leading down to the rest of the warwagon, but it swiftly slammed shut. The wheel span into place, and no amount of force seemed to unlatch the lock. He banged on the hatch and yelled to Whistler. He heard the boy's faint responses, drowned out by what sounded like the engine room door also banging shut.

   Jacob stood back up as the shutters on the windows below clapped like thunder. A single wheel of the vehicle span in place, alternating among them, rocking the warwagon like an earthquake. The lanterns dimmed and brightened, sending the shadows fleeing in all directions, as if they too were frightened of what assailed them.

   Jacob turned to Brooklyn in frustration. “Well, you're the mystic of us lot. Can you not do something?”

   Brooklyn could not hide the panic in his face. He held his hands before him, one human, one machine, both completely empty. “I … I do not know what to do.”

   “Talk to them!” Jacob urged. “I thought they listen to you.”

   Brooklyn shook his head. “They do not listen now.”

   “Well, we better do something,” Jacob said, “or we'll be able to communicate with them a lot easier in the afterlife.”

  Whistler charged up the ladder as he saw it closing, but it was too late. He heard it bolt shut, and wondered for a moment if the others had sealed themselves inside. Maybe it was safer up there. That did not bode well for those left downstairs. Then he heard the engine room door squeaking, and he raced back down, just as Rommond and Taberah were running to the swinging door. It locked, and Whistler knew that they did not lock it. He heard Taberah roar in anger and thought maybe it was safer outside.

   He listened to the muffled voices from both the engine room and the cockpit for a moment, but the distortion made them sound a little frightening, even a little bit demonic. He felt the sweat on his palms where he gripped the ladder tightly, and felt his heaving chest, and jumped at every bang, and yelped at every clatter. He might have been half-demon, but he felt the full fear that every human felt under such an overwhelming spirit assault.

   Then he thought he saw a fleeting figure out of the corner of his eye. He turned sharply, but there was nothing there. Nothing there to see, at least—he could still feel something, could sense a presence. He gulped and looked up to the sealed hatch, and to the side to the sealed door, and wished he was not locked out alone.

   He gulped again, trying to swallow the childish part of him, the part that made him want to run, to hide behind someone big and strong. He knew the others were counting on him, that he was the only person who could find some kind of override switch, if one even existed, or they might suffocate or starve in those locked cells, and it would be his fault. He knew he had to be a man and face whatever it was that was out there, even if he had to face it trembling.

   Then he saw that fleeting figure again, and he shrieked. It was nothing, he told himself repeatedly in his head, but the more he said it, the more it seemed like the figure reappeared, and seemed a little more solid than it did before. It seemed small, like a young child, but he got the flash of a face in his mind, and it was his mother's. Her face, but not her frown or fiery eyes. He could have sworn he saw her in the engine room, but now he began to doubt himself, and he wondered if maybe she had gotten out in time.

   “Mom,” he said, immediately aware that he was saying it too softly, afraid that something else might answer, that something else might find him first. It was very dark, and though he knew the Silver Ghost well, it had always been well illuminated. With the lights out, it looked like an entirely different place, and he did not like that where he thought his mother was, it seemed the darkest place of all.

   As he passed by one of the empty bedrooms, the door creaked open, and it did not seem so empty. The shadows congregated there, and he almost heard their whispers. He hurried past, glancing back over his shoulder, feeling his heart hurtling faster than his feet.

   He halted suddenly when he thought he heard his name. Brogan, it said, and it might have been the voice of his mother, but he was not sure if he was just imagining it. He felt something touch his arm, and he cried out, shaking it from him as if it was a spider, but there was nothing there. His breathing was very heavy now, and he gasped for air. He rested his right hand on the cold silver of the hull as he tried to regain his breath, glancing about him at every shifting shadow, feeling like the familiar vessel had swiftly become an unfamiliar maze of haunted corridors, even though he knew there was just one long corridor, and three smaller ones leading off that to the doors.

   Then he felt a sharp pain as the hull buckled inwards where his hand rested, and he shrieked and scampered back to the reassuring ladder, where he turned to see the door that faced it, and what looked like a painted face staring inside.

   Then he felt a hand grab his shoulder.

  Jacob tried every lever he could reach, but they actively resisted him. Even his strength combined with Brooklyn's could not make the door budge, and he thought even Soasa's effort might be fruitless. Indeed, it did not seem like Brooklyn was even trying. He paused between each struggle, closing his eyes and shaking his head. Jacob presumed it was a kind of meditation, but he did not think it was a very encouraging one.

   “No luck?” Jacob asked.

   “It does not feel like they can hear me.”

   “Let me give it a go,” Jacob said, before addressing the four corners of the room, which were close enough that he could touch them, were Brooklyn not in the way. “Hey, spirits!” he called out, feeling like a fool, but thinking he would feel like a bigger one if he did not try something. “Can you hear us?�
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   The wheel that sealed the door shut span anti-clockwise, but by the time Jacob dived for it, it spun shut again and jammed. He slammed his fist on it.

   “I'll take that as a yes,” he said as he clambered back up. “And I'll take it you're toying with us too.”

   “You should not disrespect them,” Brooklyn warned.

   “Maybe they shouldn't disrespect us,” Jacob suggested, before turning his attention to the spirits once more. “Can you let us free?”

   There was silence. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath.

   “I am getting something,” Brooklyn said, closing his eyes. “I see us all chaining ourselves up.”

   Jacob scrunched his mouth. “I'm hoping that vision is meant to be symbolic. I spent enough time in the Hold.”

   The shutters on the window clattered angrily.

   “They do not like your words.”

   “Hey, you wanted me to play ambassador to the tribes,” Jacob replied. “You didn't say anything about being a diplomat for ghosts.”

   The shutters went wild again.

   Brooklyn opened his eyes. “They are ancient spirits,” he said. “Not ghosts.”

   Jacob shrugged in frustration. “Hey, I don't know the lingo for this sort of thing. The closest I've gotten to the mystical and magical is selling those amulets full of … God knows what. I never asked. All of this stuff gives me the heebie jeebies.”

  They heard a bang on the hatch, and they thought the spirits had begun another assault. The wheel span open, and Jacob charged to the door, only to find Taberah standing there, holding up a flickering lantern.

   “So you found us,” Jacob said, jamming himself between the door as it tried to close on them again. “We've just been here … meditating.”

   He clambered down, and Brooklyn followed swiftly, where they found Rommond and Whistler there, the former heaving with anger, the latter with fear.

   “Every time I come here I end up in a broken vehicle,” Rommond griped. “I hate these lands.”

   The lights flickered out, before slowly coming back on again.

   “Probably best to keep that to yourself,” Jacob said.

   The hatch above opened suddenly, and a spanner fell down, smacking Jacob in the crown. “Hell!” he cried, rubbing his head. “I didn't say it!”

   “We're not safe in here any more,” Taberah said. “This place is a death trap if the enemy can control it. We need to get outside.”

   “If we can get the doors open,” Jacob said, making sure to sidle away from the ladder. He knew there were plenty more tools in the cockpit. “Speaking of which, how did you get out of the engine room?” He pointed to the now resealed hatch. “We tried everything up there!”

   Taberah glanced at him, but did not respond.

   “If we go outside,” Rommond said, “we'll face the tribesmen, and I have a feeling we'll be facing a lot of them.”

   “I'd rather face them,” Taberah replied, holding up her rifle. “At least I can shoot them.”

   “What do these spirits even want with us?” Whistler asked.

   “They're angry with me,” Brooklyn lamented, raising his metal gauntlet as if it were a talisman of evil, summoning the wrath of the otherworld.

   “How do you know that?” Rommond asked him.

   “I can feel it … in my wires and bones.”

   Rommond shook his head, as if he could not accept that anyone or anything could be angry with Brooklyn. He turned to address the spirits. “Udanu! Who are you angry with?” he shouted, glancing about him.

   The lights went out again, and then a few solitary flames lit up. In that weak light, it was clear to see that there was just a single figure illuminated: Taberah.

  8 – TOTEM

  The light flooded Taberah's face, forcing the shadows to hide in the crevices of her eyes. Her features looked more distinct than ever, her cheekbones sharpened, her ruby lips defined. Her scarlet hair was tangled like writhing serpents. Though her eyes were not as fiery as they had once been, the flicker of the oil lamps reflected in them. She looked very grim, like someone telling ghost stories—or someone the ghost stories were about.

   “I don't know why they're angry with me,” she said.

   Rommond seemed to be trying hard to hold his tongue.

   “Oh, you think there's a reason?” she asked.

   He still seemed reluctant to answer, like a spirit-board that would not spell out a name. “Well, you did dabble with all sorts in your younger days.”

   The light made it clear that Taberah was offended. “I didn't dabble,” she said, “and if that's why they're angry, let's give them some real dabbling to worry about.”

   She turned and retreated into the shadows, but even as she did, the oil lanterns that had been previously doused ignited as she passed, illuminating her way. For a moment, Jacob was not sure if it was the spirits that did this or if it was her instead. Even as she reached the main door leading outside, and it swung open of its own accord, he still was not certain.

   “Taberah!” Rommond growled after her.

   “I don't fear these spirits,” she replied as she stepped outside.

   “It's not the spirits,” the general said, “it's the tribes you should fear.”

   She did not listen, and they were left with little choice. They could not hole up in the warwagon, when every door and lock conspiring against them. They could face their fate outside, and they could fight, or they could surrender, or they could even become spirits of their own.

   Rommond shook his head and grabbed his revolver. He flicked the barrel open and glanced at the bullets inside. It was fully loaded, six in number. He already knew this, but part of him suspected that the machine spirits might have stolen the ammunition. When the fight started, he wanted to be sure he got six kills.

   “Come on,” he said. “The spirit action is here, but the real action is outside.”

   They followed Taberah out into the desert, where the crescent of the moon acted as a lantern of its own. The Silver Ghost was visible in a thick ring of darkness, and out there in the shadow there might have been just empty sand, or there might have been a hundred spear-wielding tribesmen, or there might have been something else entirely, something they still would not have seen in the light.

   Jacob felt something brush past him, and he tried to resist jumping. It might have been the wind, but the air was deathly still. Whistler stood close by, flinching every now and then. Rommond and Brooklyn stood to the side like sentinels, and though the spirits likely assailed them too, neither one of them moved an inch.

   Rommond took his pistol from his belt and handed it to Brooklyn, who held it reluctantly in his metal gauntlet.

   “You know I am not fighter,” the tribesman said.

   The general looked at him. “You better get in the spirit of fighting quick then.”

   Taberah's hair blew madly, and a vicious wind circled her, and only her, forcing the others to back away. It was as if a tornado had appeared around her, a dust devil without the dust. It was an angry wind, and the howl it made did not seem entirely the work of weather. Yet she stood there, in the eye of the storm, and she did not blink, and she did not baulk.

   She reached inside her wine-coloured waistcoat and produced a little trinket, a crude wooden carving of a full-bodied woman with stunted arms and legs. It hung on a chain, and Taberah dangled it in front of her. Though the wind pulled at every part of her, tossing her hair and tugging her clothes, it did not touch the little wooden pendant, which hung deathly still in the tempest. Then the wind suddenly stopped, as if it had just seen what she held before her, and there was a different howl as something, or rather a host of somethings, an army of somethings, fled away in all directions, brushing past the others, setting all hair on end.

   “Hell,” Jacob said. “What was that?”

   Whistler clung to his arm
, not wanting to find out.

   Taberah turned to them, still dangling the totem before her.

   “Great Mother,” Brooklyn said.

   Whistler gave him a curious look.

   “Where did you get that?” Brooklyn asked.

   “Mudro thought it might be useful,” she answered.

   Rommond grumbled. “I wish that magician would let me in on his tricks.”

   “What is it?” Jacob asked, as Taberah handed the pendant to Brooklyn, who held it up for all of them to see. “Seems you make amulets to scare away all sorts of things.”

   “She did not make this,” Brooklyn explained. “It is Muada-andulu, Mother-charm, which only Wachu Muada, Mother-clan, can make. It is forbidden to all others. It is totem of Great Mother, who birthed us all. We are all her children, even spirits. And naughty spirits flee at sight of Mother, or they will be scolded.”

   “Handy,” Jacob said. “Though I guess it doesn't work for all naughty children.” I'm still here after all, he thought. He winked at Whistler.

   “You should not have this,” Brooklyn told Taberah, his face graver than hers.

   “It served its purpose,” she said. “Mudro suspected we might face some resistance.”

   “Only Wachu Muada may use this,” Brooklyn said. “It is forbidden.”

   “I follow my own laws,” Taberah said. “Humans know it, and the demons know it too. The sooner the spirits learn that, the better off they'll be as well.”

   “This is not a world I wish to tamper in,” Rommond said. He held up his gun. “I need a fight where these still work.”

   At that moment, a crowd of tribesman, armed with spears and bows, emerged from the shadows, the tips of their spears and arrows glinting in the moonlight.