Of Steel and Steam

by Pauline Creeden et al.

  Secrets of the Keep

  The crew rose to their feet before Robert went halfway down the hill. They rushed up the slope to greet him, and help him with his burden.

  "What happened?" Vilaster took Stockbridge's weight from him and proceeded back down.

  "Why'd you turn around?" Lindstrom said.

  Robert looked at them, confused. "I didn't. I was gone for hours."

  "You got to the top of the hill. Put the Captain down, picked her up, and came back down," Vilaster said. "Not that I blame you. She's got some weight on her."

  "Don't say that where she can hear you," Lindstrom warned.

  Whelan waited at the base of the hill. His eyes affixed on the sword at Robert's waist.

  "What is its name?" he said when Robert walked over.

  "Claiomh Solais." Robert ran his hand over the hilt before resting it on the pommel. "It was Fren'Galgalad's."

  Whelan's eyes widened, and darted between Robert's face and sword.

  "Seven Hells," he said. "I'm loath to hear what you had to pay for that."

  "Nothing," Robert said. "The woman said it was a gift of friendship, freely given."

  Whelan's eyes widened in surprise, and he grabbed Robert by the lapel to pull him aside.

  "Nothing is freely given. I thought you were smarter than that. What did she look like? Did she give you a name?"

  Robert related his experience within the Fae Ring, as best he remembered. The intense emotions he felt blurred some of his recollections, but he knew she never gave him her name.

  Whelan remained silent long after Robert finished speaking, his brow furrowed in thought.

  At length, he waved the questions away, as if an offensive odor. "I'm glad to see you made it out in one piece. Though, I'm still trying to figure out what you owe them."

  "To the contrary," Robert said, rather pleased with himself. "They are still nine souls in my debt. Is that bad? You look upset."

  "It's neither good nor bad." Whelan clapped him on the shoulder and motioned east with his head. "It just is. I think I will be staying closer to you than I originally intended for the next few days, though. It's not every day I come across such a fascinating subject as yourself. But for now, I think it best if we keep the details of your adventure to ourselves."

  Robert fell into step beside him, and they rejoined the others.

  "There's not a mark on her, which I can't account for." McCarthy knelt beside the Captain's litter, and scowled at their approach. "But I also can't account for why she won't wake up. None of this makes sense."

  "The Fae healed her," Robert rubbed his hands over his face and stifled a yawn. "We'll get her back to the Dreadnaut. The familiar surroundings might help. They said she'll be fine in a few days."

  "Who's ready for the long march back?" Whelan clapped his hands together. "There is a war awaiting us, after all."

  The men stood, shouldered the packs and lifted the litter.

  "Someone needs to devise a magical way to do this easier," Lindstrom said while he adjusted his grip.

  "Or a mechanical one," McCarthy said. "It's an intriguing concept. A portable litter. Collapsible, maybe."

  "You've all done the crown an outstanding service," Robert said to them. "Because of your heroism, I'll be recommending each of you for the King's consideration."

  Smiles suffused their faces, and each stood a little straighter. Few gained placement in the Hall of Heroes, and it all but ensured an easy life of wealth and luxury in the future.

  They stepped off, and the world changed around them.

  The desert landscape of Duinn's wash vanished. The southern face of the citadel of Sharil's Forde loomed before them. A shout from Whelan and McCarthy stopped the men from dropping the litter.

  Thick columns of smoke washed the sky, and the din of battle reached them even here. Blasts of red energy flashed from the fortress's battlements, and the thunder of cannon responded.

  "Dear Creator," Lindstrom whispered beside them. "What just happened? How are we here?"

  Robert gazed about, and bent to lower the litter. They passed almost a hundred miles in a step. How was it possible? Were the Fae really so powerful as to effect the world so?

  "A simple device." Whelan nodded his head with an eager display of confidence. The others, Robert noticed, began to nod as well. "I've seen it done a dozen times. There must have been an old Sharikeen ferry station buried at that hill. We'll have to report it, of course. The order has a standing warrant for any magical relics lying about. Might even be a bounty in it for us."

  "Damned if this isn't one of the luckiest days I've had," Vilaster said. "Hey, Lindstrom, you still got those coordinates?"

  Lindstrom checked his pockets, and extracted the folded paper, a look of triumph on his face. The men congratulated each other on their good fortune, and Vilaster even danced a few steps of a little jig.

  "This is where we part." Robert pointed to the docks. The percussion of incoming and outgoing artillery thumped in the distance, and the vibrations slid across the earth. "You men need to secure passage back to the Dreadnaut. Get the Captain aboard and return to your posts."

  "What about you, Sir?" Lindstrom said. None of them appeared very happy about splitting up.

  "My orders are to remain at the citadel and offer what assistance I can with the guns," Robert said. "Please let Lieutenant Beckett know I've returned to my post."

  The men saluted, and McCarthy stepped forward with his hand outstretched.

  "Be safe, Sir," he said. "We'll keep our eyes open and the engines ready should you need us."

  "I'd appreciate that, McCarthy," Robert said. "Take care of her."

  "The Captain or the Dreadnaut?"

  "Both."

  Lindstrom and Vilaster repeated the sentiment, and the men lifted the litter to make their way to the docks.

  Robert glanced at Whelan, and raised an eyebrow.

  "I'm staying by your side," he said. "Thought I already mentioned that. With your permission, of course, Sir."

  "And if I order you to go back?"

  "I'll give you the same treatment you gave Beckett when he tried that tact," Whelan said. "Besides, I'm useful in a fight. You need an ally you can trust. The Fae are notoriously fickle."

  Robert did not argue the point, and they headed off to the Citadel. If anything, he appreciated the company. Over the past few days, Whelan proved himself to be solid company, even if he tended to embrace his man-of-mystery persona with too much vigor. His outstanding store of obscure knowledge, and his wealth of confidence inspired those around him. Though he presented himself as a rogue-apprentice turned artist, Robert suspected a deeper story behind his connection to the Sharikeen order.

  The wounded occupied every possible space and spilled into the corridors. The dead filled the courtyards in greater numbers than Robert expected to see. Stacked about the walls in neat rows, they resembled entrenching sandbags. Should the enemy ever breach the keep, a trench of corpses became the last line of defense.

  Robert stopped walking, and his stomach knotted with a sickening thought.

  There existed rituals, hidden, dark rites not cast by the Sharikeen in millennia. Each of them required a corpse, and he had hundreds here.

  "Don't think it, lad," Whelan said. "Those are dark paths you do not return from. Not in a single lifetime, that is. Put it out of mind."

  "It was just a passing fancy," Robert said, and continued on. Where had the idea come from, he wondered? He knew of the restricted tomes in the chapterhouse library, but to his knowledge, he never opened one. But there the pages rested, clear and extant in his mind. The ceremony, the incantations, the runes, the steps for raising power, the movements; it played out in his thoughts as if he witnessed it across a thousand lifetimes.

  He stopped again in the main corridor, just inside the entryway. Emblazoned across the wall stood a gigantic runic menagerie. A purple glow illuminated the script, and bled down the wall. Robert stepped closer to examine it, and
marveled at the intricate layers of detail. How did this get here?

  Runes had always been his area of specialty while still an apprentice, and according to his instructors, he bore a singular gift in the field. They fascinated him, and he understood the interlocking patterns as if by intuition.

  He ran his fingers over the inscription. This surpassed anything he beheld before. Who crafted it? It used an archaic dialect, possibly a thousand years old or more. But that made no sense. He walked this route a dozen times since arriving at Sharil's Forde, and he never noticed it before. To overlook such a display of magnificence stretched the bounds of incredulity. And the purpose! A defensive apparatus, that secured the iron doors and portcullis. Why did they not have it in use?

  Robert's excitement mounted while examined the litany, and paid special attention to the inner verses. The use of the caesura was inspired, and gave the entire piece a rhythmic cadence.

  "What is so fascinating about the wall?" Whelan placed his hand on the spot Robert vacated, and bent in closer. "I don't see anything."

  The invocation ran complete, but dormant.

  A small hole in the wall ended the sequence, the edges worked smooth; the work of a tool, not neglect.

  Robert stepped back, and extracted a cycling chamber from his pistol belt. Turning it over in his hands, he studied the ammunition cartridge's shape and the runic inscription belting its circumference. Such a wasteful design, he said to himself, but did not chase the extraneous thought. The Worst case scenario; he lost a serviceable cartridge. Best case scenario... that had yet to be determined.

  He shrugged, and slipped the cylinder into the slot in the masonry. It fit flush against the stonework. A resonant hum vibrated the halls, and rivulets of dust trailed from the ceiling. Deep within the Keep, ancient pistons struggled to life. From high up the walls, steam vented from hidden grills. On the wall, the glow of the inscription increased and filled the room. The northern portcullis was down, and dust fell from the edges. Glowing steel cylinders, a foot in diameter slid down from the archway to reinforce the gate.

  Robert stepped back to examine the completed design, and Whelan followed him.

  "I had no idea this was here," Whelan said, and fell silent.

  "Neither did I," Robert said, "until I saw it just now."

  Whelan regarded him, the question evident in his eyes, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

  The trip to the command chamber proved less eventful, but still full of revelations. Robert counted twelve more invocations scribbled on the walls and ceilings of the keep. Only four of them lay dormant, and he could only guess at what the others did, as he only saw them in passing.

  "Damned glad to see you're alive," Lyle said when they walked in. The room muted the barrage of sound from the artillery, but the officers still shouted to be heard. "I don't suppose you brought any extra ammunition with you?"

  Robert held his hands open and shook his head.

  "Sorry," he said. "I'd have stopped for some had I known you were short."

  "Too bad," Lyle waved at the terrain table to invite Robert over. "We're running low. What'd you do to my portcullis, by the way?"

  The tabletop display of the Keep and the surrounding terrain showed the change, and the northern section even shown with the same bluish light as the real gate. Further down the pass, pilings rose at steep angles from both roads and faced the enemy. The enemy fleet hung in the air, and the press of infantry massed less than a hundred yards from the forward defensive line.

  "Those lifted the moment the gate changed," Lyle said, and pointed out the great viewing window to the pass itself. "They're defensive hedgehogs. The Aeresians were dragging siege towers up the pass behind them. These things impaled two, and it doesn't look like any others will be getting past. The cannon brought down the ones already within the new perimeter. I've said it before, Raen'dalle, your life is blessed. I'd still like to know what you did, though."

  Robert gave a brief, half formed explanation, and left out his new ability to see and understand invisible wardings sketched all over the keep. He had no desire to explain the Fae, or the amulet he wore tucked beneath his uniform. Such a revelation screamed of heresy and consorting with pagan powers. While his status put him above the reach of law, the peerage would shun him for it, and all doors would be closed to him, including his own family's. True, they would refrain from putting him to death, but what life he'd be left would be little more than a ghost. No, he decided. He'd keep his truths to himself for now, and blame his extensive education instead.

  "And there's more throughout the Keep?" Lyle said.

  "Twelve I've seen in my stay here." Robert placed his hands on the edge of the terrain table. Runic sentences decorated the edges, and several flowed across the landscape features as well. Robert moved along the table, and examined each. When he reached Lyle, he saw that while most of the invocations were activated, several were not. A glance behind him through the window confirmed the array of ships riding against the current on the river, heading for the fortress.

  On the model, as in life, a pair of pillars stood on either bank of the river. Robert touched the inscription on the table next to them, and ran his finger across it. An incandescent blue glow engulfed both obelisks, and moments later a miniature chain lifted across the river.

  From outside, a guttural rumble rolled beneath the roar of cannon, and everyone in the room rushed to the window. A mile from the fortress, a giant glowing chain lifted across the river to connect the two pillars, its links dripping water and silt.

  One by one, the officers turned to look at Robert, who stayed by the table. A murmur of whispered conversation filled the room.

  "Honestly, everyone always thought those pillars were just decorative," Lyle said when he returned. "No ships are getting past that chain."

  Robert stood silent, and studied the map. Judging by the inscriptions, two enormous harvesting chambers rested beneath the Keep. Anyone who died within the confines of the citadel remained there forever, the essence of their soul powering the defenses of the fortress. The runes ran in a particular order, and read only slightly different from the cycling chambers on his pistols.

  "You got anymore astonishing revelations," Lyle asked. "Any more tricks?"

  Robert smiled. The idea kicking around in his head had now fully formed. He questioned its legality, and ethical nature, but it might sway the day in their favor.

  "I got something you might like," he said.

  Promise to the Dead

  Robert tossed the cycling chamber into the bin with little care, and none of his former apprehension. The modifications he crafted were simple, but the effects on the weapons were profound.

  He lifted another from the first ammunition crate, and with the fine tipped stylus, adjusted the inscriptions on the edges of the device.

  Originally, the rounded discs held a single human soul. The runes etched on the surface cast the spell, which in turn condensed the soul to increasingly smaller confines by spinning it into ever diminishing spiritual cyclone. Such an extreme compression boarded the impossible in the physical world, but on the etheric plane, spiritual laws differed, for the constraints of matter did not bind them. The Sharikeen knew that when condensed to a small enough form, spiritual energy became manifest in the material world. Such an energy source proved to be clean and limitless, for the nature of the human soul may change, but it does not end. In this way, when attached to the proper conduits and adapters, the containers generated endless heat, which in turn powered the great steam engines of the age.

  For the cycling chambers on the rifles and pistols, the energy condensed exponentially further. This resulted in a single, intense blast of heat when discharged.

  For the mounted cycling guns, some charges went further and adapted their fire to a lesser intensity. The resulting blast only destroyed living matter. The chakratic cannon, as these chambers were called, severed the connections between the body and soul by raising the frequency level of th
e flesh to that of a spirit. In essence, they sent the body to the etheric plane.

  Both weapon applications held a limited scope; they expended the charge within the chamber. The disc needed to be removed, and a fresh one inserted into the weapon.

  By contrast, the harvesting chambers, like the two great reservoirs beneath the citadel, collected the souls liberated from their bodies within their area of influence. These ran the various devices within and around the Keep. Lyle already requested aid from the Dreadnaut's gunnery crews to see if it they could possibly refill the spent chambers from the reservoirs.

  Robert finished the new inscription on the disc. He cast it into the bin, and reached for another.

  His new design altered the invocations on the chambers to combine the two concepts. These new devices functioned as before, but once it expelled the energy, it cycled in the other direction and harvested the souls liberated in the vicinity, thereby replenishing themselves and increasing the power of its blast. In essence, it functioned as a smaller version of what the Dreadnaut's figurehead did.

  He called it a myriad chamber.

  With the charges for the mounted cannon finished, he worked his way halfway through the small arms crate. While the constant cacophony of destruction played outside the Keep, he knew he had limited amounts of time left. The main body of the Aeresian force drew nearer with each hour, and the battle deciding Patheran's fate entered a new phase.

  Lyle Rassnaeren stood before the viewing window and watched the skirmishes across the pass. The enemy came at them in wave after wave of infantry; for now, the river chain and hedgehogs kept their heavy weaponry at bay. Enemy sorties against the defenses continued almost unabated through the night, but the glue glow around the devices repelled the attacks. The mounted guns ensured the Aeresian air fleet kept a respectful distance and did not insert themselves into the combat.

  But the human waves crashing against the fortifications did not slow. Four times last night the fighting came down to hand to hand combat along the stretch of barbed wire. With each assault upon their position, the crews manning the entrenchments suffered losses. As of the dawn roll call, they stood at almost half capacity. The soldiers within the citadel thinned, as they called upon them to strengthen the line. The deserters who snuck away from their posts posed a further drain on their forces. More than fifty men were unaccounted for when the sun rose. Lyle guessed eventual capture and death posed less of a threat than the immediate promise the advancing force posed.