Lifemaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Fantasy (The Great Iron War, Book 2)

by Dean F. Wilson

  “Who needs the Treasury,” Mudro said, “when we’ve got Jacob here?”

  * * *

  By the end of the night, Jacob had been bled dry. Mudro, a more cautious player, still had a single coil, which he rotated between his fingers, and Tradam had exactly what he started with, having lost and regained his bets. Rommond, however, was the undisputed winner, with several neatly stacked towers of coils on his side of the table. If it had been Jacob, they would have made a single, glorious pile.

  “A final game,” the general announced.

  Jacob did not want to be left out at the end, so he emptied his pockets, casting everything, lint and all, on the table. Rommond bit his lip as he looked at the mess before him.

  “There’s a coil in there somewhere,” Jacob said. He began to rummage through.

  “Stop,” Rommond said, and he reached over to pull out the card that Cala had given to the smuggler. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, just a friend’s details.”

  “Tell me about this friend.”

  “Just an old girlfriend. Nothing serious. Why?”

  “Because this emblem here, the fist on the cloud, belongs to a splinter group of the Resistance, and they’ve been a splinter in my side ever since. They’re a dangerous group called the Armageddon Brigade.”

  “Well, she isn’t exactly a group kind of person.”

  “They’re a very loose-knit group, Jacob. They could have called themselves Chaos.”

  “Well, that sounds more her cup of tea.”

  “Why do have her card?”

  “Because she gave it to me, and I tend not to throw things away.”

  “Have you contacted her?” Rommond grilled.

  “No.”

  “Has she contacted you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly?”

  “Well, we bumped into each other in Blackout when I was smuggling out Taberah’s loot.”

  “Did she ask you to sign up to any missions?”

  “No.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I think I’d know,” Jacob said. “Then again, I wasn’t entirely sure I had signed up to join the Resistance either.”

  “When we get back to the surface, I strongly recommend you avoid her if she’s associating with this group.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Jacob said. “I had every intention of avoiding her anyway.”

  Rommond watched him for a moment before dealing the final round, and he continued to watch him as each card was placed down. Perhaps he was wondering if Jacob was an infiltrator from the Armageddon Brigade. As if I need another reason for you to hate me, Jacob thought.

  Before the players took their cards, Jacob tried to change the subject.

  “What’s with the empty chair?” he asked. “Were we expecting someone else?”

  There was a sudden intense silence, where awkward glances were exchanged with everyone bar Rommond himself. It took a moment for the general to respond.

  “That is for Brooklyn.”

  “Okay, you’ve got to tell me. Who is Brooklyn? I presume it’s a who.”

  Another awkward moment. “If you win this game,” Rommond said, “I’ll tell you.”

  Perhaps it was Fate that governed that game, but Jacob found the cards were stacked in his favour. The problem with Fate is that it usually conspired against him, so he saw no reason why it should help him now. He wondered if Rommond, master of strategy, secretly wanted to talk to someone, to open up, when this desert world had closed him down.

  Whatever Rommond’s secret desires might have been, he played as tactically as ever, keeping Jacob on his toes for the entire game. Jacob enjoyed the challenge, and he enjoyed even more when he won.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” Rommond said. “But who fancies a night cap?”

  “I’ll hang back for another,” Jacob volunteered; it beat volunteering for the Resistance. “A long night deserves a lot of night caps.”

  “I think the rest of us should be getting back to work,” Tradam said, “or bed. We’re not all night owls like you two.”

  Mudro disappeared, leaving behind a trail of smoke, and Tradam led the others out, closing the door behind him. Rommond tidied up the table, clearing away the glasses, which he put in a cabinet that had circular cut-outs for them, so they could not fall and smash in a dive or surface manoeuvre.

  Once Rommond had tidied up, he turned up one of the gas lamps, giving Jacob a better view of the room, which he had barely paid any attention to when there was a chance of winning money on the table.

  The room was decorated with the contents of the general’s bunker, including the mysterious plaque bearing the name Brooklyn, which had a central spot, as if it were an idol. Some kind of god? Jacob wondered. Let’s hope the worship pays off.

  The room was markedly different to Rommond’s bunker, however, because it did not have walls so much as it had bookshelves, and the paintings were placed over these, and sometimes behind these, and the bookcases were chained to the walls, and some of the books were chained to the bookcases.

  “All alphabetical, I presume,” Jacob said.

  Rommond smiled and handed the smuggler a glass of sherry. “Of course.”

  “Can’t say I’m much of a reader. I tend to cut holes in them to store amulets.”

  “I’m glad you’ve found a new vocation then,” Rommond said. “I rather like my books, like I presume you rather like your hands.”

  Jacob laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t be cutting up your books any time soon.”

  “Or any time at all,” the general said.

  “I’m too busy working for you lot. Different job, but same master, it seems.”

  “Really? I don’t remember ever employing you.”

  “You take who you can.”

  “That’s Tabs’ methodology, not mine.”

  “Then you put up with whoever Taberah takes,” Jacob said with a grin.

  “Indeed.”

  “So then,” Jacob said after a brief pause. “Pay up. Tell me who Brooklyn is.”

  Rommond strolled over to one of the bookcases and stared for a moment at the volumes, as if he was looking for some secret switch that would reveal the secret of who Brooklyn was. Then he took a black and white photograph from his inside pocket, perfectly preserved in a clear film coating, with not a fold or bend in the card. He showed it to Jacob, but would not let him touch it. It depicted a man in his late thirties, with a clean-shaven face, and long, dark hair that went past his shoulders. He had unusually large eyes, and though there was no colour in the photograph, his complexion was dark. Jacob thought that he looked like a member of one of the warring tribes in central Altadas, many of whom had turned their spears on the Regime in recent years.

  “He is—was—” Rommond paused. “He is everything to me. The Regime captured him three years ago, and we, the Resistance as a whole, have suffered ever since. Most of our machines, our landships, the Lifemaker itself, were designed by him. He had an affinity with machinery that no other could match. He said he was in communion with the spirits that govern contraptions of all kinds, and at first I did not believe him, until I saw what he could create.”

  By now Rommond was holding the photograph in both hands gently, as if remembering what it was like to hold Brooklyn in his arms. He stared at the picture as he talked.

  “They tried to ransom him, but the price was our surrender. I couldn’t surrender. How could one life, one love, be saved at the expense of the lives of everyone else? How many loves would then be lost? I … I couldn’t surrender.”

  The general fell into silence, and Jacob had no words good enough to break it. Instead, he broke the emptiness with his presence, and he stood there, facing the general, until it seemed that Rommond would rather be alone. As Jacob left the room, and felt for the first time some sympathy for the general, who looked as though he was holding himself together with his uniform, Rommond called back to him.

  “Now yo
u know,” he said. “Originally it wasn’t personal, this war of ours. I’m trying to stop it from becoming personal. Maybe that’s another game I am not winning. But now you know why my hatred of the demons is so strong. When they took him from me, they took everything. I want to make sure they know how that feels.”

  6 – THE GOOD NEWS

  Jacob noticed that Whistler often spent more time in his room than in his own, even though they were virtually identical. The boy had a habit of bumping into the crate of coils every time he entered the room, as if to suggest there was not room enough aboard for it. This irritated Jacob more than he thought it should. It bothered him more that it was Whistler who was making these passive aggressive condemnations.

  “There was space enough for that crate before you came in,” Jacob said after one of these incidences.

  Whistler pouted. “Why do you even keep it?” he asked.

  “You’ve got to be joking, right?”

  “No.”

  “It’s money, kid. You don’t throw away money.”

  “Taberah used to say that Rommond throws away money all the time, on stuff he doesn’t use.”

  “You mean all his war toys? I’m kind of glad he spent big on this tin can.”

  “Why don’t you give him the coils?” Whistler asked.

  “I already gave him plenty last night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gambl—never mind. I’m probably a bad enough influence on you already.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Your mother might disagree.”

  “Well, why did she let you stay then?”

  “To babysit you.”

  Whistler cocked his head. “I don’t need babysitting.”

  “No, kid, you don’t.” At your age, Jacob thought, I was working. I suppose, in a way, you are too. Slaving away for ‘the cause’.

  Whistler stood with his arms folded in defiance. He replaced his usual slouch with a puffed chest and arched back. Perhaps he thought he looked like more of a man. That he was barely five feet tall, and thin and weak, with not a whisker on his chin, somewhat ruined the illusion he was going for.

  Jacob could not help but smile. “So, speaking of babysitting—”

  “I usually look after myself.”

  “All right! I was just kidding.”

  “I’m on my way to being a man.”

  “Look, kid. Sit down.”

  Whistler reluctantly sat down, as if doing it any quicker would somehow prove he was still a child, being told what to do.

  “I just wanted you to know,” Jacob continued, “that, with all that’s going on with your mother, it can be a bit scary and all, but it’ll all work out in the end.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With the baby.”

  “What baby?”

  “Hell … did you not know? Did she not tell you?”

  Whistler’s blank expression said more than words could. Jacob was not sure how to respond. Maybe Taberah was working up the courage to tell him. Perhaps she had a plan, and Jacob was spoiling the surprise, or that moment of bonding between them. He debated whether or not he should change the topic, brush it off as a misinterpretation, or a joke. In the end, however, he knew that Whistler was too smart to fall for that.

  “She’s having a baby. We’re having a baby. Me and her.” The words sounded strange to him. Surreal. A year ago the concept of having a child was alien to him. In many ways, it still was.

  There was an awkward, intense moment of silence, where the news was germinating in Whistler’s mind, and the possibility of Whistler not liking it was festering in Jacob’s. Maybe that was why Taberah had not told him. Maybe she feared his reaction. Yet it did not seem like her to fear anything at all.

  “A little brother?” Whistler asked in time.

  “Or sister, as Taberah keeps insisting.”

  Whistler smiled the broadest smile, and Jacob could not help but follow suit.

  “I get to have a little brother or sister!” Whistler said, and he followed it with a cheer. He stood up and wandered around the room, as if practising a demonstration to the newborn on how to walk.

  Jacob was relieved. He was expecting Whistler to be hurt.

  “Are you not upset that she didn’t tell you?”

  Whistler halted and sat back down. His excitement abated, like a fire beneath a sudden rain. “She doesn’t really tell me things,” he said.

  “Even big things like this?”

  “Especially big things like this. It’s probably because I blab so much. I’m a,” and he paused for a moment where it seemed he was racking his brain for a word he had heard before, “liability.”

  “You’re not a liability,” Jacob said. “Hell, if anything, I’m the liability.”

  “Maybe that’s why we get on,” Whistler suggested.

  Jacob chuckled. “We must form a union. Liabilities unite!” He raised his hand for a high-five, which Whistler performed in a sloppy manner, as if he had never done it before.

  “She’ll want a girl,” Whistler said.

  “I think most women do.”

  “Not because of that. Because a girl will be Pure too, and can continue our species. It doesn’t matter with the boys. We’re useless.”

  “The girls might say that,” Jacob said, “but they still need us if they want to have a baby.”

  “I think Taberah wished I was a girl. Then I could help the human race.”

  “I’m sure she’s happy with you as you are. And you are helping. I mean, who else is keeping watch for the demons in our ranks?” He regretted this last comment immediately, because it seemed to unsettle Whistler. That he had failed to blow the whistle on Teller likely played upon his mind.

  “I guess,” the boy said in time.

  “You know, for someone who supposedly can’t keep a secret, you kept the fact that Taberah’s one of the Pure closely guarded.”

  “It wasn’t easy. I wanted to tell everyone. It’s good to know that the Pure are real, that we won’t all die out. People need a little hope.”

  “So long as it’s not the drug,” Jacob said with a chuckle. “I think, in this world, people have had enough of that.”

  Jacob had barely finished his sentence when he thought he saw the shadow of a figure in the room. He turned quickly, but it was gone. It left darker shadows in his mind.

  “What is it?” Whistler asked.

  “Nothing,” Jacob said after a tense pause. “Probably just a ghost.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Better a ghost than a demon.”

  Yet something told Jacob that it was not nothing, and that it was not a ghost or demon. That it might be human should have brought relief to his mind, but he found it strangely more unsettling.

  7 – THE MINE FIELD

  For those who do not want to be found, the black depths of the ocean are a perfect refuge. Yet the blindness is shared among friend and foe, and uncharted waters are a dangerous place to be wandering blind. For several days the Lifemaker was relying on sonar only, but this was a new technology, and for many of those on board, sound was not as strong as sight.

  Suddenly the submarine shook violently, throwing people from their posts. Jacob struggled to his feet only to end up on the floor again as the ship trembled beneath the waves.

  “Don’t tell me we’ve found a bigger whale,” he cried as he clambered up.

  But it was not a creature of nature, difficult to reason with, but rather a creation of machinery, impossible to reason with. In the black waters where the Lifemaker was invisible, there were hundreds more invisible contraptions: mines.

  “All stop,” Rommond ordered. Alson turned the engines off. The propeller stopped spinning, and the submarine ground to a halt, only inches away from another floating mine.

  A man raced up from the lower levels. “We have a leak,” he said. “A big one.”

  “Can Boulder fix it?”

  “He’s on it right now. God, he’s
half-submerged! But he’ll fix it, providing we don’t ram another mine.”

  “We won’t,” Rommond promised. Alson did not look as confident.

  “I know we want to conserve energy, Rommond,” Taberah said, “but I think we should go all out on this.”

  Rommond nodded. “Lights, full flood.”

  The lights of the submarine bored through the darkness of the deep, revealing what appeared to be an endless field of mines ahead. All of them were black, and would have been virtually invisible were it not for the Lifemaker’s powerful lights, which consumed so much energy that they made the few electrical interior lights flicker. Many were glad then that they relied on oil-lamps, gaslights, and candles instead.

  “Why didn’t we pick these up on sonar?” Rommond asked. He was calm when he was angry, and the difference might not have been noticeable at all were it not for a slight change in pitch in his voice. Jacob noticed that change now.

  Alson was flustered; the mines attacked her ability as a captain as much as they attacked the hull of the ship. “They seem to be masked somehow.”

  Rommond’s eyes betrayed his worry. “If they can mask mines, perhaps they can mask a submarine as well.”

  “They don’t need submarines,” Jacob said. “Enough of these and this’ll be the Deathmaker.”

  “Did they drop all these now, or were they here before?” Rommond asked.

  “I don’t know,” Alson said. “We never came this far east before.”

  “Does it matter?” Jacob asked.

  “It matters because the former suggests they have an idea where we are. I’d rather they just mined off their territory before we took to the sea.”

  “I’m inclined to think they did this a while back,” Alson postulated. “Some of the mines are rusty. And besides, there are too many of them to drop overnight.”

  “Don’t underestimate them,” Rommond said. “There are a lot of demons to do the dropping.” He paused to survey the underwater wall ahead of them. “Can we go around?”