Swords & Steam Short Stories

by S. T. Joshi

  Now when he came to the dun, he saw children playing by the gate where the King had met him in the old days; and this stayed his pleasure, for he thought in his heart, “It is here my children should be playing”. And when he came into the hall, there was his brother on the high seat and the maid beside him; and at that his anger rose, for he thought in his heart, “It is I that should be sitting there, and the maid beside me”.

  “Who are you?” said his brother. “And what make you in the dun?”

  “I am your elder brother,” he replied. “And I am come to marry the maid, for I have brought the touchstone of truth.”

  Then the younger brother laughed aloud. “Why,” said he, “I found the touchstone years ago, and married the maid, and there are our children playing at the gate.”

  Now at this the elder brother grew as gray as the dawn. “I pray you have dealt justly,” said he, “for I perceive my life is lost.”

  “Justly?” quoth the younger brother. “It becomes you ill, that are a restless man and a runagate, to doubt my justice, or the King my father’s, that are sedentary folk and known in the land.”

  “Nay,” said the elder brother, “you have all else, have patience also; and suffer me to say the world is full of touchstones, and it appears not easily which is true.”

  “I have no shame of mine,” said the younger brother. “There it is, and look in it.”

  So the elder brother looked in the mirror, and he was sore amazed; for he was an old man, and his hair was white upon his head; and he sat down in the hall and wept aloud.

  “Now,” said the younger brother, “see what a fool’s part you have played, that ran over all the world to seek what was lying in our father’s treasury, and came back an old carle for the dogs to bark at, and without chick or child. And I that was dutiful and wise sit here crowned with virtues and pleasures, and happy in the light of my hearth.”

  “Methinks you have a cruel tongue,” said the elder brother; and he pulled out the clear pebble and turned its light on his brother; and behold the man was lying, his soul was shrunk into the smallness of a pea, and his heart was a bag of little fears like scorpions, and love was dead in his bosom. And at that the elder brother cried out aloud, and turned the light of the pebble on the maid, and, lo! She was but a mask of a woman, and withinsides she was quite dead, and she smiled as a clock ticks, and knew not wherefore.

  “Oh, well,” said the elder brother, “I perceive there is both good and bad. So fare ye all as well as ye may in the dun; but I will go forth into the world with my pebble in my pocket.”

  Vortaal Hunt

  Brian Trent

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 115

  We are leaving to kill the Vortaal at last.

  It’s been fifteen hundred days since father’s hunting party departed on its herd of shellephants, their copper tusks glinting by the lamps of their eyes. The village was proud of father. He sat atop the carriage of the largest mechanical beast, and between the cheering crowd and the noise of the shellephant herd, I was half-thinking my young ears would bleed. Still I watched him go, until the sight of the hunting party had dwindled into the mist and twisting bramble of the jangala.

  Father was gone, but he sent his mission reports to us every few hours. Our village gathered around the transmitter – a shrine dedicated to Banka Mundi, her many arms acting as signal receivers for the hunting party’s transmissions.

  We listened to father’s report of their trek into the mysterious country north, through the polyp groves and hills that undulate like the mythical python. We listened to his breathless transmission of how the shellephants had stomped through the barricades of the Valiant village …and how they continued their march towards the first great chasm.

  We listened to his strained, gasping report of how he had been wounded in a firefight with the soldiers of Valiant. How nearly the entire hunting party was killed in a desperate battle between metal monsters and winged garuda-men bearing steel-and-steam-driven wings to swoop down upon them.

  And then, the reports stopped coming.

  I remember my terror, staring at the tranquil face of Banka Mundi and wishing her arms would catch another transmission from father. Was he still alive? Had he managed to descend the first chasm to the bottom, evading Valiant soldiers as he went? Had he reached the second chasm, and then the third and final chasm after that …the one leading down into the green rock where the tunnels of the Vortaal waited? The damnable thing dwells so far down, the journey would be difficult enough without the soldiers of Valiance harassing incursions every step of the way.

  I refused food and sleep, waiting for an update from father. I prayed to all the old gods for his victory and safe return.

  And then, at long last, he sent an update:

  “I have reached the bottom of the third chasm. I have attained the tunnels where the Vortaal lives.”

  Our village cheered, renewed by the strength in my father’s voice, his certainty of victory. With his message, he had sent a visual of this deepest set of tunnels – allowing us to fill in the gaps of our maps.

  It was hours later when he sent a final, cryptic message:

  “It can’t be killed.”

  I’ve had years to reflect on why father uttered those words.

  We never heard from him after that. Some believe that Valiance hunters found him at last. Perhaps, but how does that explain his final utterance? I don’t think father could have been forced into saying something so demoralizing, so crazy. He had attained the tunnels! He must have reached the lair of the Vortaal!

  And it must have killed him.

  I love you father.

  I wish you could see the man I have grown into. How the villagers who once cursed me for being born without legs now praise me and wish good fortune and prayers upon my mission.

  Yes, I am joining the new hunting party. My sniper skills were never in doubt – even the elders admit I am the most gifted marksman they remember. But being born with emaciated, useless legs – which in another era might have reduced me to begging in the lost cities – meant that my skills were of little use in the battles with the enemy village of Valiance. I couldn’t run into battle, after all. Couldn’t accompany a hunting party unless carried by another.

  Well, the ingenious tinkerers of Dhawan have built me legs out of repurposed copper and brass, spring-coiled pistons and pulleys. The materials salvaged from the ancient ships now means that I can walk.

  Ironic, since walking will be only the merest portion of this mission.

  I am going on the hunt, to attempt success where father’s group failed. We are going without shellephants or fanfare. We are attempting a secret infiltration, not an all-out war. And I am accompanied by my brother Achal, by scout Kamal, and of course, by Huntress Harshadi. Dhawan’s greatest minds have refined our strategy. We will not lumber forward into the villages of Valiance on great, noisy, steam-driven monsters.

  No. This time, we will fly to the chasm, and will drop down with the mist, and will reach the tunnels of the Vortaal. And I will walk those tunnels on my metal legs.

  And this time, we will kill the great monster.

  We will kill the Vortaal.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 116

  They strapped me into the wing-harness, fitting the mask over my face, the goggles over my eyes. Father would say I look like a bird, and he would show me pictures of what birds looked like back in the old days. A bird with coppery legs.

  My fellow hunters also were fitted with the harness, mask, and wings of the garuda-class flight-suit. The villagers did not cheer this time. Our village is only a few miles downhill from the sentry posts of Valiance. We will give them no warning that we are coming. No one knows why the missions keep failing, but I think it has a lot to do with betrayal. Valiance keeps a watchful eye on us. Our two colonies have been enemies for as long as
anyone remembers. They outnumber us, their scattered farmsteads dotting this relentlessly hilly country, and their patrols are always on the lookout for new incursions from the Dhawan side of the border.

  Would be nice if our two sides could join forces against the Vortaal.

  Would be nice if they didn’t worship the damnable thing.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 117

  I am flying like a falcon in the old stories!

  My hunting party gathered in a circle and we each twisted the dial on our suit chestplates, releasing the water into the fuel-chamber, building up steam until I could feel the power of the garuda-suit vibrating around me. Our leader, Huntress Harshadi, wanted to time our flight with mist-down, as she is wary of enemy sentries seeing us take to the skies. At her signal, we each pulled the cord on our suits, and the wings from our backpacks became a blur bordering on the invisible. One by one, we rocketed up into the sky.

  It is impossible to see anything in the mist – an advantage and peril.

  For this reason, the inventors at Dhawan outfitted our suits with a veiny overlay of tubes that can mix phosphorous into the steam, coming out as greenish exhaust. Just a flicker, enough to keep us flying in formation – as if the Diwali festival was being held in the dark green sky. If only father could have seen me! The descending and ascending mist cool against the little bit of exposed skin around my masks.

  My brother Achal was the first to dip below the mist and to conduct surveillance on the chasm. We waited together, like a ring of glowing fireflies hovering in the mist, and he returned to us with grim news:

  Valiance has doubled their watchtowers since father’s failed expedition. There are eight towers now, perched all around the chasm edge. Snipers in each of them. Achal’s sharp eyes got a glimpse of high caliber rifles. Weapons that are as good as ours.

  Huntress Harshadi floated near me in the mist, her goggled face looking grim in the backsplash of shadows. “The mist will be dropping soon,” she told us. “We will wait, and drop with it straight down the chasm,” Then her gloved hand touched mine and she said, “Take care with what you carry.”

  I nodded to her, bobbing up and down in the mist, the furious beating of my wings causing the mist to swirl out in freakish, remarkable freakish spirals.

  What I carried was something better than the rifles and pulse-bows that my father’s hunting party had taken with them. Better even than Achal’s wrist-grapple that can snap out like a cobra from the old stories.

  Before we set out, the Dhawan elders gave something special into my safekeeping. An old weapon. A ship weapon, plucked of the metal carcass and stuffed into my backpack. The elders feel that the time is right. Before we set out, our party ringed it, linked hands and prayed over it. For my part, I tried fighting back my tears at the incredible honor.

  The elders think that maybe father’s rifle was insufficient to kill the monster. They believe that accounts for his final message.

  But that won’t be a problem now. As long as we can get to the lair …

  The weapon I was given is like something out of the Mahabarata. A weapon that can kill anything.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 118

  A very close call.

  At mistdown, we dropped towards the chasm. The watchtowers of Valiance were cloaked in the mist, affording us the cover we needed to begin our descent.

  When we reached the chasm, however, we bounced into something springy and resistant. A net! Valiance had stretched a black net across the vastness of the chasm!

  At once, iron bells began to clang, reacting to the impact we had made in the barrier. Cries of alarm went out around us.

  “Cut through it!” Huntress Harshadi barked, and without waiting she snapped open her serrated blade from her wrist and began to saw at the ropy mesh beneath us. The bells rang more urgently.

  “Huntress,” I managed to say. “The bells must be attached to each strand! We’re betraying our position by –”

  A shot whispered past us, then another. The net began to shake even more violently, and suddenly I saw a Valiant soldier rushing up behind my brother through the mist, his dark shape like one of those spiders from the old stories. Achal, the imbecile, never even realized he was in danger.

  Harshadi raised her cross-bow and put a bolt into his throat.

  It was the first death I’d ever witnessed. The soldier’s bulging eyes staring at us, as if he couldn’t believe he had been shot. He fell backwards, his corpse bouncing lightly on the netting.

  The huntress knelt and sawed the rest of the way through the netting; the strands frayed and snapped. As bullets whined around us and other soldiers began converging on our position, we dropped through the breach and fell into blackness. I activated my wings in mid-fall, and floated downward, downward, ever downward. Above us, flashlights lanced the gloom, searching for the intruders.

  We reached the crater bottom. Retracting our wings, we hurried into the nearest tunnel on foot. Making our way to the second chasm.

  They know we’re here now.

  Time is against us.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 119

  I’m not going to sweat the death of that enemy soldier. For all I know, his father killed my father during the last hunt. And why? Because they worship a monster. Valiance is a lunatic colony with their petty altars and foolish traditions. Everyone knows that before the Vortaal came, humanity was united and powerful. Before it came, we lived in a world with other creatures and with blue skies and endless resources.

  And no one can say precisely how the Vortaal destroyed the old civilizations. How humanity was once so mighty a civilization …and how after the Vortaal came, we were now little more than beggars fighting over the little material and sustenance we could find.

  How could anyone worship such a devil? With its death, humanity is avenged, and perhaps we can reclaim the old ways.

  Why would Valiance oppose that?

  They’re insane. Killing the Vortaal won’t mean the death of us all. I don’t care how loudly they insist it would.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 120

  We’re out of steam – literally.

  Our approach through the mist, our descent into the first chasm, has depleted the fuel-chamber of our garuda-suits unless we can find new sources of water to replenish them. That shouldn’t be difficult – everyone knows you only need to dig into the ground or tunnel walls a few meters and you’ll be rewarded with plenty of liquid. That’s not the source of our concern.

  Our concern is that we have now reached the second chasm, and we can’t just fly to its bottom. We have to climb down by hand and foot.

  It’s not like we didn’t suspect this would happen. Huntress Harshadi showed us how to twist the dials around our ankle and wrist-greaves to cause crampons to spike out from the armor. My copper legs were built with hooks, allowing me to find instant purchase on the green walls and descend rapidly. Achal laughed at the sight of his boot spikes, and he kept twisting the dial back and forth, making the spikes seem to dance, until Harshadi told him to ‘stop acting like a fool’. I love my brother, but he is so often a fool.

  We’re climbing down the chasm wall now. It’s slow going, but we’re making progress.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 121

  Scout Kamal was killed.

  We had reached the bottom of the chasm and two soldiers from Valiance were patrolling there. Kamal hopped off the wall, landing loudly on the squishy ground, and they spun around and blew him away. Achal, Harshadi, and myself were still on the chasm wall, and Achal got to use his wrist-grapple – shooting it out like a whip that knocked the enemy soldiers on their asses.

  I leapt off the wall – a leap no one else could have made and survived – and landed hard on my metal legs. The soldiers
barely had time to cry out in surprise when I shot them where they lay.

  Then I rushed to Kamal, hoping that perhaps his garuda-suit had deflected the shots. And in fact, they had …but his exposed face was hit and he was bleeding out, choking and dying.

  As the life sputtered out of him, he looked at me and said, “Kill it for all of us. Kill it for your father.”

  I will, Kamal.

  I’ll carve all our names into the thing’s face.

  If it even has a face.

  What does the Vortaal even look like?

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 122

  We reached the third and final chasm. Down there are the tunnels that lead to the Vortaal. We must be at the place where father transmitted his penultimate message.

  Once again, we’re manually descending. There are Valiance stations everywhere below us, hewn into the slimy green rock, with stairs and spotlights and armed guards; I dialed up my goggles to maximum zoom and counted soldier after soldier after soldier. At two dozen, I stopped counting.

  Harshadi told me and my brother that our descent must be timed to avoid the spotlights. Easy for her to say.

  Transmitting this message now, along with all previous entries. Know this: We’re on the last leg of the journey.

  * * *

  PERSONAL DIARY ENTRY 123

  Two things.

  First: We made it the bottom of the chasm.

  This was no easy feat, as Valiance patrols kept shining their spotlights into the darkness to look for evidence of incursion. It was Huntress Harshadi who finally insisted that it was too dangerous, that we needed to chisel out a wet burrow into the chasm wall to hide in until the enemy relaxes its guard. Hours passed while we sat there; I even used the time to scoop up the running liquid around us to refill a little bit of my suit fuel-chamber. Finally, as the hours stretched on without any sight of incursion, the spotlights clicked off. We resumed our descent.

  And that takes me to the second thing:

  Achal is dead.

  We were all soaked from our burrowing into the chasm, and Achal’s hand must have slipped on the wall. He fell the whole way and we found his shattered body at the bottom. My brother never screamed.