by E. C. Jarvis
Sandy’s face popped up over the side of the empty coal car. She waved towards them and Larissa raised her arm. Sandy popped out of sight.
A moment later, a pile of coals appeared in the car and a wisp of smoke rose up from the chimney stack. It wasn’t wholly convincing as illusions went, and in comparison to the things Larissa had seen the Cleric do, it seemed utterly tame, but it would be enough to discourage people from paying too much attention to their arrival, and that was all they needed for now.
“Good work,” Kerrigan said stiffly as Sandy jogged over to join them to admire her own efforts.
“It will have to do on such short notice. Aren’t you glad I made you lug my orb around now?” She shoved her elbow into Saunders’ stomach and raised her eyebrows at Kerrigan.
“The plan, Miss Markus?” Kerrigan asked, his tone turning even stiffer.
“When we enter the city, Cid will head to the train yard instead of the station.”
“Why?”
“Because we haven’t seen any other trains during our journey, and I suspect there is a reason, though I don’t know what it is. Everything seems off. If we show up where we’re not expected, we will draw attention to ourselves, and that’s the last thing we want right now. We need to get into the city to assess what Covelle has done or what he has not done…or what he is planning…or what the President is planning.” Larissa sighed; the task ahead seemed far too monumental for a group of seven people who were tired and battered. The fact that their names would be on the most-wanted lists in every police enforcer station didn’t help, either.
“Let’s just start with the train yard and work up from there,” she said. She half-expected some argument from the others, but no one disagreed. She wondered if she would ever get used to having people follow her lead. It didn’t feel natural no matter how many times she seemed to make up a plan that scraped them through the situation. She did have more of a plan in her mind, but if people were going to argue with her over anything, it was the dubious idea floating about inside her head.
The others filed back into the train in a solemn line, apart from Narry, who cheerfully announced his plan to make one more delicious meal for them all before they ran headfirst into the bear pit. Cid headed toward the engine, his favourite place, and Larissa had no intention of asking anyone else to guide the train to the last stop, though she did want to be right up front with him when they arrived. Only Holt remained by her side, waiting patiently until everyone else was out of hearing range.
“Something you want to discuss?” she asked without turning to look at him.
“You are holding something back.”
“What makes you say that?”
He answered her with a sideways glance, one that said because I know you too well already. It was as much romantic as it was frustrating; keeping secrets had never been her strong point.
“I want us to split up,” she began, then cringed at her poor choice of words. “I don’t mean us us…I mean…” She waved at the train and cringed once more. Waving her arm around didn’t make the meaning any clearer.
“The team?” Holt said.
“Yes… It depends on what the situation is when we get there, of course, but I have a feeling they will know we’re coming.”
“A feeling?”
“I may,” she cleared her throat, as a familiar and unpleasant burning touched her cheeks, “have told Miss Cosby my name.”
“You told her your name,” Holt said, his tone turning noticeably cool.
“I wasn’t expecting her to know it,” she rushed to explain. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear that my name is at the top of some most-wanted list issued by the President himself. A list that probably has your name on it as well.”
“You told her your name, discovered this information, and still left her alive?”
“We don’t know that she’ll send a message to the Capital.”
“If your name is on that list, there is a bounty on your head. You just stole money from a brothel Madame. You don’t think she might want to recoup her losses somehow?”
Larissa scrunched her eyes shut; so much for becoming more competent in the seedy criminal world.
Cid stuck his head out of the cab and waved at them, a motion to get on board if they didn’t want to be left behind. Larissa swallowed an apology. It would do them no good to be sorry for her mistake. Holt didn’t say another word as they headed toward the train.
After chewing through what might have been her last meal, Larissa excused herself from the dining car. Holt watched her warily, and she felt his glare boring into the back of her head as she closed the door behind her. The wind whipped her hair around in all directions as she carefully navigated the climb across the coal car, a dull red glow emanating from the orb hidden within, giving the only clue that the illusion was still working.
When she finally reached the engine, she found Cid fiddling with a piece of leather around his waist.
“Everything all right, Cid?”
“Yes…I’m just making something.”
Larissa kept her mouth shut and flicked between watching the horizon and watching Cid. He seemed to be fashioning some form of belt with hooks and holders.
“A weapons belt?” she asked when it finally became apparent.
“Tool belt,” he replied, not looking at her as he fiddled it into place on his waist, then set to hooking spanners and wrenches into it.
“Is that really sensible, considering what we’re heading into?”
“No, and yes. We seem to keep running into situations calling for adjustments to machinery, and I intend to be prepared for when it happens next.”
“You wouldn’t prefer a gun?”
“I have a gun,” he said as he jerked his chin towards a pistol laying balanced on a shelf above a wheel.
“You wouldn’t prefer a whole belt full of guns?”
“You got a whole belt full of guns to give me?”
“No. We might have if we find an armoury. We have money for weapons.”
“I’d rather have my tools,” he said soberly.
“Are they the tools Elena gave you?”
Cid finally looked up at her, a strange mix of sadness and annoyance on his features. She wasn’t sure why she’d bought it up, but it was out in the open now, hanging awkwardly between them.
“Yes,” he said, then resumed hooking things to himself.
“Have you eaten?”
“Saunders brought me a plate.” He jabbed an empty plate sitting on a shelf with a pair of pliers, which were then stuffed into a pocket on the belt.
“Good. When we get to the city, we will most likely have to split up.”
Cid stopped what he was doing, staring down at the belt in silence for a moment before looking up at her with a twisted expression on his face. “Are you going to send me off with that Colonel and the others?”
“No, I’m going to send you off with Friar Narry and Sandy. I have a different task for the Colonel and the Lieutenant.”
“You trust them to do as you ask?”
“As far as I can. They had a chance to screw everything up when we were on the Admiral’s airship and they did not.”
“What do you expect of me and the Friar and Sandy?”
“Provided we’re not all arrested the minute we arrive, I’d like you to head to the citadel at the center of the city.”
“The Dolonite citadel beside the palace?”
“That’s the one.”
“The one that’s so heavily guarded nobody can actually get in it unless they’re one of the very rich elite people?” Cid asked as he hooked the last tool to his belt.
“The very same.”
“The purpose?”
“There’s a good reason it’s heavily guarded. Friar Narry said there’s a chance it has direct access to the palace somewhere. From the way he mentioned it, I suspect he knows more than he’s letting on, but he wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I pressed him on it. B
esides, Kerrigan told me the fort has all these underground tunnels that connect it to buildings people wouldn’t know about unless they’d been shown. I’m guessing the citadel has the same.”
“What’s the point of me going with them?”
“They probably hide their hidden tunnels behind some illusion device. Narry might need a man with a belt full of tools to help him make another set of goggles to detect the illusion, or perhaps Sandy will want to construct some illusory device of her own to cover our tracks. I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll figure it out when you get there. We just need to get into the palace undetected, and I figured it was a good place to start.”
“And what will you and Holt be doing while I try to break into the most heavily guarded structure in the whole country, with nothing more than a priest, a priestess, and a tool belt to aid me?”
“Shopping.”
Before Cid had a chance to construct an expletive-ridden response, the train curved on the tracks and the endless fields and farmlands finally ended. On the horizon, the Capital city of Daltonia came into view.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Butterflies jiggled inside Larissa’s stomach as the sprawling city moved closer. The train chugged on, Cid’s engine happily working away without skipping a beat. The small piece of Anthonium seemed enough to keep them going until the end, at least. She scanned the skies above the city, expecting to see some form of battle raging on with the handful of pirate airships who had escaped the fighting over Sallarium. The skies were clear, a sight both worrying and comforting at the same time. The Capital city, known as Dalit, appeared to be a curious mix of small, ancient structures from various periods of the Empirical rule mixed with taller, imposing modern buildings. All of them spewed clouds of smog up to the skyline. The clear air quickly became tainted with an unpleasant odour from the city.
Larissa spotted two great Hub structures, domes jutting towards the skies, at opposite ends of the city. Her heart sped up a little at seeing them. She’d already seen the destruction of two Hubs both at Sallarium and Aditona, and no matter that she hadn’t directly caused either of them to collapse, she still felt responsible for them both.
“I think we should avoid the Hubs,” Cid said as he noticed her staring at them intently.
“Agreed.”
He pulled on the brake as they closed the distance on the tracks. Larissa had half-expected a line of soldiers to be stationed along the outskirts, awaiting their arrival. Although she wasn’t exactly washed with relief when nobody seemed to take notice of an unscheduled train arriving, she was certainly grateful for one less obstacle to overcome.
Cid leaned out of the train and smacked an otherwise redundant coal shovel on a switch as they passed, changing the tracks at a junction. The locomotive curved off to the side instead of directly towards the station. They passed by brick warehouses; smashed windows and crumbling rooftops seemed the standard state. Larissa found her eyes scanning the windows suspiciously in search of rifles sticking out to indicate hidden soldiers. Though Holt might be pleased to know she had finally caught on to his idea of keeping watch for trouble at all times, the dancing butterflies in her stomach were too active to make her feel comforted by the improvement in awareness.
Cid fiddled with some controls on the engine, and they slowed, wheels squeaking along the tracks at a steady pace. He reached out and banged on another switch, curving them off to the right, away from a collection of older-looking engines all parked on the tracks. Finally, he slowed to a stop as they reached a dead end, the front of the train bumping gently into the buffers. Beyond the buffers lay a large junkyard filled with rusting train parts, scrap metal, and discarded coal stock piles. More abandoned brick buildings loomed over the messy area.
Larissa stepped down from the train and headed toward the dining car, keeping her back to the train. As soon as Sandy emerged, Larissa sent her to the coal car to turn off the illusion orb.
A pair of men in blue overalls and flat caps appeared, walking towards them along the tracks from where they’d just turned off the main track. Cid walked at her side, and the others exited the carriage, Holt taking position beside Larissa, scanning the buildings like some on-edge animal expecting an ambush.
“What in the name of the Gods do you call this?” one of the men yelled when they were still twenty feet away, his feet making no quick effort to close the distance to the odd group of people.
“A train,” Cid yelled back.
“Funny bastard,” the man called with a snort.
“Language, Bob. There’s women present,” the second, older man said.
“Got a plan to explain our presence to a pair of surly train yard workers?” Cid whispered to Larissa.
“We were shot at by bandits,” she said to the two men as they came to a stop a few feet away. She waved to the side of the train, indicating the smattering of bullet holes. “Mister…Harris,” she nodded at Cid, “said we should take a detour directly to the train yard as this engine is no longer fit for driving passengers. Besides, we’re all out of coal.”
“And just what are you doing coming into the city at this time?”
Larissa chewed on her lip and looked up at the sky. It was still daylight; it wasn’t as if they’d arrived under the cover of darkness.
“You know the new rules on the elections…no unauthorised travel. President’s orders,” the man barked.
Larissa took a deep breath. She hadn’t expected to hear such an odd thing. It didn’t seem to make any sense to stop all travel across the country just for elections, though there seemed little point in asking a pair of train yard workers what the reason was.
“Illusion,” Kerrigan muttered from somewhere behind.
“About the election?”
“If you issue an order to state that all people must remain in their city of registration to vote on the election, you create the illusion that their vote matters.”
Larissa found her head nodding. It was the first time Kerrigan had willingly offered up insight into the President’s dubious operations without being pressed to do so.
“We would have been back days ago, only we were delayed by Sallarium City. Did you know that place is overrun with criminals?” she called to the two men, adopting a decidedly snooty tone to her voice.
“Aye. I’d heard,” the elder of the two men said.
“We have no intention of leaving now, especially not to go back there. Just look at what they did to our attire,” she said, waving a hand at her clothing, then motioning towards the others.
“Right…best be on your way, then,” the grumpiest of the two men said, his suspicious glare passing over them.
They headed off, walking slowly away from the train. Saunders had to physically loop his arm around his cousin Sandy, who seemed reluctant to abandon her illusion orb. Larissa felt reluctant to leave it behind as well, but they could hardly lug it around. They looked odd enough as a group as it was.
Her feet climbed awkwardly over the pile of junk. A pathway leading between the warehouses seemed a good bet for escaping the area. The others followed without question or comment until Kerrigan cleared his throat.
“We seem to have entered the city with minimal issue,” he said.
“Yes, I know, you want a plan.”
“It would be prudent.”
“Agreed,” Holt said.
Larissa forced herself not to roll her eyes; it was typical the two men could agree at such an awkward moment. “I have three plans. Well, one plan with three parts.” She spoke as they walked. “Cid already knows my plan for him and Friar Narry and Sandy,” she said, looking over at Cid. She hoped she wouldn’t have to explain that part of the plan again, especially in front of the Colonel.
“And that is?” Kerrigan asked.
“Not important to your plan.”
“I see. My plan is what?”
“To determine how many soldiers remain in the city and where their loyalties lie. To find out who agreed with the Presid
ent’s decision to pronounce you dead and to detain that person if possible.”
“I believe I already know who would have agreed to do that.”
“I thought you might. One of your former friends? No doubt some high-ranking General who you previously considered an ally?”
“General Gott,” Saunders said. He scrunched his nose up in disgust at the name.
“Presuming our presumptions are correct,” Kerrigan said as they all continued to clamber over the junk pile, “the General will be holed up in the fort. If I am technically dead, I can hardly stroll up to the gate and demand to be let in.”
“I’m sure you and Lieutenant Saunders will think of something. I also want to know if Covelle has entered the city yet or not. If you can send word to the fleet at Aditona and get them to return inland to defend the Capital, we may have one less problem to resolve when Covelle launches his attack.”
“You’re presuming he’s going to attack from the skies,” Holt said.
“Yes. I don’t know for sure, but we want to stop the war. Drawing the ships back from the coast would delay it significantly, at the least.”
They reached the path leading between two buildings and opening out to a wide street. An old horse clomped down the cobbles, towing a cart, and further ahead, a steam-powered vehicle chugged along at a steady pace. The paths were filled with a curious mixture of aristocratic men and women in fine dresses and lowly workers, faces covered with soot. The collection of people in the streets appeared so eclectic that their odd bunch didn’t seem so out of place. It didn’t take long before they came to a crossroads with crooked signposts promising the military quarter to the east and the city center to the north.
“The palace is located in the center,” Kerrigan said.
“I suppose this is where we part ways.” Larissa sighed, a niggling sense of doubt worrying the back of her mind.
