Dogs of S.T.E.A.M.

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “I’m really glad to see you, Levi,” Yoda gasped. “Saved me from having to hurt this big boy.”

  Levi, not releasing Tenny’s throat, glanced to Yoda.

  “All right, Tenny, you got two choices,” Yoda said. “Either you turn tail and vacate these premises, or Levi gives you a new hole to breathe through. Now, I know what you’re thinking…that Levi is much smaller than you, that maybe you could throw him off before he can rip out your throat. You’re thinking that maybe you’re fast enough to do that, but I’m thinking that you’d have to be one lucky dog to pull off a trick like that. Well, punk, do you feel lucky? Go ahead, punk, and choose. Make our day.”

  Tenny looked confused, and afraid.

  Levi sighed, at least as well as he could around a mouthful of Tenny’s throat.

  “Tenny, are you going to submit and leave?” Yoda asked.

  The Bullmastiff nodded, then whined as old traditions required. Levi opened his jaws, took half a step back, and waited, teeth bared. Tenny jumped up and ran, vanishing into the night without even a glance at his frozen friend.

  “Must you always channel a movie?” Levi asked.

  “Everything I need to know about life I learned from watching television and…” Yoda started to say.

  Gearhead groaned.

  “You okay, pal?” Yoda asked, rushing to his side.

  “I am fine,” Gearhead replied, managing a sitting position. “Hit the pavement really hard, that’s all.”

  “Stay with him, Yoda,” Levi said.

  “The others went up…” Yoda stopped talking when he realized Levi was no longer with them. He turned to Gearhead. “Come on, let’s get you up. Walk it off—that’s the best thing.”

  Once the Welsh Corgi-mix was up, Yoda ran off. He bounded back almost immediately, Gearhead’s fez gripped in his teeth.

  “Thank you, Yoda,” Gearhead said as he took the hat. “The cord is broken, but I can get that fixed easily enough.”

  “Come on,” Yoda urged.

  Gearhead followed the Pomeranian to Mace. The Bullmastiff stood where Levi had left him. He breathed and his eyes blinked from time to time, but that was all.

  “Reminds you of a lawn statue, doesn’t he?” Yoda quipped.

  “What is wrong with him?” Gearhead asked. “What did Levi do to him?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Yoda admitted. “I’ve seen it only once or twice before, but Levi won’t tell me the trick, and I suspect there is a trick to it somehow. He’ll be okay in an hour or so.”

  “He cannot move?” Gearhead asked, nearing Mace cautiously, peering at him as if the motionless dog were a freakish exhibit in a sideshow. “Is he aware of us?”

  “Not a muscle.” Yoda stood on his hind legs, peered directly into Mace’s eyes. “And he’s aware of everything.”

  “He does not seem dangerous now,” Gearhead commented.

  Yoda joined Gearhead at Mace’s side. The two dogs looked at each other and grinned. Simultaneously they stood on their hind legs, put their paws on Mace’s side, and pushed. For a moment, the Bullmastiff teetered on his opposite legs, then toppled to the ground, limbs still stiff as dowels.

  “Ah, the small pleasures of life,” Yoda sighed.

  “Do you think they will be able to…”

  A loud explosion broke the stillness of the night. The dogs spun toward Big Ben. The lower section of one of the huge clock faces burst outward, showering glass shards and leaving behind a jagged hole. They heard a now-familiar trilling sound, and strange bursts of light flowed from the opening, writhing around the tower.

  At the same time, something small and dark exited the base of the clock tower. With a loud whoosh it jetted upward into the night, trailing a thin plume of steam.

  “There goes the neighborhood,” Yoda quipped.

  * * *

  Levi ran inside. He paused when he saw Snitch’s battered and broken form at the base of the shaft, near the dogcart that had been dragged in. He approached cautiously. Clearly, the misshapen little dog had somehow displeased his master, been sent tumbling to his death. Levi did not feel sympathy for the dog for Snitch had written his own fate with his decisions, but he did feel compassion, a sense of regret that yet another child of First Dog and Anubis had chosen a dark path. Snitch’s eyes opened.

  “You’re in a bad way, Snitch,” Levi said. “There isn’t anything anyone can do for you.”

  Snitch nodded weakly. “Lord Cerberus has done me in.”

  “You’ll be crossing the Bridge soon.”

  Snitch’s laugh became a wet cough. “Don’t believe none of that, not that stuff they feed pups. Wish it were, but it ain’t.”

  “I have to go,” Levi whispered. “I can’t stay, but Gearhead and Yoda are outside. They can sit with you so you won’t be…”

  “Gearhead wouldn’t ‘cause there’s too much history, and your friend don’t like me much, I’ll wager,” Snitch said. “Can’t say I blame them much. Days are, I don’t like me much either.”

  “They will if I ask them to.”

  “I lived alone, so it’s right I go out alone.” Snitch grimaced in pain, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t know why you care. You should hate me, want me dead, just like everyone else I ever knowed.”

  “You are a child of First Dog,” Levi said. “You are a child of Anubis. No matter what you have done, you are always a child of the universe, a child of the light.”

  “I don’t believe in…”

  “It’s all right, Snitch,” Levi soothed. “They believe in you.”

  Snitch opened his needle-fanged mouth, but, for once in his miserable life words refused to come. He whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut.

  “I forgive you, Snitch.”

  Snitch’s eyes opened. “How can you…I don’t…”

  “If we can forgive Companions, especially when they do not deserve it,” Levi said, “how can we not find it in our hearts to forgive those of us who have lost their way?”

  “You better go,” Snitch said. “You have work to do.”

  Levi pressed his muzzle against Snitch’s. He licked his face like a Dam or Sire would a pup afraid of the night, then bounded up the stairs as fast as he could.

  “Thank you,” Snitch whispered.

  Levi heard sounds above, nearly lost in the whir and clank of the machinery in the time piece at the heart of the Empire. Unlike his Big Ben, which was all gears, weights and escapements, this version of the famous clock was partially powered by steam. From time to time, puffs of steam whooshed into the chill air.

  Snitch watched Levi vanish into the heights of the tower, bent on stopping the dog he had served faithfully for two years, he who had so casually murdered him. Levi was gone, but his words still whispered in Snitch’s ears. And he had forgiven him, which, now, was more than Snitch could do for himself.

  Snitch crawled to the dogcart. He pulled a brass canister from next to where the machine had been, brought along in case it was needed. Once harnessed, he headed for the door.

  He was yet alive, and while he lived there was perhaps one last thing he might do.

  * * *

  Lord Cerberus whipped his head toward the stairways. The Time Disruptor was positioned by a clock face overlooking the heart of London. The other dogs stood guard against interference, but were oblivious. He sent an alerting thought, then realized, with more annoyance than dismay that no one could hear it.

  “Alert,” he croaked. “Danger!”

  Mordred, Sykes and Urias crouched ready to spring, though they saw, heard and smelled nothing. The gloom was too intense to penetrate, their ears were filled with the sounds of time’s inexorable passage, and their noses were inundated by cold metal and hot oil. None of their senses revealed any cause for alarm, but it was foolish and dangerous to question Lord Cerberus’ enigmatic ways.

  Lord Cerberus was on the verge of succeeding, The S.T.E.A.M. dogs had no idea where in London they might be. A few moments more a
nd Lord Cerberus would rule all London, canine and Companion alike, and they would share in his power.

  Urias frowned. Something moved in the murk, but it might be only a shadow. The huge clock dials on the tower’s four sides, each more than twenty feet across, were translucent, but the light passing through them obscured more than illuminated. He took a few steps from the infernal machine they had laboriously transported to the top of Big Ben. There might be something there, he thought, but, then again, there might not. As he stood in uncertainty, a massive shape hurtled out of the darkness.

  Quigley’s sixty-five pounds plowed into Urias like a runaway steam-carriage. Simultaneously, other S.T.E.A.M. dogs attacked. Penelope aided Quigley, sinking her teeth into Urias’ leg, pulling as if she were trying to wrench a goose leg from a Christmas dinner.

  Lord Cerberus noted with dismay his dogs were outnumbered. Blast the sentries, and blast Lilith for getting herself killed. At a delicate juncture in his work, he paused to think how to form the words using the crudity of vocalization.

  “Kill them!” he uttered. “Kill them all!”

  He returned to his work. It was only a matter of time till his dogs were overcome, but that was irrelevant. Once time began to fold and warp, he need only stand by the device. Let them all die or wink into nonexistence. All that mattered was that he survive to rule the realm of his creation.

  He activated the machine.

  * * *

  Levi was nearly to the top of the tower when the structure shook violently. The dull rumble of an explosion was followed by the sharp tinkle of shattering glass. Almost lost in the din was the now-familiar trilling which indicated Lord Cerberus had, despite all their efforts, managed to activate the Time Disruptor. Fighting a sick feeling of failure, Levi rushed upward.

  Of all the dogs guarding Lord Cerberus and the machine, only Mordred remained fighting, desperately countering every attack of the dogs of S.T.E.A.M. Penelope, Sunny and Spyro held Urias at bay, while Chauncey and Artemus Gordon pinned Sykes. They were all battered and bloody, but in no danger at the moment.

  Quigley and Sergeant Beefsteak battled Mordred, but the villain was not giving ground. It seemed to Levi as if a shimmering veil separated then from Lord Cerberus, much as heat waves cause the air to ripple in the desert. The giant hound remained crouched by the machine. Levi rushed forward.

  The old dog from Scotland Yard clamped his massive jaw around Mordred’s neck. Sergeant Beefsteak maintained that grip as he twisted his body. Once Mordred’s paws were off the floor, he could not keep from flying over Beefsteak and having the air slammed out of his lungs by the impact.

  Quigley immediately headed for Lord Cerberus, Levi right on his tail. As Levi entered the shimmering curtain, he felt a peculiar feeling, as if his insides were being rearranged.

  The strange illumination they had witnessed at the church in Otay streamed from the machine, flowing out the jagged opening in the clock face. Beyond, it appeared as if London were changing, being reformed, as a sculptor might impose another pattern on a malleable clay thing.

  Lord Cerberus laughed. Or Levi took the weird warbling sound as laughter. He gazed at them, teeth bared in a maniacal grin. His eyes blazed. For a moment Levi did not know which eyes were real and which were part of his bizarre markings.

  Quigley struck Lord Cerberus, but the huge hound seemed not to feel it. Though Quigley was a large dog, he seemed small beside the other, and when he sank his teeth into Lord Cerberus’ shoulder it looked like a puppy trying to harass an adult.

  Levi flashed past, heading for the machine. He knew he could not work the controls, but he could certainly stop it, even if that meant smashing it. He leaped high. Levi extended his neck, opened his mouth, and prepared to grasp the tube that was the source of the trilling and the morphing light display.

  Lord Cerberus tried to push Quigley away but there was no way to escape the Bearded Collie. He saw Levi and made a quick movement with his head. He grabbed Levi out of the air in jaws the size of a steam shovel, crunched down hard, and flung the much smaller dog aside. He turned his attention back to Quigley.

  Levi yelped as he felt ribs shatter within him. He hit a wall, had the air knocked from his lungs, then dropped to the floor. His whole body shaking and wracked with pain, Levi stood, turned and gasped with horror. Quigley was on his back, pinned by a paw as big as a dinner platter, helpless to get out from under it.

  With a savage growl, Lord Cerberus dove his open maw toward Quigley’s exposed throat.

  All pain vanished as Levi ran at full tilt. He uttered an ancient battle cry, a sound that had not changed since the days of First Dog, twenty-five thousand years earlier. Startled by the primordial call, Lord Cerberus paused in his savage attack and looked up.

  Levi struck Lord Cerberus in the throat, gripping hard. Though his mass was much less than the other dog’s, his preternatural speed gave him enough force to unbalance the hound. When the weight above him shifted, Quigley kicked out with his powerful hind legs, sending Lord Cerberus reeling.

  Lord Cerberus screamed as he tumbled out the jagged hole in the clock face and into space. He flailed his limbs but to no avail. He plummeted toward the pavement below.

  Levi let go of Lord Cerberus, drifting away as they fell. Just as the giant dog was helpless to save himself, so was Levi. They would both die upon impact, but the difference was that Levi felt no regret, no fear. He had cheated death a long time, from the first moment he did not die in the arena, and he had had quite a few close scrapes since then. It was, he knew, his time to move on.

  Lord Cerberus gazed at him across the widening distance, his features a mix of terror and malevolence.

  I am still victorious, boasted a voice in Levi’s head. You have stopped me, but this shall still be a world shaped by my paws.

  Abruptly the trilling stopped. Both dogs looked up to see the writhing globules of light dim and vanish. Looking across London, Levi saw all the changes begin to reverse upon themselves, like the surface of a lake returning to normal after a rock had dropped in.

  Not today, I think, Levi thought.

  Yet you will still join me in death, Lord Cerberus mocked. I at least have that.

  Levi heard a loud whoosh and swiveled in the direction of the noise. It was, he saw, Ajax’s flying dog (or maybe a dog who was flying), canister strapped to his back, leaving a plume of steam behind. Snitch closed in swiftly.

  Sorry I can’t join you, Levi thought. Have a nice trip.

  Levi felt something slam painfully into him. He heard a howl of rage and terror, but it quickly faded to silence, lost in the cottony soft whiteness that overwhelmed him.

  Levi saw the Bridge before him. Both First Dog and Anubis were waiting. The path leading to the Bridge was barren and there were many side trails upon which a dog might become lost, but on the other side of the Bridge were green fields and deep woods, crystal rivers and quiet glades where it was always sunny. He saw thousands of dogs romping and coursing, several of whom were familiar to him. Levi kept his gaze on the bridge, ignoring the trails that might lead him astray.

  “Where do you think you’re going, young dog?” Anubis asked.

  “Yes, what are you doing here, my friend?” First Dog asked.

  Levi looked down and saw that he was indeed young again. Gone were the thick flecks of white that marked him as elderly. He also noticed that he felt no pain, not cracked ribs nor even the pains in his joints that increased daily.

  “I’m crossing the Bridge,” Levi replied. “It’s my time.”

  “Not today, Levi,” Anubis said.

  “Not yet, Levi,” First Dog agreed. “You still have work to do.”

  As Levi stood before the Bridge, yearning for the peace and rest waiting on the other side, the Bridge and its guardians seemed to pull away from him. He tried to run after it, but to no avail.

  “Much work to do,” Anubis whispered.

  Darkness began to close around him.

  “It is time to wake up, L
evi,” First Dog whispered.

  “Wake up, Levi!”

  Levi’s eyes snapped open. Yoda hung upside-down in front of him, barking furiously and yelling for Levi to wake up. It took Levi a moment to realize that he was on his back and Yoda was standing over him.

  “I was falling…” Levi murmured, voice fading. “I was…”

  “You bet you were,” Yoda chattered, “and then…Wow!”

  “Lord Cerberus?”

  “It ain’t a pretty sight,” Yoda admitted. “But I don’t think he’s going to have many mourners.”

  “Snitch?”

  Gearhead ran to Yoda’s side, whispered in his ear.

  “You’d better come with us,” Yoda said. “And quickly.”

  Levi forced himself to stand, shrugging off help from the other dogs. He saw his own blood drip to the ground. Every breath was an agony, every movement a supreme effort of will. He saw Snitch on the pavement, free now of the aerial steam conveyance’s harness. He limped toward the small, still form.

  Out the corners of his eyes, Levi saw the others escorting their prisoners out of the tower, remanding them to the reinforcements that had finally arrived. He saw Quigley coursing towards them, but all that vanished as he neared Snitch. He collapsed by Snitch’s side. The misshapen dog opened his eyes.

  “Thank you,” Snitch whispered. “Thank you for everything.”

  “You saved me,” Levi said.

  “No, you saved me.”

  “You saved yourself,” Levi countered. “It was always in you.”

  Snitch laughed softly, coughing up blood. “I did okay this time, for once in my miserable life, didn’t I?”

  “More than okay, Snitch,” Levi whispered, whimpering as he saw darkness begin to form in Snitch’s eyes. “You were a good boy. Anubis and First Dog will be glad to see you.”

  “And…Gelert…?”

  “Gelert too.”

  “I can see…” Snitch sighed, and his eyes closed.

  Levi pressed his head against Snitch’s. “Good boy.”

  “Why did he do it?” Yoda asked when Levi lifted his head.