by Arthur Slade
He poked his head farther around the rock and gasped. Along the back wall hung half-finished men who’d been stitched together. Tall, strong men, their eyes closed. A green fog gathered around them, a gas hissing from several pipes. Footman pulled Cook in front of him so he could see.
“Good Lord,” Cook whispered, “let’s get the seven hells out of here.”
They slowly worked their way back toward the trapdoor. As they crept along, Footman took a measure of the place. The glass building was at least a hundred feet tall and two thousand feet long. The logistics of transporting the materials to create it were mind-boggling. The massive dock, with its cranes and airship tower, could resupply the largest of warships. The entire island slanted down toward the dock on the east side so that all armaments could be fired toward the enemy. The cliffs protected the operation from the west.
Cook led them around the central mountain of rocks. Just as they approached the trapdoor, he stopped. A huge man was sitting on a stone, staring up at the moon. He turned his gaze to Footman and Cook.
“I saw you climb out of this hole,” he said. His voice was ragged. “I waited for you to return.”
The monster was expressionless, as though his face had frozen. His eyes glimmered with moonlight, but not much else. Footman had never been superstitious, but standing here under the moon he believed he was looking at the undead. “You are intruders,” the thing said.
“Intruders?” Cook said. “We’re delivering coal, mate. That’s all. We’re lost.”
The man stood. It was like watching a stone statue move. “No. You are too clever to be one of the soldiers. They all drink of some pacifying tincture. And they wouldn’t say ‘mate.’ Therefore, you are from off-island and an enemy. If you run, the hounds will shred you to pieces. I haven’t told anyone you’re here. Just get past me and you’ll be free.”
“So it’s a game for you, is it?” Cook asked.
The man nodded. “A momentary entertainment.”
Cook gave Footman a glance and raised his eyebrows.
“Do not try—” Footman began when he saw the glint of daring in his friend’s eyes. Cook charged. He lowered his head and butted the man squarely in the chest, a move he had used in perhaps a hundred brawls. The monster lifted him with a huge hand, flipped him over, and smashed him headfirst against a boulder.
He was clearly dead. Footman would never have dreamed a man as strong as Cook could be swatted down like a fly.
“You are smaller,” the creature said. “Perhaps not easier to kill. Please prove entertaining.”
Footman had a knife in his pant leg, but knew it would be useless. He reached inside his shirt and let out a small battle cry as he dashed toward his enemy. The man opened his arms as though to embrace him. At the last second, Footman flipped open the pocket-watch lucifer, blinding the giant. At the same time, he leapt to one side and tried to race past. But he wasn’t fast enough, and the monster struck him in the ribs, a glancing blow that threw Footman several feet. He rolled along the stones, which cut into his skin, but he leapt up, ignoring the pain. Trapdoor ahead! He measured the distance with his eyes.
The monster pursued him with a bull-like speed. No time to think. He’d be crushed. So he ran past the trapdoor, toward the sound of the crashing waves, the rocks under his feet slick from the mist. He glanced back to see the monster at his heels. His own death at his heels.
Footman ran straight off the edge of the cliffs and dove into the Pacific.
33
Over the Falls
“I’m not going to have to rescue you from drowning, am I?” Octavia asked. They were north of their camp, staring down the edge of a small cliff at a river below. There was a waterfall, and she would have thought it rather beautiful if she wasn’t dreading the next step.
This was their first day of what Mr. Socrates had suggested would be weeks of training. Working as a team, they were to cut their way through rough bush using a compass. A prize was waiting at the end of the “map” Mr. Socrates had given them. He hadn’t said what it would be.
“I’m a much better swimmer than I used to be,” Modo said. “Are you just worried about your hair?”
Hair? That was the last thing Octavia was concerned about. She’d tied it back with black ribbon to keep it out of her eyes and hadn’t worn a dress since her arrival two days ago, only black military fatigues. A slimming color, she noted, making her look all the more boyish. Good! She wasn’t one of those overdressed plump ladies who spent their life lounging on velvet chairs. Her accessories were a utilitarian brown belt and a razor-sharp saber that Tharpa was teaching her how to use.
After a week on a boat and days on a train, it was glorious to be active again, even if it meant tramping through the bush. She preferred city streets, of course.
They had crawled, run, and cut their way to this location, only to find the river blocking their path. Going around it might take days, and the idea of spending the night out here didn’t appeal to her.
“One of us should see if it’s deep enough,” she said. “I nominate you.”
“Ladies first,” he said.
“But you’re the gentleman.”
“You’re more a gentleman than me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was the closest thing to a joke she’d heard from Modo in weeks. “Ah, Modo, if I stick around you’re going to talk me to death.” With that she stood, began to run, and jumped into the air, aiming close to the waterfall. She hoped the water had carved a deep enough well that she wouldn’t break her legs! It must be all right—after all, Mr. Socrates wouldn’t have sent them here unless it was possible. Halfway down she wondered if she’d made a mistake; maybe they were supposed to use their rope to cross.
The water was shockingly cold and she sank much deeper than she’d expected to; at any moment her legs would strike the bottom and snap like twigs. Instead, she came to a stop and began kicking, climbing for the surface, and was soon splashing in the open water.
“It’s toasty warm,” she shouted, then swam for the opposite shore, as Modo, doing his best impression of a cannonball, struck the water nearby; not the smoothest dive she’d seen. But Modo had only recently learned how to swim.
“You splash around like a mad dog,” she said. “You’ll scare the beavers, the ducks, and the whatnot for miles around.” She had taken to swimming in the Thames when she was a street child, but had never enjoyed taking a bath. It wasn’t until she’d become an agent and had her first hot bath that she understood why the aristocrats spent half their lives in bathhouses.
“At least I can float.” His wet netting mask clung to his face, showing his deformities and making him look like a sea monster. Despite wishing it could be otherwise, she still shuddered. But she had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t show any weakness.
They climbed onto the bank.
“The compass still works,” he said.
They made their way up the ravine, following the coordinates Mr. Socrates had provided. Soon they were tramping through the bush again.
“Maybe that was our toughest test,” she said.
“Not so loud,” Modo replied, “you’re snapping every twig.”
“I’m going to snap you.” But he was right. She could move quietly in the street, but in the forest she wasn’t certain where to step. Modo, on the other hand, moved as though born in the forest. He was a peasant’s son, after all. Maybe that was it.
“What do you think the point of all this is?” Octavia asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe Mr. Socrates just wants us out of his hair. He— Wait …” Modo grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back a step. He pointed at the ground. “A trap.” He lifted a leafy branch. Below it was a hole.
“How did you see that?”
“Fresh leaves on the forest floor alerted me.”
“Since when did you become Robin Hood?” she asked.
“Are you Maid Marian?”
“No. I’m always Richard the Lionhear
t. But I see Mr. Socrates doesn’t want this to be just a gallivant around the forest. At least there aren’t as many insects and snakes here as in Australia.”
They took another compass reading and Modo checked his watch. “We’re about an hour behind,” he said. “We’ve maybe traveled two miles.”
It was the first time they’d been alone in two days, so Octavia decided to bring up a question she’d wanted to ask the day before. “I’m curious, Modo,” she began, “how do you feel about the dragoons?”
He shrugged. “I don’t completely trust Mr. Socrates’ motives. I can’t help wondering if there was something else that could have been done besides turning them into soldiers.”
“I talked to Ester. She’s very happy with her position; says she was made for it, in fact! And she’s eager to stick a poker in the eye of the rotters who tortured her.”
“But they’ve been turned into weapons. Again. Oppie wanted to read and become a detective. That’s all he wanted when I met him.”
“Do you think Mr. Socrates gave them more of the potion?” Saying it made Octavia go cold. The birds seemed to grow quiet. Modo was taking a long time to answer.
“No,” he said finally. “I—I think he’s made some hard choices for Queen and Country, but he wouldn’t do that.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because if he had, he’d have kept every one of the children, not just a dozen of them. Can you imagine fifty dragoons?”
She didn’t want to point out that maybe there were other bases where dragoons were being trained. No, she told herself, Mr. Socrates sometimes had a chunk of ice for a heart, but he wouldn’t go that far.
“The dragoons want to hit back at the Clockwork Guild, I have no doubt of that,” Modo said. “And they seem to be mature enough to make their own decisions. And … Wait.” He stopped next to a tree. “I hear something. It’s like—”
Men in gray uniforms thudded from the trees around them.
Guild soldiers! How’d they find us? Modo blocked a blow, then twisted and threw one soldier against another. Octavia ducked under the club of yet another soldier and struck the man in his midsection.
Well, lower than the midsection. He collapsed and she smiled to herself. They never expected a lady to do that. Octavia was never a lady.
When all of the men were unconscious, Octavia said, “How did they find us?” Modo peeled away the uniform of one man to discover a black shirt beneath it.
“Our men! Why, they were just posing as Guild soldiers! I wondered why they had no pistols. This is another part of our training, I see.”
“What’ll we do with them?”
“Just leave them,” Modo replied. “They’ll be up and around soon enough.”
Then, following the coordinates, they broke through the forest. Sitting on a stump of a pine tree in the middle of a clearing was an envelope. Octavia snapped it up. Inside were a pair of tickets. Each said: This ticket good for one hot bath at the officers’ tent.
“So the old man has a sense of humor after all,” Modo said, and they burst out laughing.
34
Contentment Under
Adverse Circumstances
For Modo, a hot bath seemed an indulgence he could not afford—after all, he needed every moment to perfect his martial skills. But after Octavia said that he smelled like an old dead dog, he found himself in a steam-filled tent, sitting comfortably in a claw-foot tub that looked far too fancy to be out in the middle of the bush. It had probably been used by officers for several years, maybe even Mr. Socrates himself. He relaxed, letting his face return to its natural shape and his hump protrude. It was his first rest and first proper bath since he’d departed for Paris, a trip that felt as if it were years ago. When was the last time he’d had a hot bath? A year ago, at least. Certainly not on the submarine Ictíneo. Or in the jungles of Australia, or on any ships or airships he’d been on. Even in Montreal House, hot water was intermittent.
On a shelf in the bath tent he found a red-covered book called Roughing It in the Bush. He flipped through it. It was an account of a woman in the bushland of eastern Canada. He stopped when he read: “IT IS DELIGHTFUL to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse circumstances.” He read the sentence several times. It was a delight to be in this bath in the middle of Camp Cobra. But should he be partaking of delight?
That was the problem with rest. Anytime he stopped to take a breath, thoughts rose up like Macbeth’s ghosts. Colette’s broken body, her look of joy as she gazed upon his face. Had she been delirious with death? Then he thought of his father, crushed by the same monster. He must avenge their deaths, but Typhon had spared his life.
He remembered the creature’s odd look as it showed its pinky finger to him. As though it were a secret signal. His own little finger had tingled. Had a part of his body really brought that monster to life?
He was out of the bath before the water was cold. He dried his tufts of red hair and stared in the mirror for several moments. He hadn’t looked in a mirror for ages. He examined his face, tracing the sunken nose and lopsided features. It wasn’t as ugly as he’d remembered. In fact, he thought he saw a hint of distinction. He laughed at himself and slipped the mask on. Distinguished or not, it’d scare the living daylights out of the soldiers. Despite Mr. Socrates’ promise that he could walk around unmasked here, he didn’t want to test it.
He dressed and walked back to his tent in the center of Camp Cobra. He presumed the name was a reference to a trained cobra coming out of a basket. It was curious how military men chose the toughest, most frightening names for their ships and their camps, but often named their guns after girls.
The battle cry of the dragoons startled him. He walked over the hill, to where he could see that a training course had been set up overnight, complete with coils of thorny wire, mudholes, and a fifty-foot-tall wooden climbing wall. The dragoons stood in formation across from the wall, about to conduct their first charge.
“Boys and their toys,” Octavia said.
She’d sneaked up on him! He needed to be more alert.
“A tough course,” he told her, hoping his voice hadn’t given away his surprise. “I’m curious how they’ll do.”
The dragoons began to clank ahead, forcing their way through the wire, strands snapping. One stepped into a mudhole and struggled to extricate himself, but the others charged on, yelling in unison. The cacophony made Modo stiffen, even though they were charging away from him. There was something about the noise that reminded him of the horrible potions the children had ingested. He shuddered to recall how they’d looked strapped to the iron giant attacking the Parliament buildings. Absolutely monstrous.
“I just know Mr. S is going to want us to run through all that muck too,” Octavia said. “He enjoys seeing me suffer.”
“If he really wants you to suffer he’ll make you wear a dress while you do it.” Modo found it difficult to keep his eyes off her when she was wearing the Permanent Association uniform. When she caught him staring, he glanced away and said, “The wall will be the real test for them.”
As the squadron moved on, their arrowhead formation remained intact. The first dragoon climbed the wall, using iron fingers to grip the wooden slats. Holes had been cut into the wall and Association soldiers were shoving large posts through them, slamming them into the armored man. He clung to the wall, continuing his ascent. A second dragoon climbed; a third followed, with the rest firing above their heads. Live rounds! They were practicing covering fire, blowing the heads off dummies at the top of the wall.
“This is what Odysseus must have felt first looking upon the Cyclops Polyphemus,” Modo said.
“Good Lord, you are so full of fantastical bosh sometimes. Stop quoting mythology as if it were real life.”
“It was an observation. This is a quote: ‘He was a horrid creature, not like a human being at all, but resembling rather some crag that stands out boldly against the sky on the top of a high mountain.’ That’s the fi
rst description of the Cyclops.”
She put her hands on her hips. “It’s a good thing Mr. Socrates raised you in the country. You’d have been pummeled senseless at my orphanage.”
He was searching for a retort when the engine on a dragoon, who was near the top of the wall, made a loud bang. The dragoon fell forty feet into the mud and began to sink. Association soldiers swarmed around him within seconds, but they couldn’t pull him up.
Modo dashed to the dragoon’s side. The man was struggling, face sunk into the mud, and would soon drown. Modo grabbed a metal-encased arm and, grunting hard, pulled the dragoon to a sitting position. The man’s nose and mouth were plugged up with sludge and straw, but he couldn’t use his metal hands to clear them. He began flailing his metal arms in panic.
“Stay calm!” the sergeant shouted. He ducked under the dragoon’s arms and pulled soil and mud from his nose and mouth. The dragoon sucked in a breath. Then he took another and another, wheezing and coughing repeatedly. He continued to breath wildly. “Now, now, calm down.” The sergeant patted the man’s back.
Modo realized it wasn’t even a man, but Ester. Her face was hardened and chiseled like a man’s from the effects of the tincture. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Now, now,” the sergeant repeated, his voice soothing, and he actually patted her cheek. “Calm down, Lance Corporal McGravin. Calm down. That’s an order.”
“I—I will, Sergeant,” she promised between gritted teeth.
“Are you injured?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” She nodded down toward her right arm.
He delicately removed a steel plate and they could clearly see that her arm was broken.
“It’s not so bad, Lance Corporal,” Sergeant Beatty said. “We’ll fix you up. Now get on your feet, unless your legs are hurt.”
“They aren’t, Sergeant.” She slowly stood. Everyone took a few steps back as she wobbled on her feet.
