Steampunk Tales, Volume 1

by Ren Cummins

  Distantly, she felt as if she was falling, slowly, insubstantial like a snowflake, drifting down towards the far away ground; helpless on the winter breeze.

  Chapter 2: Boots and Bullies

  Cold, hard tiles. She’d seen these far more than she’d liked, with as many times as she’d been given the opportunity to scrub them clean as a punishment for this or that. But at the moment, they were closer to her face than she would have liked.

  Rom’s fingertips slowly curled under her palms as she lay face down on the foyer floor of the orphanage. Her hands still tingled from their sharp impact with the stone tiles. She blinked hard, swallowing the shock of her fall. It hadn’t been hard, it was certainly more embarrassing than anything, but she bit her lip against the ache she could already feel from the shoulder that had taken the brunt of it. It took her a moment to get her bearings, however. Did she hit her head? Everything was fuzzy; hadn’t it just been raining? But that didn’t make sense, she told herself. She was in the orphanage: it doesn’t rain inside buildings, crazyhead. Not even in buildings this old.

  The pattern of the polished stone all but filled her range of vision. Beyond that, she could hear the other children shuffling about, indecipherable murmurs indicating that though they didn’t share any amusement at her being pushed down, they weren’t exactly standing up to defend her. She sighed. Oh, that’s right. Standing in line for breakfast. Getting pushed onto my face. How else would a day start but like this?

  She rolled up into a sitting position, and pulled her foot closer in to look at the bootlaces. The boots and laces were much too large for her small feet, but she’d claimed them a couple years earlier because of the metal plates on the toes and heels. They were designed for workers in the metalworks to protect their feet against sparks and the occasional loose piece of equipment, but she just thought they looked tough. Unfortunately, her tiny feet were barely enough to hold them on, so she’d asked the Matrons of the orphanage for longer laces to wrap around the tops of the boots and keep her feet more or less secure. The laces mostly held, but they always seemed to come undone at the worst times.

  As she wound the laces back, she glanced up at the children around her. It was nearly time for the morning meal, so nearly all the children were down here. The Matrons made them line up in the anteroom and wait for the common room to be opened so they could go in and get their food. But they all swirled around Rom, no one daring to make eye contact with the curious white-haired girl with the large boots and the unnaturally blue eyes. But she knew it wouldn’t have been one of the other children to push her over while she had been trying to reach down and tie her boots a few moments earlier; there was really only one other child who consistently sought out opportunities to make her life difficult. Well, Milando and whatever Reaper-spawned demon of Aerthos that decided to put her in an Orphanage as soon as she was big enough to walk.

  Milando was only thirteen, but gifted with a shockingly unfair growth spurt that helped him tower over the other children. Combined with his four cohorts of varying sizes and shapes, Milando was the only real force to be reckoned with in this old converted temple, aside from the Matrons themselves, and he knew it.

  Even though Rom hadn’t seen him push her, she knew well enough that either he or one of his friends had done it. They were all affecting demeanors of casual amusement, as if one of them had just said something particularly funny; but of course none of them would have any reason to suffer the pangs of a guilty conscience.

  As Rom finished with her laces, Milando glanced down at her. “Aw, did you get hurt, Ratgirl?”

  She looked up long enough to reply with a casual smile and a nod, and then slowly got to her feet. She smoothed out her faded grey dress that marked her for a child of the Matron-run orphanage. Although Rom’s grey dress had been initially exactly identical to the dresses all the other foundling girls wore, hers had been patched up and repaired much more than average. The dresses made for the older, taller girls were made with more durable fabric than those made for the girls in Rom’s relative age group, but in order to keep her from going through a dress every other week, she was forced to wear one several sizes too large, with a thick black belt to keep it cinched at her waist. Adding to that, her choice of boots made for a comical enough image, one which Rom was more than willing to aggressively defend. And, as it happened, she did so often.

  She’s already gotten in trouble with the Matrons four times this week, however; once more before the Lastday penance and they’d start revoking privileges, such as running errands to the market or being given extra time in the courtyard. If possible, she would rather this not turn into a fight.

  After a long, calming breath through her nose, she smiled again at Milando and doubled up her fists. Instinctively, his four accomplices took a step back. The other children stopped milling about and turned back to the storm brewing in their midst.

  It was far from the first time these two had squared off, and both had come out their fair share of times the victor. But Rom was clearly the more confident this morning.

  She drew back one small fist as Milando, too late realizing he wasn’t prepared for a fight, preemptively winced in pain, raising his arms to protect his freckled face.

  The outcome would have to wait, however, because at that moment, Matron Suvanna pushed open the double doors from the common room, managing to clunk more than one unprepared child on the back of the head in the process.

  “Give way,” she screeched with her usual harsh voice. Rom didn’t bother trying to think of another tone Matron Suvanna’s voice had; if there were one, she’d never heard it. “Give way, I said!” She saw one of the children’s faces pinched up in discomfort and pulled him through the doorway by his shoulder. “Weren’t paying attention, I see. Well, go on in and get your food, now, come along.” The Matron was tall and thin, like the branches of a winter’s tree, and looked like her hair was pulled back too tightly beneath her wimple. Deep shadows enshrouded her eyes, and the maze of thin wrinkles reminded Rom of the crackling paint on the walls of the supply closet in the basement.

  Milando took the opportunity to shoulder past Rom on his way in with the throng of other children into the next room, nearly pushing her back onto the floor. She righted herself with a growl and would have probably climbed onto his back right then had her friend Kari not showed up.

  “Rom!” she called out in her enthusiastic and melodic voice. “There you are!”

  Although all the girls in the orphanage wore the same simple button-down dresses, Kari was one of the few who actually seemed comfortable in them, if not completely oblivious to the uniformity. Rom had seen dresses worn by older women out in the town that were brilliantly dazzling – covered in frilly ribbons and pleats and other things that probably had names which Rom didn’t know. This envy Rom kept to herself, a wish she kept secret from all the other children in the orphanage. From all of them, except her friend Kari.

  Kari had only arrived in the orphanage a few years before, and the two had become instant friends. Kari’s mother had at last succumbed to the same wasting disease which had already taken her father and brother, after an additional full year of suffering. Kari spoke about it in strangely optimistic tones, at peace with the notion that her mother’s pain had ended and she could join Kari’s father and brother in the spirit world. Having never known her own parents, Rom struggled to imagine how having your family and losing it could be seen in any kind of positive light. But Kari seemed content to focus her familial loss on caring for her friend.

  In addition to getting a friend in the orphanage with Kari’s arrival, Rom also received a birthday. As the day of her birth had never been known to the Matrons, they were really only able to guess at her age, gauging it by Rom’s height and developmental progress. But when Kari arrived, the two were exactly the same height and took to one another so immediately that Rom insisted the two must have been twin sisters, separated at birth. Unwilling to upset the girl, they conceded.

&n
bsp; In most ways, the two could not have been more different. Kari’s lengthy dark hair was pulled back behind her head with a piece of yarn, while Rom’s nearly iridescent white hair was left loose, falling to her shoulders in gentle curls. Kari’s naturally darker skin looked almost bronze when standing beside her pale friend. But their differences – in manner and appearance – only seemed to serve to more tightly secure their friendship. In the years since that time, Kari had outgrown Rom by several centimeters, but the traditionally shared birthday held.

  Kari gave Rom an appraising glance, and looked past her to see Milando laughing his way towards the serving tables in the common room with his gaggle of apprentice bullies.

  “You got in a fight again?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  Rom shook her head earnestly. “No….” Her voice trailed off, as she followed Kari’s eyes to her hands which were clenched into fists at her side. “Well, almost, but he started it!” she grumbled.

  Her ponytail swinging, Kari laughed. “Well, at least you didn’t get in trouble this time.”

  Nodding, Rom sighed. “It’s just that Milando, I can’t stand him.”

  “Nobody can,” Kari whispered. “But everyone’s scared of him.”

  “Not me,” Rom laughed.

  “No,” Kari agreed, shaking her head with a grin, “not you.”

  Chapter 3: Beneath the Watchful Sun

  They waited in line for their bowls of the morning gruel, which as always was lukewarm and colorless, smelling faintly like the soap used on their clothes with just a bit of salt. A thick chunk of bread with a thin smear of butter was thrust into one side of the bowl, and a cup of water that smelled of lemons rounded out the morning course.

  Once all the children had received their food and taken their seats, four of the Matrons came out from the kitchen to lead the Sunrise Benediction. Although it had that name, it struck Rom as somewhat strange, as the sun did not fully rise above the orphanage until nearly mid-day.

  Oldtown-Against-The-Wall had only a single orphanage for the just over a hundred homeless children who lived there. The town itself numbered more than thirty thousand, but in most cases, parentless children under the apprenticing age of fourteen were taken in by the closest family member or a close and trusted household. In the rare cases when such options were impossible, a temple which had been otherwise abandoned many years before had been dedicated for the protection, care and education of these also otherwise abandoned girls and boys.

  Only a pair of buildings separated the back of the orphanage from a wall which towered more than two hundred feet above the tallest buildings in Oldtown-Against-The-Wall – and because of this proximity, the sun which rose to the East did not clear the Wall and shine down into the Orphanage for many hours after bringing its light to the sky. It was an exceptional testament to the construction skills and artisanship of the initial settlers of Oldtown-Against-The-Wall, this temple, and a dim reminder of beliefs rarely discussed on the streets of the town itself. The marble statues and designs dedicated to gods of might and miracles had begun to wear down under the elements, unprotected by the wall from wind or rain or snow, and yet still retained its majestic façade, though chilled by years of dwelling in shadow.

  And yet, before each morning meal, the Matrons evoked their sunrise Benediction before the crowd of famished children. Today, it was Matron Mariel’s turn to sing the prayer, which was a relief for Kari and Rom. They felt she had the best voice of all the Matrons, in addition to being among the more kindly to them all. Of all the Matrons, Mariel cared the most for the children and they cared the most for her in return. She was the most likely one to look in on them during stormy nights, the one who made certain they all received presents during the Nights of Song celebrations.

  The children heard her voice each night as she cast the protective wards on the doors leading into the Orphanage. It was one of the few forms of the Arts practiced by the Matrons of Aerthos, despite their being one of the oldest orders of faith. It was sometimes whispered that the Matrons had chosen to remain outside the wall not due to exile, but in service of the lost souls condemned to life beyond the protective embrace of the Royal Family’s influence.

  Matron Mariel was the shortest of the Matrons who attended to the orphanage, and perhaps that single fact had seemed to create something of a commonality between her and Rom. But it was also her who had been on duty at the front gates the night Rom had arrived, shivering in the rain beneath a battered parasol, barely old enough to stand on her own. It was she who had given Rom her name – from the word Romanilla, which, in the ancient language of their order, meant Season of Snow.

  Matron Mariel closed her green eyes and raised her chin, pausing long enough for the assembled children to recognize their responsibility to be silent and give respect to their traditions. She took a soft, deep breath, and lifted her voice in song:

  Deeply from the shadow of the night we faithful cry,

  Earnest to the Lords of Aerthos, Air and Sky:

  Hear the constancy of hope which we do in silence shine

  Surrendering to the sunrise in which governance is thine.

  Slave away in night and day

  Do we beneath the watchful sun;

  While out of sight in the slumbering night

  Lay the fallen, forgotten ones.

  Give heed, oh skies above we pray all injuries be healed,

  Protect us from the deep behind your armor and your shield.

  Cast our weaknesses away, unto the wild and untamed lands

  Until our souls atoned are claimed within the Shepherd’s hands.

  Breathe and dream over iron and steam

  Do we beneath the watchful sun;

  While far past night and dreams and sight

  Fly the risen, remembered ones.

  Matron Suvanna was the first to open her eyes, hawk-like in her efforts to ensure that no child broke from their reverent postures to steal even a drop of food before the last note had completely faded from the room.

  At last, Matron Mariel opened her eyes, extended her arms to the room and smiled. “Please, you may eat.”

  Needing no further encouragement, the children all dug in, filling the room with the sounds of low conversation and spoons against metal bowls.

  While Rom ate, she looked up and briefly made eye contact with Matron Mariel as the Matrons made their way among the tables, softly greeting the children. Mariel smiled before moving on along her way, and Rom’s eyes were drawn to a bronze plaque above the doorway that led back out into the rest of the orphanage.

  It was very old, nearly as old as the building itself, but it was well maintained and legible in its flowing script in raised letters. Rom shared each meal with that plaque – it was hard not to notice it, as it was the only decorative feature in the room. It read: “Sheltered be the lost children; may they have life unending and heaven’s wings upon their feet.” She’d read that sign every morning, her eyes habitually drawn to it, but something seemed strangest about it this morning, though try as she might she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Rom’s eyebrows scrunched up. She could never make sense of that plaque. It sounded like it was supposed to mean something good for orphans, or else it was promising people that gave children a place to stay would be given wings or… Rom shook her head. She’d asked each of the Matrons to explain that plaque and they all gave her different answers. When she pointed this out to them, they just shook their heads and smiled and told her something about how some mysteries were only meant to be understood by certain people.

  “You still angry about Milando?” Kari asked, interrupting Rom’s ponderings.

  She shook her head. “I’m just wondering if I’m ever going to get out of here.”

  Kari smiled, taking another spoonful of breakfast. “In two years, we’ll both be apprenticed, and it’ll all be fine,” she assured her. “You always worry about that.”

  “That’s because I can’t do anything,” Rom pouted. “It�
��s fine for you, you’re a genius and you’re gonna get any apprenticeship you want.”

  Putting down her spoon, Kari turned to face her friend. “Don’t say that, Rom. You’re really good at things, too. Like, with animals! You’re great with animals!”

  Rom looked around nervously to see if anyone was listening, and was relieved to see they weren’t. It was common knowledge that Rom had an uncanny knack with all sorts of creatures. Several years ago during a vicious thunderstorm, the Matrons followed an unexpectedly heightened volume of screams coming from the girls’ dormitory to find all the girls but one huddled by the beds nearest the door. On her bed on the far side of the room sat an upright Rom, calmly covered in a small pile of sleeping rats.

  A year later, she had been returning from the market with a few other children, their hands full with the weekly agricultural donations, when a pair of alley dogs cornered the seven-year old red-haired boy Aidin and his younger brother Kirin. Aidin stepped in front of his brother, but the animals could only smell the salted pork in the smaller boy’s packages. With a rustle of fabric, Romany moved between the two boys and the wild beasts, and pointed back into the side street from which the dogs had leapt. Her two small eyebrows furrowed, her lips curled back from her teeth in a feral growl.

  “Grrrrr!” she said. “Bad dogs! You go home and leave us alone!” She growled again, as if punctuating her commands. To the other children’s amazement, the dogs lowered their tails and ran away without so much as a whimper between them. For a long moment, the children had stared at the increasingly peculiar white-haired girl, whose attention remained fixed on the retreating dogs as they slunk away and out of sight. Satisfied that they were left in peace, she turned back to the other children, and, still ignorant of their unease, triumphantly announced that they could now move on. Confidently, she led the other children back to the orphanage.