Steampunk Tales, Volume 1

by Ren Cummins

  The most commonly-accepted reason for the abandonment of this and other buildings which sat so close to the shadow of the wall was described simply as proximity. “In the shadow” became a common term for the buildings inhabited and utilized by the original exiled former citizens of Aesirium, the city inside the Wall; they spent half their day literally in the shadow cast by the wall until the sun reached its daily zenith. Gradually, people built their homes further and further out until they reached right up to the edges of the agricultural fields themselves less than one mile from the base of the Wall. From there, the houses and other buildings followed the gently curving Wall north and south, remaining less than a half-day’s walk from the original center in either direction. With no centralized transportation to speak of, the inhabitants were forced to remain close to resources and each other. But while the buildings closest to the wall were often the oldest and most architecturally sound, they were also the least desirable; the coldest and, essentially, the most depressing.

  Every day, however, the Matrons would pause classes for an hour or two to let the children play in the central courtyard and feel the warm sun as it passed directly overhead, before it slowly laid its deepening blanket of shade back upon the building and its occupants.

  While Kari looked for an available place to sit down, Rom tried to appear as if she was innocently looking for a game to join. In truth, she was looking for Milando. She had the strong hunch he was going to take out his unresolved aggressive frustrations from earlier that morning on some of the younger children.

  Sure enough, she found him at the center of a small conflict; an improvised game of keep away with a pair of nine year olds. One of them was pretty new – she couldn’t remember his name – and the other was a boy named Whettle.

  Whettle Ardmore was preparing to be a tanner – his late father had been one, too – and he’d managed to fashion a decent ball from scraps he’d managed to come across during his time at the orphanage. It was this ball that Milando and his cronies were gleefully tossing amongst one another, far beyond the reach of Whettle and his friend. Whettle’s face was red, causing the many freckles on his otherwise pale face to stand out even more brilliantly.

  Kari must have noticed the abrupt change in Rom’s posture and placed a cautionary hand on her shoulder. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have one day without getting in a fight?” she asked.

  Rom looked back over her shoulder and shrugged. “Wouldn’t know.” Grinning mischievously, she added, “It’s too late for today, anyway.” The yells grew louder, shifting from fear to pain.

  Sighing, Kari let her friend go. “Don’t hurt them too much,” she said to nobody in particular.

  A lot of the other children had begun to spread out in a circle around the developing scene between Milando, Whettle and their respective friends. Some of the children even called out to Milando to stop, but some laughed and cheered. Rom frowned. People were funny, she thought. They’d do things when hiding in large groups that they’d never do on their own. She pushed her way through the ring of children and took stock of the situation.

  Milando stood in the middle, with his four friends randomly spaced around to toss Whettle’s ball between them. Whettle ran in a futile attempt to catch the ball as they threw it, and it looked like Whettle’s friend was already too tired to keep up with it. If Whettle was too tired, he was driven by more than just a petty stubbornness.

  It made sense to Rom. When she’d first come to the Orphanage, all she’d had with her was a battered old parasol and the simple dress she was wearing. She’d kept the parasol for years – slept with it, carried it with her at all times, in fact. Eventually, the Matrons had taken the pitiful, broken corpse of a parasol away and disposed of it. Rom had cried for a month over it. Here in this place, the children had very few possessions to call their own, and what they were able to hold on to meant the world to them.

  Eventually, the crowd noticed Rom standing inside the circle with the other seven children and grew silent. Milando turned, holding the ball far above Whettle’s head with one hand, and spotted Rom as well.

  He looked around, making sure his own gang were well-positioned for the new player in their aggressive little game. Pushing Whettle down, Milando turned and stood between the smaller boy and Rom. His green eyes flashed a challenge to her.

  The white-haired girl stood still for a moment, watching the slowly-moving pattern form between the larger children. She waited just long enough for the perfect opportunity and then took off in a dead sprint, clearing the distance in a pair of seconds and kicking hard against the ground. Her jump took her completely above their heads: it appeared almost as if she was flying, her arms stretched out straight to pluck the ball from Milando’s hand. Spinning and twisting to skid to a stop, she faced the boys, holding the unusually heavy ball protectively under her arm.

  It took Milando a full moment to realize what she’d just done.

  “Can I play?” she grinned at Milando. “Or is this only for stupid people?”

  Yelling incoherently, Milando charged her, his arms flailing.

  From a deep crouch, she leapt straight into the air, planting one hand on Milando’s greasy black hair and vaulted him completely. Unable to slow his momentum, the added pressure of the girl’s hand on his head sent him sprawling to the ground. Rom kept the ball tucked underneath her arm as she landed softly, wiping her free hand on the cotton dress.

  “Ew,” she frowned. “You need a bath.”

  The bully got quickly – if not dexterously – to his feet and rushed her again. She spun towards him and jumped back – once, twice, three times – each leap covering a half dozen meters and quarter of the distance of the courtyard. Her main focus was not so much to keep Milando away from her, but to make sure his four friends weren’t able to surround her. Following his lead, they turned towards her and moved together.

  A short burst of noise behind Rom made her turn briefly to see one of Milando’s crew being restrained by two red-haired brothers. He had apparently been trying to sneak up on her from behind, but now struggled with a pair of familiar faces.

  “Fair fight?” Aidin asked him, grinning towards Rom. “Maybe you should sit this one out.” Aidin, the older of the two, managed to pin the larger boy down while Kirin, the younger, held tightly to the bully’s knees.

  Rom smiled, and the two brothers nodded back.

  The next closest of Milando’s gang, an unpleasantly aromatic boy they all called “Pox”, took the ball square to the face, throwing him to the ground. Rom caught the rebound while jumping to the left, causing two of the other boys to stumble against each other in their attempts to follow her. She spun on her right heel, popping Milando in the head with the ball, and kicked it as it bounced back towards her, ringing with a satisfactory thwap against the shortest in Milando’s group. The ball bounced free to her right, and she somersaulted over it, collecting it mid-flight, and continued in another flip as the remaining boy lunged for her and missed. Landing on her right foot, she spun and flipped again, her left foot striking the boy on the jaw and throwing him backwards onto the ground.

  Milando tried to close the gap, but after three quickly successive strikes with the ball, he staggered to his knees, his arms protectively covering his face. “Okay, okay, stop!” he yelled.

  Aidin and Kirin released the remaining boy, but he had by this point lost what little will he had to fight the white-haired dervish at Milando’s surrender. Rom nodded to him, silently commending him for his intelligence. She walked through the boys towards Whettle, and handed him his ball. As he stared at it with new admiration, she looked back at her handiwork.

  “What’s in that thing, anyway?” she asked. “Rocks?”

  He grinned. “Only ten or twelve small ones. It needed the weight, only now it doesn’t bounce so good.”

  “Hmm.” She mused, looking over at Milando and his gang as they got to their feet. “I think it’s just fine.”

  Kari ran to her side at that
moment. “Rom, one of the Matrons is coming!”

  Rom frowned and turned to look back towards the main building. Matron Kanto was standing in the door to the courtyard, her dark brown eyes scanning the bouncing heads until she locked on Kari and Rom.

  “You two – come with me!” she called out over the cacophony. The two girls sighed and obeyed, making their way through the rapidly-dispersing crowd of children.

  Rom leaned close to Kari to whisper as they walked. “Am I going to get in trouble every time there’s a fight?”

  Kari barely managed to hide her smile. “Isn’t that what happens already?”

  “Shush,” Rom pouted.

  Matron Kanto was one of the newer Matrons to serve in the Orphanage. Her naturally dark skin stood out among the pale faces of the children, but rather than distancing her from them, seemed to make her realize the poor conditions in which they lived.

  Seeing the concerned expressions on the two girls, the Matron’s voice softened, “Don’t look so worried, you two. The healers need someone to pick up some packages from the market, and Matron Mariel said that you two would be a suitable choice.”

  Kari’s eyebrows scrunched together. “So this isn’t about…?”

  The Matron cut her off with a quick shake of her head. “I didn’t see a thing, though the Gods know that young rascal has had that coming for a while now.” She winked, adding, “Not that I or any of the other Matrons would ever condone what I didn’t see anyone do.”

  She handed Kari a small scroll wrapped in twine, and a leather pouch that jingled softly when she placed it in Rom’s palm. The two girls looked at each other, managing to hide their smiles of excitement. The Matrons liked to give various children chores from time to time, and the menial natures of the tasks aside, they generally meant one thing: freedom to wander around the town unattended. If the Matrons knew how much the opportunity to get outside the orphanage meant to them – or so the children suspected – the Matrons would do all the random tasks themselves.

  Through a fog of anticipation, Rom and Kari struggled to pay attention to the details of their assignment.

  “…and then come back and deliver the packages to Matron Maritia, who will be expecting you both up in the infirmary. Do you understand?”

  The two girls nodded in unison. “Yes, ma’am,” they chirped, and ran for the main doors, pausing only to spin back and curtsy a brief thank you before continuing on their way.

  The Matron smiled. If the girls only knew, she thought to herself, how happy it made her and the other sisters to see their youthful excitement. The time they spent in Oldtown’s only orphanage so seldom enjoyed the sound of optimistic laughter, and the few occurrences it managed to echo through the otherwise saddened halls of the once-dedicated temple to the old gods were like rainbows after a winter storm. Her eyes raised to the temple doors – inside, she knew, prayers and old rites were being performed even now; fervent pleas on behalf of a departing soul.

  Before they stepped out of earshot, the Matron called after them with the final reminder, “Remember, girls: indoors by sundown.” They waved cheerfully back before stepping out the magically protected doorway. Matron Kanto shook her head softly and went back to her duties, mouthing silent words of prayer to watch over the two girls.

  Chapter 6: Cousins

  Beyond the Orphanage, the ground between the buildings were cobblestone and mortar; streets wide enough for a dozen adults to walk with their arms outstretched and touch their fingertips. A stark contrast to the crisp echoes within the stone surfaces in their home, the air outside enveloped them in an indistinguishable stew of voices and sounds. The earthen tones as they met the lush red bricks, connected by an endless latticework of copper and grey steel piping captured the sunlight and bent it around them, bathing them both in a golden warm glow.

  The thoroughfare near the row of buildings which comprised Oldtown’s western market was as mildly crowded as could be expected this time of day. Most of the agricultural staff were tending to the fields, and the rest of the city was buzzing with the normal flow of work; the rhythmic ringing of the anvils announced the productivity of the blacksmiths, the sounds of hammers and saws added a chorus of the construction laborers, and even the more literal harmonies fluttered through the din from the music halls. The weekdays in the orphanage mirrored that of the rest of Oldtown; six days to attend to all the labors of the common soul, two days to rest. It was staggered through various occupations; clearly, emergencies might happen on any given day –but everyone was granted their Twoday to recoup from their efforts. But this was Lastday, and it was the day most of the citizens of Oldtown had to make up for any lost time during the week.

  Rom soaked it all in – all the sounds, the completely incoherent noise from a few hundred people all speaking in raised voices – bartering, negotiating, greeting, gossiping. And below the conversational clamor was the ever-present hiss and ping of steam in the pipework latticework; the Orphanage was a much older building, and thus not on the grid; but all the relatively newer buildings and construction zones were ‘plugged in’ to the source for heat and pliable energy. Something about it all made the rest of the city feel more alive and dynamic, but it also made the Orphanage seem all the more cold and lifeless. The notable transition from that place to here in the heart of the bustle of Oldtown was so dizzying that it took her several moments to realize Kari was no longer walking beside her. She spun around, her eyes finally catching sight of her friend, who stood near an open alleyway, her head cocked and eyes squinting. Rom walked back to her, shaking her head.

  “Kari, I almost lost you… again,” she began, but Kari held up a hand to silence her.

  “Shhh – do you hear that?”

  Rom arched an eyebrow and pointed a thumb towards one of the many conduits that crisscrossed the buildings on this side of town. “Um, they’re called pipes?”

  “No, not that,” Kari frowned, her hands waving. “Oh, grrrr,” she muttered. “Now I lost it.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know, it sounded like people singing, only they weren’t people, it was like they were - ” her eyes widened and she turned back the way they’d come. “There it is!” And, with that, she ran off.

  Rom glanced back briefly towards the market. She shrugged, running after Kari. The market would still be there when they were done…with whatever it was they were doing now.

  Kari turned a sharp left at the first building on the right end of the street, and ran headlong into a boy only an inch or two shorter than she was. Her momentum won out, sending them both sprawling to the ground with a pair of yelps.

  Rom helped Kari to her feet. “Oh. Cousins,” she said to the boy. Again, that strange sense of familiarity twisted itself at the back of Rom’s brain. Hadn’t this happened already? She shook her head.

  Cousins seemed to only halfway acknowledge her presence, rolling back to his feet and grabbing a small shoulder bag that he’d dropped in the collision. Pulling a grey cap down low over his straw-colored hair, he gave one last furtive glance over his shoulder and ran off without a word.

  As Kari brushed herself off, Rom looked down the street after the boy. His given name was Ballis, but everyone called him Cousins. Everyone in the town knew him as the boy who knew everyone in the town; this had as much to do with his boundless curiosity and good natured charm as much as it had to do with his grandparents, who were said to be responsible for a good tenth of the adults and, thus an easy third of the children in Oldtown. Everyone either was his cousin or acted enough like it. At the same time, no two people, if questioned, could agree on exactly who his grandparents were, either.

  “That’s strange,” Rom muttered. “He acted like he didn’t even know me.” Though only a year or two their senior, he’d found his place on the streets as a scrounge, as a competent pair of ears and eyes. Rom had never seen him like this, however. If she had to give her best guess, she’d say he was running from something. Her eyes stayed on him until h
e turned the next corner, then looked back in the direction he’d come.

  A few moments later, two people –a man and a woman – came into view through the milling crowds. The woman wore a long jacket with only three buttons fastened and a collar made of a light brown fur. Her eyes were concealed by a pair of thick bronze goggles which matched her smooth skin. Multiple earrings glinted from both ears in the afternoon sun. At first, it looked as if the woman was a fair bit taller than the man, but Rom then saw that he was actually seated on some sort of vehicle with two large wheels.

  Fixed between the two wheels was a series of pipes and tanks that reminded Rom of one of Professor Theremin’s devices – and small puffs of white steam drifted enthusiastically from the back of the vehicle.

  Kari noticed the vehicle too, judging by the little appraising “ooh” which Rom overheard.

  The two people appeared to be arguing about something, and when the woman turned back, her jacket spun open enough to reveal a leather belt slung low across her hips.

  Rom had only seen a pistol once in a book she’d read, but she had always remembered it. And that woman, whoever she was, had one. Rom’s grip tightened on Kari’s wrist.

  “Hey, ouch! Rom, let go, you’re - - what?” Rom’s raised hand cut her off.

  “Shhh,” she hissed. “We need to go.”

  She wanted to turn around at that instant, take Kari and fade casually into the crowd of people in the market, but just as she had started shifting weight to turn, the man’s eyes locked with hers.

  His face seemed both handsome and a little frightening to Rom. From his narrow but firm jaw, his blue eyes peering from beneath tousled sun-bleached hair, to the resolute expression on his lips. A double breasted and elegant waistcoat accented his grey slacks, and a thin gold chain hung beneath his opened collar. Rom felt funny, both nervous and a little scared. Everything got a little quiet, suddenly, as if her head was wrapped up in her pillow and blankets.