Steampunk Tales, Volume 1

by Ren Cummins

  Kari looked at Merrick and mouthed the one-word question “badge?” He responded by pulling up his sleeve and displaying a leather wristband, the back of which framed a thick tarnished emblem of the college – the hand holding a bolt of lightning, within the triangular symbol of the Path of Elements. The item the clerk extended to her a few minutes later, however, was brightly polished, with multiple layers of interwoven metals and embedded in a steel hinged band. The interior was fitted with softer leather, comfortable against Kari’s skin. The clerk pulled out a small tool from his belt and fitted it to her wrist, locking it into place.

  “It only needs a number 3 drill bit to adjust or remove,” he told her. “You’ll have those in your lab, sure enough. And here are your keys,” he added, holding up a large brass ring with nearly twenty oddly-shaped devices which, she admitted, were more or less key-shaped, even though she couldn’t at this point imagine the kind of locks they’d fit into. “Keep those safe, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  She tucked them into a pouch on her toolbelt, and snapped the pouch shut.

  By this time, the old man was pulling out a small stack of books and additional metal sheets. “Ye’ll need these too, accordin’ to yer Token. There’s more, but I’ll have to order it from next door, be here in a day or two. Yer Designate – Professor Theremin, who’s overseein’ you - already came by earlier and went over a few things ye’ll need beyond the usual smithy gear. I sent over a few of my boys t’load yer room up. Probably done by now if the little miscreants didn’t stop for lunch.”

  Though momentarily grinning at the mention of the Professor, Kari managed to push through her lingering shock to hand him the parchment and the envelope Goya had given her. “Goya asked me to give these to you, also, sir,” she said tentatively.

  He glanced briefly at the parchment and tore open the envelope to read the contents. His large bushy white brows rose as he read the writing inside. “Hmm? Oh ho, well enough.” He tucked the envelope and paper under the counter and jabbed at the parchment list with his stubby index finger. “Yeah, I’ve got these, all right. Guessin’ Goya’s always got sommat cookin’ ‘neath that hair o’ hers.” He chuckled, shaking his head. Placing the paper on the desk, he looked down at Kari.

  “Well,” he harrumphed, “lemme see ‘em, then.” He waved his hand out towards Kari. “The gloves,” he explained. “She says I need t’ fit ‘em fer you.”

  Confused, Kari drew the metal gloves out of the pouch she wore across her shoulder and placed them in his hands. What the old man’s grin lacked in teeth it made up for in enthusiasm. Merrick gasped again. Kari felt momentarily bad that her own first day seemed to be so completely outshining his entire first year here.

  “Are those…?” Merrick stammered.

  “Knock it off, boy, yer gonna give Kari here a complex.” To Kari, he nodded. “These’re kind of a relic ‘round these halls. A myth, some thought; jus’ a little bedtime story t’ tease all the new steamers here. They’re called the Antarin Gauntlets, and they’re right real, no matter what sommat wager.”

  He held up one glove and motioned for Kari to slip her hand inside it. She’d tried them on a few times before, but they were so loose that they always just fell right off. They were excessively large, coming up to nearly her elbow. But now the old man held up one finger to gather her attention and pulled back one of the small plates on the inside of her wrist. Below the exposed plate she could clearly see a thin brass gear. This he spun slowly – and as he did so, she felt the interior of the gloves tighten until they snugly held her hands – the outside of the gauntlets seemed no different at all, but the entire space within now held firm around her skin.

  “Now try th’ other one,” he told her. She tried to anticipate for the thick fingers but now found that in spite of their thickness, she not only felt unimpeded by the gloves but felt them almost reacting to her needs. She picked up the other glove and slid it over her hand and lower arm. She found the same plate on this glove and folded the plate back to reveal the tiny gear. Within a few moments, both gloves fit her perfectly, in spite of their apparently excessive size.

  “Spanners!” he congratulated her. “Ye’ve already got th’ hang of it.”

  She looked closely at the play of the plates and gears as she moved her fingers and hands within them. The movement was precise and effortless, and once she got used to it, it was hard to believe she had the gloves on at all. Her eyes returned to the clerk. “How do you know about these?” she asked.

  He laughed briefly. “I’m the one what found ‘em and handed ‘em over to Goya in th’ first place, what, twenty years ago. I woulda liked t’ keep ‘em, but it was time I passed ‘em on.” He nodded again, adding, “Good t’ see ‘em find a decent pair ‘f hands t’ put ‘em t’ use.”

  “What do they do?” she asked.

  “Ah,” he chuckled. “They do a lot, that’s fer certain. There’s no book what tells you their secrets, ye’ve just gotta sort it yerself. And don’t worry ‘bout breakin’ ‘em,” he added. “If a grunt like meself can leave ‘em in so good a shape, suren a cautious lass like yerself can’t do no harm.”

  With those final words of caution, he loaded her arms up with a few stacks of books and an additional iron box of tools that hadn’t been on the list but he was sure “would right come in handy anyways”, and instructed Merrick to lead her to her lab and then immediately turn around and leave before she opened the door.

  They were nearly halfway there when Kari realized that the load of books and supplies easily weighed as much as she did – and yet they felt no heavier than the piece of parchment she had carried before. Around her arms, the delicate gears shifted and hummed beneath the impressive weight they somehow displaced.

  Merrick seemed to notice this as well, and, one last mystery piled upon his trembling mind, he led Kari to the laboratory designated on her Token, took his stammering leave of her, and left her alone outside the door. After he had turned the far corner of the hall, Kari could have sworn she could hear him break into a full run.

  She set the heavy books and equipment down and fished through her keys until she found one whose engraved sigil matched one on the center of the door. In the center of the door there was a thick indentation that more or less mirrored the tapered end of the key – she slid the key into the indentation, slowly and cautiously.

  The key shivered, and a thin burst of steam erupted from the seal of the door, followed by a series of low mechanical clunk sounds – and the key practically fell back into her hand as the door swung inwards.

  She placed the key ring back into its pouch and stepped over her pile of belongings into the room. It was nearly pitch black inside the room, and as the hall outside was only dimly lit, she couldn’t see much farther than a few steps in. But her first footstep landed on a hollow metal plate that triggered a slow, almost inaudible hiss below the panels of the floor. Across the ceiling, long transparent tubes filled with some kind of liquid shivered to light, bringing the room into clarity.

  Kari stood in speechless wonder in the doorway to her new lab, struck temporarily mute by the realization of the nature of the large metal object which sat in various pieces, across the floor.

  To no one in particular – as she was, essentially, alone in the room – she finally whispered, “It’s a… Machine.”

  Chapter 6: A Reaper’s Life

  “Rom! Back! Now!” Mulligan commanded.

  She did as he said, but her right boot slipped on a loose patch of dirt and she couldn’t get sufficient momentum to somersault backwards. Instead, she landed square on her back as the creature continued to advance on her.

  Fighting at night around the streets of Oldtown was simple enough – the street lights kept the monsters in plain view, and the mostly even paving stones and enclosed spaces kept them fenced in while she fought them. But tonight, Ian had led her far out past the agricultural fields, into the bleeding edge of the wild. She hadn’t been out this far since the night she
’d died, and for a moment she wondered if she shouldn’t have waited a little longer to return.

  The creature she was fighting looked as if it had at one time been an insect, but the same corruptive influence that had turned so many of the creatures out in the Wild to monstrous proportions had turned this creature into a thing nearly as long as Ian was tall. Its dark black carapace made it impossible to strike from above, and its set of grotesque mandibles had already nearly caught Rom’s legs several times.

  The only thing worse than its six quickly moving legs was the fact that it could also spit a stream of painfully viscuous matter several meters out from its mouth. It had struck her left arm already and soaked through the cloth of her dress and stung bitterly. Rom wasn’t interested in letting that happen again.

  As it charged her, Rom struck the ground powerfully with her staff, using the resultant impact to flip her up and over to her left, allowing the insect to pass beneath her.

  From the safety of a tall branch of a nearby tree, Ian called down to her. “Try again,” he said. “Seek its mind, locate its thoughts.”

  She jumped back over it for the…she’d lost count how many times it had been, now. It felt like she’d been fighting it for an hour. Although, “fighting” wasn’t so much the accurate word as much as “dodging.” Rom didn’t really feel tired so much as she was getting bored with this.

  Regardless, she did as instructed, and attempted to clear her mind of all other thoughts and, hopefully, come to understand this thing better. She could feel a gentle but persistent nausea in the pit of her stomach – there was something wrong about this creature, and she had come to understand that this was her own body’s recognition that this creature was unnaturally caught between the worlds of life and the spirit. But breaking through to its mind was nearly impossible, she thought. Every time she tried, all she heard was the sound of rustling leaves.

  Rustling leaves? She nearly struck her own head in frustration. “You wouldn’t speak people, would you?” she asked, cartwheeling out of the way as it charged again.

  “Ian!” she yelled, feeling her own sense of accomplishment tempered by the realization that she should have discovered this much sooner. “It doesn’t speak people. What do I do?”

  “Learn insect!” he offered, a hint of amusement evident in his voice.

  “Funny,” she began, but the word ended in a squeal as the creature spun about faster than she’d anticipated and knocked her down, leaping atop her.

  Her crook was parallel to her prone body, and the mammoth insect’s legs prevented her from spinning it about, so she raised the larger top hook of the staff and wedged it in between the mandibles, preventing them from closing. Its breath reeked of moldy vomit and disease.

  “Gross!” she yelled. As it released her staff and repositioned its head to get a better angle at biting, Rom pulled down on the staff with her right hand and pushing up with the left. She hoped to perhaps distract it enough to wriggle out, but her movement was strong enough to vault the creature up and over her head.

  Rom jumped to her feet, preparing to dodge, but realized suddenly that the creature wasn’t attacking her. Instead, flipped over on its back, its legs scurried helplessly in the air, unable to right itself.

  “Perfectly done, Rom!” Ian applauded her, hopping down from the tree. Mulligan, too, fluttered down, coming to rest on her shoulders while Rom tried to catch her breath.

  He pointed towards the insect’s shell. “Now, be warned, some of these have wings – this will require the carapace to be able to open and close, meaning that even if you knock it upside down it may be able to right itself. Regardless, now you have time to try and come to understand its speech.”

  She was about to complain about her arm, but realized that it no longer hurt. Rom wanted to ask about this as well, but it felt rude to stand above a helpless and undead creature and talk about something entirely different.

  At once, the rustling noises in its head started to make sense. The epiphany expanded; Rom smiled broadly. “I get it now,” she said. “I understand what it’s saying now, I just had to try and see things the way it sees them. Oh, ew!” she finished.

  The staff shifted its form, becoming a scythe again, as if understanding for itself what was to come. Abruptly, Rom drove the blade through it, releasing its trapped soul into the world of the spirits.

  Rom shook her head, feeling of a sudden as though she needed a bath. “That thing was horrible,” she said, shivering with revulsion. “It was all about killing and eating and destroying.”

  Ian nodded. “Not all can be turned,” he said. “In point of fact, most cannot.”

  Rom thought about her powerful blue-furred friend. It was almost as though she could hear him in her mind. “Only the exceptional ones,” she smiled.

  “Only those,” he agreed.

  The moonlight sparkled off something shiny nearby, partially uncovered by the scuffle. Rom bent over to retrieve it; it was a large…something, made of glass and metal with a variety of wires extending from one side. She brushed off the dirt and held out a hand to Ian, who was holding a pack for her. He gave the small knapsack to her and she placed the object inside with a pair of other items she’d found tonight.

  “More tidbits for Kari?” he smiled.

  She nodded enthusiastically. “She’s been trading them to a couple suppliers for the college, trying to make enough to purchase some old box she’s been wanting.”

  “She has amassed a good deal of coin by now, I would suspect.”

  “I think so,” Rom said. “They seem to really love this old junk.”

  “Hmmm,” was all Ian said.

  They remained in the wild for another hour, but, finding nothing else of interest, made their way back to Oldtown.

  * * * * *

  Ian reached over to examine Rom’s hair in the dwindling moonslight, nodding in confirmation of his suspicion.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It’s only been two weeks since Briseida changed your hair color,” he observed, “but your natural color is already returning. You should have her dye your hair again.”

  Rom pouted. She wasn’t enjoying the dark hair as much as she’d hoped she would. Even though the stark blankness of her original hair had drawn so much attention to her as a child, she missed it now. She sighed. Being a Sheharid was quickly becoming less about jumping across the rooftops and more about hiding from the Queen and her minions.

  They stood on the roof of one of the granaries that was positioned just inside the Motive Wall. The Motive Wall was a dimly transparent membrane, constructed of pure Art which protected the streets of Oldtown each night from all but the most deeply corrupted beasts that wandered in from the wild.

  “Ian?” Rom asked, her eyes scanning the almost invisible dome of energy, watching as the occasional mote of dust or whatnot struck the wall and sent a ripple of pale blue flickers of light scattering from the place of impact.

  “Yes, Rom?” he replied, eyes remaining fixed on the horizon. They’d been standing here for several minutes without explanation; Rom was used to that now, as most of their training came from him leading her into a situation where she needed to respond and him telling her afterwards what she did wrong.

  “You understand Arts, right?” When he nodded that he did, she continued. “Well, how does this wall work, anyway? And why doesn’t it stop the undead creatures from coming in?”

  She could see him nod appreciatively, half-illuminated as the eternal pursuit of Grindel and Prama began to slip beyond the western horizon. “It’s a simple charm,” he explained. “It simply radiates a subtle sense of the predator out into the fields; most animals sense that and want nothing more to do with it, retreating instead back into the wild. It does not harm nor entice them; it simply motivates them to go elsewhere. I also hear it is quite effective against the rats,” he added with a grin.

  “And the monsters?”

  He nodded again. “Those who bridge life and death, or t
hose that remain fixed between them, no longer fear something as trivial as another predator. So I believe this is why they are able to approach and pass through the motive wall.”

  “Were there many of them…when you were a Sheharid?”

  “No,” he said, no trace of regret or remorse evident in his voice. “This is a recent shift in things. There are some random occasions when a soul refuses to leave the body, but it is typically a simple matter of allowing it to leave. It is as simple as that for us; we reach out and the spirit will generally drift away from their connection, and slip between this world and the other.”

  The sun, all but obscured by the Wall nevertheless was changing the sky into a brightening shade of purple and blue. Ian pointed out into the fields ahead of them. “See the mists, rising up from the fields?”

  Rom nodded.

  “In the old days, we Sheharid were also called the Twilight Gatherers, because of the way the sun seems to raise the mist from the ground. It does nothing more than rise above the cold soil, and Aerthos gives up its spirit as an offering to the sun.”

  “That’s…beautiful,” Rom breathed, watching the delicate wisps of vapor drift up into the air.

  Ian reached around to scratch Mulligan on Rom’s shoulders, eliciting a generous purr in response. “Never forget this, Rom,” he said. “Our calling is not about death. It has been and always shall be about life. Life, above all else.”

  She watched out across the fields as the mists continued to move about, gradually making their way upwards until they merged with the cooler air and vanished back into the sky. “It’s the most important thing,” she whispered.

  Chapter 7: The Queen’s Agents

  Marcos truly did not enjoy his job. This is not to say he hated the job, merely that this was perhaps the more elegant (of the many ways he had considered) description for the mundane and repetitive hell which had become his day-to-day existence since being given this assignment nearly a year ago. His new partner had only been in this refuse-infested slum for a pair of weeks now, but Marcos didn’t see freedom any time in his immediate future. He’d already gone through seven – seven? Or was it eight? – partners so far, and every time he thought they were about to promote him back into something even remotely resembling a life he’d dreamed of for himself, just like clockwork his partner would acquire some sort of disease, injury, personal or family crisis, and just like that he’d be training yet another replacement for a replacement for the replacement for his replacement. He’d lost count. Three had had blonde hair, four had dark hair, but two were women and six were men…or was it seven?