by Dave Butler
Turning, he shoved them both into the hole. He thrust Gnat first, because she was small. The flow of the water grabbed her pixie body and pulled her through the opening. As she slipped from his grasp, it occurred to Charlie for the first time that he didn’t really know what was on the other side.
He hoped he hadn’t just dropped his pixie friend into an abyss.
But there was no going back. He shoved Bob next.
She was drowning, and her flailing arms and legs prevented her from fitting into the hole. Charlie crawled around the front of her, took her face in both hands, and forced her to look into his eyes.
“You’ll be fine!” he tried to shout.
She looked confused, but she stopped struggling, and Charlie pushed her through the opening.
He clambered back up the rock to get Ollie. But when Charlie pushed his head above water—the top of his head bumping against the ceiling—Ollie grinned at him.
“I got this one,” the sweep said.
Bamf! Ollie the yellow water snake slithered past Charlie and dived.
Charlie followed. Once he had himself squarely in front of the opening, the rushing water pulled him through—
and he tumbled across hard stone.
He heard gasps for air. As soon as he could stand, Charlie counted his friends. They were all there and all breathing.
And they were in Giantseat. It wasn’t the chamber they’d been in before, but it must be part of the barony. Charlie saw nests and multicolored light scattered by colored stones in the walls and the ceiling. A thick stream of water burst from the steel wall and flowed away across the cavern, but Giantseat was vast, and it wouldn’t fill up anytime soon.
“Charlie!” Ollie rose up from his snake form with a grin on his face. “Don’t you ever stop being a hero, mate!”
Charlie wanted to answer, but when he opened his mouth and tried to talk, he spouted water instead.
“ ’IS LUNGS!” Bob shouted. “ ’E’S GOT WATER IN ’IS LUNGS!”
Stupidly, that made Charlie happy. He had lungs. Some kind of lungs, anyway.
But he couldn’t wait for the Iron Cog’s men to catch up. Charlie dug in his pocket and found Brunel’s Final Device. He held it in his hand and looked at it. His plan had been to get out of Mountain House and immediately trigger its destruction, but now he hesitated.
If he triggered the device, would he kill the men in the tunnel behind them?
Were they dead already?
If he didn’t kill them, would they catch Charlie and his friends?
“You ain’t comfortable setting off that thing, are you?” Ollie looked intently at Charlie.
Charlie spat up more water trying to answer.
Bob threw a soaking wet arm over his shoulder and shouted right into Charlie’s face. “I AIN’T EITHER, MATE. IT’S ONE THING TO STAB A MAN WHEN ’E WANTS TO STAB YOU FIRST. IT’S ANOTHER THING TO DROP A MOUNTAIN ON ’IS ’EAD WHEN ’E MIGHT NOT EVEN BE FOLLOWING YOU.”
Ollie gestured at the pixie barony around them. “Besides, who knows what’ll happen to this place if you set off that device? Don’t do us much good to squash them if we get squashed ourselves in the bargain.”
Charlie finally managed to spit out enough water that he could talk again. “But what if they’re right behind us? We’re not armed.”
“RIGHT AS ALWAYS, CHARLIE,” Bob agreed. “SO I RECKON WE’D BETTER GET A MOVE ON. TIME TO ’IT THE OPEN ROAD, INNIT?”
Charlie shook his head. “Thomas needs us. And I have an idea how to find him.”
Bob gave Charlie’s mainspring a few turns and they left.
The flood of water from Mountain House flowed into the brook splitting Giantseat in two and caused it to swell into a small river. Having found the brook, Charlie and his friends easily made their way to the big-folk gate they’d used before and exited into the high valley on Cader Idris.
The last stars were winking out in a field of indigo brightening into blue as they emerged.
“ ’Elp me understand why you want to find Thomas, then,” Bob said as she gave Charlie’s mainspring a more thorough winding. Her shouting had lasted half an hour, but then her voice had returned to normal. They had seen no sign of pursuit, and Charlie wanted to have as much energy as he could for whatever he’d have to face that day.
“I understand it.” Ollie looked at Charlie with piercing eyes. “He don’t want to feel alone in this world.”
“Charlie ain’t alone.” Bob finished and Charlie shrugged back into his peacoat. “ ’E’s got us.”
“You’re a mate, Bob,” Ollie said. “You’re a good mate. You ain’t a brother.”
Charlie felt embarrassed. “Yeah, but also, Brunel said that Thomas was part of his plans. And he said a good engineer always built redundancies into his devices. That means—”
“I know what it means,” Bob said sharply.
“I don’t,” Ollie said.
“Having redemptories means there’s a backup plan,” Bob explained impatiently.
No one corrected her vocabulary.
“I think I’m the redundancy,” Charlie said. “So whatever it was Brunel was doing to defeat the Iron Cog, Thomas knows about it. Thomas knows how to do it, and if he fails, I’m supposed to do it instead.”
“That’s a bit of a leap, mate,” Bob said. “Your dad ever tell you about ’ow you were part of a plan to defeat an evil organization?”
Charlie wasn’t so sure. Hadn’t Brunel said that Charlie had also been built to carry out Brunel’s plans? That left Charlie very uncertain how to feel about himself, about his bap, and about Brunel.
Also, he had only recently learned he was not a boy of flesh and blood. Now, on top of that, he struggled with the idea that there was a demon in him. Or some kind of demonic power.
Charlie was a mechanical boy. And in some way he didn’t quite understand, he was a creature of magic.
It was a lot to deal with.
“I’m with Bob,” Ollie said. “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. What is it you think Thomas is supposed to do, anyway?”
Charlie hesitated. “I think maybe it’s a spell Thomas is supposed to cast.”
“You know ’ow to cast any spells?”
Charlie shook his head.
“There you are, then,” Ollie said. “Brunel had a plan, and Thomas was part of it. You don’t figure into it.”
Charlie nodded slowly. “But I still want to help. Brunel is gone and so is his airship full of supplies, but if we can find Thomas, maybe we can defeat the Iron Cog. And I know someone who can help us find Thomas.”
He pulled Thassia’s compass from his pocket, the one that always pointed to Syzigon’s wagon. Its needle swung around and indicated east.
Bob stuck her hands in her pockets. “Sorry we ain’t got the flyer no more.” Her lip trembled. “This would be a quick little jaunt.”
Charlie shook his head. “Even if we had it, I think we’d be better off walking. We’ll attract less attention on foot.”
They hiked down Cader Idris.
Charlie deliberately kept them away from the trail, instead cutting across sheep pastures and heading east when the trail would have taken them south to Machine-Town. He skirted Aunt Big Money’s burrow by a wide margin, but Ollie still stopped on a high knoll and looked in the direction of the witch rabbit’s mound.
He stood a long time with his hands in his pockets, peacoat slowly drying in the morning sun. “Thing is,” he eventually said, “all my life, all I’ve wanted to be is an Englishman. And because I’m a shape-changer, a loup-garou, all my life I’ve known I’m really French.”
“Easy, Ollie,” Bob said.
Ollie shrugged. “Each folk has got its magic, doesn’t it? The Dutch have got fish wizards.”
“Ichthyosaurs.”
“I don’t think that’s quite right, but yeah. And Russians have demon summoners. And the English can muck about with the weather. And the French change shape.”
“And dwarfs
have finding and not-finding spells, and trolls have blood magic.” Charlie wondered about pixies.
“Yeah.” Ollie looked at him keenly. “But what magic has a clockwork rabbit got?”
Charlie considered that.
“See?” Ollie’s face brightened. “Got you thinking, hasn’t it? Because she had something. And it wasn’t magic that came from being of a folk. Because a clockwork creation doesn’t have a folk.”
Ollie didn’t mean that in a hurtful way, but the truth of it still stung. A clockwork creation didn’t have a folk.
Except maybe Thomas. He had Thomas, if he could find him.
“And you,” Ollie continued. “You and Thomas, Charlie. Turns out maybe you’ve got magic, too, if I’m understanding that right. You’ve got magic in you. And Thomas, you think he can do magic. And if old Brunel was right about engineering being magic, well…he and your dad had the same kind of magic, even though one was from England and the other was from India.”
“What are you saying, Ollie?” Bob asked.
“I’m saying maybe people have got it all wrong.”
“ ’Twouldn’t be the first time,” Gnat said.
“Maybe magic talent has nothing to do with your folk at all. Maybe it’s just a gift, like being tall, or fast, or clever.”
“Or ambivalent.”
“What?”
“You know. Able to use both ’ands just as well.”
“Ambidextrous, Bob.”
“You’re saying maybe you’re not French?” Charlie asked.
“Maybe I ain’t French.” Ollie folded his arms across his chest. “And maybe…I don’t know. If Aunt Big Money could learn to do that thing she did with eggs and rocks, maybe I could learn to do a little weather magic. Or whatever.”
“Yeah.” Bob clapped Ollie across his shoulders. “I reckon you could.”
“There’s another possibility.” No one asked Gnat what she meant, but she pressed on anyway. “Perhaps clockwork creatures are indeed a folk.” She pointed at Charlie. “Charlie here is clearly more than a machine.”
“I have feelings,” Charlie said.
They all nodded their agreement at that.
“And I’d say the same of Thomas and the witch rabbit. So who really knows? Maybe clockwork folk have a magic and it has to do with scrying, or maybe it has to do with stones or eggs or fire. Or maybe Charlie and Thomas and the rabbit and the two inventors all together make some kind of folk, in a way we don’t understand.”
Ollie cursed. “That’s why I wanted to talk to Big Money.”
“Aye, I know,” Gnat said. “And I’m sorry. But since we can’t do that, maybe we should go find Thomas instead. Maybe he can help us understand more about clockwork folk.”
Ollie nodded firmly and led the way.
Bob lingered after the others had marched on, looking down the hill at Aunt Big Money’s warren with her hands in her pockets. Charlie stopped and waited for her to catch up; when she did, she whistled, winked at him, and passed him on the trail.
* * *
As before, the compass led Charlie and his friends to the crimson-and-gold dwarf wagons off the highway and hidden in a stand of trees. The wagons abruptly appeared from nowhere once Charlie got within the circle of Thassia’s Wards of Distraction.
But this time the wagons weren’t a wreck. Three sheyala heads peered from the backs of three wagons as Charlie and his friends approached.
“A certain friend is back!”
Aldrix ran to Charlie and threw himself around Charlie’s knees in a tight embrace. Charlie tousled the little dwarf’s hair.
The adult dwarfs all came out of their wagons or from the woods. Their faces were deeply lined and their eyes sleepless. Syzigon carried little Yezi in a sling around his chest. “Praise earth and sky,” he said.
Lloyd Shankin crawled out from under one of the wagons, brushing dirt and grass from the elbows of his black coat.
“We saw the fire,” Yellario said. Syzigon leaned on her as if he might fall over if she stepped away.
“The Old Man is dead.” Charlie couldn’t think of a better way to say it.
Atzick burst into a long wail. Syzigon and Calphor joined him. They sounded like three wounded wolves, howling at the sky.
“So your warning…” Yellario trailed off.
“It got to him too late,” Charlie said. “It was too late, even before I set out from London.”
“My condolences.” Lloyd Shankin made a small, solemn bow.
Yellario nodded. She took little Yezi, shrugging into the sling.
The male dwarfs began unplaiting their beards. They did it while wailing, and Charlie had a hard time focusing on his conversation.
“But worse…” Charlie forced himself to continue. “I’m not sure how to say this, but I think you need to know….”
Yellario raised her eyebrows.
“It was dwarfs. Dwarfs betrayed him. Dwarfs working for the Cog.”
Yellario pursed her lips. “What colors?”
“Purple,” Charlie said. “Purple and white.”
Yellario nodded. “Will you come with us, then? You can share our road, wherever we go.” She pointed at her husband, whose wailing continued to grow louder. “It’s not ordinarily my place to offer, but a certain dwarf who can get things done must mourn now. I’m sure the invitation will be approved.”
“Isn’t he worried about being heard?” Charlie asked. Syzigon had been so emphatic about secrecy.
Yellario nodded. “This is a sacrifice certain dwarfs make to honor their friend the Old Man.”
“The Wards are still in place,” Thassia said. “They’ll be as loud as they’re able, and I’ll do what I can to keep anyone from noticing their lament.”
“Naught so queer as folk,” Ollie muttered.
“Are you not going to mourn, then?” Gnat asked the dowser. “Did you not also know the Old Man of Mountain House?”
Thassia watched Atzick fall to the ground and pound the earth with both fists. “There are other ways of mourning than men’s ways.”
“Will you come with us?” Yellario repeated.
“Maybe afterward,” Charlie said. “It’s a generous invitation. But now I must find…I must find, and maybe rescue, a certain boy who is my brother.”
Yellario, Thassia, and Patali all stared.
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Thassia said. “Do you mean…?”
“He is the Old Man’s son. Like me, he is a created boy.”
Comprehension spread across the women’s faces. Patali and Yellario nodded, but Thassia frowned.
“It might be easier to help you if you were more…traditional brothers. Are you made from the same materials? Maybe from the same design?”
“ ’Ere now, no need to be rude.”
Charlie raised a hand to wave off Bob’s indignation. He knew what Thassia wanted.
“Ollie,” he said. “Can I have the scarf?”
Ollie’s face showed he was puzzled, but he handed the scarf right over. Charlie passed it to Thassia. “This belongs to a certain boy who is my brother. Will it serve? Can you help me find him?”
Thassia nodded. “Only make sure a certain lad who is your friend”—she nodded in Ollie’s direction—“doesn’t stand too close to the dowsing rod. The scarf may want to find him instead, since he’s been wearing it recently.” She looked closely at Charlie. “You say this boy is a made boy, as you are?”
“Yes.”
“Only ’e ain’t ’alf so brave as Charlie.”
Ollie laughed. “Ain’t none of us half so brave as Charlie.”
“Wait here.” Thassia climbed into her wagon.
Yezi was beginning to fuss, probably from the wailing sound her father and uncle and grandfather were making. She pulled at her own tiny beard and whimpered, and Yellario sang a droning tune in guttural words.
Thassia emerged from the wagon with a long piece of copper wire and a pair of pincers in her hand. “You’ll be the one
using this?” she asked Charlie.
Charlie nodded. Thassia took his hand and guided it to grasp the wire. She nodded her approval.
Then, as Charlie stared, Thassia bent the end of the wire, twisting it back along its own length and then out again to create a Y-shaped fork. She knotted Thomas’s scarf around the joint and wrapped it tautly along the wire’s length.
She grinned at Charlie. “This will do the trick. Now keep your grip tight.”
Rubbing the pincers up and down along the length of the wire, she began to chant.
Charlie looked about him for watching eyes and saw none.
The metal dowsing rod with Thomas’s scarf wrapped around it was dipping down, toward the lake.
The sliver of moon coming up over the mountains in the east and turning the angel in the center of the lake into a dark-eyed gargoyle told Charlie it was late. He stood again with his friends on the shore of the lake in the park adjacent to Plas Machynlleth.
And under the dark waters, Charlie again saw lights.
“I know what you’re thinking, mate,” Ollie said. “Don’t do it. You don’t know what’s under there.”
“Yeah,” Bob agreed. “Could be photogenic sharks.”
“Photogenic?”
“You know. Sharks as glow in the dark.”
“Phosphorescent, Bob.” Ollie scratched himself. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen since I left London, not by long odds.”
“Or ’ave Lloyd ’ere sing ’em all to sleep again first.”
Lloyd Shankin had insisted on coming along because he wanted to be useful. Now that he had his chance, he shook his head. “I don’t think that would work, not unless I could see them.”
“Even then,” Ollie agreed, “those Cog gents didn’t all fall asleep the first time, did they?”
Lloyd nodded glumly and looked at his feet.
“ ’Ere now,” Bob said. “Lots of ’em did fall asleep, an’ that’s the key thing, innit?”
Charlie pointed. “The lights aren’t moving, and I read in Flora and Fauna of the Mediterranean Sea that sharks can’t stop swimming, or they die.”
“Dead sharks aren’t less ’orrible. After all, you got to wonder what killed ’em.”
