A vote was called for the new Grand Treasurer, with Winceward's chosen successor, Ferdinand Hullsburg, seen by many as the favourite, despite him not even being in the city at the time. Hullsburg was not quite as ruthless as Winceward was, but he shared many of his policies and views, including the policy of acquiescence and collaboration with the Regime, a viewpoint the Baroness made very clear had brought them all to their present ruin.
The Counter began his careful task, checking and rechecking the votes, which were supposed to be made anonymously, but with so many of the Treasurers openly sharing their views, some supporting or condemning Ebronah and the Resistance, it was largely clear where everybody stood.
The Counter called Ebronah to his table, to share the preliminary result. She sunk her head at the news, and the general approached her.
“How many more votes do you need?” he asked.
“Two,” Ebronah said.
Rommond swiftly unleashed his pistol and shot two of the opposing Treasurers between the eyes.
“How many now?”
“It's a tie.”
Rommond pointed his gun at the others who opposed Ebronah's election. “Is it?” he asked. “Or did you all accidentally vote for the wrong person?”
Several of the Treasurers immediately switched sides, casting their ballots in favour of Ebronah, coming up with all manner of excuses for why they had voted erroneously the first time around.
“This is most unorthodox,” the Counter complained.
“You learned to adapt when the demons came,” Rommond said. “Learn to adapt now, or you'll meet new demons when I send you all to Hell.”
The Counter began re-counting reluctantly, and sure enough, Ebronah won the vote. Her true supporters cheered, while the turncoats reluctantly clapped, likely celebrating more their own survival than the Baroness' victory. They might have lost the vote, but they lived to make a profit another day, and for many of them, that was all that truly mattered.
23 – GRUDGE
On board the Skyshaker, Taberah turned to face her accusers. She rested against the controls, and returned their glare with her own.
“This is a bad time,” she said.
“It's the perfect time,” Alakovi replied.
“What do you want?”
“I want you off this ship.”
“You'll have to throw me off.”
“We finally agree on something then,” the Matron said.
Taberah reached for a rifle beneath the control panel, but the Copper Matron raised a rifle of her own. “Ah ah, there's no point tryin' to grab for that.”
“Rommond won't forgive you for this,” Taberah said.
“He forgave you, and you never had his interests in mind.”
Taberah scoffed. “And you do?”
“Always. He's like a son to me.”
Taberah pointed to herself, to her heart. “He's like a brother to me.”
The Copper Matron's glower was unyielding. “One you stabbed in the back, one you couldn't help but be envious of.”
“I didn't envy him,” Taberah said.
“Only his position, his power.”
“One day you'll have to let that go, like Rommond did.”
“No,” the Matron said. “I have to let you go.”
“So you're going to kill me then,” Taberah said. “And my child.”
“With you as its mother, Taberah, that child might as well be already dead.”
Taberah bit her lip and turned her gaze away. She saw the line of Copper Vixens blocking every exit, blocking her escape. She could never fight them all.
“So, this is it,” Taberah said, holding up her hands.
“This is it,” Alakovi said, stepping forward.
“I'm supposed to just give in? I'm supposed to just give up?”
“Yes, you're supposed to do those things.”
“I'm supposed to not resist, not fight, not flee, not run?”
The Copper Matron nodded. “Yes.”
“Then what makes you better than the Regime?”
Alakovi grumbled and ground her teeth together, as if they were feasting on Taberah's bones.
“You think you have Rommond's best interests in mind,” Taberah said, “but you don't. You don't understand him. You never did, and you never will. He sees the bigger picture. I see the bigger picture. And right now that bigger picture is outside these windows. It's happening on the ground below.” She pointed at the windscreen, from where they could see the city burning. She hoped that Rommond was not burning too.
Alakovi shook her head violently. She almost seemed on the verge of thumping her chest, and of thumping Taberah soon after. “You,” she said, pointing an accusatory finger, “are a manipulator, and you're even doin' it now, tryin' to distract me, tryin' to make the call for the good fight. Well, this is the good fight, gettin' rid of you. We're stronger without you.”
“No,” Taberah said. “No, you're not. And what you're doing now shows just how weak you are.”
Alakovi stormed forward and smacked Taberah across the face, knocking her into the control panels. Taberah turned back to her, her cheek as red as her flaming hair, and her eyes more fiery still.
“Beat me if you want,” she said. “You'll never break me.”
“I'll kill you,” Alakovi threatened.
“And you'll still never break me.”
“It doesn't matter,” the Matron said. “So long as you're not there to break Rommond any more.”
She clicked her fingers, and several of the Copper Vixens strolled up, with smugness in their strides. Taberah knew many of them. At one point, they had been her sisters too. They had exchanged the secret grips and words, and they had shared so much in their sorority. Now she was outside the pale of their group, and it felt like she was outside the pale of all humanity.
Some of the women grabbed her harshly, while others, those who were closer to her in those bygone days, held her more gently. Some exchanged sympathetic glances, but most greeted her with glares, if they even looked at her at all. They led her away from the controls, which Cantro took back over, and led her down to a lower deck, where many others of the Resistance turned a blind eye to what was happening. Those among the Order who could see were not there to do it.
So many thoughts flashed in Taberah's mind. She wondered how she would die, if they would shoot her, or, more likely, throw her from the airship, like a pirate forced to walk the plank. Perhaps in the chaos in Blackout far below they would not find her body, or maybe it would be showcased by the Regime, proof of what happens to those who defy them. She thought of her child, and tried hard not to. What a terrible life the baby would be born into, and yet it was better than not being born at all. She thought of Brogan and what a terrible life he had lived so far, and wondered if he wished she had not brought him into this dying world. She wished she could say she loved him. She wished she could say goodbye.
Her thoughts consumed her, so much so that she barely noticed the cramps in her stomach, which seized her as much as the hands of the Copper Vixens. But they grew in intensity, until she could not think of anything else. As they led her down a corridor, Taberah suddenly stopped and grabbed the wall. She doubled over, clutching her stomach, and she cried out from the pain.
“Don't you be tryin' that with me,” Alakovi said. “I don't fall for your tricks like the others do. You can't use your woman's guile on me. I've got me own.”
But Taberah's cries did not abate—they increased. The pain ripped through her, and she found it difficult to stand. Then all eyes looked to the floor beneath her feet, where there was a growing pool of blood.
24 – SHAKEN
Blackout was mostly under Resistance control, but aboard the Skyshaker there was a frenzy, as if a new battle had just started. Taberah was rushed to Doctor Mudro, whom the Copper Vixens had kept locked in the cargo hold, but by that time there was little he could do. He got the baby out, but it was dead.
Alakovi's grudge was spent.
Though she had intended to send Taberah away, or maybe even kill her, this was punishment enough. She was the Copper Matron. She knew what it was like to lose a child. Anyone who conspired with her against the unpopular Taberah now felt a looming guilt, strong enough to match Taberah's looming grief.
* * *
The news spread to the city below, but Rommond's lieutenants made a conspiracy of their own: they told each other, and anyone else who knew, Jacob included, to keep it from him. The last thing he needed was to hear such terrible news, and know his own crew might have had a part in it. People looked to him for guidance. Now the entire city of Blackout looked to him too. So many had been shaken. He could not be one of them.
Jacob managed to slip away and return to the Skyshaker in a basket lowered down on an immense rope, like a gigantic umbilical cord, hauling him back into the womb of the airship. The mood there was grim. Few would have thought that they had just won back their capital. There were no celebrations, just silence.
Mudro led Jacob to Taberah's room.
“She's alone,” he said.
Those words never had so much meaning, so much power, so much sting.
Jacob entered the room slowly. It was dark, darker than it needed to be. There were gas lamps and candles there, but they were all snuffed out. The shadows crowded around Taberah's bed like mourners. She sat up, holding the sheets. She had nothing else to hold.
“Are you okay?” Jacob asked.
She did not respond. What tears she had shed, what screams she had made, were overwhelmed by silence. The room was thick with it, as if before Jacob had entered, there was silence enough for two.
Taberah did not look at him. She kept her gaze upon the farthest wall, where perhaps she saw something that he did not. The shadows did not gather there. They kept close to her, where they could hide her eyes, those fiery eyes, doused like the nearby lamps.
Jacob stepped further into the room, his head slumped low. His feet barely made any noise upon the ground. He was used to sneaking. He was not used to this.
He sat down on one of the chairs positioned around the bed. In a few months time, they might have been sat upon by joyous people, celebrating the birth of a new child. He would have been one of them, perhaps the most joyous of them all. Now he had the same seat, but nothing of the joy. What sorrow he felt, giving birth deep inside his soul, he knew was but a fraction of what Taberah must be feeling, if she felt anything at all.
What can I say? he thought, and he thought of nothing, so he let silence speak for him. Even the silence was full of apologies, full of remorse, of regret.
An hour passed without a word, without a stir, without a baby's coo or cry, and though it was only an hour, it felt like a lifetime—like the lifetime that little unborn child never got to live.
In time Jacob felt that there was nothing he could do there. He felt like he was somehow intruding on her silent communication with something else. He felt he was an imposter in his false uniform, pretending to be a soldier, an officer, pretending to be a father. He knew for certain he was not a husband, not a lover. He was not sure he was anything at all.
He stood up slowly and made his way towards the door.
“Jacob,” she called. Her voice was weak. She had lost a lot of blood. She had lost a lot of strength. Jacob hoped that she had not lost the will to live.
He turned back to her. The shadows shifted on her face. For the first time, he could see the glisten in her eyes. He could see the pain.
“It was going to be a girl,” she said. “It was going to be … she was going to be ...” She trailed off, but Jacob stayed there, because he knew she had more to say. “I lost my first,” she said. “I was seven months in. Mudro told me it was a girl, but I could already tell. Elizah. That was going to be … that was her name. God's promise. That's what it means. She was God's promise to me. He promised me a child.”
Jacob stood there in silence, soaking in her sorrow.
“It was the Harvest,” Taberah continued. “I lost her because of the Harvest. I saw the desert in my dreams. I didn't know that it also meant my womb. And I chased her. I chased her ghost. I thought … there had to be a way. It wasn't natural how I lost her. There had to be something supernatural to bring her back. But I never found her. Well...”
She held back whatever it was she was going to say, and she dug her nails into the blanket, as if she was trying desperately not to let it go.
“But I thought,” she continued, “after all these years, everything I did back then, things I'm not proud of, but things I would do again, had somehow worked. I felt her. Inside of me. It was her. I could tell. A mother can tell, Jacob. A mother can tell. It was Elizah. She came back to me.”
She finally let go of the blanket. It slumped to the floor, lifeless.
“And now she's gone again.”
“You still have Whistler,” Jacob said, and he said it as softly as he could. “You still have me.”
He knew it was not enough, but he also knew that, for the time being, perhaps for all the time she had left, it would have to be.
* * *
Jacob left that dark, depressing room, and he found that outside was a little darker than it had been before, and a little bit more depressing. He found Mudro there, resting against the wall, soothing his sorrows with the smoke of the leaf.
“I wish I was a better medic,” Mudro pined.
“What about a better magician?”
Mudro smothered his sigh by placing his pipe in his mouth. “I can do many tricks, but I can't put the rabbit back in the hat.”
“This isn't the first time,” Jacob said.
“She told you?”
“Yeah.”
“I bet she didn't tell you everything.”
“I'm not sure I want to know more,” Jacob said. “At least it means she got over it once before, so she can get over it again.”
“You don't know what she was like back then,” the doctor replied, and for a moment he held his pipe away, and leaned in close. “Whatever sicknesses there are of the body, there are also some of the brain. She obsessed over that child. That's how I met her.” He sighed. “The things she had us do, the unnatural things we tried. She chased ghosts before she ever chased demons. It was one obsession, one single-mindedness, that transferred to another.”
Jacob shuddered. “Maybe she can turn that on the Regime,” he suggested. “Maybe she can obsess about killing them.”
“Oh, she will, I'm sure. And the sooner she does, the better. We used every trick we had to get this city back, and one of those was the radios. You can bet your life that we weren't the only ones listening. I hate to say it, Jacob, but Taberah doesn't have time to mope around. She doesn't have time to stay in bed. I called in my dummy cavalry to help us clear the skies, but you can be sure that the Regime's cavalry is very real.”
“I'm not sure she's ready for that,” Jacob said. “It's too soon.”
“They won't care. For them, the sooner the better.”
“I … I'm not sure I can go in and tell her to snap out of it.”
“Neither am I, and I'm not even sure she'd listen. She never listened when she was chasing illusions. I just wonder if the things she was chasing were really in her own head.”
“We all have our ghosts and demons,” Jacob said.
Mudro raised an eyebrow, and let out a long puff of smoke, like a spectre. “We sure do.”
25 – FORTIFYING
Jacob returned to the city streets, where Rommond was leading the preparations. The city was half in ruins, but the general knew well that what was coming from the east would level the other half, and bury all of them with it.
The city was fortified as best as possible. Fires were put out, doors were repaired, and makeshift barricades were put in place. Yet few thought that this would make any difference, and many cast a distrustful eye at Rommond, who had for so long been the boogeyman whose face lined their streets.
The Baroness tried to call back the Trea
sury balloons that had fled the city, only this time to defend it against a greater enemy: the Regime's most elite troops, the Iron Guard. Yet those balloons were far from the city by now, and would take time to return, and some of the Treasurers were not entirely keen to return at all. Switching sides was a costly move. It had already cost them enough.
Jacob found Rommond sitting down with Soasa and Whistler around a fire. The night had thickened. Few expected to get any sleep at all. Those who did might never wake again.
“Everyone's on edge,” Jacob said.
“Better to be on edge than think you can't be pushed over it,” Rommond replied.
“They're really coming?”
“Oh, trust me, Jacob. They're coming.”
“I kind of feel like saying, let's quit while we're ahead.”
“We can quit the city, but there's only one way to quit life. Those machine men will be happy to help you.”
“You've fought them before?”
“Only once.”
“What happened?”
“I lost my biggest gun to them.”
“The Iron Wall?”
Rommond nodded. “We didn't call it that, but it was a wall all the same. It's what stopped the demons' advance for so long. We had the technological edge. But you see, we stopped with machinery. Their scientists, if we can call them that, they went too far. Brooklyn predicted this. He said the iron spirits were restless. He said they spoke of abominations.”
“You know, I'm not feeling very enthusiastic right now.”
“This isn't a morale speech,” Rommond said.
“So the gun didn't work on them?” Whistler asked, hugging his legs.
“It worked just fine, but when it knocked out a regiment, the others didn't break. We could always count on the railway gun to make the enemy quake, make them quiver. But these weren't men. God, they weren't even demons. They were bits of men, bits of demon, but they were mostly machine. You fire a bullet at a landship; it doesn't flinch. And you bet your ass it has a bigger gun.”
Skyshaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 3) Page 12
