The Dragon Knight and the Steam World

by D. C. Clemens

  She sighed and shook her head. “Ah, to be able to test it myself.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t promise to take you back with me.”

  “Hmm? No, no, hush yourself, young man. I should have kept that fleeting fancy to myself. Now then, the next test will work your mind, hands, and eyes.” Inma went over to the drawers, pushed in the agape one, and partly pulled out a thin slab of metal from under it. “Lucas, grab the ruler and bring the chair here… Good, thank you. Sir Eberwolf, please take a seat and rest your arm on the slat. Let your hand jut from the edge. Now, I’m going to hang this ruler over your hand. As soon as I let go, you will catch it as it passes between your fingers. We will do this several times to calculate an average measurement. Understand?”

  “You drop, I catch. Got it.”

  “You’d be surprised how often I have to repeat myself to people who I know are intelligent. All right, Lucas, mark which numbers his thumb lands on.”

  With everything in place, I attentively watched the ruler hovering a thumb length above my ready hand. The doctor let go of the measuring stick at an unannounced time. Lucas jotted down the result, something he did four more times over the next couple of minutes.

  “An impressive outcome once again. Your average reaction time beats even those who have become familiarized to this test by almost fifteen percent. It’s frightening to think what you can do if you ever become adept at using a firearm. Do you know whether your curse improves your reflexes?”

  “Hard to say. I know I move faster, but I’ve never really paid close attention to the speed of my mind and muscles.”

  “It’s fine. We’ll find out soon enough. Now, for the next two tests we should head to the top deck. Lucas, go to my cabin and bring me my samples of metal and the testing tray. Meet us up top.”

  While Lucas went into a nearby room down the hall, Inma led me and Svren outside. It was still lukewarm under the early evening red sky, but a cool northern wind had started sweeping away the feeble balminess.

  Reaching the bow, the doctor turned around and said, “Here we’ll time how fast you can run. Are you up for that?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good, good. You can remove your cloak and armor if you want.”

  “I’d rather not. They don’t weigh me down.” In truth, I felt protective about my scales. Perhaps overly protective, but so be it.

  “As you wish. As you can see, you can get to the stern without any obstructions if you stay on the starboard side. Touch the railing there and run back here.”

  “Um, doc?” asked Svren.

  “Yes?”

  “I should probably tell everyone here that our running guest is not an invitation to fire upon him.”

  “Ah, of course. Go right ahead. Hurry now.”

  The krewen jogged up to the first person on deck to spread the word. During the wait, Lucas returned with six little cubes on a silver tray.

  “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “I want to see how hot your fire can get. Each cube is a different metal alloy that will melt at a known point. I wish to see which metal will be your limit.”

  “Oh. That test won’t be necessary.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dragon fire will melt it all.”

  “Really? Are you certain?”

  “I mean, I’ve melted attacking metal shards before, so melting unmoving little cubes shouldn’t be great trouble.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I think we should attempt the experiment to confirm it. Is that all right with you?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  Svren soon came back. Several Vanguards and deckhands stopped what they were doing to observe my one man race.

  The doctor took out her watch again. “Stand right here… All right, in four, three, two, one, go!”

  A burst of prana to my legs and feet had me leaping forward, turning everything but a small point directly in front of me into a blur. The air rushing past my ears and my boots rebounding off the metal floor barred any other noise from making themselves known. The back of my mind initially feared my feet slipping on an errant puddle, but combined with the sea being too calm to spray any saltwater on the deck, the sunlight had dried the surface pretty well. Deprived of a deterrent, I slapped the railing and made it back to Inma without incident.

  “Fifteen seconds. This time I would have been disappointed if you didn’t break the record. I suspect you and your brother might easily be the fastest humans on Dretkeshna. To think, all humans once held this potential. Why has this world dampened it?”

  “Like some people, I suppose some worlds are not so magically inclined.”

  “Yes, but why? Does a world only have so much magic to give? Or has the influx of so much corruption suppressed all other prana?”

  “You remind me of a friend of mine, though with better social skills.”

  “Hmph, I know the type. Anyway, you have a bit of an audience now. Best you entertain them with a fire show. Are you prepared?”

  “Aye.” To Svren, I asked, “May I cast a spell?”

  “Go right ahead. No one will shoot.”

  I extended my arm, palm facing up. A surge of prana popped a dragon stone into existence. A second surge kindled a flame into the same reality. Flame quickly consumed rock, then I guided the large ember to the metal tray. Widening the miniature blaze to encompass all the cubes, I fed my prana to promote its already gods-searing heat. One or two of the cubes sizzled and snapped. A little plume of vaporized metal blew upward, which compelled several people watching to take a step back.

  I sensed the hardiest resistance ten seconds into the burn. Hence, I focused the flame on the last bump for a few seconds longer. Finally, not wanting to melt an excessive segment of the deck, I extinguished the flame at once. The faint haze created by the leftover fumes and ambient heat could not hide the glowing white hotness the tray’s edges emitted. Well, the middle section glowed as well, but that came from the deck, which a hole in the tray now exposed.

  Barely audible, the doctor said, “Remarkable. You didn’t merely liquefy the metals, you boiled them away, even the tungsten layer covering the tray. Impossible. I’ve felt greater heat from inferior fires.”

  “Dragon fire is good at keeping its heat focused. Still, if I let the flame burn on its own, the air around it would have gotten hot enough to give our exposed skin upsetting burns.”

  “Hey,” said Svren. “If you can melt metal, I doubt you ever felt truly trapped in your restraints. And with dragon wings, I bet you never feel trapped anywhere you go.”

  “Well, let’s just say I don’t love being underground.”

  That was it for the tests, at least until I was given leave to brandish my corruption. I headed below decks to rejoin my brother and the maps. However, the need to get a proper sleep soon hit me. Voicing my want for a bed prompted Svren to lead me to the krewen sleeping quarters. The bird-men shared a single room, and with one dead and the other leaving, I essentially had the chamber to myself for several hours. I removed my armor and climbed into the bed, which was simply a thick fabric suspended to the ceiling by two cords of rope.

  It was as I lied swaying in my borrowed bed that it began to hit me—I was in a different world. I suddenly thought of myself as a beggar who had broken into a temporarily vacant home to find a place to sleep, hoping the proprietors wouldn’t come home early. The intruding anxiety wormed its way under my eyelids, forcing me to stare at the gray space between the dim light still burning in its glass container and the shut door. I also became aware of all the metallic creaks and odd hissing the Orkan frequently made.

  In the end, my fatigue beat out the uninvited unease. That would have been all well and good if a swirling sensation did not raid my frenzied dream state. I never knew it was possible to feel queasy while dreaming. It woke me up once, but I graciously greeted a serener slumber the next time I drifted off.

  Chapter Twelve

  Refreshed, I put on my armor and cloak. Going by
the nip in the air, I knew it was well into the night. It grew stronger after I opened the door by pushing down the heavy handle. I walked toward the silhouette of someone leaning against the wall down the hall. It turned out to be my brother, who faced a faint orange glow coming from another hall. On noticing me, a mute Alex strode past me to tenant the room I departed from. Noting his absence, a helmet poked out of the hall Alex had been staring into.

  “Bregman, I presume,” I said. “Are you ever going to take that thing off?”

  “Nothin wrong about being cautious around ghouls.”

  Wearing a heavy cloth jacket of dark blue, a broad-shouldered man donning a scraggly brown beard stepped behind Bregman. In a guttural timbre, the unarmored Vanguard said, “I saw his fire make metal disappear in seconds. Your helmet ain’t doing shit against it. Best to befriend someone who can do that.”

  “You can take that approach if you want, Xavier. I’ll take the vigilant one.”

  “Well, if a talking dragon doesn’t convince you, I can’t. Will you join me in a game of darts, Mercer?”

  “As long as it wastes time,” I replied.

  Following Xavier led me into a warmer section of the ship. The dirty air smelled of soot and some kind of odd oil. The hall opened up to a rectangular room three times as wide as the cramped passageway. Narrow couches, some short shelves, and cushioned chairs lined each side of the room. When my guide and I entered the compartment, it jumped the number of dwellers from three to five. Unlike Bregman, everyone wore layers of cloth, not armor.

  “I think you know the lovely Felicia and the lovelier Lucas,” said Xavier. “Ah! Did you get my name? I’m Xavier Agramon. That sleeping fat fellow is Norman Mornes.”

  “It’s a nice place to sleep. Why is it warm in here?”

  “There are steam pipes that run below the floor here. We might not be going anywhere, but the boiler and engine rooms are sometimes left running during the nights to keep this area from becoming an icebox. It’s not even really winter yet. You’d have to hug the boiler to keep warm in those deader than dead nights.”

  “Dragon fire should do a better job of it,” said Lucas, a thin white tube sticking out the corner of his mouth. The tip of the tube gave off smoke and a faint red glow that slowly charred the paper material. He sat up higher in his chair. “By the way, your brother tied your speed record, but beat your strength-endurance record by nine seconds. Your reflex average was superior, though. It’s a close contest between you even without using your curse. I say it’s less so when you do harness your wicked power. You’ve obviously gone through more training. Or a better version of it, at least.”

  “Aye, I’d say so.”

  “Now let’s see how he does with darts,” said Xavier. He went to the end of the room and opened a drawer. He pulled out three objects that looked like shorter, fatter crossbow bolts. Pointing at a circular board with bands of different colors, he explained, “We can start with the simple version of the game. Each color here represents a specific number of points. The green dots are ten, the areas of red around them are worth two. The blues, yellows, and purples are four, six, and eight points, respectively. The first one to a hundred wins. Got it?”

  “Aye.”

  “I’ll start us off.”

  Xavier stepped behind a crude line etched on the floor, then flung his first dart. The projectile’s pointy tip impaled a purple color. In total, his first round netted him twenty points. My initial round got me half the number. As the game progressed, it became clear knowing how to throw a dagger accurately did not translate perfectly to the dart game. Still, I didn’t think it would require a lot of effort to master, and it was a fine activity to kill time while also giving one time to contemplate one’s life between rounds.

  After Xavier won the introductory game, Felicia perked up from her spot on a couch and said, “Hey, dragon boy. You ever hear a machine talk or sing?”

  “Uh, I once possessed a talking sword. Never sung, though.”

  “Oh. Well, we got cozy asylums for people who say things like that. The thing I’m talking about can actually be heard by healthy minds. Xavier, help me get the gramophone together.”

  The duo went over to the largest shelf in the room to open the lowest drawer. Xavier pulled out a wooden box with a handle on one side. Felicia took out a yellowish-brown, flower-shaped horn thing. Once Xavier put his item on a small table, Felicia twisted the metal horn onto a spout at the top of the box.

  Going back to the shelf, Xavier asked, “Which recording shall we play?”

  Proceeding to turn the handle a few times, she answered, “Pride. I’m not so tired of that one yet.”

  “Ahh, Sara. Someday I will hear her in person.”

  From another drawer, Xavier brought over a round, black, flat object. He set it on the top of the box and lowered a small metal arm with a sharp metal finger on to it. There was a scraping noise stemming from the horn when the skinny object started spinning, which eventually softened as the faster it went. Confusing my ears a second, a woman’s swelling voice gushed out of the blossoming cone. A little scratchiness remained in the background, but other than that, I would have believed the long-winded singer stood in an adjoining room behind a thin wall.

  To everyone, I asked, “This is a real woman?”

  “Sara Silk,” said Xavier. “The newest sensation in the opera world. Not really my kind of music, but the voice is simply too entrancing to ignore. Her style is also not so traditional. She’ll travel the big cities soon, but until our paths cross, I’ll have to content myself with these imperfect recordings.”

  “So other people have their voices in these things?”

  “On those black disks, yes,” answered Felicia.

  “How do you get them on there?”

  “No clue.”

  “I have some clue,” said Lucas. “I know the disks have tiny dents and grooves on them. The needle jumps along these indentations to produce specific vibrations. I assume those dents were made by another needle vibrating to a voice or sound. I’m sure there’s more to it. It’s a fairly novel technology where improvements are being made every year.”

  “You should have heard the earlier versions,” said Xavier. “Sounded like ghosts with sore throats trying to yodel.”

  “That’d still be something I’d like to hear,” I said. “This is a droll little box. I can’t take a metal ship back with me, and I’m not certain I want to introduce Orda to guns, but the singing box I can see showing off.”

  “What about a camera?” asked Lucas. “You can take one of those.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The device that takes still images of anything in front of it. The pictures are usually in black and white or a colorful kind of gray. You haven’t seen one yet?”

  “Now that you mention it, I remember seeing some black and white images of landscapes and people in the island ruins. I thought they looked oddly real, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. You’re saying another mechanism is responsible for creating those images?”

  “Quite so, though all I know about the workings of camera technology is that it involves light and chemicals.”

  “It’s funny we can dazzle a guy with a dragon,” said Felicia. “Wait ‘til you see an airship.”

  “I doubt a lumbering balloon will amaze someone with dragon wings,” said Xavier. “Hey, can other people fly on your dragon?”

  “There is room on the saddle for several people. Want a ride sometime?”

  “Ho! Can I? The big boy won’t take offense?”

  “As long as I’m there, no. What about the rest of you? Lucas? Felicia?”

  “A gracious invitation,” said Lucas. “However, heights and I do not get along. Moving while high up will bring about an ugly mess, likely followed by a bout of fainting.”

  “What about you, Felicia?”

  “Sure, I’ve agreed to worse things.”

  “Care to join us in the next game of darts?”

  �
�Depends. You’re not going to be sore losing to a woman, are you?”

  “Not at all. It’s my dragon who’ll whisk away any woman or child who beat me at a game.”

  “Well, he can’t take me to a world worse than this one.”

  So, as the phantom singer continued her hearty song, Xavier, Felicia, and I started another game of darts. Norman finally awoke in the middle of the third game. During that third match, my fingertips, toes, and nose tingled. The initial physical signs my corruption was becoming restless.

  Therefore, once I came in last place for the last round, I said, “Lucas, I sense my corruption is nearing its overflow point. I’m going to have to expend some of it soon. Does your master wish to witness a demonstration of my black flame?”

  “Yes. I’ll go fetch her for you. She should have a set of criteria to follow.”

  When the doctor’s apprentice exited the room, I told those remaining, “You’re getting an idea of what I’m capable of with the doctor’s tests, but I’m still not certain what Vanguards can do. You say your magic is weaker after all this time here, but I’ve seen some spell casting is possible.”

  “It’s limited, though,” said Felicia. “Once in a while you hear of someone being able to weave multiple elements or summon something, but most weavers can only control one element or make themselves stronger than average. I can push around some air, for example.”

  “My specialty lies in water,” said Xavier. “Of course, my old family bloodline suggests I should be better at controlling dirt and the like, but I never got the hang of it.”

  “And you can sense corruption,” I added.

  “Some are better than others. Still, spend enough time around ghouls, and even a not so magically inclined clown can learn to sense them. How widespread is magic in Orda? Everyone can really use it?”

  “They have the potential. I’ve never heard of someone of sound mind and body failing to learn a basic spell as long as they put in the effort.”