Chainbreaker (Timekeeper)

by Tara Sim

  To the right, Danny noticed an assembly of riflemen standing at ease, guns perched on their shoulders. His breath caught.

  “That’s them,” he hissed at Akash as they got into position.

  “Should we do something?”

  Danny bit his lip. A colonel was walking down the line, hands behind his back, making sure not a hair was out of place. Danny was about to draw his attention when a roar went through the ranks. Viceroy Lytton had taken the stage.

  Lytton was a composed-looking man with dark hair and an impressive beard. He was neither portly nor broad, but held himself in a way that made him seem large, as if his reputation had a direct correlation to his stature. He cut an interesting figure in a long blue satin mantle, an insignia of Knight Grand Commander sewn onto his breast.

  Lytton held up his hands to quiet the cheer before gesturing to the portrait of Victoria.

  “This day belongs to our beloved Queen, now Queen-Empress of India. And what a fitting title it is. Her Majesty …”

  His voice droned on as Danny looked around, waiting, searching, hoping. Dryden had to come. He had to be here.

  “And now, the proclamation.” Lytton stepped back and allowed a man dressed in a herald’s tabard to come forward. The herald began to read the official proclamation in English, then read it again in Urdu. Danny’s eyes kept darting to the riflemen, but not one of them had moved.

  Who will it be? When is it coming? Sweat dripped into his eyes and his breathing grew uneven, body humming with the urgent need to move.

  If Dryden wasn’t coming, he would need to take matters into his own hands.

  One soul against thousands.

  The auto sped furiously from Agra to the camp outside of Delhi. Daphne was staggered by the durbar’s size and gaped as they drove past.

  Or at least, she thought they would drive past. She rocked forward when Partha slammed on the brakes. Without a word, Harris leapt from the auto.

  “Captain, what are you doing?” Daphne demanded, opening the side door.

  “Please stay inside, Miss Richards. Partha will take you to the clock tower, where Mr. Hart is.” Harris opened and closed the boot, holding his rifle. “I’m required here.”

  “What? But I don’t under—Colton!”

  The spirit had thrown open his door and took off running toward the camp, his boots kicking up clouds of dirt. Harris swore and followed. Before Daphne and Meena could get out, the auto jerked forward and they were thrown back into their seats.

  “Partha!” Daphne yelled. “Stop!”

  “I can’t, Miss Richards.” He glanced back at her, eyes tight with regret. “I apologize.”

  Meena shouted at him in Hindi. Whatever she said made Partha clench his jaw, but the sepoy wouldn’t stop. They zoomed into the city, navigating congested streets and earning more than one curse as Partha sped by rickshaws and pedestrians.

  Daphne felt the tower before she saw it. It was tall and narrow, trimmed with marble, and topped with a fat bell enclosed by columns.

  The street around the tower was teeming with guards. When it became clear they wouldn’t move another inch, Partha parked and got out. Daphne scrambled after him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted over the noise in the street. “Why did Captain Harris go into the durbar? Why didn’t you stop for Colton?”

  He gave her that expression again—that same complicated mix of sadness, frustration, and determination.

  “I am very sorry you had to get involved in this, Miss Richards,” he said. “Please get as far away from here as possible.”

  Daphne’s prickling doubt turned into dawning horror. Meena gripped her arm as she came to the same realization.

  A dull roar filled their ears. Daphne looked up and saw the edge of an army-issued airship flying the British flag, dutifully patrolling the skies. But as she watched, it was shortly joined by another, this one even more massive as it emerged from the clouds like a monster rising from the depths.

  The same ship that had attacked the Notus.

  “Run,” Partha said.

  “Hey! You lot! What do you think you’re doing?” Crosby turned from his station and started toward them. At that moment, the airships began to attack each other with earsplitting cannon fire. “What in the hell—?”

  Partha removed the pistol at his hip and shot Crosby in the stomach. Meena screamed as the lieutenant doubled over, coughing up blood. His brown eyes were wide, his teeth stained crimson.

  “Indian—bast—”

  Partha shot him again in the head, and Crosby went down.

  Daphne couldn’t move, couldn’t react. Her body had become nothing but the pulsing whir of the airships above. Sepoys began to flood the street, tackling and shooting and stabbing the British soldiers.

  “Daphne!” Meena screamed. “Move!”

  Blood spread. The tower trembled. Bells rang. Time shivered. The world descended into chaos and impulse and the slowing of the second hand—tick.

  A tremor in the air as time began to unravel.

  Tock.

  Danny’s hands were shaking as the herald finished the proclamation in Urdu, his clothes damp with sweat.

  “We can’t do anything,” Akash whispered. “It’s too late.”

  Danny ignored him. The riflemen were moving into position. Now or never.

  Then Danny saw something that gave him a surge of renewed hope. Captain Harris had somehow joined the proceedings, standing toward the back of the riflemen.

  Harris! Had they read his message? Had they figured out the rebels’ plan? But the start of Danny’s relieved smile quickly died when Harris, along with the others, drew his weapon up to fire.

  I’ll always fight for the promise of an easier tomorrow, Harris had said. Right or wrong, selfish or not, this is what we want.

  Whatever it takes.

  Everything became clear, each detail cut precisely like facets in a diamond: the determination in Harris’s eyes, the stance of the sharpshooter he was, the pleats in his trousers, the glint of the rifle—an Enfield rifle. Even from this distance, Danny could see its B3005 serial number.

  Danny turned to Akash. He’d seen Harris, too.

  “We have to do something,” Danny said, sounding strangely calm despite the turmoil inside him.

  But Akash only stood there, an unspoken apology in his eyes. Danny took a step back.

  “No,” he gasped. “God, not you, too!”

  “Danny—” Akash tried to grab him, but he was already turning to the stage. The first cracks of the furious joy began to split the air, drowning out the sound of Akash calling his name.

  Colton hadn’t known he could run like this, even though fatigue tore through his blistered side and into his chest, tightening his body with pain. He pressed on, determined to find Danny before anyone else.

  There were so many people, all their heads turned toward a platform where a man dressed in blue stood before a throne. Colton stopped and searched the crowd, desperately calling Danny’s name.

  Something pulled at him, a tiny pinprick of his own power. He had felt it in the auto and knew he had to follow. The cog. He moved toward it, shoving his way through the crowd, following the pale thread that would lead him to Danny.

  “Where are you?” he whispered. “Where are you?”

  And then he saw him. Even from the back, Colton knew him. For some reason Danny was dressed as a soldier. He was looking to the right, his body rigid. He turned to an Indian boy standing beside him before he started running—not to Colton, but to the platform. Colton pressed forward again.

  “Danny!” he cried out. “Danny!”

  Then a loud sound broke the morning air, a fearsome banging that hurt his ears. Large, gray animals—elephants, he thought distantly—lifted their trunks and trumpeted. Men with guns were shooting into the air in a strange pattern; as soon as one fired, the soldier on his left fired, until the effect was a rippling cascade of sound.

  Colton’s voice was lo
st in the din. But something made Danny stop and turn. Something compelled him to look over his shoulder, a finger plucking the thread between their bodies.

  Danny saw him. Their gazes locked. His eyes widened.

  His lips shaped Colton’s name.

  For a moment, time froze. There were no soldiers. No guns, or elephants, or even India. Just two boys, so close and so distant. Colton reached out a hand for him, still so impossibly far away, but somehow thinking their fingers could touch if he just willed it enough. Danny took a step forward.

  And stopped.

  A tear ran down his cheek.

  He mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

  Then he turned and kept running.

  Colton tried to follow, but Danny was too fast. He watched helplessly as Danny launched himself onto the stage and pushed the man in blue out of the way.

  A bullet struck Danny in the chest.

  Colton screamed, fighting to get past the sudden mayhem of soldiers running in all directions. His eyes were only on the spray of blood that had burst from Danny’s chest, the look of shock and pain on his face. Danny stumbled back into the throne and fell, making the Queen’s portrait topple over.

  Time heaved and groaned. The earth shook. Danny’s blood tasted the air and made it writhe, static and sparking and surging.

  “Danny!” he yelled. “Danny!”

  Hands grabbed Colton from behind and ripped the cog holder off his shoulders. The weakness intensified and he grew limp, collapsing into the arms of the person holding him up.

  He hadn’t noticed a shadow falling over the camp. An airship hovered above them, its engines whirring loud enough to drown out most of the confused yelling below. On the platform, a figure wearing dark goggles had picked up Danny and thrown his unmoving body over his shoulder like a rag doll. Blood poured from Danny’s chest, his hands stained with it.

  “Danny,” Colton whispered again. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, but he had to see where they were taking him. He had to follow. He had to …

  Daphne struggled as she and Meena were pushed into the airship. She could barely make sense of what had happened below, except that someone had grabbed them and forced them into a small plane. And now they were here. A large Indian man with a turban had hold of her, while a tall English boy restrained a squirming Meena.

  “Let go of me!” she growled, twisting her arms again without luck.

  “We can’t do that, Miss Richards.”

  She froze. The voice belonged to another English boy, who stood at the end of the metallic hallway. His clothes, dust-stained and wind-whipped, were soaked with blood. He was using a small towel to wipe his hands, leaving streaks of crimson on the fabric.

  A pair of tinted goggles hung around his neck.

  Something raw simmered inside her, equal parts fear and fury. “What have you done?” she whispered.

  The boy looked at her, then at Meena, whose teeth were bared. “I haven’t done anything. The rebellion has failed, and I made the most of the distraction.”

  Tremors ran through Daphne’s body, becoming stronger when she looked again at the dark splotches on the boy’s skin and clothes.

  “Where’s Danny?”

  He regarded her with half-lidded eyes, a sleeper fully in control of his dreams.

  “Exactly where he needs to be.”

  “You were out again.”

  Colton opened his eyes and smiled up at Castor. His head was resting on his lap. Castor ran his fingers through Colton’s hair.

  “What do you dream about when you sleep?” Castor asked.

  Colton’s eyes traveled up to the clouds. An alder tree’s branches swayed and whispered above them, telling him secrets he wished he could keep.

  “I dream about time,” he said. “And music. And the wind. And how old the earth is.” He turned his head and kissed Castor’s palm. “I dream about freedom.”

  “But you’re already free.”

  “Maybe.” He lined up his fingertips with Castor’s, nerve endings to nerve endings. “Or maybe I’m trapped in a dream that will never end.”

  Castor’s lips touched his cool brow. “Then maybe you should wake up.”

  The smell of oil roused him. Colton opened his eyes slowly. He sat slumped against a metal wall. In fact, he was surrounded by metal walls, only the one on his right was made of bars.

  Colton slowly turned his head and saw that someone had leaned his cog holder against the wall of the corridor outside. They had taken off the leather cover, and the bronze metal gleamed dully in the torchlight. With his central cog so far away, his body had become more transparent. He lacked the strength to even stand.

  “Where am I?” he mumbled. The last he remembered, he had been in the middle of a crowd of panicked soldiers.

  And Danny had been shot.

  The reminder was enough to make him sit up, groaning as his side protested.

  “Danny,” he called. It was barely more than a whisper. “Danny!”

  He gripped the metal bars and tried to stand, but it was impossible in his current state. He fell against the bars, shaking and enraged by his own weakness.

  At this rate, both he and Danny would be dead.

  The thought made him gather his remaining strength to shout, “Danny!”

  A door opened at the end of the hallway. Colton watched as a figure came into view, but it wasn’t Danny. The young man was broad-shouldered and well-groomed. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up high enough for Colton to see that his right arm was made of metal.

  There was a strange, sharp sensation coming off of him—something Colton had felt before. A compelling aura that fascinated and frightened him.

  He knelt before Colton, fixing him with penetrating gray eyes. Colton stared back.

  “So,” the young man said. “You’re Colton.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Zavier. You’re on an airship called the Prometheus. We’re very happy to have you with us, Colton. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Colton wrapped his hands around the metal bars. “Where’s Danny?”

  “I know you don’t understand yet, but you will. You see, our plans have fallen through. There will be no second Mutiny in India. While the rebels lick their wounds, we need a new strategy. You’ll teach us a lot about the clock spirits, and where we’ll go from here. You’re going to be invaluable to us.”

  “What if I don’t want to help you?”

  Zavier took a slow, deep breath. “You need to think carefully about that. You wouldn’t want anything happening to Enfield, after all.”

  Colton gripped the bars tighter. “Bastard.” He’d heard Danny use the word before, and it felt strangely good to say it now.

  Zavier stood and gestured to the cog holder. “If you want these back, you’ll have to be nicer than that, Colton.”

  It was then he saw a smudge of dark red on Zavier’s neck, partially hidden by his collar, where the strange pulling and ebbing sensation was coming from. It was metallic, thorny, seductive.

  Blood.

  Danny’s blood.

  Colton threw himself against the bars. “Tell me where he is!”

  “Think about it.” Zavier turned and walked back to the door. Colton pressed his forehead against the cold metal.

  “Please, just tell me! Please!” He kept calling until the door closed, leaving him in darkness.

  “Please,” he whispered, sliding to the floor, curling up against the pain and devastation wracking his body. “Please, please …”

  He tried to find that small pinprick of power again, to grasp at any sign that Danny was here, that he wasn’t alone. Colton listened beyond the airship’s engines for a sign.

  Far below, he thought he heard the ocean.

  The British Raj, the Enfield Rifle, and the Rebellion of 1857

  India won its independence on August 15, 1947.

  That was only seventy years ago, and ninety years after the First War of Indian Independence (or, as
the British called it, the Mutiny) in 1857.

  India has a long history of occupation. When the Mughul Empire was on its last legs, the British East India Company—at first only interested in trade—defeated the French East India Company for territory, becoming the military and political force in India in the mid-1700s.

  The Company was a private army whose numbers only grew as the decades went on. Even as they improved roads and introduced an early railway system, they treated Indian culture and beliefs with disdain, and actively eradicated traditions they considered to be “barbaric.” However, many Indian soldiers joined the Company, mostly those of Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim faiths.

  The use of Enfield rifles by the Company created a conflict for the Hindu and Muslim soldiers who refused to bite off the cartridges lined with beef and pork fat, as this was in conflict with their religious practices. The British officers refused to listen to their complaints, commanding them to use the rifles anyway. With tensions already high between the British and Indian soldiers, and the Indians believing that the British were forcing Christianity upon them, this was one of the last disputes that led to the infamous rebellion.

  (Although the British called it a mutiny, the Indian people tend to refer to it as the First War of Indian Independence. There’s been some criticism regarding the term, however, since there were earlier uprisings against the British before the 1857 rebellion, including the Vellore Mutiny in 1806 and the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1845.)

  The rebellion of 1857 was filled with atrocities committed on both sides, and caused a devastating setback to India. When the Indian rebels were subdued, the rule of India passed from the Company to the Crown, marking the beginning of the British Raj.

  In Chainbreaker, I only begin to scratch the surface of the Raj. There are many details and historical examples that I wish I could have included, but had to put aside for the sake of space and context. It was an uneasy time for everyone involved, as the British attitudes toward the Indian people had soured even further. Indian soldiers were given the worst provisions, the worst weapons, and the worst accommodations. It didn’t help that those who were officially in control of India—Queen Victoria and Viceroy Lytton—did barely anything to improve the quality of life or society.