Steamscape Read online

  Theo stumbled, his senses numbed by the heat, pressure and noise. The blast of the explosion pushed him down. When he dared to look over his shoulder, he saw that Flame was still standing nearby, arms wide, like a man bathing in sunlight. The young man watched Flame’s eyes glowing in the fire’s reflection, even as the burning canvas and wood fell around him.

  Theo realized there were more reasons than just revenge to kill this man.

  The balloon of a second ship exploded a fiery death and its burning debris punched through the rigid balloons of the ships next to it. The next dirigible went up when the flames climbed up its support ropes, and it exploded, spreading even more fire to other ships.

  The bricoleur didn’t look back this time and instead tried to keep up with the stampede. He tripped over a squirrely businessman and blundered through the crowd of screaming, fleeing people.

  He managed to keep his head above the flow, enough to see the fire patrol and soldiers running toward them.

  He also spotted Jing, towering over the crowd a few feet away. Once they squeezed through the last of the ships, Theo felt the pressure on his shoulders ease. The flow was spreading out. He rubbed his ears, unsure of his hearing in the moment.

  He pushed and shoved until he made it over to the mechanic, and he saw Drina there with him. “Where’s–?”

  Flame, grinning through a cigar, sidled around one of the ship’s hulls.

  “They have ‘no smoking’ signs,” Jing commented.

  Drina chased some embers out of her long hair. “Aren’t the Steampower higher-ups trying to kill you? Maybe you shouldn’t cause all of their soldiers to run at you.”

  Flame held up his hands. “In my defense, I didn’t want to pay the fine.”

  “You destroyed your ship,” Drina said.

  “Piece of junk anyway. Who cares?”

  “I think you just did more damage than any of the battles so far.”

  “And I’m ahead in the game!” Flame danced in place.

  Nearby, alarm bells cracked and air-raid sirens howled above the din of the burning airships. Flame clapped his hands and pointed. “The river! I told you they blocked off the river to help with fire control!” He leaned over with the force of his laughter.

  They turned to see massive gears on floodgates turning.

  Drina pushed Theo’s arm. “Time to fly. Just like all the other emotionally scarred urbanites.” She nodded her head toward the soldiers, still trying to advance through the crowds in a semblance of a ragged formation.

  They ran, joining the sea of people escaping the docks.

  Theo wiped the sweat from his forehead. He leaned against the wall and wheezed. The concrete almost felt icy. The cool air of the alley soothed his lungs after their run from the dockyard. Jing, Drina and Flame all watched him. None of them were breathing hard.

  “Come along, youngster.” Jing pointed with his thumb. “Let’s get something to eat. You look like you need something for your strength while we plot our course in the city.”

  Theo coughed. “But what about Solindra?”

  “Smith first.” Drina scoffed at him. “We discussed this.”

  “But what about setting the city on fire?” Flame whined. “I’m sure this guy who is after you is as flammable as everyone else.”

  “He’s a crypter, Flame. Priory man.”

  Flame’s upper lip curled. “Snarlin’ water cheats. They don’t play fair.”

  The party walked further down the alley as a squad of Steampower soldiers ran past its mouth.

  Theo stretched his shoulders and slowed his breathing. “I need to send Merlina a telegram.”

  “Are you stupid?” Drina rolled her eyes.

  “She’s the closest thing to family I got left.”

  “Right, so why do you want to chance Smith tracing a telegram to her?”

  “Oh.”

  After a few more minutes, they came into a space between windowed buildings. Theo bit his tongue. This place had looked so clean and so pristine from the air, but its alleys stank just like the ones in Valhasse.

  They rounded another corner. A man in what had once been a nice suit, now ripped and greasy, tiptoed toward them. “‘Scuse me, and I ain’t never begged before in me life, but me girls have taken a turn.” He coughed explosively into his glove. The spasm came from deep in his throat, rich with phlegm. “And me wife was killed when…”

  Drina held out a couple of coins without a word.

  The man closed his torn open-gloved fingers around them. “Thank you, madam.” He shuffled along.

  Flame leaned over. “Those were coated in poison, right?”

  “No.” The assassin stared straight ahead and kept walking.

  Flame stared as if he’d seen the sky falling down around him. He hummed to himself, cracked his knuckles and jogged to catch up. “So you definitely see why this place needs to be cleansed?”

  Jing quirked an eyebrow.

  “It will flush out your spy and her hunter.”

  Drina sighed. “Smith isn’t going to fall for us sticking a wig on you, Flame.”

  “Aw, but I liked wearing your dresses for sneaking into places.”

  Theo stopped and stared. “What?”

  “Hey man, I might be strange, but I am not crazy.” Immediately, he resumed humming to himself.

  “Smith is a terrier, so we need to throw out something for him to fetch.” Jing tapped the wall of the building, just a couple of beats in telegraph code. “Theo, you need to send Merlina a telegram. You also need to send one to your dead parents. And everyone you have ever known. Talk about daisies growing or some mystical bricoleur story. Talk like it’s a code.”

  Theo swallowed. “And Smith will come in for the kill.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Theo jogged a little after he stepped outside the telegraph office. The receipts in his hand rustled with the motion, their bright red Steampower stamps blazing in the sunlight. He jigged around the corner to where the three Hex members were loitering.

  He held up the papers. “Alright, since each telegraph office has a code key, Smith will know where these originated.” He rubbed a thumb over one of the stamps. “But I really don’t like the idea of waiting to find Solindra…”

  The shadows of Jing and Drina obfuscated the sunlight as they leaned over him. “You know we raised that girl,” the mechanic warned.

  “I meant we should put more effort into finding her.” Theo gulped, his eyes flashing back between Ghost and the Death Spinner. “Um. Because that’s our goal.”

  “No,” Drina corrected. “Your goal is to kill Flame here.”

  “Yeah!” Flame nodded encouragingly.

  She pointed between herself and the mechanic. “Our goal is to protect Cylinder.”

  Flame clapped his hands. “The sooner we get her, the sooner the boy and me get to fight. Fun.”

  Theo crunched up the receipts and held them between him and the Hex like a shield. “This was expensive. Um. I know how to make money gambling.”

  Jing rolled his eyes. “Right, like we’re going to trust a bricoleur with our money.”

  Flame chirped, “I can make money gambling, too! It’s called the Clockwork Boom.” He jerked a glass grenade from one of his bandoliers, and yanked out the pin. The gears above the black powder and shrapnel mix began to spin.

  “If you run before I throw, I win.”

  Theo felt coldness roll over his entire body. He wanted to skedaddle, but his legs had grown roots. Flame wiggled the weapon in his hands, and Theo heard the metallic screws and lead shot tinkle against the inside of the thick glass.

  The gears rolled through the timing mechanism to their end, and then raised a metal file to strike the flint. Fire hissed into life at the top of the casing and the fuse carried the fire deeper into the grenade.

  Flame shrugged and tossed it into the open window of the nearest building.

  It exploded. The building rattled. Smoke shot out of the window, and the shrapnel sc
ored the stone of the building directly across from the window.

  He dusted his hands. “I guess you won that round. Good times.”

  A woman screamed inside the building, but it was a scream of surprise at least, and not of horror or pain.

  Flame shrugged again and started walking.

  Jing sighed. “One of these days you are going to blow yourself up, laughing.”

  “I know.”

  Nearby, constables’ whistles flared up, screeching across the early morning air. The party kept walking nonchalantly into a wide avenue.

  Flame spread his hands. “You know, I can get you inside Steam Central.”

  Jing’s nostrils flared. “I thought they’d ordered your death.”

  “I still know the building and the new defenses. But it’s just this Smith feller, ain’t it? He’s got you scared, and Drina, that’s not something I think I’ve considered about you.”

  She lifted her chin. “It’s not me I’m scared for.”

  Flame teased out another clockwork grenade and smiled. “We need to do something while we wait for Smith to come kill you.”

  “Game fields.” Theo turned his whole body without bending at the knee and started to totter away. “Gambling is so much safer than you people.”

  ***

  Redjakel’s fields were far more civilized than the gladiatorial arenas of the lands outside the Steamscape. Here the players were volunteers, not slaves, and that marked the difference. Also, the games were not designed to actively kill the players.

  Theo snorted under his breath as he wound through the crowd. The air around him felt oddly cool despite the cheering of the nearby people. He glanced around the stadium and the fans.

  He whipped his gaze back. He thought he’d seen Merlina across the way, on the other side of the stadium. He shielded his eyes and stretched.

  Nothing. Just another girl with feathers in her hair.

  He shook himself free and looked at the players. Lion polo. What a game. He leaned his shoulder against one of the shaded awning’s wooden pillars and watched.

  The players, including a few women this time he noted, flew a few feet over the ground on hover-plates, controlled with foot pedals. Cougars and lions attacked from below. Each player carried a polo stick and tried to score the ball into the goals.

  He listened to the roar of the large cats above the crowd. Then he glanced over to the scorecard. Some poor kid was only a plank away from being a meal himself while hanging a giant 3 over the 2. It looked like the Steampower mechanics team was beating their compressed steam salesmen counterparts.

  A player, wearing a full suit, took a moment to club a lion on its skull before turning his attention back to the game. The lion howled and swiped with its paw, missing the moving man’s coattails by half a foot. It elicited cheers from the crowd.

  “If you’re really with us–”

  Theo jumped and spun around.

  “–then you need to stay with us,” Drina finished. Jing and Flame strolled up from behind her.

  The bricoleur shrugged. “I am. The girl didn’t do nothing but try to help me once.”

  Then he let his eyes wander back onto the polo course and the little jets of flames keeping the hover-plates and their riders from the lions.

  A lion swatted a player off of his hover-plate and onto the field below. The man went down swinging with his polo stick. The lion roared in victory and the crowd cheered as if he’d scored the game point as the man was mutilated by the pride.

  “Civilized indeed,” Theo muttered. “It’s not right, those people–”

  “I worry more about the cats,” Drina interrupted. “The people can be eaten for all I care.”

  Jing shook his head. “Never saw the point of these games. Animals are just being animals, and I mean all the animals.”

  “Showmanship.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Showmanship,” Theo said. “It’s all about the show, not the safety of the players or the comfort of the animals – it’s all about the illusion of the show. So that gentle sir probably won’t even care if he’s missing an arm, not if he can walk away with his head high. At least as long as the crowd’s watching.”

  “I think he’s dead.” Flame pointed.

  Drina looked at the field and shook her head. “That’s why we preferred war. Just targets, and not nearly as much ridiculous pageantry.”

  Theo continued, “But pageantry, or at least the imagination of it, is why everyone fears and loves the Hex.”

  “Smarter than you put forth, kid.” The assassin shrugged. “It’s a fair point, I suppose.”

  Theo stared across the stadium and into the stands on the far side of the arena. Merlina winked and waved at him. He blinked. She was gone. The bricoleur rubbed his forehead with his gloved hand. “I think I need something to eat. I’m starting to see things.”

  ***

  Jing pushed aside some young chimney sweeps, barefoot and in tattered jackets so soot encrusted that their original colors had been lost. They sneered at him but ducked out of the door of the cheap deli.

  Drina paid for some bread and soup. Flame lurked outside while Theo kept an eye on the sweeps through the window, wondering what would happen if they tried to pick Flame’s pockets.

  But the kids just passed the arsonist by.

  The Death Spinner flashed a grateful grin at the baker before turning away with the bags of their food. Her smile faded when she turned. The entire room darkened as Steampower soldiers eclipsed the doorway.

  Jing and Theo stiffened, but didn’t move. The corporal in the lead walked past them and to the counter. He slapped down a pile of paperwork and stared at the baker. “The company is going into baking now. You’ll have to close up shop.”

  The baker was fast becoming as pale as his bread. “But…” He licked his lips. “But I’ll be out of business.”

  “So bake for the company.” The corporal shoved the paper closer to the baker. “And hurry up, I’ve got twelve more shops on my roster alone. And – Hey!” The soldier leaned over the counter and swiped his hand through the coins. “You knew the deadline to switch currencies!”

  The baker held up his hands as if at gunpoint. “It’s what the c-customers have!”

  “Pah!” He scattered the coins with his hand.

  Drina held up the bags of food and smiled at the soldiers in the door. “Excuse me, please, gentlemen.” They grumbled, but stepped aside. Jing tapped Theo on the shoulder and nodded at the door.

  Outside, Theo locked his knees. “We can’t just go! The poor man needs help!”

  The assassin shook her head. “Our mission is Cyl.”

  Jing took one of the bags of food. “And what are we going to do? We can beat up a few soldiers. Fine. Then they’ll come back with their friends.”

  “But, but…”

  Drina shrugged. “Learn to pick the fights you can win, kid. And oh, not to take on Steampower and Codic by yourself. That wasn’t working out so well for you, if I recall.”

  Theo stamped his fist into his palm. “Hey! I didn’t have anything to lose.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  The bricoleur stared hard at Flame’s neck. The pyromaniac just hummed to himself and took a bowl of hot soup from Jing. The mechanic held out a sandwich for Theo.

  He knocked it to the ground. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  Drina rolled her eyes. “Your stomach doesn’t know it can live on disgust.”

  Theo backed up a step. “Is this really what the Hex was about? Just picking the fights you can win? We loved you because you won against the odds! We feared you because you could show up unseen anywhere! How is that possible if you only pick the fights you can win?”

  “Because those attacks were planned out and practiced.” Drina bit into her own slice of bread. “This is really good. That poor baker.”

  Theo smashed his hands against his ears. “I don’t believe this. I don’t want to believe this.”

  As one, t
he members of the Hex just shrugged. Soup drizzled down through the patches where Flame hadn’t shaved, or more likely, the parts that hadn’t burnt off over the last week or so.

  Theo looked away. Movement caught his eye. Across the busy avenue and in the black shadow between two skyscrapers, Merlina bounced a curtsey and waved at him. A cart passed in front of her and she was gone.

  “You okay, kid?” Jing prompted.

  Theo mutely shook his head. “I think… I’m worried you know. What if Smith does trace that telegram to Merlina? I know she said she was leaving, but…”

  Jing replied, “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Like with the baker?” Theo snarled, more viscerally than he’d meant.

  Drina shrugged. “If you insist, we’ll slip him some extra coins to get by.” She held up a bag she had stolen from a soldier’s belt. “Fair enough?”

  He shook his hands and breathed deep. “Um. I’ll be right back.” He turned and started to jog through the steady traffic of buggies and people across the avenue.

  Drina pulled a long, thin cord out from her pocket. “I think I’m going to put a leash on that young gentleman.”

  Flame brightened up and opened his mouth. A hand disappeared into a bandolier.

  “No,” she cut him off.

  “But–”

  “No.” She continued to loop the cord into a makeshift lasso.

  “Okay, how about I strap him up with counterweights and my own special dynamite, so that if he moves, he’ll explode?”

  Drina frowned and caught Flame’s gaze. “When is that ever a good idea?”

  “Good idea it ain’t. It’s just fun.”

  Jing said, “Flame, you’re not even funded by Steampower or Codic anymore. Where are you even getting your equipment?”

  Flame whistled and looked at the sky. “We-ll… I got friends.”

  “You terrorize people into giving it to you, and then I bet you blow up half of them anyway.”

  The arsonist held up his hands. “They gotta respect the Hex, you know.”

  “You never did that when you were part of the Hex. Silvermark would have never allowed it.”