The Clockwork God Read online

  “Not without keys,” Thane reminded him. “The guards keep them outside. I already told you, we’re trapped.”

  “I think I can get out,” Micah said, eyeing the window on the far wall. “I’ll go for help.”

  “No, wait!” Kale said. “Don’t leave us in here.”

  Micah crawled down the outside of his cage and nonchalantly walked over to the window, carefully keeping the weight off his still tender ankle. The window was out of reach, but after a quick search he turned up a chair that would suffice.

  Kale continued to protest as Micah clambered up onto the chair and pulled himself up over the window ledge. Micah ignored him. There was no time to reason with Kale, nor to explain that the more time they wasted arguing, the less likely it was that he’d actually get away in time to get help. Wordlessly, Micah slipped through the window and vanished. As he climbed out onto the ledge, he heard Kale mutter the words, “Now he’s gonna get himself killed for sure.”

  We’ll see about that, Micah thought defiantly. He’d already had one brush with death. There had to be some rule about that. Then he glanced down and realized that he was standing on a six-inch ledge, staring down at a hundred foot drop to the paving stones.

  Chapter 8

  When River woke the next morning, the sky was clear, the weather was reasonably warm, and Kale and Micah were nowhere to be found. River didn’t think much of their absence, except to take some little satisfaction in the fact that she knew Kale better than he knew himself. As she’d told Burk, her irresponsible friend was probably sleeping out on the prairie somewhere, and more than likely lost. She didn’t give the matter a second thought. She went back to work restoring the tracks, and the hours began ticking away.

  When Kale still hadn’t arrived by midmorning, River simply rolled her eyes and imagined him snoring away under a rock or bush somewhere. She felt a little sympathy for Micah, being stuck with the obstinate warrior, but that had been his decision.

  Then, when they had finished clearing the tracks and the crew began gathering for lunch, River at last began to worry. She went to Socrates with her concerns.

  “We have a few hours of work yet,” he reminded her. “One of the tracks has been damaged and we’ll have to replace it. Perhaps they will return before we finish.”

  “It’s not like Kale to be gone this long,” River said.

  “It’s not?”

  “Well, it is… I mean, I understand him not showing up last night and even oversleeping this morning. But Kale should have known we’d be finished by now. He would have come back.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with your assessment,” Socrates said, “but you have known Kale much longer than I have and you may be right. Unfortunately, we can’t organize a search party with so much work left. The crane must be dismantled, and the tracks repaired. Perhaps when we are done…”

  “Forget a search party,” River said. “I’ll go look for them. You don’t need me to finish the tracks, and any fool could dismantle the crane. Let me go.”

  Socrates considered that. “And if they did find trouble?” he said. “Should I send one person out, when two couldn’t manage to come back? No, I’d prefer you wait. We don’t need to lose a third crew member.”

  River relented. She took her food to an empty table and ate in silence, trying not to think about her frustration. Instead, she ended up eavesdropping on a conversation between Burk and one of the other crewmates. His companion was human, apparently from South Bronwyr, judging by the man’s provincial drawl. He was middle-aged with a bald head and clean-shaven, round face. He wore an eye patch on his right eye and the rest of the crew called him -appropriately-Patch.

  “I don’t believe it,” Burk said. “Socrates can’t be human. He’s got a smokestack on his head fer Lordan’s sake.”

  “I didn’t say he was human,” Patch replied. “I said ‘e’ was jus’ like a human. Thinkin’ and everythin’.”

  “Aye, he thinks right enough, but does he feel? Of course not!”

  “I’m nae sure,” said Patch. “I’ve seen him talkin’ to the others and I’m right certain ‘e’s more than just gears and gizmos. He may ‘ave started as a machine, but he ain’t one now. Somethin’ happened, makin’ ‘im think and feel, just like us.”

  The burly blacksmith dismissed his baldheaded companion with a snort. “You’re projecting,” he muttered. He took a big bite of roast and the greasy juices streamed down his beard. He appeared not to notice.

  “Aye, like you know what that means,” Patch said, rolling his eyes. “Don’ be slingin’ those silvery words ‘round here.”

  “It means ya see in him what ain’t there; what yer seein’ is yerself.”

  “Pfft,” was Patch’s educated response.

  That was the end of the argument, and River didn’t stick around long enough to hear the next one. She finished her meal and went back to work. She started by driving the steamwagon back to the storage car, and then recruited two other crewmembers to help disassemble the crane. For the next few hours, she threw herself into her work.

  Later, as the afternoon wore on, her thoughts returned to her childhood friend and for the first time, she began to doubt Socrates’ judgment. The conversation between Burk and his companion had planted a seed in the back of her mind, a lingering doubt that she couldn’t quite ignore, and River found herself wondering if those two fools had accidentally hit on something important. In their own illiterate way, Burk and Patch had stumbled onto a question that River realized she didn’t have an obvious answer to. Just how human was Socrates? He could think and reason, but could he feel? That seemed important.

  River had just returned one of the long iron trusses to its place in the cargo car. She stood in the doorway a moment, staring out over the hills, feeling the cold wind splash across her skin and began to realize she was worried. That wasn’t an entirely new sensation when it came to Kale. Though he was a decade older than River, he usually behaved more like a child than a man, and she often found herself thinking of him like a younger brother. When River felt that stirring of concern inside her, she realized for the first time that for all his wisdom and knowledge, Socrates was not human. He was a machine. And how could she trust a machine to make life and death decisions if it couldn’t even feel?

  It didn’t take much of that thinking to convince River that Burk had been right all along. Socrates may have been smart, but he lacked the all-important emotions that would have tempered his judgment. Therefore, his decision to continue working must have been based purely on logic. It was the decision of a machine, not of a caring and sympathetic human being.

  Once that was decided, it was only a matter of waiting for the right opportunity. The moment the others weren’t looking, River slipped away to her quarters to retrieve her spring-powered revolver. She quickly strapped the holster to her waist and then went racing down the hall towards a very special boxcar halfway down the train. Inside, River had found a collection of steam engines and other miscellaneous parts during her explorations of the Iron Horse. In secret, River had been using some of those parts to build a special project of her own. No one knew of it, not even Kale, and probably not even Socrates.

  River quietly slipped inside the boxcar. There, she pulled the canvas tarp off of her project and released it from the safety straps. River’s two-wheeled boneshaker wasn’t exactly like the one Tinker had made, but it was close. Instead of an oil-burning gyroplane engine, this one had a small but powerful steam engine. It also had a wider, more stable stance and a spring-cushioned leather seat to reduce some of the boneshaking that had inspired the invention’s name. River checked the water level in the holding tank and then fired up the burner. As the flames licked up against the bottom of the tank, the brass pressure gauge came to life. Within minutes, the boneshaker was ready to go.

  “Burk, secure that rail,” Socrates said as several crewmen maneuvered the heavy iron track into place. Burk’s assistant held a spike in place as the smith brought hi
s mallet down with enough force to crush the man’s hand. One blow drove the steel shaft halfway into the wooden tie. The second drove it home.

  “Good,” Socrates said. “The rest of you, secure the other ties. Burk and I will fetch another rail.”

  Socrates heard a deep-throated rumbling sound in the distance. He turned to stare down the line. Nearly half a mile in the distance, close to the far end of the Iron Horse, the boneshaker roared to life and came flying out of a boxcar. As it touched down at the bottom of the embankment and roared up the opposite hill leaving a cloud of dust in its wake, Socrates recognized River sitting astride the vehicle.

  “What was that?” someone said.

  Socrates fixed his jaw and glared at the cloud of dust floating over the hill. “I knew she’d eventually do something like that,” he mumbled as the dust dissipated on the breeze. The sound of the motorcycle rumbled in the distance.

  “What should we do?” one of the workers said.

  “Nothing. Get back to work.”

  River couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt as she vanished over the hill. After all, she considered Socrates her friend. He was an extraordinary machine and almost human, in his way. River’s admiration wasn’t enough to make her turn back, though. When she felt his eyes boring into her back, she ignored the guilt gnawing at her insides and focused her eyes on the horizon.

  River’s conflicted emotions aside, the sense of elation that washed over her as she felt the boneshaker between her legs and the icy wind whipping at her hair made her forget everything else. It had been a long time since she’d ridden. Too long. River twisted the throttle and surged forward, flying over the rolling terrain with surprising ease. So far, the coil springs she’d added to the seat’s suspension system were working wonderfully.

  River hadn’t worn any goggles. She blinked her watering eyes and eased back on the throttle. If she’d learned anything from the previous boneshaker, it was that at high speed, bugs hurt. Devils, if one struck her in the eye it might blind her. She let the speed burn off and then idled to a stop on top of a hill about a mile north of the Horse. It was a high vantage point, and she saw the forest rising in the east. In every other direction, she saw only rolling hills and wild grain.

  Kale had supposedly gone hunting, but River saw no signs of wildlife. He’d probably gone straight for the woods. She revved up the throttle and took off, aiming for the plateau to the northeast. Just like her companions, River thought it would make an excellent spot to scout out the lay of the land.

  River managed her speed carefully, keeping an eye out for dangerous rocks and holes in the ground that might damage the boneshaker. Even so, she made the journey in a fraction of the time it had taken her companions. She reached the graveyard in twenty minutes, and parked outside the gate. She sat there a moment, steam vapors rising up around her from the boneshaker’s exhaust, stared at the eerie mass of decaying tombs and gravestones.

  There was something disquieting about the cemetery; something not just out of place but wrong. River’s skin crawled with the feeling that she was being watched. She turned slowly, searching the ruins for any sign of her companions. She noted nothing until she turned back to the east and saw, lying at the edge of the hill, a small shape glinting in the sunlight. River lowered the kickstand, dismounted the boneshaker, and hurried over to the mysterious object. She snatched it up and examined it. To her surprise, River realized it was a small inkwell.

  Her senses alert, River slowly drew her gaze across the hillside and noted the bizarre tracks mingling in the dusty earth. She isolated Micah’s prints easily enough, and the large boot prints must have belonged to Kale, but what about the others? River frowned as she noticed the strange markings of legs twisted sideways or dragged behind. Some of the prints revealed open heels or toes, as if the owners of the shoes had worn them completely raw and continued on with parts of their feet sticking out.

  A few yards away, River found the most horrifying tracks of all. She found the trail of a creature with the hands of a man, but crawling on its belly. Along the trail, she found scattered pieces of torn flesh and entrails, as if someone had dragged the corpse of an animal down the hill. This was no animal, though, it was a man, and judging by the handprints along the trail, he was moving under his own power.

  River stifled a chill as she climbed back onto the boneshaker and, somewhat hesitantly, began her descent into those murky woods.

  Chapter 9

  Micah wasn’t one to complain. Despite his pounding headache and the periodic waves of nausea, he had accepted his lot and taken up the task of saving his companions -not just Kale, but the other two as well. Micah didn’t know anything about the other prisoners, except that they had been there when he woke, and that they would probably share the same unfortunate fate if they weren’t rescued. That was why he planned on going straight to Socrates.

  Micah knew better than trying to rescue the others alone. He couldn’t get them out of the tower without being seen, and he certainly couldn’t fight off the guards himself. This was a complicated situation, and complicated situations called for complicated leaders. Micah couldn’t think of anyone in the world more complicated than the mechanical gorilla who commanded the crew of the Horse. Socrates would know what to do.

  This was what he told himself as he slipped quietly through the battlements, leaping from one shadow to the next. Micah stopped to lean around a tall stone parapet. He glanced down into the courtyard, where countless townsfolk came and went through the town square, and several dozen maids - old and young alike-had gathered to wash clothes and trade gossip. So far everything was quiet. No one had raised the alarm yet, and so far no one had seen him. In another hundred yards or so, he’d make it to the overhanging trees and he’d be home free.

  Micah turned his gaze back towards the tower behind him. He couldn’t help but worry -not so much about his companion, but about his maps. The guards had taken Micah's satchel when they brought him to the tower, and on the way inside they had tossed it aside like a worthless bag of horse manure. It pained him deeply to think of the way they had discarded it, more still to imagine it lying there in the mud next to the stables. Micah’s drawings were his most precious possessions. They were his heart and soul, and it would devastate him should they be destroyed.

  Unfortunately, the stables and his satchel were in the wrong direction, around the far side of the tower and well out of sight. The only way to save them would be to go back for them, and as much as it pained him, Micah knew that wouldn’t be right. He couldn’t risk getting caught again. No, he had to get out of the castle, find the rail tracks again, and race back to the Iron Horse to find Socrates.

  Micah pushed aside the thoughts of his drawings (as much as he could) and hurried the rest of the way to the trees, where they were hanging over the edge of the outer wall. He finally felt safe as he alighted onto a narrow branch and pushed through the foliage towards the trunk. This was a familiar environment for Micah, the sheltered safety of the treetops. In the village of his youth, many of the homes were built in the trees for protection from wild animals and marauding trolls. Micah was comfortable there, so much so that he was tempted to stay there a while, until things calmed down.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Time was of the essence, and for the sake of his paintings as well as his friend, Micah had to keep moving. He hurried towards the trunk and from there, quickly scrambled down the branches to the mossy ground. He landed with a quiet thump and paused, scanning the woods around him.

  A bird chirped in a nearby nest, and a wild hare vanished into the undergrowth to the east. He heard the distant murmuring voices; the sounds of people talking inside the castle wall. Other than that, he seemed to be alone. Still, Micah patiently waited. He knew that if something lurked in those woods, it would eventually move. He wasn’t about to go carelessly running about and land in the arms of one of those creatures again.

  After some time, Micah had observed nothing more than a sti
rring of the wind in the branches overhead and a few blue jays harassing a lone raven. He finally decided that no one had followed him, and that none of those undead corpses were lurking in the surrounding wilderness. He leapt to his feet and went racing through the trees.

  Micah tore through the underbrush as fast as his legs could carry him, leaping fallen logs and zigzagging between the trees. Shortly, the woods thinned out and gave way to a narrow stretch of the same river that they had crossed the previous night. The bridge was nowhere in sight. If his memory of the landscape was correct, it lay a mile or more to the south. That seemed a long distance to travel, when he could just as easily cross the river here. That water was relatively deep, but the current was slow and a series of boulders formed what almost seemed to be a path across the river. Micah decided that backtracking to the bridge would be foolish. It would take too long, and it would vastly increase his chances of running into more guards or more of those walking undead.

  “No, this will have to do,” he said quietly, stepping down the embankment. He maneuvered himself close to the water’s edge and then stepped easily onto the first large rock at the edge of the riverbank. He took a moment to gauge the best crossing and then began leaping deftly from one stone to the next.

  Micah had strength and agility that would have surprised most of his crewmates, though he did pay extra attention to the ankle he had twisted the day before. It seemed to have recovered nicely, but he didn’t dare put any extra pressure on it. If his ankle gave out on him now, in the middle of nowhere and miles away from the train, he’d be in some real trouble.

  Micah easily made it from the first stone to the next, and then across two more before he finally came to a standstill. Halfway across the river Micah paused, perched on top of a boulder, and turned his head slowly, searching for his next landing. He was still half a dozen yards from the opposite bank and there was a large stretch of empty space between this boulder and the next. However, upon closer inspection, Micah realized that just two yards away was another boulder hiding just beneath the surface of the water. He could see the jagged, shiny top peaking up from the murky waters.