This Deadly Engine Page 16

  I pointed to Aimee. “What part of the plan included her? And besides, I can’t leave. There are too many orcs to kill.”

  It was difficult to tell which statement surprised the gnome more. He groaned when he saw Aimee, but his eyes bulged when he looked at me.

  Before he replied and before Perrin charged in to add to the number of dead orcs, I grabbed the gnome. “This is not an appropriate time to go on a killing spree.”

  Perrin said, “But the only good orc is a—

  “Remember the last village of Reganas Eight? When you underestimated the orcs?” When he said nothing, I continued, “We have the Gray Heart. At the moment, that is enough.”

  And sometimes to win a fight, one had to run.

  Chapter 9

  A deafening boom sounded from behind, and a wave of heat washed over us. Flames consumed the ‘Myths and Legends’ exhibit. A fire bell tolled nearby. Another followed, and another, and another. People screamed both within the building and without. The former sound made me hesitate.

  The gnome asked, “Do you have the Heart?”

  I patted my pocket and nodded.

  His eyes lit as he wrung his hands. “Then let’s be on our way to Branagh’s.”

  For once, I missed the little canon’s voice of righteousness and mercy. I needed his encouragement even though I knew the right thing to do.

  Orcs and gnomes fled the spreading flames with a few humans – men, women, and children – scattered among them. Yet more cries and pleas for help arose from within the exhibit. People remained trapped. They could very well die if no one helped.

  Cavendish said, “Ash…we need to go.”

  I shook my large head and blinked once. “We need to rescue them.”

  Perrin said, “Why do you do these things? Risking your life for strangers? Why…oh…” He grunted. “You are a strange one, Alexander Asherton. But there is good in you.”

  The gnome stepped in front of me. He looked straight up. “This is not your fight, Ash. This is not your decision to make. If you are in there, Perrin, listen to me. Do not let yourself go back.”

  Every moment we waited and debated, the chances of survival decreased. “I can help. What if Ravenlea was trapped in there? Would you want me to leave her?”

  Cavendish pointed to the right. “I found her in another building. She is part of a different display.”

  “Is Sera there?” I asked before I stopped myself.

  The gnome eyed me with concern. “Who?”

  “She is someone we will need to find later.” Arguing with both the hairy creature and the large brute only wasted more time.

  Perrin said, “I need to know. We should go to where the gnome’s lady is.”

  “No, we need to help the people trapped. We are the reason they could die.”

  I would not have their deaths on my conscience. They would not be the victims of a rotten plan. No one listened when I tried to argue against it. Why?

  Perrin said, “Because my world is at a tipping point. Will order reign or will chaos engulf all? And if chaos, then what does that mean for your world? Will the orcs be satisfied with only one world when they can spread their darkness to another? The plan was worth the risk. Besides, who else was willing to try? Who else could they ask to put their life on the line but two people with nothing to lose? Can you not see?”

  Indeed I could, especially when he stated it so bluntly. He emphasized his point by remembering when we stood on the edge of Reganas Nine two months ago. On the plains below stretched an army of orcs, lizards, giants, and dragons. Thuds deep enough to rattle the ground sounded in quick succession. Four boulders each the size of a dwarf’s house flew through the air. They struck a magical barrier that protected the Reganas, which caused it to shimmer. A lady cried out from behind, and a Treyo Duthku collapsed.

  Perrin said, “Do you better understand why what we are doing is so important? The elves cannot hold without more power. They certainly have no hope of winning in their current state.”

  The continued cries from within the burning exhibit pulled me from the memory. I asked, “Will five minutes mean the end of your Reganas?”

  Perrin said, “No—”

  “Then we are helping here and now. If there are orcs, we will deal with them. But we will not kill them.” I stepped over Cavendish, who tried to pull on the leg of my trousers.

  Heat enveloped me as I ran into the burning building. The voices led down the track, past the King Arthur exhibit, where fire engulfed the Round Table. We passed the room for Dante’s Inferno which felt exactly that way. The lost city of Atlantis disappeared again, but this time in a torrent of flames and smoke rather than beneath crushing waves. Not an automaton remained in any of the rooms.

  A crack sounded just before a beam fell across the path. I tossed it to the side and continued past the track Aimee had ruined. The voices grew louder and encouraged me onward towards the heart of the building. I coughed and my eye watered as the smoke grew thicker. Yet it would not stop me. I pushed through and stopped in front of the twisted remains of an engine and its cars.

  “Bloody hell,” I said.

  Aimee stood there, flanked by her automaton army. No longer did they wear the clothes from their respective displays. Rather, everything had burned to the black skeleton and tubes through which the liquids moved with the beat of a heart. Several cried in perfect mimicry of ladies and children. They all carried swords and spears, some of which glowed red from the heat.

  Despite the temperature, my blood ran cold from hearing such voices coming from the monstrosities. Perrin growled at the sight.

  Aimee motioned towards me. “Give yourself up.” She paused. “Alexander.”

  Her words made me hesitate. How did she… No. She could not know. Not with any certainty, as evidenced by her voice. And despite the earlier temptation to do so, I would not give my secret away.

  Heat swirled the bottom of her dress. Fire had singed the edges. Her hair spilled from the clips that tried to hold it into place. Otherwise, she appeared as natural and as perfect as always. “Do not deny yourself. We, too, have informants on your side. The Elders are not as united as are led to believe.”

  Perrin growled. “No elf would willingly join the orcs.”

  I said as much, and Aimee gave me the all-knowing smirk she once gave to commoners asking for loans at the Bank of Campden. “You would be surprised, Alexander.” She paused to see if I reacted. When I only blinked, she added, “Give me the locket and give yourself up. We have the masters of The Company already. They have been imprisoned in an appropriate cell given the problems they have caused. It is only a matter of time before we find their elixir master. I believe his name is Pienne?” She smiled like she did in our earliest days together, those days after I saved her from the assassin.

  While such an expression once warmed my heart, now I had no heart left to warm.

  The sound of airships filled the air, even above the roar of the flames.

  I would not give the Heart to her. In fact, I could use it against her…

  “No,” Perrin said. “It is too dangerous.”

  I asked Aimee, “Why would I want to be possessed by whomever you believe I am? Is this person a human?”

  Her smile changed to a smirk. “I know it is you. No one else is foolish enough to run into a fire to save people. But that is the very thing you live for. You feed on the plight of the helpless.”

  The desire to defend myself before her almost drove out the good sense to remain quiet. She knew how to irritate me better than anyone.

  I shrugged. “If this person is a human, why would I want one of you scrawny, skinny, and weak creatures to possess me?”

  She mocked my shrug. “Desperation makes you do foolish things. Reginald is curious as to how you did it.” She paused to let me answer. When I refused, she sighed the most delicate of sighs. “I know you won’t tell me. Just like you won’t give me the locket. What is it worth, really? A worthless trinket? A piece of
imitation jewelry? And one that is not very good?” She paused once again. As before, I remained silent. “You make this too easy. Goodbye, Alexander. For good and forever.” She waved the skeletons forward. “Kill him.”

  A wall of water from an airship struck with a whoosh. It quenched the fire while creating great clouds of smoke.

  The sound reminded me of the churning waters where Aimee supposedly drowned.

  She must have thought the same, for she flinched at the noise.

  As the clouds rolled over me, I ran.

  The army of automatons followed. The airships continued to pour water on the fire, which created more billowing smoke. I coughed and choked as I cleared the building, but I dared not stop to catch my breath.

  Cavendish waited with his hands at his hips. Before he complained about my leaving, I scooped him up.

  The gnome asked, “Ash, what are—” He sucked in a quick breath when he saw the black skeleton army that followed.

  We ran past tents where people gazed at the inferno. Someone asked if they watched part of the evening’s festivities. Someone else wondered if the fire would spread. Still others simply stared with open mouths.

  The lights along the edge of the lane guided me as Perrin’s long stride distanced us from the automatons. Where we went mattered little, so long as we moved as far away from Aimee as possible.

  “To the right,” Cavendish said.

  I turned down the lane. The people there did not appear concerned enough about a charging cyclops to move out of the way. They forced me to weave to the left, to the right, and sometimes backwards to keep from knocking them over. “This is slowing us, Cavendish.”

  “Keep going. The crowd will slow them down, too.”

  “Coming through,” I said as I pushed two men aside.

  “Watch it, governor,” one said. When he saw my cyclopean form he added, “S…s…sorry, sir!”

  I stepped over a line of children, much to the objections of their parents. I pushed a couple aside, lifted an elderly man as I stepped around him, and apologized when three women squealed as they hurried to move. Finally, the disruption rippled through the crowd to the point that many tried to clear a path.

  We reached another square where concern about the fire had not yet taken hold. A building to the left served as an entrance to ‘The Clockwork Spiral,’ an enormous clock – thirty feet tall and twenty feet wide. The clock face took up most of the front, and the arms looked to be about eight feet long. The minute hand moved with a loud and ominous click. Hundreds of gears of dozens of sizes on all sides spun and whirled.

  A man at the entrance, wearing a red coat covered in gold gears, said, “Come one and all to the magnificent Clockwork Spiral. Enter a labyrinth of spinning gears that will twirl you around. Can you find the exit before the clock strikes midnight?”

  Cavendish pointed to the building to the left. Lights flashed on the front, then faded as words glowed and seemed to emerge from the wall itself – ‘Terrifying Thrills and Wicked Wonders.’ A man with legs twice the normal length spread his arms wide. “Enter a world of wonder and terror. Behold the Mechanical Boy who has the arms and legs of an automaton. See the dwarf with a gun for an arm.” He pointed to several couples in the front. “A real, working gun, I say! These are only a couple of the creatures who will haunt your dreams.” He pointed to the entrance. “In here are the Siamese twins – but are the heads real or machine?”

  Knowing Schaever and having witnessed untold monstrosities already, I easily imagined what waited. “You want me to go in there?”

  Before Cavendish answered, yells of excitement arose as the skeleton army moved into the square. The other-worldliness of the Expo infected everyone to the point that they gave no thought to being frightened by the sight. Then again, the skeletons wanted to kill only me. Not them.

  As I charged forward I asked the gnome, “Am I about to see what I think I am going to see?”

  Cavendish bounced on my shoulder. “It’s…nothing…you…haven’t…already seen.”

  Still, the sight would grow no less disturbing.

  The man taking the tickets saw me coming. He waved his hands. “You must use the side entrance! You must—”

  I pushed him aside. Protests from those waiting in the line followed. I paused just inside, where a narrow hall stretched before us. On either side stood the familiar tanks holding the specimens of countless experiments – ones used by Schaever to develop an automaton body suitable enough to contain the essence of Lady Elizabeth. And as it turned out, anyone else whom Schaever wanted to replace. As before, when I first saw the tanks in the strange room outside of his underground paradise, the sight of men, women, boys, girls, and creatures from the magic realm with an assortment of metal or mechanical parts created waves of nausea.

  Perrin whispered, “By all the blood of Paupeneuse, what is this place?”

  Each tank contained its own light source, which made the water within appear green. The sad abominations of magic and science floated in the water. Scattered overhead lighting only added to the macabre effects.

  I had to look straight ahead. I had to fight curiosity’s morbid fascination and the desire to take it all in. Unfortunately, a bright light from above illuminated a figure within a cage at the first intersection and drew my eye. A lonely dwarf sat on a stool, his head down in refusal to look at the crowd gathered along the perimeter. As the man in the front promised, there sat the one with the gun for a left arm. He had gears and a metal joint for a shoulder, which connected the gun. He must have served as an early prototype of the machine gun I encountered when going to Schaever’s underground lair the first time.

  Perrin grunted at the sight.

  Cavendish led the way past the dwarf. We also moved around several groups who pointed to a tank that held a half-elf, half-human boy of about ten years. Black scales covered his torso. One lady asked if he was the orphan who burned in the tannery fire.

  Perrin whispered, “I need to know if she is here.” He forced us to look at each tank we passed. Tears filled my eye as we saw the lady with the black metal spine, the boy with legs below the knees that were nothing more than oversized hammers, a petite lady with claws for hands, and…others.

  I wiped my eye as we approached another intersection where the mechanical boy provided another group with unnatural entertainment. Unlike the dwarf who appeared resigned to his fate, this one tried to pry the bars apart so he could escape. His lower jaw jutted out, revealing the bottom row of teeth and the scowl he wore made him look all the angrier. But no matter how hard he tried, the black bars, made of the same metal as his limbs, refused to budge. He growled at the spectators who appeared delighted to watch his futile efforts.

  We passed a lady with six arms – her two normal arms, plus two mechanical arms on each side. Plates bolted through the skin attached the new arms. The sign on the front of her cage proclaimed her to be ‘The Amazing Spider Lady.’ She hugged herself with her three pairs of arms and remained huddled in the far corner, watching me with red eyes. She had not been given a set of clothes, other than a bloomer.

  At the next intersection waited a two-foot glass box where children laughed and giggled. Faery wings sparkled within as the tiny creatures flew about, chasing one another.

  Such small and innocent things held so much power. Schaever spent a small fortune importing them. What would the children think if they knew the faeries enjoyed killing as much as they loved to play?

  We continued through the never-ending display of the macabre. Perrin wanted to look away but could not for the hope – and fear – of finding his sister. We saw no cyclopes, only more oddities such as the man with four legs who resembled a walking chair.

  When we approached another intersection, I could not say why I stopped. Was it a sixth sense? An instinctive act? A sense of dread? Whatever the answer, I stared at a figure sitting on a stool in a cage…or I could say I stared at figures as in plural, for two men occupied one body…or parts of one body.
They had two heads, both with black hair streaked with gray. Wrinkles lined the eyes of both. Their brows protruded more than normal, giving them deep-set eyes. Pointed noses and wide mouths completed their identical appearances. In many ways, their characteristics reminded me of Pienne. Perhaps that explained why I surely looked like a confused fool.

  Their bodies joined at the shoulder such that each had a single arm. They were separated along the lower torso, but they rejoined at the hips. They only had two legs between them.

  The men wore a costume that looked as if it belonged to a gnome, with its patterns of yellow and red squares on their shirts, white trousers with vertical green stripes, and a pointed hat for each. Despite their comical appearance, their words frightened me as much as Jandorsi’s beating had frightened Perrin.

  The head on the left said, “This one believes us strange, yes? Do you believe he wants a closer look?”

  The right one said, “Hmmm, but I wonder if he wishes to join us in our tiny prison home? Would he willingly exchange places and let the eyes of frightened children regard him as he now regards us?”

  My belly settled somewhere in the bottom part of my feet. Blood rushed from my head, and I teetered on my heels.

  “Yes, but this one might be ill. Does the sight of us make him so?”

  No, the sight of you doesn’t make me ill. The knowledge of you does.

  The Misters.

  The jesters looked nothing like the criminal masterminds whose rule terrorized the wealthy of the town and confounded The Gatherers.

  Curiosity and revulsion drew me towards them. The one I called Mister Mercy because of his cordial tone, wore a look of disgust. “An ugly one has come to gaze upon us. Perhaps he wants to learn what it means to have true majesty and beauty.”

  The Misters were Siamese twins?

  Had I not seen so many strange things already, I might have dismissed the notion as wholly preposterous. Yet…it made too much sense. It explained much about them, about why they remained anonymous and why they seemed so…bonded together.