Steampunk Fairy Tales (5 page)

As the mechanics resumed, Issun frantically
crawled through the steel guts, seeking something to wedge between
the gears. Light reflected off a familiar shape: his shield! Issun
scrambled toward it, hugged the coin to his chest, and began
climbing. The mech lurched, breaking Issun’s grasp and again he
fell. Spots danced before his eyes, but he still clutched the
coin.

When his vision cleared, he spotted another
set of gears only a few inches above him. He carefully climbed the
mechanics and, bracing himself, fit the coin between the teeth of
the gears.

For a moment nothing happened, until the
demon shook and a horrible screech grew and Issun had to cover his
ears. Then the mech, and Issun with it, was falling, and in the
darkened chaos all he could do was cover his head and pray.

When the demon finally lay still, Issun
braved a look around. A circle of light shone and he carefully
picked through the broken machine. Once he reached the mouth, he
stepped into the grass and looked around.

Aside from Yuki’s discarded kimono, he saw
nothing but the devastation the monster had caused. “Yuki!” he
called, running to her dress. It was torn, and a smear of blood
shone sticky near the shoulder. Tears formed in the corners of his
eyes, and a sob escaped him.

“
What troubles you, little
one?”

Issun turned to see a painfully bright-white
fox trotting toward him.

“
You can bring her back,
right?” Issun swallowed a gulp. Samurais didn’t cry.

The fox’s brow arched as if confused.

“
Issun?” came a small
voice. A bump in the fabric shifted.

“
Yuki?” he cried, charging
across the kimono to the voice.

Her tiny head and the top of her bare
shoulders—one stained with blood—popped through a tear in the
fabric. “What happened?”

The spirit-fox flicked its tail. “That was
no ordinary club that struck you, Yuki Suenaga,” the spirit-fox
said. “That was Uchide’s club. It can shrink and enlarge whatever
it strikes.”

Yuki peeked under the fabric and looked down
at her body. A smile slowly formed on her face. “Issun, I’m your
size!”

“
A … a bit shorter, I
think,” Issun said, uncomfortable but not displeased with her
exposure.

“
Give me a second,” Yuki
said, clutching a section of the oversized kimono around her body.
“Um … Issun … can you turn around? You too, fox.”

Issun and the fox did as she asked. Issun
heard fabric ripping behind him.

“
Ready!” she
called.

Issun turned to see her standing,
two-and-a-half inches tall, in a makeshift kimono.

She was beaming. “We can have so much fun! I
always wondered what it was like, rocketing through the pneumatic
tubes!”

Issun’s stomach tightened. “I … I guess we
could try that again. But it’s going to take a while to get back to
the train, given we’re lost and neither of us is … tall.” Issun
frowned up at the fox. “Could you give us a ride back to the train
station?”

The fox shook his great head. “My power is
limited to the forest.”

Issun remembered the frog he had saved
months earlier. “What about the river? Could you take us
there?”

The fox smiled a foxy smile. “If that is
your wish. You’ve done us a great service by ridding the woods of
the fabricated oni.”

Issun smiled and turned to Yuki, taking her
hands in his own. “How would you like to meet my parents?”

“
I’d love to.” Yuki’s
smile matched his own, and with the beginning of a blush already
forming, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Together, they rode on the fox’s back to the
bank of the river, where Issun called for Suijin. The frog emerged
from the water, along with a large bubble. Inside the bubble was
Issun’s tea-bowl boat. The bubble popped, and the bowl was
perfectly dry.

Issun lent Yuki a hand, then hopped in
himself. He kicked on the motors, which were powerful enough to
overcome the river’s current. Issun and Yuki looked back, holding
hands, and waved to Suijin and the fox-god.

The Copper Eyes

Alison Latzco

O
liver was certain his mother was up to something horrid when
his brothers disappeared into her workshop, a room no one ever
entered.

His mother—a brilliant
inventor—had been acting peculiar for days, and as the evening
lengthened and his older brothers helped their
mother, Oliver’s curiosity grew. He waited outside with
thinning patience as metal clanked and gears rattled in the other
room. Plans and blueprints of mechanisms and engines crowded every
nook and cranny of their cottage home, and on those pages existed
complex and brilliant designs. Oliver picked up a draft,
running his thumb along the page before he set it down, wishing
others could see the genius his mother was. Heaps of ideas and
designs remained incomplete, and even more had been stolen from
her, patented by other more recognized inventors.

T
he clock above him chimed and Oliver realized it was almost
midnight. Too much time had passed; his patience had
expired.

He crept up to the workshop door. A lock
kept him out, but he was used to picking it from many times before.
He nudged the door open and peered into the large room. Inventions
occupied the floors and shelves and in the center of the room sat
his mother’s worktable, covered in contraptions—his family was
nowhere in sight. He stepped to the table, picked up a pair of
leather goggles, and examined them. Gold framed the amber lenses.
His mother always wore them while she worked; she never finished
anything without them.

A buzzing noise went off, and Oliver’s head
snapped up. He hid the goggles behind his back. On the opposite
side of the room, two long tables stretched out with hunks of iron
lying on top. Oliver moved closer. The inventions were shaped like
animals made of metal, gears and bolts; one in the shape of a dog,
the other an eagle. Both were a human length, and their orange
glassy eyes stared up aimlessly, the sight of them stalling
Oliver’s heart.

“
Oliver, what are you
doing here?” his mother asked, and then he saw her. She stood
against the wall, her fingers twisting around a long flat tool in
her hand.

“
What are you working on?”
he asked.

“
You always need to know,
don’t you?”

She smiled, but Oliver sensed something
darker in that look. He’d seen it quite often when she noticed him
or his brothers observing her work.

“
So curious,” she added.
“I had to stop it.”

“
What do you mean?” he
asked. “Where are my brothers?”

Her eyes trailed to the machines, and
Oliver’s blood went cold as he realized what she’d done. The metal
machines – though animalistic – were also familiar.

“
No one will steal my
inventions anymore. Not even my sons.”

His mother pulled a lever
down on the wall beside her; the orange eyes of the two metal
animals blazed like fire and they rose from their tables like
Frankenstein’s creation, metal scraping the tables.

Oliver turned, sprinted
from the room and raced out of the house. The doors slammed behind
him as he gasped for breath.
In the
cottage he heard projects smashing into the ground and his
mother’s voice growing louder.

“
Oliver, come back,” she
called through the door. The words ran off her tongue like venom.
“You can’t just leave.”

He scrambled away from the house and down
the hill, never once looking back. He ran as far as he could, over
rocks and fallen branches, to the only place he could think of.

The nearby village glowed before him like a
beacon of hope. When he made it to the square, he exhaled in
relief. The sounds of squeaking gears and grinding were gone, but
above him a winged creature drifted through the sky and the tree
line danced as something pushed against the branches.

He leaned against a wall as he trembled,
imagining his brothers, whom he’d always been so close to,
descending upon him with a remorseless force. As the minutes
passed, his heartbeat slowed. For now he knew he was safe.

Oliver moved to wipe his tear-stained face.
Only then did he realize what he still had, and he gazed at them in
wonder. In his fingers were his mother’s copper goggles, shining
brilliantly in the moonlight.

###

Guests bustled through the small inn,
drinking and laughing as the innkeeper shuffled around with their
meals. Lantern light illuminated the pub, giving it a pleasant feel
amidst the grimy tables and dirty crowd.

Oliver sat at one of the tables as the
innkeeper set a plate of stew and potatoes in front of him. Heat
drifted off the food and his stomach rumbled. Warmth spread from
his stomach as he ate.

“—
t’s ‘ery good,” Oliver
said to the innkeeper through a mouthful of stew.

The old woman laughed and patted him on the
shoulder. “I’m glad you like it.”

Oliver had grown
accustomed to the familiar faces at the inn. It had been two weeks
and the nightmare of what he’d seen in his mother’s workshop had
not abated, but the familiar drone of the inn, the crowds and
cheerful banter had almost doused his fear. The innkeeper had taken
him in in exchange for his assistance with chores, and he’d been
more than grateful. Most nights it was a peaceful reprieve and a
nice distraction. Even so, he knew he could not return
home.

As the evening wore on, the door of the inn
slammed open and three men entered. Their chairs scraped across the
wooden floor; their voices loud and hysteric. The innkeeper sighed
in annoyance, snapping her rag, and moved to greet her newest
customers. Oliver regarded them, swinging his feet under the chair
as they spoke, their frightened tones swept through the room.

“—
not going to be safe for
long. The stairs are gone and the place will crash down at any
moment.”

“
We almost died! It was
the beast’s fault!” The man held out his arms to describe something
rather large. At first, the mechanic creatures had been nothing
more than a remarkable sight in the village. But Oliver could tell
from the men’s expressions that something had transpired, and a
rush of fear gripped his chest. He listened in.
They had been at the clock tower waiting to see the beasts.
At midnight, they’d appeared; one a giant metal bird with iron
wings, swooping and twisting in the air; the other a
massive canine that pounded its way through the village woods, its
gears groaning and creaking.
Then
they attacked the villagers with claws and teeth. A boy with them
had gotten hurt.

“
And that stupid girl!”
the one man said. “She hid up in the tower. We tried to get her out
but it’s impossible.”

Oliver’s eyes widened. The men’s voices
quieted, and Oliver hopped off the chair, ducking under the table
nearest them.

“
How long has she been up
there?” one of them asked.

“
Two days. Dumb girl’s
probably frightened out of her mind.”

“
Hopefully, the monsters
disappear so we can get to her.”

“
We’ll be lucky the tower
doesn’t topple before that.”

Oliver’s hands turned to fists and he closed
his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Excuse me,” he said, popping up
and alerting the men. They stared at him with open mouths. “Where
is she trapped?” he asked.

“
The old clock tower,” one
said, dumbstruck.

“
Thank you.” Oliver nodded
and raced out the door, ignoring their calls to return.

The old clock tower loomed over the edge of
town. The ancient brass hands progressed steadily as Oliver crept
up to it, gazing up at it in wonder. He was surprised the clock
still functioned properly, considering the wreckage the metal beast
had caused. It looked as though the building would tip over any
moment, back into the woods where nature could finally reclaim
it.

Fear ran rampant through his heart. His legs
felt like jelly, and he had the urge to run back into the village
and continue hiding at the inn. But he knew he had to remedy the
chaos his mother had begun. The creatures were looking for him,
after all, and he’d done nothing but hide. Now a girl’s life was
involved.

The clock sounded eleven times, leaving only
an hour until the beasts appeared. He could make it up there in
time, if he tried.

Setting his lantern down, he grabbed the
amber goggles resting on his head and placed the large lenses over
his eyes. As soon as he did, a whizzing noise picked up, steam blew
off above his head, and suddenly the glass inside the goggles
changed, illuminating his way with green symbols and
instructions.

Bits of debris covered the ground and walls
of the floor of the tower. Nothing remained of the staircase that
had existed to his left, and there were still two levels above. The
goggles pinpointed an object in sight with an emerald arrow. If he
shoved the fallen wooden beam to the right two feet three inches,
he could secure what remained of the stairs above. Then he had to
move the rubbish and use a stack of crates to reach the rest of the
stairs.

Smiling, Oliver pushed the wooden beam as
the goggles instructed. It moved easily. He tossed bits of wood and
metal out of his way and stacked the crates until they were sturdy
enough to climb. When he got to solid ground on the second level,
the remainder of the stairwell rested before him. He stepped
lightly onto the first quivering step. Then he gripped the railing
on both sides and ventured up.