Steamscape (20 page)

Steamflowers unfolded their blooms along the walls of the cave. Solindra smiled and inhaled the fragrance, and curled her fingers around the petals.

She raised her hands, leaving the sancta in her pocket, and tried to form the shape of the flower within in the steam itself without the cipher medallion.

The steam continued to rise, but no flower formed.

Solindra’s head rolled forward again. She guessed she needed that damn device after all, just like every other crypter. With the heady scent of the flowers still in her nose, she rested her back against the wall again.

She jerked her head upright at the sound of footsteps. “Elclei! I didn’t hear you…” She gasped and froze at the figure whose skirts swirled in the steam.

The vessel licked her lips and squinted. “Merlina? How did you find me?”

Merlina pressed a quieting finger to her lips and beckoned.

Solindra rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Merlina? What are you doing here?” She tried to fight against a yawn.

“Talking to you,” the fortune teller said with a barb in her voice. But she smiled and winked.

“Yes, but…” She squinted. Merlina wasn’t in focus, not with all the steam and smoke waving around her body.

“But nothing. Come along, girl, it’s time.”

“For what?” Solindra pushed herself up off the floor. She limped after the bricoleur crypter, her muscles still weighed down with exhaustion.

Merlina danced instead of walking, like those belly dancers outside of her little den of crime. She held up her arms and rattled her hips. She spun in a circle, never stopping the shaking of her waist as she moved through the steam. Ahead of Solindra, she vanished into the darkness of the cave.

The vessel stopped. She rubbed her eyes again. No one was there. No echoes, no voice. Just the gathering steam blowing past her skirt and into the darkness beyond.

“Hello?” she quavered. Her foot hovered in the air, stopped halfway through its next step.

Merlina’s hand shot out of the blackness. Her bangles clanged together like tiny bells.

Solindra took the hand, held her breath, closed her eyes and jumped into the void.

It felt like passing through a strong downdraft.

The scent of honeysuckle tickled her nose. She opened her eyes to the light of a garden. Green vines wrapped around marble pillars holding up the roof. Those vines smothered a central, spiral staircase that disappeared into the ceiling and the floor, leaving no way up or down. She stared at the aether’s reflections on the water and the shadowy bands high in the bright sky. The moons looked so much closer from up here.

Merlina flounced down on a long sofa.

Solindra rubbed her temples. “This is just too weird.” She inched toward the edge and stared down. A massive light, made by mirrors and electrical lights, swiveled overhead. Down below, a garrison of soldiers swarmed in front of the famed barracks. Ahead of them was nothing but the sparkling ocean, illuminated by the beam and the bands.

“The Lighthouse of Vilosa!” Solindra gasped. She stumbled away from the lip. “But– But this was destroyed in earthquakes centuries ago!”

Merlina dipped some grapes into her mouth. “That’s what you were taught, yes.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It exists. Beyond the steam. In the imagination of the ghosts, as you say.”

Solindra frowned. “The ghosts don’t have imagination. They’re just dissolved aether.”

“Perhaps just a memory of it then. A pattern etched into time itself. Why don’t you ask them that?” She laughed.

“Ask them?” Solindra repeated doubtfully.

“Isn’t that why the Priory is after you, my dear?” Merlina reached overhead and plucked some fresh grapes from a vine.

“No. It’s not because of the ghosts.” She bunched her fists. “I know I can’t trust anything Adri said.”

Merlina smirked and swallowed a grape. “I don’t think she lied to you, as such. I think she just omitted what she didn’t want you to hear.”

“She wants me dead now too. She, Steampower and the Priory. By the way, she was nothing like what I had imagined her to be.” Solindra wheeled for balance, eyeing the nearby edge with wary eyes. She sat down right where she was, on the floor. “They all want me dead. I don’t know where my family is. I don’t know what to do next.”

Merlina smiled sadly. “
Veritas temporalis est
.”

Solindra scowled. “What does it mean?”

“What it says. Truth is temporary.”

Steam swirled up from nowhere, weaving in and out of the flowers and the grasses. Thickly, like fog, but with a welcoming warmth. It smoothed her skin and whispered in her ears.

Solindra buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what I want anymore. I got to see Codic and Redjakel. I dined with Adri, I can make the ghosts obey me, but none of it was what I wanted.”

“It’s not about what you want, dear. It’s about what you need to do.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

A male voice drifted through the steam, “I need you to do what I never did.”

Solindra froze. She mechanically swiveled her head toward the sound. Her hands froze halfway from her face at the silhouette. She gulped. “Dad?”

Winds pushed the steam aside to show Mark Canon. He smiled beneath his beard. He held his arms open.

“Dad!” The vessel pushed herself to her feet and dashed over to him. He wrapped his arms around her.

“You’ve grown so much!” His grin started to recede. “I will walk you home. There’s too much to say and not much time.”

***

With the lights of the garden vanishing behind them, Canon and Solindra walked into the dark of the cave. The fire surrounding the laundry bucket had faded to glowing embers, but steam still wisped above the pot.

Solindra sniffed and swung back into the same spot where she’d fallen asleep. “Dad, I’m not sure about any of this. The only thing I’m sure of is that you can’t leave me again!”

“I’m always right here, little Cylinder.” He stepped back, becoming nothing more than a shadow in the embers’ light. “Right beyond the steam.”

“Dad. Dad!”

Canon had vanished.

“Solindra. Solindra.”

The vessel jerked her eyes open. Elclei was shaking her shoulder. When she noticed Solindra’s face, she smirked and stepped back. “Tsk tsk.” But her smile warmed. “Fire had burnt down.” She waved her hand at the cheery flames. “I had to rebuild it.”

“Dad!” Solindra rolled to her feet, steadying herself against the rock wall.

Elclei raised her white eyebrows. “There’s no one else here, child.”

The young woman lunged forward, but the distant wall of the cave was smooth and solid, and lined with the potent steamflowers. But Merlina and Dad had appeared out of that passage that was right there.

Solindra ran her hands over the stone. “No, this is wrong. He was here. He was right through here…” She leaned her back against the wall and sank back down to the floor. Tears bubbled up from somewhere deep inside.

Elclei gathered up her skirt and circled the fire. “I think it was just a nightmare, dearie, especially after what you’ve been through.”

She shook her head. “No. This place is the nightmare. Everything’s wrong on this side of the steam.”

The old woman shrugged sympathetically. “Just as you say, girl. Now I think you should get more rest, because it looks like your trip down the river’s still got its grip on you. After all, you passed out here well enough in the least comfortable place I can imagine.”

“But my dad was here…”

The old woman held out her hand for the girl to stand. “Maybe, maybe.” She wheezed a little bit under Solindra’s weight. “In the lands beyond Steamscape, when I was but your age, steam was nothing special. We believed the aether bands were the chariot trails of the sun god. When I was forced to work for Steampower as a child – before I was brought here – we figured the steam was enslaved like a person to turn its metal teeth. How silly I feel about it now.”

Solindra felt out the passage with her free hand. It was still too dark to see. “I guess civilization has worn off onto you then.”

“Yes, but what I’m trying to impart is that my whole world changed. What I thought was real was only real for the time I thought it was. Everything changed when I was brought here, and now that I’m old, I’m afraid soon that everything will change for me again.”

Solindra shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Codic fashion. I bet you’ve always believed in those clothes.”

The vessel was glad for the darkness to hide her blush. “Yes, but it’s silly now after what I’ve been through.”

“Exactly.” Elclei chuckled. “But have you noticed that the wealthy have their clothes on their portraits painted over every ten years or so?”

Solindra laughed and wiped away a tear. “I’d heard that, but that’s just to keep their clothes with the current trends. I read in the fashion journals that some of them would perish of embarrassment if people saw them in outdated styles.”

“Don’t you think life is a little like clothing then, Miss Solindra?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Everything I’ve ever known has always changed. And it will again.” Elclei paused as they came into the part of the cave where the children had been curled up in their bedrolls. Some of the older ones were already up and watching the entrance. A blond-haired boy turned and waved at them.

He cupped his mouth. “Me and Davey and the others are just about ready. Is there anything else, Miss Elclei?”

The old woman wrinkled her nose. “Flour, my lad.” She nudged Solindra, who was wiping her tears on her sleeve. “Would you care to join them? May do you more good than to sit around here and think yourself stupid all day.”

Solindra sniffed and nodded. “Yeah, just let me grab a couple of things.” She pushed herself back toward the room with the supplies. In the sparse glow of the lamplight, she dug her hands into a bag of ammunition and checked the caliber on the bullets’ stamps.

Gold! No, this was better than gold; these were bullets.

The vessel spent the next few moments checking over the rifle. Adri had prepared it for use before she’d given it to her. At last, she loaded it and then strapped it on her back without the carrying case. She held up her chin, dried her last few tears and marched out of the cave.

***

Davey led the party. The other boy was named Teddy, and the two girls about twelve or thirteen, were Abigail and Rosalyn. They looked like twins underneath their white bonnets and matching dresses. Solindra plodded along in their footsteps, trusting them to know the way to Ronna. She wasn’t even sure where it had been on the map – somewhere downstream from Codic.

Teddy splashed down in the chuckling brook they were following upstream. The water flew up and splattered across the rest of them. Solindra gripped the sancta in her front pocket. After a moment, she pulled it out and tied it to her belt.

“Who’s got the list?” she called.

Davey waved. “Just the usual food run, and whatever valuables people want to stash with us.”

Solindra’s eyebrows shot up. “What, like their diamonds?”

Teddy laughed. “Nope, not when they can swallow those. More like the oil and whiskey, whatever barrels we can roll back.”

The vessel eyed the uneven ground. “I hope not.”

“I’m Flame!” Davey yelled from upfront. He threw a handful of dirt at Abigail. Solindra suddenly gripped the rifle’s strap at the name.

“No.” Teddy crossed his arms. “You were Flame last time. That’s not fair.”

Abigail grinned and held up some twine. “I’m the Death Spinner and I got you both!” She tagged Davey on the shoulder.

Teddy thumped his chest. “I’m Flame. You can be the Steam Slayer this time, Davey.” He pointed at Rosalyn. “She’s Ghost, and Solindra gets to be Silvermark, ‘cause she’s got the rifle.”

The vessel gripped the rifle’s strap tighter across her chest and thought, if you only knew.

“Okay.” Rosalyn grinned. “What’s the mission this time?”

“To steal and sneak supplies through the battlefield!” Teddy roared. “Only this time, the enemy is using clockwork mines. Steam Slayer, Ghost, you’re up.”

“Hold on!” Solindra barked. Then she grinned. “I’m Silvermark, so I get to give the orders.” The children fell into a line before her. She walked up and down it once, surveying her troops. “Here is our mission: to steal food to get back to our cave base. You should deny this information if captured. The adversary is using clockwork mines, so Steam Slayer, Ghost, it’s up to you to find us a safe path to the enemy fortress.”

Davey and Rosalyn saluted. They whirled around, fell into a crouch and started to waddle with their eyes on the ground, tapping the ground ahead of them with their knives.

“Watch for animal carcasses – maybe they stepped on some,” Davey whispered loudly.

“Or local trails. The locals know not to leave the trail,” Rosalyn replied.

“But we’ll be sighted on the trail!” Teddy hissed. “I say we burn the whole forest! Show them to respect us!”

“Flame!” Solindra snapped. “Not yet. Not until we have to cover our tracks.” She shivered at just how accurate that had been.

Teddy grinned and fell into step behind “Ghost” and “Steam Slayer”.

They crouched down and spent the morning squelching through the mud as silently as possible to avoid the make-believe clockwork mines. When the streets of Ronna came into view through the trees, Solindra raised her hand and gestured for everyone to lie flat on the ground.

Rosalyn pointed. “But there’s the–”

The vessel pressed her fingers to her lips. She whispered, “Do you think the Hex would walk into a town without studying it first?”

Rosalyn shook her head. “Probably not.”

Davey hurled a rock. “Boom! Pow! I got a mine! Everybody duck from the flying dirt!”

“Davey, no!” Solindra snapped. “The
enemy
just saw the mine explosion – they’ll come looking. Now, everybody look at the town and tell me what you see. Does it look normal? Watch for at least two minutes before you answer.”