Clockwork Scoundrels 2: An Isle in Mist Page 4

  Mel had never known any kings, but she’d known plenty of small-time leaders: mayors and barons and, once, a hard-bitten sergeant. The one thing they all shared in common was their lust for the trappings of power, and their need to flaunt it. Especially when their subordinates were looking on. But Flanagg looked truly perturbed, blustering and shaking his head with real annoyance.

  Mel slipped her arm through his. “Did someone say something about food?”

  He favored her with a grateful smile. “Yes. Yes, let’s proceed to the banquet. Shall we?”

  “I can eat.”

  Thadon resumed his position as standard-bearer, scowling as he pushed through the throng. The rest of the honor guard fell in around Flanagg and the crew.

  A long, rough-cut trestle table and bench stood where the four separate bridges converged. Smaller tables were positioned along the separate arms of the bridge, but many of the villagers just sat on the ground. Quiet laughter accompanied the general hush of the night. Soft blue light from the river brightened the entire area.

  Flanagg and the crew of the Misty Morning sat at the high table. The crew goggled as lean elven maids and voluptuous little people circulated with trays of blackened fish, spiced bread, and grilled vegetables, or refilled goblets with brightly-flavored wine. To be served like a king was one thing, but to be served by an elven maid was something else entirely. Mel let them have their fun but kept watch to make sure they were respectful.

  Thadon and his fellows stood off to the side, keeping any overzealous villager from wandering too close to the table.

  “They are the Stout,” Flanagg said, following her gaze. “They patrol the borders and guard the Casting. Thadon leads them. It is by his doing that the villagers name me king. I prefer Seer as it implies much less power. And responsibility. But my counsel they did not seek on this matter.” He doffed his hat, setting it beside him on the bench. Without the strange hat, he appeared even more like an old man: stooped and wrinkled, his thin gray hair feathering in the breeze. Lessened, somehow.

  “I am a Seer, Captain. Was a time that I could See things: as they are, as they were, as they might be. But the Sight has largely let me. Now I only get glimpses. A veil has fallen over my eyes. I knew you were coming, I think, on some level. Not you, exactly. Just… something.” He shrugged in frustration. “A Seer that can’t See. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  Mel had seen this kind of helpless frustration before, this empty struggle against the inevitability of time, and knew that it wouldn’t end well. She looked down the table, trying to catch Sildrian’s eye, but he wasn’t paying attention.

  “Why are you here, Captain?” Flanagg leaned his elbows on the table and split a round hunk of bread. “Fate has flown you to Fosis, but rarely do we act solely at fate’s behest.”

  “We are…” Outlaws? Criminals? Somehow, she doubted he’d take the truth well. “Orphans. We were forced from our home. We’re going beyond the Fog, if such a place exists.”

  “Oh, it exists,” Flanagg said. Crumbs spilled from his mouth, tangling in his beard. “Are you bound for Evergreen?”

  Mel gave him an I don’t know what you’re talking about look.

  “Evergreen is a place free of the Mist, across the narrow waters. Creatures of the Mist gather there in great communities.”

  “Why do you linger here, if you know of a better place?”

  “Better?” He shook his head. “Different. Not better. Evil flourishes there, too. No. We are Fosis, Keepers of the Fire. Our place is here.”

  “But you’ve been there.” Wheels were turning in Mel’s head. Great communities. People meant commerce. Might be she’d have someone to trade with after all. She glanced down the table but Sildrian was staring off into the crowd. If he ignored her much longer, she’d have to throw a plate at his head to get his attention.

  “Sadly, I have not. In bygone times, Fosis traded with some of the coastal cities. But that all ended when the traders started falling prey to the Mist. Now we are isolated. Alone.”

  He glanced around and then, leaning in, continued in a low whisper. “I sent envoys overland some months back. A dozen Stout: giants, dwarves, elves. Armed and armored in Fairie Fire. Aer'ifel, my apprentice, led them. She is young but the Sight is strong with her. If any could reach Evergreen, it would be her.”

  “They never returned,” Mel said when it appeared Flanagg wouldn’t—or couldn’t—continue.

  He set down the hunk of bread and wiped crumbs from his fingers. “No. Aer'ifel would not abandon us. She could be lost. Hurt. Or, dead.” He fumbled for his pipe and didn’t speak again until he had a good smoke going. “I can’t be certain what befell them. Without the Sight, I am blind.”

  Flanagg’s eyes stole to the walls of mist surrounding Fosis. “I committed a large portion of our reserve Fairie Fire to the mission. Now it is lost. The Old One will create new crystals for us, Fosis is in no danger. But it takes time for the crystals to fully mature. Thadon assures me we have enough to replenish the borders, but it is a near thing.”

  Sildrian was watching her closely. Questioningly. She looked away.

  “So you see,” Flanagg added with reluctance, “I have nothing with which to trade.”

  Could she truly do this? Abandon this kind man and his people to a fate worse than any she could imagine?

  “I am sorry, Captain.” Gray smoke wreathed Flanagg’s face.

  Mel looked down the table. Sildrian’s eyes were lanterns, reflecting Fairie Fire. She nodded, once.

  “Yes. Me too.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Cogs of His Heart

  The old man lowered his voice so that only Captain Locke would hear his story of despair, but Sil’s ears were finely-tuned instruments. He’d heard the entire exchange, and knew that by their act of subterfuge, they might doom the people of this village. He did not judge Captain Locke for arriving at this decision. It was the logical move. They would die in short order if they didn’t find a way through the Fog, unless they meant to linger in this place forever.

  There were complications, however.

  Freda appeared at the table again, a platter of drinks balanced on a hand held over her head. She circulated among the occupants, replacing empty tankards with full ones. She had not looked at him all night, no matter how hard he tried to get her attention.

  He quickly drained his cup. When she came to replace it, he put a hand atop hers.

  Freda jumped. Mugs toppled off the tray. Wine splashed his tunic and ran down the front of his trousers.

  But that was okay, because now she was looking at him. Her eyes were panicked, darting between his, down to his pants, over to Flanagg, back again.

  All eyes were upon them, he realized as a sudden hush came over the table.

  “So sorry, Mister,” Freda said. “Twas an accident…”

  “Shush,” he said gently, only for her. He winked. Louder, for the others: “The pants will dry. Will you show me to the river, that I might rinse them?”

  Freda blinked. Opened and closed her mouth. Then nodded. “Yes, Mister.”

  Sil looked at Captain Locke. “May I…?”

  She waved her hand and quickly looked away.

  He slung his empty satchel and followed Freda down the bridge. Conversation resumed, but the voices seemed muted, less vivacious.

  If what the old man said was true, then he would be jeopardizing all of Fosis by stealing even a single crystal. And that meant putting Freda into harm’s way too. But if he didn’t steal the crystals, the Misty Morning would remain lost to the Fog. Could he sit idle and watch his friends expire, knowing that it was by his hand that they died? Perhaps Flanagg would allow them to stay here. But after tasting the soaring freedom of the skies, staying here, closed in by the Fog, only felt like a different type of death. To speak nothing of the bomb in his chest that would explode sooner without the cold to slow the clock.

  He felt hemmed in on all sides, plagued by riddles without answers. No
matter what he did, someone that he cared for would die.

  Freda led him to a sandy beach under one arm of the bridge. The river was as still as a secret. Fairie Fire littered the beach and glimmered under the river’s glassy surface, casting everything in the blue hue of the crystal’s light. There were no shadows to mask his intentions. The empty bag weighed on his shoulder.

  “So sorry about your pants.” Freda sunk to the ground dejectedly. “And all that wine, wasted…”

  Sil sat and kicked off his boots. Sounds were amplified and drawn-out strangely by the nearness of the water and the low ceiling of the bridge. He spoke in low tones, meant only for her. “There’s little difference, in the end, between wine spilled on a person and wine spilled into a person, I find.” It was obvious she did not follow his thinking, or care to. He cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, you needn’t apologize. The error, if there was one, lies with me. I startled you.”

  She seemed to accept this readily enough but remained quiet, knees tucked to her chest.

  The water was warmer than he expected. He scrubbed half-heartedly at the stained fabric, more pretense than anything else. “I rather look like I’ve wet myself,” he observed.

  Freda giggled, a musical note that lifted Sil’s heart.

  “Why were you ignoring me?” He hated to sow a note of discord, but he had to know. Too much of human behavior was still a mystery to him. This girl, and the roiling feelings she invoked inside his gut, was a true enigma, but one he couldn’t resist poking at, even if he risked the contents. “Did I offend you, somehow?”

  Her wide eyes reflected moonlight. “I thought, mayhap, you didn’t like what I did. Before.”

  “I liked it very much.”

  She smiled tentatively. “Are you funning me, Mister?”

  “I don’t know the word but I take the meaning. What you did…” He fell silent, words failing him. This girl had a strange effect on him, somehow stealing his ability to put thought into coherent speech.

  A frog croaked somewhere on the river’s far side.

  “Mister? You fall asleep?”

  “I don’t sleep.” He sighed. “There is much of me that doesn’t make sense. I shouldn’t be. Yet here I sit. I shouldn’t feel. But the cogs and gears that comprise my heart trip whenever I’m around you. Does that make me human?”

  “No.”

  The single word was like a knife through his back, neatly severing the strings of his heart. No, of course he couldn’t be human. Despite his outward bluster, he really was a Thing. An It. An abomination soaring the skies with grand delusions, and all the while, the infernal ticking reminded him that he was nothing but the hopped-up plaything of a child.

  The grass rustled as she slid to his side. “Why ever would you want to be a human?”

  “Humans think. Humans feel. Humans…” Live.

  “Humans are boring.” She put a hand on his arm. “Why ever would you want to be like them? Far as I see it, all they got going is their height, and with giants running around, that don’t make them so special, does it?”

  “You have a point.” His heart was racing, round and round. He wanted to turn, to look at her, but he dare not move lest he cause her fingers to slip from his arm.

  “You are special, Mister. There’s none like you. Maybe in all the world.”

  “It is lonely, sometimes. Being the only one.”

  She pulled her hand away. Sil felt a moment’s disappointment at the disconnection and then her fingers were cupping his face, turning it toward her own. Their lips met. Thoughts sparked and then fled half-formed, slipping out into the night, like fireflies racing the dawn.

  They separated, flush and breathless. Though he had an internal clock and knew that precisely two minutes and twenty-seven seconds had elapsed, it was a dry sort of knowing. Academic, and somehow wrong. Time had stopped, shedding form and shape. Aside from his lips and hands and other receptors, Sildrian had ceased to exist. To be. It was a terrifying realization, counterintuitive to everything he believed, but he was hungry to know the sensation again.

  He leaned in. She stopped him with a finger.

  “Let me catch my breath first, Mister.”

  “Yes… of course.”

  “I need to tell you something.” She plucked a strand of grass and dropped it into the river.

  “Talk, then. And I will listen.”

  The lone blade of grass spun in slow circles, dwindling as the current carried it on.

  “I’d like to come with you, if you’ll have me.”

  “Have you?” It was the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard. And, maybe, the solution to his problem. If she came with them, he needn’t feel guilty over stealing the crystals. He would have to sway Captain Locke, or smuggle Freda aboard somehow. But first, he had to clear some truth with her. “I would gladly have you, but it is not my place to decide who gets to come.” He took a deep breath. “I am not what you think I am. A king, or some such. The ship you see above belongs to Captain Locke.”

  “The short human with the fierce eyes?”

  “Yes.” Sil smiled despite the situation. “An enlightened description. It is her ship, and only she can decide who crews it.” He briefly considering using his guns as leverage, earning Captain Locke’s consent by refusing to keep the decks clean of the Fog’s monsters. Or threatening her at gunpoint. Again. But the latter was a route he didn’t wish to revisit, and the former felt too much like a lie. He wouldn’t leave his friends to die, no matter his strange new feelings for this girl. “I am only a protector from the fiends of the Fog.”

  “Like the Stout?”

  “Yes, something like that. If Captain Locke says no to my request, we’ll have to sneak you aboard.”

  She smiled radiantly and kissed his cheek. “I can’t stay here no more, Mister.”

  “Please, call me Sil. Mister is so formal, and I rather think we’ve moved beyond formalities.” He took her hand and kissed it.

  Her smile was distracted, her eyes distant. “Wasn’t always so, but Fosis is dangerous. Belivder swears he saw Red-Faced Hobb marched into the Mist by the Stout two fortnight ago, but he’s always drunk, Belivder is, though Hobb ain’t been seen in near a month now. Jeannie Greenspot is spreading rumors that Flanagg hisself is bewitching people and sending them off to find Evergreen, if such a thing even exists, but I don’t believe it ‘cause Flanagg has always been so nice. I even heard it said that some creature of the Mist is immune to Fairie Fire and is coming into folk’s houses at night and snatchin’ them right outta their beds. ”

  Sil didn’t know which stories were true, or if they were all fabrications to explain the unexplainable: people gone missing from their homes, never to return. But he didn’t really care to know what was happening, only that something was. He resolved to get Freda out of Fosis before she, too, disappeared.

  A shadow fell across the river. Sil turned, glancing over his shoulder. A giant stood atop the hill, looking down. A pair of dwarves moved down the hill, toward the river.

  Freda put a hand to Sil’s arm. “Tis only Stout on patrol.” She stood. “Hello, there.”

  At the guard’s arrival, Sil noticed again the weight of the empty sack slung across his shoulder. He’d been too distracted by Freda and had missed his chance to steal the crystals. Captain Locke would not be pleased.

  One of the dwarves scowled at Freda. “Shouldn’t be here, you.” He grabbed her, lifting her off the ground and tucking her under an arm. A wide hand clamped over her mouth, muffling Freda’s screams before they could start.

  “Unhand her immediately.” Sil’s wrists snapped open, the dragon pistols primed. “Or you will regret it.”

  The dwarf carrying Freda ignored him, turning back uphill. Freda’s arms and legs swung uselessly.

  The second dwarf held up his empty hands and stood off some distance. “None o’ your concern. Fosis business.”

  “Then I’ll take it up with Flanagg.”

  “Heh. You do that.”


  The squirming figures had reached the top of the hill and were turning to leave. Mindful of the disappearances, Sil raced to catch up, rushing past the second dwarf.

  Or tried to, rather. The dwarf swung out with a blunt piece of metal, striking Sil in the back of the head. He crumpled and everything went to black.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Normal State of Things

  “I think it would be best if you and your fellows were to leave.”

  They stood on the bridge, the table of food forgotten: Ton-Ton nervously shifting from foot to foot, Sam scowling and cracking his knuckles, Jarvis kneeling, fretting over the prone clockwork man. Knocked out, not dead, according to Hindral. Nonetheless, the doctor looked nervous, and rightfully so. Nobody laid finger to crew without getting paid in kind.

  Flanagg was backed by the soldiers of the Stout. There would be no fight, not here, not now. They were too many, and too strong. And they had a right to their anger; Sildrian’s satchel lay open, brightly-burning crystals spilling onto the bridge. He’d been clumsy at the attempt, no doubt distracted by the girl he’d taken for company. Mel had been foolish to pin their hopes to him, foolish to trust him to get the job done.

  She thought she should offer up an explanation to Flanagg. Or, maybe, an apology. But that would imply guilt, so she played dumb. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Thievin’,” Thadon said. He spit at Mel’s feet. “Stealin’ the sacred fire can only be answered with death.”

  The curved pipe hung on Flanagg’s bottom lip. His eyes watered from the smoke. “There is no need for that. Come, let us retreat indoors, away from so many eyes, and sort this matter in private.”

  Thadon shook his head emphatically. “It’s not safe, milord.”

  “No?”

  “They’ve proven we can’t trust them. Likely the silver man acted on her orders.”

  “Hey,” Mel cut in. It was true, she had asked Sildrian to take the crystals. It was that or wander the Fog until they all died. But that didn’t mean she’d stand there and let them name her thief. “Now you wait just a minute…”