CHAPTER 7
Fire and smoke surrounded her after the crash, and the creaking groans of shattered metal echoed in Marinda’s head. She saw the pages and pages of blood-words telling the pilot’s story in her book, but she had no time to read the tale now. She didn’t want to be trapped in the wreck of the airship. She had to get out, see if she could find any other survivors.
Leaving the bloody body of Captain Pennrose inside the battered, broken body of his steamliner, Marinda found a spot where the hull had split open, and she crawled out into the stunned night. She still clutched her book, and she found her valise, which had been tossed about.
She looked around outside, staring at the disaster. The placid hillsides were covered with dew, and a gibbous moon shone silver light across the grasses. Fires from scattered steamliner cars crackled and smoked. Blessedly, three sleeping compartments and passenger gondolas remained aloft, their levitation sacks still buoyant enough that they drifted gently to the ground.
The detached lounge car had slammed into the ground near the motivator car, and four people struggled out of the wreckage. She saw the men who had been playing cards, one cradling an obviously broken arm. When she peered inside the wrecked car, she saw the others were silent and lifeless, including the two speculators who had been so intent on raising money for silver futures; now, neither of those women had a future of any kind.
Marinda heard shouts, saw figures approaching from the nearest village, silhouettes carrying coldfire lanterns. The villagers would have been awakened by the spectacle in the air and the crash. The breathless villagers huffed and ran, jiggling their lanterns as they searched for survivors. Those passengers still able to move gathered near the wrecked motivator car, not sure what to do, probably in shock.
Marinda moved about looking for the injured, helping where she could. She had tended her sick father for so long, but this was entirely different. Before long, she was covered in other blood, not just Brock Pennrose’s. She pressed torn cloth against ragged wounds, helped apply a splint to a broken arm, moving from patient to patient. She saw more dead people in half an hour than she had seen in her entire life.
She could have used a drop of blood from each casualty to fill many more pages in her book, but she dismissed such ghoulish thoughts. Yes, she wanted this nightmare to end, and she wanted to go home, but that seemed entirely inappropriate. Brock Pennrose had wanted to tell her his story, but these others were just…victims.
“It was an explosion—a bomb!” said one of the card players, leaning against the tilted gondola on the ground. “And that suspicious-looking man—he leaped out of the steamliner in midair. I saw him jump!” He shook his head. “I thought he meant to kill himself.”
“He had a parachute. He’s still out there, somewhere.”
The villagers were shocked. “Was it the Anarchist?” They seemed terrified that the evil man might still be wandering the landscape near their village.
“He’s gone now,” said the second card player. “A lot of things are gone.”
One of the rescuers shone a pale blue lantern in Marinda’s face. “Are you all right, ma’am? Are you injured?” She had been helping out, but paying little attention to her own condition.
She honestly didn’t know. She set her valise down on the damp grass and placed the leatherbound book on top of it. “I’ll let you know as soon as I check.” She methodically touched her arms, her head, her ribs, flexed her legs. She had a great deal of blood on her hands, but it was not hers. “I seem to be. I can still help.”
The village doctor came with his kit and a plentiful supply of bandages, all of which were used up within the first hour. The wounded cried out in pain as the doctor set broken bones and wrapped up cracked skulls, but crickets and nocturnal insects eventually began their night songs again, already forgetting the mayhem of the crash.
After an emergency signal went out from the village’s newsgraph office, Crown City dispatched rescue vehicles and a team of crack investigators. The Watchmaker announced he would get to the bottom of the disaster, though by the time the first response teams arrived late the next morning, most had already concluded this was the work of the Anarchist, a violent freedom extremist. Even here, in perfect Albion at the heart of the Stability, no one was safe.
The survivors were cleaned up, given blankets and a place to rest. A café provided hot tea, biscuits, and comfortable cushions while they waited. Marinda was so shaken she could barely think. She longed to be back home in Lugtown, completing her daily chores, ably assisted by the clockwork Regulators.
Had her father realized what risks she would face in order to complete the silly quest he had given her? Placing herself in such danger just to gather stories? She conjured up Arlen’s image, wishing she could speak with him, demand answers. “What is the meaning of this? What are you trying to do?” But she got no answer.
Instead, she huddled in her blanket, sipping her tea and thinking about the steamliner pilot who had so bravely fought with the doomed airship to keep her alive. The framed chronograph of her mother had been lost in the wreckage, but she did have his story. And she was eager to learn it.
As the conversations droned around her and her tea grew cold, Marinda opened Clockwork Lives and, ignoring other distractions, she finally read Brock Pennrose’s tale.
When she finished, Marinda felt as devastated as when she had walked away from the crash. The components of her life were beginning to fall into place—the gears ground and meshed. She had never really wanted to know such things about her mother or her father. Even though she now had more answers and details than she had ever wished for, none of it made sense. Did her father even know what had become of Elitia?
Marinda closed the book and sat with a heavy heart. She felt no joy in filling so many of the book’s pages with the pilot’s tale. Rather than looking at the book as a blank canvas on which to tell epic stories, she now began to fear the empty spaces she was still required to fill.
She looked at her fellow passengers around her, knew the tragedy they had just endured, and decided she didn’t want to ask these poor people for their stories after all. She would wait until she reached Crown City, where she would have plenty of easy opportunities.
By noon, the Watchmaker’s rescue vehicles arrived, rolling steam cars to carry the injured in an ambulance back to Crown City, mortuary vehicles to deliver the less-fortunate bodies to their proper places, while the intact passengers would ride in a comfortable coach to the city.
Marinda was withdrawn as she climbed inside the vehicle. She held her valise and placed the book of Clockwork Lives in her lap. Fortunately, no one else seemed talkative, and she stared at her own thoughts as the steam coach rolled off with a hiss and a chug. The two card players shuffled their deck and engaged in another game, desperate to get back to normal patterns. Marinda finally opened her book and read the two long stories again, still trying to understand.
The countryside rolled by as the coach picked up speed. The cross-country journey took the rest of the day, although far ahead along the arrow-straight road, she could see the shimmering towers of Crown City. Tall buildings, crowded streets, coldfire vehicles, and even steam aircraft patrolling above the tallest structures. And clocks—large timepieces that adorned the towers, precision instruments that needed someone like Arlen Peake to maintain them.
The passenger coach arrived in the heart of the city during the colorful fanfare of sunset. When the hatch opened and a steward extended his hand to help them disembark, the survivors emerged into a bustling terminal—the Mainspring Hub, where all roads came together and all steamliner tracks converged.
Vented steam and the rattle of gears filled the air. Conveyors shouted to one another as they hauled crates of cargo, while helpful young porters grabbed luggage and assisted grateful passengers who emerged from arriving steamliners. Large motivator cars were parked in their berths, ready to set out as soon as the next train was assembled. Colorful passenger gondolas and cargo cars were arranged out in the yards to be collected for the next outbound journey.
Marinda stood with her fellow survivors, with no idea where to go or what to do. She had hoped to arrive uneventfully in Crown City, merely wanting to fill her book of stories and then go home.
A pair of well-dressed Crown City officials converged on the passenger coach, accompanied by blue-uniformed Regulators who stood at attention. “We greatly apologize for the inconvenience,” said a man with sideburns so bushy they could never have fit inside a hand mirror’s reflection, which must have made shaving problematic. “We assure you that steamliner crashes are most unusual, and the Watchmaker has issued this pre-printed card with his apology.”
The bureaucrat passed out cream-colored cards to Marinda and the others from the coach. Everything is taken care of. Our loving Watchmaker wishes only the best for his citizens.
The sideburned official gestured to a junior official at his side, a woman in trim business slacks and a tight vest, who opened up a black leather briefcase containing rows and rows of golden coins. The junior official counted out a precise stack of honeybee coins to Marinda and an identical stack to each of her companions. “For your trouble. We hope this will make up for any losses or delays you incurred. Pure gold, made by the Watchmaker himself.”
Marinda accepted her coins, which she would add to her stipend. She should have plenty of funds to last her while she filled the rest of Clockwork Lives.
“If you will all follow me,” said the Blue Watch commander. He swiveled on his heels and marched forward, expecting them to follow. Marinda took her valise and her book and set off after the blue-uniformed guards.
As the group wove through the crowded bustle of the Mainspring Hub, Marinda stared at all the people, wondering why they had come here, what their business was, what their stories were. But she could not lose her efficient escorts, who seemed to know where they were going.
The Blue Watch led them past shops that were being shuttered for the night, then into quieter streets and a line of lodging houses, all of which bore the honeybee symbol. In each, a window sign stated, Lodgings Approved by the Watchmaker.
“We have arranged a room for each of you,” said the Regulator captain. “Rest well, clean up, calm yourselves, for tomorrow will be a fresh reset, and you can be on with your lives.” The Regulators marched away, leaving them to fend for themselves.
An innkeeper opened the door of the nearest lodging house and gestured them inside. “Let me have a count, please.”
It was all handled very efficiently. Marinda’s room was small but clean, and had one of everything she needed: a chair, a writing desk, a narrow bed, a washbasin and pitcher, and a window.
As full night fell, she sat on her bed and looked out at the streets of Crown City, saw coldfire streetlamps as well as a warm glow that shone from homes. People ate dinner at street cafés, sitting outside in the warm night. Men and women strolled along the boulevards, taking in the night air.
Crown City was a vast, crowded mystery to her, and she found it overwhelming. Despite the tribulations she’d endured to get here, she had reached her destination. She didn’t need to ask why she was here; she was here.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she touched her father’s leatherbound book with some trepidation and looked at the figures outside, knowing that every person there had a story—some of which might even be worth recording.