Clockwork Angels: The Novel (30 page)

Two days later, the Commodore’s cargo steamliner arrived on its regular route, delivering supplies and picking up a fresh load of redfire opals. When Pangloss saw Owen approach his locomotive with a large grin, his mouth dropped open and his voluminous

beard bristled like the fur on a startled cat. He bounded forward to sweep the young man into an enthusiastic embrace. “Mr. Hardy, you’re back! You survived.”

Owen laughed. “That much is obvious.”

Pangloss mopped his dark scalp, trying to recover from his shock. “Will you join me again on the steamliner? I never realized how much I appreciated your help.” He wrapped a beefy arm around Owen’s shoulder and squeezed him so hard Owen thought bones would break. “You’ve been away so long I was beginning to develop a jaded view of the world again.”

Owen smiled. “We can’t have that, Commodore. I’ll ride with you for a while, but once we get to Poseidon City, I might go elsewhere, work aboard a cargo steamer for a while and see other shores . . . maybe even head toward Albion.”

Pangloss laughed. “You have changed! I thought you’d never go back to your quiet and uninteresting village.”

“I didn’t say that was where I’d go.” He thought of the carnival traveling around the countryside. Maybe he would be brave enough to go there. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

The following day as the steamliner took off again, Pangloss let him stoke the alchemical furnace, just like old times. Owen took the controls and steered the airship, accelerating as they rolled down the rails and leaped aloft. Clanging the passage bell, he guided the cargo train eastward out of the mountains, toward the motley, festering city of Poseidon.

This time, Owen did not fear anything about the city. With Commodore Pangloss at his side, he was respectable. After unloading the redfire opals, chalcedony, aventurine, cinnabar, and sardelian, the Commodore insisted on paying him his overdue wages (far more than Owen expected).

“I can help you get a position aboard a cargo steamer,” Pangloss said.

All of the steamer captains knew Pangloss, and the Commodore put in a good word. Owen was pleased to learn that the next ship due to leave port was the same one he had taken to Atlantis, with Captain Lochs at the helm. The steamer captain had never questioned Owen’s desperate claims, had never dreamed that the young man was escaping arrest from the Regulators.

Lochs formally shook Owen’s hand, saw how much the young man had changed. “Your special task is finished then, young man?”

“Not finished,” he said as he boarded the cargo steamer, “but I’m ready to move on.”

“I’ll be happy to have you aboard. You did good work last time,” the captain said. “Provided you can keep from getting seasick.”

Owen hefted the coins Pangloss had paid him, then he gave them all to Captain Lochs, much to the man’s surprise. “This is to repay the money you gave me when I arrived in Poseidon . . . and to pay for my first passage. I—” He paused, then forced himself to confess. “I wasn’t really on a mission for the Watchmaker.”

Lochs raised his gray eyebrows. “Oh? And how can you be so sure?”

Owen didn’t have an answer for that.

E
ither the seas were calmer, or Owen himself was calmer, more stable, more grounded. This time the passage of the cargo steamer was less grueling than his first miserable experience. Owen was no longer running, no longer hiding, and he felt good about being here.

Under sunny skies, the waves were calm, and the steamer puffed exuberant pillars of white smoke into the air, carrying its load of precious gems, valuable minerals, and alchemical supplies across the Western Sea. Owen was glad to be aboard the ship, sailing on the open sea. He thought he might like this life for a while, and the captain seemed happy enough to have him.

Although he kept quiet about the debacle in Chronos Square and why the Regulators had been chasing him, he had plenty of other stories to tell. In evenings, he ate dinner with Captain Lochs on the bridge deck, looking out at the brooding waves and talking of his adventures. The lonely captain quietly absorbed every part of every tale.

Owen described bucolic Barrel Arbor with a wistful nostalgia, aware that he was painting a picture through a tinted fog of memories instead of what he actually remembered. He talked about his days with the carnival, but spoke quickly so as to dodge the heartbreak of what Francesca had said to him.
I would never let myself be trapped like that.
And Owen hadn’t been trapped, either. He thought of the marvels he’d experienced since leaving the carnival. If he’d stayed with Francesca, he would never have gone to Atlantis and lived on the streets of Poseidon City. He would not have learned to steer an airship across the sky, nor would he have seen the redfire opal mines. He would not have lived in the Seven Cities of Gold— the king, and only living member, of a lost civilization.

If he were given the chance to live it all again, he wondered if he would fall in love with Francesca. He was a different person now.

Captain Lochs seemed to understand that the young man refused to tell part of his story. As he listened, he ate fish from his plate, nodded in appreciation toward Owen. “You can serve aboard this ship, young man, but you may find that it isn’t what you expect, after all. I used to think a sea captain’s life was filled with adventure.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “Now, it does take me from Crown City to Atlantis and back . . . and back again, and forth, and back. I’m content here on my ship, and I’m glad you’ve done the adventuring, so that I don’t have to.”

The next day, clouds gathered like a congealing smoke pudding. Owen went out on deck to breathe the brisk air, hoping to keep seasickness at bay. Other than a twinge of queasiness, his constitution seemed better able to handle an unsteady world. Two other crew members had set up a chess board, playing the game as the steamer swayed in a slow-motion waltz.

Owen asked for his list of chores, but Captain Lochs told him there would be plenty of time. “You did pay for your passage this time, Mr. Hardy. We don’t usually put paying passengers to work.”

Owen smiled, thanked him, and helped the sailors anyway. “It’s the best way for me to learn the ropes.” He wanted to keep busy, not just because it made him feel worthwhile; he didn’t want to think too much about where he was going. He hadn’t decided yet whether he should go back to Barrel Arbor, live somewhere else in Albion, or just keep sailing. For much of his life, he had tried to convince himself that Barrel Arbor was the place where he belonged—home, peace, a daily routine with family and neighbors. Everyone else was content with that life; why couldn’t he be? He thought of the Tick Tock Tavern, imagined himself raising a pint of hard cider (or maybe he would even try a cup of honey mead); he would listen to Mr. Paquette read

the daily printout from the newsgraph, hear him give reports of far-off places. He and his father would wind all the clocks in the house every night, and Owen would tend the orchard, pick the apples, live his life. . . .

As he thought of the people in Barrel Arbor, he wondered what Mr. Oliveira would have done if given the opportunity for such adventures. Or Mr. and Mrs. Paquette, or Mr. Huang. Wanting nothing exotic and strange, they would probably have stayed home with their plain lives.

And they would never have seen the outpouring of molten-gold sunlight across the walls of an empty city, or the constellations from the deck of a flying steamliner, or even the hypnotic Clockwork Angels in Chronos Square.

He remembered a plump, orange cat that had frequented the Paquettes’ newsgraph offices. The lazy cat curled up in any patch of sun, sleeping away the day, content with its sluggish dreams. Everything had its place, and every place had its thing.

Pondering such a mundane life—a dream that was far less pleasant than imagining the Seven Cities of Gold—he looked up to the sky. Against the brooding gray backdrop of clouds, he spotted the white balloon sack of a small wooden-hulled airship that drifted on the winds.

Owen watched the tiny airship and wondered what could possibly be out here—they were still two days’ journey from the coast of Albion, and the flying craft would be far from the pivot of any steamliner track. He went to the bridge deck to ask Captain Lochs, but they peered in vain, unable to find any sign of the mysterious airship.

That night, a storm unleashed itself upon the sea, bearing down with the sharp teeth of a hurricane. Waves crashed against the hull, tossing loose objects around the cabins. In the hold, several ropes snapped, spilling crates of rocky minerals into unruly heaps. Fortunately, none of the dangerous reactive substances mixed. On deck, heavy tarpaulins flapped about in the wind and downpour; sailors struggled to lash them down before crates of supplies were drenched.

Though he wasn’t on duty, Owen made his way from his cabin to the bridge deck. As he braved the outer stairs, he was too unnerved by the storm to feel queasy. Captain Lochs stood at the wheel, struggling to keep the cargo steamer on course.

To verify their heading, Owen withdrew the dreamline compass Pangloss had given him. The needle spun, as if confused about which way to go; the secondary dial that showed where Owen should be also wobbled with seasick indecision.

“I’ve never seen a storm like this,” Captain Lochs said through clenched teeth. “The winds and the currents have taken us off course.”

“So where are we?” Owen had to raise his voice against the drumbeat of rain on the windows.

“Unknown, but once we have clear skies I’ll be able to navigate to Albion. Right now, I’m just trying to keep the steamer afloat.”

A huge wave crashed against the bow, and the engines groaned and thrummed. The vessel tilted severely, as if teetering on the edge of a cliff, before it swung back again.

The two chess-playing crewmembers burst into the bridge house, looking bedraggled. “Captain, we can’t take this much longer. We’re being battered!”

“The storm has got to let up soon,” Owen said.

“Does it?” asked one of the men. “The Watchmaker’s Almanac doesn’t apply out here on the open sea.”

“The weather-alchemists can’t help us now,” said the other.

Captain Lochs tried to see through the sheet of water that flooded the windowpanes. “Look at that! I thought I spotted something!”

Owen stared into the storm, saw only the night and driving rain—and then a ghostly light appeared like a beacon off the starboard. “What’s over there?” he said. “Is there anything this far out on the charts?”

“The charts are no good here, Mr. Hardy,” Captain Lochs said. “We know little about what’s off the route between Crown City and Poseidon.”

“Is the light beckoning us to safety?” Owen asked. “Like an . . . Angel?”

He imagined one of the heavenly clockwork figures glowing in the middle of the storm, extending her hand, spreading her wings as if to swoop toward their ship and rescue them.

A sweeping wave washed over the bow, sending cargo crates overboard. Owen was thrown to the deck, and the two chess players clung onto anything they could find. The light shone out again.

The captain’s face went pale. “We’ll have to chance it. That light means someone else is out here—like a miracle, right when we need one.”

Owen didn’t question it, but the miracle seemed too good to be true. Lochs turned the wheel, setting course for the tantalizing beacon. Maybe it was an island or some other ship, perhaps a manifestation of light.

Or maybe it was just a trick of the eye.

Regardless, it was possible safety, and Captain Lochs drove the cargo steamer forward, squeezing every last measure of power from his engines. As the glowing beacon grew brighter, his eyes lit up with hope. Salvation was at hand.

Hoping to see some unexpected safe harbor where they could take shelter, Owen peered through the driving rain. The cargo steamer was still some distance from the tempting light, but as he looked beyond the bow, a curl of foam appeared—unexpected breakers roaring against an unseen shore.