Clockwork Twist : Trick (15 page)

Twist looked aimlessly about the interior of the open, stone-walled train station and began to wonder if there was just one designer who built every large train station in the world.  No matter which train stations he visited, there were always patterned floors—usually marble, or sometimes inlaid wood—high vaulting ceilings, long rows of ticket counters at the back, pleasant looking seating that seemed hardly used, plenty of light, a large clock near the door, and a huge, airy, central space that no one ever seemed to walk through the middle of.

As he and Myra were currently standing in the empty open space under the doomed ceiling, they were completely out of the way of the busy and bustling travelers that moved over the marble floors in a constant hushed hum of excitement and impatience.  Twist had heard that same humming sound in every train station he'd ever been to, as well.

“Okay, you're George Baker,” Jonas said, appearing out of the crowd and handing a ticket to Twist. “You're Celia Robinson,” he said, handing another to Myra. “And I'm Trevor Allen.”

“Why is my fake name always George?” Twist asked, frowning at his ticket.

“I guess you look like a George,” Jonas said with a shrug.

“Why can't we use our real names?” Myra asked.

“Because we've been missing from Bombay for four days,” Jonas said. “By now, if the mags are really, hunting for us, they will have sent out telegrams to every major form of transit to keep an eye out for our names.  If they want to find us, they only have our names and description to go by.”

“Oh,” Myra said, reading the name on her ticket again.

“We also have to make sure no one gets a good look at you before we get past Bulgaria,” Jonas said to Myra. “They're going to add a few more cars to the train there, and enter all of the passengers into the manifest, but after that there shouldn't be any trouble, all the way to Paris.”

“You know, it's a little alarming how easy it can be to disappear into the world,” Twist said thoughtfully. “With just a few precautions, we've crossed the borders of three countries without anyone knowing who we are.”

“You're traveling with a professional escape artist,” Jonas said proudly. “I've been dodging my family for years, and my sister can find anything.  I know how to hide.”

“That you do,” Twist said with a sigh. “I'm very glad of it.”

“Well, we've still got a few hours before the train leaves,” Jonas said. “I suggest we find something more disguising for Myra to wear.  You can buy almost anything in Constantinople.”

“But I like this,” Myra said, looking over her purple sari.

“Sweet Myra, you are made of metal,” Jonas said gently to her. “Too much of your skin is exposed in that dress.  Maybe we can get you a really big hat.”

“Oh that won't stand out at all,” Twist muttered.

“Well, what would you suggest?” Jonas asked.

Twist looked over Myra in her shimmering purple sari, the gold edges glinting with her copper skin, the rich complement of the color of her maroon hair seen through the translucent purple, and shook his head. “It's a shame to hide any part of something so beautiful.”

Myra giggled as if nervously, and simply wriggled with joy.  Jonas shook his head.  Eventually, they decided to get her a long chocolate-brown silk cloak—the fabric of which was embroidered in a swirling red pattern—with a large hood that could cover her face, and a pair of white silk gloves.  Although it was somewhat odd to see her figure so totally covered, Jonas insisted that a mysterious passenger was less attention grabbing than a clockwork one.

By nine o'clock, they boarded the train and found their three private sleeping compartments placed one next to the other on the second of the five train cars.  While the passengers on the train could socialize in the dining and observation cars that would be added on along the way, at the moment there were only single occupancy sleeping compartments on the train.  Jonas was reasonably happy about getting them all so close together.

As Twist closed the door behind him and looked around his tiny wooden room—just enough room for one small bed, a folding writing desk that hid the shaving basin and mirror, and a place to put a traveling trunk—he felt suddenly quite alone.  It was only then that he realized that he hadn't slept alone, in a room that was only his, for quite some time.  Not a moment later there was a knock at his door.  The buzz at the back of his neck told him who it was.  He opened it to find Jonas outside.

“These have got to be the smallest rooms I've ever seen,” Jonas said, glancing past Twist to see the room behind him.

“Considering we're on a train, I expected less,” Twist answered, moving back to let Jonas enter. “Have you seen the carvings all along the top?” he asked, pointing to the intricately carved wooden runner that ran along the ceiling, depicting leaves, vines, and occasional cherubs.  Below that, the walls were covered with lushly patterned wallpaper.  Velvet curtains hung around the bed, a small window was shaded in the same fabric, and the gas lamp in the room was made of frosted glass and shining brass in the shape of a nymph holding an enormous flower.

“All right, so it's nice.  But it's still small,” Jonas said, finding barely more than enough room for the two of them to stand inside.

Twist shrugged. “I slept on a bale of cotton not long ago.  I'll take small.”

“Hey, is your lamp shaped like a lady too?” Myra's voice asked as she appeared in the doorway.  She stopped and pushed the hood up off her face to see Jonas and Twist standing inside the room. “Oh, I guess they all are,” she said upon seeing Twist's lamp.

“I think it's a nymph,” Twist offered.

“How lovely!” Myra said, smiling. “But why are there curtains on the bed?”

As she spoke, a man with a large mustache and a gray suit walked past her in the hall, only glancing at her cloaked form for an instant as he dragged his heavy-looking bag down the narrow, wood-framed and lushly carpeted hallway.

“That's to keep the monsters out,” Jonas said flatly, nodding at the curtains.

“Monsters?” Myra asked.  Twist gave Jonas a sharp look.

“Well, there's no room for them under the bed, with those drawers down there, so they'd have to wander around the room while you're asleep.”

“Really?” Myra asked, her eyes growing wide as she clutched at the door frame.

“No, he's being ridiculous,” Twist said to her. “There are no such things as monsters.”

“Are too,” Jonas said instantly. “Saying that will only make them angry.  You'd better tie up your curtains good and tight tonight.”

“Oh dear!” Myra gasped.

“Will you stop it?” Twist snapped at Jonas.

“What?  I'm not the one insulting them.”

Twist took a measured breath and looked to Myra.  “There are no monsters.  Don't listen to Jonas.  He's only trying to scare you.”  Myra listened intently and then looked to Jonas, who only shook his head sadly.

“That's twice you've said that,” he said to Twist with a waiver of fear in his voice. “Say it again and they'll—“

“Continue to not exist!” Twist cut him off quickly.

At that moment, the train gave a loud whistle and Myra shrieked in fright, bounding to Twist in the tight space.  Jonas burst into laughter while Twist caught her and felt the full force of her sudden anger ignite as she glared at Jonas.

“You beast!” she bellowed at him, turning her fists on him in a pummeling rain.

“Wait!  No!  I can't escape!” Jonas yelped as he braced against her attack with his arms and tried to wriggle out of her reach, which was totally impossible in the tight space.

“Serves you right,” Twist muttered, doing nothing to help him.

“Why would you want to scare me like that?” Myra snapped, pausing her pummeling.

“Because you bought it,” Jonas said, grinning at her.

“Oh!” Myra grumbled, turning her back on him, and ending up staring all her anger at Twist.  He flinched under her gaze, and heard Jonas snicker to himself, before Myra melted into a pout. “Why is he being so mean to me?” she demanded of Twist.

“He's a sky pirate,” Twist said. “You can't expect chivalry, or good manners, or even common decency from someone like him.”  As he spoke, Myra's face warmed with a smile, while Jonas's face darkened over her shoulder.  Somewhere in the distance, Twist heard a voice, but paid it no attention.

“Are you insulting sky pirates now?” Jonas snapped. “Because I guarantee you, we do exist, and we also carry weapons.”

A wild flash of inspiration struck Twist.  He spun Myra around and held her in front of him. “You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?” he asked Jonas quickly.

“Hey!” Myra said, suddenly realizing that she had become a shield.  Myra's surprise and annoyance hit Twist in a way he found confusingly quite pleasing.  Someone nearby made a coughing sound, but none of them noticed.

“With no chivalry or common decency, what's to stop me?” Jonas retorted.

“Um...  Tickets?” said a voice from the doorway.  They all turned to find a man in a blue uniform watching them carefully.  It was then that Twist realized that the steward had spoken once or twice before and been totally ignored.  Myra moved her hood down over her face so quickly that even Twist hardly noticed the motion.

“Oh, hang on,” Jonas said, rushing past him into the hallway and turning for his cabin to the right.  The steward moved back and then looked to Myra's covered form with curiosity.

“Here,” Twist said, handing the steward his own ticket.  Myra reached into the folds of her cloak to search for her own.  Twist leaned closer to the steward. “She's very sensitive to light, you see,” Twist whispered to him. “She doesn't like to talk about it.”  The steward nodded as if he understood and smiled weakly as he punched Twist's ticket and then handed it back to him.

“Here's mine,” Myra said, handing a ticket to him as well. “My room is just there,” she added, pointing with her gloved hand to the left wall.  The steward nodded and punched her ticket too.

“Found it,” Jonas announced, reappearing at the doorway with his own ticket. “There aren’t a lot of other guests, are there?” he asked casually.

“Not yet,” the steward answered. “More will be joining us along the way.”

“Oh, I see,” Jonas said, nodding thoughtfully.  The steward then noticed that Jonas's eyes were covered by black lenses and he snapped his own eyes down.

“Good day,” he muttered, tipping his hat before he moved on down the hall.  Twist and his companions waited until the man was out of sight before they spoke again.

“What a weird one,” Jonas said, hooking a thumb at the steward.  Twist laughed, catching the irony instantly.

It took quite a while for Twist to fall asleep, alone in his dark little cabin.  The train had pulled out of Constantinople precisely at ten o'clock and began to slowly pick up speed.  The rhythmic murmur of tracks, harmonizing pleasantly with the whispering wind at the small shaded window, became a soothing lullaby to Twist's fatigued senses.  As he lay in the soft, warm covers of his bed and listened to the train singing gently to him, Twist's mind began to relax in ways he didn't expect.  Counting back, he was astonished to find that he had left London only a little over three weeks ago.  His old life of quiet, predictable, simple clock repair felt like a distant memory now.

As his mind went back over his time abroad he was further surprised by the sheer number of things that had happened to him.  Flashing memories of being thrown through open air, awakening in strange places surrounded by people he didn't know, sleepless nights and days filled with toil, attacks, frights, and moments of transcendent beauty and deepest peace filled his mind to bursting.  His limbs grew as heavy as his thoughts, dragging him down into the soft bedding and making him feel so much older than he was.

He reached up and took his pocket watch from the tiny, round, watch rest mounted on the wall above his pillow.  Clutching the watch tightly in his hand, he opened his Sight to the little clockwork life.  In an instant, the peace of constancy, monotony, and timelessness soaked deep into his weary senses.  He heard the soft tick and tock of his watch above the sounds of the train.  He saw the intricate clockwork in all its shining precision behind his closed eyelids.  He felt nothing but the soothing pulse of order and repetition.  All his other thoughts fell from his mind like a dream, leaving his world cool, calm, and quiet.

Twist only realized that he'd fallen asleep once he'd woken up again.  He'd left the curtains open around his bed and could now see a sharp lick of sunlight struggling to break through the curtain over his little window.  He couldn't hear the train, nor could he feel the motion of it rocking lightly on the rails.  He found his watch still in his hand and put it back on the watch rest, expecting his senses to return to normal.  But even after he'd sat up in bed and stopped touching his watch, the train was still perfectly quiet and oddly still.

He pulled the curtains open and winced in the brilliant sunlight for a moment before he could look out through the window.  He was astonished to see the world outside—great green plains, distant mountains, and clumps of forests and meadows—flying by at incredible speed.  And still, the train made no sound.  There was still no sense of the train rocking on rails, but instead Twist felt as if he were gliding smoothly on ice with an incredible but quite comfortable momentum.

Curiosity got him out of bed, dressed, and presentable in just a few minutes.  He almost didn't see the note that had been slipped under his door.  He picked it up and read it quickly.

“We decided to let you sleep,” it read in sharp, flippant-looking penmanship. “When you wake up, come find us in the dining car.  They added it last night.  It's car number four.  You can't miss it.”

The note was signed in Jonas's name.  Twist tossed the note onto his unmade bed and snatched his top hat off a nearby hook as he opened the door.  The hallway outside was narrow and ran the whole length of the train car, with windows looking out over the swiftly passing landscape on one side and a wall full of closed doors on the other.  Each door was numbered in brass and ornately framed with wooden molding.  Twist moved quickly over the lush maroon carpeting and came to the door at the end of the train car.

Opening it, he found a small landing just outside the door in the bright sunlight, and another landing hanging in front of it with hand rails on either side.  Between the gap, however, he couldn't see any normal train tracks streaming by underneath.  Instead, he saw a single wide silver track running down the exact center of the train, which passed with a high whistling sound.  This single track was also elevated about ten feet off of the ground on a support that Twist couldn't see at this incredible speed.

He forced himself to look up to the door on the other platform, which led into the third train car.  He refused utterly to let himself look down again as he mustered all of his will to step across the small gap and onto the other platform.  Once he'd done it, his tensions eased again.  Inside, the third car looked exactly like the second and he moved to the end of it quickly, only to have to struggle to pass another gap just like the first.  He managed it and opened the door into the fourth car.

This car was open with large windows filling the walls on either side.  Tables and chairs were placed by each window, occupying all of the floor space save for a narrow central passage.  People in the costumes of Europe and the East alike filled most of the seats, all speaking together in a multitude of languages, while waiters in sharp black-and-white uniforms moved up and down the passageway with large trays full of food balanced elegantly in the air.

The ceiling was rounded upward and painted in a lush and airy style with scenes from Greek mythology, and dotted down the center with crystal and silver chandeliers.  Everywhere Twist looked he saw decorative elements, from napkin rings that looked like pewter leaves to curtain ties of embroidered silk, and fine hand painted china.

“Over here!” Jonas's voice called from halfway down the car.

Twist caught sight of him and Myra waving happily from one of the tables.  When the waiters receded for a moment to the far end of the car, Twist darted forward and slipped into an empty seat at their table a moment before a waiter began to waft elegantly in his direction.

“Nice timing,” Jonas said, smiling at him. “We haven't ordered anything but coffee yet.”

Twist found a pair of china tea cups with saucers and silver spoons on the spotless white table cloth, beside a silver pot of steaming coffee.  Without a moment's hesitation, Myra poured Twist a cup of coffee, added just a touch of cream, and handed it to him with a wide smile.  He thanked her, but then paused, looking at her uncovered wire hair and copper face glinting in the morning light.  She was dressed only in her sari again, without her cloak or gloves.

“Shouldn't you be wearing your hood, my dear?” he asked.  Myra looked to Jonas.

“It should be okay now,” he said after taking a sip of his own coffee. “We passed the connection point without a hassle.  There won't be any more checks for those of us who are already on the train.  They're only going to make note of new people as they get on, now.”

“Oh,” Twist muttered, sipping at his coffee.

Jonas waved a waiter over to the table and ordered breakfast for himself and Twist.  Twist looked over the faces of those around them and realized that almost every other table was full.  Men in colorful turbans sat with men in tweed suits.  Ladies in saris spoke happily with ladies in Western dresses.  Twist and his companions were at one of the very few tables that still had an empty seat.  As a man entered the car alone, he was quickly seated at a table by a waiter.  He tipped his hat to the ladies already sitting there.

“So, how long will it take to get to Paris?” Myra asked happily.

“We should arrive late tomorrow,” Jonas said, adding a little more sugar to his coffee.

“Wait, that's only two days,” Twist said, frowning. “How fast is this train moving?”

“Oh, didn't you hear?” Jonas asked him. “This train is a new design.  It can get up to two hundred miles an hour on the flats.”

“That's insane!” Twist said with a gasp. “I've never heard of a train moving that fast.”

“Well yeah, that's why it's called a new design,” Jonas said, smiling now. “That's why it's so smooth and quiet, too.  You see, the tracks have been replaced by a single, magnetically charged rail that sits in the center.  Then, while the engines sit solidly on the rail, the rest of the cars float about an inch above on their own magnetically charged mechanism.  Without the friction of the other cars, the two engines on either end can move much faster.  Plus, they are also of the most advanced super-compressed steam design.  It's a working prototype, I think.”

Twist stared at him while he explained the system, but none of it made sense in his head for very long.  Finally, Twist leaned over and pressed his hand down on the floor beside his seat.  His Sight struggled to focus on the train itself through the thick floor, but after a moment Twist began to understand.

“This train is flying!” he said, sitting up again sharply.

“I know,” Jonas said, nodding.

“And it's moving at well over a hundred miles an hour!”

“Didn't I just say that?”

“But, it's flying!”

“Isn't it wonderful?” Myra asked brightly.

Twist sat back in his chair and shook his head. “What will they come up with next?”

“I'm really happy we get to take this train, actually,” Jonas said. “I've been hearing about it for a while now.  They say it'll revolutionize ground transportation.”

Breakfast arrived a moment later, in the form of a goat cheese and tarragon omelet, smoked ham, warm soft flat-bread with a sticky, sweet, and enticing tomato jelly, and apricots with cream and sugared almonds.

“I'm going to miss the East, just for the food,” Jonas said wistfully after a few bites.

Though he remained silent as he ate, Twist had to agree with him.  His palate was starting to get used to these new and strange flavors, little by little.  Returning to Europe seemed almost like a loss.  As he considered this, enjoying a bit of apricot, a waiter appeared and asked if they were expecting anyone else to join them.  When Jonas said that they weren't, a person who had just entered the car was ushered in to take the open space at their table.  Twist looked up at their guest and dropped his fork in his shock.

“Oh my,” Myra said, covering her mouth with her copper fingers as she too stared at the newcomer.

“I'm sorry,” Jonas said, frowning at their guest, “but aren't you technically incorporeal?  What are you doing on a train?”

Idris the djinn smiled. “Are those candied almonds?” he asked, pointing to Twist's plate with a pure white finger, tipped with a shiny black fingernail. “Waiter, I'll have the same, please.”

“Twist, that man's eyes are gold,” Myra said in a hushed tone. “And I don't mean yellow.  I mean, gold.”

“Thank you,” Idris said, smiling to her with a mouth full of gold teeth.

“And there's writing on his face,” she added.

Idris laughed lightly. “So, I see the princess is still doing well,” he said to Twist with a gesture to her. “And how are you two?  What brings you to this magnificent new train?”

Twist stared back at Idris for a moment and gave his stunned mind a moment to reconcile the shock of seeing the djinn at such an unexpected time and place, so early in the morning.

“We're fine,” Twist said. “What are you doing on this train?”

“It's not often that humanity does something unique,” he said, helping himself to a cup of coffee. “I had to see it for myself.”

“They sold you a ticket?” Jonas asked, looking over Idris's pale linen, Western-style suit and otherwise entirely inhuman appearance.

“Oh goodness no,” Idris said, shaking his head. “I am magical, after all.”

“Magical?” Myra asked Twist.

“He's that djinn I told you about,” he said to her.  She instantly responded with a wide grin to Idris. “But I thought you could only use your magic to grant wishes,” Twist added.

“Loopholes are a wonderful thing,” Idris said deviously.

“You grant wishes?” Myra asked him eagerly.

“If they entertain me,” he said with a shrug.

Myra picked up a spoon. “Can you turn this into a baboon?”

Idris almost choked on his coffee before he broke into a laugh, while Twist and Jonas turned to her in shock. “Say that in an 'I wish' format,” he said to her with a wide smile.

“Maybe later,” Twist said, holding up a hand to stop Myra as she opened her mouth again. “I don't think the other guests would be as entertained if a monkey appeared suddenly in the middle of breakfast.”

“I can make it appear in a suit and with a monocle,” Idris offered. “They might not notice that as quickly.”

“Wait, I'm sorry,” Jonas said, holding up his hands. “You just happen to be on the same train as we are, and get placed at our table, out of the blue?  What exactly are the odds of that?”