Cold Copper: The Age of Steam

  Brothers Bryn and Cadoc both chuckled.

  “We can’t know,” Rose said. “You can’t know. Unless there are records?”

  “None that we have. None that we’ve seen. But we have blood. And so do you. That’s all we need today.”

  “For what?”

  “To find the children.” He frowned just a little. “You have been listening to me, haven’t you?”

  She ignored that. “How will blood do any good in finding them?”

  “Just blood alone wouldn’t, but when the word is added, a promise”—he nodded once—“that is the thing that can change the winds.”

  “Mr. Madder,” Rose said. “I am not a slow thinker, but your words don’t mean a thing to me.”

  “It’s the promise and blood,” Cadoc said, “that will give us reach. Our feet are tied, bound to this side of the road. Our lives are tied to the promise of finding the children. We alone, Madder blood, must find the children to be released from the promise. If anyone else finds them, we will remain, locked to this city.”

  “Unless Father Kyne kicks off,” Bryn noted.

  Cadoc nodded at that. “His death will release the promise. But that is not what we want. We want to fulfill our promise, bring closure to our word given to his father’s father. To do that, we need you, Rose. Blood of our blood, in some curious manner. You will be our hands and our feet. You will reach the children since we cannot.”

  “The practicalities of it,” Bryn picked up, “are simple. You vow to us to join in our promise to rescue the children and fulfill our debt to the Kyne family. A drop of your blood mingled with ours on a rope or wire”—he pulled a thin length of copper wire on a spool out of the pack at his side—“this wire, will be enough to stretch our reach, carry our blood and our promise.”

  “Wire?” she asked, wondering where and when he’d had the chance to steal it.

  “Each of us will keep hold of it,” Alun said. “And linked by it, we’ll stand as far on the other side of this road as we can, the wire carrying our promise to span the distance, just like a cable carries the dash and dot of words down the line. You’ll have the wire around your wrist or waist. If there’s any luck left for us, the wire will hold long enough, far enough, that you’ll be able to find the children in that tumble of rocks through those trees, and bring them back right along this string between us, to the city proper.”

  “What if…if they aren’t alive?” Rose asked.

  “Then we’ll carry them home, one by one, and give them their rest,” Alun said.

  Rose knew the promise was keeping the Madders here in town. And she knew Father Kyne might not even make it another day or two without Mae’s witchcraft to help him heal. But missing children struck at her heart like a heavy stone. She had no children of her own, but she was an orphan. She knew what it was like to be lost. Knew what it was like to lose home and family.

  She could only imagine how frightened the children must be. And how their parents must worry.

  “How many?” Rose asked. “Children? How many are lost?”

  “Father Kyne says a hundred or more,” Alun said.

  “A hundred?” Rose brushed the hair from her face with the back of her good hand. “How can we carry a hundred children home?”

  “Let’s find them first,” Alun said. “Then we’ll devise a way to help them. Are we agreed, Rose Small? Is there to be a promise between us?”

  “Yes,” Rose said. “I’ll give you my word and blood. For the children.”

  “Well, then, let us seal our words to it,” Alun said. “Brothers?”

  Bryn and Cadoc stepped up close until they were all standing in a circle at compass points: Rose east, Cadoc west, and Alun and Bryn at north and south, respectively.

  “This we enter as four and exit as one,” Alun said soberly. “This bond of our word, this bond of our blood.”

  The three brothers simultaneously drew knives from their pockets and in the same motion, nicked the thick of their left thumbs. Blood welled there.

  “Rose,” Alun said.

  She offered her hand in the center of the circle. Bryn, straight across from her, placed his hand flat behind hers, then nicked her pinky. “Thumbs are useful, and you have only the one to spare right now,” he said, pointing the knife at her arm in a sling.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “Our blood seals our word, and our word is this,” Alun said. “From this day onward, we are bound together. Until our promise is fulfilled, until the lost children of Des Moines are found and returned to the city. I, Alun, so swear.”

  The brothers intoned, “So I swear.”

  Rose said, “I, Rose Small, so swear.”

  Bryn held the coil of wire in the center, and each brother grasped it, thumbs smearing a drop of blood on the rough twist. Rose added her hand, and her blood.

  “Good,” Alun said. “Now that’s out of the way, let’s forward.”

  Rose hadn’t felt anything change. When Mae cast spells, she could at least sense the magic in the air, or sometimes something more subtle, like a change of temperature or a honey scent. But for all the world, it seemed like the speech and blood and wire business hadn’t done anything to change her or make her feel owing to the Madders in any way.

  “Is that it?”

  “Is that what?” Alun asked.

  “The, uh, promise?”

  “We all agreed, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, but I just thought. Well, when Mae uses magic it’s different.”

  “Ah, there’s your mistake, Rose Small. It isn’t witchcraft that holds a promise to bones. It’s a much older magic than that.”

  “Magic?”

  “Superstition, soul, the will of the mind, magic.” He waved his hand. “Men have plenty of names for the things they can’t explain. None of them quite right, and none of them matter. All that matters is what we know is promised between us. Because that is our truth now, and that truth will have to do. Here. Let me tie this about your wrist.”

  He quickly twisted the end of the copper wire into a bracelet of sorts, his thick fingers cleverly bending the latch into the shape of a rosebud, and all the rest of the bracelet into a leafed stem.

  “That’s beautiful,” Rose said.

  Alun grunted and made sure the bracelet was latched securely. “Just because we’re in a hurry doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things right.”

  “Now what?” Rose asked.

  “Do you have a gun on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Keep it. There are still men out looking for us, though I think we gave them a good slip. Airships.” He shook his head. “Lovely invention. Now, we’ll each walk as far as we can.”

  Cadoc took the spool from Bryn’s hands and stood with the toes of his boots touching the side of the road where the city ended.

  Bryn and Alun each put a hand on the line between Rose and Cadoc.

  “Rose,” Alun said. “Please walk across the road.”

  Rose did so, and Alun and Bryn walked with her.

  Bryn chuckled. “This will do, brother. Nicely.”

  “Then let’s do it faster,” Alun said. “Miss Small, straight to that stand of trees. Quickly now.”

  Rose picked up the pace and Alun and Bryn jogged right behind her, holding the unspooling wire. They were just at the line of trees when Bryn grunted as if he’d hit a brick wall.

  Rose looked back.

  “That’s as far,” Bryn said, already in a sweat, “that the bond will stretch between Cadoc and me. Go on.”

  “But—”

  “We go on,” Alun said.

  Rose could tell by how he was walking that he too was in pain. But if the Madders were willing to spread the distance and the pain between them, then she was inclined to do her part too.

  The forest opened into a clearing. Mr. Hunt had said the stones that held the children were just beyond.

  She realized Alun was no longer following her and glanced back at him. He stood, co
pper wire clenched in his hands, feet spread as if bearing a heavy weight or pain.

  “Go on. Should be beyond the trees,” he said.

  Rose nodded. She continued through the trees.

  The farther she walked away from Alun, the more her legs, her back, and arms began to hurt. It was a slow-growing pain, but it was a real pain. And each step she took away from the town where the Madders were bound—where she was bound too now that their blood and oaths had mingled—caused that pain to sharpen.

  Just on the other side of the trees was a stone hill. A small opening in the hill was clearly visible, but it was only large enough for someone her size or smaller to slip through. She didn’t know how Wil had crawled in there. Certainly, the burly Madders would not be able to clamber through that crack.

  “I see the rocks,” Rose called. “I see the opening.”

  “That must be it. Do you see children?”

  “Not yet.” Rose walked closer to the cave, every step like needles beneath her feet.

  “Can you see them?”

  “Wait.” Rose ducked and turned sideways and slipped into the small opening. She didn’t go any farther, catching her breath against the pain that was crawling down arms and legs, and clenching at her chest, and waiting for her eyes and the darkness to make amends.

  “Rose?” Alun’s voice was muffled by the layers of stone, but plenty clear enough for her to hear him. “Do you see the children?”

  She did. But she could not find her voice to answer him.

  The small entryway opened into a wide, high-ceilinged cavern just below. And the floor of that cavern was covered by children, all of them old enough to be walking, but none of them over ten or eleven years of age. They lay one to the next, like carefully placed tiles in a great mosaic. At least a hundred children. All of them unmoving. All of them made of stone.

  Cedar pushed onto his feet. “Mae!” This time his voice carried. This time she heard him.

  But it was too late.

  Vosbrough’s matic soldier fired its weapon. Liquid flame roared out of its gun, melting snow and cracking rocks.

  Mae threw herself to the side, yelled one final word of her spell, and grabbed up her gun.

  Before Cedar could take so much as a step, snow began to fall.

  Thick as a blizzard, the world was erased, swallowed whole. It was snowing so hard that even if there were a wind to break it, there would be no end to the white. It was as if the entire sky of clouds had fallen whole cloth to smother everything on the ground.

  A gunshot cracked and echoed. Mae’s gun.

  Mayor Vosbrough laughed. “Good, Mrs. Lindson. You are as strong as they say. Calling winter and binding it. A difficult spell. Very difficult. I could use a witch like you on my side. Don’t think of it as a service. I will pay you handsomely, beginning with sparing your life.”

  Mae didn’t answer. Smart. Her voice would only give Vosbrough a target to fire at.

  Another arc of fire blasted through the snow, setting the air glowing deep red and orange, as if Cedar stood in the stirred ashes and flame of a frozen bonfire.

  He knew Mae wasn’t far away. Took another step toward her.

  A figure appeared out of the snow in front of him.

  But it was not Mae.

  It was not Wil.

  It was the Strange he had seen so many times before. The Strange he had followed. It did not have Florence’s pink ribbon. But it pointed at where Wil was lying on the ice. The snow moved aside for that gesture, like a curtain pulled by cord.

  “I can save,” the Strange said with the reedy song of water through grass, “him. I can save”—the Strange pointed the other direction, and Cedar knew it meant Mae—“your own.”

  “Then save them,” Cedar said.

  “You must.” The Strange was made of windblown snow, though there was no wind. It swirled, losing eyes and mouth and shape, and then re-forming again. “Agree. Free my kind as I free yours.”

  “I don’t save Strange.” Even numb, freezing, hurting, Cedar felt the heat of the beast in his blood. Wanting to kill this Strange. Wanting to destroy.

  “Your… bro-ther,” it said, as if the word were awkward for it to speak, “is dying.”

  Cedar knew it was right. Wil’s side had barely lifted with breath, and the binding between them and Father Kyne was sapping his strength. As it was, Cedar could barely think straight, and shook uncontrollably from the cold.

  “I can save your bro-ther,” the Strange whispered. “I can save your own. If you free my kind. From the light.”

  It lifted a hand and grasped at the falling snow, impossibly dragging it aside again so that the air was clear of it. Farther downriver stood Mayor Vosbrough, hands raised, chanting.

  A spell. He was spell casting. But only witches could cast spells.

  That’s when the truth of it hit him. Vosbrough was a witch. He knew it was true. And Vosbrough was using glim, cold copper, and the Strange to power that monstrous matic. The light pouring from the orb in the center of its chest burned bright even through the snow. In that light he could see a Strange. It was in pain. Trapped. Tortured.

  The Strange waved its hand, and all the air around Cedar was solid white again. “Free. Free my own.”

  “Yes,” Cedar said. “I will free your own. Save my brother.”

  The Strange bowed gracefully. “Oath.”

  “Oath.”

  Snow parted like water around stone. The Strange walked on weightless tiptoe over to where Wil lay. It bent, placed its hand over Wil’s eyes, and then the Strange was gone, dissolved into a chalky mist that Wil inhaled.

  “No!” Horror crawled through Cedar’s mind. What had he just done to his brother? What was the price of this bargain?

  Cedar staggered to Wil.

  Wil opened his eyes, and exhaled.

  Then his wolf form stretched, molded, changed. Fur was replaced by skin, muzzle by lips, paws by hands.

  And it was Wil, lying naked on the ice. He turned his head, looked up at Cedar, confused. “Did we find the Holder?” he asked.

  Cedar shook his head. “Wil, the Strange. You breathed it in. It’s in you.”

  Wil’s eyes went wide, then he sat up smoothly, as if the ice and snow and wind had no effect on him. As if he were not in pain. “In me? I don’t feel any different.”

  And then everything about Wil changed. His face went blank, and a light burned copper behind his eyes. “This. Oath,” a voice that was not Wil’s said through his mouth.

  “No,” Cedar said. “I take back my oath. I break it. Get the hell out of my brother.”

  “Oath,” the Strange said with Wil’s lips.

  Wil stood in a graceful, liquid motion, then he took two steps and dove into the water.

  “Wil!” Cedar grabbed for him. Wil was gone, disappeared beneath the inky black water.

  The entire exchange had taken no more than a few seconds. He could dive in after him.

  It would be his death.

  The snow thinned. Cedar glanced at where he’d last seen Mae. She was standing just inside the line of trees by the road, her hands out to both sides, curled in fists, as she called on the elements to fuel her spell.

  He didn’t know what she was casting. Whether it was a curse, a binding, or a vow. But Vosbrough stood at the riverbank, unmoving, arms clamped to his side at an awkward angle, as if a rope were tied around him and cinching tighter.

  “Whore!” he yelled. “Demon spawn. You are an abomination on this earth. And not even a very good one at that.” He pushed his arms out to the side and flexed his fingers. “Strong, though. Which I like. I’ll give you that.”

  He crooked his finger and Mae gasped. She grabbed at her neck with one hand as if a wire had just wrapped around her throat, her other hand still tight in a fist.

  “Goddamn it,” Cedar swore. If ever there was a time for the beast to lend him its strength it was now.

  He ran for his rifle. Stumbling at first, his feet fell faster and faster
as anger gave him strength over his pain. And like kindling starving for oxygen, that anger caught a spark of rage and woke the beast within him.

  His senses heightened and heat and power rolled through his bones. One step and he bent, scooping up his rifle. A second step and he had the headless matic in his sights. It was still, bound by a spell, by a spell that Mae still held and Vosbrough had not yet broken.

  Cedar shot at the matic, aiming for the glass globe, but the bullet ricocheted, and sent out a spray of glim and copper sparks like flint rubbing steel.

  “So now the hero wants to join the fight,” Vosbrough said as Mae struggled to breathe. “Haven’t I said this to you enough, hunter? I am your death. And the death of your woman. You do realize I could snap her neck with a twitch of my wrist, don’t you, Mr. Hunt?”

  Cedar held his place and did not lower the gun. “Let. Her. Go.” It was all he could force out through his teeth, all his rage would allow.

  “I was willing to give you the hospitality of this fine city if you played by my rules. But now…” He shook his head. “Well, you’re consorting with witches, Mr. Hunt. And damned men. A decent civilized world has no room for such things.”

  “And you,” Cedar snarled as he shifted his aim to Vosbrough’s head, “talk too much.” He squeezed the trigger.

  Hink was surprised they were still alive. After the sheriff had let every damn man in town unload a round or two into the walls of the church, they’d settled down to a more random aim and fire, mostly only when he, Wicks, or Miss Dupuis stuck their head out a window long enough to take a shot of their own.

  The sheriff knew it was only a matter of time before those inside the church ran out of bullets. He seemed willing to wait them out.

  But being low on bullets only meant each shot had to count. And they’d made sure to do just that. There were more wounded men on the street, or being transported by wagon to doctors, than there had been just a few minutes ago. Hink knew Miss Dupuis was a steady aim, but he had to grudgingly admit Mr. Wicks was no slouch with a gun.

  The sheriff had tried to burn the place down too, but the recent snows made for difficult burning.