The Crimson Skew (The Mapmakers Trilogy) by S. E. Grove (17)

16

Salt Lick Station

THE PASSENGERS ABOARD the train to Salt Lick watched the ash fall. All through the second day of the journey and into the evening, it had fallen—at first sparsely, so that it was mistaken for apple blossoms out of season, and then thickly, so that it swirled and eddied around the train. The flat fields on either side of the tracks made a gray sea to the horizon. Even as the sun set, the sky remained light and faintly yellow, like a fading bruise.

The dining car was quiet, apart from the occasional murmured speculation. All of the passengers seemed to agree that the ashy precipitation boded ill. Goldenrod watched the mottled clouds with a worried expression. Errol, Wren, and Sophia sat beside her in a braced silence.

“It’s a punishment from the Indians,” a woman’s voice suddenly declared shrilly. She was young, with a high buttoned collar and nervous hands. “They’ve sent a storm of ash to wipe us out!”

“Don’t be absurd,” another woman retorted, looking sternly through her spectacles. “Indians have no such power. And how is a storm of ash supposed to wipe us out?”

“There must be a great fire,” said a middle-aged man. “A fire burning all the plains to the west—a fire so vast, the winds are carrying the ashes east.”

“Then how do you explain the fact that when the clouds clear, the ash stops?” the spectacled woman demanded.

“What’s your explanation, then?” countered the man.

“I have no explanation,” she said firmly. “And anyone who claims to is fooling himself.”

There was a silence. Then, finally, Goldenrod turned away from the window.

“What is it?” Errol asked in an undertone.

“I cannot hear the Clime,” she replied, her voice strained. “But I hear the trees.”

“What do they tell you?” Wren prompted.

“The ash does not trouble them. What troubles them are the men.”

“The men?” Sophia asked.

Goldenrod turned back to the dark glass. “Thousands of feet, marching east. Men scorching fields, men cutting trees to clear roads.”

“Is that where the ash comes from?” wondered Sophia.

“Perhaps. I cannot tell. The fires leave blackened earth and pillars of smoke. They send people fleeing, like ants whose hill has been crushed underfoot.”

“The New Occident troops,” Wren said.

“Both sides,” Goldenrod corrected. “Miami, Shawnee, and Cherokee to the south. All the Six Nations to the north. There is such a movement of feet, and the footsteps leave poison in their wake.”

“What does that mean?” Sophia asked, eyes wide.

“I do not know,” Goldenrod said. She sighed deeply and pressed her forehead against the glass. Errol rested a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Sophia could see the agony on Goldenrod’s face—Goldenrod, who was always so calm and untroubled. And she could see the worry in Errol’s shoulders; he leaned toward Goldenrod as if hoping to shield her with his presence. But there could be no protection from the unrest of the Clime. It was all around them. With an inaudible sigh, Sophia rose. She wanted time to think things through.

Making her way back to the compartment she was sharing with Goldenrod, she pulled herself up into her bunk. She took out her notebook and set down the happenings of the last twenty hours, taking special care to draw the falling ash and Goldenrod’s story of Tree-Eater. As she outlined the remnants of her dream from the previous night, she pondered what Goldenrod had observed about the trees, and how the footsteps of men troubled them.

If trees can remember, she thought to herself, sketching the insects that had appeared with jeweled precision in her dream, then of course they can sense what is happening now all around them. They do not simply watch—they observe, they interpret. Perhaps they even like and dislike. She looked up, struck by a thought. Or are there stronger feelings? Do the trees love and hate like we do? Do they condemn some actions and praise others? Do they have wishes and wants that act upon the world? How would those wishes and wants appear? Sophia shook her head, perplexed at her own questions.

Goldenrod had still not come, and it was growing late. Sophia put away her notebook and pencils and prepared herself for bed. Carefully, so that it would not slip too easily from her grasp, she placed the antler in her open palm. Then she settled back, pulled the blankets around her, and prepared herself for sleep. The train rattled pleasantly in the background, and it was almost possible to forget that, beyond the tracks, the land was covered with ash.

There was only one dream this time—a brief, disturbing dream that was more of a nightmare. It began and ended at the edge of a charred forest, where the boy sat on the ground and wept into his hands. She leaned her head down toward him and tried, with an aching sense of pity, to offer consolation. She tapped his head with her nose and sent him love with her thoughts, but it did no good. He wept as if his heart would break. When she woke from the dream, she could not fall back asleep.

• • •

THE TRAIN ARRIVED on time, almost exactly forty hours after departing the station in New Orleans. The fields alongside the track were green in the gray light of dawn; the falling ash had not reached Salt Lick. The trees nodded gently, seemingly untroubled, as the train slowed its pace, rolling into the station.

If she had not read the antler map during her sleep, she would not have realized that the builder was someone she knew. The company name—Blanc Railroad—had struck her from the first. But only when she saw the station in Salt Lick, with the sound of the boy’s weeping still ringing in her ears, did she realize that this was the very line Shadrack had traveled along the summer before. The rail line was the one planned and built by Blanca. It felt at once ominous and familiar.

The station was magnificent. White marble supported a vaulted roof of shining steel. The many tracks bustled with activity, much of it freight. Carved into the marble above the station entrance for each track was a tilted hourglass.

Sophia gathered her belongings and adjusted the chains of her thin mask. All of them were still dressed fully in their costumes. The crisis of the moment—the Clime’s silence and the falling ash—had taken precedence over Wren’s pursuers, and he had promptly made peace with Calixta. As they left their compartments, he warned them yet again that the League might be waiting. “If we are approached,” he cautioned, with a meaning glance at Calixta, “you will allow me to conduct the conversation.”

“Talk all you like,” she agreed, with a sly smile. “And I’ll do everything else.”

Wren shook his head but did not take the bait. Instead, he walked at the head of their short procession and stepped onto the platform. Sophia and the others followed him.

There had been no falling ash outside the station, and within it, there was no sign that the Territories were at war. Men and women of all ages, although fewer families than Sophia would have expected, made their way through the station’s great hall. In peacetime, the route continued into New Occident through upper New York, but now the train service stopped before the border and backtracked, making the long return trip to New Orleans. Salt Lick was one of the last stations on the line. The ticket counters were open, as were the stalls selling food and supplies.

“Oh, we must buy breakfast,” Calixta exclaimed. “They have bacon sandwiches.”

“Calixta,” Wren said warningly. “We go straight to the pigeon depot, as agreed.”

“Very well,” Calixta pouted, after a moment’s indecision. “But you will regret missing the bacon sandwiches.”

“I think I will survive without them,” Wren replied dryly.

Sophia was dazzled by the station itself and the people who walked through it. At the very center of the great hall stood a towering statue of a veiled woman holding a torch aloft. Passengers and vendors made their way around the base of the statue. Circling her colossal head was an endlessly moving constellation of orbs that Sophia realized were spherical clocks. They emerged from the beams of the vaulted ceiling along their tracks, whirling and dipping.

Not a single person appeared to be from New Occident. Many were raiders from the Baldlands, with silver bells and armor similar to those worn by Sophia and her companions. However, as she saw by the clothes of most of the passersby—suede in tan or black, beaded cotton, long capes like the one Goldenrod usually wore, tall laced boots that reached their knees—the majority of the travelers were from the Territories.

Wren was leading them to a set of double doors that stood open only a few steps away. Beyond them, the city of Salt Lick was beginning to wake to another summer morning. A bell tolled to announce a train departure, and then the sound of running footsteps rang through the station. Sophia did not turn, assuming passengers were rushing to catch the departing train. Then she heard a voice cut through the noise of the crowd: “Richard Wren!” She froze. Calixta, Goldenrod, Errol, and Wren turned.

They stood at the foot of the statue: a dozen agents of the Encephalon League, all of them in long cloaks of a peculiar color—smoky gray, with patches of soot, as if they had been dragged through a dirty chimney. Like Wren, they were tall, men and women alike. Standing before them was Burton Morris, a rueful expression on his face. His hands were tied before him.

The agent who had her hand on Burr’s shoulder called Wren’s name again. “Richard Wren. Come forward, and Morris will not be harmed.”

“Don’t move, Richard,” Calixta said icily. “Let me handle this.”

People in the station had begun to take notice. Skirting the agents, they glanced with curiosity or concern at Burr’s bound hands. Some of them stopped to watch. One man, a raider, assessed the situation and drew his pistol. “In need of an extra hand, friends?” he asked Wren and Calixta, then grinned menacingly at the agents.

His question caught the ear of many around him. Raiders in the station were drawn toward them like metal filings to a magnet. Within seconds, Sophia found that there were a dozen raiders at her back, all with their weapons drawn, their metal gear clinking and clanking in anticipation.

The agent’s expression hardened. “An escalation is not to your advantage, Wren,” she said.

Wren shook his head. “This is not my doing,” he protested.

“This is entirely your doing,” she replied.

The threatening silence hung in the air between them. Sophia could feel Wren’s resolve withering. At any moment, he would step forward, giving himself up to the League. They would never see him again, Sophia thought, panicked. What would the League do to him? Surely his crimes this time were even worse? Would he survive?

A hush filled the station, and it seemed to reach far beyond the cluster of people around her. Something else is happening, Sophia realized, dread suddenly filling her chest like a bitter breath.

She was abruptly aware that she could not see the statue clearly, even though it stood only a dozen feet away. Something was making it hard to see—a cloud, a fog, a reddened mist. It swirled all around the base of the statue, obscuring it and the agents, who seemed suddenly diminished in numbers. She stared at the fog, perplexed. Where did it come from? There was a smell on the air that collided unpleasantly with the smoky scent of bacon sandwiches: sweet, luxuriant, and degraded, like a dying flower.

“Take my hand, Sophia.” It was Errol, and he seized her hand firmly in his own, pulling her toward him. Someone screamed. Sophia looked up at Wren, who had been just to her left, and found that he was gone. Did I lose track of time? Sophia wondered, confused. Her thoughts were moving slowly. She was frightened by the scream, but other fears began to crowd her mind.

She looked down at the floor of the station and realized that the red fog was so thick that she could not even see her feet. The air felt heavy—incredibly heavy, as if it wished to pin her to the ground. Sophia realized that things were happening around her and she was not perceiving them fully. The single scream had become many, and they had been echoing now for quite a while. She could not say for how long.

Suddenly, Errol dropped her hand. Sophia glanced up in surprise, but she could hardly see him. He had already stepped away; then he was gone. She heard the metallic ring of his sword being drawn. “Errol?” She put her hands out in front of her. “Errol!”

There was a whistle as his sword cut through the air. Sophia felt a wave of terror. She dropped to the ground and covered her head. “Errol!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

The air above her moved. She looked up, hoping to see Errol’s hand reaching down toward her. But it was not Errol’s hand. Instead she saw giant talons, set in iridescent green skin, grasping at the thick air. Sophia gasped and tried to get her bearings. She dimly recalled open doors perhaps twenty paces ahead—and she stumbled. A shape moved above her. She caught a glimpse of a massive wing cutting through the fog: brilliant with red and orange scales. Then, as she crawled forward unsteadily, the beast’s face suddenly appeared beside her. It was blue-skinned, with a long snout, golden eyes, and a set of massive jaws.

Its long teeth like knives bared, the dragon spoke: “Sophia.”

Sophia choked on a scream. She pushed herself to her feet, rushing blindly into the fog. Disordered thoughts ran through her mind. The story of Tree-Eater flashed before her: the monster conjured by imagination. But why would I imagine a dragon? she asked herself, panicking. I didn’t! I didn’t imagine a dragon, I promise! She wanted to cry out to Errol, but she feared drawing the terrifying dragon-creature toward her. Unexpectedly, she heard Errol’s sword ring as it hit stone—the marble floor of the station?

She hurried toward the sound, hands out in front of her. It was not far. She heard the ring again, and a grunt of effort. She had reached him. Sophia dove in a final burst toward the sound. Then she looked up in horror. She had not found Errol. This was something else: a giant; a massive statue made of iron. He leaned toward her, his helmeted head with its closed visor emerging from the fog. The iron giant lifted his sword—Errol’s sword, Sophia realized—into the crimson mist, preparing to strike. Sophia froze for a moment, mesmerized.

Then she bolted.

As she stumbled in what she hoped was the direction of the doorway, the din around her suddenly flooded her ears: roaring and clanging, screaming and wailing, the echoing report of pistol shots. Sophia felt a sob rising in her chest. She ran as far as she could before her foot caught on some person or thing hidden by the mist and she fell, sprawling forward onto the ground.