Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology (10 page)

“He will drug you, so you do not feel or struggle. Then he will decide which pieces of you should go. Sometimes,” she hesitates, “sometimes he just takes what he needs for what he calls ex-per-ee-ments. He did not become as proficient at what he does by going to a physician’s school. Here in Singapore, they call him the Elephant Butcher.”

The lads and I just looks at each other, and shake our heads.

“No one would go to him, unless they owed him something. Dashwood is not all she appears to be,” Whipsnake says, and she’s lookin’ right at me like she’s tryin’ to say somethin’ more than she’s sayin’. I won’t lie, I were thinkin’ of the metal beneath her gloves and wonderin’ how she knows the admiral so familiar-like. But the whole thing churns in me stomach. Something about the look in Whipsnake’s eyes ain’t right.

“Why you tellin’ us this?” I asks.

“There are many that are owned by him that wish to be free. If you keep your freedom, perhaps you will remember it was because you were warned, and come back to help us,” she says.

“Why would you need a couple of salt-crusted sailors when you got a big feller like him?” asks Martin. He tips his baldin’, red head to the giant still standin’ at the door.

“The admiral is not all he appears to be, either, and some of his creations prefer their new life of metal to what they had before.” She glances around a little nervous-like, and lowers her voice. “Also, we have no way of leaving Singapore. But you have access to a ship, yes?”

A tiny gasp, just a wisp o’ noise comes from behind the big fella. I look but I don’t see nothin’ at first.

“Whipsnake!” The voice carries all the authority of a sea cap’n, but it came from that tiny woman who had let us in at the admiral’s. Now that I sees her properly I can tell that she was small, maybe five feet, even if she where whole. But her legs had been replaced with nothin’ but brass seagull’s feet, pokin’ out from beneath her silk shirt.

She stands there, expectantly. Finally, Whipsnake rises and bows to us, but she don’t look at the wee little lady. She goes out the back, givin’ the barkeep a look to melt tar. The big feller just flexes his chest at us, and follows Whipsnake out the back.

When I looks back to see her again that wee lady is gone. Such a small and broken thing as she is to move so fast. I hardly knows what to make of any of it.

The lads is all silent.

“I still say the captain wouldn’t do us so wrong.” Martin breaks into our ponderin’.

“He’ll have a mutiny on his hands when the others find out,” says Beakman, takin’ another swig.

“Well, it weren’t the cap’n who made the choice to pay off the admiral in men’s hides,” I reminds them. “Look, I ain’t sayin’ I think she done what that Snake says. But if it’s true, I say we finds Dashwood and make her account for what she done.”

“Don’t feel right takin’ on a woman,” mumbles Martin.

“What ain’t right is her tossin’ us to that elephant!” Beakman’s roarin’ a bit now, and Martin moves his pint out the way. “Harris is right. I say she comes to account to us before she gets the chance to pay off the a‘miral.” Beakman stands and stumbles backwards over his chair, landin’ in a heap on the floor. It’s testament to how low we is that we doesn’t even laugh.

Well, it would have been all well and good to go about confrontin’ Dashwood for what she’d done, but we couldn’t find her. The lads at the ship is horrified by the prospect that any one o’ them could’ve been on the list to go, and they’re preparin’ to make off with the ship before we convinced ’em that there’s folks what we owed some help. They agreed to wait until dawn of the day after next. We leaves Beakman behind to see it done, which don’t sit well with me. Not that much ’bout this sits well with me. My gut is tellin’ me to be wary, and me hand is still smartin’ from catchin’ that sexton. Nothin’ worse than a cut in a man’s hand, you know.

We each scoured the city lookin’ for any sign of Dashwood, but Singapore goes darker at night than one might ’spect. I decides to go lookin’ down the surgeon’s street, seein’ as it’s one of the few places still movin’ this hour. No church bells tollin’ the hours here, but the stars will tell any sailor worth the salt in his beard that it’s half past one.

The smell of the surgeon’s street runs to meet you ’fore you ever set foot on the rushes that soak up the blood in the gutters. It’s the scent of a thousand cauterized wounds, the smith that forges the bits replacin’ what’s gone, and all the wee beasties that feed off the spoils.

The door of every surgeon has his mark; the admiral ain’t the only one that advertises his wares, see? There’s the Three-Legged Dog, the Silver Lion with a wrench for a tail, the Smiling Clock Face, and a dozen others. Each has a specialty. I once knew a bloke who had an eye fitted at the Clock Face. I takes my time, pacin’ along like I’m lookin’ at the doors, but I’m listenin’. If there’s music in the physics’ street, Dashwood will be there.

I’m listenin’ to the sound of metal feet crushin’ the reeds in the street. I’m listenin’ to the squeak and grind of fittin’s being put in place and the groans that go along with ’em. And then I’m listenin’ to the unmistakable sound of a pianoforte. It’s out of tune, like it’s been pulled from the drink, and like as not it was once, but there ain’t no one in all Asia who knows that tune so well as Margaret Dashwood.

The tune takes me out of the surgeon’s street, and into a part o’ town a respectable bloke might be found. I walk ’long the street to the place where the music’s playin’, and it’s a parlor. All fancy teas and lace napkins and Heaven knows what else the English gentry need when they lands in a place.

Such a fine establishment wouldn’t let an old codger like me peer through the windows, so I heads round back. The door is open and all manner of men and women too poor to go in are gathered ’round listenin’.

I manage a look into the room, and the lanterns are lightin’ the yeller mass of tangles that only belongs to the first mate, Dashwood, the rag doll of the sea. And she’s sittin’ there singin’ in the most melancholy way, but in all the ten years I’ve sailed with her, she only sung this way twice.

She were very happy then, and I can’t fathom as she would be in such a mood after sendin’ four men to their deaths. And I never once in those years of sailin’ thought she would turn on a man who sailed under the flag of Cap’n Dagger Campbell. Cap’n couldn’t love a thing so cold as to send a man to be torn apart for nothin’ more than being member of a good man’s crew.

She turns just a little, and the light changes. It glows in her mess o’ hair, and drops off her shirt sleeves like sea spray. If she can look like an angel, sing like a siren, and steer a twenty-man crew to port, she can’t be the heartless wretch that Snake said she was.

I works my way through to the door and into the room, and I’m about to interrupt when three burly blokes, all metaled-up, come burstin’ in the front o’ the shop. I sees the Elephant stamped on ’em, right enough, so I slips behind a bamboo screen ’fore they sees me. The crowd at the door scatters, and them blokes start clearin’ out the rest, but Dashwood keeps on playin’. I find a tear in the fabric of my hidin’ place, and peer out into the room.

Dashwood finishes her song, and just looks at the mates standin’ there, but I see her hand restin’ on them throwin’ knives in her belt. She’s lookin’ around, markin’ the ways out and places to take cover, and sure enough, she looks right at me. She holds out a finger, down low by the seat o’ her chair, signalin’ me to stay put and keep quiet. Well, I ain’t plannin’ to jump out and yell ‘surprise,’ now, is I?

Once the room is clear, in walks that wee, little lady from the admiral’s.

Dashwood rises with all the grace of the fine-born thing she is, and goes to kneel before that tiniest creature. She bows her head, placin’ her hands together, and says somethin’ real quiet-like.

I can see that small lady now, in the light of the lanterns, with her seagull feet of polished brass. I’m lookin’ for her mark, but I don’t see the elephant anywhere on her. Her faced is brown and wrinkled like my own grizzled mug, but there’s a kindness in ’er eye that only comes from livin’ with those you love, and servin’ ’em well.

It’s what every sailor dreams o’ comin’ home to, and most never possess. I can just see her pourin’ the admiral’s tea each day, in gratitude for givin’ her back her feet. Who’s gonna mind leavin’ bird tracks all they life, long as they can leave tracks at all?

“You may tell your man to come out from his hiding place,” the wee lady says, and there’s that tone again tells you she ain’t askin’.

Dashwood nods and I do like she asks, waitin’ to see if I’m about to be dragged back to the Elephant’s door to pay Dashwood’s debts.

“Harris, don’t stand there dithering like a beggar on the stoop.” Dashwood waves me over, and I does my best to put each foot in front o’ the other ’til I’m standin’ just behind her.

“Harris, this is Li Dao Ming. She is a great friend of the captain’s.” The gesture of her hand is smoother than a well-sanded keel.

I bows to Li Dao Ming, and she grows three feet. I blink a few times, makin’ sure it ain’t the drink come up on me slow-like, but there she stands, nearly a head above me. Her legs are what’s done it, extended ’til she’s eye-to-eye with the tallest of her lads.

“Your captain is a good man,” she says lookin’ me straight in the face. “I hope he has good men sailing with him.” I know she reckernizes me from the tap room. She just looks at me like she’s waitin’ for an answer.

I swallows. “When a cap’n ’spects his crew, then his men is always wid him,” says I.

“And does Captain Campbell respect his crew?” Li Dao Ming asks me, still starin’ right through the soul o’ me.

“Dashwood would have to answer that, ma’am.” I’m treadin’ the waters now, I know. One of Li Dao Ming’s boys flexes his mechanical arms, and I swallow, though I don’t mean to.

“What are you talking about, Harris?” Dashwood asks. She stands up, lookin’ me in the face with that same intensity.

“Whipsnake found me and the lads in the pub, and she said—”

“Whipsnake!” Dashwood shouts. “That harpy is back in town?” She looks to Li Dao Ming, who only nods. “Harris, whatever she told you is a lie. She has been after the captain since he sailed out of Jakarta without her. Her life changed because of him, and she never forgave him.”

“No offense, Dashwood,” I insist, “but I remember Jakarta. She weren’t never there.” That Indonesian job ’bout eight years back were a nasty bit of business, and we barely left with what we came for, but there weren’t no ladies involved. Dashwood always stayed with the ship when we was on the job, ’cept in this here mad bit o’ circumstance, o’ course. Cap’n not wantin’ to risk her gettin’ pinched, see? And there’s no one else he trusts better to see that the ship stayed put and were ready to sail.

“Yes, she was. And so was I,” Li Dao Ming says. “In a little shelter by the side of the road was a lame woman and her child. Captain Campbell paused long enough to—”

“—throw a handful of coins to ’em.” I says in wonder. Sure enough, I remember now, ’cause I was runnin’ like the devil hisself was behind me, and I nearly run straight into the cap’n’s back when he stopped. Thought he was mad to waste a cut on a street wretch. Seems I weren’t so wrong.

“I took my little girl and the money to a man who was rumored to repair the lame. He refused my money, but accepted my service, insisting that I use the gold to buy my girl an apprenticeship. I sent her away to my home in China, to a woman who knew how to weave.” Li Dao Ming bows her head and her eyelids are flutterin’ fierce. “But she never arrived in my village.”

“She was kidnapped by a group of mercenaries who used her for her body,” Dashwood says. “They made her choose between death or training so she could serve their band. It was with the mercenaries that she ran into the captain again, and knew him for who he was. It didn’t go well.”

Dashwood sniffs in a way that tells me she don’t want to talk about what transpired ’tween the Snake and the cap’n, but a trained seductress and assassin—well, you can guess.

“When she returned to me six years later, she had become a weapon. Made of metal and twice as cold,” Li Dao Ming says. “She blamed me and the admiral for sending her away. Blamed the coins that had fallen as if from the sky, and the man who rejected her.” She looks at Dashwood. “She will not stop until she takes her revenge.”

I huffs out a sigh of relief. I was certain our Dashwood wouldn’t do something so wicked as send a good man to die when he’d been loyal more years than an old sea dog can count.

“Where is she?” Dashwood asks.

“I do not know, but she will not come back out in the open now that I have seen her,” Li Dao Ming says. “She will stay out of sight until she means to strike.”

“She didn’t say nothin’ ’bout strikin’,” I says. “Just that if the lads and I could fight our way to freedom, we ought to feel ’bliged to return to help the others. Get them out of Singapore on the ship.”

“That’ll all just be extra chaos,” Dashwood says. “A distraction from what she means to do. You see now that there’s no one in the admiral’s retinue that needs saving. They love him. He saved them. He takes the cases no one else will, when the work is too much or the price is too high.”