Steemjammer: The Deeper Truth (10 page)

“Out o’ the fog came tha’.” He pointed at the great war machine. “Black smoke bellowin’ out the chimney, curved blades spinnin’, cannons firin’ - and on top, the catapult, launching stones. Oh, it was a terror!”

“Did it win the war?” Will asked eagerly.

“Nay, it blew up.”

After all that build-up, the kids felt let down.

“Blew up?” Angelica asked.

“Boiler explosion,” Donell explained. “Big and impressive it were! Tah be sure, there was scimitars and splinters and metal bits goin’ up and down, left and right, all over the battlefield. Left a substantial crater, it did. Everyone on both sides ran in horror.”

“Our ancestors were killed?” Giselle asked.

“Only one. They could tell the boiler’s fate before she blew. The others scampered out and got into a ditch just in time.”

“What happened?” Will asked. “Who won?”

“The empire could’ve marched right in tah the town,” Donell chuckled, “but the explosion was too much for the general. Iron-clad war wagons tha’ seemed tah move by ‘witchcraft’ and then explode – he dinna want any more o’ tha’. He took his army back tah the towns they already had and told everyone he needed tah look tah their defense, tha’ they’d conquered enough.”

“Amsterdam was saved?”

“Aye. Ne’er again did such a large army threaten them, and the Dutch rebels eventually won.”

“So our Müller ancestors,” Angelica said, suddenly feeling good about things, “changed their name!”

“Aye, lass. The Dutch had a tradition o’ takin’ whate’er names their enemies called ‘em in scorn and wearin’ ‘em proudly, like a badge. The grateful townspeople called yer ancestors Steemjammer, as if tah say ‘in yer face’ tah the empire, and the name stuck.”

“But I’ve read Old Earth history,” Giselle said, “and there’s no mention of this.”

“Not long after, Gerardus began openin’ verltgaats, and yer family came here. I think most o’ those who knew about it went with ‘em.”

“I don’t think,” Tante Stefana added, “that people back then knew what to make of steam power. So many conflicting stories were invented to explain that day that historians probably gave up.”

“I do feel better,” Will said, “because at least our name makes sense, but it makes me even more worried that I had to deny it.”

“Will, what did you deny? You denied our enemy the chance to destroy this world. Yes, we’re supposed to tell the truth, but think on this: our very name is a
deception
. We’re not failures or mere toy-makers. Our steem’s the best there’s ever been, and our machines can’t be topped. Yet we proudly call ourselves Steemjammers.”

“Are you saying it’s all right to lie?” Giselle asked.

Tante Stefana paused, pressing her fingertips to her face while considering her next words. “I’m saying that when we seek deeper truth, we learn that the world’s an extremely complex and challenging place. Yes, we can lose our goot steem. It’s happened before. But Wilhelmus Anselm Steemjammer, something tells me you may not have lost as much steem as you fear, or that you may be able to win it back.”

Will quivered as shivers ran up and down his spine. Was what she said truly possible?

“Sadly, I have much to do,” Tante Stefana said, “Donell, what about their assignments for tomorrow?”

“Ye should like this, Cobee,” Donell grinned. “All Youth Volunteers and Apprentices are doin’ something for the tournament, so it’s best if the Raz spies see ye there. Otherwise, they might get suspicious. Ye’ve got a seven o’clock start.”

Cobee’s face lit up.

“The first match begins not long after, so ye’ll get tah watch at least some o’ it. Once everyone’s attention is on that, we’ll slip ye out the back and get ye tah Klazee’s before nine.

“Everyone gets off early today. Go on. Get home, stay safe, and be on time.”

Chapter 9

ZANDER’S DECREE

That evening, the Protectorate’s fastest airship,
Skyshadow
, docked at Texel Island. Bram was eating in a fancy, private dining room with other family members in the main tower when he saw it coming in. He left his dinner unfinished to go attempt to commandeer it. To his surprise, the crewmen said they had orders to find him. Bram’s great uncle, Viktor Rasmussen, was on board and wanted to see him immediately.

They led Bram across a clanking steel gangway into the gondola of the
Skyshadow
, a dark gray, sleek airship with a rigid frame and two steam turbines for power. She was vaguely fish-shaped, which was supposed to give aerodynamic qualities. Her top speed was kept secret – even from Bram – but he knew
Skyshadow
could cruise at 70 or 80 miles per hour, easily making her the fastest airship in B’verlt.

He was shown up stairs to the main deck, which was built into the front-lower part of the airship’s main structure. His uncle waited for him in the stateroom, a richly appointed space with finely carved furniture, dark red carpet, and large, angled windows. An elderly man in a long black leather coat so glossy that it resembled rubber, Viktor Rasmussen clamped a steel-framed monocle over his left eye and studied Bram critically. Strong vertical lines in his gaunt cheeks framed an undertaker’s slit of a mouth, and his only hair, a short-cropped gray forelock, grew thick at the peak of his otherwise bald scalp.

Bram noticed a streak of dry, crusted white residue on his arm and an acrid chemical smell. As Head Necrologist, Viktor constantly experimented with strange and dangerous concoctions. If that weren’t intimidating enough, he was a younger brother of Zander’s long-dead father and perhaps the only person the High Leech truly respected. Sensing trouble, Bram forced himself to be cautious.

“I hear you’re working with a Steemjammer,” Viktor said icily, “or a young man foolish enough to have made that claim.”

“Yes, Uncle Viktor,” he said. “You almost never leave the Shadoverks. What are you doing here?”

“Asking the questions,” Viktor replied. “This boy. Where is he?”

“Boarding with someone in the city.”

“Show me his photograph.”

Bram grew uneasy.

“No one bothered to capture his image?” Viktor asked dubiously. “What has he told you? Tell me everything.”

Frightened, Bram reached into his pocket and showed him the lump of metal. His uncle demanded to know how he he’d obtained it, and the young Rasmussen told him.

“In a Steemball trophy?” he sneered at his nephew’s story. “Ridiculous.”

Snatching the object in a gloved hand, he briefly inspected it before handing it back.

“I must commandeer the airship, Uncle,” Bram dared to say, “and take this to my father immediately.”

“
Skyshadow
is here on specific orders from Zander,” Viktor said, “and no one is commandeering it.”

Bram stopped himself from making a face. “Uncle, do you understand how important this is?”

“I understand a great many things. More than your immature mind can possibly comprehend. I want you to trust me, Bram and do what I say without argument, because I have neither the time nor the patience to explain it to you now.

“Clyve Harrow is going to ask you for that piece of metal. You’re going to give it to him.”

Bram wrapped his fingers around it protectively. “The Tracium?”

“I told you to trust me.”

“Uncle, with all due respect, I found it! I deserve the credit!”

Viktor laughed, and his monocle fell from his eye, caught by a thin chain. Wiping it on his shirt collar, he replaced it and gave his nephew a critical look.

“Listen,” he said, “if any credit is due, it will be awarded accordingly.”

“You’re taking him back? You want Clyve to have the honor of presenting this to my father?”

“He’s going without us, and he will run the risk of presentation for you.”

His nephew made a face and looked away, stubbornly clenching the lump of metal.

Viktor’s countenance softened, and his voice became soothing. “When you let your emotions rule your head, Bram, they cloud your vision. At your age this is normal, but as a Rasmussen, you’re expected to rise above that.

“Only intellect - keen awareness devoid of feeling - grants clear sight. If this sample is real, it won’t matter who hands it to your father. You’ll get your reward either way.

“If it isn’t genuine, having Clyve turn it in puts the blame on him and grants you protection. Now do you see?”

Bram reluctantly nodded.

“If you can’t hand it to him,” Viktor said, “then give it to me, and I’ll do it for you.”

***

“We’re docking in ten minutes, sir,” the captain said late that night.

Clyve Harrow stiffened. Much had changed since dinner, which had been interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the Rasmussen Protectorate’s fastest airship,
Skyshadow
. Uncle Viktor, who almost never left his laboratories, handed Clyve an urgent summons from Zander Rasmussen – and the Tracium. He had to depart immediately.

The six-hour night flight had been filled with turbulence until they reached Britannia, a large island west of New Amsterdam where people of English descent had settled many years ago. He saw the lights of New London, his boyhood home, and then, after crossing a range of steep hills, the darkness of the Brigantine Swamp. This was where the Shadoverks lay, a place that filled him with mixed emotions.

It was the seat of Rasmussen power. Something in the damp soil, some yet-to-be-isolated element or alloy, kept Steemjammers from opening verltgaats there, so they’d been safe from surprise attacks. It also served, in some poorly understood way, to allow the family’s main talent and prime source of power: Necrology, the science of death.

The dismal swamp filled with vast bogs, strange creatures and decay. It was where Rasmussen scientists had learned to force a spark of unlife into dead brains, to train them to obey instructions and to carry out amazing deeds in powerful new machine bodies. Here, they also performed attitude reconditioning on Protectorate members in need of correction.

Sudden summons like this, Clyve knew, usually meant trouble. Was Zander displeased? Had Bram told his father some vicious lie?

If so, why had Viktor given him the Tracium? Was it the old man who was in trouble? Was he hoping this would appease Zander? Surely it would. The Tracium was the answer to all their problems.

Clyve forced himself towards optimism. Perhaps this was merely an urgent briefing. He realized, however, looking through the windows at the black swamp below, that this might be his last glimpse of B’verlt.

***

“He’ll see you now,” a black-uniformed commander said.

There’s hope, Clyve assured himself, wondering if the shaking he felt in his knees was noticeable. The
Skyshadow
hadn’t taken him to the Shadovecht-making side of the complex. Instead she’d docked at a tall spire reaching up from a windowless, dark stone building called The Mansion, where top administrators worked and where Zander resided.

Hooded so he wouldn’t know the way, he was led by a series of different silent guards in black leather uniforms down to Zander’s audience chamber. They took off the hood, and he was left alone in a dark, cold, high-ceilinged stone room. Behind him, a steel door clanged shut ominously.

A row of swamp-gas lamps burst into flame along the walls, startling Clyve. The room was designed to make visitors feel small and powerless, and he fought the creeping fear that wormed its way through his mind.

On the back wall of the room hung a large portrait of Zander Rasmussen, painted at his prime. Dark-haired with a broad, white forelock combed back, high cheeks and hard, intense black eyes, he’d once been a handsome if stern-looking man.

Clyve couldn’t help wondering what the family doctors and scientists had done to him. His wounds, earned at the conquest of Rasmussenfort, had never healed. He’d seemed doomed to an early death, but they’d managed to save him.

How? He imagined Zander’s body jabbed with tubes and pumped full of leech-craft’s most potent serums and elixirs. Clyve shuddered.

To buy more life, what price had he paid? He imagined warped skin, bloated flesh, and deformed features. It was obvious that Zander looked hideous now, physically broken and at the mercy of doctors. Hating this image, Clyve reasoned, he refused to let anyone, even his own son, actually see him.

“Welcome, cousin,” Zander’s voice said.

The last thing Clyve felt was “welcome.” The voice, which sounded detached and overly loud, came from a device in the walls.

“Thank you, Hoeg Bloodzoyger,” he said with a curt bow, wishing his voice hadn’t cracked.
High Leech
.

Clyve tapped the Tracium in his coat pocket, making sure it was still there. If problems arose, the Tracium, presented at the right moment, might save his life.

“I trust your flight was without incident,” Zander said.

“Smooth and fast, as always, on the
Skyshadow
.”

In truth he’d become ill and thrown up because of violent winds and internal turmoil. He felt so strained, talking to a painting. What was really going on?

“I’ve seen reports,” Zander intoned. “You recently interrogated a young man who claimed to be Wilhelmus Steemjammer.”

Clyve felt his mouth drying up. Had he made an error? He’d reported everything, he thought, and had given the man’s son most of the credit.

“Bram is the one who heard him say that and took him into custody,” Clyve said. “Your son also told me the subject may have been joking. Under Glass Dragon this was confirmed.”

“What was confirmed?” Zander asked.

“That he’d been joking. He denied that his name was Wilhelmus Steemjammer.”

“Will Stevens is his real name?”

“Undoubtedly. The dose of Glass Dragon was increased, almost to the point of killing him. It is impossible that he lied.”

Zander’s voice grew cold and accusatory. “This was not in the report.”

Clyve stammered, feeling like a hole had suddenly opened in the floor under his feet. He deliberately hadn’t added that detail for fear of scrutiny, and now he’d betrayed himself by speaking too hastily.

“I’m sorry, cousin, but I don’t recall omitting that,” Clyve said, trying to restrain his panic. “I must have considered it trivial and not worthy of your time. My apologies.”

“Why did you increase the dose?”

Clyve started to lie that he’d done so only to make sure of the boy’s truthfulness, but he remembered Dahlia. This was why he’d felt the instinct to silence her permanently. If Zander’s agents had already interrogated her, then he knew everything. A false statement now, Clyve knew, would mean a quick trip to the nearby Shadoverks and the harvesting of his brain.

“He showed surprising resistance to the truth drug,” Clyve said, realizing he had no choice but to reveal all. “He’d been near death, and I thought this might have suppressed his mental functions, making it harder for a normal dose to work.”

“My son sustained this boy with a draught of Noftalekt anti-venom, did he not?”

Clyve hesitated.

“Did he tell you this?” Zander’s voice pressed.

“He did. You’re concerned the Noftalekt dampened the Glass Dragon? It doesn’t have that affect.”

“This was Bram’s own special brew, which he made himself. Did he not tell you this?”

Clyve felt ill but knew he had to answer quickly. “I can’t recall.”

“Didn’t he ask you specifically to get rare and expensive ingredients he needed?”

“That was months ago. It slipped my mind.”

“Sloppy, Clyve.”

Clyve felt an ache in his gut. If the decision had already been made to kill him, how painful would it be? Was there any way he could earn a quick death?

“There’s a chance,” Zander said at last, “that Bram’s anti-venom acts against Glass Dragon. This will have to be investigated, which may take some time.”

“I assure you,” Clyve countered, at last seeing where this was going, “that Will Stevens is a drifter, a fatherless thief.”

“You know this for a fact?”

“Even if your son’s special brew works on Glass Dragon, there couldn’t have been enough left in his system to neutralize the second dose. Besides, Steemjammers can’t lie. I heard him directly deny that name!”

“There is much on which you are confused.”

In the ensuing silence, sweat that had been beading on Clyve’s forehead ran into his eyes, forcing him to pull out his handkerchief to wipe it away.

“Steemjammers can misdirect,” Zander startled him, “and even tell direct falsehoods, when they must. Hendrelmus lied, and so did his father, about many things.”