Broken Dreams (Broken Realms, #5)

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

Mara opened her eyes. Not quite balanced on her feet, she swayed for a second and looked down to find better footing. Her right foot perched on the edge of a piece of wood embedded into the ground, leaving her heel unsupported and throwing her off-kilter. She slid her foot forward, placing the sole of her shoe on the plank. That’s when she realized it was a tie—a railroad tie.

She glanced to the right and then to the left. Metal rails on either side of her were mounted atop the heavy weathered wood, leading her gaze forward to more planks that made up the track on which she stood.

Vibrations traveled up her legs.

A black locomotive less than fifty feet away barreled toward her, its cowcatcher—the V-shaped wedge of iron used to knock obstacles from a train’s path—drilling down on her like a giant’s arrow. Before a gasp left her lips, a deafening whistle pierced her ears and stabbed at her brain, sending a jolt of panic down her spine, causing her knees to lock. She shut her eyes and raised her arms.

No, no, no. Just go away!

A stiff damp breeze pushed against her body, but she leaned into it, able to remain standing at an angle. She frowned and risked opening one eye. A heavy mist flew past her, thick like clouds, then was sucked into a wind tunnel, shredded into streams that flowed through unseen canyons, on a course to who-knew-where. Somewhere behind Mara, that was for sure.

Not able to see through the roiling fog, she looked at the ground. She remained standing on railroad tracks. Peering ahead, she felt something wet slide down her cheek. She wiped it away. Water. Condensation. A cloud had whipped past her. Water vapor with a destination. Steam.

And then it was gone.

She could see the sky and the horizon now, not that she had had time to notice them before. In the distance, she recognized Mount Hood. However, the city spread out before it was not familiar at all. It certainly didn’t look like Portland, at least not her Portland. The tallest building couldn’t be more than five stories, and all the architecture appeared to be clapboard boxes of one configuration or another—a settlement town, something from the mid-to-late 1800s, she guessed.

Another whistle—this one more distant—blew behind her, and she turned to see the last car of the train trundle in the distance. It didn’t move as fast as she had first thought.

How did it get past me?

Turning east toward town, she struck her heel on the steel rail, which reminded her where she stood. Since the tracks were elevated on a mound of dirt and fine gravel, she let gravity pull her down the incline in three loping steps, kicking up a small cloud of dust that gathered around her feet when she came to a quick stop at a field of tall grass.

Something was odd about the town’s skyline ahead. Behind one of the taller buildings extended the tail of something quite large, sticking up at a sharp angle. It had fins. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought it a gigantic whale, diving into an unseen pool. She squinted into the late-morning sun to get a better view, putting her hand to her brow to temper the glare. She couldn’t discern any more details.

Was it morning when she entered the receptacle? She stopped peering at the town and lowered her hand. It didn’t matter now that she was here.

What mattered was finding Ping and Sam, and then figuring out what the Aphotis was up to. The logical next step was making her way to town. She could follow the railroad tracks, but they appeared to run in an arc around the settlement, and, since the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, she decided to cut across the three miles of grassy plain. She needed to find a path or a road. The tall grass would slow her down.

Tick-tick-tick.

Mara c****d her head and scanned the area for the sound.

Tick-tick-tick.

She couldn’t tell where it came from. Turning, she examined the slope up to the railroad tracks, kicking at the gravel to see if she could uncover the source of the noise.

Scratch-scratch-scratch.

Something pulled at the hem of her jeans, and she jumped. A brass-colored spider, the size of her hand, sat on the ground next to where she had been standing. The creature held up its front two legs and clicked them together, as if applauding her leap.

Tick-tick-tick.

It skittered toward her. She backed up the gravel slope of the train tracks. And it followed.

Hoping to discourage it, Mara toed some gravel at it. The tiny rocks bounced off its back with a metallic bing. That didn’t appear to hurt it, but the creature stopped advancing. It straightened its articulated legs and raised its pill-shaped body higher, to the height of Mara’s knee. A seam appeared along the spider’s back and its shell split open like a flower blooming. From the center of the opening, a small tube extended about three inches and stopped. A clipped hiss came out of it, followed by a small puff of steam.

The tiny cloud floated up, level with Mara’s face, and lingered there much longer than expected. Then it dissipated and floated away.

The tiny tube disappeared into the back of the spider, and it squatted back down to ground level and skittered away.

“What was that all about?” Mara said aloud as she watched the spider disappear into the grass.

She was about to turn away when the grass moved, not in tandem with the breeze, but in different directions, as if something pushed each blade aside one by one. Another spider emerged and crawled toward her. Before it reached the base of the slope where Mara stood, another spider emerged from the grass. And then another. They converged on her.

Deciding that walking through spider-infested grass toward town was not such a good idea, she followed the railroad tracks, stepping from tie to tie outside of the rails. When she heard the approaching clicking, she glanced over her shoulder to see dozens of the brass spiders jockeying past one another to get to her.

She sped up, jogging, even though the distance between ties, and the gravel and dirt between them, made it difficult to maintain a steady pace. For about one hundred yards, she resisted the temptation to look over her shoulder. She was sure she could outrun—

Whup-whup-whup.

The sound was all around her. Without slowing, she looked up and to both sides. Nothing in sight. Part of her hoped those spider things couldn’t somehow sprout wings. The sound—like something beating the air—grew louder, so much so she could feel the rhythm along the back of her neck. It had to be behind her. It had to be the spiders gaining on her.

Not knowing what else to do, she stopped, waving her arms to maintain her balance as her toes extended over the edge of a railroad tie. Once her footing was sound, she turned to see the spiders come to a sudden stop two feet away, as if they had been caught doing something wrong. One of them broke from the crowd, each of its eight legs negotiated across the gravel, ties and railings to make its way to her. She readied her foot for a kick.

A breeze whipped Mara’s hair, and she once again heard the whup-whup-whup sound. It wasn’t coming from the spiders.

The advancing spider stopped before her, opened its shell and extended its tiny smokestack and blew a puff of steam into the air before her face. The steam floated away in the increasing wind, which seemed a little strong given the clear skies.

Mara looked up and gasped.

Hovering about one hundred feet above was a large ball built of interlocking vertical hoops and bound by horizontal wires. They formed a spherical lattice around two large spinning propellers suspended inside the top half of the ball above what looked like two passenger seats in the bottom half. The vehicle descended and alighted next to the railroad tracks about fifty feet away.

It sputtered, its engine winding down, and the ball frame sagged a little as the propellers stopped spinning. It was now pumpkin-shaped, more of a flat oval than a ball. Inside, a man unfastened his seat belt and stood up. He reached for the side of the ball and, with a metallic clatter, like the gate of a chain-link fence, opened a small door and stepped out.

From this distance and angle, Mara couldn’t make out his features because he wore a hat—a bowler—that matched his black dress pants, plus a white shirt and shiny black vest. He headed for Mara—up the rise to the tracks—with a spring in his step that conveyed enthusiasm more than urgency. While he scampered toward her, she glanced over at the crowd of spiders. Another of them skittered her way. She assumed it would puff at her like the previous two had, but she kept a kick ready just in case.

The man made it up the slope to the tracks several feet away, putting the spiders between him and Mara. As he approached, he took off his hat and smiled.

“Ping!” Mara said. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

“And I you,” Ping said. He walked by the spiders without giving them any notice. “Things were a little rough while you were gone, but it seems they have stabilized now that you have returned. Thank goodness!” He gave her a quick hug and added, “Are you okay? I worried when I didn’t hear from you.”

“It hasn’t been that long since we spoke,” Mara said. “But I suppose time might move differently in this realm.” She pointed to the round cage and asked, “What is that thing you arrived in? And what are these things?” She waved at the spiders. “I thought they were alive at first, but they seem to be mechanical, like tiny arachnid robots.”

Ping frowned at her. “You mean the copter”—he nodded to the vehicle and then eyed the spiders—“and the miders?”

“Miders?”

“Are you all right? Did you bump your head after you crossed back over? You seem confused,” he said. “Also you’re dressed strangely.”

“Of course I’m confused. You just flew out of the sky in a caged helicopter, and I’m being chased down a railroad track by brass spiders.”

“Miders. Message spiders. And they are not made of brass. You should know—you invented them,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a brass rectangle about the size of a smart phone. He held it up, as if it explained itself, and asked, “Where’s your receiver?”

“Ah, I don’t have a receiver.”

Ping looked doubtful and handed the brass pad to her. “Here. You can use mine.”

Mara looked down at the device. A screen that looked like blown glass covered two-thirds of its surface. The bottom third featured two rows of raised black metal buttons that were unlabeled. A dial, like a volume control on a portable radio, was embedded at the bottom.

“What do you want me to do with this? Sweat to the oldies?”

Ping looked irritated as he took back the device and punched a button. He held it out to her. The screen was illuminated but blank. “There.”

“There what?”

“Retrieve your messages.”

Mara shook her head and shrugged.

Ping reached down, grabbed Mara’s hand and pressed her thumb to the screen. The device made a whirring sound, like an internal fan. He held out the pad toward the spiders. One of them advanced, and the others lined up behind it. After opening its shell, the first spider extended its tiny smokestack and released a puff of steam. The whirring of the pad hit a higher pitch, and it inhaled the steam. With its mission accomplished, the first spider crawled away. The next in line did the same and so did the next. In a few minutes, all had delivered their cargos, and Ping handed the pad to Mara.

“Your messages,” he said.

Mara looked down at the screen, filled with text. “You’re telling me all those spiders were delivering messages to me?” she asked.

Ping nodded. “You’ve been out of touch for a while. People were understandably concerned. I’m sure there will be more when we get home.”

“They use steam to carry the messages?”

He frowned, looked at her like she was delusional. “Of course. Digisteam is the medium that carries the information.”

“Digisteam. You’ve got to be kidding. Those puffs of smoke are carrying data?”

Now he looked worried. “It’s exactly the way you designed it to work. Look, we’re a short copter ride away from the manor. Once we get there, we can sort this out. Being in familiar surroundings will bring it all back to you, I’m sure.”

“Manor? What manor?” she asked.

“The Progenitor’s Manor,” he said.