Rule of Rail
The cool breeze kissed my face as I stood on the observation deck of my airship, gloved hands resting lightly on the ornately crafted iron rail that enclosed the semi-circular balcony from which I watched the world pass by. The blazing noon sun reflected brightly off of the metallic azure gasbag that held my ship aloft above the cracked and scorched earth. I closed my eyes as I remembered a time when the desert wasn't here, and the ground was an endless carpet of lush farmland. A time before the war. Before the death of my parents. I was quickly snapped out of my reverie by the thunderous screeching and wailing of metal on metal in the distance, marking the nearing of my destination. I turned and walked back into the pilot's compartment, coattails flapping. I entered through the polished brass door separating the balcony from the flight deck, taking my seat at the pilot's station.
"We're approaching Providence now, Mr. Eyre." his co-pilot said, turning to address him.
"Thank you, Brocklehurst. I'll take her in now", I said taking the controls.
"I really don't think that it's befitting of a man of your station to be flying his own airship, sir." Brocklehurst declared as he sat back in his chair and released his controls.
"What's the point in having your own airship if you can't fly it yourself?" I said cheerily "Besides, I haven't landed the Winthrop on a moving target in a long time. I need the practice."
I peered through the glass bubble canopy encasing the pilot's compartment, gauging the distance to my landing target. Growing steadily in my vision was my destination, the great rail-city of Providence.
Providence was nearly twenty miles long, each train car over fifty feet in width, a hundred feet high, and many times greater in length, with the whole train housing the entire population of a city along its length. Even high in the air as I was, the rail-city's enormity was not lost upon me. In the far distance, lost to my view, the great engine cars of the rail-city churned and ground ceaselessly, never faltering or slowing, never stopping. Only the vast clouds of steam released by their unending labor were visible, even those miniscule blots on the horizon. The ship's radio crackled, a man's voice heard through the speakers.
"This is Providence air control, what is your identification and purpose for landing today?" the voice buzzed.
"This is Rasselas Eyre on the Winthrop, arriving from Boston for the emergency Mayoral Council meeting." I replied. The words had barely left my lips before I heard a faint bellow in the background and the noise of the radio speaker being ripped away from the air traffic controller.
A deep baritone voice came booming through the radio, addressing me at a near shout "Rasselas Eyre? Is that you?".
"Good to hear from you again Argus." I said, smiling faintly.
"You're late! Land your ship, I'll meet you in the hangar!" Argus barked through the radio. I carefully lowered the Winthrop through the air, hands steady on the controls as my ship sank through the open roof of one of the hangar cars at the rear of the rail-city, the metal canopy closing over me, a massive set of steel jaws swallowing the fragile craft.
The landing gear of the Winthrop extended in an intricate steel tripod, supporting the ship as it gently touched down on the patchwork metal surface of the hangar. I rose from my seat, stowing my controls. Turning to Brocklehurst, I said
"Stay here with the ship, would you? We don't want anything to happen to the Winthrop now, do we?" Brocklehurst silently nodded his agreement. I sauntered through the gondola, past the cabins, medical bay, and cargo and engine rooms, to the back of the craft. Jamming my top hat over my salt and pepper hair, I opened the ornate brass and silver door hatch and quickly walked down the gangway and onto the deck. Almost immediately, I was accosted by a diminutive man in a tailcoat and top hat, a massive gilded saber strung on his hip, its size greatly exaggerated by the man's extreme shortness. The most distinctive feature of the man was not his size or his clothes, or even his sword. It was, in fact, his voluminous facial hair, a spectacular mustache-sideburns combination that was traditionally worn by the Mayor of Providence in homage to Ambrose Burnside, the veteran general of The Great Steam Wars who had re-founded Providence as a rail-city.
"Mason Argus!" I exclaimed as he shook hands with the man. "I haven't seen you in a long while, my friend!".
"Well you never do come to visit." Argus replied gruffly.
"Argus, you know as well as I do the challenges of running a rail-city."
Argus broke into a smile. "That I surely do" he replied. "I'd like to swap stories with you now,Rasselas, but we're late for the Mayoral Conference. I can't very well keep my other guests waiting, can I?" Argus said as he turned and strode away. I hurried after him, struggling to keep up with his boundless energy.
Argus and I boarded his private steam trolley. The trolleys were roofless, steam powered passenger movers consisting of one car that moved on tracks going through the center of each train car. They were traditionally used by the citizens of Providence to traverse distances too great to simply walk, although this was was designated solely for mayoral use. Argus and I sat in the royal purple plush velvet seats in the front of the trolley, directly behind the driver. We rode in silence through several more hangars, Argus occasionally waving at his citizenry as they rolled by, myself contemplating the possible reasons why this meeting had been called on such short notice. They finally arrived at the last car in the entire train, the trolley tracks ending abruptly outside a pair of towering oaken doors, inlaid with writhing metallic ribbons of silver and gold, and intricately carved with scenes from The Great Steam Wars. Most of the reliefs honored the victory of the Continental Coalition, whom the North had sided with against the South and the Empire of the Undying Sun . The door handles, by contrast, were two simple bronze rings, one on each door. The two guards to the sides of the entrance, outfitted in full military dress, hurriedly opened the great doors, revealing the Grand Conference Room beyond.
The Grand Conference Room took up an entire car and was sparsely accommodated, with simple wall panels of the same dark, lustrous wood that comprised the doors, furnished only with a large, round table and eight accompanying chairs and, at the far end of the room, a massive statue of Ambrose Burnside, its alabaster skin reflecting gleam of the noon sun shining through the windows running down both sides of the room. Despite the fact that I was no stranger to this room, I was always astonished by the sheer scale of the marmoreal colossus as it regally oversaw the room's proceedings. I had to suspend my awe though, as there were far more pressing matters at hand. Argus moved purposefully through the room, while I followed a few strides behind. We reached the table at the end of the room, beneath the statue's watchful eye, and took our seats at the table, Argus sitting in the high-backed chair at the head of the table denoting his rank as Chairman of the Mayoral Council, myself taking a seat to his immediate right. With our arrival, the amount of seats filled at the conference table rose to seven, leaving the seat directly across from Argus empty. I quietly surveyed the other council members, each the mayor of one of the great rail-cities that roamed the vast network of railroads built by the North and the South before and during The Great Steam Wars.
Argus rose from his seat to address the council.
"I have convened this emergency meeting of the Mayoral Council" he boomed, "In order to address the rumors that have been circulating over the apparent disappearance of the rail-city of Chicago."
The interest of all the councilmembers was immediately piqued. They had all heard the whispers. My sources had it that Chicago had gone into the desert, chasing after rumors of a lost technology from The Great Steam Wars. That was a month ago, and the rail-city hadn't been heard from since. Argus began speaking again.
"The rumors are true. Chicago has disappeared in the Texan desert. We believe that they ran out of fuel to feed their engines while lost in the wastes and became stranded. We also believe that Mayor Lloyd steered Chicago into the desert after a lost super weapon left over from the The Great Steam Wars."
The Great Steam Wars began decades ago, when I was a young boy living with my mother and father at our estate, Ferndean. In the halcyon days of my youth I could not quite grasp the enormity of the events occurring around me, even as I was being spirited away by my parents from a war-torn Europe to the then peaceful shores of America. It was only long after I had landed alone on America's coast that I fully understood what took place; how the British Empire had militarized and declared itself The Empire of the Undying Sun, eventually allying with the American South after their succession; how the rest of Europe, realizing the futility of resisting alone, banded together, becoming the Continental Coalition. After the South's secession, the North abandoned the policy of neutrality that they had previously held to, aligning with the Coalition in their war against the South and the Crown. The wars raged for nearly a decade, a holocaust of steam and steel in which the Continental Coalition eventually won out against The Empire, but that left the whole world a battered shell, a husk constantly on the brink of collapse.
Argus waited quietly for the excited and worried chatter to die down.
"Unfortunately, this is far from the worst of the information I have received recently" He said in a solemn voice
"What could be worse than an entire city vanishing?" One of the council members exclaimed, stroking his drooping mustache as his eyes flicked nervously around the table. I silently agreed with his question. What could possibly worse than the disappearance and likely death of an entire city? Argus took a slow breath, a look of genuine fear on his face. He spoke;
"There have been reports that some of the sky-corsairs employed by The Empire of the Undying Sun during the wars have made a reappearance; several static farming settlements have been looted and razed, with no survivors." The council was shaken, myself included, by this news. The sky-corsairs were the scum of the Earth, and were employed by The Empire to attack enemy shipping and refugee airships trying to flee The Empire's territory during the wars, like the dirigible I had come to America on at the war's start; that too had been boarded and ransacked, the engines destroyed, the ship paralyzed. I had landed in the New World the lone survivor, the wind having blown the crippled and falling airship away from the heaving ocean and over dry land. Argus looked at each of the council members in turn, their faces so pale as to be translucent as he continued;
"To compound this horrific news, we have reason to believe that these rogues are being led by the plague of the skies, the scourge of the Coalition; Koenraad Stoombard, the Flying Dutchman, chiefest of the war's calamities." A white-hot light suddenly flared in my vision, brighter than the explosion of a thousand suns, blinding me as each of my senses systematically shut down. I was faintly aware of a dull thud in the distance, which I realized was the sound of me falling to the floor, as my vision faded to blackness and the name echoed through my head. Koenraad Stoombard. The man who killed my family.
I opened my eyes to find myself on the marble tiled floor of the Grand Conference Room, the Mayoral Council crowded around me. They hadn't yet noticed that I had regained consciousness, and I listened to them speak in hushed tones.
"But Stoombard went down aboard the Ravager during the Battle of Hawaii," Said a stern woman with her hair drawn back into a painfully-tight looking bun "He fell into the volcano and burned to death. Didn't he?"
"Apparently not, since he's alive right now." A bespectacled and balding councilmember said with impatience in his voice.
"Quit your bickering, I think he's coming to." Argus admonished the two offending councilmembers. Argus was crouched over me, his lined face creased with worry as he silently watched me.
"What happened?" I groaned
"You fainted and fell out of your chair, Rasselas." Argus said pensively "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine Argus, just reliving memories best forgotten." I said as Argus helped me to my feet.
"Well, if you say so, I believe that we should get back to the business at hand," Argus said reluctantly. "Back to our discussion of-" Argus was interrupted by the abrupt darkening of the room, the sun blocked by the shadow of something enormous hovering above the Grand Conference Room.
"What the dickens is going on?" The mayor with the flaccid mustache queried worriedly, his lackadaisical facial hair quivering with fear as the whole council looked to Argus for answers.
"He's here." Argus said, his face grim and tight as he stared up at the ceiling as if expecting something.
"Who's here?" I inquired nervously, hoping in my heart that the answer wasn't what I knew it would be.
"Stoombard." Argus answered simply.
The conference car was filled with the screeching, gut-wrenching sound of metal being rent in two, as the roof was ripped from the walls, the conference room's interior abruptly exposed to the outside world. Visible now through the gaping hole that the roof had formerly occupied was the Ravager, the most feared airship ever built. Over 600 feet long, the Ravager was one of the largest airships ever, dwarfing even the rail-city's huge train cars. Lining its sides and belly were hundreds of howitzers, while at the prow of the airship's gondola was its gangway, wide enough to march an entire army down shoulder to shoulder. The Ravager was held aloft by dull crimson gasbag covered in a net of brass and steel chains, each link as long as a man, while it was propelled forward by eight massive steam turbines. The Ravager descended rapidly towards the conference car, its bow crushing the rear wall and the statue of Ambrose Burnside as it landed, only its prow touching the car's deck. Myself and the council looked on, paralyzed with fear, while the ship's huge doors opened with a hiss and its gangway unfolded and slid out from within, making a crashing noise as it landed on the floor of the conference room. Argus stood and unsheathed his sword, slowly making his way towards the foot of the gangway.
"Argus, you fool! Stay down! You don't know what's in there!" exclaimed the mayor with the limp mustachio.
Argus ignored his plea, reaching the gangway, holding his sword in front of him.
"Is there anyone there?" Argus boomed "If you surrender peacefully you will be treated well."
A high pitched cackle echoed from the bowels of the darkened airship, chilling me to my core and freezing my blood. Argus, out of bravery or stupidity, set foot on the gangway, and that's when he emerged from the shadows inside the ship. Stoombard, The Flying Dutchman, the man who had terrorized the skies for nearly a decade in the name of the Crown. Except he was no longer a man. He had turned into something else, something not entirely entirely human. His entire right half was crafted of metal instead of human flesh, his leg a boot of unforgiving iron and lead, his arm a writhing, snapping clockwork tentacle of steel, constantly, restlessly moving. The right side of Stoombard's face was his most disturbing feature, though. Because instead of the warm, pink of the human skin that made up the left part of his head, the right part was enclosed in a smooth, featureless sheath of cold, gray steel, splitting in half his nose, mouth, and beard, and completely covering his right eye and ear. What little remained of his skin wasn't human either though. His human skin was tight and stretched, crisscrossed in angry red burn scars, the skin completely gone in some places, exposing the flesh and bone beneath. I thought him repulsive.
Argus froze in place, paralyzed by the horrific appearance of the man, the thing, before him. Stoombard wasted no time in attacking Argus, moving like lighting along the gangway, his steel and iron leg clanking with each rapid stride. I looked on silently, frozen in fear, unable to help as Stoombard reached Argus. My oldest, closest friend in this world lifted his saber above his head, tried to fight back. But he was, for all his pomp and pageantry, too slow, too weak, and the Dutchman, his clockwork appendage a blur, easily struck the sword from Argus's hand, sending it flying through the air. I watched it spin as it arced through the air, mesmerized by the reflection of the sun off its gilded blade. The sword's trajectory terminated behind me, the saber's aurate blade quivering as it stuck point first in the smooth mahogany surface of the conference table. I turned hastily back to Argus, to see him being brought to his knees by Stoombard, his neck wrapped in the Dutchman's insidious mechanical tentacle, his face calm, resigned to his fate, doomed to die. Stoombard gave a swift snap of his pernicious prosthesis, and Argus's head flew free from his body, arterial blood gushing out onto the deck.
"No!" I screamed, snapping out of my paralyzed state. My first impulse was to run to Argus to help him, but I knew that there was nothing I could possibly do. So I quashed my instincts, instead turning and sprinting towards the conference table, where I grabbed the ornate, gold-embossed saber still stuck upright in the table's surface. I pulled the gleaming blade from its wooden prison and turned back to where Stoombard stood over his Argus's headless corpse, admiring his handiwork. I yelled to him, rage lending my voice steadiness and power.
"Stoombard!" I bellowed, fury in my voice "Turn and face me!" The Dutchman slowly shifted to face me, his face emotionless and cold "It's time for you to pay for your crimes! For killing my mother and father!" Stoombard smiled bemusedly, a smirk showing a grin of mangled, blackened teeth.
"You say I killed your father, do you?" He said in a voice that was more akin to the scream of metal being ripped asunder than human speech "His name wouldn't happen to be Edward Rochester, would it now?" The look of shock and horror on my face must have communicated the correctness of his guess, because he continued without pause "You look just like him, you know, the same hair, the same stature, the same feeble, weak eyes. Before I killed him I made him beg for mercy. And how he begged. That sniveling, one-handed, half-blind worm pled for me to spare his pathetic life. So I took his hand as punishment for his weakness." My face flushed purple with furor, and the Dutchman continued "And I thought to myself 'Perhaps I should hand him some mercy.' After all, it would be horrible to live without hands. So I took his head, and put him out of him misery."
My rage boiled over, sending me into a murderous frenzy.
"AHHHHH!" I screamed, as I charged Stoombard, hacking blindly at the space in front of me with the saber. The Dutchman lazily flicked his steel tentacle at me and sent me flying through the air, crashing down atop the conference table, the sword falling out of my hand. Stoombard didn't spare me another glance as he turned to walk back up the gangway and into the Ravager. Seeing the gilded hilt of the saber sticking out from beneath the wreckage of the table. Not thinking, I grabbed the sword and hurled it as hard as I could at the Dutchman's retreating back, falling over with the effort. Before I could look up to see if I had struck my target, I heard an earth-shattering, bloodcurdling shriek of pain and anguish. I lifted my head to see Stoombard turned around on the gangway, a thin stream of blood dripping from his open jaw, the blade of the golden saber protruding from his chest. His real hand grasped fruitlessly at the sword as he fell to his knees, and then onto his side. I rushed to him, and squatted down to see him more closely. Seeing his eyes quickly clouding over, I ripped the sword from his back and whispered to him;
"That was for my parents; this is for Argus." With that, I lifted the saber above my head and brought it crashing down on Stoombard's throat, severing his head from his body.
I picked up the now disembodied head of Stoombard by its hair and walked to Argus's head. I kneeled by it, whispering in its ear
"May we meet again one day, old friend." With that, I stood and left the Grand Conference Room, the Mayoral Council, and Argus behind, bringing only Stoombard's severed head and the gilded saber.
I walked up the Winthrop's gangway, still carrying Argus's golden sword and the Flying Dutchman's head. Brocklehurst was waiting for me immediately inside the gondola's entrance. He looked anxious and immediately began loosing questions on me rapid-fire;
"Are you okay? What were those noises I heard? Was there a battle? Is anyone hurt?" I smiled despite myself at him ignoring the disembodied head I was holding. I lifted Stoombard's head and said;
"You seem remarkably calm about the severed head I'm holding."
"Well sir, I'm sure there's a reason for it; you always seem to have a reason for everything, although I'd like to hear the reasoning behind this one."
"Well, Brocklehurst…" I said, pausing a moment while I looked into Stoombard's lifeless eye; "It's closure, Brocklehurst, that's what it is." Brocklehurst nodded silently.
"As for my other inquiries, sir?" He asked tentatively
"Those'll have to wait for now. We need to go though, so make ready the airship."
I stood next to Brocklehurst as he piloted us out of the hangar and into the open air.
"Where to now, sir?" He asked, looking over at me.
"Anywhere." I said quietly, already walking out onto the observation balcony in front of the pilot's compartment. I leaned heavily on the ornately crafted iron rail, the breeze kissing my face, tears streaming down my cheeks as we flew into the sunset.
A/N (not really): This is ASHES_TO_ASHES (not the author of the story-he doesn't have an acc, so I'm posting it for him-NOT stealing it.) and I would like to thank Torre di Forza for writing this, and you, the reader, for actually taking the time to read it. Also, our English teacher for assigning the assignment to write a Jane Eyre creative fic. Rate and review pl0x-tell me if I should post more Jane Eyre fics.
Thanks,
ASHES_TO_ASHES and Torre di Forza