One left, two rights, and a spiral stairway to the second floor. The Clockwork Mining Company building had a surprisingly sterile feel to it. A heavy scent of bleach, or some other industrial-strength chemical, grew in intensity as Klane and the others rounded a corner in the dimly lit halls. They came to an oaken door underlined with a sliver of light, which they assumed to be Andrew’s office. A burnished nameplate affixed to the wall confirmed their guess.

  The others stepped back, leaving Klane gazing up at the door expectantly. When he shot a glance past his shoulder, Rolnar nodded slightly and waved him forward.

  Klane drew a deep breath, raised a fist, and rapped his knuckles against it three times in quick succession. The knocks sounded like a miniature cannonade in the silence of the complex, echoing off the walls, ceiling, half columns, and beyond.

  A crash sounded inside the office, as if someone had run head-on into a pile of wooden blocks and a vase of marbles. A drawer slammed shut, punctuating a stream of muttered frustrations. Klane heard a few hurried footsteps, then the sound of the blocks and marbles being bunched on the floor, followed by a few more quick steps, the click of a lock, and the squeak of a handle.

  A bespectacled, beak-nosed man peered through the narrow slit of open door, held tight with no less than three chains, one gold, one steel, and the other some shiny, black material. “Can I help you?”

  “Andrew?” Klane asked, guessing Andrew to be perhaps no older than thirty.

  “Yes,” the man said. “Is this about the—” He glanced at the other two, his bloodshot eyes narrowing to a fierce glower behind small, rectangular lenses. His mouth twitched, causing the shadows of his sunken right cheek, a gentle crater on his gaunt face, to dance with a quick spasm. Chestnut hair, cut at his shoulders, framed his hawkish face. His skin was reddened and sun-kissed, marred with minor blemishes, a few scabs, and countless freckles. “Is this about the …?” he started again. He winced and raised an eyebrow. “I don’t recognize you as a worker here. Where is your primary station?” He studied Klemens.

  “No,” Klane answered reflexively, to break the terrible, awkward silence that stretched from the unanswered question.

  “It hasn’t been enough time,” Andrew continued, as if Klane hadn’t said a thing. “I told Tact he’d get it, he’ll get it.”

  “We aren’t from Tact.” Klane assured.

  Andrew’s eyes softened, his shoulders relaxing a bit.

  Klane held up a finger and pulled out the leather-bound journal of three pages. “Your father—”

  The door slammed shut.

  Klane looked up, startled. Was it something I said? He checked on Klemens and Rolnar, who shrugged.

  “Get ready to knock the door down, Rol,” Klemens whispered. Rolnar grunted obediently.

  Klane prepared to knock again, but the rattle of small chains came from the other side. The door squeaked, and creaked open, fully revealing Andrew and the room beyond.

  The man stood with a slight hunch. He struck Klane as a mix between a traveling salesman and a professor in his black breeches, beige shirt, and charcoal waistcoat. “You have something about my father? Any of my mother?”

  For a second the suspicious man was a child once more. His tone had become innocent and hopeful, before being squashed as his suspicions returned.

  “Your father,” Klane said softly. His stomach twisted, and his heart wrenched with a pang of sympathy.

  Andrew’s study was the source of the chemical smells, an eye-watering mixture of odors that caused Klane to feel lightheaded. For once his short stature proved to be a boon. It seemed to impact Klemens and Rolnar much harder, judging by their discontented expressions. Andrew, for his part, seemed entirely immune.

  A large, desk made of some light-beige wood filled most of the space below a wall of books. The wheat-colored desk contrasted with the dark tones of the rest of the room. A few scattered chairs made a vague attempt at a partial circle surrounding a pile of small knickknacks: quills, emptied oil pots, crumpled parchment, and four small malachite cubes probably used as paperweights.

  A few feet left of the desk stood the open window with the potted plant, which somehow had survived the cloud of chemical stench. It perfectly framed the telescope and a bit of the lighted harbor-front below.

  A sheet of paper crunched beneath Klane’s boot. He bent and swiped it up. Erratic scribblings scrawled diagonally, seeming identical in style to the writing in Allen’s journal, formed a few short sentences.

  Tact doesn’t know where bottle came from. Claims desert regions. Engravings suggest lost tribe of North Lamri Desert. Research inconclusive, suspect Djinn of some sort to inhabit. Zukhaf the Flawless?

  Andrew snatched the sheet away and stuffed it into a small desk drawer.

  Klane scanned the shelves and saw a tear-drop shaped, cranberry-colored glass replete with fine, golden filigree. A few odd trinkets, some models of skyships frozen mid-flight, and a small collapsing spyglass surrounded the bottle. Despite all the knickknacks on the shelf, the most beautiful thing there was that bottle, presumably the one that belonged to the Tact guy.

  Three multi-faceted rubies adorned the bulb of the bottle right before it shrank to a delicate neck. Around the neck lay several symbols Klane didn’t recognize, but they appeared ancient.

  “What is it?” Andrew wrung his hands as he stared at the three opposite his desk.

  Klane snapped out of his treasure-induced trance. “I recovered this from one of the abandoned Clockwork Mining Co. shafts in a valley up north. Clockwork Marsh. I think it belonged to your father.”

  Andrew’s nervous expression stayed, but he craned his neck ever so slightly. A sign of interest if Klane had ever seen one. “That is where he was assigned. How did you come across it?”

  “I was out sticking my nose where it shouldn’t have been—”

  “As gnomes are wont to do.” Andrew nodded.

  “I suppose. But I came across this peculiar old man, and—”

  “That site has been abandoned for quite some time.” Andrew didn’t sit back in his cushioned chair so much as fall. The chair rolled into a pile of cushions clustered along the wall under the shelves.

  “Not as abandoned as you might think. An old man named Gilmer, I think he was a former miner alongside your father, has set up a workshop to produce rather grotesque—”

  “We would know if power was being drawn, or if our equipment was in use somewhere.” Andrew organized a few scraps of paper on his desk, refusing to look up.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  “I’m just telling you what I … What happened at the mine, anyway?” Klane shuddered as memories of the mine flickered through his mind. The chill of the corridors that had set the hairs of his neck on edge. The rotting flesh of the semi-dead, which made him want to vomit. Gilmer’s cackling laughter. The revolting musk from the pent-up, pustular face that had billowed onto Klane as he dislodged Aldo’s faceplate.

  “Those reports are sealed. It wasn’t good, and the company saw fit to shut operations and leave the equipment. Now, give me the journal please.”

  “Hold on.”

  Klemens’s words startled both Klane, who’d forgotten anyone else sat in the room, and Andrew. Klemens sneered as he snatched the journal from Klane’s grip and slammed it on a corner of the desk, hand firmly pressed on the cover. “You let us bring our cart in here, then you get closure.”

  “You’re with that cult.” Andrew pointed at Klemens’s arm. “I c-caught sight of your wrist.”

  That damned tattoo. More trouble than it’s worth, Klemens, Klane thought.

  “It isn’t a cult. But you help us, I help you.” Klemens brandished the journal. He took a few steps near the window and held it above a small, rose candle burning atop a copper plate. It appeared like a little log of wax that had been cloven down the middle, forming a little valley in which a single tongue of flame burned. “Or you never know.”

  A drawn-out silence seemed to thicken the air, joining the group as an unwelcome guest. Klane felt his own need to fidget, perhaps leave the room, and look anywhere but at Klemens or Andrew. Rolnar gazed out the window, his attention rapt by something completely different. Who could know?

  “H-how can you do this?” Andrew glared past his spectacles, one hand caressing his chestnut hair as he stared, unblinking. “I-I-I,” he stammered. The fierce glare softened as his lower lip began to tremble. “I grew up not knowing what happened to my father. How can you hold hostage something so dear to someone?” The hint of a tear formed in the eyes of the Clockwork official.

  “It’s nothing personal.” Klemens moved away from the candle, the point of his threat adequately made. “But we need your cooperation. Give us the keys to the facilities and you can have this.” He tapped the journal’s cover.

  “You want to d-destroy the facility.” Andrew stared. “But why?”

  “To bring about change in this oppressive society.” Klemens clenched a fist, driving his point home with a brazen tone of excitement.

  “How would that …?”

  Klane stared from one man to the other. Andrew’s face was marred with agony as he struggled between loyalty to his company and the primal need for closure and knowledge of his father.

  “What’s got you so enticed?” Klane yanked on a crease along Rolnar’s pantleg.

  “I’m none too sure yet,” Rolnar muttered, eyes fixed on the horizon in an intent squint.

  Klane recalled the spyglass among Andrew’s belongings. “Give us that,” he demanded, snapping his fingers and pointing at the spyglass.

  The large Bramble man took the spyglass. It looked like a measly, miniature pipe in his hands as he peered through it.

  “If I choose not to help?”

  “We accomplish our mission either way, save for one extra dead man and a pile of ash.” Klemens paused. “Think carefully.”

  “Please, just consider helping.” Klane felt flustered with the situation, his feeling of helplessness continuing to mount. He shook his head, drew out the casting stone, and held it toward Andrew. “This was in your father’s bunkroom with his journal. You can have it, and the journal.” There was no way to deter Klemens from his mission, but perhaps he could ensure Andrew came out of this alive. It’s worth more than this little stone…

  “How do I know these are really my father’s?” Andrew must have found some courage somewhere within himself. He met Klemens’s gaze.

  Klemens rubbed his chin, considering for a moment. “Tell you what, if this is your father’s, you help us. If it isn’t, we leave you here unharmed and you have a fair chance to get out of the building. Would you recognize his writing?”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Andrew said. “I’ve seen bits and pieces of it throughout family books and the like.”

  “Then?” Klemens leaned in.

  “Deal.” Andrew held a hand out for the journal and took it from Klemens. Klane set the casting stone on the edge of Andrew’s desk. Andrew nodded.

  “Goodness, boys.” Rolnar collapsed the spyglass. “I think we got some bigger issues approachin’.”

  Sirens began to wail throughout the town, eerie and forlorn in their call to the residents and responders. Klane hopped atop a small pile of books and clung to the lip of the windowsill to see what was going on. Frantic bells pealed a moment later, joining the cacophony.

  “Gimme here.” Klane reached for the spyglass.

  He was treated to a bulbous, fish-eyed view of the horizon, past the towering masts and drawn sails of a few dozen tall ships. The moon, once a bloodied spotlight in the sky, was now obscured by the leviathan forms of a large fleet of ships. Deep roars of cannon-fire shook the night. Spouts of flame flashed from the silhouettes of the incoming fleet.

  “What’s going on?” Klemens tore his attention from Andrew, obviously annoyed that something would dare interrupt the needs of the Spirits of the Crumbled.

  “I’m not sure.” Klane answered.

  “Trade Stronghold ships,” Rolnar added.

  Klane studied the incoming fleet. The ships were larger than anything he’d seen before. The periodic basso clap of cannons, their flashes illuminating the long, whale-like forms were joined by a more staccato thump-thump-thump from rapid-fire guns on the bows of the attacking vanguard.

  Massive fireballs arched through the sky, raining onto the port city with merciless effect. Already, fire began to spread through the mostly wooden slums and the fabric canopies of the marketplace. The wooden skyship piers collapsed in avalanches of flaming wood and clouds of dancing embers, their horrific crackling drowning the screams of panicked rabbles.

  The mountainsides lit up with return fire. Streaks of munitions lanced across the sky like shooting stars as the port defenses woke to repel the attackers.

  Klane moved a second too late. He shoved himself away from the window as a streak of light caught the corner of his eye.

  The observation telescope of the Celestial Navigator’s Korps erupted in a burst of flame and wrenching metal. Fragments of glass and metal whistled through the air, slivers of death careless of whom they lacerated.

  The explosion shattered the panes of Andrew’s office window and sent a rippling shockwave of force throughout. A clattering on the building roof like a heavy rain or hailstorm followed.

  Rolnar howled a bestial cry.

  Klane, sprawled on the floor beneath shreds of papers, glimpsed from beneath the cover of his arms to see Rolnar with his back to the window, covering his head. A few fragments had shredded his uniform to ribbons, but the fabric seemed thick and tough enough to mitigate the damage.

  “That was close.” Klane pushed himself to his knees.

  A second explosion ripped through the area, outside the compound fence. Rolnar, Klemens, and Andrew joined Klane on the ground as a blast tore away the upper portions of the outer wall, causing their ears to ring and engulfing the area in a firestorm of heat and debris. The air had become dry and scorching, burning Klane’s throat with each breath.

  * * *

  “We need to get out of here!” Andrew shrilled.

  Klane, in complete agreement, rose to his feet in time to see a blanket of odd, pink flames engulfing the manicured lawns inside the gate and burning across the stones of the street itself. Bone-chilling sounds of splintering timbers shook Klane’s chest as the support beams around the building buckled and strained beneath newly unsupported weight.

  It looked as if a dragon had taken a bite out of the building’s side. Smoke filled the sky above, the giant telescope now a burning husk, its metal shell distorting and buckling in the intense heat.

  Half the office looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane. Chunks of glass and wood bristled from the walls along with an ocean of debris and ruin which had blasted inward. Andrew broke for the doorway, the journal held close to his chest. As Klemens and Rolnar took off after him, Rolnar cast a startled look at Klane, the white of his eyes popping in contrast to his bloodied brow.

  “Go.” Klane coughed and gasped for breath. He was starting to sweat.

  Thick smoke quickly filled the room. The thump-thump-thump and occasional thud of cannons and explosives continued as an increasingly intense battle consumed the skies and the streets outside.

  The sharp cries of dragons sounded overhead as a half dozen winged beasts of the Imperial Dragoneer Korps swept down the mountains toward the incoming fleet.

  Klane paused as he scrambled after the others.

  His eyes and cheeks stung. He brushed a finger along his cheekbone. It came back bloodied and red. Never mind that.

  Klane took account of his belongings. He had his bags. His sword-belt was secure, and he was still in one piece. Go!

  Klane started for the door, then stopped. The bottle.

  The cranberry-glass coloration caught his eye, gleaming in the pinkish firelight as it rolled off the shelf, having somehow escaped damage from the earlier shockwaves. Even in the chaos and hellfire of the destruction, the beauty of the jewels and the bottle itself was multiplied, dazzling.

  It landed on one of the many cushions along the wall.

  He needed it. Zukhaf the Flawless. The name from Andrew’s scribblings stuck out in his mind. He needed it.

  Klane snatched the bottle and stuffed it into a pouch of his backpack. He noticed his casting stone nearby. Andrew had left it behind in his haste. Klane swiped that up as well.

  A cloud of embers burst as the shelving collapsed a moment later.

  By then, Klane had leapt across the threshold and into the hallway, hot on the trail of his companions.