Boneshaker

But when he looked out over the side of the roof and saw only the swirling, billowing air the color of soot and rotting citrus, and when he looked up at the taller buildings and saw the gold-glittering eyes of a hundred wary black birds watching back… he reconsidered his stance on going it alone.

“Those birds,” he said slowly. “Have they been there all this time?”

Rudy said, “Sure.” He tipped his bottle upside down and dumped the contents over the side of the building — then set the glassware aside. “They’re the gods of this place, insomuch as anything is.”

Zeke sca

Rudy walked to the nearest small bridge and climbed up onto the ledge beside it. With a wave, he suggested that Zeke follow. He said, “They’re everywhere, and they see everything. Sometimes they’re helpful, and sometimes they attack you — and you never know which, or why. We don’t understand them, and we’re not sure we like them. But” — he shrugged — “there they are. You coming or not?”

“I’m coming,” Zeke said, though for a moment he made no move to follow.

Something was working against his feet, and he didn’t know what it was until the building beneath him started to quiver. “Rudy?” Zeke asked, as if this was something the other man was doing, and he ought to stop it.

The shaking went harder and faster, and Rudy said, “Earthquake. It’s an earthquake, kid — that’s all. Hang on.”

“To what?”

“To anything.”

Zeke retreated from the hole in the roof and ducked down in the corner near where Rudy was crouching and holding onto the edge, waiting. Zeke waited too, clinging to himself and to the wall, praying that it didn’t get any worse and that the place he knelt would continue to stand.

“Just wait it out,” Rudy said. He didn’t sound perfectly confident, but he didn’t sound surprised, either. He braced his body against the bricks and even put out a hand to hold Zeke down.

Zeke didn’t think that it made him any safer, but he was glad to have Rudy there all the same. He took Rudy’s hand and used it to pull his way closer to the man and the wall. When the rumbling ruckus peaked, the boy closed his eyes, because he did not know what else to do.

“First quake?” Rudy said conversationally. He didn’t release his squeeze on Zeke’s hand and arm, though.

“First real one,” the boy said. His teeth knocked together when he tried to talk, so he crushed his mouth shut.

And it was over, as quickly as it had begun. That’s not to say that the knocking, breaking waves of motion stopped in a perfect moment; but they tapered sharply and then fizzled to a wobble, and then a faint shudder.

The whole thing had lasted perhaps two minutes.

Zeke’s legs felt like pudding. He tried to pull himself up, and using the wall and Rudy’s arm, he succeeded enough to stand. His knees nearly folded, but he locked them. He stood up straight and waited, knowing that the rushing noise and the jostling floors might return at any second.

They didn’t.

The noise had dwindled, and where it was once a full-on roar he could now hear only the crackling of old bricks settling and the patter of loosened masonry hitting the pavement.

“That was…” Zeke said. “That was…”

“That was an earthquake, that’s all. Don’t make a mountain out of a shaky little molehill.”

“I’ve never been in one like that before.”

Rudy said, “And now you have. But that one wasn’t so bad. Maybe it just felt worse because you’re all high up. Anyway, we ought to get ru

He patted himself down, checking his cane and straightening his overcoat. Then he said, “You can leave the lantern here. In fact, I recommend that you do so. We’ve got lights scattered everywhere, and you’ll just lose that one or leave it someplace. Besides, we’re going to have to hit street level soon, and it’ll only draw the kind of attention that we most definitely do not want.”

“I’m not leaving my lantern.”

“Then put it out. I’m not asking you, boy. I’m telling you that I won’t take you down there until you let that go. Look, stick it over there in the corner. You can pick it up on your way back home.”

Zeke reluctantly complied, leaving the lantern stashed in the nearest corner and covering it with some scraps he found there. “You don’t think anyone’ll take it?”

“I’d be astounded,” Rudy said. “Now come on. We’re burning daylight, and we haven’t got any to spare down here. It’s not a short jaunt over to your parents’ old place.”

Zeke carefully scooted onto the ledge to follow. He worried about a man with a limp tackling the fragile bridge, but the odd assortment of boards and strips of scrap creaked and held beneath their collective weight.

Zeke was glad he couldn’t see very far below, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How far up are we?”

“Just a couple of stories. We’ll go up higher before we go lower, so I hope the heights don’t bother you.”

“No sir,” Zeke said. “I don’t mind the climbing.”

“Good. Because we’re going to do plenty of it.”

They stalked across the bridge and up against a window next door. The wood seemed to dead-end against it, but when Rudy shoved a lever, the window opened inward and they both stepped inside, into darkness that was profound and wet — just like the bakery when Zeke had first let himself into the city’s interior.

“Where are we?” he whispered.

Rudy struck a match and lit a candle, although technically the sun was still up. “As I understand it? We’re in hell.”

Nine

When Andan Cly said “now,” he actually meant, “When the rest of the crew returns”; but Cly assured Briar that the delay would be no longer than an hour — and anyway, if she could scare up a better offer she was welcome to take it. He invited Briar up to the cabin and told her to make herself at home, though he’d appreciate it if she didn’t touch anything.

Cly stayed outside, where he busied himself with the checking of gauges and the fiddling of knobs.

Up the rough rope ladder and through the porthole, Briar climbed into a compartment that was surprisingly spacious, or perhaps it only looked that way because it was nearly empty. Huge, flaccid bags hung from the ceiling on tracks that lowered and adjusted with pulleys; and in the edges at the stern and bow there were barrels and boxes crammed to the ceiling. But in the middle the floor was free, and hurricane lamps hung on hinges like ship lanterns from the crossbeams and from the high spots up on the walls where they were unlikely to be rocked or jostled. Inside them, she could see small bulbs with fat, yellow-glowing wires instead of flames. She wondered where Cly had gotten them.

Over on the right side, farthest from the ladder, there was a short set of wooden slat steps built against the wall.

Briar climbed those, too. At the top, she found a room packed with pipes, buttons, and levers. Three-quarters of the wall surface was made of thick glass that was cloudy in places, scratched, scraped, and dinged from the outside. But there weren’t any cracks in it, and when she flicked her nail against it the sound it made was more of a thud than a clink.

At the main control area there were levers longer than her forearm and bright buttons that flickered on the captain’s console. Pedals arched out of the floor to foot level, and hanging latches descended from the overhead panels.

For reasons she could not explain, Briar felt the sudden, fearful certainty that she was being watched. She held still, looking forward out the front window. Behind her, she heard nothing — not even breathing, and no footsteps, nor the creak of the wooden stairs — but even so she was positive that she was not alone.