Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] Read online

  “Time for you to go,” she said.

  Despite her poor manners, Campbell still looked reluctant to leave her. She pulled a half crown from her pocket. “This is yours, if you leave now.”

  He eyed the coin warily, clearly torn. Finally, he took it from her. “What about your things on the beach? You’ll need to get them up here.”

  “Same way I got them off the ship.”

  “And setting everything up?”

  “I’m stronger than I look.”

  At last, he seemed to run out of excuses to stay. Grumbling, he walked out of the cottage. Kali followed him down to the beach. His little boat bobbed in the surf, looking almost eager to leave the island.

  Summoning the last of her civility, she stuck out her hand. “Thank you, Captain.”

  He shook her hand, though he also shook his head. “It’s an ill world when a pretty lass like yourself strands herself on a cursed piece of rock.”

  “It’s an ill world, indeed,” she answered, pulling her hand from his grip. “Goodbye.”

  With that dismissal, Campbell waded back into the surf. He pulled himself over the rail of his boat and hoisted the anchor. Taking the wheel, he backed the vessel out of the small bay. For as much as he protested leaving her there, a look of profound relief crossed his face the farther he got from the island. His hand went up in a final wave, and she returned the gesture. The boat chugged as it sailed away, growing smaller and smaller. She watched until it wasn’t more than a speck, then it disappeared.

  Alone. She was finally alone.

  And not the type of solitude one might find at a single table at a tea ship, or at the end of a jetty. This was true isolation.

  She stood upon the beach, listening to the waves beat against the rocks. The wind sighed through trees and grasses. A bird—not an owl—chirped. These were the only sounds. Not the hiss of welding torches or the shouts of dockworkers. Nor the quiet voices of her fellow engineers consulting with one another about their latest projects. No tetrol-powered wagons rattling down the street. No vendors selling everything from meat pies to automated egg cookers.

  All silence. And herself.

  Kali waited for the iron cage around her to loosen. This was what she wanted. What she’d dreamed of for three months. Surely once she’d arrived here, to this desolate place, she’d finally feel at peace?

  Peace didn’t come. She felt exactly the same.

  Disappointment pierced her like an ether-powered bullet. Had she run this far for no reason?

  She shook her head at herself. Of course I don’t feel at ease yet. I’ve still got to get everything up to the cottage and clean. I’m sure once it’s all in place, I’ll be fine.

  Picking up the control box from where she had left it in the sand, she guided her pallet of belongings up the hill and toward the cottage, the tether dangling between them.

  Anxiety tightened like a steel corset. She wondered if there was anyplace she could go that would make her feel safe and whole again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  Nothing could be set up until the cottage was reasonably clean. She unfastened her cloak and hung it from the lone peg on the wall, pushed up her sleeves, and got to work as the afternoon stretched out like a pale shroud, though the inside of the cottage was murky with dust and age.

  Anticipating the dilapidated state of her new home, she’d packed a few brushes, as well as a clockwork sweeper. It was her own device, constructed of a central brass cylinder with three rotating brushes—whimsically, she thought the brushes looked like spinning dancers—but their purpose wasn’t whimsical. They carried dust into a central pan that needed periodic emptying.

  Kali carried all the furniture outside, then wound up the sweeper and let it run back and forth across the floor. Several times, she had to shake loose a particularly large clump of grime caught in the brushes. Mice fled in advance of the sweeper, probably thinking it some demon device of the apocalypse.

  She felt a little sorry for the rodents. That same fear had chased her, too. But either the mice would adapt to their new home outside, or they wouldn’t. That was the way of things. One adapted, or one perished.

  The clockwork sweeper didn’t work on walls, so it was with her own labor she scrubbed at the stone, a kerchief pulled up over her nose and mouth to keep out the worst of the dust. Spiders scuttled like asterisks in an annotated manuscript. She knocked out decades of accumulated soot from the chimney—narrowly avoiding a face full of grime as it came sifting down, and swept that out.

  Gods and curses, I’m becoming almost domestic. Something she’d never wanted to be. But that was the nature of adaptation. Demands were made, and ideologies couldn’t stand in the face of those demands.

  There wasn’t much to do about the windows. She washed them down as best she could, but wind whistled through empty panes. The sun had begun to dip toward the horizon, and a cold embrace settled around the cottage. She’d need to patch the windows to keep from freezing. Tomorrow, she’d work on a more permanent solution. For today, she tacked up pieces of coated canvas and hoped to make it through the night without succumbing to frostbite.

  But she had a means of keeping herself warm. And fed. The two most important elements of survival—or so her father had taught her from his years on long army campaigns.

  Not wanting to waste her minimal supply of ether, she dragged into the cabin the large, heavy metal contraption that made up the bulk of her island possessions. She brought in her leather satchel full of tools, as well. Light inside the cabin began to fade, so she lit an oil lamp to help guide her in her labors.

  The large metal device folded down for relatively easy transport. Now she loosened the screws and pulled on the steel panels, until the mechanism stood nearly as tall and wide as a cottage wall. She shoved it against the fireplace, then connected a wide vent from the back of the device to the hearth. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to use electricity or even tetrol on the island, she’d made adjustments back in Liverpool so that her cooking and heating device ran on peat—of which there was no shortage on Eilean Comhachag.

  Once all the pieces had been put in place, Kali stood back to admire her handiwork. The large machine vaguely resembled a modern stove, with a range, oven, and even a salamander for putting the finishing touch on meat. But her cook-apparatus also used a series of heated glass tubes to purify water. Gears along the side turned a small barrel fan, circulating warm air through the cottage. There was even a timer built into the device so that if she wanted to begin cooking a stew or brewing a pot of tea, she’d only to twist the dial, and she’d have her food or drink at the time she wanted.

  “All the comforts of home,” she murmured. Though home had become far less comfortable these past months. The island, and the cottage, would be her new home, and if it was more Spartan than she’d been used to, she simply repeated those important words again. Survival. Adaptation.

  Night was descending quickly. Far from inhabitation, darkness laid its claim with greater authority. She needed to work hastily. The bed and mattress were a loss, as she expected they might be, but her unfolding cot and tightly rolled mattress would serve as her bed. The rest of the furniture she brought back into the cottage, as well as her trunk full of clothing, a brass hipbath, and the wooden crate packed with books.

  She might be in utter isolation, but this wasn’t a punishment. There could be no life without her books.

  Back at South Uist, she’d bought peat-cutting tools. Yet it was already too dark for her to go searching for fuel. She’d come prepared, though, with a few precut blocks, so she laid them in the firebox and set them alight. Soon, the cottage filled with warmth and the glow of a fire. It felt so different from what she’d known. Even with her cook-apparatus, it was a primitive existence she’d lead out here. Liverpool had been at the forefront of technology—it had to be, with the wealth of its ports, the constant ebb and flow of goods that fed the nation.

  Exactly why it had been targe
ted.

  But no one and nothing would find her in Eilean Comhachag. In the silence and solitude of her cottage, she exhaled.

  Night fell like a curtain. One moment, ashen light marked the horizon. The next, utter darkness.

  She cooked herself a simple supper of eggs, toasted bread, and tea. Here would be another challenge. Almost all her meals at home had been purchased. Oh, her mother would cover her head in playful shame that her only daughter knew nearly nothing of cooking, especially the daal and pulao and naan on which Kali had been raised. But there had always been devices to take apart and diagrams of machines to study.

  Sitting at the rough table in the cottage, eating her plain meal and listening to the wind and isolation, homesickness formed an ache at the back of her throat. Her father’s laugh. Her mother’s singing. The din and color of Nagpur—its skies full of silk-draped gyrocopters and gliders. Trees full of jewel-colored birds both real and clockwork. Air full of heat and spice.

  This gray and bleached island was Nagpur’s barren counterpart.

  Kali wiped down her plate and mug. Tomorrow, she’d set up her system that would connect to the water pump, so she’d have hot and cold running water.

  Changing into her nightgown, she climbed into her cot, bringing a treatise on developments in tetrol-powered direct current generators with her. She’d read it three times already, but a comfort read was what she needed for her first night on Eilean Comhachag.

  But as she settled down and turned the pages, it began.

  The owls.

  Their hoots surrounded her cottage and punctuated the night like rapid gunfire. Not a sound from them earlier. She’d begun to doubt their existence, despite the island’s name. Now, as if to mock her, the nocturnal predators cried out into the darkness, their numbers far too great to count.

  Who? Who? Who is this stranger in our cloistered home?

  Good God, if this is what her ancestors had to contend with every night, no wonder they’d all fled for other islands. It was a barrage of sound. Eerie and ominous.

  Where her forefathers had failed, Kali wouldn’t. She’d either learn to endure the sound, or fashion some noise protection—stoppers for her ears, or a muffling head wrap.

  Tonight, she’d bear it as best she could.

  She studied the treatise, trying to lose herself in the mechanics of internal combustion and electromagnetics.

  But after a moment, she lowered the publication. Tilted her head.

  There was another sound, beneath the owls.

  A humming. An unearthly, metallic humming.

  Jumping out of bed, she donned her boots and threw on her cloak. Grabbed her pistol. After checking to make certain it was loaded, she flung the door open and hurried outside.

  Stars flooded the sky, undimmed by any city lights. But Kali didn’t marvel at them. Their beauty was cold as diamonds, and just as useless to her now. But the humming persisted. She turned in a circle, searching for its origin.

  Her breath caught as she faced north. There, at the northern end of the island. Something glowed. A pale corona of light pushed back the darkness.

  The island was uninhabited. She knew this. Campbell and everyone on South Uist had sworn it to be so. They’d no reason to lie.

  Then what the hell is that?

  Two impulses warred in her. Part of her wanted to run and hide beneath her bed. The other part wanted to race across the island and investigate. She had a weapon. Knew how to use it. But what awaited her? And could she cross the island’s rugged terrain in the dark? She could carry her lantern, but only a fool ran around in her nightgown carrying a lantern, like some grease-brained girl in a Gothic novel. Why not simply scream out into the night, “Vulnerable target!”

  No matter what it was out there, she had no way off this island. Campbell wasn’t coming back for a month.

  So either she hid in terror for four weeks, or she learned what it was that made the sinister noise and gave off that unsettling light.

  She crept back into her cottage. Doused her lantern and huddled in her bed, her gun across her lap. It had been a long, exhausting day. But sleep kept itself hidden. When the sun rose, she’d have to go investigate.

  The owls stopped their infernal chorus at some point during the night, and in the silence, she must’ve dropped into a fatigued sleep. She woke with a start, a knot in her neck, and a revolver in her lap. For a moment, she stared at the rough stone walls surrounding her, grayish light coming through clumsily patched windows. This wasn’t her flat, not even the temporary shelter set up for survivors and refugees. And there was that silence, encompassing everything.

  But the gun across her legs and the distant crash of waves upon a pebbled shore reminded her. Eilean Comhachag. And the lonely cottage that was her birthright.

  But perhaps the cottage wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. There’d been that odd metallic humming and light last night. Something else was on this island besides herself.

  Rising from bed, she massaged her left thigh, easing out the kinks in the muscles. She’d need all her mobility today. She set her cook-apparatus to brew her some tea, and as it prepared her beverage, she put on a heavy wool dress, one that could suitably face bogs and brambles. Her boots were sturdy, too. Fashionable little kid boots served no purpose out here. Quickly, she braided her hair, to keep it out of her face.

  After she bolted down cheese, bread, and tea, she strapped on a thick leather belt laden with pouches and tools. She tucked her revolver into her belt, then checked the barrels of her shotgun. They weren’t ether guns, but when she’d packed, she hadn’t expected more than a possible wild dog that might need scaring off. What she carried would have to suffice. She slung the shotgun’s strap across her shoulder.

  Please let me just meet with a hungry wild dog.

  But she hadn’t heard any howling last night. Only owls. And that strange humming. Wild dogs generally didn’t emit a peculiar light, either. Not in her limited experience. She’d read that there were some experiments being conducted, similar to what they’d done with Man O’ Wars, where they took animals and—

  Now you’re delaying.

  She was out the door before she could make any more excuses.

  Sometime in the night, a heavy mist had settled over the island. Everything appeared in hues of murk and ash. The field in which the cottage stood. The grassland and rocky hills beyond. Fifteen feet away from her doorway, and she could barely see the little stone house. A newcomer or someone unwary could get lost as a bolt in a scrap heap. Fortunately, she wore a leather gauntlet with a miniscope and compass mounted to it. Marking her position, she headed north, with her heartbeat keeping noisy company.

  She kept the ridge of hills to her left, using them as a guide as she carefully picked her way across the uneven terrain. More trees and scrub dotted the landscape. A rodent of some kind darted between the bushes, and she cursed herself for starting in surprise. After all she’d faced, a tiny animal was nothing.

  As she walked, she used a retractable pencil to make additions to her old map. The hills rose up more sharply three miles from where the cottage stood, and they continued on in rough peaks, with hardly any access to their summits. No grasses were flattened into trails, not even game trails. A small pond lay four miles from the cottage, its green edges choked with waterweeds and long-legged insects skimming across its surface. If fish lived in the pond, they hid themselves in its silty bottom. She’d have better luck catching fish off the beach.

  But her note-taking was another delaying tactic. She had to press farther north to find out the origin of the light and last night’s humming sound.

  Edging along the gravel-covered base of the hills, she moved slowly onward, telling herself stories of goddesses who’d braved hordes of demons without fear.

  Yet she was no goddess. Only a woman, completely on her own.

  A shape appeared out of the mists. A large, dark shape. Heading right toward her. It moved noiselessly over the gravel, notwithstandin
g its size.

  She grabbed her revolver, aiming it at the shadow.

  It immediately stopped moving. Then it spoke.

  “You’re not from the Admiralty.”

  A man. With a deep, rasping voice. As if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

  Even through the heavy mist, she saw that he didn’t hold up his hands, despite the gun trained on him.

  “No,” she answered, her mouth dry. “Not the Admiralty.” Yet she didn’t want to tell him where she was from. She’d no idea who this stranger was.

  “Anyone with you?” he demanded. He spoke with an air of command, as though used to obedience.

  Despite the authority in his voice, she kept silent. Telling him she was alone could endanger her. At least she was armed.

  He didn’t seem to care about the revolver in her hand. He moved closer, emerging out of the fog.

  Oh, God. He was big. Well over six feet tall, with shoulders as wide as ironclads. His body seemed a collection of hard muscles, knitted together to make the world’s most imposing man. He had black hair, longish and wild, as if he hadn’t seen a barber in some time, and a thick beard, also in need of trimming. He stood too far away for her to see his eyes, but she could feel his gaze on her, dark and piercing, hyper-vigilant like a feral animal.

  And he stepped still nearer to her.

  “My father was in the army,” she said, clipped. She raised her gun. “He was a crack shot. He trained me to be one, too. Stay where you are.”

  She thought a corner of his mouth edged up in a smile, but the beard hid his expression. “I’d knock that Webley out of your hand before you could pull the trigger.”

  Words poised on her lips that no man could move that quickly—he was still ten feet away—but those words faded the more she looked at him. His massive hands could likely crush a welder’s gas tanks. But more than the raw strength he exuded, a palpable but unseen energy radiated from him, something barely contained.

  She couldn’t tell if she was fascinated or terrified. Or both.

  “You’re doing a poor job of putting me at ease,” she answered.