The Providence Engine: A Steampunk Novella Series: Episode 1 (The Crimson Blade) Read online

  The Crimson Blade

  Part One

  By Ed Zenith

  © Word Nerd Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Table of Contents

  -1- 4

  -2- 11

  -3- 21

  -4- 30

  -5- 36

  -6- 44

  -7- 49

  Want more? 52

  Before you go... 53

  -1-

  Marlborough Downs, England, 1898

  Ash silently cursed as he hit the floor, his ears ringing and the taste of blood filling his mouth.

  “Come on Keynes, give us a show!”

  “Yeah, I want to see some more blood before you get knocked out.”

  The rabble that surrounded him taunted and jeered, egging his competitor on. The crowd had gathered quickly, one of the guards having left them to their own devices while he slipped out to the toilet. It was usual that the inmates slacked off while the guard was out of the room, some seeking pleasure in their hobbies. Unfortunately for Ash, some inmates liked a fight and used any available opportunity to start one. They didn’t need a reason; Ash had been picked out at random by his opponent, a man with nothing to risk except the loss of more teeth and brain cells. The inmates started fights much the same way as other boys started games of football, on the spur of the moment, or for a lark. As Ash was discovering however, it wasn’t nearly as fun as a kickabout in the park.

  Ash didn’t like fighting. For a start, he was small for a twelve year-old, his fair hair and freckles making him look even younger. Ash liked to talk his way out of situations, to confuse and bamboozle his opponent. Only when he had them bewildered did he attempt to run for it, or on rare occasions, hit them from behind if necessary.

  Ash raised himself up from the floor and spat out a mouthful of blood. The crowd cheered as he turned to face the man who struck him, a flat-faced goon by the name of Manningford Bruce.

  “I’m not going to fight you,” said Ash. The crowd muttered, confused. “And you don’t want to fight me.”

  Bruce frowned; he was pretty sure he did want to fight. He grinned idiotically. “Nah. I wants me some blood.”

  Ash leaned into him conspiratorially.

  “You sure?” he whispered. “I don’t look good for you either way. I’m small, see? You beat me and you’ll be labelled a bully. ‘Bruce can’t punch his own weight,’ they’ll say. ‘He just picks on scrawny kids.’ And if I beat you? Well…”

  Bruce’s grin faded. Ash’s plan seemed to be working. “So what do I do?”

  “Don’t worry. Just walk away and shout something insulting over your shoulder at me.”

  “You sure?” Bruce actually looked grateful.

  “Trust me.”

  As Bruce turned away, Ash let out a sigh of relief. He had managed to talk his way out of this one, but not for long. It was only a matter of time, he calculated, before Bruce realised he’d been had and wanted to administer a beating. In the end it was less than ten seconds, but it was all the time Ash needed to prepare himself.

  As Bruce turned back, Ash was already running full pelt at him, his shoulder low, as if he was about to break down a door. Being so small, he needed the element of surprise and this was what he had achieved as he rammed his shoulder at full speed into Bruce’s stomach, winding him and sending him crashing to the floor. Ash fell along with him, crashing down, ripping his shirt in the process. He rose instantly. Bruce would not take long to recover. The crowd was shouting now, telling Bruce to get up, to bash the living daylights out of Ash. No one, Ash noted as he searched around furiously for what to do next, seemed to be supporting him.

  Ash’s next move presented itself quickly; right by Bruce’s side was a large bag of firewood kindling, thousands of small pieces of wood in a hessian sack, which was taller than Ash. He ran to it and pulled the bag down on top of Bruce, rendering him immobile. Ash walked away, just as the guard returned to his post and saw the chaos. The guard blew his whistle and work continued as normal.

  *****

  The Great Western Home for the Unruly and Damned was both as grandiose and as terrible as its name suggested. Set in twenty-seven acres of land on the Marlborough Downs, it was conceived as the solution to England’s many social problems of the Victorian age. What, cried Members of Parliament, was to be done with the poor? What indeed was to be done with debtors and non-violent criminals? How were they to house the wretched orphans that blighted the cities? How was England meant to meet the demand for cheap goods in this prosperous age? The answer came in the form of the Great Western Home for the Unruly and Damned; part debtor’s prison, part orphanage and part workhouse. The building was a massive brown brick structure rising up from the black soil, housing accommodation, kitchens and various factories, providing services and goods for the outside world. In it resided over ten thousand inmates. Men, women and children who would never see the outside world again. They had got there through bad debt, petty crime or pure bad luck. The Home was placed in the centre of the Marlborough Downs, miles from the nearest signs of civilisation. The buildings themselves were ramshackle and had been built with no plans, just a sketch on the back on the builder's hand, which may account for the leaning belltower and the chapel with the roof that sagged like a badly pitched tent. In the centre was a large bulge and an forever-escaping cloud of steam and smoke. This was where the Providence Engine resided, the machine that made the whole place tick like an aged grandfather clock. The only thing that could be seen from the grounds was the network of railways that supported the trains that overran England’s landscape. The tracks nearest to the Home were currently out of commission, after the Prime Minister had ordered that all the freight routes should run through a central customs centre in Wroughton.

  Ash worked in the forge, an area of the Home devoted to casting and refining metal into useful objects. Their main trade was to cast steel rails for use on England’s ever-expanding network of railways. The inmates toiled away for hours on end with no breaks, no water and the bare minimum of food. Although just twelve, Ash was used as a glorified pack-horse, lifting rails and girders from room to room. He had developed muscles on his upper body that looked quite out of place on his otherwise under-fed frame. He went about his job with his head down, not wishing to attract anymore attention after his fight. The other workers were wary of him at the moment, but one of them would soon work out that he had beaten Bruce through sheer dumb luck and then the beatings would start again. In the end, they began sooner than he expected.

  Bruce, sore at his earlier defeat, hissed at Ash.

  “You’re dead Keynes. Soon as I’m out of here…”

  Ash ignored him.

  “Keynes! You like hospital food?”

  Again, Ash ignored him.

  “When I’m done with you, you’re going to be six feet under with your mum and dad!”

  “Shut your filthy hole, scragface!” yelled Ash, spinning to face Bruce.

  The forge went silent.

  Before him towered Bishop Cannings, the Governor of the Great Western Home for the Unruly and Damned. He was also Ash’s legal guardian and spiritual guide. He loomed above Ash at a massive six and a half foot tall, with the strength of a shire horse and the morals of a murderer. An image of strength, the Bishop appeared to have no
neck, just muscle rising from his shoulders into a domed bald head. He glared at Ash with his cold eyes. On the top of his nose perched a hideous mole, which at this moment quivered with anger. Bishop Cannings chose not to wear the gown that his title usually demanded, but selected instead a practical black suit, worn today with a travelling cape.

  “Master Keynes,” he drawled, his deep voice reverberating through the ground. “Is that an appropriate greeting for your guardian?”

  “My Lord,” Ash bowed. In his time at the Home, Ash had been in trouble with the Bishop more times than either of them cared to remember. “Welcome back. Your trip was pleasant I trust?” Ash turned on the charm, knowing it was useless.

  Bishop Cannings circled Ash slowly. Ash knew he was in for a beating, unless he could quickly talk his way out.

  “I beg your pardon, my Lord. The lads and I were just messing about.”

  “Messing about, Keynes? Is this a game to you? The important task of work amuses you?” his voice boomed, echoing around the curiously silent forge. Ash noticed the workers around him had downed tools, watching the spectacle in front of them. Ash tried to think fast, but began to flounder.

  “Yes my Lord. That is, no. I was just trying to keep morale up, my Lord. It was a joke. Of sorts.”

  Cannings stopped and looked to the surrounding lads. The lads thought Ash was a precocious little twit, but were damned if they were going to side with the Bishop, so just smiled and nodded. Cannings decided to let this argument go, as he had other plans for that evening and had no time for ungodly brats playing games with him.

  “Very well. You shall work three hours extra tomorrow. Good hard toil mind, no games.”

  “Yes my Lord, thank you my Lord,” Ash sighed with relief. He had been spared a beating and went to resume his work.

  “What happened to your shirt boy?”

  Ash looked down at his torn shirt. He gulped.

  “Defacing government property is a serious offence, Master Keynes.” Cannings now leant in close to Ash’s face, so close Ash could smell him; a potent combination of perspiration and whiskey. “Very serious indeed. Six hours extra and no food tomorrow,” declared Cannings. Ash tried to stop them, but the words left his mouth before he could stop them:

  “No!”

  He was cut short by Cannings’s fist colliding with his cheek. The fat Bishop bellowed now, spraying saliva onto Ash’s face.

  “No? NO? How dare you speak to me that way! I am your keeper and you will do as I demand! I brought you up, I can just as easily put you down again! You should thank me for all I’ve done for you! Go on boy, thank me!”

  Ash felt the pain burn through his face and knew he had nothing to thank this man for. Everything he had ever done in his life had been despite him, not because of him. He would not thank this man, not now, not ever.

  Cannings saw the defiance on Ash’s face and kicked his legs out from under him. Ash landed on the hard stone floor and lay there, gasping for breath. Cannings stood above him, getting ready to throw another punch at the prostrate Ash, but paused and looked about him at the surrounding lads. They looked back with utter contempt. Cannings straightened, brushed himself off and steadied his breathing.

  “Don’t forget this, gentlemen,” he shouted to the surrounding mob. “I own you. I own all of you!”

  Cannings spat onto the floor below him, inches from Ash’s face, before marching out of the forge.

  Ash lay on the cold, hard floor, hating Cannings with every fibre of his being, but refusing to cry. If I cry, he thought, he’s won. He lay still for some time, blinking back treacherous tears.

  -2-

  The Providence Engine hummed and hissed at Ash as he walked back to his dormitory after his fourteen-hour shift in the forge. Towering above him, its mass of hot steel and smouldering vapours seemed somehow smug, as if the hiss of its pistons were laughing at him.

  The Providence Engine was the heart of the Home, the walls around it having been built after the engine itself. It was the great dream of none other than Prime Minister Brunel himself and its functionality and progressive design, a mirror for Brunel’s model of the perfect society, was what had propelled him into the public’s affections in the first instance. It had secured him being voted Prime Minister by the public no less than seven successive times at the polls.

  The engine was steel, spherical in shape, a fifty-foot high cannon ball with tubes and wires extending from its body like the tentacles of a giant squid, stretching over the heads of the workers and providing power and motion to the several factories and services located in the Home. It drove the vast washing machines in the laundry, fifteen foot high beasts as big as a house, capable of scrubbing a whole town’s supply of dirty underpants at once. It powered the metal presses, which fashioned wonderful cogs and watch hammers out of sheet metal; it drove the circular saws of the carpentry shop, which could reduce a grand oak to matchsticks in five minutes flat.

  All in all, the Providence Engine was the finest, most perfect machine in all the world… and Ash hated it. He had lived in the home all his life and every day the sound of the Engine’s rotary piston set hissed in his ears, the feel of its burning hot firebox made his skin sweat, the taste of its noxious exhaust fumes in his mouth. He hated the abominable machine as much as he hated Bishop Cannings, if that were possible. The machine seemed to hate him back. It coughed, wheezed and spat at him like a bitter old man as he passed it to make his way to the kitchens.

  Ash had washed after his meeting with Bishop Cannings and changed into his only other set of clothes; a white collarless shirt and a pair of blue dungarees, with his identification number sewn onto the front pocket. This was the uniform of every other inmate in the Home and soon he melted into the throng of hungry workers eager to receive their meagre dinner from the dining room. This in itself was a matter of survival of the fittest and being quite small, Ash was able to crawl through the legs of the crowd of people near the front. He collected two bowls, received the standard portion of one dollop of mashed potato each and proceeded to run through the dining area. The real trick was to not to get caught by the larger lads, who would trip you up and steal your food given half a chance.

  Ash had learned to live by his wits, as this was the only life he had ever known. He had been born in the Home, his parents having been taken there after their merchant business failed, leaving them owing a great deal of money to the government. His mother died giving birth to him and his father of consumption just three years later. An arcane and unjust law stated that in the event of death, debt will be passed to the next of kin, which meant that at the age of three, Ash had inherited the debts of his parents, giving him a combined sentence of thirteen more years in the Home. He had been officially adopted by the state and put into the care of Bishop Cannings, although the word ‘care’ is used here in its most generous sense.

  In his entire time at the Great Western Home for the Unruly and Damned he had made only one friend; Littleton Drew was an orphan also, sent to the Home at the age of six for stealing a carrot from a nobleman’s horse. The two found solace in each other’s company, excitement in their makeshift games and companionship in their shared hatred of Bishop Cannings and the Home.

  Drew had been a strapping boy with muscles, boyish good looks and an impressive repartee of dirty jokes, until the phosphorus claimed him. He had worked in the Home since he was ten, making matches. All day long he would dip tiny sticks of wood into the poisonous phosphorus which formed the head of a match. He had developed phossy jaw, a condition which made the side of his face turn green and eventually black. Soon, it would begin to leak pus and then he would not have long left to live. Lack of adequate ventilation meant he, like so many others in the Home, had also breathed in a lot of the phosphorus, making him cough and splutter like an old hag.

  Ash ran through the Home, dodging the attempts to steal his food by the other inmates. He knew the damp corridors well and anticipated the corners that the older boys might lurk i
n and jump out from. He turned a corner quickly and side-stepped an older, less intelligent boy who took a swing at his head. Turning to observe his near miss, he did not notice the muscled guard standing in his way. He clattered into him, his two bowls of mash falling to the floor, spilling their contents, mixing into the sawdust and rat droppings on the floor.

  Ash was paralysed with fear.

  The guard towered over him in his regulation dark green suit which barely contained his beer gut. His face twisted with disgust, as if running into an inmate was a hazard of his employment he loathed. Ash could have handled the guard alone; his canine companion was the thing that had scared him witless.

  On the sight of Ash, the dog began to snarl and strain at the lead. Ash stared in horror at the dog. He had been petrified of the Home’s guard dogs all his life and with good reason; the dogs in the Home were part-automaton. Each had seen active service in the conflicts against France, but had barely survived. The boffins of Brunel’s Ministry of Engineering stepped into save them from certain death. Brunel’s Chief Engineer had created a way for each army dog to carry on in service beyond its usual life span. Its limbs were strengthened by steel poles, its joints by bolts and nuts. The dog’s innards had been replaced with a remarkably small and powerful steam engine, which removed the need for a heart and respiratory system. The dog still ate food, but also needed a top-up of fuel and water each day, not to mention oil for its joints.

  For Ash however, it was the teeth that struck fear into his heart. The entire bottom half of the hound’s muzzle had been transplanted with a stainless steel contraption of razor-sharp fangs and a pneumatically driven jaw, capable of closing down on an inmate’s arm like a clamp and not letting go.

  The brain was intact, still controlling the body, only now the mutt was old and angry, eager to kill or maul on a single command.