Cogs in Time 2 (The Steamworks Series) Read online

  “Why were you looking for Kader’s place?”

  Maybelline gave a little grin. “My, aren’t you a nosey one.”

  “You said I could have questions after the escape,” I insisted. “So answer me. Why did you come to the pyramid?”

  She reached out a tanned hand and put the back of it to my brow. She felt like warm leather against my dirty, sweat-soaked head, but there was something maternal to the touch that left me no desire to evade it.

  “For you, of course,” she said.

  I shuffled, lying there open-mouthed to take in another grateful breath.

  “You know who I am?” I replied, not thinking it was possible.

  “Not at all,” Maybelline answered.

  A silence followed, and the old woman passed me some more water. As consciousness fully sank in, I was able to haul myself up and sit opposite her on the blanket. I rubbed my face all over with a little of the water, accepting a handkerchief from my saviour to wipe some of the grime from my skin.

  “Would you mind if we dispensed with these short, cryptic answers?” I asked her. “Not that I’m not grateful for your help, but I find I’m having some problems trusting people after being tricked into being a Moor’s slave for the last six months.”

  Maybelline raised her arms, patting the air down with a nod.

  “It’s rather difficult to explain,” she said, “but I can certainly demonstrate my reasons for coming to you.”

  She held her bandolier tight with one hand, using the other to free the gilded telescope over her heart. With a sharp tug, the ageing lady extended the full shaft of the device, gazing down at the blanket between us through the lens. Amid the gemstones adorning its cylindrical shape, there were tiny golden dials and switches. Maybelline delicately touched them, as though she was playing a flute, and all the while, she kept the lens to one eye. After a few moments of adjustments, she handed the device to me.

  “Take a look,” she demanded.

  “At what?” I asked as the long device settled across my palms. “Where do I point it?”

  “Anywhere you like,” Maybelline answered with a shrug.

  I did as I was told, lifting the scope to one eye and pointing it out beyond the shade barrier of the bicycle. For a moment, I thought that it was broken, for all I saw within the lens was darkness, but then I realised that the scene inside the contraption was not the one ahead of me.

  I could see the pyramid rising high into the twilight sky, its pointed precipice piercing navy clouds. At its base, my rubble pile was exactly as I had left it, my hammer and withered shackles in a heap in the sand. The Moor crouched beside the pile, lifting the lumps of iron that had once held me. His dark face was almost unfathomable in the moon’s obstructed glow, but the motion he made soon after his inspection was unmistakeable. He was raging and screaming words I couldn’t hear to people I couldn’t see, stamping his feet like a petulant child as foam grew on his snarling lip.

  I felt the telescope being pulled away from my eye. I was blinded for a moment by daylight, and I sank my face into my hands, rubbing hard at my eye sockets once more. Faint clicks and presses told me that Maybelline was adjusting the scope once again.

  “What is that thing?” I exclaimed. “Everything in it looked so real.”

  “It was real,” Maybelline answered simply, “or at least, it will be tonight.”

  It took me a long moment to understand what she meant. “That was Kader discovering that I’m gone?” I suggested.

  Maybelline gave me a nod.

  “But it was night there,” I continued, “and it’s day right now, so…”

  She waited for me to say the utterly ridiculous words I was thinking, but it seemed that the suspense was too much for the old bird to take.

  “So the Foresight showed you the future,” she concluded. “Here’s another. It might better explain my purpose in coming to you.”

  She offered me the telescope again.

  The future? Perhaps this was still a dream, and I was going to wake up any moment, still in my manacles, passed out beside that pyramid.

  As much as I wanted to believe that I was free, the circumstances of my escape were becoming more incredulous by the minute. Still, if it was a dream, I had nothing to lose by peering through the future-lens once more.

  This time, I saw myself within the circular view. It was day again, but I was standing at the side of a beautiful oasis, one hand poised on the central point of a pale canvas tent pitched in the sand. I was enrobed in turquoise folds, brighter than the azure sky above. They looked soft and new. I appeared far stronger than I currently was, smiling proudly as I swept open the folds of the dwelling and reached inside it. An old man emerged from within, looking haggard and underfed, but elated to see me all the same. He embraced me as a father would, his grey eyes gleaming with joy.

  “Who is he?” I said.

  Maybelline pulled the Foresight away from my eye once more. She looked into it too, a forlorn sadness sweeping over her lined features.

  “My Henry,” she explained, exhaling a quiet sigh.

  She contracted the telescope and replaced it in her bandolier, reaching out across the blanket to take my fingertips into her cupped palms. I met her eyes to find them shining with what appeared to be regret.

  “My husband and I are seasoned explorers,” she revealed, “and we came to Egypt a year ago to seek new artefacts and wonders. The existence of this enchanted telescope was a particular myth that we were keen to see proven as fact.”

  “Sounds like you succeeded,” I said, a smile curling one corner of my lip.

  Maybelline did not smile in return. She only clutched my hands tighter.

  “We paid our price for it,” she said gravely. “The Foresight belonged to a genie, one who wasn’t keen on the idea of us taking it away from him. Henry forced the object from him and handed it to me for packing. The next I knew, he was gone.”

  “Gone?” I said.

  The old woman nodded. “Banished, it would seem. Our acquisition of the telescope saw us separated across the length of the country. I was left totally alone, the genie had departed too, and all I had was this to aid me.”

  She tapped at the Foresight where it lay nestled against her heart. I was starting to understand why she kept it there in particular.

  “It has taken me three hundred days to learn to calibrate it correctly,” she explained, “and the vision I just procured for you is the day that Henry and I are reunited.”

  “And I help you?” I asked her. “I help you to rescue your husband?”

  Maybelline looked down at our fingers locked together, and then slowly let me go.

  “It’s the only way,” she said in a heavy tone.

  “Then what are we waiting for?” I exclaimed, a new, proud sensation swelling my chest. “Get that thing back out and let’s find which way to go.”

  The lady did not look up. Her aged fingers were toying with a loose thread in her coarse trousers.

  “What’s the matter?” I questioned.

  She raised a hand to cover her mouth, fingertips rubbing at her cheeks nervously. “I’ve just spent so long looking,” she said hoarsely, “and now that I know who you are, know that the end is so close, I…”

  I reached out to take hold of the tip of her chin, turning her weathered face to see my smile.

  “I want to give Henry his freedom,” I assured her, “because I know exactly what it’s like to be a slave.”

  “I know you do,” she whispered.

  Her words became punctuated by sobs, and she promptly excused herself to prepare us some food. I could see her shoulders shaking in silent sorrow as she fumbled in the leather pouches of the bicycle. I didn’t blame her for being so overcome. I could have cried too at the sudden realisation of my true freedom. Maybelline and I would rescue Henry together, and the explorers could surely aid me in getting back to America.

  I thought, for just a moment, about a split in the proceeds from the sale o
f the Foresight, but I desperately tried to push that greedy idea aside. No more gluttony. It had caused me too much trouble already. From now on, I would be a good man. Good men were always rewarded for their deeds.

  I trusted the influence of the Foresight more and more as the days went on. Maybelline was able to navigate the Fleahopper (an inspired name in her mind, no doubt) to find obscure encampments and secluded oases that were surely unknown to any but those who lived there.

  The old woman met with surprise wherever we landed the craft, but she rarely encountered trouble once her gentle words and bartering skills were put to use. It was hard-going, hopping and sailing along in the baking sun, but I had clothes, food and salves for my injuries. I was starting to remember the basic elements of my freedom, and I cherished every one.

  I knew that the day of Henry’s rescue was drawing near when the turquoise robes gleamed at me from the stall of a travelling market. When Maybelline saw them too, a brief reluctance passed over her aged face, but she was mollified when we managed to haggle down the price. It was written in the future, after all, that I should wear this colour to rescue her husband. Still, in the final days of our journey, the old woman seemed to grow less and less excited by the prospect of fulfilling her year-long quest. Every time she consulted with the Foresight, she came away with tears in her eyes.

  I knew the size and shape of Henry’s tent when I saw it appear below us. We were gliding the Fleahopper over a particularly good stream of warm air, slowly descending as the little pyramid shape came into view. The massive semi-circle of the orange sun was settling to our left as we brought the craft to rest, barely two hundred yards from where the tent sat. I relished in the memory of Henry’s grateful old face when I recovered him.

  “Come on,” I said eagerly. “Let’s get him!”

  “No,” Maybelline said, grabbing my silken sleeve before I could move. “It’s dusk now. The vision was morning light.”

  “Who cares?” I asked with a grin, “We made it here, we’ve got him now. For God’s sake, Maybelline, he’s right there!”

  I spoke so loudly that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Henry had emerged from the tent on his own. The canvas shape remained still in the breezeless night. Maybelline’s face was rapt with worry once more as she shook her head. When I faced her, she traced a fingertip down my jaw, scratching against the short beard that had grown since she’d freed me from Kader’s shackles.

  “The future is written,” she told me. “It is not for us to change our destinies.”

  “But you changed mine,” I answered, reaching out to hold her shaking shoulders. “I thought I was going to be a slave forever, but you stepped in and changed it all.”

  Her watery eyes observed me, her head titling gently to one side. “What were you before you came here?” she asked. “Some sort of cowboy?”

  I shook my head a little. “I wanted to be,” I said with a laugh, “but I never managed to rise above being a thief. Cowboys have a certain reckless bravery to them that I didn’t have back then.”

  “Would you say that you were a good man?” Maybelline asked.

  I swallowed hard against a sudden, immovable mass in my throat. “No,” I said softly, “Not at all.”

  Something in the old woman’s face shifted, and she let out a heavy sigh that seemed to take all the weight out of her shoulders.

  “I suppose, then, that this is your chance to be one?” she suggested.

  “And I intend to take it,” I answered with a nod.

  All night, I kept looking to the tent for signs of Henry. Each time my eyes opened to the sound of rustling sands, my gaze flew to the dark shape cast into shadow by the moon. Maybelline slept peacefully on the blanket beside me, wrapped up against the night chill with the salty tracks of dried tears beneath her eyes. She had cried us both to sleep, but my vivid dreams kept waking me as the endless night wore on. Dreams of shackles and Kader’s deep, pinhole eyes. I couldn’t shake the feeling that those eyes could see me, even when I was awake.

  Morning dragged the fears of night away, illuminating a brand new world of prosperity. I ate breakfast in the shade of the Fleahopper’s wings, dreaming of the new life that awaited me in Texas upon my return. I wouldn’t settle again in my hometown where the mark of thievery still branded me, but find a new place farther south where I could start again. I wasn’t entirely sure what sort of business I could do. A thought occurred to me as I sat there, starting to smile.

  “Can I have the Foresight for a moment?” I asked Maybelline suddenly.

  The old woman whirled, eyes widening in apparent panic.

  “Why?” she demanded, “We have to get Henry in a moment. What do you want it for?” She clutched the instrument over her heart, a grip so hard her fingers were turning blue.

  The sudden snap in her questioning tone startled me. “I, uh,” I stumbled, “I just wondered if you could tell me what comes next for me? You know, what’s my path after this moment?”

  “It’s no good, you looking,” Maybelline stammered. “You can’t calibrate.” She looked up at the sun, then over to Henry’s tent. “I suppose I have a brief moment to look on your behalf.”

  I gave her an eager smile, which she barely looked at.

  Maybelline put the Foresight’s lens to her eye, staring deep into the scope as she gently touched the dials and buttons. Her lip trembled as she watched, and her other eye twitched, even though it was tightly shut. After a moment, she set down the instrument and retracted it. She sat for a moment, head bowed as she considered the Foresight resting in her palms.

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked her.

  “Curiosity,” she replied. “Knowing your path doesn’t make things any easier, you know.”

  “Oh come on,” I griped. “You can tell me something, can’t you?”

  “There were books,” Maybelline said quietly. “You seemed to be doing a lot of writing.”

  It surprised me, but it didn’t sound all that unpleasant. I got to my feet, stepping out of the shade to offer the old woman my hand. She took it and rose, leaving the Foresight to roll around on the blanket as we both stepped towards the lonely tent. I walked just as I had in the future vision, Maybelline slowing to keep a safe distance behind me. I saw my own arm, clad in the turquoise robes, reaching out for the tent flaps just as I had before.

  “Mr Crenshaw?” I asked. “Henry? Are you in there?”

  The old man with the withered, fatherly smile gave a gasp in reply.

  I gingerly stepped into the tent to reach for him, dislodging his weak little frame from within a large pile of books and papers. He stumbled forward, leaning on me as I pulled him from the tent and wrapping his arms around me in a grateful embrace. I let him lean awhile longer to regain his strength, until I realised that he had spotted Maybelline over my shoulder.

  “Oh, my darling!” he cried, his voice a strained, dry squawk. “However did you do it?”

  Maybelline fell into his arms, kissing his half-hollow cheeks.

  Henry beamed at her. “However did you break the curse?” he asked.

  Maybelline stepped back, tears flowing from her cheeks once more. “I didn’t,” she replied.

  Perhaps I should have known that the rescue had been too easy. Henry wasn’t even wearing shackles. It occurred to me rather slowly that Maybelline shouldn’t have needed my aid to pull an old man out of a tent full of books. I glanced back at the books, a recent memory stirring in my mind. A lot of writing stared back at me, its brown ink blotted on endless pages, as though it had been written with an unsteady hand.

  The whistle of the wind caught my ears. Sandstorms didn’t usually just appear, they had to build up and travel over huge distances to be the size and bulk of the one before me. I had no idea where it had come from, only that the tornado-like blast was suddenly brewing at my feet. I stumbled away from the phenomenon, trying to shield my eyes from wayward grains as I watched a fierce, dark shape emerge at its centre. The first thing that
became clear to me were two pinhole eyes boring down on my small frame.

  “Who dares to free my slave?” an echoing voice boomed overhead.

  “He did!” Maybelline pointed her bony, tanned hand at me, finger shaking as she squealed the damning words. “He freed him!”

  “Oh, Maybelline,” Henry said sadly, shaking his withered head from side to side.

  “It was written in the future!” Maybelline cried back over the din of the winds. “Henry, it had to be him! I couldn’t change things!”

  “Ha!” cried the voice in the swirling sands. “You choose to believe the tool of the creature that fooled you once already?” he asked with vengeful glee.

  The Foresight was the genie’s tool. I remembered Maybelline saying as much. She had looked into my future and seen writing and books. She had seen me take Henry’s place in that tent.

  “You were supposed to break the curse!” Henry chided her, clutching his chest with the strain of raising his voice. He was so terribly unhealthy.

  Had the genie done that to him too? Am I next for the same treatment?

  “It was easier to just find someone to take your place,” Maybelline told him, not daring to glance in my direction.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” The genie’s voice boomed with a chuckle. “And what a replacement! He even has experience of servitude already.”

  I looked up into the deep, black eyes watching me from the shadow in the sandstorm. Slowly, my head began to shake in defiance, my fists clenching so hard that my nails broke the skin of my palms. Servitude. I would not accept another master, not again.

  I ran. I broke into a wild sprint, heading for the Fleahopper with the full intention of leaving the Crenshaws behind. Luckily, we had parked so close, for I was mounted on the contraption’s bough in seconds. I began to activate the locomotion, my feet flying wildly to rotate the pedals. The craft’s angel-wing sails expanded, suddenly catching the draft from the sandstorm and hefting me into air. One brief gasp of elation escaped my lips before I looked down at the ground once more.

  Maybelline may have tricked me, but Henry was a good man. Whilst his wife was screaming at me to return the Fleahopper and take my place as the genie’s slave, the old withered man simply waved at me with a gesture of good luck. I paused in my pedalling, hovering in the updraft as guilt settled in my stomach for perhaps only a second or two.