Alise

  Alise

  Tales From Darjee

  A.W. Exley

  ALISE Copyright © 2019 by A.W. Exley

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Mae I Design

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  The next tale from Darjee is…

  About A.W. Exley

  Also by A.W. Exley

  1

  It was a good day to get drunk. A sombre air permeated the dark-panelled Clockwork Sow as hushed murmurs replaced raucous laughter. Orders were given and coins changed hands in near silence as men and women sat with slumped shoulders and avoided eye contact. Tables were cleared by wraiths who silently carried away empty glasses. Even the large, dangling metal pig hung limply from the ceiling, only the breeze when the door opened buffeted it on its chain.

  Three men sat in a row on stools with their elbows propped on the bar as they stared into their tankards. No answers to the city’s misfortune lingered in the dark malty depths but they drained the mugs to be certain. Earlier that day, a castle guard had gone rogue and turned his rifle on Lady Alise—the dark mistress of Darjee.

  Another round of beer was ordered and consumed in silence. Tipsiness edged towards the warm glow of impending oblivion. They drank to drown the dismay at the soldier’s actions and to prepare for the coming days—not because the assassin fired a fatal shot and they’d lost their beloved leader.

  Quite the contrary.

  Their mistress lived, and they mourned another failed attempt on the evil cow’s life.

  The Lady Alise would pout and then plot. At some point in the next few days, she would wreak her petulant revenge upon the population. An assassin once speared her through the middle, and for that indiscretion she powered off one of the enormous turbines that supplied the city. The engine performed many functions, including pumping steam through pipes to warm houses in the middle of winter. One hundred people froze to death in an unlucky quadrant before she gave workers permission to restart the machine.

  In return for the last attempt at food poisoning (which only killed her taster), the Lady Alise commanded the population shave their heads and paint their skulls bright orange. She called them her cheerful gerberas for a week before declaring the colour hurt her eyes and demanding they wore hats until their hair regrew or the dye faded.

  For one hundred years they had lived at her whim, and if history taught the people of Darjee nothing else, it taught them their mistress could not be killed. Yet, at regular intervals, some poor, misguided fool convinced himself he was different. Frustration at her arbitrary rules and cruel reign would bubble up in some hero’s chest. He would fervently believe that he had a plan and would save the people. Then he would fail and the city dwellers would hold their collective breath waiting for vengeance.

  Ephraim stared at his empty mug. “Why do they keep trying? Haven’t they figured out it just makes her strike back harder?”

  Ira waved his arms and attracted the bartender. The man carried over a large pitcher and refilled their drinks.

  The three occupied one end of the bar while other men kept away and cast them sidelong looks. They made a strange group. Ephraim tall and lean with a golden hue, Thaddeus had the black skin, powerful body, and poor eyesight of the ones they called moles, and then there was Ira—a shrunken torso on a wheeled board with no legs to touch the floor.

  Some children were struck down with a mysterious wasting disease. The sickness stunted their growth, shrivelled their limbs, and turned them into dolls. Lady Alise ordered that such youngsters were to be given to the oremancers—the wizards of metallurgy. They removed the children’s useless legs and melded a plate with small wheels to their torsos, which earned them the name Castors.

  These altered souls lived their lives at foot level and were responsible for many mundane tasks. Some delivered parcels and messages as they whizzed along tracks that encircled buildings. Others kept the buildings and streets free of debris. The Lady Alise disliked dirt, and she specifically demanded the oremancers make Castors to mop, sweep, and polish. Only her demented mind could justify removing the limbs from children and giving them wheels, mops, and brushes to turn them into living cleaning machines.

  Ira was turned into a Castor as a child and sent to Mecha City to work. Despite clear divisions between sectors, and the Castors keeping closed ranks, he struck up a friendship with the other two men. On a regular basis they raised him up to join them, so he could see the world as others saw it—at eye level.

  “They’re stupid, and that’s why they keep trying,” Ira said of the repeated attempts on their lady’s life. “And we all want someone, anyone, to succeed.”

  “You’re quiet, Thaddeus,” Ephraim said.

  The large man wrapped a metal hand around his empty tankard. “Been thinking.”

  “What have you been thinking about?” Ephraim asked. People thought his friend’s size and slowness meant he was likewise slow of mind, but that wasn’t true at all. He thought deeply and often became lost chasing strands in his mind.

  Thaddeus traced a steel thumb over the handle of his tankard. “All those poor buggers have been going about the problem wrong. We know a blow against her doesn’t work. Maybe we need to figure out why first.” He glanced around to check no one was listening too closely to their hushed conversation. “I think something has to be keeping her alive.”

  They sat in silence, drank their beer, and pondered questions that would impact not just their lives, but that of everyone in Darjee. Plotting treason was no time for trite jokes or hurried answers.

  “She has ruled us for over one hundred years and appears no older than thirty,” Ephraim murmured. A lifespan much longer than that given to an ordinary mortal.

  “She’s human, not cast though,” Ira said. Cast people were the products of the oremancers and had metal pieces and automaton parts operating in place of limbs or organs. Such people often had different lifespans measured not by the beating of a heart, but by the winding of a mechanism.

  “She could have a mechanical heart. Or it might be something like a potion. We just need to find what it is and—” Thaddeus closed his enormous fist around the tankard, and with a squiz it turned into a small paperweight within his grip.

  “You suspect something,” Ephraim whispered. He glanced around the room. No one seemed interested in their problems, but you never knew. Walls had ears in Mecha City—tiny listening devices were scattered everywhere to monitor the daily chatter. The spider crawling up the wall might spin a web that spelled the treasonous words they uttered.

  Thaddeus nodded and let the twisted piece of metal fall to the floor. A dirt Castor sped past with a hand trowel attachment and tossed the debris into the bin fused to his back. Over by the fireplace, someone picked up a fiddle and started playing a mournful tune more suited to a funeral.

  “People think I’m dumb because I don’t talk much. But I listen.” Thaddeus used the soaring notes of the music as cover for their whispered conversation. “Every time there’s an attempt against the mistress, no matter how badly she is wounded, by morning she is healed.” Having finished his epic speech and laid out his thoughts, he dropped his head and turned mute once more. His friends now had to fit the pieces together to reveal the answer.

  “I have friends among the castle Castors. I’ll ask around if they have seen anything,” Ira said. Castors were invisible nobodies, which afforded them enormous anonymity. They had access to every room and street in the city, and no one ever remarked upon their presence.

  Ephraim let out a sigh. He couldn’t believe he even entertained the mad idea. Given time, his friends would soon realise the futility of trying to plot against Alise. This was a temporary outburst that would be forgotten by morning. “Ask around, but for frack’s sake, keep it quiet. I don’t want my head painted orange again.”

  The men drank up, muttered their goodbyes, and parted company. Ephraim trudged through the darkening streets back to his quarters. Autumn was chased away by the fall of night, and the chill of impending winter warred with his drunken buzz. Each year autumn became shorter. Winter fell quicker and clung to Mecha City for longer.

  The buildings and soil reflected the people. They had given up, worn down by Alise’s regime. There was no groundswell to stage an uprising and overthrow her. The population was exhausted by the simple act of surviving each day.

  The cold won the
battle for control of Ephraim’s body and with each step he sobered up a fraction more as the alcohol burned through his veins. Castors scuttled in the shadows. Luminescent orbs were set high on poles along the roadside, but the soft light failed to reach to ground level. Their night-vision goggles winked red and green as he passed.

  A few hardy street girls huddled together on corners, sharing the scant warmth of their woollen shawls. Some too young, others too thin, they stayed out trying to earn enough coins to buy a bed for the night in a shelter. They saw Ephraim and raised their skirt hems to flash pale ankles and knees.

  One in particular caught his eye. The overhead light played over her deep purple hair. She was of average height and slender build, and he imagined a strong breeze would sweep her away. She wore a long blue dress that appeared to be made of large silk handkerchiefs draped around her body. By some magical sewing process, the scraps of fabric clung to the swell of her bosom, and the tattered skirt swirled around her legs, exposing skin with the lightest breeze. She waved to him and he crossed the road to stand before her.

  “Go home, Indi, before you freeze.” He tugged her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

  “It’s a lovely evening, and I’m not cold.” She reached out and laid a hot palm against his cheek.

  Blue blood vessels curled outwards from her dark irises making her eyes resemble exotic anemone blooms. He glanced down to the length of leg revealed by swaying blue silk. Purple veins reached up from her ankles, as though she had tentacles tattooed around her leg.

  His heart ached at the signs painted on her body from her use of the drug they called Sunshine. The toxic tendrils leeched into the bloodstream and turned the user’s veins purple. Sunshine tricked the mind, casting the world in a golden glow, and gave a sense of peaceful euphoria, like lying on green grass watching clouds scudding across the sky. Except the person’s physical body was still subject to the elements. Indi’s mind thought she stood under a summer’s sun, but her body shivered against the cold.

  Lady Alise had her alchemists create the drug while she built a network to circulate it. Not only did she keep a large percentage of the profits to line her pockets, but a population floating on non-existent clouds was easier to control and less likely to rebel.

  Ephraim dug into his pocket and pulled out all the coins he could find. He placed the money in Indi’s hand and curled her fingers around them. “Go home. Please.”

  “I’ll make sure she’s off the street. It’s time my old bones were abed. We’ll share a hot spiced cider to warm us up first and then head back.” Myra, one of the older street workers, laced her arm with Indi’s.

  At least Myra’s eyes were clear of the toxic drug, even though years of working a corner had taken its toll on her body. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles, and the flesh hung loose from her bones. Her spine bent as her years pressed down on her. She couldn’t compete with the younger, prettier girls, so she adopted a more maternal role, looking after them in return for a small percentage.

  “Thank you, Myra,” Ephraim said.

  Indi smiled and kissed his cheek. “You are too good to me, Ephraim.”

  If he could save Indi before the drug consumed her body and soul, he would have at least achieved something with his useless life. For ten years, he had been friends with the women on the streets, scanning each face as he searched for the sister stolen from him.

  It had been so long now he couldn’t remember what face he hunted. He wondered if he would recognise Astrid should he ever stumble upon her. The need to save just one woman had manifested itself in Indigo—so called because of the colour of her hair.

  Ephraim watched Myra and Indi head along the street to a shabby café. He left the others to earn what coin they could while he continued on his way. He approached the barracks district where all the guards lived in identical twelve-foot square metal boxes. The containers were stacked on top of each other, piled high against the castle’s towering wall, and linked by rickety staircases and catwalks. Steam hissed from the pipes running behind and around the boxes, carrying hot water and heating, and taking away waste.

  He paused at the bottom of the stairs, his hand resting on the iron rail. The black castle wall loomed far above, disappearing against the starless night sky. The building became an inky void; the large stones seemed to suck light but released none.

  Stories told of how once the castle had glowed at night. Constructed of pale amber stone, the moon used to reflect off the walls and suffused those on the streets below with a honey glow without the need for mind-altering drugs. Then the old lord died and his daughter came to power as the new Lady of Darjee.

  Over the decades, the bricks and mortar of the castle came to reflect Alise’s soul. As her position corrupted her, so too the walls suffered. The thick coal smoke from chimneys caressed the brick leaving dirty smudges. Over time, the smudges became stains no amount of scrubbing could remove. Eventually the castle blackened like their lady.

  With a sigh in his heart, Ephraim walked up the stairs to his allocated living space. Cribs they called them. All the rooms were identical in layout. A tiny shower and toilet were crammed in one corner, and a bed doubled as a place to sit. The kitchen consisted of a small sink and bench with a single hob. In daylight, the portholes in one wall allowed him a view to the north, and the massive mountain range called Talamh where Thaddeus’s kind laboured deep under the ground. Somewhere to the west stretched the fertile land of Tres Grian.

  Once those hot plains had been his home.

  Ephraim shut the door against the night. The overhead lantern contained a pale yellow orb that illuminated his sparse belongings. The finer light was a benefit of being part of the castle—a luxury not afforded to the lesser citizens of Darjee, who lit their homes in shades of orange, red, and amber.

  A table pushed against the wall had the varnish long worn away from its surface. A leather-bound journal sat, waiting for Ephraim to open the pages and take up his pen. A handmade quilt covered in pink flowers that had once belonged to his sister was spread over the bed as extra warmth at night.

  He hung his great coat on a hook behind the door. Then Ephraim pulled his shirt over his head and balled the fabric up before he tossed the garment onto the bed. In only two strides he crossed to the small sink and pulled a brass lever to pour hot water from the faucet. He looked up into the misty mirror and his hand touched the tattoo at the base of his neck—a white feather.

  The symbol of cowardice.

  The feather was the reason he had been evicted from his home and searched every street corner and brothel for a familiar face. Ten years ago, raiders stole his sister, and he had done nothing to stop them. The Elders had held him down, branded him a coward, and then banished him.

  With knuckles pressed on the bench, he leaned his face into the steam and inhaled, chasing coal soot from his lungs before splashing hot water over his chilled skin.

  I’m insane to even contemplate helping Thaddeus find Alise’s weakness.

  Taking up a towel, he dried himself, pausing to rub over the mark on his throat.

  I’ve proven I’m no hero.

  Once clean and in a fresh shirt, he dropped into a chair and leaned an elbow on the table. He reflected on how his friendship with Thaddeus and Ira mirrored the structure of their province. Three monstrous hearts beat and pumped life throughout Darjee. The region was divided into three sectors, each controlled by a unique type of turbine. At the intersection of the three sat Mecha City.

  Each man came from a different region and distrust erected further barriers around them. People from one region didn’t normally associate with those from the others; suspicion was as ingrained as grime on the castle walls. While they weren’t supposed to mingle, friendship crept upon them and bound them close.

  Deep under the ground of the mountains to the north lay Unus Talamh—the home of powerful Thaddeus. There, people used coal-powered engines. Multiple chimneys cut through the earth and funnelled dark smoke that blackened the sky and the mountain region never knew the full light of day, only a hazy twilight. Most of the Talamh population spent their lives encased in rock and soil with rare ventures topside to breathe fresh air. Those who worked in the mines had enhanced night vision but could not handle the harsh light of day. Long hours at the seams gave them greater muscle mass, and over time their skin turned black from constant exposure to coal dust earning them the name moles.