The Rails [Clockwork & MissedStations]

[Clockwork]

It is the twilight hour in the Ore mountains, and the pine and alder bend in the wind of its passage. The train is passing, sleek and black and bronze, the thunder of its wheels a noise so great it is felt and not heard; beneath it are the rails, and the rails pass everywhere, arteries of iron and stone purchased with sweat and sorrow.

The homunculus sleeps fitfully, hidden. His body is bent to fit the contours of the luggage rack, where other possessions are placed. It might be a child, upon first glance. Shabbily dressed, wrapped in tweed worn thin enough to shine like satin and in cotton worn bleak enough to chafe like burlap. It is clothing that conceals, rather than simply covers, and this is well, as the skin of the thing is gray and rugose, its eyes bloodshot and asymmetric. If it smiled, it would be a horror.

Awake, it is a he, and when awake, can insist upon its name. He is Trieste.
Asleep, it becomes once more an It, immobile and helpless before a voice and a bond.

When he wakes, it is to the sounding of a tinny clockwork bell, and it is with a smile; he puts the fob-watch aside, his one precious thing, and swings down from behind the valises and grips, and over to the window, and out into the howling wind, snatching at him, pushing him against the side of the great machine. His limbs are a-crackle with long restriction, but nonetheless they swing long and ropelike from hold to hold, with surety.
The bridge is approaching, a spiderweb of sharp-edge shadows against the spears of forest, in the gathering dark. In the mind's eye, he sees it tumbling, shattered and groaning, and himself and others with it, slowly falling. It is, in truth, a hard price to pay, but it is a just one.

The coal-car and the engine are fast approaching, and the range is sufficient to the task. Trieste draws out the device, which resembles, a little, an orient prayer-wheel of the sort seen, betimes, on the streets of Pondicherry. What it resembles most is a grenade, and it tumbles end-over-end, slow, against the wind.
When such devices are thrown on open ground, the wind of their use can knock a man dead, even aside the steel they throw. Here, it is lost in the greater wind of the passing train, on its arteries of steel. He closes his eyes against the flash, opens them again.

The engine is squealing and there are sparks; and by their light, the side of the engine is peppered with scores and shards. The bridge is entirely unharmed- the bridge is, indeed, passing.

Trieste begins, very quietly and very creatively, to curse.

 

[missedstations]

The necromancer had spent most of the journey dozing in the freight car: but then, an explosion and the train slowing slowing and then stopping entirely. For the first few moments he had been sure that he was dreaming... He often dreamt of war and gunfire, and often woke with a twitch of fear from events long past. Not this time, though. The train really was stopping.

Like thousands of vagrants before him, he crossed the country over and over by sneaking on and by jumping trains. Being ticketless was a relatively frequent occurrence. As a veteran of the Great War, he usually got some sympathy. So many were left with no homes and no jobs to return to, that every so often the authorities pretended not to notice him. But he knew quite well that this time he would not be able to get away with it. For one, if he hadn't dreamt the explosion, the situation was serious, and they may do a proper search of the train. A proper search involved a mage looking for unlicensed magic users, and not only was Andrei unlicensed, he was also a necromancer. Ordinary people feared necromancers more than the Bolsheviks. (Heck, even Bolsheviks shot necromancers.)

Having deserted at the late stages of the Great War, his magic had never been bureaucratically recorded, and hence he did not have the right papers. They were impossible to forge, written in blood and on paper made with spells. He had never wanted to serve any government – that was his problem. He had left Russia because communist rule didn't suit him, but he didn't find that things were any better elsewhere. So he kept moving across Europe, from France to the Balkans, never admitting his name. He practised his magic for pennies, sometimes, or when alone in the places that had once been killing fields. He wished that he could let it go, but it was simply too hard. So to another mage he would always smell of death magic. It was time to leave.

He picked up his kitbag and slung it across his back, over his tattered greatcoat. It was his most valuable possession: it served to keep him warm for so many years. Not that the cold would kill him – his powers would keep him alive – but he didn't relish the experience. He knew that death didn't want him yet, but he preferred not to stray too far from the realm of the living. Lucky it was to be a necromancer: only ones who knew the true horror of death, and not allowed to speak of it to anyone.

Andrei had to put his back into opening the car door a sliver – fuck, he was weak. He had not eaten in far too long. He was as skinny as the wolves that had harried his regiment on the eastern front. A tall man, black haired and grey eyed, he would have been impressive if he was not so starved, and if there wasn't days old stubble in his face. Once an officer, he was nothing now, in the same way that the clothes he wore were simply uniform stripped of all insignia and identifying features. It was hard to tell what army he had served with. He had left so few traces of himself in the world.

He jumped from the train, landing on his knees awkwardly. Getting up, he stepped onto the grass verge and looked back at the train. No doubt people were still concentrating their surprise inwards. The damage to the engine, well, that was interesting, but not his problem. He stepped behind the trees to observe for now. He would probably stay near the rail road, and then try to jump on another train. To the next town was one hell of a long walk, he knew.