Steam Dogs Read online

  Steam Dogs

  By

  Sharon Joss

  STEAM DOGS Copyright © 2015 by Sharon Joss

  All rights reserved.

  Published 2015 by Aja Publishing

  www.ajapublishing.wordpress.com

  Book and cover design Copyright © 2015 by Aja Publishing

  Cover design by S. Roest / Aja Publishing

  Cover Art Copyright © by Demonza.com

  Heraldic Griffin Design Copyright © by Buch / Dreamstime

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or incidents or events is coincidental and not intended by the author. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  KINDLE EDITION

  ISBN: 978-1-941544-31-0

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOG

  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

  CHAPTER_25

  CHAPTER_26

  CHAPTER_27

  CHAPTER_28

  CHAPTER_29

  CHAPTER_30

  CHAPTER_31

  CHAPTER_32

  CHAPTER_33

  CHAPTER_34

  CHAPTER_35

  CHAPTER_36

  CHAPTER_37

  INTERLUDE

  CHAPTER_38

  CHAPTER_39

  CHAPTER_40

  CHAPTER_41

  CHAPTER_42

  CHAPTER_43

  CHAPTER_44

  CHAPTER_45

  CHAPTER_46

  CHAPTER_47

  CHAPTER_48

  CHAPTER_49

  CHAPTER_50

  CHAPTER_51

  CHAPTER_52

  CHAPTER_53

  CHAPTER_54

  CHAPTER_55

  CHAPTER_56

  CHAPTER_57

  CHAPTER_58

  CHAPTER_59

  CHAPTER_60

  CHAPTER_61

  CHAPTER_62

  CHAPTER_63

  CHAPTER_64

  CHAPTER_65

  CHAPTER_66

  CHAPTER_67

  CHAPTER_68

  CHAPTER_69

  CHAPTER_70

  CHAPTER_71

  CHAPTER_72

  CHAPTER_73

  CHAPTER_74

  CHAPTER_75

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER TITLES BY SHARON JOSS

  COPYRIGHT

  PROLOG

  Ryde, Isle of Wight, England

  August 1851

  When he reached the top of the hill, eleven-year-old Simon Atters turned to watch his friends, Holly and Glenn, push the wooden handcart down the boardwalk toward their house. Piled high with wooden balls and clubs from their juggling practice, it took the efforts of both twins to move the heavy cart down the rough planks. Beyond the boardwalk, the tide had turned, and waves of The Solent had reclaimed much of the white sand beach below Ryde Pier.

  He grinned as the evening breeze riffled his hair. I’m on top of the world. From here, he could see the whole town, the Abbey, and even the green forest surrounding the Queen’s summer home at Osborne. Out in the strait, a white ferry steamed across the calm blue waters of Spithead, toward Gilkicker Point and Gosport on the mainland a mile away.

  From the town below, the bells of Holy Trinity Church echoed off the trees of the pine and oak forest behind him.

  “Oh crikes,” Simon muttered. Late again. His father would be furious. He turned toward the woods and ran.

  Hairy needles of nettles stung at his bare calves. He leapt over thorny vines of blackberry and brambles that stretched across the game trail like deadly snares. Even on the brightest summer day the light was always dim here, but now that the sun was setting, the deep shadows gave the place a certain menace.

  A rabbit darted across the trail and Simon stumbled but caught himself. Overhead a red squirrel scolded angrily—as if to warn of Sir Hilary’s pending wrath. An important visitor for dinner, his father had cautioned. Don’t be late.

  “Who is it? Does it have anything to do with my birthday next week?”

  “It’s a surprise. If you’re not here on time, you’ll never know.” Sir Hillary frowned, but Simon had seen the ghost of a smile playing at his father’s lips.

  He hoped so. He’d been waiting all his life to turn twelve. To receive his birthright--the fire magick, which Sir Hilary had held in trust for him until he was old enough to control it. Like his late mother, he’d been born a fire mage, but his mother had taken it from him at birth to keep him safe, and when she died, she’d passed it to his father, Sir Hilary, the Wizard of Ryde.

  Although a powerful weather wizard, with mastery of air and water, his father had no ability with fire, and thus had postponed arranging a fire mage for a tutor until Simon's twelfth birthday.

  Surefooted on the summer grass, Simon emerged from the woods and raced past the graveyard headstones. The light faded quickly after sunset. Already the first stars were beginning to show. The other kids might have been afraid of running through a graveyard, even in the daytime, but he’d grown up playing among the headstones; there was nothing here that would harm him.

  He halted, panting in the paved courtyard in front of the yellow stone house, the color washed to a ghostly pale of eventide. Light gleamed warmly from every window on the first floor. Sheer curtains fluttered at the open windows, welcoming the cool breeze of evening.

  A dappled mare drowsed beside the hitching post in front. He stroked her neck, trying to decide if he should go in boldly or sneak upstairs and clean up first. It was the cook's and housekeeper’s night off.

  The mare whickered softly; a contented sound. He held his hand to her soft nose and she nibbled gently at his fingers. The aroma of baking apples reached him through the open windows, and his stomach growled. A shadowy figure crossed the room.

  Who was it? A surprise, his father had said. While it might have something to do with his coming birthday, he knew Sir Hillary was not keen on seeing his son follow in his footsteps.

  “It would not be the end of the world, son, if you decided against magery. I would be delighted to see you continue your studies at the university. Magick’s usefulness is fading, I fear. Technology is the thing. Consider the telegraph! Or the potential in hydrogen fuel cells. You’re more than clever enough for advanced studies, if you put your mind to it.”

  “Very well for you to say. You’re the Wizard of Ryde.”

  His father shook his head. “I am merely a glorified civil servant; a paid observer of tides and weather patterns. Without the governor’s honorarium I’d have ended up a mountebank and we’d be living on the street, which is where you’ll end up if you do not start applying yourself. You lack focus, son. Whether to the study of magick or other scholarly pursuits, you must apply yourself! Even an officer requires an education these days.”

  Simon shuddered at the idea of life in the military.

  “Your mother and I discussed your future often. A military career may not appeal you now, but it wouldn’t have to be forev
er.” His father smiled encouragingly. “Who knows? With the right connections, you could end up in politics, or even a royal appointment. I do have a few influential friends who could assist in that direction.”

  “I don’t want to go into politics. I want to learn magick.”

  “To what end, boy?” Sir Hillary’s exasperation always put Simon on the defensive. “Fire magick has no practical application, other than destruction. I would not want my son to become a war mage.”

  “But I want to be a wizard. If you could learn to master a second element, why couldn’t I? You control water and air, why couldn’t I control fire and water? And you keep telling me steam power is the way of the future.”

  A flash of something akin to parental pride flickered in his father’s expression. “Very well. But I must warn you that a wizard’s apprenticeship is even more difficult than that of a mage, and no less difficult than university studies.”

  Simon fervently hoped the mysterious guest was neither one of his father's cronies in the governor's office nor a headmaster for some overlander military academy. If so, better to go straight in. No sense in putting himself out, then. He brushed the worst of the beach sand and stickers from his clothes and dragged his fingers through his hair.

  The sounds of a heated argument reached him through the open windows, then glass breaking, followed by angry words. He stepped toward the window cautiously, as the itchy feel of strange magick bled like a miasma from inside the house. Whatever it was, this was not his father’s air or water magick. This was something else. Something darker.

  From inside the house, his father’s voice become a strangled cry.

  Simon froze, still a dozen steps from the front door. Through the curtain lace, he could make out the figure of a well-dressed, dark-haired man, but no sign of his fair-haired father. What happened? His heart pounded.

  The man dropped below his line of vision.

  Simon crept closer to the open window and peeped over the sill.

  On the floor of his study, Sir Hillary lay unmoving; his eyes rolled completely back in his head. A dark, spreading stain moved quickly across his bloodless skin, consuming him in an inky blackness. Leaning over him, draining the last bit of magick from his father’s dying lips, crouched the killer.

  Wizard’s kiss.

  Simon hissed at the sight. In the same way that his own magick had been taken from him by his mother and passed to his father for safekeeping, or passed down from father to son, so too could a wizard become more powerful by stealing it.

  The stranger’s thick black hair with the distinctive white streak identified him as a wizard immediately. The stranger locked eyes with him, and without releasing his grip on Sir Hilary’s corpse, spoke to him as though he were speaking around a mouthful of wine, “I see you, boy. Come here to me now.”

  But this Simon would not do. His father had schooled him from an early age to recognize a wizard’s mesmerizing eyes and compelling voice as a spell, no different than those his parents had taught him to control his latent greenfire. Simon clapped his hands to his ears and fled into the cemetery. Past the markers and crypts he ran, his heart pounding. He did not stop until he reached the woods at the far end of the graveyard.

  He crouched, too terrified to move, heedless of the thorns and thistles which tore at his clothes and skin. White smoke began pouring from the open windows, and orange flames flickered in the second floor windows.

  Crikes, he’s set the house on fire! Thick acrid smoke drifted across the graveyard. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and squinted against the sting in his eyes. Situated at the end of an empty lane, Simon knew he would have to pass in front of the house to go for help. The wizard would see him

  When the murderer finally emerged, he spoke softly. The sound carried easily over the crackling flames and across the distance. Simon could hear him plain as day, even with his fingers in his ears.

  “I know you, boy. Simon, isn’t it? Come out, Simon.”

  The wizard’s voice beckoned, filled with promises and assurance, but Simon merely cowered, trembling, beneath the brambles. Flames crackled in the silence. Sparks flew up into the night sky.

  “Your father says you’re just a latent, but I’m not sure I believe him. Why don’t you come out and show me what you can do?”

  The cloying sensation of dark magick mingled with the smell of wet earth crawled across Simon’s skin, filling him with cold dread. He’s using earth magick to search for me! Keeping his fingers in his ears, he leaned into the stinging nettles and thorns of his hiding place, focusing on the pain instead of the killer’s comforting voice.

  “I knew of your mother, before she died. Are you surprised? She was a far more powerful fire mage than that so-called weather wizard she married. Fire magick is exceedingly rare. Come out, Simon. Let’s have a proper look at you.”

  The compulsion was almost overwhelming; only the tight tangle of blackberry vines held him back. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with smoke, trying to drive away the smell of damp earth, but the smoke made him want to cough. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  His father’s killer scanned the graveyard. He stared right at Simon’s hiding place. “Come out or I’ll raise the dead and let them find you.”

  Simon dared not move. He wasn’t afraid of wights, but if this wizard could really raise the dead…

  The mare whinnied loudly, and began to struggle against her tether. A large black hound came running up the road, barking at the flames.

  Simon’s hopes rose at the commotion, hoping the noise would rouse the neighbors. The horse continued to neigh loudly, clearly terrified.

  Silhouetted by the flames, the wizard appeared to shrug. “A coward then. Just like your father. So be it. I found him and I’ll find you too, one day. I’d leave tonight, if I was you. This is not your home anymore.”

  #

  Simon waited as long as he dared. Smoke and flames poured from the kitchen and second story windows. The front door stood wide open. The curtains had burned, but the stone walls and floors on the ground level had prevented the flames from consuming the room.

  It took every bit of his resolve to walk back into the house, but he had to do it. He had to see...

  Oh papa.

  Sir Hillary lay on the flagstones without a mark on him, save for the unnatural grey pallor of his flesh. His sunken eyes stared, unseeing at the ceiling. Simon brushed a strand of hair from his face and closed his father’s eyes, before hastily wiping his hand on his shirt. The residue of magick on his fingers left a revolting aftertaste in the back of his throat. He backed away from his father’s body, coughing as the acrid smoke burned his lungs.

  What happened here? Did they duel? His father had specifically lectured him of the dangers of wizard duels.

  "Some mages and wizards choose dueling as a means to gain power. Engaging in a duel is the surest way to die--even against one you perceive to be weaker than you. Most mages and wizards hide their magick, pretending to be less skilled than they are for just this reason. A wizard’s duel is always to the death, and as the blood in the victim’s veins cools, the victor will steal his opponent’s magick for his own, making him more powerful than before. And the more powerful the wizard becomes, the more intense the hunger for more power becomes. As a fire mage, you would be forced keep your magick secret, lest you become a target.”

  Was that what had happened? No. His father would not have engaged in a duel, he was not that sort of man. Whoever had done this had come here for this purpose. Guilt tore at Simon. Maybe if I’d been here…tears clouded his vision.

  A large crash sounded from the second floor. The second story was collapsing. The air was becoming more difficult to breathe with every passing minute.

  Inside his father’s mahogany desk he found his father’s fine gold pocket watch with the portrait of his mother enameled on the inside, and a few pound notes and coins. Enough to get him to—where?

  Off the island, of course. Out of Engla
nd. The ferry would take him across the Solent to Gosport or Portsmouth and from there, Dover. His father had taken him to Brussels several times to visit his aunt. Surely she would take him in.

  He had no other place to go. The grandfather clock in the entrance hall chimed ten bells. Time to go.

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  ISLE OF DOGS, ENGLAND

  TIMBER DOCK

  April 15, 1871

  On a chill damp night, Captain Ingolf Torkjelson of the 190-foot paddle steamer PS Valkyrie sat alone in his cabin below deck and refilled his glass from the crockery jug of aquavit he kept in the lower left-hand drawer of his desk. Gimbal-mounted oil lamps lit his cedar-paneled quarters with a dim glow. He reviewed the last of the figures he’d just entered into the register and leaned back in his chair.

  Tomorrow, the lading of the ship with wool for the return trip would begin, and in two days they would be underway, leaving London, this stinking Isle of Dogs, and the rest of England far behind. With any luck, they’d be back in Oslo in time for the midsummer celebrations. Then on to Grimstad, Bergen, and Trondheim.

  He closed the leather-bound register and slid it aside, revealing the navigational chart of the Thames River rolled flat beneath it. The River of the Dead, some of the older captains called it and told of sailing past bloated corpses which littered the shore. Not that Torkjelson had never seen any himself, but every time they put into port on the Isle of Dogs an unnatural black mood settled over the crew and it didn’t lift until they were properly at sea again. There was something about this place that put everyone on edge.

  Absently, his fingers traced the river as it wound around the distinctive, downward-pointing-thumb of the island, which lay just east of London and the great Bridge. So close to the city, yet time moved more slowly here. Isolated by the black waters, the local inhabitants of this flat, sparsely marshland were a stubborn, suspicious folk, who bore with equanimity the drenching winds and the Thames's twenty-foot tides.

  Some said the island had been named for King Edward III’s hunting dogs. Others insisted it was named for the bodies of pirates left hanging from gibbets on the foreshore facing Greenwich, as a warning against the crime of river piracy. But Captain Torkjelson believed, as did many of his crew, that the island was named for the poor wretches who lived here. Isle of Despair would have been a better name; the place was a throwback to the dark ages. Those who could, tended livestock, fattened up on leased lands where wild grasses and sedges grew before being slaughtered for market in the Island’s killing fields. Others grew whatever vegetables they could in the dense peat and clay soil. At low tide, mudlarks dressed in rags, many of them children, scoured the stinking flats for anything they could use.