Steamborn (14 page)

Below them, hidden in the shadows beneath the hatch, was what seemed to be another city beneath the city. A collapsed staircase stood as nothing more than a pile of dusty stones underneath them.

“We need to lower the lantern,” Alice said. She pulled a thin rope out of her backpack.

“I didn’t even think about bringing a rope,” Jacob said.

“To go underground? You should probably think things through a bit more, Jacob.”

“Now you sound like Miss Penny,” he muttered.
She smiled and tied off the rope before slowly feeding the light into the darkness. “I just hope the rope can hold
us
as well as it can hold the lantern. I think I can get it on the flat part there.” The lantern set down with a faint clink.

Jacob leaned in. “Alice … I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well, get your head out of there and let’s go,” she said, pulling on his shoulder. “Look, someone sank handles into the wall.”

Jacob followed where she was pointing and smiled. They were almost perfectly spaced, like one of the iron ladders that led to the sewers.

They gathered their backpacks up and stared at the hole for a moment.

“I’ll go first,” Alice said. “I think it will be easier for you to close the door behind us.”

“You want to close it?”

“So we don’t get caught, right?”

Jacob nodded and watched Alice tentatively place her foot on the first rung. She kicked it a few times.

“Looks good.” She stretched down to the next rung and quickly made it to the bottom without a problem. “It’s solid.”

Jacob swung his legs over the hole as Alice picked up the lantern below and shined it up for him. He lowered himself down two rungs before reaching back up for the hatch. Jacob wrapped his fingers around the edge, careful not to slam them in the hatch. It swung closed without much effort, and he was relieved that the hinges were quiet. He left the spring bolt dangling from the door, unlocked.

Each step he took down the rungs caused his chest to tighten. Jacob was excited about exploring the catacombs, but quickly remembered how much he didn’t enjoy the dark. A gap three feet high waited for him between the last rung and the floor. He let himself drop, his boots scraping the wall lightly before he hit bottom. A small cloud of dust billowed up from his boots, highlighted by the lantern light.

Jacob could tell the walls were a very pale stone, even though the lantern gave them a yellowish hue. The floors were likely the same, but covered in decades’ worth of dust and dirt. Jacob brushed his hands off and turned to face Alice.

“Ready?” she asked.

He nodded and stepped around the collapsed stairs. “It’s quiet.”

“It’s kind of creepy,” Alice said. She forged ahead with the lantern, holding the light up to the wall on their left as they continued on.

“Hold up,” Jacob said. He took three quick steps to stand beside Alice. “Is that a flier?”

“Poster,” Alice said. She leaned in toward the yellowed paper tacked onto an old wooden bulletin board. “Oh wow, it’s for an old Festival. ‘Come join the third Festival and celebrate the treaty with Dauschen.’”

“Third?” Jacob said. “If that’s from the third Festival, it’s older than Charles.”

“Not quite that old,” Alice said. She reached out and touched the poster. The contact was enough to make the lower corner crumble away. Bits of paper floated to the ground, casting eerie shadows in the lantern light before settling by Alice’s boots.

“It’s completely rotted.” Alice brushed over the crumbled bits of paper with her foot.

“Come on, let’s go.” Jacob watched the lantern light move away from the old poster, leaving it in darkness once more.

They hadn’t walked much farther when Alice came to an abrupt stop. “Jacob.” She raised the lantern and Jacob gasped.

The room seemed to expand all around them. A grand staircase swept down into a causeway, flanked by ornate sculptures and overpasses. Shop fronts, frozen in time, stood along either side of the old train tracks.

Jacob took a step down and then another. The stairs were solid and stone.

“These aren’t catacombs,” Alice said. “It’s like they buried an entire
city
beneath the city.”

“Look at it all,” Jacob said as he hurried down the last few steps. An ancient carriage waited at the bottom. It sat folded up like the vendor carts at Festival. Jacob squinted at the sign in the edge of the lantern light, but he couldn’t quite make it out. He brushed his hand across the plaque to remove decades of dust.

“What is that?” Alice asked. She leaned in beside him. “It looks like some kind of meat stuffed into a weird bun.”

Jacob shook his head and stood up. “I have no idea.” He walked toward the edge of the platform and stared at the tracks. They were easy to see once Alice came up behind him with the lantern.

“Why are they here?”

“I don’t know,” Jacob said. “Seems like it would have been easier to build a train station above ground.”

“There are just as many shops across the way as there are over here,” Alice said.

Jacob looked at the other line of shops. Two levels faced them, with the upper level recessed a bit, almost like it was built into the wall. He pointed to either end of the station. “There are stairs on both sides.”

“There’s another one in the middle too,” Alice said. “Just like this side.”

Jacob stepped toward one of the walkways that arched over the train tracks. He saw hints of marble swirls on the railings, where the dust and dirt hadn’t settled so thick. He stepped up on the wide arch and hopped up and down. His boots echoed around the abandoned station, dust billowing out around him.

“Seems solid.”

Alice followed Jacob up onto the walkway and stayed beside him until they stopped in the center. She shined the light down the tracks and let out a short, muffled scream.

Something giant caught the light, chitinous plates and horns gleamed below them, and Jacob recoiled right along with Alice. A moment later, they realized the thing wasn’t moving.

Jacob leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the thick metal gates and the creature that lay beyond. “It’s dead, and it’s been dead a long time. Look at the legs. They’re hollow, whatever it was.”

“It’s huge.”

Jacob stared at the jointed legs attached to the pale shell. Something like a giant horn curled off the thing’s head and looked to be embedded in the stone wall. “Must be the second level Samuel was talking about.”

“I don’t know,” Alice said. “Well, it does look like it descends.”

Jacob turned, and Alice followed him with the light until they were looking down the other half of the tracks. The tunnel was clear in the opposite direction, but two smaller tunnels flanked either side.

“Look,” Alice said as she pointed to the right tunnel. “That must lead to the catacombs.”

A dark stone cross hung above the entryway to the arched tunnel. Jacob and Alice walked back down the bridge and started toward the darker tunnel. A circle carved from pale stone encased the top of the darker cross, intersecting each arm of the cross an equal distance from its center.

“It’s not stone,” Jacob said. “Look at it. That’s metal.”

“A metalsmith made that?” Alice asked, and Jacob could understand the awe in her voice. Even caked in dust, the intricate lines and knots were beautiful.

He was looking at the cross and not his feet. Jacob stubbed his foot on something heavy and low to the ground. He shouted, and Alice’s hand snapped out to catch him before he fell.

A heavy iron gate lay flat against the stone floor. Chips stood out in the thick tiles where the gate had fallen.

“Watch your step,” Alice said.

“That thing is huge.” Jacob stepped around the fallen gate and into the darkened archway. A cool breeze lifted his hair. Something like a low whistle sounded in the blackness, and Alice raised the lantern higher.

“I think it’s just the wind,” she said. Jacob started to walk past her when she grabbed his shirt.

“Look!” She hopped over a broken-down carriage and dragged him to a storefront a few doors down. “Do you see them?” she asked as she started bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

“Is that …” Jacob cocked his head to the side and looked at the sign above the heavy wood door. Gray dust filled in most of the crevices, but he could just make out the shape of an open book carved into the old sign.

“It’s all books,” Alice said. She glanced back toward the entrance of the catacombs and then back to Jacob. She pulled on the door to the little shop. The old iron frame rattled against its lock. She frowned and looked through the dusty windows after wiping some of the dirt away and brushing it on her pants. “There are so many. Should we break the window?” Alice covered her mouth with her free hand. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“Give me a minute,” Jacob said. “Think I can get through the door.” He unbuttoned his leather vest and folded it over, feeling for the tiny gap in the stitching. With a little effort, he managed to slide two thin black metal bars into his hands. One unfolded at a hinge to form an L, and the other was straight until the end turned into small curvy squiggle of metal.

“Lockpicks?” Alice said. Jacob didn’t have to look at her to know she was frowning.

“Hey, don’t go judging me now.
You
wanted to smash the window.” He glanced up when she didn’t respond.

Alice’s mouth fell into a tight line, and he was pretty sure she was blushing. He knelt down so the lantern light penetrated the thin keyhole.

Jacob inserted the flat wrench first, putting just a bit of tension on it. It was one of the things he’d learned from Charles. This probably wasn’t what the old man had meant for him to do with it. “I think …” the lockpicks clinked and rattled in the keyhole. “I think there are only three tumblers. Wow, this should be—”

He didn’t even get to say “easy” before the lock popped and the door began to drift open.

“You’re bad,” Alice said with a smile as she walked past Jacob and into the bookstore.

Jacob followed her in, wearing a smile of his own.

“There’re so many!” Alice hopped up to one of the walls and leaned in to look closer. The worst of the dust had stayed outside the store. They could still read most of the titles, and the old books didn’t seem to be in bad shape at first glance, even if most of them were in disarray.

“Are they rotted?” Jacob asked. “That old poster fell apart by the stairs.”

Alice picked up one of the books and flipped through it. “They look okay. A little smelly, but they seem alright.”

Jacob paused by a yellowed sign labeled ‘Current Affairs.’ A leather-bound book with a silver skull on it stared back at him. Five metal studs were riveted around the skull, two on the top, two to the sides, and one below. The spine bore metal hinges that looked like copper. Jacob read the title,
The Dead Scourge,
before flipping the cover open to read.

The Forgotten did not die in the desert prison. Their exile did not end in the death our government deemed their just destiny. Those men and their families adapted—some may say flourished—among the invaders we thought to bring nothing but death.

There, they have honed their skills. Machinations one can scarcely imagine have been brought to life. Some are powerful, helpful, and meant to improve the lives of their people. Others are clearly meant for killing and nothing more.

Goosebumps ran over Jacob’s arms. He wanted to get the book back to Charles and ask him what else he knew about the Deadlands and the Forgotten. He’d never even heard the term before.

“Alice? Have you ever heard of the Forgotten?”

“The Forgotten what?” Her muffled voice came over the shelves behind him.

“Yeah, me neither.” He walked down another aisle and eventually stopped by Alice.

“Look at this,” she said, holding up a book titled
Breeding Your Round Herd.
“It’s all about Pill-Bugs. We might be able to use it to raise our bugs again.”

They didn’t know for sure that the bugs at Alice’s house were all gone, but it seemed likely. Widow Makers and Red Death didn’t have much use for Pill-Bugs outside of food.

“Did you see the books closer to the windows are more brittle?”

Jacob shook his head. “I didn’t. Are they ruined?”

“You can still read them, but they’re really fragile. I wouldn’t want to try to carry one home.”

Jacob walked around Alice and picked up a thin green book that was sitting on the counter.
“An Alchemist’s Guide to Everything,”
he said aloud. “Seems pretty small to be about everything.” The first page he opened spoke of the right mixture of minerals to create explosions of varying sizes. “This one’s going with us.” He smiled as he turned around.

“I want to take them all,” Alice said, hugging the huge book on Pill-Bug breeding.

Jacob laughed and slid his backpack off. He tucked the alchemy book and the Deadlands book into the pack. “I don’t think we can carry them all.”

“We have to come back. We’ll use it like a library, but you can’t tell anyone.”

“Me?” Jacob asked. “Why would I tell anyone?” He adjusted his backpack and then paused. “Charles is going to wonder where I found an alchemy book. And the book about the Deadlands War.”

Alice’s eyes flicked to the side. “Okay, you can tell Charles, but
no one
else.” She waited, impatiently, for a moment before repeating herself. “Okay?”

“Alright, alright.” He, in turn, waited for Alice to finish packing so many books into her backpack that she could barely button it. “Ready?”

She nodded and hefted the pack up before picking up her lantern. She stopped just outside the bookstore and pointed to the tables. “Let’s stop here and eat.”

Jacob looked around. “You want to stop? We can just eat and walk.”

“No,” Alice said, shaking her head. She carried her lantern to a nearby table and set it beside her backpack on the braided metal surface. “Let’s sit down for a bit. Get the glowworms out, would you? We can save some fuel.”