Courne Supremacy

“Alright, clothes off. Get in,” Alicia demanded of Lily as she stripped out of her blouse and pants. Lily stood abreast of Alicia fumbling with the buttons of her dress and stared into the brownish water in the corroded porcelain tub leaning against the wall of their inn room. “It’s no time to be shy either. Come on, quickly now!” She helped Lily undress and move into the tub and began to scrub her raw with a sponge.

“Ow! Why are we doing this?” Lily asked as she squirmed.

“Either two things are happening right now. First, Kessel could have figured out how to start the plane, in which case I’d have heard it, but I didn’t. So that leaves the second option: He couldn’t figure it out and he’s coming after me. You saw how friendly that lot was. I’m sure they can track a scent and we need to lose ours,” she said. She had led Lily all around the industrial sector of town leaving their scent all over and acquiring new ones before picking an inn to rest in for the night. “All clean. Now, put those new clothes on.” She pointed Lily to the garments laying on the bed. Alicia finished scrubbing herself, toweled off, and dressed in an itchy wool dress too. Alicia threw her necklace over her head and tucked the keys under her collar. She shoved her pistol and her university seal into a satchel and dumped their old clothing into a burlap sack and asked Lily to bring it below to be incinerated.

While Lily was away, Alicia drew the curtains shut and checked her gun. She loaded a fresh magazine into the Luger and holstered it. As soon as Lily walked through the door, Alicia said to her, “Get some rest. I’ll keep watch.”

While Lily slept, Alicia stayed by the window watching the city. In the early hours of the morning a cacophony of howls broke the night’s silence. Lily awoke and joined Alicia at the window sill. In the distance, men, transformed into wolves, stood on rooftops calling to one another. Atop their inn they heard the scratching of claws against the stone as one of them ran and jumped off the rooftop to another. Lily gripped Alicia by the shoulder; she was shaking and mumbling a prayer in a tongue Alicia had never heard before. All through the night Alicia could see silhouettes of the wolves running and crawling about the roofs trying to place their scent. “Go back to bed.” Lily slept against her shoulder for the rest of the night.

When dawn broke, Alicia and Lily dressed in traveling cloaks that Alicia had purchased the night before, and headed to the pub below for breakfast. As they ate bread and cheese, several men entered the pub. The muscular man leading the troupe pulled up to the bar and in a boisterous voice announced: “Round of drinks for me and my men!”

“What’s the occasion?” The barkeep asked as he filled a stein.

“This fat fellow, some Doctor, asks us to move this big ruddy thing that he’s got hidden under a tarp. He says he’ll pay us double to do it now instead of in the morning. I say fine. He won’t say what it is. So I ask for double that. We’re moving it through the town square to the train yard, my men are tired and we stop. Hey, it’s late, right? Well he triples the double on the double. We’re rollin’ in it!”

Lily and Alicia made eye contact but neither girl said anything. When they finished eating, Alicia led Lily past the drunken movers and headed down the noonday street. She dragged Lily through a bazaar and then to the cobblestone streets of the main part of town and followed the signs to the train yards on Morgan Street. Across the road, Alicia recognized the human form of one of the wolfmen from the previous night. He entered a door with the number “137″ whitewashed over it.

“That must be the warehouse,” Alicia said as she put her coin purse in Lily’s hands. “There’s a train coming for Atolari. I want you to buy two tickets. I’m going to take a look inside. Go on.” Lily hid herself beneath her hood and walked with a brisk pace down the street. In front of Alicia was a growing queue of horse-drawn carts with boxes of merchandise. They were heading into warehouse “134″. Alicia walked alongside one of the carts and kept her eyes peeled. Once she was certain that no one was looking she jumped into one of the covered carts and tucked herself under the tarp. She waited to be caught but no one noticed.

Once inside, Alicia took a quick glance around, but everyone was busy working to notice her. She made a beeline for a door with the number “134″ over it. She exited into the train yard. Locomotives whistled hello and goodbye as they sped by one another blowing big billowing towers of steam. Warehouse “137″ was a couple of buildings down. She pressed herself against the the brick wall, and spied on two bald men in cloaks guarding the door. The guards growled as they pushed the doors open to allow a flatbed car inside. Alicia winced as the metal doors scraped their way along the rails, but she took the opportunity to open the side door and slip inside.

From behind some shelves, she saw her plane, wrapped and tied, hovering over the floor held up by several ropes. Underneath, Doctor Kessel gave instructions for loading onto the flatbed. She counted a dozen bald men in traveling cloaks – all wolves in sheep’s clothing. She had enough bullets but one shot would give her away. With the plane loaded and wheeled out, Kessel and his men left the warehouse. Alicia hurried to the train platform and found Lily.

“Did you find it?” Lily asked.

“Did you get the tickets?”

“I had enough for two. I saw Doctor Kessel board one of the noble cars up front.” Alicia peeked over Lily’s shoulder at the green cars at the head of the train.

“His entourage?”

“He was alone,” Lily said.

Alicia took both train tickets. “You’re not coming aboard. I want you to fly after the train. Keep an eye on the last car. You’ll know it when you see it.”

“But where are you going?”

“To test a theory.” Alicia hid under her hood and boarded the train. She took a seat on a bench by the window. It took another twenty minutes to fill the car to maximum capacity before it pulled out of the station. Alicia turned her eye to each passenger. Most of the travelers were families with young children – she hoped that she could pull this off without causing anyone harm. Not a sign of the bald men that guarded Kessel were in sight. The train cut through the woods surrounding Lebenwald, but as far as Alicia could see much of the wood was floating down a river to a lumber mill. Alicia waited a little longer for the train to pick up speed and did some mental calculations. “That ought to do it,” she mumbled and excused herself. She pushed the door open for the next car, a cargo hold filled with boxes and luggage. Two of Kessel’s guards turned towards her.

“Ladies room?” she asked. The guards snarled. Alicia backed out of the car and opened the door leading outside. The trees whipped by in a blur. Alicia found a ladder on the side of the train, swung herself onto it and climbed up. On top of the car she crouch walked across the flat center of the roof. She could see her beautiful mechanical bird on the flatbed at the end of the train.

Two giant claws gripped the side of the car and a wolfman swung itself onto the rooftop. It roared at her, narrowed its eyes, and swiped at Alicia. She fell backwards; the wolfman shredded her cloak sleeve. Alicia pulled out her Luger and fired twice. The wolfman twisted left and right as the bullets impacted in his chest. She closed one eye and shot him in the foot. His foot slipped, split his legs, and he slid off the curved side of the car’s roof crying all the way down. Alicia crawled along the top to the end of the car. As she climbed down the ladder, she saw the other wolfman on the roof heading towards her.

On the flatbed, Alicia undid the knots tying her plane down to the car.

“Hold it right there!” She turned to face Doctor Bartram Kessel and his Luger. He stood in the doorway of the luggage car.

Alicia kept working. “You won’t shoot me!”

“What makes you so sure?”

“You can’t fly the plane.”

“Because you still have the keys! All I have to do is shoot.”

“I’ll fall off the train. How will you find my corpse?”Alicia undid the last of the bindings and the tarp billowed and peeled off the plane and flung itself into the distance. “I’ll be taking this now.” The wolfman jumped down onto the flatbed and growled at her.

“She’s got the keys, get them from her!” Kessel screamed before closing the door.

The wolfman’s mouth salivated for her flesh and the claws glistened in the high sun. Alicia fired two rounds at him but the wolf was faster and shucked and shimmed around them and lunged at her. Alicia dived under the plane’s fuselage and the wolf smacked his head hard against the wing. He shook it off and reached for her with a claw. She dodged and rose on the other side. As she stood, the wolf crashed on her and flattened her to the floor again. The gun popped from her hand and bounced across the flatbed.

She twisted to the side and got a face full of the wolf’s teeth and a nose full of a rotting flesh stench from its mouth. She tried to move but the wolfman sat on her. The wolf raised its arms ready to dig its claws into her. She shut her eyes. Was this the end?

A whiny, whimpering yelp came from her executioner. Alicia opened her eyes to see the wolfman flying into the blue sky. Caw! Caw! Alicia stood up. “Lily!” She smiled. The wolf thrashed at the bird but the giant talons held on to it. Lily reached down with her beak snatched the wolf’s head and rent it from the body and spit it into the woods below.

Alicia got to her feet, gripped the side of her plane, and climbed into the cockpit.

“Kill her! Kill her!” She could hear Doctor Kessel scream. Alicia pulled the two keys from around her neck and insert them into the dashboard and fired the engine up. The propeller at the nose spun up. A new wolfman jumped onto the nose of the craft. Alicia glanced out the slide window. The trees were whipping by fast now. Maybe seventy miles per hour she figured.

“You’ll never get away!” Kessel shouted. “You’re trapped. You’re dead!”

The wolfman growled at her. There was no time to check the flaps to make sure everything was working. Now or never. Alicia grabbed the yoke and pulled back. Up, up, they went off the flatbed. She glanced out and saw the wolfman panic and latch onto the hull of the plane. They were flying. It worked! “Bye,” Alicia said as she flipped the plane upside down. Everything inside crashed against the roof of the plane. The wolfman yelped and disappeared from her view. Alicia righted the plane and put on her goggles. She saw the train below and an angry Kessel shaking his cane at her. Between the train and the plane was Lily. Caw! Caw! Alicia turned the plane around and with Lily at her side they flew back to the Watchmaker’s home.

Tags: tales of a mechanical bird

Alicia crossed her arms and smiled when she saw Lily tiptoeing towards the circular stairs leading into the foyer. She stood at the top of the landing and glanced back down the hallway. “She’s saying goodbye to me,” Alicia thought. Lily crept down the stairs and strung a satchel over her shoulder – no doubt filled with her clothing and some foodstuffs from the kitchen. Alicia leaned against the double doors leading into the mansion’s courtyard and made a little cough.

Lily stopped in mid-adjustment of her satchel strap. She did a double take. “Who–” she began.

“The mechanical girl,” Alicia said still smiling. “I heard you in the kitchen earlier.”

Lily lowered her gaze. “I think it’s time I went.”

“Alright, but, could you wait one more day? I need your help. I need someone to come with me to Lebenwald and do some shopping for the mansion. Please?” She put her hands on Lily’s shoulders.

Lily pulled her satchel off and dropped it on the floor.

“Thank you,” Alicia said. “Go get some breakfast and we’ll be off. Let me fetch my keys.” She led Lily towards the dining room door and hurried up the stairs.

“How is she?” Alicia recognized the voice of the Watchmaker, Doctor Wilhelm Gottfried, as she emerged on the second floor balcony. He was already dressed in his slacks, shirt, tie, and vest ready to work in the laboratory.

“She’s still young,” Alicia said. “I remember being like that myself.”

“Thank you for making this run to town for me,” Doctor Gottfried said. In his hands he held a dancing canary. She had finished it and left it by his bedroom door in a bird cage. “I think when you return, you’ll be ready to help me fix my son.”

* * * * *

The town of Lebenwald was one of the larger cities Alicia had been too and as the name implied the taller buildings made it look like a forest of stone and steel. She circled over the city taking a good bird’s eye view of the town. Upon hearing Lily vomit, Alicia descended and made a landing outside the city walls. Once the plane slowed, Alicia cut the propeller and removed the two keys that turned on the plane’s engine. The keys were attached to a leather cord that she wore as a necklace. She tucked them under her blouse and climbed out of the cockpit. Two guards approached her with their hands on their sword hilts. She pulled off her helmet letting her hair free and waved at the guards. They relaxed.

“Traveler,” the head guard said. “What business do you have here?”

“I’m picking up supplies from the market. Something the matter?” Alicia said helping Lily out of the back and watched her head off to the woods with her pail in hand.

The guard began: “The town’s been on alert. Creatures have been spotted in the night. We ask that you be careful and report to a guard if you see or hear anything suspicious.”

“What kind of creatures?”

The guards eyed one another.

“A wolfman,” the junior guard said. His superior glared at him and grimaced.

“Thanks for the warning.” Alicia patted her holster. The guards nodded and walked off. Lily returned with a clean pail and sat down on a tree stump by the plane. Alicia pulled a list from her pocket and tore it in half. “I’ll go pick up the machinery, tools, and parts, and I’ll leave the produce for you.” She handed Lily a small pouch of money. “There’s a little extra for you as well.”

As both women walked away from the plane, a voice caught their attention. “Yes! Yes, this was what I saw flying through the sky! At first I thought it some strange demon or monstrous insect, but its nothing of the sort!” Alicia turned around and spotted a plump man shaped like the bell of a mushroom with a tuft of red hair examining her mechanical bird.

The plump man turned towards Alicia and his lips split into a wide smirk. “My dear is this your marvelous contraption?”

“Yes,” Alicia said returning to the plane. Lily bumped into her from behind.

“Brilliant craftsmanship! Who is your master? What is his name? I would like to meet him.”

“My name is Alicia, I’m my own master, and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister–”

“Doctor, my dear. Doctor Bartram Kessel, a scientist of all studies.” He bowed. “A woman as her own master?” He laughed. “This flying machine. I’ll pay you a thousand gold pieces for it!”

“It’s not for sale, Doctor.”

“Ten thousand, my love,” he said taking her hand.

“Don’t touch her!” Lily shoved Kessel away. For a brief instant Alicia thought she saw Lily’s hand transform into a set of talons. Kessel’s men stepped forward – they must have seen it too.

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said pushing Lily behind her. “It’s not for sale.”

“Everything is for sale, my darling. What would you trade for it?”

“I can’t dally any longer, Doctor. Good day to you. Come, Lily.”

As they walked away, Lily asked Alicia, “What about the plane?”

“The guards will protect it just like these other carts and horses. That’s what they’re paid to do.” She fingered the key under her blouse.

Alicia and Lily split up once they entered the city. Alicia saw Lily off into the market and she entered into the industrial area of town. She covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief. The air smelled of burnt fuel and the blue sky she had seen from above was covered in a brown haze. Workmen wore sooty faces and trudged through the streets with no mind as to where they went. The only women Alicia saw worked inside of the taverns and pubs. She went about her business and purchased the parts on her list – it was a list she and Doctor Gottfried had come up with as they worked. As night fell, Alicia rode back through the streets in a mule-drawn wagon carrying all of her boxed wares, and she began to load the parts and tools into the back of her plane. How Lily would fit in there would be another problem. Maybe Lily could spend the night in the city? It might do wonders for her morale to be uncaged from the mansion for a time.

Speaking of which, where was that girl? Alicia watched bodies enter and exit the city gate but not a sign of Lily. It couldn’t have taken her that long to select fruit and vegetables, could it? Alicia finished packing everything and closed the back hatch and locked it. Nailed to the back of the hatch, which she missed, was a wax-sealed folded slip of paper. Annoyed, she pulled the nail out of her plane and examined the letter.

It said: “If you would like to see your friend again, come to Marshal Square alone. – Doctor B. Kessel.”

Alicia stuffed the sheet in her pocket and ran through the city gates. With some help she found her way to Marshal Square. It was a secluded war-memorial park far removed from the hustle-and-bustle of Lebenwald’s nightlife. Each wall surrounding the square was covered with ivy vines and at the center stood the statue of a lone soldier leaning against a pole with Lebenwald’s flag swaying in the night breeze. The moonlight painted the statue in shades of blue but the torchlight standing nearby gave it an orange glow around the edges.

“I was once friends with Professor Elana Bellafore. She wrote to me of a new student who was interested in the flight of birds and human beings alike.” Kessel emerged by the statue and stood under the flickering torchlight. “You were her student.”

“Where’s Lily?” Alicia pulled her pistol on the doctor.

A growl emerged from the shadow and a wolf standing on its hind legs stepped forward. Tucked under his arm was Lily. The wolfman was draped in the blue moonlight and outlined by the orange warmth of the torch. Another appeared behind Doctor Kessel and a third to his other side.

“After our little exchange this morning, I noticed that my arm hurt.” He showed Alicia three scratches across his traveling cloak. “I thought, the peasant girl that took a swipe at me must have done it, but these looked more like claws from a bird. A girl that is a bird. I had read stories of such a creature. So I had to track her down, and there she was in the market purchasing tomatoes as if she were a commoner. So we snatched her.”

“Give her back!”

“I’m certain you must have read The Age of the Common Man. The world of magic, witches, wizards, and creatures of impossibility is over! The age of reason and the triumph of man has come! Man will weld science, technology, and industry and create a new world not governed by metaphysical forces! Your friend is not a friend of mine, nor does she have a place in this new world.”

“Hypocrite! What are those!”

“Men who have accepted a form of evolution.”

“You want the plane. For Lily.”

“Alicia, don’t give it to him!” Lily struggled in the monster’s grip. “Maybe he’s right. I don’t belong in this world anymore. Take the plane and run!”

“The plane’s yours,” Alicia said. “It’s beyond the city gates where you saw it this morning. Here’s the key.” Alicia pulled a key from her pocket and tossed it to Kessel.

“Show me how to fly it,” Kessel said looking at the key in his hand.

“You’re a scientist! You figure it out unless you’re inferior to me.”

“Kill the witch!”

“Kessel!” Alicia shouted. “The Age of the Common Man says a superior man should use reason and be fair and just! When you took the key you implicitly agreed to our arrangement! Are you saying that you’re not a superior man? Then I should kill you!”

Kessel wrapped his gloved hand around the key and narrowed his eyes at Alicia. “Drop the witch. Disguise yourselves.” The wolfmen shrunk, their muscles deflated, and they became human and wrapped themselves in garments and cloaks. Kessel being shorter than Alicia still managed to look down his nose at her as he walked by and said, “No one is more superior than me.” He marched past Alicia with his three guards. Once they were gone, Alicia ran to Lily and hugged her.

“Why? You spent your life on that mechanical bird! You told me so! And you just–”

“I can always replace a mechanical bird, but I can’t replace you, can I?” Alicia pulled a knife from her pocket and removed Lily’s bindings. Once she was free she wiped the tears from her eyes.

Alicia touched her blouse and felt the pair of keys dangling underneath. “Lily, do you mind staying longer? I’m going to need your help to get my plane back.”

Tags: tales of a mechanical bird

“She’s getting worse,” Alicia said, as she pulled splinters from under Lily’s fingernails with a small pair of pliers she took from the laboratory. She used a wet cloth and cleaned the blood off Lily’s fingertips. Lily jolted and jerked with every tinge of pain but her eyes stayed closed and she remained in a deep sleep. The Watchmaker sighed and paced at the foot of Lily’s bed. Alicia turned her eyes to the scratched-up headboard. Lily must have been raking her fingernails across it all through the night. “There’s no doctor nearby, at all?”

“Unfortunately, no,” the Watchmaker said. “But, I’ll think of something.” He left the room. Alicia finished pulling the last of the splinters out from Lily’s fingertips and set the pliers aside. She picked up one of the Watchmaker’s journals and began poring through the pages on bird anatomy.

For the past month, Alicia committed herself to studying under the Watchmaker. Before he allowed her to step foot in the laboratory and try anything, he handed her his journals and notebooks and commanded her to read them. Alicia absorbed herself in his theories on building calculating machines — it was the basis for all of the Watchmaker’s creations. She picked it up in no time, and now, she was ready to construct her own mechanical toy.

She choose to build a canary. As a child, she had seen live ones when traveling merchants visited their village, but her parents never had any money left over for one. While waiting on Lily, Alicia had built the bird’s wireframe body and tinkered with building the core calculator to run it. All of the bits and pieces sat on Lily’s nightstand.

At noon, Alicia took her lunch in the mansion’s courtyard. The sundry machines, that surrounded her, went about their business watering the garden, pruning the bushes, or cutting the grass.

CRASH! Alicia glanced skyward and jumped to her feet. CAW! CAW! A massive black bird blotted out the sun, and with a few flaps, it zoomed right over the walls guarding the house. Alicia scrambled up the stairs to Lily’s room. The Watchmaker stood by the remains of the wall in which the bird burst through. He pulled a brick from the side and dropped it on the floor. The bed had been snapped in two, and the nearby walls and nightstand were shredded and poked apart. Alicia picked up the gears and mashed wireframe body of her toy canary and set them back on the nightstand.

“That giant bird took her,” the Watchmaker said.

Alicia surveyed the damage. “Funny,” she said. “Most of the glass is on the outside. The bird would have had to break into the house some other way, fly here, and then carry her out.”

“There’s no way, I would have heard it.”

“In either case, I need to take the plane out.” Alicia said picking up a black feather.

By mid-afternoon, Alicia was back in the skies. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen and the sun shone brightly. She opened the canopy to let the wind rush over her skin. “It’s been a long time,” she told herself with a smile. Alicia flew over the ground low enough so she could keep an eye to the skies and another one on the land ahead for any sign of the bird. A black feather twirled across her sights. A mutilated cow in a fallow field caught her eye along with more black feathers. Alicia landed in the nearest dirt path and drove back to the farmhouse. With her rifle in hand, Alicia ran to the fallow field to find the farmer cursing and fuming over his dead cow. By the farmer’s side was a man and his horse examining the dead bovine too.

“What happened here?” Alicia said. As the words slipped out of her mouth she saw the black feathers against the white of the cow’s hide and the red of the cow’s blood. She picked up one of the feathers.

The farmer scratched his head. “A giant bird, larger than anything I ever seen. I heard my cows cryin’ and saw it fly away trailing blood n’ feathers all over.”

“It took my friend,” Alicia said. Alicia tightened her fist. It probably ate Lily too. “Did, did you see her? A young girl, just coming of age?” The farmer shook his head. She turned to the other man. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and slung his rifle back over his shoulder.

“Which way?” The hunter got back on his horse.

“That way,” the farmer pointed.

“Lil’ Miss, how ’bout you go back home and let me handle this. I’ll bring your–”

Alicia cut him off, “You head off on the ground. I’ll meet you in the air!” She jumped back in her plane and revved the engine up. The hunter’s horse neighed and reared its front legs almost throwing him off. Alicia turned the plane around and sped down the dirt road and took off. She brought herself a couple hundred feet off the ground. Below her, the hunter rode fast and hard. Alicia pulled her plane back and allowed the hunter to go ahead of her. It was easier to keep an eye on where he was going and then keep her other eye to the sky. At times he glanced back at her — she could imagine the disdain on his face but thought nothing of it. The hunter pulled his rifle out. Alicia saw what he was aiming at. To her right, a giant black bird broke out from the treetops and cawed.

“Spawn of a demon bird,” Alicia thought, that was the name Lily had been called in her hometown. If that were so, the scratching against her headboard made sense. Maybe Lily’s cries and screams in her sleep were really caws that a raven made. Crack! The giant raven shuddered and its wings failed to keep it aloft. It plunged back through the trees. Alicia saw the puff of smoke trailing behind the hunter. “Oh, no, Lily!” Alicia barreled the plane down and made a hard landing on the ground. The wings wobbled as she cut through a field of tall grass. The raven cawed and cried loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. The plane slowed, Alicia hopped out, tucked and rolled into the grass. She winced as the plane slammed into a nestle of trees growing by the edge of the forest, but a second shot sent her running. “Don’t shoot!” Alicia ran through the forest. The hunter took aim for his third shot. Alicia put her shoulder forward and rammed him. They toppled over together.

“What are you doing?” The hunter yelled. He pushed Alicia off and aimed again. He searched down the barrel of his gun. “I had a perfect shot!”

A girl’s cry came from across the small opening. “Lily!” Alicia found her leaning against a tree with a bullet hole in her left leg and another bullet shot just above her. Alicia checked her wound. From the air it looked like the hunter shot her left leg since the the giant raven was flying to the right of them. “You’re the Black Bird Witch.”

“Alicia! Help me!” Lily cried as she grabbed Alicia’s hand.

“She’s my black bird witch,” the hunter said with his rifle pointed at Alicia. “She’ll make me a fortune. Her heart alone is worth a hundred thousand gold pieces. Step aside.”

Alicia stood between Lily and the hunter. She had left her rifle by the tree.

“Your life isn’t worth that much girl,” the hunter said taking aim at her.

“Don’t you shoot her!” Lily’s scream turned into a raven’s caw. Alicia and the hunter covered their ears and dropped to the ground. The raven jumped over her and onto the hunter. It cawed and pecked at the hunter’s body. Alicia backed away. The hunter screamed as the bird pulled his intestines out and gulped it down. What it couldn’t eat it tore to shreds and threw it all over the grass. Alicia grabbed her rifle and ran behind the tree. She raised her rifle and thought, “Please don’t make me do it.” She aimed but couldn’t put her finger over the trigger. Alicia slumped against the trunk, closed her eyes, and tears streaming down her face.

“Alicia!” It was Lily. Alicia got to her feet and peered around the tree trunk. She took baby steps into the field where the hunter had been. Lily sat crying in the middle of the field. Her nightgown was stained with blood and the hunter’s remains were splattered all over the grounds. “I couldn’t help it!” She didn’t turn to Alicia when she talked. “Y-You must be disgusted with me.”

Alicia bent down and raised Lily’s chin with her finger. “You protected me,” she said in a quiet tone.

Lily sniffled. “Of course, even the raven knows you’re a friend!”

Alicia didn’t know whether to smile at the sentiment or not. “Up we go,” she said. She helped Lily to her feet and back to the plane.

Tags: tales of a mechanical bird

Lily watched the walking machine’s row of legs below them move in a wave-like pattern, raking across the forest floor sweeping debris, leaves, and anything else that might be in the way through its wooden legs. She flattened herself against the monster’s fur afraid that if the machine hit a rock it might send her over and she would become mangled in its unstoppable legs. Alicia held the reigns she had lashed across the top of the beast. As they traveled through the Watchmaker’s Forest, Lily asked Alicia to explain how she managed to get the monster to work again.

Each time Alicia began to explain, Lily found her eyes glazing over and her mind wandering. Partially, she didn’t understand. The other reason was her rumbling stomach. She had eaten just fine, but half of her was still starving. Caw! Caw! She clung onto the matted fur and closed her eyes. The Black Bird was always looming in the back of her mind. Sometimes it slept but not always. It needed to feed right now. Her parents had tried to help assuage the hunger by allowing her some of the old pigs and goats. They kept her confined to the farm as much as possible hoping that the stimulus was enough to tire her out and not excite her, but Alicia’s arrival changed all that. A blessing and a curse.

The up-and-down swaying of the beast slowed as they approached a tall stone wall. Lily was afraid that the machine was going to walk straight into the wall but it stopped about an arms length away. Even standing on the back of the machine monster, Lily estimated that the wall was still at least four times higher than they were. Alicia jumped down from the top of the beast. Lily had to lower the mechanical boy to the ground first and then climb down the side.

She carried the mechanical boy to Alicia and found her crouching to the side of a giant, metal door. “What’re you looking at?” Lily asked as she peered over Alicia’s shoulder. She was holding a metal plate in one hand and inserting and pulling pegs out of it with the other.

“I think it’s the key to the gate,” Alicia said. “It fits this slot.” She tapped her finger against a long rectangular slot with grooves lining the top edge.

As Alicia began to slide the plate into the slot, Lily snatched her arm. “What if it’s a trap?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Alicia said as she slid the plate in. The wall churned to life. Lily backed away. A whirling sound came from inside of the stone wall and when her fear subsided Lily pressed her ear against the wall and listened to the ticks and clicks of the gears sandwiched between the bricks. A spring snapped and the large metal doors responded with a thunk. But the gates did not open. The slot spat the metal plate out. Alicia took it and wandered away studying it.

Lily knocked on the gates and hollered for someone to open the door. She kicked around the nearby rocks and torched tufts of grass in her hand as she waited for Alicia to find the right combination. She sat against a tree stump trying not to think of the raven’s hunger pangs. Try after try, Alicia failed, but she kept trying. Lily smiled. “I would have given up a long time ago,” she said to herself. Klong! The gates started to swing open. “You did it!” Lily said jumping to her feet.

Alicia scooped her rifle up and Lily did the same with the broken boy and they walked through the gates. Together they entered the courtyard of the mansion, and in front of them machines bobbled, wobbled, and hobbled all around. The courtyard’s lawn was being trimmed by a machine that looked like a metal sheep. It rolled along the grass stopping to chew every so often. After it traversed a distance the metal animal deposited a small bale of trimmings from its rear and resumed chomping away.

“This place is amazing!” Alicia said with a laugh.

“I’m glad you think so.” Lily glanced around but didn’t see anybody. The sound of the voice seemed to come from a black cone mounted at the corner of the wall. “I see that you have carried my son back.”

“I found him wandering through a town miles away from this forest,” Alicia said. “An accident befell him and I’ve brought him back to you. Please, I wish to meet you. I have much I’d like to ask.”

“You seem worthy. Very well, please accompany my daughter!”

The doors to the main house opened and a white faced girl wearing a baby blue, lacy dress appeared and marched towards them like a toy soldier. Instead of a rifle in hand she held a matching baby blue parasol. Lily and Alicia followed behind the girl into the main foyer and down a long and wide hallway.

The interior of the house was even more bizarre. A railing ran against the upper and lower halves of the walls. Little wheeld carts raced along those tracks dusting as they went. A machine walked across the floor dragging spinning arms made out of mops to clean the marble tiling. As they closed on a large set of double doors the sound of a piano grew louder. To Lily’s astonishment the piano player was a giant wooden spider dangling from the ceiling using its eight legs to tickle the ivories. A small pipe filtered a gust of air over a pinwheel powering the piano player.

The mechanical girl stopped and pushed open a set of giant doors. The room she revealed was the largest Lily had seen yet. The walls were packed with full bookshelves. There were rows of long tables cluttered with half finished gadgets, loose papers with doodles, and a myriad of tools. A cacophony of gongs and chimes went off to Lily’s right. That wall was covered in clocks all announcing the arrival of a new hour each in their melodic and artistic way.

“Bring him here young lady.” Finally, there he was, the Watchmaker. He was an elderly yet fit man. He was clean-shaven and his gray hair was combed back. She laid the boy on the empty table. The Watchmaker walked around the boy examining him through his bifocals. “His entire head must be replaced,” the Watchmaker said rubbing his chin.

“How can I help you?” Alicia asked. “I wish to know how he works.”

“Do you?” the Watchmaker said. “Then, follow me.”

Lily followed behind them to a table covered in a white cloth. The Watchmaker pulled the sheet off to reveal legs, arms, and a child’s disembodied head. All the parts looked real to her, but he began to explain how he built them. The eyes in the head seemed to follow Lily where ever she stood and finally she backed away from the table altogether and bumped into the mechanical girl. The machine, in a jerky fashion, raised its hand over its mouth, snapped its jaw down and giggled. Its soul-less eyes stared at nothing in particular. Lily left the scientists and the girl and explored some of the other nearby tables. On one workbench sat a wooden skull filled with gyros, gears, and wheels spinning and ticking like a watch. Eyes of all colors sat in a row staring at her. A jawbone with fresh teeth lay on the table. By it was a stand with a hook holding a disembodied arm wrapped in spongy stuff and next to it was a drawing of human muscles wrapping the arm bones. Lily smelt the dots of fresh blood staining the drawing.

A stronger, foul scent permeated the air where she stood. Lily followed the scent to a closed door behind a bookcase in the corner of the room. She peered behind her to make sure no one was following and pushed the door open and threw her hand over her nose to block the pungent scent of decay. Her eyes grew wide at the sights inside. Human bodies lay on surgical tables. A man with his skin sliced off — it was stretched out next to him — and his arms neatly removed and hanging from a hook just like the mechanical one on the workbench. Other parts: eyes, brains, and organs sat in putrid smelling vats lining a nearby shelf. The stone floor and walls were clean of any blood.

Caw! Caw! The black bird begged for a meal. She had starved him for so long. Her mouth watered. The raven within wanted to be free of her body and to feed on the decay and dead in the room. Lily slammed her eyes shut and hurried to leave but bumped into the Watchmaker. He put his hands on her shoulder. She shrugged him off. “My dear, don’t fret. The bodies come from a nearby village, they all died of natural causes or accident.”

The cawing of the raven inside of her mind was growing fiercer still. Lily’s stomach, which she shared with the raven, grumbled and gurgled.

“Lily,” Alicia began. “I know its disturbing. I also studied anatomy at the University of Aeterall. We learn how to heal people by dissecting the dead.”

Lily shook her head. “You don’t understand. I can’t stay here anymore.” She broke into a run. In her mind, she could hear the giant raven’s invisible wings flapping and see its shadow looming in every dark corner of the house as she ran. Alicia’s calls for her to stop were drowned by the noise of the bird’s cawing. Lily ran as hard and fast as she could to the house’s doors but stumbled over the machine mopping the marble floor and crashed against the floor smacking her head. Caw! Caw! The sound drowned everything else out. Alicia running toward her was the last things she saw.

Tags: tales of a mechanical bird

From the sky, Alicia found the dirt road snaking through the countryside leading to the mouth of the Watchmaker’s Forest. “Buckle up! We’re landing!” She called back to her passenger Lily, who was tightening her embrace around a small pail with one hand and reaching for a rope to strap across her chest with the other.

Once on the ground, Alicia stretched her arms out, took in the fresh air, and walked out to a warm sunlit rock and started cleaning her rifle. Lily lugged her pail across the field to a nearby stream to clean it out. The broken mechanical boy was lying in the back of the plane with a tarp over his body.

“All this for a doll?” Lily asked, setting her damp bucket on the ground. She sprawled out across the grass besides the airplane.

A loud crack came from the forest. Birds scattered from the rustling treetops. Alicia aimed her rifle towards the trees. Lily jumped to her feet but took hold of the plane’s wing to steady herself. A roar followed the gunshot along with a sudden, loud thunk.

The girls looked at each other. Lily shook her head in protest but Alicia slung her rifle over her shoulder and ran for the gaping, black maw of the forest. She hopped over the rocks, brushed aside the gnarled branches, and sidestepped the overgrown roots as she followed the constant thumping noise of the beast marching away from its kill.

Lily caught up to Alicia and planted her hand on the closest tree trunk she could find. Panting she said, “Wait, wait for me.” Alicia hushed Lily and waved for her to stay low. Her eyes followed the strange animal. Each leg of the beast moved one after the other as it marched over the the forest floor. It looked like a ten men walking side by side, goose-stepping. Alicia pushed Lily out of her bewildering stare and dragged her by the hand through the woods in the opposite direction from the monster. They found the bloody body of a man wearing hunting gear up against a tree with a circular indention in his chest. A journal lay next to him. Alicia picked it up and flipped through the pages skimming the entries.

Alicia stood in a lone patch of sunlight reading the journal. The chirping songs of birds and gentle rustling of tree branches replaced the thumping, regular footfalls of the animal. “He’s been looking for the Watchmaker,” Alicia said. “Seems like stories of the forest have spread far and wide. This hunter was going to kill one of the creatures that roam this forest and return him for a handsome reward.” She opened the man’s backpack to reveal tranquilizer darts and a bottle of chloroform.

“Is that why you’ve come?” Lily asked studying the dead man with wide, startled eyes. She looked ashen and ready to throw up again.

“No,” Alicia said. “The Watchmaker can repair the mechanical boy. I want to learn from his engineering techniques.”

A crackling static filled the air and a roar blasted out from behind both of them. Startled, Alicia raised her rifle in the direction of the noise. Lily snapped her fingers and flickering flames sprung from her fingertips. The birds stopped whistling and the breeze died away leaving a crackling noise all around them. Trees to their right shook; Alicia studied them from behind her rifle’s sight. Twigs snapped to their left and a small grove of trees swished in the air raining green and yellow leaves down upon them. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Alicia pointed between where both noises had come from. Footfalls fell one after the other. The trees Alicia pointed too parted and flattened as a rectangular, brown-furred beast broke through them. The creature was all legs – it looked like a twenty legged spider.

Lily arched her arm back to hurl a fireball but Alicia grabbed her wrist. She took a deep breath and stared her enemy down. Where was the face? The eyes? Arms? A mouth? Alicia counted only the twenty legs and they moved one after the other down a row. Once the last leg moved forward the first leg stepped again and the wave-like pattern of moving legs repeated. It roared and crackled at them as it approached.

“Alicia!” Lily tried to break her hand free of her grasp.

“It’s too regular moving to be an animal.” Alicia said. “Allow me.” She stepped in front of Lily and studied the monster barreling down on her and steadied her sight against the stalker’s central leg right where she thought it would meet the body. At the moment when the leg in front of her barrel was about to step forward, Alicia fired.

Crack! The bullet splintered the leg. It twisted and smashed into the next moving leg tripping the creature. Each leg afterward rubbed up and snapped against each broken appendage and the animal fell over. The legs continued to move and jut out of the creature’s backside in every direction tearing and mangling its fur coat.

“W, what kind of possessed creature is this?” Lily asked.

Alicia ran across the field and jumped up on top of the body and avoided the moving legs. Wooden limbs jutting out of the back gyrated back and forth. Alicia grabbed some of the loose flesh and tore it away. “Look! It’s just a fur rug!” Underneath the rug was a cone and the crackling noise came from inside of it. “A vibrating cone to make noise, interesting.” With her knife she unhooked it found wires running from it into the body of the animal. With a sharp pull, she yanked one of the wires out of the cone silencing it. Deeper within she could see gears spinning and pistons gyrating. “Ha!” Alicia wadded up the rug and stuffed it into the gears and the legs stopped moving. “Just like the doll!”

Alicia smiled at Lily. She stared back and dropped to her knees.

“The Watchmaker must have built this to keep intruders out of the wood,” Alicia said jumping down from its back. “There must be more than one. This is a large forest.”

“In that case, we’ll never find this Watchmaker,” Lily said.

“Actually.” Alicia smiled at the fallen monster. “I have an idea.”

Tags: tales of a mechanical bird