Surviving Arkadia

I was the last person to arrive at the train. Asser Motram was hanging out of the driver's cab when I returned. He called me over and offered me a chance to watch them actually move the train for the first time in, well, no-one knew how long.

There was already a small crowd in there. Jez Trattles, the Scholar and Aubrey Hulland from the Guild of Artificers were there, along with the official Pilot of the train. The Guild of Navigators, or at least that sliver of the Guild that was present in the Citadel, had picked Albrecht Klam. I knew him very slightly because he was one of the Emergency Gondola operators. He was reputed to be a cautious man, but one who didn’t shy away from a challenge.

Asser seemed cheerful, almost in spite of himself. I knew that he would rather have stayed on the Citadel but I could tell that he was excited by the challenge of the train and delighted by the engine.

As Pilot Klam worked through his starting checklist with the help of Asser and Artificer Hulland. Scholar Trattles was making hot drinks with a portable enchanted kettle.

“I’m afraid it’s only green tea or dandy pick-me-up but you’re welcome to join us,” he said, holding out a tray with two pots and a mismatched selection of cups

“Very kind,” I said, and poured myself a cup of the Dandy pick-me-up.

The Pilot waved the tea tray away saying, “Now is not the time. Pour me a cup of tea when I get this thing moving.”

The checklist he was working through wasn’t a bundle of papers, but an intricate device made of brass with sliding markers for each item on the list.

“Did you find that thing on the train?” I asked the Artificer, but quietly, so as to not disturb the pilot.

“I built it,” he said, with that mixture of pride and embarrassment that’s so common in truly creative people. “Of course Asser gave me the idea, and came up with most of the actions on the list.”

That made sense to me. The checklist was a thing of military precision and practicality.

At last the Pilot reached that part of the list that said, ‘Throw the huge switch.’ This was the switch that started the engine, the switch that Asser had tied a red ribbon around so that they would all know not to touch it until it was time.

Albrecht Klam put his hand on the switch but then paused, he looked around at the other experts. I couldn’t tell if he was hoping for encouragement or for someone to stop him. Eventually Asser spoke up, “Go on,” he said. The Scholar and the Artificer both nodded in agreement.

The switch slid into place smoothly and with a loud and deeply satisfying click. For a moment nothing happened at all and I wondered if there had been some kind of error. Had Albrecht missed a step?

Then I heard a high pitched whine on the very edge of audible sound. It was joined by a deeper tone and the distinctive rising-falling-rising groan of a turbine spinning up.

The train began to inch forward. Albrecht put his face to the visor of the periscope that allowed him to see the rails ahead without the massive engine bay obscuring his view.

I had expected the tension in the cab to ease off now that we were moving but it only grew. Clearly the Scholar, the Artificer and the former jet engineer were waiting to hear something from our Pilot.

Eventually he spoke, “The rails are laying down as expected. I still say we need to get the manufactury up and running and build some more but we’re fine for now. Visibility is good and the forward signal is functioning as a detector, just as we hoped. I’d still prefer to have an additional lookout though.”

“I’ll go and sit in the cupola,” said the Scholar. He climbed a steeply sloping ladder and pulled himself up through a hatch in the ceiling. Asser passed the Scholar’s tea up to him.

“You comfortable enough up there?” I said. I was concerned that whoever was on lookout should not be distracted by discomfort but also shouldn’t be so comfortable that they might fall asleep.

“It’s okay,” said Scholar Trattles. “I’m good for a couple of hours.”

“Do the rest of you have a watch schedule sorted out yet?” I said.

“I’ve put together a rough draft of a changeover schedule,” said Asser. “For the Pilot as well as the Watch. It’s only a draft until we get a clear idea of how many hours people can usefully maintain the post for. Now, I’m going to check on the engine. Do you want to come along?”

Asser was giving me a look that I took to mean that I should come along even if I wasn’t curious about what a magical jet engine looked like in motion.

I followed him through the door and into the antechamber between the control room and the engine room. It was full of coats and huge furry boots. He began struggling into one of the thick padded coats and then stepped into a pair of the boots without taking off his metal shod work boots first.

“Aren’t you going to overheat in all that?” I said.

“It’s not a mechanical jet engine,” said Asser. “It doesn’t get hot. It’s like a distant cousin to the Blizenpaard.”

I put on a coat, remembering the bone-chilling cold of the journey from Uln to Moonstone. Then I stepped into one of the smaller pairs of boots. They didn’t fit my DIGITIGRADE CANID legs at all and I had to shuffle like a child wearing their mother’s high heeled shoes.

Through the door was a cold unlike anything I had ever known. Frost sparkled on every surface. The air was so cold that my lungs burned with each breath. My fingers retreated up inside the coat and I pulled the hood tighter around my ears.

The Engine glowed blue. The metal housing protected the spinning turbine blades but their glow was so bright that I could see them right through it. Watching the hypnotic flicker of the magical blades made me suddenly aware of just how much I’d missed out on by not picking a magic using class, type, or species. I could only describe the device before me as eldritch. I had no other words for it.

“I didn’t want to talk in front of the others,” said Asser.

“So I guessed,” I said. “What’s wrong? Cause if it’s anything to do with this thing then I don’t think I can help”

“It’s not, well not directly, it’s to do with the rails.”

“What’s wrong with the rails?” I said, my heart sinking. “Oh God, I just realised that I didn’t sent anyone out to survey the track.”

“Don’t worry about that. There is no track.” I must have looked horrified at that because he hurriedly added, “At least there’s no track like what we would recognise. The train only needs track when it’s stationary, or just starting to move. It needs rails to travel along but it lays those down ahead of itself and then picks them up from behind. There’s a bunch of very complicated self-casting teleport spells that make it work. We’ve got a bunch of rails for travelling on and emergency track sections if we need to stop somewhere other than a station. The problem is that we only have enough prefabricated track sections for two unscheduled stops. We have the equipment to make more but we don’t have the raw materials. “

“So you need me to conjure some wood and metal out of nowhere next time we stop so you can make more?”

“Exactly,” said Asser.

“Just like that, huh?” I said. “You have no idea how much work goes into taking down a tree without dying.

“Funny,” said Asser. “I thought the iron would be the problem.”

“Oh it will be a problem but at least it’s a problem that I can throw manpower at. I can just give a bunch of the scavengers a magnet each and tell them to bring back anything it sticks to. We can recycle iron and steel scrap pretty well. But we can’t recycle scrap wood. You’re going to need whole trees, big ones. I haven’t properly trained anyone in tree felling. I’m still kind of a novice myself. Damn I miss Jethro.”