Chapter 13 - The Marble Train
Steam hustled down a long, rusty, spiral pipe, sewn like stitches along an eave. It corkscrewed round and round. It squeezed out of a pinprick hole at the end of the roof, and pealed across the trainyard as an ear-ripping scream.
The boarders in line at the marble train station scurried like roaches. Some ducked underneath slatted metal benches. Others threw themselves into the ditch beside the tracks. Some tried pushing past the muscled conductor, towards the marble globe-cars of the train itself. They were shoved back.
Honeydew and Mr. Grey were among the few who remained in line. Honeydew ducked into a hunting crouch; Mr. Grey, somehow, went stiffer.
The shrill whistle rose in pitch until it lay beyond the acutest listener’s hearing. The conductor, in a bored and monotone voice, said, “Ready to roll. Marble train to Wine Medo. Visas ready please.”
After looking suspiciously for the sound’s source, the people who’d run for cover slunk back to the line. Their dropped luggage marked their places. Bags, purses, and other personal effects also marked the passengers’ status in society, and their expectations for the journey. Some brought limp, old bean sacks, lying loose with only a change or two of robes. Others had packed whole cratefuls of fabric for the trip.
From some bags, there wafted pungent odors of flowers. The odor cologne they’d been issued, which would protect travelers from Wine Medo’s native scents, had a smell like bleach. A little potpourri helped make it tolerable.
Some passengers had even packed musical instruments, most of which now sported some extra dents from their hasty abandonment at the whistle’s wail. These packers meant to pick up the old enchanting habit they’d just never had the time for — though certainly they would have the time now, on their vacation…
Mr. Grey’s own luggage contained one of these instruments. Next to a briefcase (grey), his violin lay within a felt coffin. Mr. Grey hadn’t enchanted for ages. A wild thought had attacked him, however, when he’d noticed the fiddle parked on its stand in his workers’-prison cell while packing. He’d brought it along, in case it came in handy.
Aside from luggage, Mr. Grey carried a modest purse of treasure. Enough bookmarks, spices, and feathers for meals, transportation, and accommodations, he thought. His ticker slept comfortably in its pocket. He had the anchor shawl stowed in the briefcase with his uniform robes. He meant to sell the shawl at some shop in Wine Medo. He didn’t think the shawl fit his style. The rest of his trip provisions were the hardly-worth-mentioning-ables; toothbrushes, odor cologne, razors.
Honeydew’s luggage consisted almost entirely of these not-oft-mentioned sundries. A veritable war chest of combs, cosmetics, brushes, soaps, perfumes, unguents, waxes, dyes, bottles, beakers, demijohns, scissors, clippers, and files, supported a slightly-smaller box, stuffed with an equal weight of robes cut from every fabric under the clouds. Today she wore the usual pattern of sunflower eyes, and completed the luggage with her small hand mirror. She smoothed a few loose hairs in this object’s reflection, after recovering from the whistle surprise. She had packed no instruments, having never picked up enchanting.
Honeydew glanced at Mr. Grey’s violin coffin. “I’m surprised you know enchanting.” Her tone was gently mocking, suggesting friendly jealousy.
“Not ‘know’ precisely,” said Mr. Grey. “Only a few little effects. It’s ages since I played.”
“And you want to relearn on this vacation?”
“Definitely not. But in case, you know, we needed an emergency enchantment, or something…”
She smiled and touched his arm. “We’ll buy whatever enchanting needs done.”
Mr. Grey wished he’d considered that before packing his fiddle. He felt foolish for having carried the coffin all the way to the station. He looked back towards the city and considered running it back to his cell. Mr. Grey decided he’d never make it in time, however, and might as well take the instrument.
As if on cue the whistle screamed again. This one didn’t catch the line so off-guard. Most people merely cowered in place at the escaping steam.
“What’s the first thing you’ll do at Wine Medo?” asked Honeydew as the screaming ascended beyond hearing.
“Stop by their emigration offices. I’ll see if they have an address for miss Coats.”
Honeydew clicked sarcastically. “Sounds like a bagful of fun.”
Mr. Grey dusted and flattened his robes, despite being in an immaculate state of dress. He began to apologize and suggest something more fun to begin their trip.
Just then the conductor waved the line forward another step. Mr. Grey picked up his suitcase and violin coffin and stepped forward. Honeydew threw her shoulders into the two large boxes with her robes and sundries. She shoved them ahead with a loud scrape.
The line stopped again. Honeydew said, “For me, it’s straight to the tallest spot in Wine Medo. Imagine how high their buildings go!”
Mr. Grey did imagine. Wine Medo rested on the lower slopes of the mountain which held Starharbor. Their buildings had more room to grow. He asked, “Do you think we’ll be able to see the other Odormoats?”
“Doubt it. City smog won’t give us the chance. But even a Starharbor stilt house will look bean-small next to their skyscrapers.”
“Do they eat beans there?” asked Mr. Grey. Nutritional worry nestled suddenly in his mind.
Honeydew waved dismissively, as though he’d asked a silly question. “I wonder what flavors they’ve got. Probably stuff not even in the variety packs. Maybe it’s all variety packs…” The last thought gave Mr. Grey an internal grimace.
The front of every robe in the line hugged suddenly flush against its wearer’s skin, while the back billowed behind. A dense smoke cloud soared down the line, nipping at their eyes and noses. A bright, octagonal, ‘Mind the Gap!’-sign beside the track warbled on its post.
“Hello Wind,” said Mr. Grey. “Didn’t expect you here. Very polite of you to wave us off.”
“Of course you didn’t expect me,” said the Gaunt, Brooding, Hungry Wind, with her usual petulant airs. “You don’t know much about trains.”
“We’ve never ridden,” said Honeydew. She pulled her sunflower-eye collar tighter with a frustrated tug.
“I always follow the marbles when they roll. It feels nice running alongside.”
“Still got that cold then?” asked Mr. Grey. He held his own robe close against the breezy chill.
“Always.” And she sighed.
“Well…” Mr. Grey blew awkwardly onto his dry hands.
“See you on the way down,” Honeydew finished for him. Her crossed arms, dour frown, and unamused eyes showed no love lost between Honeydew and The Wind.
“Bet on it,” said The Wind, and she moved away. She began ruffling the feathers of a young woman trying to buy extra luggage space from the depot attendant.
“She’d better not follow for the WHOLE ride,” said Honeydew. She scowled after the departing Wind.
“I’d think it’s not that exciting for her by now,” said Mr. Grey, with no outward show of concern.
“She made a racket on the windows at that stilt house party. I hope she isn’t planning on a similar show.”
“I’m sure there’s no cause for concern. The marbles look stable.” Mr. Grey tried to sound reassuring, actually sounded ambivalent, and felt not sure at all.
At that moment, a familiar roar of a voice attacked Mr. Grey from behind. It blasted his nerves to fragments. “Grey!”
Mr. Grey and Honeydew synchronized in an about-face. The other passengers in line behind them shied back; cowering before the towering, thermos-sloshing, suspender-robe-outfitted image of Mr. Grey’s boss, Jack York.
Mr. York walked directly up to the pair. He addresses both their ears and noses, the former with his shouting voice, the latter with a thick gunpowder musk. “Your visa better be checked in triplicate. I want that de-allergen coming off in fumes. And have you filled out the guest clause? Are all logistical and provisioning requirements ready?”
“Yes… sir.” Mr. Grey swallowed a stutter.
“They’d better be.”
“Pleased to meet you Mr… click?” said Honeydew, with a questioning snap of tongue.
“York, miss,” Jack York nodded once at her, then returned to Mr. Grey. Then he turned back to Honeydew, and looked her up and down. Then back to Mr. Grey again. He did this while directing his metal shaker back and forth between the two, making sloshing sounds with each turn, and with a surprise blooming on his face.
He finally landed with his attention and his shaker on Mr. Grey. Something like softness and approval won over Jack York’s expression for a moment. He almost blurted, “Not bad, soldier,” but he recollected himself before those words escaped. Jack York quickly resumed a towering stature and imposing presence.
By the time Mr. York finished his evaluation, the conductor had waved the line forward. The three of them held up those behind in line, and the complaints were chiefly directed to Mr. Grey. Honeydew and Jack York were persons who complaints weren’t usually addressed to. The three moved up.
Under this shelling of stressors, Mr. Grey’s nerves scrambled. They fled for conclusions of the hasty variety. In trying to justify Mr. York’s arrival, Mr. Grey’s nerves decided that his boss had come to call the vacation off.
Mr. Grey felt disappointed at giving up the travel plans. He was crushed at letting down Honeydew. He released one sad, resigned exhalation through his nose; not noticed by anyone. Then he turned to Mr. York. His aspect hardened to a degree of stone-ness never before seen in a person. Mr. Grey said, “Well, sir. Do you have any more instructions.” He said it as a statement. Mr. Grey saw his words as the inevitable next line in some before-mapped chain of dialogue; one that he had no choice in advancing. He braced for disappointment.
Mr. Grey’s nerves felt confirmed in their logic when Jack York, rather than answering Mr. Grey, turned to Honeydew. “You see this, miss? You see Grey’s way? Be cautious with him. He’ll make you drag him through every checkpoint by the hand. I’ve got one piece of advice; don’t…”
“We’ll be fine,” said Honeydew, cutting him off.
“You interrupt me?!” Jack York’s voice burst as a thunderous cannonade on Honeydew. He whipped his thermos to her, with a slosh like a wave crashing on a metal cliff. The nearest people in line looked in alarm at the violent Regional Justice Center Manager, and retreated.
Honeydew, far from galled, clicked derisively. “I’m sure you’ve got exceedingly good advice. But we’re set. You can go back to… whatever you do.”
Jack York’s cheeks flushed like forge metal. Wrathful sweat steamed off his brow. Honeydew’s lips curled back wolfishly. Mr. Grey’s nerves - ready to bolt for the nearest ditch, like the passengers at the whistle - warned him that the dialogue was straying from its inevitable end. Resignation and Panic battled for his supremacy of mind. He tried reining things in. “Ahem, sir. Back to the point. If you had other orders… I only mean… well then. Yes?”
Jack York took a long moment in turning back to Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey counted the tocks in his ticker; though they added up correctly, each one seemed punctuated by a longer pause than usual. At last, Mr. York released his fury in a long breath, like smoke from a dragon engine. “No further instructions,” he said, unexpectedly.
Mr. Grey almost collapsed. His nerves didn’t quite believe his ears. They peeked tentatively from the harbor of resignation. Hope slipped back into Mr. Grey’s posture. He stuffed his hands into two dry pockets of robe, wiping the moisture from them inconspicuously.
Jack York’s comment had landed like a sudden, wakening slap. The follow-up came as a ‘for good measure’ backhand.
“Do you need a gun?”
Mr. Grey’s blank expression mirrored his thoughts. He utterly failed at comprehending the words. Honeydew looked suspicious. Mr. Grey considered the word for a long moment; an even longer one than Jack had taken in finding his calm. Jack York’s face never deviated from complete seriousness. Mr. Grey eventually said, “A gun, sir?”
In answer, Jack York pulled an excessively huge revolver from a fold beneath one suspender-stripe of his robe. “Six round cylinder, large bore, brushed stainless finish, double-sized hammer-and—trigger, full adjustable outline rear. Effectively used against ivory stompers during the war. Enough for any idiot keen on botheration.”
He held the firearm towards Mr. Grey. Mr. Grey glanced to the other people at the station. Fortunately, the passengers purposefully avoided looking in the direction of Jack York. The conductor was occupied taking tickets.
Honeydew snorted and turned her face away to hide her laughter. “Well sir,” Mr. Grey began, “I’m sure we won’t need any measure so extreme.”
“Correct. You don’t need it. Until the moment you do. Then, when you don’t have it, it’s too late. Crime’s rampant outside Starharbor. You’ll be glad of bargaining power.”
“Mr. York, it would be illegal. Weapons being outlawed and all. I couldn’t possibly…”
“Damn it all Grey! Don’t be a fuss.” Without further ado Jack York shoved the very heavy gun into Mr. Grey’s hands. Before the latter could refuse, the former said, “No more waffling. I’ve business. When you get back, we’ll go over those Justice Center reforms we talked about. Be ready for effort. Salary men like you have to earn that accounting-ease. Anyway, luck to you Grey.” And after a last glare at the still-laughing Honeydew, Jack York about-faced and marched away.
Mr. Grey tried calling him back and returning the weapon. Just then the whistle shrieked. Most people only jumped. Jack York exploded. He grabbed two other citizens in line, flung both over his left shoulder, and charged back towards the city. He shouted, “To cover lads! Foxholes!” as he ran. Before the whistle had disappeared into the higher pitches, Jack York was gone.
The conductor called for the next in line. Mr. Grey and Honeydew shared a confused shrug. They moved up, richer in luggage by one loaded firearm.
Prior to boarding the train Mr. Grey did, of course, relieve himself of the weapon. He gave it to the city bouncer guarding the depot. He might have had difficulties in explaining where he acquired it (not wanting to implicate Mr. York in any trouble). Luckily Honeydew came to his aid with the ever so clever ruse that they’d, “Found it lying around.”
The two eventually reached their turn with the conductor. Though Mr. Grey’s nerves repeatedly conjured the worst case scenarios, the conductor found their visas in order. Indeed, the man only skimmed through the two novel length documents before waving the pair onboard. They pushed their luggage across the smooth metal ramp beside the ‘Mind the Gap!’ sign, and passed through the egg shaped aperture into their train marble.
Every interior surface shone with near translucent cleanliness. The smog and jelly grime of Starharbor seen through the crystalline window contrasted harshly with the sterile, glossy coating of the shiny leather seats and shiny metal walls. The only vapor in the car came, not from Starharbor’s pervasive pollution, but from the frosting breath of the other passengers. Mr. Grey pulled his linen earmuffs from a pocket and sheltered his ears from the moistureless chill. The checkerboard floor and checkerboard ceiling brought a hypnotic wateriness to the eyes. Combined with the atmospheric change, both Mr. Grey and Honeydew spent their first moments in the marble car blinking back tears.
When Mr. Grey and Honeydew had finished blinking their eyes dry, they moved to a pair of empty seats. The seats were non-traditional. The leather devices were a tangled dreamcatcher of wide leather loops which formed a harness, suspended from the ceiling and attached to the floor by thick, silken ropes. The previous boarders had already strapped in. Most erred on the side of caution and tightly clamped the leather buckles. They looked like leashed muffins.
Mr. Grey and Honeydew couldn’t see where the other passengers had stored their luggage. They received an instant answer when Honeydew’s two boxes suddenly vanished down a hidden trapdoor tile into a compartment beneath the floor. At the same moment a pair of mechanical claws dropped from a similar trapdoor in the tiles above, plucked Mr. Grey’s suitcase and violin coffin from his hands, and yanked them into the ceiling with a whoosh.
Divested of their belongings, the pair fastened themselves in the shiny seat-harnesses. They both added some extra folds of robe between their skin and the cold leather.
Fully strapped in, and rid of the revolver - which would probably have been more trouble than boon - Mr. Grey’s nerves settled. He and Honeydew gave each other reassuring looks. At least, Mr. Grey’s face tried for reassurance.
They waited for the train to start.
It begins with a hiss, then a shudder, then a rush of blood. The cabin of the train tilts; slowly, slowly unsheathing cloudy sky through one glass window; dousing the other in the long, dark face of the tracks. Slowly, and still slowly, the room turns upside down. The signposts and the train depot and the conductor all dangle from a ground turned into sky. And now, not so slowly, it turns again. The cabin’s glass sides trade views, sky for tracks, tracks for sky. And now the train starts it all again. Spinning. Changing.
It begins in earnest with a flash and a rumble. The windows flash with sky and earth, sky and earth. The car rumbles against the tracks. Angry vibrations rattle through the walls, the harnesses, the passengers. Through a window ajar, cold breezes scurry and flit. Robes billow. Faces flush. A grey hand reaches for the window. The train tosses the hand back with an angry spin. Sky and earth and sky and earth blink past the windows: clouds of smog, arcing flamelight, train tracks, factory fumes, inverted skyscrapers, train tracks. Each blinks briefly against the eye, then vanishes. The train spins. The train changes.
By the flash and the rumble the room whirls. It rolls faster and faster. Now The Wind froths and sputters through the cabin. Frigid currents blast every passenger. Frigid currents rattle against the tiles. The grey hand reaches again for the window. Some invisible force, like too-thick water, holds it back. The window images strobe faster, faster than the passengers blink. Smog and lights and houses and city disappear into the murky distance. Snow-capped mountain fangs gnash and chatter up and down and up and down, with the rolling car and the rolling eyes clinging hopelessly to consciousness.
Now the windows flash in a mad reel, shuttering and shaking, faster and faster, no one image bursting on the leaden heads. The mad cold air smashes against faces that barely notice. A roof tile flies loose, its shatter lost in the whirlwind. A box of potpourri flies loose too, and a canteen of drinking water. Petal and water dance in a light-dark-light-dark flicker, to the roar and growl of the carriage. Everything flashes. Everything rumbles. Everything sticks wetly and smells cloying in the tumbling, rolling, shuttering, spinning, maddening churn of the changing train.
Further yet, endlessly, the marble train rolls on. Rolling, rolling, rolling through the shifting landscape. Down, down, down the jagged teeth of the mountains. Then, maddeningly, up and farther up; cresting a rise. Suddenly slowing. Pausing, mid-transformation. The still-awake see an altered scene. Flat fields. Strange signposts of twisting, three-pronged shape. Sunlight - genuine, fat, healthy sunlight - balmily baking the Wind chilled faces.
Then… by the flash and the rumble… off again! Tearing down the slope.
The marble train rolls on. Rolls remorselessly. Passing beneath shadows of high cliffs and mountains. Passing beneath Wind and sunshine. Farther and farther from Starharbor. Rolling and spinning its passengers into sightlessness, under a hail of scented petals and lashing water, under flashing windows, over rumbling tracks. The grey hand reaches a final time, towards the window, as though to shut out the changing Winds. But there is no will behind the reaching hand. Blindness has swallowed every eye of every passenger.
Mr. Grey dances, senselessly, in the marble train.