Star Veil Read online

  Star Veil

  The Star Clock Chronicles, book 2

  E.J. Kitchens

  Copyright © 2020 by E.J. Kitchens

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Scripture quotations are from The ESV Bible (The Holy English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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  Cover design by Elementi.Studio@99designs

  Scene break image by “Thanks for your Like - donations welcome” @ Pixabay

  Star Veil (The Star Clock Chronicles, #2) / E.J. Kitchens —1st edition

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  The Adventure Continues

  A Free Novelette

  About the Author

  Of Magic Made

  THE MAGIC COLLECTORS

  Midnight for a Curse

  The Omnibus List

  A Page Away

  “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.” Jeremiah 32:17

  1

  A faerie queen once loved a mortal man. He promised her the moon and the stars—she gave them to him, before she tired of him and slipped away into her own realm again, never caring to undo the chaos she’d caused. For she’d cast a crystal-studded veil between heaven and earth, obscuring the lights the Maker created, the sun for the day and the moon and stars for the night. To all but a faithful few, the knowledge of them was blotted out, like the maps and star clocks that allowed men to travel where they wished, sure in their destination, of their place wherever they were. Men’s fate she left in the control of her lover, who fashioned himself the Rí Am, the Time King.

  Captain Davy Bowditch hated automatons. Hated that he couldn’t tinker with them to find out how they worked—without them deliberately exploding on him. Hated being dependent on them to get where he needed to go, assuming the Rí Am’s minions approved he could go there. Hated the exorbitant rates charged for them, which tended to make both him and his men explode in anger.

  “That’s a quarter of the value of the cargo! All we want is a reroute!” The baritone voice of Davy’s first mate, Philip Orren, carried through the Dondre Time Keeper Station’s marble halls like the cook’s dinner bell. It got everyone’s attention.

  Davy laid a hand on Philip’s arm and looked at the clerk. “How much for a navigator automaton for the airship’s Escaper?”

  “It’s not safe to go so far in one of those,” Philip insisted. Hale and hearty at about fifty, with dark hair tied back at his neck and a permanently scruffy silver beard, Philip wasn’t one to use “not safe” lightly.

  Davy clenched his jaw. “I’ve got to get to Sheffield-on-the-Sea to look for Marianna, but I can’t ask the men to give up what little profit they’re already getting. I can make it in the Escaper. We can if you want to see your family before the current route gets us there in three months.” Davy prayed he’d find his sister there alive and well, despite reports of the wreckage of her airship, which had held nearly half the island’s winter food supply.

  He glared at the clerk. “And we asked for Sheffield-on-the-Sea, not Briney Bay. It’s still a hundred miles from there to the island.”

  The clerk, separated from them by bars in the marble counter, studied the papers in front of him, sliding the bottom memo in and out of the stack. “Briney Bay’s a much better place to go,” he squeaked out.

  The clerk at the next window leaned toward his comrade. “Tell them.”

  “But—”

  “It’ll be announced in a little while anyway.”

  He swallowed. “Sheffield-on-the-Sea has rebelled again, got caught with iron. The Rí Am ordered a rerouting for all vessels, land and air and sea, away from Sheffield-on-the-Sea as punishment. Their Time Keeper Station has already been closed and all automatons removed.”

  The blood drained from Davy’s face. Behind him, Philip gasped.

  “Your automaton will have received orders concerning the latter part of your route. You’ll be told later what to do with the supplies you were taking there.”

  “But … but that’s murder.” Philip’s cracked voice barely reached the clerk’s window. “They depend on the food and fuel brought in to last them the winter.”

  The clerk flinched. “Unless you want the reroute to Briney Bay, pick up your serviced automaton at Window 23. Next please.”

  Davy and Philip stumbled to Window 23, Davy catching and tossing away every possible way to navigate themselves to Sheffield-on-the-Sea, but every option involved a voyage of no return—like his brother’s attempt to be free of the Time King—or death at the hand of the Time Keeper Reconnaissance Teams. No invention of his for telling time or distance traveled had come close to working. The faerie veil obscured such thoughts. How long, O Lord? How long will you suffer the Star Veil to blot out the heavens mentioned in your Word? The Rí Am to rule our days and nights? Or was it true what the Rí Am taught, that the Maker was a myth, just like the sun, moon, and stars he supposedly created? Why else would he let the veil linger?

  Davy fisted his hands. Anger and doubt would do him no favors.

  In front of them, a somber cabby handed over a receipt for a horse-cart navigator—the automaton complete with a rounded derby, goggles, and a great coat—then made way for Davy and Philip as he hurried to the conveyor next to the window.

  Beyond this barred window, two clerks slid a five-foot automaton into a wooden crate, fastened the crate, and placed it on the conveyor. With its brown painted hair and eyes, insulting blue captain’s jacket, and crystal pins shaping the Rí Am’s emblem on its chest, this mechanized doll ruled so many lives. Whenever you choose to take down the Time Keepers and even the faerie veil itself, Lord, I want to help.

  Two months later

  Captain Davy Bowditch hated being mugged. Hated being shushed.

  “Calm down, Dovey. Do you want to catch the Time Keepers’ attention?”

  Hated being called “Dovey” by anyone but his kid sister. But the large pair of hands that had dragged him into an alley on his walk back to the airship after an evening meal with a local friend, and the irritated voice behind him, were decidedly masculine.

  Davy launched himself backward. His assailant grunted as he hit the alley’s brick wall with Davy pressed against him. Davy spun around and grabbed the man’s throat.

  “Who are you and why did you call me ‘Dovey’?” he growled in the man’s face.

  “Bertram Orren, Marianna’s husband,” he rasped, pulling at Davy’s fingers.

  “Her what!”

  “My husband, so don’t hurt him.”

  Davy spun around to face the petite, chestnut-haired woman who’d snuck up beside him. “Marianna!” He pulled her into a hug. “We feared you’d died, and then the ban came on traveling to Sheffield-on-the-Sea and—”

  “I know, Davy. I feared I’d never see you again either.” She tightened her arms about him, then pulled back. “But we don’t have much time. Bertram and I have been in hiding. We escaped Sheffield-on-the-Sea with a circus, with the help of a couple of unusually talented Sky Keepers—a father and daughter. Instinct tells us they have a greater part to play yet, if they’re willing. I pray they are. Since leaving them, we
’ve been traveling with different groups trying to meet up with you.”

  Davy looked over his shoulder at his brother-in-law—it would take time to get used to that—and mouthed an apology as the man rubbed his neck. Well-built with a sensible look, Bertram smiled an acceptance and picked up a gunnysack from the ground beside him. Bertram Orren. Was he Philip’s favorite nephew? He narrowed his eyes. Or the one Philip didn’t trust?

  “We found a faerie trove, Davy”—Marianna shook him gently to regain his attention—“full of things they stole from our ancestors: books on navigation, star charts, maps, and even a metal disc with moving needles.”

  “We think it’s called a ‘compass,’” Bertram said, “but we haven’t figured out how to use it yet. The faerie curse befuddles us or it. Or maybe it’s my iron knife that does.” He pulled a worn book from the duffle and held it out to Davy, whose heart was beating too fast to say anything. Was his prayer being answered so soon? “While we’re working on that and getting Darius and Caroline Lockley to print copies of the books and maps we escaped with, we have something for you to do.”

  Marianna took the book from her husband and put it in Davy’s hands. “You’re the best inventor and builder I know, Davy. The compass and something else called a sextant—figure out how they’re made and make blueprints. Give them to the Sky Keepers so we can make more.” She tapped the book in his hands. “And you’ve got to build the Star Clock and find a way to calibrate it. Time, distance, direction. For air, land, and sea. We’ve got to have them all if we hope to be free of the Rí Am’s control.” She took her husband’s hand. “And get supplies to Sheffield-on-the-Sea before winter sets in.”

  Davy stared at the book, Star Chronometer and Navigation, in awe, then his slack mouth curved into a grin. He had a whole lot of parts to acquire without the Time Keepers getting suspicious, but he had their automaton to thank for getting him to the parts stores.

  2

  “You’ve been to every parts store in every port you’ve stopped at this voyage, Captain.”

  Even though an aisle separated her from the accusatory clerk and the unfortunate captain, Abigail “Prism” Andrews flinched.

  “Someone’s about to be in trouble with the Time Keepers.” Beside her, Banger Conrad, newest member of the traveling circus her father was part owner in, smirked.

  Prism tilted her hat forward, shadowing her face, and sped her hands as she dug through a barrel of gears, searching for the one her father requested, her heart increasing its pace as well. Time Keepers don’t like people who sneak copies of the Word around to those who need it. As well as sneak wanted Sky Keepers around.

  “Well, I am an inventor—and an airship captain—and I can’t be good at either if I don’t have parts,” a man replied with a humorous lilt to his voice. “Besides, I like to shop around.”

  The clerk’s reply was lost to Conrad’s mimic, “I like to shop around.” He pulled a bag of peanuts from his pocket, crushed the papery shells of several nuts, and popped the peanuts into his mouth, letting the shells fall to the floor like leaves in autumn. “He must be building something the Time Keepers won’t like.”

  Prism ground her teeth. Why had her father decided to send Conrad with her instead of coming himself? He’d not let her go anywhere alone since a prince of Amezak, one of their most lucrative stops, decided he wanted to add a circus freak to his collection of wives. He hadn’t taken Prism’s refusal well, and in the chaos that followed, the circus had barely escaped, and they’d been separated from Marianna and Bertram. Fortunately, the pair had been able to contact them later to let them know they were all right and to check on Prism.

  Prism suppressed a shudder and held up the supply list to the canon operator. “Help me find these so we can get out of here.”

  His gaze skimmed over the list on its way to the street-facing door as two Time Keepers entered, revolvers strapped to their belts. “What’s the hurry? The clerk and the cap will be busy for a while, I should say. Your father still has to get the automaton programed to navigate our next tour … since we can’t go through Amezak again.”

  Prism tore the list in half and shoved the lower portion in Conrad’s peanut husk–dusted hand. “Parts. Now.”

  Conrad blinked, glanced from her to his hand, then narrowed his eyes. Prism held his stare, figuring that even though her goggles concealed her eyes, he’d guess she was glaring at him. Finally, he crumpled the paper into his fist and stalked off. Prism let out a breath. There were advantages to having a sharp shooter and knife thrower as a father … and trainer. And having crazy eyes.

  The voices at the register grew louder, but Prism ignored them, noting instead a couple of other unsavory characters entering the store. Slouchy clothes but buttoned cuffs—buttoned to hide the pirate’s wrist tattoo?

  Prism shook her head. Port cities. Her circus usually traveled overland and never had dealings with air pirates. They’d not bother her. Saying a quick prayer for the unknown captain against the Time Keepers, Prism pulled her hat down even further, grateful the fashion allowed for heavily decorated hats that might detract from the darkened goggles she wore when out in public. If the Time Keepers knew what her freakish eyes allowed her to see, she wouldn’t be in danger: she’d be dead.

  She turned back to the bin. “Aha.” She snatched up the flawless, perfectly sized herringbone gear, deposited it in her bag, and searched her half of the list for the next item.

  A flash of movement caught her eye. A tiny ball, about two shades darker than the floor—nothing was the same color to Prism—rolled from the direction of the clerk’s counter to the wall.

  Boom!

  A noise that sounded suspiciously like generic gunfire was rapidly followed by the acrid odor and hazy air indicative of exploded gunpowder, then by the crash of breaking glass. Prism ducked behind the barrel and covered her nose and mouth as a breeze from the open window two aisles over smeared gun smoke across the store like fog, the pea soup kind the caravan drivers wouldn’t budge in.

  Footsteps pounded down the aisle toward her. A blue jacket materialized in the smoke.

  “Bowditch!” A cry from the Time Keepers.

  “Pardon me,” the man in blue yelled back toward the register, “but I must get this young woman to safety. Chivalry of captains and all that. Can’t risk her getting hurt in a pirate’s revenge.”

  Before Prism could react, the captain had her over his shoulder and was running toward the open window. He turned a corner sharply, and she swung to the side and caught a glimpse of Conrad kneeling before the open window, hands together, fingers threaded as if about to give someone a boost up.

  Conrad was grinning a wicked grin. “Luggage’s at the dock, cap.”

  “No!” Prism screamed as the captain vaulted out the window.

  Conrad’s smirk, window frame, bricked alley all passed beneath her. The whirring sound of a PullLine being deployed was succeeded by a jerk. The alleyway bricks grew smaller. They swung up and toward whatever building the captain’s PullLine attached to. Grunting, the man stopped their collision against the wall with his legs, then began hauling them up, walking along the building’s side.

  Prism set her jaw as her heart rate slowed, remembering its years of training for performances. So Conrad and the others thought they could ship her off with a captain so they could profit on Amezak, did they? Well, they had another thing coming.

  Wishing she were in her acrobatics practice costume instead of her good dress, she arched her back and swung her legs until she caught the PullLine between her ankles. A few twists and a good shove against the captain, and she was scaling the building while the chivalrous captain was exclaiming—not quite cursing, which surprised her—somewhere down below as he struggled to regain control of the PullLine.

  Prism hoisted herself onto the rooftop and plotted a course over the next two and down into an alleyway. With a quick glance at the captain—he was gaining fast and yelling in a rather commanding tone for her to wait for hi
m—she sprinted over the slanted roof.

  “Look out!” the captain yelled.

  A whistle split the air, a dart pierced her arm. Two steps later, darkness clouded her vision. Prism slumped to the rooftop and began to slide.

  3

  “I may have taken the wrong woman.” Davy turned from the unconscious, drugged woman in his first mate’s bed to his first mate.

  “Why is that?” the older man asked. “Other than she nearly died trying to get away from you?”

  Davy scowled, but Philip didn’t seem perturbed. “Because I spied another father and daughter pair as we left. Marianna spoke of a father and daughter who would help us, as did the note.”

  “Ah,” Philip replied. That did seem to disturb him, a bit.

  “And the man I assumed was her father, he’s the one who put the dart of sleeping potion in her arm—while she was on a rooftop. Hardly the sort of thing a father does.”

  “Why didn’t you leave her?”

  Davy shrugged, then rubbed his forehead. “I couldn’t very well leave her to fall off the roof, could I? Once I caught her, it seemed obvious to finish what I started. But now, I’ve got a stranger on board, and I can’t let her go. Someone knew about our meeting, Philip. Angry pirates and suspicious Time Keepers don’t converge at obscure parts stores by accident.” He would definitely be staying away from parts stores for a while, until the Time Keepers thought they’d scared him into submission.

  “You think they meant for you to take the wrong woman?”