Shanghai Steam by Calvin D. Jim

Author:Calvin D. Jim [Jim, Calvin D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Absolute XPress
Published: 2013-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Last Flight of the Lóng Qíshì

Emily Mah

The beggar arrives at sundown, his posture stooped as a shepherd’s crook, feet cracked and tough as old leather. His face is so lined with wrinkles that his eyes are nothing more than slits. A wispy gray beard sprouts from his chin and trails to one side in the wind. There is always wind in the city that time has forgotten and tonight it bears the scent of moisture and the promise of a storm.

With its tireless gusts the wind has broken down the old, stone walls, leaving them in ruin, and has scattered gears, parts of old vehicles, machines, and even people along with bits of carapace across the roads now buried in sand. There is a glass eye that stares blankly at the heavens. Across the way is a leg worked in iron, the padded sling atop it all rotted away.

This was a city of survivors, but now it is only a ruin. In its shadows flits a tiny figure, a little slip of a girl, who peers out between the cracked bricks with interest. Who is this old man who’s come so far across the wasteland? How did he survive temperatures that bake water right out of the skin by day and freeze one solid at night? What would he seek in a place so forsaken as this?

He seems unaware of her as he makes his way, a catch in his step that is not quite a limp, down the dusty memory of a street towards the far edge of town. His course is straight and implies purpose. Past two turns, the girl begins to guess where he is going; when he bears right at the next, she flies across the broken stones, moving like a darting shadow through the ruins, her gaze always fixed on the old beggar.

Her pulse quickens as he reaches the open area, once a town square, and pauses to look at the great wreckage that spans it like a fallen bridge, all rusted metal ribbing and great swathes of torn fabric, gears that are so gummed with sand that they will never turn again.

None of this gives the beggar pause. He walks to the far end of the wreck, stops, stoops, and pushes aside a handful of sand. One great glassy eye stares back at him, and the girl sees his wrinkles deepen in a smile.

Quick as a bird, the girl darts away to the little shanty town built up inside the old market. Gone are the cloth awnings that covered stalls of sweetmeats and trinkets, replaced by the ragtag shelters that stink of stale smoke and raw sewage. The broken roof, high above, gives some cover from the elements. “A Lóng Qíshì!” she cries out across the expanse of cookfires and junkpiles. Patched together automatons rattle in surprise at her shout. “A Lóng Qíshì!”

No human looks up. “She is a simple minded girl,” people whisper. “A little slip of a fool, nothing more.” “The Dragon Riders are a myth!” shouts one man.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.