Author’s Note: Without further ado I present to you The Toymaker’s Opera, my current labor of love. Since the novel is still in the workshop, so to speak, I am going to be sharing regular chapters for free here on my blog. I won’t be able to show off the whole thing here, but it is my hope that the story will interest you and that when the time of publishing comes, that you will consider purchasing it or that you consider supporting me on my shortly-forthcoming Patreon. It would mean a lot to me. I write because I love to create new worlds and strange devices and fantastical settings and amazing people, but I can’t do it without your support. 

Disclaimer: As this is not the finished version the author reserves the right to change this and any following chapters in full or part; including but not limited to grammatical, editorial, stylistic, or plot-related changes. The author does not expect, however, for this version to differ vastly from the version that will be published in the near future.

That being said, The Toymaker’s Opera is an alternative-world steampunk adventure. It is a story about a poor fortuneteller, a living automaton, a mad Baron, and a city that dreams. It is a story about the price of friendship and happiness, about legacy and talent, blood and luck. But most of all, it is a story about the things that have no price.

The Toymaker’s Opera

Chapter One – Overture

Trimaris

It began in the magnetic air. Heavy clouds, thick and black and swollen with rain, coalesced over the valley. The first hesitant drops of the shower disappeared, hissing, into the restless sea. Each wave beat roughly against the plains of Stolenseam, washing loose its deposits of black chalk amongst the frothing swells. All in one breath the clouds split open, spilling their contents in a single wall of water that marched up the valley, over the flattened grasses and stalks of green wheat. Farmers and fieldhands ran for cover as the storm advanced, unstoppable and wild, across the quilted pastures and orchards, up the arm of the wide silver river, to the base of of the dark cliffs that rose, abruptly, from the valley floor; towering into the sky. The cliff stretched on, north and south, an unending line of sable rock that stuck out like a scar against the verdant land below and the cold, snow-capped peaks of the mountains above in the distance. Soaring to dizzying heights over the valley, the face of the cliff itself was as steep and abrupt as though it had been cut by a knife. There, fastened to the rock as though it was the prow of some iron ship, loomed the haggard city of the Sheer.

Rain sloughed against the marble-lined streets of the district of Sunsgate, hounding the wealthy gentlemen and women until they reached the relative safety of nearby shops and pavilions. Perched on the very edge of Copperlight the cisterns of the Il Susurrus opera house burst their caps and overflowed down the sluices. Rain clung to the sides of the rock towers that had been carved into the cliff, running slick and glossy down the black rock, spilling off the natural ledges and angled roofs along their sides. Among the silent sentinels of the skyscrapers all around them, working folk and those of lower means scampered for the cover of inside markets or the eaves of the thousand bridges that connected one ward to another. Gratings of iron and steel crisscrossed the space between the towers, sectioning off each district from its neighbor.

All throughout the city fire cats scampered for cover, their flaming coats hissing and spitting wherever the water touched them. They abandoned their lampposts and huddled with the nutcracker men under eaves and awnings, their wavering colors turning all the raindrops around them into a reflection of liquid fire. Howling gusts funneled down into the districts, grabbing hold of the brightly colored lines of lanterns that strung the length of Medtown and shaking them wildly. Rain hurled itself against the dark windows of the neighborhood’s nocturnal inhabitants, battering the glass and then falling below the street to Wrightsward, where the shopkeepers blew out their lanterns and locked their doors to the gale. From Scarlet’s March to Medtown to the humming doors of Tamamil’s Row, the rain washed into all the cracks, taking the soot with it as it splashed downwards, until the hidden corners of the Shade and the Warren and the Crossroads Clock ran black.

Nine towers in all stood sullen and dark against the downpour, three wide and three deep. Shops and crude apartments  riddled the rock, hollowed out by long-forgotten miners. A great iron palisade girded the midsection of the outer cliff wall, a set of jagged Teeth dividing the more affluent districts from those that nearly disappeared in the blurring shadows. Water dripped from the rope bridges, hammocks, and metal fasteners that had been installed where the city’s original construction had failed. Aqueducts and lifts ran down while pipes and chimneys ran up. Steam billowed up from the Faid Faran furnaces and the great boilers down below, laying heavy on every citizen like a second skin.

Cold rain cut through the warm mist, slapping against the peaks of Sunsgate, cascading through the channels between the Teeth, drumming along the market roofs of the Pride, and funneling, finally, into the narrow crevice beneath the last lift; down, down into the Junkyard.

And deep in the dark, somewhere beneath the jungle of pipes and the forgotten stairs, past the bones of soldiers and miners and the stain of old blood, there was music.

The high, sweet voice of a violin sang up through the iron vents and ductwork that crisscrossed the city. It played in counterpoint to the storm and the roaring of old machinery, faintly audible to many but performed for only one.

Her chair was tall and cold and rimed with old ice. A woman sat within its shadows, bound there in misery and by machination, listening with pain to the songs of summer and of the open sky. The clicking and dancing of gears and craning parts swirled their blue shadows over what was left of her face. No song could be as beautiful as those currently filling the bitter air, but if the groaning and creaking of the contraption that kept her alive was anything to guess by, very soon music would not be enough.

Trembling, Trimaris raised her fingers to get the violinist’s attention. Even the slight incline of her wrist sent a burning whip of agony cracking up her arm and into her shoulder. She managed to cry out this time; one canvas lung fluttering to keep up with its living counterpart. All around her the clockwork shuddered as she did, but held on.

The music stopped at once, cutting off in mid-note. “My sister, why do you weep?” her brother asked as he swam into view. Smooth hands touched Trimaris’ cheek. His long fingers ghosted past the tubes and wires that fed power into her day and night, fluttering over the gears that ran down her spine; which turned and turned ever tighter, winching her out onto the other side of pain.

She knew there was little he could do; the device had already afforded her more time than they had both predicted. Trimaris attempted to gather her scattered thoughts enough to speak. Most nights she listened as he played; dreaming of a time before the Sheer, before Alecto, when her mother was new and her father was a powerful sorcerer still, and not a legend vanished into the blue. She could not always escape into her mind; but during those sojourns from torment she left her chair and the machine far behind. Even the return of old nightmares was a welcome change. Snarling and roaring overhead, the device’s engine pulsed a brilliant cerulean blue, amplifying her thoughts and her anguish. She dreamed, and the Sheer dreamed with her.

At last the words coalesced and Trimaris rushed to say them before they dissipated. “The toymaker,” she whispered into her brother’s ear as he bent to hear her. “Please bring me the toymaker.”

Trimaris sat back, gasping from the effort. An ache that had started in her living lung was slowly pinching its way up through the wheezing valves of her heart. She held on, knowing the sensation would crest and pass. It did suddenly, washing through her atrophied muscles and spinning her gauges. The world went white and black at the same time.

She rode the wave, thin fingers clenching into a fist. As the pain moved on Trimaris drew strength from the tight-lipped, anxious expression on her brother’s face. She could remain this way, tied in to the pulse of the Sheer, for a little longer.

“Please,” she tried again, this time quieter and thinner, as the pain had left her weaker than before.

Her brother put a hand up to forestall any further words. He bowed once, heels coming together on the ice with a soft click. “Consider it done.”