Tobias

Tobias is trapped. He's willing to start anew, but good intentions are no good when you're trapped in a tower. Smithy, too, is trapped. Set in a steampunk-y alternate universe. Automatons abound.

The clock winked in the moonlight, as the hands swept about their silvery circuit. It was by far the brightest and most beautiful thing visible in his dank room, but it didn’t exactly have much to live up to. Mouldy tapestries, faded, worn family chronicles, motheaten and depressing, coated two walls. A huge gilt-framed portrait of two extraordinarily ugly women dominated the third wall, and the fourth was a mish-mash. It was crammed with a mixture of small still lifes, paint crackling with unrestored age; landscapes, generally cloudy views over oppressively rainy Scottish mountainsides; and, here and there, the occasional blank stretch of dismally peeling, grey wallpaper. The ceiling was metres too high " an unfortunate side-effect of having a quasi-tower as your room. A chandelier, dusty and forgotten by all but the room’s lone inhabitant, almost dripped forgotten grandeur…and the occasional spider. The only windows were up near the roof, and the feeble light they let in through their decades-old coating of spiderwebs was anything but cheerful. Not even the softening, mysterious moonlight could make this room anything other than what it was " incredibly bleak. This was not the décor Tobias would have chosen…but then, he did not have a choice in much of anything these days.

For the hundredth, or thousandth, or millionth time - he did not know; he had lost count after the first two years - he paced the confines of the room. Tobias Meriweather was anything but merry. He felt like a child (which he was…still) stuck down a well (which he wasn’t). The light was equally as faint, the walls were equally as confining, and he was equally as trapped. At least down a well there’d be water. Tonight he’d be lucky if his aunts threw him a remnant from their bi-weekly feast " not that there were ever many of those. (Remnants, that is. His aunts were inordinately fond of food.) His aunts, whose real names were Beryl and Tanya, could perhaps best be compared to pigs…no, that was demeaning to pigs. Tobias liked pigs. From what he remembered, they were lovely creatures, intelligent and clean. The cakey aunts shared none of these attributes. Spoiled, greedy, inutterably vain, spenders supreme - although, admittedly, pigs could be big spenders; since Tobias had never read about or heard of a pig with a key to Wengrille’s Bank, he did not know much about the monetary habits of swine.  Anyhow, in short, they were the relatives from hell. They were the ones either you paid off to live elsewhere (if you were rich and/or lucky) or else they clung to you like barnacles to a rock and never let go. Unfortunately, they had decided to cling to Tobias’ family. After his mother had died, naturally.

Beryl and Tanya had lived in terror of their sister-in-law since the incident on Tobias’ sixth birthday, involving a plum pudding - the downside of being born the day before Christmas - , the new robotic butler, and Uncle Milton’s horrendous velveteen smoking jacket, the one he only brought out for “special occasions” and which had been known to provoke attacks of the vapours from more sensitive observers upon first sight. (Great-uncle Reverend Basil, a more theologically inclined member of the Meriweathers, had once attempted to exorcise it. Unfortunately the ceremony was interrupted by his wife Clara, with the exact words “You’ll only make it angrier, dear.”) Milton had been questioned multiple times as to why he chose to wear such a revolting piece of fabric " but he had never provided a straight answer. Tobias’ impressionable cousins had believed that the King had made a deal with Satan, and the jacket was God’s way of punishing the country. Tobias generally did not believe in the supernatural, but he made an exception in the jacket’s case.

If he had believed in extraordinary things happening, perhaps his escape from his miserable life would have been realized that much quicker.

*   *   *

Smithy dropped from the pine branch she had been hiding in, and sprinted for the gates. Her lantern was bobbing from her belt, strobing crazily over the bronze-plated attackers. Their boots crunched on the snails that dotted the pine-needled forest floor, and the cracking of branches rang through the crisp air like shots.

The icy air burned its way down her throat, far too loud, far too painful. Smithy’s world had narrowed until there was almost nothing else in the universe. Just her " and the things dogging her footsteps. No sound but breathing, no feeling but adrenaline, no ground until it met her feet. The moon’s eye beamed over the scene, the girl, running like a wild thing; the trees, menacing over all; the gate, bewebbed and rusty; the mansion, yellow beams lighting the scene from the windows, and" the robots.

The gate seemed to be moving further away " but how was that possible? Despite Smithy’s poor excuse for a life, even she had learned that if you ran very fast towards something, it generally got bigger, not smaller. But then, it was Hallowe’en night. Perhaps the laws of physics changed when ghosts were about.

She didn’t have the strength or the time to look over her shoulder, but she could still hear those terrible crunching footsteps behind her. She could almost feel their horrible, armour-plated hands reaching for her, grabbing at the space where she had been a second before.  How was she supposed to outrun automatons? They had infinite strength, infinite time. She, on the other hand, felt like there was no strength, no air left in the world at all - or, at least, none that she could suck into her aching lungs. Her legs were beginning to shake, she was about to collapse, and the gate was still so far away. ‘I have to be running faster than this!’ she thought desperately. Perhaps it was time to change tactic. If she couldn’t escape, maybe she could at least cause enough damage to the automatons to irritate her captors. Anything to ensure this midnight adventure had not been in vain.

Changing her direction abruptly, she ran directly towards the hulking, bronze figures. Her original plan was to run directly between them before they’d had time to react, confusing them. Unfortunately, Smithy had underestimated their speed, and overestimated her own.  She was immediately caught up in a tangle of bronze, bolt-studded arms, and slung unceremoniously over the largest robot’s broad shoulder. It immediately made an about-face and began marching back through the dusk towards the lighted windows of the mansion, its smaller counterpart falling into step behind it. 

Smithy beat her fists on the robot’s back, and tried the customary response of attempting to reason with the automaton, but she knew it was futile. She was only going through the motions, really. She was too far away to reach the robot’s control panel, and if she couldn’t have access to its circuits, she couldn’t change a thing in its metallic head. Eventually, she just hung limply, and waited for her hour of judgement - the third one this month.

*   *   *

Tobias picked up the mirror from the drawer and examined it. It was beautiful, that was for certain, with its handsomely engraved silver back, and elegant handle. It was the sort of trinket that would belong on the dressing table of a woman of high society, and as such looked very out of place in the depressingly grey bedroom -especially when held by someone such as Tobias. 

He examined his pale face in the mirror (what little of it he could see in the faint moonlight cast from the window high above him). Dark eyes stared back at him from a refined, if wan-looking, face - Roman nose, pale skin, mouth turned down at the corners.  His dark hair was far too long, in his opinion, but he hadn’t any way of cutting it. His reflection reminded of him of someone else, and his face crinkled up a little, unwillingly, along with the painful memories. The memories of happier times were faded, yes. Tattered, even, but that didn’t stop the emotions flooding him as though she had left only yesterday.  Why was he so weak? Why did he have to do this to himself every single time?

 He raised an arm swiftly, as if to throw the beautiful mirror across the room in anger, then changed his mind just as quickly. Tobias brought it softly down, turned it over, and ran his fingers across the silver vines curling their way across the back. They twined and entangled, separating and twirling and swirling motionlessly around a small, coloured portrait of a woman in the centre. Her dark hair was pulled back elegantly, and her equally dark eyes crinkled up at the corners. A delicate necklace was the only adornment over her simple white dress. She smiled out of the paint, out of the past, not knowing how her life - and that of her son - would soon be shrouded in darkness.  An inconspicuous inscription along the base of the oval portrait read “Elisa Meriweather - Light, Love, Life”. Tobias barely glanced at the words, knowing them off by heart already. Instead, he chose to fix his eyes on the woman. He sighed, his eyes lingering on the sight of his mother for barely a second, before blowing a lock of hair off his forehead and dragging himself out of his own depressing memories. He flipped the mirror over again, hiding her ever-smiling face and replacing it with his own, which had not smiled in weeks, if not months.

Tobias scrunched up his face as much as he could, grimacing at himself in the mirror. Childish, yes, but it made him feel a bit better. He scrubbed angrily at his eyes with his free hand, daring the tears to try to reform.  He’d dried enough tears in the last few years. More would be simply unproductive. He had to stop feeling sorry for himself, and start planning. He was supposed to be intelligent! Surely he could outwit two fat, slow women. They hadn’t thought once in the last few years, and he doubted that was going to change anytime soon.

As if making a resolution, he slammed the dresser drawer open, placed the mirror carefully in its customary place, and closed the drawer just as carefully. Then he began to pace his small, fusty room, glaring up at the portraiture on the walls. He had to think.

He had only been pacing for a few minutes (tracing a train over the dusty floorboards as he did so) when his door swung open, emitting a dismal creeeaaaaakkk as it did so. A tall, pale, spidery-looking man (complete with bristly black hair, spindly limbs, and beady eyes) glided through the door and unfurled himself. The arachnid characteristics did not stop there, however " the man moved like a spider, and he seemed to have slightly too many limbs. This was the butler, Mortimer Kurstka. Mortimer adjusted his tie, straightened his pristine white gloves, and said, in a slightly incongruous booming voice, “The Madames Beryll and Tanya wish to see you in the Boudoir. If Master Meriweather would just follow me…?”

*             *             *

Smithy scratched at the threadbare carpet with the toe of her shoe. Her uncle’s words were flowing over her, like water in a river flows over a stone, and she was absorbing it at about the same rate " that is to say, not at all.

Her uncle was striding (as much as a short, chubby man with tiny feet can stride) self-importantly over the carpet in front of her, waving his flabby arms every now and then for emphasis of a very important point. His handlebar moustache waved briskly in the cold air of the parlour as he talked.

“…I mean, really! Teresa, you must stop this, really you must. You have a gracious home - I mean, just look at this place!” At this point he paused and spread his arms wide dramatically, as though revealing a magical secret, or unveiling something wonderful he’d made himself. In fact, the room they were currently in was somehow bleak and stuffy at the same time, especially in the light from the softly flickering fireplace.

 Small, delicate tables dotted the room, each supporting some kind of trinket or knick-knack. China milkmaids smiled vacantly from miniature porcelain hills, looking strange and spectre-like in a few dark corners. Overtly faux gold-plated clocks dotted the room, each telling a different, incorrect time. A few taxidermied rabbits were posed in several “lifelike” stances across the room, ranging from crouching and looking cute, to eating a (fake) daisy. There were a few odd plant pots here and there, but the vegetation had long ago withered away from neglect, lack of sunlight and thirst. The tacky trinkets looked strange and out of place compared to the original panelling (faded, stern-looking wood) and carpet (a deep crimson, dotted with a darker maroon diamond here and there). The windows looked out into the grim grounds, onto the gate that had been so recently breaking the laws of reality " or so it had seemed to Smithy at the time. The spaces in the room that weren’t filled with tables had overstuffed winged armchairs, or rock-hard footstools that looked unappealing and smelt worse. Almost everything in the room was coated with a quarter of an inch of dust, save for a few trails here and there where the room had been used.

Smithy took all this in with a slightly crinkled nose, despite having seen it once or twice before. Its almost magnificent awfulness always struck her like it was the very first time. It was, quite possibly, the most unpleasant place she had ever been in " and that was counting the time she’d tried to escape through the sewers a few months ago. At least there weren’t any tacky porcelain milkmaids in there.

Uncle Claude sunk into the nearest armchair, still yammering. Eventually, the lecture slowed to a trickle, as Claude’s yawning reached a peak. “…and stop doing this at night, for the love of Hephaestus! I need my sleep, in order to be fit for a solid day’s work in the morning!” he said, trailing off again into a plethora of yawns interspersed with the occasional word of an almost inaudible tirade.

Smithy snorted internally. If you call sitting on a stupid dusty armchair, ordering Walter around and eating cheesy puffs all day ‘work’, she thought. Almost as though he had read her mind, Uncle Claude reached for a small button installed into the wall beside the fireplace, near where the armchair sat. “WALTER! Cheesy puffs to the Morning Room, my good man!” he yelled into the wall. A crackle of static came over the tiny intercom, before Walter replied, only a little more grouchily than usual, “If I have to.”

Claude jabbed the button again with his pudgy finger. “Indeed you do, friend.” He pronounced the word ‘friend’ as though he was talking to a toddler he did not particularly like. Smithy was glad she wasn’t on the receiving end of that " for Claude’s sake, more than anything. Smithy could hear a barely concealed curse before Walter replied, with more than an undercurrent of distaste, “Yes, sir.” Claude seemed to ignore the tone, and cheerfully released the button, cutting the autoneer off before he could launch into the tirade of well-chosen curse words Smithy knew he was dying to yell at Claude. “So hard to find a good autoneer these days,” the chubby man muttered to himself. Smithy began to edge cautiously towards the door, but a look from Claude told her that if she took a single step more she could say goodbye to food for a few days " or weeks. Sulky, Smithy sank onto a nearby pouffe, caught a whiff of the smell from it (a delightful mixture of urine, old makeup and a faint hint of fish), decided that sitting down had been a bad idea, and almost immediately decided she was far too tired to look for another seat. She sunk her head onto her hands, massaging her forehead as she began plotting her next escape.

The unhappy family unit had only been sitting in silence a few minutes when the bronze Chefmaton wheeled its metallic self into the room from the newly arrived dumbwaiter, whirring a little as it did so. It made its smooth way across the room towards the fireplace, carefully avoiding the delicate tables, and balancing a tray of cheesy pastries on its conveniently flattened ‘head’. Smithy raised her head a little and watched it go, fascinated as always by the mechanics of the thing, despite it being more than a few years out of date.

The whole contraption was shaped rather like a barrel, with several tanklike treads on its lower half. It had a thin band of sensors encircling its upper half that sparkled beetle-black in the firelight. Smithy knew from personal experience that every one of those sensors were extendable " she still had bruises from helping Walter to repair it the last time it broke down. The Chefmaton was commonly called ‘Aphrodite’ by Smithy in her head, for no reason other than the fact that it sounded like an unexpected name for something that was heavier than a smallish pony and twice as temperamental. Aphrodite’s top ‘lid’ was gyroscopically mounted, with a thin rim around the edge to stop the various hors d’oeuvres and drinks it was regularly loaded with from falling off. It was, of course, bronze-plated, as were most of the automatons currently in production.

It came to a smooth halt beside the dusty, Claude-filled armchair, and tilted its serving plate invitingly towards him. In a slightly jerky, scratchy voice, it inquired “Would the " steward " care for some " cheesy puffs?” It did not have a face per se, but it would probably have been smiling invitingly if it had.

Claude ignored the machine’s polite question as though it had not spoken, choosing instead to fix his eyes on the prize. His hand hovered over the golden pastries like a fat, bald eagle picking its prey, before swooping down upon the largest one with joyful abandon. Smithy’s nose crinkled again as she watched the cheesy puff massacre. Shards of pastry floated down like autumn leaves to adorn the crimson carpet. Within a matter of minutes, most of the plate had disappeared down his gullet.

Urgh, that’s disgusting! thought Smithy. That’s it, I’m leaving. I don’t care if I’ll be a bit hungry for a while, at least it means I won’t have to watch this. Smithy’s resolve hardened, and she stood.

 “Uncle Claude, I "“

But her words were cut short by the clacking of heels down the corridor outside. A second or so after she noticed this, the doors were flung open, and the mistresses of the house swanned in. Smithy sat down hastily. Running away from automatons, I can do. Small spaces, I can do. Standing up to Claude…I can do. Sometimes. But draw attention to myself when they’re in the room? Not a chance!

“Claudey!” squealed the slightly fatter one, ignoring Smithy entirely. She swooped down upon the armchair, arms outstretched, rose-pink hoop skirt swinging behind her like an unsecured mainsail in a storm. “How are you?” Claude visibly blanched as she drew nearer, but she appeared to ignore this.

“T-tanya!” he stuttered. “Milady! Wh-what are you doing up at this time of night?”

“Oh, you know, this and that,” Tanya replied, tossing her head and flicking one hand carelessly. “Beryl does snore so.” Beryl shot her sister a glare that would have eviscerated her alive if it were possible. Tanya continued, regardless. “…and I happened to look out my window and see my automatons chasing a child across the grounds. You know we have a limited amount of fuel, dear?” Her small eyes fell upon Aphrodite, and more specifically the few remaining cheesy puffs on its head. She smiled greedily. “Tut, tut, ordering cheesy puffs again, are we? And using my-” Beryl coughed, “-I mean, our automaton to do it!” 

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's Note

I know it's not done. And I realize that Tobias and Smithy haven't actually met yet. I'm getting to that! Just tell me what you think so far. Is Tobias too angsty? Am I too wordy? Likes? Dislikes?
Also, I apologise for punctuation-related stuffups. Silly Word formatting... -_-

Reviews

[soneutral]

It's interesting so far. It has an interesting mix of sci-fi (automatons) and classic fiction (the characters, the setting). I do think it's a bit wordy, though; your descriptions, although good, get to be a bit distracting at times and I had to read certain passages again to get the gist of them. Also, some of the back story did not seem too pertinent (Tobias' uncle, for example) and I think you said the room had milkmaids and then later you said it didn't.
Overall, I like your writing for its simplicity in reading, most of the descriptions and the interesting story.
Good luck and I look forward to reading the rest!