Prisoner of Fate Read Free Page A

yellow and the skies were eternal blue.
    A tooting horn drew her eyes to a horseless carriage that popped and sputtered around a corner into the street, steam hissing from its backside as it carried its four intrepid riders on its spindly frame and three wheels. All brass and steel, with an outlandishly oversized pair of purple sofa-like seats perched above a tiny, dark metal single-piston steam engine, the horseless carriage trundled past, its passengers and driver waving as if they were the sideshow that everyone had stepped out of their houses to see hiss and rattle by.
    The steam-powered carriages had started appearing on the streets two years ago, startling Meg the first time that she saw one. Their unreliability and propensity for accidents were already legendary, but people were fascinated by them and more were evident in Lightsword on this visit. Andrak inventors were constantly experimenting with sources of energy, seeking the magic of steam and improving the production of the fascinating wire-lightning that was rapidly replacing volatile gas pipes and lights.
    As the noisy vehicle vanished down the street, Meg waved to a conveyor who was waiting outside the stay-house for customers. ‘I want to catch a coach to the west,’ she told the driver as she climbed into the two-seater carriage. The driver nodded, touched the rear of his roan horse lightly with his whip and the wind caressed Meg’s face as the conveyer clip-clopped along the cobbles.
    There were only three passengers waiting for the coach at the station. Drawn by six horses, the coaches could carry up to twelve passengers—six inside and six on the outer sections. Meg had heard that the Andrak inventors were working on a steam-driven coach that could carry a hundred passengers, but none of the people who told Meg the rumours had actually seen the steam-coaches, and the coach drivers with whom she travelled across the Central Andrak plains and through the pass into Western Andrak did not believe such a vehicle could be built. ‘The inventors are clever,’ coach-driver Liam Haddrick told her when they stopped at an inn on the way to Lightsword, ‘but even they don’t have the magic to build a steam-coach to carry that many people. And who would want to be packed into a land vehicle with a hundred people anyway? Bad enough on a ship.’
    She hoped Liam was driving this trip, but the man who took her ticket, loaded her bag onto the back and opened the door to let her board, was new to her. The passengers were two women and an elderly man. She smiled politely as she took her seat beside the man, and immediately looked out of the window to avoid attention, but her ploy failed. ‘So where are you bound, love?’ one of the women asked.
    Meg turned her head, noting the woman’s plain grey dress, buttoned down the front, and her brown hair tiedback with a white ribbon. ‘Marella,’ she said. ‘West Andrak.’
    The woman’s face hardened. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ she asked.
    ‘Heard what?’ Meg inquired.
    ‘The Ranu broke through the lines. They’ve taken Bordertown and Retreat and some of their troops are outside Claarn.’
    Meg felt ice in her veins. ‘When did you hear this?’
    ‘This morning’s paper,’ the woman explained. ‘The government’s rushing troops from all areas to stop the Ranu advance. They say it’s the first time in thirty years that there’s been a real crisis.’
    ‘Where are you going, then?’ Meg asked, her mind racing with her heart, wondering how close to Marella the war had come.
    ‘Just to Tenhills,’ the woman replied. ‘My husband has a mill there.’ She reached forward and touched Meg’s knee gently, saying, ‘I didn’t mean to give you bad news. I thought people knew.’
    ‘That’s all right,’ said Meg, forcing a smile as she turned away. She stared back out of the window at the small crowd in the station. Fathers and mothers, children, old and young, carrying their belongings in black bags, blue