Prologue
Six Years Earlier
Through endless trails of blustery waters, was the unwavering lighthouse. It was bright and welcoming then, with it’s light guiding the many travelers who would come to the prosperous Burnside, seeking wisdom in invention and machinery. Ships, now, were not ordinary ships of course, not sailing, but floating weightlessly in the air. Living inside it, was the eccentric inventers Alexandra and Victor Gearwell, with their only daughter, Linden.
While her father and mother busied themselves inventing the most wild and beautiful creations, Linden, would assist in managing the lighthouse. She would gaze coming ships during her spare time, making up stories about who the passengers were, sighing when ship floated away. Going to big cities, ones further west such as and Peddleston and Melodian, were the perfect places, she thought, to go have adventures. Linden, nine at the time, was looking out the lighthouse window with her mother.
“You know,” Said Linden to her mother, brushing her deep red hair out of her eyes “I bet that the people coming off that ship are really creatures in disguise!”
“Oh, don’t be silly” exclaimed Alexandra. “Come down with me to the workplace, I have something to give you. I do believe that today is someone’s birthday?”
Alexandra was a beautiful woman with shadowy red hair and haunting, yellow eyes, and Linden was a spitting image of her.
In the workplace, there were endless supplies or gears, wire, and other steam punk like gadgets. Linden’s father, Victor, hurriedly covered up a device he was making when Linden and her mother walked in. Victor was a very lofty man with dark hair and eyes.
“Linden,” said Victor “your mother and I have something we want to give you”
Cautiously, he pulled a bony, ornate key out of his pocket. It was on a long leather strap.
“This is a key for one of my old inventions,” he explained.
“It’s lovely father; for which invention?” Linden asked
A chilled, scared look, something she had never seen in her father, filled his eyes.
“I can’t say, but I really need you to have it for safe keeping”, he said, placing it over her head. “Happy Birthday, Lindy.”
“Victor”, whispered Alexandra, “I think we better contact, well, the others to transport the invention”
As soon as Linden’s parents descended up the stairs, a crashing, ear-splitting sound rang out and traveled to the workroom. She heard, gruff voices, asking where the “machine was”. The one that was the loudest was, almost, familiar, as if she had known its owner for a long time. Then she heard a loud cry from her mother:
“Hide, Linden!”
Linden, looking in all directions of the workroom, spotted the dumbwaiter that her parents used to transfer their more delicate inventions upstairs. Clutching the key around her neck, she leaped into the dumbwaiter, and closed down the door, not even daring to breath. Then, she heard something that changed her life forever, two scary, loud sounds, then hearing the stomping of boots going down the stairs:
“Well, don’t just stand there, find it!” ordered the familiar voice
“What about this “Linden fellow”?” asked a deep voice
“All we can worry about right now is that machine. Do you need to remember what happened last time we didn’t keep on schedule?”
Linden heard the stomps and shuffles of feet, knocking over and digging through her parents’ machines.
“Hey chief, we found it.”
The “chief” glided over from the bottom of the stairs and uncovered the device; the one Linden’s father had tried to hide from her.
“All, right then,” said the chief in a slightly happier voice, “Pull it up the stairs, and someone, please get rid of the “evidence”, we have to leave without a trace.”
But what about the “Linden”? Asked a new voice
“I told you, we already got to the two and have the invention, so I really don’t care”
Linden froze, almost to the point of being catatonic
“And what of the other inventors, we have to go steal from them.” exclaimed the chief
“They went off the grid, sir. Didn’t the Boss tell you?”
“What? They have the other piece, you idiot! We’ll have to find them!”
The last thing Linden heard was the marching of feet up the stairs, and than the slam of the door. Linden crawled out of the dumbwaiter and ran up the stairs. Her parents were gone. There was a single drop of blood on the floor. Seeing it; her torn apart house, the blood, she broke down and cried. Clutching the brass key around her neck, Linden vowed that one day, she would give those people what she deserved.
A year later, Linden received a letter with the seal of a gear and sword on the front, from “The Warriors of Devious Devices”. It was from “The Colleagues”. Linden, tears and anger consuming her, threw it away, not knowing, that when she was old enough, they would come to her, for she had the key that could destroy more than she knew.
Gender:
Points: 999
Reviews: 11