Steamfunk fiction : The gambler's fracture

I. THE SERMON OF GEARS

The Acheron’s Resolve hung in the sky like a broken hymn.

Elias Veyne stood at the prow, his boots magnetized to the deck as the wind howled through the ship’s wounds. Below, the Fracturelands yawned. A graveyard of floating islands, each a tombstone for some forgotten empire’s arrogance.

Kessa approached, her leather coat singing with rivets. "We’re not flying, Cap’n. We’re falling politely."

Elias didn’t answer. His eyes were locked on the kid, who sat cross-legged atop the core casing, sketching symbols in the air with a smoldering copper rod. The equations hung there, glowing, then dissolved like steam.

"You’re teaching my ship heresy," Elias said.

The kid grinned. "Nah. Just a new dialect."

The core pulsed in agreement.

II. THE CHURCH OF THE SELF-LUBRICATING SAINT

They limped into the skyport of New Byzantium. A city built inside the hollowed-out skull of a dead god. Its streets were arteries clogged with black-market aether, its churches devoted to the worship of self-improving machines.

Elias hated it.

"We need parts," Kessa said, eyeing the bazaar where priests sold "blessed" piston oil.

"We need a miracle," Elias muttered.

The kid tugged his sleeve. "Same thing, if you do it yourself."

A shadow fell over them.

"Captain Veyne."

The voice was a chorus of grinding cogs. Elias turned to face the Archdeacon of the Perpetual Gear. A man who’d replaced his jaw with a clockwork sermonizer.

"Your core," the Archdeacon wheezed, "is singing. Unlicensed metaphysics."

Elias spat brass. "It’s a free sky."

"No sky is free," the Archdeacon smiled. "Only… recalibrated."

Behind him, a dozen gear-monks raised their rotary cannons.

Solution-takers.

III. THE CUJU GAMBIT

Back aboard the Acheron, Elias slammed the hatch. "Kessa! options?"

She checked the dashboard. "We’re a choir of bad news. Engines at 30%. Core’s flirting with heresy. And we got holy artillery inbound."

The kid was already at the core, whispering to it like a lover.

Elias grabbed him. "What’s your play, kid?"

"They want a solution," the kid said. "So we give ‘em one they can’t swallow."

Elias understood. "Kessa! flood the ballast tanks with raw aether."

"That’s suicide!"

"Nah. Just real bad chemistry."

The kid pressed his palms to the core. The ship shuddered and began to hum. Not the Archdeacon’s rigid hymns. Something wild. Something that hadn’t been written yet.

Outside, the gear-monks opened fire.

The Acheron didn’t dodge.

It improvised.

IV. THE MIRACLE OF MALFUNCTION

The shells hit and stuttered.

For three heartbeats, the Acheron existed in all states at once: intact and shattered, flying and falling, a ship and a rumor. The core’s song warped into a scream, then a laugh.

Phase shift. Again.

The gear-monks’ cannons jammed. Their blessed oil ignited. New Byzantium’s spires trembled as the Acheron tore through the sky. They wern’t fleeing, but rewriting.

Kessa whooped. "Since when can we do that?"

Elias watched the kid. "Since he reminded the core it’s allowed to play."

The dashboard lights flickered. One by one, they winked out.

Not broken.

Resting.

V. THE NEXT TESTAMENT

At dusk, Elias found the kid etching something into the bulkhead:

A shepherd. A dog. A lamb.

And above them, a ship with too many wings.

"That your gospel?" Elias asked.

The kid shrugged. "Just my handwriting."

Elias nodded. He’d spent years treating the Acheron like a machine, a herd, a prison.

But the kid was right.

Love wasn’t control.

It was letting the game change.

He adjusted his goggles. "Next stop?"

The kid pointed to the storm on the horizon. "Wherever that’s going."

The core purred and the flock followed.

VI. THE HOUSE ALWAYS WEEPS

The Acheron’s Resolve docked at Lady Luck’s Ribcage. A floating casino built into the fossilized remains of a sky-whale. Its hull pulsed with bioluminescent debt runes, each flickering with the names of captains who’d bet their ships and lost.

Elias eyed the entrance, where a brass-mouthed croupier sang:

"Step right up, shepherds! Lay down your flock!"

Kessa cracked her knuckles. "We need fuel. Not folly."

The kid was already halfway to the door, his pockets full of gears he’d stolen from the Archdeacon’s monks. "Folly’s got better odds."

The core hummed in agreement.

Elias sighed. "Fine. But we’re not betting the ship."

The kid grinned. "Just the idea of the ship."

VII. THE CUJU DEAL

Inside, the air was thick with opium and arrogance. Gamblers wagered memories, limbs, and the names of their firstborn on games where the rules changed every round.

At the high-stakes table sat The Dealer. A woman with a face of stained glass and hands that never stopped shuffling.

"Captain Veyne," she purred. "I’ve dealt your death three times. You keep folding."

Elias sat. "This time, I’m playing."

The game was Cuju’s Gambit : a bastardization of the old sport, played with dice carved from anti-grav stone. The goal: roll contradictions until the table forgot gravity.

The kid whispered to Elias: "Her deck’s got no queens. She’s a solution-giver."

Elias nodded. The Dealer didn’t play to win. She played to convert.

First roll: The kid bet the Acheron’s shadow. The Dealer raised with a "fractured future."

The dice landed on "schrödinger’s mutiny."

Half the crew vanished for a breath. Then returned, blinking.

Kessa growled. "Cheat."

The Dealer smiled. "Theology."

VIII. THE PHANTOM HAND

Second roll: Elias bet the sound of the core’s song.

The Dealer countered with "all your tomorrows."

The dice landed on "the ship that wasn’t."

The Acheron flickered like a ghost in drydock, rusted and abandoned. Elias felt his own hands age 40 years in a second.

The kid slammed his fist on the table. "You can’t bet what’s not yours!"

The Dealer’s glass face cracked into a grin. "Everything’s mine if you believe the deal."

The kid flipped the table.

The dice hung in midair.

And the core, from back in the ship, sang a note so pure it un-stitched the casino’s seams.

IX. THE LOADED DICE

Reality stuttered.

The Acheron was real. Then wasn’t. Then was realer than real with its pipes bleeding steam, its hull singing.

The Dealer screamed as her glass face shattered. "You can’t refuse the game!"

Elias stood. "Not refusing. Improving."

He grabbed the dice and swallowed them.

The anti-grav stones burned like hell in his gut. His boots lifted off the floor.

The kid whooped. "Now you’re the game!"

Kessa shot the chandelier. The casino collapsed into a whirlwind of debt papers and broken roulette wheels.

X. THE NEXT WAGER

Back aboard the Acheron, Elias vomited the dice into the core. The ship lurchedn then stabilized, humming a new, defiant rhythm.

Kessa checked the dashboard. "We’re... heavier."

The kid nodded. "Now we’re a fact."

Elias looked at the Fracturelands below. "Where to?"

The kid pointed to a storm shaped like a laughing mouth.

"Where the game’s not rigged."

The core roared.

The flock dove in.