The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

steel. Chang reached out for the handle. The door was locked. He turned to see red coats at the far end of the corridor. He was trapped.
    With a lurch the train began to move. Chang looked to his right and saw the ground of the station drop away. Without another thought he vaulted the chain and landed heavily in a crouch on the gravel; the wind was knocked from his lungs with a wickedly sharp wrench. He forced himself up. The train was still picking up speed. He stumbled after it, driving his body to move, fighting the sensation that he had just inhaled a box full of needles. He broke into a tormented run, legs pumping, catching up to the platform where he had jumped and then racing to reach the front of the black car. Ahead the track disappeared into a tunnel. He looked up at the black car’s windows, dark, covered by curtains—or was it paint? Or steel? His lungs were in agony. He could see the gap at the front of the car, but even if he reached it, had he the strength to pull himself up? The vision of dropping under the train’s wheels flashed hideously into his mind—legs sheared off in an instant, the gouts of blood, his last glimpse of life the filthy soot-covered slag of a Stropping railway track. He pushed himself harder. The whistle sounded. They were nearing the tunnel. With a surge of relief he saw a ladder bolted to the far end of the car. Chang leapt for it and caught hold, legs swinging near the rails, and clawed his way madly up hand over hand—somehow not dropping his stick—until he could hook a knee into the lowest rung. He panted desperately, his lungs and throat on fire. The train swept into the tunnel and he was swallowed by the dark.

    Chang held on for his life, working both legs through the rungs to take the burden from his arms. His chest heaved. He hawked and spat repeatedly into the darkness, away from the train, the taste of blood in his mouth. His head was swimming and he felt dangerously close to a faint. He tightened his grip on the iron rungs and took deep, agonizing breaths. With a sickening thought he realized that if anyone had seen him, he was utterly unable to defend himself. He cursed Rosamonde and her blue powder. His lungs were being ground up like sausage-meat. He spat again and squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.
    He waited until the end of the tunnel, which was at least fifteen minutes. No one emerged from the car. The train raced through the city to the northeast, past desolate yards and crumbling brick houses, to the wood and tar-paper hovels that lined the tracks at the city’s edge. The hidden moon still gave Chang enough light to see another platform with a chain rail connecting the black car to the next, which had no door at all, only another ladder rising to its upper edge. With a slowness that revealed how spent he had become, he understood. This was the coal wagon, and ahead of it the engine. He worked his legs free and, wedging his foot tightly, reached across the empty space toward the coal wagon’s ladder. His arm was perhaps three inches short. If he threw himself, he was almost sure to make it, and it was another sign of his fatigue that he even thought twice. But he couldn’t stay where he was, and he trusted himself to leap over the chain rail even less. He stretched out his arm and one leg, glancing once at the gravel track rattling past beneath him, the rail ties a flickering blur. He turned his gaze solely to the ladder, took a breath and jumped…and landed perfectly, his heart pounding. He looked over at the metal door from this better angle. It seemed exactly like its counterpart on the opposite side: heavy, steel, windowless—as welcoming as the front of any bank safe. Chang turned his gaze to the top of the ladder and began to climb.
    The coal wagon had been recently filled, so the drop from the top of the ladder into the bed of coal was perhaps two feet—just enough to conceal Chang from anyone on the platform between cars. More than this, the level of coal was higher in the center, where it had been poured into the wagon, creating a hillock between Chang and the engineers and stokers on the other side. He lay on his back, looking up into the midnight fog as the train raced through it, the sound of the wheels and the steam loud in his ears, but so constant as to become soothing. He rolled over and spat onto the wall of the wagon. From the taste in his mouth there was no question, this was blood. He felt a thin primal vibration of fear