“There’s where we need to go!” Devin shouted over the wind. Seated behind Lori, he pointed over her shoulder at a square building near the elevator housing structure as Jangles flew over.

  “That small building?” Lori shouted back, then whistled for Jangles to turn and descend towards the salt mine below.

  Jangles landed on the flat, white ground near the hoist building. Calling the building small was relative. It was as large as a house, with rusty corrugated tin walls and roof. Its back faced the elevator structure, where two thick, powerful cables stretched to the top of the headframe, towering four or five stories above the mine, also clad in corrugated tin. Beside the hoist building lay a huge boiler, with a tube emerging from its top and curving into the hoist house.

  Lori, Devin, and Ebeneezer dismounted as Jangles sniffed the air, his tiny ears twitching at the slightest sound. The expanse of the salt mine stretched out before them, the blinding sunlight reflecting off the gleaming white surface and casting harsh shadows. The other far-off buildings around them stood empty and hollow. The air hung thick with the acrid scent of salt, rust and the faint, unsettling odor of something decayed. Jangles flared his nostrils as he looked around, tense and alert, ready to spring into action at any moment.

  “I don’t like this,” he moaned, his voice rumbling with unease. “It smells like death mingling with the salt.”

  “Death and salted pork,” Devin added, his voice carrying a note of dread that matched the grim, silent setting around them. Jangles nodded in agreement, his large, expressive eyes reflecting the wary tension that gripped them all. Every shadow seemed to twitch with unseen movement, as though something in the darkened structures all around stared out at them.

  Lori looked at the hoist building and the cables that led to the top of the elevator as she tried to figure out how it worked. The cables, thick and powerful, stretched taut, disappearing into the top of the elevator structure. “Let’s get started,” she said with determination. She glanced up at the sun, now high enough over the edge of the hurricane’s interior to cast a blinding light over the white, salty surface of the mine. She had to squint in the brightness, regretting not having the shaded goggles she had bought months ago and promptly lost.

  “Nuts,” Devin said, his hands on his hips, frowning at the boiler. The large, metal box rested ten feet away from the hoist building, its surface blackened with use. “We’ve got to get that started before we can do anything,” he told Lori.

  “Okay, do what you need to. I’ll check inside,” Lori said.

  “Be careful. The Colonel will kill me if anything happens to you.”

  “I know.” Lori stepped toward the building. Jangles bolted in front of her, blocking her path with a protective stance and kicking up a cloud of dust.

  “Wait,” Jangles said with apprehension. “I don’t like the smell of it in there.” He turned and faced the hoist building, its rusty tin facade glaring back at him under the harsh sunlight. Jangles approached the double doors cautiously, and he fumbled at the door latch with his claws, but the intricate latches eluded his grasp. He growled in frustration, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air suspiciously, trying to discern what hidden dangers that might be inside.

  “Here,” Ebeneezer said, and opened the latch for Jangles. The metal groaned in protest as he pulled open one of the double doors, a sharp, grating sound that echoed across the silent mine.

  Jangles, coiled with tension, opened the other door with a talon, his eyes narrowing. Light spilled into the darkened interior, casting long shadows. Hot air rushed out, carrying with it a rank smell of decay, salt and oil. He poked his head inside, his nose twitching as he sniffed the stale, boiling breeze. Each sniff echoed metallically, bouncing off the tin walls in a series of ghostly reverberations. After a moment, he pulled his head out and turned to Lori.

  “There’s something in there,” Jangles said, his voice a hushed, gravelly whisper. “But I don’t think it’s much of a threat.” He stepped aside and allowed Lori to approach the threshold.

  Lori drew her pistol, the cold metal a reassuring weight in her hand. She held it at her waist, her thumb poised on the hammer. She approached the doorway slowly, the soles of her boots crunching softly on the salt-crusted ground, echoing from inside the tin shed, and Ebeneezer followed. The interior was black as pitch compared to the blinding white outside, an abyss that belched air from the sunbaked tin walls and roof.

  “Good Lord, even I can’t see in there. And I’m a kobold! My people live their entire lives underground!” He aimed his green cane at the dark maw and launched a bright green light into the building, as bright as any flare. It hovered near the center of the ceiling and illuminated the interior.

  The green light revealed a massive piece of machinery dominating the center of the room. The flywheel, a gigantic iron circle twenty feet across, loomed imposingly, its thick spokes radiating from a solid hub. Half of it was submerged into the concrete floor, as if the wheel had sliced into the cement. The main body of the engine sat bolted to the ground, a long, smooth, nearly solid piece of steel with an gigantic piston disappearing into it. On its side, a complex set of small pistons and bars were all interconnected in a way Lori did not understand. She stood in awe of the machine, as large as a locomotive but with a smoother, more refined appearance than any machine she had ever seen.

  Devin’s muffled voice called from outside. “Jangles! Could you come here?”

  Jangles took one last look inside the engine room. Lori waved for him to go, and he nodded and left as she holstered her pistol.

  “Look there,” Ebeneezer said.

  Lori turned and followed his gaze and gasped. A man sat in a chair against the wall, his head leaned back as though he had just gone to sleep. Lori crept closer, her boot heels echoing off the concrete floor. The man didn’t look right, and the closer she got, the more she could see that his skin had gone nearly white. The clothes he wore had turned grey from a dusting of white powder, and his hair and beard seemed brittle and disarrayed. The eyelids nearly closed, lazily, over dark, empty sockets. His lips were pulled back in a rictus grin exposing yellowed teeth. The nose seemed to have dried up and fallen off.

  “My God,” Lori said.

  “I’ve seen mummies before, at exhibitions and museums.” Ebeneezer conjured a second, smaller green light that cast shifting shadows over the man’s face, highlighting the hollows of his cheeks. “That’s exactly what they looked like. Poor fellow.” The warm, stale air seemed to press in around them, making the scene feel even more haunting.

  Lori leaned closer and touched the man’s hand. The skin had shriveled tight over the bones and felt like rough, dry, brittle parchment paper, and a faint, musty odor wafted up. Lori withdrew her hand and rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, feeling something gritty like the texture of fine sand. She held her thumb to her nose and sniffed the sharp tang of salt and decay.

  “Salt.” She sniffed again. “Like salt and… pork?”

  Ebeneezer winced. “The long pig.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what human flesh is called. The long pig. I hear humans taste like pork.”

  Lori wrinkled her nose at the thought. “You don’t suppose that’s what Jangles is smelling?”

  “Aye, you can be sure of that. And he picked up that scent in the town up above. It’ll be potent down in the mine.”

  Lori took off her hat and regarded the mummified mine worker with sorrow. “Poor guy. God, this is terrible.” The air pressed around her, carrying the faint, salty scent that lingered unnervingly. She shook her head in disgust and turned away, her heart heavy with empathy for the man who had perished in such a way.

  At that moment, the sound of Jangles’ roaring flame echoed through the engine room, reverberating loudly off the metal walls like the growl of a beast. Lori drew her pistol and ran for the door, her heart pounding in the intensifying heat. Lori rounded the corner of the tin shed and found herself aiming her pistol at Devin. The sharp scent of burning coal mixed with the salty air. Jangles crouched as he blasted a stream of fire into the open furnace of the boiler. Devin leaned on the shovel he had used to scoop coal into the furnace, the sweat glistening on his brow. He saw her, pistol drawn, and put his hands up, letting the shovel drop to the ground with a thud.

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  “Sorry. I thought Jangles could get it going faster,” he said with a sheepish look on his now soot smeared face.

  Lori holstered the pistol. The searing heat from Jangles’ flames roasted her skin from twenty feet away. Jangles stopped to take a breath and gave her a weary smile.

  “Should have warned you,” he said apologetically before dropping his head near the ground, level with the furnace opening, and exhaled another long blast.

  “That’s okay. Do what you need to do.”

  “There’s plenty of water in the boiler. Once Jangles lights up the coal in the furnace, it shouldn’t take long.” Devin picked up his shovel and stood near Jangles’ shoulder, peering over the dragon’s nose and assessing the flames. “That’ll do, Jangles. I think you’ve got it,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow and feeling the intense, almost suffocating heat radiating from the furnace as he shut the door and closed the latch with the shovel.

  Jangles sat back on his haunches, head drooping and catching his breath. Devin jogged into the building and looked the engine over, checking valves and gauges. He winced at the giant flywheel and hurriedly turned the wide throttle valve.

  “What’s the matter, lad?”

  “They left the valve wide open, and the flywheel isn’t in the starting position.”

  “Aye, well, the mechanic on duty wasn’t feeling well,” Ebeneezer said, pointing to the mummified man against the tin wall.

  Devin’s eyes widened at the sight of the corpse, and he quickly turned back to the engine, his face turning pale. He nervously focused on the engine, turning a valve with a large wrench. Then he trotted to the other end of the engine and gripped the flywheel, so wide on the outside he had to hug it, and lifted upward. The wheel turned slowly, moving the main massive piston by inches. Devin squatted down and bear-hugged the wheel again, lifted with his legs and turned the wheel a few inches more.

  Ebeneezer watched the enormous piston slowly move and he understood what Devin was trying to do. He aimed his cane at the flywheel and a tendril of green light extended toward it, wrapping around one of the giant spokes. The wheel turned faster, though the process was still excruciatingly slow. The strain of it was evident on Ebeneezer’s face as he grimaced with the effort of pulling the spokes of the heavy wheel.

  Finally, the wheel and the giant piston sat in the correct position. Ebeneezer and Devin both panted with the effort.

  “How in the world could you move that bloody thing?” Ebeneezer stared up at the top of the wheel near the ceiling. “I can feel how heavy it is!”

  Devin, leaning on his knees as he caught his breath, glanced nervously at Lori.

  “He’s a lot stronger than he looks,” she offered.

  “That’s an understatement!” Ebeneezer said.

  Devin looked relieved that the kobold didn’t wonder about it too long. Once he caught his breath, he walked back to the throttle valve and slowly turned it.

  A low, resonant hiss filled the chamber as Devin turned the throttle valve. Steam gushed in through the long pipe that dropped from the ceiling and connected the boiler outside to the top of the engine. The hiss grew into a powerful, rhythmic whoosh as the steam surged through the pipes. The huge piston began to move, each stroke accompanied by the deep, deafening chuff of steam being released and vibrated the tin walls of the engine room.

  Devin adjusted levers and dials, and the immense spokes of the flywheel spun with a silent grace. He watched the piston as it pushed and pulled the locomotive-sized flywheel with painstaking slowness.

  With every adjustment, the steam engine roared to life, its components synchronizing in a rhythm of mechanical power. The governor atop the engine spun, its twin brass globes blurred with speed. The repetitive whoosh grew louder. The flywheel spun faster, driven by the piston that pushed with relentless force, back and forth, faster and faster.

  Devin's expression was one of concentration as he worked the controls. His eyes darted between the gauges and the governor and other moving parts. The room thrummed with energy, the steam engine a living, breathing entity under his command.

  As the engine reached its full capacity, the whoosh settled into a rapid beat that signaled the machine's readiness. Devin stepped back, wiping the sweat from his brow, and allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. The engine was fully operational, shushing and chugging in rhythmic time.

  Devin moved to the other side of the steam engine, his eyes scanning the intricate network of cables connected to the flywheel. These cables snaked their way through a complicated set of gears, then made their way up through the hoist house roof and eventually led to the elevator outside. Devin pulled on each cable, ensuring they were taut and set correctly.

  Satisfied, he turned to the elevator control panel built into the wall. The control was an imposing mechanism of levers, dials, and a long handle thrusting up from the floor. Devin grasped the handle with both hands and pulled the lever, activating the elevator's lift system.

  The cables engaged with an ear-splitting whine, a high-pitched sound that cut through the rhythmic whoosh of the steam engine. The gears engaged with a clickity-clack, their teeth meshing together in a cacophony of mechanical noise.

  With the clamor of the engine almost overwhelming, Devin simply gestured for Lori and Ebeneezer to come closer instead of trying to shout.

  As they approached, Devin's eyes darted between them and the control panel. "Get to the elevator shaft and wait for me there!" he yelled, his voice strained with the effort to be heard over the clamor. "I'll be right behind you!"

  Lori and Ebeneezer nodded and headed out the door for the elevator shaft. Jangles followed them.

  Lori jogged across the flat white ground. The elevator building towered high overhead. The cables that stretched up to the top were taut as they turned. The further they got from the engine, the more they could hear the metallic groan and whine of the rising elevator inside.

  Lori waited at the open door. Cables and gears whined and clicked as the elevator rose. The noise felt too intense. She, Ebeneezer, and Jangles stood by, anticipation etched on their faces, watching through the doors from outside. The elevator leveled with the floor, its metal cage coated with a fine layer of white salt dust. It whined to a stop, and Lori could faintly hear the ringing of a bell as it came to a halt.

  Lori entered the building, tried to open the cage door of the elevator platform, and after a few moments figured out how to work the latch. The door slid upward with a grating sound. She stepped onto the floor made of thick wooden beams and scanned for the controls. She found only one lever on the wall next to the sliding door, polished to a silvery sheen by constant use.

  Ebeneezer scratched his head after taking off his derby hat. The lever was at his eye level, and he stared at it thoughtfully, then shrugged after a questioning look at Lori and reached up and pulled the lever sideways away from the door. A tinny sounding bell rang briefly, but otherwise nothing happened. He let go of the lever and it returned to its central position. The bell rang again, three times. Ebeneezer moved the lever toward the door of the elevator and the bell rang twice. He let it go, and it sprang back to the center, automatically ringing three times again. He looked at Lori, and they shrugged at each other.

  “That’s the way you’ll signal me to go up and down,” said Devin, who had arrived unnoticed. He moved the lever back and forth, triggering the bell. “There’s a bell in the engine room that rings the same way. One ring for up, two for down, three to stop. When I hear the bell, I’ll raise or lower the elevator. And one more thing,” he said as he stepped out of the elevator and pulled down the cage door, “you have to close this cage before you signal me. There’s a safety switch on here somewhere that won’t let the elevator move unless the door’s closed. Give me a minute to get back to the engine room, then signal. I’ll lower you down as soon as I hear the bell.”

  “Okay, Devin.” Lori waved at him as he turned.

  “Wait!” Devin slapped his forehead. “I almost forgot the most important thing!” He jogged toward Jangles and rummaged through the satchel on his right side and retrieved a long roll of paper he had taken from the desk in the bank. He jogged back and poked the roll through the cage. “This is a diagram of the mine. It’s dated from three months ago, so it should be accurate enough for you.”

  Lori took it and partially unrolled it, her eyes tracing the intricate lines and markings. “Good thinking, Devin!” She grinned broadly at the detailed plans.

  Devin shrugged. “I had a suspicion we would need it.”

  “Thank you, Devin.” Lori partially unrolled the paper and smiled at him.

  He smiled abashedly, then jogged outside toward the hoist house.

  “Lori!” Jangles stood just inside the open door of the elevator building. He couldn’t quite fit through the door. “Get your shotgun. And bring a lantern, too.”

  Lori smirked as she opened the cage door and walked out of the elevator. He was like a mother hen sometimes. She made her way to the dragon and retrieved her double-barrel shotgun and placed a box of shells in her pocket. Determined to be prepared for any eventuality, Lori found a candle lantern and took three extra candles, stashing them in her satchel just in case. She glanced at the leather bag filled with dynamite, and after a moment's hesitation, decided to put a couple of sticks in her inside pocket for good measure.

  “Take some food and water, too.”

  Lori thought about it and shrugged. It wasn’t a bad idea. Who knew what awaited them in the depths of the mine, or how long it might take? She rummaged through her supplies and added a hard tack biscuit and a wedge of cheese to her satchel. For good measure, she also slung a canteen over her shoulder. She didn’t bother to get anything for Ebeneezer. He probably had all he needed inside his confounded hat.

  Jangles nuzzled her affectionately, his eyes filled with concern. “Take care, Lori. Come back to me,” he murmured, his voice laden with worry.

  “I will.” She stroked his snout gently, feeling the warmth of his breath and reassurance in his eyes. “You keep an eye on Devin. Watch his back closely. If anything happens to him, we won’t be able to come back.”

  “Okay, I will,” Jangles nodded. He took a step back from the elevator, his eyes fixed on Lori as she prepared for the descent, and Jangles felt a mixture of pride and anxiety. His heart pounded with the weight of unspoken words, but he chose to remain silent, offering Lori a reassuring nod instead.