Marked

by S. Andrew Swann

I patted the wheel and thought, Sorry about the bad gas.

  After all the travel through Chaos, I was getting a feel for relative dates. I guessed that we had landed about a decade farther away from home than the universe of the risen South, and I asked Ivan what year it was here.

  “1908,” he responded.

  Right on the money.

  The highway paralleled a set of train tracks as it headed east. Dawn shaded the sky ahead of us in reds and yellows, and we passed the first road sign proclaiming Ten Miles to Imperial District, in English, French, and Russian.

  Imperial District, aka the District of Columbia.

  Jacob leaned forward from the back seat and asked, “So how does the Napoleonic Empire gain a foothold in North America?”

  “I should ask of you, how could it not? The old United States destroys itself in civil war and asks the Franco-Russian alliance for aid. The Empire saved this nation.”

  “I guess Napoleon’s invasion of Russia ended differently,” Jacob said.

  Ivan laughed.

  “What?” Jacob asked.

  “There was no need to invade. Marriage is so much simpler.”

  The history of Ivan’s world diverged from my own somewhere in the first decade of the nineteenth century where the Napoleonic Wars didn’t take the bad turn in Russia that my Napoleon had suffered—here there was no Waterloo, no Elba, no disintegration of French domination in Europe. Instead, there had been a tense stalemate that ended with the joining of the Imperial families of Russia and France. When the US started breaking apart here, and things went bad for the Union, the North pleaded for intervention by the Empire.

  It worked, since the Empire was the most powerful nation on the planet. It was also expansionist as all hell, and once it had troops on the ground, the “assistance” quickly managed to reunify the country—under the Empire’s flag. For half a century, the Empire had been peaceful, since no one was really interested in pissing it off.

  I listened with half an ear because the scene I drove into was even farther removed from me than the world with the Johnny Reb biplane. The highway was arrow-straight through the Maryland countryside, the kind of road that was more an expression of power than logistical necessity. Every wrinkle of the ground was smoothed or filled so that the road never wavered from level. The surface was unmarked, but I kept to the right, by the train tracks, to avoid other traffic.

  And, as the dawn light grew, I began to see other traffic, much of it horse-drawn. There were self-propelled things as well, but they seemed too ornate for me to call them cars. They puttered along on spidery-thin wheels, and the passengers sat in plush lounges nestled in cabins as elaborately decorated and as fragile as a Fabergé egg.

  I wondered at the lack of anything but horse-drawn cargo until a train approached on the tracks next to us. I heard it whistle and glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the massive engine bearing down on us. On the nose was a massive shield, with a painted golden double-headed eagle on a midnight-blue field. It clutched thunderbolts in its talons.

  Then the engine shot by us. The engine itself was at least fifty feet long and loomed over the Charger as if it was a toy. The drive wheels were easily half again as tall as my car. The rest of it screamed by the highway in an endless chain, a great moving wall of elaborately painted passenger cars and somewhat more dull cargo containers.

  I passed a sign announcing that the Imperial District was five miles ahead, and the farmland next to the highway gave way to long aisles of trees flanking the highway. Something floated in the sky above us and Jacob asked Ivan incredulously, “Is that a zeppelin?”

  Ivan looked where Jacob pointed and said, “What? Do you mean the airship?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “So, what’s a zeppelin?”

  “An airship designed by a German engineer.”

  “Then that is probably not a zeppelin.”

  * * *

  —

  THE traffic became more congested as we approached a sign announcing the border of the Imperial District in elaborate cursive English, French, and Russian. Our fellow travelers gave the Charger odd looks, but nothing as bad as the Amish in Fascist Pennsylvania had given us. Still, the road was crowded with slower moving traffic, and I had to ease back and go less than twenty-five for fear of running over a horse-drawn fruit cart.

  We’d barely crossed the border into the district proper, when the traffic ahead of us began pulling aside. At first, I had a hope they were pulling apart to let us through, until I saw past the traffic ahead, someone bearing a banner with the golden double eagle on it. The bearer was the one causing the traffic to part, more efficiently than a police siren, and probably for the same reason.

  The carriage in front of us pulled over to the side of the road so I had a clear view. A dozen horsemen galloped down the road toward us, the point man bearing a lance on which the banner fluttered ahead of them. The rest of the men behind him seemed more practically armed, with swords and rifles. Their uniforms consisted of tall black boots, scarlet trousers, navy jackets with brass buttons, elaborate braids, and insignia. A few of the riders, the ones with swords, wore white gloves and elaborate plumed hats. The riflemen had bare hands and wore plainer caps that reminded me of movies about the Foreign Legion.

  I pulled the Charger over and asked Ivan, “So is that our welcoming committee?”

  He nodded and said, “Let me go out and talk to them.” He left the car before I had a chance to say anything to him.

  “I don’t like this,” Jacob said quietly.

  “I know.”

  Ivan spread his hands and walked up next to the front of my car on the passenger side as the cavalry surrounded us. He shuffled his feet as the horseman with the nicest hat called out in Russian-accented English, “Everyone must exit the carriage now.”

  I frowned when Ivan started talking back in Russian. “Okay,” I whispered, “he’s hiding something.” I put my foot on the brake and shifted out of park. It had worked with the Fascist cop and the strafing biplane. I’d just let the car roll forward and push slightly with the Mark and we’d be somewhere else where the Franco-Russian police weren’t.

  I lifted my foot off the brake and pushed with the Mark. Nothing happened except a distracting shudder. “What?”

  “The bastard shoved something under your front tire!” Jacob undid his belt and reached for his gun—which still wasn’t there.

  “Jacob,” I said, “They’re the cops here.”

  My foot moved to the gas, but I hesitated. They had leveled rifles at the car, and if I didn’t goose the car into motion with the first try, we’d be dead. If it was only me in the car, I might have risked it. Then walls of horse flesh clopped into place immediately ahead and behind the car.

  I really wish I’d thought about reverse before they’d done that.

  I shifted back into park and cut the engine. The Charger shut down with a few barks from the exhaust to remind me that I had fed it bad gas. Then I made sure to keep my hands on the steering wheel. The lead horseman repeated, “Out of the carriage. Now.”

  I opened the door and stepped out. Free of the confinement of the vehicle I had a moment of freedom where I could have run into a neighboring universe, but I didn’t want to abandon Jacob. Then a horseman dismounted and took my arm firmly in a gloved hand and the point was moot. Jacob followed suit, shooting me a dark look. Ivan wasn’t looking at us at all.

  What did I expect? I thought. I saw the bastard kill someone.

  Ivan faced a trio of the mounted police himself. He still spoke Russian, so I had no clue what he was saying.

  “Was it all lies, Ivan?”

  I thought I might have seen him flinch. But I suspect that any sign of guilt or regret might have been wishful thinking on my part. Some part of me wanted to believe that he was explaining things to the guards and it was a misunderstandin
g.

  Then someone snapped a black metal band on my wrist. The metal was cold, heavy, and felt like cast iron. It clicked shut on my wrist with a dense mechanical click. It not only weighed down my arm, but I could feel it weigh down my Mark.

  Oh, crap! What the hell is this?

  It wasn’t a handcuff or a manacle, the ring of metal was not connected to anything else. If it wasn’t so thick and heavy, it could have been a piece of jewelry. I stared at it, feeling it weigh me down as the man holding me let me go. I glanced over at Jacob and saw they had snapped a similar band on his wrist. He looked at it, but he just seemed puzzled about the thing. From the way he moved his arm, I could tell he didn’t feel the same weight on his that I did with mine.

  I looked up at the officer who had held my arm and asked, “What is this?”

  The officer glanced at Ivan and looked uncomfortable. He stood at attention and said. “Any Walker coming without leave into the Empire’s domain must be restrained. I apologize, but it is the law, my Lady.”

  “My Lady,” again.

  I felt the iron band with my opposite hand and thought of the way the officer said “restrained.” I didn’t like it, and I didn’t like the weight I felt in my Mark. I took a step toward the officer, pushing myself with the Mark—and I almost doubled over in pain. It was like I tried to run without realizing that my wrist was chained to something massive and immobile. I felt a wrenching force tying me to Ivan’s world, so heavy that my movement with the Mark ended before it began.

  Ivan turned to look at me as if he had sensed the effort.

  I glared at him and balled my hand into a fist. The sudden rage I felt was horrifying in its intensity. I’d gone through all of this because of the Mark. I was able to take risks—even so far as coming here—because in the back of my mind there was nothing I could get into that I couldn’t walk away from.

  Idiot! Ivan had even told me that this was possible. He didn’t explain it or go into detail, but there was the fact he said that the Emperor had held the dead old man a prisoner. Why did I never ask how they could imprison him?

  If they’d been aware of Walkers for any length of time, of course they’d develop some sort of countermeasures. I felt stupid and helpless as it sank in that getting out of this was not going to be nearly as easy as getting into it.

  * * *

  —

  THEY loaded me and Jacob into the back of a wagon with barred windows. We were the only passengers in the back as it rolled forward, continuing into the Imperial District.

  Jacob leaned forward once the doors closed on us. “Okay, you followed Ivan to his Empire. You can get us out of here now.”

  I stared at my hands, balled into fists on my knees, so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. I whispered, “No.”

  “What?”

  “The bracelets,” I said. “I can’t move with them. It’s like it chains me in place.”

  He felt the band on his own wrist. “This? How can it keep you from doing your thing? You were driving that Charger of yours—”

  “I don’t know!” I snapped, much more harshly than I intended. “I don’t even know how the Mark works; how should I know what can stop it?” My vision blurred. My eyes and my cheeks burned. “Oh, God, Jacob, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Dana? It’s not—”

  “You told me not to trust him. I didn’t. But I followed him anyway. I was so damn sure I knew what I was doing. If we got into trouble, I could . . . Damn it, they have you, they have me, they even have my damn car.”

  Jacob chuckled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “I actually got billing above your car.”

  I frowned. “I’m serious.”

  “I know. But you can’t blame yourself for me being here. I came freely, and you can’t even say I didn’t know what I was getting into. I pretty much saw firsthand before we reached this point.”

  I bit my lip and turned away from him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  What isn’t? “I just was thinking about Whedon,” I said.

  “That wasn’t your fault either.”

  “I know, but it’s hard not to blame myself for it.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  I DON’T KNOW what I expected to see when they let us out of the carriage. Whatever it was, I didn’t see it. Instead, we stepped out onto the Mall in a Washington DC that was recognizable and completely alien at the same time. The Mall and the reflecting pool were the same, but the Capitol was different; the dome wasn’t white but gilded so that it shone like a golden egg under the morning sun. Other details of the neoclassical building had been gilded as well, pickings of gold against a building that I always remembered as pure white. It was as if someone had spent a great deal of thought into picking one architectural detail that could symbolize the distinction between a constitutional republic and an empire.

  If that wasn’t enough to drive the point home, the larger-than-life equestrian statue between the Capitol steps and the Mall itself was there to proclaim the Empire’s sovereignty. Even at a distance I could see the unmistakable hat and cloak that had defined Napoleon I in so many paintings. His mount faced the reflecting pool, both hooves raised, and Napoleon held a sword aloft as if directing a charge at the Washington Monument.

  Then there was the Washington Monument itself.

  The monument itself was as I remembered it, at least as I remembered pictures of it—a white-clad obelisk without the gratuitous gilding that had been added to the Capitol. We were close enough that I didn’t really understand what had changed until I heard Jacob whisper, “Holy crap.”

  I looked at him, and he was looking up at the monument. I followed his gaze and sucked in a breath. They had led us out facing the Capitol, so my first impressions had been of the changes on that end of the Mall. The shadows over the Mall I had unconsciously interpreted as cloud cover. It wasn’t.

  The sky wasn’t overcast at all. Above the Mall was a massive airship, nose moored to the tip of the Washington Monument. The length of it pointed back toward the Capitol. From where we stood, it might have been easily as long as the monument was tall. The Empire’s crest was painted on its side, the image probably a hundred feet wide, large enough so individual feathers on the double-headed eagle were easily discerned from the ground.

  The massive airship bore a large resemblance to pictures of airships I’d seen from the 1930s; the basic shape was a long cigar with large control surfaces on the tail bearing smaller versions of the Imperial crest. But there were differences. First, I saw no sign of any sort of gondola below the main ship. The underside was completely smooth. Also, for some reason, the thing had wings. Broad stubby wings stuck out along its length at various heights.

  “What does an airship need with wings?” I asked no one in particular. “I thought they didn’t work like that?”

  “They aren’t wings,” Jacob said. “Look at what’s attached to them.”

  I did and realized that what I had originally taken to be little underslung propellers like I’d seen in more conventional aircraft were airplanes themselves. A dozen biplanes were slung under the airship’s “wings.” The behemoth was a flying aircraft carrier.

  “I think Nazi Germany was experimenting with that idea before the Hindenburg.”

  “Isn’t that a little advanced for 1908?”

  Jacob shrugged. “Not by much, they had planes like that in the First World War, 1915 or so. And I think Zeppelin patented his first airship designs in the 1890s.”

  “You really are a history buff.”

  While we were surrounded by armed guards, they kept a respectful distance and didn’t try to manhandle either of us. An officer came for us after about ten minutes; the same one who had called me, “my Lady.” I recognized his hat.

  “If you both would follow me?” he said. He bowe
d slightly.

  Jacob looked at me, pointedly waiting to follow my lead. We were surrounded by armed guards, so it wasn’t as if I wasn’t going to follow instructions. Polite or not, we were certainly prisoners.

  I decided to push my luck, a little. I stood as straight as possible and held out my wrist with the iron bracelet on it. “What about this?”

  “I apologize, my Lady,” he said, a hint of tension in his voice. “It is necessary.”

  Well, if they were going to pretend that I was some form of aristocracy, I might as well act the part. “Is this how your Empire treats all its guests?”

  “Those that arrive unannounced. Again, my apologies. Please, come with me.” The officer was very polite, almost deferential, but we were still surrounded by a lot of armed men who, I suspect, would be considerably less polite if they had to be.

  Still, since I seemed to be getting some response, I folded my arms, “What about my car?”

  “Your . . . car?” He spoke the words as if he wasn’t sure what I was talking about.

  “My vehicle? Automobile?”

  “Oh, the carriage.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “It’s safely under the Emperor’s protection. It will be returned once you leave the Emperor’s demesne. Such artifacts are not permitted here outside the control of the Emperor.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Now, my Lady, we must go. They are waiting for us.”

  I sensed that I’d reached the limits of stalling, and I followed him, silently hoping that whoever had the job of moving my Charger could figure out a stick shift. If I was lucky, Ivan had been paying attention when I was driving.

  The officer led us across the Mall, toward the Washington Monument, under the tethered airship. The thing was even more imposing when it was directly overhead. And it quickly became obvious that the airship was, in fact, our destination. We entered the monument, and walked back through unfinished-looking hallways, into a massive and cranky-looking elevator.

  The majority of our escort stayed on the ground, while the officer and one token rifleman accompanied us on the shaky ascent as the machine took us six hundred feet up to the tip of the monument. I stood as close to the center of the elevator as I could. There were no walls or doors. The iron framework was wide open, so I could see cables, wheels, and gears above us, and the stone and brick of the shaft sliding by us with agonizing slowness. I could understand how some people got claustrophobic on elevators, but the openness felt much worse to me. My palms became sweaty, and I was very aware of the beating of my heart.