Marked

by S. Andrew Swann

  Heights had always gotten to me a bit. It worsened after I had become aware of my Mark. The more I had used it, even in the limited fashion I had, the more I’d grown aware of the dangers of any temporary perch above the ground. My first big mistake using the Mark was in high school. I’d slipped into a parked school bus to hide my disappearance and used my Mark to Walk to a point where the school bus wasn’t parked there anymore.

  I’d fallen four feet into the asphalt and twisted my right ankle badly. When I finally made it back home, hours later, I had to go to the ER and I was on crutches for a couple of weeks.

  So, while having access to the Mark made me a little reckless about some risky situations, it also made me a little more afraid of being too far off the ground. Just knowing that a step to the side with my Mark could send me tumbling six hundred feet down the elevator shaft made me tense up even though the band on the wrist prevented me from doing any such thing.

  The elevator came to a stop facing a small room that had windows looking out at blue sky all around us—except directly in front. Ahead of us, a large doorway stood open, flanked by a pair of windows that were blocked by shadowy gray, flat and featureless. Two guards flanked the doorway, dressed in elaborate uniforms that matched the coloring of our officer’s uniform, navy jackets with brass buttons and gold braid, pressed scarlet trousers with black piping, boots polished to a mirror shine. They wore peaked caps with the Imperial insignia on them, and even the stocks of their rifles had been polished.

  A pair of flags also flanked the doorway and the guards. Even draped on their flagpoles I could see that the one to the guard’s right was—again—the gold double-headed eagle on a blue background. The one on the left was more interesting. At first, I saw the red-and-white stripes and thought it was a normal American flag. But there were no stars. Instead, in the upper quarter where the stars would be, on the blue field was a duplicate of the Imperial eagle. I saw what looked to be a banner with some sort of motto above the figure, but I had no time to read it. The guards came to attention at the appearance of our officer, and he ushered us through the door.

  The elevator was disconcerting, but what greeted me on the other side of the door induced something close to full-bore panic. I think I only kept moving because my brain froze up so badly that I couldn’t even coordinate the motor control to stop.

  We walked out onto a catwalk. The air had been still on the ground, but up here the wind whipped against us with a tearing, flapping noise, striking me with the immediate visceral realization that I had walked outside. To the left and right, Imperial DC spread out below us, the ground terrifyingly far away. The sides of the catwalk were walled with some sort of mesh netting, but it didn’t seem nearly strong enough. And neither did the cables that slung the catwalk under the airship’s nose. To my panicked eyes, they seemed less substantial than the netting.

  It seemed to take forever to cross the suspended walkway to the airship itself, though it probably only seemed so in retrospect. The shock of finding myself in the open air so far above the ground took much longer to process than it did to walk across. It was something I was grateful for, because by the time it had sunk in enough for me to think about screaming in terror, we were already inside the airship.

  “Wow,” Jacob whispered. I was envious of his ability to speak. I was still concentrating on steadying my breathing.

  The room the catwalk led into did not belong in anything that wasn’t solidly attached to the ground. The oval chamber belonged in a European castle, with its elaborate mosaic floor, the Corinthian pillars lining the walls, the paintings displayed on the walls, and the crystal chandelier suspended from the domed ceiling. The only sign of where we were happened to be the placement and orientation of the windows.

  The windows all faced out the front half of the oval room, in the direction we had come. They were each five feet wide and ran from the floor to the start of the domed ceiling twelve feet above us, and they tilted outward between the columns that lined the room’s parameter, following the outer skin of the airship, and not the vertical walls of the room. The eight windows dominated the forward third of the room, flanking the entrance, so that looking in that direction felt as if we stood on a huge balcony looking down on Washington DC.

  I only glanced that way once. Then I quickly turned and focused my attention on the half of the room that resembled a very expensive hotel, trying not to think about where that room was.

  In front of us, at the rearward-facing end of the room, a staircase unfolded upward in curves of faux marble and carved wood. At least I assumed the marble was fake. It seemed to me that real marble would be a weight issue. Along the walls flanking the stairway, I saw dozens more flags. In addition to what I thought of as the Imperial US flag that I had seen back by the entrance, I saw the familiar UK flag with the addition of a shield bearing the gold double eagle in the center.

  Before I had a chance to look at more of them, someone cleared his throat. I focused my attention to our right, and saw a couple waiting for us with a posture somewhere between calculated disinterest and military parade rest. The man wore a black tuxedo jacket and a gray-striped cravat under a collar so starched and upright that it seemed as if it could keep his neck clean shaven all on its own. He wore a pair of pince-nez that, with his mustache and round face, made him resemble Teddy Roosevelt. The woman wore a black dress and an apron in a frilly ensemble that was probably several shades too modest for any French maid fantasies Jacob might have had.

  Once I had taken notice of them, the man gave a slight bow with such military precision I almost expected his heels to click.

  Behind us, our military escort said, “Will you escort the Lady and her Gentleman to their rooms?”

  “Yes, sir, General Lafayette.”

  I glanced at Jacob, and he looked at me with an expression that mirrored my reaction. I wondered if he was surprised at the “General,” who’d been our escort, or at being my “Gentleman.”

  Either way, despite the armed troop that had taken us prisoner, and the bracelets they’d slapped on us, they weren’t treating us the way I’d expect for typical prisoners. If I’d rated a general, maybe Ivan had been telling the truth about the whole “Prince” thing.

  Teddy and the maid led us up the staircase, through a hallway filled with textured wallpaper, scrollwork, and brass fittings more appropriate to Versailles than an airship. The only sign of the nature of the vessel showed in the doorways and in the way the passage was segmented. I could see, every twenty feet or so, recesses where a bulkhead door waited to divide the hallway. And the doorways off the hall seemed to come not from a palace, but from the submarine in a Jules Verne novel: all metal with a smoky-colored oiled finish that went with the wallpaper and wood scrollwork, the locking wheel and other fittings in gleaming brass.

  We stopped in front of one of those anachronistic doors, and I noticed an enameled plaque with cursive black numerals on a white background: “0230.” Teddy stepped forward and turned the brass wheel in the center of the door. It spun silently, and I saw long rods slide back from ceiling and floor and from the wall opposite the hinges.

  It glided open on a small alcove that opened into a huge chamber beyond.

  “Your stateroom, my Lady, with the Emperor’s compliments.” Teddy indicated the room inside with a minimal hand gesture. I had to suck in a breath once I stepped across into the stateroom proper. It had seemed large from the doorway, but from there I had only seen part of the sitting room. Once past the alcove, I could see the whole sitting room, complete with a Louis XIV settee and a window with navy-and-gold–brocade curtains large enough to cover three king-size beds. On either side, doors led into other rooms; on one side was a lavatory complete with a claw-footed bathtub, on the other was a bedchamber with a four-poster bed with a canopy.

  A canopy bed. In an aircraft.

  I’d only flown once, a nerve-wracking experience, and I�
��d been happy for the extra bag of peanuts.

  I walked to the window that dominated the sitting room. It tilted out, but less so than the windows by the gangway entrance. I looked out and saw the White House. It looked pretty much as I remembered it, and it only served to reinforce how weird things seemed. I almost preferred the gilded Capitol Building with its Napoleonic equestrian statue.

  I heard a very soft impact behind me, and I spun around. The door had shut, leaving me alone in the room with the maid. “What? Wait a minute. Where are they taking Jacob?”

  “Your Gentleman is going to his own rooms, my Lady,” the maid said. She had a Germanic accent that worked at cross-purpose to her uniform.

  “Of course, he is,” I muttered. I suspected Jacob had just become a hostage to my good behavior.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE MAID’S NAME was Greta. It went with her accent. She was, apparently, my personal servant for the duration of my stay. It took me several tries to get my head around that. Apparently, Ivan’s deference to me hadn’t been a complete act. The Mark must carry considerable status here if the Emperor loaned me my own minion.

  Of course, it was also clear that it meant that I had a pair of the Emperor’s eyes in the cabin here with me. I just hoped that Jacob’s cage was just as gilded. It would make me feel a little less guilty for involving him.

  I talked to Greta about what was going on. She informed me that this wasn’t just an airship. It also served as the seat of the Empire itself, sort of a cross between Air Force One and Versailles. The Emperor ruled from this vessel as it made its way from capital to capital. I had the honor of being a personal guest of the Emperor.

  Apparently, I was also invited to dinner.

  I tried to get more information about Marks, Walkers, Shadows, and the White Guard from Greta, but she was—in Ivan’s words—Stationary. All she knew of me or people like me was that we could move outside the world she knew, and that made us either angels or demons, and elevated us beyond normal men, and beyond mundane aristocracy.

  Whatever else had happened to twist this world’s history away from my own, I realized that the primary divergence wasn’t the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars; it was the fact that people like me were known and integrated into the society.

  Greta was no historian, so I wasn’t sure how accurate her stories were, but according to her, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, when Napoleon I was just starting to consolidate his hegemony with Europe, he divorced his wife Josephine and married Catherine III of Russia.

  I knew this daughter of Catherine the Great never existed in my world. Not because I knew anything of Russian history, but because this Catherine bore the Mark of a Prince. It was decades before that fact became widely known, and even longer before it was generally understood that Catherine’s Mark meant that she had been an illegitimate product of the notoriously randy Catherine the Great and some otherworldly lover rather than her late husband Peter III. By then, the French Empire had merged with the Russian one, and Napoleon II could claim the throne of the Czars as well as the power of a Prince’s Mark.

  That all helped explain how Napoleon Bonaparte could spawn a cross-dimensional dynasty. Not only had he consolidated his power without a Russian campaign, but he gained the advantage of Catherine III’s abilities.

  In Greta’s story, it was as if the Hand of God itself had come down to grant the Empire favor. I suspected that there was a century of propaganda behind the sentiment, but I could see how just having one Walker of any sort in the control of a military organization would be hard to fight.

  I actually felt a little embarrassed that I had limited my use of the Mark to street-level crime fighting. Then that was followed by the powerful realization that, if I had kids, they would be like me.

  Like me.

  Marked.

  Ivan may have said something along those lines, but I hadn’t really thought of that before. That it applied to me.

  While I listened to Greta, the airship disengaged from its moorings and began to move out to sea. The White House slid out of view of the window, followed by the rest of the alien DC skyline, to be replaced by the blue-green of the Atlantic Ocean.

  They’re probably missing me at work, I thought randomly, and the incongruity of it made me giggle slightly.

  “Are you all right, my Lady?”

  “Oh, I’m just peachy.”

  Greta stared at me as if she was trying to make sense of the statement.

  “I’m fine.” I clarified. “I’ve just been through a lot lately.”

  Before she could say any more, the door to my cabin opened. I turned around and saw Ivan, flanked by two younger soldiers who stayed back and stood at attention. Ivan himself had cleaned up, shaved, and was wearing a polished dress uniform that looked annoyingly good on him.

  I’ve always had a thing for uniforms; if I was into pop psychology, I’d probably mark it down to unresolved feelings about the loss of my father, but I’m not. I just think most guys tend to look hotter when wearing dress blues, especially when they’re built for it, like Ivan.

  I think it made me even more pissed at him.

  I folded my arms and glared at him. “I bet you’re proud of yourself.”

  “My Lady, I told you I would bring you into the Empire.”

  “To be taken prisoner?”

  “You aren’t a prisoner here.”

  I extended my arm to him, showing the dull-black metallic bracelet. “Then what is this?”

  “Métal Stationnaire,” he named the thing. “An alloy developed by the Empire’s scholars.” Ivan reached out and gently took my wrist. He held my hand in a way that made me uncomfortably aware of the presence of his Mark. It was as if his Mark was gently brushing my own, slipping beneath the weight of the thing on my wrist, as if he was joining me under a heavy lead blanket.

  Then he took out an odd-shaped key and slid it into a slot in the side of the bracelet. The metal parted and slid off my wrist. The removal of that weight triggered a wave of vertigo and made me feel as if I was in imminent danger of suddenly floating away. I gripped the hand that held my wrist, just to steady myself. His arm was much steadier than mine; I felt like I hung on to a tree.

  He held out the bracelet, and one of his uniformed companions stepped up and took it from him.

  Once the Métal Stationnaire was no longer in contact with either of us, I felt his Mark full force, as if in some sense the entire length of him pressed into me. I pulled my hand away and watched as he took a deep breath.

  Great. He feels it, too?

  I found it all rather creepy and folded my arms to avoid touching him again.

  “Okay, thanks for getting that off me. But what is it? What did it do to me?”

  “It does nothing to you. It’s an alloy that cannot enter Chaos. It is Stationary in all senses. Anything forged of this material cannot be moved from this world. Walking while carrying it would be like trying to pass through a closed door or push your hand through a solid rock.”

  “They slapped that on me, and I’m not a prisoner?”

  Ivan frowned. “I spoke on your behalf, convinced them to present you to the Emperor himself.”

  “Awfully convenient that you did that all in Russian. How do I know what you said to them?”

  “They did not shoot you.”

  I supposed Ivan did have a point. No one had roughed me up or had even been rude to me. I suspect someone going to visit the President would go through an irritating series of security hoops themselves—especially if they showed up unannounced.

  Of course, there was a practical reason they could remove the Métal Stationnaire bracelet now. I stood in an airship that, by my last look out the window, had floated up several thousand feet above the Atlantic. One step with my Mark and I’d be in free fall somewhere where this airship wasn’t.

  It wa
s an elegant solution to a problem unique to this Empire. Once you had Walkers who could sidestep into another universe and walk around any security measure, it became very hard to secure any location. You’d have to find a spot that was equally inaccessible from any potential universe. If your palace was mobile and airborne, that would be a pretty big step in that direction.

  “So now what?” I asked him.

  “I’m here to escort you to the court scholars.”

  * * *

  —

  I had a brief hope that my meeting with the “scholars” was an attempt to answer the growing pile of questions about the Mark, about the Empire, about the Shadows, and my family. These would be the people who could tell me about the old man who had tried to talk to me, to warn me.

  That was me being naïve.

  Ivan took me deep into the airship, away from the rich wallpaper and the elaborate brass fixtures. We descended several decks to a place where corridors were merely functional, and paint merely protected surfaces from corrosion. Near what I thought had to be the bottom of the airship, Ivan led me into a large suite of rooms. The central room looked like I imagined the back rooms of a natural history museum might look. The walls were hidden behind floor-to-ceiling shelves made of dark wood. Books hid behind sliding doors made of heavy glass. Other shelves held boxes and specimen jars, safely behind their own doors. Other walls hosted tall stacks of drawers, one series made of the kind of broad and flat drawers that stored maps or blueprints, another made of drawers with square faces about a foot square.