Amidst Dark Satanic Mills (Folkestone & Hand Interplanetary Steampunk Adventures Book 2)

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Lady Cynthia started to reach for the woman’s arm, but was stopped. “Thank you,” Folkestone said.

  Eck turned and fled.

  “We should have warned her to leave,” Lady Cynthia said.

  Folkestone shook his head.

  “I know,” Lady Cynthia sighed. “There was no way to warn her off without telling her why.”

  “Then the sand-cat would be out of the bag,” Hand added.

  After making sure the Nagas were not going to stir from their slumber, Folkestone eased the door open slightly. He checked the corridor, saw it was vacant, and motioned the others to follow him. They moved quickly, with hope, but without desperation. The goal was to escape before the detonation, but even if they did not they could still take a measure of satisfaction in the accomplishment of their mission.

  * * *

  “What was the klaxon about?” Lord Khallimar demanded.

  “A security breach,” Bellaseus explained. “The matter was handled. Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “And why did you leave a guard upon me?” Khallimar asked. “I tried to leave the room and was stopped by some of your filthy reptiles. Really, Bellaseus, I don’t know why you are so enamored of those Venusian wogs.”

  “I find them more reliable than humans.”

  Khallimar sniffed in disdain.

  “And much more loyal,” Bellaseus added.

  “What was the security breach?” Khallimar asked.

  “It has been handled.”

  “Where are the people I brought with me?”

  “They have all been put to good use.”

  Khallimar’s eye narrowed with suspicion. “What do you mean by that?”

  “As I told you earlier, the scientists and technicians have been integrated with my own staff and put to work,” Bellaseus asked. “At least those who were tractable.”

  “The ones who swore allegiance to you?”

  Bellaseus smiled thinly.

  “And the ones who refused?” Khallimar asked. “The ones who remained loyal to me?”

  “Everyone has a use,” Bellaseus replied. “Those who refused to serve me could not refuse to serve my Nagas, so to speak.”

  “My security detail?”

  Bellaseus chuckled. “They were the most tractable of all. You are well rid of people whose loyalty would shift so easily. I do not know how many of them I shall retain, but, for the moment, they serve my purposes well enough.”

  “Do I also serve your purposes?” Khallimar asked. “For, as you say, the moment?”

  “A moment is a subjective unit of time,” the Baron remarked. “And variable. A man may have ‘his moment,’ and that moment endure for decades, or only for the few seconds it takes for a bullet to travel across a courtyard to the balcony upon which he stands as he exhorts his people to follow him. For the scientists and technical staff, and for the security personnel as well, to a certain extent, that moment is defined by their usefulness to me, to my projects, to my goals, and there is little they can do to prolong that moment, though they have the power to shorten it…drastically.”

  “Such as recognizing the true leader of MEDUSA?”

  “Actually, Ajite…”

  “You will address me as Lord Khallimar!”

  “At university, you were always a pompous ass, Ajite,” the Baron continued, “but I listened because you were a pompous ass with a vision, so unlike the other social crusaders. The others sought to lift humanity by bettering the lot of the poorest and meanest of spirit, or by redistributing the wealth and property of the best of us to the worst of us.”

  “They were fools,” Khallimar snapped automatically.

  “Yes, they were, but you, Ajite, gave us a vision of society as a great clockwork, mirroring the order of our mechanistic universe,” the Baron said. “Bring all the races of the Solar System under a single banner, use the talents of the brightest and best, put everyone else to work, and eliminate those who were without value. Only thusly united could we ever reach for the stars.” Bellaseus sighed with fond remembrance. “Such a vision it was, Ajite, to quicken the mind and ignite the heart.”

  “A vision that ushered MEDUSA into existence and spread its reach to all the planets and moons.” Khallimar paused, then added venomously: “A vision you betrayed.”

  “It was not I who put Poulpe to selfish purpose, or let escape the fold,” Bellaseus said. “It was not I who let MEDUSA come to the attention of the outside world, and it was not I who dangerously advanced our timetable for purely personal aggrandizement.”

  “Mistakes were made,” Khallimar admitted. “I take no blame for them. Others were responsible. Not I.”

  “The responsibility was indeed yours,” Bellaseus accused. “You were the leader of MEDUSA.”

  “I still am!”

  “No, my old friend,” Bellaseus said, a sad smile playing upon his lips as he fondly recalled the light of days now forever lost. “That moment is over.”

  Khallimar made incoherent, strangling sounds as a white-hot fury spread through him. His hands tightened into claws. His jaw clenched, cording his neck, and his pupils seemed to shrink into the whiteness of his eyes. A thin stream of spittle drooled from the left corner of his mouth.

  “To all within the organization you will still seem to be the leader, for, as we discussed, you have skills I lack,” the Baron said. “But I shall be the face behind the mask. That is the reality of the present moment. How long this new moment endures will depend upon how long you are…”

  Khallimar launched himself at Bellaseus. The Baron tried to cry for help, but no air could pass through his throat. He grabbed at his assailant’s fingers, but they were liked steel grapples. He clawed at Khallimar’s wrists and arms but could not prevail against the fury of madness welling from Khallimar’s dark core at the realization of his own insignificance.

  The light passed from Bellaseus’ eyes and his tongue extended from a grotesque rictus mouth. Even as the last tickle of air escaped the Baron’s lungs like the final hiss of a dying steam engine, the mad man continued to knead and jellify his victim’s throat.

  So engrossed was Khallimar in executing a murder that finally elicited an emotion, as opposed to the casual killings that were a part of his everyday existence, he neither heard the crashing doors behind him or the scream of rage that followed. When he let Bellaseus’ body drop to the floor, it was not because he had been found out or that his madness had left him, but because he had cracked a few of his own finger bones from the pressure exerted.

  “No!” Eck screamed. “You fool! What have you done?”

  The words battered against Khallimar’s murderous rage, finally impinging upon his consciousness. He gazed upon Bellaseus’ inert form, a grin seeming to wrap itself around his head. Realizing he was no longer alone, he pivoted toward the new danger.

  The terror he saw on Eck’s normally placid face was funny, he thought. Shrill laughter peeled from his throat.

  “You murdered my father,” she croaked.

  “Your…” Khallimar knew he should be worried, that he should feel fear, but it was all just too funny. “Your…” He laughed even more hysterically. “Your…” Why was Eck calling Bellaseus such a strange thing? “…father?”

  Eck was quite close to him now. He wanted to run, wanted to obey a primitive urge to flee, but he was almost doubled with mirth. With one hand, Eck jerked him erect. He saw her other hand poised in the air before him. Had she always had such a beautiful brass hand, a wonder of the artificer’s craft? He did not think so, but…

  Eck plunged her metal hand into Khallimar’s chest, battering through bone and cartilage like a ship’s ram. She clutched the beating organ within and yanked it free.

  Khallimar’s laughter did not die at the sight of his own beating heart, but became like wind from a leaky bellows. How curious, he thought, that this girl was holding his heart in her hand, when he had sworn so devoutly that no female would ever possess it. More surprising still that it wa
s not black. He had always imagined it was.

  Lord Khallimar dropped to the floor, kicked, and was still.

  His heart plopped next to him.

  She stared, her emotionless mien returning like a rising tide.

  The castle shuddered, then the edifice pitched. A low rumbling sound increased with each passing moment. A sudden jerk almost threw her to her knees. Stones fell. She ran for the landing bay.

  She activated the canopy and ran aboard Khallimar’s ship. As the boiler recharged, she repaired the repulsors. The aether engines had not been touched, evidenced by the body of the fool who had discovered her. She let the impulse jets and repulsors push the craft free of the collapsing castle, then activated the aether engines.

  * * *

  The inhabitants of the lonely valley first thought a storm bore down on them, heralded by booming thunder, but the sky was clear. A wash of frosty stars gleamed down from the velvety welkin as it had for generations. A bright light suddenly leapt from behind a peak near the castle, a wizard’s chariot obviously, but whether it was the one that had terrified them earlier none could say.

  Wizards had always lived in the castle, had always been Lords of the valley. Villagers were born, lived and died, and even the stars wheeled about, but Castle Bellaseus had always been the one fixed point of their lives, more constant than the northern star. But on this night that one immutable center of their existence moved.

  The thunder rose to a crescendo, drawing every eye toward the beetling walls of Castle Bellaseus where the unseen gaze of the Baron peered down upon them, watched their comings and goings, saw into the depths of their souls. It was where their master held court with his fellow wizards, where he consorted with hordes of reptilian demons, where certain villagers were spirited to in the dead of night, many never to return.

  As it had been, it ever was, never changing.

  Until now.

  The ancient stones shuddered, then began to fall.

  A dazzling blast of light erupted from the rocky base of the castle, accompanied by tons of debris and a riving roar that almost shattered the hearing of the wretched villagers nearest the castle.

  Castle Bellaseus broke asunder, massive blocks of stone rising high into the starry air and arcing downward to smash cottages and barns, bury themselves in fields, or splash into rivers and lakes. Other blocks, these too large to be lifted even by the ferocity of the terrible explosion, tumbled down the nearly sheer slopes.

  The villagers, stunned into dumb wonder by the sudden and total destruction of the castle, were further amazed to see the lights of a lone aerial chariot lift from the cascading ruins. It could, they knew, only be Baron Bellaseus himself, for he was all-powerful, untouchable by any calamity whether it came from the forces of nature or the hand of another wizard trying to smite him.

  The Baron was undefeatable.

  The Baron was omniscient and omnipresent.

  The Baron was immortal.

  The aerial chariot exploded.

  Fragments rained to earth. And some of those fragments, the villagers knew, had to be fragments of their Lord. Before their own eyes, the absolute rule of the man who had controlled their lives for generations came to an end.

  Baron Bellaseus was dead.

  It was difficult to believe. But, likewise, it was impossible to deny. All had witnessed the end of tyranny and terror.

  Even though the castle was now totally destroyed, along with its cruel master, the tumult continued. In fact, the sounds became louder, spreading to encompass the entire mountain-ringed valley.

  Now that Baron Bellaseus was dead, there was no one to contain or control his fell magic. It sounded as if all the demons of every circle of Hell had come to roost in the mountains, their wails caught between mourning and rage. When the cries reached an ear-splitting pitch, streamers of purple fire shot upward, laced with exploding sparkles of gold and red.

  Not a man or woman remained standing. All threw themselves to the earth, but not all buried their faces. Some of the villagers, those few in whose breasts had never beat the hearts of sheep, kept their gazes turned upward. They saw the destructive blasts among the peaks as the hidden Mills exploded and sent their contained energies spiraling harmlessly into space, into a darkness that seemed to open amongst the stars.

  Those braver souls were the first to notice the stillness that came softly surging back, the first to stand, to help the others to their feet. And they were the first to raise their defiant fists into the air and claim their long-denied freedom.

  Epilogue

  “I am so happy for you,” Lady Cynthia Barrington-Welles said after witnesses and presenters had been escorted away from the private ceremony, bestowing kisses upon Professor Lewis Swift’s cheeks. “You deserve no less, and much more.”

  “Congrats, Prof!” cried Sergeant Felix Hand, clapping the old astronomer on the shoulder, then remembering the wound. “Sorry.” He laughed. “But I still think Vulcan sounds more posh.”

  “Yes, well done, Professor,” Captain Robert Folkestone said, clasping the man’s hand. “Pay no attention to Sergeant Hand.”

  “Hephaestus is a grand name,” Lady Cynthia added. “And the British Astronomical Society agrees with you.”

  Professor Swift smiled faintly. “The decision of the BAS was not unanimous, nor reached, I think, free of outside influence.”

  Folkestone shrugged. “I told you we would be grateful for your help, and I do believe you went well above and beyond what any other man would have done.”

  “Well, I…” Swift started to say.

  “And you heard how appreciative Her Majesty was of your assistance,” Lady Cynthia added. “Professor Sir Lewis Swift—it has a nice sound, does it not?”

  “The Articles of Confederation forbid me from accepting a foreign title, but…” He smiled. “Yes, it does have a nice sound, and life in the Empire has much to offer.”

  “Those fire-worms could be Vulcanians,” Hand continued. “Or maybe Vulcans…yeah, a very posh ring, it has.”

  “Pish-posh,” Lady Cynthia said dismissively. “We’ll call the planet by the Greek name Hephaestus, but our new friends will still be the Drassa. You named yourself; they can do the same.”

  “I understand Parliament has already passed the Hephaestus Protection Act,” Folkestone mentioned.

  Lady Cynthia nodded. “Hephaestus is a British Protectorate.”

  “That was pretty blasted fast,” Hand commented.

  “Section 6 is said to maintain a confidential file on every MP,” Folkestone remarked, glancing at Lady Cynthia.

  “I am sure I would not know anything about that,” she said.

  “But Baron Bellaseus said…” Hand started to say.

  “As if you could believe that maniac about anything,” she snapped. “The Solar System is better off without the likes of him, and that dreadful Lord Khallimar.”

  Hand thought about pressing the matter further, but decided upon a safer path. He did not like the way her eye glared at him. But he still wondered about the truth behind the leather eyepatch.

  “Anyway, no one will be visiting Hephaestus anytime soon, for any reason,” she continued. “And the Drassa will be protected from interference, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be. The other powers are crying foul, especially yours, Professor…”

  “Good thing I have no plans to return.” He interjected.

  “…but it will not amount to more than chatter.”

  “Hello, everyone,” greeted a new voice.

  “Ethan, it’s good to see you,” Folkestone said.

  “Chief Inspector,” Hand said with a cordial nod.

  “Professor Swift, this is Chief Inspector Slaughter of Scotland Yard,” Lady Cynthia said.

  “How do you do, Professor,” Slaughter greeted. He gestured toward the gold medal depending from the silk ribbon about his neck. “Very impressive.” He leaned forward and murmured softly: “And I understand you played an even more impressive r
ole in the present emergency.”

  Swift flushed with embarrassment. “I’m just a stargazer, Chief Inspector Slaughter.”

  “And this is…” Lady Cynthia prompted.

  “I’m sorry.” He grinned awkwardly and took a slender hand in his. “Permit me to introduce Marie Slaughter, my wife.”

  The newlyweds were congratulated by all.

  “I’m very sorry about what happened to your father, Mrs Slaughter,” Folkestone said.

  “Please, call me Marie,” she said. “And thank you. He was a great man, but misguided, not evil in his own heart but susceptible to the evil intentions of others.”

  “Them blokes are brown bread,” Hand claimed. “Including, the two who murdered your father. Tanaka’s identification was found in Castle Bellaseus, in a Naga feeding area.”

  “And Zimmer’s was found not far away,” Folkestone added. “It seems they displeased their masters.”

  “Probably because they didn’t do very well against us,” Hand snorted. “Bloody duffers they were!”

  Lady Cynthia’s frown was softened by a fond smile. She did not correct his language, this time.

  “But are they all dead?” Marie asked. “Can we be sure?”

  “We can be very sure,” Lady Cynthia asserted. “Everybody in the castle was killed when it was destroyed. No survivors were found by our teams, and none have appeared in the villages or have come across the mountains. Someone did try to escape in an aethership; we don’t know who, but the ship exploded when the aether engines were engaged.”

  “I do good work,” Hand added, not with any modestly.

  “MEDUSA is gone forever,” Folkestone said. “We can’t claim that every single operative has been taken into custody on all the planets and moons, but all the leaders of the group are either in black holes out of which they will never crawl, or dead.”

  “Including the biggest noises,” Hand added.

  Folkestone nodded. “Yes, remains confirmed as those of Baron Wilhelm Bellaseus were discovered in a private chamber. Evidently he was killed before the castle was destroyed. Alongside was a body definitely identified as that of Lord Ajite Khallimar. It appears he, too, died before the collapse of the castle.”