by Vered Ehsani
At that moment, the entire airship lurched and plunged several feet downward as the airstream dipped and churned around us. Off-balance, I slipped, my metal hand unable to maintain a grip. In a panic, I reached with my right hand, which further unsettled me.
Before I could cry out or scream, I was hanging off the edge with my one functioning hand clinging to a metal rope for dear life.
Chapter 27
“Oh, why didn’t Dr. Cricket just give me a hook?” I grumbled.
From above, the dwarf shrieked and Lilly cried out. Of Brutus I could see nothing, which was fairly impressive for a man that size to simply disappear from view.
As I had more pressing matters, I left Lilly and the kidnappers to sort themselves out as I tightened my grip. The turbulent air rocked us back and forth, up and down.
I brought the metal hand to my mouth, which was harder than it sounds, for I was swaying with the wind and unable to find any purchase with my feet. My right hand ached and my shoulder felt as if it would dislocate at any moment, which would’ve been very inconvenient timing.
Ignoring my right hand and shoulder, I used my teeth to fiddle with the knobs and buttons on the hand’s wrist.
A fist formed.
No, I thought. I didn’t need a fist, unless the dwarf’s nose happened to be nearby; regrettably it wasn’t. I twiddled another knob. Fingers out straight, flat palm. Not helpful. I tried again and fingers curled into a claw of sorts.
Using my clawed hand like a hook, I swung my free arm up and snagged a rope. The fingers maintained their form as I tested their strength, and I pulled myself back up onto the roof.
Of the dwarf and the wolf, there was no sign. Lilly was clinging to another metal cord with arms and legs wrapped around it.
“Thank heavens you’re still here,” she called to me. “That big man fell off the edge. I thought you’d gone with him.”
My legs wobbled deplorably so I remained on my hands and knees while I shuffled to Lilly. “That’s one less to deal with then.”
Aghast, Lilly frowned at me. “Bee, he was only following orders, you know. That dwarf is an atrocious little creature.”
“Be that as it may,” I said, “it’s time for us to go back inside.”
“That’s a most agreeable suggestion,” she gushed as she unwrapped herself from around the rope.
I checked the gap I’d made near Lilly’s cell door. As the area was free of dwarves and other obstructions, I assisted Lilly to lower herself onto the chair, which had hardly moved during the altercation. The same couldn’t be said for my right shoulder, which ached as if it would never be the same again.
“What do you think of that fashion trend, in which women wear split skirts?” I asked her as I hopped off the chair to join her.
With a thoughtful expression gracing her features, she nodded her head. “Yes, that’s not a bad idea at all, considering your propensity to land yourself in situations requiring a certain amount of agility.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said as I picked up another board. Lilly followed my example and we headed for the control room at the front of the ship.
We could hear the dwarf cursing abominably long before we saw him. That he was still alive and breathing, despite what I’m sure were the best efforts of my wolf, was impressive in an intimidating way.
“He survived,” Lilly said, her tone flat.
“So it would seem,” I replied as we moved along the corridor, armed with our wood planks.
As we were about to enter the front space, an unfamiliar sensation overtook me and all strength leached out of my limbs. I tottered against a window, barely able to stay erect.
“Bee, are you all right?” Lilly whispered.
I was tempted to inform her of the stupidity of that question, since clearly I wasn’t all right, but her strained expression stopped me. “I don’t think so. I feel rather… rather…”
“Faint?” Lilly suggested.
My eyes widened at that and I almost gained my strength back. Beatrice Knight, faint? That simply wouldn’t do. Yet I had all the symptoms of that affliction, including the overwhelming need to collapse onto the floor. My knees gave way and I slid onto the mahogany deck.
Lilly abandoned her piece of plank and knelt beside me. “Oh dear, what do I do?”
“I’m not sure,” I whispered, my voice flimsy against the background grumble of the ship’s engine. “I don’t have experience with this sort of thing.”
“Mrs. Knight?” The dwarf appeared at the end of the hallway, staring at me as if he couldn’t quite believe it either. “Are you all right?”
“Imbecile of a man, of course she isn’t,” Lilly answered on my behalf.
“I did warn her that it was chilly out there,” the dwarf grumbled.
“Yes and you were very correct,” Lilly replied. “Now come at once and help me transport her to her bed.”
I wanted to warn her not to give in so easily, but my jaw was far too heavy to move. And realistically, what could she do?
The dwarf scurried over and Lilly ordered him, “Grab this arm and I’ll take the other.”
As Nameless did so, I watched as Lilly moved behind him, stooped, straightened, and smashed a board against the back of his head. The dwarf’s eyes rolled back and he collapsed onto my lap.
“Brilliant work,” I mumbled, the words garbled and intoxicated-sounding. Or was I intoxicated? Poisoned, perhaps? “Lock him up.”
Lilly stared down at me, fists on hips. “You expect me to drag that carcass around?”
My mind wasn’t quick enough to come up with a suitable retort, and Lilly didn’t wait for me to respond. With a huff and a muttered, “Good gracious,” she grabbed an arm of the dwarf and lugged him into the front space and around the corner toward my cell. After a moment, I heard the door slam and a bolt drawn into place.
“Now what?” she demanded as she hurried back.
“Now me,” I said.
Whatever she might’ve said, she refrained from sharing as she tugged me into the control room, grunting and grimacing. By the time she could lean me against a wall, she was breathing hard.
“Now what?” she asked again as she slumped down beside me.
I glanced around the room and noticed a pull-down ladder leading up to a trapdoor. Closer by, on the table next to the tea set, was the silver pendulum and the jar. The pendulum stopped its motion just as my gaze alighted on it.
“Gideon’s in the jar,” I muttered, the words sliding out of my mouth like a line of drool.
“Let me guess,” Lilly said. “You would have me open it up? And please don’t attempt to smile. It looks ghastly.”
With those encouraging words, she tottered over to the table. Plucking up the jar, she wrenched at the stopper. It came out with a loud pop.
“Gideon?” she called, peering into the silver vessel. “Hello, are you in there?” She looked toward me. “Maybe it’s a one-way entrance.” She turned the jar over and shook it, as if Gideon’s ghost was some pebble that had lodged itself inside.
The jar began to glow.
“Lilly,” I warned but before either of us could respond further, something that was not Gideon came out. Distorted and elongated, it poured out of the jar and puddled at Lilly’s feet. There it quivered, shook itself like a wet dog…
And puffed up into my wolf.
Without a backward glance, it raced over and vanished just as it reached me. My body convulsed and I straightened my back instinctively, for I did abhor slouching. At my height, I couldn’t afford to make myself smaller.
“That explains a few things,” Lilly commented as she shook the jar again.
“You’ll say nothing about that to anyone,” I warned her as I stood up, my energy returned.
Lilly rolled her eyes and in that moment, she was my little cousin, untouched by cruelty and horror, interested only in her beautiful curls and the latest fashion.
Satisfied that another of my oddities would be kept a secret, I
reassured myself that my limbs all functioned normally before stepping to the table and pocketing the silver pendulum set. It was far too hazardous an item to leave about.
Another liquidized energy poured out of the jar and onto the ground. This one took longer to sort itself out, as if it was confused as to what it should look like. Humanoid, certainly, but the arms were elongated, and the legs truncated. There was no indication of hair, and the head was a featureless blob.
“Gideon?” I asked.
“If that’s Gideon, he needs to trim those nails,” Lilly commented.
It was true. His fingernails extended to the floor and ended in sharp points.
“I don’t think that’s Gideon,” I said. “It’s too short and wrongly proportioned.”
Lilly tilted her head to the side. “No, it could be him. He just needs to be re-molded a bit. And the nails…”
“Lilly, step away from that thing,” I ordered, my voice quivering, for its form reminded me of something Jonas had recently educated me about.
She glanced up at me, a stubborn set to her jaw. “Really, Bee, just give it a moment. He just needs some time to sort out his shape.”
The shape in question shook itself, but it didn’t change into a wolf or a dead husband. A large gash opened up where a mouth should be, and dagger-sharp teeth sprouted within.
“It’s a Biloko,” I yelped. “Lilly, run.”
Lilly screamed and chucked the jar at the creature’s head, before lifting her skirt and scurrying away in the only direction she could: to the ship’s wheel. There, she squeezed herself into the space behind the wheel, her hand gripping two of the spokes.
“Oh, bother,” I said as the beast’s eyes blinked balefully at me. I spun about and ran to the ladder.
The Biloko lumbered after me as I hurried up. My skirt conspired to trip up my boots and something tore. I had quite a collection of torn dresses and skirts. A random thought – What does Mrs. Steward imagine I do all day? – flittered through my mind and skittered away to where irrelevant thoughts go to die.
Something else snatched at my skirt, but it wasn’t a boot.
“Beatrice!” Lilly screamed. “That thing. Its claws. In your skirt…”
“So I gathered,” I grunted as I kicked back and connected with some part of the creature. It in turn latched onto my boot and yanked. I grabbed at the rung in front of me and gripped it even as my chin made firm contact with it.
The coppery taste of blood leaked from my lips while a sharp point penetrated the leather to scrape at my foot. I glanced back. The beast had my boot firmly in its mouth.
“I’m not losing another extremity,” I told it and kicked back with my other boot, aiming for an eye.
The beast howled, conveniently opening its maw to do so. I scampered up the ladder and climbed out of the trapdoor. Wind gusted, heavy with salt and the scent of seaweed.
Not only were we by the ocean, we were flying toward a small town clinging to the shore. I hadn’t noticed the angle of our descent, but we were now close enough to see the people’s astonished expressions as they gestured in our direction.
Most of the buildings were modest mud structures, but ahead of us was an ornately designed mosque, its stone walls covered in carvings of flowers and symmetrical shapes. Several minarets rose up out of the walls; each tower was topped by a tall, metal needle the color of gold.
A grunt caused me to glance at the trapdoor. Three large claws clapped onto the wooden roof near me, scrapping against the boards and leaving deep marks. This demonstration was followed by the appearance of a toothy snout.
As disturbing as that was, there was a more pressing matter ahead. I returned my attention to the mosque. It took only a breath of time to ascertain that one of the minarets was most inconveniently located directly in front of us, its gleaming needle perfectly positioned to fatally puncture our balloon.
Chapter 28
“Lilly, spin the wheel,” I shouted as I crawled away from the beast.
“What?” she said, her voice barely audible against the rush of wind.
“Turn the… Oh, blast it,” I said as the beast lunged at me; it was utterly unconcerned that we were still high enough for a fall to be fatal for those of us with organs, blood and bones.
The minaret’s needle loomed close, the zeppelin seemingly frail in comparison.
“Beatrice, that tower,” Lilly shouted.
She must’ve come out of her hiding place, for I could hear her.
“Yes, I know,” I yelled back. I let go of the metal rope and maneuvered around the beast and back to the trapdoor. If we hit any turbulence, I thought, it was going to be a messy death for me and that was such a pity, for I did loathe an ugly corpse.
I could now make out the details of all the carvings on the mosque’s stone walls. While it was a lovely sight, I found it rather difficult to fully appreciate the artwork when impending disaster was a few gusts of wind away.
“Swing starboard,” I shouted.
The zeppelin careened closer to the minaret. The beast howled and I shrieked, “The other starboard.”
The airship jerked the other way, unsettling the beast, who was even less impressed by the back-and-forth movement than I was. This fortunate alignment of factors allowed me to leap feet-first through the square hole without being eviscerated by the claws that swiped at me. As I yanked the trapdoor toward me, the creature lunged and smacked against the door, pushing it down into place.
I pulled the bolt and slid down the ladder.
“I’ve never sailed before!” Lilly screamed at me as she yanked the wheel to clear another minaret.
“Clearly not,” I said as I tottered over to the corridor entrance. “And what better time to learn when your very life is at stake.”
Lilly grumbled something while I slammed the door closed, just as the beast appeared at the other end of the corridor. It must’ve found the hole I’d made near Lilly’s cell. Its howl out-competed the roar of the engine.
“So how do we land this contraption?” Lilly asked as I joined her at the helm.
“Let’s take it to Nairobi and worry about that detail later,” I suggested as I glanced about for the silver jar. It had rolled into a corner. “Turn us around and follow the coastline.”
“I don’t know if it’ll go that far,” Lilly said as she followed my instructions. She paused only to push back a tangle of curls that were rapidly turning into a frizzy mess as the humidity increased. “The engine’s making a funny noise.”
I paused to listen and decided the noise was not at all amusing. The steady, loud thrum was being interrupted with regular choking sounds. While we were now heading south, the zeppelin was definitely floating along at a slower rate, and the engine struggled to maintain elevation.
“That doesn’t sound too encouraging,” I agreed, maintaining a firm grip on any trepidation I might have about plummeting to the ground. “But as long as we don’t land anywhere near Lagos, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure we’ll have much choice on the landing,” Lilly said.
As we weren’t descending at too great a speed, I turned my attention away from any worries about crashing. Instead I allowed myself a moment to wonder where the beast had gone to, for it wasn’t hammering at the door anymore. As I wasn’t about to go out to investigate the matter, I shrugged off that apprehension as well, and walked toward the jar.
Something else was oozing out of it.
Chapter 29
“Where’s the lid to this jar?” I demanded.
“Don’t open that jar,” Nameless shouted from inside my former cell as he banged on the door.
“Why not?” I asked.
“You really don’t want to ask that question, Mrs. Knight,” the dwarf said in as pompous a tone as any prisoner has ever dared use.
“No, I really do want to,” I replied, giving up on finding the stopper. Instead I tore off a strip of material from the edge of my skirt; given how tattered it was, I didn’t requir
e much effort to do so.
The dwarf remained taciturn for a moment and then said, “You opened it, didn’t you?”
“Affirmative,” I said as I knotted the cloth strip into a plug.
“And you’re still alive,” he cleverly noted. “Most impressive, Mrs. Knight. But for how long will you thus remain? I recently trapped…”
“A Biloko,” I interrupted. “Yes, I know.”
Nameless was silenced for all of one heartbeat before he continued, “It’s best if you let me out to assist you.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Do you have a spare stopper for the jar?”
“You lost the stopper?” he said, his voice breaking in a high-pitched shriek at the end.
“I’m going to interpret that as a No,” I said. “In which case you’re useless to me.”
I couldn’t do much about the ooze that had already escaped, so I left it on the floor and stuffed the cloth into the jar’s opening. As I did so, the ooze began to solidify into a humanoid shape.
“Beatrice,” Lilly whimpered.
“I think this one’s Gideon,” I told her.
“How can you possibly tell?” she asked.
“The shape of the head,” I said.
Indeed, the head had begun to take on more characteristics that reminded me of Gideon. His eyes were the first things to fully clarify. They blinked in weary bewilderment as they glanced about the room, finally settling on me.
His mouth was the last bit to re-form, which must’ve been thoroughly frustrating for a talkative creature such as himself.
“What? Where?” he whispered.
“You look a bit wrinkled, Gideon,” I observed.
In fact, he looked as if he’d been crumpled up and stuffed into a cup of water. His color was faded, his edges a bit ruffled and his surface wrinkled up.
“You try being inside a jar and see how you fare,” he said, his whole being shuddering with revulsion. “And speaking of which, where is it?”