The Ruby Airship

by Sharon Gosling

  “That looks like one of the Professor’s transmission boxes,” said Thaddeus tensely.

  The Comte flicked a single switch, and it was if the mechanical army had been woken from a deep sleep. As one, the figures lifted their heads. It was eerie, the silence that accompanied the movement almost dreamlike. Then the Comte flipped another switch, and they instantly came to attention, lifeless hands stiffening at their sides, feet sturdily stepping apart to stamp loudly on the stone. A second later, they began to march. The relentlessly even tread of their boots echoed around the chamber as, in impenetrable lines of emotionless metal, the soldiers stepped forward and then turned sharply in tight formation. As Thaddeus and Rémy watched, the great gate opened in the rock wall. The men disappeared from view, four abreast until the cavern was almost empty.

  Below them, the Comte spread his arms in triumph. “They are programmed to protect Mont Cantal,” he bellowed up at them. “No one will exit. No one will enter. No one will be able to defeat them. Welcome to your graveyard!”

  The Comte began to laugh, the sound echoing eerily around the great chamber.

  “What can we do?” Rémy asked Thaddeus, looking around frantically. “How do we defeat them?”

  Thaddeus grasped her by the shoulders, spinning her around to face him. “I was wrong. We can’t. Listen to me, Rémy — we just can’t. Maybe if we’d got to him before, but not now he’s activated them.”

  “Then what —”

  “You have to run. Go now, and you can make it before the metal men reach the main gates. Get out of here.”

  “What about you?” Rémy asked. “Why aren’t you coming?”

  “I’m not as fast as you,” Thaddeus told her.

  “That’s not true!” Rémy protested. “We can both —”

  “It is true,” Thaddeus told her, “and anyway, there is something I must do. Go, Rémy. Save yourself. Please.”

  “No,” Rémy said, her voice rasping inside the mask. “No, whatever you are going to do — I’m coming too.”

  “Rémy —”

  “Thaddeus,” Rémy answered resolutely. “Whatever it is, I can help.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Thaddeus warned. “Extremely dangerous. If it works, I don’t think there’s a lot of chance of me making it out of here.”

  “Good,” she said, stoutly. “Anything other than extremely dangerous has a habit of being boring. Now come on, little policeman, get on with it. We’re wasting time.”

  Thaddeus stared at her for a moment, and then grabbed her hand and pulled her down the short flight of rough stone steps. He hauled Rémy under the stone arch and into the connecting cavern where the stench of sulphur was at its strongest, even with their masks.

  “Mon dieu!” Rémy exclaimed, when she saw the lava pool.

  “Up there,” Thaddeus said, pointing to the huge machine in the ceiling. Its arms were still moving, and inside the metal cabin some of the mechanical men were still at work. “It controls the lava flow. It’s what keeps it in check.”

  Rémy looked at him. “You want to destroy it?”

  “I can’t think of anything else we can do,” he said. “If we can make the lava overflow . . .”

  She nodded without him having to finish. “Well,” she said, with a sharp grin. “It’s better than drowning again, eh?”

  If she hadn’t been wearing that damned mask and if there had been time, he would have kissed her then. But she was, and there wasn’t. There never seemed to be enough time, or at least not enough of the right time.

  “You take the stairs,” she told him, pointing to the metal rungs sent into the wall for the soldiers to climb.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  Rémy was already running. “What do you think?” she shouted back over her shoulder.

  Thaddeus didn’t have time to watch her. He ran to the ladder and began to climb. It was difficult to see in the mask, and he had to wedge the oxygen canister into what was left of his trousers in order to use his hands, but he struggled on.

  Halfway up he turned to see what Rémy was doing. He paused for a moment in amazement. She’d climbed onto one of the huge slabs of rock. The machine had started to lift it, but that didn’t deter Little Bird. Instead, Thaddeus watched as she began to climb the mechanical arm itself.

  He reached the top of the ladder and found himself on a narrow ledge that led to the machine’s control room. For one jubilant moment he thought the way forward was clear, but then he heard a shout from below. It was the Comte, still wielding the controls to his fearful army. He yelled something Thaddeus couldn’t make out and then flicked another switch. Inside the control room, one of the metal men began to move. It stepped out onto the ledge and headed for Thaddeus.

  {Chapter 47}

  ACHILLES’ HEEL

  The metal soldier was shockingly fast and on him in a moment. Unlike the lumbering, unwieldy mechanical contraptions Thaddeus had seen in Abernathy’s lair, this soldier was lean and graceful, moving fluidly as it tried to grab for his neck. The policeman ducked, feigning a left and then moving right before launching a kick at the machine’s leg. It was like attacking solid rock — Thaddeus’s foot simply slipped off the polished metal. The move unbalanced him, and the mechanical soldier launched another attack, this time punching at his shoulder with enough force to hurl Thaddeus against the wall, jarring his spine and winding him. Through his pain, the policeman saw the soldier reach for something at his hip. It was a cruel-looking knife, with a long, hooked blade of the sort he had seen down on the docks in the hands of shipmen arriving from the Orient. The soldier pulled it from a scabbard fashioned directly into its metal flesh, and plunged the weapon toward him.

  Thaddeus’s only advantage was the narrow ledge on which he and his apparently impervious foe fought. If he could find some way to make the monster miss a step — to stray too close to the edge . . .

  He quickly looked the machine over, searching for some weakness, however small. The metal of its torso was forged from one smooth piece, and each joint in the arm and neck overlapped so that its inner workings were hidden. The legs, though, were slightly different — one hip housed the evil-looking knife, and so bore no such smooth overlap. When its knife was in use, that could be a weakness. Besides this, the ankle joints were exposed to show an assembly of cogs and gears, constantly turning as the monster moved forward.

  Thaddeus lashed out, aiming a stout kick at the unprotected hip, but to no avail. The soldier anticipated his move a fraction of a second before the blow connected and turned slightly before slashing the knife at Thaddeus’s shoulder blade, missing by a hair’s breadth. Instead of pulling back, though, the policeman forged forward, ducking under the soldier’s arm so that he was, for just a moment, behind it. The advantage was only a split second — the contraption was already twisting its featureless face around to work out where he was — but Thaddeus used it fully. He slammed his heel into the gears at the soldier’s ankle. It was enough to unbalance the soldier. It lifted its arms and splayed its metal fingers to steady itself, which was all the hesitation Thaddeus needed. Gathering his strength, he brought up one leg and propelled it into the soldier’s featureless torso. The kick had enough force to make the metal man step back — straight over the lip of the ledge on which they fought. Thaddeus lunged forward as it fell, grasping for the knife. He grabbed it by the hilt and the soldier let it go. The policeman righted himself and kicked out with one last blow to make sure it fell. It did so in total silence, plummeting to its end without even a hint of emotion.

  A bellow of fury echoed off the walls. It was the Comte, watching from the floor of the lava room.

  Thaddeus watched as the soldier crashed to the floor, half in and half out of one of the molten infernos. It lay there, torso, arms, and head still operational, but it was too late. It’s legs and innards melted into the river of fire, disappearing li
ke ice back into a pond on a sunny morning.

  The Comte bellowed his rage again, but the policeman was already on the move. He could see that Rémy was ahead of him — she’d made it all the way up the metal arm.

  “Rémy,” he shouted at her, “their ankles are their weakness!”

  She turned at the sound of her name and nodded once before launching an attack on the glass windows of the control cabin. Thaddeus saw another metal man coming for him. It charged through the door of the cabin as the glass behind it shattered under Rémy’s attack, falling like sharp rain to the floor below.

  “No!” the Comte screamed again. He threw another switch on the control box, and the soldier running toward Thaddeus stopped abruptly. It turned on its heel and started back to the control cabin.

  Thaddeus followed, slashing and stabbing wildly at the soldier from behind. The knife bounced off the sheet metal of its armor but found a chink beneath the overlap at the machine’s shoulder. The blade slipped beneath, and Thaddeus wrenched it back again. There was an immediate whining, winding sound as something within broke. Black oil spilled out like blood, bringing with it a torrent of tiny golden cogs. The soldier’s arm hung useless at its side, but still it didn’t stop.

  Inside the cabin, Rémy had plunged through the broken window and launched an attack on the two machines left within. Not even these inhuman contraptions were fast enough to catch Little Bird, who leaped and pirouetted around the cabin as they thumped and bashed their way after her, damaging the controls with far more efficiency than they did their prey.

  “This place is the heart of his entire operation,” Thaddeus shouted, looking around at the myriad controls. “If we can destroy it . . .”

  Rémy didn’t reply, too busy evading the jerking, stabbing reach of one of the metal men. She threw herself back against one of the control panels and then slammed out her foot against its arm. At the same time, Thaddeus used his knife to incapacitate it, oil spurting everywhere as he slid the knife under the armor at the back of its neck and wrenched upward hard.

  With Rémy keeping the other two occupied, Thaddeus looked around. The control cabin was a dense forest of controls, none of which were labeled.

  “Can you turn it off?” Rémy yelled, as she rammed one of her opponents back against a large pulley that hung down through a hole in the ceiling. It flailed its arms uselessly, entangled in the chains, unable to free itself.

  “That won’t be enough,” Thaddeus shouted over the sound of crashing metal. “We’ve got to make the lava overflow, somehow . . .” He looked up, seeing through the dirty glass circles of his mask the clamps that held the cabin to the rock ceiling. He realized now that the whole structure was hanging on two huge rails that crossed the cavern’s roof. The machine must have been designed to slide so that the stone slabs could reach different areas when needed. Thaddeus leaned through the smashed glass window and looked down — at the moment they were almost directly over the main lava pool. If the machine was to fall, not only would every one of the stone slabs be unable to operate, the weight of the cabin might just be enough to crack the edge of the lava pool.

  “I could really use some help here,” Rémy shouted.

  Thaddeus turned to see that the final mechanical soldier had managed to corner her. It caught one of Rémy’s legs in midair, making her overbalance. She crashed back against the control panel, crying out in pain as the switches and levers smashed into her back. Thaddeus leaped forward, slamming his knife up and into the soldier’s left knee joint. It staggered, giving Rémy a chance to get up, but righted itself almost immediately. It swung around, smashing one clenched fist at Thaddeus’s face and catching his jaw with a crunching blow. He heard Rémy yell, and the soldier slid sideways, off-balance enough that its next punch connected with one of the glass panels still intact. The panel shattered, showering them all in glass.

  “Tip it out!” Rémy screamed. Together they grabbed the soldier’s legs and lifted up and out through the broken window. It made no sound as it fell.

  “Look,” Rémy said, breathing hard.

  Below, a fresh column of gleaming metal soldiers were marching into the cavern. The Comte was directing them toward the cabin in which Rémy and Thaddeus stood, his ranting and raving visible even from where they stood watching.

  “What do we do?” Rémy asked. “Tell me you’ve got a plan, Thaddeus, because I don’t think we can delay that many for long!”

  {Chapter 48}

  CONSUMED

  The policeman looked around, suddenly feeling helpless in the face of so many unknowns. “Start pulling levers,” he said. “It’s all we can do. Quickly!”

  Together, they began wrenching levers and throwing switches. Some did nothing; others caused audible whines from the machine. He threw one switch to the upright position and felt the cabin move slightly. Looking out, he saw one of the huge metal arms move. It lifted, taking its massive load of stone slab with it. Thaddeus flicked the switch next to it and another arm did the same thing.

  “Rémy,” he said, “quickly, help me with these.”

  Together, they moved all of the switches into the upright position, lifting all of the metal arms so that every one of the huge slabs began to move at once. The cabin shook with immense strain of lifting so much weight at the same time.

  Below them, the small lava channels — the ones that had been blocked or controlled by the moveable rocks — began to overflow. Thaddeus looked down to see the Comte stepping backward warily as one river of fire burst its hewn banks and crept across the floor toward him.

  There was a creaking sound from above them as the clamps holding the cabin in place began to buckle under the strain. The creak turned into the squeal of metal as one of the four pinion points gave way. A second later, another broke, and one side of the cabin dropped completely, hanging down toward the pool of lava. Rémy lost her footing and was thrown against Thaddeus.

  “We have to get out of here,” she gasped, pushing away from him as he held her steady. They fought their way to the doorway and scrambled out onto the ledge.

  From outside the cabin, they could see the Comte yelling frantically, waving his transmitter and trying to direct his column of metal soldiers. One of the lava flows had already cut off their route to the ladder. Instead, he had ordered them to climb the rock walls, and so they were clawing their way directly up the rock face on the other side of the cavern, making for the opposite end of the narrow walkway on which Thaddeus and Rémy stood.

  Another of the cabin’s clamps began to give way, the huge metal screws holding it in place scraping loudly free of the rock. Dust and chunks of stone began to pepper the ledge, falling on Thaddeus and Rémy.

  “We’ve got to get to the engine cavern before they cut us off,” Thaddeus yelled over the violent creaking of the cabin. “We can get out through the cells.”

  “I’m running out of air,” Rémy shouted back. She pulled the canister of oxygen from her belt and shook it.

  “I know, me too,” Thaddeus told her. “Go!”

  The metal ladder that the policeman had used to get to the upper walkway was useless, the lower rungs eaten away by the flood of lava. To get to the second cavern, they’d have to make it to another ladder that reached from the walkway to the arch that connected the two stone rooms.

  “It’s too far!” Rémy shouted over her shoulder. “We won’t make it before they do!”

  Thaddeus looked to where she pointed and saw the first of the Comte’s golden men complete his scramble up the wall to the ledge. In seconds the machine was on its feet and coming for them.

  “We’ll make it!” he promised. We have to, he added silently.

  Below them, more and more lava was flooding out of the pool, creeping across the floor. It moved faster as the flow deepened. The heat radiating upward was phenomenal — Thaddeus felt as if his hair may begin to smolder at any moment.
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br />   Then with a final deafening scream of metal, the last clamp holding up the machine behind them failed. Thaddeus spun around to see the great machine crash to the floor of the cavern. It thundered into the pool of lava, sending the steaming hot liquid splashing over the side. There was a cracking sound as the machine crushed the edge of the pool, opening farther the hole the Comte had drilled. Waves of molten fire washed out in an unstoppable flood, engulfing the carcass of the machine, which had already melted into a weird, twisted version of itself.

  A blood-curdling screech echoed around the cavern. Thaddeus looked down to see that the Comte had been cut off. His precious lava had surrounded him, leaving him one tiny, shrinking island of untouched stone that was disappearing fast. Thaddeus paused, watching in horror as the Comte fumbled with his control box. Obeying their commands, some of his soldiers turned back. They tried to return to the Comte, some stepping from the rock on which they clung, some striking out directly into the molten fire. None of them could reach him — their metal bodies, so impervious in the face of human attack, melted in seconds when they came into contact with the lava. More and more of the mechanical men sank into the burning flood, until all that could be seen of them were their golden hands, reaching hopelessly for their master. Then they too were swallowed up by the lake of fire.

  The Comte’s island swiftly disappeared. The lava’s appetite was as unquenchable as its heat, and it consumed him as he screamed, still frantically fiddling with his useless control box. He vanished, burned up by the fires of his insane ambition.

  “Thaddeus!” Rémy shouted at him. “Don’t stop! Hurry!”

  He looked back to see that she had made it to the ladder and was climbing down. The lava below was rushing quickly toward the archway, threatening to block them off the way it had done the Comte. Thaddeus ran to the ladder, slipping down it as quickly as he could. He narrowly avoided jumping into the river of lava as it snaked its way past the bottom rung, landing just inches from its burning flow. Rémy pulled him to safety.