The Dragon Men

by Steven Harper

  The Cube continued to drain the generator. Ahead of them loomed the dark cave, and the Lady seemed to groan in fear. Gavin thought about telling the women to swim for it while he stayed behind to defend the ship, but one glance at Alice’s heavy gauntlet and Phipps’s equally heavy brass arm reminded him that neither of them was effective in the water.

  “Hurry up.” Phipps’s jaw was tense. “That cave won’t be a holiday resort.”

  Gavin gritted his own teeth. “I can’t make the power flow faster, Lieutenant.”

  The black tentacles continued to hold the Lady in bands of iron. Alice hovered anxiously over Gavin, and her automatons hovered over her.

  “What are you going to do with it once it’s charged?” she asked.

  “Something horrible,” he said shortly. The initial shock of fear had worn off, and he was getting angry again. This monster had taken his ship and threatened his fiancée. It was his duty to fend off the beast and set things right. Waves spumed and broke on rocks as the Lady reached the mouth of the cave and slid inside. The light faded. Beneath the surface, the dark creature squirted along under the ship, hauling her forward by orders understood only to itself. The Impossible Cube glowed a full sapphire blue that indicated it had reached a full charge just as the Lady glided into the cave entrance. Gavin disconnected it from the wire and held it aloft in triumph at the exact moment the squid men attacked.

  Chapter Two

  Alice, Lady Michaels, jumped away from the gunwale as the first squid man shot from the ocean in a fountain of water and landed on the deck with a rubbery thwap that echoed through the huge cave. The creature had a man’s body, though its skin was covered in greenish blue slime, and its head was that of a squid. Tentacles formed a horrid squirming bush around its neck, and enormous dark eyes too round and large to be human glistened in the half-light of the cave. Its fingers and toes were webbed, and they dripped more slime. Although it was naked and had a male build, it showed no male accoutrement. With a frightened squawk, Alice stepped back and bumped into Gavin as another squid man vaulted onto the deck, and another and another and another. In seconds, the deck was teeming with more than two dozen of them.

  The sight of those doll-like eyes, the smell of the oozing slime, and the sound of the writhing tentacles crawled over Alice’s skin like cold worms. The creatures spoke no words and closed in around the trio with outreaching arms and faint squishing sounds. A fear she didn’t know she possessed poured ice water down Alice’s back and froze her voice. She had faced down zombies, gargoyles, and a mechanical war machine several stories tall, but these creatures touched something primordial. She wanted to leap behind Gavin and Phipps, or even hide in a closet.

  “Good Lord,” Phipps breathed. She had her cutlass out, but it seemed small and senseless compared to the crowd facing them. Gavin didn’t react. He simply stared at the squid men, either fascinated or mesmerized, Alice couldn’t tell which. Thanks to the clockwork plague, Gavin fell into these fugues more and more often, and it wasn’t just when they came across something as strange as a school of squid men. A simple leaf or air current could capture his fancy with equal ease. This unnerved Alice even more than his recent dive over the side of the ship. Right now, the clockwork fugue was proving dangerous—Gavin had lost track of himself while he held their only weapon.

  Alice tried to speak, but no words came out. She coughed and tried again. “Gavin! The Cube!”

  Gavin came to himself with a snap. The eye-twisting Impossible Cube glowed in his grip, and he held it out in front of him. Metal wings formed a chain mail cloak that rippled down his back, and the blue light of the Cube lit his white-blond hair with an unearthly glow. The squid men oozed closer in eerie silence, and Alice’s breath came in fearful gasps. She couldn’t stand such horrible creatures, and she felt foolish and helpless hiding behind Gavin, who was four years younger than she. Still, she had rescued him from danger more times than she could count, so what was the harm in letting him and his powerful weapon take the forefront?

  The squid men reached for Gavin with their dripping arms. He opened his mouth and sang a single, clear note. Alice had no idea which—Gavin had perfect pitch, not she—but the impact was electric. The Impossible Cube flickered in Gavin’s strong hands, and his voice . . . changed. It roared from his throat with the sound of a thousand tigers. A cone of sound thundered across the deck and flung squid men aside like toys, clearing a corridor all the way to the gunwale. The sound continued to boom from Gavin’s throat, and pride fluttered in Alice’s chest. He looked handsome and powerful and, God, he was so young, but Alice loved him with every particle in her body. The squid men crashed into one another and tumbled across the wood without uttering a sound.

  Phipps was also busy. She slashed one creature with her cutlass, slicing off its arm at the elbow. Blue blood gushed over the deck and her victim staggered back, but Phipps was still in motion. She gave another squid man a side kick to the midriff. It fell back into the attacker behind it while Phipps back-punched another squid man in the face with her metal hand. Her knuckles sank into the flesh between its eyes, then pulled free with a sucking sound. Undaunted, the squid man grabbed her wrist. Like a cat, she twisted round and bent her attacker’s arm, sending the creature to the deck with its neck tentacles writhing in what Alice assumed was pain.

  Meanwhile, the squid men Gavin had scattered began to recover. Their movements changed from slow and shambling to quick and nimble. The ones that had fallen rolled to their feet, and the rest surged forward. Strangely, they seemed to be ignoring Gavin and reaching for Alice.

  “What the hell is going on?” Phipps panted. She took a punch to the jaw, staggered, righted herself, and kept on fighting. Her monocle gleamed an angry red, helping her aim.

  “Shout at them again!” Alice cried. “Shout at—”

  One of the squid men grabbed her from behind with cold hands. Alice screamed as nightmares she didn’t remember having smeared her mind with slippery darkness. She struggled and kicked, and another grabbed her as well. Gavin turned, the Impossible Cube still glowing in his hands. Phipps was raising her cutlass against another group of squid men.

  And then Alice noticed the spider on her arm.

  Last spring, the iron spider had wrapped itself around her hand and forearm at the behest of her aunt Edwina, a world-class clockworker. Soft, flexible tubules had burrowed into her flesh and gorged themselves on her blood, which now bubbled and flowed up and down the spider’s body and legs. The spider’s head and five of its legs clutched the back of her hand and each of her fingers, creating a strange gauntlet. Alice had tried to get it off, but it refused to budge, and it had quickly become so much a part of her that she was now afraid to try more drastic methods such as cutting it away. These days, she didn’t entirely want to. What currently caught her attention were the spider’s eyes. They glowed red. Her fear vanished despite the rubbery arms that held her.

  “Wait!” she cried. “These . . . people have the clockwork plague!”

  Before Gavin could respond to this news, Alice swiped at the arm that held her with the claws that tipped her left hand. The hollow claws sprayed her own blood over the wounds she created, mixing scarlet and azure. The squid man released her and reeled away. Two more stepped up to grab at her, but Alice swiped both of them with quick, darting motions. More blood mixed in the scratches, and they staggered away, too. The first squid man was now writhing on the deck. Soft clicking sounds emerged from either its neck or chest; Alice couldn’t tell which. The other two soon joined it. Their skin tone was changing, shifting from dark blue to a mottled pink.

  All this happened in just a few seconds. Phipps had dispatched or driven back half a dozen squid men of her own. Her cutlass and metal arm dripped with blue blood, and she had lost her hat. A wild look had come over her eyes as more squid men crowded toward her. Gavin opened his mouth to roar again.

  “That’s enough!”

  The new voice echoed through the cave. The squid men
all froze, except for those writhing and clicking on the deck because Alice had scratched them or Phipps had lopped pieces off. Alice turned. What now?

  Skimming across the channel that cut through the cave floor came a man. He was barefoot and wore a black bathing costume with short sleeves and leggings. Around his waist he had an elaborate, heavy-looking belt with a number of clunky pieces of machinery attached to it. Over everything, rather strangely, he wore a long gray cloak. He was standing sideways and seemed to be riding a low wave until he came closer and Alice realized he was standing on the back of another creature. How he kept his balance she couldn’t imagine until it came to her that, like Gavin, he was a clockworker and had the requisite enhanced reflexes that he would enjoy until plague burned out his brain. No doubt this was the man who had created both the giant squid and the squid men. Alice pursed her lips.

  Gavin traded a look with Phipps while the scratched and wounded squid men squirmed on the deck. The ones Alice had slashed continued their metamorphosis, with their skin growing paler and their neck tentacles going still. Alice wanted to examine them, see if they were in pain, but she didn’t have the chance. The clockworker skimmed closer to the ship, and in moments he vaulted from his creature’s back and scrambled onto the deck, his gray cloak fluttering behind him. He had a Persian’s dark hair and complexion, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth put him somewhere in his forties, or perhaps near fifty.

  “That’s enough,” he repeated in accented English. “Leave my poor men alone!”

  Phipps, Gavin, and Alice stared. The crowd of squid men remained motionless. Alice recovered herself first.

  “And you are?” she asked.

  “You may call me Prince Mehrad al-Noor,” he said. “I already know who you are—or one of you, at any rate.”

  “And that would be?” Phipps said.

  “Alice, Lady Michaels, late of London,” al-Noor said. “You are the one with the cure to the clockwork plague, and you have demonstrated it on my poor men.”

  “What are you talking about?” Alice said, still trying to get a full grip on herself. “Why did you bring us here? I assume that this creature”—she gestured at one of the tentacles still encircling the ship—“attacked us at your behest.”

  “Yes, yes.” Al-Noor waved his hands in a series of complicated gestures, and several of the squid men dragged the ones Alice had scratched and those Phipps had wounded to the side and leaped overboard with them. Splashes followed. They left trails of blue blood on the deck. “Why else would a giant squid attack a passing airship?”

  “How do you know the name Lady Michaels?” Gavin demanded.

  “Everyone knows this name,” al-Noor replied with a white grin. “She is the angel with a sharp metal hand who spreads the cure to the clockwork plague. She coasts through the heavens in a glowing blue airship piloted by her lover, dropping to Earth to bestow her blessings wherever people are good and kind and deserving of her notice.”

  Alice felt her face turn hot. “Gavin’s not—”

  Phipps trod on her foot, cutting her off. “So you’ve heard of me,” she interrupted, holding up her metal arm. “I’m flattered. That doesn’t explain why you intercepted us and tried to destroy my ship.”

  For a split second, Alice found herself wanting to correct Phipps. Then she shut herself up. Any advantage they could take, including a case of mistaken identity, could work in their favor.

  “I apologize if I gave you that impression, Lady Michaels. I got wind that the very famous angel of mercy was coasting over my ocean, and I merely wanted to invite you for a visit. Unfortunately, giant squids are not good at subtlety. We will, of course, repair any damage to your fine ship.”

  “And your . . . men?” Gavin gestured at the crowded deck. The Impossible Cube glowed close to his chest.

  “They guard the mouth of the cave and became too enthusiastic when your ship appeared. Again, I do apologize.” Al-Noor gave a little bow. “You will come with me, have a wonderful meal, spend the night in comfortable rooms, and in the morning, you will go on your way.”

  “Oh?” Phipps said. “Well, if you—”

  “Liar,” said Alice.

  Al-Noor looked taken aback. “I do not understand. You refuse my hospitality?”

  “Was I unclear?” Alice snapped. “Let me be blunt, then. You did not invite us here. You captured us, and now you’re acting polite to put us off our guard. Once we’ve eaten at your table, the laudanum you put into our food will send us to sleep, allowing you to do whatever you wish. So let’s skip over the bad food and the drugs and go straight to what you wish. What might that be, Mr. al-Noor?”

  For a moment, al-Noor looked hurt and astonished, and Alice thought she had made a terrible mistake. Then a cool, calculating look slid over the man’s face. “You are a clever woman, Miss . . . ?”

  “Susan Phipps,” said Alice. “At your service.”

  “Miss Phipps,” al-Noor said. “Yes, very clever indeed.”

  Phipps wiped her cutlass clean on a handkerchief. “Flattery from a liar doesn’t sit well, al-Noor. What do you want, then? Do tell, before my friend here blasts you into your component bits.”

  At this, Gavin waved the Impossible Cube. It hummed softly and left a blue trail hanging in the air. His face was set hard. The squid men stood motionless on the deck, though their dark eyes seemed to be following the Cube.

  “I think he will not.” Al-Noor pressed a switch on his belt, and a tremor went through the black tentacles wrapped round the Lady. Wood groaned and cracked.

  Gavin cried out and lowered the Cube. “Wait!”

  “Yes,” said al-Noor. “A flick of my finger, and electric impulses will force the squid to crush this ship to flinders. That famous metal arm of yours, Lady Michaels, will drag you to the bottom, and you will drown.”

  Alice shot Gavin a hard look. He seemed upset, but was it over the idea that she was in danger or that the sea monster might destroy his ship? He was a clockworker and could get strange ideas about what was important. Her glance flicked about the deck, looking for solutions. Her gaze inevitably came back to the Impossible Cube resting in Gavin’s hands. It was the most powerful weapon on Earth, but the moment Gavin tried to use it, al-Noor would try to kill all three of them, and chances were better than even that he would succeed at least once. The Cube was useless in these circumstances.

  There was one alternative. An obvious one, really. Alice could see that Gavin knew what it was, but he was hesitating to take it, waiting for her to give the word. One word. Alice started to speak, but her throat closed around the word, trapping it like hope at the bottom of a box. Gavin looked at her, his soul in pale blue eyes. Alice clamped her lips shut, and her chin trembled with the force of holding it in.

  Phipps did it for her. “Fly,” she hissed.

  Gavin gave her a sharp look.

  “Fly,” Phipps hissed again.

  He gave Alice a wild look, then ran for the gunwale through the gap in the crowd of squid men the Impossible Cube had created. Before the squid men could react, he hurled himself over the side. Alice held back a cry but still reached for him. She felt that her heart might spring out of her chest and follow after.

  “Gavin!” Phipps cried, making a halfhearted leap after him that effectively covered Alice’s own movement. “Oh, what will I ever do?”

  It would have been funny under other circumstances. Gavin’s wings snapped open. Still clutching the Impossible Cube to his chest, he caught the air with the grace of someone who had been flying all his life and glided away, trailing blue light behind him.

  “You leave him alone, you awful, awful man,” Phipps simpered at al-Noor. Her monocle made the gesture even more ridiculous. “You have me. He can’t hurt you.”

  “Indeed so, Lady.” Al-Noor looked after Gavin’s retreating form. He had already reached the mouth of the cave and vanished into bright light. “But you will pardon me for docking this ship and taking you somewhere more secure.”

>   “So, what is it you want from—from Lady Michaels?” Alice demanded.

  “Exactly what is your position here, Miss Phipps?” al-Noor replied.

  “I never go anywhere without her,” Phipps put in quickly. “She’s my maid.”

  “Maid?” The word popped out before Alice could stop it.

  “Well, you’re not a valet, Susan,” Phipps said pointedly. “And someone has to polish all this brass. You have to be my maid.”

  Alice gritted her teeth. “Yes, mum,” she said between them.

  “But regardless of her station, sir,” Phipps continued, “the question still stands. What exactly do you want?”

  Al-Noor was still looking after the fading light trail left by Gavin’s wings. He thought a moment, then shrugged and turned back to the two women.

  “I want all the tea in China,” he said. “Or perhaps its weight in silver.”

  Phipps crossed her arms, flesh over metal. “No clockworker riddles. Be specific.”

  “I noted your trajectory before I sent my pet to fetch you,” al-Noor said. “Based on that and on the rumors I have managed to intercept about you, I have decided you are trying to reach China. Is that correct?”

  Alice kept her face expressionless, taking her cue from Phipps, though her insides were tight. Al-Noor had the right of it—they were indeed headed for China. A number of events allowed her and Gavin to hope that China could cure clockworkers. Weeks ago, Alice had discovered that over the years, a number of British clockworkers had found different cures for the clockwork plague—Alice wore the handiwork of one of them around her arm—but the Crown had suppressed them so the plague would continue to produce clockworkers, who would, in turn, produce useful inventions for the Crown. Never mind that the disease also slaughtered millions, including most of Alice’s family. What mattered to the Crown was that China was doing the same thing so its Dragon Men could produce similar inventions, maintaining a careful balance between the two empires.