Just like the stories, she thought.
Beneath her, the pistol’s blast vomited forth from the roof and shot up into the sky, a flare, a sign, a new-born star. Jenivar felt the heat rush through her, felt the stone beneath her threaten to melt away. This must have been what it was like when there were dragons. It was too much, and at the same time not enough. This must be why we killed them, or why they went away.
And then the blast was over. Half the building had been torn away behind her, and the smell of burning drackle wafted up on noxious black smoke. Jenivar stood with Arturo on the section of roof that remained, two tiny lives trapped on something far too large for either of them to encompass. The building trembled on its foundations, and Jenivar wondered if it would crumble. She held Arturo tightly and felt tears in her eyes when he stirred and mumbled incoherently.
They would walk down together, or she would carry him, and they would gather the dried seeds and hard-baked bread from the empty shell of Arturo’s home, and then they would go. Back to the southwest, perhaps, or east or north, off to explore new lands and find a place where they could make a new home.
In the distance, something glinted in the dawn light; sand grains fused together into glass. The desert looked empty from here, but it wasn’t. Not quite. There were no more dragons and humans lived in the holes left behind, but now she knew that there were monsters still, and heroes. Small monsters, perhaps, and small heroes, mean and petty and alone in scattered crevices. But the monsters hadn’t stayed alone, and neither should the heroes. Out in the wastes was hidden life and unguessed danger. Even in the Spine, where the cold water appeared like magic and the herb gardens grew thick with secrets. Out there were people living in the jaws of dragons, thieves and cowards, merchants and guards, slavers and bullies, mothers and fathers, and every one of them the children of dragon-slayers. Knights, if they wanted to be.
“Look, Arturo,” Jenivar said. “It’s beautiful.”
Copyright © 2014 Nathaniel Lee
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Nathaniel Lee has an English degree and thus considers himself basically unemployable if he ever loses his current (unrelated) position. His short fiction has appeared in venues such as Penumbra, Escape Pod, Pseudopod, Flash Fiction Online, and Toasted Cake. His self-described sappy little story “The Alchemist’s Children” is in Alex Shvartsman’s Unidentified Funny Objects anthology.
Read more Beneath Ceaseless Skies
THE GODDESS DECEPTION, PT. 1
by Dean Wells
Chapter 1
Somewhere I’ve Never Travelled
They say home is a spiritual place. I’ve never been one to put much faith in that. Matters of the soul rarely mean a great deal in my chosen profession. Anarchists and sky pirates I can manage without a problem; it’s selfless acts of the heart that vex me every time.
It was just after the Feast of Avalon, two weeks into what should have been a month of badly needed debauchery. I stormed into the Victory’s helm room like a bandersnatch gone mad. One of the officers announced “Major on deck”, to no great effect. Everyone else hurried about the toggles and the polished brass consoles as if I weren’t there at all.
I dropped my satchel beside the ship’s map table with a deliberately heavy thud. “Just once I’d like to finish a leave without somebody pulling rank on my backside.” Captain-and-Master Johanna Marsh glanced up from the table, completely unfazed by my self-righteous bravado. She held a small prism of memory-glass in her hand.
“Agent Caul,” she said. “Welcome aboard. I do like the beard. You should keep it. Bathing wouldn’t kill you, though. If you need any help scrubbing the hard-to-reach bits, do give a shout.”
Johanna and I shared a long and decidedly labyrinthine history together; it’s the only reason she indulged the many variations of my moods. Tough as Bessemer steel, she was, and as history would have it, my former wife as well.
She tossed me the glass. I caught it easily in my mechanical grip.
“And this is what’s coming between me and two more weeks of rakish bliss?” I asked, peering at the ensorcelled pages deep within its crystal planes.
“Your new assignment. No protestations, Rom. We need you in the field as quickly as possible.”
“Ask me if I’m surprised.”
Gauges and dials confirmed that all three of the ship’s circumductors had been spooled and the lift-sails were fully deployed. Whatever had prompted the mission’s urgency had Johanna wasting no time. My reflection glowered in an unlit pane behind her, but I turned away. I knew what I would see: a grim amalgam of Man and alchemically forged Machine: unshaven, disarrayed, twin electrick orbs implanted where my eyes had once been. I didn’t care to see myself like that in Johanna’s company, shouldering the reminders that I was nothing like the young and fully bodied officer she’d wed so many years before.
I’d been distracted since the moment I’d stepped aboard, and didn’t like it. My gears were wound up like an eight day clock. I took a deep, pump-driven breath and only then noticed my partner, Special Agent Plio Plio Ah, leaning in the shadow of a bulkhead stanchion; stylish as ever, his arms folded in a pose that was thoroughly human. Not surprising since he had once again assumed a humanly form, his crimson skin bright against a black, exquisitely tailored suit. He looked far more like a decorated operative with Her Eternal Majesty’s Special Investigation Branch than I.
“Plio, thank Heaven,” I said. “What’s this about?”
He raised a hairless brow. “Why yes, Romulus. I did enjoy my holiday. Thanks so much for asking.”
Blast. “Nice togs, brother. You look sharp enough to shave.”
He nodded at the belated acknowledgment. “Much better. I know earthly couture is a new statement for me, but my Gantish vestments were just so depressing.”
The Symb’ral peoples of Gant, in their natural state, look like red-and-black centipedes, highly magnified. Ebony tendrils flowed from Plio’s head like the lock-dreads worn by Jamaican Maroons, woven throughout with beads and precious gemstones in the heraldic pattern of his birth-caste.
“If you darlings are quite finished....” Johanna rounded her station and dropped a photographic slide into the helm room’s projector. “We’re in deep shit, gentlemen. Have a look.”
An Engine-rendered portrait appeared in the light—the bust of a young woman in journeyman’s attire.
I stared. “Huh.”
“I thought that would shut you up. Kavita Patel, age twenty-three. Royal Company of Makers, Aetheric Telegraphy First-Grade, specializing in crystal resonance communications.”
She had flawless East Indian features: black hair brushed back and held in place with an ivory comb, eyes as black as the Aetherial Deep, a playful smile that rose just a bit higher on the right.
“A fortnight ago, the team of Makers that Patel was assigned to landed on Gamhanrhide to repair a series of ansible propagators. They separated to cover more territory. Six days into the mission, Patel vanished.”
“Reconnaissance divination...?”
“Has as yet found nothing.”
“That’s not possible.”
Marsh nodded. “Hence your conundrum.”
“Captain, is this not a matter best suited for the local constabulary?” asked Plio. “Why involve the Royal Flying Corps? Let alone Special Branch.”
“Whitehall is set upon keeping this in the family. The girl is affianced to Maxim Lysenko’s stepdaughter.”
I leaned back with the characteristic whir-and-clicks that accompanied my every movement. “And this Lysenko is...?”
“Adjutant Maxim Lysenko. Five-year veteran of the Neverland Campaign. And as of noontime tomorrow, my newly appointed Government Liaison. He’s transferring out from Muscovy as we speak.”
“Shit.”
“My word exactly. I don’t relish the idea of having the Queen’s eyes and ears aboard. For the crew’s sake I need to find Lysenko’s good side and stay there. We�
�ve just enough time to drop you two off and still make the rendezvous.” She pointed to the memory-glass. “Patel’s file, as compiled by the Seeing Stone. Her personal entries are included as well.”
I shook my head. “Something’s amiss, Captain. This smacks of calm before the storm.”
A wry smile I knew only too well lit Johanna’s face. “Mr. Beddington,” she said to one of her navigating officers, “show us Special Agent Caul’s drop site, if you please.”
“Right away, ma’am.”
She indicated the navigational display that dominated the center of the map table. “Watch....”
Beddington was already cranking the massive orrery of gears and globes that represented Great Albion and the known Aspects of the Aetherial Deep. Allies of Her Majesty’s Government were rendered in warm copper and bronze, adversaries in cold steel. Two adjacent globes swung into view before us: one representing the mighty orb Boru, the other its companion Gamhanrhide. The navigating officer focused a scrying-lens upon the latter.
In a flash we beheld the living surface of Gamhanrhide as if through a magick spyglass. Vast expanses of blues, magentas, and countless variations of earthly green rolled away in every direction. Farmland, enough to provide crops and botanicals to half the Outer Spheres. Yet far removed from the machines and automated processing centers that one would expect to find in such an environment, groups of men and women in stoic plainness worked the fields by hand, with scythes and hay forks and draft animals collected from Aspects throughout the Deep, and nary a steam nor motor-driven device of any kind to be seen.
“Hell and Damnation,” I muttered. “Luddites.”
“Renunciates,” Johanna corrected me. “Old Order. Funded by the Royal Society as a sociological curiosity.”
“Huh. I suppose they breed with their cousins and flog each other at every hour of oblation.”
Her eyes sparked with humor at the gibe. “They call themselves the Brethren of the Abiding Earth. And charming as your comparison is, I won’t argue it too strenuously. Wildcards are fostered here in the Outers. For all I know, Kavita Patel has run off and gone native. That’s why I need to send in two wildcards of my own.”
“It’s a moot point anyway.” I nodded at the amber waves of thaumically visible grain. “I’ve not been returned to active duty since Dr. Malign infected me with the rust.”
“Way ahead of you,” she said. “We’ve already conferred with the Medic-Elect’s office. Your internals have been successfully cleansed of mechanical pathogens for nearly a week now.”
“And?”
“You’re cleared for duty. There’s no time to test you in the field, of course, but they think you’ll acclimate just fine.”
“They think! I’ll take comfort in that when I’m swollen and dying from anaphylactic shock. There’s little enough left of me that’s flesh-and-blood as it is.”
“Whitehall wants the best, Rom. They want a Regulator. And I want you.”
“Well I for one,” said Plio, “think it’s a marvelous opportunity.” Cascading images reflected in his warm yellow eyes like mirrors of polished gold. “My ancestors lounged about in salt-water bogs for half a million years. This will be a unique experience for me.”
“Not helping, brother.”
“Major Caul,” Johanna said, “my orders are to transport you to Gamhanrhide and to do so with haste. I strongly suggest you be ready when we arrive.” She reached up and patted my mechanized shoulders. “If not, I’m only too happy to bust your hard-wired bollocks back to Albion. The Queen still wants to present you with that knighthood. You can’t hide out here forever.”
No one used my actual rank unless they were displeased or gravely serious, and here I’d heard it twice in a handful of minutes. “Heaven’s Engines, you’re adorable when you blow your jets. How’s about marrying me again?”
Captain Marsh rolled her eyes and turned to leave, as a yeoman swung the heavy door open ahead of her. “Ask me again when you mean it, you bloody big Hero. Now go.”
* * *
Chapter 2
How Many Miles to Babylon?
Plio had already assembled our effects from ship’s stores, so we left as soon as I’d made myself more presentable. (I liked garments sewn with heavy Brobdingnagian silks, as I tended to burst through fabrics of lesser strength with unfortunate regularity.) To my customary attire I added a heavy weapons harness, sapphire-loupe lenses for my eyes, and a black leather greatcoat and hat I’d won from a cardsharp on Ravenal. I was just glad to be out of there before meeting Johanna’s new Government shadow. ‘There’s a New World to Put in Order’ and all that Instrumentalist bullshit.
A new World.
Try ‘all of Creation’.
HMS Victory tacked the aetheric winds clear of the realm beneath us and commenced the jump to Gamhanrhide. Ships-of-the-line were engineered to leap the eldritch void that separated the Aspects one from another, independent of the Instrumentality’s great earthbound Mirrors. Our drop-vessel jettisoned immediately upon the disorienting lurch that carried us from Aspect to Aspect, then chewed up Heaven knows how many leagues in extreme gravitic deceleration before arcing about the giant orb of Boru to the docks high above Gamhanrhide. We arrived the next evening, local time.
Boru at first quarter loomed beyond the heavily riveted observation bays, half its colossal bulk ablaze in silver and ice-blue storms, the other half lost in darkness. A retinue of moons (of which Gamhanrhide was the largest) glistened within their shimmering baubles as they rolled across the great orb’s night side. Freighters and merchant rigs sailed between them with more than a few gun-brigs at the ready, armed to the teeth and bound for another border skirmish with the Umbrans. The Instrumentality’s ever present show of force.
Our conveyance was waiting for us in the central berths, a Nash Ltd. Cloudshaker with Government insignia emblazoned on either side. The pilot introduced herself as Constable Eliza Gilhooley, standing ready next to a control chair wedged among levers and pedals.
“Welcome to Gamhanrhide, gentlemen,” she said in a chilly monotone. She was a slender young woman, blonde hair tucked under the cap of her standard-issue livery. “Chief Carmody inquires how long you plan to stay.”
Her tone made it clear that we were, in fact, not welcome at all.
“To be honest, Constable,” I said, “my partner and I shouldn’t be here any longer than is necessary. But right now Journeyman Patel is hotter than a Symb’ral crèche in mating season, so for her sake let’s you and I hope for a happy resolution.”
She didn’t respond to my ribald analogy at first, then offered a slight nod. “We found Patel’s flivver three days ago in Crannog Green, just after the Blessing of the Fields. There was no sign of a struggle inside or at the site. We have the vehicle in custody now.” She said nothing more and busied herself with a list of preflight activities.
Plio winked at me. “Impressive. Diplomacy has never been your strong suit.”
I pulled a heavy sidearm from my weapons harness, a Navy variable-bore Persuader with deep scrollwork along the barrel and grip, as natural an extension of my mechanical hand as were wrist couplings and steel-jacketed fingers. “I’m a weaponsmith. I’ve got your diplomacy right here.”
“Let’s just hope you’re not compelled to use it.”
“No promises.”
With a gentle thrum the Cloudshaker rose and came about, trimmed for descent, with Gilhooley maneuvering us beyond the bright red warning banners. I settled back in a chair that was much too small and buckled my restraining belts.
“Caution,” reported the vehicle in its detached phonographic voice. “Extreme aetheric forces ahead.” Gilhooley silently mouthed the familiar phrase by rote. “Please maintain a constant velocity beyond the warning banners.”
Afterward, she leaned forward and spoke aloud into her annunciator. “Glencolumbkille Actual, this is Constable Two-One-Nine entering bauble periphery.”
“Understood, Two-Nineteen. Is that you, Liza?�
��
“Good morning, Hagan. How’s your brother?”
“Still kicking himself for letting you go at Charles and Miriam’s handfasting.”
“I’m sure there was wailing and the gnashing of teeth.”
“That there was, Two-Nineteen. See you down below in four, three, two....”
I felt the catastrophic shift in aetheric stress an instant before the Master Alarm blared.
Gravitation slammed us as if we’d sideswiped a giant wall. The force wrenched Gilhooley headlong into her flight console with a sickening thwack.
“Constable!” I bellowed. “Can you hear me?”
“She’s unconscious,” Plio shouted above the klaxon, his features distorting in the grip of mad centrifugal force. “I can’t see her flight instruments. Romulus, what’s happening?”
“Quaternary and tertiary Engines are nonoperational,” the vehicle said. “Please maintain a constant velocity beyond the warning markers.”
“Yeah,” I wheezed. “That.”
We were tumbling, the ship’s Engine masts threatening to shear off one by one in the violent torsion.
Vessels manufactured for passage through a buckler field were protected by no less than four Causality Engines. Lose your Engines, alter your speed or trajectory in any way, and the bauble’s elemental stresses will tear you apart in the blink of an eye.
Bolts securing Gilhooley’s console were shaking loose; the massive thing would crush her bones if it wrenched free and fell—she being the only one amongst us with bones that actually could be crushed.
Another savage concussion outside the pressure hull.
“Secondary Engine is nonoperational,” the vehicle said. “Aetheric buffers have been reduced by three-quarters.”
“You really need to shut up now.”
“Please maintain constant—”
I drew the Persuader hand cannon and blasted the ship’s speaker-horns.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies #142, Special Double-Issue for BCS Science-Fantasy Month 2 Page 7