Conflagration

by Mick Farren

  The fighting machine was now lumbering on, laying a pall of smoke and vented steam and leaving deeply gouged tracks in its wake. Two more of the massive contraptions followed, also bothering his horse, and forcing Raphael to keep the mare on a very tight rein. A troop of lancers passed behind him at a brisk trot, their reined-in mounts tossing their heads and snorting. The army of Albany was dividing into its components, making ready for battle in a state of controlled military chaos that made no sense to those actually in the middle of it, but, Raphael devoutly hoped, was perfectly clear to the commanders with the overall view. A column of infantry formed ranks, and then marched out with slung rifles and the peaks of their caps down over their eyes. As this column of fours hit their stride, one of the chosen men struck up a song, and the whole company joined in with the lusty and reckless confidence of swaddies who had drunk their gin ration fast and early and are deliberately not thinking about what the future might have up its sleeve.

  Oh, farewell Mary, I must march

  On and on and on and on

  I’ll miss your tits and I’ll miss your arse

  On and on and on and on

  From Brooklyn Town to Carver’s Bay

  Over the hills and far away.

  The infantry company moved out, and their song merged into the general cacophony of mobilization; the shouts of sergeants, the noise of horses, the grind and cough of machinery. He glanced around, and then pulled out his pocket watch. Where were the others? They should have been at the assembly point by this time. He experienced a second of unease. He was in the right place, wasn’t he? He checked and quickly reassured himself that this was the part of the camp specified in the orders that they had all received the previous night. It was not unusual for Raphael to be the first to arrive at any designated meeting. Since he remained so much on his own, feeling more secure in the company of his sketch pad than other people, he usually had less to delay him than Cordelia, Argo, or Jesamine. Argo might well be still curing a hangover. Jesamine had become quite unpredictable since she’d taken up with the Ohio, and Cordelia made no secret that she considered punctuality a petty bourgeois preoccupation, well below the considerations of a lady. Even during the rigors of training, she was habitually late, and when she did arrive, she could usually be counted on to complain.

  Of course, during training, they had all complained, but only Raphael had been unable to air his supposed grievances with total conviction. He had been through the horrors of a Mosul boot camp, and nothing in the long winter training could compare with that nightmare. Except, maybe in one respect. The training of The Four had been a whole lot harder on the intellect. The Mosul’s goal was to turn their Provincial Levies into mindless automatons, who would simply obey like brutes, without thought or question. It was made clear that the packed rank and file of the Mosul infantry were valued less than the horses of the Mamalukes. They were worth nothing and they need expect nothing, except to be a lowly component in one of the infamous “human waves” that were hurled against the enemy and expected to prevail by sheer weight of numbers, regardless of the death toll. Hadn’t Gunnery Instructor Y’assir always reminded Raphael’s squad when he threatened them with execution for one of the dozen or more infractions that carried the death penalty, “You’ll be hung, maggot, because you aren’t worth the three fegs it costs for a bullet and the powder to shoot you.”

  The Four, on the other hand, had been expected to think. They were required to use their ingenuity, to attempt new things, to record their successes in detail so they could be repeated, and to analyze their failures so other ways could be devised to reach the same goal. Since such a regime of training had never been previously attempted in known history, both trainees and trainers were essentially making it all up as they went along, and that was why such emphasis was put on originality and creative thinking. They had been under the tutelage and care of the African woman T’saya, and the inhumanly strange Yancey Slide, although other specialists had been brought in with the hope that they might be able to make a contribution. Some of what the quartet went through, although grueling, was straightforward and physical. They had run and climbed and swum and exercised, just like any other teenage recruit, all according to an only slightly adapted version of the Albany Rangers training manual. At the other extreme, they had meditated and honed their cognitive skills. They had also drunk, swallowed, and smoked strange potions and mixtures devised by T’saya, the Shaman Gray Wolf, and the Lady Gretchen. They had experienced visions and tripped to other realities, unclear as to whether the landscapes in which they found themselves were real or merely the products of their assembled imaginations.

  The metaphor of flying had been used since their very first excursions into the Other Place. They “flew” over occult landscapes of both incredible beauty and measureless horror. Their paranormal workouts had become known as “training flights.” Then the metaphor had been taken too far, and a trainer had been brought in from the Norse-run flying school of the Royal Albany Air Corps, to see if he could devise a way to record the “geography” of the Other Place, but, in a matter of hours, the veteran aviator had become so violently spooked that he made his stammering excuses and left. In the Other Place, they had essentially worked on refining the pattern they had instinctively fallen into when, during the battle of the Potomac, still knowing nothing, and hardly knowing each other, they had been expected to stem the paranormal assault by Quadaron-Ahrach, the High Zhaithan, and his twin sister, Her Grand Eminence Jeakqual-Ahrach. They had found through trial and error that the original approach, and playing to their basic strengths, was always the best way: Cordelia tended to surge ahead, while Argo followed like a protective, ever watchful shadow, on the lookout for unexpected danger. Jesamine would take a center position and her inclination was to function as an anchor. Raphael brought up the rear, and was constantly sensitive to what might suddenly appear behind them. An implacable caution seemed to be emerging as his strongest attribute. Plus, a remorseless and deadly resentment of any enemy that tried to blindside the takla.

  As though acknowledging his thoughts of flying, three heavy RAAC Odin biplanes buzzed overhead, filling the clear morning air with the whine of their engines. The aircraft were either on a nuisance raid on the Mosul, flying out to drop their payloads of twenty-pound bombs on an enemy who was now halted and digging in, or else they’d been ordered up simply to enhance morale and military spectacle as Albany went to the shooting war. Their undersides were painted gray-blue so as to present a less precise target to possible ground fire, but Raphael knew the upper surfaces were bright and aggressive, and the Crowned Bear of Albany was emblazoned on top wings and tailplanes as though on the banners of ancient knights. The airplanes of the RAAC had no need of camouflage from the air. The Mosul so far possessed no aircraft, although everyone knew, sooner or later, their Teuton scientists, even hampered as they were by Zhaithan religious constrictions, would back-engineer one or more Norse flying machines. Eventually the Mosul would have a warplane of their own. But, until then, the RAAC could soar and swagger like Masters of the Air.

  Raphael knew how the Odin pilots must value their ability to rise above the terrestrial slaughter. The illusion of flying at high speed that figured prominently in The Four’s first forays into the Other Place was a close approximation. They dived and they skyrocketed, and the enemy had come at them out of the bizarre cloud cover of impossible skyscapes. Further practice and a deeper exploration of their powers had presented other options, but flight was still their most powerful extra-reality. They still tended to enter the other place in the flying mode, if for no other reason than the knowledge that no safe training grounds existed in the Other Place, and even while they refined their concentration and rehearsed their moves, they were constantly at risk of attack by enemy entities every time they attempted the real thing. This was no empty fear. The enemy had come upon them no less than seven times during training. The now familiar, but no less dangerous, Mothmen had materialized out of nowh
ere and assailed them, lethally screaming. The new and hard to describe things with the streamlined bodies and razor-sharp cutting dorsals, that Cordelia had flippantly dubbed the “sports model,” had also appeared from sudden rents in the fabric, and The Four had been hard-pressed to fight them off and retreat to terrestrial safety.

  Raphael might have fallen into full reverie, reliving those desperate moments of occult violence in his mind’s eye, had he not noticed Yancey Slide, mounted on a tall and rawboned black stallion, wending his leisurely way through the shout and bustle of the mobilizing camp. The tall, angular figure had watched over them all through training, and his long trademark duster coat and the wide-brimmed black hat tilted forward to conceal his face instilled Raphael with a certain confidence that at least one being understood the infinite strangeness they faced. Slide’s unique oriental sword was across his back in its decorative sheath, with the hilt at his left shoulder, and Raphael did not doubt Slide’s brace of equally outlandish pistols was concealed under the lavish drape of his coat. The inevitable cigar was stuck in the side of his mouth, and his hands were hidden in black gloves. Raphael had long since given up speculating as to what Slide might be, or from where he might have originated. The only thing Raphael knew for sure was that neither he nor any of The Four, even after all the things they had seen in the Other Place and elsewhere, ever wanted to look directly into Yancey Slide’s eyes.

  A photographer from one of the Albany newspapers was taking pictures of the mobilization with a heavy, tripod-mounted, wood and brass-plate camera. The man saw Slide and made the mistake of pointing his lens at him. Slide turned slightly, as though starting to pose, but then extended the index and second finger of his right gloved hand and created a sudden tiny but brilliant spark. The photographer tottered back, cursing, and all but knocking over his camera. While the man was still stumbling, Slide rode on as though nothing had happened. The photographer recovered himself, and then pulled the now-ruined photosensitive plate out of the device. He stared after Slide in anger and frustration, then dashed the plate to the ground and stamped it into the earth. The delivered message had plainly been received. Yancey Slide was not to be photographed.

  Slide reined in beside Raphael. “The first to arrive, boy?”

  Raphael nodded. Yancey Slide was one of the few people he would tolerate calling him “boy.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Slide dragged on his cigar and spat out a sliver of leaf that had detached itself. He knew Raphael had a fixation about punctuality, and didn’t bother to discuss it further. “Are you still having those dreams?”

  “They seem to be becoming clearer by the day.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “No ideas, but I’ve made drawings.”

  “You want to show them to me?”

  Raphael leaned back in the saddle and reached in his right saddlebag. He pulled out a thick, spiral-bound sketchbook and handed it to Slide, who paged through it without removing his gloves. “Twins?”

  Raphael nodded. “That’s how they appear. Twin figures, lit from within by a bright white light.”

  “The Mosul worship twin deities.”

  Raphael looked bleakly at Slide. At times, the demon tended to state the obvious. “Ignir and Aksura, I know that better than most.”

  “Could they be what you’re drawing here?”

  Raphael sighed. “I’m damned if I know. You told me to draw what came to me, and that’s what I did.”

  “But you have no ideas what these figures might be beyond what you’ve put down here?”

  “I was on the other side of the ocean and had no idea who or what Cordelia was when I started drawing her from my dreams.”

  Slide handed back the drawings. “I hate blind instinct.”

  Raphael sullenly replaced the pad in his saddlebag. “I’m sorry I can’t be more precise.”

  “Don’t cop an attitude, boy.” Slide seemed about to say more, but both he and Raphael had spotted Argo Weaver threading his way through the moving columns of men. Slide contented himself with a fast warning. “And keep all this to yourself for the moment.”

  A clear path opened in front of Argo to where Slide and Raphael were waiting, and he urged his horse forward. The last few times that Raphael had seen Argo, he had either been morose or drunk, and this day was no exception. He slouched in the saddle, and when he reined in beside Raphael and Slide, he looked pale and hung over. “Am I late?”

  Raphael shrugged. “Not as late as the ladies.”

  Argo grinned despite the obvious headache. “We learn to wait on the ladies.”

  “You look terrible.”

  Argo laughed. “And so would you, Major Vega, if you weren’t such a damned recluse.”

  Raphael didn’t like to be chided about his self-imposed isolation. “I heard the racket coming from the mess.”

  “Nervous officer-boys facing their own mortality.”

  Slide, who had been staring silently, ignoring Raphael and Argo, suddenly gestured across the field. “The Lady Blakeney approaches.”

  Raphael and Argo both turned and peered. At first they saw nothing. This was often how it was when Slide pointed something out. After some fifteen seconds, Raphael was able to pick out Cordelia from the milling khaki. She was mounted on her gray gelding, and wearing blue sunglasses. She seemed to be in no particular hurry, and Argo glanced at Raphael. “Those glasses, are they covering her bloodshot eyes, or is she just being stylish?”

  Raphael might be a recluse, but he was not completely out of touch with his companions’ adventures. “Probably both. Cordelia’s been expanding her legend as hard as she can while we’ve been marching through Virginia.”

  Cordelia paused to exchange smiling pleasantries with two young officers in a halted staff car. Argo eased himself in the saddle. “Her ladyship is making an art form of being fashionably late.”

  Slide heard this, and snorted. Even at a distance Cordelia sensed his displeasure. Her head turned, and she looked directly at where the three of them were waiting. She bid the officers a fast adieu, and then kicked her horse into a brisk trot that quickly brought her to Raphael, Argo, and Slide.

  “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  “Good morning, Cordelia.”

  She looked around for Jesamine. “So, for once, I’m not the last to arrive.”

  Raphael sniffed. “No matter how hard you might have tried.”

  Cordelia ignored him. “Any sign of Jesamine…” she smiled bitchily, “with or without her Indians?”

  Raphael was tempted to point out that Cordelia’s conduct hardly gave her moral grounds to criticize Jesamine’s choice of companions, but he decided it was too early in the day and too early in the adventure to start an argument. He also did not want to make this reunion of The Four any less promising than it was already, but, as it turned out, the choice of conversation wasn’t his. In the next moment, perhaps working on the principle of “speak of the devil,” a column of Ohio braves thundered through the camp, moving out in high aboriginal style, clearly demonstrating how they were arguably the finest light cavalry in all the ranks of Albany and its allies. As they passed close to where Raphael and the others sat on their mounts, a half-dozen riders peeled away from the main body of horsemen, and galloped straight towards them. When they were only twenty or thirty yards away, five of the six swerved to the side, but one kept coming straight at them. Raphael tensed in anticipation of attack, but then, to his surprise, he saw the rider was Jesamine. She was making the grandest of grand entrances. Hardly a skilled horsewoman, she must have been hanging on for dear life, and Raphael was quite amazed that she was trying for such theatrical impact. Had her time with the Ohio endowed her with some new and wild spirit? Only a few yards from the group, she pulled up her rearing horse, flushed and smiling. “So, my friends, are we Four off to war?”

  By this point half of the surrounding camp was watching the spectacle, and, as Jesamine brought her horse under control, she acknowledged a ro
und of applause from the onlookers.

  TWO

  ARGO

  Fountains of dirt and flame erupted behind the Mosul lines, and Argo fancied he saw bodies and body parts fly high in the air. The Albany artillery leapt and thundered, pouring a barrage of fiery destruction on the enemy. As the acrid smell of gunpowder permeated everything, the field guns blew away all pretense that war was a dashing and noble business as they relentlessly pounded the other end of the valley. Even rational thought became difficult against the background of the deafening explosions and the doom-shriek of the flying shells. Mosul gun positions, hidden in the trees of the wooded ridge on the Albany right, fired in response, but their shots fell short. A line of Albany fighting machines stood just out of the enemy’s range with engines running and smokestacks belching, ready to roll into the fight the instant that the deadly barrage ceased. Dense ranks of infantry were crouched behind them, equally ready to advance in the mechanized wake of the hulking battle tanks, using their iron-clad armored bulk as cover. The crucial assault would shortly start, and the outcome of the engagement, indeed, the whole future of the war, would hang in the balance. Albany had committed all of its mobile strength to the fight. If they did not prevail, there would be no second chance.