by John Booth
“It’s been so hard for me. My sister and Lieutenant Carter have been going at it like rabbits, and do they think of what that is putting me through? They do not, I can tell you.”
“If Tom does not return home immediately then Ebb will die. Ebb has only a couple of weeks at most. Can you tell him that?”
Andrea settled onto the chaise-lounge and put one foot on the floor. The lower part of her bathrobe fell a few inches, revealing her leg, her thighs, and a little bit more.
“Tom, Ebb, dying, yes I have it. But what of you? You look like a young man who knows how to wield a weapon. A short sword perhaps?”
[Get on with it. The guard is starting to wake up.]
Arnold got to his feet and Andrea followed.
“Shall we dance? I have a music box that plays a very nice tune.”
“I left a guard unconscious. I have to go.”
Arnold fled the room leaving Andrea with a disappointed look on her face. “Oh, he can leave a man unconscious, but will he stay to leave me exhausted? Now what am I going to do until Tom returns?”
She listened to the sarcastic voice in her head.
“Yes, but it is so much less fun when doing it alone. Did you get that silly message he wants you to pass on? I know you are 5,000 miles away. But perhaps you should tell Tom about it anyway? After all, this Ebb may be someone important to him. Of course you must wait until after you have used him tonight. It might put him off and we cannot have that. I miss him so much as it is.”
10. Death
Tom looked on the Hubris in amazement. In their final coat of paint, Muguara and his team had turned the ship into something akin to a living creature. There was an aura of savage menace about it. Slavering jowls and pointed teeth would inform anyone on the ground that this ship meant business.
“I must say, I am rather pleased by the overall effect now it is finished,” Dougal said cheerfully as they made their way to the bridge. “I have a feeling that father would approve too.”
Tom agreed. When you added the growl of the dantium engine and the unnatural swish of the propellers, anybody seeing this ship come at them would run for their lives.
“I have sent the natives on their way. Even offered them some sheets of cotton for their trouble. They refused them. For an inferior race they have a lot of pride.”
“They painted the Hubris to protect their families from the wrath of their gods and you offered them payment?” Tom could not believe that Dougal had done such a thing. “Have you thought how they might view that, Dougal?”
Dougal frowned, “I should have asked you first, Tom. You seem to have an affinity for these savages. I suppose they might have felt insulted.”
Tom shook his head. Dougal was out of his depth. No doubt he could handle the manufacturing and testing of the Hubris just fine, but someone who knew something about diplomacy should have been put in overall charge.
They reached the bridge and Dougal ordered the ship to be launched. Half an hour later they were sailing high above the fort.
“Take us over the Buffalo Field,” Dougal ordered the navigator. The man saluted and the ship headed north, a direction they had never gone before.
Tom’s curiosity was aroused.
“Is this Buffalo Field something special?”
Dougal sighed. “Since you are showing an interest in our relations with the natives, I thought it best to show you why we are not the most popular people with them.”
“Why is that?”
“Best that you see it for yourself.”
It only took a few minutes flight to reach their destination. From a distance, Tom thought the field was an unusual formation of chalk deposits. The vast area of land had patches of white stone jutting out of the earth. It was only when they got closer that Tom could make out the individual shapes. This was the graveyard of an unimaginable number of buffalo. Some of their hides still remained and it was clear that they had not been butchered for food.
“Have you ever wondered why we built Hubris here, Tom?” Dougal spoke in a whisper as they crossed the silent graveyard.
Tom found he was whispering when he replied. “I thought it was because of the gas, Elios?”
“That helped to make the decision. But it is easy enough to extract the gas and compress it in steel bottles made by Spellbinders. We have already moved enough gas to England to build a hundred of these airships.”
“Then I confess I do not have a clue. I know you have the aluminium frames shipped in from New York, so it cannot be that.”
“You have seen the helium bags inside the frame?”
Tom nodded. Much to his surprise, the outer frame was merely there to protect delicate helium bags that lifted the airship into the sky. These bags were bigger than a man and there were hundreds if not thousands of them inside the frame. They were tied at the bottom with a simple drawstring, which could be opened to add more gas. Since the gas always rose upwards, no clever seal was required at the bottom.
“Elios is like its cousin hydrogen. You can seal it behind glass or ceramic or steel, but none of those are particularly useful if you want to make an airship fly.”
“Canvas will not do?”
“Canvas, cotton all let Elios through as though they were sieves. Only one material has been discovered which takes Elios a while to get through. Even then, it leaks, but it takes months to lose it all.”
“And this has something to do with the bones below us?”
Dougal laughed. “You have never been a fool, Tom. There is a lining in the stomach of a cow impermeable to gas. A single cow might provide a couple of square feet of it when properly processed.”
“And buffalos have the same material in their guts?”
Dougal nodded. “Father had this done more than a year ago. I believe he ordered a hundred thousand animals slaughtered here. There were a dozen Grade 1 Spellbinders here at the time. The collected material was dropped into vats, the Spellbinders turned it to liquid, a mould was lowered and the bind was broken, producing perfect gas bags every time. For all his faults, my father was an industrial genius.”
“Why not ship the bags to New York, why built the airship here?”
“Secrecy, that and the fact that we could use as much gas as we wanted here, and if we need more material for the bags there are always more buffalos.”
Tom looked down at the remnants of the beasts. “And doing this upset the natives?”
“The buffalo is sacred to them. But I suspect the deaths the slaughter caused were more annoying.”
“Deaths?”
“My father picked a site for the butchery ideally located for the fort and factory. Unfortunately this place is upstream of the native villages and many died from drinking contaminated water, mostly their women and children.”
Tom shuddered. Alistair McBride had been surprisingly generous to those who worked for him, but must have seen the natives as sub-human. Much as his son did.
“I would have prevented this had I been here, Tom. But it was all over long before I arrived.”
“I am surprised that any white men here are still alive.”
“Which is why we have the soldiers and a fort.”
Laura and Daisy were taken to a mansion in the woodland. The fine marble floors were filthy from the mud traipsed in by the soldiers. This served as the field headquarters of General Brent-Smyth, a man who liked his creature comforts. The General led them to a splendid room with gold leaf decorating the plaster and oil painting on the walls. The carpet looked a little worse for wear, but otherwise this was a room that would have not looked out of place in a palace.
“Who lives here?” Laura asked.
“I do now. The previous inhabitants were sent to Vannes. They can have it back when this war is over, though I’ve taken a liking to a couple of the paintings.”
“Spoils of war, General?” Laura asked. The General gave her a hard look before replying.
“I’m sure they will be reasonable about the price,
Miss Young. I am not a looter.”
“I am sure you are not, General,” Daisy said quickly. “Laura is new to the exigencies of war. Please forgive her.” If ever a look could be said to mean ‘shut up’ the look Daisy gave Laura would win first place.
The General waved his hand. “It is forgotten. What I want you to do, Miss Young, is to study the map on the table.”
Laura and Daisy went over to a table near the window where a large campaign map was held unrolled by four pieces of the finest porcelain. Broken shards on the floor suggested there had once been five. The map meant little to either of them.
“This is where we are now and over to the north here is our biggest pocket of resistance, a rebel stronghold of over two thousand combatants.” The General’s stubby fingers stabbed at the places as he talked. “I could lose half my men trying to take this town and a siege would take months. Do you have any ideas?”
“I will not kill,” Laura said determinably.
The General laughed. “I am not asking you to kill anybody. You figure out a way to disarm them and my men will do the rest.”
“Which is much the same as me killing them with my own hands.”
The General sighed. “If you disarm them, we will take them prisoner and march them off to our stockade. Would that satisfy you?”
Laura nodded. “If I find a way, they will become prisoners of war?”
“I promise,” the General said.
“Then I will think on it and let you know in the morning.”
After an excellent five course meal, Daisy and Laura were escorted to a bedroom where they would spend the night. A quick search by Laura revealed that someone had removed anything that might be regarded as writing material and that there were two alert guards outside the door.
“Do you think we can trust him, Daisy?”
Daisy wondered what Laura would think of her if she knew about the Spellbinder tools concealed about her person, and concluded that it would probably be nothing good. As for the General, he was a man used to using people as pawns in his game. He was using kindness and reason now, but Daisy had visions of the future with Laura tied to a flogging post with horrible wounds inflicted on her back. It was that image that determined her answer.
“I cannot see any reason why he should lie. All he wants is this insurrection suppressed so he can go back home.”
Laura looked undecided. “Can you see what happens to these people if I agree?”
Daisy could not, but she decided a white lie was required as she now had a vision of a branding iron descending on Laura’s backside. “I see people herded into camps and some possibilities where they are greeted by loved ones.”
“You are sure? These are future visions?”
“I am almost certain. But you know how vague Precog visions can be.”
Laura nodded. “Then I will do it.”
Daisy sighed with relief, the visions of whippings had gone, but there were overlays of Laura dangling from a rope with her tongue, black and swollen, sticking out. It wasn’t at all clear when those visions were as Laura looked older.
“How will you do it? Change them into frogs?”
Laura shuddered. “I killed a boy doing that. He dived into the sea and the salt water killed him. Never again.”
“Then how?”
“I will think of something.”
They woke at dawn to the sound of a bugle. Neither had shed more than their outer clothing and so they were dressed in minutes. The guards outside took them down to the dining room where they found the General waiting for them. When they tried to sit at the table he stepped in their way.
“Do you have an answer for me?”
Laura looked into his eyes. “I can immobilize them. But I can’t discriminate between men, women and children. They will be able to flop around a little, so if they were washing when my bind hits they will be able to get their heads out of the water. I can do this provided you supply me with appropriate materials.”
“Excellent.” The General nodded towards the food on the table. “Eat your fill. We will commence operations in one hour. I need to get my men in position.”
Laura and Daisy sat down to eat. Daisy was plagued with disturbing visions of slaughter, which she did not mention to Laura.
The General returned with a small writing table. The paper was the best Military Magic issue as was the quill pen and small tub of copper impregnated ink.
Laura felt an overwhelming sense of relief as she sat down in front of the tools of her trade. It had been many months since she had held a proper pen in her hand and was able to write on high quality paper. She felt the power begin to flow into her fingers as she created the appropriate image in her mind.
“Can you point out the exact direction, General? You would not want the wrong place put to sleep. The General took a compass from his pocket and consulted it. “About two miles in that direction.” He pointed almost directly out of the window.
Laura completed the bind and felt the energies flow from her body and link to the ink and paper. In her mind the words were glowing, but in the real world nothing could be seen.
“Is that it?” the General asked, sounding disappointed.
“You certainly do not want to see anything when a Spellbinder works because that would mean the bind is about to break,” Daisy explained. “And Laura is the most powerful Spellbinder on Earth.”
“How long will it last?”
“Longer than you need.” Laura felt tired from putting so much energy into the bind. “Tell me when you want it undone and I will tear it.”
The General took the piece of paper from her hand. “No need for that. I will do it myself.” He left the room leaving the girls on their own.
“Did I do a good thing or a bad thing?” Laura asked Daisy.
“Good. I am sure it was for the good.”
Antonia gave Tom a lingering kiss as they lay in bed together. He had given her levels of pleasure beyond anything she had known, remaining throughout a gentleman, even while doing very ungentlemanly things to her. In Kansas, it was just past midnight, but back in England the next day was well underway and Andrea was at her desk in the office.
[Do not start him off again. If someone comes in while he’s doing that to you they will think I am having a fit.] Andrea complained. [I was lucky to make it to the office last time.]
“I am going to miss him when he goes back to his girl,” Antonia whispered. She could have simply thought it, but she wanted Tom to know how she felt.
[I want him before that bitch gets him. Send him to me first.]
Antonia giggled. “You should be so lucky.”
“Wha’? Me?” Tom was only half awake.
Antonia kissed him on the forehead. “Not you, silly. I was talking to my sister.”
[Tell him about the boy. He may not take it in and then you will have fulfilled our promise and he will still not know.]
Antonia thought that was a highly sneaky thing to do. She smiled.
“Oh, Thomas?”
“Wha’?”
“A young man came to see my sister yesterday. He left a message, apparently someone called Ebb is dying and they want you to come home.”
Antonia stroked Tom’s hair and he began to smile. Then, just as she thought she had won he sat bolt upright.
“Ebb is dying? Who sent the message? How long does he have left?” Tom stopped as he realized he was shaking Antonia by the shoulders and she looked terrified.
Annelise Shultz had searched everywhere she could think of for Cam without success. There was no sign of her near the War Office, nor any of the buildings that spies used. She travelled across London spending a fortune paying people good money, simply to be told that no one like her had passed their way.
She then started searching at the most expensive hotels and worked her way down to the taverns that rented rooms by the hour and often rented the same one three times in the hour as clients rarely lasted that long.
“Haf you
seen a girl called Ingrid Brown,” she asked a tavern owner. She was about to give a description when the man responded. “Haven’t heard her use that name in an age. She ain’t your type though, strictly sex with men. Won’t even do a threesome. Shame that, as she’s quite a looker.”
“Spare me your sordid dreams. Vere can I find her?”
Ingrid Brown finished off her client and spat the contents of her mouth onto the cobbles where it formed a slimy pool. “That’ll be a shilling, sir.”
The client laughed. “A shilling for that? You’ll take sixpence and think yourself lucky.”
He dropped the sixpence into the puddle and walked away. Ingrid picked it up and wiped it clean.
“Ingrid Brown?”
The accent was German and so Ingrid slipped into her second tongue.
“Who wants to know?”
“My name is unimportant. The important thing is that I will pay you a five pound note for the right information.”
Annelise waved the note in front of Ingrid and her eyes followed its every movement.
“I’ll tell you anything you want for that.”
Annelise asked a series of questions which Ingrid answered with absolute honesty, the thought of the five pound note blinding her from exercising caution.
“And this man pays you five shillings a month, just for you to use another name?”
Ingrid nodded.
“You have been most helpful and I will give you your reward.”
Ingrid put her hand out for the note and Annelise cut her throat with the stiletto in her other hand. As the girl tried to stem the spurting blood and began to drown in it, Annelise stepped away.
“I vood haf killed you slowly if you lied.”
General Brent-Smyth got off his horse and handed the reins to his aide. The horses were twitchy because of the screaming and weeping coming from all directions in the town. Captain Muldrow walked across the street to greet him.
“It is good to see you, sir. The mission has been a complete success.”