by Michael Rigg
~ Michael J. Rigg
SOMEWHERE AROUND CHAPTER 4...
Captain Richard Kinney stepped out of the galley of the airship Compassion and sipped his coffee. He nodded and twitched his handlebar mustache, licking his lips and tasting mustache wax mingled with Chef Brody’s remarkable blend of Brazilian and Peruvian beans. He wiped at his upper lip with a slender white-gloved finger before turning toward the bridge.
Compassion hovered high over the hills of Kentucky, angling slowly downward and coming out of thick cottony clouds as Kinney stepped through the hatch. “Afternoon, gentlemen.”
The three men on the bridge mumbled greetings as they continued their work, not glancing up, as their captain took his place beside Lawrence Toller at the navigator’s table. Kinney lifted his mug in toast. Toller was a squat man with a wide forehead, and round spectacles fitted with various magnifying loupes to aide his nervous eyesight. Kinney, at six-two, and appearing sharply in his navy blue coat, leaned over him like a collapsing tower, and muttered, “Anything yet, lieutenant?”
Toller, who was busy shuffling between a brass sextant, silver compass, and several chewed pencils, squinted through the forward windows, huffed, then made a mark on the map. “If you decide to continue heading west—”
“We are heading west.”
“Well…” Toller nodded as if hurried about something, and drew a finger along the map, “Our refueling options will be limited.”
Kinney raised a pointed brow and looked out over the hills and valleys rising up to meet them. “Nonsense. There are plenty of dirigible stations between here and New Cali.”
“I think what he means to say, sir, is that we’re deep within Confederate territory.”
Toller nodded vehemently, his shaky hand waving the sextant at Pilot Gabriel Joseph who was concentrating on their descent. Kinney looked over his navigator toward the bald African at the wheel. “Do you share this paranoia, Gabe?”
“No, sir. I’m just translating for the lil' guy.”
Toller made a noise that sounded like a squeak.
“I mean the lieutenant,” Gabe corrected himself, shooting a friendly smirk toward Toller.
Kinney took a deep breath, then set his mug down on the map table near the raised edge fashioned to prevent things like pencils, compasses, and mugs from sliding off during the pitch and yaw of the ship. He pulled his white gloves a bit tighter, smoothed out his uniform coat around its gleaming brass buttons, adjusted his captain’s hat, then eyed each man on the bridge carefully. None of them wore their uniforms. Gabe’s gusseted shirt and vest gave him the appearance of a pirate’s mate, Lawrence Toller’s rumpled suit gave him the appearance of a stow-away accountant, and Crewman Brody, who was currently monitoring the steam gauges against the aft wall, was still wearing his grease-stained cook's apron.
Slobs, Kinney thought. All of them. He cleared his throat and spoke with authority, “Firstly, we are not,” he raised his hands and made finger quotes, “Deep within the Confederacy. We are in Kentucky. Alabama is deep within the Confederacy. Brazil is deep within the Confederacy.” Kinney shook his head. “We are not going south. We are going west.”
“Straight west will take us the width of the Confederacy,” Toller pointed out, his left eye twitching behind his spectacles. “There’ll be patrols, and with that mess out over the Atlantic—”
“Which doesn’t concern us, particularly since the Atlantic lies to the east and we’re going west.” Kinney said as if addressing an impatient child. “Look.” He caught himself, took a deep breath to prevent himself raising his voice, and repeated in a lower register, “Look… Yes, we are flying Imperial colors. Yes, we are painted Imperial blue. Yes, we are Imperial officers of a former warship.” He narrowed his eyes at the squat navigator. “And, yes, I am well aware that our great nation has once again entered a state of disagreement with our misguided drawling neighbors to the south.” Kinney raised a finger for emphasis, the white glove bright in the shadowed bridge of the airship. “However… The Security Treaties of ‘77 remain in place. They have not been rescinded, and under Article K of the Security Treaties, both Imperial and Confederate vessels flying the red flag of Article K are exempt from privateering and may cross the other’s border in the pursuit of criminals.”
Kinney lifted his mug from the table and sipped as he gave each man a challenging look. He spoke in a low voice as if his mug was a telephone and he was talking to a conspirator in another room. “We are pirate hunters now, not a carrier tug. We are in lawful pursuit of three enemies of the Empire.”
Toller looked through the side viewport to the black and red flag flying below the larger circle of stars on a blue field. He pointed toward the small flag that flapped in time with the rapid beating of his heart. “They won’t see that from a distance, and not from our port side. And our vessel is a rather striking shade of Imperial blue, yes? I—”
“I think,” Kinney interrupted as he leaned down to face the navigator, “You need to find me those pirates.” He stood tall and raised his voice. “The sooner we strike down those ships, the sooner we can go home.” He turned and moved purposely toward the aft hatch. “We all have work to do.” Kinney stopped at the door and turned toward the cook. “Mr. Brody.”
The cook scratched at his thick beard and tapped the glass of a gauge. He yawned, “Sir?”
Kinney raised his mug. “Excellent brew this morning.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The captain sniffed. “Do Lieutenant Toller a favor, will you?”
Brody glanced toward Toller who looked back questioningly. “Sir?”
“See to it Radio calls ahead for refueling stations. Let her know we’ll need coal, water, and a Tesla buffing.” Then he emphasized: “Tell her to tell them we’re an Article K vessel and explain our colors.” Kinney glanced toward Toller as he stepped through the hatch. “See if you can’t find some compassion for the Compassion.”
After the captain was gone, Brody and Toller shook their heads at one another and returned to their duties.
Gabe craned his neck forward and spotted something on the ground far below. “Looks like somebody beat us to it.”
The other two men turned, then quickly moved to the forward viewport. They leaned out over the brass railing to see the fish-shaped charred wreckage on a hillside far below. Thin wisps of smoke were curling up from what clearly was once an airship.
“Can you make it out?” Toller asked, squinting and pushing his specs up with shaky fingers.
“Nope,” Brody said, “But I’ll bet diesel to dipsticks it weren’t a friendly.”
“Why?”
The cook motioned at the farmland all around the wreck. “No security. No Confeds swarmin’ over it. Whatever happened, happened quick and without a word. I guarantee ya, that’s one of ‘em, or the victim of one of ‘em.”
Gabe pulled a large lever to bank steam and began a corkscrew descent toward the wreck. “Best let the captain know.”
Brody nodded and rushed aft. As he moved past Gabe, the pilot said, “And tell Radio to keep her ears on. Just ‘cause they ain't here now don’t mean this place won’t be swarmin’ with ‘em in a minute.”
“Right.”
When they were alone on the bridge, Toller put his sextant back on the map table and moved to stand by the pilot. “What if it’s not one of the pirates?”
The large man pulled his silver red-lensed goggles down over his eyes as the ship rotated to face the sun. “Then we’d best make that assessment and get the hell out of here before the Confeds get us.”
Toller laughed nervously. He flashed a crooked sneer and gestured to the red and black flag outside. “But we’re Article Kaaaaaaay,” he said in mockery of their captain.
“Won’t matter if she’s not a pirate and they think we’re the ones
that shot her down.”
Toller looked to the poster on the far wall that displayed the silhouettes of three airships, all of them relatively small but large enough to house a sizable artillery and crew to man it. Beneath each identifying silhouette was a name: Mystic Lady, Greedy Whore and Black Princess. Toller attempted to memorize the dark oblong shapes before returning to the railing and squinting down at the wreckage again, which was nothing more than a silhouette itself. “I can’t tell.”
Gabe said, “We’ll be able to tell once we have a closer look.”
Toller looked at the man over his shoulder, one of the loupes dropping to blur his field of vision and make his eye look huge. “How long will that take?”
Gabe’s smile was toothy. “Not to worry, lil' man. We’ll make quick work of her.”
~~~
Kevin leaned in closer to his wife’s ear. “She gave us food, Mags.”
Maggie responded a bit too loud and forced her voice down with every other word as her husband winced and glanced to the dark haired woman several feet away. “I don’ care if she be givin’ us the golden keys to the Taj Mahal. She’s a witch, Kevin Tarnish, sure as I’m standin’ ‘ere.”
“You don’t know she’s a witch. She—”
“She ain’t an angel. She ain’t not’in like our dear—”
“You don’t know that,” Kevin whispered back harshly. He placed his hands, now neither one of them carrying the burden of sore limbs and a busted-up arm, and looked intently into her eyes. He longed for her understanding and patience, and the tolerance he knew she was capable of. He tried to convey all of that in a look. “Why would a witch want to mess with the likes of us? Why would she patch us up and give us food?”
“Ya can’t eat this stuff, Kevin. It was conjured. You got no idea 'ow poisonous magic-made food can be now.”
Kevin opened his mouth to retort, but Pandora raised her voice and called out, “That ain’t how it works, Kitty.”
The couple looked to the woman who raised both brows and nodded. “Yeah, I can hear ya. I can hear ya, smell ya, listen to yer heartbeats from all the way over yonder.” She raised her arms out from her sides and let them drop. “I’m lost too, and yeah, I’m a witch, but big floggin' deal.”
Maggie raised her chin to speak, releasing her words even as Kevin gave her a gentle pull to silence her. “We’re not eatin’ this food, ya mouthy witch!”
Pandora shrugged a tired shoulder. “Suit y’self, Kitty, but for your information, it ain’t conjured outta nothin’. That ain’t how it works.”
“Then where’d it come from?” Kevin asked, genuinely perplexed by all things magical. They rubbed against the sensibilities of his M.D. and his Ph.D., and reason born of traveling the roads and skies for more than a decade.
“Elsewheres,” the witch said.
“Meanin’ ya stole ‘em!” Maggie shot back.
Pandora, who had been standing well back from the couple while they ‘discussed’ the merits of having a witch in their party, stepped closer. She approached with all the caution of someone stepping up to a hunter upon whose land she’d wandered, hands held out, palms down, feet stepping one before the other. “Look, Kitty. Doc. I ain’t the bad guy here. In fact, I don’t have a shittin’ clue why I dumped where I did. I tranced out of where I was, and ended up here. I guess in that second my mind wandered.”
Kevin’s eyes were wide with curiosity. “You mean you can go wherever you want at will?”
Pandora shrugged at him, now relaxing both her arms and shoulders. “I can lock in on a person or place I been to, but it’s really hard. It taxes a body.” She yawned as if on cue. “Further I go, the more weather changes twix’d here n’ there, how much concentration I’m givin’…” She shrugged again. “Effects where I end up and if I survive.”
Maggie was still glaring at her, clutching the magic-pilfered sack of food to her bosom.
“Where did you come from, if you don’t mind me asking?” Kevin ventured.
“Under the Atlantic Ocean,” Pandora replied, her dark eyes seeming to look into his mind as she told him. “There’s a battle goin’ on out there over a piece o’ waterlogged craphole. I was…” She frowned and glanced away. “I was busy handlin’ somethin’.”
Pandora’s mind was a complex container of honeycombs constructed out of cobwebs. Each whisper of a container held a memory, a thought, and not all of them were her own. While she was magicking the minds of Kevin and Maggie Tarnish to make sure they were good folk, she was venturing to the general store twenty miles away from where she’d nabbed the food—to make sure it wouldn’t really be missed. She also pondered the chilly memories of the battle… the death of her nemesis, the condition of her friend, Bryce Landry, and… her father.
She knew he was dead. She felt the pit in her soul, and in her mind. It was a painful, raw feeling of emptiness that blew down the walls of cobweb containers in her brain. Then she realized how she ended up here, with these two. This site must not be far from where his plane was destroyed. Pandora knew he was gone, and doubted she’d find anything of his body to bury. The explanation for her materialization in this patch of Confederate countryside gave her some relief, but it also weighed like led bullet lodged in her chest.
Kevin picked up on her dark change. “Miss Pandora? You all right?”
“Step back from ‘er, Kev. She be conjurin’ up sometin’!” Maggie touched her husband’s arm and pulled back.
Pandora blinked and looked at her. She sighed. “Oh, for chrissakes, calm down.” She looked between the two, and smirked. “I don’t know how I got here,” she lied. “But it’s obvious to me you two don’t know what the hell yer doin’.”
Kevin nodded past the witch toward the barely-visible column of thin smoke on their horizon. “Like we said, we were trying to make our way to the wreck of the Mystic Lady there before we lost the trail, then work toward rebuilding what we’d lost aboard her.”
Pandora narrowed an eye at each of them. “Mystic Lady’s a pirate ship. Everybody knows that.”
Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but pinched her lips shut and glanced up at her husband.
Kevin said, “We didn’t. Our wagon was snatched out of the sky.”
“Victims,” Pandora smirked. She looked the couple over and nodded, her eyes tracing long lines over them as her smirk deepened. “Figures.”
“Let us pass,” Maggie said, lifting her chin. Her whisker tattoo twitched.
Pandora held up a hand and glanced over her shoulder. “Whoa. Don’t get your tail in a bunch there, kitty. Why didn’tcha say so. I can git ya there in a flash.”
Kevin quickly protested. “No. No, no. We’ll walk. We thank you for mending us, Miss Pandora, and for the food, but… I-I think we’re keen to talk.” He moved to sidestep around the witch, pulling Maggie to his side, but Pandora quickly blocked their path again.
“Ah-ah.” Pandora angled her head down, narrowing an eye at Kevin. “I got some questions first.”
Stay tuned.
BRONZE HEARTFELT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
(Some very important acknowledgments, and why the Heart of Bronze books are “different”)
This book began as a “blognovel,” a full length piece of fiction produced as a weekly serial and published for free on the internet in the form of a blog. Since then, I've chopped it, changed it, edited it (though another set of “editor's eyes” would have been welcome), and brought it out of the ether into a more defined and professional place.
During the production of the original manuscript, I spiced up my serialization a bit by hosting regular contests to involve my readers. After all, I think a story is an equal partnership between the writer and reader. What better way to thank your readers than to pull them into the story with you and let them make a few turns here and there.
So, I put the word out through social media and chapter breaks giving readers the chance to name a character, select a setting, even decide the fate of a bad guy here and there. For the characters, I asked for as little as a gender and a name. In some cases I got a little more, but that was a start for what would become an epic story that surprised even me at times. I even solicited my artist friends to try their hand at capturing a cover design for the blognovel edition. The results continued to inspire me all the way to the end—and beyond.
I'd like to begin by thanking my two favorite artistic contributors for the original Heart of Bronze blognovel cover: Ethan Richards and Jacqueline Murawski. Jackie's color scheme and Ethan's recreation of the Confederate national flag (as seen in this out-of-timeline) both made it to the final cover you see now.
As to the story itself, I'd like to thank the following individuals for their creative input and the contributions they made toward the characters and twists within the pages of Clockwork Looking Glass:
Jacqueline Murawski inspired the character of Pandora. “Pandy” began as a minor character who grew rapidly over the course of the story. Her fiery unpredictable nature and mysterious abilities quickly made her a fan favorite. Ethan Richards inspired the nobility, strength and fierceness of Lady McFerran. Ethan's proud Lady of the South gave me the opportunity to introduce a major turn in the plot through a strong female voice in a world dominated by the machinations of single-minded men. A thousand thanks, Jackie and E. This story wouldn't be as rich or interesting without your inspirations.
What kind of author would I be if I didn't include the desires of my lovely wife? Melanie Rigg not only supported me throughout the writing of this book, she encouraged me to keep going and reminded me that this (story telling) is what I was born to do. Thank you, my love! You are my world. And you, my dear reader, can thank Melanie for the character of Magdeline Tarnish. Maggie's a quirky little Scottish dreamer with a big heart who becomes my “face of Steampunk” in this story. I'm sure you'll love her.