“I have a berth to the port side if you’d care to rest along the way. Let me show you. It’s this way,” Elle said to Dr. Bell as she led her toward the cabin. “You are of course more than welcome to join me up in the cockpit.” She had found that most of her passengers were rather thrilled by the novelty of this. Elle did not mind the intrusion, for the company of the odd passenger or two sometimes made for a welcome diversion from the long lonely hours of flight.
“Wonderful,” said Dr. Bell. “Let me stow my things and I will join you for take off. If that’s in order, of course.” She gestured to the battered steamer trunk that had been left outside the little cabin.
“Absolutely.” Elle smiled at Dr. Bell. “I’ll be busy with the preflight checks. And if you need anything, I’ll be just on the other side of these.” Elle opened the new set of doors that separated the cockpit from the rest of the ship.
“Would you mind if I checked on the freight before we depart?” Dr. Bell asked.
“By all means,” Elle said. “The freight hold is just behind those grates. Be sure to close them once you have finished.” She pulled aside the heavy leather curtain that covered the metal gates that demarcated the freight area. These curtains were also a new addition to the interior of the ship.
In the middle of the Water Lily’s cargo area was a stack of wooden crates secured by a rope net. Each box was stamped with the address of the British Museum: Great Russell Street, London, W1.
“Oh, isn’t this a wonderful sight?” the doctor said as she took in the crates. “The museum is going to be so impressed with these Nubian finds.”
“Here is the cargo inventory.” Elle handed her the list that was clipped to her docking papers and manifest. “You probably have a far better idea of what you are looking at than I.”
Dr. Bell’s face opened up in a broad smile. “Don’t you mind me, my dear. I will have these double-checked in a jiffy,” she muttered, already immersed in the numbers on the crates.
Elle smiled as she made her way to the cockpit. Dr. Bell was a woman after her own heart and she liked her immensely.
Back in the cockpit, Elle ran through her preflight checks without a glitch. Satisfied that all was well, she flipped the switches that activated the spark reactor. The reactor, in turn, heated the water that was stored in large brass tanks. The water turned to steam which was fed into the thruster engines that drove the ship.
The ship’s spark reactor glowed and the pressure gauges sang. Elle pushed the levers forward and, with a satisfying rattle and a hum, the Water Lily’s engines turned over.
Elle cast an eye over the ship’s helium tanks. These filled the balloons from a complex set of pipes that formed the gas system, allowing the ship to rise up and land. All seemed in order, so she flicked the switch on the signal lights to show the docking crew that the Water Lily was ready for takeoff.
The ground crew, wrapped in keffiyehs to protect against the dust that the airship thrusters kicked up, ran out and started untying the ship’s tether ropes.
“Ready for takeoff. Hold on, it can sometimes be bumpy!” Elle called to the back to warn Dr. Bell.
Slowly Elle eased the lever that regulated the gas levels of the overhead balloon and, with the hiss of helium, the chambers filled to capacity. With a gentle creak, the Water Lily started to rise up into the air.
Elle eased the thrusters into the forward position and, without so much as a rattle, her ship took to the sky.
“And we’re off!” said the doctor as she eased herself into the copilot seat next to Elle with a satisfied groan. “Ah, sitting down in a comfy seat after all those months camping in the desert feels like heaven to these old bones, I can tell you,” Dr. Bell said.
“I can well believe you,” Elle replied.
Below them, the dusty rooftops and parade grounds of Khartoum grew smaller. As they rose up, the fine curve of the Blue Nile came into view. The water glittered in the sun as it meandered through the city, due north toward the desert. Elle felt an immense sense of satisfaction as she scanned the horizon. The Sudan was a magnificent place that few people had the privilege to ever see. It was moments like these that made flying worthwhile.
“I think that was just about the most trouble-free takeoff I’ve ever experienced. You might be my lucky mascot, Doctor,” Elle said as she wound the lever that retracted the ship’s tether ropes.
“Well, let’s hope it bodes well for the rest of the flight,” Dr. Bell said. “I have a particularly lovely clay chalice that I would love to present to the museum in one piece—after I have written a paper about it, that is.”
“Well, the winds are in our favor, so I’ll do my best, Doctor,” Elle said as she angled the Water Lily northward.
“Please, call me Gertrude,” the doctor said. “I should like it very much if we could be friends.”
“I should like that too,” Elle said. “And now, how about a nice cup of tea?”
Gertrude’s face brightened. “Now that’s a good idea. Shall I get the things ready?”
As they set about filling the teapot with leaves and water, the parched desert sands slipped by below. They were following the River Nile north to Cairo, across the great blue Mediterranean and then onward across Europe to England.
A soft smiled played across Elle’s lips as she settled in her seat. She was in her favorite place on earth.
CHAPTER 4
“Now that is a nice cup of tea,” Doctor Bell said as she took an appreciative sip. It was the next day and they were several pots of brew into their journey. Despite the copious amounts of tea, Gertrude had so far shown no sign of having reached her fill. “It really is the little things one misses when you are out on a dig like that. All I’ve had for months on end is that terribly strong, syrupy stuff the Bedouin drink. You mustn’t misunderstand me. It’s perfectly delicious to drink, but it isn’t a proper cuppa, now is it?”
“Well, I have plenty of tea, so please have as much as you wish,” Elle said.
“Say, where are we now? Is that the Mediterranean?” Dr. Bell peered through the cockpit glass and over the expanse of water before them.
“Certainly is,” Elle replied. On the one side, the sun was setting across the vast expanse that was the Sahara Desert. On the other, the shimmering blue of the sea stretched out as far as the eye could see. “If you look at this compass, you will see that we are traveling west, northwest along the coast of North Africa. We will keep going like that for a while until it’s time to cut across the sea to Italy. Then we head west to France to get to the Channel and then onwards home.”
“How fascinating,” Dr. Bell said as she studied Elle’s navigational charts. “I’ve always loved a good atlas and now I feel like I am right inside one.” She beamed at Elle. “Oh, I do see why you love flying so much, my dear. I think I might have chosen the same career had aviation been as advanced when I was young.”
“Do have a biscuit,” Elle said, offering her the shop-bought blue metal tin that said McVitie & Price in smart letters. Her regular home-baked supply had dried up when Mrs. Hinges—or Mrs. Mathilda Chance, as she was now called—had moved back to Oxford with Elle’s father, and as far as she could tell, they were both lyrically happy.
But over the last year, Elle had been too grief-stricken for social interaction. The house in Grosvenor Square was now a gloomy, its furniture and fittings covered in dusty sheets with only the butler and a maid to keep an eye on the place. Elle had moved out and taken up modest rooms in Knightsbridge, which were close to the airfield in Hyde Park. Her rooms were sparsely furnished, rarely inhabited and not very conducive to receiving guests, meaning that the visits from her father and stepmother had grown more infrequent. The unfortunate downside of her new chosen circumstances, among other things, was a sudden cessation of her supply of homemade biscuits.
Shop-bought, but perfectly acceptable, she thought with a tinge of irritation. She would not allow herself to feel guilty. At least she did not have to face the sympathe
tic stares and the soft-spoken words of condolence every time she came into contact with anyone she had known. They all meant well, but their kindness did nothing to assuage the bottomless hole of grief, guilt and sadness that sat where her heart had once been. In fact, it made things worse, and the outpouring of sympathy had irritated Elle to the point where she wanted to scream and scratch and weep.
These feelings made her feel even more awful and guilty, so she decided that it was time to put an end to the funerary procession. No, things were better if everyone left her alone to get on with things. She had gone to great measures to avoid anyone who reminded her of her former life. Even the Baroness Loisa Belododia—her closest friend and confidant—had stopped writing after her letters remained unanswered.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Dr. Bell interrupted Elle’s dark thoughts as she lifted a digestive biscuit out of the tin. “Say, would you be terribly offended if I asked you a personal question?”
“Of course not. But whether I will give you an answer, depends entirely on the question,” Elle said.
“That’s fair enough.” Dr. Bell nodded. “It’s just that I was wondering about the man you said you might have seen in the marketplace in Khartoum.”
Elle took a deep breath. Gertrude had indeed asked the one question she did not want to answer. Yet, oddly enough, speaking someone who had suffered a loss similar to her own did not feel so threatening. In fact, the thought of speaking to someone who might understand what she was feeling was almost comforting.
“I thought I might have seen my husband,” she said.
“I’m sorry for not mentioning it sooner, but I am terribly sorry for your loss,” Dr. Bell said. “I had read about Lord Greychester’s unfortunate accident in the papers quite recently. You must remember that the news takes quite some time to reach the Sudan.” Dr. Bell shook her head sadly. “Such a terrible business. You have my sincerest condolences, my dear.”
“Condolences are not necessary because my husband is not dead. He is merely between worlds at the moment,” Elle said. She felt her voice turn sharp as she struggled to keep the annoyance out of her voice. The question as to whether her husband was to be considered alive or dead was a debate she had been forced to endure on countless occasions over the last year and a half and she was heartily sick of it.
The truth was that her husband had been abducted by the villainous Clothilde de Blanc—the Lady in White—who had used him as part of a scheme to take over the world with an army of clockwork soldiers. Elle had fought hard to get him back and she had almost succeeded, but in the end La Dame Blanche had had her revenge. In the moments before Elle killed her, she had placed a curse on Marsh compelling him to roam the netherworld as a wraith—always halfway between the worlds of Light and Shadow. The biggest tragedy was that they could never touch, because even the tiniest contact would drain her life force from her. She would drop dead on the spot. So Marsh had retreated into the Shadow, as far away from Elle as he could.
After the accident, distant members of the Greychester family had appeared out of nowhere. Eager to ensure that they received their fair share of any potential inheritances, they had insisted that full rites be held, befitting a man of Marsh’s status. Elle had fought them at first, but things became quite ugly when they started threatening to seek legal counsel. In the end, Elle simply did not have the energy to resist the formidable wall of greed and societal convention she had been up against, and so she had let them get on with things. Many a judgmental eyebrow had been raised at the fact that Elle had refused to dress in the customary widow’s weeds. At the farce that was the funeral, she had arrived at the graveside in an elegant grey skirt and jacket dressed with black brocade. A military look to face militant relatives, and she had stood, watching stone-faced as they levered the empty coffin into the family mausoleum. Her behavior had caused quite a stir among the society gossipmongers and all manner of rumors had abounded.
“Not dead in the traditional sense of the word, for sure, but still gone from your life,” Dr. Bell continued, quite unperturbed by Elle’s sudden broody silence. “I myself am not blessed with any supernatural gifts, but I have spent most of my life studying those who do not dwell in this realm, through the archaeology of the past. And if you don’t mind me saying so, even though you take care not to make it obvious, I did notice that you cast no shadow when standing in the sun. And that means you are very much connected with the Shadow realm. The only creature I know of who casts no shadow is the Oracle … And that is a most important role indeed.”
Elle looked her companion in the eye. Dr. Bell had hit the nail squarely on the head. “Well spotted. But I must ask you to please keep my secret. It is very dangerous for me as there are many who would like to get their hands on the power I hold.”
“Of course, my dear, your secret is entirely safe with me,” Gertrude said. “And please forgive me for prying. I did not mean to intrude upon your private grief. It has just been such a long time since I’ve had proper female companionship and so I find myself quite overcome with enthusiasm.”
“Please don’t worry about it,” Elle said. “Besides, I refuse to accept that Hugh is gone. I saw him survive with my own eyes. I just need to find a way to breach the curse so I can bring him back.”
“And how is your search going?” asked Dr. Bell. “It is generally believed that mortals who pass over to the other side are not likely to ever return.”
Elle closed her eyes for a moment to block out the pain that discussing these matters triggered inside her. Most days it was nothing but a dull ache, but sometimes, in moments like this, she found herself caught off guard and it left her quite breathless. “I am sorry, Gertrude, but this is a very painful subject for me. My search for my husband is a private matter, if you don’t mind,” she said as kindly as she could.
“Of course, my dear. I was only raising the subject as I wanted to offer you my help.” Dr. Bell patted her arm. “Please forgive me.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think there is anything anyone can do. He is out there somewhere and it is up to me to find a way to bring him back. And I will find a way—even if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Would you mind if I told you a story?” Gertrude said.
Elle blinked at her. “I suppose.”
“Oh, don’t be so skeptical. Everyone likes a story. And besides, it will serve to pass the time.”
Elle smiled. “Tell away,” she said.
Gertrude sat back in her seat, hands folded in her lap as she gazed out over the clouds before them. When she spoke, her voice took on the far-off tone of one remembering a good story.
“They say that east of Siam lies the mythical city of Angkor Wat—it is called the city of a thousand faces and it is hidden within the darkest of jungles. They say that the ancient people of the Khmer once lived there. They drew their wealth from the rich soil and water and became prosperous. Their leader became so powerful that he ruled over a kingdom that stretched from the other side of Siam all the way east to the sea. As is befitting for a ruler of such power, he decreed that the entire city be built as a temple in honor of the gods. And so Angkor Wat rose from the jungle. Rock by giant rock.
“When the city was almost complete, the ruler of the Khmer decreed that a thousand young women should dance a ballet to honor the gods. His officials scoured the land for a thousand of the most beautiful and talented dancers. These women were brought to the city, and they were called the apsara maidens. Once there, they were dressed in gold and fine silks. They were given the finest food and satin pillows upon which to rest. They spent their days mastering the most intricate and delicate dance steps ever achieved by the human form.
“Then, when the moon was full and the temple was ready, the thousand maidens stepped out into the night. They danced and danced through the hours of darkness offering themselves to the gods of the Khmer in the most exquisite sacred ballet ever performed. Some say that their dance was so perfect, so beautiful, that it would cause any
normal mortal watching to fall into a trance.
“But the ruler of the Khmer grew jealous of the maidens, for their dance brought them so close to the divine that the people of the city started worshipping them instead. So, in a fit of jealous rage, he called upon the assistance of the Shadow realm. He wanted to capture the power, the beauty and the purity of the apsara maidens for himself. From the Shadow rose a dark sorcerer. A Shadow Master so evil that anything he cast his gaze upon withered to dust. When the moon grew full again, the ruler and his sorcerer disguised themselves in the garden and waited for the maidens. It was not long before they stepped out into the fragrant night air and started their dance.
“As soon as moonlight fell upon the maidens, the sorcerer stepped out and cast his magic. One by one, the apsara maidens were swallowed by the giant blocks of stone that constituted Angkor Wat. They all disappeared until only one maiden remained. She was the most beautiful and graceful of them all. Before she disappeared into the stone, she sent up a prayer to the moon goddess for help. But the sorcerer’s spell was too far gone to save the maidens from their entombment. All the moon goddess could do was cast her protective light around the last maiden, but not before she too was sent into the stone.
“The moon goddess grew very angry with the ruler of the Khmer and his sorcerer, and in order to shame them into seeing what evil they had done, she worked a spell. In the light of the full moon, the images of the maidens emerged in the walls of the temples and buildings, set in stone so all may see what the Khmer ruler had done. Each carving was unique, an exact likeness of every beautiful apsara who had disappeared. But the most beautiful of them all was the last apsara for she had become the queen of the maidens of stone.
“The next day, the Khmer ruler saw the maidens and was so overcome by shame for what he had done, that his heart broke and he dropped down dead …”
“That’s quite a tale,” Elle said.
Gertrude smiled. “Some say it is nothing but the truth.”
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