St Odhran began to smile. ‘Is it not time, von Bek, to manhandle these two over the side and see if their magic helps ’em fly?’
I laughed, but I was battling uncertainty and fear again.
St Odhran dragged food and wine from our hold. The black-clad pair refused it, so the Scotchman and myself sat us down cross-legged to dine in that swaying platform, close to a mile above the world. As we completed our meal with some soft Wäldensteiner flenser, St Odhran took one of the two matched pocket watches he carried and studied it. ‘We must soon be over Vienna,’ he said. ‘At this rate we’ll be looking down on the Adriatic by nightfall. I’ve never known a more regular flight.’ He was delighted by the wonder of his own machine. He took slate and charcoal from amongst his jumble of possessions and began to calculate again, every so often getting up to peer over the side.
‘By Heaven, von Bek, there’s no reason why, with a study of wind-tides and air-streams, we shouldn’t be able to send any number of aerial craft about the world’s business! I’m beginning to suspect there are different currents at different levels, as that guard suggested. Thus we’re upon the main Southern stream. By careful ascents each ship could find its appropriate level and move from one current to the next at will. Do you know, von Bek, it strikes me we could easily become legitimate merchant-adventurers, the first to adapt modern aerial ships to regular commercial routes and entirely supersede the oceans! We must consider the possibility, my dear, of legally acquired profit – and a place in history!’ All this was babbled heedlessly before the unspeaking couple who seemed to have no interest at all in us. St Odhran’s plans became increasingly grandiose the longer we were free of the ground. Soon he was describing vast flying cargo barges. These would be half a mile across. By the time we saw the sky turn a deep and gorgeous red, shading to myriad degrees of purple and blue, the colours reflected in the sleek material of the balloon’s envelope and everywhere in silence, he was picturing a ship as big as a town. The beauty impressed him eventually and distracted his attention.
I supposed even Klosterheim must be moved by the awesome grandeur, but when I looked at him he was studying the sunset and frowning, as if recalling a time when all the world was painted the colour of blood – in the days of his Glory. Then, quite shockingly, Klosterheim’s companion lifted an arm and with gloved hand pointed:
Rising out of the south, black and jagged, was a massive wall of cloud, so dense it might be a mountain range. Indeed, St Odhran leaned forward with his telescope, unable to judge for certain what it was we were approaching. When he lowered the glass he was troubled, placing a hand upon his chin. Back he went to consult his charts. We were without fire of any kind, so he turned the maps this way and that to get the last of the light. Klosterheim stepped up behind him and bent to read the unrolled linen. St Odhran muttered to himself. Another chart was inspected. Then another.
‘They cannot be mountains,’ I said. ‘There’s no range so high.’
‘They are mountains,’ said Klosterheim, ‘but they are not on those charts. Look for them upon your other maps.’
St Odhran glared at him, convinced Klosterheim was quite mad. ‘Be silent, Sir. It is difficult enough to navigate, without idiots informing me that mountains exist where Vienna should be!’
‘You’re sailing away from Vienna, Sir,’ said Klosterheim, perhaps in mild triumph. ‘Look to your compass.’
St Odhran squinted. Sure enough, we appeared to be travelling due north, when not half an hour since we sailed due south. Yet we would readily have detected so radical a change of wind!
‘Klosterheim,’ said the Scot, newly grim. ‘Tell me, man. Have ye tampered with the compass? If so, it’s devilish foolish of you, for our survival may depend on it!’
‘I have tampered with nothing, St Odhran.’
The bloody clouds raced past us now on every side, like the rags of a retreating army. The black mountains came closer. There was no mistaking what they were.
Jagged crags, too sharp to be the contours of clouds, grew by the moment. There were some stars behind them, but I did not immediately recognise the configurations. They seemed, presumably because of the distorting moisture, enlarged almost to the size of the Moon…
St Odhran sprang suddenly for his rip-valve! He meant to take the Air-ship down! It was plain he cared not how quickly we descended – as long as we did descend. But now the other man, in the Turkish costume, threw back his great cloak to reveal quilted clothes designed to guard against the cold. There was a great horse-pistol in his right hand; with his left he cocked the hammer.
The voice was familiar to me. ‘If flint strikes steel, gentlemen, it will not matter where I shoot. Stand away, Chevalier, if you please! Stand away, Sir!’
‘Why,’ says St Odhran, suddenly recognising the figure. ‘You’re the young Duke, are you not?’
‘Forgive me,’ Klosterheim’s interjection was, as usual, clumsy and inapposite. ‘Did I not introduce the Duke of Crete?’
But I was looking beyond the domino at those clear, sardonic eyes, so used to obedience.
‘It is not the Duke of Crete!’ said I. I was firm on that.
The figure holding the pistol began to smile, while the others looked at me in bafflement.
Now I understood the source of all those rumours concerning the Duke, how he liked to dress as a woman and go about the town. I knew, too, why my pursuit of the Duchess came regularly to a dead end, as if she disappeared in smoke (frequently when the Duke was abroad). I gasped with a sensation close to ecstasy.
‘An imposter?’ says St Odhran, lifting an eyebrow.
I shook my head. A delicious shudder ran through my entire frame. I bowed low.
‘Good evening, my lady,’ said I, to the laughing Duchess of Crete.
Chapter Ten
Reverses, Advances & Revelations. In which the Mittelmarch is discussed and described. The City in the Autumn Stars.
GREY EVENING CAME and we flew amongst the great silent mountains. The Duchess of Crete, holding her pistol steady, reached up with her left hand to push back the hood and pull loose her domino. I watched eagerly for any sign in her handsome, heavy features that she held me in some kind of affection. ‘Libussa.’ We were never lovers, yet because of her I was everywhere in unmapped country, both corporeal and spiritual. ‘Libussa.’
No longer laughing, she acknowledged me with a flicker of her concentrated eye.
‘Madam,’ said St Odhran in an angry murmur. ‘There’s no need for this melodrama!’
Carefully, Libussa uncocked the pistol and placed it at her feet. ‘The need’s past, I agree. For now you’ve kept your bargain with me.’ And she stretched, all of a sudden, and yawned as if only just awake. ‘You dealt with me through Hoehenheim the lawyer and I supplied your aspirant gas!’
St Odhran was piqued. With disapproval and dismay he regarded the huge surrounding peaks, then his lips parted. There was astonishment on his face. He peered towards the west. Following his gaze I saw a line of pink behind the far crags. The line broadened. Klosterheim and my Duchess showed no surprise at all. It was less than half an hour since the sun set – now it rose again! I looked wildly at the compass and remembered it was reversed, which was a small comfort. We now stared east. The pink spread into gold and pale yellow and I required no further evidence that we had truly entered a Magic Kingdom whose reality I had so recently dismissed. I looked out upon those terrific crags with renewed curiosity. Far below were thin silver threads of rivers: ribbons of dark green that were valleys. Did ordinary folk live there or were these the haunts of trolls and hobgoblins? From believing nothing I was now disposed to accept anything!
The sun, when he emerged, brazen and blinding above the peaks, was our same, familiar sun. We observed no dragons or hippogriffs, only a few swallows diving in the air currents below. The morning was considerably warmer; so much so that we were soon removing our outer clothing. St Odhran was lost in himself, far from reconciled to Libussa’s thwarting count
erplay with the dragoon pistol, yet evidently excited by the adventure itself. Klosterheim merely leaned upon the edge and noted familiar landmarks to his companion, who paid him scant attention.
Crosswinds pushed us this way and that between the mountains, as if we were steered by Talus’s gentle fingers, until we were drifting over high valleys whose meadows were entirely free of snow and which were filled with late Summer flowers. The seasons, too, were mirror-reflections of our own. Otherwise we might be in Switzerland or returned to the Carpathians. The heating air was sweet and lazy; a balm to the troublesome humours which had beset me for so many weeks. My blue devils were all but banished. We saw cottages and little towns, the occasional walled city, its architecture antique and pleasantly familiar, like so many of our German cathedral-towns, save that cannon-fire plainly had never attacked these perpendicular cloisters and castles, these tranquil viaducts and massive, fluted towers, the carved arcades of granite and limestone set upon hills overlooking lovely rivers whose steep banks were thickly forested, all dark shades of green.
‘Is this where you told me Hell’s army marched?’ I asked Klosterheim.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not here.’ He pointed: ‘Beyond Ireland. Beyond the west.’
More relaxed, more the familiar female rogue I had first met on the Lausanne road, Libussa became a kindly tutor. ‘The Mittelmarch is not one Realm as you understand it. It weaves in and out of our other world, crossing and intersecting. But you can travel through it without even noticing. If you seek it and know where and when are the Points of Conjunction, the time of certain winds, even, then you can enter as we’ve entered. We cross a land roughly between Austria and Hungary; yet you could pass through it in the space of moments, though ’tis many thousands of miles square. There again, you might find yourself in some other Mittelmarch kingdom. Time and Geography are not the finite things your Reason demands, von Bek. Your natural philosophy, based upon constants and analysis, is scarcely the keen, pure instrument you insist it is. You narrow the world, Sir, with such logic. We alchemists celebrate complexity and refuse to reduce it. We aim at universal understanding through quite different means.’
For some reason I believe she punished me. My groin began to knot. I desired her so strongly it was all I could do to remain where I stood, braced against the basketwork while the great balloon swayed above. In controlled tones I asked her: ‘What d’ye seek, Madam, in the Mittelmarch? Why did you commandeer our vessel?’
‘I seek only what we all seek, von Bek. And since Time is of the essence presently, your Air-ship carries us to our destination faster than horses – and will carry us away, also.’
‘What do we all seek, Madam?’
She smiled. She seemed to look upon me as if she suspected my innocence to be assumed. ‘The Grail. My interest is chiefly alchemical. Unity and harmony are two of the most used words in our professional vocabulary. And those are surely what the Grail personifies?’ She would answer no more.
‘Your ancestor believed, as did Prince Lucifer, that the Grail should bring an easing of the heart, an end to torment…’ Klosterheim spoke into space.
St Odhran, still distant and antagonistic, addressed her. ‘If ye’re the adept ye say, Madam, it would have been simple for you to build your own balloon. Why take ours?’
‘No time,’ she said. ‘My intelligence was recent. Besides, I wanted more than your vessel.’
St Odhran frowned. ‘A matter of personages, eh?’
Libussa looked away so I could not see her face. I did not fully understand what my Scotch friend said, but he had struck home. ‘Klosterheim proposed an alliance already,’ continued St Odhran, his eyes narrowing. ‘Which of us is so necessary to your plans, Madam? Von Bek, I’d guess.’
She sighed and when she glared at him again she was furiously out of sorts. ‘Your logic’s good, St Odhran. But ’tis over-complex. This is no maze we explore – merely a simple expedition to the likeliest hiding place of the Grail.’
‘Which von Bek will recognise, though it’s in disguise!’ St Odhran lifted his hat and scratched his head. ‘Ironically, he might not even know what he finds.’ My friend now had a calm air of victory. I recognised his stance. His strategy had carried him clearly through to the point he aimed for. And my Libussa was of a certainty displeased, for she stuck out her jaw and her fingers clenched as if she would readily discharge the pistol at him if she still held it. St Odhran, clearly satisfied, having avenged himself for her outwitting of him earlier, looked across a great valley. ‘Ain’t the scenery pretty,’ he drawled. ‘And ain’t the weather uncommon warm!’
She stared at me for a moment, brows furrowed, as though I was a dog which might have understood a word or two of their exchange and maybe would become less docile in the handling. But she could not know the depths of my compulsion to serve her and be loved (or at least acknowledged) by her. I was almost singing. It was possible I did possess some small value to her! But then St Odhran had sprung for the pistol and had it in his hand, straightening. ‘This will help the balance.’ He smiled.
Klosterheim looked contemptuously at the weapon. ‘I’ve died so often it makes no difference to me should I die again.’
‘Fire that barker, Sir, and we’re all dead,’ said I, feeling foolishly divided. Sensing me for an unreliable comrade, St Odhran shrugged and held the pistol aslant his shoulder, as if about to fight a duel.
‘You’d do well, Sir,’ said she amiably, ‘to accept all this with better grace. Truly, we’ve no quarrel. Your deceit and our counter-deception’s ended. Frankness will serve our interests better and this adventure could bring mutual benefit. Accept me as your commander and you’ll find me neither unjust nor ungenerous. By tonight we’ll have reached our destination, where the opportunities for enrichment are considerable. And your friend, Sir, is in no danger either from myself or from Klosterheim.’
Bored with his own attitude, St Odhran sighed. ‘Name your destination, that’s all I ask.’ He had relented. It was not in his nature to bear a grudge nor play a pointless game.
Klosterheim answered, as if there had never been a mystery. ‘We go towards the Autumn Stars,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a glimpse of them already and they’ll be readily visible tonight. You knew this, von Bek… The lines of force –’
‘Aye.’ I humoured him, for there was nothing to be gained otherwise. I had begun to believe he was lucid part of the time and given to uttering gibberish for the rest.
St Odhran picked up his greatcoat and stuffed the dragoon pistol into one of the pockets. He offered me another glance, as if he sought to know which side I was on. I was on both. I was torn. She came up beside me, smiling. She reached out and stroked my face so that I shuddered. ‘You’re tired, von Bek.’ She spoke intimately, as if we had always been lovers. My legs were weak. Had those dreams been reality? Had she visited me during those nights I thought I merely suffered fever? I was breathing in shallow gasps and recovered as best I could. The woman’s strength of character and good looks were obvious to all, but she enjoyed a devilish aptitude for arousing my lust at a touch; and lust was ever the banisher of reason. She was irresistible. Even she, I think, did not fully guess the extent of her power over me. St Odhran, opening his mouth to warn of her duplicity, saw my face and once more shrugged.
Libussa placed a hand upon my heart. The hand was unusually warm, even hot, as if just withdrawn from hellfire. Her lips were red and kissed my eyes. ‘You should sleep, von Bek,’ she whispered. ‘Sleep, my dear, until you’re needed.’
My eyelids had closed before I realised it and I sank into slumber, even as I lowered my body to the comfortable, yielding wickerwork. In her presence, I thought ecstatically, I had no will. My will could come between us so therefore must be abolished. My only desire was to be useful to her, to aid her in whatever ambition led her to commit this act of aerial piracy.
I awoke once, hearing Klosterheim’s drone. He sat against the gondola’s side with one knee drawn up and he described al
l he understood about the principles of flight, then continued without pausing to discuss his theological theories. ‘Lucifer could know that God is dying. Thus He bides His time, whereas once He was eager to settle the matter. He made an agreement, I know. And von Bek witnessed it. Has he mentioned nothing? Is that family so thoroughly sworn to secrecy?’
‘I told ye, Sir: I’m unfamiliar with the family or its doings! Von Bek’s discreet and I’m incurious!’
‘God gave Lucifer the Earth to rule – to watch over, at any rate. Where we once brandished swords against Heaven, now we raise arms to conquer Hell. Man must take his Liberty by force, or Liberty will not be valued. It must be won in blood and agony. And the one called Anti-Christ shall lead us. Lucifer destroyed and God exiled, we’ll possess their power without their patronage…’
St Odhran scratched his neck. ‘I’m bored, Sir, to a stone by all this abstraction of yours. If God and Satan are not mere symbols but are personalities, then they’ll have things settled between themselves by now. They’d not tell us, eh?’
‘Von Bek’s ancestor knew what passed between them.’ He saw I was awake. ‘And you, von Bek, too, I’d swear! You’re the Devil’s darlings, all of you!’
‘My sole acquaintance with the Devil, Sir, is in Le Sage’s excellent Le Diable boiteux. That fellow, however, was perhaps less comely than your old master. But he had a monstrous better wit by the sound of it.’
‘My master was the wisest and most beautiful creature in all Creation,’ said Klosterheim. This statement, so matter-of-fact and yet so sincere, made me aware of the fragment of life left in his soul. Like Lucifer defying God, Klosterheim had rebelled against the only being he had ever loved. His punishment was to be eternally denied the presence of the master he betrayed. And did not his situation mirror my own, save that I had betrayed an idea and therefore myself? I became disturbed by a subject I lacked the courage or the wisdom to examine. Libussa’s hand fell upon my brow, but she spoke to Klosterheim. ‘Johannes, this dull talk will not do, Sir.’ The touch of her warm skin sent my blood rushing harum-scarum to my head, so thought was again banished.
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 22