Black Mercury (The Drifting Isle Chronicles)

by Charlotte E. English

  “Remember what we agreed?” Hildy drew her gently back towards the autogyro, smiling ruefully. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

  Clara sighed. “There are times when being right is very tiresome.”

  “We should go before we’re both tempted to abandon good sense altogether.” Hildy guided her to the passenger seat and helped her inside. “This won’t be the last we’ll see or hear of Inselmond, I can guarantee that.”

  Clara sat back while Hildy strapped herself into the pilot seat. Turning her head left to right, she took in as much as she could of Inselmond while she still had the chance. For all her caution, a part of her was euphoric with excitement at what they’d done. The first to visit the Drifting Isle! And there would be others, now. At last, Eisenstadt would learn the truths behind the myths of this strange place.

  Hildy started up the engine and allowed the autogyro to turn slowly around as the wind caught and spun the propellers. Take-off was easy once more as the black mercury burned fast and hot, feeding explosive power into the gyro machine. They rose into the air and flew over the edge of the island. For a moment, powerful winds caught at the autogyro and pulled it off course; Clara’s stomach dropped and she gripped the edges of her seat hard enough to hurt.

  But Hildy was rapidly learning her creation’s various quirks, and she soon had it back under control. The flight home was much smoother and, to Clara’s relief, less terrifying than the flight out. Once they were halfway back to solid ground without incident, Clara began to relax. She watched, mesmerised, as the city of Eisenstadt drew steadily closer.

  Hildy turned the autogyro back towards the field they’d started from, putting the wind behind them. Their speed increased accordingly, and the field loomed suddenly large in her vision. Something had changed. The field wasn’t empty anymore.

  “Hildy,” she yelled over the noise of the wind, “are those people down there?”

  “Lots of them!”

  She could see a mass of abandoned bicycles lying all over the field, and even a few autocarriages parked in the roads nearby. A large knot of people had gathered, and they were all staring up into the sky.

  Belatedly, Clara realised that their flight must have been clearly visible from some parts of Eisenstadt, despite the autogyro’s small size.

  Til had managed to clear a landing path for them, and Hildy was laughing merrily as she guided the autogyro towards the long strip of empty ground he’d prepared.

  Clara wasn’t surprised that Hildy was happy about it: after the reception her brilliant machine had received years ago, what better than to be reported returning from a triumphant flight all the way to the Drifting Isle? It could be the answer to all her wishes.

  Clara didn’t feel like laughing. Explaining her presence on the autogyro would be difficult without also explaining how long she’d been working with Hildy as an engineer.

  She leaned forward until she was as close to Hildy as she could get without unstrapping herself. “Can we keep my name out of this?” she begged.

  “You’ll be in the reports!” came the reply, amid more cackling.

  Clara slumped back into her seat. Hildy was right: it couldn’t be avoided now. If Max chose to be inquisitive—and awkward —about it, she’d just have to find a way to deal with him.

  As Hildy began the landing process, Clara could do nothing but hang on and hope for the best.

  Chapter Five

  Cas lay on his back in the middle of his oversized double bed, his head pillowed on silk, his duvet pulled up to his chin. His eyes were half shut and he stared hazily at the ceiling without noticing the early afternoon sunlight that shone through the partially drawn curtains at his window.

  He’d woken early, in considerable pain. His neck had been the worst, but most of his body hurt after the series of accidents he’d endured in the past few days. He’d managed to drag himself out of bed and stumble to the dresser where Clara had left his bottle of pain-killing draught.

  He couldn’t remember how much she’d said to take, so he had merely tipped up the bottle, swallowed a few times and then shuffled back to bed.

  And now he felt fabulous.

  He lay, motionless and comfortably insensate, for some indeterminate time longer before an insistent noise finally pierced his clouded thoughts.

  “Huh?” he muttered.

  “Cas,” the voice repeated. “Are you alive?” His body rolled from side to side, and it took him a moment to realise that it was due to the pressure of a strong hand gripping his shoulder and shaking him with, he thought, undue violence.

  “‘Course I’m alive,” he slurred, beaming up at whoever was bending over him. Lukas, that’s who it was. He could tell by the short brown hair, even though the face was oddly blurred.

  “How much did you take?” Lukas was demanding.

  Cas blinked at him. He was holding something up, waving it in Cas’s face. A bottle?

  “Oh,” he mumbled, realising. “Brilliant stuff, that. Helps.”

  “I know, but you aren’t meant to drink it all at once.”

  “Didn’t.” Cas tried to turn over but Lukas’s grip on his shoulder kept him in place. “Ow,” he protested.

  “Was it full this morning?”

  Cas frowned with the effort of remembering. He hadn’t really looked at the bottle, but it had felt fairly lightweight when he’d picked it up. “No?” he hazarded.

  “Try to be sure, Cas. If it was, then I need to get a doctor here pretty quickly.”

  “Wasn’t full. Positive.”

  Lukas stared at him for a moment more, but at last he released Cas’s shoulder and stepped back. “Clara’s right,” he muttered. “You do need a full-time nanny.”

  “Hey,” Cas objected, his eyes still failing to bring Luk’s face into focus. “We’re friends.”

  “And?”

  “Friends don’t side with the enemy.”

  “Clara’s the enemy now?”

  “All right, all right,” Cas mumbled, propping himself up on his elbows. “Not the enemy. Hard on me, though.”

  “Someone has to be.”

  “Everyone is,” Cas insisted. “Clara. Hildy. My father. Even you.”

  “Hildy just fixed your autocarriage!”

  “After crashing it again. With me inside.”

  Lukas shook his head. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, but since we’re speaking of Hildy, here.” He threw a rustling something on the bed. “How long have you been in bed?”

  Cas sat all the way up and groped for the objectobject: a flat, pale, undefined thing which his hazy vision refused to process. It felt like a newspaper, but the black text blurred hopelessly when he tried to read it. “Um. Today, and yesterday.”

  “Thought so. Go on, read.”

  Cas dropped the paper and collapsed back onto the pillows. “Why you imagine I can read in this state, I’ve no idea.”

  There was a rustle as Lukas retrieved his paper. “All right, you can listen instead. You paying attention?”

  Cas’s eyes had drifted shut but he opened them again, very wide. “Yessir.”

  “Here’s the headline.” Lukas cleared his throat and adopted a booming voice. “FIRST FLIGHT TO INSELMOND!” he announced. “Shall the secrets of the Drifting Isle be revealed at last? Late in the afternoon of Mai 5th, several citizens spotted an unusual flying object making its way up to Inselmond, the Drifting Isle. This proved to be an autogyro machine, of the type previously pioneered and developed by Miss Hildegard Goldstein. The autogyro, piloted by Miss Goldstein herself, was clearly seen to land on Inselmond and returned to Eisendstadt fifty-five minutes later. Speculation abounds as to how Miss Goldstein’s autogyro was able to remain airborne for the flight when… Cas!”

  Cas snapped awake again. “What?”

  “All right, I’ll condense the facts for you. One: people have walked on Inselmond.”

  “Yep, got that.”

  “Two: one of those people was your aunt Hildegard.�
�

  “Thought I heard Hildy’s name in there somewhere.”

  “Three: she was flying her autogyro machine. Remember that thing? It could stay in the air for about four minutes, tops.”

  The news began to filter, sluggishly, through the fog clouding Cas’s brain. “Four minutes,” he repeated. “Inselmond.” He sat up. “Hildy flew to Inselmond?”

  Lukas sighed. “Yes. Hildy flew to Inselmond.”

  “Four minutes,” Cas said again. “How did she get there in four minutes?”

  “That’s the point, Cas,” Lukas said with exaggerated patience. “She didn’t.”

  “Took longer.”

  “Mm, rather a lot longer.”

  Cas thought about that. “What’s the rest say?”

  Lukas threw him the paper. “Quotes from Hildy basically saying ‘no comment.’ Whatever she did to the gyro, she isn’t sharing.’”

  “Super-powered gyro,” Cas mused. “Super-powered autocarriage. Inselmond. Newspapers.” Even in his befogged state, he couldn’t fail to miss the significance of this news. Throwing back his duvet, he began to fight his way out of the bed. “I have to go out.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Lukas said, stepping between Cas and the door. “You aren’t in a fit state to go anywhere, and besides, I haven’t finished yet.”

  Cas blinked at him. “Finished with what?”

  “Listen. ‘Miss Clara Koh, assistant to Miss Goldstein, was also present during the flight, though she has declined to be interviewed by this paper.”

  “What?” Cas repeated stupidly.

  “Clara was part of the flight to Inselmond.”

  “Her assistant?” Cas said. “She’s my assistant!”

  “And also your aunt’s, apparently.”

  “Assisting with what, I’d like to know!” Cas glared, feeling strangely upset at this defection. Didn’t he give her enough to do? Wasn’t he interesting enough to work for exclusively? What could she possibly want with his aunt?

  Lukas shrugged. “I’ve always felt that Clara was holding a lot back. There’s more to her than she’s ever shown us, that’s for sure.”

  Cas turned his glare on Lukas. “You knew about this already.”

  Lukas lifted his brows, surprised. “I quite demonstrably didn’t.”

  “Of course you did. She loves you, doesn’t she? She told you about all this already. And you’re both keeping it secret from me.”

  Lukas just looked at him for a long, silent moment. “What’s all this about, Cas?” he said at last. “I know you’ve had a rough few days, but I’ve never known you to be this grouchy. Or paranoid.”

  Cas set his jaw and turned away. “I’m fine.”

  Lukas’s face adopted a faint smirk. “I know you’re used to being the centre of attention, but most of us have to live with not getting everything we want, all the time.”

  “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Cas would like to think Lukas was joking, but there was an edge to his friend’s voice that suggested otherwise.

  “Exactly what I said.”

  “Never mind.” Cas rubbed at his eyes. “Where’s Clara now?”

  “At my house.”

  Cas sighed.

  “Hiding from the media,” Lukas added quickly. “People who failed to get any details out of Hildy are working on her instead. She doesn’t dare leave the house at the moment, or she would have come with me to see you.”

  “And you left her alone?”

  Luk stiffened. “Someone had to make sure you were all right. She was worried about you.”

  Too busy searching for his shirt, Cas didn’t reply.

  “You can’t go out, Cas, not in this state.”

  “I have to,” Cas insisted. He knew what the media frenzy meant. Hildy had used black mercury in her autogyro, he’d lay all his money on it. She and Clara might be able to keep the secret for a while, but it wouldn’t take long for some determined reporter to uncover the story. And when they did… everyone would want an autogyro. And everyone would want the black mercury.

  If he wanted some for his autocarriage, he’d have to act fast.

  Lukas rolled his eyes, and sighed. “Then I’ll have to go with you. Clara will never forgive me otherwise.”

  Cas stared pointedly at Luk’s broken leg, still swaddled in a splint.

  “Broken leg or not,” Lukas said stoutly, “I’m coming with you.”

  “In that case,” Cas said, “where in the whole of Eisenstadt is my coat?”

  Between Cas’s disorientation and Lukas’s broken leg, the journey to the north shore of Lake Sherrat took some time. Cas was tempted to commandeer one of his father’s autocarriages for the trip, but that would mean informing a driver in his father’s employ of where they were going. It was the sort of detail that Max would end up hearing about, one way or another, so they used the overhead train system instead.

  The waters of the lake were just visible between rows of industrial buildings as Cas and Lukas left the north city train station. Ordinarily it would have taken them a mere few minutes to reach the shore, but Lukas’s hobbling, becrutched gait made that impossible.

  “While you’re loitering along in my wake,” Lukas said, “you may as well explain what’s going on. Why are we here at the north shore? And what in the world did you mean about Hildy crashing your autocarriage?”

  Cas hesitated, wary of passersby. But the lunch hour was long over, and two or three hours yet remained before Eisenstadt’s industries would release a tide of tired workers to crowd the city streets. Few people passed by, and those who did seemed intent on their own business.

  So he explained everything to Luk, taking the precaution of keeping his voice low. The effects of his painkilling draught were beginning to wear off, and the fresh air and brisk wind helped to clear his head. He managed to form a coherent version of the events of the past couple of days, sparing no details: he never hid anything from Lukas.

  Well. Almost never.

  “Explosive,” Luk said when Cas had finished. “No wonder Clara’s in hiding.”

  “I’m surprised she didn’t tell you about it herself.”

  “She said it was probably better for me not to know.”

  Cas shrugged. “She might have a point, but there’s no obvious link between you and Hildy’s feat with the autogyro. Nobody’s going to come asking you about it.”

  “She’s just being protective.”

  Cas didn’t answer that.

  “So we’re on a mission to swipe some of the good stuff while we still have the chance? Can’t you just ask Hans for some?”

  “I thought about it, but he’d want to know why. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a convincing reason why I’d want a supply of black mercury when it’s still officially a waste product. I mean, other than the real one.”

  “You can’t just tell him the real reason?”

  Cas shot his friend a withering look. “Hans may be a family friend, but he’s a businessman first and foremost. He’d be off to tell my father right away, and the two of them would have every drop of it sewn up and locked down before teatime. Hildy’s right to keep this to herself.”

  Lukas nodded. “Still, this sneaking about doesn’t feel right.”

  Privately, Cas agreed, but he didn’t want to admit it. “Look at it this way,” he reasoned. “This isn’t Hans’s land. He doesn’t own the lake; nobody does. So nobody owns what’s under it either.”

  “Hmm.” Lukas didn’t sound convinced. “And you’re planning to fuel your car with it for the Cup race? Isn’t that cheating?”

  Cas blinked, surprised. “No more so than having a technologically superior autocarriage, and nobody’s banned that.”

  Lukas greeted that observation with a wry smile. “Plenty complain about it, though. It could be argued that it gives you an unfair advantage.”

  “Could be argued,” Cas repeated. “Never tell me you agree with that!”

  “All right,” Luk said mildly. “I
won’t.”

  Cas frowned, feeling deflated. He’d expected Lukas to be as excited about the black mercury as he was himself. And was that a traitorous twinge in his own conscience, suggesting that his friend might be right?

  For a moment he was tempted to abandon the plan, but he reconsidered. If he didn’t secure some black mercury now, he’d lose his chance altogether. He could think about the details later.

  “Stop,” he said, holding out a hand to halt Lukas’s painstaking progress. They were almost at the shore, and Cas could hear sounds of activity. “Stay here a moment? I’ll scout and see if I can find the black mercury.”

  Lukas stopped willingly enough, leaning wearily on his crutches. “Take your time.”

  Cas sauntered off. He didn’t want to look too purposeful in case anybody was around to recognise him—like Hans, for example. But as he made his way down to the water, he spotted nobody more threatening than a few nondescript workers. Some of them glanced his way as he approached, but nobody seemed to consider him worth taking any particular notice of.

  A large metal platform rested some way out in the waters of the lake, mounted atop eight sturdy metal legs that looked to be driven deep into the lakebed. The site was virtually deserted; nobody worked on this half-constructed object, whatever it was intended to be. Some new part of Hans’s business, nothing Cas cared much about.

  That the platform’s legs had hit the source of the black mercury, Cas didn’t doubt. Something about it must be getting in the way of Hans’s operation, since he appeared to have called a halt to his project. Was it still seeping out into the lake’s waters, or had his men managed to plug the source? Cas hoped for the latter. He could hardly imagine that the black mercury would be a good addition to the waters of Lake Sherrat, and besides, it would be a terrible waste.

  He glanced around for something that might conceivably contain the black mercury they’d already pulled out of the lake, but nothing promising met his eye. The lakeshore was clear and neat.