by Quincy Allen
Each had an aether-powered pistol similar to Ghiss’ on one hip and a sword on the other, but the sides were reversed on each woman. Jake realized one was left-handed, and the other right. It struck him as odd that both of them looked up when Onawa called out the captain’s name, since ships usually have only one captain. The women approached and held out their hands. They moved in precisely the same fashion, and Jake had to blink twice, thinking he was seeing a reflection rather than two people.
They spoke in unison with a thick, lilting, Creole accent, but in perfect, well-educated English. “Welcome aboard the Dragun. I’m Captain Thibodeaux.”
Jake and Cole gave each other sidelong glances and then held out their hands, each shaking with a different woman.
“It’s a pleasure to be on board.” Jake said slowly. “She’s one hell of a ship, Captain.” He wasn’t sure which of them to address. “We wanted to thank you for picking us up.”
The one in front of Jake said, “We received word that you might be heading our way.”
The one in front of Cole added, “So we sent out scouts to try and find you. It’s our understanding that your cargo should not fall into enemy hands.”
“Received word? From whom?” Cole asked. Cole sounded bewildered and fairly concerned, but Jake knew what they were going to say before they said it. Based on what Corina had told him, he knew there was a much bigger game being played than just a privateer escorting the Lady and her box to Denver. Cromwell probably wanted the reliquary, with the book and the lady inside.
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” the left one said. “All I can tell you is that we were informed of who you are and where you intend to go.”
Jake just shook his head, a wry grin on his face. He’d gotten accustomed to being in the dark on this job, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
The right-hand Thibodeaux spoke up. “We don’t even know what lies within the box, if it’s any consolation.” She looked to her twin.
“But our source made it clear that your cargo could be a serious threat to the Free Territories if it fell into Cromwell’s hands,” the other continued.
It occurred to Jake that he would have to treat the two women as one person, and that was going to take some getting used to.
“Come, take a look at this map,” the right-hand Thibodeaux said, and both women walked back to the table. As Jake stepped up, he got a better look outside. All of the windows had heavy metal plates that could swing down to protect the command crew. There was also a main bank of dials, knobs, levers, and switches along the forward wall, and two crewmen manned stations there, making adjustments occasionally to various controls.
“We’re here.” The left-hand Thibodeaux pointed to a location on the map.
“And Roswell is here.” The other pointed to a location due east. “About another thirty minutes as the Dragun flies. Our problem—and yours, too—is that our scouts spotted the zeppelins that have been harassing you headed straight for this location.”
The right-hand Thibodeaux pointed to a spot well southeast of Roswell. “In the past twenty-four hours your friend President Cromwell,” she looked directly at Jake as she said it, “has amassed a large contingent of troops and assault units here.”
Jake narrowed his eyes at them, and anger flared in his chest. “How do you know Cromwell and I have a relationship?” Cromwell’s involvement in Jackinaw and the murder of his father still ate at Jake’s insides. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call him a friend of mine.” There was venom in Jake’s voice, and the whole room recognized it. Everyone on the deck, including Cole, turned toward Jake.
Cole was dumbstruck by the admission, giving Jake an expectant look. “Later,” Jake said out of the corner of his mouth.
Both Thibodeaux’ raised their eyebrows, but the one in front of Jake nodded her head. “My apologies, Mr. Lasater. I can understand how it might be a difficult topic. I meant no insult. We received a file on you, a fairly detailed one. That information was included as relevant to the current military situation we find ourselves in, mostly as an assurance that you were no friend of Cromwell’s. I was merely being sarcastic.”
The left-hand Thibodeaux spoke up. “The point is that it appears Cromwell is working with the men pursuing you.”
“They want what you have,” the other finished.
The one on the left added, “And he’s willing to commit a fair portion of his military to get it.”
“Oh, great,” Cole muttered. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
Jake took a deep breath and calmed down. He looked at the Thibodeaux in front of him. “So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“It’s really very simple,” she replied.
“We land,” the other continued, “and in two days you board Pandora Celtica bound for a shadowgate in Colorado.”
“A what?” Jake asked. He’d never heard the term before.
Both Thibodeaux’ looked at Cole expectantly, the suggestion implicit that he explain it. Jake turned to Cole.
Cole took a deep breath and looked at Jake. “Well, when I said that Roswell had plenty of weird to go along with it, I meant it … and not just the Celtica. Roswell is a crossroads, Jake.”
“A crossroads?” Jake didn’t get it. “There ain’t no major trails or rail lines that go through Roswell. It’s not even a dead end out here in the middle of nowhere.” He eyed Cole. “The last I heard there was nothing more than a single-street cow town out here.”
Cole smiled a bit uncomfortably. “Not a crossroads of roads or railways, Jake. It’s a crossroads of worlds.” Cole let that sink in. “And the shadowgates are the roads.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I mean that the shadowgate connects places.…” Cole replied, letting his voice trail off. “The shadowgate just outside of Roswell connects to Colorado and St. Louis and New Hampshire … hell even places in Europe, Asia … all over.” Jake was a picture of disbelief. “And it doesn’t stop there. It connects places on this world … to other worlds.”
“Other worlds?” Jake just wasn’t buying it. He’d seen all sorts of strange things, especially in the past few years, but he’d never even heard of other worlds. “Come on. You can’t be serious.”
“As a hangin’, Jake.” Cole put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You’ll understand better once we get to Roswell.”
“And there she is,” the Thibodeaux on the right said as she and her twin stepped up to the windows and pointed.
Jake and Cole stepped up to the window and looked at the horizon where a city spread out in front of them, miles off.
“Jesus,” Jake said with awe in his voice, trying to take it all in.
Cole turned to the Thibodeaux beside him, his voice filled with awe as well.
“Y’all have been busy these past six years,” was all he said as the Dragun approached one of the biggest cities Jake had ever seen.
Chapter Eleven
Pandora Celtica
“Something new opened up to Jake. Something wonderful and horrible all at once.”
~ Captain Jane Wilson
Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d never heard of any large cities in the Free Territories, let alone one as big as what spread out before him now. He’d travelled across most of North America at one time or another, and Roswell was always described as a Podunk town in the middle of nowhere. What he beheld was beyond compare.
He could see dozens of small rotary craft dotting the sky above the city and surrounding countryside, obviously on patrol. What spread out beneath the Dragun, and at least a dozen other zeppelins, was now two miles of walled city, and the city wasn’t just walled.
It had five circular, concentric walls thirty feet high, with a sixth wall about half complete on the southeast side. Two thicker walls split the rings into quadrants, forming a cross that ran north-south and east-west.
At the center of what looked a lot like a big bulls-e
ye, rose a tower over a hundred feet tall. There were obvious levels built into its interior, with viewing portals and doors and catwalks along the exterior. At its apex squatted a large hemisphere of some glowing purple material, and just beneath that was an observation platform where he could see a number of figures standing and staring out at the southern horizon.
The walls of the city appeared to be made from the ruddy earth of the surrounding countryside and were topped by a walkway wide enough for six horses abreast. A trench two wagons wide surrounded each ring, and water filled them, making deep moats that would encumber encroaching troops. Barges, boats, and canoes speckled the water, as well as a number of docks that he suspected were used for the movement of goods.
Cannon emplacements stuck out along the outer edge of each wall, and Jake could just pick out a narrow track beneath each one, which meant they probably rolled from side to side.
Spaced evenly around the rings and through the cross were a number of large, double door gateways made of reinforced plate metal. Within each ring were buildings, streets, small farms, vehicles, and lots of people. Roswell bustled with a larger populace than Jake had ever seen. If they had a ready source of water and waste removal, and the city’s very existence proved they did, he suspected the place could be entirely self-sustaining.
Within each section of the city, he could see a docking platform, and there were small cargo carriers tethered to most of them. Without a doubt, Roswell was the most amazing city Jake had ever laid eyes on.
It was also the most defensible. Granted, it was a fixed position, but with the gun emplacements, as well as the air support they could obviously muster, approaching ground troops would find themselves in a real shit-storm if they decided to start a ruckus.
“How the hell do you keep something like this a secret?” Jake asked, the question almost an accusation.
“It’s a secret because we want it to be, Mr. Lasater,” the Thibodeaux on the right replied easily. “As to how, well, the answer is both simple and very complicated.”
“But how could anyone flying over the Free Territories miss that place?”
“It’s another one of our—” the other Thibodeaux started.
“—secrets,” Jake finished. “Yeah, I get it.” He sighed, fed up with all the damn secrets.
The Thibodeaux’ looked at each other for a few seconds, almost as if they were having a conversation, and then they nodded.
“Mr. Lasater,” one captain started, “we’re going to confide in you. We don’t normally, but—”
“—in this case it’s a small matter,” the other finished. “The city is hidden behind a barrier, one which not only removes it from sight but also removes it physically from this world … at least in part … and makes it inaccessible to the surrounding landscape.” She nodded to a member of her crew near a forward window, who then cranked it opened.
“Look,” the other captain said with a smile.
Jake stepped forward a few paces and did a double take. Through the open window, the city appeared do have disappeared. All that remained was a great deal of New Mexico dirt, scrub brush, and a handful of dilapidated wooden buildings.
“Cromwell can’t attack what he can’t reach,” the captain said with a satisfied grin.
“I’ll be damned,” Jake said as the crewman closed the window.
As Jake moved away from the window, a splash of color caught his eye. On the north side of the city, within the second ring, amidst a row of normal-looking zeppelins, he spotted a smaller zeppelin surrounded by a wide assortment of colorful tents and pavilions, some of which were being taken down. The zeppelin itself was probably a third the length of the Jezebel, but it wasn’t like any zeppelin he’d ever seen.
To Jake’s eyes, the designers of the ship either spent a lot of time on the end of an opium pipe or had exceedingly overactive imaginations. The envelope looked like a legless, iridescent green dragon with a purple fin across the top. It had a massive head with flaring nostrils, bright green eyes, and a pair of horns that swept back behind a fringe of small, leathery spikes around its neck. The envelope had a tail longer than the body, like a giant eel or fish of some kind. The tail stretched out, undulating slowly back and forth in the breeze. The craft also seemed to be missing rotors of any kind, which made Jake wonder how the hell it could move.
Maybe they have gears in there, and it swims through the air like a fish, Jake thought.
Three thick straps secured the envelope to a brightly colored gondola just coming into view as the Dragun descended toward one of the landing towers. The gondola had just about every color of the rainbow on it, and even in the daytime Jake could see a ring of lights around it that glowed in as many colors as the gondola.
As the Dragun docked, Jake got a good view of the length and width of the colorful gondola. He’d seen plenty of airships in his time, and the scale just didn’t seem right. Based on other zeppelins he’d seen, it seemed to him the envelope was far too small to lift the wide gondola beneath it.
“That is the strangest zeppelin I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s not a zeppelin, Mr. Lasater,” the Thibodeaux on his left said, smiling. “It’s Pandora Celtica.”
“You mean ‘the’, don’t you? The Pandora Celtica.” Jake said. As he looked closer, he could see that shimmering, iridescent scales covered the envelope, and even the body seemed to undulate slightly, as if the whole envelope were flexible. The motion reminded him of a sidewinder.
“No she doesn’t, Jake,” Cole said gently. “That’s his name.” Cole had a strange smile on his face as Jake turned to him. “At least it’s what we can pronounce in our language.”
“Her,” Jake corrected. He knew all ships—air, sea or otherwise—were referred to in the feminine.
“Him,” Cole corrected. “It’s not a zeppelin, amigo. What you see is what it is.”
Jake’s eyes went wide as his brain tried to wrap itself around what Cole was saying. “You don’t mean—”
“He means it’s a dragon, Mr. Lasater,” Thibodeaux said quietly. “That’s not a breeze moving his tail. It’s not clockwork gears. It’s not aether or steam. Pandora Celtica belongs to a species of dragon, and he is clearly not from this world.”
Jake’s mouth dropped open as he looked closely at the thing. Its head turned toward the Dragun, and the damn thing’s eyes blinked. A long forked tongue slid out of its mouth like a snake, tasted the air, and then disappeared back in.
Jake thought about what he was looking at; took in every detail he could see. As his brain processed a very new notion of reality, he came to one inescapable conclusion. I’m a long way from Missouri.
“Y’all got any bourbon tucked away somewhere?” was all he said.
Every person in the bridge started chuckling, except Jake, of course, and all he could do was stare at his first dragon.
Captain Thibodeaux stepped up to the chart table and opened a door underneath. She withdrew a bottle of Old Forester bourbon. “You can keep it,” she said as she handed the bottle to Jake.
He pulled the cork, took a long pull, and felt the bourbon burn down his throat, a most pleasing dose of reality to counter the impossibility before him.
Both Thibodeaux’s faces turned serious, and the other one said, “There is one other thing, Mister Lasater.” Jake pulled the bottle from his ready lips and looked at her. “We’ve shown you this—something we don’t normally do—because of your association with Mr. McJunkins and because the person who told us about you said that you could be trusted. What you see here in Roswell stays with you. It’s not to be discussed with anyone outside of this city. Ever. Just as Mr. McJunkins has done since he and his mother accepted the Accord.”
“The what?” Jake asked.
“The Accord,” Cole said. “The people born in the Free Territories sign the Accord when they’re sixteen. Most folks that come here, once they learn what the Free Territories have to offer, sign the Accord to become citizens. Anyone who doesn�
�t want to sign the Accord gets an escort out. Everyone who signs is held accountable for their actions. It’s kind of like the Constitution … actually, a lot like the Constitution, but everyone participates and everyone is responsible. Which makes it better.”
“Now that does sound interesting,” Jake admitted.
“Will you give me your word to keep what you learn here a secret from anyone not part of the Free Territories?”
“I swear it,” Jake said solemnly.
The other Thibodeaux looked keenly at Jake. “Swearing, although I know what you mean, isn’t how we do it here. Swearing implies the involvement of some higher order, and the phrase is a derivative of a religious context. We recognize all religions here, but we take no stock in them when it comes to the Accord. Our agreement is between each other. You are the one giving your word, and the Free Territories Council would be your only judge if you broke your word. Whatever you consider your god or gods doesn’t enter into the equation. We’re asking you for your word as one human being to another.”
Jake smiled and nodded his head. Such agreements were how he lived his life, and to find a nation that prided itself on the distinction was something he never thought possible. “Ma’am, I give you my word that what I see here won’t pass these lips once I’m gone. Your secret is as safe with me as if I’d never been here.”
Both Thibodeaux’ as well as Cole nodded their heads.
“I do see one problem, though,” Jake added.
Both Thibodeaux’ looked concerned. “What would that be?” they asked in unison.
“Well, if I tell Skeeter not to talk about it, she won’t. If I ask her to keep her word on the matter, I know she will. Without a doubt. And I’m confident enough on that to put my own word on it. I’ll pay for any transgression if she breaks her word. But I can’t speak for Ghiss. As I’ve mentioned to Cole, Ghiss has a code, and he’ll keep his word, but treating with him is a lot like treating with the devil. If there’s money in finding a loophole in the bargain, you can bet your ass he’ll find it.”