Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Wren stared at him. “I spent half the night clawing my way out of three of my own nightmares, then had an aether duel with that old witch just so I could turn around and dive into her own nightmare and pull her out. I saw things, horrible things. And then I had to fight the valas of Denveller just to get back into my own…” She trailed off as she noticed the strange look in his eyes.

  Omar was smiling. He winked at her and leaned in close to whisper, “I know. You did marvelously. I’m truly impressed. And when we have some time, I want to hear all about it. But right now, I’m afraid we have yet another crisis on our hands.”

  She glanced around the room and saw Tycho had his back turned as he spoke to the other officers. “What is it?”

  “It would appear that our friends across the water have enlisted the aid of several Mazigh airships, which will be here by noon to begin bombing Constantia.”

  “Airships?” Her eyes flashed. “Like the skyship that brought you to Ysland? Huge flying whales in the clouds?”

  “Yes, just like that, except that instead of a journey of exploration that ends in a fiery crash, these airships have come to make war, which will end in a fiery inferno for everyone except them,” Omar said sourly. “If we don’t do something about it, a lot of people are going to die today.”

  “But what can we do?”

  “Quite a lot, actually. Vlad’s working on a plan right now. From what I’ve seen, it looks like the Hellans are going to attack the Eranian ships in the Strait and even attack Stamballa to draw the airships’ fire away from Constantia. I don’t know how long that will work, but it should buy us some time, maybe even the whole day.”

  Wren glanced from his worried face to the jumble of maps and papers on the walls to the toy soldiers and ships strewn about the table in the middle of the room. “Will that really work?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. The crews of the Furies were incapacitated all night long. The boilers in the ironclads are all cold, and it will take hours before their engines are running, and the men won’t be any more ready to fight than ours. Less, if we’re lucky. But we’ll do whatever we can to help, as ever. How do you feel this morning? Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “A little. Not really. What about you? Were you caught in the aether in some sort of nightmare like everyone else?”

  “No.” Omar sighed. “I spent the first half of the night killing dead people outside the walls for our friend the prince, and then I spent the second half of the night escorting a lady friend back through the city streets, which were also quite full of dead people in need of killing. All in all, it was thoroughly unpleasant evening and I have no wish to repeat it, or even remember it, quite frankly.”

  Wren grinned. “A lady friend?”

  Omar smirked and pressed a finger to his lips, and he winked at her again. “Another time. I think Vlad is about to say something.”

  They turned as Vlad knocked an empty glass loudly on the table to get everyone’s attention. The Vlachian prince looked haggard and unwashed, but there was something grim and terrible in his eyes as well. “Your attention! We have a plan and we haven’t any time to waste. I’ve already dispatched messengers and our remaining ships at the Galata Bridge are preparing to attack the Furies. Just like last night, they will all draw the Turks’ fire toward the north while the marines attack from the south, launching directly from the shore on the Point.”

  “In broad daylight?” Tycho asked, his face pale. “My boys won’t stand a chance against those ships.”

  “Yes, they will,” Vlad said. “Omar and I will be aboard the boats with them, and we won’t be trying to board the Furies. As soon as we reach their hulls, we will use our seireiken swords to burn through their armor and send them all to the bottom of the Bosporus. With any luck, we might even pull Koschei out of the water.”

  A tired chuckle ran through the room.

  “With the Furies crippled or destroyed, our entire force will then continue across the Strait and attack Stamballa itself.”

  “Where, exactly?” Omar asked.

  “Everywhere.” Vlad pointed at his maps. “Tycho says the Turks evacuated this entire district last night in fear of the aether. With only a token guard to oppose us, we should have no trouble setting fire to the entire waterfront. That should get the attention of those airships.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?” asked Lady Nerissa. “What happens if the airships arrive and begin bombing Constantia? What if they attack the palace? How can we fight them?”

  “We can’t,” said Tycho. “We don’t have any way to hurt them. They’ll bomb the city, Your Grace, and they’ll only stop when they run out of bombs.”

  The room was silent.

  “Then we’ll just have to keep their bombs falling in the sea,” Vlad growled. “I want all marines on the north beach immediately and ready to leave. All riflemen to the sea walls. And I’m pulling most of our men off the north and western walls to defend the Strait should the Turks decide to cross the water. Now go!”

  The soldiers and clerks scurried out of the room clutching their papers and Wren pressed back against the wall out of their way. She glanced at Omar. “You’re going with them?”

  “I am,” he sighed. “But don’t worry too much. I’ll probably survive.”

  “I’m not worried about you.”

  “Oh, thank you very much.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “I just meant, what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

  “Whatever you can do,” Omar said. He gave her a pointed look. “You’re not a little girl anymore, Wren. You’re a very big girl, with very strange ears, and you just defeated a very old witch at her own game. You don’t need me to hold your hand anymore. The things you know, the things you can do… my God, you’re one of the most capable people I’ve ever met. There aren’t any more rules to learn or tricks to figure out, not for you. It’s high time you realized that for yourself. Just go to the sea wall where you can see the ships and do whatever you can to help them. The more lives saved, the better.”

  Wren frowned. “I won’t be much help. The sun is rising and the aether is thinning, and I’m tired. And I probably won’t be able to see much with the sun glaring off the water.”

  “Hm.” He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Do you know why I let you go see Yaga alone? Yes, it’s true that I didn’t want to see her myself, but I did trust you to deal with her, even though she’s five hundred years old and you’re, what, nineteen?”

  “Why?”

  He grinned. “Because you’re smarter now than she ever was. And that’s all that matters. Life is less about knowing the answer than figuring out the answer. Look around this room.”

  Wren looked, and saw nervous old men talking to anxious young soldiers, and exhausted clerks carrying armloads of papers.

  “Look at them,” Omar said. “Now tell me. Do you honestly think anyone here has any idea how to save this city from the Turks’ airships and ironclads? Did any of them know how to stop Yaga, or the undead armies at the gates? Did they figure it out? Did they even try?”

  Wren smiled and blushed. “I guess not.”

  “Say again?” He lifted her chin so she had to look him in the eye.

  Wren blinked. “No, they didn’t. I did.”

  “That’s exactly right. You did.” Omar stepped back and gently arranged her scarf over her head and straightened the lapels of her black jacket. “Now I want you to go out there and be smart. Figure it out. Do anything and everything in your power to save some lives today. That, and come back in one piece, please.”

  She smiled a little. “I will. You too.”

  As the flood of bodies pouring out the door died down, Wren stepped away from the wall and headed out into the hallway.

  “Wren?” Tycho caught her hand and pulled her aside in the corridor. “Where are you going? You should head for the cellars, or the cisterns. Someplace underground where you’ll be safe. Or maybe…” He glanced over his shoulder.
“I could put you on a horse with an armed escort and get you out of the city. If you want.” His eyes pleaded in silence for her to say yes.

  Wren squeezed his hand. “No, thank you. Where are you going?”

  “To the watch tower overlooking the channel,” he said gloomily. “I can’t help my marines, and recent events have proven I’m little enough help aboard a ship in the middle of a battle.”

  “The wall? Good. I’ll come with you.”

  “But the bombs! It won’t be safe for you.”

  “I know.” Wren looked left and right down the crowded, busy corridor. “Which way?”

  Tycho gave her a pained look, but instead of arguing further he shook his head and led her down the hall to the left. When they finally emerged from the building, the major summoned a page, who fetched them a pony. Tycho glanced uncomfortably from the high saddle to her and back.

  “Here.” Wren leapt lightly into the saddle and held out her hand to him. He smiled, and climbed up in front of her.

  They rode across the park, a wide open expanse of dark green grass and gray gravel paths dusted with snow and frost. They passed between squads and companies of Hellan soldiers and Vlachian archers and even a few Rus freebooters. As they approached the high watch tower, their view of the Strait and the Eranian warships disappeared behind the sea wall, and the noise of the men echoed chaotically across the park, bouncing off the ancient stone walls.

  Wren followed Tycho into the tower and up the narrow iron stair, and at the top they stepped out onto a wide platform under a conical roof from which they could see the Furies to the east, the Galata Bridge to the west, and the silvery path of the Bosporus winding away between the shores of Constantia and Stamballa to the north. And then she turned and squinted up to the southern sky and saw the three airships in the distance, small droning dots that looked like fat wingless flies against the bone-gray clouds. She set her blue glasses in front of her eyes and the glare of the winter sun was blunted, and the pain behind her eyes dulled.

  “What will you do now?” she asked.

  Tycho pulled a tube from the shelf on the wall and went over to the window. As he walked, she saw that the tube had glass lenses on each end.

  A spyglass! I wonder if there’s another one here somewhere that I can… hm, no, of course there isn’t. Maybe later.

  “Now, I watch and pray.” Tycho stood on his toes to peer over the lip of the window down at the beach below the wall.

  Wren looked and saw the marines in their drab tunics carrying their little boats down to the water and making ready to push off. There was a knot of men farther up the strand and she thought she could see Omar among them, but she couldn’t be certain.

  Woden, watch over them. Be their shield today.

  “What’s your god called?” she asked absently as she watched.

  When he didn’t answer, she looked over at him and saw the conflicted confusion on his face.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Omar told me about this. You call him God, don’t you? He doesn’t have another name, right?”

  “Sort of.” Tycho frowned as he raised the spyglass back to his eye. “What do you call God in your country?”

  “There are lots of gods, of course,” she said. Her vulpine ears twitched under her black scarf as the sea breeze tickled the long red hairs around them. “But Woden is the only one I pay any mind to. He’s the king, the Allfather, so I suppose he’s the best to have on your side. But really, all valas talk to Woden. He knows the most about magic and souls and death. Anything else you can learn for yourself, can’t you?” She smiled.

  “I guess so,” he said quietly.

  I don’t think he likes talking about the gods, or maybe it’s death that bothers him?

  “They’re leaving.” Tycho nodded down at the water.

  Wren saw the little boats rowing out into the Strait. Farther out, a group of Hellan warships were steaming and paddling their way down from the Galata Bridge with dozens of armed sailors on each of their decks. “What about the Turks?”

  Omar turned his spyglass to the Furies. “It’s hard to tell. There are men on deck. They’re working. Their engines don’t seem to be running. There isn’t much steam coming out of the stacks. It looks they’re still waking up out there. Vlad may get his miracle after all.”

  Wren watched the Hellan steamers chugging down the river and the marines rowing out from the beaches. It was all very quiet. There were no trumpets or horns, no battle cries or war songs. Just the soft slapping of oars and the sloshing of the waves and the rhythmic churning of the engines.

  A single rifle fired, the sound echoing like a dull thud across the water. And then a second rifle fired, and a third. She could see the figures on the decks of the Furies moving along the railings, and she tried to guess which ones were shooting at the marines.

  “If that’s the best they can do, this might actually go according to plan,” Tycho muttered. “Damn it. Row faster. Row! Lycus…”

  “Don’t worry about your men,” Wren said. “Worrying won’t help them now.”

  “Then what should I do?” he asked sharply, nearly snapping at her.

  Wren shrugged. “When there’s nothing to do, then do nothing. Wait and see.”

  He nodded. “Sorry. I guess you’ve done this before? Omar goes off to fight and you have to wait and watch?”

  “Oh no,” Wren said softly. “I’m a vala of Ysland. I fight, too, usually.”

  “But not this time?”

  Wren felt the bracelets clinking softly on her wrists as she leaned on the window sill. “Especially this time. But I’m going to need your eyes. It’s too bright for me to see very far or clearly. Are the marines doing well? Are they nearly to the ships?”

  “No, they’re barely halfway. And it looks like more riflemen are coming up on deck on the Furies.”

  The sounds of gunfire popped and pattered like rain in the distance.

  “Then maybe we can speed your marines on their way,” Wren said, stepping back from the window. “Keep watching them, and when they reach the Furies, tell me to stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  Wren raised her arms and she felt Yaga’s silver bracelets hanging loose and wobbly on her slender arms. She focused on her own soul, tightening it like a muscle, bearing down upon herself in her mind.

  Woden, guide my hands.

  She sent a pulsing wave into the bracelets and the many veins of sun-steel wrapped around them began to resonate. She felt them tremble against her skin, and suddenly all around her there was an electric energy in the air, and a soft breeze began to blow forward, down her arms and away from her finger tips.

  Aether. There’s still quite a bit here from the storm last night. Now to see if it’s enough.

  “Wren? What are you doing?”

  She bit her lip.

  Fly!

  The aether raced down her arms across the shivering bracelets and blasted out the window and down across the surface of the Bosporus, and when it reached the flotilla of little wooden boats full of marines, it caught hold of the souls of the men, and it pushed.

  “My God, something’s happening!” Tycho stretched up on his toes to keep his glass fixed on the boats. “They’re flying like arrows over the waves. They’re all holding on to the sides for dear life, bashing and thumping across the water. And they’re about to hit the Furies. No!”

  Wren opened her eyes and dropped her arms to her sides, and exhaled the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. She blinked and saw that the dark little blurs of the marines’ boats were no longer out in the open water but looked to be huddled up tightly against the hull of the first Eranian ironclad.

  Tycho spun to stare at her. “You pushed the boats all the way there!”

  “Actually, I pushed the men all the way there. The boats were just long for the ride,” Wren said. “Omar and Vlad should be able to take it from here. I don’t think I can do much else for them at this distance.”

  “That was amazing.�
�� The major gazed up at her in admiration.

  “Thanks.” Wren slipped her hand around his neck to rest it on his far shoulder as she stood close beside him. For a moment they both stared out at the sea, at the men and ships in the distance, and the Hellan steamers bearing down on the Furies. “I guess they’re on their own now. So, what do you suppose we can do about those skyships?”

  “Airships,” he said.

  “I’ll call them whatever I want,” she said with a grin. “I’m a witch.”

  Chapter 20

  Omar clung to the side of the little dory as he felt his naked flesh being hurled forward against his clothes, against the wind, against the wood of the boat. And all around him were the pale and terrified faces of young marines clinging right beside him, clutching at the seats and sides of the boat and dragging it along with them as the cold aether wind tossed them across the Bosporus like a skipping stone.

  And just as suddenly as it began, it was over. Omar fell flat on his chest across the rear seat and felt the air rush from his lungs. He sat up, gasping. All around him the marines were picking themselves up, prying splinters out of their palms, rubbing bruises, and putting their weapons back into their sheathes and holsters. Wincing, Omar glanced up and saw the sheer steel wall of a ship’s hull less than an arm’s length away.

  Thank you, Wren. Well done.

  “Everyone, mind your heads if you want to keep them!” He drew his seireiken and the sun-steel blade shone brightly over the sweaty faces of the young marines. Omar slammed the sword into the hull of the Eranian ironclad right down at the water line so the foaming waves started to sizzle and hiss, and a plume of scalding steam flew up past his face, forcing him to duck back. “Now row!”

  The marines scrambled into the seats and grabbed the oars and began rowing. In jerks and thrusts, they moved the dory along the side of the warship, dragging Omar’s burning sword straight through the armored hull. When they finally stopped and looked back, there was a melted gash as tall as a man’s hand running the entire length of the ship and they could see water gushing into the dark crack. A deep, echoing boom resounded inside the ship, followed by a series of metallic pings and groans.