Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “What is she doing out there?”

  “Probably trying to kill you. Where is she now?”

  “I can’t see her,” Taziri said. “Look out the back windows.”

  Bastet loosened her grip on the straps and worked her way back to the passenger seats where there were three small, round windows looking out to either side of the plane over the wings. She checked both sides. “I can’t see her.”

  “Maybe Halcyon’s too fast for her,” Taziri shouted over the engine.

  “Maybe,” Bastet shouted back. She looked out the little round window one last time and saw a woman’s face wreathed in pale feathers. “Maybe not. She’s on the wing!”

  “Hang on!” Taziri pulled her levers again and the Halcyon rolled and dived down toward the dark earth below them.

  Bastet found herself hanging from the straps on the walls as the aeroplane tilted sharply downward, and the feathery face at the window vanished. “She’s gone!”

  A metallic clangor erupted above them, and Bastet saw a small dent pop down into the cabin from the roof. “She’s back!”

  “Strap into that seat and hold on,” Taziri said.

  Bastet pulled the seat harness on and shouted, “Ready!”

  Taziri pulled on her levers and the Halcyon ran wild. The aeroplane darted down to race through the narrow stone corridors of the streets between the ancient towers, temples, and obelisks raised by kings long dead and long forgotten. Bastet clung to the straps above her head as the craft twisted upon its side and screamed through the dark avenues with one wing pointed at the moon and one wing pointed at the earth so low that if any people had been out at that hour the wing would have knocked the hats and scarves from their heads.

  Bastet looked up through the little windows on the far side of the cabin and saw the stars shining down on her as the edges and corners of Alexandria blurred past the frame of the glass. And then Nethys landed on the fuselage with a thump, blacking out those little windows with her tattered dress and long raggedy wings, her feathers tearing off one by one in the ripping wind.

  “She’s here!” Bastet yelled.

  Taziri muttered something under her breath and suddenly the Halcyon lurched and shuddered, and Bastet felt herself being crushed down into her seat as the aeroplane banked sharply, still flying sideways through the streets, but now turning with tremendous, steel-screaming power, curling around one of the grand market squares between the high domes of the West Temple and the white towers of the Imperial Gardens.

  Bastet squinted upward as the blood rushed down to her feet and she slumped lower and lower in the hard seat, choked by her safety harness, and she saw Nethys slide back down the length of the plane from one window to the next with a terrible metallic squeal, and then she was gone.

  Taziri rolled the plane back upright and straightened out as she climbed back up above the roofs and towers and the Halcyon’s engine puttered a bit more softly.

  “That did it,” the pilot said. “I saw her fly off, tumbling northward, I think.”

  “She might come back again,” Bastet said breathlessly as her heart continued pounding in her chest. The pain faded almost instantly, but the fear and excitement of the chase had left her blood boiling with adrenaline.

  “I don’t think so,” Taziri said calmly. “I saw her crash into a wall, and fall to the street.”

  “You don’t understand. She’s immortal, like me. She’ll only be hurt for a moment, and then she’ll be back in the sky again. Even if you broke every bone in her body, it would only be a matter of minutes before she could fly again.”

  “Then we’ll just have to make certain that we’re not here when she wakes up.” Taziri throttled back the engine a bit more and began flicking switches.

  “What are you doing?” Bastet exhaled and felt her skin finally cooling, though she still didn’t dare to leave her seat and its harness.

  “Landing.”

  Bastet craned her neck and saw the ground coming up to meet them, and the soft roar of the air around the Halcyon’s wings began to grow louder. A train raced by the windows.

  “Where are we?” the girl asked.

  “Coming up on the northern rail station. Looks pretty quiet at the moment, so I think we’ll have a little privacy.”

  Bastet realized that the train she had seen race by had been standing still and it was they who were still traveling at that unbelievable speed. The roar of the wings grew louder by degrees and as Taziri continued to pull levers and flick switches, the Halcyon clanged and hissed and creaked. Pistons contracted, springs expanded, and wires spooled up as the aeroplane’s landing guide reached down and latched onto one of the railroad lines and pulled the aircraft down with a bang and clatter.

  The pilot swiftly retracted the wings, and Bastet watched as the steel panels folded up, covering the windows as they formed the very familiar shape of a proper locomotive around the aeroplane’s fuselage. To anyone who looked at the Halcyon now, it would appear to be any other train engine chuffing down the tracks, complete with steam funnel and cow catcher.

  They clacked down the line and Bastet loosened her harness and stepped up into the cockpit behind Taziri’s seat to peer out the narrow windows at the way ahead.

  “That was a little scary, but I’m glad you’re here,” the girl said.

  “Always happy to help,” the woman replied with a quick but warm smile over her shoulder. “I just wish people would occasionally come to me when it isn’t a life-or-death situation, and people aren’t trying to shoot me or steal my soul, or fight my aeroplane bare-handed.”

  “Well, I couldn’t think of anyone else in the entire world who could do what you do,” Bastet said. “If there’s someone else you think I should have asked…?”

  Taziri laughed. “Not on your life.”

  A woman screamed outside, and Bastet and Taziri both looked up as something heavy landed on the roof of the train.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Taziri said with a glare. “Your aunt really can’t take a hint, can she?”

  “Don’t be too angry,” Bastet said. “She hasn’t been herself lately.”

  The Halcyon III clacked down the rails, darting between long silent freight trains and long dark passenger trains parked in the yard. And all the while, powerful fists pounded on the metal roof.

  “What do we do now?” Taziri asked. “I can’t take off again, and we’re running out of track.”

  “She’s just going to keep following us,” Bastet said. “We need to hide where she can’t find us.”

  “That’s going to be tricky with her on the roof,” Taziri said. “But I’ll give it a try.”

  The Halcyon rattled on, its engine still cooling and rumbling lower with each passing moment. The pilot pushed a button and Bastet heard a soft clank. “That was a switching arm out next to the cow catcher,” Taziri explained. “It knocks the lever next to the track to swing the tracks left or right, so we can change lines.”

  From her crouched position behind the pilot’s seat, Bastet could only nod and hope that the Mazigh woman knew what she was doing. The view through the small windows told her nothing except that they were rushing between train cars in the darkness as Nethys pounded on the roof above their heads.

  “Here it comes,” Taziri said.

  “What?”

  Suddenly the cabin was plunged into utter darkness and Bastet heard a terrible series of hard thumps along the back of the roof in quick succession.

  Nethys was knocked back, knocked clean off!

  Taziri pulled the brake and the Halcyon squealed to a halt, and before Bastet could ask, the Mazigh pilot had freed herself from her harness and leapt out the hatch into the deep shadows outside. Bastet leaned out, squinting, and she heard a sharp metal clangor. A moment later, Taziri jogged back to the hatch.

  “All right, we should be safe for a few minutes at least,” the pilot said.

  “Where are we?”

  “In a shed. I locked the doors behind us, an
d they seem pretty sturdy, so we should have a few minutes before your aunt breaks in. If she breaks in.” Taziri flicked another little switch and the cabin light snapped on with a sharp electric buzz. The amber bulb revealed the metal deck and walls, the pilot’s console, a pile of boxes lashed to the floor, and the pilot herself. Taziri wore a heavy leather jacket lined in thick white fur, a long blue scarf around her neck, and a pair of brass-rimmed goggles pushed up on her forehead.

  “It’s good to see you.” Bastet hugged her.

  “It’s good to see you, too. I just wish I didn’t have a dozen new dents to buff out of my baby here.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. Come on, we should get moving before—”

  The heavy shed doors banged from the outside.

  “Right.” Bastet helped Taziri unhook the boxes and bundles from the floor of the Halcyon and they quickly moved everything outside to the ground. Taziri locked the hatch, saying, “I’ve got a few booby traps on her now, just in case. Electric shocks, mostly. Should be enough to keep the riff-raff away for a couple days, at least.”

  Together they slung the little boxes and tubes and bags over their shoulders, and crunched across the gravel of the shed floor away from the doors where Nethys was still pounding and grunting.

  “I’m sorry I had to hurt her,” Taziri said as they slipped out the service door and headed quietly into the deserted train station. “I mean, I threw her into a building, and then scraped her off the roof when I drove into the shed. I know you asked me here to help these people but…”

  “It’s all right,” Bastet said quietly. “There’s no other way. They’re just too dangerous right now. And besides, no matter how much you hurt them, you can’t kill them, and they’ll always recover completely. At most, they might remember getting hurt, but honestly, when you’ve lived as long as we have, these sorts of things aren’t very memorable.”

  “Getting thrown off an aeroplane into a stone wall isn’t memorable?” Taziri laughed, and the sound echoed through the shadowy station. “You’re a hard crowd to please.”

  “Not at all. You’re here. I’m very pleased.” Bastet patted the gear on her shoulders. “Is this everything you need to build the magnet?”

  “Everything except the aetherium core.”

  “Right.” The immortal girl nodded. “And I think I know where we can get your sun-steel. As much as you need.”

  They hurried through the empty city streets, keeping close to the walls and shadows, and looking up at the starry sky every few moments, but there was no sight or sound of the winged Nethys. Bastet led the way and they soon reached the old neighborhood near the harbor with the great lighthouse blotting out the stars to the northwest, and they huddled against the door of a certain house, knocking as loudly as they dared until the tall smith from Nippon opened the door. The introductions were brief and breathless, but Jiro recognized the names Asha and Lilith readily enough, and let them speak their piece.

  “We’re going to build a machine to take the needles out of the immortals, and all the other slaves that Lilith took,” Bastet explained quietly. “This is Taziri Ohana, from Marrakesh. She’s going to make a magnet machine, but we need your help. We need sun-steel. A lot of it. Can you help us?”

  “A machine to heal Lilith’s victims?” the smith asked.

  “Yes.”

  Jiro gave them a stern glare, but he nodded and stepped back to let them enter. Then he directed them to sleep on the floor, and he went back to bed.

  Chapter 19

  When she woke up the next morning, Bastet heard a kettle whistling softly and two voices talking, interrupted from time to time by a metallic click or clank. She sat up and yawned, feeling the warmth of the small cooking fire beside her. Taziri and Jiro sat side by side with the Mazigh’s boxes laid out carefully before them on the floor. He would point and ask what something was, and she would hold it up and answer him. Their Eranian accents were so wildly different that Bastet was surprised they could even understand each other.

  “Good morning,” Bastet said. “Working already?”

  The kettle whistled louder.

  Taziri smiled. “Our host had some questions, so I figured the least I could do was answer them. Besides, it’s going to take a bit of effort to make this work.”

  Bastet nodded. “Can I help?”

  Jiro gestured to the kettle. “Tea, please.”

  The girl yawned again as she stood up and saw to the shrilly whistling kettle. She poured out the greenish tea into the little white cups that had no handles and presented them to the others, who took them as they continued to talk about wires, batteries, fields, and other arcane things. After several more minutes, Taziri and Jiro seemed satisfied that they knew what they were doing, and they began bundling up the supplies and tools.

  “What now?” Bastet asked.

  “Now, we work.” Jiro tucked most of the boxes under his long arms and led the way through the back of the house, through a narrow door, and into the adjoining house.

  Bastet followed them both and found herself in a small workshop full of familiar tools for metal working, from whitesmithing to blacksmithing to goldsmithing. There was a furnace, a foot-bellows, an anvil, and a trough of water, as well as tongs of all sizes, bores and drills, hammers and anvils, and leather aprons and gloves all neatly arranged on hooks and shelves around the space. Taziri and Jiro laid out the boxes and began setting out the tools and materials for the magnet.

  Bastet watched them for a moment and then said, “I’m going to go check on the others. They were trying to catch Isis when I left them last night. Okay?”

  Taziri smiled at her. “Okay. We’ll be fine here. I think we have everything we need.”

  The Aegyptian girl went back into the other room, and then let herself out through the aether. At first she went nowhere, and was content to merely drift above the city harbor and watch the little fishing boats sailing out on the sparkling Middle Sea, and to watch the huge steamers chugging in and out of the piers. It was the same as it ever was, people going about their work, moving things from here to there, oblivious to the machinations of gods and princes, and immortal monsters.

  No matter how the world changed, no matter who sat in the Imperial throne in Aegyptus or in Eran, no matter which gods were worshipped in the old temples or the new, no matter what language was spoken or what coins ruled the marketplaces, there would always be fish to catch and men who sailed out each day to catch them.

  I wonder what it is like, having a world with the same little problems every day. Fix the net, fix the sail, find the fish, catch the fish, sell the fish. It hasn’t changed in four thousand years. I suppose it will never change. And yet there are always princes and war queens and death cults who want to rule them, to tax them, to brand them as citizens or subjects or slaves.

  But the fish don’t care, and the boats and nets don’t care. I wonder how much the fishermen care, really.

  Eventually Bastet glided down across the city streets and found her own little stone tower nestled in between the two old estates. She drifted in through the window and lay down on her huge pile of blankets and pillows, luxuriating in the softness of her bed compared to the hardness of Jiro’s floor.

  A cat meowed and poked its head up from the stairs.

  “Go away,” Bastet sighed.

  The cat meowed again.

  “All right, all right, I’ll go find them.” The girl slipped away into the aether again and turned her thoughts to Asha and Wren, and to Gideon and Anubis. There was no certain way to find them, no simple means to call out to them or to spot them in a crowd, but she often felt that if she tried hard enough she could sense where someone was. Just barely. Just a hint of a whisper in her ghost.

  Twice she was almost certain she had felt the familiar tug of Anubis just around the next corner, just across the next street, but each time she stood on the roofs alone without any sign that her cousin might be near. For the next two hours she glided o
ver the city, listening and sniffing and peering into dark windows as a vague cloud of cool, white aether mist until she smelled something strange. Something that reminded her of home.

  That oil, it smells like… Gideon’s hair!

  She plunged down through the roof of a large warehouse near the waterfront more than a league from Jiro’s house, and found herself in a miniature city made of boxes piled high and stacked in rows that reminded her of blocks, avenues, and alleyways. Near the back of the warehouse she could hear voices echoing softly, and she hurried back through the maze of crates, emerging a moment later into a wide open space where three people turned to look at her.

  The first two people were Asha and Gideon, who were sitting on a pair of crates off to the left, sitting side by side, and they broke off their conversation abruptly when the Aegyptian girl walked in. The third person was hanging by her wrists from a pair of chains wrapped around an overhead beam, with her feet dangling above the floor. Her hoofed feet.

  Isis.

  Bastet walked out into the open space and curved around the hanging prisoner, giving her a wide berth as she came over to her friends. “You caught her.”

  “We did,” Gideon said. “Thanks to Wren, mostly.” He nodded to the floor beside him, and Bastet leaned forward to see the flame-haired girl snoring on an old blanket on the ground. Gideon sniffed. “She was something else. She held Isis down with the aether while Asha sedated her, and then Wren carried the poor thing here using the aether. I’d hate to think how hard it would have been, dragging Isis halfway across the city and then stringing her up by hand.”

  Bastet sat down between Asha and Gideon, and looked up at her steer-horned aunt. The immortal woman stared down at her with blank white eyes, and a faint sneer on her lip. “Can she speak?” the girl asked.

  “A little,” Asha said. “Nothing very coherent. Mostly angry shouts. She wants to get back to the undercity, that much we’re sure of. But she’s all right for the moment. With those legs of hers off the ground, she can’t hurt us, or escape.”

  “Oh. Good.” Bastet nodded. “Taziri’s here. She came in last night. We had a bit of trouble with Nethys, but everything’s all right now. Taziri is with Jiro.”