The man grinned widely. “Perhaps I’ll see you again when you get tired of ordering the same drink.”
A cold lump welled in Cassidy’s stomach. He slammed the empty glass down and made for the stairway. His heart thundered in his chest as he tried not to look back at the man, whoever he’d been. Whatever he’d been. Did everyone here understand these things except him?
Cassidy returned to his room and stripped down to his breeches again. The night had grown colder, but he enjoyed the sensation of goose pimples. It made him feel attached and the world felt so distant, as if he weren’t natural to it. As if he were a real man traipsing through someone else’s dream. A real man, he thought. What’s that?
Cassidy walked out to the terrace where the light breeze had become a gusting wind, chilling him deeply. Reality felt crisper as his body reacted to the change in temperature.
The tethered airships pitched against the darkening purple. Still not a true night. Strange that there was night at all in a place called Twilight, but something inside ached for the real thing. Whatever the case, this place seemed to have its own sense of time and reality.
The Nubigena listed, even more restless than before. Cassidy wondered how long he had been standing there. A glance at his watch said it was 5:30. The darkness turned a lighter purple as he watched the coming light though no actual sun crested the edge of the island. Dawn, or what passed for it here, would probably break around 6:00.
Cassidy returned to his room and dressed. He pulled the Mauser from its wooden holster, field stripped it and gave the barrel and inner workings a good cleaning. Why was this all so automatic? Why had he chosen this of all weapons? He reloaded, slipped it back into its holster and clipped it to his belt.
Whatever he would one day prove to be, this morning he was a soldier. One of Banner’s men. And he’d play the part for the moment. By the look of the strange shadow down by the dock, cast by the flickering fire of lantern light, this might prove a very short assignment.
He made his way out of the lounge and into the silent lobby, the other pilots still asleep. He imagined them cuddled up to women whose names they probably couldn’t remember, dreaming of women they wished were there. How much did the other crew remember of their own lives?
Shea. It would be impossible to forget the woman he hadn’t slept with. He concentrated hard, trying to bring up images of women he’d known before. Nothing but blurry figures showed up. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to go.
Cassidy stuck to the dark areas in the lee of the buildings that staggered towards the wharf where light wouldn’t touch for hours. He kept his hand beneath his coat, glancing about for whoever caused the shadows he’d seen from the terrace.
The air felt different. It held moisture now, making the breeze cold against his cheeks and hands. The airships, both soft bodied and galleon style, tugged against their moorings as if trying to wake. The sound of canvas sails whipped in the higher winds.
A glint of dull silver flashed from the corner of a storage shed. Cassidy flattened against the wall, Mauser in hand. He aimed at the spot where he’d seen what looked like a Luger.
Banner stepped out from the shadows, pistol pointed at the ground. He nodded, glanced back around the corner and edged along the side of the building.
Cassidy lowered his Mauser and followed on silent feet. He glanced behind every few seconds, trying to classify the shapes of various clusters of darkness. The Nubigena drifted overhead. The ramp had been pulled away, leaving the Zeppelin attached to the island only by a row of tether lines and its nose mooring.
A movement to his right caught Cassidy’s eye and he swung his weapon to bear. A loose corner of tarp flapped against a pile of cargo. He turned back to the sound of Banner thumbing the safety off his Luger.
A man crouched behind a crate with his back to them, but stood up as Banner touched the muzzle to his left ear. “You the look-out?” Banner asked.
The man nodded, eyes wide as he turned to look at them. Cassidy only glanced at the man. Kept his eyes trained on the shadows to their flank.
“How many more?” Banner asked.
The man whimpered as Cassidy took another glance. The man didn’t have the elven features of the Twilights and his skin was dull and thick, like cured animal hide. No details to the man’s face. “T-two,” he said.
The double-click of another pistol came from a deep patch of darkness near one of the buildings. Cassidy dropped to his knee, levelled the Mauser and cracked off two shots; one high, one low. A pistol clattered to the ground. Three more beats and a body tumbled after it.
“How many now?” Banner asked the man on the ground. His voice still sounded smooth and even, like he was asking the time of day.
“Two,” the man said, again.
“Two more in ambush or two more up in my ship?”
“T-two.”
Banner grimaced and shot the man in the chest. The man clutched at his blossoming shirt and collapsed.
“How would anyone have gotten onto the ship already?” Cassidy asked, as he probed the darkness again.
Banner nodded. “Good question. I don’t know why they haven’t at least extended the ramp,” he said, crouching to examine the body.
Cassidy stepped back so he could speak with Banner and keep his eye on their blind spots. “You did kill him in cold blood.”
Banner grimaced. “He’s only a dream.”
“I’m only a dream.”
Banner grimaced. “He’s not like you. Not nearly as solid. Looks like an Armada bounty hunter. They’re not after the Nubigena itself.”
“I didn’t think they had much jurisdiction here.”
“We don’t need much,” another man said, stepping from around the side of the building. “Jurisdiction is for the Law.” Unlike the one Banner had just downed, this man was dressed in a light tan suit, sported a matching Fedora and carried no weapon. Two others, who looked like dock workers, joined him, levelling bolt-action rifles.
Banner grinned. “Cassidy,” he said glancing over, then gestured to the man in the suit, “what do you think the chances are this guy is bluffing?”
Cassidy highly doubted it, but didn’t reply, choosing instead to keep his Mauser trained on the leader’s forehead.
“Dead or living,” the man in the suit said, his face drawing in with impatience.
“Cassidy,” Banner asked, as if the man hadn’t said anything, “what do you think the chances are that I’m bluffing?”
Cassidy had no idea of that either, but kept his gun trained as Banner slipped his Luger back into its holster.
“They said you were mad,” the well-dressed man said, shaking his head.
“Really?” Banner widened his grin. “Who sold us out?”
The man’s face broke into his own grin. “Someone from the real world. A man named Richthofen.”
Cassidy’s stomach turned. Goddamned German piece of shit.
“Yes, that’s what I thought.” Banner gave a slight nod and two shots rang out in quick succession. The two riflemen’s heads exploded out the front. Their ruined faces held no expression as rifles clattered to the ground and the bodies thudded down beside the weapons.
As the second body dropped, it revealed the cold expression of Manfred Richthofen, who holstered his smoking Luger. “They pay well, but don’t know who to trust.”
The man in the suit took a sharp intake of breath and set his jaw, trying to hide the fear now visible behind his eyes. “Shall I give the Armada a message from you?”
“Sure,” Banner said, giving Cassidy a quick nod. Cassidy squeezed off a single round, but kept his weapon out even as the body crumpled to a heap.
“A good message,” the Baron said.
“Thanks for the tip,” Banner said, and nudged Cassidy.
Cassidy grimaced, but returned the pistol to its holster.
Richthofen gave them both a quick salute and faded back into the shadows.
“I still don’t trust him,” Cas
sidy growled.
“You don’t have to trust him.” Banner started back to the hotel. “Just trust me.”
“Give me a good reason,” Cassidy snapped. “I just killed for you.”
“Killed a dream,” Banner said turning back around.
“You’re a dream too.”
“Yes and no.” Banner turned towards the hotel.
Cassidy remained behind. Six shots had been fired and no one came running. Six shots, five bodies. The dead men blurred on the ground, their colours shifted to black and white and their shapes dissolved into nothing.
There’d been an edge to Banner’s voice. Something about the way he’d said, “only dreams.” The crew might love him, but Captain Banner was something different. He didn’t consider them equal. If it came down to sacrificing one of them, Cassidy wondered what would happen.
Cassidy examined the empty place the bodies had been. If he died, would he fade like that?
The wind blew cold against his skin and the host of dirigibles drifted above him like ambivalent gods. One war to another, he mused and wondered why the thought tugged his heart towards his stomach. “Am I even real?” he asked the Nubigena. It hovered above him, nudging the air gently.
He thought about Shea stretched out on his bed. Thought of how his heart yearned for some unknown bond. Why couldn’t he even remember if he’d ever been with a woman? What was the emptiness he felt as she’d exposed herself to him? He’d been aroused, but cold inside.
Cassidy took a deep breath. Banner was his new captain, but in a war and an army he hadn’t signed up for. The Great War, the one that still remained a part of his mind in bits and pieces was simpler. Us. Them. He supposed that this was much the same with Banner, except for the lack of patriotic duty. No love of country to fuel his blood. Just survival. Loyalty to cap and crew. Could he live on that?
Cassidy stared up at the Nubigena again. She stared back, her long round body nodding to him in the silent wind. Not the home he would have wanted, but it seemed better than this island. Compared to the hotel with cold women and the distant existence of the real world, as Banner called it, the great Zeppelin was loving by comparison.
Do I have a purpose in this world? he thought, then wondered which world he meant.
Chapter 5
Cassidy watched the storm through the porthole of his quarters. After six months, life aboard the Nubigena had become something akin to normal. Since he had no memory of what normal really was, he supposed this must be it. Despite a wish to break out and see the world, perhaps find the one who’d dreamt him, Cassidy had decided this was good a place as any to learn the ropes of this reality. Today he was playing yet another game of stymied chess with Brewster, an exercise which always ended in frustration.
“Just try, Old Boy,” Brewster said. “Pretend you know how to move.”
The Englishman had spent weeks trying to teach him how to move pawns, but he couldn’t hold the knowledge long enough to use it. The game simply wouldn’t stick. It was as if his mind refused to create certain types of habits.
“It’s like riding a horse. One never forgets.”
Cassidy sighed without turning around. “How do you know I used to play?”
“Everyone plays chess. Besides, you’ve told me you see aerial battle like a board game.”
“Yes, I see the concept in my mind, but I can’t connect it to the pieces.” Cassidy watched the Englishman mull over the board. “And explain why you can’t play both sides yourself. You remember how the pieces move, but you can’t play the game without an opponent.”
Brewster took a deep breath and rubbed his chin. “I know. That one bothers me too. I play fine with Franz.”
“Yes, but he always has to make the first move.”
Brewster nodded, still staring at the perfectly set pieces. “I can set them up though. And I do usually win.”
Cassidy moved to his bed and began field stripping and cleaning his Mauser. It was one thing he could do without thinking, and the actions made him feel like something made sense. Everyone showed holes in their behaviour; like Ned, who ate all day but never drank anything, or Jayce who no one had ever seen use the head, unlike Franz who everyone knew just couldn’t. They were all a patchwork of half memories and quarter lives. Everyone except Banner. “Where’s he taking us now?” Cassidy asked.
Brewster pushed the chessboard aside and smoothed the short brown hair beneath his cap. “Well, we’ve spent as much time in the Twilight as we usually dare. Longer, really. You might get to see the real world very soon.”
Cassidy finished his gun-cleaning, slid a fresh line of shells into the external clip and chambered a round. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but the thought of visiting the real world filled him with more anxiety than joy. His feelings ranged from hope that the elation of being there might make him feel more real himself to the intense fear that it might not. He settled on the latter.
“You’ll like it.” Brewster stood. “It’s a good deal more dangerous for us in some ways, but it’s a tough journey for the Armada. They’ve got nothing like this girl,” he said, thumping his fist against the Nubigena’s hull. “Their ships are made of dreamstuff. They steal real fighters, like the ones you shot down, but they, themselves, can’t hold their bodies together where we’re going.”
“Why are you so loyal to him?” Cassidy asked.
Brewster paused. “He rescued me. What else would I do?”
Cassidy shrugged. “Go somewhere. Have a life.”
Brewster shook his head. “I wouldn’t know how.” He glanced at his watch. “Blast. Gun duty. Cheers.” He left for his post at the new gun platform Karl had constructed atop the Zeppelin.
Cassidy sat back and eyed the chessboard from his bed. It felt so foreign and familiar at the same time, like a country he’d studied in books, but never been to. On the other hand, there was also a déjà vu about it. He felt like he’d all but won tournaments of some kind, but doubted it had ever actually been chess.
Brewster burst back through his door minutes later. “Come on, Old Boy. You’ve got to see this.”
Cassidy leapt to his feet and followed Brewster to the bridge. When he got there, the Englishman nodded to Banner at the helm. “He’s never seen one, Captain. Thought he might enjoy.”
“Enjoy what?” Cassidy asked, and then he saw it. Miles in the distance a coloured aura floated towards the ship. At a distance it looked like a curtain of rainbow, but, as it neared, it looked more like a cloud of colour.
“Usually, we just see them in the real world, but sometimes they float out beyond it,” Banner said, his mouth widened in an excited smile. “Here, there’s a lot more colour. And they’re a lot more solid.”
“Northern lights,” Brewster said.
“Aurora borealis,” Banner said, preferring the more exotic term.
“Is it safe?” Cassidy asked.
Banner nudged the throttle forward. The Nubigena sped up and tipped its nose several degrees towards the glowing mass of gasses. In moments colour filled the sky and the ship slipped into it as if it were a solid cloud. The cloud penetrated the gondola, filling the bridge with a rainbow vapour that cast the controls, deck and the airmen themselves in bright shades of shimmering colour. Cassidy looked down at his own hands. They shifted through the spectrum as he wiggled his fingers. “Is it always like this?” he asked.
“This side of reality,” Brewster said, his mouth breaking out in a wider grin. “There are entire worlds in some of them.”
As he said it, wraiths of men began sliding through the walls from the front of the ship. They didn’t float, but stood in mid-air as if the deck were moving beneath them, picking them up from whatever plane they had occupied moments before. The spectres hardly regarded Cassidy or the rest of the crew as they chattered in languages he couldn’t understand, but they sounded Slavic of some kind. Their clothing ranged across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and most of them appeared to be aristocrats or royalty of one countr
y or the other.
“Prussians,” said Brewster.
“And Russians,” said Ned.
“Guests!” said Banner with glee in his voice. He cut the engines, checked the buoyancy and belted the helm and pedals, letting the craft drift through the borealis. “To the galley,” he said, and led the crew aft.
Cassidy brought up the rear. He paused and watched more spirits speed through the gondola’s hull. Banner certainly knew his craft, but letting the Zeppelin drift without a pilot seemed absurd, even for him.
When he arrived in the galley the party was already in full swing. Banner had Ned bring in all the champagne he could find and ordered Karl to make something appropriate for the occasion. The old German, however, had begun preparations at the first sign of colour. He’d been the unofficial ship’s cook for years and knew that job almost as well as mechanics.
The guests exchanged jovial banter with their host. Their English was spotty at best, but Banner didn’t seem to care. Neither did he mind that none of them could eat or drink anything but their own spectral food and ale. He had decided to make up for what they could not.
“Cassidy,” Banner bellowed over the volleys of foreign tongues, “eat, drink. Enjoy.”
Cassidy sat down as Karl placed a meal in front of him and a flute of champagne by his left hand. The shimmering colours ran through the liquid, tinting it into a layered drink of bright hues.
“Is good, no?” a man in a Russian jacket and hat said. He sat down and regaled Cassidy with stories of war, royal pageantry and conquests of the fairer sex. Cassidy nodded as best he could, and made polite exclamations when they appeared necessary. “You’re a pilot, no?” the Russian said, after a story of the first time he’d fired a musket. “You fly?”
Cassidy nodded.
“Yes,” the Russian said, slapping the table, surprising Cassidy that the man could actually touch the surface. “You look like a pilot. I mean, you look like one who would be a pilot.” He shook a bony finger. “I’ve seen you before.” He shook his head. “No, I mean, I’ve seen pilots like you before. You,” he said, wagging the finger in Cassidy’s face, “not you, but—ah, is good food, no?” The Russian slapped Cassidy on the back. It felt like a soft electric jolt. “Is strange. I am ghost. You are ghost too, eh?”
Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) Page 4