Franz and Karl perked up. Cassidy and Brewster exchanged anxious glances. “Where’s your Fokker?” Banner asked Cassidy.
“Gone,” Cassidy said.
Banner nodded. “We better get a new plane. Berlin’s a perfect place.”
***
Cassidy had already forgotten how good it felt to gate into the real world, but as the lightning crackled around the ship and the smell of ozone hit him, so did the fresh air. He could smell everything in it. A thousand different odours that ranged from flowers to the exhaust fumes of the engines. The more time he spent in the Twilight, the more he forgot about smells. About bold colours. Real tastes.
He had little time to smell the roses, however, as Banner brought them within range of a raging storm. The grey Zeppelin turned into it and Cassidy watched Banner’s visage strengthen as lightning spread across the clouds and the Nubigena slipped in like prodigal child returning home. Colour returned to the captain’s cheeks. His eyes lit up with the electric cloud veins, his grey irises almost blue, looking wild and restless. Banner stood straighter. Spun the wheel in sharp, clipped movements, his feet playing at the pedals like those of a grand piano, quickening and sustaining the notes of a Beethoven concerto.
Any other ship would have been torn to pieces by the torrent of wind and beating rain, but Banner sailed the storm like riding a tsunami. This was his place of power, and, in it, he was a god. No less a true deity than Karl’s Woden or Poseidon in a raging sea, or Hel in the darkness of the black Underworld. It’s my storm, Banner seemed to say with the branching lightning, and the Nubigena is my lover.
“God, Cassidy, can you feel it?” Banner said, glancing over.
Cassidy pushed himself away from the girder and stood near him. “I do,” Cassidy said, and almost laughed, because he could feel it. It was rocking a lump into his throat that made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. The storm showered him with feral energies that bounced through his body and set his mind aflame. “I feel alive,” Cassidy said, just loud enough for Banner to hear and the captain nodded.
“Damn right, you’re alive. Wait ‘til you smell the food in Berlin. And the smell German girls get when they sweat between their breasts. Milk maids. They have the smoothest skin.”
Cassidy laughed. He’d begun to suspect his dreamer had left love out of the blueprint altogether, but at that moment Cassidy felt something stir. Hope? Or was he just aroused by the thought of meeting real women again?
The Nubigena broke through the clouds and a rain-soaked Berlin came into view. Franz rose up from his console and peered down at the landscape.
“Franz,” Cassidy said, looking over his shoulder. “Can you really remember Berlin?”
“No,” said Franz, though his smile hadn’t gone away, “but it’s like I remember it. It still feels like home.” He turned to Cassidy. “I guess because I want it to be.”
The closer they got, the more it didn’t feel like home to Cassidy, though something about the landscape tugged at his chest. Something so familiar, but foreign, it irritated him just to look at the skyline. “Won’t they notice us?” Cassidy asked.
Banner shrugged. “Yes and no. Even though the ship is real, they’ll just register it as something that belongs. They just won’t know why, or who we are. That’s the advantage of real objects that spend too much time in the Twilight.”
They landed, mooring themselves with an anchor this time and tied off to stakes they hammered into the hard ground. “Brewster,” Banner said, “stay with the ship. I want Franz and Karl to see Berlin.”
Brewster answered with a salute and got back on board. He hadn’t seemed keen on exploring the streets of the German capitol anyway.
“Cassidy,” Banner yelled over the roar of the rain. “There’s an airbase about half a mile east. Grab whatever looks best to you and fly it out without them seeing you. You can do that with a machine the same way you make yourself unseen.” He tossed Cassidy a roll of marks. “Leave this in someone’s office who looks important enough to take it.”
Cassidy nodded, stuffed the money in his jacket and started walking. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the rain didn’t soak him as it did the few people he passed, huddled in oversized coats and hoods. The water ran down his uniform, but didn’t penetrate, or didn’t care to penetrate, as if it were headed for the ground and felt no need to bother with him. So even to the weather he was a shadow, Cassidy grimaced.
He trotted across wet grass. At least the storm energies still flowed through him. Even with all the apprehension built up from walking in enemy territory, his spirits remained high. He was looking for a new fighter. Banner hadn’t cared to ask what had happened and, God willing, he never would.
The airfield proved to be a large one. Probably the main testing ground for new aerocraft. Cassidy strode past the guards and through the checkpoint without even an eyebrow raised. He concentrated on not being seen. Remain intangible. I’m a ghost, he thought and couldn’t help the panic the thought brought with it. His heart quickened. He knew he wasn’t really a Yank anyway. These Germans weren’t really his enemies, and for all that mattered, he’d never been in a single battle of The Great War. Still, it lay in shattered pieces throughout his consciousness, the memory of the carnage, the fires, the sky full of blasting fighters. He couldn’t help the dark sense that he was creeping into the demon’s mouth, and while making it through the entrance meant he had passed the teeth, it might close at any moment.
The grounds crawled with airmen, though most non-pilot officers seemed to prefer the inner warmth of their offices over cold Berlin rain.
A group clustered around someone a hundred yards off. Cassidy approached and noticed a single pilot in their midst. He seemed to be trying to wave them off as they pushed pieces of paper in his face. Papers that wilted as the rain soaked through, all but disintegrating in their hands.
The airman shouted at them. His German sounded savage, but pained and Cassidy understood every word. It disturbed him every time he heard German spoken. He must have been the dream of a spy. Perhaps his dreamer had walked this very airfield, stealing information on aerocraft and the highly prized secrets of German technology. Field agent? Pilot? French dreamer? British? American would be nice, though he knew they’d only recently entered the war.
The group dissipated with a final shout from the airman, though they continued to yell praises of adoration, even as the group bled away into the rain and mud.
As they cleared, Cassidy saw the tired, strained look of the man’s features, though they were all but eclipsed in shadow. His face was drawn. His arms hung limp. Shoulders drooped. A scarlet stain showed through the white bandage around his head.
“You,” Richthofen said, as Cassidy approached. No one had regarded Cassidy as anything more than a strange breeze. Why could the Baron see him no matter how invisible Cassidy made himself? “Am I dreaming, or what in God’s name are you doing in my sweet Berlin?”
Cassidy dug his hands into his pockets. He shrugged over as if huddling from the cold, although he didn’t actually feel it much. “You look tired.”
Richthofen turned and trudged down the airfield. Pilots and ground crew moved away as he scowled ahead. “They think I’m a damned god,” he spat. “They think I can…” He sighed. “I’m only here now in Berlin, instead of where I’m supposed to be, because they want to pin another ridiculous medal on my chest. I used to have a silver cup made for each pilot I downed. How mad is that?” He stopped and crushed a spent cartridge into the damp ground with his heel. “I’m broken, Cassidy. My mind,” he said, pointing to his skull. “It doesn’t work right anymore. They think I can fight for weeks without sleep and shoot without bullets and fly without fuel. They’re insane, and I’m spent.”
He stopped and took heavy breaths as if he were going to cry, or scream, or shoot people. Instead, Richthofen turned down to a dark section between two buildings where the overhanging roof cut off some of the rain. He leaned against the wall and slamm
ed a fist into the grey brick. “I’m not their knight anymore. I’m a pawn and I want to stop.”
“You saved our asses,” Cassidy said, not knowing what else to say at the moment. “Banner’s fine. He’s weak, but he’s flying again.”
Richthofen gave a slow nod. “Ya. I meant to ask. That’s good.” He raised his head and a slight smile peeked through his hard features. “That was a good fight, no? I enjoyed it.”
“How do you do spend so much time away?” Cassidy asked. “I know they miss you?”
Richthofen broke out a cigarette. He offered Cassidy one, and they both lit up. “Time is different. I spend days drinking in the Twilight. I return, and a few hours have gone by. Banner says it’s because of the particular fixed gate I come through. Others don’t work that way. Arcadia is my only peace now.” He took a long drag and blew out smoke. “They are writing a book about me. They say I wrote it, but I don’t write. I don’t have time.” He glared at Cassidy as if he were the German government. “It’s complete scheisse. I’m not that man. No one is that man. He is a myth. An arrogant, egotistical myth.”
Cassidy leaned against the building opposite Richthofen, so that only a few feet separated them. He drew in on his cigarette and breathed out a cloud through his nose. “I’m a half-drawn picture,” he said, half to himself, half to The Red Baron. “I keep waiting for someone to come and tell me something. To look at me and say, this is who you are. You’re so and so. You live here or there and this has all just been a bad—” He covered a tremble of his lips with another a drag from the cigarette.
“What are you here for?” Richthofen asked.
“I’m trying to find a new plane.”
Richthofen nodded as if he understood. Not why Cassidy didn’t have a plane, but why he couldn’t go back for the old Fokker. Knew he didn’t want to face Ned and that woman again. “Did he send you with money?”
Cassidy tossed Richthofen the roll of marks.
“Take one,” Richthofen said. “One of the new Fokkers. They’re fast. They turn well. Good guns. I helped design them.”
Cassidy nodded. He turned to go.
“John Cassidy,” Richthofen said.
Cassidy turned back.
“You dream of a great dogfight. Fighters clutter the sky. Then you see a dot in the distance. Among all the planes you pick it out as if a cord connects you both and it draws you in.” He paused, ashed his cigarette. “You are there for him. There to kill him. His fighter is red.”
Cassidy stumbled sideways. He fell against the wall. Pictures flooded his mind. He couldn’t breathe well.
“I have dreamed about you almost since we started the war,” Richthofen continued. His eyes looked distant. The lines around them crinkled and straightened.
In Cassidy’s mind, the guns of his Sopwith Camel rattled as the holes in his memory filled in. He dove and spun and banked. He manoeuvred between Fokkers, Albatrosses, Sopwiths and Nieuports. His guns rattled again as his target darted beyond his sights. The Sopwith stalled, began to smoke and dived. The red Fokker exploded into the ground in front of the many-spired castle.
“I always knew the Americans would enter the war. They were a myth with teeth. We didn’t know what to expect, but we knew they would come. And I dreamed of you. No,” Richthofen said, shaking his head, “not a dream. A nightmare. The pilot who would someday down me. Fly me to the edge, and over, and into the ground.”
Richthofen dropped the butt of his cigarette and crushed it into the damp grass. “Perhaps not a nightmare,” he said. “Perhaps a wish.”
Cassidy looked up. It was hard to make eye contact. “You told Banner. Told him about your dreams.”
The Baron shrugged. “He said the nightmare would go away. It did. I dreamed my dreams without dying. Next thing you know, he walks into the Arcadian lounge with my nightmare beside him. I thought I would die.” He paused. “I don’t have any answers for you, John Cassidy. I’m not a god.” The Baron turned and trudged away. The tips of his soggy grey coat vanished into the pouring rain as he left the dry space between the buildings.
Cassidy shook. He stumbled out into the rain. The dream was full in his mind. Every damned minute of it, right down to the point where three German fighters had combined their guns to bring him down, shredding his fighter. He’d brought his Sopwith down and bailed out just before the plane crashed. Hit the ground with a rolling thud. Survived by a hair.
The Baron’s Fokker had burned in front of him. The pilot had still been alive. On fire and alive. Screaming. Cursing. Cassidy remembered all the dreams. All the variations. All the nightmares in which he’d starred. The planes had changed. The battle. The ultimate fight. But the castle had been there each time. The castle and Richthofen’s burning plane. Tongues of fire leaping up around the crimson red paint and black iron crosses.
Not a dream, Cassidy thought. He’d been a bogeyman to the red pilot the Allies called Death.
Chapter 21
Cassidy found a bi-wing Fokker VII that looked like it had just come out of the shop. He ran his hand over the smooth rounded fuselage, the tail rudder and elevator flap. The dual Spandaus looked pristine and fully loaded with chains of 7.8mm shells. He lifted the leather cover over the cockpit, exposing an immaculate interior, complete with leather trimming and chrome accents. The wings were as straight as a captain’s bars and water beaded against the sealed and stretched canvas that covered the wing frame.
The engine appeared to be at least a Mercedes D.III and he could probably push the fighter to no less than 110mph. Probably more. The prop was longer than Cassidy was tall, had been carved from a deep rich alder, rubbed and sanded smooth. The German adornments could be repainted, though in a strange way, the twin Iron Crosses felt familiar even as they revolted him other ways.
Cassidy climbed into the cockpit, pumped up the fuel tank pressure and switched the motor on. The fuel gauge read full. There were probably magnetos, but using them didn’t feel right. Not on the craft’s first flight. Instead, he hopped down, grabbed the prop in both hands and gave it a sharp, downward yank. The engine engaged immediately. Cassidy climbed back aboard, strapped in and taxied out to the runway.
If anyone heard the engine over the pounding rain, they didn’t seem to care. Probably assumed some pilot was taking one of the planes up for a test flight, and it wasn’t worth getting wet to check.
As Cassidy throttled forwards, several pilots glanced towards the fighter, but were unable to tell which airman sat in the cockpit. He could have been any German pilot. When the Fokker reached flying speed and he felt the wings dancing with the rushing wind, he pulled back the stick and took to the air.
It handled better than anything he’d ever flown. The stick was so responsive. The pedals required no more than the slightest pressure to roll the fighter over. A thrill took over that could never have been described in words, but it cascaded over him in waves of intense heat. Something about having his own fighter. Not the government’s, like in his dream. Not the Nubigena’s that just anyone flew. Banner meant this to be his. John Cassidy’s.
John Cassidy. The name sounded both foreign and beautiful in his mind. The complete memory of the dream he’d come from made it even more solid. “John Cassidy,” he said out loud. The name was his, like the new Fokker was his. Richthofen had given him both in a way. True, the name was that of a nightmare and Banner had paid money for the plane, but the Baron himself had told him which kind to choose and had even helped design it.
Cassidy banked and dove and rolled, not caring that the rain covered his real goggles. The storm energies streamed through him. He felt the storm itself like some people felt sunshine. Perhaps the same way Banner did. Perhaps the feeling came from owning something real.
He took the Fokker into the clouds to see if he could do what Banner did. The fighter shook hard with turbulence, but Cassidy eased it into phase with the roll of the storm, which he felt in his blood now. The savage bolts of lightning. The pound of thunder in his chest as he s
lipped between the warring fronts. He’d caught the pulse of the storm and matched his heartbeat to it.
Cassidy moved through the harsh wind like a salmon twisting upstream, finning through the tremulous eddies and furious currents. His heart leapt and he laughed out loud. This was what it was like to be kin to the storm. To be natural to it. To be as much a part of it as air and accumulated moisture, and the raw blue energy and cracks of thunder.
Born of the storm.
Nubigena.
He didn’t know how he knew. Perhaps Richthofen’s classical schooling, or some grey knowledge he’d picked up from Banner, but Nubigena meant “born of the storm”, and this was why. Strangely, it didn’t explain how he understood perfect English. Richthofen spoke it well enough, but with a thick accent and Cassidy had more than once run into words the Baron didn’t know.
There had to be more to him than just his dreamer’s knowledge and memories. The Everdream must add some in to fill dreams out. It must draw on it vast repository of...of what? How much did it know? He’d have to talk about that one day with Brewster.
Cassidy nosed the fighter down below the clouds so he could see where the great Zeppelin moored. It rested against the ground like a half-bridled cloud, bucking at its moorings. And on the ground, standing with his feet apart, hands planted on his hips and his mouth open in raucous laughter, stood Banner, watching him. His white scarf whipped in the wind and he looked like a god scrutinizing his son as he rode a chariot of fire for the first time. Apollo? Prometheus? Where had he heard those names?
Cassidy landed. Jayce and Franz ran up, each checking the fighter out like a rider would a new filly.
“Ah, they have gotten better, I see,” Karl said, as he examined the engine. “BMW. I have never heard of that. Configuration looks brilliant, but I have to take a good look. Is beautiful.”
“Can you still work on her?” Cassidy asked the old German.
Storm Dreams (The Cycle of Somnium Book 1) Page 16