Lands Beyond Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by Kin S. Law

  Then, a new horror–the cloud was moving. It was slow, but it moved briskly, tracking across the sky with no observable cause. Still, the flashes of light streaked from the depths of its hidden core, striking jaggedly towards the dirigibles still hounding its fringes. It was penetrating the phalanxes like they weren’t even there. They were feeble blows at the flanks of a giant.

  Meanwhile, in the little room above the Rue Fremicourt, Cezette Louissaint was screaming. She had managed to cower with the bed between her and a furious, stinking hurricane. It was no less dramatic than what was happening outside. He had brought a bottle. Emptied, he smashed it against the wall and the glass made Cezette scream again. He was working up to hitting; she knew it. And she would hold up her hands, shield her face, that face that set him off. It was always the same. He would look on it, and his eyes would soften, and then the big callous hand would come covered in filth and sweat and pain.

  The end would be hellish but brief. And then he would lock her up in the room again, holding her swelling face and dreading the next time.

  Cezette did not know when her papa had gone mad, nor when she realized it for sure. All she knew was he had, and she suffered for it.

  It wasn’t the pain, of course. Any pain can be adjusted to. It was the feeling of being seen through. As if she were only a piece of mirror or a picture frame to be looked at. To be cast aside and kept as a memento of something better. Sometimes she caught herself hating her maman, and she felt as if she deserved the pain. Still, she hoped beyond hope her maman would appear over the bed, kicking and scratching. Saving her from this madness that replaced her papa.

  He grabbed the bed now, tugging it away from her feeble grasp. She slapped at his hands, felt the fingers tangle in her long hair. There were the sad eyes now, the reek of cheap champagne. There was a fresh welt where a dancer or a tough must have cuffed him away during a show. It was then she saw the tower, gleaming still outside her window. If she hadn’t struggled in a particular direction, kicked in a particular way, she would never have seen it. Yet Cezette saw. She saw the way every other light had been snuffed, but the tower remained. It stood brightly, and for one moment Cezette felt if she could reach the garden at its feet she would be safe. She would be safe in Maman’s warm, charcoal-streaked arms once more, in a bubble nobody could breach. Surely she was there still!

  “Carla…” he said now, and his eyes drooped. Then the water in them froze, and the whites of them grew steely while the pupils opened into black pits.

  “No!” Cezette screamed, once, in desperation. “I’m NOT HER!” It was the one thought able to make her draw back and let her hair be ripped away in a feathery chunk.

  There was pain, unbelievable pain. Mon Dieu, such pain. But it was no worse than the hand, and she kicked out, both legs at once, in the space of a split second. Her right heel smashed into something soft, and she felt it crush against bone. Her left caught his ankle and he went down with a terrible crunching sound. Cezette had grown stronger than she knew. Something screamed, a deep, feral scream.

  Suddenly, miraculously, she was free.

  The door was open behind him and glorious cool air streamed over her. She rolled away by instinct, tumbling onto her hurt arms and legs in a scrabbling pile. It wasn’t possible to think. She only had one thing in her mind, and the thought repeated itself all through her body. Run, Cezette! Run for your life!

  The stairs were the hardest, in part because the thunder in the sky shook everything so badly. Cezette held on to the railing and partially slid along it, desperate to traverse the three floors between her and freedom. When was the last time she had seen the rest of the house? She did not know.

  When she tumbled onto a landing and felt the rough carpet against her bottom, she remembered she was practically naked, and began to look round for something to cover herself. She dared not go into the other rooms; Papa would be after her in a moment, and she would have squandered her only chance of escape. Cezette could only dash along down the stair, and when she saw Papa’s stinking pea coat hanging in the entryway, she could have sung.

  By now, the fighting had intensified above Cezette Loussaint’s little townhouse. While most of the dirigibles had flown further west, those remaining darted all over Paris, crashing into homes and shopping districts. Some tried to use the Champs-Élysées as an impromptu dirigible landing strip. However, few survived long enough to set down on the wide boulevard. L’Arc De Triomphe was completely gone, buckled under the weight of one of the larger ships. The damnable cloud now hovered directly over the Tour D’Eiffel, setting everything around it ablaze.

  Cezette could not know any of this, but she would run right past it. What she encountered as she stepped barefoot onto the streets of Paris was simply an inferno. Smoke moved in opaque walls through the narrow avenues, cutting her off in poisonous barricades. Her appropriated pea coat went down to her shins, flapping as she sprinted through the deserted paths. At least it was warm in the flaming streets for a barely clothed girl.

  Left and right no longer mattered. She went where she saw an opening, dodging falling debris and crumbling masonry. She had little idea of the direction she was going, only knowing she must put as much distance as possible between herself and what lay behind her. Finally, finally she had escaped! Now she could be rid of cowering once and for all!

  Dodging through gardens, climbing over the toppled chairs of cafés and streaking through deserted promenades, Cezette realized she was not entirely lost. Slowly, she began to have a sense of where everything was. After a moment she could even guess how the smoke moved. Mais oui! It was so obvious! All those nights watching the city had given her a solid map of everything outside her window. Even with all the chaos raging about her, dirigibles falling on her head and steam chariots overturned in the fountains, there had only ever been one destination. La Tour!

  Overhead, the eldritch cloud had moved across the River Seine. Its mass was nearly centered over La Tour D’Eiffel. Cezette was headed directly into the maelstrom, yet she did not know, nor did she have any alternative. The lanky girl had never been in any other part of the city, not during the years when she might have memorized the streets. Thankfully for her, the majority of the dirigibles had stopped firing. They had largely been eliminated. The cloud simply halted above the monolith of metal and ceased its attack.

  In the momentary calm, Cezette Louissaint raced through the quieted streets. Her pea coat flashed behind her like a desperate pennant. Her thin arms held it on as much as the buttons. She could see no other person, but for this she was glad. She had no idea what she might have said, how she might have found help. There had been precious few to talk to in the Louissaint home, and those servants who did were invariably too frightened to help her.

  Cezette did have one thing going for her; her stamina and health. Endless nights of fighting a grown man had given her great reservoirs of strength. Now, with hope looming over her the only bright thing in a black hell, she found energy returning to her limbs. In the face of so much desolation, it hardly seemed to matter if her feet were cut. But she left bloodied footprints in her wake, and she feared, in a moment’s madness, that he would follow.

  Finally her abused heels touched something different than hard paving—grass! Cezette slowed, her hurts catching up to her, her lungs burning with the smoke and exertion. She had reached the gardens, her maman’s gardens!

  The elation of it filled her with gladness. For a moment, she could hardly believe she was here. Even her arms and legs were covered with soot, charred black just like Maman’s hands. She flopped onto the soft greenery, lit orange by La Tour’s lamps. The cool vegetation felt cleaner than anything she had ever touched, and even the heat of fire all around her seemed only a purging blaze. She felt scrubbed, new and reborn. Everything was going to be all right. Slowly, she got up and stumbled forward, deeper into the garden. Here and there were topiary, and hedges. Maman would have loved to draw the elephants. It was so pleasant, too! Not a single touri
st could be seen, not a clack of photograms could be heard.

  Cezette found a cool spot between two hedges, culled by gardening into a perfect nook. There was a bench, and a spectacular view of La Tour overhead. The metal soared over Cezette. She imagined it must remind adults of their own parents towering over them as children. It felt like an impervious guardian, standing there against the backdrop of dusky cloud. Nobody would be able to find her here. She lay herself down and snuggled into the borrowed coat. Even the smell had changed. Now the coat only smelled of fire and vegetation. Slowly, Cezette’s tired limbs relaxed, and she fell into a deep sleep.

  And so it was when the light came down from deep within the eldritch cloud, not a soul, not even Cezette Louissaint, could see the glint of metal protruding from the heart of the darkened mass. To everyone in Paris that night, there could only be seen an intense column of brightness, as straight as the lightning was jagged, reaching down like the finger of God. With nothing to challenge it, the finger traced a line all round La Tour D’Eiffel, including within it the gardens, and the promenade along the Seine river. The Chevaliers and the Marine Nationale troops rushing all along the Champs-Élysées could only watch from the rooftops as the column traveled a complete circuit round the symbol of their nation.

  Quietly, majestically, the tower began to rise, carrying one sleeping girl with it.

  5

  For Queen And Country

  I must admit, playing the flirtatious wench undercover was something of a dilemma. Throwing modesty to the wind, I put on a mummery act with the patrons of the Jilted Merman, not to mention the lecherous bar owner and his mysteriously friendly wife. Every time they grasped for my gentler portions, one sentence circled round and round behind my eyes. Each spilled pint or unpaid tab drew on a charm I held close to my heart.

  I told myself the same thing, over and over again; for Queen and Country. Now I told myself so again as I was lifted by forces unseen, carried over some wobbling surface, down some stairs and set upon the floor. All while enrobed in the reeking tarpaulin, so I had no visible clues to my surroundings. I did, however, have a very keen ear. There was the sound of bars, and something sloshing nearby. A latrine? I was in a cell! Most likely a pirate brig. For Queen and Country, Hargreaves. Queen and Country.

  I know, I know, it is cliché to the point of nausea, the stuff of penny dreadfuls and cheap espionage narrative. Were there better ways to find a lead on this Samuel Clemens, also known as the Steamboat Man? Probably, but for an operative outside the regular hierarchy of the realm, other choices did not present themselves. It seemed worse when I considered my role as Her Majesty’s intelligence personnel may someday contradict my day job. I was an Inspector, of all things, in Scotland Yard.

  Two pips. Two, little, damnable pips.

  But as I lamented my surroundings, the tarpaulin was lifted, and I found my eyes adjusting to a darkened room. Quick as a wink, the aforementioned bars slammed shut, and then the Manchu Marauder was peering at me from between the rusty iron. He said one word: “Talk.” So I did. I told him I was investigating a serious calamity that he must have heard of by now, and gave an abbreviated version of how I had become a barmaid at the Jilted Merman.

  As to how this pirate, this Marauder of Manchu, saw through my disguise, I was at a loss. Even Thatcher, shadow of shadows, could not discover me at a place of his choosing, though I was hidden in plain sight. It was one of the criteria of my involvement in the Queen’s affairs.

  “What did you dress up as?” the Marauder interrupted, rather rudely, I might add. I halted in my telling of how I had arrived at my situation in Portsmouth to stare him down. I was unsuccessful. “To evade even Thatcher’s detection.”

  “A nun,” I admitted.

  “Continue,” he said, stifling a giggle. The cad!

  It was all the worse because his brig was so warm and cheerful. As we talked, my eyes adjusted to the flickering candlelight. A modest carpet covered up the worst of the planks. Thick blankets softened the hard cot, and a vanity screen had even been installed round the loo. Even the bars were clean and free of rust. The Marauder held out a plate with tea and biscuits on it. I bit into a fingerprint cookie, paired with a delightful Assam, to stall for time. The tea was fabulous. That scoundrel! How dare he make my imprisonment pleasant!

  “You understand, I am only telling you any of this on condition of my safety. You will honor the deal, Master Pirate?” I demanded of him, though I was hardly in any position of leverage. My old friends, a small derringer and my .22 Tranter, lay heavy with unused ammunition atop a table at the air pirate’s elbow. Any documentation of my real identity sat under the loose floorboards in my narrow room over the Jilted Merman. The Marauder didn’t need a deserted island to strand me—any port would leave me at a loss for days, plenty of time for him to make an escape.

  Or he could simply kill me.

  “If it will engender your trust, my name is Albion Clemens. I know, sounds faker than my alias, right?”

  “I didn’t realize pirates had proper names. You may put on any alias you like,” I managed. The name struck a chord, obviously. Was my captor a close relative to the air pirate Samuel Clemens? Looking about, the ship did seem far too old and large for such a young man to master.

  “Chosen names. They are the only ones that matter,” said Albion Clemens.

  “Fine,” I huffed, though the impropriety intrigued me to no end. What value had a name if it did not exist in Her Majesty’s record? By law, such a man could not own property in Britain, nor could he marry. A proper name ought be Christian.

  “The nature of your mission?” Clemens, or Shaw, or whoever, pressed.

  “Is a secret,” I replied, with more than an ounce of spite in my tone.

  “Now, now, Inspector. I know everything else. That was the deal. You tell me everything about yourself and I make sure no retribution falls on you.”

  “The details about the case are the business of the Queen and the Pax Brittania. It is not something about myself,” I said, making sure to show him the insides of my nose. “I have completed my side of the bargain, to the letter of the agreement.”

  “Why, you smug little minx,” he said, amused. He tended to stroke his short black beard when he found good sport. No matter how roguish and charming the motion, it was still remarkably rude.

  “I shan’t have you taking that tone with me, sir! I am a Christian woman!”

  Even as we bantered, I could scarcely believe I had been subdued. In retrospect, it must have been rote for a pirate to set precautions where he had docked his ship. I just hadn’t expected the elephant balloon to fall upon my head! I had wondered if the little air trapped with me in the gassy canvas would lift me to the waves or abandon me bubbling to a wet grave. If I had bothered to recall my dirigible engineering courses at the Academy, I might have remembered these balloons came in several compartments. The pirate must have released one section to bind me, perhaps with a loose foot as he distracted me with his hands. What else was Clemens capable of?

  “If you go back on the deal, I can always treat you like an enemy captive. In the old days, seafaring pirates would do as they liked with a female captive,” Clemens was saying. Despite the notion, he did not seem to take much note of my assets, still on display in a barmaid’s thin linen blouse. This one enjoyed the game, not the spoils, I realized suddenly.

  “Who is the smug one now?” I quipped, getting naught in the way of impatience. Very annoying, this Albion Clemens. Instead of giving in to frustration, he leaned forward, sipping at his own cup of tea. It was an odd habit for an Oriental to have. He did it with his pinky out.

  “Look here,” he said. “I know you followed us for a reason, not escaping a silly brawl or for our personal safety. Now, I gave you three pieces of information at the pub: who I was, what I had done, and who I was after. You didn’t call the Navy police or the constables, so I feel certain you’re not after me for the stolen lavender. On the money so far?”

 
; I nodded. His induction was immaculate. The best thing I could do then was give him nothing. Perhaps he would slip up.

  “There are plenty of people after me, but as you came to stop my murder, and as there were other air pirates, hell, proper aeronauts in the pub, I don’t think you are running, or after a bounty, or want to turn me in.”

  “Correct,” I begrudged, tiring of admitting defeat.

  “So, I am to conclude the following,” he said, sitting up in a rather handsome pose. I hadn’t noticed before, but with his buccaneer coat off and his gun belt at a rakish angle, hung low by a long cutlass, the man was positively dashing. Muscles bulged underneath well-starched linen, and those piercing black-brown eyes…No! No, Hargreaves! The man is a scoundrel, a highwayman! I thought of the stinking pink elephant, bringing his voice into focus.

  “Your target is this man!” Albion Clemens concluded, fishing out the photogram of the man so unlike himself as to draw unseemly suspicions. Clearly, the Oriental before me could have nothing to do with the white-haired American depicted there. Or so most would have thought.

  I sighed. There was no avoiding it, I supposed. I would have to tell the Bangkok Bandit something of the truth.

  “All right,” I said. “The mission has little to do with me, but it has everything to do with you, and this Samuel Clemens.”