by Kin S. Law
“It’s to be mutiny,” Auntie insisted later, in the shadows of her galley.
“It’s not mutiny if we’re saving him from himself,” Cid argued. Auntie’s was a lone voice, without Cockney Alex, who hadn’t yet stepped into the picture. The few others in the room were aeronauts for hire, passing through on a job, and cared little either way.
Albion sat in on the conversation, knowing his voice would be bulled over, hushed, count for nothing. It had been like this in the Walled City, when his blood father had made all the decisions for the family. A loud voice mattered more than a sound mind, was the lesson he taught Albion. So it came as a surprise when Uncle Cid turned to Albion, and implored him for his opinion.
“So the vote’s tied. We need someone to break the stalemate,” Cid said, shaking Albion out of his reverie. “One, we overpower Sam and lock him in the brig, dump those blasted glass beads into the outback to bake. He’s like to put up a fight, and he knows the ship inside and out. I wouldn’t put it past him to have some secret way of escape, and a stash of copper jackets. Two,” Here, Cid took a deep, reluctant breath. “We go through with Sam’s plan, stay silent to the last. Without this job, the ship’s dead in the sky anyway. No fuel, no water, no money to escape the outback. What’s it to be, young Clemens?”
“Why me?” Albion’s voice had come shaking and confused.
“Why? You bear his name. Of all of us, you’re the least likely to be killed,” Auntie said gently. “He loves you, kiddo.”
“He’ll kill me in an instant,” Albion argued. He was looking into one of Auntie’s dangling pots, seeing his yellow reflection. “You heard him. None of us are people, not to him. At best I was only a dog. An unimportant, little dog.”
“Lad, no,” Cid sighed. “Listen to me. You listened in on a conversation meant only for me. I’ve known Sam for years, lad. Those words? Hot air. The man’s dying from regret; he wants to convince himself so he’ll stop feeling guilty. If he believed it, he would have moved on long ago.”
“But what do I do? I don’t want to mutiny against the captain! What if he kills one of us? What if we kill him?” The galley seemed to swim, and Albion realized he was about to cry. He, Albion Clemens, was about to cry in front of a gang of hardened pirates and airmen.
Cid and Auntie and everyone else looked at each other, but nobody had an answer coming. They were all clutching their arms nervously. They were as lost as he, and suddenly, the thought of those confident, cussing folks all turning to him for an answer shifted something inside Albion. Like a toggle being tripped, the boy who would be Albion was gone, and the new Manchu Marauder was born.
“We do not have to mutiny, well, not really,” Albion said, haltingly at first, but gaining strength as he went. “If you would all help me…we might be able to do it. It wouldn’t be pretty, but like the Kyushu Maru…he would have a chance. We would all have a chance.”
“I’m listening, lad,” Cid said, and he was as good as his word, one ear turned intently towards Albion. The dry outback rustled outside the portholes, as if it wanted every part of this rebellion and wished to hush their whispers.
As they neared the outpost, Albion altered the navigational instruments slightly, just enough to change their heading by a few degrees. Albion knew how. After all, Sam had taught him well. Cid pretended to make peace with the captain, reluctantly presenting him with a hundred-year old Scotch (“You blasted kid! I was saving it for…well, an emergency. Bloody logical, all you Chinese…”). The captain’s weakness for whiskey was legendary, and, deep in moral quandary, he had no reason to suspect Cid Tanner. When he was passed out, the crew simply dumped him out the cargo hatch, with a bag of provisions. They would burn the accursed load of trinkets, saving what sundry seemed safe to consume. Hopefully, the crew would reach fuel and water on Branston pickle alone.
Albion was the one who physically rolled the captain out of the hold. Everyone else was too scared to do it, convinced Sam would bolt awake and shank the man. Two inches from the edge, a drunken hand snaked out and latched on to the bulkhead.
“Why? What?” Sam said, clearly still inebriated.
“Because,” Albion answered, more lucid than he had ever been, “because we are people, not dogs. Because everyone deserves a chance to live, even you.”
And he kicked Captain Sam out of The Huckleberry.
29
Survival Of The Fittest
Rosa
I reached the control apparatus under Westminster when the explosion ripped through the air. Even across the metropolitan span of The Nidhogg, I felt the iron tang of the Red Special. It seemed somehow magnified in the environs of Mordemere’s ship, like standing in a pond while someone belly-flopped into it.
“Albion…” I murmured, knowing full well there wasn’t a soul to hear me. I missed Albion from deep inside my fluttering heart. He was a pirate captain, by all rights he shouldn’t have brought us here. What did we care about what Mordemere did to the world? But we were here, and there was a ghost from Albion’s past here too. Suddenly I wished Cezette Louissaint were with me, ready with some soothing clarity only available from those on the other side of puberty.
Under my deft fingers and dirigible-savvy wit, it was a simple matter to separate the Houses of Parliament from The Nidhogg. What was harder was the temptation to abandon my comrades and assist my momentarily deranged captain. It would be very easy to grasp the rudimentary controls before me and pilot the whole of Westminster over Red Square. At the very least, I would be able to distract the stepfather and stepson into halting their gunfire.
The decision was made in a split second. Impulsive to a fault, I had become a lot more responsible ever since what happened with Nessie Drake. It was my fault Nessie’s heart had been broken. I had chosen the company of men instead of watching over my friend. I checked her tiny pocket watch now, set in a rosette around my neck, and set the tab timer for the appropriate interval: two minutes. Then I stepped deftly out of the cabin and made for the ring of gantry catwalks separating Europe’s landmarks from the airship proper.
As I emerged onto the surface, in sight of Big Ben and the wizard’s spire of The Nidhogg, I felt another change in the air around me. Even without my tarot deck, I might have guessed at the reading; Ten of Air, an impending danger. Perhaps even Ragnarok, the calamity.
When the doors of the Abbey—not fifty yards from me—burst open and a horde of hooded figures were disgorged from its depths in an interminable flood, I was only a little bit surprised.
“What the bloody fuck?” I echoed my captain, before turning and running for my life.
The catwalks weren’t very direct, taking right angles and winding detours, frustrating attempts to reach the spire. In another moment, I was glad of them. The horde was flooding into the gantries at such a pace, they were tumbling over the tight turns and into the sky below.
At my own nimble turnings, I was able to look more closely. No, not clankers, like I first thought. There wasn’t order, they were just swarming blindly, perhaps sensing the impending change to their environs. These things might have been clankers at one point or another, but I caught the look of turned ankles, limps, and uneven arms struggling to balance into an efficient run. A scent of rotted flesh like bad eggs and sour meat drifted to my nose, along with a feeling of infinite despair.
Even as the thought occurred to me, the gantry beneath my feet gave a rumble, sort of settling on its pivots. I turned and gaped. A gap was appearing between the gantries and the gaslit streets of Westminster. Massive pistons rose from their seats, clamps unbuckled, locks undid with whirring precision. Perhaps some of the pea-soup climate had been preserved when the place had been stolen, but I fancied there was a line of mist separating the nest of Big Ben from its moorings. I hoped Cid had been right, that Ben would float gently to Earth like Mordemere intended.
Meanwhile, the horde still came, jumping the gap and falling into it when they failed. They quickly filled the catwalks with a grimy fury, lik
e typhoon sewage into the streets. I got up from where I had fallen and ran once more. They were getting close, far too close for comfort, and now I was near enough to make out similar hordes from the other separating landmarks. I found myself surrounded by drifting islands in the ocean of sky.
Dimly, my helmswoman sense of steamworkings spotted the arrangement of valves, wheels, and other machinery running alongside me. I began to reach out, tripping this fixture and that lever, releasing scalding hot vapor in plumes. It made the horde rear back in pain. Like any good mob, they simply trampled their scorched fellows beneath mismatched feet and kept on coming. The steam seemed to make the smell worse. It was slowing them down, but not enough for me to escape completely. I would have to find some structure to hide in. But hadn’t we released all of those into the sky?
I realized now there had never been any choice in the matter. If I had stayed to pilot Westminster in some attempt to help Albion, I would have been overrun by these creatures, torn limb from limb. I would have to have faith in her captain, and look out for myself. Being a pirate now meant what it always did: survival.
There was only one place to run, deeper into the center of The Nidhogg, where Jonah Moore had hidden his guilty Core.
30
Repentance
Albion
In the aftermath of the Red Special, I was left huddled on the ground, clutching the useless weapon in shock. That was it. That was all three shots. Victoria lay loyally near my left hand, heavy with six slugs. It had been a gift from Captain Samuel.
What had I done? The fact I had expended all of Jonah Moore’s crystals did not fully register just yet. The clanker had held a weapon to Elric Blair’s head, and the Red had torn the man limb from metal limb. All that had been left was a greasy red blot on the stones. The thought that I had just done that to my adopted father rang alarmingly through my head.
It had been a mistake. I had been caught up in the firefight, slipping, dodging, and using every trick I had learned to win. I had, perhaps, reached too far into my bag of tricks. I tumbled headlong into cover. Scrabbling for weapons, I had recovered the wrong one. By the time shell-shocked fingers registered the weight of the Red Special, the index had pulled the trigger.
I got up, slowly. My coat was aflame, smoldering at the edges. I got rid of it again, hurriedly, and shivered at the cold seeping through my vest. The buttons blistered skin at a touch, static at every bit of metal. The mist hadn’t yet cleared from the spot where Captain Samuel had been standing. I suddenly wished it never would.
“Gah….” I moaned.
My leg had struck something as I had been thrown backward, and now I was having trouble walking. It was an ominous sign. I could hear something stirring not too far from the Red Square, probably in the other landmarks nearby. It was a mechanical whirring, a steamy hiss probably indicative of my crew at work. There was also a rustling, clinking sound faint on the wind. Clankers? It meant I did not have much time.
The mist cleared. There was no grease spot. There wasn’t even a body. What lay there was only a rucksack, partially opened. No pistol lay within, just a package wrapped in some dirty rags. I hobbled my way over, looking around for signs of Captain Samuel. There were none.
“Just like you, to run when you’re outmatched. I had to learn it from someone…” I muttered.
Although, I reflected, I couldn’t actually remember the last time I had done so. I always wanted to, but I hadn’t, not even from Inspector Hargreaves’ insistence on this hare-brained mission. Somewhere deep inside I had parted from my adopted father’s pattern and struck out on my own. I might be a pirate, but it was good to know I was also my own man.
I had never aimed to kill, I knew, not through the whole firefight. Neither had Captain Samuel.
I picked up the rucksack, and took out the package. Inside, of course, was a foot-long sliver of what looked to be a very pale amethyst. There was also a box of cigars, a flat bottle of some fiery bourbon, and some other bits and bobs I couldn’t be bothered to look at. I took a swig of the bourbon, and the taste hit me as hard in the memories as it did in my liver. At least it warmed me against the cold.
I took a hard look now at the spire not too far in the distance. The bridge out of the square wasn’t too far away. Even on a complaining knee, I could make it easily. I wondered about my crew. Would I find them there, in The Nidhogg, finishing the job, or had they already abandoned me when they saw me fighting Captain Sam? I realized I had spent months with them, longer with Rosa, and I couldn’t really tell what they would do. I was accustomed to being a leader. But pirates didn’t make friends. I suddenly wanted friends. I wanted my ship to be somewhere they belonged. After all we had seen, I wanted a place to belong. If freedom meant having a choice of anything in the world, I wanted my Huckleberry and our little band of misfits in the sky, getting drunk at the Straight Hook and falling off the decks.
I wanted Rosa.
I had reached a bridge. The gantries all about me hummed with activity, bolts rising slowly out of mountings, pistons suddenly popping from their seats. The ship was preparing to release Red Square back over Europe. I hobbled over the heavy-duty seals between the gantries and sat down on a pylon to watch the Square fall away before my feet.
The man with the strange wooden shoes waited not too far away. I barely even noticed him before I was knocked down and the rucksack taken. My enemy moved slowly, and he didn’t carry any weapons. The flamboyant robes were torn and burned, and the hand rummaging in the sack looked like it was in some kind of black glove. In a moment he had the guidance crystal in hand.
“Hell,” I said. I pointed Victoria at the man’s chest. “You can have it. It will save me the trouble of carrying it with me to Mordemere. Just leave the bourbon. Oh, and the cigars. Rosa likes those.”
Wood Shoes looked about to argue, but looked at me a little funny. He wore a mask that had cracked a little bit, showing the gleam of an eye. Behind the cracked face of a demon it looked like he was in some considerable pain. Before he left, he tossed something that I plucked out of mid-air. It was smooth, with a pin at the back. Rosa’s cameo brooch. I looked back at him quizzically, but he simply nodded. Then he took the gift horse of the crystal and bounded away sprightly. I noted the man had been an Oriental, like me.
I picked myself up, still mourning my lost coat, and threw on the rucksack. There was an airman’s jacket in there with a fur lining, still smelling of cigar smoke and cheap cologne. It hit me mid-abdomen. A little warmer, I hobbled the last lengths of catwalks, emerging onto the landing of the spire. I heard clearly through the mist a sort of caterwauling, as of a lynch mob scenting blood. But I couldn’t help my crew now. There was an open gate right before me, and inside, a spiraling stair.
“I hate bloody stairs,” I said, but I began to climb them anyway.
Thankfully, they went up three flights before terminating at a row of little closets. It was a lift, I knew, from the gated walls and the cables visibly attached to the pulley on top. They were rare enough even in the more prosperous buildings. I hoped Mordemere had not booby-trapped it somehow, but right then I physically could not climb the stairs up the spire. There was one gate closed, and a closet missing, presumably already ascending towards Mordemere.
With some trepidation I got in, and yanked the gilded lever toward the up direction. Everything was labeled clearly, and when the elevator began to move, it did so silently, without any sign of an engine. The floors drifted past the gate one by one. I caught sight of elaborate laboratories, shining with apparatus. There were lavish libraries, filled with oiled leather tomes, and heartrendingly beautiful parlors filled with comfortable chairs and bar nooks. It was an unending parade of things Mordemere possessed, yet the fact the ship existed all around me meant the alchemist was still unsatisfied.
Give greed a face, and it would be the man who wished to live forever.
I slunk down on the floor of the elevator. I wasn’t particularly tired, or depressed. It was a con
scious decision. I would wait, and rest, and when the elevator reached Valima Mordemere, I would be ready to do what needed to be done, with what remained of my strength. Six faithful slugs, sitting pretty in Victoria’s cylinder.
31
Rosa and the Heart of the Serpent
Ammunition gone, knives spent, we despaired of going back the way we had come. Even Blair’s photogrammer was out of exposures. My bodice was torn in several places, showing off my dusky assets. But nobody here was looking. We ran without a thought for decorum, as the horde chased us towards the middle of the flying city.
The way back was blocked by a vast expanse of empty air. It gaped between the various landmarks freed from the yoke of The Nidhogg’s ethereal hold. Her emptied, ruined gantries hung across the void, taunting us with bridges to nowhere. Only a thousand-foot drop into Eastern European sky awaited those who dared pay the toll.
In the face of an unending tide of monstrosities, we had nearly collided into each other escaping in the same direction. We hadn’t wasted any time, heading right into the spire’s open portal–an arch of what looked like dull lead, carved in strange runes. Even I did not know from what tradition they hailed.
Hargreaves loped down the narrow corridors at my side. Her scorched skirt made me wince momentarily. Were my skirts as ripped and bedraggled, as coated in blood and machine grease? They said steam was good for cleaning, but I knew this bodice would never be gorgeous again. I would dig up these tights later and still find them stinking of this place. The Nidhogg bled a rank miasma, venting steam purple with the smell of something unclean. Blair was having the worst of it, carrying Cezette Louissaint, who seemed to have curled up into his arms, shivering.