by J. L. Carter
He is no man.
He is no human.
He is a beast from beyond, one that should never have set foot on Earth.
Startled, Margaret retreats into her room and avoids the Prince for the next several days.
11
Two hours outside of the city, a home has recently been purchase. It belongs to Percy and Emma, Margaret’s cousins. They aren’t wed just yet, but the plans for the big day are certainly in the making, and it’s being rushed like no proper wedding ever should be.
In the meantime, the two are left to their devices. It’s hoped that their union will help bring the family closer together, and that the distance from the city will help protect them.
On the seventh week after the start of the Sky Men’s invasion, both of these hopes are dashed.
Like every morning, Emma gets up and makes to fix a pan of eggs. She’s acutely aware of the fact that there are two Sky Men lingering in the room, watching her from narrowed, purple framed eyes. It’s hard to focus on the task at hand.
Emma tries singing a soft, jaunty tune under her breath to drown out the intruders. It doesn’t usually help, but it’s all that she can think of to do.
It’s of a lady fair and a shepherd’s daughter dear,
She was courted by her own true heart’s delight.
But his mother laid a snare and false letters did prepare,
Saying, “Meet me in the garden, dear, this night.”
So this young maid arose and into the garden goes
Expecting there to meet her heart’s delight,
She searched the garden round but no true love she found
And at length the bloody gardener came in sight.
He said, “My pretty maid, what’s brought you here this way,
And have you come to rob me of my flowers so gay?”
She cried, “No thief I am, I’m in search of some young man
Who promised that he’d meet me here this day”
Then he took out his knife, cut the single thread of life
And he laid her virtuous body in the ground;
And with flowers fine and gay this maid did overlay
In a way her body never should be found.
Her true love lay asleep on a mossy bank so sweet
And a milk-white dove come fluttering round his face;
And with battering wings so sweet all around this young man’s feet,
And when he rose this dove she flew away.
This dove, she flew away and perched on a myrtle tree
And the young man followed full of grieve and pain.
Down from the tree so tall right on her grave did fall
The fresh blood from her breast like crimson rain.
Oh, this young man in anger rose and unto to his home did go
Saying, “Mother dear, you’ve lost me my delight,
You’ve robbed me of my joy, my jewel and my toy,
And now with my darling I’ll take flight.”
As she continues singing and humming, Emma cracks one, two, three eggs. She glances over her shoulder. The Sky Men are still there, watching.
She cracks a fourth egg. In the hallway, a door closes. It seems that Percy has been drawn out of hiding. He spends most of his days locked in the study, muttering nonsense words to himself about rebellion and bloodshed.
Truly, it’s quite frightening!
A fifth egg, and another thump. This one doesn’t sound like a door. Emma looks up again—one of the invaders have vanished from the room.
The other one is staring at her, frowning. Emma tries to smile, but it feels stilted and broken. “I’m sure that he just knocked something down. Percy can be horribly clumsy when he’s tired.”
The creature doesn’t say anything. He seldom does.
Nervous, Emma turns back to her eggs. She’s only just started to flip them when another thump fills the air, followed by a wretched sort of scream.
“Get off me, you sick human!” cries the Sky Man. He spins around, flinging open the door that leads to the hallway. Percy is there, brandishing one of the good kitchen knives.
“Back up,” orders Percy. “Back up, and let me in.”
There’s purple spattered on the front of his dressing shirt. The buttons are askew, pushed into the wrong spots. It gives him a rumpled, disheveled appearance. The dark spots laying under his eyes only serve to farther the look.
“Percy,” yells Emma. “What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of them,” says Percy. “I’m getting rid of them! They don’t belong here. This is my house. Mine, do you understand? I’m tired of having them here. I’m tired of letting them use my supplies to destroy my city.”
“You are the only one destroying anything,” says the Sky Man. His name, Emma thinks, is Mainard.
She might be wrong.
It’s very hard to pronounce, and even harder to remember something that’s only been said once. Emma steps backwards, until she’s pressed tight to the counter.
“Lower your weapon,” instructs Mainard. Up until this point, the Sky Men have been very peaceful, not doing much to bother the soon to be married couple.
Emma has seen the destruction being brought down outside, though. She knows what they’re capable of. “Listen to him, Percy. We can work this out. Whatever you’ve done, I’m sure that we can work this out.”
“Out? Out? That’s right. I want them out! I want them all out,” raves Percy. He takes a staggering step into the room. The heady scent of rum wafts off him. There’s a stain on the front of his white shirt. The young man waves the blade around, but whatever he did to catch the first Sky Man off guard, it’s gone from his mind now.
He looks like a mad man.
Everyone knows that mad men always meet an untimely end.
Percy’s end is not just untimely. It’s also brutal. There is a copper pistol strapped to Mainard’s side. He doesn’t reach for it. Instead, he tilts his head to the side just slightly, and narrows his eyes. The purple scales increase in number; face lengthening; teeth growing sharp. Claws extend from the tips of his fingers, the sort that might be found on a bear or another carnivorous animal.
And then the creature is moving, racing forward. One hand sinks into Percy’s shoulder and the other wraps around his throat. “You have violated all of our laws,” spits the Sky Man, words tinged with the serpentine hiss that accompanies a bout of anger. “For this, you will pay.”
Mainard lifts Percy up by the throat, holding him a loft. His nails dig into tender flesh. Blood bursts from punctured skin, drips down onto the collar of his shirt.
Percy gasps and sputters, grabbing at the hand holding him a loft. Nails rake over Mainard’s skin but they are blunt and shallow, doing no damage at all to the purple scale coated wrist.
“Let him go,” begs Emma, but the words quickly die in her throat. It just takes a single look from Mainard for the young woman to realize that nothing she says, nothing she does – it won’t make a difference.
And so, she tries with something else.
Emma picks up her frying pan, eggs cooked to a hard crust at this point. The yolks have gone completely firm, the edges nearly black. “You shouldn’t have come to my house,” shouts Emma, and then she pitches the entire thing onto the Mainard’s back.
It turns out that hot grease can hurt just about anything, even a Sky Man.
As soon as the creature starts bellowing and wailing, Emma turns and takes off, streaking outside. The front door hangs open behind her. In the kitchen, Percy slumps to the floor, lifeless and cold.
It breaks Emma’s heart to realize that she isn’t broken over it. Percy had been a cruel cousin, and he’d been an even crueler fiancé.
On some level, she almost feels as though the young man deserved such a fate. But, on a greater level, the guilt and fear is all consuming. It drives away rational thought, until she is squandering, floundering, grasping frantically for some idea of what direction to go.
In the end
, Emma runs east, and she hopes that the direction turns out in her favor.
12
Margaret,
I hope that this letter sees you well. It’s been a very long, hard few weeks. No doubt you heard of my impending proposal to Percy, and understand the sheer unease at the prospect. It was not something that I’d been looking forward to on any level.
We went to the country, to a small cottage house. We were only there for several days before the Sky Men came. They were not kind, nor were they cruel. They simply existed as a new aspect of the house – like a particularly bad piece of furniture that came with the building. There were only two of them, which seemed like an awful lot at the time but, now that I am out and about, seems more like a God send.
I digress. It’s hard not to get off topic. The idea of speaking with you – of sharing this information with you – is something that I can’t quite shake from my mind.
They are injured by heat, Margaret. Burning grease, if nothing else. I’m hollowed up with a handful of former troop members, and I’ve suggested that they try and use fire to attack them. While they look at me quite strangely, I think that I’ve almost gotten them convinced.
Even as I write this to you, the men are readying themselves for another battle. I won’t have much longer to put pen on paper. Please tell me you’re well? Please tell me that the Duke is treating you with the respect you deserve?
I will try to write again soon. If I don’t respond to your parchment, I’ve changed location.
Emma
Margaret locked herself in her bedroom for a few days. Only Madeline was allowed to visit her during mealtimes. Still shaken, she can’t help thinking about what Aidar said to her. About his unknown correspondent. How did they communicate? What were they talking about? And, most importantly: was the correspondent someone she knew?
All those questions left without an answer, tormenting her day and night.
Alone, with no one to talk to, Margaret welcomes Emma’s words like a blessing. The first letter comes on Monday. By Wednesday, there’s another one. This one has slightly messier penmanship, as though Emma was in a far greater hurry.
Still, Margaret sits on the edge of her bed and looks upon it with a smile. Her cousin, her favorite cousin, her sweet Emma, is alive!
Margaret
We make great haste now, cutting across the city. There’s a man here named Benedict, and he’s quite a leader. I believe that his family were killed during the early days of the invasion, for he has a horrible vendetta against the Sky Men.
Mostly, I cook for the make shift troop, and I tend any wounds that they receive. I’m far from a nurse, but it turns out that any hand can bandage, and anyone can speak through a fever dream.
They are fond of singing when they have nightmares, and Benedict is fond of my singing even when he’s awake. He claims that, were the time different, I could be famous through my voice. What a charmer!
I never received a response to my last letter. Did we leave before it arrived? Or have you simply not been able to respond? Hopefully, it’s the latter option. When asking around, no one seems to know your name. Yet, they all know the Duke. They say that he is heavily involved in leading the rebellion.
Tell me—is it chivalry and love for his country, or is it a desire to receive fame? We have both in our group, and I have yet to decide which sort leaves a sourer taste in my mouth.
We are heading east. Benedict doesn’t want to tarry long in any one spot. He has a plan, I think, but has yet to tell anyone.
Stay safe
Emma
The next letter is different. The parchment is dirty, the ink smeared. It was written with a shaking hand. Margaret pulls her leather-bound box out of its place beneath the bed, sets it on the mattress, and pops off the top. It contains the two letters that she had received prior, as well as the engagement explanation.
“Alright,” says Margaret, muttering to herself. “Let’s see where you have landed today.”
The letters are more informative than anything that the Duke sends home, with his placating words and insistence that he won’t be gone for much longer. At least Emma is being honest!
Benedict lost a leg today.
I cannot mend it. I hope not to lose him.
This will be the last letter that I send you for quite some while. We are heading to a hostel just a day’s walk from here. Hopefully, there will be a far more experienced doctor there than I.
This letter serves but one other purpose.
Margaret, have you seen their weapons? Crafted of copper and gadgets! That is not all they have made in that manner. I saw a Sky Man with a mechanical hand just two days ago. I have seen them with monocles over their empty sockets that serve as actual eyes, with fingers that hover several inches away from their flesh hand.
They are advanced in more ways than we could ever hope to imagine.
God bless, Margaret. God bless, and stay safe.
Emma
13
As one might expect, the Duke does eventually come home. He lets himself into the house late at night, which isn’t horribly unusual for the man. Julian comes and goes at all hours of the day, and he’s been gone for quite some time!
The door closes behind him with a soft click. Julian picks up the candle sitting just inside the entrance and lights it. A small, flickering flame serves as his only guide through the twisting halls of his manor house.
Julian walks the familiar path up the stairs, heading towards his bedroom. He’s almost there when voices drift out into the otherwise silent hallway.
One is male, unrecognizable. The other is clearly Margaret.
Freezing, the Duke holds the candle higher a loft. It doesn’t illuminate any clues or answers. "Margaret?" Julian whispers the word first, then says it louder.
The voices go silent.
The sitting room door opens. Margaret’s face appears. Her hair has been pulled back into a loose bun. A few strands hang down, framing her face. Even in the flickering shadows produced by the candles, her beauty is unparalleled. “Julian? Oh! Julian, it is you!”
She rushes into the hall, flinging herself at the Duke. Margaret presses her face against Julian’s chest, breathing in the heady scents of the castle. Mint incense clings to him, and it makes her brain feel fuzzy and light.
The creature that follows her, predictably so, pulls his lips back in a sneer. “You reek.”
“And you are trespassing in my home,” says Julian, simply. To think, that his absence had been taken advantage of! His own manor home, turned into a way-station. The thought curdled his stomach, made his chest feel tight.
Before anything else can be said, Margaret takes him by the hand and bustles him off. “None of that,” she says, lightly. “Don’t bother him right now. He’s in a foul mood—and I would rather not spoil the evening. We were beginning to think that you were never coming home, Julian.”
“And by we, I suppose that you mean Madeline?”
“She was quite worried, as was I. But you’re here! Will you be staying for long?”
“I’m afraid not,” says Julian. “Those people—have they been here for long?”
“A while now,” answers Margaret. She leads the Duke into their shared chambers. Most signs of Julian’s life have been erased; it’s been a long time since he was home, and his clothing is all put away, and even his shoes have been tucked into a heavy wooden chest.
Margaret has added several personal touches by now. There is a cup with wilting flowers next to the bed, a painted picture hanging on the wall. Several dirty gowns lay in a heap on the floor.
“It’s alright,” continues Margaret. “They seem mostly harmless. I’ve been talking to the one, he claims himself the Prince! Can you imagine that?”
“A prince?”
“A prince! We speak sometimes. Not often, of course, but on the occasion. He’s told me a bit about his world, and what he’s after. I would like to ask of the mechanical limbs that his men use, but I�
��m not sure if that would be too out of bounds.”
Julian gapes at his fiancée. “You’ve been talking to him? You’ve been talking to the Prince?”
Margaret’s bustling stops, hands hovering above the sheets. Suddenly looking nervous, she asks, “is that a problem? I can assure you, I’ve been quite careful.”
For a moment, all that Julian can do is stare at his loved one. Slowly, though, a smile splits his face. “No,” he says. “No, that’s not a problem at all.”
Julian doesn’t stay at home for long.
In fact, he’s not even in the manor house for a full two days. Instead, he makes Margaret promise to write him often, and then turns and heads back for the castle.
While he has never spoken directly to Aidar past that first conversation, he uses the Prince staying in his home as a reason for knowing plans and meanings ahead of time. Julian doubts that Margaret understands the full meaning of their letters and exchanges.
She’s too sweet for that, he thinks.
She’s too kind for that.
Instead, he asks idle questions, and takes every answer given straight back to Damien and the Prince Regent. They begin to plot in secret. Soon, they will be ready to stage an attack.
However, many would say that soon is not good enough. After all, the world outside their meeting room is starting to change. The invaders use weapons and items that are heavily based off of copper like metals and gear run systems. Clocks are a large motif in their weaponry. “Time is the most precious gift of all,” comments Julian.
He knows what those clocks, when used to their highest extent, might be capable of. Steam-powered pullies are strong up along the top of the buildings. Small, clockwork animals flood into the streets. The water is tainted with a copper flavoring, so that only the wild rivers are truly clean.
