by Anna Butler
The blue flashes from the obelisk must have acted in the same way as a lightning strike. I should have realised earlier. Lack of sleep had to be clouding my thinking.
“I know now what happened.” I gave my captive audience a lecture on the dangers of too much electricity, finishing with, “That’s what the pyramid did to us, I think. Our safety mechanisms worked and switched everything off—”
“Making us fall out of the sky.” Nell’s tone was sardonic. “Which didn’t seem terribly safe at the time.”
“We didn’t fall. We glided. Skilfully and under full control, I might add.” I waited until she gave me a little smirk, which was all the apology I would get, and went on, “Seriously, it’s logical to stop the engines if control over the phlogiston and aether mix is lost. I had a good chance of landing an aeroship with a dead engine, but no chance at all if we’d been blown to kingdom come in mid-air.”
Nell conceded the point with a neat little bow.
“Anyhow, all that extra electricity has dissipated, and the batteries and the Leydens have reset themselves. We have a working aeroship again.”
“Wonderful! Now we can get out of here.” Theo mimed wiping his brow in relief, and grinned at everyone.
“No,” I said. “We can’t.”
The House guards were a stoic lot and waited in long-suffering silence for their charges to stop exclaiming and protesting. Theo did a fair amount of expostulating, with Nell providing the soprano part in their little duet, but she gave me a quizzical look and her efforts lacked energy. My clever sister had already deduced that nothing was as simple as we might like.
Ned, however, leaned up against my chair and waited with me for the tumult to die down.
When it did, I laid it all out for them. “I am not taking off with a fully loaded aeroship, without knowing what the pyramid will do when it detects us. Skilled I may be, but tempting fate twice in the hope of a safe landing with all the power wiped out is not my idea of being sensible. Agreed?”
Nods and mumbles from everyone. Which was just as well, because my decision was not up for debate.
“But we must decide on our course of action. First, though, let me try a little experiment.” And at their nods of agreement, I attempted to use the Huissher’s fancy Marconi apparatus. All I got was crackles and sizzles, but nothing resembling human speech. It didn’t surprise me one iota, and after a little chorus of “Da—how annoying!” from the assembled disappointed gentlemen, who suddenly remembered Nell’s presence, and a hearty “Oh, da—dear!” from Nell as she remembered theirs, I told them so. “We’re sitting inside a ring of hills. The Marconi signal is being bounced back. I need to try it higher up, above the ridge line.”
“You said you weren’t prepared to take off,” Theo reminded me.
As if I’d forgotten. “I’m not. We need to get inside the pyramid and see if whatever defence mechanisms are in there can be switched off. Then, we might be able to leave.”
“Only ‘might’?” Nell arched an eyebrow in my direction.
“Yes,” Ned answered before I could. “Only ‘might’. I’ve had time to think about Altenfeld—”
Had he indeed? I must be doing it all wrong if he’d had the ability to think of anything at all except what I’d been doing with my hands. We needed more practice, obviously.
“—and it’s quite clear to me we can’t leave this pyramid open and unguarded and allow him, or anyone else for that matter, unfettered access to its secrets. I can’t rest easy at the thought of the Kaiser getting his hands on whatever it contains. The potential for disaster for the Imperium is too great for me to countenance.”
My personal opinion hadn’t changed. Allowing the Imperium free access wasn’t much of an improvement on the Kaiser, though I supposed it depended upon one’s point of view. Still, I wasn’t prepared to let the Kaiser win. “Neither Ned nor I are prepared to leave until we know this place is secure. That isn’t negotiable.”
Ned gave me that queer, measuring look again before changing it to a nod and a lopsided grin. Reassuring to find ourselves in such accord, even without the benefit of any prior discussion.
“How will you achieve that?” Theo was a touch pugnacious. “Are you intending to sit around waiting for them to turn up and then deal with them? Or what?”
I didn’t rise to the jibe. “Or what. Rather, I have no intention of just sitting around. We have several tasks ahead of us. The pyramid has to be one priority. As I said, we must get inside and try and find the machine. I can’t imagine what it does and how it’s powered.”
“My job, I think.” Ned had been staring out of the cockpit window towards the pyramid, visible, now full night had fallen, as a dark shape blotting out the emerging stars. “There has to be a way in from the outer chamber. I’ll ask Günni to help decipher the hieroglyphs.”
Good. That would keep Günter too occupied for his anti-Prussian feelings to be put to any real test.
“He’ll jump at the chance, I expect. So, you take the pyramid. The other priority is to test its range and power, and that will be my job. First thing tomorrow I’ll take out the two-seater to gather some empirical evidence about how it reacts. All sorts of factors may play into whatever activates the obelisk, and we need to map it out.” I gestured to the world outside. Three brimstone torches bobbed their way towards us. “Someone heard the Brunel start up.”
“I’ll go up with you, sir,” Tatlock offered, although what use he thought he might be was anyone’s guess.
I let him down gently. “Normally I do prefer talking ballast—” I grinned at his frown. “A passenger, I mean. Stabilises the weight with a man as ballast in the back seat and helps me keep the aeroship’s trim balanced without using up power. But I’m not risking anyone else’s life while we experiment with that darn pyramid.” I waited for his reluctant nod. “Anyhow, I’ll take the fancy Marconi device, and as soon as I’ve got some altitude, I’ll message the Gallowglass to give him our precise location and arrange for reinforcements. This is beyond a mere House matter, Ned, and when Theo and I relayed the information given us by the Pasha, we asked him to arrange an official intervention. This could blow up into a nasty international incident. If the Huissher has a military aeroship tootling about somewhere close that we can borrow, all the better for us.”
“Which makes it all the more crucial we work out how to control the machine inside the pyramid.” Ned pointed to the men approaching the Brunel. “A couple of guards. Sam sent them, I expect. Günni is with them.”
Of course he was. Who else? They’d reached the area where enough light spilled from the cockpit windows to illuminate their way, and their pace picked up.
“I’ll go and get the access stair working,” George said.
“Not a word about military reinforcements,” I warned. “Not yet.”
Nell sighed and looked heavenwards. “Oh, really, Rafe, we aren’t entirely idiotic.”
I caught her hand and kissed it. “Anything but. Put it down to my obsessive nature.”
When he arrived in the cabin, Günter was breathless but excited. “It is working! Gott sei Dank! How did you manage this great miracle?”
“Oh, it was nothing Rafe did.” My little sister waved a dismissive hand. “The pyramid struck us with a sort of lightning, you see, that disrupted all the electrical systems and closed down the engine. Now the charge has dissipated, everything works. Of course, we need to stop the pyramid doing it again before we can attempt to leave.” She looked around at us all staring at her. “What?”
“Very concise, Nell.” I let the pride show in my tone. “There you are, Günter. Nell has a talent for nutshelling our dilemmas.”
“It means we’ll be working together again, old chap,” Ned said. “As Miss Lancaster said, we need to stop its machine from closing down the aeroship again.”
Günter’s smile was so wide it was a miracle he didn’t split something. “Versuche mich aufzuhalten!” He added in English for the linguistically ch
allenged amongst us, “Try and stop me! Tomorrow?”
“Yes. The sooner the better. We can work on that while Rafe tests the aeroship. The wall decorations may give us the key, but those hieroglyphs are tricky to translate, to say the least. You’re a better philologist than I am, and I’ll be relying on you.”
Günter gave Ned a wistful look. “I do not suppose we could start tonight?”
“We’ll go at it fresh in the morning. In the meantime, I expect Sam sent you to find out what’s going on. We’d better return and reassure him. Not to mention having a meal.” Ned’s smile was rueful. “I’m half-starved, and George’s idea of hunting a baboon was beginning to sound quite enticing.”
“And we must get some sleep.” Nell stifled a yawn. “Rafe rousted us all out of bed in the middle of the night.”
“It was dawn. Almost.” But that gave me pause. “That reminds me, Nell. You’ll sleep on board the aeroship tonight. The armchairs recline into comfortable berths, and Tatlock and I will be close by.” I held up a hand to prevent her protest. “I trust every man here with my life and yours, but there will be little comfort and no privacy for you in the tent. Nor will there be any privacy for the men. They deserve to be able to relax and not have to be on their best behaviour because they’re worried about your ladylike sensibilities—”
“I thought we’d agreed I don’t possess any?” But Nell pursed her lips and nodded. “I understand. All right, Rafe.”
“I could wish the aeroship were closer to the pyramid, though. Just in case we need reinforcements in the night.” I peered out at the night. “If it weren’t so dark, I’d move the Brunel. First thing tomorrow, when I can see the ground conditions, we’ll move her and park beside the tent.”
Ned glanced at the dark shape looming outside. “As long as it doesn’t start up the pyramid again.”
It would be interesting to find out.
Nell walked back to camp with her arm through Theo’s, the pair of them discussing the possibilities of supper. Nell was hesitant about making anything more culinarily demanding than tea, while Theo speculated on which of the House guards could manage a decent mess of pottage because he’d be death to anything more complex than a beef sandwich, and even then he had doubts about safely wielding the butter knife. Their mutual incompetence in the kitchen pointed to a pleasing compatibility. Günter tagged along with them, his amusement at their flirting quite obvious.
“That’s interesting.” Ned nodded towards Nell and Theo.
“Yes. They appear to be getting along famously.”
“Hmmph.”
I tucked my arm through his, in conscious imitation of our pair of young lovers. “Familial trait.”
Ned choked out a laugh, and we smirked at each other.
Ahead of us, light streamed out over the plateau as Theo held aside the tent flap to allow Nell to enter. Günter went in behind them.
Ned came to an abrupt stop, waving the guards to go on without us. “We’ll be there in a moment.”
Tatlock gave me a startled look but acquiesced and followed the Gallowglass guards when I nodded at him. “Don’t be too long, sir.”
“I won’t be.”
The tent flap fell back over the opening, leaving Ned and me in the dark. The moon was up now, a thin sliver of a crescent giving little light. Ned’s expression was impossible to read. He had turned to face me, putting his hands on my upper arms, rubbing and stroking, his fingers tightening and relaxing—the same sort of comforting motions he’d make with his hands if he’d crossed his arms over his chest in a moment of uncertainty or anxiety and was soothing his own jitters.
“What you said earlier, about not being sure any country should gain ownership of the machine inside the pyramid. Did you mean it?”
I wouldn’t lie. Not to Ned. “Yes. It’s so far ahead of anything we’ve developed. I don’t believe mankind is fit to take on that sort of responsibility. Do you?”
“Not even the Imperium? You can’t think we’d misuse it?”
“Because we’re English gentlemen—honourable and virtuous, moral and true? Oh, Ned. Ask any nation we’ve absorbed into the Imperium. You may get an answer that shocks you.”
“I’m not that naive.” He sounded cross now, and I let him stew in silence for a moment or two. “I’m scared too,” he said at last, with a nod at the pyramid. “Perhaps you’re right about no man being fit to take it on. I don’t know. I’ll have to think hard about it. What shall we do?”
“I don’t know either. We’ve tickled a sleeping dragon into wakefulness, and I have no idea how it might end.”
Ned’s head, dark against a sky now ablaze with stars, nodded. He kissed me very gently, released me, and turned away with a sigh.
And well might he sigh. The dragon had stirred. I could see no way forward that didn’t involve fire and ashes.
None at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We breakfasted well before dawn, despite Nell’s moans and groans at the early hour. As soon as the sky lightened enough for me to see, I moved the Brunel closer to the pyramid.
Everyone gathered near the tent in the cool morning air, watching the Brunel as intently as punters at Ascot with a guinea each way on the favourite. I did not plan on giving them a spectacle to enjoy. Even if the pyramid started up, all I was doing was trundling along on the ground. I didn’t anticipate it would do more than stop the Brunel in her tracks.
Oh, the venture wasn’t without some risk, of course. One slight danger came from the Jack-Frost fingerprints the cold night had left on the surface, feathery ice patterns across areas of exposed rock where the wheels might slip. Or I could run into some unexpected irregularity. But I didn’t expect that. As we’d seen from the air when we arrived, apart from one or two shallow depressions in the middle of stands of stunted myrrh bushes and African redwood, the basalt of the plateau was sliced clean across, originally probably as smooth as a billiard table top. The roughness of the terrain came from hardy grass tussocks and low bushes, which had taken a foothold wherever five millennia of erosion had weathered the rock into little crannies. I’d walked my intended route twice that morning, swiping away the worst of the brush, and I expected to face nothing more momentous than a few obdurate root tangles to roughen the ride.
I started up the Brunel’s engines, and she moved in state, bouncing now and again when she hit the rooted stumps of the larger bushes but forging on through them with her usual dogged grit. I brought her to a halt about thirty yards from the pyramid base and turned her into the wind, ready for a fast takeoff if I needed one. The pyramid didn’t so much as twitch, maintaining its silent menace.
Anticlimactic, but a relief.
Ned watched, Friday-faced, alongside his guards. As soon as I jumped out of the Brunel, he relaxed and gave me the smile I fancied was only ever meant for me. It was nice to be worried over. We exchanged nods; and then he caught Günter’s sleeve and headed to the pyramid’s outer chamber with him.
Theo waited at the entrance to the tent, his taut expression mirroring Ned’s for the same reason, I suspected, my own chest was heavy with tension: the overwhelming feeling that forces were moving, and moving against us. We all agreed we needed to keep Altenfeld from gaining any sort of hold here, but none of us expected it to be child’s play. Trouble was on its way.
Theo nodded at the pyramid when I joined him. “Ned’s desperate to crack on with deciphering this place.”
“Yes. We’ll leave the experts to it. You and I will have to find the safe way off this plateau, when they’ve done their bit.” We shared grimaces and called everyone together for a chinwag on the logistics of the planned test flight. Nell sat near Hugh and Sam, all bright-eyed interest.
“How are we going to do this?” Theo asked. “You’ll need some warning if that thing starts up again.”
“George said the noise started well before it flashed us down out of the sky.”
“That’s right.” George nodded. “We’ll hear it. The m
achine in there has to push the obelisk out and fire it up before it can fire at you, if you’ll excuse the pun.”
“I’ll try.” I blew out a breath. “While the Marconi signal won’t get out past the hills, I should be all right close in. We’ll test it to see. One man in the Brunel ready to call me over the Marconi. When the machine kicks into play, relay that to the Marconi operator, and he can tell me.”
“I’ll hear it first.” Sam brought his fist down onto the rough splints holding his leg. “Being stuck here and not able to do anything else. I can yell to someone outside.”
“Which can be me,” Hugh put in. “All I have to do is sit at the tent door and wave at the Brunel. Raise my right arm for ‘it’s starting up’, whirl my left arm around my head for ‘it’s shutting down’.”
That would work, and give both of them some reassurance they could still contribute. “Then we’ll do it. George, could you get the two-seater out of the hold?”
“I’m on it.” George tapped the shoulders of the two guards nearest him and jerked his head towards the tent door.
“I’ll set up the Marconi with the augmentation device.” Theo darted out on George’s heels.
I offered Hugh a hand up. I drew his arm through mine, and we left with Nell and the remaining guards trailing after us.
Nell gestured to the Brunel. “I think I’ll help Mr Winter.”
If only I could keep my face as blank when betting on a hand in whist. “An extra pair of eyes are all to the good, of course.”
It earned me a knowing look before her mouth twitched into a sunflower-bright smile, and Nell was off in pursuit of her prey, with an airy, “Be careful, Rafe!”
Hugh cocked his head. “Miss Nell and Mr Theo?”
“It looks promising. If being forced to watch the pair of them making sheep’s eyes at each other all day long can be described as such.”
Hugh, of course, was aware of both my natural proclivities and my plan for the dynastic succession in my House. “It will please your father, I expect.” He pointed to a spot to one side of the tent door where he could sit against the pyramid and take some comfort from the morning sun warming the stone, yet still hear clearly if Sam yelled a warning. He coughed once or twice as he lowered himself into place, his hand pressed against his ribs. “I wish I could do more to help you today, sir.”
