Cold Stone & Ivy Book 2: The Crown Prince (The Empire of Steam)

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “This way,” she said, turning to lead him down from the balcony to the floor.

  ***

  The Chapel Commons was filled with mourners, waiting for a chance to view the body, waiting to pay their respects. In fact, it was so filled that the carriage was blocked and both Ivy and Gisela were forced to continue on foot. The sky was dark but the yard well lit, and it wasn’t long before mourners recognized her and began to move out of the way, allowing the Most Royal Princess a path to the steps.

  Ivy could hear the whispers as they moved, felt her heart pounding within her. Glanced up to see the seven airships floating overhead, beams of light illuminating the emblems across their gondolas. People bowed, curtsied, made the sign of the cross. Gisela looked straight ahead, acknowledging none as she pushed through them like an icebreaker through a black sea.

  Up a short but steep flight of steps, black banners hanging, black flags waving, and soon, they entered what Ivy could only describe as a cave of darkness, the only light being the flickering of tall candles. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the altar, the pedestal and the coffin.

  Slowly, with the carriage of a swan, the Empress rose to her feet.

  She looked to her right.

  “Gisela,” she said.

  She looked to her left.

  “Valerie.”

  Ivy’s heart leapt at the sight of Christien and she immediately she rushed across the floor to wrap her arms around him. He dropped a large bag and to her surprise, hugged her back.

  “You’re not dead yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” she grinned. “Sebastien?”

  “No idea.” He released her and turned to the Empress. With a daughter on either side, she stood tall and resolute, her beautiful face in a mask of its own. “You have surgical instruments for me?”

  She inclined her chin to the base of the pedestal. Almost hidden by the roses, a black medical bag.

  He strode over to it, removed his jacket and began rolling up his sleeves.

  “Remy,” said Ivy. “You’re bleeding.”

  “Hussar sabre,” he said. “Devilish quick.”

  “But are you—”

  “Yes,” and he pushed the medical bag into Ivy’s hands. “I’m quite able to put the innards back into a dead man.”

  “Show some respect,” growled Gisela.

  “Now putting the life back into him, that will be another story.”

  He reached high to grip the top of the pedestal. It teetered and his fine shoes scraped but within a heartbeat, he was sitting inside the coffin, straddling the Crown Prince of Austria.

  “Please hurry,” said Sisi. “The doors will be opened in one half hour.”

  “One half hour?”

  “Yes, there is a late viewing tonight for Taaffe and all the court.”

  There was silence for a moment, before a sound rarely ever heard echoed through the chapel. Christien de Lacey laughed.

  “What?” asked Valerie. “Why do you laugh?”

  Still laughing, he shook his head, gestured for Ivy to toss him the bag.

  “I don’t care what Wales said,” growled Gisela. “Once he’s done, I will shoot him for that alone.”

  Ivy swallowed and wrapped her arms around her ribs, glanced around the black cave that was the Court Chapel. This was madness, she thought. They would be dead before the night was over. It was impossible to fear anymore, however and she wondered if Sebastien would shoot someone in the head, just for her. Just this once, she thought she might not object.

  Suddenly, around her neck, Ghostlight began to hum.

  ***

  Arclight was home.

  Because I could not stop for Death…

  The tunnel roared and earth rained down as the orb grew with each turn on its mysterious axis, changing from mirror to smoke, becoming black before his black eyes.

  The world was turning black.

  Materia obscura. Dark matter. The darkest in all the universe.

  He kindly stopped for me.

  He wrapped his hand around the locket, feeling the flesh sear from his palm, feeling his bones leap with frost and fire. Smoke curled from the tips of his fingers, snowflakes from the palms of his hands. He released a breath that rose like ash to the ceiling, another that fell like soot to the floor.

  One more, that seemed to stall before it even left his lips.

  And that was the last breath to proceed from the mouth of Sebastien de Lacey.

  He had stopped all together.

  The world was silent, yet amplified. He could hear the drip of a faucet from the kitchens up above. He could hear the footsteps of the people on the streets, the cry of a baby in a top-floor servant’s apartment, the rattle of carriage wheels through the ruts in Vienna’s streets.

  The Carriage held but just Ourselves…

  He could hear a man laughing who had never laughed before.

  He looked up at Sophie. She was smiling her infant smile, hands clutched beneath her chin. He could see her skull beneath her pasty face, the teeth white, eye sockets black as if viewing the negative of a photochrome.

  He looked down at his hands. He could see the multitude of thin white bones within the flesh, the gaps black where the joints and digits met.

  And Immortality.

  She took his hand.

  “Come Bruder, the orb is ready.”

  Pulled him from the wall and led him to the orb, where Rudolf’s life and death flashed before his eyes.

  Together, they stepped into the orb.

  Once again, the tunnel roared as they were swallowed up and the world disappeared around them.

  ***

  “Blast,” said Ivy as the colours of the locket flashed across her face.

  Suddenly, the candles flickered as the chapel roared and shook with a new, more terrible earthquake. Black candelabras thudded to the carpet, banners dropped from the ceiling, statues toppled to the floor. From his perch, Christien swore and Ivy looked up to see the pedestal tipping precariously forward. There was nothing they could do, there was no way they could stop it and he leapt from the coffin even as she dove to the floor. It came crashing down, crushing the roses with its weight, rolling once and shattering the first row of pews before coming to a halt, upside down.

  Outside, the screams of a thousand panicking mourners rose to fill the night sky and the rumble of aftershocks.

  “Lock the doors!” snapped the Empress. “Lock them all!”

  Her daughters rushed to obey and Ivy knelt at Christien’s side. Fresh blood was seeping through his waistcoat and running down his forehead. The clockwork arm was wracked with spasms and sparks sizzled where black glove met sleeve.

  “I don’t know if can do this, Ivy,” he panted. “I’ve tried. Honestly.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know. We all have. It’s too much.”

  “We don’t have time for this!” Sisi cried. “You must help Rudolf!”

  “Rudolf is dead!” shouted Ivy.

  “Ivy,” said Christien.

  “He’s dead!” she repeated and she struggled to her feet. “And you can’t bring him back, no matter how many people you threaten! My mum lost five sons! Five! I’m so sorry for your one, really I am, but death is simply a part of life! Grieve your son and get on with it! You’ll do no good being stuck. It sticks all those around you too and that’s not fair.”

  Like a slap to the face, the Empress pulled herself straight, stared at her.

  “Come on, Ivy,” grumbled Christien. “Let’s put this coffin aright.”

  She realized her hands had curled into fists. She growled before whirling to help him to his feet and together they gripped the edge and heaved. The coffin bumped once, twice, before finally rolling over with a thunk. A white-clad arm, complete with military glove, flopped out of the casket but Christien tucked it carefully back in. He looked up at the Empress.

  “Give me some time,” the young physician said. “I can do this. I just need time.”

  “Remy, no,�
�� said Ivy.

  Slowly, deliberately, the Gilded Empress glided over to them and Ivy held her breath. Sisi lifted Christien’s chin, kissed his forehead. She took Ivy’s hand, squeezed with all her strength.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered. “Take the time you need.”

  Christien nodded swiftly, flipped open the lid and crawled back in.

  “Five sons?” asked Sisi. “How did she survive?”

  “She didn’t. That’s how I know.”

  “Listen,” called Valerie from the stairs.

  “I hear screaming,” said Sisi. “And the cowardice of Vienna.”

  “No, Maman, listen!”

  The sound that had seemed merely an aftershock was now growing and Ivy blanched, so easily recognizable once heard. The rumble and screech of metal track wheels rolling on cobbled streets, carrying soldiers of immeasurable weight.

  “Oh god,” said Christien from the casket.

  “Sentinels,” breathed Ivy.

  “Eisenmänner,” hissed Gisela. “I will kill him myself.”

  The door to the stair banged as if with a fist.

  “Let us in!” shouted the voice of Wilhelm II. “We have come to pay our respects!”

  “We told you not to come!” barked Gisela and she leaned against the door as if to stop him.

  “You have insulted the Empire of Blood and Iron and have caused affront to the Empires of Steam and Steel! Let us in or we will blast this door to ashes!”

  “Hurry,” said Valerie.

  “Was ist los? Sisi?” came a voice from the balcony.

  They looked up to see His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, Franz Joseph the Gilded Emperor himself, coming down the stair.

  Chapter 25

  Of Living Dead Men, Broken Living Men and the Man in Between

  Penny peered up into the darkness.

  “Pull me up, Antoine!” Penny hissed. “Antoine, quickly!”

  There was silence from the shaft and even the dumbwaiter was gone, having been sent somewhere other than Crown Prince Maximilian’s floor.

  “Drat,” grumbled Penny and she folded her arms across her chest. Searching the Crown Prince’s room had been a bust, turning up nothing in terms of world-renowned lockets or counterfeits of such, and she grudgingly admitted that she was no further along in the case of the Villain of Vienna than when she’d started.

  “Of course,” she said to herself. “It could be all a ruse of that rogue, Alexander Dunn. For all I know, he could be absconding with the jewel at this very moment.”

  With a harrumph, she took several steps toward the very fine gold-edged door when there was the sound of a key in the lock, followed by the sound of men’s laughter on the other side.

  “Blast!” she snapped and whirled, rushing back to the dumbwaiter and ducking her head, slipping one bare foot, then her entire torso inside. Braced against the sides of the shaft, she slid the door shut and began to climb the cables, hand over fist, up, up, up into utter darkness.

  ***

  “Was machst du?” barked the Emperor as he marched down the steps. “Sisi? Gigi? Wer sind diese Leute?”

  It was then that he spied the casket and the young physician kneeling atop his dead son, heart and intestines and exposed cavities and a blade and there was silence for a very long moment as everyone in the chapel held their breath.

  Until the Gilded Emperor, Ruler and Apostolic King of half the known world, opened his mouth and a terrible sound came forth.

  It was the sound of heartbreak. It was the sound of ultimate misery. It was the sound of a strong man pushed too far and for too long and shattering into a hundred different pieces for all to see. His cry reverberated off the walls and the banners and the windows and the floors and threatened to rend the very heavens with his pain.

  “Nein, nein, nein, nein!”

  He rushed down the steps toward the casket but his daughters caught his arms, held him back even as he flailed against them. He sank to his knees, finally crushed by the weight of his position, sobbing with a lifetime of buried sadness. The girls hugged him now, their own tears joining his, but even still, his gloved hand reached between them, striving for one last touch, one brush of a finger on the polished, final bed of his son.

  Watching them all, rigid and unmoved, arms wrapped around her waist was Sisi, her face an emotionless mask.

  “Nein, nein, nein,” sobbed Franz Joseph. “Mein Sohn, Mein Rudolf…”

  “Pappa,” said Gisela, and she began to speak quietly but quickly, glancing at Christien, nodding and nodding again. Valerie too, whispering and nodding and it took a moment for Ivy to realize that Wilhelm was still pounding on the chapel’s door.

  She crossed the floor, leaned her cheek against the wood.

  “Go away, you horrible man!” she shouted. “People are grieving and they don’t want you gloating during their time of sadness.”

  “You!” came the muffled response. “I will break you in half! I will break you in pieces! I will ravage you on the altar then throw you down to the people where they will tear your arms from your shoulders and your legs from your hips and your head from your neck and they will dance on your bloody torso, you little English whore!”

  “I’m Welsh!” she snapped. “And I have the locket so I suggest you shut it, mate, before I turn you to gold!”

  And there was quiet.

  She turned her face.

  “Remy, please hurry.”

  “I am, Ivy,” Christien growled. “But if I connect the superior vena cava to the left atrium instead of the right, or the pulmonary artery to the wrong ventricle, I doubt very much that even Bastien is going to get this bugger on his feet. Besides, all the mesenteric tissue has been cut and I have to figure out how to keep his guts from falling down into his boots.”

  “I don’t understand,” moaned the Emperor in English as his daughters helped him to his feet. “I don’t understand what you are doing.”

  “That’s because you don’t believe in the spirit,” said Sisi, arms still wrapped around her waist. “You believe in the sword.”

  “I believe in my son!”

  “You never did!”

  And now she moved, a panther unleashed from its cage.

  “Nothing he did was good enough! None of his ideas were worthy, none of his projects could succeed, not while you and Taaffe and Bismark had the reins. He loved you, Franzi. He loved you and you beat him down like a dog! It is your fault he is dead, Franzi. Yours!”

  “No…”

  “He killed himself, Franzi. He put that pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger! It was only yesterday he was just a little boy!”

  The Emperor looked as though he was about to sink to the floor once again, but his daughters were bulwarks, holding him up.

  “But now we bring him back, Pappa,” offered Valerie. “Now we make it right.”

  She was glancing between both parents and Ivy realized that, of all the children, Valerie was the peace broker, the youngest desperately trying to keep her fractured family together.

  No wonder they married whom they were told. Habsburg love, it seemed, was a lethal thing.

  “Yes,” said Gisela. “And we will use spirit and science to do just that.”

  “This is blasphemy,” said Franz Joseph. “He is desecrating my son’s body!”

  “No sir,” said Ivy and she pushed away from the door. “Christien is a man of science. Sebastien is a man of spirit. If there is any chance in this world that can bring your son back, they are the only two in that world who can do it.”

  Except for the fact that Sebastien isn’t here yet, she thought darkly.

  There was silence in the chapel, save the rumble and squeal of Eisenmänner.

  “It is true,” said Valerie.

  “Yes, Pappa,” said Gisela. “Please, trust us.”

  Sisi said nothing.

  The Emperor straightened and released a deep breath, smoothed his hands along his uniform, tapped the ceremonial sword at his hip once
, twice, three times. He turned to the chaos that was the Court Chapel, lifted a toppled candelabra, set it straight.

  “I must do something,” he said. “I cannot be idle. I will busy myself while—”

  There was a boom from high above the courtyard, a whistle and crash. An answering boom and sirens began to wail in the Hofburg.

  “The Stahl Mädchen!” said Gisela. “Those are her cannons!”

  She raced to the door, threw it open to find Wilhelm staring out at a battle now being waged over the Chapel Commons. Smoke and sparks rose from a silhouetted Sentinel, while behind it, a red beam swept the clouds from a second iron helm. High above, the airships dropped their moorings, slipping away from each other and jockeying for position and safety. The sky lit up as the SMAS Eisenklaue fired now and the Gilded dreadnought swung around to face her, the groaning of her hull like thunder in the night. The HMAS Royal Carolina and the Twelve Apostles gained altitude, obviously hoping to stay clear of the fray and any stray cannonballs that might be sent their way.

  Gisela and Wilhelm began shouting on the stair and Franz Joseph moved swiftly to join them, when suddenly, unnatural colours flashed from behind.

  “Blast,” said Ivy and she looked down.

  The locket, Ghostlight, was spinning, sending kaleidoscopic lights across her face, the ceiling, the black-draped walls. Slowly, it began rising from her chest, a magnet pointing home.

  “Was ist…” mumbled the Emperor as he stepped back into the room.

  High above the altar, a shape began to ripple and blur. An orb, easily the size of a carriage, bloomed into life – large, shadowed and shining like a great black pearl. It hovered over the altar with the hum of a powerful engine. Inside it, Ivy could see stars, suns, clouds, the infinite blackness of space.

  Ghostlight leapt, her chain snapping taut against her neck and Ivy grabbed it with both hands. She leaned back but the orb roared and the locket strained and Ivy’s very fine boots scraped forward on the floor.

  “Remy!”

  In the centre of the chapel, the orb convulsed, shrinking, expanding and pulsing like a heart and a powerful wind picked up, stirring papers and fabric alike. The skirts of the women whipped around their legs, banners ripped from the walls, candles flew across the room, sheet music and prayer books and roses, all whirling now like a cyclone toward the eye. Even heavier items like pieces of broken plaster were dragged toward the orb, only to disappear into its starry depths.