by Sean Little
“You’re a rude little man, aren’t you? Please know that wasn’t a comment on your height, but rather your pettiness. Mr. Clarke, why haven’t you pummeled him?”
“Because he could blow up five square miles of where we stand killing everyone in town.”
“Ah. Wise choice,” said Bobbins.
“Wise, indeed,” said Enwright. “Now, put the girl down. You will drop your weapons in the dirt and help Mr. Clarke with these wheelbarrows.”
Bobbins looked like he’d just been slapped. “Manual labor? I’ll do no such thing.”
Enwright sighed. “Mr. Clarke, please adjust Mr. Bobbins’ attitude.”
Clarke explained the full significance of the boxes that Enwright held down to the fact that every child in the area would not see adulthood if he pressed the button.
Bobbins’ face blanched. “I see. Well…”
“In fact, while I’m here, why don’t you just sign over the deed to the castle to me,” said Enwright. “You certainly don’t need any claim on this property any longer.”
“I don’t have the deed on me,” said Bobbins. “It’s with my family’s business manager in England.”
Enwright’s face crinkled in frustration. “Fine. I will send someone to fetch it from you soon. Turn it over without hesitation or there will be consequences.”
“Fine,” said Bobbins. “If you wish.”
“I daresay, this day has turned out amazingly well,” said Enwright. “For me, at least. I can imagine the rest of you are feeling mildly defeated.”
“You have the crystal already, why take the castle, too?” Shaw asked.
“I can explain that.” A voice called out behind them. At the gates of the castle, Tesla was standing next to a horse and wagon with Csupo.
Tesla picked up a chunk of the rock from the shattered gateway. “The castle itself has nethercrystal woven into the very brick. The entire castle could be mined for a fortune. Whoever holds the deed to the castle is the richest man in the world. It is wealth beyond the dreams of Midas.”
“I’m wealthier than the queen?” said Bobbins. He couldn’t help but let a smile creep across his mug. “Won’t she be furious to know that!”
“Enough!” shouted Enwright. “Load my crystal onto my ship!”
Csupo and Clarke picked up one wheelbarrow. Bobbins and Chef, the other. They walked them carefully up the stairs to the ramparts. The two pilots of the zeppelin lowered a rope from a crane attached to the side of the gondola. One at a time, they hoisted the two wheelbarrows on board the ship. Then, they lowered a rope with a harness on it to pull Enwright to the gondola.
“Change of plan,” Enwright said. He pushed the harness toward Bobbins and held up the detonator. “Your man, Mr. Clarke, killed three of my crew. You’re going to take their place.”
Bobbins pulled a face. “Maybe you haven’t quite picked up on it, but I have this whole aversion to physical labor. I find it dreadfully boring, and as such, I try not to do it. Ever. I will have to decline politely your kind invitation. I would be happy to hire new men for you, though.”
Enwright’s thumb twitched over a button on the smaller remote. “Chef, was it? Would you care to tell Mr. Bobbins what happened to his butler?”
“I’ll assume it wasn’t pleasant,” said Bobbins.
“Sandsworth is dead,” said Clarke. “Enwright killed him. He can kill Chef in the same way.”
“Shame,” said Bobbins. “This was supposed to be his retirement. I just promoted young Hornsby to be my valet, you see. Sandsworth was going to retire here by overseeing my little-used Romanian property and serving as primar in my stead. That is a terrible shame.” A dark shadow passed his face. “Terrible shame.” He tried to compose himself. He straightened his shoulders and looked to his cook.
There was a pitiable look of fear in the chef’s eyes. He tried to be brave, anyhow. He spat toward Enwright’s feet. “Tell him to go to hell, Lord Bobbins,” said Chef. “I’m ready to die.”
“I can kill everyone in the town,” Enwright reminded Clarke. “I don’t much care who dies from here on out. I got what I came for at this point. I’m only looking to sweeten my deal, maybe provide myself a little protection.”
Bobbins looked to Clarke. Clarke could only give a slight nod of consent. He didn’t have a better suggestion. “I’m sorry, m’lord. I don’t know what to tell you. I failed you.”
Bobbins inhaled sharply. “Disappointing. I may have to take this out of your promised salary, Mr. Clarke.” Bobbins slipped into the harness. The crane pulled him to the gondola of the airship.
The harness lowered again, and Enwright slipped his arms into it. He cast the mooring lines of the airship from the ramparts by slicing the ropes that held it in place. The wind was getting stronger. “Gentlemen,” he said brightly. “It has been a pleasure. Do take care of my castle. I shall return for it soon.” The dwarf lifted into the night sky as the Dark Runner began to climb.
“That is it, then?” said Tesla. “Enwright has won?” The group watched the airship climb, battling winds as it did.
“Looks that way,” said Clarke. “Unless you have access to a zeppelin to chase him with, we’re kind of stuck.”
The Dark Runner blended in perfectly with the night sky. It disappeared in seconds. They could hear the engines running full, though. The men on the ramparts stood squinting into the darkness, trying to track the vessel.
“There,” said Tesla. He pointed into the sky. There was a faint light. A flash. Like a firefly on a spring night. It was someone sparking a lighter repeatedly. They watched it. It was sparking in regular intervals. Quick, quick, quick. Pause. Slow. Quick. Quick. Quick. Morse code? Clarke watched it for another moment. It was Morse code. It was a simple message being repeated rapidly:
S-H-O-O-T/H-E-R-E.
“Bobbins!” Clarke exclaimed. “He’s giving us a signal.”
“Shoot here,” said Tesla. “Those are clear instructions.”
Clarke shouted, “I need a gun! A long rifle!”
“Clarke!” Dolly Shaw was at the base of the steps to the ramparts. She was leaning on a crutch with one hand, and in her other hand she was holding a long, heavy Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle, only customized with a large, silver scope on the top and a pair of strange tubes that extended from the sides to near the end of the barrel. While the rest of them were watching the Dark Runner, she actually did something useful. She threw it underhand to him. The gun spun in the air and Clarke caught it. He checked the chamber and saw it was loaded with a single shot. It wasn’t a standard shot, though—it was a bluish-metallic bolt, a Pink. He’d never seen a sniper rifle adapted to handle Pink rounds before. He dreaded to think of what it could do to a human body.
Clarke steadied the gun on the edge of the wall. He knelt and adjusted the angle. The wind was strong, so he’d have to use the old Kentucky windage to compensate the flight of the blast. He adjusted the barrel up an inch to compensate for drop and left two inches to compensate for wind. He’d only get one shot at this. His mouth was suddenly dry.
“If you shoot the crystal, the ship will explode. Everyone will be killed, including Lord Bobbins,” said Tesla.
“He knows what he’s doing,” said Clarke. “That’s too much crystal for one man to possess. That’s probably too much crystal for the world to possess. The explosion will be violent, too. At least at that altitude, it probably won’t do much harm. This is the only way.”
“What about me?” said Chef. “What about the town? What about you all? What about Bobbins?”
“I don’t know,” said Clarke. “You might die, too. We all might die. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“There is a chance the blast will be so violent that it will prevent the detonation signal from being sent from Dr. Enwright’s devices,” said Tesla. “It is a small chance, though.”
“Bobbins is too valuable an asset to be a hostage. He knows this,” said Shaw. “That’s why he’s telling you to kill him. We have no choice.
”
“But the town!” Csupo pleaded. “What of the town?”
Clarke was a solider. He was good at following orders. The order given was clear and unquestionable. He hadn’t wanted to make the only logical call, so Bobbins had made it for him. The world is more important than the town. It had to be. He patted Csupo on the shoulder. “Your primar has made a decision for you all, for the town. This is for the safety of the world. Please forgive me. Forgive him.”
Chef stood straight, throwing his shoulders back. He resigned himself to his fate. “So be it. Shoot well, Mr. Clarke.”
Clarke looked around to them all, making eye contact with each man and Ms. Shaw. “It’s been good to know you all. If there’s an Other Side, I hope I see you all there. First round of drinks will be on me.” He sighted down the barrel of the rifle. He inhaled deeply, and then blew out a long, steady breath. He closed his eyes for a second, mentally envisioning the shot. He opened his eyes, held his breath, and with slow, steady pressure, he fired.
The rifle cracked like thunder, its report lingering in the night, even above the howl of the wind. A jet of pink light flared from the end of the barrel and disappeared into the blackness. Nothing happened for a moment. Clarke felt a hollow form in the pit of his stomach. Had he missed? Did the gun misfire?
Then, in an instant, the night sky was illuminated with an explosion beyond anything Clarke had ever witnessed in his life. It was like a star going supernova, a second sun birthed into being directly before their faces. The shockwave thundered across the mountains. Despite the altitude of the blast, stout trees were felled. Animals panicked. When the wave of the blast hit the castle, the men on the ramparts were propelled backward falling from the ramparts to the ground below. The wooden structures around the castle shuddered and collapsed. Loose rocks on the ramparts were knocked out of place. The noise was immense, and then there was a ringing static of silence. The winds at the high elevation blew out the flames of the central explosion and whisked them to nothingness. Chunks of flaming zeppelin fell from the sky like tiny comets. They trailed flames that dwindled and snuffed the flames to ember. The black of the night sky quickly reasserted itself once more.
No one in the castle died. The nearby town did not explode, either. Tesla’s prediction about the explosion severing the devices’ connections had been true.
Clarke forced himself to sit up. He didn’t want to. He hurt all over. He needed a vacation, he decided. He needed to go somewhere where no one would shoot at him, or throw a punch at him; somewhere without any buildings with more than one story. Maybe somewhere without steps, either. That would be good. A stair-less city at sea level. That would be ideal. If he never fell to the ground again, that would be for the best he decided. Csupo offered Clarke a hand, and he accepted it, getting to his feet. He felt his bones. He decided he was hurt, but not badly. Nothing broken. The next day, he would hurt worse, but he would live.
Chef was still alive. He had broken his collarbone in the fall, but the detonator had not exploded. He was grateful to have only suffered a minor injury. “Good shot, Cowboy.” He patted Clarke’s shoulder.
Tesla was unflappable, as always. In his frumpy, ill-fitting clothes, he looked like someone waiting for a train rather than a genius who had just survived an explosion the likes of which the world had never seen.
As a group, they turned their attentions to the sky where the Dark Runner had met its fate. “At least he went out a hero,” said Dolly Shaw. She was a hard woman, a woman who could control her emotions, but tears were pooling in her eyes. When she spoke, there was a hint of tremolo in her voice. “Hard to believe he’s gone. The world is going to get a lot less interesting without him in it.”
“I only hope the parachute jacket I made him worked,” said Tesla. “Then he might have had a chance, provided the shockwave threw him clear before he pulled the cord.”
“That’d be nice,” said Clarke. “Wait—parachute jacket?”
Tesla looked at Clarke as if he was stupid, which—comparatively—he was. “The one I made for him. That is what he was wearing when he went onto the ship. If it worked, he had half a chance of parachuting to the ground, if he could have cleared the initial explosion. Perhaps the shockwave helped him clear the flames, as it did for you in the church, Mr. Clarke.”
“What?” Clarke grabbed the genius by the shoulders. He pushed his face to be nose-to-nose with Tesla. “Tell me this again: He was wearing a jacket with a parachute in it?”
“Yes. It is similar to the prototypes Mr. Broadwick has been testing, but I believe I improved upon them. There was a large canopy of treated silk hidden on the back of the jacket, and some silk strands infused with fine steel wire. It should have held him, but I was unable to test it fully. He insisted on having it immediately. His exact words were, ‘I need one because you never know when you’re going to have to leap out of a dirigible.’”
“You’re joking,” said Shaw.
“I never joke,” said Tesla. He blinked twice and looked at the sky again. “It appears his logic was sound in this case.”
Clarke ran to the wagon on which Csupo and Tesla had arrived. The shockwave had flipped it on its side, but the horse was unharmed and the harnesses were still intact. The wagon was put right easily. Clarke led the horse in a circle to point it out the gates. Shaw crutched through the bailey after him. Tesla followed behind her.
Clarke slapped the reins on the horse’s rump and spurred him to a run. He went out over the fields to the south, toward the path where the Dark Runner had gone. A few pieces of the debris were still smoldering, flickering flames providing some light as a beacon so Clarke could target the potential landing zone.
They drove overland, bouncing through the snowy fields. The debris field grew larger. Most of the Dark Runner had been evaporated in the explosion. Only some chunks of the interior and a few pieces of the metal skeleton for the balloon remained. When they got closer to the wreckage, Clarke could make out a shape in the dark. A smile came to his lips unbidden. He tapped Shaw and pointed.
Seated on a rock in the middle of the debris field, looking a little worse for wear, was Lord Bobbins. His hair was mussed badly, his mustache was singed, and his clothes were chalked with oil and ashes. His face was stained with soot. The parachute from the jacket had been successfully deployed and was now draped across the field behind him in a heap. The winds were blowing it, but it was clear that a gaping, smoldering hole in the top of it would prevent it from ever being used as a parachute again.
Bobbins gave them a wave as they approached. “Ah! Mr. Clarke. Good show. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to walk back home. Nicky! The jacket worked splendidly! Well, at least it did until it caught fire. Then, there was a little bit of a panic as I wondered if I would get close enough to the ground to survive a fall if it burned away, but I seem to have made it down all right. Next time, though: Flame retardant! That’s the key!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
What Happened Next
In the end, it was decided by Lord Bobbins and a special session convened by the Queen’s closest advisers that nethercrystal was simply too powerful for anyone to possess in large quantities—world superpowers, especially. A sand grain-sized fleck here or there was bad enough, but a mass amount like what was beneath Cărbunasatul needed to be dealt with appropriately and with due haste.
With the help and backing of the Romanian King, the British government chose to force an evacuation of the city of Cărbunasatul en masse. No exceptions. Every man, woman, child, cat, dog, horse, cow, chicken, and mule were paid to relocate. Many took Bobbins’ offer to relocate back to England. The north of England shared many characteristics with Romania, and the people quickly found land that needed to be cleared and farmed, plenty of trees to be felled and construction work for the woodsmen, and coal mines that needed miners. The citizens found in England the economic prosperity that Bobbins had promised. They still celebrated him as their savior.
Vasile, Csupo, and Andr
ei relocated to Bobbins’ estate in England. Vasile oversaw the gardens at one of Bobbins’ smaller estates. Andrei was put in charge of helping to integrate the Romanians by teaching them English. Csupo was put in charge of stables on Bobbins’ main estate; he was also granted permission to court the young woman he fancied. The people of the town viewed him as a hero for rescuing their people from the caves. This improved his standing greatly in the eyes of the mother of the young lass.
Shun survived his bullet wound. The last time Clarke saw him two agents from British Intelligence were secreting him away in a zeppelin, a Dark Runner, in fact. The little man waved somberly at Clarke from the rail of the airship’s gondola. No hard feelings. Clarke waved back. He wondered if he’d ever see him again. He hoped he would, though. You can’t carry a man on your back for miles without forming some sort of bond. A machinist like Shun was probably too valuable to be allowed to have a normal life, though. The British government would certainly find a use for him.
From the safety of Bobbins’ airship, Endeavour, high above the ground and miles away, Clarke watched the detonation of the castle itself. The explosion was not as grand as the explosion of the Dark Runner airship, but it was still an incredible thing. The explosion triggered all the deposits of nether crystal in the caverns and mines, and even the flakes of the crystal beneath the village. It was a succession of large and small blasts of flame that culminated in a final cloud that could be seen for miles.
When the explosions finally died away and all the damage stopped, the region that was once a small mountain town in Romania looked like the aftermath of the Tunguska Event.
(Of which Tesla continued to claim to have no knowledge…)
“That’s that, then,” said Bobbins. There was a faint sadness in his eyes, but Clarke knew it wouldn’t linger. “It is a shame, though. I would have liked a Romanian castle of my own.”
“I’m sure you would have,” said Clarke.
“You know, Mr. Clarke, I like your style. I can always use a man who knows how to take a punch and is too stupid to remain on the ground. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a permanent position with my estate?”
