Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders (The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, Book One)

by Richard Ellis Preston Jr.

  “Enough! Yesterday, bloody and contentious as it may be, is done,” Andromeda said. “If you cannot bury the past, then none of us has any future, except as graves or slaves. End your feud now.”

  Buckle and Smelt glared at each other: their hatred and distrust stifled them. They could neither speak nor move.

  Andromeda’s teeth started chattering uncontrollably. She coughed and pressed her hands against her lips. When she pulled her white fingers away, they were speckled with bright-red blood, the same bright-red blood that now ran in a small rivulet from the corner of her mouth. She uttered a soft sigh and collapsed.

  Buckle and Smelt dropped their pistols and lunged to catch Andromeda as she fainted. Buckle wrapped his arms around her slender waist as Smelt caught one arm and cradled her head.

  “Lady Andromeda, we are taking you to the infirmary now,” Buckle said.

  “No,” Andromeda replied, her voice strident, despite its weakness. The snowflakes landing on her skin did not melt as fast as they should. “Swear. Swear on your honor to end your feud, or leave me here to die.”

  Buckle looked at Smelt again. Their faces were much closer together now as they supported Andromeda, and Smelt looked like a man, more a man than a monster, with large pores in his nose and eyes both angry and distraught. Buckle hated him, but Andromeda’s frailness forced Buckle’s hand, if only until circumstances no longer made an alliance necessary. “I swear, Lady Andromeda,” Buckle said. “I swear to honor an alliance with the Imperial clan.”

  “I shall also swear,” Smelt grumbled, “that the Imperials shall prove worthy allies to the Crankshafts for the duration of the war to come.”

  “Very good,” Andromeda said, placing her trembling hands weakly against the chests of both Buckle and Smelt. “You may now return me to my sickbed.”

  Without a word, Buckle and Smelt gently lifted Andromeda and carried her at their best speed back to the observer nacelle hatch. When Buckle glanced back through the thickening snowfall, he was struck by the sight of Howard Hampton, alone on the colossal roof, standing over the two unfired pistols and a splatter of red blood in the white snow.

  ELIZABETH

  BUCKLE STEPPED INTO HIS QUARTERS and smelled mutton stew.

  Balthazar had ordered Buckle to meet him there. That suited Buckle just fine—he had a bone to pick with Balthazar.

  Balthazar stood in front of the nose-dome window, looking out the cracked glass at the snowy slopes of Catalina, his hands folded behind his back, motionless, as if in a trance. He wore his heavy gray overcoat, which made him look even stockier and bigger than he was. A bowl of Salisbury’s mutton stew rested on the freshly wiped Lion’s Table, and beside that was Balthazar’s open medicine pouch, one vial drained and empty.

  Buckle slowly closed the door. He felt twisted up inside. He wanted answers to the zookeeper’s whispers about Elizabeth. It hurt him terribly that Balthazar might be keeping such information from him.

  For the first time in his life, he was furious with Balthazar.

  “How fares our Lady Andromeda?” Balthazar asked, without looking back.

  Buckle spoke slowly, trying to read the angle of Balthazar’s shoulders. “Not well. I intend to look in on her again before we depart.”

  Balthazar paused, lowering his head slightly, then raising it again. “You are a fool, Romulus,” he said, still facing away. “You should never have allowed yourself the self-indulgence of a duel with Smelt.”

  “I had no choice, Father.”

  “You always have a choice.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Balthazar interrupted. “There is a war coming, Romulus, a war for domination of our world. A war engineered by the Founders. And if they can prevent our coalition and engage each of us, one at a time, piecemeal, then none of us has any chance at all.”

  “As long as we still breathe, we still fight,” Buckle replied. “And if we still fight, then we always have a chance.”

  “But a leader must fight intelligently,” Balthazar replied with his usual low, calm voice.

  “I see you took your medicine. Surgeon Fogg was looking for you.”

  “Yes,” Balthazar replied. He turned to face Buckle. “Despite my disappointment with your latest actions, I am proud of you and your crew. It was a magnificent rescue and escape. Well done.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Buckle answered. “We are a clan. A family. We are duty-bound. There are no secrets between us.”

  Balthazar slowly, deliberately, walked across the chamber, his boots crushing wooden splinters and glass, and stopped in front of Buckle. His gray eyes, striking in their intensity over his magnificent blond-white beard, bored deep. “You wish to speak of something with me, Romulus?” Balthazar asked.

  Buckle cursed himself. How could Balthazar read him so easily? It wasn’t as if he were a Martian, with the aqueous humor around his eyes glowing bright red with rage. He had his left hand inside the pocket of his winter coat, and his fingers were clamped around the smooth leather cover of the message scroll Osprey Fowler had given him. He pulled the scroll out of his pocket, opened it, and read it aloud: “Elizabeth alive. Founders prisoner. Perhaps escaped. Whereabouts unknown. Aphrodite.”

  Buckle lifted his eyes to Balthazar’s and found sadness in them.

  “Alas, so now you know,” Balthazar whispered. “Now you know.”

  “Now I know?”

  Balthazar turned, placing his hand on the steampiper helmet on the Lion’s Table as he looked out through the nose dome. “Never trust a zookeeper to keep a secret,” he said.

  Buckle clamped his fingers over the scroll and strode around the table to face Balthazar. “How can you joke?” he blurted, feeling the blood rise in his face. “You knew that my sister was alive? You knew and you did not tell me?”

  Balthazar’s eyes turned so hard, and with such a suddenness, that Buckle, despite his anger, almost took a step backward. “I cannot be certain that she is alive,” Balthazar said.

  “When? When did you get the message?”

  “Just before I left for the truce meeting at the Palisades Stronghold.”

  “But how, Father,” Buckle blurted, his anger shifting to hurt confusion. “Why, why, if you knew, why in the world would you not tell me that Elizabeth was alive?”

  “Because it wasn’t the time,” Balthazar said.

  “Wasn’t the time? What the hell does that mean?”

  “My decisions are always made for the common good of the clan, not for what might best suit you, or me, or even Elizabeth.”

  “She is my sister.”

  “She is my daughter, whom I would give my life for, whose absence has buried me in sadness. I understand your anger with me—and your confusion at my decision not to tell you of the rumor immediately. It was not the time.”

  Buckle paused, swallowing hard. The leather scroll bit into his palm as he clenched it. “Why, Father? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because she is out of reach, Romulus—for now. Because you are an excellent airship captain, but as an individual, you are impulsive and tend toward recklessness. I knew that the Founders were up to something, and that we were in danger. I did not need you shooting off on your own to try to find your sister. Forgive my silence, but you know this to be the truth.”

  “Perhaps it was true a year ago—before I became a captain. I wish you would have had more faith in me than this.”

  “If you are honest with yourself, I think you will understand why I did not tell you,” Balthazar said, stepping forward and placing his hand on Buckle’s shoulder. “The Founders are mobilizing for war, Romulus. The Palisades ambush was their first move. Treacherous, yes, but with the success of this rescue their machinations shall, I believe, prove to have been a monumental mistake. They have thrown us together with the Alchemists—aye, even the Imperials—in a way we could have probably never managed if left alone. Now we have spilled blood together in a common cause. And with Andromeda and Smelt safely restored to thei
r people, I am certain we can negotiate a three-way alliance. If we can convince two or three of the other major clans to come in with us, such as the Spartaks, the Gallowglasses, or the Tinskins, then we have a fighting chance.”

  Buckle nodded as his fury ebbed away, leaving a deep pool of frustration. “You say that Elizabeth is out of our reach?” he asked.

  “For the time being. You must trust me on that.”

  “And we do nothing to try to find her?”

  Balthazar’s eyes twinkled, the way they did when his mischievous streak came to the fore. “I did not say nothing is being done. I said that she is out of our reach for the moment.”

  “You are counting on your mysterious Aphrodite?”

  “To some extent.”

  “But how do the Founders have her? It was the Imperials who blitzed us at Tehachapi the night Elizabeth disappeared,” Buckle argued. “How did the Founders get ahold of her?”

  “I do not know the connection,” Balthazar said. “Or even if the rumors of her survival are true.”

  Buckle stepped up to the shattered nose window. “If Elizabeth is alive, I shall find her. I shall. I shall smash the City of the Founders—I shall rip the earth in half to find her.” What he did not say was that he would also kill any Imperial who had a hand in her kidnapping, even if that Imperial was Katzenjammer Smelt.

  “And I shall be there at your side.” Balthazar said calmly. “But we shall do it my way. Promise me that you shall wait, and we shall do it my way.”

  Buckle stared at Balthazar. He did not want to promise. Balthazar would let other considerations take precedence and delay the search. He wanted to strike out on his own and find Elizabeth—he also realized that Balthazar knew exactly what he was thinking. “I promise,” Buckle croaked. He felt as if he had just stabbed himself in the soul.

  It was the first promise he had ever given to Balthazar that he was not sure he could keep.

  IT IS A WAR COMING

  BUCKLE ENTERED LADY ANDROMEDA’S CRAMPED infirmary cabin with a knot in his stomach. Surgeon Fogg had bundled her up warmly and sedated her; she rested in her bunk, pale as a porcelain doll, lost in a warm drowse.

  “She is bleeding internally,” Fogg had said, his exhausted eyes red rimmed, before he stepped out. “I must prepare for surgery.”

  Buckle took a long breath through his nose and exhaled. Scorpius was there, sitting beside Andromeda with her fine white hand cradled in his thick, scarred, dark brown fingers. Smelt stood at the foot of the bed, silent, ramrod straight, his monocle dangling at his collarbone, looking for all the world like a gruff but concerned father.

  “She is truly a creature all her own,” Scorpius whispered with admiration. “We had left her to rest. Someone must have come in and informed her of the impending duel. Even though she was so badly injured, she still had the will to climb up to the roof to give you two a piece of her mind.”

  “In the long run, she may have saved us all,” Buckle said. He looked at Smelt, who nodded.

  “She will be fine,” Scorpius whispered. “She is tougher than any one of us, I assure you.”

  “Of that I have absolutely no doubt,” Smelt said softly.

  Buckle stood up. His right arm ached so badly he feared that the sword wound had sprung open again. “We shall go. Rest assured, Surgeon Fogg is an excellent physician, General Scorpius.”

  “I have faith in him,” Scorpius replied.

  Buckle nodded and stepped out into the main keel corridor. He paused as Smelt exited beside him, and then shut the light wooden door to Andromeda’s cabin with a soft click.

  Buckle and Smelt stood in an uneasy silence. Howard Hampton arrived with the chest of dueling pistols in his hands and Kellie trotting at his feet, looking bored.

  “How is the beautiful lady?” Howard asked.

  “Resting well,” Buckle replied.

  Howard offered the box up to Buckle. “I recovered your equipment, Captain. I also took the liberty of unloading the pistols.”

  “Thank you, Howard,” Buckle said. “Now off to your duties like a good lad, and take Kellie with you.”

  “Aye, Captain. Come on, girl.” Howard saluted and took ahold of Kellie, who looked interested in being anywhere else but there, by the collar.

  Buckle watched Howard and Kellie depart down the corridor, passing teams of crew persons on various errands of repair.

  “It appears that the highly persuasive Lady Andromeda has made us unlikely allies for the moment, Captain Buckle,” Smelt said.

  “Yes,” Buckle replied. “And I shall honor our pact. But know that I shall never, ever, even for one instant, ever trust in you, sir.”

  Smelt’s eyes narrowed. “Although you have grievously wronged me, sir, in the illegal taking of my airship—and in that action it was you and not I who broke our truce a year ago—I must also thank you for rescuing me along with your Balthazar yesterday. And in return for my freedom, let me say this to you: I swear, upon my honor, that the Imperials had nothing to do with the attack upon your stronghold at Tehachapi.”

  Buckle scrutinized Smelt for a long moment. He sensed that the man was telling him the truth, but his mind was swimming in an abyss of suspicion, and what he sensed confused him. He did not trust his own gut. Surely Smelt, the trickster, was lying to him. “If not you, then who was it?” Buckle asked.

  “That, I cannot say for certain,” Smelt replied. “But we both know who would be interested in setting our two clans at war with each other, do we not?”

  Buckle could no longer dangle about the question marks in his mind. Dusk had fallen. He still wanted to check in on Ivan before he tried to get the Pneumatic Zeppelin airborne again. He offered the chest of dueling pistols to Smelt.

  “What is this?” Smelt asked with surprise.

  “A gift. To commemorate our new alliance.”

  “It is far too extravagant,” Smelt said, almost backing up. “I cannot accept.”

  “But you must,” Buckle pressed.

  Smelt carefully took the wooden box from Buckle. “It is a magnificent gift. But I still want my airship back.”

  “Then keep them safe,” Buckle said, turning to walk down the corridor. “Perhaps we shall have the opportunity to use them again.”

  Buckle reached the door of infirmary cabin number three and rapped his knuckles across it.

  “Pretty girls enter,” Ivan’s muffled voice came from within. “All others go away!”

  Buckle swung the door open and stepped inside. The small infirmary chamber was dark despite a small buglight, where the fireflies glowed unenthusiastically inside the lantern glass.

  “Hello, Ivan,” Buckle said brightly, even though he did not feel bright.

  “Hello, Romulus,” Ivan said, his voice too raspy and weak to make Buckle comfortable. Ivan’s head and shoulders were propped up by a pillow as he lay on the bunk. Pushkin poked his fuzzy head in and out of the breast pocket of his white infirmary tunic.

  “I heard you got a little crisped last night,” Buckle said. “But Fogg says you will be fine.”

  Ivan smiled, at least with the side of his face that was not covered by bandages. All that was visible of him was his right eye, his nose, and the right side of his mouth. “I’ll be right as rain in a couple of days. Nothing worse than a bad sunburn here, really. Just need to rest up a bit.”

  “Good to hear, old salt,” Buckle said as he sat on the edge of the bunk. “I would be most irritated if I had to try and find a new chief mechanic on this forsaken island.”

  “I hear they are a penny a dozen anyway, Cap’n.” Ivan grinned and winced.

  “You saved the entire ship, you know.”

  “What? By letting a steampiper bomb go off in the middle of the forward gasbags?”

  Buckle laughed. “No. You did not let them position the bomb. Had that happened, inside the stockings, we would all surely be fish food now.”

  “Bah!” Ivan snorted. “I did nothing more than get myself blown up. If they make
medals for that, I’ll let them pin one on me.”

  “By the way, a repair team found that flea-bitten dead rat you call a hat,” Buckle announced. With a flourish, he pulled Ivan’s ushanka out of his pocket. The fur cap was singed and missing most of its left earflap, but he knew that would not matter so much to Ivan—he loved that damned hat.

  Ivan grinned and winced again, planting the mangled ushanka on top of his head bandages. “My ushanka!” he exclaimed. “How am I looking, brother?”

  “Like a true Russian mechanic.”

  Ivan nodded and sighed. “Yes, I am looking spiffy. And right now the enthralling Holly Churchill, standing outside the playhouse back home, is wondering why I stood her up, and planning never to speak to me ever again.”

  “I think she will give you a pass on this one.”

  Ivan’s eyes turned serious. “How is the ship?”

  “In one piece, more or less,” Buckle said, stepping to the door. “We’ll be back on our way in a matter of minutes.”

  “It is a war coming, isn’t it, Romulus?”

  Buckle paused. “Looks like it. So rest up, you crazy Bolshevik. You’re going to be needed.”

  “Aye, Cap’n. Aye.”

  TO THE END OF THE WORLD

  WHEN BUCKLE CAME DOWN THE companionway into the piloting gondola, he found his bridge crew, indeed the entire airship, ready and waiting. Sabrina, Kellie, Welly, Nero, Max, De Quincey, and Wong all stood poised at their stations, along with Sergeant Scully and his blackbang rifle, posted to the gondola until the Pneumatic Zeppelin was safely off the ground. The great rent on the port side of the chamber was temporarily sealed with wood panels, a strikingly ugly backdrop to the elegance of the rest of the interior.

  Everything was quiet as Buckle plugged in. His top hat gurgled, hissed, and steamed. “All right, let’s get some air under our feet, right now,” he said, leaning into the chattertube. “All hands prepare to up ship, emergency launch. I repeat, though do not make me repeat it again, all hands prepare for emergency launch.”

  “All hands ready, Captain,” Sabrina said. “Eighty-six souls aboard.”