Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion

by Howard, Jonathan L

  “Lightskirts do not dress like crows and besides,” Del took a bite of her kipper, “The gentlemen who buy company up there either find it in a brothel down here or take it home with them in a cab. It doesn’t wonder around the village at four in the morning. And, Tom, she disappeared.”

  Pickering sighed and picked up his coffee cup.

  “It was dark and you were a bit of a go. She probably went behind a hedge or something.”

  Del shook her head, “Then how do you explain this?”

  Pickering frowned, “Explain what?”

  “She was radiating Aetherica like a furnace. It was just flowing off her. Who does that, Tom? No one, that’s who, no one.”

  “Well, no one I know.” Pickering said.

  The breakfast talk turned to other things. But later that night, Del was waiting beneath the shadow of the cathedral, her cold hands in her pockets, watching for the girl, the girl with red hair.

  The city is dying.

  I stand on a bridge above the harbour, seeking the water’s warmth, but it is gone. My hands are bare, a flake of ash settles on my palm and burns like ice. I flinch, hissing a curse. Tears fall from my eyes, dampening my face; they taste of salt… or blood.

  I turn and leave the bridge, absently rubbing at a sore spot in the crook of my arm. I will walk now, away from the cold water, away from the tall masts of the ships of the sea and the dark bulk of the ships of the air. I will pass up the hill seeking the shadows of the Downs. It is as if I cannot help myself. As if I am searching for something but I do not know what it is.

  As I near the burnt shadow of Cathedral, the scent of sulphur and smoke grows heavy in my throat. I do not look up to see the ruined stonework. My legs are weary; the ash is so thick that it is hard to walk.

  The flame of my hair spills across my face in a hot wind.

  And then I see it, the light. It is faint, a mere flicker amongst the shadows. But it is there. Clear and bright, like a promise or a gift. I quicken my pace, my footsteps deadened by the weight of ash. I move towards it, thinking how warm it is and that light never comes, in this place.

  Del watched the girl for a week. Waiting for her in the shadow of the cathedral and following her as she climbed into the Downs. The route was always the same and the girl never spoke, never even turned her head, and yet somehow Del could not help herself. She had to be there.

  Afterwards, when she had made the long, cold walk back to her narrow, empty little room in the Ministry, she would fall into fitful sleep and dream of red hair and shadows.

  “It’s no good, I have to do something, I have to find out who she is.”

  Pickering frowned at Del over his breakfast.

  “And how do you mean to do that?” He said.

  Del placed her knife and fork down carefully across the plate as she had been taught, laid her napkin aside and rose.

  “I’m going to the Archive.”

  The Ministry Archive contained everything ever known about both Aetherica and Aetherics, from Gerald Smythworthy’s early experiments in the 1780’s to unpatented designs for Ether-engines and the details of every registered Aetheric in the country.

  Del hadn’t been down there since her training and she wondered if Henry Warner was still presumptive king over that dusty, little kingdom. She hoped not. They had never exactly seen eye to eye. She couldn’t figure out whether it was because of the colour of her skin or what lay between her legs. But either way, Warner did not warm her heart, nor she his.

  In fact Del sometimes wondered why she had never shot him.

  On this occasion, intrigued by her story, Pickering had elected to accompany her and while he engaged Warner in meaningless pleasantries, Del was free to slip past into the shelter of the stacks.

  There was a gentle silence amongst the piles of books, scrolls and miscellaneous papers that was soothing. Del had forgotten how much she enjoyed it, when Warner wasn’t around.

  She moved hesitantly through a secret dark, lit only by shallow Aetherica lamps (as yet unpatented and not available to the general public). She ran careful fingers along the smooth shelves, feeling their age in the veneer of their finish. They were warm beneath her touch, heated by Aetherica which had no discernible source but was present nonetheless. With something close to a purr of pleasure Del slid on into the dusk.

  I am in a room. The ceiling is a jagged hole through which a thousand billion stars shine. I lie on my back on a bed made of nails and broken glass. My eyes are closed but I see everything.

  The walls of the room are dark with blood and pain.

  As I listen, footsteps come closer; I can hear the creak of weight in each step, the hiss of breath outside the door, the rattle of wheels. I cannot move but my breath hisses into the stillness of the room as the door opens.

  He is tall, his hair grey, his face lined. He wears only black and offers a jocular, “Good morning, my dear, you seem in fine fettle today,” as he moves towards the bed. I feel my body press itself into nails and glass, as if to escape his presence. Though it is not him that I fear, not really, it is what his visit means.

  It is the machine.

  He pushes it before him. A barrel shaped body on a wheeled wooden trolley. It has dials of brass and clips of leather and a coil of rubber tubing, the colour of dried skin. I watch as he positions it beside the bed, my hands are trembling, my heartbeat thudding in my ears.

  His long, pale fingers unhook two lines of tubing with brass valves at each end. One end of each tube is fitted neatly into metal ports on either side of the barrel; the other ends are for me. He pauses to stare down into my face.

  “Do not fear, my dear, we must treat you just a little longer. Then your strength will come back, I promise you.”

  His dark eyes are sincere.

  But he is a liar. I will never leave this place; I know that… I have known it for a long time. Just as I know that this is not a place but a dream, a dream that he uses to take what he wants. I try not to stiffen as he approaches.

  I do not relish what happens next.

  He lays his cold fingers against my right arm, and when his touch brushes the soft skin at the crook of my elbow, I flinch. He fits the end of the two tubes into the round fixtures in my arm, pressing tight enough for a blossom of pain to creep up to my shoulder. They lock with a soft click. I look down at the contraption, seeing the long spill of tubing as it goes from my arm to the machine and then from the machine to my arm. I try not to shudder.

  He pats my shoulder, “Soon done, my dear, soon done,” he says.

  He returns to the machine and lifts the lid, revealing the familiar disks and coils of silvered metal that sit on the top, and the round drum below with its layers of translucent material that is not cloth but is fine as silk. He bends down behind it; there is a click, a flash of gold spark and it bursts into life, humming steadily into the silence.

  “I do beg your pardon, my dear,” he says, hurriedly retrieving the screen from the far side of the room and arranging it so that I might be spared the sight of the rest of the procedure. The screen is threadbare and broken, light shining through its faded surface. When he is finished he returns to the ports in my arm and opens the valves.

  I let myself relax back onto the bed, the humming from the machine fills the room and I feel the sudden surge of heat in my arm and then a familiar chill. I do not look down but I know what I would see, the lingering seep of red through the tube as my blood spills down into the machine.

  I seem to bleed forever, the red line inching further and further down and a familiar weakness spills over me. I close my eyes and taste ash upon my tongue. I have the strangest sensation that though this is a dream it is also happening, somewhere. There is a place beyond this city, with a soft, warm bed and white painted walls and there the machine hums just as loudly and my blood falls just as brightly and I want to go back there, but I cannot find the way.

  Then I am falling out of the room with a ceiling made of stars, out into the city where
the ash still falls. I wonder if I will see the light there.

  Four hours later Del looked up from her book. It was bound in leather, clasped in brass and written in Ancient Greek. Sitting across from her at the small study table, Pickering raised an eyebrow.

  “I think I’ve found her.” Del said.

  “And?”

  “She’s a Ghost.”

  Pickering’s face dropped, “You mean she’s dead?”

  Del shook her head, “No, a Ghost. A mental projection shaped by a powerful Aetheric.”

  “We can do that?”

  Del shook her head. “Sorry Tom, only if you are Class 3 or above.”

  “Figures,” Pickering mumbled. “So, she’s in the house?”

  “I believe so.” Del remembered the hollow darkness in the girl’s eyes, and the way she vanished beneath those shadowed eaves, “I wonder why she is wandering around in projected form?”

  Pickering looked at her, “I was wondering that too. Do you think Ancrum will give you a warrant?”

  Del rose and picked up her coat. “There is only one way to find out.”

  Lord Ancrum, Minister of Aether, was the Ministry. His office was on the first floor of the Ministry building and every day between nine and four he could be found there, alternately occupied by staring out of the window at the bustling street and reading the morning papers, a cheroot burning between his thin fingers.

  The rumour was that Ancrum’s Aetheric son had killed himself rather than face his true nature and that subsequently Ancrum had volunteered for the Ministry. Del wasn’t sure she believed it, but the man did have an uncanny understanding on occasion and he was good at trusting his Aetherics.

  When Del knocked on the door he looked up with a smile and waved her in.

  “What can I do for you, Inspector?”

  “I need a warrant, sir.”

  Ancrum nodded, opening his desk and taking out a fresh sheet of paper.

  “The address?”

  Del cleared her throat audibly before giving the street name and house number.

  Ancrum paused, his eyes narrowing and he stared up into Del’s defiant face.

  “Earl Tavistock’s town house? Are you sure, Del?”

  “I’ve picked up a sighting of a Ghost there, sir.”

  “A Ghost, eh, that’s pretty rare isn’t it?”

  Ancrum didn’t ask what Del had been doing up on the Downs.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ancrum nodded thoughtfully and put pen to paper again.

  “The Earl is not going to like this,” he said without looking up.

  “No sir.”

  “Then I hope for your sake, Inspector, that you find something.”

  He held out the warrant and Del took it in cold fingers.

  In her three years as a Ministry Inspector, Del could count on one hand the number of full raids she had participated in.

  On the cold, crisp morning of November 30th 1868, the full force of the Ministry of Aether, Aetherics and Regulars alike, piled into a fleet of four wheeled growlers and let themselves be carried up to the house on the hill.

  It looked so different in the cold morning light with the autumn sun spilling down upon it that Del almost changed her mind at the door. But the Ministry was at her back and a warrant was in her hand. It was too late to turn round now.

  And despite the daylight, if she closed her eyes hard, she could almost see a flash of shadowed skirts and a fall of red hair.

  I dream and, as shadows and ash drift round me, death creeps closer. Sometimes it is hard to breathe.

  I walk and the city is a cage, dark bars arching across the solemn sky. In the distance, for an instant, I think I hear voices. But surely I am alone; I am alone here in the dark.

  I turn my head towards the sound and on the horizon I see light, like an echo of the sun. The light is searching for me. I turn and begin to walk towards it, ash clinging to each step like mud. The light is there, shining before me but I know that when I reach it, it will be gone.

  The Earl’s entrance hall was in the prevailing popular style. Gas lamps lit the large, open space which led from the door towards the sweeping oak staircase and there was chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

  Beneath the baleful gaze of the boy set by the maid to watch them, the Ministry men awaited his lordship. Del shifted impatiently. The opulence of the place was making her uneasy and she felt a wave of relief when the Earl arrived.

  He looked the assembled group up and down as if they were little better than cockroaches and scowled.

  “What is the meaning of this,” he demanded, bluster backed up by the weight of wealth. Del would bet he knew all of the nearest available magistrates.

  This was her cue; she stepped smoothly forward, “I am Inspector Blackamoor of the Ministry of Aether.” She held out the warrant. “We are here to inspect your property for the improper use of Aetherica and Aetherical products.”

  Warrant in hand, the Earl stared down at her, a bewildered expression on his face. Del was used to that look and she could almost see the thoughts crawling their way across his brain. First there would be her sex, then the colour of her skin and then… the name. If she had wanted to, Del could have explained about the poorhouse matron with a diabolical sense of humour and a penchant for Shakespeare, but it was none of his business.

  “I’m sure I don’t know…” His Lordship began, but Del could see how he paled, as he stared into the hard faces gathered in his entrance hall.

  “Do we have your permission to carry out our inspection, my lord?” she said calmly, though of course the Ministry needed no such permission.

  His Lordship sighed, nodded, gesturing with a hand, “By all means, help yourself.”

  The house was quiet and poorly staffed for one so large. They went from empty room to empty room, along endless passages and up and down flights of stairs but nowhere was there any sense of Aetherica.

  At last, tired and dusty, Del was forced to call a halt. They had found nothing but the residual atmospheric sensations you might expect from a city with a harbour at its heart. Del would almost have rather bitten her own tongue than apologise to the Earl but she had no choice. They filed from the house in silence.

  “Never mind, Del old chap,” Pickering said as they climbed back into their waiting carriage. “Happens to the best of us.”

  Del shrugged, but she didn’t answer him. If she closed her eyes she could almost see the girl, drifting pale through the dark with her hair like a flame, up to the house, always up to that house.

  It means something, it must mean something.

  Pickering patted her on the shoulder but she didn’t respond. It was a sombre ride back to the Ministry.

  The light was so close I could almost feel its heat but now it is gone and I am back in that room again, looking at stars through a broken roof. Pain is radiating out from the gold ports in my arm and I curl my body round to escape it. My face is wet with tears. If I open my eyes I will see shadows of things, terrible things. The sky throbs above me, humming as if it were some gigantic engine.

  I cannot see the machine but I know that it is close. It burns my skin, sears my flesh, carves its way through my bones. The ash falls thicker and faster until it is done.

  “Damned toffs.”

  As could have been predicted, Tavistock had complained about their unfounded invasion of his home and Ancrum had had some choice words for Del that afternoon. Afterwards Pickering had bullied them all down to the Victory for an early one, and Del sat nursing her mug, staring into the thick, warm darkness inside.

  Rum was her poison of choice, like all good sailors.

  Pickering shrugged, “He’s an Earl, of course he likes to through his weight around, but Ancrum knows all about that sort.

  Of course he does, he’s one of them.

  Del said nothing.

  “Come on, Del, cheer up. So you were mistaken, it can happen to the best of us.”

  Del lifted her head to stare at Pi
ckering across the dim, smoky air.

  “I wasn’t wrong about her,” she said.

  Pickering held up his hands, “Of course not.”

  Del dropped her gaze. Pickering was right. She had gone to the house and there had been nothing. And now with the Earl’s complaint there would be no going back.

  She drained her mug and stood up to go to the bar. It was going to be a long night.