by Pavel Kornev
The Illustrious
a novel
by Pavel Kornev
The Sublime Electricity
Book #1
Magic Dome Books
The Illustrious
(The Sublime Electricity Book #1)
Copyright © Pavel Kornev 2016
Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin 2016
Translator © Andrew Schmitt 2016
Published by Magic Dome Books, 2016
All Rights Reserved
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.
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Table of Contents:
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
Part Two
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Part Three
1
2
3
4
5
6
Part Four
1
2
3
4
5
IN THIS WORLD, THERE WERE no Dark ages; they were called Bloody instead. In this world, the skies were once obscured by the wings of the fallen, striking fear into the hearts of mankind. In this world, science has freed society of its shackles, and the Second Empire, the empire of humanity, stretches from sea to sea. In this world, combat steamships furrow the waters, armored trains await their hour, and army dirigibles float through the heavens. And yet, the delicate balance this world has achieved hangs by a thread. The age of steam is on its way out, and the era of the Sublime Electricity is just beginning. In this time of dramatic transition, even the tiniest deviation in course could topple the world into a vortex of chaos.
"I WILL CUT OUT MY OWN HEART. I WILL GIVE MY HEART TO YOU!"
Phillip August, Steamfonia
Part One
The Fallen
A Titanium Blade and the Power of Imagination
1
IS IT TRUE THAT ALL WHICH is born to crawl cannot fly? Indeed!
People simply were not made for flight, so any attempt at it is doomed to end in a fall. And the faster the ascent, the more disastrous the consequences. Consider, for example, the fallen...
I OPENED MY EYES. I immediately slammed them shut, but it was too late. When I opened them again, I caught a glimpse of the gray-smoke-shrouded sky spinning and whirling above me, creating the illusion that I was lying on a rescue raft in the middle of a giant whirlpool. The mere thought of having to stand to my feet was painful, though, so I stayed where I was, sprawled out in a cowardly fashion on top of the rubbish pile that broke my fall.
I took a timid breath, and my ribs were instantly pierced by a sharp pain. But, when I inhaled a second time, the unpleasant sensations were already on the decline, letting me know that I had been lucky enough to get away with nothing more than a bruise to the back. No pieces of brick, nor broken bottles, as luck would have it, were to be found among the trash heap that took me in its sweet embrace.
That brightened my mood. Overall, I still wasn’t feeling too great, considering the circumstances of my fall but, nevertheless, I did have something to be happy about.
I opened my eyes again.
Gloomy building walls rose up all around me, giving the impression that I was at the bottom of a deep well. Above them loomed a gray sky, hostile and ugly like everything else around. Suddenly, the darkness grew even thicker, foreshadowing the coming of an army dirigible. Its cabin was lined with tightly battened-down square weapons hatches. After that, I saw the tail stabilizers, keel, and Gatling-gun barrels, reflecting back a solar sheen. But next thing I knew, all trace of the airship was gone, as if it had never been there at all.
No matter! It wasn’t as if I’d tumbled out of the cabin of that flying monster. Not at all: I had been sent on a short flight out the snarling maw of a shattered second-story window.
Though, to be frank, saying I was "sent" is rather overstating it.
"Leopold!" the echo of a far off scream rolled over the courtyard. I heard a booming clatter, and a moment later, the voice was closer: "Leo! Curses, where are you?!"
The beam of an electric torch swept over the area; its bright light ran across the walls, sidled off in my direction and went out. Only when my eyes began getting reaccustomed to the darkness did I see a short constable step into the courtyard. He was wearing a police-issue cloak and service cap. His high-caliber lupara was giving me an ugly snarl with the muzzle-end of its quadruple barrels.
"Don’t point that thing at me!" I demanded, frowning in annoyance.
Ramon Miro dallied for a moment, then tucked his weapon into the crease of his left elbow.
"Are you alright?" he asked, looking around apprehensively.
"I will be," I answered tersely but concisely.
"Are you sure?" My hulking black-haired partner doubted, extending his free hand.
I batted it away, irritated. Mustering my strength, I rolled over onto my side, and even managed to lift myself up on an elbow before hearing the jingle of broken glass ring out above me.
A round-faced gentleman of middling years wearing a three-piece gray suit and an equally unassuming bowler appeared behind the glass-shard-toothed smile in the window. With the handle of his cane, he knocked yet another piece of broken glass from the frame, then looked at me, his face acquiring an expression of extreme disapproval.
"What happened to that damned succubus, Leo?" asked Inspector White.
I turned my head, first in one direction, then the other, surveying the entire garbage mound I was sprawled out on and smirked unhappily.
"Well... I can say for sure that I don’t see her here, inspector."
"Detective Constable Orso!" Robert White rapped off,
letting me know that jokes were entirely unwelcome. "Answer me now. Where the hell is she?!"
"I don’t know," I then confessed. "It’s just... I don't remember much after being thrown out that window."
"A particularly regrettable turn of events," the inspector winced, retreating from the window.
I lied back down and sighed helplessly, then looked up at Ramon and asked:
"Well, what are you staring at?"
The constable gave an ambiguous snort and turned away. On his imperturbable ruddy face there was not a sliver of emotion, but his ostentatious indifference could not deceive me – my colleague's disappointment could be felt almost physically.
No matter! There's still the boss to appease...
I sat up among the rubbish and suddenly turned my head. I hadn't yet managed to come to my senses in earnest. Nevertheless, the back door swung open, and Inspector White appeared on a high staircase.
"Leo," he said with uncharacteristic tenderness, looking around the darkened courtyard with a fastidious grimace. "Leo, what the devil happened here?"
I didn't rush to answer. I first stood to my feet and pulled my split-end telescoping stun baton toward me by its rubber-coated cord, then shrugged my shoulders ambiguously.
"A real calamity," I announced when the extended pause became entirely indecent in length.
"Is that right?" The inspector snorted, and his gray eyes drained of their color, losing the last trace of their already faded shade.
The Illustrious Robert White possessed a talent that was exceedingly valuable in our line of work: he could smell lies. He couldn't always tell when he was being lied to but, like a trained bloodhound, he could easily sniff out the conscious intention to mislead when being spoken to. His very, very useful talent was left to him by his parents, who had marked themselves with the blood of the fallen...
That was the very reason I didn't even try to wheedle, and simply lifted my stun baton.
"The shock is weak," I told the inspector.
"You don't say?" asked Robert White, perplexed.
Just then, two constables wearing police-issue cloaks walked up to us with their new-fashioned semi-automatic carbines at the ready. The gun's box magazines stuck up in a way that gave them a silly appearance, but people who really knew guns weren't bothered by that in the least; in small skirmishes, the short-barreled Madsen-Biarnoff rifle spoke for itself quite eloquently.
"I think there’s something wrong with the electric jar," I posited, not paying any mind to the skeptical gazes of my colleagues.
"You've got something wrong with your head, Leo!" the red-headed constable squealed out just then.
"No, no, Jimmy!" intervened the other young man, his teeth brown from chewing tobacco. He immediately clarified his observation, though: "His problem is that he’s got messed-up arms."
The red-head laughed with a satisfied look:
"Billy, old boy! I see no reason why both couldn’t be true at the same time!"
"I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Jimmy! In his case, they seem to amplify one another!"
I didn't get offended; Jimmy and Billy were notorious wisecrackers. Just give them something to mock, and they're off to the races. But the inspector wanted explanations, so my idea to give Billy a jab with my stun baton and put a cork in his yapper doing so seemed like killing two birds with one stone.
So I did just that.
A blinding flash of sparks blazed forth. The constable jumped back jerkily and rubbed his chest.
"Have you gone totally batty?" he bared his teeth.
"Forget it!" I said, waving it off and turning to the inspector. "Like I said, the shock is weak!"
Infernal creatures were particularly sensitive to electricity, but a zap as weak as I was packing would do nothing to stun a succubus or any other hell-spawn for that matter.
Robert White came down the stairs, his cane hanging from his arm, and set about unhurriedly packing his pipe with strong Persian tobacco.
"This morning, you should have been checking the shock instead of reading your yellow rags!" He reproached me.
"But I checked it three times! It was working just fine!"
"Come then, give it here," the inspector demanded, taking the electric jar that I'd pulled from my pocket and looking at the little label on its base. "Des Prez Electric?" He read out and flared up: "Leo, where'd you dig this clunker up from?!"
I answered with the pure truth:
"I got it from our stockroom."
"Curses!" The inspector cried, ripping the cord out in a fit of anger and tossing the electric jar onto the rubbish heap. "Leo, we'd been tracking that beast for two weeks! Two weeks! And it all came to naught because of this piece of junk!"
"But..."
"Silence!" Robert White demanded and set about taking furious puffs on his pipe. "Ramon!" He raised his voice after a few deep draws. "Who manufactured the electric jar in your lupara?"
His gun, with four short ten-caliber barrels, was manufactured by Heim, and used electrically ignited rounds as ammunition. After a cursory glance at its folding stock, the constable reported back:
"Edison Electric Lights, inspector!"
"Do you see, Leo?" My superior scolded. "Remember that for the future: only Edison Electric Lights will do, Tesla forgive me! Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"And by the way, why did you go in without waiting for the others?"
"The door was open. I decided to do some reconnaissance."
"Oh you did? And where’d that get you?" The inspector frowned, shrugging his shoulders in annoyance and starting off out of the courtyard. "Let's go!" he called, but immediately stopped us and patted down his pockets: "Jimmy, where are my gloves?"
"I don't know, inspector," the constable answered, poking his partner in the side. "Billy, where are the inspector's gloves?"
"What are you asking me for?" he snarled, looking around.
"Forget it!" Robert White called for order, creeping under the archway.
Jimmy and Billy sized me up with unkind gazes and rushed off after our boss; I wiped the dirt from my back and shuffled off behind them. Ramon Miro was walking next to me in silence, trying to match my uneven gait.
It should be said that the Catalan constable was a surprisingly taciturn man. Incidentally, he was only Catalonian on his father's side. His mother's origins were among the natives of the New World. As a matter of fact, in temperament, Ramon had more in common with his mother’s people than his Mediterranean father’s.
Just then, a terrified rat jumped up from under our feet. Ramon just kicked it away with the tip of his boot and kept walking calmly. I went over the heap of rubbish lying in the entryway and ducked my head to avoid the soot-coated underside of the arch.
Being tall isn't nearly as glamorous as some envious pip squeaks suppose. It just is what it is.
That silent courtyard was replaced by another, just as dirty and unsightly as the one that came before it. From there, we emerged onto an unpeopled alley and stopped to wait for further orders from the inspector. He unhurriedly tapped his pipe out on the wall of the building, fished a silver pocket-watch out of his vest and pursed his lips, deep in thought.
Taking advantage of the moment of peace, I stomped the rest of the trash off my rubberized cloak, folded the telescoping stun baton back up and took my round tinted glasses from my breast pocket. I clipped them onto my nose and finally felt comfortable again.
Unlike the inspector, I didn't enjoy attracting the attention of locals with my unnaturally colorless eyes. That was why I found it impossible to bear looking directly at someone when talking. Of course, there was also the fact that I didn't especially enjoy people in general. They are usually so obtuse!
"Let's get back to the Box!" Robert White decided just then and, waving his cane unevenly and even nervously, he began walking toward the nearest Metro station.
New Babylon was a surprising city! It was always awake and alive, day or night. H
ere, the wonderful and the horrible were so closely intertwined as to be indistinguishable. And there were no angles or sharp edges, either. It was all just shades and blurred half-tones blending seamlessly into one another.
Ancient palaces, their marbled siding having long since grown dark with soot, butted up against new buildings, which were still clean, though their plainness detracted from any beauty that could have lent them. Avenues, wide in the downtown, got lost in a rat's nest of little winding streets in the outskirts, though it wasn't clear exactly how. Age-old trees in the Emperor's Park were thick with rustling foliage, but their leaves were more-often-than-not yellow and dying from the constant smog. The azure waters of the harbor rolled into shore in unctuous breaks, and the endless sky was constantly packed tight with clouds of smoke from factory smokestacks.
That's how everything was in New Babylon. Even the granite sett paving stones were reddish, not because of the stone's natural coloration, but because they were now permanently stained with the blood of the fallen...
New Babylon was the capital of the Second Empire; at once the heart of government and an ulcer, eating it from the inside.
THE NARROW LITTLE STREET with soot-covered walls, interspersed with the odd hazy rectangular window led us out to an intersection. There, I could see smokestacks, mountainous and crested with long clouds of smoke. Fortunately, the wind was carrying the fumes away from the suburbs today, so it was less smoggy than usual.
Soon, we'd left the shanties behind. The street grew wider, and the stench of reeking factory runoff began drifting up from the grates of the storm drains. We were now going downhill and, a few blocks later, we were nestling up to Yarden Embankment. The silvery expanse of water was shackled by a railroad bridge that stretched from one bank to the other; clumsy tugs and barges looked like toy boats on the backdrop of its pillars, making all the freight dirigibles drifting into port also look less striking than they were.
