Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “My lady, I’m so sorry.”

  “Shut up, Barika.”

  For the last half hour before they arrived at the gates of the Upper City, all the detective could think about was her growing need to urinate. But as the carriage rattled to a stop, she forgot her need and instead focused on the sounds of Lady Sade and her companions stepping out and collecting their things. The carriage shook as servants retrieved the cases on the roof. One of the children laughed and was promptly slapped.

  Suddenly the noises were very faint, and then they were gone all together. Kella lay in the hot darkness, reveling in the stillness of her uncomfortable hiding place. She counted to one hundred, and then pulled out her tacks and pushed the cushion away so she could drink in the cool mountain air. After replacing the cushion, she climbed out into the carriage house, one large enough to shelter dozens of steam carriages, coaches, and horses, but at that moment the horses were the only ones to see her limping across to the door, squinting at the bright courtyard, and slipping out into the city.

  The Upper City was no more a city than the humble village that sprawled below it in the valley. What stretched across the mountain ridge was a shining palace, once a military fortress and now the airy paradise that housed generation after generation of Numidian princes and Mazigh warrior queens. Here within the city walls, Kella could see elegant Hellan temples, soaring Persian towers, and angelic Espani statues all gathered together by Ifrican royalty into a single, harmonious artwork of stone, glass, and bronze. For a moment, the detective allowed herself to simply stare at it all.

  Then she hurried away from the carriage house across the courtyard and up a quiet street of massive buildings that transformed the roads into shaded canyons where only a few supervised children seemed to be roaming. The unfamiliar city was at once utterly baffling and yet strangely sensible, as though the chaos of temples, towers, domes, and gardens had been scattered around the palace to subtly guide all travelers upward and inward to the private house of the queen.

  Kella let the roads lead her away from the gates and into the stone canyons and forests of Orossa, past titanic columns and monstrous bronze women and men on marble pedestals, through quiet shady lanes past the occasional tutor and her charges, past the occasional soldiers who nodded politely to her as she limped by on her cane.

  The queen’s home nestled in a park dotted with enormous acacias, each one meticulously trimmed and trained to stand almost like a dancer with arms raised, waiting for the music to begin. Beyond the trees and the shrubs and the colorful splashes of flowers rose a pale dome flanked by two towers, all veined in flowering vines and spotted with the watercolor glints of stained glass windows. And beside every door and below every window stood a member of the Royal Guard in bright white coats and veils, rifles clasped across their chests, silent and still. Only the dark tufts and braids of their hair shivered in the mid-morning breeze.

  “Well, there’s only a few hundred of them.” Kella sighed into her scarf. “Now I just need to get past them, find Lady Sade, and convince the guards to arrest her. How hard can that be?”

  Her inspection of the mansion grounds slowly spiraled away from the house across the lawns and gardens, and came to a sudden halt as she recognized a circular grate set into the ground in the center of a shady path just a few yards away. She went to stand on the grate and heard the familiar echo of rushing water beneath her feet.

  Well, it’s better than nothing.

  Chapter 40

  “How many times do I need to explain this to you people?” The major stepped closer to the guard in white barring the entrance to the Royal Road. The guard wore an infinitely calm, sleepy-eyed look that Syfax recognized as the fatalistic resignation of an experienced killer. “The governor of Arafez, Lady Sade, and Ambassador Barika Chaou are going to murder the queen. Now get your asses moving, there isn’t much time!”

  “No unauthorized personnel beyond this point.” The guard blinked her heavy lids. “The queen is in no danger. All travelers on this road are searched, thoroughly, both here and at the palace gates. All visitors are searched again upon entering the queen’s home, and when entering the queen’s presence. I searched Lady Sade myself less than an hour ago. There were no weapons of any kind on that carriage.”

  “Wrong, soldier. Chaou has an electrical device implanted in her arm. And at least one other member of their party has another weapon hidden specifically to kill the queen.” Syfax glanced across the dull-eyed faces beneath the white helmets. As the train whistle sounded behind them, the guards’ horses whinnied in reply. “We need to get up there, now.”

  “Major Zidane, when did you arrive in the Lower City?”

  Syfax hesitated. “On last night’s train. Midnight.”

  “And if you believed the queen’s life to be in danger at that time, why did you not report it immediately, last night, instead of waiting until now?”

  Syfax felt what little control he might have had over the conversation slipping away. He heard Kenan’s boots scraping over the gravel as he shifted his weight. A new plan came to mind and Syfax wondered how well the corporal could follow his lead. “I spent the night watching the hotel to see whether Lady Sade would be meeting with any other agents or contacts in the Lower City.”

  “And did she?”

  “No.”

  “I see.” The guard blinked again, a slow and deliberate gesture. “So you then let these would-be assassins continue on their way up the road before coming to us with this information, information that you believed to be critical to national security.” She sighed to reinforce exactly where she thought this matter fell in comparison to actual matters of national security.

  He clenched his teeth. We would have been here on time if Kenan hadn’t fallen asleep during his watch. Syfax said, “Look, we don’t know exactly what weapons they have. All we know is that Sade has friends everywhere, and we thought it would be safest to arrest her on the road, under your jurisdiction, where she could be isolated.” That much was true, although the legal dancing didn’t sound as reasonable in the early morning light as it had the night before.

  “Step back from the gate, sir. The queen is safe. But I will report this to my superiors in the Upper City. Private?” A second guard joined the first. “Go down to the signal light and relay the major’s concerns to the commander.”

  “Ma’am!” The second guard trotted away toward the slender tower standing on a rocky outcropping a hundred yards away.

  “There. The matter has been brought to the commander’s attention. You may leave now, major.” The guard swiveled her eyes away to stare out over the Lower City.

  Syfax glanced at Kenan. The kid looks angry, ready to spring, ready to strike. But he doesn’t know what I’m about to do and that’s gonna make this tricky. Mostly for him.

  Syfax burst into a sprint, angling for the narrow gap between two of the guards standing in front of the gate. As if on cue, the two figures in white closed shoulder to shoulder and snapped their rifles down, but they were too late. Syfax grabbed the rifle barrels and twisted both weapons out of their owners’ hands, and as the two soldiers fumbled to recover their guns and grab the marshal, one of them tumbled forward onto all fours. Syfax planted his boot on the fallen guard’s shoulder and leapt over the gate. He landed on the dusty road, rolling once over his shoulder, and then launching himself to his feet, running toward the horses tied to a row of posts in the grass.

  A single gunshot echoed across the valley and the major tensed in anticipation of the pain, but the pain never came. As he freed the first horse and leapt into the saddle, he glanced back toward the gate. Kenan had thrown himself at the two men who had lost their rifles, and he was grappling with them both for control of their weapons. A third guard was on all fours, recovering from a blow to her chest or belly. The fourth guard stood behind Kenan, the barrel of her rifle pulled tight against the corporal’s throat, crushing his windpipe as he wrestled with the other two’s rifles.

  Sy
fax kicked his horse into a gallop, charging up the road as fast as its hooves could climb the mountain path. As he rounded the first curve and began to pass behind a low wall of raggedy shrubs, he glanced back one more time to see Kenan lying face down with three of the guards pinning him as they tied his hands. The fourth one had reached the horses, freed a mount, and was clambering into the saddle even as she lashed the animal into a gallop.

  Syfax leaned down close to his horse’s massive, rocking neck and felt the wind rushing back over his sweaty scalp. “Run. Run hard, girl, because I’m all out of tricks.”

  Chapter 41

  Taziri ran her fingers through her sweaty, greasy, tangled hair as she stared bleary-eyed at her console. The Halcyon’s cockpit was cold and clammy. A faint sheen of moisture clung to the gauges and seats, making everything a bit unpleasant to touch or sit on. Still, she flipped her switches and tapped her needles and listened to the airship come to life. Beside her, Ghanima yawned.

  “Ready to go home?” Taziri muffled an answering yawn as she wrapped her blue scarf across her nose and mouth. The warmth of her own breath wafted back onto her face, carrying the vague scent of a military breakfast with it.

  “Definitely. I’ve had enough excitement for one lifetime. I just want a bit of home, and my sister, and some quiet.” Ghanima set her feet on the pedals and grabbed the controls. “So, tell me again how we know this thing is ready to go? It’s so quiet.”

  “She’s always ready. It’s one of her many charms. Take us home.” Taziri waved at the ground crew outside as Ghanima eased the throttles forward and the Halcyon floated up off the grass as her propellers whined into the early morning breeze. The airfield slowly contracted below from a wide lawn to a tiny patch of green, nearly lost among the rough lines of the Lower City streets and rooftops. The sun was still over an hour from reaching the top of the eastern ridge and the valley glowed with a muted, colorless light.

  “Have you ever seen the Shrine of the Mother?” Ghanima glanced over her shoulder.

  “Once, a few years ago. You?”

  “Not yet. Would you mind if I made a pass over it? Just to take a quick peek?”

  “Why not?”

  The city below rotated a bit and then the western slope began growing steadily larger as they cruised toward the steep mountain face. The trees blurred together into wide swathes of infinitely speckled greens, broken only by a thin pale line winding its way up the mountain. Taziri tapped the window. “There’s the Royal Road. It’s just gravel, you know. You’d think they would bother to pave the only road going to the palace.”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Ghanima pointed straight ahead at a black speck on the road.

  “Where?” Taziri squinted. “Oh. I see. Must be some poor messenger getting some exercise he didn’t ask for.” She smiled. “You’ve got really good eyes.”

  “Thanks. Hey, I think there’s another one, just below the first one. And I think they’re moving pretty fast.”

  Taziri reached up into her tool rack with a frown and pulled down her binoculars. It took her a moment to find and focus on the two figures on the road. “They’re on horses. The bottom rider has a white coat. Royal Guard, I guess. The top one…has a red coat.” She exchanged a worried look with her pilot. “It looks like Major Zidane.”

  “So he made it back! But what’s he doing down there? Shouldn’t he be in Arafez with Kenan tracking down Doctor Medina?”

  “I would have thought so, but something must have gone very wrong because that guard has a rifle in her hand.”

  “So what should we do? Shouldn’t we try to help the major?”

  “I don’t know.” Taziri glanced around the cockpit for inspiration. “The mountain is too steep to try to land near him. We can’t even fly near him. One stiff breeze would have us kissing those trees.” Her gaze passed over the winch by the door. “Ghanima, how’s the Halcyon feel right now? How’s the wind? How steady do you think you can hold her?”

  “It’s pretty calm right now. No jitters in the controls. Why?”

  “I want you to get above the major. I’m going to toss him a line.”

  “What? You want to pick him up, straight off a running horse?”

  Taziri hopped out of her seat and started pulling the winch rope out onto the cabin floor. She looked up with a shrug. “Why not? Do you have a better idea?” She pulled her goggles down over her eyes.

  “Not yet, but by the time this is all over I’m sure I’ll have thought of one.”

  Taziri felt the deck pitching and rolling as the airship climbed closer to the western mountainside. She unlocked the hatch and swung it open, letting a dull roar of cold morning air into the cabin. The slope of the mountain below was horribly skewed from the very low to the very high just a few yards to either side of the Royal Road. When she looked down, the road and the two riders seemed impossibly far away, yet when she looked straight out she saw a mountain forest that was much too close for comfort. She kicked the rope out the hatch and watched it uncoil into the fresh morning air.

  “All right, that’s all the rope we have.” Taziri shouted over the wind. “Ghanima, we need to get lower, and speed up a little.”

  The pilot waved in response.

  Taziri gripped the edge of the hatchway and stared down at the tip of the dangling rope. It was still behind the major, but Syfax was staring straight up at her and waving.

  “He sees us. A little faster and lower!”

  “Any lower and we’ll be in those trees!”

  “We can handle a few trees!” Taziri slipped her hand into her shirt and wrapped her sweaty fingers around the silver compass pendant hanging around her neck as she muttered, “Please God, let us handle a few trees.” She watched the sloped forest reach out for the airship. Above the Royal Road, the trees seemed to be clawing at the gondola, their evergreen boughs waving out from the mountainside, while the trees on the lower side of the road were so far below them that she couldn’t see more than their topmost canopy.

  A great mass of twigs and needles swept softly against the hull. Then something heavy slammed into them.

  “Sorry!”

  “You’re doing great!” Taziri kept her eyes on the rope. It was hanging just in front of the major’s horse now, but she couldn’t tell how much lower it needed to be. The major seemed to be pushing the horse even faster up the steep road. “Just a little lower!”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Not really.” She squeezed her compass cross a little tighter, driving its four silver points into her palm. “Just a little more!”

  A dozen heavy tree branches smacked against the Halcyon in rapid succession, followed by the high-pitched shattering of the cockpit windows. A soft rain of glass slivers and shards flew back and peppered Taziri’s right arm and leg. She brushed them off her flight jacket as she glanced up at Ghanima, who waved back. “Nice to know this armor actually works.” She pulled a long splinter of glass out of her pants leg. “Mostly.”

  She leaned out the hatch and looked down to discover the major clinging to the rope. His horse had slowed to a walk some distance behind them and Syfax was hauling himself up the rope, hand over hand. Dimly, she heard him yelling. She lurched against the winch lever and the rope spooled itself back up, bringing the major with it. “We got him! Pull up! Pull up! Get clear of the mountain!”

  The deck twisted sharply under her feet as the airship banked out over the valley. Taziri fell hard on her rear and then scrambled back toward the hatch just in time to grab the major as the winch pulled the last of the rope inside. They both fell back into the cabin and lay in a heap on the floor. Taziri staggered up a second time and yanked the hatch shut. She turned and leaned back against the wall, panting. “Remind me never to do that again.”

  “I will.” Syfax stood up slowly. “What the hell were you thinking? I waved you off, but you ignored me. So I grabbed your damned rope and you left me dangling down there for a whole minute. I could have been shot a dozen times waiting for
you to pull me up!”

  Taziri smiled faintly. “It’ll go smoother next time. Promise.”

  The major only glared back at her and then squinted into the wind pouring through the shattered cockpit windows. “We have to get to the Upper City. Chaou and Sade are probably there by now. We may not have much time to stop them.”

  “The Upper City?” Ghanima twisted around to wince at Taziri. Her goggles looked massive strapped across her small face.

  “Major, we can’t get to the Upper City.” Taziri slipped back into her seat and glanced across her gauges. “It’s a no-fly zone.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Nope. They’ve got a dozen big guns spread out all around the queen’s private landing field and anyone who isn’t on the queen’s skybarge gets shot full of holes.” Taziri drummed her fingers on her console. “These are big, nasty guns. Half are artillery, half are high-speed mechanized rifles. It’s impossible for anyone other than the queen to fly into the Upper City. That’s why even Sade has to take the road.”

  The major leaned forward over Ghanima’s shoulder to squint at the mountainside. “If you can pick me up off a running horse, then you can drop me off somewhere too. Maybe we can circle around and find a ledge outside the city.”

  “There aren’t any.” Taziri pointed to the map tacked to the wall. “The Royal Guards know their business. They surveyed the entire mountain ridge and used explosives to break up all sorts of ledges and boulders, anything an enemy might use to approach or attack the palace. Besides, the winds are absolutely wicked up there. Even if we just wanted to drop you off the rope, we’d be hanging around in their gun sights for at least ten minutes, which is ten minutes too long. I’m sorry, major, there’s just no way.”

  For a moment no one spoke, and the Halcyon’s engines droned louder through the open windows. Bits of glass tinkled and crackled as they tore free of the shattered edges of the canopy. Finally, the major straightened up and said, “Can you at least take us up at a safe distance so we can see the Upper City?”