Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Ghanima shrugged. “Sure thing. Going up.”

  The ponderous ascent gave them time to move farther away from the western ridge, and as the pale line of the Royal Road disappeared amidst the trees, the Lower City resolved into a tiny patchwork of crooked squares, bright gray roofs, and dark green fields. The view to port slid downward as the tiny airship floated higher until the stark rectilinear shapes of the Upper City of Orossa suddenly appeared, jutting from the wild crags of the ancient Atlas ridge. At its base, the city sat upon a wide ledge carved into the living rock by human hands and etched by howling winds. Atop the ledge the city sprawled like a collection of toy buildings in the distance, a profusion of palaces and temples and towers, all impossibly straight and tall, sweeping and arching, elegant and imposing. The entire city glowed a faint shade of gold in the bright morning light.

  “There.” The major pointed half-heartedly. “The airfield. That green circle there, toward the northern end. And those little black things around the edge must be the guns.”

  Taziri nodded. “Some around the field, others around the edge of the city. Look there, you can see the queen’s skybarge on the field. That’s the Star of Orossa. Huge old thing. Commissioned by the queen’s mother. It must be almost fifty years old now. They have to overhaul it completely every three or four years just to keep it in service.”

  “Hey, it looks like they’re getting ready to lift off.” Ghanima reached over and yanked the binoculars off Taziri’s rack. “Yeah, they’re about to leave. There’s a bunch of people on the field.”

  “What?” The major grabbed the binoculars and pressed them to his eyes. “But if the queen is leaving now, then Sade will have to kill her now, or else wait for the queen to get back. Ohana, it’s happening right now! We can’t wait for the guards to arrest her. We need to get down there now!”

  Chapter 42

  Everyone was waiting. They were all sitting and standing and staring at her, waiting for her to tell them what to do. Sade glared at their dumb stares. “We proceed.”

  “How? The queen will be leaving on her airship at any moment, and she’s taking her children with her,” Fariza said. “Soon she’ll be in Arafez, cleaning up Barika’s mess and wondering what to do with you. With all of us.”

  “You’re certain she knows I’m here? She doesn’t want to see me before she goes?”

  “Yes.” Fariza swallowed. “The page told me that the queen is going to deal with the riots, and then come back here and deal with you.”

  “Perfect.” Sade turned her cold eyes to Barika. “She’s going to deal with me. With us. Because of the riots, Barika. Because of your mess.” The ambassador slouched in the corner, her eyes lowered. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t wait. We’ll do it now. Quickly, go and fetch the Incan girl, but not her man. Now, where’s the cat? Our cat, not the two monsters that the Espani brought. We’ll let the Incan girl present it to one of the princesses, right now, on the airfield. The little brat will fawn all over it and take it on the airship, and in half an hour it will all be over.”

  Fariza sighed and shrugged. “As you wish.” She snapped her fingers and the maid in the corner scurried out to find Lady Qhora.

  They all turned to the children sitting quietly in the corner and Sade felt her breath stop in her breast. “Where’s the cat? Where’s the damn cat?!”

  Chapter 43

  When she reached the end of the sewer pipe, Kella fell out onto the floor in a foul puddle of dark, oily liquids and decaying fleshy lumps that she tried not to look at too closely. Slowly, painfully, she rolled out of the puddle and crawled up out of the trench of waste water flowing out of the cellar. The chamber was cold and dark, filled with large shadowy shapes, many shrouded in dusty sheets and spider’s lace. With stiff, trembling hands, she pulled off her stinking coat and let it fall to the floor in a wet tangle.

  Every tiny unhealed cut and every tiny fresh stitch was burning and aching, sending shivers through her skin and begging her muscles to shudder, fade, and fail. With heavy feet, she trudged up the cellar steps and crept out into an empty hallway. She paused to listen, but heard nothing. She sniffed and caught the scent of something that didn’t stink like a sewer, and she followed the smell down the hall to another deserted room. The laundry.

  Moments later all of her clothing was rolled into a smelly ball and shoved under a barrel in the back corner, and Kella stepped back out into the hall wearing a light green dress and a pale gray cloak. She had no idea who or what she was dressed as, but as long as it wasn’t the costume of someone who had just invaded the queen’s private estate through a narrow sewer pipe, it was an improvement. Dunking her short hair into a steaming tub of soapy water masked what remained of her odor, and a broom stripped of its skirt replaced her cane. With the cloak’s hood covering her wet hair, she set out with an uneven gait.

  As she wandered the lower level, the detective soon encountered other people. Young women and men were busy here and there, moving things about, calling to each other, all very focused on their chores of fetching and cleaning or just stealing a few moments alone in a doorway. Some ignored the woman with the makeshift cane, but most paused to smile and nod and wish her a good morning. One young man even interrupted her to ask whether he could help her. Kella only waved him away with a shudder and cough, and he disappeared into the quiet bustle around them. Groaning, she climbed the stairs to the next floor.

  Stepping out onto the upper landing, the detective heard the light, rapid patter of footsteps. She began walking down the hall and passed several unadorned doors on her right, but on her left the corridor was illuminated by a series of long tinted windows that cast the inner passage in pastoral pinks and blues and yellows. A few dozen yards from the stairs, the left wall ended and the hall became a covered walkway along the edge of a small garden. Flowers of every color and size bloomed across the grounds and the vines twisting up over a lonely Nipponese maple in the center of the sward. A gold and black butterfly flitted past, gyrating through the warm, still air.

  Suddenly the patter of footsteps grew louder and Kella whirled in time to intercept a small boy running toward her. He was crying and clutching a furry bundle in both arms, and he collided blindly with the woman in his path. Kella steadied herself as the child wrapped his arms around her legs.

  “What’s wrong?” She tried to bend down, but his grip on her legs proved surprisingly strong.

  “She’s hurt.” He sobbed and sniffled, and his little hands clawed at her legs, poking sharply into several raw wounds under her dress.

  “Who’s hurt?”

  He held up the wriggling mass of fur and she saw it was some sort of wild cat, not quite a kitten but not quite full grown, with tall tufted ears and wide whiskers around its mouth. The cat mewled and twisted and flailed in the boy’s hands. “I’m sure she’s fine. Just put her down and leave her alone for a little while.”

  “She’s not fine. Look.” He held the cat under its front legs to reveal her belly and the freshly stitched cut running down the length of its body.

  “It’s all right, honey. A doctor did that so she can’t have babies. That’s all. The stitches will help her heal and she’ll be good as new in no time.” Kella smiled at the boy, but a hint of doubt strayed through her mind. That’s an awfully long cut.

  “Oh. All right.” The boy sniffed and gently put the cat on the ground. She hunkered down on the warm stones, shivering. Kella frowned and turned to leave just as she heard a familiar voice in the hallway.

  “…stupid animal. We have no time for—” The speaker broke off as she emerged onto the edge of the garden. Lady Sade’s hair was weighed down with silver rings and her dress was much plainer than the ones she wore in Arafez. Several other women clustered behind her in the shadows of the hallway.

  Sade quickly affected a concerned smile and strode toward the detective. “There he is, my darling boy, we were all so worried! And your precious kitty cat. Thank goodness.”

  Kella kept her he
ad bowed beneath her hood, her eyes on the ground. She saw Lady Sade’s feet arrive just a few paces from her. “My lady.”

  “Thank you for finding the child.” Lady Sade reached down for his arm and gently tugged him toward her. “Pick up your cat, please.”

  Kella tilted her face up.

  Lady Sade reacted only slightly, though sharply. She froze, still clutching the boy in one hand. “You’re not looking well, detective.”

  “I feel worse than I look.”

  “How unfortunate for you. However, I believe you’ll be feeling worse still when the Royal Guards arrive.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about that, but I’d still rather be me than you right now. I saw what was going on in that basement. And I talked to the marshals. What’s inside that cat?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I saw the scar. Is it something electrical? Something to shock the queen? No, that’s too random, too unreliable. That poor girl Jedira said she smelled nitroh down there. A bomb then, isn’t it? A bomb that the queen might have in her arms when it goes off, I suppose, with her family close by. How many people are you hoping to kill today?” Kella’s arms shook. The cuts were opening and stinging. “This is all going to end right now, and it’s going to end very badly.”

  Lady Sade smiled. “You’re going to arrest me?”

  “Somehow, I don’t think arresting you will do much good.” Kella pulled out the marshal’s revolver from inside her dress and leveled it at Sade’s chest. “Your advocates would have you free and blameless in a matter of minutes and I would turn up the victim of some pathetic accident shortly thereafter, courtesy of your Persian friends.”

  Lady Sade’s smile faded. “So you’re simply going to murder me instead?”

  “No. You’d die a victim, not a criminal, and your little friends would all go free, and then I would be executed for killing you. Which is not what I had planned for my retirement.”

  “A stalemate, then?”

  Kella wanted to grin, to look brave or menacing, but she had no strength for it and no stomach for it. A cold, empty pit of horror and disgust gaped in her belly as she tried not to look down at the boy and the cat. “No.” She pointed the gun into the air and fired once, and then screamed, “Guards! Guards! Sade has a gun! Help! Guards!”

  Before Lady Sade could react, Kella grabbed her empty hand and shoved the revolver into it, and then pretended to wrestle with the weapon over their heads so that the gun was clearly visible high in the air. The heavy pounding of armored feet echoed nearby.

  “Guards! Guards!” Kella gasped from the strain as Lady Sade began to grapple for control of the gun in earnest with both hands. The little boy, now free, darted around the pair and clung to the back of the detective’s dress.

  Lady Sade’s face twisted into a hideous angry mask as she tried to pry the weapon out of Kella’s hands. “You idiot, the guards wouldn’t dare shoot a woman in the middle of a struggle like this. They aren’t stupid!”

  “I know.” Kella grit her teeth. “They’re going to need a better reason to shoot on sight, aren’t they? Especially if I want them to arrest your whole entourage, too.”

  The gun shook in the tangle of fingers and bandages and jeweled rings, and the sound of the running soldiers thundered ever closer.

  “So let’s give them a very good reason to kill you right now.” Kella yanked the gun down, prayed that she was pointing it at something she could live without, and shoved Sade’s finger against the trigger.

  The shot echoed across the enclosed garden, followed by a smattering of surprised cries from Sade’s companions. Kella reeled back, unable to breathe. She felt the blood running down her side, hot and wet, trickling inside her clothes. The pain was bizarre, a riot of sharpness and stiffness and burning and coldness. She fell and a moment later the ground slammed into her back and a pale blue sky appeared before her. To her left, she saw the scared little boy sobbing and wiping at his eyes. His face was painted red.

  Then she heard young men shouting across the garden. “Gun-gun-gun!” Half a dozen rifles cracked almost in unison, followed by another smattering of gasps and screams from the women in the hall. To her right, Kella saw Lady Sade fall, her eyes wide, her lips parted in a silent cry of surprise.

  Then there was a lot of dull noise: footsteps, muddled voices, screaming and crying, arguing, armor clanking. Men were barking orders, “Down on the ground! Hands on your heads. On the ground now!”

  Kella tried to swallow and blink, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a hooded figure dart by, the hood falling back to reveal a tight silver bun behind wrinkled features, and in the crook of woman’s arm was the cat.

  A moment later the white uniform of a guard leaned over her, and dimly she felt hands on her face and neck and belly. As she slipped away, Kella heard a young man hollering, “Medic!”

  Chapter 44

  Taziri looked up at the major. “Well? What do you see?”

  “It’s Chaou. I can see her silver hair.” Syfax held the binoculars tight against his eyes. “But I can’t see Sade or Othmani. There are a lot of people down there. Royals, kids, servants, the air crew, the guards. Wait, something’s happening.”

  “What?” Taziri and Ghanima asked in unison.

  “Chaou. She’s moving through the crowd. She’s holding something. It almost looks like a dog. Damn, the crowd is running from her. Servants, kids, all running. But the queen and some others are still between Chaou and the airship. What the hell is that dog-thing?”

  “A dog?” Taziri frowned for a moment before the realization struck like lightning in her brain. “There’s something in the dog! Just like the shock device in Chaou’s arm. That’s the weapon, that’s how they smuggled it past the guards.”

  “A bomb in a dog. Cute.” Syfax grimaced. “And if she throws the bomb near the queen’s skybarge…”

  Taziri nodded. “Then everyone on that field will die.”

  “We need to get down there. The guards aren’t doing squat. They’re just pointing their guns at Chaou. They must be worried about setting off the bomb.” Syfax lowered the binoculars. “What about now? Maybe the bomb will keep them all distracted for a few minutes. Will the men at those anti-aircraft guns still shoot at us now?”

  “Definitely.” Ghanima nodded, wide-eyed. “We can’t possibly land there now.”

  Taziri felt an idea slide up from the back of her imagination, a silly idea, a bit of reckless nonsense that seemed too stupid to actually say out loud, but no one was talking and the need to do something, anything, suddenly felt much stronger than the need to not say something stupid. So she said, “We can crash.”

  “What?”

  “All airships have a few emergency switches and releases. They’re designed to release the gas bag in the event of a collision or a fire.” Taziri’s hands gestured nervously, illustrating what she was saying. “The idea is that if an airship gets blown off the airfield, or has some disaster near the ground, you hit the release and the gas bag floats away and you don’t explode. If we can trigger the emergency collision switch in the nose of the queen’s skybarge, the gas bag will just float away and Chaou’s bomb will just be a regular bomb, instead of a super-bomb.”

  The major nodded. “All right. But how do we trigger the switch from up here?”

  “We’d have to hit it. Like I said, we can crash.” The engineer avoided the major’s eyes. “Isoke and I had this idea once that if we had to, if we really had to, we could release the gas bag while we were in the air and safely crash-land the Halcyon using just the propellers and the stabilizers to control the descent. That’s why we’ve got such long fins on the gondola. It would be a controlled crash. I mean, controlled enough to survive it.”

  “Is that possible?”

  Ghanima glanced at Taziri, and then at the major. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Syfax frowned.

  Taziri swallowed and added, “Plus, it might cause a bit of chaos to have an airship fa
lling out of the sky and crashing into the Star of Orossa. The guards may be able to tackle Chaou, or at least get the queen to safety in all the excitement.” Excitement? I’m plotting my own death, and Yuba will never know what really happened to me. He’ll hear some official statement. My little girl will grow up thinking…what?

  The major stared down at her. “If you think you can do it, then do it.”

  Taziri touched Ghanima’s shoulder and pointed at the controls. “It’ll be safer for you and the major in the back of the cabin.”

  Ghanima shook her head. “Your eyes are lousy, old-timer. I’ll do it.”

  “Old-timer?” She sighed. “All right, let’s do this. Line up our approach and get us pointed at the nose of the barge’s gondola.”

  “One minute.”

  Taziri sat staring at her console, and only watching the view of the city out of the corner of her eye. She noted how very clean her gauges looked.

  “Got it.”

  “Now throttle up to full power and try to keep the bow high.” Taziri watched the airspeed needle. “Stand by to release the bag.” The needle edged higher as the wind blasting through the open cockpit grew wilder. “Stand by.” Over the whine and growl of the wind, she heard the soft, almost muffled sound of cannon fire. She reached across her workspace and opened a small panel in the wall, revealing a thin steel handle painted red. The airspeed indicator notched upward, approaching the Halcyon’s best possible speed. “Ready…releasing…now.” She yanked the handle down.

  The fourteen struts connecting the gondola to the gas bag snapped free of their housings with a short metallic screech and Taziri felt her stomach lurch up into her throat as the Halcyon plummeted toward the rocky mountainside. A moment later, an artillery shell exploded above them, followed immediately by the thundering detonation of the gas bag. Billowing waves of fire spread across the sky over head, filling the gondola with a hellish light.