Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “But he’s still just a man. What makes him so special?”

  “Maybe he’s blessed by that god of his.” They looked up to see the hidalgo framed in the open doorway. “Or maybe he’s just lucky.” The hidalgo sauntered inside and behind him another shape filled the doorway. Atoq sat down and licked his fangs. Qhora smiled. “Or maybe his wife made sure there was a hungry saber-toothed cat nearby with a certain Italian perfume stinking up his nose.” Qhora held up a stained handkerchief and then tossed it away. “Lorenzo is good. He’s very good. But he’s also an idealist. Fortunately for him, his wife is more practical.”

  Taziri finished up her work on the engine and closed the cowl. She crossed back to the door and climbed inside the cabin just as she saw the little woman in the faded soldier’s coat wrap her arms around her husband’s neck and pull him down to kiss her.

  In the cockpit, Taziri pulled out her pre-flight checklist and began checking her gauges and needles and lights and controls.

  If the wind plays nice, I should have enough fuel to make it to Tingis. Then I can report in, get refueled, and come back for the major and Kenan. I hope they’re all right.

  She smiled.

  The big ape is fine. I should be more worried about poor Kenan.

  She poked her head out and saw the wide doors at the end of the warehouse were wide open. She called out to the couple still kissing passionately beside the yawning saber-toothed cat, “I’m ready to leave. I’ll be back as soon as I can to find my officers. Thank you both so much for your help. And good luck with that rock of yours. I’ll look forward to seeing what you learn about it.”

  Lorenzo extracted himself from his wife and approached the plane. “Actually, captain, I’d like to come with you. With the warship missing, I’d like to see if we can spot it on the way to Tingis. It’ll help to know where it is. And I can confirm your report about Fabris to your superiors. Now that my little matter is resolved, I want to stop this war before it starts just as much as you do. After Tingis, I’ll be going to Tartessos to protest this entire matter to Prince Valero straight away.”

  Taziri nodded. “Thank you. And you, Dona?”

  Qhora shook her head. “I have to get my babies home and open the house for the boys. With the servants all on holiday, someone will have to look after them until you bring my husband back.” She reached out and gently shook the pilot’s hand. “It was nice meeting you. Please try not to crash again anytime soon.”

  Taziri smiled. “I’ll try.”

  Husband and wife said their goodbyes as Taziri fired up the Halcyon’s engine and the propeller vanished into a blurry disc of flashing white and silver. Behind her, she saw Lorenzo come inside and lock the hatch behind him. He set down his bag in one of the passenger seats and came to sit in the co-pilot’s seat beside her.

  “What’s with the luggage?” she asked over the drone of the engine.

  “It’s the stone,” he said.

  Taziri tightened her grip on the controls. “The stone that can set half a mountain on fire?”

  “I’ll need it when we go to see Prince Valero. Nothing makes a stronger impression on that man than a ridiculous spectacle. And setting the entire Rio Tartero to boiling should convince him that Magellan is looking to plunge his country into a war that no one will win.”

  “All right.” Taziri turned the Halcyon to point out the open warehouse doors. “Just don’t take it out of the bag while we’re in the air.”

  The seaplane roared across the warehouse floor and rocketed out into the late morning sky over the Valencia harbor. Taziri wrestled the flight stick and pumped the pedals to keep the patched tail on course, but she soon had the feel for the damaged bird and swung about to head to south to the Strait. Below them, the Espani coast meandered along the edge of the Middle Sea between the glittering water and the shining snow-scape.

  “Nice day,” she said. The sky was nothing but blue on blue across the horizon with only a few gray wisps of cloud.

  Lorenzo nodded. “Hopefully we can alert everyone and have this whole business wrapped up without anyone else being hurt.”

  “Do you think Valero will listen to you?”

  “He’s a fat old man who just wants to enjoy his declining years and be remembered fondly. The only reason he hasn’t passed the throne to his son is that he doesn’t want to give up all the attention,” Lorenzo said. “Although, all this excitement over Magellan and the warship might just be the high note he’s looking for before he bows off the political stage.”

  Taziri nodded. She didn’t care. All that mattered now was getting home, reporting in, and rushing home to hold her little girl and Yuba.

  How long has it been now? Nine days? Ten? They must be going out of their minds.

  The hidalgo fell silent and after a few minutes she glanced over to see him sleeping with his head at an uncomfortable-looking angle.

  Two hours later she saw the distinctive outline of the narrow spit of land the Espani called Gibraltar Point below them and she eased the Halcyon south across the Strait. She could already see the dark line on the southern horizon.

  Marrakesh. Home!

  Halfway across the water she began angling west again to make better time to Tingis. To her right she saw the afternoon shipping traffic criss-crossing the Strait. Squared-off barges and sleek steamships cruised the choppy waters leaving trails of white steam above their wakes. Lateen-rigged yachts raced before the wind. A dozen old galleons, frigates, and brigantines rocked on the white-capped waves, slowly making the long crossing with only their huge square-rigged sails to catch the inconstant wind.

  A strange outline caught her eye and she nudged the hidalgo awake. Pointing at the shape in the water, she said, “There it is.”

  He peered out the window. “That’s the warship?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s enormous.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s putting out a ferocious wake. The engines must be huge. And it’s plowing straight through the shipping lanes.” Lorenzo pressed closer to the glass. “It’s hard to tell from the wake trails, but it looks like they just barely missed the nose of that steamer behind them. And there’s a barge coming up ahead of them. I can’t be sure, but it almost looks like…oh no, they hit the barge!”

  Taziri banked the plane over so she could see what was going on for herself. Below them, she saw the mighty warship plowing through the midships of a small barge that was now sinking beneath the waves. More than half of the crippled vessel had already disappeared under the warship’s hull. “Are they insane? They’re killing innocent sailors and passengers. What the hell could they be thinking?”

  But she already knew what they were thinking. They were racing to the Mazigh coast to launch their attack, to fire the opening salvo before a defense could be deployed. They were going to use their secret weapon while it was still a secret.

  And it’s all my fault. It’s all because I flew over the ship. It’s not even Kenan’s fault for going off-course. It’s my fault because I had to make a second pass over the ship. That was my call. My order.

  “They’re heading to Tingis,” she said softly.

  “But we can get there first, right?”

  She shook her head. “It won’t matter. We’re down to minutes. By the time we land and I tell someone what’s happening, that ship will be within firing range of the city.”

  “God help us.” Lorenzo leaned back into his seat to stare at the ceiling. “How long, do you think?”

  “Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe less.” Half an hour until those sons of bitches start shooting at my baby girl. Her eyes burned with tears. Maybe I can get there in time. Maybe if I run straight off the landing field and grab a trolley I’ll get home in time to get them out. Yes. I can get them out. I may not be able to save everyone else, but I’m damn well going to save my baby girl. She leaned on the throttle and felt the harsh vibrations shaking the Halcyon’s frame as the engine roared up to full power. Two needles edged past t
heir red lines.

  “Taziri!” Lorenzo shouted over the noise of the engine. “When does steel melt? How hot?”

  “What?” She wiped the stillborn tears from her eyes. “I don’t know. Two thousand degrees, I think.”

  “What about the skyfire stone? Could it melt through steel?” He grabbed her shoulder and looked back at the bag on the seat behind him. “Could it melt through steel quickly?”

  She almost didn’t bother thinking about the question. She was so consumed with planning her route from the airfield to her house, and where to check if Yuba and Menna weren’t at home, and where she might be able to hide them during the shelling that she barely heard Lorenzo. But then his words sank in and she realized what he was proposing.

  “Drop the stone on the ship?”

  He nodded emphatically. “It burns on contact with anything except that clay. If we drop the stone on the ship, can it burn through the hull and engines and things?”

  I have no idea, but if it can save my little girl… “Yes! It’ll work! Get the stone!”

  Lorenzo scrambled back to the bag, crouching low to keep his balance as the plane banked back around.

  Taziri shoved the sticks forward and let the nose of the plane drop. The Halcyon shot down out of the clear winter sky and streaked low over the choppy waters of the Strait, curling back around toward the enormous warship. On its deck, the massive cannon turrets were slowly turning toward the Mazigh coast.

  “Open the door!” She yelled over her shoulder. “I’ll take us across the length of the ship, bow to stern. Drop the stone in the middle of the stern. Even if you miss the engine completely, you’ll still tear apart the prop shafts, or their supports. It should be all we need to stop them.”

  Lorenzo waved his acknowledgement as he knelt at the cabin door. With one arm wrapped around the hand rail, he unlocked the hatch and let it swing open. Taziri felt the sudden change in cabin pressure, and the drop in temperature, and the clawing wind whipping her hair into her eyes.

  Up ahead she saw the first few muzzle flashes of mechanized guns and the bright lines of tracer fire streaked by the Halcyon’s wing. It’s just like before. They’re going to shoot us out of the air. “Get ready!”

  In her overhead mirror she saw Lorenzo take the clay-studded harness out of the canvas bag and open the clasps on the clay-studded straps. He grabbed the steel handles with his free hand and reset his grip on the hand rail. “Ready!”

  A second salvo of rapid gunfire screamed through the air just behind the wing. They’re getting closer.

  “Almost there!” she yelled.

  A third chatter of gunfire clattered up from the deck of the warship and erupted into a high-pitched cacophony of shredding aluminum as the bullets tore through the Halcyon’s fuselage. Lorenzo screamed and Taziri looked back to see him fall back from the open door clutching his chest. Half his face was painted red.

  No, not him too! And where’s the stone?

  A frozen spike of adrenaline stabbed at her spine as she caught sight of the stone rolling out of the harness and back into the small baggage compartment in the tail of the plane.

  Nononono!

  The Halcyon roared over the bow guns of the warship.

  Out of time! Nothing I can do! I can’t help him and fly the plane at the same time!

  The Halcyon was juddering and rattling as though the engine might tear free of the plane and leave the metal bird to plummet into the seat.

  “UP!” Lorenzo hollered. “UP! Go up! Straight up! Now-now-now!”

  He’s alive! She glanced back once to see the entire inner tail of the plane glowing bright orange. Brilliant gold cinders were flaking from the walls and tiny white tongues of flame were dancing in the back of the baggage compartment. The first wave of heat flooded up into the cockpit as she felt her rudder controls growing looser and less responsive.

  Lorenzo still clung to the rail beside the open hatch, the entire side of his body drenched in blood. “Dear God please. UP!”

  She had never heard a man scream like that before. Not out of pain or fear, but pure selfless pleading with the Almighty, for the hand of God to intervene, not for himself but for the world, for life itself. Lorenzo’s voice was a conduit from his naked soul to his immortal Creator, and the sound of it snapped her around in her seat. She yanked back on the yoke and the crippled plane leaned back to climb into the pale cloudless sky.

  The engine sputtered. Almost out of fuel. Going to stall. Need to level out.

  “Keep going!” Lorenzo screamed. “Don’t stop! You can do it!”

  She dug her fingers into the shaking flight stick and kept her eyes on the pale patch of blue in her window. Her feet floated off the floor as her whole body’s weight came to press back on her seat and she clung to the controls to keep from sliding out of her seat belts. The needles and dials faded away, the vertigo of having the whole world shrinking away behind her vanished, and all she could feel were the violent spasms of the plane as it disintegrated around her.

  The view in her mirror changed sharply and she looked up to see that the entire tail of the plane had torn free leaving only a ragged ring of melted metal around the cabin just behind the hatch. Lorenzo hung limp, his arm still caught on the rail, his face turned down toward the clear view of the sea below, and the deck of the warship beneath them.

  Taziri slammed the yoke down and the Halcyon gently, ever so gently, nosed over and leveled out, gliding on wings clinging to their last bolts and rivets. The engine sputtered and coughed, the pistons misfiring and stuttering as they gasped for fuel. Her feet rested on loose and useless pedals no longer connected to the tail of the plane, which was falling back to earth in a blazing comet of molten steel.

  She eased the plane down a bit and felt the wings bite into the wind and the Halcyon began to glide. The engine banged once and fell silent.

  The distant chatter and thunder of the warship’s guns reverberated distantly through the air. Taziri held the yoke very still as she craned her neck to see the ship far below and behind them. The remains of the Halcyon’s tail had transformed into a bright glowing fist and it punched down into the warship’s deck with a thunderous boom. Men screamed and steel screamed. A column of black smoke rose from the jagged hole in the deck.

  We did it. We got them. It’s over. We’re safe. Menna’s safe.

  She clung to the yoke and sat rigidly in her seat, fighting to keep the Halcyon as level as possible. The whole airframe shuddered and rattled. With the engine no longer belching heat back into the cabin, the cold quickly seeped into her seat and back and neck. She shivered, but she didn’t dare let go the controls to put on her flight goggles.

  They were falling slowly but steadily. She held still and focused on breathing and watching the coastline get closer and closer.

  We’re not going to make it.

  The Halcyon coasted down and she planted the pontoons on the foaming waves. The plane skipped and shook over the water and then plowed into a sudden halt. For the first moment, she just sat in her seat and felt the plane rocking around her. Then she pried her hands off the yoke and stumbled back to the remains of the hatch. The twisted wreckage of the missing tail had already cooled and dimmed to a smeary ring of black and gray. She knelt beside Lorenzo and slipped his arm free of the rail and rolled him onto his back.

  One bullet had grazed the side of head. A second had punched through his right thigh. The floor was sticky with his blood.

  She cradled his head in her lap. “I’m sorry.”

  His eyes fluttered open. “Me too. This hurts. A lot.” He tried to smile.

  She peered at the wound in his leg. “It doesn’t look too bad. Missed the artery.” Taziri gently pulled his long black hair out of his face. “Your wife was right about you.”

  “She usually is. About what, this time?”

  “That you’re very, very lucky.”

  Chapter 30

  Sunlight streamed through the open window with a fresh breeze that smell
ed faintly of roses and sea salt. It was a bright, airy room with tiled walls painted yellow and orange. The bed was soft and the pillow softer. Lorenzo explored the bandages on his head and then around his hip. As far as he could tell he still had all of his fingers and toes, and that was a good start.

  Down past his feet he saw a woman sleeping in an old leather chair. He smiled. “Hello, captain.”

  Taziri woke slowly, blinking and yawning. She smiled back. “Hello yourself.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “A day or so.”

  He grimaced. Qhora. “What happened?”

  “There was a lighthouse nearby. The keeper saw the whole thing and telegraphed the authorities in Tingis.”

  “Telegraph.” Lorenzo shook his head. “I’m starting to think we could really use one of those in España.”

  “You’ll want at least two, I think. Anyway, there was a whole armada of cruisers and rescue ships out there in less than an hour.” Taziri stood and stretched in front of the window. “One of the coast guard boats picked us up and brought you back here to the hospital. You’re fine, by the way.”

  “Good to know,” he said. “And the warship?”

  “It took most of the day and night, but it sank right where we hit it. Deep water, apparently. The stone burned right through every deck and destroyed the engines and left a string of breaches straight through the whole ship. They couldn’t seal off the leaks, so they abandoned ship. Some made it back to España on their own. The others were picked up and they’re being questioned down in the harbor.” She dragged her chair over to his bed and sat beside him. “How do you feel?”