Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “I did not think so, but…” The masked woman hesitated. “It is possible.”

  “Oh, no.” Qhora started for the door. “Come! Hurry!”

  Chapter 27

  Taziri stepped back from the strange addition to the front of the Halcyon and said, “Okay, I think we’re all set up here.”

  Bastet smiled. “It looks like an elephant.”

  Taziri frowned at the cowl covering the propeller and the long wet hose hanging off it. “Maybe a little.” She turned her attention back to the nozzle at the other end of the hose. She’d already sealed the nozzle onto the hose and clamped a heavy electrode on the side of the nozzle so that it poked out over the opening, and now she was pawing through a small box of screws so she could wire the electrode to the Halcyon’s battery.

  “I hope the others come back soon,” Bastet said. “I really want to see your machine work.”

  “So do I,” Taziri muttered as she attached the wire to the electrode. A second wire, screwed into the opposite side of the nozzle, hung down loose on the ground. She paused to study the rough assemblage of clamps, mismatched hardware, wicker basket, and equine intestinal tubing. “When I write this up for the journals, I’m going to lie about the hose. I’m sorry, I just have to.”

  The young girl smiled. “Are you all done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So how does it work?”

  Taziri shrugged. “It’s pretty simple. We turn on the engine to spin the propeller, which blows air into the cowl, which funnels the air into the hose at high speed, and it comes out the nozzle here. That’s our fuel, compressed air. I touch this loose wire to the sword and then I throw this little switch,” she pointed to the little metal hook that had been the lid on a can of beans until recently, “and we get a little electrical spark across nozzle, right through the air stream to the sword, like a tiny bolt of lightning. If I did it right, then this spark with ignite the air stream and we will have ourselves a plasma torch.”

  “How hot will it be?”

  “I have absolutely no idea. Very hot, I’m guessing.” Taziri pulled out her heavy leather gloves and laid them on her knee. “So, you’re really four thousand years old?”

  “Yep.”

  “What was school like four thousand years ago?”

  “I never went to school, but I did have a tutor for a few years. Grandfather arranged it. I learned to read and write, court etiquette, politics, poetry, history. The usual.”

  “What about mathematics and science?”

  Bastet shook her head. “I suppose I could, but I’m not really interested.”

  Taziri frowned. “Are you sure? Because you seem pretty interested.”

  The girl laughed. “No, Hasina seemed pretty interested. I’m more…amused. I like you. And I like to see new things. But I have no desire to dress like you and travel like you and scrounge for parts like you.”

  Taziri nodded. “Fair enough. Do you still want to help test the plasma torch?”

  “Oh yes!”

  For the next few minutes, Bastet sat in the pilot’s seat while Taziri showed her how to start the Halcyon’s engine and throttle up the power to increase the speed of the propeller. “We’ll need it at full power to get full air compression,” Taziri said. “But we only have enough fuel to run the engine for a few minutes, so we’ll have to wait for Qhora to return before we can start it. There won’t be enough fuel for even a quick test. We’ll just have to fire it up and hope for the best.”

  “What’s this one do?” Bastet reached down for the big lever to the left of her seat.

  “Don’t touch that one!” Taziri pointed at the wing release lever. “That would be very bad. Whatever you do, don’t pull the big lever.”

  “Okay.” The girl nodded seriously. “I won’t touch the big lever.”

  For the next half hour, they sat together in the shade of the Halcyon telling stories about what it was like to grow up as a schoolgirl in Marrakesh or as a priestess in ancient Aegyptus, which was called Kemet before the Persians and the Hellans arrived. Their stories had little in common, and thus they kept entertained by interrupting each other with questions.

  “You hear that?” Taziri looked up. She could see nothing but the wall of freight cars that hid the Halcyon from curious eyes, but which also hid the small train station and the street beyond from them. “Sounds like shouting. Sounds like a fight.”

  Two gunshots rang out.

  Bastet grinned. “You know, it just might be a fight. I’ll take a look.” She stood up and vanished in a soft swirling of aether.

  Taziri set down her hose and nozzle and began rolling up her left sleeve to uncover her brace. The bright aluminum wrapping around her forearm gleamed in the morning sunlight. She released the top plate and the small revolver popped up with a soft hiss and the trigger mechanism swung around into her left palm so she could fire it one-handed. When she had first used the original tool tube as a makeshift flare cannon and shotgun, she’d told herself that she was just improvising. But only a few months later she had decided to build the custom revolver attachment for the brace. Not to be worn every day, of course, and never around the house. But on business trips or when working late nights because, well, even a city as civilized as Tingis had its dangers for a woman walking alone in the dark.

  Bastet swung into view around the end of the last freight car. “You might want to come see this!”

  Taziri jogged to the end of the line and looked out over the train platform and saw two figures running toward the end of the rail yard. The first was a hawk-faced woman in a white jacket with a patch over one eye and a sword in her arms.

  Why does she look familiar?

  The second runner was a young man with a stubbly scalp, a black leather jacket, and a matte black revolver in his hand.

  Well, I know why he looks familiar.

  Taziri stepped out from the freight cars and raised her empty hand. “Hello Kenan!”

  Both of them slowed to a jog as they looked for the source of the cry, and then seeing the Mazigh woman, they jumped down off the platform and hurried across the gravel yard.

  “Captain?” Kenan hustled forward, his face shining with sweat. “You? You’re the one who sent the guide?”

  “Guide? What guide?” Taziri swung her gun-arm to the woman in white. “Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Shifrah,” he said. “You wouldn’t know her, she’s from the east.”

  “Oh, I know her.” Taziri nodded.

  I couldn’t forget that face. I guess she didn’t spend too much time in jail after all.

  The one-eyed woman frowned, then glared. “You!”

  “You’ve met?” Kenan asked.

  “Your captain here tried to blow me up,” Shifrah said.

  “Your girlfriend here tried to hijack the Halcyon. The first Halcyon,” Taziri said. “Back in Arafez during the riots.”

  Kenan blinked. “Well, we can chat about that later. We have the sword used to kill Don Lorenzo, and the killer is chasing us with quite a few of his angry friends. Is this your locomotive? We need to go, right now. The guide said we could leave from here.”

  “What guide?” Taziri said. Frowning, she lowered her gun, but kept an eye on the woman in white.

  “The guide,” Kenan sputtered. “The big black guy with the magical disappearing act?”

  “Anubis!” Bastet stepped out from behind the freight car. “Anubis came to you? He told you to come here?”

  “Yes, right, Anubis. That’s him.” Kenan nodded.

  “Idiot!” Bastet kicked a pile of gravel across the yard. The stones flew over the rail lines and crackled against the old train station like gunfire. “I sent him to help the others. Mirari and Tycho. Not you. That big idiot!”

  “What?” Taziri’s gaze wandered up to the platform again. There was a dust cloud rising behind the little train station office, and a vague chorus of angry voices echoed across the streets. “Is Anubis the cousin you went to visit last night? What
did you tell him to do?”

  Bastet crossed her arms and pouted. “I told him there were two foreigners in the city and he had to help them get the seireiken with the Espani’s soul in it. I told him the name, Aker El Deeb. I even told him what they looked like. A short man with a gun and a tall woman with a knife wearing a mask.”

  Taziri looked over at Kenan with his revolver, and at Shifrah with her eye patch and a lone stiletto in her belt. The captain started to laugh.

  “I’m not that short,” Kenan muttered.

  “Not as short as the man we’re talking about.” Taziri smiled. “But you’ve got the sword, and that’s what matters right now. I’ve got a little science experiment set up back here. We’re all ready to set Don Lorenzo’s soul free. Or as ready as we’re going to be under the circumstances.”

  Kenan made a sour face. “You too? With the souls and the ghosts?”

  “It’s all real, Kenan,” Taziri said. “Just accept it and move on.”

  “Moving on is a good idea. Once we’re out of the city, you can do all the science experiments that you want.”

  Taziri shook her head as she walked back toward the Halcyon. “We’re not going anywhere until Qhora and the others get back. And besides, this big bird is out of petrol. The only way out of here is by hitching a ride with another locomotive.”

  Kenan glared at her. “I’m sensing a running theme with your career in transportation. Crash this, cripple that. Can’t you keep anything working?”

  Taziri stopped and turned to face him, finding him a hair shorter than herself. She said quietly, “The Halcyon III works just fine, thanks. I had no idea we were going to fly as far as Alexandria, but we had to chase a certain murderer out of Carthage. Maybe if a certain detective had been more interested in catching killers than helping them escape, none of us would be here right now.”

  Kenan looked away. “Yeah, well, we all have our problems.”

  “Look alive, people, we have a visitor.” Shifrah pointed back at the platform.

  Taziri turned and saw a young man trotting toward them. He wore green and he appeared to be unarmed, but the two taller gentlemen jogging behind him both had single-shot pistols and long knives in their hands. She leveled her revolver at them. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Aker El Deeb.” Kenan nodded. “Watch yourself. He has anger issues.”

  “I want my sword!” the man in green yelled.

  Shifrah held up the sheathed blade and called out, “This sword?”

  “Careful,” Kenan muttered. “He’s got friends.”

  “Only two,” Taziri said.

  “No.” Kenan pointed at the station platform. “More than two.”

  Taziri watched as a small battle of at least three dozen men raged into view and began creeping closer to the rail yard. The men were yelling and punching and wrestling and grappling. Fists were flying, knives flashed in the sun, and the occasional tooth or spatter of blood flew through the air. A frightened crowd of gawkers had formed a ring around the violence, all of them pressing back a good distance from the fray, all of them pale and wide-eyed, but none of them trying to flee.

  “My sword! Now!” Aker pointed at Shifrah. Both of his Shona associates aimed and fired. One bullet twanged off a freight car by the woman’s head, but the other struck her square in the shoulder and she dropped the seireiken as she stumbled back into Kenan.

  The detective caught her as she fell and quickly helped her back around the freight car and out of the line of fire. Taziri fired two shots back at the men, missing both by wide margins, and then she too dove out of sight behind the freight cars.

  Bastet hovered at the corner, peeking out. “He got the sword…and now he’s leaving!”

  Kenan looked at Taziri. “You didn’t pick up the sword?”

  “I was a little busy covering you!”

  “I’ll get him!” Bastet grinned as she hopped out into the open.

  “No, get back here!” Taziri reached for the girl, but she was already too far away.

  Bastet yanked the curved bronze sword off her shoulder and swung it around in a lazy arc through the air, and then swung it down sharply into the gravel at her feet. A tiny shockwave raced through the earth, but from behind the freight car Taziri could only listen to the small rocks pelting the men and the men roaring obscenities back. Bastet scampered back to the others and said, “Okay, that made them really mad. And bloody. They’re coming back here. Should I get the cats back here?”

  Taziri shook her head at her as Kenan leaned Shifrah against the wheel of the freight car. The woman was clutching her shoulder, her eye half-lidded, her lip trembling.

  Taziri guessed the bullet had shattered the one-eyed woman’s collarbone, or something equally important and painful. The detective moved in front of his companion, raised his revolver, and whispered, “We open fire the moment they step into view.”

  Taziri frowned. “I’m really not keen on a gunfight at point blank range. Get her into the Halcyon.” She pointed at Shifrah. “Those gunmen out there are carrying single-shot irons, so they are out of bullets for the moment. Let me deal with this.”

  Kenan didn’t hesitate or argue. He scooped up Shifrah and jogged her back to the Halcyon’s hatch, and began heaving her up into the cabin.

  Bastet grabbed the pilot’s sleeve. “What are you going to do? I don’t want you to die.”

  Taziri smiled. “That makes two of us. Come on. Time for a little science.” They dashed back to the Halcyon just as they heard the crunch of gravel rounding the end of the freight car. Taziri yanked on her heavy leather gloves and pulled her flight goggles down over her eyes. Then she grabbed her hose and nozzle and waved the girl up into the cockpit. “Just like I showed you. Engine on, throttle to one quarter. Go!”

  Bastet leapt through the hatch as the man named Aker yelled out, “Looks like all your friends left you here alone to die!” He stepped into the narrow corridor between the long shining locomotive and the dirty old freight cars. His two associates hung behind him, blocking the path back into the rail yard. Aker drew out the seireiken, the blade rippling with fiery colors, bathing the sides of the cars in an angry orange light.

  So that’s what we came all this way for. Impressive.

  “I hope not.” Taziri glanced at the little revolver poking out of her arm brace, briefly wondered if she could handle both the hose and the gun at the same time, and decided that she probably couldn’t. “I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else!” She paused as the Halcyon’s engine rumbled to life and the propeller began to roar inside the makeshift cowl. The hose flexed and shuddered in her hands and she felt the air blowing out the nozzle. “Well, that’s not true. You killed my friend. I want to hurt you a lot, actually. But I’ll settle for the sword. Put it down and walk away and no one gets hurt.” She glanced back at the open hatch behind her where she could just barely see the one-eyed woman’s slumped head. “No one else gets hurt.”

  Aker swung his burning sword in quick vicious circles and demonstrated a short lunge. “I’ve killed women before. But I don’t think I’ve ever killed an engineer. I’m interested to see what I’ll be able to do after I’ve added your soul to my collection. Maybe I’ll be able to drive my own train.” He settled into a fencer’s stance. “I’ll try to make this quick and painless, but if you start fighting back, well, I can’t make any promises.”

  Taziri placed her finger over the switch that would connect the current to the electrode on the nozzle, and she picked up the loose wire from the ground. “Bastet! Half throttle!”

  The engine growl rose to a low droning and the hose jerked in her hands. She clutched it tightly, praying that the horse gut would hold together just a little longer. The tips of her fingers could feel the blast of air coming through the nozzle.

  Now or never.

  Taziri hurled the loose wire at the bright sword and she flipped her switch closed. A sharp sizzling hiss erupted from the electrode as a tiny snapping arc of energy appeared in t
he center of the air jet. The tiny bolt of lightning twisted and writhed along the wire, which had fallen across the seireiken and promptly melted onto it.

  Aker grinned. “Stupid woman.” And he leapt forward, sword raised to strike.

  “Full throttle!” Taziri shouted over the drone of the engine. The Halcyon roared louder and the hose yanked her to the left as it tried to straighten itself out with the increased air pressure, but she wrestled it down, falling to one knee to hold it steady. The jet of air shooting through the nozzle, through the electric arc, began to flash and woof as tiny fire balls formed in the compressed air stream. “Come on, come on! Now! Now!”

  Aker winced at the blast of air in his face, but he took the last step toward her and swung his fiery blade at her neck.

  The jet of compressed air fully ignited, transforming from an invisible wind into a jet of electric blue hellfire almost as long as the seireiken itself. The flash of light was so bright and hot that Taziri jerked back from it instinctively, falling back and to her side even as she pushed the blazing plasma torch up and away from her face. The scorching plasma stream blasted through the seireiken as easily as a knife through water, and the liquefied aetherium blade first bloated outward in soft metallic bubbles and then twisted apart as the end of the sword fell away from the hilt to drip and plop and splatter on the ground. Aker dropped the seireiken’s hilt as he threw up his hands to protect his face, and Taziri swung the plasma torch down to drench the entire sword in blue flame. The golden steel shriveled and faded to a dark gray puddle in a matter of seconds as a hot, foul cloud steamed up into the air.

  For a moment, Taziri stared at the boiling puddle of aetherium on the ground and the roaring plume of scorching plasma in her hand, all dimmed and discolored through the thick lenses of her goggles. And then the Halcyon’s engine sputtered and died.

  The hose fell limp in her hands as the air jet whistled away to nothing.

  Taziri released the switch and the hissing electric arc vanished. She dropped the melted nozzle and stood up, brushing the dust from her pants. Aker sat on the ground a few yards away, clutching his face and gasping for breath. His two men remained at the end of the train, frowning.