Lands Beyond Box Set: Books 1 - 3

by Kin S. Law

  Rosa spotted and pointed out Moore. The elderly gentleman was walking down a set of steps, his dark suit gradually disappearing into the subterranean dark. An underground? I balked. If Moore boarded a train, we would lose him for sure, but in an enclosed space, there was nowhere to run. I thought of the fearsome kobolds and the armed clankers.

  “Come on!” Rosa cried.

  Together we raced toward the opening. Sheet metal steps clanked beneath booted heels. A moment of panic ensued as we lost sight of Moore. The tracks spread out beneath them, obscured by clouds of venting steam. We were suspended over a vaulted cavern with three platforms, two trains pulling into the station, one leaving. Had Moore boarded it?

  I made a decision, churning the stairs into flak beneath. I vaulted across the platform, flinging a quid like a missile into the collection tin, and skidded to a halt inside the closest train. Rosa’s boots beat staccato after me. We slipped inside just as the doors hissed to a close on smooth, pneumatic rails.

  “Did we make it? Is he aboard?” Rosa asked, scanning the narrow train car.

  The brass handrails and standing passengers obscured their vision, and Rosa did a little dance, craning her neck up and down to look around. For a moment, it looked as if we had lost our man. I even thought I saw a glimmer of gray hair on the opposite train, headed in the other direction. Then I let out a long-needed breath.

  Moore was seated almost directly before us, smiling.

  “Are you ladies all right? I had thought I lost you a couple streets back. Glad you made it.”

  Albion

  “All right, my fault. I’m no Cid, you know; typewriters are more my speed,” Blair said as he picked himself up off the floor. I had thrown him into the closest vehicle from above, a comfortable convertible Bavarian, while sheltering behind the stepladder myself.

  “I think even Cid would have trouble with this,” I remarked as I went up to the panel at the top of the ladder once again. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  The Chapman Eight hadn’t actually exploded. The little roadster had shot straight up toward the roof so quickly, the gantry had crushed the delicate windscreen, spectacularly shattering the glass in all directions. What was more intriguing, as we peered out into the chamber, was how the carriage seemed to be floating in midair, with no helium or wires or anything. The platform it rested on simply hung in the middle of the chamber, dead still.

  “I see…so the gantry lifts the plate, and moves it out of the rectangular hole there…this setting must be for the heavier vehicles,” I mused.

  I fiddled with the dial. The Chapman groaned as it left off snogging the gantry, and hung at a more reasonable height. I again moved some controls. It came swinging across the room, stopping at the stepladder even as Blair halted in mid-cringe.

  “What are you doing there? Come on, let’s go for a joyride,” I said, gesturing toward the crumpled, sad-looking Chapman. I swept the glass and metal fragments aside as he climbed into the cramped cabin.

  “This is beyond illegal!” Blair said, but his limbs betrayed his voice. He was already halfway crammed into the back.

  The Eight had no working doors. A passenger simply hopped over the low profile.

  “All of this can’t be officially sanctioned. Besides, I’d like to see why he’s built such an enormous underground tunnel, certainly not just for these toys. This is much more interesting than some dusty old records.”

  “I was tired of hoofing it, as well,” Blair agreed.

  I started up the engine, which seemed unusually ready to turn over. Steam hissed out of the pipes as if yearning for release. Somehow it reminded me of The Huckleberry, but for the life of me I couldn’t say why. The steam smelled like Rosa, a little bit. Black cherry and rose gardens.

  By leaning over, I was able to slap at a brass button on the side of the step, and the little platform began to float through the rectangular hole. There was a bit of a turn, and then we were in the large tunnel again. The gantry lowered all by itself, as if according to some clockwork sequence. A narrow track we observed earlier slotted into some spaces on the bottom of the platform. We drove off it and onto the path next to the track. Concrete fairly whizzed past as he put the Eight through its paces.

  “So the track is for moving all those engines,” Blair murmured aloud. “I wonder what else it’s moving?”

  As we drove along the underground tunnel, lit at intervals just enough to see the next turn or dribbling runoff, the answer was soon in coming. The path sloped gently downward, until the tunnel widened into a cavernous space large enough for several tracks to run parallel. However, tracks weren’t the only artifice in the cavern.

  “Balaenopteron!” I exclaimed, as the pillars parted and the bulk of a massive airship appeared beside us.

  The ship, like its namesake, squatted like a whale alongside the path, taking up three tracks on the floating platforms. Her gun emplacements zipped past like so many barnacles, huge and bristling. It wasn’t a British design. I could make out a moon and stars on a red background. What was the dreaded Ottoman Empire doing in Valima Mordemere’s basement?

  The space was deceptively large. There were also people here—clankers—with their hoods drawn back to reveal matte black helmets and bug-like masks. Our purring arrival in the Chapman drew no attention, which was odd. Both sound and light dwindled to nothing. The men were several tracks away, and the hugeness of the place served to make us less noticeable.

  I took the engine out of gear, drifting quietly in neutral along the path until we found a convenient stack of cargo crates to park behind. The paths were actually more like platforms, designed for the loading and unloading of material with the same type of floating gantries in the vehicle room. I unfurled my pocket glass, took a look, emitted a thoughtful “hurmph” sound, and handed it to Blair.

  “It appears,” Blair whispered, “they are unloading more of the boutique steam engines, and loading something else aboard.” He busied himself with his photogram machine.

  “Look at the way the suspensions sit,” I added.

  Blair’s gaze shifted that direction. I knew those expensive fenders rode about an inch off the ground. The flashy conveyances weren’t the real treasure. Something else had been loaded into every boot, something heavy.

  I turned again to look at the cargo bound for the innards of the gigantic Ottoman ship. The platforms were barely floating, loaded down with heavy containers in a dull olive color. Just as I was about to give up on learning the contents, another platform appeared with cargo strapped down with a tarpaulin. Even from several tracks away, the form of Mordemere’s kobolds could be mistaken for nothing else.

  “They’re selling arms to the enemy!” Blair said, outraged.

  I hushed him with a motion of my hand. “Your enemy, yes,” I whispered. I held no such allegiance. Still, it was troubling. I didn’t like the thought of warships in my skies.

  Behind the first airship, a second Balaenopteron began edging into view, like two titanic monsters converging in the abyss. This one hung off the ground at about man height, the vents retching gas laced blue with lift compound. Her masthead was a dragon with crossed sabers, and along her flank ran a scythe-like marking, in aristocratic Ottoman Turkish script.

  I sucked in a breath. “Blast, that’s the flagship Orhan,” I cursed.

  “Why is this bad?” Blair asked.

  “It’s bad because I know her damn name,” I said. “It means they’re not afraid someone will see it. Either Mordemere’s dug a tunnel clear to the sea, or the entire city of Leyland is in on the job. It means if we’re found, we’re dead.”

  It was, of course, the very moment the cargo crates before us suddenly lifted away, revealing the two men leaning on their roadster like dumb toffs on a country holiday.

  20

  Gone in Sixty Measures

  Rosa

  Moore turned out to be a proper gentleman. Not only did he offer his seat to ladies in the nearly deserted car, but he pr
oceeded to point out the city’s sights as the train wound up and out of the ground, running on some kind of elevated track until it joined up with one of the signature aqueducts running all about the city. The sights didn’t interest me nearly as much as the man himself. He seemed a treasure trove of knowledge, the sort of leisurely gentleman who didn’t start out that way, and was constantly doing things to deserve his newfound prosperity.

  Just in case, I adjusted my knives in my belt, readied for anything. The tarot gave me insight.

  “Mordemere is a great fan of conquerors,” Moore explained as the train swung around, in sight of a few of Leyland’s industrial monuments. The slabs of glass and sooty pipe stood sentry over the warehouses and shopfronts. They were crowned with tall semi-circular contraptions, like sails. Aqueducts mysteriously carried water from each of these landlocked monuments. From underground?

  “The Romans captured his imagination some years ago, at the beginning of the Leyland special administration region’s development,” continued Moore. “Of course, the aqueducts carry steam, telegraph, and Teslaic power, as well as water.” The buildings did look a little like Centurions fielding troops.

  “Mister Moore,” I interupted. “I appreciate the tour, but—”

  Moore held up a finger, indicating where the aqueduct ran ahead of us. The train clanked onto the aqueduct, and a sudden racket flooded the cabin. It wasn’t enough to deafen, but certainly enough so conversation would be inaudible outside a three-foot circle. Moore dropped the finger.

  “I am sorry. It should be safe to speak now,” Moore said. “It is his city, you see. The tracks here are magnetized by the Teslaic arcs. They ought to disable any listening devices as well.”

  “You…do not approve of Valima Mordemere?” Hargreaves asked.

  “As one of his inner circle? I despise him,” Moore admitted, an instant of hatred shredding through his polite demeanor. His voice was not aristocratic, or gentrified. It was the practical, matter-of-fact tone Cid Tanner, our mechanic on the ’Berry, used fairly often. This was a man more comfortable with grease and wrenches than topcoats and shiny canes.

  “But he has enabled your livelihood, your art, your everything,” Hargreaves replied.

  “A cage of gold is a cage still,” Moore answered. “I hold his secret; he would not let me go so easily. Only now, when he has left the city, do I dare take advantage of this opportunity. I assume you are from one or another government? Perhaps the Queen herself?” He looked to me, bemused, then to Hargreaves. “So it is. Victoria III is in Leyland, by proxy.”

  “So my guess was true,” I said. “Valima Mordemere is behind the theft of Europe’s landmarks.”

  “Yes. Let us not mince words. We have perhaps fifteen minutes remaining before the train leaves the aqueduct.”

  “What? How…?” Hargreaves gaped, not following.

  Jonah Moore smiled his ineffable smile once again.

  “Imagine, if you will, a great mountain,” Moore said.

  “The mountain is tall, tall enough to pierce the heavens, where Mordemere believes his dream lies.”

  “The Laputian Leviathan,” I filled in.

  “The Leviathan is the source of all aeon stones, the stuff of lift. It is naturally, in a very high place.”

  “All right,” Hargreaves said, uncomprehending.

  The train rumbled on, irreverent. I was beginning to become suspicious of the other passengers, but Hargreaves with her Inspector’s instincts seemed to think we were not being watched. At least, her body language was relaxed, and I saw nothing unusual. But I felt…something. Like the whole city was watching us.

  Moore went on. “But a mountain isn’t simply tall, it is also very large. A mountain is tall because it is large. The peak is supported by a vast bulk of smaller stones, each one insignificantly small in itself, but together! Together, they are…”

  “Leviathan,” Hargreaves said. “You’re referencing Hobbes; do you mean—”

  “Yes.” I caught the thread of the conversation. “Mister Moore–the cross, the factory, the statue?”

  “It was a very simple procedure,” Moore sighed, his face suddenly distraught.

  All his muscles sagged, as if it were a heavy weight he had borne a long time. It was visibly difficult for him to speak. “Stones do not simply appear, they are worn into being from boulders. We had to break a very large, strong boulder, for the stones with which we built Mordemere’s Leyland.”

  “Fuck,” I said, with certainty. “I fucking knew it.”

  “Excuse me,” Hargreaves said. Her face was screwed up like a mainspring, ready to release a slew offended protest. I had a feeling it wasn’t because of the profanity. It was the idea that a geartown originally sanctioned by the Queen held a dark secret. Hargreaves simply wasn’t ready to accept that, and it was written all over her face. “Can one of you please explain it to me?” Hargreaves demanded.

  “Leyland was a bustling industrial center before Mordemere, but it was not equipped to handle the massive war machines Mordemere intended to build. Mostly, the city was in the business of lorries, buses and other types of engines,” Moore explained.

  The aqueduct curved gently outside. The misty sun was setting behind Mordemere’s atelier. The resemblance to a plague frog squatting on the city was stronger than ever. I couldn’t help but shiver at the thought.

  “So Mordemere did the most economical and efficient thing he could. He built his arms’ laboratories over the existing ones. But laboratories and workplaces aren’t just mortar and stone, they’re people, and peoples’ memories, their feelings, their souls. It just so happens the one thing airships with lift compound need, absolutely need, to fly is people.”

  “So when we were in the desperate struggle with The Lovelorn—”

  “That’s right,” I acknowledged. “It was my feelings for Nessie Drake, and the crew’s feelings for me, that gave The Huckleberry the winning edge. Lift compound is essentially atomized aeon particles, running through and through the ship. They are agitated when we are passionate, flow faster when we are happy, and gorgeous, when we are truly alive…”

  “They fly,” Hargreaves filled in, awed.

  I nodded, as did Moore.

  “Mordemere not only bought out the land, and the machines, and the businesses of Leyland,” Moore said. “He also set into place an array of aeon stones in key landmarks of the city—places people would remember, places people still frequented fondly, and places he would build for them to glorify. Then he did what any ambitious person must do. He made them suffer.”

  Moore put his grizzled face into his hands, overcome.

  “Aeons not only react to positive feelings,” Rosa continued. “They react to negative ones as well. By filling his factories with people like Hassim, or Swarney, or any of those people living and dying below, he is making enough emotional power to lift mountains.”

  “Enough power to reach the Leviathan,” Hargreaves whispered.

  “Not quite.”

  This last came from our left. With a start, we three suddenly realized the aqueduct’s racket was gone. We were gliding down another elevated track, and the gunman staring us down over the barrel of a large blunderbuss had heard everything.

  Albion

  “Bloody hell! Oh fuck me!” Blair cursed like an American into the wind whipping past.

  I could hardly blame him. In the passenger seat, strapped in like an infant, he couldn’t do much more than scrabble at the dashboards. Or gape as the cannons ripped through the air in front of us, reducing the platform to splinters.

  “Relax, at this range they couldn’t hit the broad side of a fat sow,” I said. Soothingly, I thought, but Blair didn’t stop flapping his hands or trying to turn in circles. Impossible in the cockpit of the car, but amusing nonetheless.

  I wrenched the wheel of the Chapman hard to the right, avoiding an enormous crater suddenly developing in the road. Pulverized concrete showered into the cabin of the engine, which of course was open
due to our previous accident. Bits of debris pinged alarmingly against the exposed steering mechanisms. I didn’t think Blair was the type to be prejudiced, but after this I doubted he would be passing judgment on any Oriental’s driving.

  The harried journalist hung on tight, either trusting in my steering, or running out of colorful curses. Considering how well I evaded a particularly exuberant cannonball as it rent the platform ahead into rubble, I chose to believe the prior. I simply drove along a larger, flat stretch, shooting off the end and onto the tracks. We were fortunate. The little roadster had excellent acceleration, brakes, and best of all, steering. We could see it working, the exposed suspension creaking like a promiscuous old lady.

  As far as I could figure, the Balaenopteron closest was firing with its forward batteries, but the little Chapman soon outpaced the furthest of the shots.

  “We can’t relax quite yet,” I cautioned, and Blair agreed.

  We could see gated nooks opening on the platforms ahead, and passing one, the gleam of claws seemed all too close. Sure enough, as we rounded another gargantuan cavern pillar, a phalanx of six kobolds emerged to hound us. Their bipedal motion was awkward at first, but they soon gathered into a smooth mechanical run.

  “Bollocks!” Blair cried.

  Something struck sparks off the rear of the roadster.

  “Whoa, doggy!” I exclaimed, as his leftmost mirror exploded into silver shards. The kobolds loped along quite a bit slower than the quick little Chapman, but their riders had rifles to hand.

  “Head for the right tunnel!” Blair yelled. He had spotted something in the darkness, and now I did too. Tracks gleamed down the right tunnel, indicating an upward slope. Upward meant outward!