The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  The flaming lances passed from their field of view. They heard the whump when their silk envelope exploded and felt the warmth of the flames even through the ship’s steel shielding. Then the bodies surrounding them began to float. For one sickening moment, Edith thought that they were all ascending while she alone was plummeting down. The frames of the magnovisor flashed with a confusion of unidentifiable shapes. She felt the descent in the pit of her stomach, but without a clear view of the horizon or the ground to orient herself by, the falling feeling quickly turned into a sense of weightlessness. It was a strange sensation, not exactly like swimming, not exactly like flying. It was like floating in honey. She might’ve found it serene had it not been for all the hovering corpses and the certainty that she was about to join them.

  She looked about for Byron and saw him twisting in the air several feet off the floor. He flailed his legs, trying to propel himself toward the lowered periscope column, but made little headway. Though what would it matter if he did? Having something to hold on to would not change the end of this ride. Reddleman was still in his seat. He had his feet hooked about the fixed base of his chair. His hands ran over the controls, making fine adjustments to many dials. A dead soldier bumped into her. She shoved him away in revulsion, a motion that had the unintended effect of making her drift toward the ladder; she grasped a rung as soon as it was near enough. No, clinging to something wouldn’t make any difference in the end, but it felt good to do it.

  “Hang on, Captain. I’m going to try something,” Reddleman said, grasping a twin-bladed throttle and pushing it gently forward.

  Edith felt her weight return, and she tightened her grip on the rung. The floating dead men smacked upon the floor again like wet rags. Byron yelped as he tried to get a grip on the periscope column, only to slide quickly down its length. He landed under it on his rear with a thump.

  It took Edith a moment to believe they were not all dead. Though the drop seemed to have gone on forever, it had lasted scarcely eight seconds. She was certain just a moment or two more, and Byron would’ve landed with much worse than a bump. They all would’ve.

  Leaping from the ladder, she asked her pilot what he had done to save them.

  Gripping the horns of the ship’s controls and studying the sudden activity of all the gauges before him, Reddleman said, “Ah! Well, I activated the levitator.”

  “You keep saying that like I know what it is. What is a levitator?” Edith stepped over bodies, picking a path to the pilot’s console.

  “A means for repelling gravity!” he said merrily. “It’s sort of a balloon in a bottle, or a cloud in a fist.”

  “Are you telling me this ship can fly without an envelope? Without hydrogen?”

  “Indeed it can, Captain. And I’m happy to explain the technology to you in as much detail as you like. Or …”

  Edith leaned over his shoulder, her mouth hanging open as her gaze swept over the bank of watch-faced dials and all the quivering needles and winking lights. “Or what?”

  “Or I could take us back to port and give you a chance to return fire.”

  Byron clambered to his feet and said, “They were all in on the decision, Captain. Eigengrau, Pepin, Leonid. I heard them planning it. This was a premeditated act of war.”

  “It’s a war crime, in fact, isn’t it, Captain? Lancing a ship’s silks like that?” Reddleman said.

  The frame in front of her showed a view of the Tower’s facade. Even by dim moonlight, she still recognized the charmless blocks of stone, the crumbling mortar, and bolted-on coops. The ship had fallen as low as the Parlor. They were close enough for her to discern that not all of the cages were empty. She thought of Senlin, how they’d sat on her skirts like picnickers sharing a blanket and talked about their lives as if they understood them.

  She couldn’t tell whether the wire pens held corpses or the detained living, still waiting to be told by some dupe, some actor, whether they would be maimed or released.

  She looked forward to playing the arbiter for a change. “All right, gentlemen, let’s show these Pells what sixty-four guns and no mercy can do to a port.”

  Eigengrau knew the moment he saw the corpulent prince lumbering down the gangplank of the Ararat that Pepin was coming to gloat. The general had insisted once or twice during the preparations for his boarding of the Sphinx’s flagship that they wouldn’t have to scuttle the ship. There’d be no need to put such a black mark on the port’s record. It wouldn’t come to that. With a squad of able men and the benefit of surprise, he would have no trouble prying that oyster from its shell.

  Of course, when he’d said that, he’d expected to be confronted by human troops or Wakemen at the worst, not immortal devils and an iron hulk. He hadn’t even seen a glimpse of Captain Winters. Perhaps she’d been sitting in her stateroom sipping brandy the entire time. If that was the case, then she got what she deserved.

  Pepin was out of breath by the time he had jogged down the pier, around the main dock, and over to the guardhouse where Eigengrau waited. As soon as he saw the general was drinking something short and strong out of a tumbler, the crown prince demanded a draught of his own. The watchmen didn’t have another glass to offer the royal, and so he had to make do with drinking directly from their dented flask. He smirked at the general even as he sucked away like a hungry calf. When he stopped for breath, the flask was nearly empty, and his chin was wet.

  “‘We won’t need you,’ says he. ‘I have it all in hand,’ says he.” A smile broadened the crown prince’s already wide face. “Good thing I don’t listen to you, Eigengrau.”

  “Obviously, Your Highness, I am now and will eternally be grateful for your timely intervention,” the general replied drolly. He managed a short bow, despite his wound. The physician still hadn’t arrived, but the brandy was playing a fair nurse in the meantime. “It’s only a pity I couldn’t save her.”

  “Yes. I look forward to rubbing your nose in that for years and years to come. You know the old Gold Watch was on board,” Pepin said, shaking the flask to listen to the rattle of the last sip.

  “Was she?” Eigengrau crooked an eyebrow.

  “My lookout saw her arrive with that Winters woman a couple hours ago. It’s for the best, really. Can’t declare war on the master and keep peace with his dog.” The prince drained the last from the watchman’s flask. “Never liked her anyway. Too high on herself. You know, she once nearly broke my hand for stroking that breastplate of hers. As if she could feel anything. I hear she wasn’t golden to her toes though, if you know what I mean.” The prince winked at the general, who looked unamused. “I would’ve liked to have seen th—”

  The State of Art rose over the horizon of the port, robbing the crown prince of his revelry. The ship seemed to float on a bed of red light. The air beneath the hull churned and flashed like a sunset on a rough sea. It made a hum that the men of the port felt in the pits of their stomachs.

  Without need for silk or the assistance of wind, the Sphinx’s ax-headed warship seemed to slide through the air. It was a bird without wings, a spear without weight. The ship positioned itself over the second pier between the port guns and the black cake of the Ararat and before either could rouse their gunners, fired its first barrage.

  The sixty-four cannons cracked as one, the barrel flash brightened by the night. The crenelated ramparts of the Ararat shattered, the broken teeth of the ship’s defenses shredding the men who took shelter behind them. The main hatch, stout as a city gate, cracked in half. The force of the blows swung the Ararat on its tethers. Though not one shot struck its envelopes, the rigging to one of its three immense balloons began to lose its anchoring as iron cleats vanished with the passage of a cannonball. The mighty warship began to list. The hull swung out from the end of the pier, then back again, cracking upon the stout beams of the dock like a wrecking ball.

  Then the State of Art fired a second volley. The cabins inside the Ararat were blown open and exposed to the wind. The ship tilted like a p
itcher, and poured its contents out: cots, kegs, boots, rifles, charts, and men. The deep-seated furnace broke from its moorings, spilling its coals, which tumbled down among the barrels of black powder in the orlop below. The explosion roared like a rockslide as the once formidable beams and stringers of the Ararat turned to slag. Above, the titanic envelopes became a trinity of flame. The fireball licked the fins of the State of Art, which glowed with the light like a blade in a forge. The unlucky barges that were tied in port did not escape the rain of flaming debris. Their silks went up like guncotton, and their hulls fell like stones.

  When the smoke drifted clear, a full third of the port was gone. And though it would be reported differently in days to come, the Ararat had never fired a shot.

  While the State of Art’s starboard guns turned the Ararat into a cloud, the port guns attacked the lead soldiers. The turrets stood no chance, though one or two of them got a shot off. Their twenty-pound balls rang the steel hull of the warship, but did not break it. The guns of the State of Art had more luck. They beat the armored turrets onto their backs. The guardhouses fell as readily as tented napkins. The palms shattered into splinters and fronds, leaving behind bare bowls of earth. The sweeping, regal steps to the ringdom were marred by craters and falling wreckage. What wasn’t on fire was buried in ash.

  The second Eigengrau saw the State of Art reappear, he began to run. The crown prince was too slow to recognize a devil ship when he saw one. But he hadn’t been aboard the cursed thing, hadn’t seen her diabolical miracles. Eigengrau had. And so, when the State of Art popped up again like a submerged cork, he did not stand and gape and wait to understand. He fled.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Eigengrau saw the crown prince trip and fall at his first retreating step. The pier where the royal flopped was a second later chopped up by mortar fire, leaving little doubt about the man’s fate. Good riddance, Eigengrau thought. He reached the city steps even as they began to explode about him. Chips of marble pelted his cheeks and neck as he climbed. He dashed through the wrought iron gates, chiming with their destruction, and into the train tunnel.

  He was going deaf for sure. The blast of the guns behind him popped as gaily as bottles of champagne. The air was clearer in the tunnel, and yet he realized he still struggled to catch his breath. The loss of blood was catching up with him. His head swam; his feet began to cross and tangle beneath him. He wondered if perhaps the brandy hadn’t been a mistake.

  The concourse beside the vacant tracks was deserted except for a pacing governess who seemed to be clutching a child in her arms. His eyesight had begun to falter too because the woman looked stretched out and overlarge. Eigengrau shouted as he approached that it was not safe to be there, that the city was under attack. Even in his own ears, his voice sounded like the last volley of an echo. It wasn’t until he came a little nearer that he realized she really was immense.

  Then he recognized her. She had come aboard the State of Art.

  Rethinking his decision to engage, he swerved his path, intending to step down to the level of the tracks. He didn’t expect to be kicked from behind. The boot struck him at the base of his spine. The force of the blow surprised him. He fell awkwardly to his knees, the wound in his shoulder stinging more sharply. Before he could rise, he saw that she had leapt down after him, still clutching the child to her chest. Her face reminded him of a gargoyle: an expression of rage and madness. He hadn’t long to study it before she kicked him under the chin. The blow lifted him into the air and threw him onto his back. A new pain flared as he realized he had landed with his neck on one of the cold iron rails.

  The image of the lady’s bootheel careening down at him was dimmed a little by his blurry vision and the denial in his heart. Surely a man of his record and station deserved a less ignominious end. Even a filthy hod was paid the respect of a public execution! To be stomped to death by a nanny was an insult to his very humanity!

  It was, at least, the last insult the general ever endured.

  On the blood-splashed bridge of the State of Art, Edith and her crew watched as the few surviving port guards dashed and crawled up the ringdom steps. Their retreat was illuminated by the small fires that had broken out across the formerly immaculate wharf. Edith was deliberating on whether to finish demolishing what remained of Port Virtue—her preference was to scrape it from the face of the Tower so completely there was not a pimple of it left—when Byron spotted someone bucking the retreating traffic. He recognized her at once and shouted to cease fire.

  Iren hurried down the steps. She cradled a bundle in her arms. The sight of her swaddled cargo filled Edith with dread. Leaving Reddleman to pilot the ship low enough to reach the shattered remnant of the dock, she and Byron rushed to the main hatch. They hardly had it open before Iren leapt aboard. Edith had never seen Iren look frightened before, and they had witnessed some fearful things together. Her expression seemed to confirm her worst fears.

  Iren carried Voleta to the nearest stateroom and laid her gently on the bed. The cloak she had carried her in was stained with a halo of blood. Byron sobbed when he saw her, saw the wound under her chin, the purple tinge of her lips, the tallow-like aspect of her skin. Edith was sure she was dead.

  And yet Iren insisted she was not, because she was still breathing. Or she had been breathing until very recently. She was not dead, but someone had to do something, and do it now!

  “I’ll fetch a doctor. At gunpoint if I have to,” Edith said. She was about to march through the cabin door when she found Reddleman filling it.

  He had a leather case in his hand and a smile on his face. “May I have a look at her?”

  “What are you doing off the bridge?” Edith asked.

  “I brought the medical kit. I had the opportunity to learn a thing or two about human physiology while I was coalescing in the Sphinx’s crystal chamber. I know we both can fire the cannons, Captain, but how are you with taking vitals?”

  Edith glared at him. He looked like a ghoul in his gory vest. He wasn’t wrong, but she also didn’t believe he had a single empathetic bone in his body. His sudden interest in Voleta was unnerving.

  But he was not wrong. There was nothing she could do here, and the bridge could not stand unattended. Edith looked to Iren, and the sight of the amazon gave her some comfort. There could be no safer hands to leave Voleta in than hers. If Reddleman meant to do the cub harm, he’d have to get past the mother bear first. Edith had no doubt Iren would defend her to the end.

  Still, she hated the decision even as she made it. Standing in the doorway, Edith said, “Save her if you can, pilot. That’s an order.”

  “Aye, sir!” Reddleman cried and gave a merry salute.

  Iren felt as if she had expended just a spark of her anger upon the big man’s head. A much greater fire blazed inside of her. That moment of viciousness on the train tracks hadn’t so much assuaged her rage as it had confirmed a fact: If Voleta died, Iren would grieve through violence, the likes of which the Tower had never seen.

  But of course, Voleta would not die. She could not. She had to live.

  Dropping his case into a chair beside the bed, Reddleman opened and extracted a stethoscope. He plugged the tips into his ears, blew on the diaphragm to test it, then set it upon Voleta’s narrow chest. Iren did not breathe as he listened. He picked up Voleta’s wrist and held it delicately. He felt her neck, then peeled back her eyelids to examine her eyes.

  As he wrapped up the stethoscope, the pilot said, “I’d say she died about ten minutes ago. Maybe fifteen.”

  Iren grabbed Reddleman by his arms and lifted him from his feet. She held him close to her face and tried to stare past his stupid, merry gaze down to whatever idiotic, addled mind he had left. She said, “You were dead. The Sphinx saved you. You can do something. I know you can. Do it, do it now, or I will tear you into so many pieces not even the Sphinx will be able to put you back together.” She shook him hard to punctuate her point.

  “Wait, all right, hold on!” Redd
leman’s eyes rolled in his head from the shaking, but his smile beamed on just the same. With his nose pressed against Iren’s nose, he said, “I can save her. If you could just put me down.”

  The moment Iren released him, he returned to his satchel and extracted a fat syringe and one of the Sphinx’s scarlet vials.

  “Why did you have that in there?” Byron asked.

  “Call it a treatment of last resort,” Reddleman said. Jabbing the needle through the cap and into the glowing fluid, he drew the medium up into the syringe.

  “I’m getting the captain,” Byron said.

  “No!” Iren shouted. One foot in the passageway, Byron stopped and looked back at her, his eyes wide. She scowled at the floor, searching the ancient maze of the carpet for an answer it did not possess. She thought of the curse Edith had once mentioned in the presence of the Sphinx: the curse of unintended consequences. Then she thought of the head of the tall man crumpling under her boot, how good it felt, and how full the Tower was of heads.

  “Iren, think about what you’re doing,” the stag said.

  Holding the full syringe upright, Reddleman emptied out the air, clicking the tube with his fingernail. “You know, if I wanted to kill her, I’m running a little late.”

  They watched Reddleman administer the shot. Iren winced as the needle pierced Voleta’s neck, and then stood in a state of dwindling hope as nothing seemed to happen.

  Iren asked the Red Hand if he had any more of the infernal vials. He said he did, of course. He prepared and gave a second shot to Voleta, who lay like a ghost on top of the dark bedspread.

  “How many are you going to give her?” Byron asked, kneading his hands.

  “As many as he has. As many as it takes,” Iren said.

  After the fifth shot, they began to observe a change in Voleta’s complexion. The lobes of her ears began to show a little pink, and the purple around her mouth lightened. The sockets of her eyes, which seemed to have receded into pits, began to plump again.