The Flux Engine (15 page)

Doc Terminus found this very interesting. “Well now,” he said, his round face lighting up. “Thurgery and Alchemy are related sciences. Kissin’ cousins if you will. If you don’t go back to the Thurger, Johnny, I’d have a place for you right here.”

“I thought Meg was your apprentice,” John said.

Terminus laughed.

“Meg’s my wife,” he said. Meg smiled and put her arm around the Doc’s neck, pecking him on the cheek. “She was the only survivor of a Scrapstalker attack in Dakota. I found her and nursed her back to health. She’s been with me ever since.”

John shivered. He’d never seen a Scrapstalker, but their cousins, scraproaches, gave him the willies and they were tiny.

“I didn’t think Scrapstalkers left survivors,” John said. He regretted it instantly. It was the kind of question that was prying and impolite. If Doc or Meg noticed, they gave no sign.

“I suspect they didn’t mean to,” Doc said. “She was hurt pretty bad; any other doctor would have lost her. Still, I wasn’t … quite fast enough.”

An angry look crossed Meg’s porcelain face and she grabbed her husband’s chin, turning his face to hers, wagging her finger at him.

“The Scrapstalkers cut out her tongue,” Doc said once Meg released him. “I was so busy with her other wounds I never even looked. By the time I discovered it, too much time had passed. My formulas can only regenerate fresh wounds.”

Nothing that had happened in Doc Terminus’ rectification chamber had affected John significantly, but this made him so sick to his stomach he considered throwing up. No one knew exactly how Scrapstalkers had come to be, but everyone knew that they hated life, everything living. They didn’t just kill, they made it an art, torturing their victims to death in the most vicious ways possible. If Scrapstalkers had left Meg to die, it was a sure bet they’d done a thorough job on her.

Meg smiled at him. The look said that she knew what he was imagining and that it was all right, she’d been saved. John thought back to the airship pirate he’d killed. It might make him feel better to imagine the young man as a monster, on par with a Scrapstalker, but he just couldn’t make himself believe that.

A few minutes later Crankshaft returned with the five-gallon can of Flux, dropping it heavily onto the tiled floor.

“Much obliged to ya,” Doc said, shaking Crankshaft’s hand, then Hickok’s. “And you, young fella,” he said, extending his hand to John. “If ya ever decide to settle down to an honest trade, I’d love to have you here.”

John shook the offered hand. He hadn’t really thought about what he would do once he and Hickok had recovered his mother’s crystal. Up till now his main goal had simply been living to see tomorrow. Doc Terminus had made him an incredible offer. Apprenticing to an alchemist of his obvious talents would set John up for life, but it would take years. Somewhere out in the world, he was sure, his mother was waiting. Waiting for him to find her.

“Thank you,” he said. “But I’ve got some things I need to take care of first.”

“Well, good luck to ya then,” Doc said, walking them to the door.

As John followed Crankshaft and the Enforcer back aboard the
Desert Rose,
the image of the dead airship pirate came unbidden to his mind. If he was going to find his mother’s crystal, he was going to see more death, more faces to haunt his dreams. Surely Sira and the people for whom she stole it wouldn’t give up the crystal without a fight. How many more people would have to die before he would be reunited with his birthright?

He hoped the number would be small.

That crystal was the only link to his past, to a family he never knew. He couldn’t imagine giving it up. But what would it cost in lives, in blood, or in pieces of his immortal soul? Could he grind whatever grist the mill required?

John resolved then and there that he would.

Chapter 16

Wrath of the
Vengeance

The thrum of the giant engines of the airship
Vengeance
reached up from the decks below and pulsed rhythmically through the leather soles of Raphael Kest’s boots. As big as the airship was, one could not escape the constant drumbeat of the engines as they drove the hundreds of outboard propellers that moved the huge vessel across the sky.

“All stop,” Captain Raff called from the forward rail of the observation platform, and the thrumming under Kest’s feet slowed to a more sedate pace. The captain pressed his eyes to the hole in the underscope and surveyed the ground below, then he straightened and dismounted the platform by means of a steep metal staircase with brass rails.

“Have the lookouts report all contacts,” he said to the officer of the deck. The young-looking officer saluted and passed the order in an even younger sounding voice.

“Well,” Captain Wesley Raff said as he joined Kest by a long bank of windows. “We’re here. Smack in the middle of the biggest mass of nothing in the Colonial Alliance.”

Kest chuckled.

“You obviously haven’t been to the New Azteka Territory,” he said. Compared to the blasted wastelands of sand and rock down by the Grand River, the rolling, grassy plains of the Dakota Territory were positively inviting.

“The only contact we had in the last six hours was a mining operation about twenty miles northeast of here,” Raff went on. “That and a congregation of Shredders down below us.”

Kest sipped his coffee before answering. The steward had brought it to him in a round china cup on a flat saucer. Both were white as snow and without decoration. The coffee was some exotic blend, imported from the Mayan Federation, slightly bitter but with a nutty aftertaste that Kest savored.

“Excellent, Captain,” he said at last, gently replacing the cup on the saucer in his left hand. “Have the engineers finished calculating how fast we can charge the capacitors?” He waved his hand at three glass columns mounted in the bulkhead. Each one had a steel bar mounted inside, serving as a core for a stack of wire-wrapped magnetic doughnuts, numbered from one to one-hundred. Each of the tubes was part of an enormous capacitor that would store raw power from the Flux Engine. As they charged, the individual doughnuts would magnetize and begin to repel its fellows, forcing the stack of metal rings upward toward the top of the glass tube. When they reached the top, it meant the capacitors were at maximum charge.

“A full charge will take forty minutes,” Captain Raff said. “An hour if we want to play it safe.”

“Safety first, I think,” Kest said, taking another sip of his coffee. “I’ll be in my quarters; inform me when we attain a full charge.”

“Yes, my lord,” Raff said, then he saluted and turned, barking out orders to various sections of the bridge.

Raff was a capable man who knew his business, and Kest left him to it. He made his way down the spiral stair that connected the bridge with the rest of the ship and along a well-lit corridor toward a lift. As he went, his boots trembled with the increasing, frenetic throb of the Flux Engine as Raff powered it up to charge the capacitors.

He smiled. At last, everything was ready, all the pieces in place. The preparation of several lifetimes would finally bear fruit.

O O O

The polished brass doors of the lift opened onto a small, velvet-lined car with a rail of burnished cherry wood running around it at waist level.

Kest entered the car, still carrying his cup and saucer, and pressed the middle of five buttons. The car gave a little jolt and began to descend smoothly toward the center of the massive airship. At each floor a bell rang out—a tinny, off-key sound that set his teeth on edge. He’d been meaning to speak to the maintenance crew chief about that and resolved that he had the time. Punching the lowest button, Kest rode the lift down to the lowest level and located the maintenance chief, a wiry man with a mechanical leg and matching arm. The chief promised to have the bell looked after as soon as possible and Kest took the time to inquire about the man’s responsibilities. One thing Kest had learned early was the importance of letting people blow their own horn whenever possible. It cost him little in the way of time and it reinforced their sense of importance. After taking the full report, Kest returned to the lift.

With its warbling, sour chime, the car came to a stop and the doors parted on the central deck.

O O O

The hallway beyond was carpeted and paneled with dark wood. Brass glowlamps with frosted glass chimneys lined the wall, casting the hallway in a warm, cheery light. At the far end, where double doors of hammered brass led to Kest’s private quarters, the light washed over the figure of a man. Now that they were airborne, Kest had dismissed his guards. This man couldn’t pass for a guard in any case; he was tall and gaunt with a shining bald pate over dark, intense eyes. He wore a simple loose shirt and vest with a gold watch fob shining in the dim light. His boots were sturdy and well-worn and he had a sword bound round his waist.

“Derek,” Kest said, as he reached the man, pulling him into a brief embrace. “It’s good to see you. When did you get back?”

“I just arrived,” he said, stepping back as Kest released him. “I came straight here to seek forgiveness from you, my lord,” he said, his back stiff and his tone formal. “I failed to clean up Sira’s mess and I let the secret of the red sand fall into the hands of our enemies.”

Kest smiled at that. Derek Morgan was an intensely dedicated man, the kind who took his duty seriously. It was easy to like him. Of all the people Kest had met, Derek was, perhaps, the closest to a kindred spirit.

“Don’t think on that,” he said, slapping the taller man on the shoulder. “It would’ve come out sooner or later anyway. That psychic at Castle Rock is just too damn good.”

“Perhaps I could rid you of that problem?” Morgan suggested.

“No, he’s too well protected there. We’ll deal with him when the time comes.”

Kest opened the door to his quarters and Morgan followed him in. It was a large suite of rooms with a richly appointed parlor, an office, and a bedroom. The parlor had comfortable couches and overstuffed chairs interspersed with tables and lamps and a wheeled liquor tray. A thick Persian carpet covered the hardwood floor and everything gleamed as if the entire room had been recently dusted and polished.

Kest paid the parlor no mind, pressing on to the office. In contrast to the perfect organization of the parlor, the office was a study in chaos. A bookshelf lined the back wall, but its shelves were mostly empty, their contents spread around loosely on the floor, some in stacks, other open with their spines sticking up, like leather-bound crabs. Maps, charts, and blueprints covered the rest of the floor, rolling over and under the books like waves made of paper.

Being careful not to tread on any of the latter, Kest made his way to a small desk, motioning for Morgan to be seated on a mostly empty sofa. The desk itself was clear of clutter, an island of tranquility in an ocean of chaos. A notebook stood open upon it where Kest had filled page after page with a series of calculations and formulae.

“Forgive the mess,” he said, sitting down. “I’ve been checking and re-checking my figures.”

“I have the utmost faith in you, my lord,” Morgan said, pushing a stack of books gently aside so he could sit. “Still, they do say that you should measure twice, blast once.”

Kest nodded and smiled.

“Can you feel it?” he said. “Everything our people have awaited for over a thousand years is about to begin. An hour from now, the world will tremble before our might and the restoration of our lands will be assured.”

Morgan considered this for a moment with a raised eyebrow.

“Do you really think the Alliance will return our lands after this demonstration of our power? They are weak, yes, but they are not fools.”

Trust Morgan to see things practically.

“No,” Kest agreed. “They’re not fools, but they’d be perfectly happy to sit by and let their territories try to stop us by themselves. Saint Louis has grown rich by exploiting the territories and everyone knows it. Now the territories want to be made states. If that happens, they’d have more votes in the Congress than the founder states. The founders can’t allow that. So, if we come along and take the territories down a peg for them, the Alliance won’t lift a finger to stop us.”

A sly smile spread over Morgan’s face and he nodded.

“And while we aren’t strong enough to take on the massed might of the Alliance, we could easily defeat one or two of the territorial militias.”

Kest reached into a drawer of his desk and drew out a bottle of amber liquid and two small glasses.

“It may not even come to that,” he said, filling each of the glasses in turn. “Once the territories see our power, they’ll know they can’t beat us in a straight up fight. They might just give us what we demand without a shot being fired.”

Kest offered Morgan one of the glasses and the tall man took it, holding it up so that the liquid within glowed in the light.

“To peace, then,” he said.

Kest’s grin widened until it showed teeth.

“To peace,” he agreed.

They drank and Kest poured another.

“Have you decided what to do about Sira?” Morgan asked after drinking the second glass.

Kest hesitated, then drank his glass before responding.

“She’ll remain as she is,” he said.

Morgan raised an eyebrow and handed over his glass.

“She’s not as disciplined as I’d like,” he said. “She lets her emotions run away with her. I worry that, if left unchecked, she’ll get herself killed.” Morgan accepted another glass of the amber liquid. “Either that or she’ll leave an unmistakable trail of bodies in her wake.”

“She’s just a little high-strung,” Kest said. “She doesn’t have the benefit of your years of experience. Give her time.”

Morgan nodded, then drained his glass and turned it upside down on the desk. Before either man could say more, there was a polite knock at the door.

“The captain asked me to inform you that the capacitors are nearly charged, my lord,” the fresh-faced deck officer said after Kest bid him enter. “He awaits your presence on the bridge at your convenience.”

“Very well,” Kest said. “Please ask the Priestess Sira Corven to join us as well.”

The lieutenant saluted and withdrew. Kest chuckled as he replaced the liquor bottle in his desk drawer.

“Were we ever that young?” he asked, rising and straightening the wrinkles from his vest.

“No,” Morgan replied with a smirk.

Kest donned a white, double-breasted admiral’s coat with long rows of gleaming silver buttons running up each side and across the upper part of the chest. The lining was blue silk and shone where the sleeves had been cuffed at least six inches. A blue sash draped over his right shoulder and doubled as a baldric for a ceremonial sword. Unlike Derek Morgan’s short, broad-bladed sword, this was a long, curved cavalry saber with an oiled leather sheath and silver filigree on the crosspiece and handle.

“How do I look?” Kest asked once he’d done up the buttons and settled the sword in place. Derek Morgan looked him up and down and then broke out in a wide grin.

“Like the bellman at the Palmer House,” he said.

Kest laughed. None of his followers would have dared say something like that to his face. It made him appreciate Morgan’s friendship all the more. After all, you couldn’t rely on people who would tell you only what you want to hear, rather than the truth. And Raphael Kest valued truth.

O O O

They arrived on the bridge just as the last wire-wrapped doughnut in the tall glass tubes began to float above its brethren. A circuit was completed and a needle on a large dial swiveled to point at the word “‘Charged.”.’

“All capacitors charged and ready,” Raff reported.

Kest nodded and then said, “Proceed Captain.”

Raff turned back to the bridge, barking for the lookouts to report all clear. When they did, he turned to an airman sitting in front of a tall control console. He was grizzled with thick mutton chop sideburns and a bulbous pug nose. His eyes were frozen in a permanent squint, as if he’d spent too many years manning a lookout tower, and when he smiled, his teeth showed the yellowing of chewing tobacco.

“Deploy the resonators,” Raff said, and the old airman began pulling levers on his console.

A shudder ran through the ship and although he couldn’t see it, Kest knew that three long booms were being run out from the decks below. Each boom held a diamond-hard resonator crystal as big as a horse on its end, mounted in a three-axis cage that enabled them to be pointed in any direction. Two of the booms emerged from the sides of the
Vengeance
while a third dropped down below the airship from its tail. Each boom reached out one hundred feet before locking into place with a shudder that shook the enormous vessel from stem to stern. The airman turned dials, maneuvering the resonators until they all pointed at a single spot about a mile in front of the hovering airship. While he fought with his equipment, Sira appeared at Kest’s side, as silent as a ghost. Kest noticed with a smile that she chose the opposite side from where Morgan stood.

“We are ready to fire on your command, my Lord,” Raff reported.

Kest nodded and alarm bells began ringing throughout the ship. At the sound, the bridge crew immediately donned protective ear coverings made of padded leather sewn around a thick metal band to keep them on their heads. Captain Raff passed three of the leather ear muffs to his guests, then turned back and gave the wizened airman a thumbs-up sign. The little man stood up, grasping a long red lever that ran down the side of his control panel. He heaved, putting all his weight behind it. The lever trembled, as if trying to remain in place but finally, with a shudder and a groan, it slid down to the bottom of its track.

The three capacitors, partly hidden away below decks, surged, pouring their energy along heavy cables that ran from the ship to the frame holding the resonators. The massive crystals began to vibrate, filling the air with a cacophonous sound that grew louder and louder as the moments passed. Kest could feel the vibrations in the air, threatening to rattle the fillings from his teeth. The sound began to pierce the protection of the ear muffs, boring into his head and making it throb with pain.