Romulus Buckle & the Engines of War (34 page)

Buckle was troubled. Max could sense it in his voice, even if he was trying to hide it by being soothing. Something was very wrong. Her heart pounded inside the distant, faraway cavern of her body. She tried to force herself awake. Her eyes would not open again, but she felt her body twisting.

“Whoa, take it easy, Max,” Buckle said, his hand squeezing hers. “Take it easy. It is all right. Everything is all right.”

“She is still in shock,” Lee’s voice echoed from across the room. “You may not get anything coherent from her quite yet. And it is time for her next dose of morphine.”

Max heard the zip of the knife against the frail glass of the vial, the quick snap as the nipple broke off. She did not want the morphine. She wanted to be awake, no matter how much her wounds hurt her. She wanted to be awake long enough to see Buckle, to talk to him.

“Max, can you hear me? I have to go,” Buckle said, releasing her hand. “I will check in on you as soon as I return. I brought you some presents.” She heard his clothing rustle as he stood, the soft clatter of small things on the bedside table. “I took the liberty of bringing a few items from your cabin, a hummingbird nest and a chrysalis—is this from Sequoia? I don’t know how you ever find the time to collect these things. They can help keep you occupied—you can study them while
you convalesce. And there is a little gift from me as well. I made it myself.”

Buckle was being calm, but he was in a terrible hurry.

Max lifted her eyelids and held them open. For a moment, all she could make out were shadows and shapes in the nebulous orange haze of lantern light. To her left loomed the bolted hump of Tyro’s iron lung. Then the seams of the white-painted roof above her emerged into a set of soft vertical lines. She could not turn her head yet, but in the periphery of her vision she could see Buckle standing on her right. At the moment, his head was turned away toward Lee, and he had yet to notice that her eyes were open. He was dressed in his zeppelineer togs: his knee-high boots, the black trousers with the red stripe, his long leather coat with its double row of buttons, drawn in hard at the waist by his leather belt. He held his top hat, with its array of gears and gauges glittering in the lamplight, in his hand.

“Captain,” Max whispered, her voice as weak and rough as if she had not spoken for a thousand years.

Buckle knelt down beside her. “Max—you are awake! Can you hear me?”

“What is happening?” she rasped. “Tell me.” She wanted to say more, but she could not organize it, nor move her concrete tongue again so soon.

“Don’t talk, Max,” Buckle said gently. “Everything is fine.”

Max felt Buckle grasp her hands. There was a nervousness in his touch. “Tell me the truth, Captain. You know Martians do not lie, and we can sense the lies of others. Tell me.”

Buckle nodded. “The Founders have invaded Brineboiler territory. Balthazar has formed an alliance of clans against the Founders: us, the Alchemists, Imperials, Brineboilers, Gallowglasses, and, just barely, the Tinskins.”

Max felt the stinging prick of a needle in the bend of her elbow, the heaviness of a morphine-filled vein. She realized that Doctor Lee was seated at her other side, and he was now withdrawing an empty syringe from her arm.

Max’s eyes slammed shut and she fought them open again after two quivering blinks. “We need Spartak…the Steamweavers.”

“I am on my way to Spartak. Ryder is off to negotiate with the Steamweavers.”

Max wanted to be angry at herself but she could not muster it. Things were bad and here she lay useless in the infirmary, when the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
needed her most. She was only partially conscious now, being dragged away by the rhythmic lullaby of Tyro’s iron lung.

“Get better. We need you,” Buckle said. “I have to go now.”

“What happened to me?” Max asked.

“You do not remember?” Buckle replied, sounding surprised.

“I remember the sabertooth on my back,” Max said. “But no more.”

“And nothing after that?” Buckle said. Max detected a hint of both relief and disappointment in his voice.

“I do not remember,” Max whispered. She sensed the morphine torpor coming for her, and she allowed her eyelids to slip shut, surrendering to the void. She had lied. She remembered Buckle’s naked torso pressed to hers, his chest a hot boiler against her frozen skin. She remembered her trembling lips finding his and the surge of life that kiss had poured into her ravaged body.

She remembered him
kissing her back
.

She remembered everything.

LADY ANDROMEDA’S CARRIAGE

C
URSING IMPATIENTLY UNDER HIS BREATH
, Buckle shared a concerned glance with Sabrina beside him as their dark carriage rattled and bumped up the rough-hewn access road of the airfield. It seemed like it was taking forever to get to the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
. He felt trapped in the lightless compartment, rocking back and forth, assailed by the noise of creaking axles and copper-sheathed wheels, the coachman’s whip and pounding horse hooves. Fitzroy, Ivan, and Windermere crowded on the opposite bench, the latter two hastily dressed in their aviator togs, their faces pained by lovers’ farewells.

The courtyard of the citadel had been a scene of controlled chaos: soldiers and servants shouting in the night as they dashed about in a near panic of swinging lanterns and torches, ambassadors and their aides shouting as they searched for the proper carriages in the lines, and their coachmen shouting out their passengers’ titles as they fought to control spooking horses. Buckle had seen Thaddeus Aleppo and his fellow Brineboiler rush past. Aleppo’s ruddy face was frantic, cold-slicked with tears; there was no knowing what they might find when they arrived home.

Buckle’s gaze focused on Fitzroy. “You say the saboteur had no identifying markings, Mister Fitzroy? Are you sure?” Buckle
had asked Fitzroy the same question four different ways since they had piled into the carriage, but he could not stop himself from asking it again.

“No, Captain,” Fitzroy shouted back over the din. “But he was dressed pretty much all in black, according to Mister Banerji’s account. Mister De Quincey sent me off to find you on the spot, sir. Perhaps they found something later, sir.”

Buckle nodded, noticing that Ivan held Holly’s whale-ivory-and-garnet cameo in his hands. “A grand token from your lady, Ivan?”

“Yes,” Ivan replied.

“It is quite a lovely gesture of affection,” Sabrina added.

Ivan smiled a little. “Yes, it is, is it not? Holly even offered to provide me with a teardrop for my chemical experiment, but I will be damned if I had anything in which to collect it.”

“I am sure you will make her cry quite often,” Sabrina said lightly. “You are far too difficult, after all.”

Ivan nodded without protestation. He pulled the little wooden cardinal he had carved out of his pocket. “I forgot to give her my present. In the rush, I forgot to give it to her.”

“It shall be a fine gift for her when you get back,” Sabrina said.

The carriage hit a rough patch and groaned to a stop. Windermere hopped to the door and leapt out, holding it open. “There appears to be someone here waiting to see you, Captain,” he called back in.

Collecting his sword, dismayed at the prospect of further delays, Buckle glared at Windermere as he stood outside the carriage door, backlit by falling snow and orange lantern light. “Someone? For the love of—Windy, be specific!”

“It is an Alchemist general, Captain,” Windermere offered quietly.

“Lady Andromeda must be here,” Sabrina whispered.

“Aye,” Buckle replied, leveraging himself out onto the carriage steps and looking back at Sabrina. “Have Banerji show you exactly where the saboteur was when he found him. And see to the final preparations. I want to cast off before dawn.”

“Aye,” Sabrina said.

Buckle jumped to the ground. The air of the freshly fallen night met him with its harsh chill and coal fog, his boots crunching in a churned mess of ice, stiffening dope, soil, barrel dust, and mule manure—the perfume of every docked zeppelin. The repair dock in front of him was a lumber berth built twenty feet high, with the derricks and the huge mass of the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
’s flank looming like a mountain above that. Swirling yellow buglights hung on every rope, while the machinist trench under the dock, busy with the mumbles and clatterings of the ground crews, glowed green from its massive glass boil tanks.

“Captain Buckle, sir!” a man shouted, not far on Buckle’s left. Buckle turned to see Sergeant Salgado and four marines, their scarlet jackets and red-puggareed pith helmets dusted with snow, marching up the access road with their duffel bags. They were newly assigned to the
Pneumatic Zeppelin
by Balthazar. Buckle knew Salgado; he was a good man.

“Sergeant Salgado!” Buckle shouted. “Good to have the marines aboard!”

“Glad to be here, sir!” Salgado shouted back with another salute.

Buckle immediately turned to his right and strode toward a waiting carriage, where General Scorpius stood beside the door, his plumed helmet tucked under his arm, his ornate breastplate gleaming with the flicker of a hundred lanterns.

“Greetings, Captain Buckle,” Scorpius said with a salute. “It seems we only meet under harsh circumstances.”

“Aye, General Scorpius,” Buckle replied, tipping his hat. “I see they have promoted you to footman. Good show.”

Scorpius did not crack a smile, nor had Buckle expected him to. He swung the carriage door open. “Please, Captain.”

Buckle removed his top hat and ducked into the carriage. The interior was lit only by one small whale-oil lamp, whose small pool of light was abandoned in a sea of darkness after Scorpius slammed the door shut, nearly hammering Buckle in the arse with it.

“Please, Captain Buckle, have a seat.” Andromeda’s hauntingly melodic voice came from the blackness behind the lantern. She was very close, due to the cramped confines of the compartment, but she was beyond the limited reach of the lamplight. “I am honored that you might give me a moment when things are so hectic.”

Buckle swung onto the opposite bench, gripping his scabbard to keep it clear of his legs. The seat was luxuriously posh, made of velvet and silk, and the wood panels glittered with gold etchings and tortoise wax. Andromeda was riding in one of the princely carriages reserved for visiting dignitaries.

“I am sure your matters are equally pressing,” Buckle said. “It is not a good time to be far from home.”

“No,” Andromeda replied. She slid closer to the candle and Buckle could now see her fairly well, her elegant face with the appealing, gentle smile, the light hair, the still-healing scars from the prison-cell blast jagged but healing on her forehead, the hypnotist’s violet-black eyes, now made even more powerful in the delicate half-light of the lantern flame. “As such, though it is a pleasure to see you again, please forgive me for being blunt.”

“Of course.”

“Do you know who you truly are? And who your sister is?” Andromeda asked. “From the time before Balthazar adopted you?”

Buckle blinked. He had not expected
that
question. “We are the offspring of Alpheus and Diana Buckle.”

“Yes,” Andromeda said, but she shook her head. “I do not mean to insult you, dear Captain, but that cannot be the entire story.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a reason why the Founders took Elizabeth, and we must find out why. It is imperative. Yes, your mission to Spartak is essential. But you must find a way to rescue Elizabeth, and rescue her quickly.”

“Of course,” Buckle said. “I would welcome any opportunity to rescue her. And I shall.”

“And you must. I do not know very much, but I know that Elizabeth is the key to winning this war, the key to all of our futures. She must be rescued at all costs.”

“Elizabeth is the key to everything?” Buckle asked. “How?”

“I do not know how, or why—but she
is
.”

“Does Balthazar also believe this?”

“He has not confided such knowledge to me,” Andromeda said. “What I am to recommend to you here and now, to ask you, is if you get the opportunity, no matter how risky, you must make every effort, even abandon your duties to the Alliance, to reclaim your sister from Isambard Kingdom Fawkes.”

“Abandon my duties,” Buckle repeated, as if the words needle-pricked his tongue. He was confused by Andromeda now, especially the certain feeling in his gut that she was telling him the truth.

Andromeda leaned forward and took his hand firmly in the grasp of her long, white, smooth-skinned fingers. “And, dear Captain, if you get to Elizabeth but she cannot be freed, you cannot leave her to the Founders. You must kill her rather than leave her to them—it will be a far more merciful fate than the one awaiting her as their prisoner.” Andromeda leaned even closer, her voice preternaturally present in his ears, her fingers tightening around his bigger hands. “Romulus, there exists an ancient wickedness, the nature of which is unknown to me, but some terrible, awful evil has risen—and the Founders have made this horror their master. They need Elizabeth to achieve their goals, and if she cannot be rescued, then she must be destroyed, or all else, including all of us, will be ruin.”