Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) (15 page)

“Careful!” cried out Katarina.

He almost thanked her for her concern but decided not to waste time on words and began climbing. Below him Katarina made her way out onto the ladder, her skirt billowing like a sail. The windows on the upper deck were much larger, and Lazarus peered into one as inconspicuously as possible. It would not do to meet the eyes of a crewmember enjoying the view. They appeared to be on the outside of some sort of board room, which thankfully was empty. A long, highly polished walnut table stretched the length of the room. A bookcase lined the far wall and there was even a chandelier dangling above the table.

Lazarus broke a pane and reached in to unlock the window. The top slid down and he scrambled in, landing on soft carpet. Katarina accepted his help as he grasped her around the corset and lifted her in. They shut the window behind them, although the wind still whistled in through the pane Lazarus had broken.

“As we’re up here,” Katarina said, “we may as well head for the bridge. It’s closer than the engine room and most of the guards are below us.”

“Agreed,” said Lazarus, opening the door to the corridor that ran the length of the gondola. It was deserted and they headed fore, down the wood-paneled corridor towards the bridge.

Surprisingly, there were no guards at the doorway. They opened the door and looked in on a wide room with a panoramic view of the clouds. Several men stood with their backs to them in front of banks of controls.

“All right, you fellows!” said Lazarus in a loud voice that made them all jump. “We’ve got you covered, now hands up and step away from the controls!”

The faces of the captain and his officers were a picture as Lazarus and Katarina made them line up against one of the windows. They all wore uniforms of the Confederacy, except one who was dressed in a grey frock coat with no insignias. A long leather apron was attached to the front of it with brass buttons. The man was elderly, with ear-length gray hair and an unkempt beard. There was something in his eyes that unnerved Lazarus; either it was the expression of a psychopath who had no fear of a man pointing a gun at him, or of a man who was confident he was being underestimated. Lazarus wasn’t sure which scenario worried him more.

“Now,” said Katarina, assuming charge of the situation. “We are going to take this airship down and you lot are going to do it for us. Who’s the captain?”

“That’s me, ma’am,” said a man wearing a cap with the insignia of an anchor in a wreath above his leather visor. “Let’s just stay calm, shall we? There’s no need for hysterics.”

“Do as I say and you’ll have no cause to get hysterical,” she snapped back. “I’m holding you personally responsible for getting this ship on the ground. If any of your officers decide to get heroic, then you’re the one who will end up with a bullet in his brain.”

The man in the frock coat and apron laughed at this. “No, I don’t think you’ll be putting any bullets in our good captain, my dear.”

Katarina peered into his face. “Dr. Lindholm, I presume? We’ll be having a chat later, you and I, but first I want this ship landed.”

“I’ve not the damndest idea who you two are,” said Lindholm, “but I imagine you were part of that party that recently trespassed on my dig and destroyed weeks of my work. We shall indeed have a chat later, but this airship will not deviate from its course.”

Katarina was not one to be tested. “Do you think I won’t shoot the captain dead because I fear we won’t be able to land without him? Well I can assure you that I won’t have my bluff called.”

“Not at all,” said Lindholm. I believe you won’t shoot him because Amenhotep the First won’t let you.”

Katarina blinked. “Why on earth would some dead pharaoh stop me?”

Lindholm’s smile broadened. “Because he’s standing right behind you.”

Chapter Fifteen

In which our heroes battle the un-dead at ten thousand feet

Amenhotep the First was indeed standing behind them. Part of him, anyway. The rest was a mass of gears and pistons, powered by a mechanite furnace. They hadn’t heard him approach and Lazarus wondered how long it took to get these mechanical mummies fired up and running. It couldn’t have come from the cargo hold. Lindholm must have a few of these things prowling the decks as added security.

“Weapons, if you please,” Dr. Lindholm said.

They looked down at what passed for hands on the mechanized mummy. One was a sickle-shaped blade and the other ended in a six-cylinder Jericho gun. Presumably both were detachable.

“Amenhotep’s dexterity is a little clumsy when it comes to anything other than killing so you can hand them to me directly,” Dr. Lindholm added.

They passed over their guns, each looking as sheepish as the other felt. “I don’t get it, Lindholm,” Lazarus said. “Why mummies? Why spend all this effort on Egypt? I’ve seen mechanicals in the Confederate States. They don’t look all that different to this. Better even.” He cast a grimace of distaste at the wrinkled, withered face of the mummy, lolling on its reinforced skeleton.

Lindholm’s look was chilling. “Who are you? You sound like a limey. What took you to my homeland? Some sort of spy mission?”

“I work for the British government.”

“A spy. That explains your meddling in my affairs here. And in answer to your question, yes, we do have our mechanicals, fine examples of my own work, some of them. But there is one crucial element which is not apparent at face value. The mechanics are flawless. The fault lies in the organic pilots. In short, they are mortal.”

“I got that,” said Lazarus. “And I can see that you’ve reanimated these mummies using some kind of galvanic battery. But what is to stop them from being killed like any other organic?”

“Galvanic battery!” hooted Lindholm. “Nothing so primitive, sir! Mummies present a scientific anomaly. They possess a property understood by the ancient Egyptians in the form of spiritualism, and one that today’s science can barely scratch the surface of.”

“The ancient Egyptians never intended their mummified remains to be reanimated,” said Lazarus. “They saw them merely as corporeal houses for the soul.”

“I see I am dealing with an educated man, spy though you may be,” said Lindholm. “Then perhaps you are aware of the ancient Egyptian concepts of ‘
Ka
’ and ‘
Ba
’.”

“Yes, the
Ka
is the vital spark, or life as it were. Much like the soul in Judeo-Christian theology, it lives on after death but is confined to the tomb, inhabiting the mummy or effigies of the deceased. The
Ba
is the personality and is the part of the soul that is judged by the gods. Only when judgment is passed, can
Ka
and
Ba
be reunited and the complete soul make its transition to the afterlife. The delay caused by this judgment is the reason for mummification; the postponing of decay to prolong the
Ba
’s chances of returning to reunite with the
Ka
.

“Quite correct, if a little spiritual for my tastes,” said Lindholm. “Through my studies I have discovered that both
Ka
and
Ba
do in fact exist.”

Lazarus raised his eyebrow skeptically. “You have ascertained the existence of the soul?” It was unthinkable. Millennia of theological debate suddenly resolved by this Confederate scientist.
And yet, he has brought the dead back to life
.

“Soul?” Lindholm pondered, tugging on his side whiskers with a gloved hand. “Not as such. You see, there is a science behind all this, I do assure you. And the word ‘soul’ is a gross simplification, I’m afraid. The
Ka
and the
Ba
are more like energy sources, and like all energy sources they have only to be tapped to be mastered. Energy does not deteriorate over time, as I’m sure you know. Change form, yes, but the ancient Egyptians perfected the art of preventing that change. Those old priests left me their legacy in their own simple way and now I, the scientist—which is the priest of the modern age, you understand—have picked up the gauntlet.”

“You do realize that we will do all that we can to ensure this airship never reaches American shores,” Lazarus told him.

Lindholm smiled. “You are in no position to make threats, sir.” A thought suddenly seemed to occur to him and a brief expression of uncertainty crossed his face. “How many of you are there? Just the two of you?”

Lazarus and Katarina smiled and said nothing, both enjoying this little triumph over the maniac’s ego.

Lindholm turned to his mummy. “Search the ship! Look everywhere. If you find any more stowaways, kill them!”

The monster shambled off down the corridor. Before Lindholm had a chance to turn back to his captives, Katarina slammed the heel of her boot against the iron door, swinging it shut. Lazarus barreled into Lindholm, knocking him sprawling before any of the officers could draw their weapons. Katarina spun the wheel lock just in time before the hulk of the creature, realizing it had been locked out, returned and slammed itself against the bridge door.

Side arms were drawn and leveled at Lazarus, who battled with Lindholm for control of his pistol. Nobody pulled any triggers for fear of hitting the esteemed scientist. Lazarus had his hand around the barrel of the Enfield, and Lindholm held the butt. His finger stretched around the trigger. A shot went off, missing Lazarus’s scalp by inches, instead hitting the bulkhead with a loud ‘doinggg!’ sound.

“Don’t hit any of the windows, for God’s sake!” cried out the captain.

Lazarus shifted his grip and swung the gun around over Lindholm’s right shoulder. Two more shots went off accidentally before Lindholm gathered his wits and sunk his teeth into Lazarus’s arm at the elbow. Lazarus cried out and drove his knee into the doctor’s thigh, nearly breaking the bone. The man went down with a scream of agony, and Lazarus finished him with a downwards slam of his elbow to the forehead.

Then the crew opened fire. Lazarus immediately dropped as several bullets whistled overhead and ricocheted off the iron door, which was still under attack by the creature on the other side. He grabbed his gun from where it had fallen to the deck and fired twice, killing a lieutenant.

Katarina had also seized her own pistol and began firing like a demon. Two more fell, slumped over their control desks. Lazarus saw that the captain was already dead. He couldn’t remember how that had happened, but surmised that he must have caught one or both of the shots Lindholm had got off in the struggle. With the captain and three of his crew dead, landing the airship suddenly presented more of a challenge.

“No, don’t!” he yelled as Katarina felled yet another officer. “We need some of them alive!”

“Are you frightened of landing this thing on your own?” she said. “You did pretty well landing the
Santa Bella,
as I recall.”

“Do you really think this is the same thing? You don’t just toss a mooring rope around a church spire.”

“Have it your way. Look, there’s one left. Will he do?”

She indicated a youngish man cowering behind a desk and gibbering for mercy. There was a sizable wet patch seeping through the front of his grey breeches. He tossed his revolver towards them in surrender.

The incessant slams of the mummy against the door to the bridge showed no signs of relenting. “He’ll be through that in no time,” Lazarus said, eyeing the bending hinges and bulging of the iron. We might not have time to land before he’s upon us.”

“Then we’ll just have to convince the good doctor to dispatch new orders.”

“Can’t. He’s out cold.”

Katarina glanced at the unfamiliar controls all around her. “Then we’re in trouble.”

The door was bending further out of shape with every crashing jolt from the other side. Lindholm was passed out at their feet and the gibbering officer was in no fit state to help them.

“You know what this means,” Lazarus said.

“What?”

“Revert to plan A.”

“Oh, God.”

Lazarus aimed his pistol at a window and shot out the glass. Wind whipped in, sending razor shards all around the bridge. Lazarus poked his head out and looked along the length of the gondola. There was a horizontal ladder running along the roof, accessible via a series of iron rungs that passed by the window, close enough to reach.

He grabbed hold of one rung and swung himself out onto the ladder, not making the mistake of looking down this time. Katarina followed him and they made their way as quickly and as carefully as possible to the top of the gondola, shaded by the massive bulk of the balloon.

“We could sever the helium pipe that leads into the balloon,” Katarina suggested.

“That’s the ticket,” Lazarus replied. “It’ll be up at the other end, leading from the aft.”

They walked carefully along the top of the gondola, stepping between the iron rungs that promised a good handhold should either of them slip.

“Lazarus!” Katarina cried as a shape made its way up onto the walkway behind them. The mummy had finally broken through the door to the bridge and had followed them up.

“Walk quicker,” were Lazarus’s only words of advice. He didn’t fancy tangling with that thing up on the precarious walkway.

They could hear its metal feet stumbling and tripping over the rungs as it tried to catch up with them. It was too much to hope for, Lazarus supposed, that it might trip and slide off the gondola to perish hundreds of feet below. Would a fall like that even kill one of these things? Surely it would rupture the glass orb concealing its heart. They would have to hope so.

“Damn, how many of these things are up and running?” Katarina yelled, flinging out a finger at a second mechanical mummy scrambling up ahead of them. It was the one with the mechanized hindquarters of a jackal that they had encountered in the City of the Silver Aten.

“Now we’re for it!” said Lazarus, for they were trapped between the two advancing mummies and the gap was growing smaller with every juddering footstep.

“We’ll have to fight them here!” Katarina said, drawing her pistol and firing off a shot at their pursuer. “You keep that dog-man whatever it is off us!”

“It’s too far off for me to get a clear shot,” Lazarus replied, drawing his gun on Katarina’s target and squeezing off a round.

They both fired until their chambers were empty. They reloaded and started to fire some more. Bullets tore through decayed flesh, eliciting puffs of dust and powdered bandage which were instantly whipped away on the wind.

“Come on... come on...” urged Lazarus through gritted teeth. Surely one of them would get a lucky hit and pierce the heart. But all the while the jackal-man was loping closer and closer.

“Got it!” Katarina yelled.

Lazarus nearly whooped in the American fashion but remembered himself just in time. The modified form of Amenhotep the First stumbled backwards, green liquid spurting out of his ruptured orb. He fell back and hit the deck, rolled, and then slid down, his metal limbs scraping against the hull of the gondola and leaving deep scores as he vanished into the view below.

Lazarus was about to turn to assess the progress of their secondary threat, but realized how they had underestimated the speed of the steam-powered jackal legs as soon as the iron claw grasped his shoulder and wrenched him hard to the left, tearing his flesh.

In a panic, he caught the arm that had grasped him and held on for dear life as the soles of his feet slipped on the sleek metal deck. The creature tried to shake him free and, finding that his prey was reluctant to let go, took a step forwards.

“N... no! D... don’t!” Lazarus managed as the iron claws of the creature’s right foot slipped on the metal. Lazarus gargled a scream as the creature skidded and toppled forwards and they both began their descent to the distant desert below.

Something painfully hard caught Lazarus in the ribs and knocked the breath from him. He had given up his grip on the creature as soon as he realized that it too was going to take the plunge with him, but now they were both tangled against the stud on the side of the gondola that fastened the guy lines of the balloon to the vessel. Squirming to get free, Lazarus aimed his pistol at the stud and, gripping one line tightly, fired, blasting some of the lines free.

Instantly he was swept away by gravity, like the weight on a pendulum, and carried along the length of the gondola.
Well, that’s one way to reach the aft in a hurry
, he thought as the windows of the gondola rushed passed at a dizzying speed. But that creature had kept his hold on one of the lines as well and was dangling like a dog on the end of a piece of rope not far from Katarina’s position.

Had he the time, Lazarus would have undoubtedly thought of some better plan of action than the one he undertook. He was nearing the end of his terrifying swing and thought he might be able to grab hold of the ladder that led up to the top of the gondola, but then, what of Katarina? The creature would be making its own way topside and she would be standing all alone against it. She would want him to continue on with the mission; sever the helium pipe while she held the creature at bay. But he just couldn’t do that.