The Dragon Lantern (11 page)

And it was the twin mounted rayguns on either side of the wheels that made them so feared everywhere.

“Monowheels we can handle,” Private Inola told Archie.

“Be like playing chunkey,” said a Cahokian soldier. “Two points for putting a raygun shot through the hoop.”

But then
Colossus
began to shake and rattle more than usual, and the soldiers grew quiet. Rising over the ridge was an enormous cogged monowheel, ten times the size of the smaller ones, and half the height of their United Nations Steam Man. Like the smaller monowheels, it was driven by a steam engine inside it, but unlike them, it housed not a single person but an armored capsule, no doubt filled with a small regiment of Sioux warriors. And like the smaller monowheels, it had twin guns mounted on the sides—but these were mighty raycannons.

“A motherwheel,”
someone whispered, and the jokes about putting a raygun shot through the chunkey came to an abrupt end.

“That's not a raiding party,” Inola said. “That's an invasion force!”

“Engage all targets!” came Lieutenant Pajackok's voice through the speaking trumpet. Golden beams lanced out from hatches up and down the steam man. They carved up the ground between the twisting, turning monowheels, but didn't manage to take any of them out. At another blast from the steam man's whistle, the aeronaut scouts high above dropped bombs.
Thoom! Thoom! Thoom!
They exploded in geysers of grass and sod. Between the bombs and the rayguns, they might be able to get all the monowheels. But how would they defeat the giant motherwheel?

Archie heard heavy clanking from somewhere beyond the wall to the right of him and felt
Colossus
rumble.

Inola ducked back down from his gun port to wait while his oscillator recharged, and he smiled at Archie. “Time to bring out the big guns,” Inola said. “Keep an eye on that arm.”

Archie looked back out the hatch at
Colossus'
s right arm. The fingers on the steam man's right hand stretched out, came together, and retracted, disappearing into its thick right forearm. It looked like someone had chopped the steam man's hand off at the wrist.

Something whined inside the forearm, and Archie felt his white hair stand on end. It was like all the air around
Colossus
was being sucked into the arm. No, not the air. Something else. Something alive but intangible.

Aether
. Twisted pistons,
Colossus
's arm was a giant raycannon!

BWAAAAT
. The arm cannon fired, knocking Archie on his butt again. The air outside flashed gold like the entire sky had exploded, and the soldiers inside
Colossus
cheered. Archie scrambled to his feet to see the motherwheel, damaged, carve a rut around the steam man and steam off in retreat the way it had come.

“We've got 'em on the run!” someone cried.

“Did you see that?” Archie asked Mr. Rivets. “Did you see that?”

Mr. Rivets had finally come to one of the gun ports to look out. “I saw the blast from
Colossus's
raycannon, Master Archie,” Mr. Rivets said. “But I do not see its target.”

“The motherwheel!” Archie said. It was right there. “
Colossus
just blasted off one of its raycannons!”

“Master Archie, there is no motherwheel here. Nor are there monowheels. The soldiers are shooting at empty ground.”

“No,” Archie said. He couldn't believe it. He was seeing it all with his own eyes—but the fox girl had made him see all manner of things that didn't exist in Cahokia in the Clouds. Could this be an illusion too? But this was massive! A motherwheel and a dozen monowheels!

“Mr. Rivets, are you telling me there's nothing out there? No Sioux invasion force?”

“I repeat, Master Archie, there is no motherwheel, nor any monowheels.”

“Slag,”
Archie muttered. “Stop shooting! There's nothing there!” he cried, but the soldiers just looked at him like he was crazy.

Archie grabbed the speaking trumpet from the wall and yelled into it. “Captain Custer! There's nothing there! It's all an illusion! You have to stop shooting!”

“Mr. Dent?” Lieutenant Pajackok replied. “Mr. Dent, we're in the middle of a military engagement. Stay off the line.”

“But I'm telling you, there's nothing out there! It's one of the fox girl's illusions!”

Archie got no response. He cursed under his breath and ran for the ladder. It was three floors up to the bridge, with
Colossus
moving forward and swinging its arms and chest back and forth. Archie stumbled again and again as he climbed. He felt the hair on his head stand up and the aether all around him aggregate in the massive arm cannon outside, and he hung on.

BWAAAAT
.

Archie was nearly thrown from the ladder. Down below, he heard the soldiers cheer again. The flanges didn't realize they were shooting at empty prairie!

Archie got his feet back on the ladder and climbed the rest of the way up into the bridge. Buster, now a constant presence at Clyde's side, licked Archie's face as he came up through the hatch. Clyde gave Archie a surprised look, but Archie didn't have time to even say hello.

“Captain Custer! You have to stop attacking!” Archie cried. “There's nothing there!”

“Lieutenant Pajackok told me about your concerns, Mr. Dent,” Custer said. “But as you can see, our raycannon is clearly having an effect.” He pointed out the big round windows at the retreating motherwheel. Black smoke poured from its side, and the massive wheel left a trail of broken parts and debris behind it. “Never hit us once!” Custer crowed.

“Because it's not real,”
Archie said. “I see it too. But the thief's illusions don't work on Mr. Rivets, and he says there's nothing out there!”

Lieutenant Pajackok looked worryingly at Custer, but the captain shook his head. “Your Mrs. Moffett told me this thief could somehow make people see things that weren't there, but we got no evidence she can operate at this scale. She may have tricked you with smoke and mirrors—maybe even mesmerized you somehow. But she can't do the same thing to a whole regiment. Mr. Magoro, double time, march! Mr. Tahmelapachme, I want to catch that motherwheel before it gets away.”

“Aye, sir,” Dull Knife said, working the legs and arms of
Colossus
as if they were his own. Archie looked imploringly at Clyde in his drummer's chair high up behind them, but Clyde just shrugged and picked up the pace, as Custer had ordered.

Custer turned from the window. “Mr. Dent, please clear the bridge. If we can't knock that thing over, I mean to board it, and I can't have you—”

The floor went out from under them. Archie went flying toward the windows, which were suddenly and sickeningly pointed straight down. The groan of metal, the scream of men, the rush of air, and—
KUR-RUNCH!
—
Colossus
plowed headfirst into the ground.

Archie bounced around the tiny bridge of the steam man like a lacrosse ball ricocheting in a goal net, finally coming to a stop in a cold puddle in the space between
Colossus
's eyes. In the stillness after the chaos, the only thing he heard was Buster's frightened barking. Archie shook the dizziness away and panicked—he was lying in a pool of blood!
No. No, calm down.
It was just water.

The bridge was a mess. Twisted metal and broken wood lay piled on top of Archie, and underneath him was shattered glass and rock. Archie had no idea what had happened to cause the crash, but there would be time to figure that out later. Buster, seemingly unharmed, dug at the rubble next to Archie, and Archie heard a groan. Archie lifted Buster aside and moved the rubble away. It was Pajackok! He'd gone flying like Archie, but hadn't fared as well. His forehead was covered with blood, and one of his legs was twisted the wrong way. Laying over him was a heavy brass buttress that had come loose in the crash, and Archie lifted it off and cast it aside.

But now what? Custer lay nearby, unconscious, and Dull Knife and Clyde hung limp from their chairs like puppets. Archie had to get Pajackok and the others outside and get medical treatment for them. But
Colossus
was facedown, and there was no way of telling if he could even get through the neck himself, let alone carry Pajackok or any of the others out that way.

“How do we get out, Buster?” Archie asked. Then he remembered—the hatch at the top of
Colossus
's head! It was easily within reach and hadn't been damaged in the crash. Archie spun the lock on the hatch, and it fell open.

“Hello in there!” someone called down. “Are you all right?” Sergeant Two Clouds! She and the other two aeronauts had come down to
Colossus
to help with the rescue, and she was still in her balloon harness. Buster barked at her, and Archie shushed him.

“They're all hurt!” Archie said. “Can you lower a rope and lift them out?”

One by one, Archie and Two Clouds got the bridge crew out through the hatch and onto the ground. When everyone was clear, Archie and Buster worked their way back inside. The connection between
Colossus
's head and its body was still useable, and with Buster there to sniff out the crew in the wreckage, Archie helped the aeronauts lift the rest of the men out deck by deck. On the crew deck, Archie found Mr. Rivets banged up but otherwise in good working condition. The machine man was too heavy for the aeronauts to lift out, but Archie was able to pick him up and push him high enough for the Tik Tok to grab the external hatch on the steam man's back and pull himself through.

When Archie had cleared the last of the men from engineering, Two Clouds lifted him and Buster out. Then, for the first time, Archie could see what had happened.
Colossus
lay headfirst in a wide ravine, its head planted in a small creek that ran through the bottom of the valley. The creek bed itself was broad and flat, but about a hundred yards away the ground rose steeply, forming a ten-foot-tall cliff.

Archie pictured it in his head:
Colossus
pursuing the motherwheel over what looked like a long, flat expanse of prairie; Custer ordering Clyde and Dull Knife to pick up the pace; and then, right as they had begun to jog after the motherwheel, the ground disappearing beneath their feet. They'd gone sprawling, like running off the top of a stairwell without seeing it coming.

Only the ground hadn't disappeared. It had never been there to begin with. What they had seen—everything, from the Sioux raiding party to the flat terrain in front of them—had been an illusion.

“We saw it all,” Two Clouds told Archie after she landed. “The monowheels, the motherwheel, prairie stretching for miles. Then—nothing. All the Sioux vanished, and there was the cliff and the creek bed, and
Colossus
was going over. I sent Shiriki back after we got everyone out, but there was no sign of their tracks. Just the holes we blasted. It's like they were never there.”

“They weren't,” Archie told her. The whole thing had been one big trick, meant to lure
Colossus
off that ledge. To stop them from following her. And they had fallen for it. Facefirst.

No one was dead, but almost everyone was hurt. Their injuries ranged from a few cuts and bruises to broken arms and legs to serious internal injuries that had the regiment's medic and Mr. Rivets (with his Surgeon card installed) working long into the night. Only Archie and Buster had come through unscathed.

In the morning, they could finally see how badly
Colossus
had been damaged. The giant steam man was dented and bent, but not irreparable, the engineers said. The trouble was that it had landed with its right arm folded underneath it and its left arm stretched out behind it. The engine room got the boilers running again, but no matter what Dull Knife did, he couldn't get enough leverage to get
Colossus
up off the ground.

Archie stood with Custer, Pajackok, and Clyde, watching the steam man rock and wallow helplessly in the creek bed. Buster ran around the prone steam man, barking at it to get up and play.

Custer cursed under his breath and smoothed his mustache with his good hand. The other hung in a sling across his chest.

“Mr. Dent, I apologize,” Custer said. “You warned me, and I didn't listen. I just never thought…”

“I know,” Archie said. “I didn't either the first time.”

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. That's what Mrs. DeMarcus used to say,” Clyde said. “That girl won't fool us again.”

“No, she won't,” Custer said. “Because we're done. We can't get
Colossus
up out of there. We're going to have to take what we can carry and hike to the nearest Pawnee town. Come back with another steam man regiment to lift it out.”

“We'll be a laughingstock,” Pajackok said.

Custer scowled, clearly thinking the same thing. “Nothing else can lift it.”

“Archie can,” Clyde said.

Clyde's words hung there in the air like smoke. Nothing but another ten-story-tall steam man could lift
Colossus
—except maybe a twelve-year-old boy who was, as Archie himself had to admit, even smaller than most other boys his age. Archie couldn't blame Custer and Pajackok for not believing it. He couldn't believe it himself.

“Can you do it, son?” Custer asked at last.

Archie shook his head. “It's too big. Too heavy. I can't.”

“Have you ever tried to lift something that big?” Clyde asked.

“No.”

“Then how do you know you can't?” he asked.

Archie stared at the enormous machine man. Laid out flat, it was as long as a lacrosse field.

“All you can do is try,” Clyde told him.