I am come to take her away, thought Wang. Why does she bring me within?
“Next time,” she added, “pay attention. We shall not have these errors again.” Childress turned to face the doors.
Two soldiers scrambled to throw them open. She walked slowly, with an expression of deliberate concentration as if she worked some spell. He quickstepped after her as they passed into the shadows, much as if he were her servant.
A messenger, carrying a belated dispatch from the far side of the Northern Earth.
Within was a dusty, empty room where soaring pillars supported the dome. It had once been a temple, Wang realized. Church, here in Europe—he’d seen churches in Singapore and Tainan. Now the floor was empty, innocent of the hard benches Christians seemed to favor. A raised section at the far end suggested there had once been an altar. Narrow windows with colored glass shed speckled light in long bands across the echoing silence.
The doors crashed shut behind them. A light shower of dust fell from high above. He looked up to see the interior of the dome, pediments that must have been meant to bear statues spaced around the band at its base.
“No one is here,” he whispered.
“I know that.” Childress sounded irritated.
Wang shut his mouth. The Mask looked about thoughtfully. Doors led out at the back, while darkened hallways extended left and right.
No one moved.
Even so, he had the distinct impression of being watched. People in the shadows? If this place was like the Forbidden City, there would be listeners hidden within the walls, under the floors, down inside the very pillars.
Somehow, Wang was sure that the foe here was not so hidden. If anything, they were too close.
“You may come out now,” Childress called in a strong, clear voice, as if summoning children from a hiding place.
Wang jumped slightly as the shadows began to move.
KITCHENS
They’d passed above Portsmouth undetected. Portsmouth! He was almost to his goal. His body felt wretched, headache still stabbing, but at least the bright circles had faded from his vision. Paolina, that angel of mercy, had brought oxygen and water until he had turned both away.
A man could only take so much.
Now he watched the trees pass by far below, rougher green textures against the vague striations of farm fields. The girl manipulated her device, the small, strange magic that had driven all of them so far.
Without her, he would have failed long ago. Without her, the Queen would remain trapped endlessly. Without her, they could die in the sky even now.
“Think on the palace you seek,” she said, the faint Portuguese lilt in her voice thrilling him.
He considered his memories of Blenheim Palace. An architectural marvel, a stone monstrosity, mausoleum for a not-quite-dead Queen, a hive of angry Scotsmen and serious fellows with a penchant for interrogation. Whispering marble-floored halls, cotton-draped furniture, the scent of blood, countryside full of sturdy English peasants who would protect their masters’ secrets, a town occupied by a Highland regiment . . .
Something tickled in Kitchens’ mind. Like prayer, but in reverse, as if a voice from beyond were reaching in. He imagined the palace as it had looked upon his approach, the road from Woodstock, where the turns had been, how the copses and belts of trees had been laid out. Were there walls? Was the drive graveled or cobbled? How far from London had he come?
A map of England shifted in his mind. His work had always been overwhelmingly concerned with what took place beyond Albion’s shores. Home was mostly railway stations, offices, naval bases, manufactories—resources to be deployed, locations where important men must be visited to deliver reports.
That England was a place had somehow always escaped him.
Now he flew above the landscape, swifter than a bird, sliding past clouds, looking down on twisting country roads and the brick-lined cuts of railway embankments. Shadows seemed to fall in all directions, as if the sun spun in the sky above him. The world grew to a blur of color; then Blenheim Palace stood at the center like the trick of a display at an odeon.
“Thank you,” she said, and he was shivering.
Gashansunu offered him more water. “Here, you will need this. If I but had the right herbs . . .”
Paolina was already off to confer with Boaz.
Soon, thought Kitchens. Soon, my Queen. Though I am far later than I should be, I still come to your need.
TWENTY
Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. —Ecclesiastes 10:20
BOAZ
“A bit to the left,” Paolina told Levine. The old sailor had the helm, a stoked oxygen pot beside him. The crew was roused for the imminent landing. “We should be able to see it soon,” she added.
The Brass looked over the rail. “I do not know how you can tell one field from another here.”
“It does not matter, dear,” she said. “I know where Blenheim Palace is as surely as I know where you are. I will probably be able to see this place for the rest of my life, waking or sleeping.”
::he took them upon the mountain, and shewed them all the kingdoms of the Wall, and they were sore amazed::
“It is a strange power you hold.”
“I do not hold it.” Her tone was absent as she peered over the rail. “I only use it.”
“Still, here we are.”
Kitchens tromped back to them, his face almost purpling. “I will not go ashore as an armed party!”
Martins followed close behind. “I do not propose to attack a royal palace, sir, but it is madness to land unexpected and have no response if we are met in force. Guns in hand will at least allow you time to negotiate.”
Paolina glared at them. “What is this business with men and guns? Will you never lay down your arguments?”
“We sail unannounced into the heart of the Empire.” Kitchens’ voice was thick with frustration. “To arrive armed for attack only perpetuates the treason.”
::a king in madness is no more the man of his throne than a beggar who shouts murder in the streets of dawn::
“There is no treason here,” Boaz responded. “There is only need and action.”
The clerk shook his head. “Admiralty will never see it that way. Whitehall neither. This is an enemy vessel.”
“I have caused the banner to be slung,” Paolina said.
Kitchens whirled. “Where was I?”
“Arguing over guns.” She added, “It is still furled, but we will drop the cloth on our descent.”
The final design was a length of white with a golden crown and the letters “UK” sewn upon it. That signified nothing in particular but seemed likely to be perceived as non-Chinese. Doubt was important right now, in the minds of the defenders of Blenheim Palace.
Boaz had been given to understand that anyone charged with the safety of the Queen could not afford uncertainties. He had not raised the question. This was a fool’s errand at its best, taken on from loyalty rather from any rational expectation of success.
The Paolina–al-Wazir voice spoke up, almost all the old sailor’s now that she was here in person. Laddie, you’ve done well, but I ken you’ll be doing little more.
::the majesty of the Lord shines forever, no matter whose hand lifts the ark from the altar::
“I did not mean to start a war,” he said, “but I do mean to stop it.”
Paolina touched his arm. “You did not begin this madness.”
“We all did,” he told her. “The fighting commenced in East Africa, when they came for you, then strengthened when the Chinese returned. I had no small part in that.”
“Could you have stopped them then?”
It had not even occurred to Boaz to try. First he had been running; then he had been obsessed with the Sixth Seal. “I might have acted differently.”
She turned away, looking over the
rail. “We should begin our descent.”
“Armed!” shouted Martins.
“I will not have it,” Kitchens shouted back.
::coming dressed as traders in small goods and animal hides, they hid away their swords beneath the blankets of their mules::
“Then let them carry small arms concealed,” Boaz said. “You British always have some pistols aboard; surely the Chinese do as well. Do not threaten, but be prepared. To come this far, then throw away any chance that might aid you in reaching the Queen, seems simple foolishness to me.”
The clerk stared, breathing hard. “Pistols, then. Holstered. No one fires or threatens except at my word.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The petty officer huffed from his own oxygen pot, then clattered away.
“We descend,” Boaz told the pilot. “More oxygen all around; it does not matter now if we run out. Unfurl the banner.”
Levine rang for emergency descent, which would release hydrogen from the cells. They could not fly away so well from Blenheim Palace, but it did not seem to Boaz as if that was a likely future for Stolen anyway.
GASHANSUNU
She looked at the countryside hurtling toward her and wondered if these people considered their land pretty. The stark beauty of the ocean was hers, the ever-present dark line of the Wall in the north, the musical clattering of the clockwork sky at midnight, the colors and sounds and shrieks of the jungle at dawn. This place was green, in a slightly dusty way, but the land had a sameness that disturbed her Southern heart.
The sorceress closed her eyes and imagined herself once more in the Silent World. It was closed to her now, with the loss of her wa and her distance from the Wall. She had ceased to struggle against the separation, though she mourned it.
Was this what had troubled the world, before she set out from the city? A knowledge that the end was coming all too fast, that a group of madmen in a stolen airship would drive with all their might toward the overthrow of one of the two great thrones of Northern Earth?
Surely war and revolution could not be what the world had wished for. Perhaps the skies had only cried to have this girl and her device removed from their purview. Southern Earth had wanted no part of this Northern problem.
Most likely, she was mistaken on all counts. Now she was lost in a place too distant to ever glimpse her home again.
Gashansunu was unsure that this ragtail crew managing an unfamiliar vessel would not simply slam them all into the earth. That would save the British defenders the trouble of killing them. Kitchens with his formless plan to break a throne was nothing more than a man driven past the edge of madness.
She was nothing more than a woman already at the same destination.
Around her, the sailors swirled, excited, crowding close, waiting to touch soil, to see how much trouble the toffs were truly in.
Humans never seemed to recall that they were made to die. Willful indifference was both their curse and their blessing. Her people did not lose sight of what was to come, not ever, but they folded that realization into their magic, their myth.
Dying here, far from her own wa, she was little more than a crying ghost to haunt the halls of this distant power.
At least she would see the girl Paolina to her fate, which was what she’d set out to do, with the blessing of Baassiia and at the request of omens circling high and low.
She wondered what omens circled now.
KITCHENS
Blenheim Palace spiraled below, unmistakable as Stolen shed altitude much too quickly. The sailors pulled away from the rail and braced themselves for a rough landing. Only Boaz, Paolina, Gashansunu and the mad old man at the helm still stood.
They had certainly been noticed. Men were hastily assembling in the forecourt, and more crept out onto the roofs in ones and twos. Snipers, to oppose the enemy.
“One of the inner courts, if you can,” he shouted.
Paolina nodded and continued to stare downward.
Low, so low it seemed as if they would slam to earth in another moment, the ballast was released. Stolen bounced on the air, flinging upward hard perhaps two hundred feet. Kitchens was thrown down as someone screeched like a child at a midsummer carnival.
Engines roared. Stolen heeled over, turning across the rooftops. Rifle fire peppered, and somewhere nearby a cannon boomed. A chimney caught at their prow with a horrible splintering.
Stolen bucked, nose dipping to make a ramp of the deck, then pulled free to plummet into a courtyard beyond.
More gunfire rattled. The gasbag erupted with an explosive farting noise.
“ ’Ware hydrogen!” someone shouted. Kitchens tried to jump overboard, but a settling of the tortured hull tossed him forward before he could make his own leap. He tumbled to a bed of autumn plantings, narrowly missing a piece of statuary. His pistol spun away into a stand of hydrangeas.
The clerk looked up to see the hull heeling dangerously, boards splintering. The gasbag seemed torn between settling with the ship or rising on some final adventure of its own.
More crew dropped overboard, landing around him with curses and howls, even as the shouts of the men on the rooftop echoed.
“Inside, now!” Kitchens shouted. “Move! We must reach Her Imperial Majesty!”
PAOLINA
She jumped, tumbling toward the screaming clerk. Bullets cracked around her. Dirt fountained. Gashansunu ran, then stumbled, falling with a bloody bloom across her back. The petty officer scooped the Southern woman up, for all that she was a foot taller than he, as the crew ran in a thin tide toward a set of glass doors. A fellow in a dark suit stood within and screamed until Levine smashed through and threw him down.
Paolina raced after them, leaping over another bed of flowers as the glass began shattering with the impact of more bullets. She was in a sitting room, the screaming servant now a whimpering ball on the floor. Sailors bristled with pistols and makeshift weapons.
“The hallway beyond!” she shouted. “Away from the gunfire.”
The group retreated through double doors. A crackling noise echoed from outside.
“Gasbag’s ready to go up,” said the old pilot.
Paolina checked head count. Gashansunu lay on the floor, groaning. Kitchens leaned against the far wall, his breathing labored. The petty officer was shouting at him about guns.
She whirled. Where was Boaz? Paolina raced back into the drawing room to see the Brass man out in the garden. He staggered, then staggered again. Boaz was being hit by bullets from the rooftop.
To these Englishmen, he was an even greater enemy than the Chinese. A creature of the Wall, come before their Queen.
Out the shattered doors. Across the broken soil. Flames, crackling and acrid. The gasbag settled, mercifully blocking some of the lines of fire. Smoke issued from Stolen’s broken hull. The engines, or at least their fuel, burned.
Boaz stepped toward her. A deep dimple punctuated his face. Two more wounds puckered his chest. His left arm flailed, creaking and whirring.
She was at his side. The bullets seemed to have stopped, or at least Paolina noticed them no longer. Tugging at his right arm, she tried to lead him toward the safety of the building.
He resisted one step, then two. She heard more gunfire. That did not matter. Getting him away from the explosive hydrogen mattered.
Shouting. Soil fountaining. Swift lead fingers plucked at her clothing, raising a line of pain along her right thigh. Everything had gone wrong, horribly horribly wrong.
“Come on,” she shouted.
The Brass seemed to awaken to her voice. “I am here,” he croaked. Something was the matter with his voice box, and the words buzzed strangely.
“Inside.”
He followed as she tugged, stumbling as another bullet struck him in the back. Then they were through the broken doors, across the little room, and into the hall where the sailors were already diving to the floor. Levine grabbed Paolina’s ankle and tripped her. She fell hard, Boaz collapsing beside her. The world became noise
lessly loud and burning-bright.
WANG
Figures stepped out of the darkness in a peculiar array, distorted by shadows and the colored light until he thought they might be a troop of demons. He drew a sharp, fearful breath, then forcibly reminded himself that this was not one of China’s temple graveyards.
A moment later, the light shifted, and he saw instead a line of people with tall masks like a festival processional. Their leaders wore feathers sweeping down from their faces to dangle low across their chests, brilliant displays of plumage.
“A Mask comes among us,” intoned one of the feather-faced demons.
“A Mask of the avebianco,” Childress replied, her voice firm and strong. Wang wondered what she might really be feeling in that moment.
The white birds gathered around her in a circle. “By whose authority was this Mask raised?”
“My own.”
It was the wrong answer. The processional stirred. Hands moved; steel slid almost noiselessly from twice a dozen sheaths.
“You carry no authority.” The shadows seemed deeper.
Childress glanced sidelong at Wang. She appeared worried, the first time he had seen her so. “There is ritual,” she said. Her tone did not betray her, whatever her inner thoughts. “I have come through fire and death. Not elevation by ritual.”
“Whose death?”
Even Wang could see her relief.
“I carry the authority of the Mask Poinsard,” the Mask Childress complained. She stepped close to her interlocutor. “I stand in her place now and forevermore, by right of blood.”
A murmur ran around the room. The tension did not relax, but neither did it tighten.
The feathered leader stepped forward, and in a much more ordinary voice asked, “What is your name, woman?”
“The Mask Childress.”
“So you were Poinsard’s Childress.”
“The Mask Childress,” she repeated firmly.