Page 52 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
The Eye of the Storm
Readers who arefamiliar with Ms. Vandegrift-Osbourne’s sky-pirate novel may remember the famous sequence in which the mutineers having seized control of theAdmiral Newton, causing it to run aground atop the mysterious Skull Peak (whereon the traitorous quartermaster hopes to recover the treasure once buried by the legendary Captain Shale), the air at once grows very still, and it is this momentary calm within the storm that presages the arrival of the quartermaster’s piratical allies. I can attest from personal experience that this scene also is remarkably accurate. As Mr. Ngoie and I emerged from the slightly batteredClouded Skipperwe found the winds quiet around us. It was not reassuring.
Mr. Ngoie heaved a deep sigh. “Remind me why I allow Shaharazad to talk me into things.”
“Did you not owe her a favour?”
“I repaid that debt long ago, but still I keep letting her drag me into her escapades.”
“Well,” I offered consolingly, as I reloaded my pistol, “I for one am very glad you did. And I’m sure Miss Beck will be glad also.”
“Miss Beck may not have opportunity to be thankful. It will take me some while to repair the aerokinetic circuitry.”
I looked up. Around a dozen figures were spiralling gracefullytowards us. “Perhaps the circuitry is not the most pressing concern at this very moment.”
“You mean them?” He pointed at the now quite rapidly descending pirates. “They should have known better than to damage the property of a Steel Magus.”
And, without further comment, Mr. Ngoie placed a hand against one of theSkipper’s buckled wingtips. A wave of motion rippled across the whole surface of the vessel, much like a chain of dominoes falling, but substantially more complex. The scales on the machine began to flow up his arm, fusing with his robes and building intricate steel structures at whose function I could only guess. The whole process took less than a minute, but when it was complete both theClouded Skipperand her pilot were gone, and in their place stood a gargantuan mechanical man.
“You know,” said a metallic voice that shared a certain tonal similarity with Mr. Ngoie’s but was much, much louder, “I really should have stayed in bed.”
He stepped forward with reassuring precision, positioning himself directly above me and providing welcome shelter from our enemies. Then, with a deafening clang, he folded his arms, and called out to the sky, “You want my ship, you ——” And here he used language that, while it had probably not been the primary cause of his expulsion from the Steel Magi, may perhaps have been a contributing factor. “... come and take it.”
This did, at least, answer the question of how we were to repel the pirates, although it also left me feeling ever so slightly surplus to requirements. A detachment of pirates swept down to attack us, but Mr. Ngoie’s armour proved impervious to their weaponry and the wickedly sharp talons that tipped his gauntlets severely injured several of them before they retreated. One or two landed and made an effort to eliminate me instead. They were not successful in this endeavour, for between my pistol and my scavenged sabre, my armaments were quitethe equal of theirs, and my morale was bolstered, rather than diminished, by the presence of the titanic construct that loomed above us.
When it had become apparent that swords would be of little use against a Steel Magus and that I, while more vulnerable, could not be so easily picked off as our enemies might have assumed, they retreated to a safe height, circling above us in a fashion distinctly too vulture-like to be comforting. It seemed for the moment that we stood at an impasse, they having the advantage of flight, and we the advantage of a sorcerous war engine. However, we had reckoned without their leader. From the roiling tempest descended a man wreathed in lightning, his scarlet coat billowing in the surging winds. As he stretched out a hand, a thunderbolt arced from the sky, splitting the ground some few feet from where I was standing. I hoped that this was an accurate reflection of the newcomer’s aim, but I strongly suspected it was little more than a warning shot.
The pirate captain threw back his head, dark curls whipping about him, and laughed wildly. “Have at thee, kna—”
His neck snapped abruptly forward and his body plummeted the not inconsiderable distance from his prior vantage to the mountainside, right next to us. There he lay, his limbs at terribly unpleasant angles, blood matting his hair, which I saw now was grey beneath the long black wig. The back of his skull bore the unmistakable mark of a bullet fired, if I was any judge, by a skilled marksman using a small-calibre handgun at moderate range. The storm was already fading and, as the remaining pirates fled for safety before the winds gave out beneath them, a bat-like, bird-like, ant-like creature burst from a cloud bank, Ms. Haas still upon its back, a revolver in her hand.
“There,” she said, landing the scabrous beast a short distance away. “When in doubt, find the fellow with the biggest hat and shoot him in the head. It never fails.”
Mr. Ngoie turned slowly to face her. “You got my ship struck by lightning.”
“My dear man, I did notget itstruck by lightning.” My companion dismounted, then spoke a brief, blasphemous incantation and her erstwhile steed flapped away towards the gradually emerging stars. “It was incidentally struck by lightning while I was doing other things.”
“Is the damage extensive?” I asked.
“The exposure to elemental forces has unbalanced her alchemical equilibrium.” Mr. Ngoie flexed his razor-tipped fingers. “She can walk and swim and withstand the heat of a thousand suns but cannot fly.”
At this, Ms. Haas flung up her hands in a gesture of inappropriate apathy. “Well, Captain. It appears Miss Beck will be eaten by a vampire after all. Blessing, do you think you could carry us?” She brightened considerably. “We should be down this mountain by sunset, through the ravine by midnight, and back in the foothills by sunrise. Where I’m sure there’ll be a quaint little village where we can get breakfast, and perhaps some commemorative chocolates.”
“Ms. Haas,” I protested, “I do not wish to commemorate our failure with confectionery.”
“Failure? I never fail. I just sometimes lack the impetus to pursue success as rigorously as I might.”
Expecting no further concessions from Ms. Haas, I placed my hopes instead in the exiled magus of unknown capabilities in whose company I had spent less than twenty-four hours. “Is there no chance of repairing theSkipper?”
“Not quickly. And if I am to fix my ship, I’d rather not do it on a mountain. I would rather do it in a quaint village, preferably one with chocolates.”
I slumped down in the snow, my old injury sending a sudden jolt of pain through my hip. “There must be something we can do. There must be something”—and here I glanced imploringly at Ms. Haas—“youcan do. Can you call that creature back and, well, I don’t know, get it to take the two of us?”
“Assuming it didn’t eat you immediately, which it probablywould, it simply wouldn’t make the journey in time. They’re peculiar beasts, very suited to travel over vast distances and short distances, but not a lot in between.”
“And there is no other sorcery you can perform?”
Ms. Haas grinned at me like a schoolchild who had caught her professor in an error. “You see? You’re always complaining about how terribly illegal and unnatural my practices are, right up to the point you need them. Which, for what it’s worth, is why I’m never concerned about being arrested. But, no, as it happens I have never studied the specific techniques that one would use in order to race a vampire across a mountain range and over several hundred miles of open country using only snow, rocks, dead pirates, and whatever you happen to have in your pockets.”
