chapter 19
previous chapter
At the edge of the City, the Ancients had seen the burning airship fall from the sky, but they also knew the bounty hunter had survived. The Key must have made it, too, so the airship was of little concern now. There were other ways to get into the Spire, and if the bounty hunter could survive an airship on fire, then he could certainly find a way to bring the Key to the Vault.
It would take too long to walk back up the Spire, of course. Ancient One spoke first, and his voice was tense. "Our worst fears are now confirmed, brothers: the Key has been taken, and the bounty hunter is heading for the Vault even as we speak. We must move quickly, and take what is rightfully ours before it is stolen from right beneath our noses."
The other Ancients nodded quickly, and three minutes later, the alley was empty once more.
* * * * *
In its long and illustrious existence, the City had only experienced an airship crash twice.
The first occured when the airship engineers experimented with flame-based propulsion systems, and a freak accident ignited the main balloon, creating an impressive looking fireball in the skies above the City. Fortunately, there was no loss of life, since no one was daft enough to volunteer to sit in a flimsy, imflammable balloon with a burning jetpack stuck to one end.
The second incident occured about fifty years ago, when an airship headed for the Spire blew apart in mid air. It belonged to a small firm that rented it out to anyone with too much gold and not enough common sense, and for a small fortune a trained pilot will fly you pretty much anywhere you want... Strangely enough, they only found the charred remains of the pilot: whoever had rented the airship either managed to escape in time, or was (more likely) burned to a crisp. In this case, the Merchant's Guild had just coincidentally begun their own little airship operation, and all the other small firms pretty much closed shop after that, leading to a momentary monopoly of the industry by the Guild before Cain Fortune turned up and bought up large chunks of everything.
This third crash was a major disaster compared to the first two: Watchmen converged upon the wreckage instantly, putting out the spreading fires and moving people to the nearby Infirmaries. The number of people killed rose steadily, from dozens to hundreds and moving rapidly into the thousands. The Merchant's Guild hastily released a statement disavowing any possible involvement in such an atrocity, but this was met with plenty of healthy scepticism by the general public. No other organization had enough wealth to maintain Dreadnoughts, and the Guild were known to own a small fleet of the battleships, mostly to escort their more expensive shipments. Within the hour, Guild branches across the City had been boarded up as street mobs massed for retaliation.
* * * * *
Mr Miller opened a bottle of high quality champagne, and poured it into two cups, one for Mr Jacobson. There was a tinkle as they toasted each other.
"To unimaginable wealth!" roared Mr Jacobson heartily, as he drained his cup. "With that bounty hunter safely out of the way, it should be a simple matter to carve a large slice of the Fortune pie... rich beyond our wildest dreams!"
Mr Miller laughed, and toasted Mr Jacobson again with a soft 'plink'. "To success, and to ingeniuty! Those fools in the Watch will never trace it back to us, of course... pinning the attack on the Merchant's Guild is a stroke of genius, my dear Mr Jacobson. They will certainly be in disarray now, and we'll corner their businesses once the Fortune empire is ours. Two birds in one fell swoop... excellent indeed. A weakened Guild will never be able to stand against the full might of the Miller and Jacobson empire!To the future, my friend!"
"To the future!" Mr Jacobson roared as he poured himself another cup. "But I am curious... where did you find the Dreadnoughts? The Guild is rumoured to own a dozen of those, of course, but to get two Dreadnoughts without being a Guild member is quite a remarkable feat."
"Ah... the beauty of deception, Mr Jacobson," Mr Miller smiled satisfactorily, and leaned back in his seat. "What would you say if I told you that those weren't actually Dreadnoughts? Hm? What a difference a proper impression makes.. In this case, a normal airship painted black, decorated with spikes, armed with cannons, and painted with the Guild insignia: the only way to tell the difference between this and a real Dreadnought would be to engage it in combat, but a cargo ship is unlikely to fire back, hm?" He chuckled softly. "And of course, the crew was... taken care of afterwards. It never pays to leave any loose ends lying around."
Mr Jacobson winked and tapped the side of his nose knowingly. "Well said, eh? Bloody well said. Anyone crazy enough to blow people out of the sky is certainly too dangerous to keep alive. Haha, is there anything you never think of? Absolutely brilliant."
"Brilliant? You don't know the half of it, Mr Jacobson. Oh, if only you knew..." and there it was, the smile of a shark, swimming in for the kill. Mr Jacobson felt strangely uncomfortable at the sight of Mr Miller's smile, and he frowned, brows furrowed and thinking. No, nothing seemed to be amiss, and yet.. there was that uncomfortable feeling of something going wrong...
It was with a dawning horror that Mr Jacobson realised the uncomfortable feeling was coming from his own chest. His lungs were on fire, and his heart beat faster and faster. His vision swam out of focus as he stared up at Mr Miller in morbid comprehension.. at that devious smile, that piercing stare, and above all, that cup of champagne which remained untouched.
"No loose ends, Mr Jacobson," muttered Mr Miller softly as he rose slowly from his chair. He walked to the door and paused, turning around. "None at all. The poison is a neurotoxin, and it will kill you in an hour or so, and until it does, I'm sure you will have plenty of time to congratulate me on my newfound wealth. Money is such a difficult thing to share, don't you think?"
And then Mr Miller was gone.
* * * * *
The unicorn swooped majestically along the slopes, flying vertically. Penelope had to shut her eyes against the rushing wind, while Cantrip clung on for dear life. Sharp, jagged peaks were decorated by the occasional mountain goat and fields of popper fruits, growing all along the vertical slopes of the Spire. Penelope stopped the unicorn in a patch of popper fruit on a large ledge, and they got off.
"Flying into the hangars in bright daylight is out of the question: the spotters will see the unicorn for sure," explained Penelope as she ran a hand experimentally along the sheer rock wall of the Spire. "If Mr Finnigle's sculpture is right, then what we're looking for is somewhere inside the hangars, so we'll need to find another way in."
Seraph glanced back across the cloudy expanse of sky. A cloud of smoke still hung lazily in the distance over the crash site, and Seraph shuddered. That had been a close call: a whisker more and they would have been killed in the attack. The last few days had been too eventful for Seraph to dismiss this as some sort of bizzare coincidence: the airship had definitely been shot down because someone believed they were on it. The good news is, whoever wants them dead now has no reason to believe otherwise, and they would be safe as long as they kept their heads down.
The unicorn retracted its wings, and began munching on some half-ripe popper fruits. Seraph looked upwards, and slightly more than ninety feet above was the large steel frame of an airship gate. He turned to the others. "I say we wait for nightfall... it'll be easier to sneak in when it gets darker."
* * * * *
Up above them, an army of homing pigeons flew in and out of the gates, spreading the news between the Control Room and the outside world. The news was grim: the mobs had broken into the headquarters of the Merchant's Guild, and all throughout the City, businesses owned by the Guild were being torched by the angry mobs, and even the Watchmen had been stretched thin.
Like dough, the minutes stretched into hours, and then it was night time once more. The riots had quietened down by now, as the Watchmen began rounding up rioters and looters. The Guild members had fled their properties, and for a moment, the City slumbered in an uneasy peace.
Except up in the Spire, of course. Here, the gates came alive in a burst of light and activity: the local traffic had eased in the aftermath of the attack, but foreign traffic from the outlying islands was still coming in steadily. Lanterns were fired up to guide the airships in, and the homing pigeons continued their busy patrols.
A heavy airship arrived, bearing a shipment of timber from an island to the north. As it glided slowly past the gates, nobody noticed a second unicorn flying slowly in the shadow underneath its huge belly, and so Seraph, Penelope and Cantrip passed into the dark tunnels of the airship hangars.
next chapter
At the edge of the City, the Ancients had seen the burning airship fall from the sky, but they also knew the bounty hunter had survived. The Key must have made it, too, so the airship was of little concern now. There were other ways to get into the Spire, and if the bounty hunter could survive an airship on fire, then he could certainly find a way to bring the Key to the Vault.
It would take too long to walk back up the Spire, of course. Ancient One spoke first, and his voice was tense. "Our worst fears are now confirmed, brothers: the Key has been taken, and the bounty hunter is heading for the Vault even as we speak. We must move quickly, and take what is rightfully ours before it is stolen from right beneath our noses."
The other Ancients nodded quickly, and three minutes later, the alley was empty once more.
* * * * *
In its long and illustrious existence, the City had only experienced an airship crash twice.
The first occured when the airship engineers experimented with flame-based propulsion systems, and a freak accident ignited the main balloon, creating an impressive looking fireball in the skies above the City. Fortunately, there was no loss of life, since no one was daft enough to volunteer to sit in a flimsy, imflammable balloon with a burning jetpack stuck to one end.
The second incident occured about fifty years ago, when an airship headed for the Spire blew apart in mid air. It belonged to a small firm that rented it out to anyone with too much gold and not enough common sense, and for a small fortune a trained pilot will fly you pretty much anywhere you want... Strangely enough, they only found the charred remains of the pilot: whoever had rented the airship either managed to escape in time, or was (more likely) burned to a crisp. In this case, the Merchant's Guild had just coincidentally begun their own little airship operation, and all the other small firms pretty much closed shop after that, leading to a momentary monopoly of the industry by the Guild before Cain Fortune turned up and bought up large chunks of everything.
This third crash was a major disaster compared to the first two: Watchmen converged upon the wreckage instantly, putting out the spreading fires and moving people to the nearby Infirmaries. The number of people killed rose steadily, from dozens to hundreds and moving rapidly into the thousands. The Merchant's Guild hastily released a statement disavowing any possible involvement in such an atrocity, but this was met with plenty of healthy scepticism by the general public. No other organization had enough wealth to maintain Dreadnoughts, and the Guild were known to own a small fleet of the battleships, mostly to escort their more expensive shipments. Within the hour, Guild branches across the City had been boarded up as street mobs massed for retaliation.
* * * * *
Mr Miller opened a bottle of high quality champagne, and poured it into two cups, one for Mr Jacobson. There was a tinkle as they toasted each other.
"To unimaginable wealth!" roared Mr Jacobson heartily, as he drained his cup. "With that bounty hunter safely out of the way, it should be a simple matter to carve a large slice of the Fortune pie... rich beyond our wildest dreams!"
Mr Miller laughed, and toasted Mr Jacobson again with a soft 'plink'. "To success, and to ingeniuty! Those fools in the Watch will never trace it back to us, of course... pinning the attack on the Merchant's Guild is a stroke of genius, my dear Mr Jacobson. They will certainly be in disarray now, and we'll corner their businesses once the Fortune empire is ours. Two birds in one fell swoop... excellent indeed. A weakened Guild will never be able to stand against the full might of the Miller and Jacobson empire!To the future, my friend!"
"To the future!" Mr Jacobson roared as he poured himself another cup. "But I am curious... where did you find the Dreadnoughts? The Guild is rumoured to own a dozen of those, of course, but to get two Dreadnoughts without being a Guild member is quite a remarkable feat."
"Ah... the beauty of deception, Mr Jacobson," Mr Miller smiled satisfactorily, and leaned back in his seat. "What would you say if I told you that those weren't actually Dreadnoughts? Hm? What a difference a proper impression makes.. In this case, a normal airship painted black, decorated with spikes, armed with cannons, and painted with the Guild insignia: the only way to tell the difference between this and a real Dreadnought would be to engage it in combat, but a cargo ship is unlikely to fire back, hm?" He chuckled softly. "And of course, the crew was... taken care of afterwards. It never pays to leave any loose ends lying around."
Mr Jacobson winked and tapped the side of his nose knowingly. "Well said, eh? Bloody well said. Anyone crazy enough to blow people out of the sky is certainly too dangerous to keep alive. Haha, is there anything you never think of? Absolutely brilliant."
"Brilliant? You don't know the half of it, Mr Jacobson. Oh, if only you knew..." and there it was, the smile of a shark, swimming in for the kill. Mr Jacobson felt strangely uncomfortable at the sight of Mr Miller's smile, and he frowned, brows furrowed and thinking. No, nothing seemed to be amiss, and yet.. there was that uncomfortable feeling of something going wrong...
It was with a dawning horror that Mr Jacobson realised the uncomfortable feeling was coming from his own chest. His lungs were on fire, and his heart beat faster and faster. His vision swam out of focus as he stared up at Mr Miller in morbid comprehension.. at that devious smile, that piercing stare, and above all, that cup of champagne which remained untouched.
"No loose ends, Mr Jacobson," muttered Mr Miller softly as he rose slowly from his chair. He walked to the door and paused, turning around. "None at all. The poison is a neurotoxin, and it will kill you in an hour or so, and until it does, I'm sure you will have plenty of time to congratulate me on my newfound wealth. Money is such a difficult thing to share, don't you think?"
And then Mr Miller was gone.
* * * * *
The unicorn swooped majestically along the slopes, flying vertically. Penelope had to shut her eyes against the rushing wind, while Cantrip clung on for dear life. Sharp, jagged peaks were decorated by the occasional mountain goat and fields of popper fruits, growing all along the vertical slopes of the Spire. Penelope stopped the unicorn in a patch of popper fruit on a large ledge, and they got off.
"Flying into the hangars in bright daylight is out of the question: the spotters will see the unicorn for sure," explained Penelope as she ran a hand experimentally along the sheer rock wall of the Spire. "If Mr Finnigle's sculpture is right, then what we're looking for is somewhere inside the hangars, so we'll need to find another way in."
Seraph glanced back across the cloudy expanse of sky. A cloud of smoke still hung lazily in the distance over the crash site, and Seraph shuddered. That had been a close call: a whisker more and they would have been killed in the attack. The last few days had been too eventful for Seraph to dismiss this as some sort of bizzare coincidence: the airship had definitely been shot down because someone believed they were on it. The good news is, whoever wants them dead now has no reason to believe otherwise, and they would be safe as long as they kept their heads down.
The unicorn retracted its wings, and began munching on some half-ripe popper fruits. Seraph looked upwards, and slightly more than ninety feet above was the large steel frame of an airship gate. He turned to the others. "I say we wait for nightfall... it'll be easier to sneak in when it gets darker."
* * * * *
Up above them, an army of homing pigeons flew in and out of the gates, spreading the news between the Control Room and the outside world. The news was grim: the mobs had broken into the headquarters of the Merchant's Guild, and all throughout the City, businesses owned by the Guild were being torched by the angry mobs, and even the Watchmen had been stretched thin.
Like dough, the minutes stretched into hours, and then it was night time once more. The riots had quietened down by now, as the Watchmen began rounding up rioters and looters. The Guild members had fled their properties, and for a moment, the City slumbered in an uneasy peace.
Except up in the Spire, of course. Here, the gates came alive in a burst of light and activity: the local traffic had eased in the aftermath of the attack, but foreign traffic from the outlying islands was still coming in steadily. Lanterns were fired up to guide the airships in, and the homing pigeons continued their busy patrols.
A heavy airship arrived, bearing a shipment of timber from an island to the north. As it glided slowly past the gates, nobody noticed a second unicorn flying slowly in the shadow underneath its huge belly, and so Seraph, Penelope and Cantrip passed into the dark tunnels of the airship hangars.
next chapter
posted by nerdook at 11:29 PM
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