The Wondermark Gazette

“Don’t worry!” I cried to my suddenly invisible companion, seated not six inches away but utterly cloaked with dense, dark fog. “I have a thousand hours’ experience flying these contraptions. I once chased an entire yurt-ful of yak-poachers across the Mongol steppes for six sleepless weeks, using my own waste for coal. That last detail may not have been strictly necessary,” I added hastily.

I couldn’t tell if she was reassured by my claim, or what, but I figured probably. Visibility ahead extended to the end of my nose and little further; by leaning forward I could make out most of the brass grate separating our passenger’s compartment from the now-empty pilot’s cage. I wondered absently if I should be concerned about the lack of occupant in said cage — the wind whistled through that vacant space as our air-ship continued its wanton ascent, buoyed by our sudden dumping of dead-weight in the form of the aforementioned absent aviator.

The fog-bank was colder, and wetter, and less marsh-mallowy, than I might have anticipated; I began to wonder what horrors might await us should we break through the top of the cloud-layer. The Countess’ massive flag-ship reportedly dwelt at that altitude, but what of the danger of sky-dragons? And star-whales? It would do us no good to burst from the clouds only to be impaled on the massive horn of a galloping night-i-corn. I had no idea what monsters abided in the far-off heavens, and suddenly realised with a shiver that I was about to find out.

I reached my arm as far through the bars of the passenger’s-cage as I could, straining to reach the pilot’s control-tiller in the adjacent compartment. I felt blindly, in the damp dark, fumbling my fingers against indistinct levers and wheels along the way, some of them with definite ramifications with respect to the aero-craft’s motion. We were still climbing at a rapid clip (so far as I could tell; with no visual reference, I relied only on my gut for my sense of direction, though unfortunately my gut had failed the Brighamptonshire Young Dragoons’ Trail-Seeking Examination more times than I’d like to admit, to the tune of a half-shilling per go), and the engine still belched coal-smoke behind us. I squinted and bugged my eyes and peered as vigorously as I could through the night-ness, and wouldn’t you know, I did seem to see a bit better — perhaps the cloud was thinning, or perhaps I was merely growing adept at nocturnal vision. It was a talent I’d long attempted to cultivate, practising in furtive midnight moments off-and-on since early childhood whilst other youngsters busied themselves with furtive torch-reading and self-abuse.

Aha! Yes! All at once, something changed in my eye-balls — and I achieved perfect night-time eye-sight! My eyes were suddenly flooded with ambient light, and I could make out every detail on the pilot’s control-panel. I grasped the tiller firmly with a shivering hand and turned to Rikah. “I can see in this darkness now!” I shrieked over the raging wind. “It’s going to be fine!”

She didn’t look at me, poor blind lass; she was instead focused on some far-off point. I turned my cat-like eyes to see what she might have vaguely discerned in the darkness –

And realised that I wasn’t really seeing in the dark. It was actually really bright above the cloud-bank.

The source of the brightness, glowing brilliantly from within like a cool bluish moon, was Countess Peapoddy’s aero-galleon. Larger by a factor of ten than Peapoddy the Younger’s ill-fated dirigible, the Countess’s vessel sported what must have been a hundred churning air-screws pointed sky-ward, mounted at every juncture along its architecture, straining to keep the beast aloft whilst leaving a thick, black cloud of coal-soot in its rumbling wake.

As my eyes adjusted to the light, I realised why the ship’s massive, luminous gas-sac had reminded me so of the Moon — for it had a face. A wide, angry face, projected from the vessel’s core like a grotesque kinescope-show, painting the sky whole-sale with the gruesome, bloated countenance of one who could only have been the Countess herself. Her features bespoke malice without conscience; her withering glare could only have been described as “awfuleeringhastloathescary.” The Cherokee tongue, I believe.

Sparks of greenish electricity danced about the Countess’ ship like sea-leeches darting about dolphin-corpses, lighting the night sky with flashes too bright to stare at, though I tried, futilely. “Well, there she is,” I breathed to Rikah, with what breath remained after I cursed the abhorrent apparition under it. The poor lass was still mute, and looking a bit blue herself; I wasn’t sure if it was the light, or if her nausea was returning. Either was unflattering.

I suddenly became aware of a harsh, coalish odor, and noted that the engine behind us was now blasting its exhaust directly towards us. I took a moment to process this turn of events, and then, with the help of handy visual cues, landed upon the cause:

We were falling backwards. We had stopped climbing, and were now returning to the Earth. The smooth, from-this-height-unbroken fog-layer raced towards us again like a deceptively placid sea, though I knew that lurking just below were jagged rocks, enemy air-ships armed with lightning-bolts, and a harsh, unforgiving ocean. This was no time for half-measures; it was time to leap full-bore into the heart of that moon-ish madness, with the thunderous roar of a coal-fired engine and the whip of speed in our hair. I fixed my gaze on that evil, floating Countess-head and growled in my most adventurey growl: “Let’s do this.” I rammed the tiller full to the stop.

With a sharp spang, our gas-sac dis-engaged from our aero-craft, and began to float merrily towards Heaven.

Suddenly entirely non-buoyant, we plummeted like a not-very-aerodynamic anvil, and were enveloped in the cold cloud immediately.

It was actually a not-unpleasant feeling. I felt weight lift from my body in waves, and turned to Rikah long enough to say, “I suppose we should enjoy this sensation while we can.” Her only reply was a hacking retch-heave. This sounded dry, at least; she seemed to have been emptied of her more volumetric gastric ammunition.

We descended through the cloud-bank much faster than we had ascended. The night below us swarmed with air-ships like wasps about a mud-nest, zipping to and fro and crackling with bright green lightning. A faint, sparking glow blanketing the island below us signaled the ruins of the village, and a thin, emerald finger spearing out to sea marked the cave in the mountain we’d just departed. Elsewhere in the mountain, Yam-Runner signal-flares burnt in isolated specks of yellow and green flame. The attack had certainly been co-ordinated splendidly, if I might detach long enough to comment objectively.

I tried working the tiller again once I noticed that I had been clutching it hard enough to embed splinters in my palm. I found that slight lateral movements sent us careening into wild, cork-screwing spins; we headed directly for the deep water one moment, then the village fire-scape the next, then narrowly missed punching through the bulging gas-sac of a passing air-ship. Quickly getting the hang of the control, I managed to stablise our flight some-what, but we were still sinking at an alarming rate; Rikah mashed her eyes closed, and appeared to be muttering something I couldn’t quite hear. A prayer, perhaps? A liturgy? Possibly a curse upon my own house and descendants. It was hard to be sure.

I thought back to the last time I had fallen from an air-ship, not two days ago when Abu Fromage and I had tumbled from the gang-plank after fleeing the younger Peapoddy’s vessel. The old man had given me the blessed cheese-wand then, and what had he said? Something else that tickled at the corners of my memory…

“The way I figure it, when the air-ship explodes, the heat will instantly vapourise the top few feet of sea-water — effectively creating a cushion of steam that will arrest our fall.”

“We have to blow up an air-ship,” I told Rikah, and she nearly vomited into my face.

I turned around and began to un-fasten our engine from its moorings. These aero-craft were remarkably cheaply made — probably by Icelandic beggar-children with no firm grasp of modern industrial quality-control codes — and I was surprised at how easily the thrumming motor came un-lashed from its mounts. Once it was down to one thin bolt, the engine thrashed itself loose, shearing brass fittings in twain like shiney orange leaves; then all I could do was watch it fall, its air-screws clawing futilely at loose molecules of sky, falling, towards that thick knot populated with so many air-ships they had blotted out the night –

I saw a brief shadow cross a single ship’s gas-sac before the engine tore through that inflated canvas. The air-ship shuddered, and began to sway, then stagger Earth-wards. But it did not explode.

We fell past it, our own rocket-ship in a death-date with Gravity, and the massive gas-sac sank after us as it deflated, falling slowly, like the world’s most inebriated jelly-fish.

The mountain grew huge and dark before us, and I do not recall making any sort of conscious decision on the subject before finding myself clambering through the narrow door-way of the passenger’s-cage, Rikah’s wrist grasped firmly in one hand.

My feet left the cage. I whipped Rikah ahead of me, towards the billowing blanket of canvas threatening to engulf us. She shrieked as she fell, and then I followed her, our mangled, destroyed aero-craft falling away and floating for two solid seconds before dashing itself into brass-dust and splinters on the hard rock mountain-side.

But we were safe. The gas-sac met the ground still partially inflated, and we sank softly and slowly into its pillow-like depths. It was soft, and felt good on my exhausted bones — but this was no time to rest. Voices echoed across the hill, and green torches lit the horizon ahead — the Yam-Runners were coming for us.

NEXT: The Observatory

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