Liberty
Author: Alexis Hall
Date: 2014-10-30T08:00:00+00:00
Description: The wars of the future will be fought not by men on horseback, not with lances or with cannon or with ships, but with weapons fashioned from the very stuff of creation. Scholars of military and international history have long held the destruction of the British Empire's 4th Skyfleet above the pirate town of Liberty in 1866 to be the first recorded use of modern aetherweaponry and to constitute a turning point in international and interdimensional politics. The pertinent documents, declassified in 1958 and compiled here in a new edition, are not only an invaluable resource for the interested am

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Liberty (A Prosperity Story)

Copyright © 2015 by Alexis Hall

Cover art: Simoné, http://www.dreamarian.com

Editor: Sarah Frantz

Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

ISBN: 978-1-62649-228-8

First edition

January, 2015

Also available in paperback as part of Liberty & Other Stories:

ISBN: 978-1-62649-230-1

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The wars of the future will be fought not by men on horseback, not with lances or with cannon or with ships, but with weapons fashioned from the very stuff of creation.

Scholars of military and international history have long held the destruction of the British Empire’s 4th Skyfleet above the pirate town of Liberty in 1866 to be the first recorded use of modern aetherweaponry and to constitute a turning point in international and interdimensional politics.

The pertinent documents, declassified in 1958 and compiled here in a new edition, are not only an invaluable resource for the interested amateur, but also a fascinating tale in their own right, revealing as they do the story of Captain George England’s hitherto secret work for the Aethermantic Operations Executive, his infiltration of the now legendary aethership Shadowless, and his final confrontation with the historically controversial pioneer of militarised aethermancy, Samuel Hardinge.

In these times of social unrest and multiversal upheaval, the events of 1866 have a new relevance, and it is our hope that the modern reader will find this narrative as pertinent as it would have been a hundred and fifty years ago.

To L, and all the wild horses

About Liberty

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Dear Reader

Also by Alexis Hall

About the Author

Enjoy this Book?

The following collection of documents details, as best this council can manage, the events surrounding the incident of 17 March 1866, which destroyed the 4th Skyfleet, nearly precipitated war with Prussia, and led to the official dissolution of the Aethermantic Operations Executive.

These documents have been declassified as part of a thorough review of National Intelligence Policy following the introduction of the Public Records Act, the Aetheric Services Act, and the International Convention on the Uses of Telepathy.

Many of the security implications of these papers have ceased to be pertinent in the wake of the Martian invasion.

Dame Esmeralda Hawthorne

Permanent Secretary, Home Office

12 July 1958

For the consideration of the court, herein are collected a number of witness accounts, items of personal correspondence, and formal reports to and by the former head of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence. These papers have been collated in order that the court may pass judgement on Captain George England in the matter of his involvement in the events of 17 March 1866.

My dearest mother,

Thank you for your most recent letter, and the tea, which could not have been better received. I shared it with my new friend Nolan, who, while foreign and a little stand-offish, is a most remarkable fellow. He has travelled all over Europe, and indeed the world, having trained in Tulln and served in the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before being granted his commission in the Dragoons. He is teaching me many things.

Since my last letter, we have left Varna and arrived in the Crimea proper, some short distance from a town called Eupatoria. The journey has been hard for many of my fellows, who have suffered much from illness, but I remain secure in the rightness and honour of our cause. The last of our horses are being disembarked even as I write, and I find myself filled with a tremendous swell of pride at being part of so grand and glorious an operation as this. Why, even as we arrived, the local Tartars flocked from their villages to trade fruit and supplies with us. I told Nolan that I felt as though I was at the beginning of a great adventure. He scoffed at me.

I must cut this letter short. I lack a table, and in writing on the ground I fear that I am spoiling good paper, which is also in short supply. I shall write again soon when circumstances are more favourable.

Your loving son,

George

My dearest mother,

Much has occurred since my last letter. A mere two days after I wrote you last, we had our first skirmish with the Russian bear. It was not a true battle, you understand, but our Light Brigade clashed with a small force of cossacks near the river Belbec. The engagement was brief and our casualties restricted to a few horses and some men injured by round shot, but we were victorious nevertheless. I had arranged for Nolan to ride alongside the lancers that day, and I fancy that he fought especially valiantly. But perhaps I am letting my knowledge of the man’s good character affect my recollection.

Our first true battle took place only two days later, at Alma. News of this victory has, I am sure, already reached you at home, for it was truly a triumph. Our infantry advance seemed unstoppable, the Russian muskets not nearly a match for our fine British rifles. I cannot put into words the splendour of it. My one regret is that the day saw little opportunity for we cavalrymen to prove ourselves in like manner. I commiserated to this effect with Nolan after the battle, but he assured me that I would see action enough before matters were concluded. I have come to very much value his council.

Although recent days have seen much cause for rejoicing, the campaign has not been without its sorrows. Many good men are dead today who were alive just a fortnight past, and the camp is slowly filling with the wounded, and their moaning in the night can be quite fearful. We lose yet more to cholera and to dysentery—why, Col. Lawrenson himself has been taken so ill that he has been forced to leave the front. He is a fine man, and no doubt the whole 17th is praying for his speedy recovery.

I fear I may not be able to write for some time. We are approaching Sevastopol, and the grim and glorious business of war may now be expected to begin in earnest. You shall doubtless hear from me again once the city has fallen.

Your loving son,

George

My dearest mother,

I hope that the weeks since my last letter have not been too difficult a time for you, and that whatever concerns or uncertainties you may have had about my fate have not affected your health. Know first and foremost that I am alive and, for the most part, well.

News of our defeat at Balaclava, and of my regiment’s role in the battle, will doubtless have reached England weeks before my letter arrives. You must, therefore, have heard how we were ordered to charge the Russian guns, and how we rode through a hell of cannon fire to do our duty. I can only hope that the valour of my fallen brothers-in-arms will be remembered by our countrymen as it deserves to be remembered.

My memories of the battle are hazy. I had been placed in command of the 17th after Major Willett died of cholera on the 22nd, and although I like to feel that I honoured my charge as well as any man could have in the circumstances, I was the least seasoned of the officers commanding the regiments of the Light Brigade on the day of the battle. Were it not for Nolan’s consistent support, I fear I should have felt quite out of sorts. Even with his ever-steadying presence, I felt that there was much confusion and much disagreement during the battle about the proper disposition of the cavalry. At last the Light and Heavy brigades were separated, against the advice of several of the officers, and we of the Light Brigade were left upon the plateau.

It fell upon Nolan, who always excelled in such matters, to relay orders between Lords Raglan, Lucan, and Cardigan, and it was he who relayed the final order from Lord Raglan to seize the guns. Seeing only one set of guns, Lord Lucan instructed Lord Cardigan to lead our brigade into the valley, towards the Russian cannon. I recall that my heart at once was seized with a mix of joy and trepidation. Joy that I was at last being called to serve my country in open battle, tempered with a dreadful sensibility of the peril we were about to enter, for there was not a man in the brigade who did not understand the danger we would face were we to charge, alone and unsupported, into the teeth of the Russian artillery. But we were the death-or-glory boys, and we would show no fear.

I rode at the head of the 17th, front and centre. The 11th Hussars were to our left, the 13th Light Dragoons to our right. Lord Cardigan led the charge, riding ahead of the line. Nolan, by my side, seemed agitated. We were all keenly aware of the great Russian batteries ahead, and the banks of guns on either side, but Nolan’s concerns seemed to run deeper. And to my sudden surprise, he did what was unthinkable and broke ranks, riding to overtake Cardigan, waving his sword above his head and shouting. What he shouted I do not know and will never know, for that was when the barrage began.

A shell exploded ahead of us, and Nolan’s horse fled back towards our lines. It was only when he passed me, when I heard his awful, piercing screams, that I knew he had been fatally wounded. But I had been trained well, and my personal sorrow at seeing so great a friend so brutally cut down was not a part of my duty. We pressed on towards the Russian guns.

I will not write you of the din of battle, of the roar of the shells and the cries of dying men and horses. It will do neither me, nor you, nor the country good for me to dwell on the men I saw shredded by grape, or engulfed in the fires of phlogiston rounds. I will say only that I do not know how I reached the Russian lines, only that I reached them. And those few of us who had survived that gauntlet of fire and iron fell upon the gunners and the cossacks that rode to support them with a fury that would make Britannia weep. I saw Garland cut down three men before he fell, Taylor—bleeding from a dozen wounds—still taking the fight to the enemy until he was overwhelmed. I did not, at the time, know how many times I had been struck, or cut, or shot. I knew that I was in pain, but I knew also that I had a duty to perform. I pressed through the line, striking blindly to left and to right as the Russian bear closed in around me. And when at last we were through, I found that we were alone. The Heavy Brigade had not come up in support; we were isolated and surrounded. And so we swept around and retreated.

I do not remember returning to camp, or being taken down from my horse. I remember lying on a stretcher, bleeding it seemed from every part of me. I remember being brought by army airship to the hospital at Scutari, and from there to Mr. Brunel’s remarkable new facility at Renkioi. My legs, it transpired, had been ruined by shot and sabre. My arms had fared a little better, although a deep cut to my left had severed nerves and tendons. At Renkioi the biometallurgists and neuropneumaticians set about repairing the damage with their strange and marvellous contraptions. My arm they fixed with the minimum of transfiguration, but my legs needed extensive rebuilding. They tell me that they are now more than fifty percent brass and steel, but that I shall soon learn to walk again, as effectively as ever I did. Perhaps more so, they say.

I hope that you are proud of your son, mother. He has done his duty to Queen and country, and—if God be willing—he will return to you soon, and then once more to the service of his nation.

Your loving son,

George

The pertinent material begins here. Previous entries stricken from court records for reasons of relevance and security.

Witnesses confirm that the voice on this cylinder is that of Samuel Hardinge, late of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence. This entry dated 17 January 1858, London, 4:17 p.m.

. . . final candidate is Captain George England. 17th Lancers. Veteran of Sevastopol. Biometallurgically reconstructed after Balaclava before returning to his old regiment and serving with distinction in India. Our aether-scientists are not certain whether the man’s augmentations will make him more or less suitable as a candidate for the program, but all the records suggest that he is both an excellent physical specimen—injuries notwithstanding—and that he shows an unswerving willingness to give of himself in service to his country.

Such a man could prove useful.

Necessary actions: Send aetherogram to regimental headquarters explaining necessity of secondment. Arrange transportation from India against the eventuality that Captain England proves a satisfactory candidate. [Here Mr. Hardinge appears to laugh to himself.] Transportation to England, for England. Fly to India. The aetherways are clear, and seem set to remain so. The time it takes for my message to arrive will be enough to finish what business remains in the department, and the journey will be brief.

[Footsteps audible, the scratch of a needle being removed. The log ends.]

Record of interview between Samuel Hardinge, late of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence, and Captain George England of the 17th Lancers. Record dated 21 January 1858, Dehli, 3:02 p.m.

This log presented unexpurgated.

[The scratch of a needle being set on a wax cylinder.]

E: I was asked to report to this office, sir.

[Witnesses identify this as the voice of Captain George England.]

H: I am not a knight, nor an officer, nor a schoolmaster, Captain England. Mr. Hardinge will suffice.

[Witnesses identify this as the voice of Samuel Hardinge.]

H: Please take a seat.

[The sound of a chair being scraped across the floor.]

H: Do you know who I am?

E: No, Mr. Hardinge.

H: Would you care to take a guess?

[Here there is some manner of interference on the recording, as if the needle became suddenly agitated, or was detecting vibrations of an alien nature.]

E: [Inaudible over interference] . . . but I have only heard rumours of such things.

H: Are you a man who puts great store in rumours?

E: No, Mr. Hardinge.

H: Commendable. But as you see in this instance the rumours were well-founded. I am what the world has taken to calling an aethermancer. When I worked with the War Office, I oversaw Mr. Lovelace’s ill-fated voyage to the upper skies, and when the lights of the aurora bathed our vessel I became [there is more interference] as you see now.

[There is silence on the cylinder for some time.]

H: Have you nothing to say, Captain England?

E: In the Lancers, sir, a man does not give his opinion unless he is asked for it.

H: I am asking you for it.

E: I fear that I have none. I had always taken the story of Mr. Lovelace’s last voyage to be a fanciful one, but your presence here would seem to show that there is some truth to it.

H: I cannot tell if you are mocking me.

E: Sir! I would do no such thing.

H: I shall come to the point. I have secured funding from Her Majesty’s Government to re-create the final voyage of the Endeavour with the express purpose of fashioning more individuals who are as I now am.

E: To what end?

H: To the only end that matters. The defence of the realm, the advancement of the Empire. Surely you saw for yourself the atrocities carried out last year, in this very country? The destruction that the mutineers brought down on honest British women and children? Why, it can scarcely be borne!

E: But what does a rebellion in India have to do with a flight to the upper skies?

[Again, the recording dissolves to static. The previous transcriber insisted that—if this section of the cylinder is played back and the listener pays close attention to sounds on the edge of hearing—ancient and blasphemous voices can be heard in the chaos. The previous transcriber has since been committed to a sanatorium, and no attempt has been made to confirm his claims.]

H: [Inaudible] . . . dare to stand against us? What rebel? What empire? I have stared into the heart of the aether and witnessed its limitless power, and it showed to me a great and simple truth. That the nation that rules the aether rules the world. That the wars of the future will be fought not by men on horseback, not with lances or with cannon or with ships or even with airships, but with weapons fashioned from the very stuff of creation. Weapons that burst like stars over cities, that do not merely destroy, but transform the land that they touch. Weapons so terrible that they will kill war itself and allow the empire that wields them to build a glorious peace the like of which has not been seen since the days of Rome itself.

[The previous transcriber also insisted that when he played this section of the cylinder backwards it instructed him to build a mighty tower of stone and to stand atop it calling out to the blind God-King who dwells in a seething furnace at the heart of the universe. The truth of this assertion remains untested as it is the opinion of the court that only the content of Mr. Hardinge’s conversation with Captain England is pertinent to the current case.]

[There is silence on the recording for some moments. For accuracy, let the record show that it is indeed broken by a faint and eldritch whispering.]

E: That sounds terrible.

H: It is terrible. But it is also true.

E: But surely such weapons would never be used by civilised men.

H: Perhaps not. But in this world there are a great many uncivilised men. Many of them in command of mighty nations or empires. Once a thing is known to be possible, it is only a matter of time before it is done. And those who hesitated, who said, “No, that bridge is too far, that price is too high,” are left to stand, and watch, and tremble.

E: Forgive me, but I am still uncertain what you feel my part should be in all of this.

H: When I repeat Mr. Lovelace’s voyage, I will, unlike that unfortunate gentleman, take only the best and the strongest. Men who have proven themselves capable of facing the sorts of extreme conditions that we will experience in the upper skies. I will go not to study the aurora, but to use them, to make for Her Majesty a new cabal of aethermancers, the first such group in the world.

E: And I am to be stationed to this group?

H: I will not lie to you, Captain England. It will be an arduous program of training, and a dangerous journey. You will see things most believe live only in nightmares. But if you are successful, you will have the opportunity to serve your country in a manner which the men of earlier and less enlightened ages could not even have imagined possible.

[There is silence on the record again.]

E: Thank you, Mr. Hardinge. It would be my honour to serve.

[The sound of a chair scraping along the floor. The sound of footsteps. A door opening and closing. The scratch of a needle being removed from a cylinder.]

My dearest mother,

I am afraid that I can give you few details of my present location or circumstances. I can tell you only that I have been selected—personally mind you—to perform extremely important work on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, and it is for that work I am now in training.

I am presently at a facility in an undisclosed location and in company with a very queer selection of fellows. Indeed, I say “fellows,” but there are at least two ladies among the company. I am not permitted to use proper names in this letter, but Miss L—a large, matronly woman—was a nurse in her previous occupation and served in Crimea, although I never crossed paths with her. Miss K has an extremely shadowy background involving the stews of Gaslight, and from the look of her, she is a stranger to neither hardship nor violence.

I am already making friends among the gentlemen. Several are military men, like me, although in truth we seem to be drawn from all sorts of backgrounds. I have grown very close to a man I shall refer to as T. An explorer and some-time employee of the East India Company, T has led a life of adventure that quite outstrips my own. A man of noble and rather swashbuckling bearing, he has regaled me many a night with tales of his travels—of days spent trekking through darkest Africa in search of forgotten gold, of fierce battles with pirates in the South China Sea, of the great wealth he has seen harvested and squandered.

Our training here has been quite unlike anything I have experienced before. Where in the Lancers our focus was on drills and parades, on learning to fight effectively and in concert with one another, here we are made to test our pure physical and mental endurance. We are woken at all hours of the night by H’s men and taken to chambers where we might be exposed to extremes of heat, or of cold, or both in quick succession. There is a deep shaft somewhere beneath the facility along which a metal chamber is propelled at alarming speed, such that one’s whole bodyweight seems to vanish, and one hovers a moment like some angelic spirit, before the cage is allowed to slow and then wound back to its point of origin.

Sometimes we are fed medicines which cause vomiting, or hallucination, or nightmares. Sometimes I believe I hear strange whispers in the dark. T takes all of this in his stride. He tells me that he has seen stranger things in Nepal. I find his presence very comforting. Without his support, I fear I would lack the strength to see this program through to its end. Three members of the company have already departed, unable to take the strain of the training.

I continue to remind myself that what I do, I do for my country. If H is correct, we are entering a new and terrible age, and we must all give to the utmost of our capacity if this land we love above all else is not to be utterly annihilated by the coming storm.

With the greatest of hope for the future,

Your loving son,

George

This extract dated 1 January 1860, 1:18 a.m. Presented with some redactions.

[The sound of a needle being set into a wax cylinder.]

It is complete.

[Witnesses identify the voice on this recording as belonging to Samuel Hardinge, late of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence.]

[Here Mr. Hardinge appears to be breathing heavily.]

The Unnamable rose swiftly through the atmosphere, propelled by phlogiston-rockets and my own aethermantic guidance. I do not like ships. The bond that the aether creates is not one that I wish to forge with a hulk of metal. But needs must, needs must . . .

[Silence a moment. Mr. Hardinge appears to be murmuring to himself, but the transcriber could not make out what was said. After earlier incidents, our transcribers have been advised not to listen too closely to anything that hovers at the edge of hearing.]

We reached the aurora in good time, and its lights were every bit as brilliant and as terrible as I remember them. They showed me once more the grand design of the next century, the great wave that will crash across the world and sweep away those who lack the wit and the will to ride in its wake.

My subjects fared far better than had the crew of the Endeavour. Through the aether, I reached out and touched their minds, watched as they were opened to the infinite glory of creation. It is only now that I understand how different and how personal each individual’s reaction to the aurora is. [Name redacted] saw a vast and yawning dark, at once inviting and perilous, a place to hide and to seek after that which is hidden. A place from which to strike unseen. [Name redacted] saw vast fields of ruined wonder, a new world ripe for the taking. [Name redacted] saw roiling green-and-purple fire, and I fear the terror of it drove him quite mad. I could feel his mind shatter as I watched, and had I not withdrawn my presence, I fear I, too, would have succumbed.

I am always learning more about this power, how to use it, how to prevent it from consuming me.

Captain England, with an almost charming naïveté, saw in the aurora the golden hope of a bright and wondrous dawn. I am not the man I think I am if I cannot find a use for such a true believer.

There were two fatalities, and three driven irreparably insane.

[The sound of a needle being removed from a cylinder.]

The preceding documents are considered by the court to be sufficient to establish Captain England’s character prior to his involvement in the events of the 17th of March 1866, and to establish the character of Mr. Hardinge, late of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence, whose conduct in this matter is also called into question.

Let it be known that following the date of the preceding document, Captain England served for several years in the Aethermantic Operations Executive under the auspices of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence, and that the details of those operations in which he was engaged are sealed for the safety of the realm. Suffice to say that they were performed under the auspices of what was then a department of Her Majesty’s Government.

The court’s narrative will continue with documents relating to more recent events.

This entry dated 2 February 1866, 11:54 a.m.

[The sound of a needle being placed on a wax cylinder.]

H: England. How was Jamaica?

[Witnesses identify this voice as belonging to Samuel Hardinge.]

E: Unpleasant, sir. The rebels were poorly organised and poorly armed—Governor Eyre’s reaction was, I felt, excessive.

[Witnesses identify this voice as belonging to Captain George England.]

H: Rebellion cannot be tolerated. Not in times such as these. Russia still looks west with a greedy eye. In the German states, men like Bismarck seek to upset the whole balance of power. Would you have us show weakness in such a world? Have us kneel before France or Prussia and bare our necks to their teeth?

E: No, sir.

H: No, indeed. And this brings us to my reason for summoning you. Since its formation, the Executive has, I am sure you agree, achieved great things.

E: Undoubtedly, sir. Although I sometimes feel . . .

H: We have been able to achieve these things, England, because thus far we have been unopposed. We have been free to move and to strike swiftly and at will. But that is changing. The Great Powers are turning their eyes skywards, and it will not be long before they begin aethermantic programs of their own. We must frustrate these ambitions at any cost.

E: Sabotage?

H: Not exactly. The flight of the Endeavour was—in many respects—a freak occurrence. The conditions of the upper skies are so unpredictable that any similar . . . if you will pardon the phrase . . . endeavour would like as not meet with the loss of all hands unless it is supported by an existing aethermancer. Provided no aethermancers are free to support our enemies in their ambitions, we will be safe from aethermantic interference for decades to come. Britain will remain the only nation with an aetheric deterrent, the only nation to wield the true power of the cosmos.

[There is silence on the recording. Our transcriber reports a dark whispering and a light, ethereal music competing in the quiet.]

H: To this end, our aim is the elimination of rogue aethermantic practitioners. You know for yourself the powers that we wield, and must surely see that such power cannot be left in the hands of pirates and vagabonds.

E: No. No, I see that.

H: There is a town in the upper skies. The degenerates who make their lairs there call it Liberty. It is ruled by one of the first aethermancers—the widow of the late Mr. Lovelace. She has no loyalty to anybody but herself and is known to traffic in military-grade weaponry. Worse, she is known to train others in aethermancy, and it is only a matter of time before she is approached by one of the Great Powers. When this happens, there will be war, and it will be war the like of which the world has never seen.

[There is silence for some moments. A sound that may be somebody raising a glass and setting it down again.]

H: The difficulty is that Liberty is surrounded by a vast aetherstorm, quite unassailable if its mistress does not wish you to enter. I need a man on the inside, somebody who can disrupt the aetherstorm from within and allow the airnavy to take the city.

E: Why not simply capture Mrs. Lovelace? If she is the real threat in the city, would it not be best to remove her directly?

H: Liberty is a notorious pirate haven and is best eradicated. We have a wider duty to law, order, and the stability of the realm, Mr. England.

E: And how am I to become your . . . inside man? I am no pirate, after all.

H: You do not need to be. I happen to have a . . . line, as it were, on the location of one of the widow Lovelace’s protégés.

E: A line, sir?

H: His father has been tracking him for some time. Of course I say “him,” but the man is perverse in his tastes, and is as likely to fashion himself as a woman. The creature answers to “Byron Kae,” and Lord Wolfram informs me that his ship Shadowless will be making slip at Calumny three days hence.

E: And you want me to . . . join up? Sneak aboard?

H: According to my intelligence, Kae is a great taker-on. You need only look at his ship’s roster—thieves, preachers, disgraced criminal overlords. Governesses. If it helps, we can arrange for you to meet under circumstances which will cast you in—shall we say—a favourable light.

E: I am not certain I am well suited for infiltration.

H: You have an honest face. If you ask Byron Kae for his protection, I strongly suspect that he will give it to you. As I say, it is a pattern in his behaviour.

E: And what should I ask for protection from?

H: That, I assure you, is easily arranged.

[There is static, and the needle appears to skip a little. The whispering grows louder, the music softer.]

H: Do not let me keep you, Mr. England.

[The sound of a needle being removed from a cylinder.]

Statement recorded 2 April 1866, regarding events taking place between 10 February 1866 and 17 March 1866.

Some redactions have been made in order to preserve the modesty of the court.

So, I was in Calumny on a job what I won’t describe on grounds of how I may incriminate myself, and also cos it ain’t none of your business. I ain’t so nuts on Calumny, truth be told, cos folks thereabouts got this what-ye-might-call erroneous notion ol’ Piccadilly’s some kinda dimber-damber rogue. Which, for the record, your honour, is a bunch of moonshine cos I be as law-abiding a citizen as ever walked Her Majesty’s streets or chased the clouds.

Anyways, last time there’d been a, y’know, gentlemanly misunderstanding betwixt your humble interlocutor and a band of skytars what’d taken it badly when I’d licked ’em soundly in a fair and upright game of cards. Made me a little bit timorous about going back, but I reckoned what was the chances of running into the same culls again, what it being nearly a year and them having the whole blue to bod about in.

Turned out, chances was pretty [expletive deleted] high. Begging your pardon, your honour.

I was taking a shortcut down this narrow darksome kinda alley, as we perfectly honest fellas are sometimes wont to do, when these ten massive airmen lurched out the shadows looking like bull beef and murder, and I stagged straightwise all weren’t likely bene with ol’ Piccadilly.

[The accounts of independent witnesses confirm that the altercation in Calumny did indeed take place on the date in question, but the number of persons present, excluding Mr. Piccadilly and Captain England, is estimated at between three and six.]

“Good evening, my friends,” quoth I. “Stand ye not astonished by my perspicacity, but I get the feeling that you do not have entirely the best of wishes as regards myself.”

I will not tarnish the court’s ears by repeating the [expletive deleted] nasty, baseless, and slanderous things what they called me. But while they was busy doing it, I was giving the place the cutty eye, prior to giving it the laugh right tantwivvy, but came fast to the conclusion I couldn’t go neither left nor right on account of a dozen or so burly culls being in the way. So I reckoned it was up or nowt, and I ain’t never been a cove to settle for nowt.

I tipped my hat politewise to them as was intending to detain me, wished the best of fortune for the forthcoming, spun round, and shot up the nearest drainpipe. I got some experience with climbing walls from my legitimate exploits as [here the witness paused for some time] an itinerant roofing inspector, and there ain’t much what can stop yours truly once he’s set his mind to binging it.

Unfortunately, a score of irate airmen is one of the things what can.

So there I was, back on terra firma, or the closest to it you get in the sky. I guess you might call it terra infirma except mebbe that’s where infirmary comes from, so it’d just mean sick.

[It took the witness some minutes to return to the issue under discussion.]

Anyway, there I was on the ground, which ain’t what ye might call the best position, leastwise not for mounting a spirited defence against getting the [expletive deleted] kicked out of you. And that was when I first met ol’ Green and Pleasant. That being what I took to calling him on account of his name being England and him being right green but sorta pleasant with it. ’Tis what ye might call a pun or a literary allusion. These things just come to me. ’Tis a gift.

I didn’t see him at first what with me being supine and surrounded by hobnails, but I reckon they could have heard that voice back in Prosperity, even with having dropped out the sky three years ago as result of a sequence of events, both exciting and educative, about which I have penned a novella which is soon to be serialised in All the Year Round, your honour.

What was I saying? Oh yeah.

“Four against one is hardly fair,” said he.

The airmen turned to give him the once over. “What’s it to you, [expletive deleted]?” growled one of ’em.

I confess ’twas a question I was asking myself. Though my years be slender, I’ve seen enough of this world to know folk don’t go out of their way to help other folks if there ain’t nowt in it for them. Of course, I weren’t complaining at the time, but since he did turn out to be an aethermantic spy what worked for a sinister government organisation headed up by a loony [expletive deleted], my instinctive scepticism did not prove unfounded.

“I don’t like bullies.” Captain England didn’t talk like no nib, but ’twas clear he weren’t gutterborn neither. And he had this way of speaking I hadn’t heard since Ruben Crowe, sorta like he never said a word he didn’t mean.

One of the airmen laughed. “Bully for you.” ’Twas another pun, though I fancy not so slick nor so cunning as mine own.

“Step away or I will be forced to—”

They went for him.

And I found myself in sommat of a moral dilemma, cos ’twould’ve been the perfect time to scarper, but seeing as how this daft cove had stuck his neck out for me, it seemed like poor payment to leave him to get stabbed in it.

Except, turned out, I needn’t have worried. I seen my share of scrapping in my time, brawls in the Stews, skypirates with swords and pistols and the like, Ruben’s gentlemanly fisticuffs, and Milord with his chivs, but I hadn’t never seen nowt like this. He was quick, like everywhere at [expletive deleted] once quick, and sorta deft in this queer way like he knew exactly where to hit a fella to make it count.

It weren’t long before it was pretty clear who’d won: the airmen were rolling about on the floor, groaning and cursing, and Captain England was standing there all calmwise, not even out of breath. That was my first proper look at him. He was a mightsome comely cove, I ain’t afraid of saying, being tall and strong and military looking, and having that stern, collected way of holding himself what might make a certain type of person—not necessarily being me—want to [redacted on grounds of decency]. Cos there’s sommat about them very proper sorts, ain’t there? Reckon more than anything they need a good [redacted on grounds of decency]. ’Tis practically a public service.

Oh, and sommat else I noticed, being the sharp-glimmed sort, was the fine brass pistons set in his hands, just about visible past his cuffs. Them, and his black aethermancer’s eyes, what I stagged as he got closer.

“Are you well, sir?” quoth he.

“Mightsome bene, considering I ain’t just been crashed by a bunch of [expletive deleted].” I flashed the ol’ dimples at him. “Which happy circumstance I reckon entitles you to a sign of my right hearty gratitude, but seeing as I ain’t so flush right now, I’m afraid your quids’ll have to come pro quo.”

“It’s quite all right.”

“Normalwise, you being a sommat of a dimber cove, I’d be perfectly willing to express my appreciation by delivering unto you unrestricted access to the person of one Piccadilly of Gaslight, that being me. But since I have lately found myself in a state of matelotage—which they say is from the French and a mighty fine import it is too—the truth is, while my glims might occasionalwise wander, my heart (to say nowt of my other organs) have rather lost their taste for roving.”

“I assure you, sir,” said bloke what rescued me, a bit faintly, “that neither your coin nor your . . . organs will be necessary. I saw an injustice, and I acted to stop it.”

“’Twould’ve been a grave injustice indeed had any harm befallen a face so pretty as that currently sported by my good self.”

’Twas gloomysome in the honest alleyway, but I could’ve sworn he blushed, and right fine he looked doing it. “I didn’t . . . think about that. May I see you back to your ship?”

“Certainwise you may,” said I.

Truth was, I was rather charmed at the notion of being took home by an officer and a gentleman. But also, ’twas sommat curious about what ye might call so fortuitous a concatenation of circumstances. Cos, thing is, stumbling over an aethermancer ain’t no everyday occurrence, and while I was theoretically willing to take a punt on the essential benevolence of the human spirit, somebody showing up to save you right when you need saving is a convenience the like of which we’d call smoky, meaning right suspicious-like. And I didn’t recall saying nowt about having come from no ship, but mebbe ’twould’ve been the obvious conclusion to draw what with my togs, and my general buccaneering demeanour.

Now I think about it, this accounting of the particular purport of my thoughts at this moment could be termed dramatic irony, seeing as you and I in the present day are aware of information which I was not at the time, thus providing a context for events that is not accessible to the characters within the narrative, viz, my past self.

So, anywise, that was how I came ambling back to Shadowless arm in arm with a government spy. We conversed most amiable-like en as they say route, making civil whiskers and exchanging names and what-’ave-ye. He told me he was Captain George England, late of the 17th Lancers, who’d been at Balaclava, which I reckoned likely made him one of them noble six hundred what Mr. Tennyson wrote about. Though I ain’t so sure what’s noble in getting blown up just cos some nibby twit said to.

I thought we was getting on most fine, except looking back on it, I realise ’twas mainwise me what did the talking. Mebbe it was what spies do, but he had a way what made me think he was interested, and mebbe he was cos I don’t know why he’d be reporting back to Her Majesty about the life and times of one Piccadilly.

I always get a warmish homey kinda feeling getting back to Shadowless cos that’s where Byron Kae is. They was waiting for me on deck, and I went scampering straight over to say hello, which I did most vigorously by [redacted on grounds of decency]. When was done, I introduced ol’ Green and Pleasant to the captain.

What with them not having been recentwise rescued by him, they was less inclined to friendsomeness, but once I’d related the circumstances of our meeting, they warmed up a bit. Thing about Byron Kae is that people don’t always take to ’em, so it makes ’em wary round new folk.

“You’re an aethermancer,” they said, which was an issue as I had myself been rather dancing around.

“Yes.” England nodded all smartsome and regimental. “I was trained by a man named Hardinge, shortly after the Crimean War.”

“What brings you to Calumny?”

“It seems terribly unBritish, but I’m afraid I’m on the run. Some Great Power is hunting aethermancers, and I fled here, hoping both to evade it and to find allies.”

Y’see, your honour, you may be thinking that we was a right bunch of buffleheads not to be awake to the fact that Green and Pleasant was—to coin a phrase—secretly on Her Majesty’s service. Especially since he sort of said he was. Fact is, he didn’t tell us a single clanker the whole time he was with us. He failed to mention a few particulars, like, for example, him being there to get us all killed. But that’s kinda why we trusted him. You’d have to be right nidgit to send a fella like that on a covert mission. Right nidgit or [expletive deleted] genius.

And him getting shot in the back ten seconds later did lend his story a certain air of what ye might call verisimilitude.

The following reports were found amongst the personal effects of Samuel Hardinge, late of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence. They appear to have been produced using an experimental psychostenographic aetheroscope, and to have received reports communicated telepathically by his agent in the field.

10 February 1866

Have arrived on Shadowless.

Survived shooting.

Have impressed on Kae threat to aethermancers.

Statement recorded 2 April 1866, regarding events taking place between 10 February 1866 and 17 March 1866.

A note for the court: through this narrative, the individual known as Byron Kae, being the captain of the vessel known as Shadowless, is referred to consistently as the captain. Captain George England, late of the 17th Lancers, holding similar title but of military rather than naval origin, is referred to always as Captain England. The transcribers apologise for any confusion this may cause.

I first met Captain George England when a runner summoned me from the [pause] establishment where I had been at the time. I was informed that somebody had been shot on the deck of Shadowless. Again.

I dressed myself in some haste and proceeded to the docks. You can imagine my irritation on discovering that the victim was a gentleman entirely unknown to me, and my activities therefore had been curtailed needlessly. Nevertheless, curtailed they had been, and thus I resigned myself to a tedious evening in the guise of a ministering angel. It is guise that neither becomes nor comforts me, for I have seen the winged things that dwell in the heavens and heard their strange music. Nor do I imagine it brought much comfort to Captain England, for I was obliged to dig a bullet from his flesh, and the man refused laudanum.

I knew, of course, that he was aether-touched, for the lights of the aurora surged about him in a cascade of golden fire, ever-shifting and showing me shattered visions of wondrous cities long lost to time and ashes. I confess, I found it somewhat disconcerting as I stitched his wounds, while he grit his teeth in that fashion considered so honourable in men. Necessity had rendered Captain England shirtless throughout this procedure, which allowed me to observe the scars and extensive brasswork that covered his upper arms. I remember thinking at the time that the gentleman was a most singular specimen, strong of limb, broad of shoulder, and narrow of flank, like a fine warhorse. Of course, such matters are of little interest to me. For I am a woman of simple virtue.

While I had been tending our new guest, Master Piccadilly had made efforts to pursue his would-be assassin. He had found an abandoned Enfield rifle, but no sign of the man—or woman—who had fired it. Regardless, we felt it was too dangerous for either Shadowless or Captain England to remain in Calumny, and so we took to the skies with all due haste.

Captain England recovered swiftly. It is my experience that aethermancers heal more rapidly than those untouched by the cold and brilliant hands of the unspeakable gods beyond the stars. Nevertheless, he was confined to bed for the best part of a week, partly to aid in the restoration of his strength and partly in order that he would not be seen on deck, if he was, indeed, being pursued. He was a model patient, always courteous, considerate, and obedient, and in the course of my ministrations I grew quite familiar with his manner and person. Both of which were perfectly amiable. I am not ashamed to admit I learned from him a great deal about the Siege of Sevastopol, the appropriate handling of a musket, and the strong bonds of camaraderie that grew between military gentlemen. Sometimes, late in the night, when it is hard to keep oneself from obeying the voices, he would grow a little melancholy for lost friends. I do, however, think he preferred the company of Master Piccadilly, who would visit Captain England often, and regale him with tales of gay adventure. Tales for which my patient appeared to have a boundless appetite.

I believe it was on the 12th of February that we were next attacked. In the early evening I became aware of a subtle yet fast-moving disturbance in the aether. I knew at once it was not a kraken, for they are larger, slower-moving, and preceded by screams and wails that echo the coming of the end of days. I thought perhaps it may have been a second aethership, and I was about to inform the Captain of its approach, when our vessel was rocked by a sudden explosion, which led me to conclude that the Captain almost certainly had as much information about our present situation as I did. The nature of the explosion was unusual in that I perceived its tremors running through the aether as surely as I felt their impact in physical reality.

Sensible that such events seldom herald friendly advances, I retrieved the revolver from beneath my pillow, settled my derringer in my [pause] I mean, about my person, against the event that I should become disarmed, and moved with some caution to the deck. There I beheld a tall gentleman of middle years hovering near the mast. Even had he not been flying, I should have known him at once for an aethermancer for the aether churned and surged about him in a perpetual crimson storm that seemed always on the brink of some violent eruption.

“In the name of the Emperor,” he cried, “I demand that the crew of this vessel stand down, and the aether witches aboard be delivered into my custody.” His accent was French and his belligerence of manner likewise.

I considered simply shooting him. The Captain has a profound aversion to violence, but when a person’s opening proposition is “surrender or die” they leave little room for negotiation. And while there are those who would balk at shooting a man in the back, it is my experience that the strongest proponents of honourable combat are those whom it most advantages. That is to say, I have found that possession of a handgun and a commitment to its early use goes some small way towards redressing the frailty of my sex.

But I did not, in the end, have opportunity, for the Captain descended from the crow’s nest, trailing iridescent rainbows in the aether.

“This is my ship. Your emperor has no authority here.”

“Surrender, or I will blow your ship out of the sky.”

I was within a hairsbreadth of pulling the trigger when Captain England burst out of his cabin, wielding a sabre but not wearing a coat, and charged at the intruder. The Frenchman turned and another aetheric explosion sent Captain England spinning helplessly across the deck, an encounter which tore open my careful stitches and set his recovery back some days. I confess I sometimes wonder why heroism is a quality so highly valued in men, as it seems to lead them to such rash and foolish actions.

By this juncture, all hope of employing my pistol was lost as the ship was rocking quite spectacularly. The Captain had summoned a great aetheric wind in an effort to drive Monsieur from Shadowless, but he seemed to possess some power that rendered the aether about him unstable. The consequence was a great storm in the immaterial realm, from which voices alternately shrieked and beckoned, and against the sky I beheld broken glimpses of dying worlds and fading suns. I am afraid this had a detrimental effect on my composure, and I believe I may have fallen to my knees, tearing at my hair and uttering blasphemous incantations.

When I was once again in command of my faculties, I turned my attention to the safety of the vessel and its crew. The violence of the storm was such that I feared for the sails and, as a consequence, for the Captain. You will be aware, of course, that damage to an aethermancer’s vessel is often reflected in their person, and through the tumult I could already see shallow cuts on the Captain’s face and hands.

At that moment, Master Piccadilly leapt from the top deck and helped me to my feet. I will not attempt to imitate his mannerisms or mode of speech, but once I had assured him of my well-being, I suggested that he see about reefing the main sails as a matter of urgency. And so he did, with admirable dexterity. It was fast becoming apparent we were at a significant disadvantage. Although the Frenchman was outnumbered, the Captain had a ship to protect, Captain England was unconscious, and the rest of us were hampered by an inability to fly. I took some small satisfaction that my earlier instinct to just shoot him had almost certainly been correct.

Unable to meaningfully assist my shipmates while struggling to retain my footing, I secured a spare length of rope and lashed myself to the rail. So steadied, I levelled my pistol, waited for an opportune moment, and fired. Several times, in fact. At least one of the bullets must have found its mark because the aether immediately stilled, and the Frenchman dropped hawk-like towards me. It was then I realised that I had been a little precipitous in both incapacitating myself and emptying my firearm.

As he approached, I could see blood and aether streaking down his jacket, and he called me a string of vile names in French and English that modesty forbids me from repeating here. Rather than entertain a discussion of my virtue and parentage with an irate foreigner, I reached for my derringer, but found, much to my discomfort, that I had secured myself in such a way that it was not quite accessible. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Captain England had regained consciousness and was stumbling towards us, sabre in hand. I doubted he would arrive in time to effect a rescue, although I was thankful to him for the intent.

The aether gathered around me in a crushing vortex, and I truly believe he would have choked the life from me had not Master Piccadilly popped up and deployed a Gaslight street defence technique that involved rising behind Monsieur and seizing him fiercely by his male parts. This quite broke the gentleman’s concentration, affording the Captain time to alight on the deck opposite him, and me to liberate my derringer, which I was quick to aim at the intruder.

I was relieved to see that the Captain, while bruised and shaken, seemed otherwise unharmed. I had never seen two aethermancers duel before, and I fear our Captain is not a combatant, whereas the mysterious Frenchman’s aetheric manipulations seemed to possess a particularly violent and destructive quality.

It was at this moment that Master Piccadilly chose to impress upon our attacker the precariousness of his position, which reasoning he seemed to accept but in ill-humour. He surged into the sky, leaving in his wake a burst of aetheric force which shook Shadowless from prow to stern, and would have cast me over the side if not for my bonds.

Master Piccadilly was not so fortunate. Having been in close proximity to the gentleman, he caught the brunt of the blast and was pitched clear across the rail. The Captain was a blur of colour as they shot past me and swan dived into what I understand the airmen call the blue.

There was just time for Captain England to expel a mildly blasphemous but ultimately harmless expression of shock and dismay before the Captain soared back onto Shadowless with Master Piccadilly clasped in their arms. Master Piccadilly was laughing, and breathlessly declared that he had felt in no danger, for he had always known the Captain would save him. The remainder of their reunion was touching, but not within the scope of this interview.

I led Captain England back to his cabin to repair the damage he had done himself. He seemed uncharacteristically subdued.

Once he was rested, we gathered over supper by his bedside to discuss the situation. He had already intimated to us that some force unknown was seeking the destruction of all free aethermancers and that the attempt on his life had been but one small part of this. We had hoped that in distancing ourselves from Calumny we would have put ourselves beyond danger, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that our faceless enemy had a long reach and considerable resources. We were far from safe, even in the open sky.

Captain England told us that our attacker was a man named Villeneuve. “I have encountered him before,” he continued. “I was not expecting him to find me so soon.”

The Captain—that is, my Captain—paced in the narrow space. “And he’s an agent of the French Emperor?”

“So it would seem.”

At which point Master Piccadilly asked, quite reasonably in my view, what business Napoleon III could possibly have with a group of vagabond skypirates.

“Whoever controls the aether,” said Captain England gravely, “controls the skies. Whoever controls the skies controls the world.”

The Captain paused, and for a moment the stars in their eyes grew dark. “The skies belong to no nation and to no empire.”

“The French Emperor would disagree. So would Herr Bismarck.”

“Power,” returned the Captain, “does not justify itself.”

While I found this discussion of the politics of liberty diverting, I could not help but feel that both parties had missed an important pragmatic concern. “Regardless,” I interjected, “the aether is a seething nuclear chaos governed by the unknowable will of intelligences alien, malign, and infinite. It cannot be controlled, and any king or emperor who attempts such folly brings doom upon himself and his people.” I leaned over to refill Captain England’s cup. “More tea?”

We were silent awhile. I find people are often silent in my presence. I have never quite ascertained what causes it, and I cannot seem to recall if it is an affliction of recent years or one I have suffered my entire life.

At last the Captain said, “If the Emperor has indeed decided to destroy us, then we must warn the other free aethermancers. I know of only two: Nancy Doolittle, the skybuilder, and the woman who showed me the aurora.”

Master Piccadilly observed that, from what he had heard, Mrs. Lovelace was, to use his own peculiar idiom, as mad as a hat full of pennies.

I told him that I, too, had heard of the widow Lovelace, but that a lady scientist who dwelt at the heart of an eternal aetherstorm on the crystallised corpse of a monstrosity from beyond the stars was quite unremarkable next to the myriad terrors that I knew for certain lurked a shadow’s breadth from each of us our every waking moment. And that, at any rate, even if she was a little peculiar, she had, thus far, not attempted to have us assassinated. All of which categorised her, in my eyes, as practically a bosom companion.

From the reports of Captain George England recorded by psychostenographic aetheroscope.

13 February 1866

Villenueve performed his task admirably.

The crew seem honest and do not suspect.

Proceeding to Holstein to locate Doolittle.

Statement recorded 2 April 1866, regarding events taking place between 17 February 1866 and 17 March 1866.

Some redactions have been made in order to preserve the modesty of the court.

So, me old man and me was in the Duchy of Holstein cos we’d got an order from the Prussians to build this [expletive deleted] great skyway so’s they could ship their troops and airmen and that up to the border if [expletive deleted] ever kicked off against Austria or Denmark or whoever.

Now, seeing as how this is a military court, there ain’t nothing unpatriotic about me doing that. Way I look at it, stuff’s going to get built either way, and it’s better for the old motherland if it’s a true-blooded Englishwoman what gets paid to do it instead of some Yank.

We was running about three days ahead of schedule cos the aether’d been good and cos, to be honest, I can do [expletive deleted] magic, when who should rock up but Byron [expletive deleted] Kae in that [expletive deleted] stupid great tall ship of theirs. I’ve said to ’em before, I’ve said Byron, you don’t need it, it’s impractical. And they said, you’re hardly one to talk, my winged lady, and I said fair play.

Now, I’d not seen Byron Kae in more than three years, and in the intervening time they and their merry band of misfits had knocked one of my [expletive deleted] towns out of the [expletive deleted] sky. A turn of events which saw me hauled up before the Lords of Gaslight, having to defend my own [expletive deleted] work in front of a bunch of [expletive deleted] what had never been more than five hundred feet up in their lives. Look, I said, the contract is very clear. The structure is guaranteed to hold through storm, fire, and failure of no more than three skyhooks, but I make no guarantees against invasions by tentacled beasts from beyond oblivion. So, I said, no you can’t have your money back, but if you would like it rebuilt I can certainly oblige you. I am no longer popular with the Lords of Gaslight. Which, by the way, may explain why I was forced to take this job for the Minister of Prussia.

The crew of old Shadowless had changed about a bit since the last time I’d seen her. Byron Kae was same as always. Us what have touched the aurora don’t change. Jane hadn’t changed much neither, and I still had fond memories of [redacted on grounds of decency] at our last meeting. I mean, don’t get me wrong, good sirs, I love my husband very much, but we have a simple rule that it don’t count if there’s more than a mile of vertical distance between us. They’d lost the preacher and the skinny bloke with the cough and the cut-your-throat-as-soon-as-look-at-you smile. Seemed to have swapped ’em out for another aethermancer—military fella, bit queer if you ask me—and a right incorrigible young swashbuckler, who was [redacted on grounds of decency] with Byron Kae like sailors on shore leave.

Now, Byron Kae and I go back a ways, and I have a great fondness for ’em, but they have never been what you would call a barrel of laughs, so I was entirely unsurprised when they hallooed me from the deck of their ship with the cheery greeting, “You must come with us, you’re in great danger.” As it happened, I had a crew of two hundred men suspended quite some considerable distance above the surface of the Earth what I did not entirely trust to successfully build a skyway in my absence. So I was not really inclined to go sailing off into the blue without so much as an “’allo, Nancy, ’ow’s the family.”

When you says “great danger,” I asks, could you be more specific.

The Emperor of France, he says, wants all aethermancers dead in case they fall into the hands of his enemies.

Well, [expletive deleted], says I.

Before I continue, I would like to remind the court and Her Majesty’s Government that me and mine have been offered full immunity from prosecution or persecution by agents of this or any other office. And that, furthermore, I have been given assurances that I will be able to leave these premises when I am done and that I, in my turn, have given assurances that if you try to stop me leaving I will kill every last [expletive deleted] one of you. I hope you have that in writing.

See, thing is, if someone was running around trying to wipe out the aethermancers, it weren’t just me I had to worry about. It were me boy as well. Cos Albert Junior is a sweet lad, but don’t play well with other children, and he has not been popular back in Cheapside ever since he pulled next door’s cat through a black and screaming vortex into a nothingness beyond imagining. But he reads a lot, bless him.

I tells old Byron Kae I has to deal with something, and I drops like a [expletive deleted] comet back to Glückstadt. We’d been put up in a little house on the waterfront where I found young Albert reading to his daddy from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. They had just got to the bit with the pig and the pepper when I busted in all flustered-like, and I says to ’em, me and Albie has to go away into the sky for a while for reasons what I can’t really explain. Under no accounts answer the door to anybody French.

What’s going on, me old man says. I just said I can’t say, I says. You can’t take my son away without so much as a by your leave, he says. I ain’t got time for this, I says. The French are trying to kill me, I says. Albie too, I says. And I didn’t want to say that in front of the lad, but now you’ve gone and made me. Sorry, he says, it’s just I sometimes feel that when you was granted access to limitless power beyond the lot of mortal man, you changed.

[Mrs. Doolittle continues at some length describing a domestic disagreement with her husband. It is the considered opinion of this court that the full details of the exchange are not pertinent to the case at hand.]

But I still love you, Nance, he says. I love you too, you daft hap’orth, I says. And then I kissed him good-bye, picked up Albie, who truthfully is getting a bit old to be picked up, but I am not entirely certain he’s able to fly under his own power, and whipped him back to Shadowless.

Now they’d got me, the plan was to hightail it to Liberty. As it happened, I had not spoken to Miranda Lovelace since I served as the third cabin maid aboard the Endeavour. And, truth be told, I had not much liked her even then. But since Liberty was hidden in a gigantic [expletive deleted] aetherstorm, I had to admit that it was probably the safest place in the sky just then if you didn’t worry too much about all the pirates.

Under normal circumstances I would have preferred to fly for myself, but since we was being hunted by who knew what, I saw the wisdom in travelling with company. Although, to be honest, the crew of Shadowless, lord love ’em, despite having seen their fair share of trouble, are—with the possible exception of the military gentleman—not exactly battle hardened.

Time passes slowly on someone else’s ship. Sometimes of an evening I would visit Jane in her cabin and [redacted on grounds of decency] until she screamed to the heavens in the tongues of angels and the monsters from beyond the sky, which, on reflection, she did at very little provocation. I was glad to see Albie settled in well. Him and Byron Kae’s boy would while away the hours reading to each other, although there was very nearly an accident when Master Dil told Albie that Mr. Carroll’s book was a bag of moonshine. Albie, bless him, tends to conjure portals of a dense and crushing blackness when he’s upset, and it was only the timely intervention of Captain England what stopped the entire ship being squashed down to a pinhead. The lad don’t know he’s doing it, but it’s a problem all the same.

I stand by my earlier statement that Captain England was a queer sort. Of course, in hindsight, much of that may have been due to him being a spy. But even accounting for that, he seemed out of place, and it was like he knew it, and weren’t happy about it. Like, he’d watch the captain flying overhead the way I used to watch birds before I learned to fly myself. And he’d watch young Master Dil the way I watched a fair few young men ’fore I got married. And after, if I’m honest. I tried to talk to him a couple of times, but I got the impression he didn’t know what to make of me. You get used to skyfolk being different to groundfolk, and he weren’t.

I remember this one evening, about a day off from Liberty, the aetherstorm just shimmering on the horizon, and Byron Kae and his boy, standing together by the rail, and gazing out at the sky like they owned the whole [expletive deleted] lot of it. And Captain England watching them from across the deck with this look on his face as if he didn’t even know how to begin wanting what they had. It made my heart damn near break to see it.

Course this was before he betrayed us all horribly. That sits bad with a girl.

From the reports of Captain George England recorded by psychostenographic aetheroscope.

15 March 1866

Approaching Liberty.

I may be unable to communicate from within the aetherstorm.

Anticipate two days to complete mission.

Witnesses confirm that the voice on this cylinder is that of Samuel Hardinge, late of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence. This entry dated 16 March 1866, 11:14 a.m.

Upon receiving communication from my agent, I immediately alerted the 4th Skyfleet which I had arranged to be kept in readiness against this eventuality. We are now above the North Sea and proceeding apace to Liberty. I have stationed one of my aethermancers upon each destroyer. Once the storm is dispelled and Mr. Tudor has retrieved the research notes of the widow Lovelace, we will annihilate all trace of the town and the structure on which it stands.

Thus shall we secure for the Empire utter dominance over the sky and the aether in all its applications. In a few days, all Europe will have witnessed the power at our command and understand the folly of defying it.

Statement recorded 2 April 1866, regarding events taking place between 16 and 17 March 1866.

We entered the aetherstorm on the morning of the 16th. While I am willing to cooperate with the court to the best of my ability, I feel that to describe in detail how one pierces the defences of Liberty would be to betray a trust. I believe for the purposes of this trial, it is necessary to know only that is difficult, that it requires special knowledge, and that had we not brought George England through the storm, Mr. Hardinge’s designs on the town would never have been realised.

On making slip, the entire crew, including George England, disembarked and we went immediately to consult with Miranda Lovelace. I have been asked to provide additional details of the nature of Liberty, which I do not feel able to disclose. For now, it must suffice to say that it is a haven for exiles built around the vast, petrified corpse of a kraken. There is no day or night in Liberty: its skies are an ever-shifting canvas of light, green and purple, limned with silver, as pure as the aurora. Its twisting streets crackle and glitter with strange crystals, but the buildings that line them are ephemeral places, made by placeless people, from wood and canvas and hope.

We met with Miranda Lovelace in the wreckage of the Endeavour, which serves her as dwelling place, laboratory, and makeshift court. I feel the nature of my relationship with Miranda Lovelace is also unnecessary to the court’s understanding of events. I will say that she cares little for the bonds of friendship or family, but I am of academic interest to her, and in recognition of an old debt, I allow her to indulge that interest.

I understand that there are elements within the British government that wish to be reassured that Miranda Lovelace poses no threat to the stability of the Empire. I am not sure I can be considered a reliable source, but I would like to state for the record that I have never known her to pursue any end but the acquisition of knowledge. I know for certain that she harbours no ambitions against or towards the British Empire or its dominions. More than anything else, I believe she desires to be left alone.

Our conversation with Miranda, like all conversations with Miranda, was as short as she could possibly make it. I informed her of the threat which I believed, at the time, to emanate from the French Empire. She seemed more annoyed than afraid, being concerned primarily with the disruption any attack might cause to her research. Her initial suggestion was that we simply remain in Liberty indefinitely, and assist her in her work—a plan that appealed little to any of us, but especially to Nancy, who said she had no intention of allowing a mad old bat to raise her child in a laboratory. Miranda’s only response was, “disappointing.”

Eventually we convinced her to use what influence she had to put together a small and discreet investigation into the nature and extent of the threat against us. She promised to dispatch her ships in the morning, but I had already resolved to return to the skies if a week passed with no news. Liberty is a large and remarkable place, but anywhere you cannot leave is still a prison.

After that, we went our separate ways—Dil and I to Shadowless, the rest to find lodgings in town. There was little we could do until Miranda’s people reported back, but I grew increasingly distressed as the reality of the situation sank in, so I fear my recollections of the rest of that evening are a little hazy. I know I was with Dil, that he comforted me, and that the hours passed, and that a little after midnight we were woken by a great explosion that shuddered in the crystal bones of Liberty itself.

With a thought, I freed Shadowless from the dock and lifted her clear of the town. Below us, I saw a plume of fire rising from the head of the kraken where the Endeavour was lodged, and all around us the tentacles swayed as though the beast stirred in its frozen slumber. The sky was already full of falling ships and bodies, and I brought Shadowless swiftly around, letting her sails catch the aether. I could not save everyone, but there were many only an aethership had the agility to reach.

I remember Dil trying to make me laugh, even as we dug survivors from the wreckage of a warehouse: “I reckon one town dropping out the sky’s an adventure, but when it happens twice, it’s personal.”

“But this time I’m not letting you out of my sight,” I told him.

When I was certain we had done all that could be done for the trapped and the injured, we turned our attention to Liberty itself. It was then I realised that the skies had cleared to reveal a pristine blue-black night, strewn with stars. The storm had gone, and we were defenceless. Either Miranda had betrayed us, or someone had betrayed her.

Then Dil tugged at my coat sleeve and pointed to the dark shapes moving against the sky. “Mebbe it’s just my lowly and iniquitous background, but I ain’t never seen friendly folks show up in them kind of numbers or with that many guns.”

I recognised the silhouettes of British destroyers, and I began to suspect that I had been played for a fool. Whatever had happened to her, Miranda was still our best hope to defend Liberty, but a captain’s first duty is to their crew, and Jane is more than crew, she’s family. We found her after a hurried search of her . . . of her . . . usual haunts. She’d taken a considerable quantity of laudanum, and was somewhat irate at the interruption of her evening’s activities.

As she was dressing, the shelling began. We hurried outside to see phlogiston rounds raining from the sky. Where they struck, flame billowed and the air seared. Those caught in the blast were not burned, but scalded to death, their skin blistering and sloughing off, while they tried to scream. And beneath the roar of the shells and the voices of the dying, was a high-pitched crackling where the body of the kraken warped in the heat.

Jane was laughing, her hair streaming unbound in the furious gale, and when she spoke, her voice echoed an alien chorus. “Oh, the petty wars of mortal things.”

I swept her into my arms, gathered Dil to my side, and flew to Shadowless. It felt wrong to leave so many people in danger, but we could not save them without Miranda, and Shadowless was vulnerable while she was still. We raced for what remained of the Endeavour.

We arrived to see Captain England and a man I did not recognise emerging from the ruins. The captain’s companion was tall, broad, and swarthy, with deep-set eyes, heavily-lined features, and a luxuriant moustache. I realised at once what had happened. I found I was not surprised.

I descended to confront them, hoping at the same time to find some sign of Miranda.

Captain England drew his sabre, the red glow from the fires gleaming along the edge. “Stand down in the name of Queen Victoria.”

He sounded so terribly sad that I could feel no anger towards him. He had broken my trust, taken advantage of my ship, and brought destruction to Liberty, but all I could think was how little it had brought him. His eyes were shadowed, his face haggard, his clothes were charred, and streaked with blood—he seemed to have lost the man who had listened to Dil’s stories, watched the sunrise from the deck of Shadowless, smiled occasionally when he thought no one would see.

Had he not held a sword, I would have offered him my hand.

“Where is Miranda?” I asked.

“Below. She’s alive, but incapacitated. She will not be able to save this town. There is nothing that can be done for Liberty. Please, for the good of your crew if not yourself, surrender.”

I shook my head. “I cannot.”

“Do not make me harm—”

A shell burst nearby, and then a bullet tore through my chest.

When I regained consciousness, I was on the deck of Shadowless, in Dil’s arms, beneath a sky churned into a pulsing maelstrom. The world was bathed in a sickly green light and I could see the shapes of the things that lurked beyond the stars gathering within it.

Jane was leaning over me, digging the bullet from my flesh. Had I not been aethertouched, I would be dead.

“Once again,” she said grimly, “we’re [expletive deleted].”

Dil kissed my brow. “Well, at least we’re [expletive deleted] together.”

Statement recorded 2 April 1866, regarding events taking place on 17 March 1866.

Shadowless arrives at Liberty, 16th. Six persons aboard. Four aethermancers, one a child. Two others. Byron Kae explained situation. French Empire, existential threat. Bad business. Suggested they move to Liberty on permanent basis. Suggestion not well received.

Fascinated to observe aethermancy heritable. Third cabin maid unwilling to allow child to be part of research. Offered money, refused. Irrational.

Court asked for testimony relating to Hardinge’s activities. Hard to comment. Unconscious during battle. Endeavour and laboratory destroyed, notes taken. Vexing.

Have agreed to exchange expert testimony for indemnity and laboratory access.

Aether permeates all things. Some parts of universe, matter dominates. Some, aether dominates. Aether connects. Transmits light, perhaps other immaterials. Research indicates complex but comprehensible substructure, implies constituent elements—sub-aether. Not part of Hardinge’s weapon. Hardinge was crude. Not certain about his methods, but have suspicions.

To reiterate: aether connects. Have seen connections between human will and material world: aetherships, movement of objects, destruction of objects. Hardinge attempts connection of will to will, human mind to human mind. Interesting approach, had not considered. Will investigate.

Theory: connection of will amplifies but keeps subordinate. Allows greater strength and control focused at nexus. Aether-exposure allows will to control matter. Crosslinking minds amplifies control, affects matter at greater and deeper levels. Permits disintegration, teleportation, transmutation.

Further conjecture: network of aether-linked wills vulnerable to disruption. Connections in aether reinforce control. Sever one, effects unpredictable. Explosive. Conclude cause of destruction on 17th. One link removed, network collapses. Suspect Hardinge’s role pivotal. Controlling. Subsidiary nodes of lesser importance. Bears further investigation.

Lesson: redundancy necessary feature of design.

Assuming Hardinge dead, suggest left so. Work was dangerous and unguided. Not grounded in proper theory. Men of war seek effect without understanding. Foolish.

Done?

Statement recorded 4 April 1866

I confirm, for the court, that I am Captain George England, and that the events leading up to the destruction of the 4th Skyfleet above the North Sea at the pirate haven of Liberty took place as they have been described by the witnesses you have just heard. I confirm that I killed Samuel Hardinge aboard the Unnameable, and that—to the best of my knowledge—the aetheric backlash of this action was in part responsible for the skyfleet’s destruction.

I say in my defence that I believed Mr. Hardinge’s actions to exceed his authority as head of the Department of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence, to be in violation of all proper strictures of military conduct, and to constitute a real and tangible threat to the interests of the empire. I believed, in short, that the man had taken leave of his senses and, in trafficking with forces he neither understood nor was fully able to control, jeopardised the integrity of the Empire, Kingdom, Ministry, and Navy.

I regret deeply that I was unable to save more of those brave airmen whose lives were imperilled by my actions, but I remind the court that those airmen were in the field as a result of orders given by a man with no military rank, no position in the chain of command, and no experience of overt warfare. I have seen war, gentlemen. I have seen good, honest officers make errors in the heat of battle that have cost true Englishmen their lives. But those officers were always military men, commissioned and appointed by the proper ordinances of the British Army. They knew what it was to give orders, and what it was they asked of those who followed them.

Samuel Hardinge, for all that he served under the auspices of the War Ministry, was no soldier and no airman. He was a secretary and a spymaster, and had no business commanding men under arms. The presence of the 4th Skyfleet in the skies around Liberty was an unforgivable violation of the trust that those airmen placed in their queen and their country. Its destruction was a direct consequence of that violation. Samuel Hardinge took the noble engine of the British Armed Forces and turned it towards the outright and targeted murder of civilians, several of them British citizens and guilty of no crime but the possession of abilities that he had—of his own volition and initiative—declared too dangerous to be permitted freedom.

This is England, gentlemen, not the continent. We do not suffer silently under the yoke of tyrants. We do not permit the private ambitions of petty men to ride roughshod over a way of life we have defended for centuries. Samuel Hardinge had the outward appearance of a clerk, but make no mistake, he had the heart, mind, and will of a Napoleon. And by God, such a man has no place on this island, nor within a hundred miles of its shores.

I await the judgement of the court.

The following papers were produced after the trial had commenced and were, therefore, not part of the evidence under consideration. They are included here in order that the reader may achieve a fuller and more complete apprehension of the events described in the foregoing.

This letter was sent by the accused, Captain George England, on the eve of his trial. It is included here in order to ensure the completeness of the record.

3 April 1866

My dearest mother,

By the time this letter reaches you, I shall likely have been hanged as a traitor. I am a soldier by calling, and have faced death many times without regret or uncertainty, but I am chilled to the very core by the thought that I may depart this world with my own mother, who is dearer to me than any person yet living, believing me to have betrayed my country.

I mean, therefore, over the course of this letter, to explain to you the events that led me to this place, and how, on that fateful day in March, I came to take the only course of action that I believed consistent with my honour and my duty.

I should begin, perhaps, by explaining a little of what I have been doing these last several years. My letters have been necessarily lacking in detail, for the body by which I was employed was secretive in nature and many of my activities were not matters of public record. This fact alone sometimes made me question the rightness of our activities, for surely if something is proper, then it can be admitted to. Nevertheless, I persevered in the belief that the Executive was acting for the greater good of the nation. Much that I saw in my time challenged that belief.

I do not know how society will judge me in the days and weeks to come. If I am condemned, I suspect that many will say that Balaclava was to blame for my transformation from a loyal and upstanding servant of Her Majesty to a black-hearted villain working to destroy her. Nothing could be further from the truth. Make no mistake, the charge against the Russian guns was one of the most horrifying experiences I have had or can imagine any man having, but to this day I swell with pride to remember that I was there. Lord Tennyson was right, of course, that “someone had blunder’d” that day—that the guns we charged for were not the guns that our commanders intended us to take. But such things happen in war, and this was war as she is meant to be fought. Our officers gave the commands they believed right, and we obeyed to the utmost of our ability. And such ability! That day we showed Russia and the world that the British cavalryman is without peer or equal, that he will risk his life to fight against odds that most would deem impossible, all for the love of a country that stands to the world as a shining beacon of progress, prosperity, enlightenment, and industry.

Such I believe. Such I have always believed. There is no greater honour than to die for such a country as ours.

If anything of Balaclava changed me, it was not the battle but its aftermath. As a loyal soldier and servant of the Empire, I blame nobody for the error that led so many of my brothers-in-arms to their deaths. It is easy for the men who sit at their desks in Whitehall to point their fingers at those of us who take the field and face the enemy, but until they have experienced the din and smoke and chaos of it all, they cannot understand what it means to order men into battle. Yet so often, I see so much of the blame laid at the feet of my friend Nolan. A man who is dead and cannot defend himself. A man who was, indeed, the first to die. The finest and most admirable of men, I see him damned by soldier and civilian alike as a glory-seeking upstart who misled Lord Cardigan by either incompetence or deliberate malice. That Englishmen would play such sordid games with the memory of one who died in the service of the Empire is abhorrent to me.

Mr. Hardinge recruited me a few years later in India, and I began training for his new program. He spoke with great passion of the changing face of warfare and the new opportunities for service that it provided. I do not know if I would have accepted his offer had not the persistent rumours about Nolan shaken my bond with the regiment. I like to believe that I would have, that my choice to leave was made out of duty and not disillusionment, but sitting here on the eve of trial, I begin to doubt myself.

I wrote you a little of the training. When it was complete, Hardinge took us to the deepest of the skies, and exposed us to the lights of the aurora. I am sure that you have heard of aethermancers, Mother, although I suspect that you did not until now know that your son had become one.

Once we had been transformed, we were put to work in earnest. For several years I travelled the world on Hardinge’s orders, sometimes supporting the conventional Army, at others engaging in more clandestine activities. Throughout my years with the Executive, I told myself over and again that the work I did, I did for England, and that a higher purpose was served by all our actions, even those that seemed at the time dishonourable. I believed, and still believe, that the Empire has the power to be a great force for good, that we bring the light of reason and honest Godly industry to the dark corners of the world. But as I travelled, I saw much in the Empire that did not live up to this ideal. I saw governors in the colonies who cared more for their own advancement than those they governed. I saw rebellions put down with a cruelty and barbarism that has no place in the nineteenth century. I saw British law abused into political assassination.

This, I learned, was Hardinge’s world. A new and disturbing world where power mattered more than honour, where the only rule of engagement was victory at any price. He told me once that the German kingdoms have a word for this. He told me that they call it realpolitik. I have long held that nothing can be wrong if it is done for the love of one’s country, but my work for the Executive tested that conviction beyond endurance and, for the first time in my life, I feel alone.

When Hardinge sent me to Shadowless, I already had misgivings. Misgivings which redoubled when I first met Piccadilly, because the young man seemed so alive and so charming that the thought of betraying him made me quite unsettled. On our walk back to his vessel, he told me tales of his adventures, and I quite forgot for a time that our meeting had not been a chance one. You may have noticed, Mother, that I am drawn to adventuresome men. I—I am not certain how best to express this—I feel that I see in them some quality to which I aspire, and I believe I saw this quality especially strongly in Piccadilly.

On my arrival aboard ship, I was shot by one of Hardinge’s agents. With heartbreaking kindness, the crew nursed me back to health. This had, of course, been the plan from the start, but I had not anticipated the effect that this process would have on my resolve. I could not help but contrast the simple, honest decency I was shown by that band of skyborne vagabonds with the murderous duplicity inherent in my secret purpose. Piccadilly visited me often during my recuperation, especially after the confrontation with Villeneuve, and I came to cherish the encounters. He was my opposite in many ways, being Gaslight-born rather than southern, dark rather than fair, a buccaneer rather than a soldier. Still, I saw a strange amount of myself in him. Or of myself as I had been long ago, before Balaclava, before even the Army. He had that bright and remarkable quality of youth, that unshakeable knowledge that the world was one of infinite possibility and variety, and that he needed only to walk toward the horizon to see a new and spectacular day.

Such was I, do you remember, Mother? When I first joined the Army? When my uncle first put up the money for my commission. I was to be a hero. I was to see all the fine and distant places. I was to make a difference. And perhaps I have done all those things, though they were none of them quite as I expected.

My resolution was further shaken when Mrs. Doolittle arrived aboard with her son. Although I had reservations about Mr. Hardinge’s plan to eliminate the population of free aethermancers, I had been persuaded of its necessity. I know firsthand how powerful our kind can be, and I understood the dangers should we be allowed to roam the world entirely unchecked. But I could not justify a course of action that would mandate the death of a twelve-year-old child.

But justify it or not, that was the task I was there to undertake. And I am a soldier, and I have never shirked my duty.

My qualms were settled somewhat by our meeting with Mrs. Lovelace. In all candour, I believe that the woman is quite mad, and although I believe her madness to be—on balance—less harmful than that of Mr. Hardinge (if mad is what he was; I fear sometimes that what afflicted him was not madness but a dreadful, cold sanity), I could see the value to the Empire in her neutralisation and of the dispersal of the predators and miscreants who doubtless gathered in her shadow.

I knew that incapacitating Mrs. Lovelace would not be easy. Aethermancers form bonds to things both material and immaterial, and those bonds sustain them, though they can weaken them also. To strike at Miranda Lovelace, I would have to strike at Liberty itself. I had already been briefed that she had access to military-grade arms, so it seemed prudent to use these weapons against her.

That evening I slipped away from the rest of the crew and made my way through the strange, undulating streets of Liberty to the wreck of the Endeavour. I did not know for certain what Mrs. Lovelace was capable of, but I had to assume that, as one of the first aethermancers, she was powerful, if not entirely stable. Everything I had heard about Mrs. Lovelace told me that she would be unlikely to leave her laboratory. The Endeavour had been a large vessel, and there were many possible sites of ingress, but I suspected that she would be able to detect me the moment I entered. I could see, however, no alternative.

I entered the ship through a large gap that led to what would once have been the crew’s living quarters. I felt at once the attention of a powerful aetheric intelligence—there was no doubt that Mrs. Lovelace knew I was present. I found myself in a disused cabin filled with sealed barrels, each marked with the insignia of the War Ministry.

Mrs. Lovelace appeared in the door. “Shouldn’t be here,” she said. “Dangerous.”

“Miranda Lovelace.” I drew my sabre. “In the name of Her Majesty’s Government, you are to stand down.”

She cocked her head to one side, looked at me like I was a specimen underneath a microscope. “An interesting proposition, but rejected.”

“Please reconsider. I have never struck a woman.”

Mrs. Lovelace’s hand twitched. A sheet of aetheric force struck me sharply in the chest, driving me back. “Chivalrous, but ill considered.” She gestured again, and I found myself raised up by the power of her will. “Command of aether-currents renders height and weight advantage trivial.” She slammed me across the room and into the wall. My sword clattered to the floor. “You have become inconvenient.”

She crossed the room towards me. I had not lied when I said that I had never struck a woman, and I hope, fervently, that I shall never be called upon to do so again. But Mrs. Lovelace had been right. Her command of the aether was far beyond my own, and I had little hope of defeating her by honourable means. When she came within reach, I lashed out with a boot and caught her in the knee. This broke her concentration long enough to free me to move. I snatched up my sword and rose swiftly, bringing the pommel around to strike her in the jaw. She reeled backwards, then threw the full weight of her aethermantic power against me. I raised my free hand and channelled what I could into my defence.

Mrs. Lovelace’s aetheric attack billowed around me in a storm of strange lights and bright colours, and when I pushed back against her, the room surged a moment in golden fire.

That was when the barrels exploded.

Focused as I had been on shielding myself against attack, I found the fires washed harmlessly over me. Neither Mrs. Lovelace, nor the Endeavour, nor the town were so fortunate. A phlogiston explosion is not like the fires you will have seen, Mother. It is not a chemical reaction, but a release of the essence of fire itself. It is cleaner, brighter, and hotter, but does not last long. When the flash had died down and the ball of liberated flame was rising—for the most part harmlessly—above me, I saw that the blast had gutted the Endeavour, and driven great cracks into the crystallised flesh of the great leviathan in whose carapace it had been buried. I heard groaning on the wind, and saw Mrs. Lovelace lying unconscious before me. She was unburned, having shrouded herself in the aether much as I had, but her limbs lay at awkward angles, and her skin cracked as if from some strange withering disease. It seemed I had achieved my objective—to damage Liberty enough that Mrs. Lovelace would be unable to sustain the aetherstorm.

I had been given no orders to apprehend Mrs. Lovelace, only to incapacitate her. This I had done, and so I left the Endeavour—or what remained of it—and emerged into the town. Looking up, I saw at once that the aetherstorm had dispersed, and in the distance I saw a fleet of ships approaching. I had done my duty, but not for the first time since joining the Executive, I felt little pride in it.

I closed my eyes, reached out into the aether, and made my report. Lovelace defeated. Aetherstorm down. Await further instructions.

The people of Liberty were already emerging from their homes, inns, ships, and bawdy houses to investigate the disturbance, and wishing to avoid a confrontation that could cost more innocent lives, I instead concealed myself in the twisted ruins of the Endeavour.

It will come as no surprise to you, Mother, to learn that despite my years with the Executive, I have never been a master of stealth or secrecy—my very nature rebels against the idea of lurking in shadow when there is vital work to be done. Nonetheless, there I crouched while the folk of Liberty gathered around the crater, not certain whether it was safe for them to approach.

It was only some dozen minutes before the crowd overcame its collective apprehension, entered the wreckage, and hauled me from my hiding place. A tall, scarred gentleman with—and I swear to you, Mother, I in no way embellish this tale—an eye patch seemed to have risen to the position of ringleader, and it was he who pulled me into the street.

“What the—” and here, Mother, he used language I shall not repeat “—are you doing here?”

I did my best to remain composed. “I am an agent of Her Majesty’s Government, and the residents of this town stand accused of piracy against Her Majesty’s skyways. You will stand down and surrender to the fleet of ships that even now approaches.”

The gentleman scowled. Again I do not exaggerate when I say that his mouth was filled with loose, yellowing teeth. “No, I don’t reckon we’ll do that. Reckon we’ll—” He did not get to complete the sentence, as a bullet struck him squarely in the forehead, and he slumped to the ground. Looking up, I saw my good friend Tudor (who I have previously called “T” in order to preserve the secrecy of the Executive, an issue that no longer concerns me) descending from the sky in a swirl of aether.

“England, m’boy!” he bellowed, casually reloading his carbine. “Good show on the storm. Now let’s see about this rabble, shall we?” He fired another shot into the crowd.

What happened next was rather a blur. The mob rushed in, and Tudor swooped down to meet them. I defended myself as I had been trained, although I made every effort to keep the use of lethal force at the limit of strict necessity. Between us we saw off the crowds, and then stood above the Endeavour, looking down into the hole.

“Hardinge asked for the widow’s notes,” explained Tudor. “Might be a bit difficult now, what?”

I looked at the melted, twisted metal of the hull. “A little.”

In fact we did manage to retrieve some of Mrs. Lovelace’s notes. The clean burn of the phlogiston had cracked glass and buckled metal, but it had been too rapid to ignite a lasting blaze. The greater problem was the debris piled throughout the laboratory which slowed the search considerably. Slowed it enough, indeed, that by the time we found the papers we needed, the shelling had begun, and Byron Kae had come to the Endeavour.

I am not sure what I had expected. They did not seem angry, nor even disappointed. I remember in their expression only sorrow and something that seemed strangely close to pity. They asked me what I had done, and I told them who I was, who I worked for. And they simply . . . accepted. I wanted to say that it had not been personal, that it had been my job, my duty. That were the decision mine, I would let them be free, to roam the skies and face the wind and live in all the ways that I have never—but it would not have been proper. And it would not have been the actions of an officer and a gentleman.

Instead I bowed and told them that they should surrender themselves to the authority of the War Office. Then a shell burst mere yards from where we stood, and Tudor raised his carbine, aimed, and fired.

Before I knew what was happening, he was dragging me skywards. Below us, I could see Liberty a tapestry of narrow streets, rickety houses, and crude walkways now torn by airship shell and aetheric bombardment—this latter being Villeneuve’s doing, I was certain. By the docks—the great twisting docks that ran the length of the kraken’s mighty tentacles—I saw ships making ready to leave, some to flee and some to fight. Tudor turned in their direction and I followed.

We made for the largest and most dangerous looking of the vessels, a heavy turbine ship studded with vicious-looking—if somewhat outdated—cannon. She had been designed for ship-to-ship combat, and her guns were no threat to two aethermancers moving at speed. Landing on her tarnished metal deck, we found ourselves surrounded by . . .

Mother, I wish I could recount this as a tale of adventure, for it has all of the makings of one. And fighting alongside Tudor, there were times I could almost imagine it was so. Here we stood, shoulder to shoulder, duelling with sabre and carbine against pirates—real, bloodthirsty pirates with pistols and cutlasses. But in my heart I knew that however cruel and wild these men were, today it was we who had invaded their ship. Though they were many and we were two, we were aether-touched and Executive-trained, and had abilities that they knew full well they did not understand. We killed their captain, disabled their vessel, locked what remained of the crew below decks and tore out the firing mechanisms of their guns. It was a necessary victory. And necessary victories are the way of this new world.

Our work done, we left the deck and soared back over Liberty. On the edge of the town, I saw a winged figure step over the rail that ran along the rim of the beast’s shell. I looked away. Best to ignore these things. Best to ignore them and hope.

“Hang on,” called Tudor next to me. “One trying to escape down here.”

He dropped into a dive. I tried to call him back, but it was no good. We plummeted together past Liberty, past the debris falling from wrecked ships, to where Mrs. Doolittle was flying downwards, her son clutched in her arms.

Tudor matched his speed to hers, and I drifted into position beside him. Air rushed past us, but when one walks the aether, real matter is of little concern. He aimed his weapon at the child.

“Hang it all, England,” he said, “they’re breeding.”

Young Albert stared down the barrel of the gun. His eyes grew wide, and I could see him shaking.

Mrs. Doolittle looked at me with disgust. “You—” and here I fear again I shall not be able to record her exact language, but it will suffice to say that it was not language I expected from a lady.

“Surrender,” I told her, “and neither you nor your boy will be harmed. I am certain of it.”

Tudor smiled. “Now, now. No sense in lying to the girl. You see, our employer wants rid of you, and the brat also. I’d suggest holding still, it’s less painful in the long run.”

Albert whimpered and curled into a ball. And as he did, the air and the aether around us began to rush towards him. Mrs. Doolittle had just the presence of mind to cast him away from her, though I am sure that it ran against every motherly instinct in her body. Tudor fired, and the bullet curved wildly, spiralling inwards and finally vanishing into a pinprick of blackness that young Albert held between his hands.

Not easily deterred, Tudor drew his sword and swooped forwards, only to be cut off by a length of metal girder that Mrs. Doolittle snatched from the air around us. I watched as she pulled falling debris from the sky and swiftly fashioned it into a shell around herself and her child. Tudor stared a moment in impotent outrage, then rocketed upwards to rejoin the attacking fleet. I had no doubt he would return soon with reinforcements, but I tarried a moment. Drifted closer to Mrs. Doolittle’s hastily constructed barrier. I could still feel Albert sucking matter and aether alike towards him. I placed my hands against the bars.

“Albert,” I said, “you must be strong for your mother.”

The young man calmed, and I felt the aether stabilise.

I peered through a crack in the debris, trying to catch Mrs. Doolittle’s attention. “He will return, and he will return in force. Get as far away from here as you can.”

So much of their trust had I squandered, that good woman told me in no certain terms that my warnings and my presence were equally unwelcome.

And so I left. The battle for Liberty would soon be over, and I was needed on the Unnameable. My task was complete and Mr. Hardinge would have further instruction for me. And, in honesty, I wanted to place some distance between myself and the town.

The Unnameable was a large and peculiar vessel, driven by a mix of aethermantic and traditional turbine propulsion. Designed for travel in the upper atmosphere, it was entirely sealed, like the gondola of an airship. I entered through a hatch on the top, and reported to Mr. Hardinge, who stood on the bridge watching the chaos unfold beneath him.

“You did well, England.” He did not turn to face me.

“Yes, sir.”

“In a few moments, Liberty will be nothing.”

I shuffled uncomfortably. “It is already largely in ruins, sir. The pirates pose no threat and the majority of the resident aethermancers are neutralised.”

“I did not say it would be neutralised,” replied Hardinge. He had still not moved. His hands were folded gently behind his back. “I said it would be nothing. Watch.”

The bridge of the Unnameable sported a panoramic observation window, through which I could, were I so inclined, have watched the bombing of Liberty from a point of unparalleled vantage. If I looked up, however, I could also see the fleet that Hardinge had assembled. And in particular I could see the seven destroyers spaced at equal intervals in a circle around the town. As commanded, I watched, and I saw a sickly green light build at the prow of each ship.

“Shared aethermantic channelling,” Hardinge explained. “Connected mind to mind, the aethermancer aboard each ship draws strength from those aboard the other ships, and with my guidance, they can manipulate the energies of the aether in ways that this world has never seen. Ways that the widow Lovelace, I fancy, could not even imagine.”

Hardinge bowed his head, raised a hand to his temple, and the seven lights that had gathered on the seven ships shot forward in great beams of energy, meeting in a kind of star above Liberty with a vast and swirling vortex at its centre.

“Impressive, is it not?”

I was not sure what to say. The whirling chaos of weaponised aether struck me as vastly more terrible than the storm that had preceded it. If I half closed my eyes, I thought I could see creatures—shapeless, monstrous creatures—probing at the edges of the maelstrom and seeking a way through.

“It is,” I said.

“The destruction of Liberty will be a critical moment for the empire.” Hardinge turned towards me, and I saw his eyes were not the black starfields I had grown accustomed to seeing amongst aethermancers, but lambent green-and-purple pits within which strange shapes writhed and beckoned. “Not even dust will remain. The seas will boil, the sky will crack, and our enemies will know that defiance invites not merely defeat, not merely destruction, but annihilation so complete as to transcend reality. From this day forth, to stand against us is to be unmade.”

I still could not tear my gaze away from him. “Are you— Are you quite all right, sir?”

He closed his eyes a moment and lowered his head. Fingers of colour still slipped from beneath his lashes. “Yes, I— There is much to manage. Much to control.”

“Sir, it is not too late. There is still time to stop this. Such a display will only antagonise . . .”

He looked up again. Stared at me. “Antagonise whom, England? Who will we antagonise so terribly that they will pit themselves against the eradicating power of the cosmos? Whatever the diplomats may pretend, it is not courtesy and pretty words that wins the day in this world. It is fear. Fear, and force of arms.”

Mother, I am a soldier and an Englishman, but I am not ashamed to say that in that moment I was afraid, sorely afraid. The sky outside the viewing window churned ever more violently, and the things on the other side seemed increasingly to take definite shape and to move with will and purpose.

“Please,” I tried. “Please, this isn’t necessary.”

Hardinge shook his head sorrowfully. “I really thought that you would understand. Of everybody in the Executive, I thought you were the man most after my own heart. I do this for the country, for the future.”

He turned away, raised his hands. Outside the vortex shrank and intensified, a brilliant, nightmare portal into a hell of strange geometries and devouring lights. If this was the future, I wanted none of it. And although he said that he served only the good of the empire, I saw nothing British in his actions. Nothing that reflected the honour and glory of the nation I had given so much to serve.

And so I cut him down.

I drew my sabre, and I ran him through the heart.

I do not believe that I acted rashly, Mother. No madness overtook me, no sudden and uncontrollable impulse. I saw him there, his back to me, and I saw the aether gathering in the air outside, and I acted. I acted to prevent the unleashing of a weapon that would usher in a new and terrible age. I acted in the only way I felt honourable.

Hardinge stumbled forwards, wisps of green and purple seeping from his eyes, his mouth, and his chest where my blade was lodged. He was still alive, but I had shattered his control of the aetheric forces he was manipulating. Regaining his footing, he turned. I think he smiled, but it was hard to tell because his face and body were fast dissolving into streams of otherworldy light.

“There’s no going back,” he said, and his voice was filled with the whispers of a thousand throneless kings. “There’s no going back for any of us.”

And as I watched him become nothing, I knew with a terrible certainty he was right, and when the nightmares came, they would be as much my making as his.

Outside, the aether-vortex pulsed and whirled, expanding and spiralling outwards—above the town, but in a direct line with the fleet. The viewing window was filled with a searing, mocking radiance. I had just time to shield myself, to bring the aether about me in a golden cloak as the unchained power of Hardinge’s great endeavour rushed across the Unnameable and, just as he had promised, unmade it.

The ship unravelled around me, and I found myself hanging, cocooned in aether, surrounded by a raging tide of otherworldly lights, shapes, and images. The mouths of great beasts opened and passed across me, and I feared that I would be entirely consumed, but my wards held, and the chaos passed, and I was alone.

The fleet had been almost entirely annihilated, the destroyers erased entirely from existence, as were the aethermancers who had stood at each of their helms. The remaining vessels had been shaken and buckled by the rush of aether, and few were still skyworthy. I did my best to right those I could reach, and to help those I could to safe ground, but I was one man, and unlike Byron Kae or Mrs. Doolittle, I did not have the skill of binding and moving large masses of real matter. Hardinge had trained me as a warrior, though he used me as a spy.

Much more valuable work was done in the aftermath of the disaster by the crew of the Shadowless, who treated the stranded men of the 4th Fleet with the same unquestioning courtesy with which they had treated me. I left Liberty in better hands and returned to England. There I presented myself at the War Office, where I made a full report and was taken into custody.

I hope that you are well, Mother, and that you remain well if this is the last letter I am ever able to write you. And I hope, as I have ever hoped, that you think on your son with fondness, even if—I fear—his last actions in this world make it hard for you to think on him with pride. Know that he tried always to hold to your teachings, to love his country. and to honour his queen. That he strove always to do his duty. And that if at last he failed, it was because the paths down which that duty had led him grew so very dark, and he was without guidance.

I remain, always, your loving son,

George

This document was, until recently, contained only in the version of the trial record kept at a secure location in Westminster. It is an unsigned memorandum believed to originate with the First Lord of the Admiralty.

The events that took place over the North Sea in March, and the death of Mr. Samuel Hardinge, represent a significant setback to this nation’s overarching strategic plans for the defence of the realm and the consolidation and furtherance of the empire. It is the considered opinion of all learned persons with whom we have consulted and of the majority permanent secretaries of the War Office that while Mr. Hardinge’s methods were unorthodox, his forecasts and insights into the changing face of warfare in the latter half of the nineteenth century—perhaps even stretching so far as the twentieth—were both astute and accurate.

This office reiterates that it is control of the aether—both in the form of supremacy in the air and, more vitally still, refinement of its direct and weaponised use—that will prove the decisive force in military engagement in the years to come. We are on the verge of a new age of industrial and technological achievement that will rival the harnessing of steam in its import and consequence. It is vital that Her Majesty’s Government redouble its efforts to exploit this emerging field, and to this end, it is necessary that the Office of Aethermantic Operations and Intelligence be expanded, and that the Aethermantic Operations Executive remain in operation and continue training new aethermancers for the defence of the realm.

The permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, however, tells me that our friends on the continent are already deeply concerned about the events of this March, and will want our assurances that Mr. Hardinge’s actions do not represent the first stage in a British Aether-Weapons Program. It is my recommendation, therefore, that Her Majesty’s Government disavow all knowledge of and support for Mr. Hardinge’s work. I recommend further that the Aethermantic Operations Executive be formally dissolved and no reference to its existence be made again in any official document.

On the matter of Captain George England, a conviction in this matter would not sit well with the new diplomatic truth. I have already recommended to the tribunal that an honourable discharge from military and government service and a statement to the effect that, as Captain England asserts, Mr. Hardinge exceeded his authority and acted outside the auspices of the Admiralty or the War Office would be the most appropriate outcome for all interested parties.

I am further recommending that Richard Tudor be knighted in the Birthday Honours for his recovery of Mrs. Lovelace’s research papers. They will prove invaluable as the Admiralty takes its aethermancer program to the next stage.

This letter was sent to the accused, Captain George England, on the eve of his trial. It is included here in order to ensure the completeness of the record.

Dear George,

I ain’t so good with letter writing, preferring as I do the longer narrative forms, such as those employed in my forthcoming work of serialised autobiography what I sincerely hope you will be alive to read, for it is full of exciting incident and high moral purpose.

I confess I was not so nuts upon the way you ferreted yourself into my friendship, and then sold us all out, blew up Ma Lovelace, got fire rained down on Liberty, and had your mate shoot my lover. I may go so far as to say I was proper narked.

But what with all the attention this trial of yours is getting, and having talked it over with Byron Kae (who is not dead, no thanks to you), I have become aware of complications and complexities not previously observable as a direct participant in the almighty [expletive deleted] what precipitated the aforesaid trial. Furthermore, I have long since known that the human heart is full of tricksome turns and twisty passages, and ’tis rare to find one what is all good or all bad.

So I wish to tell you that while many would argue I had what ye might call every reason to think ill of you, I don’t, and I recall times what we had on Shadowless that were not altogether unpleasant. I would even go so far as to say I like you, and I hope as how you do not get hanged. And, on not being hanged, I hope you can mebbe do better with not betraying your friends.

Truth is, I reckon we all know less about living than what we pretend we do. But one lesson I have been able to make stick through my slender, though adventuresome, years is that you have to go out and lay paws most handily and most determinedly on whatever stuff it is makes your life worth having.

For one Piccadilly, formerly of Gaslight, ’tis a tall ship, a bright star, and a person what I love.

I hope someday you find what it is for you.

Yours sincerely,

D.

P.S. Although BK and I have forgiven you, Jane says if she sees you again, she’ll shoot your [expletive deleted] off.

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Glitterland

Glitterland: Aftermath (Free download)

Sand and Ruin and Gold

Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator series

Iron & Velvet

Shadows & Dreams

Prosperity series

Prosperity

There Will Be Phlogiston

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Waiting for the Flood (March 2015)

For Real (June 2015)

Pansies (September 2015)

Looking for Group (November 2015)

Alexis Hall was born in the early 1980s and still thinks the twenty-first century is the future. To this day, he feels cheated that he lived through a fin de siècle but inexplicably failed to drink a single glass of absinthe, dance with a single courtesan, or stay in a single garret.

He did the Oxbridge thing sometime in the 2000s and failed to learn anything of substance. He has had many jobs, including ice cream maker, fortune-teller, lab technician, and professional gambler. He was fired from most of them.

He can neither cook nor sing, but he can handle a seventeenth-century smallsword, punts from the proper end, and knows how to hotwire a car.

He lives in southeast England, with no cats and no children, and fully intends to keep it that way.

Website: quicunquevult.com

Twitter: @quicunquevult

Goodreads: goodreads.com/alexishall

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