Ged Maybury :: Steamed Up

Revamp & Reboot.

Ged Maybury — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:26:02 +0000

Hello. Greetings. Do come in.

Cup of tea?

Gin?

Splendid!

Oh it is so nice to have guests. Welcome to Steamed Up; my steamy little corner of the internet. Nothing smutty going on here, however. Not THAT kind of Steamed Up.

No, this is now primarily a vehicle for my Glorious, Stupendous, not to say Immensely Ambitious steampunk serial “ACROSS THE STONEWIND SKY”.

Herein you may read away to your heart’s content, for free! Please, go ahead, feast upon the delights contained within. Every now and then I shall add more and more of this Wonderous Work of Speculative Fiction available for your edification* and delight. So do come back irregularly.

In addition, and at random moments, I shall additionally furnish you with various Random Extras: Addendums, Fragments, Curios and Glimpses Ahead Of The Story. And possibly some Visual Imagery that might (or might not; for I am making no promises) Confound and Astonish you!

You may comment. Discuss. all that typical bloggery that goes on behind closed doors these days. Yes, yes, I know about it, I do. You cannot fool me. Well, sometimes you cannot fool me. Alright, I’m sorry I brought that up. Ha-hrum, now where were we. Oh yes. Do contribute. Later I hope to invite my readers to produce illustrations, short stories and even entire books in the series on a fan-fic profit-share kind of basis.

Additionally we may later see .. oh you know: all that merchandicey T-shirts and coffee mugs and leather-bound signed limited editions of the entire series and free desktops etc – once we get a few dazzling illustrators to join the project, that is.

Meanwhile, ’tis but I, humble** me, keeping it going for you. (And my net-savy assistant and number one fan Thilini. thank you, Thilini!!!)

Now – on to Chapter One! (oh and look, there already IS one of those addendum thingy there for you to read.)

Enjoy!!!

*Actually, I’d be surprised if it ever really edifies anyone.

**A matter in some dispute.

Filed under: News

Chapter Four – Too Close for Comfort

Ged Maybury — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:51:14 +0000

He was at the wheel. She was frantically studying the old scroll thing, and Lizzie kept wanting to go into a starboard spin.
“We’ve broken something,” he shouted, struggling with the wheel.
“I can feel it too. Hush!”
Oh: ‘Hush’ now, was it? Bloody hell. It wasn’t like he’d married this woman, had he? (Well there was an idea! But then imagine the trouble he’s be in with Mother…)
“That’s it!” cried Romarny, “Here; page twenty three!” She thrust the musty manuscript under his nose. All he saw was a faded drawing like in one of those ancient religious tomes in a museum. It was a bit like a mechanical drawing too.
“What in the world has this got to do with…?”
She growled. He’d heard his mother do the same growl. The ‘stupid man’ growl.
He gave up trying to understand.
“Right, well it’s back to the pistol, I think…”
He had it out and was easing off the safety clip when she said, “Oh stow it. Now stand by. I’m about to get Lizzie flying like a hawk!”
He glanced at her. She was gripping the short fat tube in both hands. There was a click, and suddenly it extended like a telescope. A rather peculiar telescope with two large ends.
“What the…?”
She grasped a different part, a circular brass slider inset with bubbles of coloured glass, or where they gems? Click, click-click, it went. One of the gems gleamed.
“Now,” she gripped it a different way, grunted a couple of times, cursed, then managed to spring open one end. The cunningly contrived components were like the petals of a flower, and opened the same way.
She peered in. “Yes! The purest one I’ve ever seen!”
“Purest what?”
She ignored him, glancing around the boat. “I need the strongest point… Ah!” She strode aft, past the motor. He felt the floor tilt. The motor began to labour as the bow came up. The speed was dropping.
“I don’t like this!” he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.
She was directly behind the motor, straddling the driveshaft. Rodney watched in alarm as she once again struggled with the tube, holding the open end of it to one of the pipes that ran up the back of the motor (the Carburetor Preheat Transfer Pipe to be exact).
Suddenly the back end of the tube surrendered to her forceful ministrations. It sprang open the same way as the front. Immediately the air was rent by a peculiar howl: partway between a dog in pain and a Scottish bagpipe. Rodney felt the gondola kick forward and the whole ship sway alarmingly. The buoyancy envelope was dragging in the air far more than the gondola, threatening to overturn the whole craft. Reaching down he immediately began spinning the trim handle, the one control he had yet to use (aside from venting gas). As luck would have it, or was it instinct, he trimmed correctly and the nose came down enough. But poor Lizzie was still dragging herself to starboard and threatening another uncontrolled spin. Then, suddenly, she wasn’t. He glanced back. Somehow Romarny had redirected her device enough to offset the fault. Still it appeared the effort to handle the thing was taking all of the good woman’s strength. She was twisted uncomfortably across the shaft, wrestling with the tube which seemed to want to take off on its own and fly away. And all he could do was gawp at her thighs.
“Yes, good idea!” she shouted, misinterpreting his look, “Spare the motor!”
Stretching back he twisted the throttle to half. The frantic drumming of the wretched machine eased down, but it still didn’t sound right. Was the propeller bent, or the shaft? And where were the pirates? Rodney noticed Romarny’s fixed gaze and turned back to face the bow.
“Arrrrgh!”
The other ship was straight ahead by a bare mile, and on an exact head-to-head collision course. Rodney tried to turn gently aside but somehow Romarny offset it from behind by steering with the keeningstone tube.
“We can’t keep running!” she shouted, “This is too strong! It’ll wreak your boat and then they’ll get us anyway. So we’re going to attack them right now and see if we can disable them!”
“What?!”
“Power up!”
“But…”
“Power up! Ten more seconds!”
For once, Rodney obeyed her quickly. The motor thundered up to its previous frantic speed and the Lizzie shot forward. The front trimmers flexed alarmingly. The huge bow of the pirates’ airship loomed ever closer, then to Rodney’s immense relief, began to sink below Lizzie’s wild ascent.
“Cut!”
He cut back the motor to an idle, finally realising what her plan was.
No, no he had it all wrong. For she had cut the power of the skirling-tube as well. Lizzie was adrift, and perilously close to the vast spreading bulk of the enemy ship as it loomed up at them from below. Rodney looked along it sleek shiny top. Halfway along it a man’s head popped up into view. One of the pirates. There was an opening there. A hatch or something.
“Astounding.”
He had no time for more sightseeing. Romarny pushed past him going forward, pausing just long enough to give the gas venting pull-cord a firm downwards tug, then to his horror she went over the side. The last thing he noticed was the gleam of a knife in her hand.
“Hey, no, be careful!”
The Lizzie seemed to plow into something below. There was a tug, a shout from the pirates, and another tug. The gondola shook and there came a big whooshing noise. Robney saw a scrap of fabric shot into the sky. The wild woman in the scarlet underwear must have breached one of their gas bags, but where was she? Had she fallen inside? Lizzie had come to a dead stop relative to the pirates’ ship and was now turning sideways. The wind was tilting Lizzie over more and more.
“Romarny? Romarny!?”
Lizzie kept tilting, Romarny didn’t show, and Rodney hung on in a panic.
Then a hand appeared, and another. Romarny was safe! She heaved herself back into view coming up the highest side of the gondola and began scrambling to get herself aboard between the various straps and stays.
“Let’s get some lift!” she shouted, “Quickly!”
Rod felt the Lizzie come free of her encounter below. “Thank God you’re safe!” he shouted with genuine relief even as he turned to see what the pirate was up to. There were now two of them at their cunning upper hatch, and one of them was aiming a crossbow directly at him! As Rodney’s stomach lurched, he saw the pirates gaze brighten. The crossbow shifted slightly. Now Romarny was the target! And at this range, there was little chance of a miss.
Rodney didn’t hesitate. He fired his pistol twice, and everything suddenly became very hot. Explosively hot! Fire buffeting his face, and quick as a flash of hydrogen he realized what he had done. Romarny screamed behind him The pirates roared in dismay. And all of this happened literally in a flash!
The Lizzie seemed to jump into the air and rush across the top of the pirate ship, passing straight over the pirates’ bolt hole. The gondola was tilted so severely that Rodney was able to briefly look directly down inside their ship; glimpsing a long ladder with the two pirates near the top. Their faces showed utter terror. One was clutching a bleeding bullet wound.
But that was not the most significant sight to be had right then. He could hardly fail to notice the large, rapidly expanding ball of burning hydrogen right behind him.
#
Just as fast as it had started, the violence ceased. He saw the tail of the pirates’ ship dive away below his own. The Lizzie bounced once or twice then quickly settled. Rodney staggered up, grasped a strap, and looked over the edge to see what had transpired. The sight that met his eyes was instantly fixed forever in his memory.
The pirates’ mighty flying machine was going down in flames, nose first. The conflagration he had started was spreading towards its tail, flinging up great sparks and bits of spinning debris.
By an extraordinary stroke of luck the initial explosion must have blown the Lizzie clear and, perhaps because her gas-bag was furthest from the flames at that moment, she was not alight as well. Finally coming to his senses, Rodney clambered across the chaos to the command position, revved up the motor to half speed and spun the wheel, turning them further away from the billowing fire-storm that now seemed to go up forever.
He heard a groan nearby. He turned to look. Romarny had finally struggled over the gunwale and had only just slumped on the deck. He knelt beside her in great concern while keeping a single steady hand to the wheel, “Miss Romarny, are you all right?”
She said just two simple words in reply, “You idiot!”
“I say, that’s not very sporting of you…” he protested.
“That was not in the plan!” she snapped.
“They were going to kill you!” he again protested.
“It was still too risky!” she again snapped, “Ow!”
“Are you hurt?”
“Of course I’m hurt! I burnt my arse!”
Finally he figured out why she was lying so oddly. The seat of her pants was still smoking. Some hot fragment must have become stuck there during the first explosion and had time to burn right through.
He let go the wheel to fetch some water. Lizzie started rolling away to starboard.
“Don’t let go!”
He seized control again. “Sorry.”
“Ease back the motor. Are they done for?”
“The pirates? Yes.”
She got up, her legs shaking, and peered over the side. “Well, a better result than I hoped, but they’ll be really mad with me now.”
“Eh? Surely they’re doomed?”
“No, look: see those little kites? Some of them have gotten clear.”
“Damn you,” Rodney roared after them, “you don’t deserve to escape!”
“Don’t bother.” She beat at her behind, extinguishing the last smolder. “They can’t hear you. But they’ll be back if they can. They know it was me. Just so long as we keep your name out of it.”
“But they tried to shoot you!”
“Yes, well, I’ve been shot at before. Ow!”
“What can I do?”
“I have some burn ointment here. You’ll have to put it on. There isn’t much, so it must be accurately placed.”
“Right. I’ll do my best.”
The motor died as if glad of the relief, the wonky propeller stopped spinning, and Lizzie drifted in utter silence.
“Here’s the jar.” She passed him a beautifully crafted silver jar with embossed lid, “Just smear it on where you see damage.” And she promptly turned her rump towards him, taking the chance to resume her watch on the calamity below.
Rodney gulped. He had long entertained the fantasy that he might one day put his hand to a lady’s derriere, but he had never imagined it was going to be quite like this. He opened the jar. The ointment was a golden honey colour. In fact it smelt just like honey.
“Um… so…?”
“Hurry up! It must be applied as soon as possible!”
“Yes, right, but I am hardly a physician.”
“Oh tosh! You’re a red blooded male aren’t you? Go on, enjoy yourself!”
It was, word for word, the exact words spoken to him by the women in his fantasies. Still, this was no fantasy and he had to behave differently. Dipping in a finger he extracted a blob of the ointment and inserted it into the large burn hole in her pants.
“Ow!”
“Sorry.”
“Cover the whole burn, now.”
“Yes, yes, I just have to take a little peek here.” Gingerly he lifted the fabric a little to peer at her injuries.
“Oh right, I’m glad you’re taking up my advice,” she said rather sharply.
“I’m trying to give you decent service here!” he snapped back, “I do rather need to see if I’m going all the way!”
“I could comment on that,” she muttered rather cryptically, “but I shall restrain myself,” He didn’t see the huge grin on her face, but he heard it in her voice.
“Sorry? I don’t understand.”
“I said ‘It’s feeling better, thank you’,” she said a little louder, “Now can you look to my legs?”
He looked, noting the angry redness across most of the back of her legs. (Control yourself, Rodney, control yourself!) “Yes, it all needs attention. Hold still.” He squished on more and more of the stuff, and the contents of the jar rapidly diminished. By the time he reached the top of her elaborately tooled leather boots there was but a mere smear left inside.
“What about yourself?” she asked, turning about at last, “Did you take a burn?”
“Yes, my face, but I shall cope.”
“Nonsense! Give me the jar.”
She administered to his face. He held still, trying to avoid her gaze. The pleasure of her touch was somewhat diminished when he suddenly remembered that he’d been sticking his own finger into the very same jar just a minute earlier, and hadn’t that finger been to some interesting places!
“Thank you, that’ll do, thank you…”
“Hold still!” she commanded, “We might as well use it all.”
“What is in that?” he said as she put the empty jar back into one of her pouches.
“Mostly honey, but the very best kind. From manooka trees.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard of them.”
“You’ve a lot to learn.”
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“I think we took a hit. Look, we’ve lost some gas!”
Her eyes shot up to the envelope. It did look rather flabby. “Barometer!”
He only had to gaze at it a few seconds to see the needle moving. “We’re falling!”

Filed under: Across the Stonewind Sky, Writing updates

Chapter Three – Dangerous Underwear

Ged Maybury — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:50:21 +0000

“Mr Hoverrim?”
He thought it was the maid. Frightfully cheeky of her to wake him like this. He tried to roll over and struck his face on an icy cold wooden frame. “Ow!”
“Mr Hoverrim, I need the hole if you don’t mind.”
Suddenly he was awake. The whole crazy nightmare had begun again. Sitting up he sensed ice over everything. It was biting cold.
“We must descend! This will the death of us!”
“We’re at fourteen thousand feet and steady,” she said curtly, “You’ll be perfectly alive again once you’ve had a cup of tea. Now: the hole?”
He had been sleeping directly upon it. Still, he found it dashedly difficult to get up.
“Are we out of the jet stream then?”
“Yes.”
“What time is it?”
“About midday.”
“Where are we?”
“Down the back garden. Oh look! I think I just saw some fairies. Really, Mr Hoverrim, we’re in the Skys of Varste or as you mistakenly call it: ‘Arkorvarst’. Now do you mind. I need the hole.”
“Certainly, Miss…”
“Please, can we drop the ‘Miss’?! I am not ‘miss-’ anything.”
“Oh I’m so sorry, so you’re married..?”
“The hole?”
“Sorry!”
He gazed resolutely from the bow for some time while she attended to her bodily function (he did not ask which, of course!). Finally she announced the all-clear. Even so he did not turn at once. “What is our motion? I can get no sense of direction. Although I do believe that is south there.” He pointed.
“Well done. Now, see there:” she pointed at a skyland some way off in the opposite direction, “that’s either Sulfurpit or Fandango. See how the cloud streams off one side? That usually indicates east. So that puts us southwest of that location. Either way we’ve made good time.”
“Where to?”
“You have heard of Havencliffs?”
“Really? We’re going to reach there today?”
“Every chance of it.”
“I say, that jolly good news! I’d hoped to eventually reach that fabled city, but …”
He heard her snort. “Fabled city?”
“Well yes, the very heart of Arkorvarst!”
“It’s … impressive, I suppose. But we have a few hours to go yet.”
He let the matter drift, as his little ship still drifted. The frost was melting off from everywhere, finally. But something was worrying him.
“Could you ever get mistaken by these signs?”
“Oh yes, it happens. But no aeronavigator would ever rely on just one thing. We’ve plenty of time to descend once I see a reliable landmark.”
He glanced up. His envelope was looking distinctly flabby. “I should inflate the ballonet a little.”
He reached up to the rigid frame under the envelope, its ‘keel’, and un-clipped a long handle. It was attached to a small, light-weight bellows and thus, through a series of long slow strokes, he pumped extra air into the ballonet set under the hydrogen bag. The envelope became plump and sleek once again.
“The sun would have done the job just as well,” she said.
“I cannot abide a loose bag.” He re-clipped the handle, “Now, I have a modest reserve of foodstuffs, Miss – I mean …”
“Romarny. Just call me Romarny.”
“Very well. Uh, would you care for some lunch, mam? The least I can provide you with is a little sustenance.”
She seemed restless, kept gazing around. “Yes, yes thank you.”
“I can do bacon and eggs.”
“Just eggs for me.”
“Scrambled?”
“However they come. They’re probably still frozen anyway.” She seemed quite distracted.
“Is there something wrong?”
“No, no, just familiar skies.” She pulled down her goggles and spend some time gazing down into the haze. Pausing at his task of poking through the side lockers looking for his little alcohol stove, he leaned over the other side (to keep the gondola balanced) and looked as well. All was chaos below, with the high sun sending shafts of light and shadow through the various confusing layers of cloud below.
“Have you got a telescope?” she suddenly asked. He drew it out and reluctantly passed it to her, slightly anxious that she would drop it over the side. She certainly knew how to use it, looping her wrist through the safety strap immediately. She spent a long time slowly scanning the cloudscapes below, and he went back to considering what he might give her. It seemed, since he had awoken, that his mood towards her had mellowed somewhat. Perhaps she had hijacked his adventure, but it was already proving to have a far better result. He set out some tea cups and was about to unwrap some bacon
“Get the motor started.” she suddenly said. Very quiet, quite calm.
“What is it?”
“Maybe nothing.”
“Well then…”
“Get it started!” (A shout.) “Please, Mr Hoverrim.” (Apologetic.)
He didn’t argue any further. He set to work on the motor.
The hidden flame hissed quietly and the motor’s core steamed as the night’s condensation departed. Anxiously he watched the temperature gauge creep up.
“Any time you’re ready,” she called with a slightly alarming edge to her voice.
He glanced to her. She was still poised at the rail, braced by nothing more than her quite unladylike stance, still fixed to the spyglass.
His spyglass. His extremely expensive, monogrammed spyglass for Dexter and Sons on The Strand, Makers of Exceptional Opticularia for the King for 85 years.
He moved to the rail too. The gondola tilted suddenly. The tea cups behind them slid and he heard one of them break.
“Idiot!” she snapped.
Right! That was it.
“I say, miss, it’s all very well to…”
“Stow it!”
“Huh?”
“Stow everything! Make secure!” She pushed past him to the motor, tugged the cranking handle from its clip and fumbled it into its place at the front.
“Turn off the pre-heat!” He shouted from his kitchen cupboard. The words came out terribly angry.
She complied at once, hunting for the unfamiliar location of the fuel-cock. By the time she returned to the crank everything had changed. Rodney was there instead.
“There are times,” he said through his grunts, “where a man can outdo a woman, and when it comes to the muscles of the arms and shoulders you are no match for me!” (Oh yes, that felt good!) The propeller spun slowly up to speed. It seemed harder work than usual.
He stopped cranking and the handle popped out exactly as the cunningly shaped ‘dog sprocket’ allowed. At once he reached for the valve-peg release, but it was already in the released position. He hadn’t re-set it from the previous night. He’d been cranking against the motor’s natural compression!
Fuel! Now!
The motor popped, spluttered, then purred. The propeller accelerated so fast he felt the floor tilt over beneath his feet.
“Now, just what is the urgency, lady?”
She was at the wheel.
“We may be about to be pursued,” she said, turning the craft about.
“What?” He peered over the side. “Oh my God!”
Whatever it was it was huge. For a moment he took it for a gravity ship, but that was not possible, not here inside the Storm’s Domain.
No, it was a buoyeur, but of quite a different type to all he had seen before, coming up from maybe a thousand feet below.
Or two thousand?
Or was it three thousand?
“How big is that thing?”
“Considerably bigger than us. It will have a crew of about twenty at least.
“Twenty? Impossible!”
“You have been here three hours and you think you know what is possible in my world? Think again Mr Hoverrim. Take the wheel. Bearing due east. And please, this would be an excellent time to obey my orders without question.”
“Who are they?”
“Take the wheel.”
“There’s another one!” he shouted, still over the side. Far off in another direction was another of the same sort of craft; a sleek fat cigar, almost glinting in the sun.
“Take the wheel!” she demanded.
They swapped positions. She looked over the edge with the telescope on the second craft, then spoke a single, extremely unladylike word.
“Who are they?” he repeated.
“You do not want to find out.” She pulled a folding pocket knife from one of her many pockets and promptly cut away a ballast bag, then another.
“Hey…”
“I want to climb back into the jetstream. It’s our only hope.”
“Only hope of what?”
“Escape!”
“Who are they?” he repeated yet again.
“In a single word you will understand; Pirates.”
“I think I might be able to get some more speed out of the motor!”
“Do it!”
She took the wheel. He fiddled with the motor but in the rareified atmosphere it was simply not getting enough air. In desperation he turned the throttle control to maximum despite the repeated warnings he remembered throughout the Owner’s Handbook of Instructions for the Blatt & Whitely Advanced Aero-Pistonator Engine. He then adjusted and readjusted the spark advancement setting until the thing would not run any faster. It was quivering violently, and the sound was unbearable close to. He eased it back just a little, then joined her at the wheel.
“Take over,” she said, “This bearing.”
“Got it.”
She had on those strange goggles again, and tilted her head this way and that as if reading some invisible advertisementary hoarding in the sky. “Port twenty degrees! Hold that bearing. No, back five, hold, hold, hold, hard-a-starboard, straight and hold!”
Incredibly, a gust of wind came across the stern right then. He felt his craft lunge forwards.
“Alright!”
“Yes,” she sighed, “but they’ll soon be getting the same squalls, and before we do.”
They rode like this for another ten minutes, but all the time the other airship crept higher and closer to them. By now Rodney could look back and see it quite clearly, and it was a sight that filled him with both delight and dread.
It was said that the denizens of this world were very advanced in their use of airships. It had been his hope to study their skills in great depth. But this beast quite took his breath away. It would have been twenty, thirty or even fifty times the size of his craft. A huge bulbous snout leading a gas body of truly titanic proportions. But so sleek! It was coated in a gleaming silvery finish, the skins so tight he could barely see a ripple. It must have contained an almost unimaginable amount of hydrogen. But below, where he expected to see a gondola – nothing!
Then he saw them, the faces of men peering down at him from windows within a little bubble on the behemoth’s keel. Bearded faces with gleaming eyes. Some with those same goggles on, the others not.
“Can’t we talk to them? Once they discover I am British…”
“Hah!”
Silence. The monster crept closer.
“I could fashion a white flag; we could then negotiate a peaceful …”
“Hah!”
“Well what do they want?”
“You. Me. This ship. Whatever there is of value.”
“Ah! I have a gun!”
“Absolutely bloody useless, sir! Their ship would survive such prick-holes, and if you succeeded in hitting any of them, well you might just get them annoyed and end up dead yourself.”
Rodney had by then fetched out his pistol and, since it was out, he waved it dramatically and announced, “I’m not going down without defending my honour, and I’m not going down without defending the good woman beside me into the bargain!”
The Lizzie wandered left. He corrected his steering.
“That’s jolly decent of you,” she replied from opposite him, still facing the rear, “Now put it away before it goes off and sets fire to your hydrogen.”
“Yes, good thinking. But I do mean it, Romarny Skijumpsky, I may not have know you long, in fact I have to say that I feel my time together with you may be about to be cruelly cut short, but I want to tell you now that I think you are a Damn Fine Woman!”
“Thank you, thank you,” she replied, glancing continuously between him and the pursuing airship, “very kind of you to say. And you’re quite a catch yourself and I’m sure you’ll make some lucky woman very proud someday, but right now it’s time I did something rather drastic. This is for your own sake.”
And she began to unbuckle her flight suit.
“I say…”
But she was not listening to him. As Rodney’s jaw slowly dropped open until saliva dripped from his bottom lip, she methodically pealed herself out of her sensible British Flightman’s Leathers (proudly made by Bynes and Proctor, also of the Strand).
But it was what she had on underneath that truly took his breath away.
#
Except for furtively glancing through his big sister’s underwear catalogue one very lucky day, Rodney had seen very little of lady’s undergarments. They seemed to involve an awful lot of tensioning straps and this made him very glad to be male.
His other lasting image of the female form came from a particular play by Larkspeare: ‘Midnight’s Summer Dream’. The main character, Pluck, had been played by a particularly lithesome lass who had gamboled about the stage in a remarkably tight and colourful costume. Telling his mother it had all been a frightful bore, he had secretly returned to see it again, and again, until the end of the season.
Between these two images of the tightly-clad feminine form he was to discover there was a third; and it was revealing itself to him now.
Romarny Skijumpsky (or whatever her name was) tossed the last of her limp leathers to the deck and stood proud and tall, facing the pirates. Her underclothes were very colourful to say the least, what there was of them, and they were enhanced by an array of belts, buckles, boots, bandoliers, straps, buttons, holsters, bolsters, pouches and even some patches of brightly polished armour. Red was the predominant theme.
Oh, and some jewelry, he finally spotted, dangling between her… uh, her …
“You must have a loudhailer?”
“Huh?”
“Loudhailer! Where is it stowed?”
“Oh, oh yes.” He hurried forwards. The little airship tilted gently into a powered descent. He flicked open a canvas flap behind the rolled up ladder and tugged it out from amongst his spare ropes.
“Here,” he said trying to avert his eyes from her nakedness.
“Thanks.”
She lifted the cone to her lips.
“Come and get me, you mangy morons!” she bellowed up at the pirates, who were following tightly, “That’s if you’re stupid enough to dare! And if you don’t already know who I am then I’ll gladly come over and give you a lesson you’ll never forget!”
A loudhailer protruded from the central window of the great dirigible.
“Well blow me right down to the Deeping!” replied a cheerful voice, “If it ain’t the little Firetail herself! We was told you were dead!”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Ricky. Now go away! I’ve captured this bit of booty already and you’ll have to fight me for it!”
“Is that right? Well if you think it’s worth fighting for, maybe I will too.”
“That went well,” she murmured ironically, holding the cone away a moment.
She resumed, “You’ll have to catch me first, you fat-arsed excuse for a skyman. I’ve seen better looking faces on a meat pie!”
“Watch your lip, Firetail. It ain’t becoming of a lady to be talking like that.”
“Good thing I’m no lady, then!” She turned her face aside to Rodney, “They’ll try to get a grapple into your envelope. See it already? Off their nosecone.”
He squatted down, peering up past the belly of his own envelope. Sure enough, a grappling hook was getting lowered. A single man was up near their nose, just below the centre, peering down from an opened flap, his hand to the rope.
“What shall we do?”
She barely turned from the loudhailer as she outlined her plan, using it to obscure the fact she was talking to him, “We’ll make a sudden dive…” she tilted her head, looking at the wind, “…yes, to starboard, in about twenty seconds. I’ll steer, you get as far forwards as you can.”
He nodded.
“You try anything you like, Red-arse,” boomed down the pirate’s voice, “but we’ll be onto you like a dog on a shot duck.”
“Or a pirate on a goat!” she bellowed back.
“You’ll pay for that, vixen!” roared the pirate, “I’m gonna catch you and personally set your arse on fire, right after I’ve…”
“Now!”
Rodney lunged far into the bow. The gondola tilted forward, the motor picked up even more speed, something began to shudder, there was a snap, and the Lizzie dived away to starboard, looped around, and around again. He yelled in alarm.
“This wasn’t in the plan!”
Romarny heaved at the wheel to no avail. The Lizzie kept going around, the gondola swinging wider each time. “Get aft!” she called, “Aft!” Rodney climbed uphill past her. Suddenly she had control again.
There was spilt spirits from the motor on the duckboards, and Rodney now noticed that he’d cut a finger on one of the broken cups that had been tumbling loose.
Combined, the two effects rather stung.
“Where are they?” he asked, making no fuss as he clutched tight his leaking digit.
She peered around, making a long lazy turn to port, “There, coming about.”
The pirates were well behind.
“So, we can outrun them!” he laughed in relief.
“We’re faster at turning, but they’ll always outrun us in a straight race. And they still have height on us. They’ll overtake us eventually and haul us in, or we’ll destroy ourselves trying to dive away. First they’ll get their hook into our balloon, we’ll loose our gas, then they’ll just keep scooping us upwards into their under-hatch.”
She fondled the hilt of one of her daggers, “And that’s when the fun begins.”
“But how do they move? Where’s their propellers?”
“They’re using skirlingstones, also called howlers. ‘Keeningstones’ as you British apparently call them.”
“Keeningstones? Never heard of them.” He stopped, suddenly remembering that bit of nonsense his uncle had foisted upon him at the last minute yesterday. Maybe he had heard of them after all. He never did listen to his Aunt that much.
Romarny was looking at him as if she too had just remembered the same fact. “But yesterday you’d been studying that old scroll. You must know about them!”
“What? That? Huh! It’s just some mystical mumbo-jumbo foisted upon me by my batty aunt! Given a decent enough excuse to lighten the ship, it’s going to be the first thing I throw over the side.”
“Paper doesn’t weight much.”
“No, this stupid lump of hokum!” He hauled out of hiding the hefty little tube that supposedly contained the lucky charm.
“Wait! Don’t!” She lunged for him, grabbed his arm with one powerful hand and seized the object in the other. The Lizzie immediately started going into another spin.
“Whoa!” He grabbed for the wheel, whacking his injured finger on one of the pinwheeling handles, “Aohw!” He got the spin under control.
“Gods of the Wind!” she whispered, gazing at his Aunt Hetty’s supposed charm, “I don’t believe it.”
“Neither do I,” he snorted, “My Aunty is a nut! I had to endure séances, magnetic healing, the carrot juice diet…”
“Shut up! Shut up a minute.” She stared at it some more. “Where are they?”
“Well, just past Brothford there’s a little church on the left…”
“No! The pirates!”
“Oh! Well they’re up there, of course, coming to skin us alive no doubt, and you want to know where the bloody Mystics’ Society is?!”
“Yes! I mean no! Tell me later. I might just have to pop in on them. But for now, you potty Aunt Dotty has …”
“It’s Hetty.”
“Whatever, but she’s just saved your hump.”
“Huh?!”

Filed under: Across the Stonewind Sky, Writing updates

Chapter Two – Highjacked!

Ged Maybury — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:48:55 +0000

Rodney stared, dumbfounded. Did Bob have a woman in there with him too?
Impossible!
After five seconds or so of frantic thinking, Rodney’s addled brain finally put together the only reliable explanation for this sudden outbreak of femininity. He had seen the plays of Larkspeare where men would dress as women and women would dress as men. Such a jolly lark at the theatre, but here was some crazy lass playing the same stunt for real! How dare this woman make a fool of him like this!
“How dare you make a fool of me, young lady! This is unspeakably rotten!”
‘Bob’ turned to him and pealed off her false mustache with an audible rip.
“Ow!” she said.
“’Ow’? Is that all you have to say for yourself? Who are you anyway? Who put you up to this prank?” (Ack! He was sounding just like his mother.)
She stared at him, or just past him actually, the make-up on her cheeks making her look like some girl dressed as a pirate for a school play, except her face was too solid and broad for a woman, and she had a rather ugly nose; long and slightly ‘hooked’ as they say. “Is that at the highest setting?” she asked without ceremony.
He glanced around, “What?”
“The flame. I want to get propelling as soon as we can.”
“Oh now just wait a minute, miss, we’re not going anywhere until you explain yourself!”
“I think you’re about to get no choice in the matter.”
“Huh?” He glanced over his other shoulder, “The Stormwall!”
“Coming up fast.” She moved past him, glanced at the motor, twisted on more fuel to the preheater, then stooped to take note of the rudder slap-lines. The gondola rocked and he instinctively moved into the bow to balance her.
“These’ll break unless we ease them off,” she said urgently, tugging off her gloves. They hung from her sleeves on short cords. What an excellent idea!
“What do you know about it?” demanded Rodney, still very cross.
“Quite a lot actually,” she grunted, loosening each line and resetting the way its loop hung down. She tested the amount of play in the loop. “How many hours have you been flying? One? Two?”
“Err, about two, yes. More than you have, I’ll be bound! Now listen…”
“Until we get in, I want you to follow my orders exactly. I’m taking you in the high way. That means a faster ride but it’s going to get rough before then.” She pulled her goggles down and looked expertly around. “Check your provisions are well secured…. What’s that in your pocket?”
“Eh?” Rodney looked down. The old scroll from his Aunt Hetty had already worked its way halfway out of his thigh pocket and was in danger of falling to the deck. He grabbed it and began to wield it as a kind of conductor’s baton. “Listen, Miss … whoever-you-are, you cannot come aboard my ship and start giving me orders. It’s, it’s, it’s just not done in my country!”
“Oh, yes, that’s what I loved about your country:” her voice took on a mocking tone, pompous and formal: “I say! Captain Rodney Hoverrim, I’d like you to meet Lady Romarny Skijypzee of the Inner Rings. She will be your guide for the day.”
She stuck forth her hand. He didn’t take it.
“Do you mind?! This is a serious situation! Er, what did you mean: ‘Guide’?”
“I’m going to guide you into Arkorvarst, as you call it. You do want to get ahead of…” She stopped. Her eyes fell upon his ‘baton’. The goggles went up.
“What exactly is that?”
“Sorry? This?” He unrolled it for a moment, “Just some piece of hokum from my crazy aunt. Look, what is going on here?!”
For once she seemed as perplexed as he. Her eyes did not leave the tattered stained document for a good ten seconds, “That is actually a bloody good question.”
Rodney was shocked.
“Stow that,” she ordered suddenly, pulled down the goggles again, “stow it as securely as you possible can!” She glanced around at the empty sky. “I owe you an explanation, Mr Hoverrim, and you will get it in time. Suffice to say that you had the best ship and you were determined to go it alone: two very strong points in your favour. But I needed one final bit of information, and I found it just a week ago: your uncle has a gambling problem. After that I knew I had a good chance of getting aboard.”
He stared at her, in disbelief. This woman was so brazen!
“I do apologise for the disguise, but knowing you British, you’d never brook the notion of a woman going on a man’s adventure. But it was a close call none the less. Brace yourself!”
“Wha-” A squall of wind struck them, sending the gondola swaying and the buoyancy envelope momentarily pulsed above like the body of a huge animal.
“We need to get propelling!” she shouted, “I think we’re well high enough.”
At this point Rodney glanced over the edge and was dismayed to see how far below had sunk the Hampton. It was little more than a black apple pip in the sky, sitting at the darkest point of a long hazy brown cloud of coal-smoke.
“Bloody hell! We’re way too high!”
“Not yet.” She heaved on the motor’s starting handle, already in place. Out the back, on the end of its long polished brass shaft, the four-bladed propeller began to turn lazily in the air.
“Twelve turns!”
“I know, check the pulseometer!”
He peered at the brass dial, “It’s charging… oh yes, excellent pulserage!”
“Start the main fuel, half-a-turn. Now, pull out the valve-pegging bar!”
“I know, I know…” He twisted a lever and pulled on a knob. There was a spring-loaded ping from within the housing, a bang, then another and another. The bangs settled into a series of smooth loud pops and filthy smoke poured from the outlet pipe.
“Just some oil burning out.” He said to reassure her, fiddling the throttle control.
“We can do a lot to improve this,” she replied, disengaging and stowing the crank, “Doesn’t it have some sort of spark-point adjustment?”
“Oh that’s right!” He fiddled with a big knob, listening to the improving note of the engine. Once he had it running sweetly he locked the spark-point to that setting.
Meanwhile she had taken the steering wheel. It didn’t move. “Release the rudderline wedges! Where are they?”
He crouched in the well of the gondola, tugging at the hard rubber wedges, but only one came loose. “Can’t get the port-side free!”
She wrenched the wheel to starboard and the jerking line pulled the wedge away.
“Good thinking,” he said in genuine admiration, noticing that he was gasping somewhat for enough breath.
“It happens. You get someone who has a check-list, they’re going over the boat again and again, each time they check that wedge they kick it in tighter and tighter. Experience, that’s what you people lack.”
He stood, stewing inside with the urge to snap back at her. It had been he himself who had been driving the wedges tighter these last few days and he did not like being called an idiot like this.
But had she said that? Had she actually said the word ‘idiot’ or had that been his imagination. His father would certainly have said it. But had she? No. No she hadn’t. Hadn’t even blamed him for the error. How jolly decent of her!
“Miss ‘Row-mar-y’…?”
“Romarny, yes that’s my first name. ”
“Miss Romarny, I certainly must admit that you have an excellent knowledge of airships, but I still have to protest. You got aboard by base deception, and now you endevour to take charge of my ship. What is your game?”
“Captain Hoverrim, I am not attempting to take over you fine little airship, I am simply trying to get home. Here, take this immediately.”
She handed him a large pill that she had tugged from some hidden pocket.
“Why should I?”
“It will prevent you from dying.”
“What?!”
“Please, take it now! It will protect you from the worst effects of low pressure.”
“But …”
She became quite fierce, “Mr Hoverrim, “I advise you to take my advice, or my orders if you will, until we are safely through this…” She was cut off by another fierce gust of wind. Expertly she brought the ship’s prow about and the gust flowed over them to little effect. “My people have used the same formulation for may generations. I’ve even adjusted the dose to you bodyweight. Go on! You have tea in your thermos.”
“You’re not just trying to …”
“No! We’re going to ride this to the very top. In fact we have to now; another five thousand feet at least. Your body will not otherwise cope!”
Holding their course one handed, she pulled out another identical pill and promptly swallowed it, dry.
“Go on!”
He swallowed the pill, then hastily found his thermos and drank some tea to wash it down. Oh, lovely! It was just the right temperature.
“We only have to keep her steady, head to wind,” she was saying, “The forces of nature shall do all the rest. We’re accelerating all the time.” She had begun talking in short gasping sentences. “Have you heard of the jet-streams? At this altitude there are huge winds, blowing almost continuously around our entire world…”
“What? That’s preposterous! Whatever keeps them moving?”
“Our scientists don’t know yet.”
“It’s impossible!”
“Believe whatever you will, but they do exist. My people discovered them over a hundred years ago. Anyway,” another fierce gust hit them, “Once in the jet-stream we can travel huge distances without expending any power.”
Rodney felt suddenly dizzy. He abruptly sat down. He was gasping for breath. The motor was gasping too. She turned, adjusted the fuel mixture severely, and it rattled on for another minute.
Try as he might, Rod could neither get up nor speak. The cold seeped into his very bones, but he felt oddly warm. A sensation of great peace slowly spread over him. The deck shivered as the motor struggled on, then suddenly there was silence.

Filed under: Across the Stonewind Sky, Writing updates

Chapter One – Brave Men All

Ged Maybury — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:40:45 +0000

Deep beneath the decks of Her Majesty’s Skyship the Empire Queen, mighty steam engines turned tirelessly, and from her funnels poured tall plumes of roiling coal smoke. Across the stern, jostling a little in the unsteady air, were twelve little airships, and upon the adjacent deck stood the launching crews, shivering in the morning cold. The Empire Queen was alone in the sky, but the sky was not empty. Just three leagues ahead stood a wall of cloud that stretched from north to south, but this was no ordinary cloud. It had stood upon this spot since time immemorial.
Every man aboard watched the approaching wall, and although none of them would admit it, they were all afraid.
Deep within this mighty ship, however, and getting ready to represent the might of the British Empire, was a man who was afraid of something quite different right then. Captain Rodney Hoverrim was about to brush his teeth, and as he dabbed his tooth brush into his tooth powder, he noticed in the mirror that he had egg in his moustache.
“Gad! That’ll never do. I’d never hear the end of it from Mother!”
Meanwhile, high above, the Meterological Officer turned from his observation post and hurried to the bridge. He briskly saluted the captain. “Conditions are perfect, sir! The Stormwall is drawing a light breeze of around six miles per hour, storm-churning is minimal, and there is no sign of any lightening.”
“Excellent.”
Captain Hammerbrand filled his lungs. He rather enjoyed giving orders. “Helm! Bring her about; bearing westerly to wind. Airscrews! Bring her steady at six miles per hour in the resultant air. Navigation! Triangulate our position continuously. I want to maintain a separation of no less that two leagues to the Stormwall!”
“Yes sir!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Will be done, sir!”
Levers were pulled. Bells rang. Orders were shouted into speaking tubes. The mighty ship came about as the giant airscrews spun up to half speed. The entire ship now thrummed with a new purpose. Steam and smoke streamed into the sky.
Captain Hammerbrand smiled. A perfect turn. Even so, as his eyes now checked the position of the Stormwall out the rear windows, he felt the same deep unease that every gravityshipman felt, flying this close to the Stormwall of Arkorvarste.
Of course he did not show his fear. After all, he was British!
He lowered his gaze, taking in the odd collection of airships they had towed all the way here from London. By gad, he thought, those chaps are brave: setting off in those flimsy little things! Oh well, duty is duty.
He turned to the one civilian upon the bridge; Mister Chisholm Chapman.
“Mister Chapman, you may inform the Minister that the aeronaughts will launch on schedule at eight o’clock sharp. Oh, and wish them God Speed from me.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir!”
Chapman rattled his way down three flights of steel stairs, momentarily got lost, then found his way to the crowded first class saloon overlooking the stern deck. He passed on the message to the Minister of Exploration, who promptly took to the podium.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began with his usual pomp (but without ceremony), “Brave Aeronauts! The time has come for our Glorious Empire to once again extend the Hand of Friendship to the Denizens of the Storm’s Domain -”
“Huzzah!” added a voice from the side.
“- As you all know, forty-two Men had now gone into The Storm’s Domain from this ship, Brave Men All, and eight have returned so far. Letters have been received from a further fifteen, but only because one of those fifteen was a postman and rather obsessed with his task!”
Scattered laughter. Excellent. The speech was going well. He directed his next words specifically to the twenty or so men who stood about the room, heavily dressed in padded leather flightsuits and looking decidedly overheated in the conditions.
“It is Your Duty as Representatives of our Fine Civilization to seek out New Societies; spread our Good British Intentions; and take Wisdom from all their Fine Arts and Sciences.”
He saw one of the aeronaughts patting at his holstered pistol and added, “Remember, gentlemen, always behave with Peaceful Intent, and, whenever you can, present your Letter from The Queen to any and all Dignitaries, Rulers, and Royalty that you might meet along the way, because wherever you go, you represent the British Empire!”
“Huzzah!” added several voices, as the Minister went on, and on.
At the back of the room, a well-dressed woman of fifty turned to her companion and whispered, “Walter, where the heck is Rodney? He should be here for this!”
“Wait here, Martha. I’ll go and find him.”
The one called Walter turned and hurried deeper into the ship, actually quite relieved to be spared the Minister’s entire speech, and with unerring accuracy found Rodney still in front of a mirror.
“Come on, boy! The speeches have started!”
“Then we have plenty of time,” replied Rodney promptly, with a twinkle in his eye. He was now trimming a few fine hairs off his muttonchops.
“Really, Rod! This is hardly the time! Have you checked your buoyeur?”
“Yes, Uncle Walter, of course! I was out before breakfast. Everything is stowed and ready. No hydrogen lost.”
“Good. Now best you get along to the saloon, and please be kind to your mother. She’s already in quite a state.”
Rodney rested from his vital labours to study the results, “Well damn it, Uncle, it is I who will undertake this adventure, not her, and I’m damned if I’m going to let her spoil it for me!”
“Alright, alright, at ease, soldier. And don’t worry, I’ve been at pains to keep her calm. Now, um,” Walter glanced around guiltily, “hate to drop something on you at the last minute, but I have something here from your Aunt Hetty.”
“Oh God, what is it this time: a magnetized crystal? Fresh nettle juice?”
“It’s a lucky charm, apparently.” Uncle Walter pulled forth a hefty brass-bound wooden tube from the bag he had been mysteriously totting that morning. “Now be polite. You know Hetty can be a little odd.”
“A little?!” snorted Rodney, taking the thing, “Oh god, it’s so heavy! Doesn’t she know I have a telescope already?”
“It’s no telescope, lad. It’s sort of a … carry case for the charm, which is apparently inside. She says it’s a magic stone.”
Rod rolled his eyes and groaned.
Walter rolled his eyes too, “Look, I promised! I’ll be in a world of trouble if I don’t give you this damn thing! Now just tuck it away somewhere, keep it safe, bring it back, lose it, I don’t care!… Oh!” He lunged into his bag again and pulled out an tatty yellow curling vellum manuscript, “And these are the instructions.”
Rodney shoved the hefty tube thing into his belly pocket which, along with his gloves in there, made him look quite tubby, then took the document. The title was quilled in a flowery old-fashioned hand:
The Keeningstyne — Moste Compleate Gyide Evyr Contryved …
“Oh God. Very well, then!”
He hastily rolled it and jammed it into his last available pocket. Their conversation was interrupted by a shout in the passageway just outside. “Calling Rodney Hoverrim! Cap’n Hoverrim, sir? Please report to the Farewell Lounge!”
“I’ll be right there!” he called back.
Rod took one final glance at himself in the mirror, patted at his bulging pockets, and lead the way out. Within a minute they were back in the stuffy overheated saloon. The speeches were done, and now he had to cross to Mother. Everyone seemed to want to shake him by the hand as he headed her way. Numerous times they said, “Good on you, Rodney. Jolly good show. Your grandfather would be proud of you!”
Rod had heard this already, too many times. After the fifth time he wanted to shout ‘I am not my bloody grandfather!’ but of course he didn’t. He was British, after all.
Finally, having crossed the room, he arrived before his mother. Her face was pinched and pale, but her sharp eyes still fixed upon his, challengingly.
“Why are you doing this, Rodney? Why!”
“Mother,” he answered as his grandfather had apparently once said, drawing himself to his full height (six feet exactly), “a Man must do something with his Days. He must Rise to some Challenge, climb a Mountain yet to be climbed, or..” and here he digressed from the famous speech, “..or do bee-keeping or something.”
Her gaze softened ever so slightly, he saw her glance down, saw the flicker of a smile sneak across her lips, then her eyes came up again, hard.
“Damn you, boy! Your father was the same. And don’t try humour on me right now, son. I’m not in the mood!”
“Right-o, mother!” And suddenly he hugged her warmly, holding her close for much longer than he might otherwise have done. Not a hug for the public eye amongst the tell-tattle crowds of London, but this was not London. Far from it.
Lady Martha Hoverrim allowed her tall hansom son to hug her for as long as he wished. It had been some decades since she had experienced anything as nice. Then she stood back to admire him. He was so like his father, yet a little more strapping, and with that curiously curly blond hair. He looked absolutely dashing, and she could not understand why young Lady Bentley had turned him down not six weeks ago.
“Right, well, I see that you’ve made up your mind. You’d better get going then.” She glanced away to where the other aeronaughts were now heading down to the rear deck, and quickly dabbed at her tears.
Walter patted his sister on the shoulder and murmured, “Ill see him away. Best you stay here. Frightfully cold out, and you’ll have a better view here anyway.”
“Goodbye, mother,” said Rodney, holding her hand one last time.
“You take care!” she ordered him, “No stupid risks! And stick to the plan!”
“I will!” And without a backward glance, Rod hurried after the others.
It was a relief to get outside and be with the men. Across the broad stern deck, all was productive activity. At the extreme right hand end, Airship One had just been released. A great cheer immediately went up. The Launching Officer was bellowing through his loudhailer, “Number Two, Are You Ready? Launch Crew, Stand By Number Two!” The last of the aeronaughts were hurrying across the deck towards their bouyeurs. Rodney was still one level higher, and running late.
“Get going, lad!” urged his Uncle Walter, gesturing to the steep companionway.
“No, no, no, after you, sir!”
Walter puffed and heaved his bulk down the steps and Rod waited, gazing at the scene. There were a variety of airships waiting, each design a little different. Two were of French make. One crew was from Sweden, another from the United Colonies of America. His little ship was number ten counting from the right, and sported a distinctly coloured yellow gas bag. There were actually three launch crews, working as a kind of chain. His ship was still unattended.
Plenty of time then.
Finally Walter was down. Rod turned and descended in a swift series of almost musical bangs, and at the foot of the companionway someone suddenly hailed him from the shadows, startling them both.
“Captain Hoverrim, I presume?”
Rod turned to look. A young man came forth, perhaps having waited quite some time. There was not much to see except the classic garb of a man ready to fly in cold weather. He wore typical British Flightsman’s overalls of thickly padded leather. His goggles were poised upon his brow and his tightly drawn hood framing a decent jaw, two dark green eyes, a strong nose and a neatly trimmed moustache. But whoever this handsom turk was, he had evidently gone several days without a shave.
“Yes?” asked Rodney.
The stranger gestured with a thick yellow envelope and got straight to the point. “Three thousand pounds to ride with you. I carry nothing, no extra weight. And you may see me off at your first port of call – any port.” The stranger then eased out the wad of bank bills for them both to see, fumbling somewhat as he already had his gloves on.
Uncle Walter’s eyes actually began to water. “Three thousand pounds,” he repeated in a small choking voice. Rodney’s heart hesitated, confused. He could not use the money himself, not in the Skylands he knew of beyond the Stormwall. But he knew that his uncle certainly could. And after all that Walter had done for him …
A cheer went up nearby. Number Two was away. “Are You Ready Number Three?” they heard, “Launch Crew, Stand By at Number Three!”
Rod felt a flutter of panic. Things were moving along, rather! He quickly got out his gloves, mainly to give himself time to think through this unexpected proposal. The air was biting cold, after all.
“Have you flown before?” he asked this stranger, striving to delay a decision.
The stranger seemed desperate, his voice breaking as he shouted against the wind and noise, “I know everything – I mean I’ve studied everything that is known about Var.., I mean Arkorvarste. Honestly, you must regard me as an excellent investment!”
Another cheer. The third ship was away.
“Number Four,” boomed the launching officer, “Are You Ready?”
“Gad! I’ve got to get on!” Rod started towards his ship, feeling his anxiety increase. What a dilemma! He had never planned on taking a companion, even though his ship was designed for two. The other two hurried with him.
“Look, here, sir,” he said to the persistent stranger, “I hadn’t really planned on taking a companion. I’m quite well prepared, really, and have read …” He stopped mid sentence, noting that his uncle had visibly sagged.
Damn it! He did owe Walter something.
A cheer. Number Four was away.
Suddenly, “Gentlemen!” boomed the launching officer directly at them through his loudhailer, “Please Get Aboard At Once!”
He resumed in haste, straight towards his buoyeur. The stranger stuck with him. Rod stopped again, feeling increasingly cross, “Sir, please, do not vex me right now! I’ve got to get aboard!”
The first buoyeurs away were already drifting towards the Stormwall. He saw the motor of one smoking into life, then another. They turned under power and moved off.
Damn this dilemma!
Walter was still at his side, puffing along, silent and sad-looking. They reached the rope ladder that ascended to his ship, still anchored by the four requisite ropes and waggling slightly in the wake of the enormous port-side airscrew a good hundred yards away. He looked up at his ship. A little beauty, she was, and without Walter’s help he would not have made it this far.
Another cheer! Number Five was away.
Rod glanced from one to the other. Both of them had pleading eyes. He had been braced for his mother to pull a stunt like this, but not Walter!
And this wasn’t even Walter’s fault.
“Number Six, Are You Ready?”
Rod turned, say the launching crews getting ever closer. Saw the Launching Officer striding towards him looking very severe. Saw the crews of the three intervening ships all looking at him askance.
How utterly un-British of him to be so behind schedule!
He turned back to the stranger and spoke to him almost angrily, “Very well, sir, you have secured your passage to Arkorvaste. Dearest Uncle, take the money! All yours. But don’t tell Mother or we’ll never hear the end of it!”
“Thank you, boy, thank you!” Walter seized the envelope and at once the stranger took charge. He grasped the rope ladder and tugged it tight.
“Up you go. I’ll hold you steady.”
Rodney paused to shake his uncle Walter by the hand, then began up clumsily, only to remember his manners part way, “Oh, but we haven’t been properly introduced.”
“Robert,” announced the new man, “but my friends just call me Bob.”
Rodney reached back to shake hands. The ladder swayed alarmingly. His airship was already sinking under the extra weight, “I’m Rodney. Rodney Hoverrim.”
“Yes I know, Hoverrim of the Holdfaste. Go on, quickly!”
“Oh yes, jolly good. Say, wh-” Rodney’s attempts at conversation paused momentary as he clambered into the gondola, using the bow-stay as a handhold, “-what school did you go to, Eton or Cambridge?”
But Bob didn’t answer the question, “Rod, let go your ballast-weight, now!”
Rodney knew what to do, of course. He already had the two bags prepared for quick release, one from port and another from starboard. As soon as they were gone the ladder re-tightened. The stranger then came up calling, “Now my weight, four medium!” Rodney kept going on the bags, fumbling with the knots. He slid off his gloves. Gad! Everything was so cold!
Robert slid into the gondola over the bow, facing back to the launching deck. The airship had sunk again, almost level with the linesmen.
“Free the ladder!” Bob called across the gap. The dog-hitch came loose an he hauled the ladder in with a machine-like motion.
“Number Nine!” went the call beside them, “Let Go Number Nine!”
“We’re next!” panicked Rodney, still on the bags. He preferred to untie them than use his knife and risk damage to his perfect little boat. The airship was rising now.
“Go warm the motor,” ordered Bob, “I’ll get the bags.”
“Right! Ah, thanks.” He turned to his shiny new Blatt & Whitely Aero-Pistonator.
“Number Ten; Are You Ready?” came the call right then. Bob stood tall in the bow and lifted two thumbs high. “Ready!”
Rodney nodded from the rear, still distracted by the business of getting the flame lit and the motor warm. He had to pump pressure into the secondary fuel tank, turn on the fuelcock (half a turn), then spin the thumb-wheel to send a spark into the innards of the motor. Once burning spirits had thoroughly heated the main body he’d shut that off, wind the cranking handle a dozen times, turn on the main fuel, tug the valve-pegs and let the magneto start sparking the fuel directly inside the cylinders. And then they’d be propelling. So easy!
“Let her go!” called Bob at the bow.
“Let Go Number Ten!”
Rodney suddenly realized how he had been waiting for that moment; to shout those important words; and here was this stranger doing it instead! Bloody hell! And Mother had warned him to stick to the plan.
No time to think. They were off! Still on his knees he put his face to the gunwale and looked down and back. He was adrift in the air. The noise from the deck of the Empire Queen was fading away fast. Uncle Walter and Mother were down there somewhere, already indistinguishable; mere dots in his view. He was adrift, afloat, away on the adventure of a lifetime, and only about a two leagues away from the first danger, the mysterious and eternal Stormwall of Arkorvarste.
His new companion let go the last ballast bag. Rodney watched it plummet into oblivion, and felt his stomach suddenly plummet along with it. For the first time ever, he was hanging above the Deep in nothing but a flimsy little airship, and it scared him.
Not that he would show it. After all: he was British.
“We’re terribly high,” he said, suddenly noting their position.
“Exactly how I wanted it,” the newcomer replied without looking around, “We can see all the other idiots blundering about, quite safe from their folly, and we shall get propelling when we need, without a panic.”
Rodney had to admire his new companion’s pluck. He would never have thought of being so free with the ballast bags so early in the game. Getting extra height right now was a smart move. He put on his gloves, stood, and grasped a hanger-strap so he might safely gaze about at the scene.
“Once in a lifetime I will see this, just once in a lifetime.”
There was silence; not even any wind in the rigging. And without the wind he felt warmer. A whiff of coal smoke drifted up from the Empire Queen. Seen from above Rodney could now appreciate the sheer immensity of the gravityship. Its solid iron body like a dinner plate in the sky, extended fore and aft to cut smoothly through the air, and the deep keel below to ballast the whole, filled with her supplies of coal.
Above the ironwork came the cabinwork: the seemingly delicate upper decks stacked one upon the other like the layers of an expensive wedding cake. To each side the twenty-foot airscrews spinning lazily to left and right, and the matching set spinning even faster just below the disk of the gravity-engine itself. Standing above all else were those two magnificent funnels.
Rod saw that the twelfth and final airship had just gone free.
“Beautiful,” he murmured.
“Those things?” snorted Bob with a hint of distaste, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Bob’s voice had changed. And that wasn’t all. As Rodney looked around in amazement, Bob pushed back his hood and shook out a plume of long black hair.
“Oh, it’s so good to be flying again!”

Filed under: Across the Stonewind Sky, Writing updates

Childhood dreams, and death and stuff.

Ged Maybury — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 02:40:44 +0000

Today a man died.

I barely knew him, but had met him a few times at a few of the Men’s Gatherings I go to. Ian was an honoured Elder to all of us; a ‘peaceful warrior’ as someone put it today. I can never quite get that term, but I’ve sat a few times in the presence of this man, and yes: he was strong, and often silent, but he was always there if you cared to look. ‘Present’ is the word.

Now he is absent. His spirit has gone, damned if I know where, and like anyone I wonder about death. Have done so since I was about seven years old and lay in bed freaking out totally upon the idea of non-me, nothing, void, absence, the ceasation of awareness. It seemed so utterly impossible!

Anyway the Men’s Community is now in mourning, and the emails talk with great respect for this man Ian. He is honoured and remembered. He did something of value, he touched a lot of lives, and that will continue to resonate. Something ‘achieved’. A life lived in a worthy manner.

Oh, I’m sure he was no perfect. He would have been a lot like me: doubts, anger, wasted moments, wasted love, wasted opportunities, depression, confusion, wondering what the fark it was all about.

I guess.

So what’s it to do with this blog, and this place, and me writing to you? And why do you keep reading? Is there a good joke coming soon? Some bon mots? Is Ged is about to pull a swifty and pop the mood open?

No, Ged is about to tell you a story.

It began a long time ago, aproximately fifty years ago, with a little boy who lay in bed many nights in a row, and on the nights when he was not pondering death he was created a sort of dream, a ‘visualisation’ if you will, and in this vision he was speaking. Always speaking to a huge crowd. And he was not necessarily a child; he was a human being, an equal to all those in his audience, and the words he spoke were about a better world. About creating that better world. And about being better. How to behave towards each other without harsh words, and without abuse, and without going to war over every damned thing, and about treating EVERYONE with respect, and as an equal. ESPECIALLY CHILDREN! And older brothers would not beat up younger brothers in the world my people made. And step-mothers would not be abusive to their step children. And fathers would be stronger, and more attentive, and more fun.

There was going to be a lot of good things about the world my people make, and they made it because of my words. I made most excellent speeches. They were fantastic! They were inspiring! They came from a place in me that really mattered, from within my bruised heart, and they were about what mattered to me when I was seven: Truth! Justice! Kindness! Respect! Being Kind To Kittens! Not Wasting Electricity! And most of all: Doing Good Stuff!

Now curiously, and ironically, I admired Adolf Hitler at the time. See; he gave great speeches too. He inspired! I wanted to be like him. I wanted to inspire! (That was all I really knew about him at the time. I picked out that one vital detail. Vital to *me*.)

Anyway life rolled on and even though I got depressed with alarming regularity and often wanted to die I didn’t, and that urgency to cry out to the world kind of faded away. I found other ways to cope with the physical and emotional abuse that was a regular part of my life. My family were not monsters. Pretty normal by most accounts. I survived, and gradually my aspirations shifted. I forgot about that vision. I succumbed to another kind of story, the “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” story.

I settled on architecture. It crashed and burned when I was 23. And in an ever increasing panic I began a whole string of interesting experiments: chippie, hippie, truckie, astrologer, boatbuilder, drifter, new-ager, high school teacher (shudder), clown, poet, actor, writer, singer, puppeteer, nude model … all mixed together and revisited and rehashed. Some filled with glory, but most not. I eventually did design a house. I built a house-truck. I toured. I performed to thousands. I got a book published. I got published again, and again, and again!

And for a while I regarded myself as a writer. I thought it could never die.

But it has.

Oh I keep the corpse lying around here at home and poke at it a lot, but I fear it is over. Seems my turn as a writer seems to be over.

‘ARRRRRGH!’

Yes, I heard that. Many of you will be shouting right now about how I still AM a writer, and how I just need to keep believing in the dream and all that. Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before.

But no. Around about the time that Ian Ulmann died, I quietly made a desicion to change what I am doing. And the first thing I’m going to do is stop with the idea of ‘doing’ and switch it to the idea of ‘being’.

I’m going to be myself.

You see a few other things happened today. On Facebook Rob wrote “I see Magic People”. Elaine added “When you look in the mirror, you DO see a magic person, Ged. Every time you look in the mirror, tell the person looking back at you how magic he is, and maybe the sinkholes will become just a small divot.” And Michael wrote, “THE RETURN OF THE GED-I!!!!!!!!”

Now I do not want to launch into the story of when and why I took the name of ‘Ged’, but it was about trying to release something of magic into my life at the time. (It worked, by the way.)

So today, as one man shifted out of this human life, I decided to shift back into the one I once inhabited. I’m going back to my first ever visualisation, because no matter how I slice it, THAT is my deepest truth. That is like my ‘calling’, if you will. But it is not any kind of job I’ve ever seen described. And I have no idea how to do it. I DO have some kind of idea how to *be* it, however.

Here is what I wrote, soon after I learned of Ian’s death.

“Remember, at the retreat, what the Magic Man did? He walked into the labyrinth. He set a purpose, walked in, found things by instinct, did stuff (or ‘process’), and walked out. And he found his Voice, and he sensed his Magic.

And he made a commitment to himself. Let’s try and remember what that was:

To be himself. To be a Magic Man. To speak, and use the power that is there; the magic that mixes words with the power of the sincere and truthful heart, and pours them forth. Words that have effect. That move people, that move hearts and delight minds and deepen experience and understanding. To be more truthful, and sincere, and connected, and of heart, and of value. (And impulsive and a bit crazy too.) To speak with passion, and compassion, and from a truer deeper place.

Like the boy who dreamed of making speeches that would inspire people and change the world. That boy. Remember that boy? You are that boy, Magic Man. You are that boy.”

So this blog is now active. I finally think I have something valuable to say here.

I will work with words, spoken or written. They are my magic. I will not stop using them.

So, people, thanks for staying till the end. Today, stuff happened. Tomorrow, stuff will happen, and you’ll be doing stuff and …. Can I ask but one thing? Can you please keep something in mind?

Do good stuff. Add value to the world in whatever you think, do and say.

I’ll be doing my best to remember it too.

Filed under: News