Steven Harper - The Dragon Men

“I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “All three of you.”

The automatons squeaked, and Gavin grinned.

“Sorry I took off like that,” he said in that wonderful voice of his. He aimed the Cube at Su Shun. “I’ll handle him. Where’s Lady Orchid?”

“The well!” Without another word Alice sprinted across the lawn, dodging cinders and burning patches of grass. Her automatons followed. The soldiers had kicked the cover open, though the large freestanding windlass remained in place. Next to the windlass stood a mechanical lizard of some sort. It wasn’t bearded like the dragons Alice had seen. Both its front feet were placed on the windlass. Cricket and Lady Orchid had been down there only a few minutes. They could still be alive. Unless they had hit their heads on the way down or broken something or if they couldn’t swim or. .

Alice called down. “Lady Orchid! Cricket! Can you hear me?”

Nothing. Alice felt sick. Then a faint voice called back, “Alice?”

It was Lady Orchid. Alice breathed relief.

“I’ll help you!” she called, hoping Lady Orchid could understand the idea, if not the words. “Hang on!”

She tried to think. The two whirligigs couldn’t maneuver down in the well, and it took four of them to lift a person anyway. Alice examined the mechanical lizard. It had controls on it, levers and buttons hidden among the scales. Over at the steps, Su Shun had switched off the sword to thrust it into his belt and was now brandishing the Ebony Chamber. Gavin blasted another shot of energy, this time at Su Shun, but Su Shun caught the power in the open Chamber, which swallowed it. Heart pounding, Alice let her talent go to work. In moments she worked out how the controls operated, and she slapped a button. The lizard sprang to life. It cranked the windlass, and a bucket more than three feet across dropped into the well. The Dragon Men on the steps had recovered from Gavin’s first blast and were moving in toward him. Gavin flared his wings, knocking two aside. The other Dragon Men had reached their automatons, but Phipps and Li continued to keep them busy with suppressive fire while the soldiers fought with one another, roaring like tigers and shedding scarlet blood.

A faint splash as well as a shout from Lady Orchid came from below. Alice hoped it meant she was ready. She was reaching for another control on the lizard when a hard hand spun her round. A Dragon Man, salamander glowing around his ear, stared at her. He licked his lips with quick, darting motions and said something Alice didn’t understand, though her skin went cold at his tone. He held up a serrated knife. A strange calm came over Alice. She had hesitated on the steps with Su Shun, and it had cost so much. Now she wouldn’t hesitate. Everything seemed to move slowly, as if wrapped in honey. She smiled at the Dragon Man and put out a slow hand to caress his cheek. He smiled, then shifted his grip on the knife, ready to stab. With a quick twist, Alice wrapped her fingers around the salamander at his ear and yanked.

The little machine came free with a wet, tearing sound. A trail of blood arced through the air. The Dragon Man’s face went blank. He collapsed to the ground in convulsions, leaping and twitching like a landed fish. At last he gave one final spasm and went still. Alice didn’t stop to examine him. She dropped the salamander and slapped the control on the lizard. It reversed itself, drawing the large bucket up with easy strength. In moments Orchid and Cricket appeared at the top of the well, drenched but unharmed. Lady Orchid’s beautiful face was pinched with fear and pain. Cricket clung to her as they both sat in the bucket, and she held the rope with her good hand. Her stump trailed water, cleansed and strangely purified. Unfortunately, Alice could stay only long enough to make sure they were all right before she turned and ran back to the triple stairs. The staircase nearest her climbed toward the side of the big pavilion, which would send her up along Su Shun’s right and, hopefully, out of his range of vision.

“You two,” she said to the whirligigs, “go find Prince Kung and tell him to send reinforcements.”

The whirligigs zipped off into the night sky.

Gavin, meanwhile, had taken to the air again to avoid the advancing Dragon Men, half a dozen of whom had crowded around Su Shun and the Ebony Chamber. The Impossible Cube was barely glowing now, nearly out of power, and Gavin seemed reluctant to use it. Alice thought about the Dragon Man she had just killed and tasted nausea again. She understood Gavin’s disinclination to kill.

But when Alice arrived at the side steps and started to climb, she saw things were changing. Li’s men had turned the tide and had defeated or killed most of the Imperial Guards. Li and Phipps had destroyed nearly all the Chinese automatons, and even now Phipps was turning to focus her pistol on Su Shun and the Dragon Men around them. Phipps had no compunctions about killing.

“Surrender, Su Shun!” Phipps barked, or so Alice assumed-Phipps didn’t translate.

Su Shun looked down at Phipps and her enormous pistol, at Li, who was finishing off the last of the automatons, at his soldiers, who were dead or defeated. His gaze lingered on Gavin, who hovered above them all with the Impossible Cube, and then he laughed again. Alice was truly beginning to hate this man and his grating laugh. Phipps aimed her pistol at him, but before she could do more, Su Shun raised the Jade Hand one more time and shouted. His voice reached Gavin, who still hovered above the carnage, and the salamander glowed in his ear.

For a wild moment, Alice thought there was no way for anything to happen because Su Shun was giving the order in Chinese, but of course Gavin understood that language now. Gavin twitched once. Phipps’s pistol whined, and the tip glowed orange.

“Susan!” Alice screamed. “Look out!”

Gavin sang. As it always did, the Impossible Cube twisted the crystalline note into something terrible, and a dreadful power thundered down. It swept Phipps and Li and the rest of the soldiers aside like rag dolls. Even off to one side as she was, Alice was crushed to the stairs, and a hot wind blasted her hair and skirts. Sand and small stones stung her skin. She tried to push herself upright, but the forces pushing her down were too strong. The noise and pain went on and on, and she huddled against the steps in a hell of Gavin’s devising.

And then it ended. Just stopped. Alice’s ears rang in the sudden silence. She sat up. Her skin was scoured and raw. With wings outstretched, Gavin touched down on the stairs before Su Shun and knelt before him with the dark Impossible Cube. Everyone else in the courtyard lay scattered in broken dollhouse piles.

“Gavin.” Alice’s throat was choked with dust, and she had to cough to get the word out. “Gavin! Fight him!”

But her words were too quiet. If Gavin or Su Shun heard her, neither paid the slightest bit of attention. Su Shun snapped a question at Gavin.

“It’s out of power,” Gavin replied in a dull voice. “The water flowed away. The Ebony Chamber can recharge it, but putting the two closer together would make a dragon weapon so powerful that mere floods and volcanoes would be like teacups and lanterns in a mourning parade.”

Su Shun backhanded Gavin with the Jade Hand and gave him another order. Gavin’s head snapped back, but he spoke again, this time in Chinese. Alice assumed he was translating what he had already said, and ice ran through her veins at the smile that crossed Su Shun’s face. Alice forced herself to her feet. Her legs were shaking.

Su Shun slapped the hollow Ebony Chamber open with the Jade Hand. Like a puppet on strings, Gavin turned on one knee and held the solid Impossible Cube over it.