Steampunk Omnibus: A Galvanic Century Collection (37 page)

Aldora pushed Rowe out of the way and pivoted along the wall, leaving the Sudanese woman's chopping blade to spark against the stone where she'd been a moment before.

"I'm sorry to have to kill you, sister," Safiyya said.

"Safiyya, wait!" Aldora said. "This man isn't--"

"She knows," Rowe said. "She's the one that did this to me."

Aldora stared at the woman, horrified.

A cold light shone in the Safiyya's eyes. "It takes the tortured to know how to really hurt a man."

"How could you?"

Safiyya slashed out at Aldora again, and the gentlewoman managed to shake off her shock enough to bring her own blade to the fore, barely deflecting the vicious attack.

"Cemal saved me. I owe him my life, my freedom."

Aldora stood over the fallen Rowe, pivoting her grip on the sword from the reversed to a forward defensive grip, one hand on the hilt, the other flat against the flat edge of the tip. "So you would let him use you?"

"I let no man use me!" Safiyya snarled, feinting with a lunge, following up with a quick tip slash that almost took Aldora's eyes. "Never again. I agree with Cemal, with his plan. Our hostages give us leverage to keep Europe at bay and out of Asian affairs. They will give us a stronger Empire."

"You're wrong." Everything finally made sense, Aldora finally had an understanding of Cemal's plan. "Cemal is using you. He intends to betray the conspiracy to the European Powers in exchange for personal political favours. He's a traitor to you, and to the Empire!"

"You lie!" Safiyya shouted, swinging high. Aldora ducked below the attack, only to take the Sudanese valet's knee to her face.

She stumbled back, stunned, the sword dropping from her hand.

"I am sorry it had to end like this," Safiyya said. "Take solace in the fact that your sacrifice will result in betterment for the lot of women in the Empire."

"We were friends!"

"My cause is too important for friendship." The woman drew her sword back, ready to skewer Aldora.

"Wait!" Aldora said, drawing Cemal's letter from her pocket. "Before you strike, read this!"

Safiyya snatched the paper from Aldora's hand with a look of mixed pity and scorn.

"Do you honestly think I will be dissuaded by..." she trailed off as she read the first few lines.

"It's Cemal's handwriting. You know it to be so."

As she reached the end Safiyya staggered back and bent double, as if from a physical blow. "No."

"Safiyya..."

The girl looked up, pain and sorrow etched on her face. "This is a lie!"

"It is Cemal's handwriting, is it not?"

She looked back down at the letter. "He... I... Cemal started the Fellowship of Ottoman Strength. He recruited me... he recruited all of us! It was his cause!"

"He's using you, Safiyya! He set this entire affair up to bolster his own political agenda."

The valet balled the note up in her hand and spoke in a flat, dead voice. "Go. Take the prisoner and go. I will deal with Cemal when he returns."

"Where are the other kidnapped Europeans being kept?"

"Only Cemal knows."

"We need him alive, to tell us where they are."

"I will deal with Cemal. I will not let myself be used. Not by any man. Not even by Cemal."

Rowe pulled himself laboriously to his feet. "But the French, Germans, and Italians already have air-fleets on the way. They won't be satisfied without a culprit to stand trial."

"Just as Cemal had intended," Aldora said.

"I do not care!" Safiyya rounded on Aldora, sword held tightly in her hand. "You of all people understand how I have been betrayed. You know where I was -- what I was before he rescued me. You know what I owe him. You know how he has used that to manipulate me."

"I know," Aldora said quietly. "Safiyya, I know. And I know all too well what it is to need to right a wrong. If you kill him, it is only vengeance."

"Vengeance is all I need!"

"But if we take this note to the Young Turk leadership, and it is Cemal who faces the Great Powers' wrath for this crime, if it is his own wretched plan that is his downfall... that is not only vengeance. That is divine justice."

"Cemal's personal ornithopter is kept on the roof," Safiyya said quietly. "We will take it to Dolmabahçe Palace, and I will turn myself over to the Committee authorities."

"You don't need to turn yourself in," Aldora said. "The letter and Rowe's testimony should be enough."

"No," Safiyya said. "It must be personal. Do you understand?"

"But they may call for your execution!"

"I know."

Aldora closed her eyes, blinking away exhausted tears. Safiyya helped her support the sagging Rowe, and the three made their way out of the dungeon.

***

They hadn't gone far before the alarm sounded.

"I can hold them off," Safiyya said, "while you escape with the note."

"I don't know how to fly an ornithopter."

"Then let us be swift."

The palace servants got out of the way as the three stumbled up the stairs and down the hall towards the palace roof. Cemal's ornithopter waited ready at the far end, a trio of guards keeping watch over it. Rowe leaned against the parapet while Aldora and Safiyya rushed to engage them.

The Englishwoman had adapted her fencing training to the curved blade quite adeptly, knocking one guard's blade aside with a clang before hooking around the second's calf and ripping through his hamstring with a back-slice. He fell screaming and clutching his ruined calf, while the first guard made a second attempt to cleave her skull.

Aldora pivoted to the side and drew the edge of her sword's blade diagonally across his chest, slicing through his shirt and vest and flaying him open.

She turned from him as he fell, in time to see Safiyya kicking the third guard from the roof, impaled by his own blade.

"That was... I don't know how to feel about that," Rowe said as the women returned for him.

"Grateful," Safiyya said.

"Quite. And a little intimidated."

"Good," Aldora said.

They helped Rowe into the back, and Safiyya climbed into the pilot's seat.

Aldora climbed in last, ending up leaning slightly out through 'thopter's open frame. "It's rather cramped."

"These are designed for one pilot and one passenger at best."

"Can it get off the ground with the three of us?"

"It will have to. But don't worry. I have strong legs, and the anger fuelling them burns like the sun." A look of fierce determination crossed Safiyya's face and she drew back her skirt, exposing her long muscular calves as she slid her feet into the machine's pedals. She grit her teeth and began peddling, the vehicles mechanical articulated wings slowly beginning to flap. She peddled harder and harder, and the craft began to rise from the roof.

"Can you manage?" Aldora asked.

"It gets easier when we're moving."

The ornithopter rose unsteadily into the sky, dipping off of the roof but not losing too much altitude. Aldora stared at the sky ahead as they circled back towards the Bosporus. If Safiyya's strength flagged, if the strain of the three passengers was too much for the machine, it would go crashing into the swift waters below.

"We have company," Rowe said.

Aldora looked back. Three more craft rose from the palace grounds.

"More ornithopters," she said. "And they're catching up to us!"

"The guards' craft," Safiyya said. "With our weight, there's no way we can outrun them. And they're armed."

"Here," Rowe pulled a rifle out of the back, handing it to the gentlewoman. "You know how to use this?"

"Of course," Aldora said. "It's an Enfield."

"Then use it."

Aldora leaned sideways out of the craft's frame, tilting it alarmingly. "Sorry."

"Just shoot them!"

She took a careful aim at the closest vessel, eventually settling on the pilot as a target of opportunity. The crack of the rifle was deafening in the small space, and Aldora was rewarded by the sight of the ornithopter's wings drooping. Moments later it fell from the sky like a stone, and she pulled the rifle's bolt back, chambering the next round. The chamber and magazine had been altered for a smaller round than the Enfields she was used to, but it was sufficient for the task at hand.

She shifted slightly, hanging a bit further out, knees hooked around the 'thopter's side rail.

From this vantage she could see that the guards' vehicles had a gatling mount on their undersides, and the closest one's chamber had begun to spin. Knowing that the heavy-duty rounds would tear through their own vessel like tissue paper, she willed herself calm, took careful aim at where she gauged the gun's magazine to be, tightened her grip, and fired.

The resulting explosion's shock-wave rocked the ornithopter and she would have fallen from it had Safiyya not reached out and steadied her leg.

"Thank you," she said, heaving herself back in and pulling back on the rifle's bolt. The third vehicle veered off, returning towards Cemal's estate.

"No stomach for it, that one," Rowe said.

Aldora declined to comment, handing the rifle back to him.

***

The public uproar over what became known as "the Yavuzade Letter" was riotous. The European powers demanded a full investigation and return of their citizenry. Most of the Young Turk leadership agreed, but a significant portion -- mostly Turkish nationalists -- chose to side with Cemal Bey, airship captain hero of the revolution, when he feigned ignorance of what he called slander. A trial was held, with much evidence provided for the consumption of the public in Istanbul and abroad, but the real decisions were made in small rooms by men empowered in such matters by their own governments.

It went on for weeks, and while she was not privy to the true negotiations, Aldora stayed in the British Embassy and repeatedly refused offers of passage home. Safiyya had been taken into custody upon turning herself over to authorities, and the Englishwoman was determined to see things out, for her friend's sake if nothing else. Beyond being asked for a written statement, Aldora was left to her own devices, her good name kept out of the official records.

On the fifth day members of the city police just so happened to find the kidnapped foreigners, alive and unharmed but unaware of the mastermind behind the plot, and Aldora knew that some deal had been brokered with Cemal.

The Bey himself was free to come and go on his own recognisance. Despite the allegations, the Turkish papers were careful to clarify that he was working with the investigation to clear his name.

***

She spoke to him only once, boldly slipping into his carriage when it had stopped at an intersection.

"Why?" was all she asked.

Cemal had levelled his gaze at her, betraying no surprise over her sudden appearance, no guilt or shame in his eyes. "Why?"

"You led me on. You used me. You used Safiyya. You owe me an explanation."

"The days of empires are behind us, Miss Fiske. The world isn't small enough to accommodate them. Change is in the air, and its name is Nationalism. A large multi-ethnic Ottoman cannot long stand, but with my actions... we will see a strong Turkey emerge from its ashes."

"That's not what I asked."

"Why you?"

"Why me."

"You were a means to an end. It was nothing personal."

Her voice was utter calm. "Nothing personal."

"No."

It took all her willpower not to spit in the man's face. She slipped out of his carriage, and into the city.

***

On the final day of the trial Aldora donned her coat, laced up her boots, wore her best hat, grabbed her parasol, and chartered a carriage to take her to the courthouse. In the Embassy lobby she was met by a slightly built older gentleman -- perhaps sixty -- with carefully groomed hair, a trimmed Van Dyke beard, and an exquisitely tailored suit.

"Hello, father," she said.

"Aldora." His tone was outwardly pleasant.

"I was on my way to the courthouse." Her voice did not falter. "Did you come all the way across the world to escort me?"

"Why do you bother? You know how this all ends."

"How, perhaps. What I don't know is why."

"Yes you do." He leaned sideways against the door-frame. "The powers of Europe get another claim on the Balkans. The Empire is spared the indignity of one of its heroes being exposed a monster. Condemned criminals will be blamed, and the people's need for closure will be satiated by their blood. It's the same as it ever was."

"And Safiyya? She was just a tool in this. Will she be vindicated as well, or is she another sheep upon the altar of public blood-lust?"

Her father made a sour face. "Come, Aldora. Young Penelope is waiting for you back in England, as is your gentleman fiancé."