Clockwork Dream

iii A Lesson in Aviation

The rain didn’t let up all night. Great sheets of wind and water buffeted the tower doing nothing to calm Leo’s whirling mind.  For once, not even the chiming of the bells could manage to lull him into any semblance of sleep. That was why he was one on the first to see the attack.

The fifth bell had caught him bending over a workbench, scrutinizing one of his designs with the quickly dimming light of an alchemical globe. He cursed and banged the thing with a wrench hoping to keep it from going out entirely. As well as he understood machines, alchemy had always been an entirely different story. The art had always seemed more mystic than scientific, and the Alchemists guild greedily guarded their secrets to keep it that way. One of the guilds largest factions, The DreamWeavers, were based in the city so alchemical devices came cheaper. Cheaper certainly didn’t translate to inexpensive though, or even reasonably priced for that matter.

One last useless blow and the globe went black, leaving Leo to fumble around blindly in the dark for the old gas lantern. After a minute of useless searching he remembered he had last used it to clean off the belfry. He knew the twisted halls and staircases as well as any man alive, which kept him from stumbling the dim light. The occasional stroke of lightning threw shadows up on the walls in a mad puppet dance as he ascended.

The soldered glass of the upper levels provided an enchanting stage for the dance to take place, and Leo stopped to stare for a moment in lieu of rummaging around in the near blackness. The bolts of light scarred the sky, each leaving a little streak of illumination in their wake. One dark shape seemed to appear, black against a blacker sky. He thought it was an illusion devised by his sleep deprived brain but no, there it was again. One by one more shapes came into focus, trailing the first.

It was a fleet of zeppelins, 4 total.That in itself wouldn’t have been too remarkable but none the less a chill ran down his spine. Only someone who was either desperate or crazy would be flying through a storm like that. All it would take was one little spark to turn thousands of pounds of hydrogen into an flaming inferno. Leos fists clenched unconsciously onto the railing as the airships grew closer. They were flying much lower than normal, too low, even for the weather. The Air space directly over london had so many restrictions on it you would have to be a guest of the queen herself to pass through it.  He could see their sleek skin stretched taut, glistening with rain. There were no identifying markers.

The first siren went off.  

It was a harsh high pitched cry, follower by another. Soon the whole city was screaming at the intruder.  Leo lept to his feet, heart pounding. There had been talk of war with Germany. It was mostly in the papers, which is why he had  taken little stock of it at the time. According to the journalists every other day was either the apocalypse or the second coming of Christ. Perhaps they’d been right for once  though.

He rushed towards the stairs, knowing there was absolutely nothing that he could do. He just had to know. Maybe it was a misunderstanding and they were just lost thanks to the wretched weather. Even as he thought the words he knew they weren’t true.

The hallways pushed in on him as he ran blindly, relying on muscle memory to carry him safely to the ground floor. That was why he had no way of knowing that their was something in his way. He crashed head-first into a wall of muscle, but before he could hit the floor a hand pulled him back onto his feet. The next flash of lightning showed an annoyingly familiar face.