Brotherhood of the Strange (Kingship, Tales from the Aether Book 1) by Richie Michael & Wilson Grant

Author:Richie, Michael & Wilson, Grant [Richie, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Grant and Mike LLC
Published: 2015-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

The cable car gave a rough jolt, the third in as many minutes. Each time, Cordelia clutched tightly at Oscar’s cage with one hand, and the armrest of her seat with the other. Oscar, on the other hand, seemed more disturbed at being jostled by his owner than the jolting and swaying of the heavily packed cable car. It was Cordelia’s first experience with a cable car, and she found it was moving far too slowly for her liking. It leisurely marched its way over the outskirts of London to the upland of Croydon, a hub for civilian air travel. She reminded herself constantly that these cable cars safely ran thousands of people to and fro daily, yet the mere thought of being over a thousand feet off the ground suspended by little more than a gossamer thread of steel was particularly unnerving. Looking around at the several dozen other passengers, Cordelia noticed a distinct lack of the terror that certainly framed her own face from the moment they left the ground some ten minutes previous. Nearby, a man in fine day wear and leather bowler hat politely held in one hand was reading the latest newspaper as calmly as anyone would in their own home, clearly disinterested and unaffected by the constant sway that assailed her with wave after wave of nausea. Though loath to do so, Cordelia forced herself to look out the window hoping her senses would reacclimatize to her surroundings and avoid what would be a most unladylike incident.

The morning sun bathed the upland of Croydon in the freshness of a new day. London, on the other hand still retained the characteristic gray mist below. Unfortunately, Croydon was not an ideal scenic vista. While it was not ugly per se, the whole upland had been a victim of the Industrial Revolution. The space thereon was devoted entirely to civilian transport and therefore hardly a tree could be found. Countless aetherships and the less frequent airships were moored, docked, or landed in a seemingly chaotic and haphazard fashion. Vessels of all sorts were coming and going, symbolic in Cordelia’s mind of the never-ending bustle and business of the British Empire itself. Even the upland itself was a symbol of sorts. The county of Croydon had been the only area of London to be torn away during the Great Calamity. As air travel became possible, Queen Victoria I had commissioned an area inside of London to be the center of civilian air travel and trade. However there had not been any area sufficiently large enough to meet those growing needs within King George’s Wall, the defensive structure which encircled London proper. In true British manner, the Queen demanded that the missing piece of her capital city, the upland isle of Croydon, be restored. The British military eventually located and recovered the two mile wide upland and anchored it firmly directly above where it had once resided before the Great Calamity.

Finally, the cable car came to a stop and the passengers began to disembark for whatever vessels they were bound.

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