Lands Beyond Box Set: Books 1 - 3 by Kin S. Law

Author:Kin S. Law [Law, Kin S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944728281
Publisher: City Owl Press
Published: 2019-01-28T22:00:00+00:00

“These blasted scraps of mulch must hold some secret. I’ve used lemons, I’ve exposed it to arclight, I’ve held on to it and spun in a circle. I’ve even burned a small corner of it. Perhaps it’s a spoken command? Come now, reveal your secrets! Abracadabra! Alakazam! Reducto!”

Aboard the zeppelin Gretchen, bound for America, Arturo C. Adler was going stir-crazy, shut up in his cabin. Arturo had been confined to quarters after a wide-shouldered German ship’s surgeon took one look at his abdomen wound. The M.A.D. members were housed in the same suites, but they had the freedom of the ship.

“Zis is terrible! A velocipede accident, you say?” cried Cezette.

Infuriated, Arturo had devoted his time to two scraps of bloody paper. There were marks on it, in regular lines and dots, but they appeared incomplete, like bits and pieces of Morse telegraph. It was gibberish in Morse, or any of the ciphers Arturo had memorized.

Arturo made all the inductions he could from the paper itself. Repetitive creasing and smoothing had left their marks in nicks and corner folds. There must have been some trick to it, then, some kind of invisible writing. The paper smelled of sweat, and grease from a chip shop, likely from the tall man’s pocket. The marks were India black, judging from the distinct smudge pattern. Arturo had turned the paper under natural light, arclight. and gaslight, looking for a telltale shine from invisible inks. It could not be an ink, because the document would then be permanently legible. One corner was discolored, promisingly, but a sniff revealed it to be a spill of common ale, which would have dissolved, not revealed, most inks.

Even in the face of ineffable boredom, Arturo finally ran out of ideas. He leaned back in his bed, his stomach hurting abominably. Though the stitches were good, and the wound relatively harmless despite the small man’s threats, the cut still stung. Worse, it itched. His customary laudanum dulled the pain somewhat, but Arturo wanted his mind clear for what lay in store.

Surprisingly, Jean Hallow had been the one most concerned with Arturo’s well-being. Cid had seen to it Arturo was alive, inquired of the perpetrators, scowled, and left him to his own devices. Arturo would never subject the girl Cezette to such horrors as his bloodied tum, but she still took time away from the wonders of a passenger airship to read to him in the evenings.

Jean Hallow, in contrast, had immediately asked Arturo to show him the bandaged area. His cadaverous form reminded Arturo of a stiff undertaker, but his fingers were skilled at healing. He’d unwrapped the bandages, checked the stitching done by the London hospital, and applied some top-notch first aid. Then he had arranged for the Gretchen’s crew to deliver Arturo’s meals to his quarters, all with a businesslike economy of words. His ministrations were efficient, and his bedside manner pitiless, which Arturo appreciated. The only annoyance was Hallow’s habit of reading a King James Bible in Arturo’s room while Arturo took his supper, but even this was done silently, and was no offense.

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