The Dragon Men

Chapter Four

Gavin slipped down the dark tunnel, the Impossible Cube clutched tight to his chest. The sandy floor ground unpleasantly beneath his boots, and he was uncomfortably aware that he stood out like a torch with his white leathers and blue wings. Fortunately, he hadn’t met any squid men. For once the clockwork plague worked in his favor-clockworkers sometimes became so engrossed in something fascinating that they forgot mundane duties, such as posting guards.

Back in the main cavern behind him, the Lady was moored at a small stone quay, her half-lit envelope glimmering like a tethered star. The giant squid that had towed her there was nowhere to be seen. Gavin had slipped aboard and quietly reconnected the generator so her envelope would lift her again, but he didn’t power the machine up fully to avoid calling attention to the situation. Now he just had to rescue his reason to escape.

Doors faced the tunnel, all of them heavy, all of them shut. He tried one and found it unlocked. On the other side was a laboratory-sharp glassware, smoking burners, gooey things in jars, a rubbery segment of tentacle on a dissecting table. An operating table with blue bloodstains hunkered in the corner amid a nauseating smell of sulfur. The sight oozed over Gavin’s skin and made him shiver. Thank God Alice and Phipps weren’t here. He slipped back into the tunnel.

The Cube shifted in Gavin’s hands, almost as if it resisted being moved. Dr. Clef had once said the Cube always stayed in a fixed point in space and time, that it never actually went anywhere and instead forced the universe to move around itself, like a rock in a river. It rather felt to Gavin that if he lost control of the Cube, it might go spinning away from him, punching holes in space-time like a hot needle, and the possibility unnerved him.

His fingers tightened around the Cube’s springy surface as he slipped down the long cave, trying to listen, but the heavy doors trapped sound and light. The only noise was the soft clink of metal wings on his back and his heart pounding in his ears while he searched. He was always looking for something. It had started when pirates attacked the Juniper, the airship on which he had spent most of his childhood. That attack had stranded him in London, forcing him to search for a way home. Then he had met Alice, and he had found himself constantly searching for a way to have her in his life. Then he had been infected with the clockwork plague, and he searched for a cure. And just lately, he had learned from a woman who could see the future that his father, the man who had abandoned him, was still alive and his destiny was somehow “entwined” with Gavin’s. The thought both thrilled Gavin and angered him beyond measure. He wanted to find his father and grab him in a big bear hug even as he wanted to punch him in the gut.

To his horror, he realized he was singing under his breath:

I picked a rose, the rose picked me,

Underneath the branches of the forest tree.

The moon picked you from all the rest

For I loved you best.

He stopped himself. Gavin used to think his grandfather had taught him that song, but lately he’d begun to wonder if it had come from his father instead, if his father hadn’t sung it to his mother when they were young and in love. If so, it was more than a little unsettling that Gavin had gotten Alice to fall in love with him by singing it to her. Or maybe that was just fitting. He would have to ask his father. If he could find him.

Tension tightened every muscle and joint, and anger burned in his belly. Alice. Al-Noor would pay for touching Alice. The thought of the man laying a hand on her unleashed a red, snarling fury and made his fists clench until they ached. He wanted to storm through the caves, brandishing the Impossible Cube like Zeus with a bucketful of thunderbolts. The Cube bit into his fingers.

Calm, he told himself. Calm. He had a right to be angry about al-Noor taking Alice, but actual murder. . That still lay beyond him. Not even the plague could make him into a murderer. Not yet. Though it was true that he could use the Cube to bring down the entire cave and peel the flesh from al-Noor’s bones with-

Gavin ground his teeth, and a bead of sweat ran down the side of his head. Damn it, he had to get control of himself. He didn’t really want to kill al-Noor, and the squid men were his innocent pawns. At least now al-Noor wasn’t in a position to destroy the Lady and drown Alice, which freed Gavin to effect a rescue. If he could just find her.

He was putting out his hand to try another door when he heard the crash of breaking crockery. Gavin turned, trying to orient on the sound. A moment later, he heard the scream. An icy spear drove through his heart. Alice! He tried to find the source of the sound, but the tunnel echoed and he couldn’t pinpoint it. Frantic, he ran up and down the stony path. Alice was hurt. Alice was dying. He had all this power, and he couldn’t help her. More than a dozen doors faced him, and he had no clue which was the right one. It was like one of those dreams in which he had something to do but couldn’t do it, no matter how hard he tried.

Another crash brought his head around. This time he was able to get a better sense of the noise-it seemed to come from one of the first doors, some thirty yards behind him, but he still couldn’t tell exactly which one. Gavin didn’t even think. He opened his mouth and sang. A hard, crystalline note streamed from his throat. The Impossible Cube drank the note in, twisted it, changed it into something alien. Power poured out of the Cube in all directions, and the wings on his back quivered with sympathetic vibrations as every door smashed into splinters. Chunks of wood pelted the air. From one of the newly open doorways, light streamed. Gavin cut the note short and dashed into the stony room while bits of sawdust bounced off his face like warm snowflakes.

Al-Noor was aiming a large pistol at Alice across the ruins of a dinner table while two of a group of squid men held a struggling Phipps. The dead squid man on the floor barely registered. A red haze descended over Gavin. The man had threatened Alice. With a snarl, Gavin launched himself at al-Noor. Al-Noor saw him coming. He flicked the pistol around to orient on Gavin and pulled the trigger. Alice screamed. The universe slowed down. Air became fluid as water. His body floated in it. He calculated how fast he was moving, the arc of his travel. He was aware of the temperature heating the barrel of the pistol and how brass and glass expanded with tiny crackling noises. He saw where the pistol barrel was pointed and in a fraction of a second assessed the eventual path of the emerging energy. In midair, his plague-enhanced reflexes lined up the Impossible Cube to match it. A yellow lightning bolt cracked from the pistol, crawled slowly through the air, and struck the Impossible Cube. The Cube sucked the bolt down, and the energy vanished.

The universe snapped back to normal speed. Gavin slammed into al-Noor. Both pistol and Cube went flying. The glass parts of the pistol shattered, but the Cube bounced, unharmed. Both clockworkers rolled across the floor, trading and blocking blows so fast, their hands blurred. Gavin was younger and stronger, but he was hampered by his wings, and al-Noor had the advantage of height and a longer reach. Any thought of plan or strategy fled Gavin’s mind. He didn’t feel any of the hits that landed. Nothing but the animal fury burned in him. Al-Noor’s face was twisted in an equally horrible rictus of rage.

“Sing, damn it!”

“Sing what?”

“Any note! Just sing!”

Gavin remained only vaguely aware of the two female voices speaking somewhere behind him. Al-Noor flicked a fist through Gavin’s defenses and caught Gavin on the chin hard enough to make him see stars. Gavin kneed al- Noor in the belly. Fetid air rushed out of him. Al-Noor straightened his right hand, and a needle sprang from his index fingernail. A clear liquid glistened at the pointed tip. He tried to stab Gavin’s face, but Gavin caught his wrist. The older man forced his hand inward, pressing his weight into Gavin, shoving the needle closer to Gavin’s eye. Gavin gritted his teeth and fought back, but al-Noor had the advantage now. The needle crept toward Gavin’s eye, and the light glittered hard and sharp off the tip. It brushed his eyelashes.

A terrible sound smashed through Gavin’s head. The needle jerked back. Al-Noor and Gavin both screamed and clapped their hands over their ears. The sound tore through Gavin’s mind. It was worse than countless claws screeching across a blackboard the size of a galaxy, and he felt as if his nerves were sizzling in acid. A part of him recognized the horrible noise as a tritone-two notes separated by three full steps. The two notes that made up the tone vibrated against each other at a ratio of one to the square root of two, an irrational, impossible number that couldn’t exist. Like all clockworkers, Gavin had perfect pitch, and the tritone, the idea of