Friday, 4 June, 1875
I have had one of the most unproductive battles of my career--ranking
just behind my efforts during the 1867 Season to make Miss Felicity
Bobbinforth give up flirting with that rake Northleigh.
Fortunately, some of my colleagues were more successful, but even so we
had a very hard struggle to defeat Wu Chang. His enormous fleet
of pirate ships was trouble enough, but it was the Crane girls that
really gave us problems. That sword of his, though not the
puissant Sword of Sovereignity, had its own way of making our battle
difficult.
Perhaps I should begin at the beginning, when we had such fine plan.
All the ships were in fighting trim (after a whole month of very hard
work!). We had fairly good intelligence about what we were
facing. We had even scried to learn exactly how Admiral Naismith
was allegedly going to be assassinated--the aforementioned Crane
Maidens. Mrs Salmalin and Major Powell and even that lackwit
Oddbody had been working on imbuing objects such as cannonballs with
mystical powers that could be deployed quickly. Many of us had
learned to use the rocket fighting kites with varying levels of
facility.
Everyone was in position. We all had Mr Wonka's oxygen
lozenges. Our little fleet used the "Sally Ship" manoeuvre, and
all of us made it to the very quiet sea and again through to our chosen
battleground--Though Captain Sparrow broke position and placed himself
in a spot he considered more advantageous.
In many ways, I must admit the plan went just as we had hoped.
Wilhelmina and George and MacGyver and Sir Cosmo made excellent use of
their aerial positions, including firing rockets right into the
magazines of several of Wu Chang's ships. The ram-and-board
equipment worked perfectly--our partisans were quickly making shreds of
Wu Chang's crew on his flagship. Even our ideas to discredit Wu
Chang in the eyes of his vassals were carried out with some measure of
success. For all that, we suffered some terrible casualties.
Things went badly for the Selene. We were so vastly outnumbered,
and they had no trouble flanking us and firing on the vessel we most
wanted to protect. I had seriously considered staying aboard the
Selene to protect the children and the Mystics, but I was convinced
that cutting out WuChang as quickly as possible was our best chance of
reducing casualties. I knew I couldn't shoot him from the rear of
the fleet, so I saw little choice but to join the forces on the
Foxglove. When the Selene was hit repeatedly, almost everyone
aboard was hurt, the Mystics were forced to use their abilities for
purely defensive efforts and for helping the wounded. The Selene
was nearly sunk, but Inspector MacGreggor charged into the burning and
flooding lower decks to operate the pumps. Many of the crew,
loyal men and brave, were killed. And I was not there to protect
the children. I may never hear the end of it from Father-in-Law,
but that is nothing to my own self-reproach. Even that might not
sting so badly if I had done the least bit of good to the battle.
I am sure I hit Wu Chang more than once, early on, but then our
partisans were in very close combat with him and his minions. Wu
Chang himself seems to have had some power of self-healing or
invulnerability. And let me tell you about those Cranes! Wu
Chang's sword had no less than 8 entities attached to it, matched like
a set of china cups, which he could command. They took the form
of dainty chinese women with horrible long claws, or could transform
into large crane birds and fly. They were essentially impervious
to bullets, swords, or anything else we could throw at them. We
knew from our scrying that one of them would be sent to kill Admiral
Naismith, which is why we had to attack Wu Chang's fleet so far before
the British fleet was close enough to engage. Some of our efforts
seemed to slow the Cranes for a time, including making it diffucult for
Wu Chang to give them orders. But, every time we thought we had
one down, she would transform again and seem to be healed. It was
quite infuriating!
Despite our efforts to prevent Wu Chang from giving the assassination
orders, he somehow managed it. Sir Cosmo caught sight of one
Crane flying off toward the British fleet and made to follow--his
particular powered kite having better range and manoueverability than
most, he had a better chance of overtaking her. He was shooting
her repeatedly with his etheric pulse weapon, and she would fall each
time toward the waves, but not quite hit them before recovering her
senses and flying on. At this point, we were just barely
close enough to the British fleet that one of us using the ordinary
kites could make it with a warning, or could help Sir Cosmo if the
Crane should attack him. I urged Lt Wooster to go after him to
help, and he complied with a will. After watching the Crane
revive herself another few times, I thought I had better join that
effort as well, and donned my own kite.
I should have known this exercise would not end well for me. The
Parrot, which has stuck stubbornly to me since my brief Situation as
Captain Sparrow's First Mate on the Yao Ying, which even during this
pitched battle had only left my shoulder for brief intervals while I
was actually firing my rifle, and which does not appear to be afraid of
anything whatsoever, did not even attempt to accompany me. At the
time, I did not especially note its desertion, assuming that it
couldn't keep up with the rocket propulsion, but in retrospect, perhaps
I should have listened to its warning "Walk the plank." Well, I'd
still have done the same, I could hardly allow Sir Cosmo fly off into
danger without the assistance of some sensible person.
We were just halfway when Sir Cosmo used a net device to entangle the
Crane with his kite. My heart nearly stopped as he popped out of
his kite harness and let it fly off without him. The Crane was
dragged off quite some distance, while Sir Cosmo activated his own
emergency spare gliding kite. Then, the distant kite exploded in
a characteristic autinite glow, and the Crane was no longer
evident.
Lt Wooster and I had just enough fuel to return to
our own fleet, so we all turned. I, unfortunately, misjudged my
turn and plunged ignominiously into the sea. I was unhurt, though
too angry and embarrassed for words. I gestured to the others to
go on, and not risk trying to retrieve me. I released my
overskirt and shoes, preparing to begin the very long swim back to our
fleet. Just as I tried not to contemplate the sharks of these
waters, I saw a very large dark shape rising from the depths below
me. As I peered down to try to identify it, I realised that it
was not swimming, and not an animal. It was Prince Dakkar's
enormous submersible.
So, I returned to the fleet with reinforcements. Unfortunately
for my pride, I was mostly a mere passenger for the remaining
fight. Not only did Prince Dakkar arrive at this time, but also
several of the faster ships of the British fleet reached the
battle. While I had been paddling about, Wu Chang had been
disabled and various grisly measures employed to keep him from
mystically regenerating (a nasty habit in one's enemies!).
Mr O'Flaherty had taken possession of Wu Chang's sword, and the Crane
Maidens, river spirits bound to the sword, were awaiting his
orders. The rest of Wu Chang's pirate fleet had begun to break up
when my Mr Frazer and Captain Tiberius had run up flags announcing Wu
Chang's death.
We spent many exhausting hours variously containing prisoners, tending
the wounded, and making emergency repairs to our vessels. Mrs
Cuthbert, Mrs MacGreggor, Sir Cosmo, and Wilhelmina have been quite
occupied with surgeries and setting of bones. I helped with that
to the best of my abilities, until the worst of the injured were at
least stable. When I rejoined the children at last, allowing
Violet and Daru some much-needed respite, they were full of
questions. The most difficult were along the lines of "What
happened to Mr Martinson?" referring to a favored sailor they had seen
injured, who did not survive the day. We have had some hard
battles before now, but never with such loss of life among our
partisans. Violet and Daru could evade their questions, pleading
lack of knowledge of the casualty list or events in the infirmary, but
the children know an evasion when they hear it, and so were ready to
pounce on me when I returned. They still do not truly grasp the
finality of death, and what children can? The sight of the Flying
Dutchman did not help clarify matters--several of the men I had
reported dead were seen to climb aboard the bizarre ship and ride her
down into the depths. How to explain that? I suppose the
line between alive and dead is just not as firm as I have always
believed. Considering that I regularly have conversation with my
deceased Father-in-law, I don't know why this realisation should
surprise me now.
Once the Selene was safe from sinking, we found that the dining salon
and galley were actually quite intact, and unlike the Foxglove's dining
room had not been converted to an infirmary. The cook had also
survived, and prepared a quite decent meal. I was pleased to see
that Major Powell even dressed for dinner--he had been gravely wounded
while aboard Wu Chang's vessel, but between Wilhelmina's surgery and
Mrs Cuthbert's healing, he was looking surprisingly well.
Our eagerly awaited repast was not to go smoothly, however. The
very moment that everyone had gathered for dinner, several people
simply vanished. After a quick tally, we noted Lady
Cowperthwaite, Wilhelmina, Mr O'Flaherty, Mr and Mrs Voach, Captain
Will Sparrow, Prof. Oddbody, and Prince Dakkar (who had graciously
accepted our hospitality despite the fact that his own dining salon was
surely in better condition), had all disappeared. We proceeded
through the usual protocol for disappeared persons with
fewer-than-average arguments (perhaps because Wilhelmina was among
those vanished), ruling out sudden invisibility and several other
possiblities.
Mrs Cuthbert quickly set up a scrying crystal, and
most of the company crowded around to see the fate of our
friends. I myself stayed back, against all the inclination of my
curiosity, so as to not interfere with Mrs Cuthbert's work.
I will summarise:
Our partisans were at the crossroads of 5
directions, which we had visited on the Island, drawn there when the
bearers of the 5 artefacts came together. It would seem that in
addition to Lady Cowperthwaite holding the Sword and Mr O'Flaherty
holding the Shield, and Prince Dakkar holding the Stone, Captain
Sparrow had the Path (his strange map), and Wilhelmina had the
Book. A funny thing about the book, it was actually contained in
the person--or I should say the mind-- of Professor Oddbody, who had
found the original book artefact and read it, thereby absorbing its
properties. Unbeknownst to me, Wilhelmina had deduced this and
"taken possession" of the "Book" by hiring him to be her Tutor.
As if that lackwit knew anything she needed! She never consulted
me, and I don't believe that she consulted Sir Cosmo. She simply
made her own arrangement in order to control interest in one of the
artefacts. How very Machiavellian.
But I digress...
In addition to the "bearers" and the artefacts, the
5 Horsemen appeared--Mr Voach now in his regalia as Havoc.
Several mystical entities appeared representing, well, I'm not sure,
they seemed rather a grab-bag of quasi-deities--including both Kali and
Shiva appearing through Lady Cowperthwaite and Herne appearing through
Mr O'Flaherty. Oberon and Titania (as in Shakespeare's Midsummer
Night's Dream) appeared to represent the kingdom of Faery, and a
gigantic lion, and someone got up as Satan, and even a glowing
angel. All these characters were an absurdly grandiose muddle,
Lords, Goddesses, Champions, Avatars, Dragons, Keepers...all jostling
for precedence like society matrons at an Opening Ball.
This whole arrangement purportedly occurs periodically to wrangle over
which of the 5 Oriental Dragons will be the next "King of a Thousand
Years." Exactly what and how this supposed King actually rules
was not made clear, though it was implied that whichever King holds
sway influences the course of Human history toward war or peace, order
or chaos, tyranny or liberty. If it's true, I certainly find the
idea of such an unaccountable and ridiculous body choosing the course
of history, in such a slap-dash manner, completely offensive. If
it's not true, well, what a farce.
Our partisans, placed in the position of guiding this great choice with
really very little preparation, took the proposition seriously, and
gave it great thought. If I understand rightly, each of the
bearers of the artefacts is expected to be "Champion" for one of the
dragons. Whether that means they were expected to fight one
another on behalf of their assigned Dragon was not quite clear.
Our group, in proper League fashion (even including Captain Sparrow and
Prince Dakkar) had a debate about which Dragon should be
selected. None of the Dragons was so prepared as to present a CV
for the review of our panel as to its qualifications to rule the
Universe. Fortunately, Mr O'Flaherty thought to use the Shield of
the Sun in its capacity as a scrying device and asked about each dragon
and what would be likely to occur should each of them be given the
power. Bravo, Mr O'Flaherty!
What he saw was very grim indeed for 4 of the 5 choices--war, tyranny,
destruction, cruety, disorder, in various combinations. One of
the Dragons, representing the "Fifth" direction, had never heretofore
been given the rule. The Dragon, when questioned, seemed rather
laissez-faire about the whole proposition, saying that people should be
allowed to choose their futures for themselves. Well, that
certainly struck a chord with our "Champions," and they selected it to
be the new "King". There was various grumbling and arguments from
some of the Mystical Grab-Bag, but ultimately the choice ratified by
Mrs Voach (as the "Celestial Maiden") and was held to be sound by the
Angel, who was set up as the Master of Ceremonies.
Before the panel was disbanded, each of the Champions was to be granted
a "Boon." The thought of these much-beloved yet highly feckless
friends being granted a boon by a potentially omnipotent entity filled
me with the profoundest alarm. Yet, I was surprised and pleased
with the boons requested--they were well-considered and selfless,
especially given that they had been asked and granted with so little
time for reflection.
Mr Voach then offered all the "Champions" a ride
back to our ships, and the convocation was dissolved for another
metaphorical Thousand Years. Our partisans returned just in time
for dinner.
Proceed to This serpent
nonsense
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