Moon Sea Marauders (full)
Victorian Sci-fi / Steampunk
Serialized installments: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
Collected together here in full, I can now present the completed first “Moon Sea Marauders” story. Follow our as-yet-unnamed narrator and the valiant crew of the HMAS Poseidon as they traverse the hidden north reaches of the moon, where they will encounter French privateers, British penal colonies, deadly moon crystals, missing damsels of high station, strange architecture in the polar wilderness, subterranean tunnels leading to crystal caves, and ultimately - a conspiracy that leaves us on the cusp of a new tale…
It was the year of our Lord 1862, and our second patrol of the lunar seas had been going well.
We had recently celebrated the silver jubilee of our beloved monarch, Queen Victoria, and the men were still in high spirits. Our ship, the HMS Poseidon, was fully stocked with supplies from our last visit to Port Arcturus, and the hum of our gravitic aether engines was as smooth as the day they had left the Thames yards almost ten years ago.
We were over the Sea of Serenity, some distance east of Port Arcturus, when the first news reached our ears of the attacks on Sloveton and Marshal Point. These small settlements, scattered atop the lush atolls of ground that rose from the otherwise semi-barren seas around them, were frontier posts in our plans to expand the empire, and the cattle herds which they raised on the grey grasses of the Sea of Serenity were a key component of our logistics network in the region. News of their attack came by carrier pigeons, the white creatures fluttering in amongst our rigging before descending, and once Master Brighton had captured them and collected their message capsules, there was a great deal of gossipping about their contents.
Of course, our captain, Sir Franklin Devworth, did not stand for that, and once he emerged from his cabins he gave short shrift to the gossipping men. You are men of Her Imperial Majesty’s Aeronautical Fleet, he roared from the quarterdeck, and clucking about like a pack of London hens is beneath your station. He then roared at the sergeants and other officers to assemble, and within minutes the news about the settlement attacks was out. Two French privateers, flying merchant flags, had descended upon first Sloveton and then Marshal Point, and stripped the settlements bare of their prized herds. Not only animals, for food, but also hoards of moon coral and star diamonds, found scattered across this strange landscape, had been taken by the privateers. They had departed in a cloud of cannon smoke and burning roofs, and the governor of the region, Lord Fartheron, was demanding justice.
No time was wasted, and the Poseidon leapt into action with a vigour I had never yet seen before. Men swarmed over the riggings, deploying extra sail, while other teams disappeared into the stomach of the ship and began agitating her crystal-electric tanks in earnest. I do not claim to understand the eldritch alchemy which powers these aether engines, but understand only, superficially, that it involves the flow of some chemical solution over the famed Glasgow crystals which Thomson and Blythe discovered years ago. These crystals then generate an electric current in turn, which is drawn off to power the vast windmills which hang alongside the Poseidon - and with these blades churning, we set off towards the stricken settlements. Along the belly of the ship, the vast Faraday coils crackled and hissed, powered by the same Glasgow crystals, and it was on their gravitic aether emissions that we floated above the lunar sea like a cloud scudding close to the earth.
It took us two days to reach Sloveton, where the pall of rising smoke still filled the air. The townsfolk were still in an uproar, but repairs had already started as well, and the smell of freshly sawed moonpine was thick upon the evening air. Their mayor provided us with barrels of fresh water for our stores, and then we set off again, heading for Marshal Point.
The second village - somewhat larger than the first, and possessing a small garrison force - was in a far greater state of ruin when we eventually spotted it days later, and the welcoming party that met us was pitiful to behold. Facing resistance from the garrison, the privateers had unleashed the full malice of their guns upon both the the fort and the surrounding town, and their cannon shots - lobbed from on high, where they had floated over the grass sea - had obliterated most of the structures in town, and severely damaged the rest. After their eventual surrendering, the remnants of the garrison were trotted out onto a sandbank nearby, and shot down by musket-wielding blackguards from the privateer ships. The interim mayor - for the original mayor of Marshal Point had perished during the vicious attack - showed us the line of graves on the outskirts of the town, where fresh soil still glistened, and the hearts of the men of the Poseidon were greatly enraged at this sight. Vengeance was sworn, loudly, and when a ragged militia of villagers offered to join the Poseidon as marines, to wreak their revenge on the privateers, it took all the effort of Captain Devworth and his officers to convince the villagers to stay put. Their village needed them more than we did, and their presence aboard the Poseidon would likely make little difference once we eventually cornered the privateers - although this reason we kept from them, for fear of demoralizing their fragile resolve.
What we did take from Marshal Point, however, were the bearings along which the privateers had left, and the Poseidon set off in pursuit. The lunar night was approaching, fourteen days of night caused by the moon’s celestial dance around our homeworld, and the prospect of frigid weather, stygian darkness and the stark isolation of the uninhabited North now lay before us. Our course took us north by north-east, and we left the Sea of Serenity on the last day of sunlight.
Now, ahead of us, lay only darkness - and our prey.
Nightfall on the moon was always a spectacular affair, filled with equal parts wonder and dread. The grey grasses of the lunar seas darkened, the pale sands took on a ghostly boney glow, and the small forests of whiteleaf and silverpine and St Martin’s oaks that dotted the moonscape all slowly changed their coats from ivory to ebony. The entire land, nay, the entire ecosystem, seemed to change itself into a slumbering realm of frost and darkness, where all light and colour fled for the two weeks that lay ahead.
Of course, as stout mariners in Her Imperial Majesty’s Aeronautical Fleet, the men and officers of the Poseidon were not to be deterred by such fancies of the imagination as plagued this humble narrator, and they steered into the night with fire in their bellies and their eyes constantly watching for the Frenchmen whom had cast such destruction upon our colonies here. The survivors at Marshal Point had shown us a course that ran almost straight north, into the hinterlands to the east of the Sea of Cold, and Captain Devworth, over dinner on the first evening, shared his theory about where the privateers might be headed: Absolution Point. My spine chilled when I heard the name, and I spent the rest of the dinner with a terrible feeling of dread coiled around my heart.
The strangely named Absolution Point was a penal colony, filled with the roughest of the rough, where the prisoners were used to operate a crystal mine which they had sunk into the dry soils there. Veins of bile green and puss yellow crystal ran through the hills there, native lunar cousins to the meticulously crafted gems which powered the Poseidon itself - yet the crystals had a fearful reputation, and a nature which some scholars even whispered as verging on the demonic. Unlike the Glasgow crystals from Thomson and Blythe, these crystals - named daedricium, after the first accidents in 1854 - would inflict terrible skin lesions and boils upon those who harvested and used them. Death followed swiftly after the first appearance of said deformities. Only the most strenuous of care, involving lead aprons and gloves, could protect one from their devilish influences, and the skyships which used these crystals were infamous as ill-tempered beasts, prone to accidents and mishaps. The only reason the daedricium was used was because it was so cheap compared to the Glasgow crystals - one could literally pull them from the soil here, unlike the crystals from Terra which had to be grown and painstakingly nurtured over the course of many months.
This was the cost of progress, then: prisoners, working as slaves, digging and hauling and dying in their masses to harvest a crop of death.
Captain Devworth’s theory was that the privateers were likely heading to the penal colony to try and snatch up the collected crystals, which could then be sold for a pretty penny or three to those who wished to avoid the eye of the Crown, which was ever watchful about who purchased Glasgow crystals. If not Absolution Point, then what other reason could the privateers have to flee north? There was no food and no water in the region, and nothing else to sustain a man - unless they planned to live on the livestock which they had plundered from our colonies. By plundering Absolution Point, they would acquire a rich cargo, and then, depending on winds and the tides of the lunar seas, their journey could easily slip around to the dark side of the moon, where eager French ports awaited anyone flying their accursed tri-colour.
Thus ran the theory, and thus ran our course of actions as well. It was a five-day journey to Absolution Point, as estimated on the Admiralty charts, against prevailing winds that made our sails useless and thrust the sole responsibility of locomotion on our ponderous windmill engines. The first few days were achingly slow. Darkness gloomed our ship in funeral shrouds, and the land scudding past a dozen fathoms below seemed hardly to move. The cold settled in as the darkness deepened, and soon one could not venture above-deck without a thick fur coat, mittens, and a cap to keep the frigid polar winds at bay. Frost began to rime the railings and the lines, painting us as white as the sands we had left behind in the daytime. The order of the day was for light discipline to be maintained, with all lanterns hooded, and only the glowing Faraday coils along our keel shed some semblance of ghostly light upon the landscape beneath us. Part of the captain’s plan was to make us invisible in the dark, like some submerged marine monster hunting in the darkness of a river estuary, and thus we kept low to the ground for fear of our lightning-shrouded coils giving our position away to any watching French eyes.
The plan must have worked, for on the evening of the third day, the enemy was spotted.
The call came in from the crow’s nest, two sailors crouching there with telescopes peering off into the darkness, and amongst the crown of stars that watched from above, they spotted the telltale crackle and twitching of Faraday coils in the distance. The privateers were off to port, a league or two distant, and quite a bit higher than us. Master Brighton speculated that they must not have been expecting pursuit, else they would have lingered closer to the surface like us - but in this, their folly was our fortune. The Poseidon had spotted prey, and, with the smell of blood in the water, set off in pursuit. Captain Devworth ordered extra speed to the windmills, and the nacelles that hung aside the ship began to groan and creak with added vibrations as the vast blades that spun from them increased their agitations.
Of course, as the Devil would have it, Nature was not on our side - or perhaps the Devil was on the side of the French, a matter which we shall never know now. We had barely begun our pursuit when there was another cry, this time from starboard, and the weather lieutenant came dashing from the forecastle. A black storm, as stygian as the moonless sky above us, was rolling in from the east. It was a strange thing to behold, a creeping darkness that made itself known as an inkblot that drowned out the stars behind it, and I must confess that a terror gripped my heart then. The cold was not our ally in this hostile moonscape, and when the first of the black clouds slid between us and our distant prey, the temperature plummeted sharply. Winds lashed at the Poseidon, howling through empty spars and swaying masts, and the rattle of dislodged frost played a devilish staccato on the decks as the squalls began to rock us. Captain Devworth ordered all hands to, and orders flowed in a gushing torrent from the stern captain as he directed his officers and men to brace the Poseidon for the coming challenge.
Of course, as an observer and man of science, there was little place or purpose for me in this maelstrom that pitted Man against Nature, and the captain banished me to my quarters just as the first of the rain struck us. Sopping wet despite my furs and wool, I retreated belowdecks, where I spent the following three days alternating between prayer, worry, and sleep.
Little did I know that the worst was still to come.
Three days of storm equated to three days of poor sleep, spilled meals, and the insidious fingers of the moon’s nighttime cold reaching into our very bones. The Poseidon fought the storm valiantly for the first day, and I could oft-times feel the thrum and crackle of the Faraday coils underfoot as they fought to keep us aloft on pillars of gravitic aether - but when the morning bell tolled on the second day, Captain Devworth ordered the ship to land. The storm winds were playing havoc on our masts despite their naked state, and the sail-clad windmill blades were starting to develop tears and cracks which would surely have doomed us had we pressed on. A copse of moonpine was spotted on the twisting and rain-soaked landscape below us, and in the darkness we descended in lurches and stutters until we were finally riding at grass-top level some distance from the swaying trees. Here, closer to the ground, the weather was marginally less agitated, and teams of mariners in furs and galoshes were soon straining on long hawser lines to tow us the rest of the way to safety next to the trees. The windmill engines were halted, locked in place to preserve their blades, and raw man-power took over where machinery had fought before. Lashed to the stout pines, and with several anchors deployed around both the bow and the stern of the ship, Captain Devworth finally ordered the Faraday coils to cease their efforts, and the Poseidon settled to the ground.
Being beached did not mean that we were immune to the remaining ravages of the storm though, for once the Faraday coils powered down, the lunar cold crept back into the ship. The vast brass coils, verging on the arcane in their complexity, were capable of generating a fearsome heat from their operation, which would normally be dissipated by the cold lunar airs that now lay far above us. Now, however, they would no longer serve to heat the interior of the ship in the same manner. While the men bustled about and stayed busy with the mundane tasks of shipboard life and the emergency repairs from the pressing storm, cold began to permeate the ship from the ground up, and by the second evening I was shivering in my cabin while working on my journal. No amount of foot-stamping or leg-stretching helped to alleviate this pernicious atmosphere, and I must confess that I did, at that point in time, begin to look back fondly to my previous tour along the Mediterranean and the positively Olympic weather we had experienced while touring the French holdings in Egypt. Of course, this memory was from a time before the hostilities between our Queen and the loathsome Lich King of France, and I suppose my recollections of Egypt would have been greatly different had the Corpse Emperor Napoleon been more war-like at that time.
The third day of the storm saw more wind and less rain, along with a settling cold that left grey frost over the small porthole of my cabin. I must confess that I did little except sleep, eat, and shiver under my blankets, on this day.
The next morning tolled in a calm, dry and cold day, and the officers and men set to repairing the last of the storm damage with vigour. Captain Devworth was a force of nature to counter that which had striven to wreck the Poseidon, and the man bent his will - and that of his men - to the repairs of his ship much like the storm had bent the trees around us. The main masts and their spars had taken some strain from the ferocious winds, but it was on the windmill nacelles that most of the work was concentrated, for it was on their mechanical endurance which we would now have to rely to continue our pursuit.
I took the opportunity to go on deck and take a brisk walk around the outside perimeter of the ship, stomping through frosted grass and clumps of ice-sheathed lunar shrubbery with a lantern in hand and my science bag at the ready. The walk did me good, in terms of both circulation and locomotion, and I even managed to take and label several cuttings of moonpine from the nearby copse before the boarding call sounded. At this point there was a semi-dignified scramble to get back aboard the Poseidon, for no man wanted to be beside the airship when those Faraday coils finally crackled into life again. Even the smallest of metal buckles or buttons, be they on your coat or shoes, could attract a questing finger of white-hot energy from the coils - and when Lady Faraday blessed you with her touch, the resultant explosion would drive a man straight up into the air and leave only smoking shoes behind.
Once we were airborne again, we set a course to continue our journey to Absolution Point, and the black lands below us soon faded into a nighted blur. The stars had returned, gleaming and bright, and between their celestial positions and that of our beloved homeworld floating low on the horizon, Captain Devworth and his navigator were able to ascertain our position again after the tumult of the storm. At the same time, sharp eyes scanned the darkness around us for any signs of the French ships, who - if luck would have it - had probably weathered the storm on the ground in much the same way as us. Based on what we had heard from Sloveton and Marshal Point, the privateers were smaller ships compared to the Poseidon, which suggested that they would have been even more susceptible to the bullish winds that had so battered us.
Of course, we were still two full days away from our destination, and if the French recovered faster than us, or managed a better speed than us - the Poseidon was more whale than dolphin, truthfully, and not built for sprints - there was no telling what we would find when we eventually reached the slave mines at Absolution Point.
In the days since, I often wondered how this story would have played out if Fate had tipped our hand - or our rudder - ever so slightly in a different direction to the course we took that day, but as with all musings of this kind, one cannot ever fathom a true answer.
Suffice to say that when we finally spotted the lights of Absolution Point on the horizon, they were not the focused beams of their lighthouse, but instead the leaping flames of a settlement on fire - and in that light, we could see our foes circling.
The advantage of the lunar night, through which we swam, was that it cast an inky blackness upon the eye whenever one looked away from the nearest lantern or electric light - and with the fires of Absolution Point distracting the French, they did not see us coming until the Poseidon was virtually atop the first of the privateers. Captain Devworth had ordered full speed ahead once he spotted the ships on the horizon, and by the time our windmills had cranked up to their maximum revolutions the privateers had both landed on the outskirts of the flaming colony. We lost track of the second ship on the far side of the conflagration - but the first was clearly visible to us, and the Poseidon bore down on it with merciless intent. Shouts and rattling filled our decks as the long guns were run out, gunnery sergeants bustled about with orders and directions, and from my position atop the fore-castle I was treated to a great and contrasting spectacle: leaping fire and light ahead, filled with the scurrying of fleeing colonists and rapacious privateers - and behind me, the dark bustle and ordered rush that was the crew of the Poseidon as they prepared for combat. Marines scrambled into the riggings, hauling their muskets with them, and soon the lines and spars overhead were festooned with fur-coated bundles that looked on grimly while clutching their weapons.
Captain Devworth was usually not a gambling man, and his plan of attack was brutally simple: flash past the first grounded privateer, pound it with a vicious broadside from the starboard guns, then heel over to starboard and use the port batteries to ravage the second privateer’s presumed position on the far side of the settlement. There was a small gamble in the location of the second ship, to be entirely fair, but with speed on our side and a loaded port battery at the ready, there was ample leeway for a little guesswork. The marines above us, sharp of eye and quick of aim, would also decimate any man who tried to raise a weapon at the Poseidon’s passage - be it rifle or cannon.
The French must have been truly distracted by their plundering, for in the time that it took us to churn through the last few miles to the outskirts of the settlement, there was nary a sign that they had spotted us. A thick pall of smoke rose from the centre of the settlement, painting the sky ahead with bold curls of dancing orange and leaping reds from the reflected flames below them.The first privateer was ahead of us, two points off the starboard bow and perfectly lined up to receive our first salvo, and only at the very last moment, when our rushing passage bent the scattered treetops below us, did the tolling of an alarm bell float out of the darkness. We had been spotted!
Alas - for the French - there was little they could do in such a short time, with the bulk of their crew dispersed throughout the burning colony, and nothing except the pealing bell and scattered musket shots came flying up at us. Captain Devworth seized upon this opportunity with a boxer’s instinct, and hauled the steering wheel to starboard as we thundered across the last few hundred yards. We were skimming the treetops at this point, the Faraday coils spitting arcs of vicious light down at the poor moonpines below us, and when I felt the ship groan and inch its bow to the right, I finally understood what the captain had seen in those last moments before contact.
We passed directly over the still-grounded privateer moments later, from a height of approximately ten yards, and the Faraday coils on the keel of the Poseidon exploded upon the naked masts and unprotected decks of the French vessel with the fury of the Olympic gods of old. I did not see any of this myself, admittedly, for I had to duck down and cower behind the forward decking as we blasted through the privateer’s masts and rigging - a process that produced a terrible crashing and twanging of lines snapping, and a coarse shower of sparring and wooden splinters that swept the decks around me - but once we had passed and the Poseidon continued the rest of its planned turn to starboard, I could look back and see the devastation we had wrought upon the privateer.
Fires leapt and capered across much of the upper deck of the enemy vessel, rooted in deep, black, pockmarked craters where the Faraday lightning had earthed and discharged, and a scattered, unmoving mass of bodies had been flung in all directions around the vessel. Intermittent shots rang out from the marines in our rigging, but it was in vain - nothing moved. The privateer’s own Faraday coils, which had been powered down and barely visible on our approach, were now fully dead, and several cracks and tears were visible all along the side of its hull where coursing energies had twisted the planks and beams into tortured shapes.
Its privateering days were over, much like the days of those misfortunate enough to have occupied its decks moments before.
This still left us a second foe to deal with, and we had barely cleared the first ship when we entered the thick pall of smoke that hung over the centre of the colony. Heat buffeted us from below, shuddering the Poseidon like a carriage rattling along a poorly cobbled road, and there were cries of fear - and what sounded like elation, from some quarters - from the marines clinging to the rigging above us. Choking soot engulfed the Poseidon in a stygian grasp, and the crimson and umber shades which writhed below us were overlaid with the coruscating whites and blues of the Faraday coils as we plowed through the clouds. I must confess that I saw little enough after this first glimpse, for the air left me choking and my eyes watering, and only Captain Devworth’s steady hand on the wheel bore us through the murk. We emerged from the far side after what felt like minutes but must have been only seconds, and when I looked over the side of the ship, the far side of the colony - where the prisoners were barracked in vast camps - loomed below us.
This was also where we found the second privateer, and it - by some luck, or superior plan on its captain’s behalf - was already airborne and climbing. It was off to our port, some distance away already but barely higher than us, and as the Poseidon heaved to, we could see figures scrambling across its rear deck. Fire and smoke puffed from its stern, two chaser cannons lobbing shot at us, but their gunners were hasty, and we were at speed, and the shot passed us with a wail to disappear into the burning settlement behind us. The Poseidon groaned as we swung back to port again, our nose crossing the tail of the privateer within moments, and kept turning until our full starboard battery - still primed and ready after the Faraday-induced obliteration of the first privateer - was aimed at the retreating shape in the distance.
Commanding voices shouted behind me on the main deck, and the sky between us and the French disappeared in clouds of white smoke and crackling tongues of fire. Gun after gun fired, roaring in the dark with bright flashes before rolling back, and the full 20-gun salvo was unleashed at the second privateer as it fled. The distance was great, and our speed made the angle of fire a challenge, but my heart leapt when I saw several of the shots impact the distant shape in puffs of splintered wood and fragmenting metal. The vast stern windows of the privateer shattered, one of our shots punching clean into what must have been the French captain’s cabin, while other shots cracked through their rigging and engine nacelles. There was a ragged cheer as we saw one of their windmill arms sag off and spin free, for an airship lamed in such a fashion could quickly become an easy prey for our teeth.
As the Fates would have it though, pursuit and ultimate victory was not to be on that day. Even as our starboard cannons fired and their teams scrambled to reload, there was a cry from the lookouts on the port side of the Poseidon, and when I cast my eyes back at the devastation and fire which reigned in the centre of Absolution Point, I too spotted the climbing red, white and golden flares which someone on the ground had released. Signal rockets, filled with chemicals and leaving coloured smoke behind them, climbed into the sky alongside us, and Captain Devworth gave the order to reduce speed and prepare for an immediate landing. Someone on the ground had requested our urgent assistance, and although my understanding of signal colours was still limited at that point, there was no mistaking the golden-yellow smoke which signified a member of Her Royal Majesty’s court.
The Poseidon continued its turn to port, until eventually Absolution Point lay before us again, and as we set down amongst the burned and shattered houses on the outskirts of the colony, the second privateer limped off to the northern horizon, soon to be swallowed by the distance and the watching night.
Our day of reckoning would come - but it would not be this day.
The northern district of Absolution Point was a Dante-esque scene of chaos and confusion when we landed, and were it not for the stout sailors on our decks and the many guns of the marines clinging to our riggings, we would surely have been overrun by the mob which surged forth to meet the Poseidon as she hovered to a halt. The French raiders, operating with devilish cunning, had broken open the prison camps of the labourers who worked the mines here, and these vile creatures - blackened with soot, and clutching coarse implements of violence - were the first ones to meet us as we prepared to step off. Shouted warnings from the marine sergeants, followed by the bellowing of a discharged cannon, swiftly changed the minds and moods of these vagabonds, and their figures scattered back into the burning chaos even as the sailors deployed debarkation ramps. Captain Devworth led the way, lantern held high in one hand and rapier drawn in the other, and his officers followed in his wake, eager and ready to defend their captain. Two squadrons of marines, freshly dismounted from the riggings of the Poseidon, also joined their party, and when they set off, I abandoned all sense of decorum and ran after them with my medical bag clutched to my chest.
Reputation be damned, this was an adventure I did not want to experience second-hand around the dinner table that evening!
We met only a handful of survivors during our march through this inferno, and the few that were not escaped prisoners were only too happy to give us directions to the governor’s mansion in the centre of the settlement. Escaped prisoners burst from the smoking ruins from time to time, trying to test the marines but meeting only musket fire and steel blades in return, and we left a breadcrumb trail of bleeding bodies behind us as we forged deeper into Chaos - a macabre thought, admittedly, but one which would not leave my mind after stepping over yet another fallen prisoner.
At the centre of Absolution Point, we arrived to a terrible sight: the governor’s mansion had been transformed into a roaring pillar of fire, and of a water brigade or firemen there was no sight. Instead, a ragged cluster of soldiers - red of coat, and soiled with dust and soot - stood guard around what appeared to be the household staff of the governor, who himself was sat upon a great wooden chair which must have been pulled from the mansion before its untimely ascension into pyredom. A shout of relief went through the assembled soldiers and staff when they saw our party approaching, yet from the governor himself - Lord Gainsley, of the Gainsley & Heathers Trading Consortium - there was little reaction. Lord Gainsley appeared to have been struck mute with shock, and it was from his valet that we ultimately had to receive the terrible news: Lady Jessica Gainsley, eldest daughter of Lord Gainsley and betrothed to one of the princes of the imperial court in London, had been taken by the French.
Suffice to say that the remaining time we spent in Absolution Point could be measured in the time that it took me to splint and bandage some wounds on the garrison soldiers - which is to say, not very long at all. Captain Devworth and his officers conferred with the senior members of the Gainsley household, and their conclusion was near-instant: the Poseidon had to set off in pursuit of the French privateer immediately. Every moment spent on the ground was a moment that took Lady Jessica further away from us, and the thought of leaving her in the clutches of those vile slavers practically set the men’s blood boiling. A squad of marines was left behind to assist the garrison troops in their plight, and the rest of the Poseidon contingent, along with select members of the Gainsley household, turned around and rushed back to the waiting aeroship even as I finished up my work on one of the wounded retainers. Once again, I was left scrambling to catch up, and only the flashing of red coats and the bark of muskets guided me for the first hundred yards or so through the smoke before I managed to retake my place amongst their ranks.
Once aboard the Poseidon again, we set a course northwards once more, in pursuit of the fleeing privateer, and as the flaming lights of Absolution Point faded behind us, so too did the passion of the men rise as word spread of the lady’s abduction. Sir Henry Cottonby, the personal purser to Lord Gainsley, was amongst the small group of household retainers who had joined the crew of the Poseidon, and his tales of the French abuses in Absolution Point lit a fire under the men to rival that of Captain Devworth’s command of the pursuit.
The French had struck hard and fast, by all accounts collected by Sir Cottonby, and had broken open the stores of daedricium at the same time that they began to release the prisoners from their camps. Another party of Frenchmen, led by their commander - Captain Jacques Montiard du Valle - had stormed the burning governor mansion, and fought their way into the foyer and ground floor of the building even as the governor’s personal guard resisted. Here, in a stunning stroke of misfortune, the rogue captain managed to accost and capture Lady Jessica mere moments after she had returned from her afternoon riding to the west of the settlement. Men threw themselves at the French raiders, desperate to free the shrieking lady, but it was to no avail. Realising his good fortune, the blackguard captain retreated with the lady in his clutches, demanding the full release of all daedricium and moon coral from the settlement’s stockpiles in return for the release of the lady. The blackguard’s plan, mused Sir Cottonby, must have been to take to the air again with the lady as his hostage, thereby making it impossible for the settlement to retaliate against his circling ship.
Of course, when the Poseidon burst from the conflagration that smothered the centre of the settlement, we did not know of this situation or threats of extortion, and our opening salvo against the rear of the French ship - the Daphne, according to the Sir Cottonby - must have made the French captain realise much the same. Battling our emboldened - and, dare I say it, blissfully ignorant - crew at that point in time would have made little sense to the men of the Daphne and their priceless cargo, and thus they had set off for the north even as we spiraled down to land at Absolution Point.
Needless to say, this tale of treachery did not endear the French to the crew of the Poseidon one bit, and after the exhausted Sir Cottonby and his retinue retreated to the galley to recover, the sailors bent their will to speeding the lumbering aeroship even as Captain Devworth plotted a course to the north. We were already leagues north of Absolution Point by this time, and the lunar polar region was fast approaching. The cold of the night and the starkness of the land conspired against us, throwing icy winds in our faces as we churned through the darkness, and only those of us with thick mittens and fur coats could remain on deck by the end of the first watch. The windmill engines were a constant rumble at our sides now, straining and shuddering to cut through the arctic air. What little heat we had gained from our passage over the burning mining settlement was soon lost, and while the Faraday coils along our keel managed to heat up the interior of the ship, the decks and riggings soon descended into Jotunheim’s realm of frost and ice.
The men stayed determined throughout the long hours of the chase, and while our prey was unseen ahead of us, our progress - measured against charts and the twinkling stars above - was relentless. We crossed into the polar reaches at some point that evening, and shortly before midnight, Captain Devworth received a note from the helmsman which he shared with the rest of us even as we remained in conference around his vast dinner table.
We had finally crossed the Ross-Atkins line, which was the furthest north that any British ship had ever explored on the moon. From here forth, every mile we traveled further to the north was officially a new record.
Less than an hour later, the Poseidon’s Faraday coils started failing, and we began to lose altitude.
It felt like every whim of the Fates were turned against us at this point in the journey, and the news of the failing gravitic aether drives spread like wildfire through the Poseidon despite the early hour of the morning. Captain Devworth made his way down into the belly of the ship in no time, heading for the engineering section, while the remaining officers scattered to the helm and forecastle respectively. I had been on the verge of retiring myself for the night, although this new calamity managed to change my mind. On the forecastle, surrounded by the nighted cold and the dim lanterns of the forward watch, I listened and observed as the mariners scurried around to deal with the airship’s unstoppable descent, and it was not long before the news was carried up from below: the issue at hand was not mechanical, but something else. The Faraday coils were behaving exactly as expected, and were not the source of the lost altitude after all.
A brief halt of the windmill engines brought us coasting to a stop, still many yards above the terrain, and the descent of the Poseidon halted in turn. When we moved forward again, we lost more altitude; when we halted our forward locomotion, so too did our descent halt. There was a furious deliberation amongst the officers, followed by a simple experiment: Captain Devworth ordered the windmill engines to be reversed, blades now spinning the opposite way, and gave the command for half speed. As we started to gently drift backwards, away from the distant polar north, the glowing coils below our keel once again began to lift us, and the Poseidon began to regain her lost altitude with every few yards we drifted south.
The conclusion was inevitable: something in the soil below, perhaps brought on by our proximity to the lunar pole, was negating the effects of the gravitic aether emanating from the keel of our ship. When the windmills were turned around and we resumed our movement towards the north again, the same inexorable descent once again struck us as we continued our pursuit, and the next conclusion was equal parts resignation and frustration.
If we were to continue our pursuit, then at some point the Poseidon would no longer be able to fly.
Of course, this conclusion also swiftly brought us to our next realization: if the soil in this region was negating our own Faraday coils, then would it not affect the French privateer in the same manner? After all, both ships operated on the same principles, and if there was some geological effect playing upon this region to dampen the efficiency of the Faraday coils, then any effect suffered by the Poseidon would surely be suffered by the Daphne as well. The French ship was lighter and smaller than us, granted, and could perhaps travel some distance further than us before her inevitable grounding - but ground she would, and that alone gave us hope to continue the pursuit.
For the remaining hours of the journey, we thus began to prepare for the next phase, which would involve trekking over the desolate, ice-shrouded moonscape below us. With the horrors of Absolution Point still fresh in their minds, the mariners and marines of the Poseidon remained undaunted by the task ahead, and were relentless in their preparations. Extra winter clothing was brought up from the stores, muskets and weapons were prepared, and backpacks were loaded with sacks of food and great flasks of water. If we had not spotted the Daphe by the time we were forced to halt our pursuit, the plan was to split the crew into several smaller parties and then fan out from there, scouring the icy darkness for any sight or sign of the French ship’s passage. With a little luck - and a great deal of perseverance - we would be able to pick up their trail at some point, and then begin the task of rescuing Lady Jessica from her captors.
The morning bell had just pealed when there was an answering cry from the topmast - our prey had been spotted! We were barely a handful of yards above the surface at this point, and the icy fields below us were barren and devoid of life as far as the eye could see. Faint hills and sullen valleys crisscrossed the land here, seen only dimly by the lights we cast around the Poseidon, and even the vicious lightning which clung to our keel was muted and subdued at this point. The lookouts indicated a mast to the north-west, several points off our port bow, and we had barely turned our bow in that direction before the last bits of altitude were lost and the Poseidon touched soil for the first time. Our speed had slowed to a crawl at this point, and as that first shiver scraped through the hull, Captain Devworth ordered a full halt and for the Faraday coils to be shuttered. To go further was to risk crossing the point of no return, beyond which our stately ship would no longer be able to hold herself aloft, regardless of our science.
The ensuing scramble to leave the ship played out with controlled chaos, and by the time we set off on foot only a skeleton crew of men remained on the Poseidon to guard her for our eventual return. Everyone else was ordered into the column which set off towards the distant point on the horizon where the French mast had been spotted, and soon we were trudging through ankle-deep, crackling snow crystals with only the cold and our lanterns for company. The wind was a cool, whispering serpent that coiled around our necks and bit at any exposed skin it could find, and I was secretly glad that my medical bag, once again clutched in my arms, precluded me from carrying one of the long muskets which the marines and even the sailors were equipped with at this point. Ice glittered and blushed along the barrels that floated in the darkness around me, and I heard many a muttered curse - especially from the sailors - when bare hands had the misfortune of grazing metal so cold that it could burn skin with the slightest touch.
It took us the better part of an hour to reach the Daphe, which, as we drew closer, appeared to have been beached in much the same fashion as our own Poseidon. What made it stranger, was that it had apparently also been deserted, for we found no man or even the lowest of sentry guarding it as we drew closer. Captain Devworth had split our column into two, with the aim of encircling the Daphe before advancing, and when we finally approached the ship from all sides and prepared ourselves for a peppering of musket fire from her rails, we were instead met with only silence. The privateer was a sleek thing, with long lines and a slender waist, and her windmill engines were pointed and smoothed in a way that made the Poseidon engineers point and mutter as they drew closer. Clearly this was something they had not seen before. Our cannonade over the edges of Absolution Point had done terrible damage to the ship as well, at which point the fatal weakness behind the ship’s sleekness came to light: as light as she was, the Daphe had sacrificed constitution for speed, and had paid a terrible price when our guns found her flanks. Holes had been torn in her stern and parts of her rear starboard flanks, and a forlorn curtain fluttered from the remnants of the windows which had once framed her stern and given a glimpse into her captain’s cabin. Her starboard windmill engine was also battered and warped, and it was clear that the remaining blades jutting from the rear of the engine had seized long before the Daphe herself had come to a rest here.
To say that the storming of the Daphe herself was anticlimactic, would be an understatement of note. Captain Devworth and the marines led the way, rushing up the boarding ramps while the rest of us waited with muskets at the ready - only to be rewarded, minutes later, by frustrated faces reemerging from the deck hatches of the downed privateer. Of the French crew, there was no sight, nor was the missing daedricium to be found anywhere either. Of Lady Jessica there was also no sight, although one of the men found a golden hair pin in the wreckage of the captain’s cabin which Sir Cottonby, having joined our excursion, swore belonged to the missing damsel. There was no sign of blood or injury in the cabin itself though, which raised our hopes that the lady had survived our initial volley at the privateer.
What we did find instead, once we started scouring the fields around the Daphe, were a set of tracks heading off to the north, and it did not take long for us to determine that this must have been the escape route along which the French blackguards had fled. There were deep wagon tracks mixed in with the boot prints as well, suggesting that some measure of cargo had been taken with them, and when a second sweep of the privateer’s hold once again did not turn up any sign of the stolen daedricium, we concluded that the French must have taken it with them.
Our path, then, was clear, and after leaving a token force behind to secure the Daphne, Captain Devworth led the rest of the column north as well, following in the footsteps of the French crew who had fled before us. We were anxious on this trail, expecting an ambush of musket fire from the dark at any moment, yet only the hissing wind greeted us as we followed the prints in the snow. The land became more coarse as we travelled, the smooth hillocks transforming into jagged hills of tumbled stone, and even though the trail we followed wove from side to side and took frequent detours to avoid the largest of the natural obstacles that rose in our path, it led unerringly northwards - ever northwards, into darkness, and into the long night that clad the moonscape around us..
So it was for many hours, and I had almost lost all hope of finding the French on that day, when the lead scouts returned to us. They were breathless and red-faced from their run, and the news they gave us was both sweet and strange.
They had found the end of the French tracks, at the mouth of a cave which led underground - a cave flanked by stone pillars, and carved in the likeness of beings no Man had ever seen before.
How shall I describe that which clearly had no root in the realms of Man, or in any of the Beasts we knew?
We reached the cave mouth shortly after the return of the scouts, and while the men spread out to check the surrounding land for any other paths or tracks along which the French might have deviated, I drew closer to the cave mouth itself and began to study the strange carvings that flanked it. I must confess to both excitement and trepidation at this point, for while my heart was aflame at the thought of a new discovery, my mind grew increasingly troubled as I studied the sight before me.
There were four pillars in total, flanking the cave mouth in pairs, and the longer I studied the scene, the more convinced I became that this was no cave mouth, but in fact the mouth of a tunnel. Some sentience had sculpted the land here for a purpose, although what that purpose may be has yet eluded my grasp. Lintel blocks larger than a man held aloft a capstone of jet black stone, and the statues were carved from the same jet which contrasted so vividly with the pale grey of the surrounding stone.
Like the fabled Minotaur of Ancient Greece, each statue seemed to present a being made up from the parts of others, and I found myself tracing out crab claws, goat legs, bat wings, and even a giant, splayed foot with seven toes. Every statue also had long tentacles coming from what would have been the shoulders, wrapping around and over the other limbs, and creating an impression of some sea-born monstrosity grappling with the rock around it. The one had a triangular head with an array of bulging eyes down the side, while another had a porcine skull ending in a curved eagle beak.
None of it made any sense, and the longer I looked at it, the more convinced I became that no human hand had ever sculpted these macabre designs.
Captain Devworth and his officers had scant time for these esoteric designs though, and after frowning at the carved rock while listening to my observations, the captain politely but firmly cut me off. I shall never forget his words - “Doctor, I appreciate your insights, but we have a lady to rescue.” What Fated words those would turn out to be! With torches lit and weapons at the ready they advanced into the tunnel, and I, not wanting to be left outside with the cold and the brooding stares of the otherworldly statues, followed along in their wake.
Our route took us along an arched tunnel, polished along the flanks yet framed with raw lunar rock above, and the first thing that struck me was the silence which reigned once we were beneath the earth. The howling of the wind disappeared the moment we set foot inside the tunnel, and every step deeper seemed to absorb sound and surround us with a blanket of oppressive silence. The tramp of boots, the clanging of metal on metal, the muttering of the men as they too studied the strange architecture around us - all of it seemed to gradually fade away, until only silence and the pounding of my own heart filled my ears.
The tunnel took us upwards at some point, the naked rock underfoot slick with some kind of moisture, and it was only when the leading torchbearer fell down and lost his torch that the ethereal glow of the tunnel itself became visible. Greens and yellows were blooming overhead, waking from the rock in long veins that pulsed and glowed stronger even as we looked upwards in wonder, and before long the entire tunnel was bathed in this new radiance. Our torches were insignificant specks in comparison, and as the glowing radiance from above banished the shadows around us, so too did Captain Devworth order the torches doused and stored for later. We had not yet found any sign of the French, and there was an understanding amongst the officers that whatever depths lay ahead might not be filled with the same strange luminescence which now aided us.
The otherworldly light also served to divorce us from the passage of time, which seemed to flow in unusual tides the deeper we moved into this subterranean world. We walked for what seemed like barely a quarter of glass before men began to complain of fatigue, and when the officers checked their pocket watches they were astonished to see that hours had already passed since we first entered the tunnel. We came shortly thereafter upon a great hall, the walls stretching off a hundred yards or more in every direction around us, and a halt was called for water and food. The men of the Poseidon collapsed along the wall closest to the tunnel from which we had come, ravenous after the exertions of the march thus far, yet I found myself uninterested in the rations which were presented.
My attention was on the colossal set of murals which covered the walls of the hall, which began at about chest height and reached many feet into the air above us. Scenes of utter incomprehension were etched here, in exquisite detail, on rock which could not possibly have known the touch of a human hand. I saw a pyramid, much like that of Giza, floating in midair above what seemed to be a river of fire, yet which had frog-like beings swimming in it while clusters of giant eyeballs watched from the riverbanks. Birds - or should I rather say, flying beings - shaped like darts floated above a forest which grew from an ocean, while crabs with wings cavorted in the tops of the forest canopy. I saw a centaur with the upper body not of a man, but of a giant parrot, and the head of a fish. I saw something that must have been a representation of a night sky, except nothing like we had ever seen, for seven moons danced on the horizon, and vast buildings rose from the etched landscape to disappear like needles up towards the worlds above them.
I tried to capture some of these images in my notebook, but I found my hands shaking to such a degree that I gave up soon enough. The shock of the unknown, coupled with the strangeness of what we were witnessing, was not conducive to calm and rational scientific study, it seemed.
After the break we set off again, and found another tunnel heading out of the hall on its far side. Here too we found fresh signs of the French, for we discovered a wooden cart in a side chamber, cluttered with the remnants of the iron pails in which the stolen daedricium had been stored. Of the looted crystals themselves there was no sign except for small fragments and dust, and we could not fathom what the French might have done with their stolen cargo.
Moments later, as we continued out of the hall, we found the first of the crystal caverns - and here, the French were waiting for us. Like a vast, overgrown forest, the cavern ahead of us was filled with crystals of every shape and size known to the imagination, and this green and yellow mass reached almost to the roof of the cavern many yards overhead. Light simmered in this space, coming not from the ceiling but from the crystals themselves, and as my eyes adjusted to this new radiance I could make out clusters of crystals that seemed to form little copses of ‘trees’, intermixed with ‘meadows’ where the crystals were barely ankle high. A stream of water wound through the cave from left to river, curling around clusters of glimmering crystals, and in several places what looked like bridges had formed where some crystals had toppled over, or perhaps just grown sideways.
We had barely stepped out of the end of the tunnel, onto a small ledge that terminated in a set of rock-hewn stairs that led downwards to the floor of the vault, when we saw movement in the vault ahead of us. Shapes were moving in the distance, flaming torches held high, and as more of us left the tunnel and looked down upon the crystal forestscape ahead of us, there was a commotion amongst the distant shapes. Voices rang out first, faint in the distance, followed by the puff of musket smoke - and the first of the French fire began to patter against the rock face around us. Captain Devworth wasted no time, leading the charge down the stairs towards the vault floor, and thus it was that I would first find myself in the Crystal Caves of Qal’th.
The Crystal Caves of Qal’th.
I will freely admit that had I known the depth of the madness that lay ahead of us that day, I would perhaps not have been so keen to venture forth into this subterranean lunar kingdom.
With French musket fire falling upon us from the distant crew, we were quick to make our way off the cliffs and into the crystal forest itself which lay before us. I found myself lost in the sight of these strange crystals as they reared above and around us, impossibly large and filled with eerie light, and had it not been for the rough hands of Master Brighton restraining me I might fully well have wandered off into the caverns depths and never been seen or heard from again. So deep was I in thought that the ruckus and chaos of the fight seemed entirely beyond me, at first - until Master Brighton intervened and brought me firmly back to reality. He pulled me back from aside a cluster of particularly vivid crystals mere moments before a volley of French musket fire cracked into the same spot which I had occupied, and his harsh words - and the sight of the newly pockmarked crystal flanks - served to sober me up quite rapidly after that.
Captain Devworth, quick on his feet and even more nimble with his plan, rapidly split the men of the Poseidon into three groups, and led one of these groups on a flanking run off to the one side of the cavern. The second group split off in the opposite direction, dodging around the otherworldly growths and disappearing from sight within moments - and that left only us, the third group. Composed of only a handful of marines and the survivors from Absolution Point - Sir Cottonby and his small retinue amongst them - our task was to stay put and draw the attention of the onrushing Frenchmen, which we managed quite admirably. A musket was thrust into my hands at one point, and after aiming at one of the approaching shapes, I pulled the trigger and promptly found the fierce recoil deposing me on the cavern floor amidst a carpet of smaller crystals and loose pebbles. Needless to say, marksmanship would never be my forte, and after that ill-chosen action I stayed low and tried to make myself small behind a particularly large segment of crystal while the muskets barked and the crystal forest shivered and reverberated around us.
The onrushing crew of the Daphne were almost upon us when Captain Devworth and his men made themselves known again, and a withering volley of musket fire, at barely spitting ranges, tore through the French ranks just as they were about to cross the final streamlet separating us from their approach. Men flopped and screamed in the smoke that blew across the battlefield, and as much as I was enamoured - and confused - by this increasingly alien landscape, a part of me was secretly glad that this, this battlefield of flesh and blood - this was something that I recognized, and could actually compare with my previous experiences on the Nile and in Crimea.
With the French crew defeated, we started moving amongst the wounded to render what aid we could, and it was at this point that the situation became markedly more strange than it had been before - a state which I had not assumed possibly prior to that! A first tally of the bodies revealed that we had faced only a double handful of Frenchmen, and while they had put up a fearsome noise in their assault, it was clearly not the entire crew of the Daphne. There were only two survivors, of which only one could speak, and even as I tried to staunch his wounds, Captain Devworth started questioning him in French about the rest of their crew, and, more importantly, the whereabouts of Lady Jessica.
The second element of strangeness was how these green and yellow crystals from the cavern had responded to our presence. Many of the crystals had darkened noticeably, losing their eerie illumination and turning almost grey in response to musket balls and bodies that had slammed into them, and this change - this dimming - was spreading throughout the rest of the cavern in a slow wave. Where crystal touched crystal, the fading of the light spread, until a significant portion of the cavern had fallen into darkness by the time I finished my ministrations on the wounded Frenchman. We were forced to light torches again at this point, standing as we were in the epicenter of the final battle, and it was in the glimmering of the torchlight that the final, most eerie change of all was noted.
The crystals had started to absorb the blood of the fallen.
Like ink dropped into a beaker of clear water, so too the blood that had been spilled was being sucked into the crystal surfaces upon which they had fallen - although the mechanism of this absorption was not of any scientific process that we could fathom. Crimsons and scarlets swirled with hypnotic rhythms in the depths of the greyed, inert crystals, the blood of the men pulling into the interiors of the crystals in slow, steady streams, and there was a matching wave of muttering and unease from the men of the Poseidon until Captain Devworth steeled them with some hard words.
Our quarry remained ahead of us, with the primary focus of our efforts - the rescue of Lady Jessica - yet uncompleted, and thus we had to continue, regardless of any misgivings or superstitions which might have started blooming in our minds at that point.
It was at this point, at the end of the captain’s questioning of the Frenchman, that we also learnt the name of this place: Qal’th, or so it was said by the wounded man. It was a name unfamiliar to all present, and when we asked the French mariner what the name meant and where it came from, he merely pointed deeper into the cavern.
Qal’th.
An alien name for an alien place.
We left the scene of the battle, the fallen bodies stacked aside but unable to be buried due to the hard ground which floored the cavern, and set out to find the rest of the Frenchmen. We passed through what appeared to be a camp of theirs in short order, lean-tos and canvas tents erected between the trunks of the vast crystals that towered overhead, and in the darkness which surrounded us - for the crystals were still grey and dull, and the cavern itself was slowly succumbing to more darkness - it was an eerie thought to imagine oneself living in a space such as this for any extended period of time. Where had their food come from, or their firewood for cooking? Had they even prepared for that, giving the constant temperature this deep under the surface? Had they lived from the water that streamed around us, silent and dark now that the luminescence had fled?
It was only when we found the refuse pits that they had dug, and the streams that had been forded with crudely carved crystal blocks, that it became clear that this was not the first time the French had been here. Whatever plans these raiders had, they must have been in motion for long before they descended upon Absolution Point, or the settlements of the Sea of Serenity.
The rear of the cavern was another cliff-like expanse, the ground rising sharply in thin terraces of grey stone and now-dulled crystal to the roof far above, and as we followed the simple footpaths which the French had left behind from their previous journeys we soon found the steps which had been hewn into the side of this ascending stone flank. Much alike to the stairs which had first brought us down into this cavern, a new set of rough stairs now took us upwards, and at the top we found another ledge and another tunnel. Here, as before, the otherworldly murals waited along the flanks of the tunnel, revealing more bizarre creatures and landscapes, and there was a strange feeling of symmetry when I looked across the breadth of the cavern we had just passed to spot, in the far distance, the selfsame tunnel which had led us into it not so many hours before.
Was this symmetry intentional? Was this the architecture of Qal’th, whose strange name still circled through my mind? I do not think we will ever know, but I will state this: we - driven hard by Captain Devworth’s words and will - passed through four more of these caverns, eerily similar in their soft radiance and forested crystalscapes, before we finally, at the end of our journey, found ourselves reaching the naked lunar surface again - where the French, now numbering only twoscore or so, were fleeing across the snowy landscape ahead of us.
Of Lady Jessica, there was still no sight.
The greatest shock, emerging from the tunnels that led to the crystal caves behind us, was not the sight of the Frenchmen fleeing before us, or even the sight of the Daphne’s snow-shrouded masts in the distance - no, it was the sight of the lunar dawn approaching from the east. Never before had the mere sight of the coming dawn caused so much confusion in our ranks, and as the men of the Poseidon pulled up in ragged squads on the icy field which lay outside the tunnel mouth, we - myself, Master Brighton, Captain Devworth, and the other senior officers - frantically consulted our pocket watches and varied timekeeping devices to determine the veracity of this madness.
We had entered the hillside tunnel, with its four grotesque guardian statues, a full three days before the end of the lunar night - and yet now, after spending what had felt like mere hours inside the crystal caves, the dawn was rising again in the outside world.
What strange tides had swept us up while we were below the lunar rock, and so divorced us from the passage of time in the rest of the Universe that we had lost - or been robbed of - almost three days of time?
Even Captain Devworth, who had been so steadfast throughout the entire pursuit and strangeness thus far, was initially shaken by this revelation, although his stern demeanour soon reasserted itself. “No matter the mysteries that lie behind us - our duty lies ahead, and henceforth we shall carry on.” I shall never forget the fire in his eyes as he spoke to the officers, or the way the icy wind carried his words to ranks of waiting men and stirred their hearts too. We could see the French column in the distance, heading rapidly towards the distant Daphne, and with our spirits and resolve bolstered, we set off on the final pursuit.
Sunrise on the moon was always a spectacular affair, although this day there was little time to appreciate it. Glittering fields of frost lay ahead of us, heavy and white from the last ravages of the lunar night, and the first rays of sunlight cast a golden blaze upon this visage that transformed the fields and coarse hills into a vast, glowing tapestry of colour. Whites and greys lurked in the shadowed lees of the hills, offset by the orange and yellow fires which bloomed on the sunstruck land opposite them, and the landscape’s transformation from night to day - a sight I had beheld many times before in my time on the moon - took on a decidedly sinistar pall this time. Our experiences in the crystal caves of Qal’th had planted seeds of doubt and distrust in my mind, and as we scrambled down the trails in pursuit of the French I found myself seeing these lunar landscapes through the same philosophical lens with which I had gazed upon the mind-twisting scenes and murals from the subterranean world that now lay behind us.
Despite all of our years here, what did we really know of the mysteries of the moon, and these newly discovered caverns which lurked, unknown and unseen, so far beneath our feet? When we prided ourselves as the discoverers, explorers and conquerors of the moon, freshly arrived with the scientific marvels of the Faraday coils and the powers of the Glasgow crystals - were we really the first intelligent race to set foot on these dusty grey lands? Were we truly the first thinking species to gaze upon the seas and hills here, and up at the blue marble of our Earth far above?
My ruminations almost made me miss the shout of excitement from the leading scouts, who returned briefly to the main body of the column before racing ahead again. Lady Jessica had been spotted! The scouts claimed that they had seen a figure, clad in a green dress and with long blonde hair in the midst of the French column - matching the description we received at Absolution Point from Lord Gainsley’s household - and this news served to energize the men and officers for the final rush. Ahead of us lay a small hill over which the French had disappeared, and beyond that the masts of the Daphne were waiting.
The French must have thought that they were on the verge of escape, for by the time we crested the hill they were running at full speed for the beached shape of their damaged ship. There was no semblance of order left in their lines at this point, and the roughly two-score of figures were moving in ragged clumps towards their ship with no visible order or plan. Unbeknownst to them, however, was the presence of the small team of Poseidon marines that had been left behind to secure the French vessel when first we found it so many days - or mere hours? - before, and when the French were in the open there was a sudden rush of red-coated figures at the gunwales of the beached vessel, followed by clouds of smoke and the distant popping of musket fire. A surprise salvo indeed! Blackguards tumbled down, fatally surprised and mortally wounded - but despite their exposed position, the French still outnumbered the marines on the Daphne by a factor of four or more. With the first mist of dawn rising from the icy field, and with blood blooming on the snowy ground, the French rabble closed the remaining distance and began to board their own craft again, clearly intent on overwhelming the handful of stout marines who stood against them.
We, of course, had not been still in all of that time, and our charge - led by Captain Devworth with his rapier held high - pounded across the selfsame field moments later. The morning mist was ankle deep at this point, the night’s snow evaporating into ghostly tendrils that clutched at our legs, and the angle of the morning sun made it appear that we were charging through a sea of crimson and fire, replete with the blood of felled Frenchmen. Repeated shouts ran up and down our lines - do not fire, for fear of hitting Lady Jessica! - and the men of the Poseidon responded with fierce yells, brandished swords and bayoneted muskets as they crossed the last distance.
I was running in the midst of this all, my medicine bag clutched to my chest, and only when I stumbled and almost fell over a body did I realise that I was poorly equipped for the fierce melee that was bound to erupt within the next few moments. I dropped back, allowing the rest of the men to swarm past me, and it was thus, from a lumpy position atop a slight rise of the land, that I would witness the final chapter in the villainy that was the history of the Daphne.
Trapped between the hull of the beached vessel - where the Poseidon’s guard detachment had had the good sense to draw up the gangplanks - and the approaching mass of Captain Devworth’s charge, the French milled in confusion for a few moments before order reasserted itself. Commanding voices barked out, drawing the ragged mob into a semblance of order, and battle lines swiftly reassembled themselves as the French officers laid into their men with words and fists alike. Unencumbered by the fear of shooting a valuable hostage, the French showed little hesitation in wielding their muskets against the approaching British crew, and a ragged volley from their ranks cut an equally ragged set of holes in the mass of onrushing marines. Time and distance did not allow for a second volley, and the crew of the Poseidon were upon the Frenchmen moments later in a clash of steel and a many-throated roar of fire and duty. Red-coated marines and fur-clad mariners clashed with the blue-and-black mass of French blackguards, metal testing mettle, and the entire space in front of the Daphne devolved into a raging, shifting chaos of clanging blades and jostling men.
I lost sight of Captain Devworth and his knot of officers for a while, only for them to resurface in the midst of the French lines. Blackguards screamed and fell with every stroke against the furious captain and his men, and once I glimpsed the blonde hair that stood out ahead of them, their mission became clear: the captain was hell-bent on rescuing the captured lady before the French could visit any more harm upon her.
Here, though, our tale takes a turn for the strange, and I must admit, with a guilty heart, that there had been signs along the way which I, as a doctor and a man of science, should have observed long before the events of the hunt brought us to this point.
The French commander, Captain du Valle, had not been spotted in the rushing mass of Frenchmen as they fled before us, and now, when Captain Devworth’s valiant figure finally cutting his way into the last knot of Frenchmen surrounding the distant figure of Lady Jessica, a Shakespearean twist of irony revealed itself. With straining eyes, I observed as the figure of Lady Jessica reached up to pull off her hair - revealing the face of the missing Captain du Valle! With a flourish and a distance-dimmed cry, the French captain swept his cloak aside, revealing it to be a cunning concealment meant to replicate the appearance of a lady’s dress, and drew a rapier with which he viciously engaged the momentarily stunned Captain Devworth and his entourage. I lost sight of them for a moment as the surrounding skirmish shifted, my mouth dry with shock at this sudden revelation, and when the scrum parted again it was to the sight of the two opposing captains laying into one another with their swords.
There was an unspoken sense of propriety amongst the fighting men, it seemed, for a clearing formed around the two dueling commanders, and I was rewarded with a clear sight of the ensuing clash. The captains exchanged blows with both speed and finesse, blade meeting blade time and time again, and in time I could begin to discern a pattern in their fighting styles.
The French captain fought with great alacrity and dexterity, darting here and there over the battlefield while his rapier danced like a silver snake before him, ever looking for an opening to strike forth and touch the skin of his opponent. He was a slim man, and long of limb, and his rapier moved like a living extension of his own will as he engaged our captain.
Captain Devworth, as befitting a man of his age and stature, fought with less speed but more compactness, keeping his guard close and only countering those blows that were absolutely necessary - and what a spectacle those counters were! The British captain was a stout man, broad of shoulders and barreled of chest, and his parries sent the Frenchmen reeling away in shock. Where Du Valle moved fast, Devworth blocked hard; where the Frenchman swirled and flourished, our English captain chopped and hacked, bending the Frenchman’s blade before him with the force of each strike.
The skirmish around them was thinning out, and after a last knot of struggling fighters momentarily blocked my sight, I was rewarded with a view of the final blow. Captain du Valle leapt in, rapier held high in one hand and the other plucking a hidden dagger from his boot to thrust at his opponent’s stomach - but Captain Devworth rolled out of the way in an instant, striking the Frenchman’s wrist with his blade and sending the thin Parisian rapier spinning off into the tumult. A kick caught Du Valle’s other hand, knocking the dagger away, and with a final flourish - his first and only for the entire duel - Captain Devworth laid his sword tip against the throat of the Frenchman and barked for him to yield. Distance robbed me of the actual words uttered, but the sight of their captain slumping back in defeat took the fire out of the remaining French crew, and a ragged cheer lifted into the sky a moment later as the survivors of the Poseidon recognised the victory they had gained.
I rushed in at this point, no longer threatened by the battle and desperate to catch the words of the defeated captain, and arrived just in time to hear the end of the formal proclamation of surrender from Captain du Valle. Cradling his wounded wrist, the Frenchman tried to maintain a veneer of command over the situation, but it was clear - after a moment’s glance at the remaining men - that there was little left for him to command. The French crew had been cut down to barely a double handful of men at this point, and many of them carried fierce wounds where they had collapsed onto the muddy ground in surrender. The Poseidon had also taken losses, and many of the familiar faces around me showed grimaces of pain from their wounds - but their hearts were clearly aflame with victory, and pain was a distant thing to them at that point.
Master Brighton had also taken a terrible blow to his shoulder, and when I approached Captain du Valle to treat his wrist - as the most senior wounded officer there - the Frenchman most graciously declined and instead directed me to treat Master Brighton. Captain Devworth had already sheathed his own weapon at this point, and gave a nod of respect at the defeated captain - although this was to be the only high point of their subsequent discussion.
Several matters - nay, mysteries - revealed themselves as the two captains conversed in a mix of English and French. The first was the matter of the missing Lady Jessica: Captain du Valle only smiled when asked about her, and looked with great longing back in the direction of the tunnels from which we had come. “She has not been harmed, but I cannot tell you where she is now, Captain. Only where last I saw her, and if you followed me through those crystal caves, then you know where she has gone. She is exactly where she wants to be.” Puzzlement rippled through our ranks at this statement, which wanted to suggest that the French had parted ways with their hostage somewhere inside the crystal caves of Qal’th - and the reason behind this parting, which Du Valle was now implying was intentional, eluded us as well.
It was when Captain Devworth called for Sir Henry Cottonby, who had joined us at Absolution Point and been with us ever since, that the second mystery was revealed. Sir Cottonby and his retinue were nowhere to be found. At first we thought that they might have fallen in this final skirmish next to the Daphe, but after a search of the fallen, we were still none the wiser. The officers and sergeants conferred amongst themselves and then with the men, and eventually an answer arose from the ranks of those still living: one of the Poseidon marines had seen Sir Cottonby and his men step aside shortly after leaving the tunnels earlier that morning. Ostensibly it had been to heed the call of nature - but no-one had seen Sir Cottonby rejoin our ranks after that, and with our attentions focused on the French fleeing hare-like before us, no-one had thought to look back and see where or when the lagging retinue had gone.
The final puzzle, and almost a footnote at this point, was the location of the missing daedricium. We had found the iron pails in the halls outside Qal’th, but the mined crystals themselves had still not resurfaced. None amongst the French - either living or dead - had any of the sullen gems on them, and when we asked Captain du Valle about it, he just shrugged and nodded back at the trail behind us.
The crystal caves of Qal’th.
This place, of such mystery and shaded arcane nature, had swallowed us whole, spat us out - and taken something tangible yet undefinable from every man. We, the survivors, found ourselves muttering at this strange news from the French captain, and Captain Devworth must have sensed our mood all too well at this point. We were low on supplies, exhausted from the trek, and bloodied from the battle - and yet, despite the losses and the sacrifice, our goal was still left unaccomplished.
Lady Jessica was still out there, in some strange subterranean realm, and following some path which I, and some of the officers, had begun to suspect was not entirely involuntary on her part.
Sir Henry Cottonby, the personal purser to Lord Gainsley and a good friend and confidant of Lady Jessica, had mysteriously disappeared just before the duplicity of Captain du Valle’s misdirection was revealed.
And we, of the Poseidon, were too depleted to continue the chase.
Thus, as I sit here now, scribbling my final notes in the lee of the Daphne while the rest of the survivors clear the battlefield and prepare to lift off again with their captured prize, I find myself realising that our adventure, which had started so many days before, was now entering not its final act, but instead only nearing the end of the first act. We would return to Absolution Point, taking the captured ship in tow, and there, with fresh supplies and rest, we would have to formulate a new plan to continue the hunt.
I have a suspicion though, about where our path would ultimately take us.
We would be returning to the crystal caves of Qal’th - and our next visit would be of a far more thorough nature.
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Interesting that there is no dialogue here. The current tendency is for almost only dialogue in the mistaken belief that dialogue = showing not telling. I dislike pages and pages of dialogue because it feels like reading a comic. The effect of no dialogue at all though is to make the text very dense, and as it's full of action, I'd have thought dialogue would lighten it a bit. Question of style, I suppose.
I'm going to ask a cheeky question now. How did you (the narrator) know how to spell Qal'th, given that you have only heard it spoken?
I really must find the time to read this! I'll see how tomorrow goes.