They arrived at the palace in the evening. It was an extravagant building flanked by fountains and large trees. As they walked to the doorway, Deryn saw that the path was framed by two small rivers on each side. They were man made and had thousands of tiny goldfish swimming up and down the waterway. When she looked closer she realized that they must have been glowing. The fish illuminated the pathway and Deryn figured they were some sort of fabrication related to glowworms. She pointed this out to Alek who gave her a very disgusted expression.
"Glowing fish? They couldn't have used regular lanterns like everybody else?" But his eyes were glued to the water in amazement. "They are very pretty though." He admitted.
The giant door was opened for them and they were led inside by a very formally dressed Japanese man. He bowed to them, and they bowed back. Then, with the flourish of an arm, he introduced himself in perfect English.
"I am Magistrate Kadashi and I will be your host this evening." He gave them all a weary look, his eyes pausing when they passed over Bovril who was perched on Alek's shoulder. He then faced Deryn and bowed again. "You must be the Prince, it is a pleasure to meet you. If you need anything during your visit, please do not feel pressured to ask."
"Umm, actually that would be him." Deryn muttered and pointed to Alek. The Magistrate looked at her confused. He was nearly a head shorter than her and rather bald. The hair he had left was combed over his large bald spot to look like he had more than he did. When he opened his mouth again to speak, Deryn thought she saw the hint of a golden tooth.
"I apologize. I didn't expect that the Austrian Prince would have a Darwinist Fabrication." Kadashi said while looking at Bovril with interest.
"If you don't mind sir, we do have an obligation with the Emperor." Dr. Barlow said. She and Volger were standing behind Alek with annoyed expressions on both their faces. Obviously the Magistrate was talking more than they would have liked.
"Right." Kadashi said. And with another arm flourish he led them toward another set of doors. They walked down several hallways with marble floors and walls. Eventually they emerged up a staircase into a wooden corridor with flimsy walls and doors that looked to be made of paper and bamboo. Deryn could see through them slightly and thought she could see the outlines of people and beasties. Kadashi stopped them in front of the largest paper door and slid it open to reveal a small room furnished with a low table and cushions.
"If you would be so kind as to remove your shoes and have a seat, the Emperor will be with you shortly." With another shove of the sliding door, he was gone.
Deryn kicked off her boots situated herself in a large silk pillow next to Alek. The two of them sat on one side facing Barlow and Volger. The Lady Boffin didn't waste any time and quickly pulled out the blueprints for the Goliath and spread them out in front of her. From Alek and the Count's faces, Deryn could tell that they had never seen the papers before.
"What is this?" Volger asked her.
"Blueprints." She responded.
"I can see that, but what are the blueprints of?"
She gave him a wicked little smile before pulling out a blue pen and scratching something down.
"Don't worry, we'll have plenty of time to talk about that once we meet with the Emperor. Speaking of which, do you know why he is meeting with us here? I would have thought we would be talking to the entire assembly as well."
"As did I." Volger said. Deryn suddenly noticed that he was sweating profusely even though the room was rather chilly. She watched him pull a handkerchief out of his front pocket and dab his forehead.
"What's the matter?" Alek asked, noticing Volger's obvious discomfort as well.
"Nothing we can't handle your highness. It just seems that the Emperor may be plotting something himself."
Alek opened his mouth to say something else but was interrupted by the door opening again. Magistrate Kadashi was back with several other people. Behind him was a child on a litter that had to be carried into the room by two others. When Deryn looked a little closer, she realized it wasn't a child, but a tiny man with bone thin arms and legs and a thick bulgy torso. He was dressed in an ornate blue silk robe with flowery designs and he smelled like baby powder. It didn't seem that he could move much on his own because the two other men that had carried him in had to arrange him on the pillows so that he was fully supported by them. She continued to stare when she saw that his torso wasn't fully his own. A beastie resembling a mix between a spider and a monkey was hooked to his back. She could see its scrunchy face peering out at her from behind the man's neck.
"Aleksander Ferdinand von Hohenberg, I introduce you to his royal highness Emperor Taisho of Japan." Kadashi announced. Deryn looked over to see that Alek was staring as well. She nudged him in the ribs with her elbow causing him to jump.
"Ah yes…" He squeaked. "That is, it's good to meet you, your highness." Alek gave a slight bow of the head in the direction of the small man.
This can't be the Emperor. Deryn thought. Yet she watched the others sit on opposite sides of the man and place a few royal documents in front of him. The little man blinked at Alek and gave a hoarse, long, clattery breath that moved his entire torso. She watched in horror as the spider beastie moved the man's head with its own hairy legs and fingers so that he was now making eye contact with Alek.
"And it is nice to finally talk to you face to face young sire." The Emperor said. But he wasn't saying it directly. Instead, the beastie behind him was mouthing the words with the man's voice. Deryn felt Alek shudder beside her. She couldn't imagine how he must feel about this, seeing as that he was a clanker and all. The beasties always made Alek a little queasy, not to mention that this man was hooked up to a barking fabrication. It was even a little too much for Deryn who had been raised with Darwinist creations her entire life.
"We appreciate you meeting with us," Volger said. Deryn noticed that he was sweating more than before, but he didn't show any nervousness in his expression. In fact, besides the occasional dab of the forehead, Volger looked completely calm and peaceful. "I believe we need to discuss Alek's future connections with Japan."
"I agree," Came the eerie voice from the beastie. "But first, I have heard that you have some interesting news for me, Miss Barlow." The beastie turned his head so that he was facing the boffin.
"Indeed." She answered, without a hint of alteration in her voice. "Dr. Higginz and I have been over the plans of your new invention." She smiled.
"It really is very…..stunning." Said one of the men who had carried the Emperor in. Deryn noticed at once that he had a British accent, even though his face was strongly Japanese.
"I find it deliciously diabolical, don't you?" Deryn thought she saw the Emperor's lips curl into a very small smile.
The Japanese man with the British accent, who must have been Dr. Higginz, gave a nervous shiver.
"My Lord," He muttered. "Please, I wish you would reconsider this idea. It's so barbaric."
"It's the only way to stop the Germans." A hairy spider arm lifted a small bony one and delicately arranged the fingers so he was pointing at the blueprints. "If you would be so kind Dr. Barlow, would you explain the plan to our Austrian friends?"
"Gladly," She beamed. "Here is a sketch of the beast."
Deryn finally looked at the blueprints completely for the first time. The majority of the paper was filled with the side view of a dolphin. As she looked closer she got the impression of the scale of the beast and her eyes widened. The dolphin was drawn next to a scale drawing of the Leviathan and was nearly three times the length of the hydrogen breather. She also noticed that the dolphin was equipped with large engines and propellers that looked like replicas of the other ship's, but three times bigger. Beneath the beast's stomach was another beastie about half the size of the gondola positioned next to it. It had the tough shell of a nasty insect and was curled tightly into a ball with its legs and antennae stuffed inside.
"Thanks to new Japanese technology, we have discovered how to make the breathers spurt Helium instead of Hydrogen. Although this requires for the beastie to be nearly twice as big do to the fact that Helium is twice as heavy. However the benefits are that we no longer have to fill the intestines with a flammable gas making air travel much safer."
"Barking spiders!" Deryn interrupted. "You didn't tell me the thing could fly!" She pulled the sketches out of Dr. Barlow's hands to better inspect the drawing.
"The Goliath will not only fly, but fly faster!" Said the Emperor. "Thanks to Dr. Barlow's work on Leviathan we now know how to build Clanker engines that will support the large air beast better than anything created before"
"Beg your pardon." Alek suddenly said. He was also looking at the blue ink sketches that Deryn was holding, but he didn't look nearly as excited. "But those engines were not Dr. Barlow's work. They came from our stormwalker."
"And we couldn't thank you for that more, Alek. Since those engines have been on board, I have been taking special note of how they work and Dr. Higginz and I have found ways to attach them to another beastie." She nodded toward the nervous Japanese man who wouldn't make eye contact with Alek.
"But that's… that's just stealing! We didn't give you those engines to build more of your war fabrications; they were only supposed to help the Leviathan!" Alek cried. He looked flabbergasted. Volger, who was fuming on the other side of the table, didn't seem to have anything to say. He only glared at Dr. Barlow and seethed.
"I know it may seem that way, Alek, but you haven't heard the entire story yet." She took the sketches back and pointed to the strange insect beastie below the Goliath's posterior region. "This is the true heart of the Goliath. When this beastie is dropped from the sky it can destroy an entire city in seconds." She pulled out a drawing from beneath the first which was a black and white map of China and the surrounding areas. A red dotted line marked a path from Tokyo to another city in China. "This is Tsingtau." She continued. "A port city in China that has been a German settlement since 1898. We plan on attacking the city."
She was dead serious, Deryn could tell. All smiles were gone from the boffin's face and were replaced by a knowing stare. "It's a small settlement, with barely over five thousand inhabitants, most of whom are German Soldiers that are stationed there."
"When the Goliath is positioned over the town, the Demon will be dropped, exploding itself on immediate contact with the ground. Before the Germans have time to retaliate, the Golialth will be gone. It's super powered engines already pushing it halfway back to Japan." Deryn thought she heard the tiny man laugh.
"The Demon." She mumbled to herself, then looked at the large insect again with a new awe.
"May I ask why we are bombing this town?" Volger piped up. He still looked severely angry. "It's not in Germany."
"Once the Germans surrender, Tsingtau will be given over to us. It's a valuable port that will allow Japan to have direct trade routes with China."
"You expect the German's to surrender?" Alek asked.
"They will have to." Dr. Higginz spoke up. His voice was quiet and sad. "The Germans will have no way to build something as large and destructive to combat the Goliath. They do not have the knowledge to blend Darwinist and Clanker inventions. If they do not surrender, we will continue to build bigger and stronger air beasts that will eventually destroy their entire country."
"You could consider the Goliath's attack on Tsingtau as a warning." Said Dr. Barlow. "The destruction of the small town is just the beginning of what our fabrications can do."
Alek still looked disgruntled, but the rest looked at her and nodded agreement.
The rest of the evening went by calmly. Deryn didn't pay much attention to the remainder of the conversations. The Emperor discussed that he had no intention of keeping Alek and his men as prisoners in Japan and that the British Empire had full custody over them. Later, a young Japanese woman also dressed in silk with a white painted face brought them green tea , soup and some sort of fish. They ate silently as the woman sang for them and played a strange looking harp. Afterward, Emperor Taisho excused them and Kadashi led them back through the winding halls and out of the palace.
They headed to a hotel in town since they had outdid there stay at Elsie's. When Deryn had finally climbed up to the hotel room she was going to have to share with Alek, she walked over to the window and remarked at the beauty of Tokyo in the evening.
"It looks like a dream almost." She said.
"Yes, a very strange dream." Alek commented. They watched the oddly shaped buildings for awhile and delighted over the millions of paper lamps that lit up the streets. Deryn could see a river flowing slowly to the north with large barges lazily drifting by. People walked through the streets in bizarre lengthy robes and dresses. Everyone had long hair, even the men, who tied it up in elegant knots on top of their heads. Across the road a woman was shouting out the prices of her wares as she stood behind the counter of a small shop. The Japanese words were strangely melodic, and fit well with the odd beauty of the city.
Alek stretched his arms above his head and yawned. He moved over to one of the two beds and sunk into it. It was more of a mat than a bed. It looked like a mattress that had been laid out on the floor with a few blankets and sheets. The room didn't have much more to it besides the two beds and a rug beneath them. The walls were made of the same paper that was at the palace. Deryn yawned as well and plopped down on the bed next to his.
"Do you really think the Germans will surrender?" Alek asked. She could tell that the idea of the Golaith was still bothering him. She shrugged.
"I think that it's our best move against them." She replied.
"I guess." Alek mumbled. He slipped out of his jacket and pants and climbed under the covers. Deryn of course would have to sleep in her clothes, but she didn't mind. She was growing to like sleeping in the same room as Alek.
"Mr. Sharp." Came a voice from Alek's bed, "but fly faster." Bovril said in the Emperor's disturbing voice.
"Go to sleep beastie." Alek growled. Deryn smiled to herself thinking how Darwinist Alek sounded when he said that.
Thanks for continuing to read! The comments are lovely and always make me want to write more!