Read Online Gideon Smith and the Brass Dragon by David Barnett - Free Book Online

New York, lighting up the roofs and towers of Manhattan with golden fire as the Skylady III soared over the glittering Atlantic toward the vast, jumbled city. Gideon held his breath as Rowena began to bring the ’stat down lower. He had never dared hope he would see the fabled city at the heart of the Empire State, the living testimony to Queen Victoria’s mastery of the Earth. He had read of it, of course, many, many times in the pages of World Marvels & Wonders . Gideon’s recent adventures had taken him to Egypt, to the New Spain territory of Tijuana, and to the Lost World, an unmapped dot in the great swell of the Pacific Ocean. But as the Skylady III gingerly nosed over Manhattan, the grasping towers of the great city casting long shadows over the gridlike streets below, Gideon felt the hairs on the back of his arms prickle and stand on end.
    New York! Now he felt like a real adventurer. Manhattan was like a black insect that clung to the Atlantic coast, soot-darkened towers in the Gothic style thrusting upward, scraping at the underside of heaven. Whereas London had enjoyed a brief flirtation with the architecture of the lost civilizations of South America, erecting ziggurats with tumbling foliage flowing down their terraces all over the capital, New York seemed to have embraced the legacy of old Europe: a forest of pointed towers, jagged arches, and ribbed vaults.
    â€œRowena,” said Bent, standing beside Gideon on the bridge, looking out the panoramic window that curved around the front end of the gondola as the city opened up like a rich child’s model plaything, “should we, strictly speaking, be actually lower than some of these effing towers?”
    â€œJust following Walsingham’s orders,” said Rowena through gritted teeth. Gideon could tell she wasn’t entirely comfortable with steering the massive ’stat between the soaring spires.
    Bent held on to the console, his suit and overcoat even more crumpled, if that were possible, after the transatlantic journey, and peered through the window. “There’s some effer in that window, waving at us.”
    Rowena jabbed her finger at the map from Walsingham’s leather folder. “Apparently the Governor of New York has a private aerodrome, here.” Gideon looked at the map over her shoulder. The Governor’s Residence was situated in the Albert Gardens, a huge, rectangular swathe of greenery at the center of Manhattan. “We’ve been granted landing privileges. Unfortunately, this is the only way to get there.”
    Gideon looked up at the towers. “It’s like London … but different. I swear some of these buildings are taller than the Lady of Liberty flood barrier at Greenwich.”
    Bent sniffed. As Gideon gazed upward, Bent risked a look down. “In my experience, the higher a city’s rich raise themselves up, the deeper its poor sink in the shit.”
    Rowena didn’t take her eyes from the course ahead, her hands moving blindly but unerringly over the instrument panel in front of her, as though she could sense the readings on the dials and clocks through strange osmosis alone, but she said, “And your experience of the world’s cities is vast, is it, Aloysius?”
    Bent sniffed. “Lived all my life in London. That’s as much experience as a man needs, in my humble opinion. Greatest city in the world.”
    â€œI think New York might have designs on that claim,” said Gideon, blinking as the Skylady III emerged from the manmade canyon of towers into an open space, the red rays of the sinking sun flooding the bridge. The Albert Gardens was an oasis in the center of the city, a green pause amid the teeming life of Manhattan, a long, sculpted park surrounded on all sides by teetering towers and spires, an elevated steam-train track threading among them.
    Beside him, Rowena visibly relaxed. “We’re through. I don’t see why they