Aerial Escape: Volume I - Where It All Began

By Callum Mackay

The debut novel of Callum Mackay.

The Aerial Escape series follows the adventures of the Escapists, a crew of misfit adventurers and pirates in their mighty skyship: the Escapement, as they traverse the skies and cities that float there since the destruction and desolation that has occurred over much of the known world.

Welcome to the post apocalyptic world and those that live in one of the few prosperous land based countries; Eierlant. We follow to story of Jacob Von Ballius, the youngest son of the Von Ballius family, rulers of Eierlant. Jacob has everything he could ever ask for ranging from amazing food to incredible books but he is not content. Not happy with a life of leisure he begins breaking away from his family’s ways and, with his like minded friend Benjamin Arpeggio, a fellow aristocrat who has an affinity for gadgets and tinkering. Together they meet Lord Illusion, a street con artist with a heart of gold, and General Muffins, a young homeless girl with amnesia and serious sweet tooth and militaristic demeanour. Together, the four of them become inseparable and begin their adventures as The Escapists.

Keep your eyes open for Aerial Escape: Volume II - Heist at the Masquerade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Callum Mackay
• Release date: Mar 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301406319

Book preview

Aerial Escape: Volume I – Where It All Began

By Callum A.D. Mackay

Aerial Escape: Volume I – Where It All Began © 2012 Callum A.D. Mackay

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

All characters in this compilation are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Dedications

My loving parents and family who supported me in everything I did

even when they thought I should have been doing my school

work instead of writing until four in the morning.

My friends, Bret and Toni for listening to my inane ramblings,

Bret for designing my front cover and Toni for helping

me with my spelling and grammar. Also to

Ed for being my writing buddy since the start of university.

Everyone I have met who gave me ideas for characters,

scenes and story lines.

And Sir Terry Pratchett for being the man that set the fire of

writing in me from a young age. His books have given me

not only a dream but also many great lessons in life.

Prelude

So, where did it all begin? I suppose I should start with an introduction. The world I live on had a strange turn of events almost a hundred years before my birth. Much of the world became barren wastelands from over-farming, overpopulation and pollution from factories, as well as wars, crime and the festering tumours of the human condition. Because of this, many countries chose the only resource yet unharnessed: the skies.

Cities rose on mighty platforms, balloons and propellers giving life to the sky-cities. These cities relied on the ever-flowing wind to keep them aloft and power them so that the world could try to repair itself without human interference. Saying that, they still relied on ground-cities to provide them with everything from food and water to fuel and labour. It is one of these ground-based countries I hail from.

My name is Jacob Francis Edward Von Ballius the Third, Baron of the kingdom of Eierlant, a small coastal country that prides itself on relying not on the skies for everything but on the earth and oceans. It supplies much of the world with fish, fruit, vegetables and large amounts of metalwork and coal. The country is both rich and well-connected in the world with many sky-cities protecting its borders and a well-trained and armed military inside making it safe from invasion.

I am the first mate and navigator/pilot of the Escapement skyship, and this is a catalogue of my adventures with its crew: Lord Illusion, the ship’s captain and information trader; General Muffins, the ship’s doctor and cannoneer; and Count Arpeggio, the ship’s engineer and musician. We are a small crew of outcasts and runaways, with many stories to tell.

I suppose to tell this tale I should start with, well, the start. Apparently my birth was a time of great celebration, a time of smiles and laughter and champagne bubbles in the air of my parents and their guests. A simple birth followed by cheers and happiness with a naming ceremony to match a king. Personally I think it was a bit more like this:

‘Milady, you must push!’ the midwife telling my mother. The sweat beating at my mother’s brow was wiped away by the assistant.

My father was holding her hand, a look of pain on his face from the force of her grip.

‘Come on my dear, you’re nearly done,’ were his comforting and soothing words in the ear of my mother to calm her hectic and extreme breathing and screams of pain. Only slightly did his words belie the pain on his face.

‘That’s it we’re nearly there milady, just keep pushing!’

And that, I suppose, was that except for the naming ceremony. I would imagine it was a far more private incident than that of my brother and sisters. As the second son of the Von Ballius family I was not expected to become my family’s patriarch and was not required to marry into money because I could inherit my own from the family.

Ah yes, the family. Throughout most of my life my family was the most important thing in my life. My father, Baron Seymour Frederic Robert Von Ballius the Sixth, was the just and almighty ruler of Eierlant. In actual fact he did very little ruling. Eierlant was devoid of much crime and the taxes were fair so most of his time was dedicated to my brother’s education and leisure. The Baroness Maria Rebecca Von Ballius, my mother, was the daughter of a wealthy landowner and five years father’s junior. My parents had met when she was just fifteen and had been married not far into her twenties. Some months later Michael was born.

Michael, my elder brother, was next in line to take over from my father. He was smart, handsome and charismatic, everyone loved him, men wanted to be him and mothers wanted him to marry their daughters. After him were my older sisters. Francesca had decided to live a life of luxury in the shadow of my brother. Margret was the perfect high society young lady, marrying a duke who had been in good stead with my father and went through the usual means to acquire her hand in marriage. Clare was the next eldest. In her younger years she was always out, causing all sorts of mischief and getting drunk with the maids. Mother had found her the son of a local businessman, a strong, domineering young man who treated her well but kept her in line.

The next eldest was Sarah who was always out hiking or travelling the countryside. My parents didn’t think much of this until one day, at the age of sixteen, she had tired of the rigmarole of the life laid out for her, bought her way onto an airship and disappeared into the sky. We regularly got letters from her but her name was taboo around my parents. Katelyn was my younger sister, four years my junior and as annoying as any younger sister should be, but with the unfortunate addition of being treated like a literal princess.

Then there was me. Because I did not require the training and knowledge to take over the family, nor the skills to navigate the complexity of the social echelons, my lessons and education were split between intellectual endeavours that I enjoyed, like literature, map reading and heraldry, while at the same time entertaining my artistic and creative side with lessons on music, art and dance. As well as those I took lessons in marksmanship, hunting and horse riding. I excelled in my studies but still attained little responsibility from my family. No matter what I did, I could not find a purpose for my life; I lived a life of pure leisure.

My father’s time was dedicated mostly to teaching my brother the role he would undertake upon his death or retirement. My mother’s time was devoted purely to helping my sisters find husbands. Although this was how it was I had found my place in the gardens, reading books, cleaning my father’s shotgun or playing the cello which I had been tutored in since the age of seven. My days were spent there, the servants bringing me whatever I asked for, new books, a drink or something to eat. Occasionally I would even have a visitor, like on one such occasion I recall when I was eleven.

It was a bright and cool spring day. I lay in the grass beneath the old oak tree at the far end of the garden. It was so far from the main house that I couldn’t even make out the details in its oppressive and monolithic form. The sun was cascading through the leaves, casting shadows and shapes that danced and moved like fish in an aquarium. Occasionally an airship would fly across my field of vision, sometimes low enough for me to see the smoke trail it left behind, other times so far away it was just the light glinting off brass. I couldn’t help but think about how all of this was owned; my family owned everything in the garden. Even the birds that flew above the ground were owned.

I was immersed in a book on the history of modern airships and their controls when my light was blocked by a shadow.

‘What are you doing out here little brother?’

I looked up into the smiling face of Francesca, my eldest sister and most eligible for marriage into upper aristocracy. She was beautiful, cultured and intelligent; she could dance, sing and was an impressive cook. She was accompanied on either side by her handmaidens whom doted and flitted around her like bees around their queen.

‘Reading,’ I responded simply. At this time I was nothing special compared to my family, a plain-faced young boy in a simple ruff shirt and trousers, my voice just beginning to crack at the onset of puberty.

‘You’re always reading or writing or just staring off into space. You should do something with your life.’ It was her usual lecture. By my age most of my family had already begun planning and preparing for their futures. Each of my sisters had been paired off with an eligible man or had begun their schooling in the trade of being a lady of leisure and luxury. My brother had already begun reading the accounts and looking over the maps and deeds of the properties he would one day manage and coordinate. Me though, I did nothing, said nothing and essentially amounted to nothing.

‘Then tell me what I should do with my life, sister dearest,’ I snapped back, putting a simple leather bookmark in place and sitting up to look at my loving and caring sister. ‘You have all had your lives planned for you. Mother and Father told you what you would be, should be, could be. I was never told anything; I am a lost soul in my own home.’

She sighed and sat on the bench, the handmaidens buzzing around in that way that annoyed me so.

‘It’s those damnable books you’re always reading, putting ideas in your head that need not be there.’ She looked forlorn, melancholic, as if she were thinking on some great philosophical conundrum that she simply could not fathom. ‘You’re lucky little brother. We were all told what we must do and be, we had no choices. You can choose any path you desire, whether to go into those books you love so much, or business in the city. The world is indeed your oyster yet you do not see the opportunities you have, don’t you think?’

I pondered her point for a moment before replying. ‘Maybe, fair sister of mine, it is because of that very reason. I am without direction or purpose. I am gaining the skills and education to be anything I desire, yet I do not yet know what it is that I desire.’

I glared at the handmaidens who scurried away to a safe distance. No one was to bother me but my family and our guests; I could not stand doting and crooning servants. The thought of waiting on others sickened me. It was as though they had no self-respect. Oh how naïve I once was. To believe that because a person waited on another meant that they were without strength, how foolish and simple-minded with assurance like all children that I knew everything that the world had to offer.

‘Jacob, why must you be that way? They work for the family to feed their own families; you shouldn’t treat them so coldly.’

I shrugged and rolled back over, returning to my book.

She sighed and rose to her feet. As she walked past me she ruffled my thick brown hair.

‘Don’t worry little brother, you’ll find your purpose one day and no matter what that is you will enjoy it far greater than a purpose that was forced upon you.’ With that she walked away with the grace and solemnity a person of her class.

It wouldn’t be for quite some time before I finally found my purpose and when that day came I grasped it with both hands and feet and refused to let go.

Chapter One – Fate’s Fair

The day before my fourteenth birthday marked the next great event in my life. A passing comment from my father put in motion a chain of events that would alter the course of my, up to now, meaningless life. I was at my literature lesson in the main library with Professor Murfin when my father entered. Professor Murfin was my Tuesday and Thursday reading and writing teacher, though at this point in my education he was more just a reading partner. I had already completed much of the work set out for me in the fields of reading and writing, geography and mathematics and had a small grasp of foreign languages.

‘Ah, Jacob, Professor.’ My father was not very tall; even now I was the same height as him while Michael towered over him. But what he lacked in height he made up for in breadth and girth as well as owning a magnificent golden beard. His pale blue eyes were always watching from behind thick glasses for the sign of movement, a habit from his younger years as a champion marksman.

He took a seat in the reading chair between the two of us, picking up the book I had just finished. He looked it over, flicked through a few pages and smiled. After a few minutes of silence as the three of us read our respective books, he finally raised his voice. ‘Tomorrow is your birthday Jacob. I understand that you already rejected your mother’s plan for a big party and your sister’s plans for a holiday to the coast.’

‘That’s right Father,’ I replied placing my bookmark in my book. I looked to see the professor was surreptitiously looking at me over his book. He had spoken to me on several occasions about being less hostile to both my family and the servants.

‘Then what is that you would like to do? You can have anything or we can go anywhere. It’s your decision.’

I looked at him, attempting to gauge his honesty on that point. I was preparing to reply with some remark that would probably get me into trouble but I decided against it.

‘Well, I’ve never left the manor except for holidays and hunting trips and when we do go we always have an entourage of servants. What I want is to go to the local fair.’

He was about to interrupt me.

‘Without an entourage. I just want it to be me, you, Mother, Michael, Francesca and Katelyn. Sebastian as well of course but no one else.’

‘Anything else you would like to request?’

I thought for a moment and then nodded.

‘Yes, I also don’t want to take the main carriage. I’d rather go in the plain carriage and if everyone can dress down a bit. I want to see what it’s like to be a normal person for a day.’

He sat for some time, apparently thinking it over.

‘I will speak with your mother. I can promise that we will go tomorrow and we will not take many with us. Other than that we will have to see what she says.’

I nodded as a servant walked in. Like all of the footmen he was wearing a suit with a simple black cravat.

‘Is dinner almost ready? Also where is the Baroness?’ my father asked the man.

‘Yes sir, her ladyship is currently in the kitchen checking over dinner and tasting everything.’

He nodded and got up and walked to the