Dark Age

by Robert T. Bradley

  ‘What, Baxter?’ Lucian shouted; a slave to the wrath boiling under his skin. ‘Weak? Let me tell you something about weakness, Baxter Nightingale.’ He took a long hard drag on the pipe and then blew the smoke out directly at him. ‘Weakness is the foil plaguing man. Weakness gets you nothing. You want something, Baxter, you reach out and take it, be powerful. Even if you don’t feel it you force it there. And you will always get exactly what you want.’

  Lucian’s way had turned to a wildness of a beast, his words sounded memorised, like they’d been drilled in.

  Baxter looked away from him and back down at the party, his eyes drawn to the elegance of the captain dancing. She moved around the room, spun in a fluid way neither rehearsed nor chaotic, her motion sublime – like clockwork, Baxter thought.

  Lucian leant forward, paying close attention to Baxter’s eyes, and tracked them down to the dance floor below. He grabbed Baxter by both shoulders and looked him dead in the eyes. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead.

  ‘With power, Baxter, you can have anything.’ Lucian watched Madeline waltzing between gentleman; one of them had said something. Madeline’s head tipped back to a wide laugh, and caught the two of them staring from way up in the rafters. Baxter spun to look away, but Lucian gripped the boy’s arms and forced him to endure her glare. ‘You can have anything, Baxter Nightingale, and I mean, anything.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Moorland clouds released the cleanest water Abigail had ever tasted. She opened her arms up to it and felt alive. The lanterns went out around her, the rain cooling their heated oils and turning them to a rainbow sheen.

  Watching from a shelter in the village square, Hans didn’t take his eyes off her. She wasn’t like the rest he’d met before, she had a way about her, almost spiritual. She was in the moment.

  The rain had calmed. Abigail looked directly up at the early evening’s sky, it had a charge of pink blending into violet. Holes appeared in the clouds like torn cotton. She felt like one of the poets, seeing a new world, one she’d longed to be a part of. The villagers walked about the city team wearing expressions like a jury. Squinting, Abigail tried to imagine what it must have been like here before the attack, before the city people showed up and started taking over. They must hate us, she thought, watching them with envy.

  The others who came on-board the airship from the city and Hans’s team had all huddled under the shelters, wearing just as judgemental expressions. A group of village men carried spades and shovels from one pile of rubble to another with a haste about them. Looking back at the ones in the shelter Abigail wondered if they’d do the same. Only one of them, Hans, he stood smiling and smoking; the girl on his back, she smiled too.

  Abigail carefully picked up the drone and placed it in a canvas bag. Her gloves were wet and nearly slipped on the polished brass of the outer casing. She carried it back over to the group.

  ‘Hans, I think we need to pay Lucian Seagrave a visit.’

  A man stood next to him, sniggering. Abigail noticed it but chose to ignore it.

  ‘Would I be right in guessing, Inspector,’ Hans said politely, ‘you believe Seagrave Corp was behind this attack?’

  Another one of his troop let out a high-pitched sound, a tune of mocking, Hans noticed it and jabbed the thin man with his elbow.

  Abigail couldn’t help noticing the gesture to be out character. ‘You’d be wrong actually, Hans,’ sinking in her hip. ‘You don’t send ten to slaughter a village, you send fifty.’

  ‘How do you know?’ the thin man said. ‘Did you send them?’

  Hans looked at the thin man, leant in and whispered something.

  The thin man gulped and nodded his head. Abigail looked down at the bag holding the drone. ‘Evidence? Where do you think you’re taking it?’

  ‘I want to show it to him, see what he thinks. There are some rather unusual markings.’

  ‘What kind of markings?’

  ‘Here.’ Abigail pushed the drone into his chest.

  Wiping the water from his glasses, Hans pressed it away and took a closer look.

  ‘You see this scorch mark?’ She ran her finger along it.

  ‘Yes?’ Hans said opting to remove his glasses instead. ‘It’s from inside the device?’

  She flipped it over. ‘Notice how the funnel sprays thinly from the casing inward - see this hole? The burn marks look as if something attacked it, a flying object perhaps, just as this…’ She grabbed the file of the eyewitness account and waved it in Hans’ face, ‘…says it did.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Good work, Inspector. Sure you’re not done here?’

  ‘I need to interview this woman.’ Looking over at the aide stood next to Hans. ‘Can you find her?’ The thin man looked at Hans who tipped his head, and walked to the houses.

  Hans cleared his throat. ‘I’ll send the formal request to visit Seagrave Corp,’ he continued. ‘Should I include the King while we’re at it?’

  Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Or how about the Holy Mother, she could even be behind all of this?’

  A few of the men sniggered around her.

  ‘Don’t you feel,’ he stepped closer to her, ‘it’s a waste of time? What could he tell us some other engineering type couldn’t?’

  She held the drone under his long red nose. ‘Look at this, Hans. The motor’s powered by gas yet it was fried from the outside inwards. Look at these scorch marks.’

  ‘I’m not an engineer, Miss Falcon.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘You want us to question Seagrave because?’

  ‘Hans, listen. This drone was attacked by another drone, just as the eyewitness declared. And besides, these drones had to have been manufactured by someone. If not Seagrave Corp, then who else?’

  Hans rubbed his chin.

  She noticed his eyes held messages within their magnified marbles. It was an act she’d seen men do before; say one thing when they’re trying desperately to say something else.

  ‘Either way,’ she said, ‘I’m sure Seagrave will have a thing or two to say about these scorch marks. Put the call in, Hans. If you need me, I’ll be over by the wall. Bring the woman to me when we have her, please.’

  Abigail walked to the nearby wall in front of the large house, resting against it. Her last words to the Wiccan inspector played over in her mind. ‘Yes, Abigail,’ she said to herself. ‘Much more like it, show them you can do it, you’re the one in charge.’ She kicked the wall and scraped her boot down a set of scorch marks. As she rotated the drone to one side, the remaining daylight reflected off it and onto something in the grass below. She put the drone down, grabbed her handkerchief and picked up a small disc, it had a weight to it, inch thick sides with a glass light on top and on the side was what looked like a key. She noted the sprigged resistance. Behind her, the big house loomed over her as though it too wanted to inspect the object. All the windows reflected the violet sky bar one, at the far end. She applied her goggles and magnified them. The pane was smashed with two glass daggers pointing to the centre. She pulled out her notebook and drew a quick map of the village and the position of the house. Looking beyond the gate, there were broken pavement slabs damaged from bullets. The rest of the house’s masonry, from the distance, appeared intact. Behind her, the woman approached with clipping footsteps.

  II

  Wanting to inspect the house, Abigail hurried the interview along. The woman simply repeating everything she’d said in the earlier account. Abigail decided to wrap it up with one final question. ‘Do you think the other drone came from this house?’

  ‘From the Beechcrofts?’ said the woman. ‘The old worthless drunk and his over-the-top, vanity-riddled brother? I highly doubt it, unless they were secret members of the Brotherhood hiding out here to kill us all!’

  The naïve energy the woman emitted appeared an authentic habit.

  ‘Thank you.’ Abigail called the orderly over, and he escorted the woman back to the others.

&n
bsp; Leaving the evidence bag by the wall, Abigail climbed the wall to the small holding and instantly discovered it was well kept. Many of the animals had died, their bodies decomposing in the grounds.

  Small pieces of glass cracked under the weight of her boots. Stood under the smashed window, she jotted down the details,

  Clear sign of an object being thrust out of the Beechcroft residence, several shards of glass in the grass, furthest being ten feet away from the window, suggesting some thrust. No sign of the device which broke the window.

  Marching around the outside of the house in the little light, more pieces broke as she stomped.

  Climbing back over the wall and heading back to the square, she met with Hans. ‘We need access to the house.’

  He looked down at her from his spectacles. ‘We can’t gain access; the owners are nowhere to be found.’

  ‘I need to get in there. Whatever the thing was that destroyed the others, it came from that house!’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘What? How can you say that?’

  His hand shook and a red flush appeared on his forehead; her line of inquiry was making him uncomfortable.

  ‘Come with me.’ She grabbed his arm, but he wouldn’t move. ‘Come on, Hans, come and look.’

  Pixie giggled at Hans’s uncooperative reaction.

  He resisted the Inspector’s tight grip, then finally pulled her off his arm. ‘Inspector, please.’ The others watched. ‘Contain yourself.’

  She looked around, everyone had stopped what they were doing, entertained by her and Hans’ antics.

  ‘Hans,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to make a scene, but this is my investigation…’

  ‘Stop right there, Inspector,’ he ordered with a long point of his thin crooked index finger. ‘This is the King’s investigation. Had it not been for an order directly from him; you and I, we wouldn’t even be here.’

  Abigail placed her hands on her waist and pushed one leg forward. ‘Hans, what do I need to do to gain access to that house?’

  He looked at the other’s faces. His expression was a plague of resistance to the protocol, he wanted to let her go in, have free rein – she could see it, she was certain.

  ‘You need to wait thirty days.’

  ‘thirty days? Hans!’

  Everyone looked over again.

  ‘Will you be quiet, Abigail!’ Hans pleaded. ‘This has to be done by the book, we can’t have it taken from us if the last three the owners of the property aren’t dead. So unless we get an order from the King himself, not I, you or the Queen of Sheba, is going to set foot in that house. It’s bad enough you broke in their garden with the others watching.’

  ‘Others?’ she thought. ‘What’s he hiding?’ She looked down at her muddy boots. ‘I never broke in, I climbed.’

  Hans gave her a look, his anger turning his face a shade redder than usual and making his lips thin to slits. ‘I have put the order in to see Seagrave. It’s pending, so listen.’ He stepped forward and clasped his long hands together into a plea. ‘Go back to the airship, interview some more villagers, but keep yourself out of trouble, Inspector, or we – will – lose – this – case – altogether.’

  Abigail, rather annoyed with herself, knew he was right and calmed down. ‘Very well.’

  She walked back to the airship, it hovered anchored a few yards from the city gates.

  Hans was right, they did have to follow the protocol, stick to the way of doing things. Thinking back to past cases, how they were taken from her for “Overstepping the mark” or whatever nonsense they’d say filled her with the feeling of being captive.

  The village gates looked like two friends who knew all the answers, and she wondered what those stone pillars had seen. The airship’s stern pointed at the Moorland as though it were ready to blast off up to the Ether, snapping its anchors and freeing itself. Abigail moved slowly away from it, the wall concealing her actions, and headed back to the village.

  Avoiding the main gate, she crept in through a tiny hole in the wall and headed straight to the Beechcroft House.

  III

  A swarm of flies flew out of a decomposing carcass, they disappeared in the air like exhausted embers. Abigail carefully scaled the wall to the Beechcroft enclosure. Rot scented the air with its filth as a murder of crows alerted one another of the new intruder, they escaped to the night-sky in a mob of black frantic. Abigail’s neck muscles contracted as she grasped for her handkerchief.

  Abigail’s sudden appearance caused the animal bodies to explode in a firework display of flies. At the door, she tried to pick the lock. The latching rod wouldn’t connect to anything. The internals were flush, smoothed out. In the dull moonlight, she studied it. The rounded lock had a standard key slot and twelve brass rings circled the centre. She tried again, still nothing. The rings appeared to have their own motion with sunken dials in each of the rings, they were stiff apart from the first closest the key hole. She rotated it around, holding her ear close to the lock, and it clunked with the letter E facing north. She hurried around her body for matches, found one in a top pocket to the waistcoat thankfully still dry, and lit it off the wall. The dials lettered,

  TAGENINGILH

  She slumped on the floor. ‘That’s all I need.’ She pulled out her notebook and recorded the words. Opposite from the sky, a giant bird flew down and landed on the wall in front. The owl looked at her, it had a tameness, as though it had seen its fair share of humans and didn’t consider them a threat. Abigail held out her hand and whistled to it. The owl ignored her and took flight, leaving her alone with the puzzle and the carcasses. As though the owl had delivered the combination, Abigail sprang back to life and rotated each of the coils to spell the name Nightingale. The door creaked open with a force of its own: eager to let her in and reveal secrets.

  Moonlight cast a multitude of glows through the many windows, offering a guide for her trespassing feet. She kept the lockpick in her palm held tight in the leather glove. Tall bookcases filled most rooms, books on the topics of philosophy, mathematics and the ancient teachings of Atlantis, she felt more like an intruder in a professor’s home than creeping around in a farmer’s. She passed a window which looked out onto the large field surrounding the house. More dead sheep and a pile of stone belonging to what looked like an old stable having collapsed. She coughed at the bottom of the stairwell, too dark to see the celling her echo was enough to realise how it was. She climbed the steps to the first level the door locked, she tried to pick it, but the lock was unlike any she’d seen before. She continued up another level and tried to next door which was also locked. She carefully picked this one open with ease and walked inside.

  The room was far colder than the rest; the bed in the corner, unmade, little furnishings, and tools lay scattered on a dresser. Two large shards of the broken glass lay on the floor. On closer inspection small fragments ran flush to the wall which held the window frame, suggesting a hurried foot had pushed it in. As she perused the rest of the floor, the moon moved to the break of the window and added some extra light.

  On the floor, two scorched burn marks were embedded in the wood. She produced a measuring tape from her belt utility pouch. Twelve inches between them and both were six inches long, pointing at the window. She drew them in her notebook as best to scale as her cold hands allowed, hurrying while knowing she was short on time. As she ran out of the room the moonlight’s reflection caught her eye on a framed photograph. It was the only decorative item she’d seen. Two men stood together smiling with their arms around each other, and a little boy was held by his mother. The little boy pointed at the camera, asking his mother what it was. They looked happy.

  Abigail stood on the landing by another window and opened her pocket watch. She had roughly ten more minutes to spare. The staircase leading up to the next level produced a draft.

  Inside the attic workshop, Abigail studied the scattered drawings of designs and contraptions. Papers covered the floor, empty bottles a
nd books with many notes.

  She went to leave, only to catch a green splash of light reflecting from one of the desks. She walked over the papers, careful not to leave footprints. A jewel shaped like a bird, set in a thick leather-bound notebook. She picked it up, pressing the tip of her finger along the smooth surface of the emerald. She opened the pages.

  March 20th, 1962.

  Nicholas is visiting today, will be a great joy to see him. Beatrice will never normally fry me a steak, but when he’s over, she makes the exception to please him. The additional funding came through last night, well, at least a gentleman’s agreement. Seems all I’m good for is nodding heads. I have so many of them now. I’d set up a carnival of nodding bankers. Perhaps that’s how I’ll raise the money? Get people to pay a shilling a sponge, or two for a rock? I’m hopeful, Beatrice said she could sell the house out on the moor, but I couldn’t let her do it. It’s been in her family for generations. And once I finish this engine and the press come knocking, we Nightingales are going to need somewhere to hide.

  Abigail lowered the notebook. The Nightingales? She pushed forward a few extra pages.

  October 8th, 1963.

  Seagrave keeps making the offers. He’d sent Beatrice flowers yesterday, and today several items arrived in my office with our family crest stamped on the packaging. I’m so far behind with this, the engine keeps stopping after the sixteenth rotation. All the minerals are correct, and the scope springs are compressing to the pressures correctly. So much energy captured, its overwhelming. Perhaps it’s the output levels I’ve got wrong? Doctor Pendle wrote me another reply, I’m sure he simply takes me for a fan and nothing more. Still, it is a testament to his commitment to students, reply as he does in such detail the answers to my problems. I wonder if he would take a claim of the Spirit? Perhaps I’ll dedicate the maiden voyage to him?