by Jean Rabe
“I was merely concerned about your majesty’s health,” replied Hans stiffly. “The courtiers complained constantly of how dull life was in Vienna during your recent convalescence—and even the carnival did little to lift their spirits.”
“Last night’s revel should keep their tongues wagging for quite some time,” replied Elisabeth with a smile.
“Indeed it should,” said Hans. “Archduke Rudolf is as charming as his mother. None of the ladies can resist him.”
“The lad is in love,” whispered Elisabeth. “At last he has found his heart’s desire in the lovely Baroness Vetsera.”
“His wife will not be pleased,” remarked the old retainer.
“Princess Stephanie is not pleased with life,” snapped the empress, her eyes flashing. “I cannot imagine what Franz was thinking when he married poor Rudolf to that witch.”
“He was thinking of the monarchy, as usual,” replied Hans.
“Bah! The monarchy that represses the freedom of Hungary? The monarchy that fights endless wars for domination of land that belongs to others? Sometimes I wish I were a peasant.”
Hans surveyed the servants as they loaded the last of the empress’s trunks into the wagons in her entourage. “Still, the monarchy does have its good points,” he said dryly.
Elisabeth’s lips twitched as she saw the direction of his gaze. “My dear Hans—always bringing me up short. I thank you.” The empress leaned up to kiss his weathered cheek.
“Your majesty!” he cried, raising a hand to his face and glancing about nervously.
With a giggle entirely unbefitting her rank, Elisabeth climbed into her carriage and ordered the driver to be off. As the royal conveyance jolted forward, she pulled off her gloves and looked thoughtfully at her long, thin hands. I shall have to order three desserts this evening, to help get my weight up, she thought ruefully. People find my natural frame quite disturbing, aerodynamic though it is.
Two days later, Elisabeth’s carriage arrived at Neuschwanstein Castle to the strains of carnival music. The empress looked out upon the garishly painted structures that dotted the grounds. All around, courtiers were taking turns throwing colored balls into small tubs for prizes, watching puppet shows, and awaiting their chances to ride a huge, steam-powered carousel with rank upon rank of fanciful beasts and horses wearing gaudy harnesses. Somewhere deep in the mechanism, at the carousel’s heart, a calliope played.
An old man dressed in Bavaria’s livery appeared at the door of her carriage to help her out. “His Highness King Ludwig will be pleased to see Your Majesty. Please accompany me to your apartment and refresh yourself after your long journey.”
“Thank you, Immanuel,” said the empress, taking his arm. “It was a rather grueling train ride. What goes on here?”
“A carnival to celebrate the completion of His Majesty’s new rail line,” replied the old man. “His Majesty decided that experiencing the entertainments of the common folk might make his courtiers less stuffy—at least for a few days.”
Elisabeth chuckled softly.“How very like Ludwig.You’ll make sure my trunks are delivered to the apartment?”
“Of course, Your Highness.” The aged retainer led the Empress of Austria-Hungary to her chambers.
Once the door had closed, Elisabeth quickly changed from her traveling gown to a light yellow day dress with lace overlay. As she was taking down her hair for combing, the door burst open.
“Sisi, my dove!” cried a girlish voice. “I’m so happy to see you!”
Elisabeth turned to embrace the tall, dark-haired girl. “Ludwina, you haven’t aged a bit.”
“Neither have you, of course. You must come with me and see my new water-flowers chamber.” The girl, tugged at Elisabeth’s hand.
“Later,” said the empress, slipping an arm around her cousin’s waist. “I’ve come to visit the High Court. And you’re coming with me.”
“Sisi, not now! I have Richard here!”
“Richard? You brought him here again?” Elisabeth’s eyes grew wide. “Aren’t you afraid he’ll find out?”
Ludwina giggled. “No. He thinks I’m Ludwig’s niece, sent here by my family because I’m too wild.”
Elisabeth grinned. “And so you are, my darling eagle. But Richard or no, we have work to do.”
“Sisi, you’re so tiresome sometimes,” pouted Ludwina.
“I could say the same about you,” pointed out Elisabeth dryly, “lolling in the arms of an aged composer while your kingdom goes to rot.”
“He’s not so old since I took him to the faerie realm,” replied the girl saucily. “We had to fake his death and give him a new name to get him away from that horrid Cosmina, but he’s still Richard to me. He says I make him feel young.”
Elisabeth snorted.
“And furthermore, my kingdom isn’t rotting. My people love me.”
“Of course they do,” agreed Elisabeth. “Who wouldn’t, given your habit of bestowing lavish gifts on random peasants? But your nobles don’t love you. They tried to depose and assassinate you three years ago, remember?”
Ludwina giggled. “And a clumsy job they made of it, too. Still, I owe you for saving my life at the time.”
“They still complain endlessly of your inattention to affairs of state,” Elisabeth pointed out.
“Well, that’s half your fault, you know.” Ludwina grabbed a diamond clip to pin up her hair. “You had me out of the palace for three months on our last adventure.”
“If we hadn’t dismantled that madman’s doomsday machine, half of Europe would be missing now.”
“I know, and it was important. But I had to leave orders not to be disturbed and pretend I was absorbed in building a new opera house while we were gone. Besides, I eventually did get an opera house.”
“Which you immediately dedicated to that lover of yours,” observed Elisabeth, folding her arms.
“He says I inspire him. His new piece, the Flight of the Eagle Maiden . . . he’s going to put it in his next opera.”
Elisabeth raised an eyebrow. “He saw you fly?”
“Yes,” replied the girl sheepishly. “But he thinks he dreamt it.”
“Haven’t I told you to be more careful?” fretted Elisabeth, turning to the mirror to slip diamond clips into her mass of dark hair. “Now kiss Richard goodbye and get your feathers on. We have work to do.”
“So what has you so distressed that you have to seek out the High Court?” asked Ludwina as the two women slipped into the secret passageway behind the ornate harpsichord in the conservatory. “I haven’t seen you like this since that incident with the Greeks.”
“The island sank last week,” replied Elisabeth.
“Sank? How could an island sink?”
“That’s what I’ve come to find out. It was my gate to the faerie realm. I think someone closed that gate—purposely.”
“Do you think they know about you—and Rudolf?” Ludwina withdrew a tube from her pocket and turned a small crank. Instantly the corridor was bathed in a green light from the transparent crystal mounted on the end of the tube.
“I’m not sure. But I am certain that they knew about the gate to faerie—and eliminated it. I’ve heard stories of similar incidents across Hungary and elsewhere. Someone is slowly removing the magic from Europe.”
“How can that be?” asked Ludwina. “Magic is magic—it’s energy.”
“And so is the steam that powers the engines that are taking over civilization,” replied Elisabeth, stopping abruptly to touch a hidden switch on a panel to her left. It slid open without a sound, revealing a round chamber lit from the ceiling with what looked like sunlight. Within the room grew a fantastic garden, filled with fruit trees, rosebushes in hues of red, yellow, white, blue, and violet, and evergreens both tall and small. Through the room flowed a stream that widened into a pool at the south end.
“You think one kind of energy can cancel another?” persisted Ludwina, following her cousin into the room just before the door slid
closed.
“I listened to a scientist speak once,” reflected Elisabeth. “He said that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but its form can be changed. Like the heat that powers the steam turbines can be converted to motion. Perhaps magical energy can be converted to more mundane energy in some way.”
Back out on the grounds, a nondescript man dressed in grimy overalls picked up an oilcan nearly as big as his head, with a spout longer than his forearm, and boarded the carousel as it coasted to a halt. He strode confidently past multiple rings of horses and beasts while eager carnival-goers scrambled for seats, then slipped inside a hidden door in the great machine’s central hub. Presently, the carousel lurched into motion again.
Inside the ride’s stationary hub, the man in the overalls glanced at the gears rotating the machine’s vast bulk before turning down a short corridor and coming to a halt before a bank of levers and dials. Pivoting to face the hub’s center, he delivered two sharp, loud knocks on a plain-looking panel. Almost immediately, the panel slid aside to reveal a cramped chamber, where a dwarfish man sat hunched over a broad dial on which a single slim needle wavered. Flanking the dial were two cylinders of heavy paper, each turning slowly. Hundreds upon hundreds of perforations decorated the paper wound on the right-hand cylinder. On the left one, a quartet of slim pens scratched out rows of squiggles and peaks.
“Welcome back, Colonel,” said the technician without enthusiasm, sparing his visitor only the barest glance.
“Have there been any unusual readings today, Herr Prein?” The colonel bent to examine the right-hand cylinder. “Perhaps in the past hour?”
“You’re looking at the playlist for the calliope,” said Prein, his lips nearly twisting into a smirk. “But as it happens, yes. Perhaps two hours ago there was a definite spike. An hour after that there was a bigger one, definitely from inside the castle.”
The colonel’s eyes blazed with predatory fire. “That’s just the time she got here!” he said knowingly.
“She?” asked Prein.
“The so-called Empress of Austria-Hungary, who’s come here to visit her batty cousin!” the colonel snapped. “These aristocrats of yours are all related. In the States, we have laws against that much inbreeding.”
“So,” Prein asked, “you think Empress Elisabeth is some kind of sorceress?”
“Worse. She’s some kind of faerie, or faerie-touched creature.”
“If you say so, Colonel,” replied Prein dryly. “What do you propose to do?”
The colonel stroked his chin. “Do you have one of the professor’s whirligigs ready?”
“There’s one in the carnival baggage. But it will take more than a day to get it assembled and ready to deploy—and that’s if I have a crew to help.” The technician pulled out the left-hand cylinder and studied the markings for a moment. “The pattern resembles Greece closely enough, Colonel. There could very well be a portal here, as you suspect. I’ve no idea where it is, however—somewhere deep in the castle, most likely. We’ll have to move the detector a few times to be sure where the source lies, and then carry in the device and get it past whatever protection they have around the portal.”
The colonel put both hands on his hips. “You had that speech ready, didn’t you?”
“More or less,” replied Prein. “What’s the big hurry anyway? Who cares if the aristocracy has a little faerie blood, or dabbles in some genuine magic?”
“Because it perpetuates an old, corrupt order, that’s why!” the colonel snarled. “How do you think this divine right of kings idea got started anyway? The early rulers really were more than human, that’s how. That old magical blood still runs in quite a few of the crowned heads of Europe—and they use that power to interfere in the affairs of younger countries such as my own.” The colonel turned as if to pace, but the cramped quarters stopped him short. “Hereditary privilege—the bondage of the lower classes—we’ve stamped that out in the States! Look at that fairy-tale monstrosity out there! What a waste of the people’s funds!”
“Well,” Prein observed. “It has stopped you in your tracks—for the moment at least.”
The colonel waved a hand dismissively. “Bah! It will fall in time—any fortress does once besieged. It’s enough to know for sure that the empress is working some magic. It confirms something our source in Vienna has suggested.” The colonel paused to regard the right-hand cylinder and watched it spin for a moment. “Go ahead and move the carnival around the neighborhood for the next couple of weeks and pinpoint that magic source. The empress and her cousin can wait, but I have some business to conclude with that son of hers!”
“It shall be done, Colonel Ames!” responded Prein with more enthusiasm than he felt.
Three weeks later, Elisabeth and Ludwina emerged from the garden chamber.
“So the island was definitely sabotage, and not by rival fey forces,” said Ludwina, twisting a lock of hair. “Its energy was captured from outside somehow and turned inward, and it just imploded.”
Elisabeth nodded, touching the panel to open the secret passage. “But how did they know it was there? And who was behind it?”
“Did you have any strange visitors?”
“No. No one came through except for the carn. . . .” She looked up suddenly, her eyes flashing. “Ludwina! The carnival! Get rid of it!”
“I could have a fit of temper and ban carnivals in my kingdom, I suppose. But maybe we should pay it a visit.”
Elisabeth nodded. The two women turned down a passageway that snaked upward through the castle. After a few minutes of climbing, they emerged onto the rooftop of one of the lower spires. Closing the doorway behind them, they spread their arms, and their forms began to shrink. Feathers sprouted and mouths became beaks. Moments later, an eagle and a dove winged joyfully into the sky, arcing over the countryside until they spied the carnival below.
They glided on the downdrafts into a nearby tree. The eagle hid among the leaves, while the dove flitted over the various carnival attractions before perching on the dragon carving crowning the carousel. She discovered an opening in its mouth. Darting inside, she hurried into the central core of the machine and heard a voice above the carousel’s clanking and music.
“There it is again,” came the voice. “Just above—and another source within two hundred yards.”
The dove poked her head into the cramped chamber as a short man turned to a telegraph machine.
“Pinpointed the location of gate,” he said, tapping on its keys, “plus two smaller mobile sources. Please advise.” He crossed to a large dial and examined a paper drum next to it. Presently, the machine signaled an incoming message. “Use Professor’s all-around sight-on-bird setting to eliminate mobile sources. Proceed against primary source as planned.” The man tapped out a one-word response: Acknowledged. He then crossed the cramped chamber to a small storage box. From it, he took out a rifle with an intricate sight atop it, and a small object that with a touch sprouted a crown of horizontal blades.
Stuffing the odd item into his pocket, he picked up the rifle and made a few adjustments to the sight. “Bird hunting,” he mumbled. “What next?” He peered through the sight and let out a squawk, then abruptly swung around to face the dove and fired. The bullet robbed Elisabeth of a few tail feathers as she ducked back into the passage and made her way to the dragon’s mouth once more. Emerging onto the top of the carousel, she glanced quickly about and took wing, just as the little man opened the door of the central works and came out with his rifle. Scattering the terrified carousel riders, he took aim once again and fired, this time wounding the dove’s left wing. She careened into the tree where the eagle waited as blood dripped from her useless wing.
The eagle extended her own wing and flipped the dove up onto her back, then climbed higher into the tree, cloaked by leaves. Another bullet whizzed past, missing both birds. The eagle glided to an adjacent tree, then another, as more bullets flew. She turned her head around to nuzzle the dove, who gripped her rescuer�
��s back tightly with her claws. Then the burdened eagle leaped into the air, catching a downdraft that carried her over an ornate reflecting pool and into a hedge maze, where she landed on the ground.
The dove clambered off, and both birds changed quickly to human form. “There’s a tunnel through the gardener’s shed,” said Ludwina, grabbing her cousin by her good arm and propelling her through the maze.
Twenty minutes later, the two women were back in Elisabeth’s apartment. Ludwina inspected her cousin’s shattered arm. “It’s already starting to heal from your fey magic, but I’ll get my bag and try to hurry the process.” She slipped out the door and locked it behind her. Elisabeth busied herself with cleaning the wound and changing out of her bloodstained gown.
Ludwina returned with a black case, from which she extracted two vials of colored liquid—one red and one violet. With a syringe, she injected first one and then the other into the wound, which began to close immediately.
“You’re a genius with medicine,” remarked the empress. “Who’d have thought a half-fey aristocrat would have a talent for inventing?”
“My madness gives me time to dabble.” Ludwina replaced the syringe and vials. “Now tell me what you saw in there.”
As Elisabeth related the results of her spy trip, Ludwina frowned. “This whirligig that he put in his pocket—what did it look like?”
“Rather like a child’s toy, except made of finely machined metal, with some hidden lever that caused it to unfold.”
“If that is the device with which they intend to destroy the gate to faerie, they will try to bring it inside the castle. We must intercept it.”
The factory rose from a sea of stumps and moribund crops. The featureless walls stood like the outer works of a vast fortress. Instead of a keep, three squat chimneys belched forth smoke, sparks, and a nasty stench. Concentric loops of streets, neatly paved, ringed the factory’s grimy bulk. Rows of neat cottages and a few larger buildings, all made from whitewashed stone, lined the streets. Bits of soot gave the pale stonework a salt-and-pepper look.
