The Fire Cage

by Scott Hungerford

  Holding up his flame lantern, Davin surveyed the space with Rajon standing close at his side. Dressed in a new dark blue suit, complete with comfortable black leather shoes that fit, Davin felt curiously out of place in the underground apartment, lantern in hand, still like he was some kind of tomb robber of old. But upstairs, the entire house, his house, was a tumult of servants and Imperial guards making sure everything was just right. His new life was ahead of him now, a life he’d never even imagined when he’d first bet his five Nobles at the Fates just a few days before.

  “There’s a lot of work to do here.” Davin said, gazing upon the workbenches covered with Mercuri’s genius.

  “There’s a lot of work to do everywhere,” Rajon said. “Everything has changed, overnight. You can feel it in Agora, permeating the very air. You’ll be needed.”

  “So the Emperor says,” Davin stated. “But Agora can wait for just a few more days. Just long enough for my mother’s and Yori’s funerals. Just time enough to mourn.”

  “He won’t wait long, Davin. Vermeni’s army is still out there, scattered to the high hills. In time, they will be a threat. Aston is not accounted for, and we don’t know who else might be a conspirator.”

  Davin smirked a little bit. “You’re suddenly the conscientious one, Rajon.”

  “I’m just trying to protect my investment.”

  Davin turned and got a good look at the man that he’d only come to know within the past fortnight. While the new trim black suit fit Rajon’s figure very well, the sword-cane he’d carried for so many years been replaced by a real cane. While Rajon was lucky enough to still be able to walk, after the fall from the carriage and his experience with the Electric Death, it was likely he would never be able to run again, or to walk at speed without the aid of his new mahogany cane. Taken from the wreckage of the railings in Vermeni’s control chamber, Rajon often remarked that the new walking stick was the perfect addition to his wardrobe, and a perfect reminder that tyrants always get their due.

  “Well, was it worth it?” Davin asked him. “Everything that you did for my father? And for me?”

  Rajon walked over to a table covered with tools and clutter and wiped his fingers along the edge, leaving a streaky imprint in the dust. “I think so. Though I wonder some days whether my efforts were less about Vincent, and more about keeping Charette from subjugating your grandfather’s work.”

  “Well, hopefully we eventually can ask my father his opinions on the matter,” Davin said, as he pulled the necklace out of his pocket. Setting the lantern down on the table in front of him, he studied the decades-old contraption in the light, gentle Mercuri’s gift to a girl who would grow up to become a villain’s daughter and a villain herself. “We have Mercuri’s blueprints for the fire cage that he designed just before his death. Now it’s just a matter of building the device and learning how to make it work.”

  “That may take some time,” Rajon said, looking around the dusty, shadowy space filled with its hundred tables of machines, tools, and clutter. “Like I said before. There is a lot of work to do yet — and there is a lot to learn.” Davin nodded, trying to put Charette’s prophecy out of his mind.

  “As my new Exalted Engineer...” Davin said, in a dreadfully nasally imitation of the Emperor, doing his best to sound just like the rotund little man when he awarded Davin his new titles of station at the award ceremony the day before. “For service above and beyond in the name of the Empire... For a willingness to put oneself in harm’s way for the greater good...” Davin sighed. “Pardon my saying so, but it all sounds like so much claptrap to me. We did what had to be done.”

  “Well, you’re not going to the Judges for dabbling in alchemic effect. That’s one law that is already changed for the better. He knows about your talent now, and is prepared to make the best possible use of it, to unlock the combined mysteries of science and sorcery for the good of the Empire.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Davin replied, “but it does mean that the Emperor will want me to build machines. Machines of war that he can use against the Baronies, as they are already rattling their sabers. Really, I’d just like to be left alone for a while, to figure out what is down here and what I’m going to do. We won the day, but it all feels like such a let-down.”

  “You’re just having post-adventure malaise after all the excitement,” Rajon counseled. “We’ve done a lot of good. With Florin’s shut down and the directors involved in Vermeni’s screw-scheme set to hang as traitors of the state, a lot of the nefarious folk with ties the Baronies seem to have pulled up stakes and disappeared.”

  “Like Charette?” Davin asked. “She still might be out there. She seemed certain she would be back.”

  Rajon paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Are you implying that I’m hoping that she still might be alive? In some fashion?”

  “You like the thrill of the game,” Davin replied, “and she was one of the few folks that ever beat you. Until the end at least.”

  “Well, be thankful she didn’t,” Rajon deflected. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have this fine smart house of yours, or all of the rubbish Mercuri kept in the basement.”

  “I am grateful for everything you did,” Davin said looking down at the necklace in his hand.

  “It was the least I could do, for the Emperor’s favorite Exalted Engineer.”

  “Speaking of that,” Davin said, “I do have a proposition for you.” Davin turned away from Rajon for a moment, trying to keep down his smile. “From one businessman to another, of course.”

  “I’m always in the market for new opportunities,” Rajon said.

  Davin turned upon Rajon, looking eye to eye. “I don’t suppose you would take it upon yourself to assist me as a laboratorial expert in the continued creation of the works, effects and miracles of Mercuri zan DeLorenzo?”

  Rajon was wearing his best game face, but Davin could see right through him. He was stunned and hadn’t expected the offer. “Are you serious?”

  “This isn’t an estate house like you’d wanted,” Davin said. “But I believe the rent upstairs is quite affordable, and I’ve heard from reliable sources that you have quite a passion to see how these complicated mechanical things get put together.”

  “It will be dangerous,” Rajon said. “And sometimes, costly. A man like me has expenses from time to time.”

  “A taste of the bitter lime at the Fates I presume?” Davin laughed. “Helping other young nobles like me reclaim their wrongfully lost titles, all while claiming purses from Bankers desperately in need of a good moral flogging?”

  “Something like that,” Rajon replied. “But don’t mistake my works for my hobbies. I’ll certainly take your offer... under advisement.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “But I have to warn you, I have one demand that must be met in order for me to take employ within your service.”

  “What would that be?” Davin asked.

  “Marry my daughter,” Rajon said, as more of an instruction than a request.

  Now it was Davin’s turn to be shocked. “Are you proposing her to me?”

  “Verona would beat me black and blue if I made marital arrangements for her like some duke of old. But I wanted to let you know down here, in the privacy of your underground sanctum, if you do ask for her hand, know that you have my blessing. And in some ways, my pity as well. Verona’s always getting the men in her life into trouble. I suspect it’s her bad upbringing and all.”

  “I’ll certainly take your offer... under advisement,” Davin said, even though he already knew that if he asked her, she would say yes, even without the wealth of Mercuri’s legacy to support them. Through the days of their mutual recovery in the Abbey they had grown closer still during the occasional garden walks sanctioned by their doctors.

  “We should be going back upstairs,” Rajon said. “Verona will be waiting. She’ll figure out how to sing the lock open in the pantry soon enough.”

  “That she will,” Davin replied, not mindin
g the idea of the intrusion. Taking one more look around Mercuri’s laboratory he gazed with a warm heart upon all of its toys and miracles and clutter. It was his laboratory now, he thought to himself, with all the tools to unlock the wonders of the whole wide world at his disposal — and he couldn’t wait to start!

  Please Review My Book!

  I understand now that receiving an honest rating and an honest review about my books on Amazon.com is a very treasured thing. Reviews are a gift from the reader to the author to let them know how they did and to let others know whether a work is worthy or not up to par. Within the larger e-book industry, above all of the marketing, advertising and social media that I’ve do, the “star rating” is the one mechanic that gets the most people reading my stories.

  If I could get you to post your star rating on Amazon.com to show how much you enjoyed this story and whether you think that other readers would enjoy this book, I would very much appreciate it!

  -Scott Hungerford

  June 13th, 2014