Cold Stone & Ivy Book 2: The Crown Prince (The Empire of Steam)

by H. Leighton Dickson

  “Wo ist sie?” came a familiar voice. Ivy bolted to her feet as Gisela von Habsburg pushed into the salon, Kaiser Wilhelm and two Silver Hussars at her bootheels.

  “There!” barked the Archduchess and she pointed. “She is under sentence of death! Guards, take her!”

  The automatons clanked forward to stand beside her and Ivy froze, unsure of what to do, what to say, where to run.

  For his part, Crown Prince Edward simply released a long stream of smoke.

  “What’s that, Gigi, dear?”

  “Her! The Empress has issued an order. She must come with me!”

  “Tut tut. By your own Imperial law, this apartment is British soil and this little Cymry is a citizen of Steam. She has claimed asylum and I, as ranking official, have granted it.”

  “You are an Heir Apparent, Uncle,” hissed Wilhelm, “Waiting for your crown. I am Kaiser of Germany and King of Prussia. I am ranking official.”

  “Not on British soil, Willie.”

  “This is a Gilded hotel, only one step away from a German kingdom. Not one politician will blink if I have her dragged out of here by her breeches! They are far too busy drinking their Veltliner and watching their operas.”

  “That’s enough,” snapped Gisela. “You are a guest in this city.”

  “An unwanted one, according to Franzi,” grunted Wales.

  Gisela turned to Edward.

  “I need this girl,” she said. “If I promise you that she will come to no harm, will you release her from Steam’s protection? It is a matter of state importance.”

  “No sir,” begged Ivy. “Please.”

  “Now now, Cymry, you are a bricky thing. Buck up and no blubbering.”

  He tossed the second cigarette to the carpet, crushed it as he rose to his feet. He was a tall man, a bear of a man, and even the Kaiser of Blood and Iron seemed to pale in his shadow.

  “Does this have anything to do with Sebastien de Lacey?”

  “French anarchists!” sputtered Wilhelm. “They should all be hung, drawn and quartered, and each piece sent to a different corner of the Republic. They could be used as target practice for my Eisemanner.”

  “Your Eisemanner?” Valerie swung around to face him. “Your Eisemanner?”

  “You remember them in Strasbourg, surely,” he said. “They were part of the birthday parade.”

  “They are reported crossing the Gilded border and closing in on Vienna! Is this a part of your birthday parade, Willie? The Anschluss of Austria by Blood and Iron?”

  The Kaiser’s moustache twitched. He straightened his spine.

  “Merely a tribute to the life and death of a dear comrade,” he said. “Rudy and I were fast friends.”

  “You hated him,” she snapped. “And he despised you. Get your filthy Iron Men out of my country!”

  “And what about your bed? Do you want your German iron man gone from there as well?”

  She struck him so hard he staggered back, but instead of retribution, he merely lifted his head and laughed.

  She snarled but Edward stepped between.

  “Enough,” he boomed. “Willie has his own apartments here at the hotel and Gigi, you have your own palais. If it’s a good slap and tickle you want, then off with you but Willie, you’re half Steam. Behave like one then, will you? And Gigi, there’s enough French in you to cool the hot springs at Baden Baden.”

  “My father asked him personally not to come and here he is!”

  “For the summit!” barked the Kaiser. “Against those damned anarchists!”

  “This is not about anarchy. This is about Blood and Iron trampling Europe under its boots.” She leaned in, steely eyes glittering. “I want you to leave.”

  “I am on English soil,” he grinned.

  “I order you to leave.”

  “Very well. I will.” He turned to march toward the salon door, but paused to bow like a gentleman. “After I pay my respects. I will see you at the chapel, Gigi.”

  And he slammed the door behind him.

  There was silence for a moment in his wake.

  “Right. That settles it,” said Wales and he turned to the Archduchess of Austria. “You want the girl. There’s only one reason you might. So I say again, does this secret plan of yours have anything to do with Sebastien de Lacey?”

  ***

  It was a part of the Hofburg itself, white-washed and angular, with tiled roof and a single steeple. Unlike St. Stephen’s, however, there were no crowds, there were no mourners. In fact, this second church looked locked up, with two Silver Hussars guarding the main doors, sabres and rifle-arms at the ready.

  “Augustinerkirche,” she said as they peered out from behind a wall of the Theatre Museum. “St. Augustin’s. The Herzgruft is not underground, but rather behind the Loreto Chapel. To the right of the main altar.”

  “A crypt just for hearts,” he said. “Sad.”

  “Holy,” and she turned her face to him. “The practice dates back to Emperor Ferdinand IV. He was a great man.”

  “Will you have your heart cut out and placed in a jar when you die?”

  She was close enough to kiss.

  “Silver,” she breathed. “A silver urn. It is an honour.”

  “It’s a joke.”

  “Do you see that I am not laughing?”

  He dropped the sack to the cobbles and leaned in, pressing her against the wall.

  “Tell me everything you know about the inside. Doors, windows, clergy rooms. How do I get in without going through the front doors? Everything. And by the way, give me your gloves.”

  “Oh, you are dangerous now,” she purred. “I’m terrified.”

  The blade sprang up from his clockwork hand.

  “You have no idea.”

  ***

  “Gigi?” repeated the Prince of Wales. “I must ask you one last time, does this have anything to do with Sebastien de Lacey?”

  “Yes,” said Gisela. “But not the way you think.”

  He sighed, looked down at the golden leaves woven into the carpet. Smiled sadly.

  “You know I loved your brother like he was my own,” he said softly. “The days we spent shooting in the Vienna Woods or at Sandringham, or all our days at the race tracks, discussing politics and progress and science and ornithology. I think I shall never have such a friend as I had in your brother.”

  Gisela nodded and Ivy could have sworn there were tears in those hard Habsburg eyes.

  “He loved you too, Bertie.”

  “If there was anything I could do to bring him back…”

  “Give me the girl. We may yet have hope.”

  Ivy’s heart thudded in her chest.

  “You’re going to do it,” Ivy whispered. “Don’t make him do it.”

  Wales turned to her now.

  “Can he? Can he do this? Mummie’s been after him for years but he’s elusive, that boy is. Damned elusive like a cat.”

  “No,” she said. “No one can. That is simply grief talking.”

  “We’ll never know unless we try,” said Wales. “Mummie would be ever so happy and so would I. Rudolf is the last, best hope for the Gilded Empire. For all of Europe, for that matter.”

  “Yes,” said Gisela.

  “Well, that settles it. Take her, then.”

  “But sir! You can’t! We’re British citizens, Christien and Sebastien too!”

  Edward raised his arm. Out popped another cigarette.

  “I did tell you, didn’t I? Part of being a leader is knowing when to act. So buck up little Cymry. You’ve just been conscripted! Ah ha! Ah ha!”

  ***

  There was something about a church filled with sad music.

  St. Augustin’s church was very different from St. Stephen’s, white walls as opposed to stone, clear windows as opposed to stained glass, terracotta floors as opposed to tile. He found the understated elegance of it appealing. At the far end, a priest was playing a pipe organm gothic and gold and at the very heart of the altar. Christien didn�
�t know music – that was one of Bastien’s interests, not his – but he thought it sounded beautiful, rich and perfectly sad.

  Rather like his life, he thought.

  He had slipped in through the Imperial Library of the Hofburg, which was attached to the Augustinian wing which was attached to the Augustinian monastery which was attached to the Augustinian church. The Hofburg was a bloody labyrinth, a maze of tunnels and wings and corridors and passageways. Fortunately for him, Valerie knew them all.

  Along with her black gloves, he had nicked a collar and cassock from the monastery residence and slicked his damp hair off his face. He walked now down the long nave toward the altar but veered right, stopping at a black iron door with a tiny window. He could see a priest arranging the urns but a Silver Hussar stepped forward, blocking the view.

  “Kein Einlass,” said the Hussar.

  Christien cocked his head, not for the first time wondering how the Silver Hussars, with their lack of facial features, could talk. At this close range, he could see the slatted box in the throat and he grinned to himself. A clockwork voice box that mimicked speech. Bloody marvelous technology from the gadget set.

  “No Entry,” repeated the Hussar.

  “I’m here to see the Holy Father of St. Augustin.”

  The mirrored face distorted his reflection and he wondered if the face-recognition algorithms were shared between them, like a collective. That would be an impressive feat of AE programming. Terrifying, but impressive.

  “MARCUS?” came a voice from inside. “Is someone there?”

  “Intruder,” said MARCUS.

  Eyes peered through the grilles on the window, eyes and brows the colour of coal.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man asked.

  Cursing priests. Bloody marvelous.

  “I’m Father Dominic from the Diocese of London, Empire of Steam,” he said. “I’m here to convey the respects of the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  Amazing how well he lied in German. He wondered if he could make a career being the first male Black Swan.

  “London? There are no Catholics in London,” said the man.

  “We are a small number, but very devout.”

  “I wasn’t notified.”

  “Neither was I.”

  The eyes narrowed as the man thought it over, and finally disappeared from the window. There was a click and scrape of old locks and the iron door swung open to reveal a man with short-cropped silver hair and the barrel-chested shape of a boxer.

  And of course, another Hussar.

  “Father Dominic, you say?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Your German is good, my son, but there is an accent.”

  “Irish,” he lied.

  “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

  “As I said, Irish,” and he held up a flask that he had snatched from Franz’s library. “I have been sent with Holy Water blessed by all the bishops and archbishops in London.”

  “There are no archbishops in London.”

  “Forgive me. My German is good, but not that good.”

  And he smiled.

  The man studied him for a long moment, then stepped back.

  “Come in then, Father Dominic from the Diocese of London, Empire of Steam. Come see over two hundred years of Imperial Holiness.”

  And with that, Christien de Lacey stepped into the Holy of Holies, the Hearts Crypt of St. Augustin of Vienna, one Hussar within and one without.

  ***

  Sophie stepped toward him, porcelain mask almost blinding through the blackness of his eyes. Around her neck, Arclight glittered like a star and orbs spun into life like suns in the heavens, creating light out of darkness and death out of life.

  Sophie clapped her hands.

  “They are so very pretty!” And she giggled, her voice thin and childlike. “I never knew they would be so pretty but they are. Like the tears of a baby.”

  The cavern was filled with dead, thousands upon thousands in this underground tomb somewhere between heaven and earth. They were frozen, ghostly images in a forgotten photochrome, pressed along the walls, over their heads, under their feet.

  “Why are you here, Sophie?”

  “For Rudolf.” He could hear the wheeze of her throat, the whir of her clockwork crinoline. He still didn’t know whether she had legs or wheels. “His was a beautiful death, bleak and alone and sad. A very perfect Austrian death.”

  Arclight was calling, her rings spinning but instead of snow, sparks. Sparks and shards and re obscura and the dead.

  “What do you want, Sophie?” he asked.

  She moved toward him over the rubble that was the wall, stepping over the remaining skulls and he realized, with an odd detached thought, that she did in fact have legs. She did not stop until she was directly in front of him and he could feel her breath on his face. It was the warmest thing underground.

  “What do I want?” she asked. “I want what was taken from me.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Death,” she said.

  “Death?”

  “My death. I want you to kill me. Only you can.”

  He studied her eyes behind the mask, the tiny pink of her mouth. Her teeth were very small, he reckoned. Like a child’s.

  “No.”

  “I have no life. I want no life. I want my death back.”

  And she reached up with a gloved hand. He stepped away.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Your flesh will wither and die.”

  “It has already done so. I am a machine. There is nothing left for me but the sweet constant void of beyond.”

  And she touched his brow. Her hand was cold. Clockwork.

  “Your eyes are black,” she gasped. It sounded like a dove. “The third horse has found you. It will be easy now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You know that place, the beyond. You have been there too. Our Father sent you there.”

  “Frankow,” he said quietly. Amazing how his heart still ached.

  “You are his last and best. But I was his boldest. Firstborn of the Habsburgs. There was no one more important in the world than I. Of course he could kill you.”

  “It was my father, the sixth Lord of Lasingstoke. They were a part of the Ghost Club. They wanted to prove life beyond death.”

  “Did your father tell you this?”

  “My father was dead,” he said. “Arvin told me.”

  “He tells you what you want to hear, yes?” And she cocked her head. “And you still believe him?”

  He swallowed but had no words.

  “Of course you do. You love him. He is your father.”

  “Arvin Frankow is not my father.”

  “But he is your creator. You are his creation, utterly and completely. Has he ever told you how you see the dead?”

  “That night—”

  “No. Not ‘that’ night. Not any ‘night.’ Not our Father. Like me, you believe yet you shouldn’t.” She moved her hand now to his forehead, like a blessing. “The metalwork is almost undetectable. Exquisite.”

  “Very fine quality aluminium, or so I’m told.”

  “Not aluminium.”

  “What else would it be?”

  He could see the eyes gleam behind the slits in the mask.

  “You must ask him,” she breathed. “Ask him before you kill him.”

  “Kill him?” he stepped away from her. “I won’t kill Arvin Frankow.”

  “You will. The creature must always destroy the creator. It is the cycle of Life and Death.”

  “No.”

  “There are many things you must do before you become who you were created to become, before you accept the crown and take the throne. So many people will die, including me. It will be beautiful.”

  He shook his head, dropped his eyes to where Arclight hung across the iron corset, her rings spinning in opposite directions. She was playing like music now, beating his heart, pulsing his blood. She and Ghostlight owned h
is body, controlled his will. There was nothing he could do to resist them. And truth be told, he hadn’t the inclination.

  “You are lucky,” cooed Sophie. “She sings to you. Not to me. I am not so perfect.”

  And she lifted her hand to the clasp of the porcelain mask.

  She peeled it away, golden ringlets sticking to her forehead and clinging to the edge of the mask as if pasted. Raised her tiny jaw, face bare and exposed for him to see.

  Either the most beautiful woman in the Gilded Empire, the rumours went, or a machine.

  Neither.

  “Give me your hand,” she said in her thin, childlike voice. “We will finish this together. I wish to fully live my second death.”

  With her small blue eyes and tiny teeth, it was neither the face of a beautiful woman, nor that of a machine. Rather, it was the face of an infant who had died at the age of two.

  She had never grown. She had lived but had never grown.

  He took her clockwork hand and together, they stepped into the new tunnel and the labyrinth of stone and earth collapsed behind them.

  ***

  It was a small room with a low ceiling, curved walls and two wooden shelves spanning them. Urns of different sizes and shapes lined the shelves, all silver and tarnished with age. The Holy Father had given him a history lesson on each one as two hundred years of Imperial Holiness played out like a college tutorial.

  One urn was bright as the Queen’s tea service and the Holy Father held it up with both hands.

  “And this,” he said. “Is the heart of our beloved Rudolf, released far too soon from this mortal coil. May God have mercy on his soul.”

  “Amen,” said Christien. “May I see it?”

  “You are seeing it, my son.”

  “Of course. May I hold it?”

  “Why?”

  The Hussar was standing watch in the centre of the curved room.

  “The holy water,” he lied. “I was instructed to pour it over the heart to wash it with God’s deepest blessings.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s been mummified.”

  “Ah…”

  Damn.

  “Ah, well. That is unfortunate.”

  He had no words for that.