In the sixth dock I found Djata Mahmud in his mechanized wheelchair. Hanging from the roof over the dark water was an iron cage made of crisscrossed bars. It was a larger version of a bird cage, except taller, which gave me a terrible premonition of the task that lay before me.
Standing at the entrance to the boathouse, I observed the African scientist fiddling with a black box in his lap. He was quite handsome when he wasn't scowling at me. His cream trousers and linen buttoned shirt made his skin glow with an ebony warmth.
He was entirely in the moment, putting the final touches on something in the box. His face was almost boyish in its exuberance. At least until he saw me leaning in the doorway, then the muscles in his face contracted, pulling down the corners of his mouth.
I sighed and moved to him, my boots clicking across the wooden dock.
"How do you do, Princess," he said.
"I am your servant," I said, curtseying, though I was not wearing a dress. I had worn a pair of trousers and a brown linen shirt, expecting that my task was going to be unpleasant.
At close quarters, his gaze softened. "Are you well, Miss Dashkova?"
"As good as ever," I said, gritting my teeth.
Djata glanced at the iron cage hanging over the water and back to me. He seemed regretful about the task that lay ahead.
"Your hair is nearly bone white," said Djata.
"Such is the price of age," I said, glancing away.
He gave me a scurrilous bunching of the lips. "When I first met you two years ago, you looked a woman in her early thirties. Then I swore you regressed in age, growing younger rather than older. But now you appear to be a woman in her seventies or eighties. My apologies for my brutal honesty, but the means of this change leaves me with sorcerous impressions."
His concerns answered the question of whether or not Ben had shared the secrets of immortality. Since he had not deemed it wise to share it, I kept my promise to Ben.
"I assure you, Friend," I said, "that my condition is only the result of a foreign disease I have contracted through my alchemical studies. I appear worse than I feel, and hope that when the ailment passes I shall appear as before, in the blossom of my youth."
Djata chuckled despite himself. "I'd hardly say you were previously in the blossom of your youth."
"You surely know how to make a woman grow weak at the knees," I said. "Shall you next compare me to a withered thorn bush?"
He tapped thoughtfully on his chin. "It is quite an apt comparison, Princess."
For once the use of my title did not irritate, and I let a smile grace my lips.
Djata waggled his eyebrows. "If you're fit as an apple, then I shan’t feel any remorse for what I'm about to ask you to do."
"You provided for my request, so I am here as your servant," I said. "Though yonder cage leaves me a little unsettled."
He waved me over to a small steam engine on a cart. The engine was connected to the cage by a chain that went over the sturdy iron beam.
"I hired porters to set it up for me," answered Djata as the question danced on my lips.
A rectangular box made of dark wood sat on a table next to the cart. I'd seen similar boxes inside his house in the room with the distillery.
"I'll be sniffing one of your gasses tonight, won't I?" I asked.
"At least you're observant," he said as a passing insult, then seemed to change his mind about the implied tone and winked.
"Careful," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder, "you might get more than you bargained for." The muscles beneath the jacket were firm from the constant use of his arms.
He tilted his head at me, almost as if he were seeing me for the first time. "You'll not get out of your task that easily, Princess."
I leaned my head back and laughed. "I had to try." My wink was rewarded with a blushing smile.
Before he could say another word, I moved to the box and opened it, revealing two neat rows of tubes in a prismatic display of colors. The vials rested on a circular velvet cushion.
"You've been quite busy," I said, noticing that he smelled like vanilla.
"Be careful, that's a couple years' worth of work. The progress of knowledge is my charge," he said, but something about the tenseness of his forehead told me it was something else. I guessed it had to do with his legs, though I couldn't be certain.
"Only knowledge, not science?" I asked, catching the particularity of his jargon.
"I have learned things that do not cotton with the ideas of science," he said, lips drawn to a thin line. "Thus my studies have taken me far from the shores I thought to land."
"Why gas?" I asked, holding up a vial with a faint orange gas in it that sparkled when I swirled the mixture. "Why not liquid? Is this also part of this magic?"
"This is where science and magic, if that's what it is, cross paths. Liquid must pass through the stomach and intestines before entering the bloodstream, which complicates interactions depending on what you eat. Sniffing the gas allows the molecules to enter the bloodstream directly through the lungs, maintaining an effective purity," he explained.
The orange vial fit back into the velvet hole. I raised an eyebrow as I tapped my fingers along the rubber stoppers. When I came to a bright pink vial, he nodded.
"This one will allow me to walk on water?" I asked with a grin, motioning towards the iron cage.
"Walk under the water," he said, a little too grimly for my taste.
With my lips clamped tight, I blew my cheeks out and goggled my eyes as if I'd been holding my breath for a long time and was about to pass out. Djata broke into warm laughter that gave me goose bumps.
"I think you've got the idea," he said. Then a mischievous grin appeared on his lips. "You and I, Princess. We've gotten off on the wrong foot. I'd like to make it up to you. I'm going to the airship launch tomorrow. It would be my honor to escort you."
"I was planning on going," I said, thinking about the dangers of doing so.
"I have special tickets, too. Some politician's making his debut that day under the Federalist banner. The tickets get us a free meal and a chance to shake his hand, though I only care about the free food."
"I've already heard the news. William Bingham's running for President," I said.
Djata's brow creased in the middle. "No, that's not the name I heard. Spider, or something like that. Simon Spider."
It was like a cold hand reached into my chest and squeezed. "Simon Snyder? The Warden Simon Snyder?"
"Yeah, that's the one," he said.
The implications ricocheted through my head. Simon Snyder? The Warden?
"What office is he running for?" I asked, the words tumbling out of my mouth.
"Governor of the State of Pennsylvania," he said.
That cold hand in my gut gave a second squeeze. A simple truth occurred to me in that moment: that after my first encounter with Mrs. Bingham at the Patriot Letters, I never once saw her again. My communications from that moment forth had been directed through the Warden Simon Snyder.
It was entirely possible that Anne Bingham knew nothing of my acquisition of the duck egg. The connections grew clearer in my mind, like bright coals fed by a hasty bellows. The Warden must have noticed the duck egg in my coat pocket at the Franklin Estate, and later, when he heard about it missing, he kept my part in its theft quiet, only promising to find it again for a price.
The price of finding it became clear with the news of his potential governorship. He couldn't afford to run on his own, given the debts he owed to the Bank of North America. Which meant he'd been using the Binghams’ name to blackmail me into finding the duck egg for him—which meant I hadn't needed to put myself in danger of being murdered by Koschei.
I'd been thinking Anne Bingham the villain in this game, only to find out it was the constable under my nose. Which meant that he wouldn't want me to ever learn of this deception, or speak of it to Mrs. Bingham, which would tarnish the favor and ruin his connection.
"I know Simon Snyder," I
said in a daze.
Further words turned to ash in my mouth when I saw the gaunt man in the bloody Hussar jacket stoop through the entrance of the boat dock. His long strides swallowed the distance between us. At his passing, the gas lamps spit sparks inside the glass globes.
Djata followed my gaze, spinning his wheelchair around until he faced Koschei the Deathless.
"Flee," I gasped, trying to find my voice.
Koschei opened his mouth and a grinding sound like pebbles being crushed under a massive weight came out.
Djata leaned over, producing a repeating pistol from beneath his chair. Koschei's bloodshot gaze only momentarily flickered onto the African scientist, ignoring the weapon completely.
I backed away from the table of gas vials, with the pink one clutched in my hand. I thought about throwing myself into the slow-moving river, but Koschei had gotten off the island somehow, and my gut told me it wasn't on a boat.
"Go, Djata," I said. "He's coming for me. He doesn't want you."
"He'll be visiting the cold cook if he thinks he's going to get through me," said Djata, holding the pistol level.
His weapon wasn't a thing of beauty like my dueling pistol. It looked like one of those castles that kept having new rooms added on. I wasn't sure how the whole thing didn't tip over in his hand from the weight, but his muscled arms kept it straight.
The pistol barked twice, the sound echoing through the boathouse. Koschei kept coming as if he hadn't been hit, but at that distance, there was no way Djata had missed. He fired a third time, before looking sideways at his gun.
Koschei gave no quarter, plucking the scientist out of the chair and throwing him across the dock to slam into the nearest steamboat, before sliding down the side and splashing into the water. Only a red smear of blood on the boiler remained.
Before Koschei could reach me, I leapt towards the cage. A bony hand ripped the sleeve from my linen shirt, leaving a bloody welt. I slammed the cage door shut and put my hands through the bars to pull the key out.
The bony assassin struck my arm, knocking both key and vial from my hand before they could be tucked back into the cage. I fell to my knees, trying to catch them before they disappeared into the dark waters. A tiny plop signaled my fate.
I thought I might be safe in the cage at least, until Koschei's gaze followed the chain that went over the girder and back to the steam engine. With a hiss, he ripped the chain away from its hook and released it.
The chain whipped over the girder, smacking the boiler with a resounding gong. The whole cage dropped into the water. My last breath was filled with adrenaline and fear.
The light faded quickly as I sank to the bottom of the Schuylkill River. The cage hit the muck, sending up a cloud of inky blackness that swirled around my legs. The water beneath the docks wasn't as deep as the middle of the river, so the light reached me as dying illumination. Not that it would matter much longer.
Chapter Twenty-three
Fear came in three parts, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had told me once. The first was involuntary, like a bright light into the eyes eliciting a flinch. This was reaction alone. It was the fear that no one could avoid unless they were dead.
The second was dread. The anticipation of something bad happening. Like walking into a dark forest without a light, amid the howls of hungry wolves. Wolfgang had said that he had this fear before every performance. He wondered if the orchestra would be out of tune, or the mezzo-sopranos would sing off-key, or the Emperor would yawn. There was nothing to do about this fear but endure.
The last fear was made of ice, as if the Underworld had opened a vent into your soul. This was the fear of doing, like a soldier charging into battle with his bayonet like a lance before him and a cry on his lips.
This fear required mastery. It was necessary to own the fear as if it were a golden cloak made of the finest silk that you were proud to wear before a cheering crowd.
Wolfgang and I played a game with lock picks and an hourglass to master the third fear. The object of the game was to defeat the lock before the sands ran out. But failure earned a penalty.
While I tickled the tumblers, Wolfgang would stand behind me with a paddle ready to swat my bare bottom (we played this game naked, of course). He held no quarter when applying the punishment. The first time we played, I couldn't sit for a week without grimacing.
Being focused on the failure doomed my early attempts. By that time, I was a master lockpick, but having Wolfgang standing behind me giggling with that paddle in his hand unnerved me to distraction. Before our brief dalliance was over, I could solve the locks before the quarter-minute hourglass was half fallen, and while he held a spiked paddle at the ready.
I still kept a small set of picks stuffed into my boot. Already, the air in my lungs wanted to burst—I'd barely gotten a breath before the iron cage had sunk. I crouched deliberately and carefully removed the picks. The key to owning the fear was to not hurry. Hurrying was admission to yourself that you were afraid, and once fear took hold, the body wouldn't cooperate.
Taking one pick in each hand, I placed my hands through the bars so I could get at the lock. I'd caught a glimpse of the key before it fell into the water, so I knew it wasn't going to be a difficult lock, but I'd never opened one underwater.
Normally, I opened locks by touch. The pressure on the end of the pick felt sluggish, and the lock refused to open on my first few tries.
The air was a fire in my chest, burning to get out, and I couldn't even take a deep breath to clear my head. Holding my breath acted as a counterweight to my regular calming rituals. I didn't think I had many more tries until my mouth opened involuntarily and swallowed the river.
Closing my eyes, I pictured the key as it tumbled through the air. With that image in mind, I fiddled with the lock. Nothing.
I had one last try in me. Spots formed in my vision as I worked the picks.
When the door groaned open, I nearly opened my mouth in victory. Swimming back to the surface took days, and when I finally stuck my head out of the river to take a breath, I swallowed water in my gasp.
Coughing and wheezing, I clung to the spar beneath the dock, hoping that Koschei had left the boathouse. When I’d recovered enough to see, I moved along the edge of the dock until I came to a ladder. The strength in my limbs had fled and I couldn't have climbed out without its help. Collapsed on the dock, water spilling out around me like pale blood, I trembled with exhaustion.
"Djata," I whispered, and crawled across the dock though my arms wanted to give out.
Koschei had flung him through the air and against the boiler of the nearest steamboat. I expected to find empty water where he'd fallen, or at best, a floating corpse.
What I hadn't realized was that the particular steamboat he'd impacted had a wide base beneath the water. Djata lay unconscious in the shallow water, his face mercifully upward.
I thought him lucky until I saw the cloud of crimson surrounding him. He'd taken a heavy blow to the head and the blood flowed freely.
There was no way I could lift him out of the water by myself. I'd barely climbed out with the help of a ladder.
I thought about taking my steam carriage into the city to find a doctor, but I was afraid he'd die before we returned. I needed to get him out so I could stop the bleeding.
The steam engine idled nearby. I could lift Djata if I had a rope, since the chain was now lying at the bottom of the river along with the cage.
I stumbled around the docks, looking for a rope. When I couldn't find one, I pulled out my picks and broke into a steamboat. The inside looked like a French parlor, with gilded frames and velvet couches. Dripping water across the expensive Arabic rug, I searched until I found a coil of rope.
I fashioned a harness, then throwing the rope over the girder for leverage, I lifted Djata into the air using the power of the steam engine. With the wheelchair maneuvered beneath him, I cut the rope and he slumped into the chair, nearly tumbling out until I pushed him back in.
<
br /> I ripped an aqua curtain from the steamboat's window and wrapped it around Djata's head. The cloth stained black while I held it.
"Blazing suns."
I pushed Djata across the dock in his chair, the wheels crushing the remains of the broken vials. When Koschei had thrown Djata, he'd knocked the open box across the dock, breaking every vial and releasing every gas. Two years of work, gone in an instant.
Before I left the covered area, a glint of something drew my notice. It was one of the vials, floating in the water. I crawled on my knees and fished it out, holding it up to the light, revealing a swirling pink gas inside.
Tucking the vial into my pocket, I continued pushing the wheelchair. While my steam carriage was about a half a mile away in an alley, Djata's modified steam wagon was right behind the boathouse.
I was concerned that getting him into the wagon would be troublesome, but the inventor had made it so his wheelchair fit into the driver seat like a key in a lock. Once I had the wheelchair in place, I pushed him into the passenger seat, taking his place.
Operating Djata's steam wagon was different than a normal carriage, as the controls and breaks were adjusted by hand. A bit awkwardly, I drove him into the city and brought him to a doctor near the Water Works building on Walnut Street.
My blows against the door summoned the sleepy-eyed doctor who, once I explained the problem, rushed out to the vehicle and helped me carry Djata into his house. The front room operated as his attending station, and the doctor quickly had Djata stitched up and lying on a pea-green couch to recover.
The doctor seemed to accept my explanation that he'd fallen out of his wheelchair at the dock and hit his head, so I didn't have explain that a murderous ancient assassin who hid his soul in a duck egg had tried to kill us both. It seemed ridiculous even in my head.
I left Djata's vehicle at the doctor's house and promised the physician that his payment would come when the inventor awakened. The doctor hadn't heard of Djata Mahmud before, but the explanation of what he did for the Continental Army was enough for him.
Before I left, I gave the doctor the chocolate that I'd received from Morwen, the one labeled “Commerce,” and told him it would help the inventor recover from his injuries. If it truly worked as the others had, then it might serve as compensation for the loss of his vials, though I doubted Djata would see it that way.
A Cauldron of Secrets (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 2) Page 16
