by Ben Rovik
“Save it. I’m not about to praise you for doing a sloppy job on the bare minimum. Especially when you’ve still got six sleep-starved days before the feastday, which is ample time for someone like you to make an error that puts lives in jeopardy.” Kelley’s voice was light, like a green birch switch whipping against a child’s bare back. “Did I give you permission for this project of yours?”
“No, Sir Kelley.”
“Did I authorize the requisitioning of a squawk box?”
“No, Sir Kelley.”
“Did you think you could hide this project from me? Do you think I was pleased to find out about this project from a passing flunky in the Parade squad?”
“No, Sir Kelley.”
“Did I not tell you specifically, after our visit to my family homestead—an act of kindness I regret extending to you more and more with each passing day—that you were not to waste any more time fiddling with magic while you were in my service?”
“You said ‘while I was on duty,’ Sir Kelley,” Lundin corrected, eyes downcast.
Kelley’s black-gloved hand flashed up, and he slapped the technician across the mouth. Lundin staggered, cradling his jaw with both hands.
“I will escort you back to your filthy home, Mister Lundin,” the Petronaut murmured after a long moment, “where you will sleep for six hours. You will report directly to the warehouse at seven. You will spend the entire day preparing our equipment for inspection and installation in the Palace. If you find yourself with extra time, you will work harder on your assigned checklist or ask the senior technician for assignment. At ten o’clock at night, you will return to your pigpen, where you will eat a nourishing meal and fall asleep. You will report directly to the warehouse at seven the following morning. Is this pattern relatively clear to you?
“This pattern will continue until the feastday is behind us, at which point I will bring you before the Board of Governors to ask for your expulsion from the community of Petronauts. They will say yes, and you will leave. Then, and only then, will you have leave to give this idiotic pipe dream of clockwork sorcerers another solitary burning thought.”
Lundin straightened up, rubbing his mouth. Kelley’s green eyes were pitiless, radiating an unspoken “do I make myself clear?” “Sir,” Lundin said quietly, with a single nod.
Sir Kelley looked over Lundin’s shoulder at the Melodimax. His fists clenched at his side, and for a moment Lundin was certain the senior ‘naut was going to take an axe to the machine. “Parade squad will reclaim their gear first thing in the morning,” Kelley said instead, controlling himself with obvious disappointment. He looked up into the rafters. “Take those things down and follow me.”
Lundin looked up at the ojing as Kelley indicated them. They were a neutral, unblemished tan from one edge to the other. He clambered onto the stool, unsteadily, and stretched to his full height to undo the knots he had just tied a few minutes earlier. The surfaces of the ojing were smooth to the touch as he brought them down and carefully bound them up in the fabric sleeve Archimedia had given him.
Kelley was waiting by the door, arms akimbo. “Ready to go, Mister Lundin?”
He gave the squawk box one final look as he loaded up his satchel. The stillness of the mechanical cabinet gave it an odd sense of potential energy, as if a torrent of words and sound could come pouring out of the fluted trumpet at any moment. And all it needed was somebody to switch it on.
Lundin turned to the Petronaut, his eyes bleary and his jaw hurting. “Ready,” he said.
Chapter Seven
The Smiling ‘Naut
Samanthi crept up the staircase cautiously, her satchel held by its straps in one hand and her awl in the other. It was the closest thing she had to a weapon, and even though it was better at etching planks of wood than slaying ne’er-do-wells, hopefully the intruder would run away as soon as he saw that Samanthi was brandishing something. If that didn’t work, she would poke the intruder in the eye with it and brain him with the satchel full of books. If that didn’t work, this was likely to be a rough morning.
But somehow, as she reached the landing to the second floor, she couldn’t bring herself to be afraid of the miscreant who had broken into the Recon workshop. She was just plain mad. Not enough time in the day as it is, with the feastday work and the damn squawk box to tend to after hours. And now some idiot squatter has broken a window and climbed into the shop, probably relieving himself all over everything as he decides which bolts and gears to steal. She tightened her grip on the awl. I hope he doesn’t run, she thought, clenching her teeth. Draping the satchel over her wrist, she put her key in the doorknob, raised the awl high, and took a breath.
The sound of a heavy snore carried through the door.
Samanthi Elena swung the door open and swept through, makeshift weapons at the ready. “All right then, sleepybones,” she shouted, twirling her satchel in an intimidating manner. “On your feet, and let’s see you cough up the coin to fix that window. Get up! Show yourself!”
Early morning sunlight was streaming through the far rear window, glinting along the jagged edges of the broken panes of glass. The hefty rock used to break the window had landed on her work table, of course, scuffing the surface badly. There was the squawk box by the other table, flanked by tall stacks of those damnably tedious metal disks. The Melodimax was closed; and those stacks of disks were awfully high; and the disk presses were there on the shelf like they’d been recently used; and what were those little things hanging from the rafters?
“Morning,” Lundin said, standing up and scratching his chest.
“Sweet spheres, you’ve lost your mind,” Samanthi said, looking at the junior technician in bewilderment. His face was a mass of black stubble from his sideburns down to his adam’s apple, and his hair was folded crazily from sleeping with his head against a hard surface. His clothes were a mess. His eyes were still half-closed with obvious exhaustion. He had a bruise on one cheek, barely visible below the unfortunate proto-beard. And yet, somehow, he was smiling.
“Were you here all night, Lundin?” She put down the awl and satchel with some reluctance.
He yawned, shaking his head. “No—Sir Kelley took me home a little after midnight. Then—”
“Kelley took you home? You mean you told him about the project?”
“No, he found out. I’m fired, after the feastday. It’s been a pleasure working with you. Is it seven yet?”
“A few minutes after. What did you say, before ‘feastday?’”
“I’m fired. Well, probably. He took my workshop keys, so I had to break back in. Not an easy climb. Seven o’clock already! That means that, very soon, something will happen!”
Samanthi blinked. “You’d better lay this out for me a little more linearly, junior tech, or I’m gonna start thinking you drank your breakfast this morning.”
Lundin sat down on a stool and exhaled sharply, putting his hands on his knees. He opened his eyes as wide as he could and took a long moment to compose himself. “Senior tech,” he said finally, looking across the room at her, “I have some incredibly exciting news, and some arguably mutinous news. Which would you like to hear first?”
“Spheres help me, it’s too early for this,” Samanthi grumbled.
“Do you remember these?” he said, pointing upwards. Samanthi took a closer look at the circles of light leather hanging from the ceiling, dangling just above eye level.
“Wait—are those like the white circles that wizard had at LaMontina’s tent?”
“They’re called ojing,” Lundin said, nodding. “They turn white when there’s magic in the air. And that’s how I know that the squawk box can cast magical spells.”
Her eyes widened, and she advanced about five steps into Lundin’s area of personal space. “You’re kidding me! But they’re tan now,” she said with fierce excitement, right in his face. “How do you know the box works—unless you tried out that pingdu calabra last night. You tried it?”
“I tried t
he whole spell,” Lundin said.
Samanthi furrowed her brow. “The whole spell? You mean the whole friendship spell we were going to try on that dog? But there were hours of work left to do to get the Illustration stage in place.”
“About three hours,” Lundin leaned back on the stool, leaving only two legs on the ground.
“Lundin! You pressed all the rest of those disks last night? You probably made a damn mess of it too, trying to go that fast. Why? Why so impatient to cast a spell on some dog?”
“I didn’t cast the spell on the dog,” he said, an edge of typical Lundin nervousness creeping back into his voice. “You understand, Samanthi, right? I just couldn’t let it end like—”
“Facts, then blubbering. Who did you cast the spell on?”
“Mister Lundin!”
The technicians both turned to see Kelley framed in the doorway. His stark black-and-silver ensemble was clean and crisp, as always, and his green eyes were fixed on them with a hawk’s focus. But their jaws dropped when Sir Kelley’s mouth opened in a broad, gleaming, un-sardonic smile.
“Ms. Elena, good morning to you as well,” Kelley said, stepping towards them. “When I didn’t see you two at the warehouse I started to get worried. Mister Lundin, we did talk about a seven o’clock start time, didn’t we?”
“Yes, Sir Kelley, sorry, Sir Kelley,” Lundin mumbled, his eyes wide.
Kelley waved off the apology, his craggy face wrinkling with distaste. “Please! Please, don’t apologize! I was only asking because I’d forgotten. You know me; the only way I get anything done is if my fantastic team keeps me straight. Say, senior tech,” he said, approaching the squawk box with his hands clasped behind his back, “Remind me what this apparatus is, will you? I feel like I ought to know; but I just can’t remember!”
“Uh.” Samanthi looked at Lundin, who was just as wild-eyed as she was. “Well, Sir Kelley, this is the... This is the squawk box we requisitioned from Dame Miri for, uh. For that side project.”
“Aha! For the magic!” Kelley wheeled on them.
The technicians sputtered helplessly. “Yes, sir, for the magic,” Samanthi said.
Sir Kelley reached out and gave each of them a firm squeeze on the shoulder. “I need to tell you,” he said with serious eyes, “that I feel absolutely privileged to be in a squad with such visionary thinkers. And I want you to know that, even though the feastday’s coming up, since this project’s so important to you, I’m going to make the time and space in your schedules to free more hours for your research. If that means Sir Mathias and I go to the warehouse and refurbish some turbines ourselves over the next five days, then that’s what it means. Because you two are important—to me.”
The Petronaut looked at his team-mates with pride glowing out of his face. Impulsively, he bent towards Samanthi and gave her a noisy kiss on the forehead. “So, Horace,” he said, his arm still crooked companionably around Samanthi’s neck, “speaking of magic; does this thing work yet?”
Lundin turned slowly to look at the still, impassive Melodimax. He turned back to Sir Kelley and the quivering senior technician locked in his arms. “I think it does,” he said, swallowing.
“Spheres alive, it’s a breakthrough,” Kelley said, grinning broadly. “Say there, techs, if your box is in shape for a demonstration, let’s add it to the equipment we’ll bring to the palace! We’ll be set up in the Princess’s wing, interfacing directly with the Palace Guard and the court sorcerer. Our squad will never get a better chance to show Petronaut ingenuity at its finest to the powers –that-be.”
“Sir Kelley, I don’t know if that’s a good idea—” Samanthi began.
Sir Kelley held up a hand. “No, no, no; I’m sorry, Ms. Elena. I don’t like to make decisions unilaterally, but I know that the two of you are too modest and conscientious to worry about anything but working. You’ll never put yourself forward to ask for a little acclaim, a little recognition. Well, not this time. You’ve made something wonderful happen, and doggone it, I won’t rest until Princess Naomi herself puts medals around your necks. We’re bringing your wizard box to the palace, and that’s final.”
Lundin had to sit down. “I don’t know what to say, Sir Kelley.”
“Well, first off, you can cut it out with all that ‘Sir Kelley’ stuff. Doesn’t anyone call me Tymon anymore?”
Their jaws dropped. “Tymon?” Lundin asked.
Kelley nodded slowly, like confirming something to a pair of kids. “Tymon Kelley Malcolm, Esquire. Named for my grandfather. Speaking of which,” he said, frowning, “I haven’t paid him a visit in more than a week. Shameful, when he lives so close by!
“See you at the warehouse, techs! I’ll get started; come by when you’re at a stopping point with the old side project.” Kelley flashed them a final bright smile, tapped his hand twice on the doorframe, and was gone.
A sparrow flew into the room through the broken window and landed on the rock on the table. He cocked its head at the two humans in the workshop, who were being unusually quiet for the big, bumbling behemoths they were. Well, if they want to just stand there staring at an open door, the sparrow thought philosophically, who am I to judge? He flew into the rafters and ate a spider.
Samanthi and Lundin finally overcame their paralysis and looked at each other. “I actually guessed that part about ‘T’ standing for ‘Tymon,’” Lundin said in a sudden burst of words. “That’s what I had the squawk box repeat over and over again for the Enunciation—Tymon Kelley Malcolm. I think that’s probably why it worked so well.”
“In your head, this counts as something ‘working well,’” Samanthi said, staring at him.
“I don’t see what else it would count as.”
“You ensorcelled our squad leader to avoid getting fired.”
“In my defense, I was extremely tired.”
Samanthi punched him in the chest as hard as she could and he tumbled backwards off the stool. “Sometimes having a junior tech is way more trouble than it’s worth,” she said, pressing her fingers against her temples.
Chapter Eight
Feastday Eve
“Master Volman?”
Davic Volman, royal steward to the Haberstorms and the Delian crown, pursed his lips in annoyance. The gaunt man had been overseeing preparations for feastdays since the early years of Queen Tess and King Randolph, decades before Princess Naomi was ever conceived. The household typically ran like Petronaut clockwork thanks to his logistical expertise. But for all that, the chaos surrounding this feastday was unparalleled. For whatever reason, Princess Naomi’s emergence from the First Ordeals was like no other event he’d ever managed; Volman couldn’t turn around lately without some crisis leaping into his lap like a muddy dog. At least with the feastday finally coming tomorrow, life would return to the way it should be at last.
All he had to do was make it through tomorrow. He made a genuine effort to mend the frayed edges of his patience, though he was sure his face betrayed some of his irritation as he turned to face the mop-headed serving boy who came trotting up to him, flushed from running.
“Yes, Fermi? Speak quickly,” Volman said, continuing to inspect the latest bundles of greenery brought in from the gardens. The branches were ragged and irregular, less like they’d been deliberately pruned and more like a storm had blown them out of the trees. Does anyone in this palace know how to do their jobs anymore? he thought as he measured out a length of wire from the spool and cut it with the shears, preparing to make a sample arrangement.
Fermi brushed his sandy hair out of his eyes and gasped for air for an infuriating length of time. “Begging your pardon, Master Volman, as I know you’re awfully busy,” he said.
“Very astute of you, Fermi,” Volman said, frowning at a leaf between his fingers.
“I’ve just been down in the vault, Master, to fetch the heraldry, the ancient heraldry.”
“I am familiar with the Haberstorm heraldry, yes, Fermi. Did you deliver the hangings to her Royal Highness
’ apartments?”
“No, Master, I ran right to you when I saw it.”
“I don’t need them here in the south wing, boy! Take the hangings to the royal apartments, and quit wasting time!”
“But, Master,” Fermi cried, “when I saw it I had to come to you first. It’s her Royal Highness’ braid, Master Volman. Her hair? I think it’s gone.”
Volman’s long fingers stopped their exploration of the cut branches. He slowly removed his hands from the table and lowered them to his sides. The tall man turned to face the boy head-on, and the youngster quailed before the intensity of his gaze. “Now why would you think a thing like that, Fermi?” Volman said, very softly.
Fermi gulped, following his master’s lead and speaking in a whisper. “Well now, Master, there’s the great marble box in the vault with all those drawers? Where the keepsakes from the Ordeals past and present go; the hair, the robes, the collars—”
“Yes, Fermi, the Shrine of Ordeals. I am well aware.”
“Well, as I was fetching the heraldry from the same room in the vault, I noticed that the drawer for Princess Naomi’s things was open a crack.”
Volman shook his head. “That’s not possible. The drawer was sealed shut when the Princess’ hair was removed and placed therein two weeks ago.”
“I know, Master, I know it was you who locked her Highness’ hair up personally, turned the key yourself.” The boy leaned in closer, sharing a terrible secret. “But it was open. A little chip of stone was broke inside so the drawer couldn’t slide back on its track all the way, I saw it.”
“You opened the drawer,” Volman said, his eyes narrowing.
Fermi nodded. “Yes, Master, seeing as it was so strange it wasn’t sealed. And that’s when I saw Princess Naomi’s pretty hair was nowhere to be seen. Master Volman—I think somebody’s stolen her braid.”
Volman laid his hands on the table, shifting the great spool of black wire slightly to one side. He looked down into the branches, his eyes unfocused. Fermi looked around to make sure no one else was listening. “If you’ll hear me out, Master,” he hissed. “I think there might be wizardry afoot. You know how those traitors stole Viscount LaMontina’s blood from the leeching last month, and then the cowardly witch killed him without even looking him in the eye? What if somebody’s trying to do the same thing to the Princess? Right during the Ordeals, when her Royal Highness is already so weak! If they’ve got her hair, that means they can do horrible things to her! Doesn’t it?”
