“So Jasinski is a better witch than you?”
Veles ignored the impulse to throttle Thwaites. “It’s not uncommon for one witch not to be able to dispel magic set by another. Jasinski would have expected a witch—perhaps me in particular—to want what he has. If he couldn’t keep it, he made sure we couldn’t get it.”
“How do you know the Russian stones aren’t in there?” Thwaites asked.
Veles shook his head. “Jasinski specializes in sending nasty spirits back where they came from. He does more exorcisms than the priests. And his power is real, there’s no doubt about that. So of course he took the gessyan rising as a personal challenge. If he has the Alekanovo stones—and Marcin’s book—he will try to bind the gessyan, and send the Night Hag back where she came from.”
“And you’re sure that’s what is in the missing box, the one he hired Brand and Desmet to smuggle out of Poland?”
Veles nodded. “Jasinski has been in touch with witches all over Russia and Eastern Europe. He found what he was looking for, but it’s difficult to get certain objects out of there these days. Brand and Desmet specialize in acquiring hard-to-find objects, without always worrying about the letter of the law. Of course he’d go to them to get what he needed.”
“If he knows someone is after him, he’s probably long gone,” Thwaites replied.
That’s what you’d do, Veles thought. Then again, there’s not an ounce of real commitment in your body.
“Not Jasinski,” Veles said. “I met him on a few occasions. He’s like a bloodhound when something intrigues him. He’s out there somewhere, trying to figure out where his pieces are, trying to make a plan for how to do what he set out to do. If we had the stones, I could be certain of controlling the gessyan,” Veles continued. “Without them, it will be more difficult.”
If Jasinski hadn’t betrayed me, those stones would be in my possession by now, and we’d have the lid back on our own little hell. “I’m going to need those artifacts to pull the Night Hag and the wraiths and the hell hounds back into the mines,” Veles added. “But in the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about keeping the gessyan from eating all our workers.”
“Frankly, I don’t see the problem with the Night Hag,” Thwaites said, swirling the amber liquid in his Baccarat Crystal glass and taking another puff of his cigar. “A good dose of fear keeps the rabble in at night, off the streets.” He chuckled. “You know, they’re actually talking about it being the Ripper at work?”
“The murder victims may not be members of your pricey Duquesne Club, but that doesn’t mean they’ll go unnoticed forever,” Veles said. “Murders attract attention, and that’s bad. Especially when it wouldn’t take much for a clever policeman to trace the deaths back down the rivers all the way to Vestaburg.”
“You’re assuming one can find a ‘clever’ policeman in New Pittsburgh who isn’t on my payroll,” Thwaites replied. “I’m still surprised the spooks don’t just prey on the miners. Why go out when there’s good food at home? Seriously—why can’t you just magic the tourmaquartz out? Save us time and money.”
“First, because that’s not the way magic works,” Veles growled. “Even I don’t have limitless power, and trying to control dozens of miners in the deep levels at all times would be suicidal. And second, because science is harder to track than magic. Every use of magic runs the risk of bringing the Department down on us. They have watchers who look for that kind of thing. Bad enough that we’ve used the magic I’ve already done for you. Fortunately wards and protections to keep the remaining gessyan in the mines don’t make much of a ripple. Anything else, we might as well send up a flare.”
“Pity,” Thwaites said.
“It’s my spells that are keeping them from devouring your miners on the upper levels,” Veles said. “The overseers can’t be helped. They go lower than the slave-workers, and I can’t sustain wardings on a bigger area than I’ve already warded. Magic has its limits against old power like gessyan,” he added. “And there aren’t enough of your clockwork corpses and metal men to mine the tourmaquartz and the coal if the rest of the miners die or get so scared they won’t come back.”
“They won’t strike,” Thwaites replied. “Frick broke the union’s back. The Homestead Strike put a nail in that coffin.”
Veles considered pointing out a number of instances when peasants had indeed had enough of their masters despite the cost and risen up, with disastrous results for men like Thwaites. His kind is doomed to repeat history, Veles thought. They consider themselves above it. Magic had extended Veles’s lifespan long enough for him to know the meaning of caution. Witches of his power could live a century and a half or more. Not as long as a vampire, but more than sufficient to inform his perspective.
“Don’t think yourself so smart,” Veles growled. “There’s always someone. Or one of those muckraking journalists like that Ida Tarbell woman sniffing around for a story. And how they’d love to find a pretty little heir to a local fortune hip-deep in the muck,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“We’re in this together,” Thwaites shot back. “And I’ve got enough lawyers on retainer to take care of Tarbell and her ilk. You handle the magic; I’ll handle the media.”
“I FAIL TO see why you’ve brought us to the middle of nowhere.” The Spanish nobleman leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He and the other passengers of the well-appointed, private passenger car looked out at the empty land on either side of the railroad tracks and then returned to glowering at Veles and Thwaites.
“Gentlemen! All will be made clear very soon,” Veles promised.
Their guests were a volatile mix of personalities. A Spanish nobleman with financial interests dependent on Spain winning its conflict with the United States, an Italian anarchist, a leader of the Greek nationalist movement and a wealthy Sudanese tribal chief. All had come here for a demonstration of what Veles had promised would be a ‘game changer’ in pursuing their varied political interests.
“All of you depend on steam-powered machines—either for weapons or for transportation,” Veles said. “But coal is bulky and dirty. It’s difficult to transport and large endeavors require an unwieldy amount. What if you could power an airship with something no larger than my finger?” he asked. He had their full attention now.
“What if you could create powerful weapons with a sliver of this substance, making them smaller and easier to transport?” he asked, withdrawing a piece of tourmaquartz from one pocket. “This,” he said, holding the crystal between thumb and forefinger, “is the equivalent of four cases of dynamite.”
“Unbelievable,” the Spaniard said with a dismissive gesture. “Do you take us for fools?”
“A pretty fantasy,” the Italian added. “Prove it.”
Veles signaled to the werkman who until now had stood silent at the end of the passenger car. The mechanical man came forward, and Veles inserted the sliver of tourmaquartz into a small opening in the werkman’s chest. “Leave the rail car,” he ordered. “Go three hundred paces east. Then stop.”
Obediently, the werkman did as he was told, and stopped within sight of the windows of the train. Veles’s guests moved to look out the windows.
“Observe.” Veles lifted a detonator. “An aetheric wave transmitter, attuned to the same frequency as the electrical system of the werkman,” he said, pressing the button. “When a high voltage charge goes through the tourmaquartz—” The resulting explosion was spectacular enough he did not need to finish his sentence.
The excited buzz of exclamations and questions rose to a din before Veles raised his hand. “I’m sure that what you’ve seen gives you some ideas,” he said with a smug half-smile.
“How do we know it’s not a trick?” The Greek glowered at Veles. “Perhaps your mechanical man was filled with dynamite. The stone might not have had anything to do with the explosion.”
Veles shrugged. “A reasonable question,” he said magnanimously. “And I will set your concern to rest in just a
moment. But I’d like to direct your attention to the rear of the car.” The shades on the windows in the last third of the railcar were drawn, making it fairly dark. Veles walked a few paces to pull down a white screen, and returned to where he had been standing. A Théâtre Optique praxinoscope sat on a rolling cart in the middle of the car. Veles lit the lantern and spun the wheel.
Images appeared on the screen, and Veles’s guests leaned forward to watch them unfold. A man held up a piece of tourmaquartz not much larger than the one Veles had displayed. He set it on a wooden crate and connected two wires to the crystal, then spooled out the wire and took shelter behind a thick stone wall. When the crystal detonated, the explosion hurled rock and bits of crate high into the air and left a crater several feet deep.
“Think of the possibilities,” Veles urged. He turned off the lantern and moved the cart aside. “And now, if you’ll follow me to the engine of this train, I have something else to show you.”
The guests murmured among themselves as they followed Veles forward. He opened the door of the coal car, nearest the engine, to reveal an empty shell. As they exclaimed in surprise, Veles led them to the engine itself. Where there should have been a furnace filled with coal, a sliver of tourmaquartz glowed incandescently behind a mica glass window, and the heat radiating from the customized chamber was clearly enough to power the boilers that drove the train.
“You’ll note the locomotive engine emits a cloud of steam, but no coal smoke,” Veles said, gesturing skyward as his potential investors craned their necks to see. Everyone began to talk at once.
“Gentlemen, please,” Veles said. “Let’s discuss this in a more comfortable setting.”
When they returned to the passenger car, a kingly repast of delicacies had been set out on a dining cart, complete with fine liquor. Another werkman, dressed as a waiter, made certain everyone was served before withdrawing discreetly to the back of the car. Richard Thwaites had taken a seat at the front, and now that Veles had made the presentation, Thwaites was at home pouring drinks and talking about money.
“Quantities of tourmaquartz are naturally limited,” Thwaites said, leaning back in his chair. “In fact, the vein we’ve discovered is the only known source in the world not under the control of the government. We’re prospecting for more, but as it stands, the production of our mine is all the tourmaquartz available to investors such as yourselves.”
“We’ve already committed to several orders,” Veles added nonchalantly, “so some of the production is spoken for. But there is some tourmaquartz still remaining, and it can be yours—if you have the cash to pay for it.”
“The bidding starts at a million dollars a pound,” Thwaites said with a smile.
DROGO VELES WAS in a foul mood as his carriage jostled back and forth. Two days had passed since the railway excursion with investors, and he had returned to New Pittsburgh tired and out of sorts. His carriage had left the comparatively better roads of New Pittsburgh proper a while back, and the roadways leading to the Vesta Nine mine were as shoddy and patched together as the run-down little company houses that lined them. His conversation with Thwaites had not helped his mood, but then again, it seldom did.
I doubt Thwaites likes my company any better than I like his, Veles thought. But we are valuable to each other, and it’s far too late to turn back now.
The carriage was expensive, a handbuilt chariot d’Orsay with the Thwaites’s family crest painted in an emblem on its side and back. It was ostentatious for a visit to a coal mine, but Thwaites insisted he take it, and Veles preferred using one of Thwaites’s carriages to one of his own. If it goes badly, let them remember seeing him and not me, Veles thought, leaning back against the tufted velvet cushions.
“Wait here.” Veles did not bother looking up at the coachman as he stepped out of the carriage, and he had the impression that the driver was glad to comply. Nothing like a reputation as a dark witch to keep conversation to a minimum.
He looked out over the sprawling Vesta Nine complex. Everything in New Pittsburgh seemed to be built on a scale the Old World only glimpsed with the pyramids and the Louvre, or perhaps Russia’s Winter Palace. Steel mills rose like the tarnished palaces of sooty gods, taking up vast swaths of the riverbanks, belching smoke and spewing fire. The mines, with their tipples and myriad larger-than-life buildings, looted the treasuries of the Underworld and turned coal into gold.
Here, Veles’s penchant for dark clothing served him well. He had no intention of being seen and remembered. The coachman would be easy enough to take care of, once he returned to the city. A bit of magic, and memory became unreliable. But magicking the memories of hundreds—thousands—of miners was another matter entirely. And despite Thwaites’s blithe dismissal, Veles was certain that even the wretched brutes who worked in the depths of the Vesta Nine knew something was gravely wrong.
He had survived uprisings on the Continent. Unlike Thwaites, Veles understood that peasants could only be pushed so far before they rebelled, even against impossible odds. Enough peasants with pitchforks—or miners with pickaxes—can overcome any hired army or Pinkerton strongmen, Veles thought. Bought loyalty only goes so far. The situation was even more of a powder keg than Veles acknowledged to his partner. If the miners got balky, some kind of investigation was sure to follow, and Thwaites’s payroll was unlikely to cover everyone likely to be poking noses into the affair.
He did not fear the night’s work, not exactly, although an ancient, powerful supernatural hive could never be approached lightly. Yet over the long years, Veles had learned to focus, and had trained himself to discipline his fears with preparation. He had rested and made ready, gathered his amulets and talismans to protect himself and amplify his power. The time and day, even the phase of the moon, were auspicious. Without the Russian stones supposedly in that damned crate from Poland, it was the best he could do.
Despite himself, his heartbeat picked up its pace. The night air was cool, and the sky overhead obscured by the ubiquitous Pittsburgh smoke. He moved quickly, in the shadows. Well-timed flickers of magic distracted guards or gave them something else to remember. This part was easy.
It was the middle of the night shift, but even so, Veles avoided the main entrance to Vesta Nine. He had memorized the layout of the massive complex, and that exercise served him well. Even at a distance, he could sense the strain against the wardings he had set in place. His was powerful magic, but not omnipotent. Gessyan were well feared by reasonable people back where Veles came from. There were reasons Eastern Europe was thought to be a dark, forbidding place. Wolves were not the only predators long banished from the West that thrived in the East. Other creatures, red of tooth and claw, made the forests and caverns of the less populous Eastern kingdoms their homes. We understand these things.
He closed his eyes, opening up his magic. He could see his old wardings like gossamer strands forming a grid all around the mine. He had not been able to contain the most powerful gessyan,like the Night Hag, the wraiths and the hell hounds. They had fled the mine as soon as the deep places were violated and the ancient spells broken, screaming out into the night, ready for a harvest of blood.
Even they have learned not to destroy all the miners, at least, not all at once, Veles thought. The Logonje taught them that lesson the hard way. They’ll hunt farther afield if they can, and the hunting here is likely very good indeed.
It irked him that even with all his power, he had not been able to force the Night Hag and her fellow spirits back into the deep places. He had settled for bottling up the lesser creatures, and forcing those with more strength to leave the mine, avoiding workers on the higher levels. It was a choice with consequences. By keeping certain gessyan imprisoned, he reduced the slaughter outside the mine, buying them time to complete the tourmaquartz extraction. But he could not seal the gessyan away completely, not without the Russian artifacts, nor could he recall the powerful gessyan that had escaped. And now that he knew about the gessyan and their power, he was n
ot certain that he wanted to bottle them up, if he might be able to control such potentially useful creatures.
All this for a bit of rock. Not even gold. Yet he, even more than Thwaites, understood the true value of tourmaquartz. Thwaites saw everything in terms of money and social status. Veles had enough of both to last several lifetimes. The real prize was power—power enough to have prime ministers and madmen at his beck and call. Power to change the destiny of nations, unseat kings, nudge history’s course to a path of his own choosing. Dabblers like Thwaites would never grasp that power was far more valuable than money. Money could be seized or destroyed. Power endured. And the power that came from control of a substance that could keep airships flying or energize the weapons of armies was rich indeed. It could be nearly unstoppable. The thought made Veles’s lips quirk in the barest suggestion of a smile.
Few people in New Pittsburgh understood the nexus of power that surrounded them. Three rivers converged, and a fourth, hidden aquifer beneath the ground was the mightiest of all. Seams of rich minerals veined these hills. Countless tunnels ran through them, conduits for magic power. Even now, no one knew exactly how many tunnels there were or where they all ran. New Pittsburgh was like a magical kettle on a hot stove, ready to boil over. Even the original inhabitants, the people settlers ignorantly called ‘Indians’, knew that the swift, deep rivers were places where strong magic ran. It was a most volatile mixture.
Magic springs from the earth and the sky and the stars. Science is a pale competitor, trying to explain away what small minds can’t comprehend. The Gloomy Dane was right; there are far more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of by philosophers—or scientists.
In the shadows, Veles used salt and iron shavings to set a warded circle. He wore protective amulets of tin and aluminum, and carried a polished quartz disk in his pocket. Veles spoke his spells in Romanian, his native language, closest to his heart. The working required a few drops of his blood, shed with an obsidian blade, mixed with iron and lead. All of the clockworks and mechanisms in the mines seemed to resist his magic, as if in even the smallest of ways, the tension between new and old was ever present.
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