Moment of Truth

by Michael Pryor

  Two impulses warred in him: to find out more, and to take what they already knew back to Albion.

  ‘They’re finishing,’ George said. ‘The bridge is all packed away.’ Aubrey scrambled to see what was going on.

  ‘Not that one,’ Sophie pointed.

  At the rear of the parade ground, one of the mechanical soldiers was bent at the waist. Its arms dangled nearly to the ground.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ Caroline asked.

  The rest of the mechanical soldiers were back in ranks and were marching off the parade ground. Their chimneys steamed purposefully. Baron von Grolman pointed his cane after them, no doubt explaining more features of his creations. Aubrey doubted that the baron would need to possess a silver tongue. His mechanical soldiers were impressive enough to sell themselves.

  The baron shepherded the dignitaries away from the parade ground toward the old buildings. They went past the concrete elephant, close enough for Aubrey to see their faces. The generals were impressed. Some tried to hide it, but the others were talking keenly with the baron, asking questions about maintenance and transport.

  On the parade ground, the sergeant-major was left behind with the sole remaining mechanical warrior. He marched over and stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

  Aubrey narrowed his eyes. Nothing was coming from its chimney – no smoke, no steam. Was that the problem?

  The sergeant-major turned toward the warehouse. He roared, and Aubrey clearly heard his voice, even over the mechanical rumble of the last of the mechanical soldiers. He was shouting for coal.

  ‘Impossible,’ Caroline said. ‘You couldn’t feed these things on coal. They’d have to drag a tender around with them.’

  ‘A tender the size of an omnibus,’ George muttered.

  Aubrey didn’t respond. He had a suspicion that their clever enemy had concocted a way around that limitation. After all, they should have moved with the ponderousness of steam engines. Clearly, magic had been used to new and frighteningly efficient effect, as Sophie had suggested.

  A white-coated civilian ran from the warehouse. Aubrey wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d pushed a wheelbarrow, or even carried a bucket, but he was startled to see that the man was carrying a brass cylinder about the length of his forearm – and a pair of tongs.

  ‘We’ve seen those cylinders before,’ George said to Sophie and Caroline. ‘In the factory.’

  ‘But they were empty. Now we might get to see what they’re used to transport,’ Aubrey said.

  The sergeant-major, no fool apparently, stood back while the hapless white coat clamped the cylinder and the tongs under one arm, then with the other reached into the chest cavity of the metal warrior. A series of movements – opening a hatch? – then the white coat straightened.

  His next movements spoke of extreme care. He slowly unscrewed the top of the cylinder, then placed the cylinder on the ground with exquisite caution, making sure it was steady, pausing, waiting with every tiny movement. Finally, when he was sure it was stable, he took the tongs. Delicately, he reached into the cylinder and withdrew a small black object, the size and shape of a golf ball.

  George adjusted his field glasses and whistled. ‘That’s coal?’

  ‘It can’t be ordinary coal,’ Aubrey said. His mind was spinning. He was already thinking of ways in which coal could be compressed, enriched, but every one of them was crazily dangerous. The Law of Amplification? The Law of Compression? ‘It must be enhanced coal, the same way these are enhanced golems.’

  The white coat managed the difficult task of leaning away while thrusting the laden tongs into the chest cavity of the mechanical soldier. A jerk or two of his shoulders and he withdrew with every sign of relief.

  A blast of smoke shot from the mechanical soldier’s chimney. It straightened. Its arms swung like pendulums, making the white coat and the sergeant-major fling themselves aside. It twisted at the hips, then set off after the last of its comrades.

  The sergeant-major climbed to his feet and dusted himself off sourly. The white coat stared after the retreating mechanical soldier, then stood and absently wiped the tongs on his coat.

  The sergeant-major recoiled, shouting. Instantly, the white coat whipped off his coat and flung it on the ground – just before it burst into flame. As he stamped on it, the sergeant-major berated him roundly.

  ‘Astounding,’ George said. He lowered his field glasses.

  ‘Super soldiers and super coal,’ Caroline said. She looked grim.

  More than ever, the mission weighed on Aubrey. Holmland’s military build-up had long been feared, but its magical preparations were proving to be equally formidable. Could Albion and its allies hope to combat such terror?

  Forewarned is forearmed, he thought. ‘We’ll get this back to the Directorate. But before we do, we have to find Théo.’

  ‘So it’s time to get some people out of a building, quickly,’ Caroline said.

  Aubrey held up a finger. ‘It’s time to abandon the elephant.’

  ‘Which isn’t a phrase we get to use enough, to my mind,’ George said as he lifted the trapdoor.

  ‘Keep it for your next dinner party,’ Aubrey suggested. ‘“I’m sorry, Duchess, but it’s time to abandon the elephant.”’

  Caroline stifled a laugh and Aubrey was inordinately pleased.

  Twenty-nine

  George led them via a circuitous route. He took them through a maze of sheds and workshops, dark and quiet at this time, for which Aubrey was grateful. Then they skirted the building that held the electrical generator. Aubrey could feel the turbine at work, with the concrete underfoot vibrating and an almost tangible hum in the air.

  They kept to the shadows, listening before moving. Sophie was no handicap either, moving silently and proving to have excellent night vision. She was the one who pointed out a guard who was leaning against a supply hut, asleep and unmoving, an observation that prevented them from bumping right into him.

  The barracks was a collection of long, single-storeyed timber buildings raised on piles. They looked new, to Aubrey’s eye, and he noted how each one of them was linked by electrical wires. The windows were dark, but each building was easily big enough to sleep fifty.

  They crept close, then stopped in the shadows of a lone oak tree.

  ‘Caroline?’ Aubrey whispered. ‘Do you need any help?’

  ‘I’d be happy of it. Follow me.’

  With that, they slipped off, shadows among shadows.

  Fifteen minutes later, after they’d completed their mischief and climbed the oak tree, Aubrey found that it was festooned with coloured electric light globes, a remnant of a celebration from happier days. He hoped that they had been disconnected.

  From their position in the branches, he shook his head in admiration at the chaos below. ‘Nicely done, Caroline. The actual fire was a master stroke.’

  At the far end of the barracks, a metal drum was ablaze with the most noxious and smoke-producing materials they’d been able to find, grandly topped off with what George assured them was a damp dog blanket.

  The result was a horde of Holmland soldiers bolting from the front doors, stumbling and wheezing, pouring down the stairs into the open air. When someone activated the fire alarm for the second time that day, the commotion was complete.

  ‘There!’ Sophie pointed, so eagerly that George had to throw out an arm to stop her slipping from their perch. ‘There! It is Théo!’

  Aubrey had to trust the spell was helping her identification. In the gloom and smoke, all the soldiers looked the same, but he saw the way that Sophie kept shifting her position, tracking one particular infantryman as they bumped and blundered before one – smarter, or less smoke-dazed than the others – managed to stagger through the smoke to find its source. He kicked it over, shouting for help.

  ‘Excellent,’ George said, ‘but now we’ve found him, how are we going to spirit him out of here?’

  ‘I wonder if these soldiers ever go to the
town,’ Caroline said. ‘We might be able to separate Théo from the others.’

  ‘Separate him,’ Aubrey mused. ‘That’s the trick, isn’t it?’ He peered through the leaves. The milling about was dying down as NCOs reasserted their control. ‘Sophie, what’s your brother’s health like?’

  Sophie frowned, then she glanced at George and Caroline, who both shrugged. ‘Aubrey’s irrelevant questions sometimes aren’t,’ Caroline explained.

  Sophie didn’t look entirely convinced. ‘Théo is strong, even though he is small.’

  ‘Childhood illnesses? Accidents?’

  ‘He had bleeding noses when he was little, but not any more.’

  Aubrey rubbed his forehead. ‘And his teeth?’

  ‘Teeth?’ Sophie shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I do not know. Why is it important?’

  ‘Teeth are good,’ Aubrey said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I can do something with teeth.’

  From their position in the once-festive oak tree, they could hear the groans. Piteous, heart-wrenching groans that made Sophie greatly distressed. ‘Oh, I did not know it would be so!’ she said softly as they watched the figure being helped down the stairs of one of the huts by two comrades.

  ‘Did you have to give Théo such a corker of a toothache?’ George said to Aubrey. ‘The poor fellow looks completely knocked about.’

  Medical magic not being one of Aubrey’s specialities, he was actually quite pleased with the result. He’d been able to invert a pain-relieving spell and keep its location confined to a single tooth, with only Sophie’s orientation and distance estimate to guide him. Building in a sympathy element so it would home in on Théo and not some poor unfortunate nearby was also quite a coup, so Aubrey was a little miffed at the criticism.

  ‘It won’t last,’ he assured Sophie. ‘An hour at the outside. Just enough to get him to the infirmary.’

  ‘Where we can talk to him,’ Caroline said. ‘A neat plan, Aubrey.’

  The criticism was forgotten as he warmed to her praise. Even while he noted the effect it had on him, he was promising himself to do his best to earn more. ‘And shall we follow, then?’

  George snorted and tapped the trunk with a fist. ‘I know it should be Prince Albert saying this, but as far as secret refuges go, this was an excellent branch office.’

  ‘Hush,’ Caroline said at the groans that followed George’s dreadful pun, but Aubrey saw her smiling. ‘If we’re going to shadow Théo, then let’s do it quietly.’

  They watched and followed, twitchingly alert for the appearance of sentries, guards, giant soldiers, insomniacs, astronomers or any other unexpected night strollers. Aubrey wouldn’t have been surprised to stumble upon smugglers, nightwatchmen or bat-fanciers, such was the outlandish nature of the goings-on at the complex thus far.

  The groaning Théo was taken to one of the wings of the old building, past the concrete animals. After some hammering on the door, a light came on and the trio was admitted. Soon after, Théo’s comrades emerged and hurried back toward the barracks. The light stayed on in the infirmary and Aubrey suggested that they hide in the nearby garden while they waited for Théo to be treated and the physician to retire again.

  This was signalled by the light going out in the infirmary. They waited another ten minutes, to be sure, then it was Caroline’s deft work on the lock that gave them egress – only to find Théo stretched out on the bed, insensible in the moonlight that spilled through the uncurtained window.

  ‘Théo!’ Sophie gasped, then she clapped her hands over her mouth at George’s fervent hushing. She rushed to the bed – the only occupied bed in the four-bed infirmary – just as Théo began snoring.

  He was unmistakeably a relative of Sophie. He was short, and his blond hair and fine features were a masculine version of the Delroy physiognomy.

  Aubrey kept an eye on the only other door in the sparsely outfitted room, but his mind was working. He’d been expecting to find wards full of wounded soldiers, the poor souls he’d seen transported and delivered to the factory, but the infirmary was tiny. Four beds only, it was doing its best to be unwelcoming, without going to the actual extent of having a ‘Malingerers Not Wanted’ sign.

  So where are those wounded soldiers?

  Caroline knelt at Théo’s bed and rolled back one of his eyelids. ‘It appears that your brother has been given some treatment.’

  ‘Treatment?’ George pushed up Théo’s sleeve. ‘Some sort of opiate jab, it looks like. He must have been persuasive.’

  And my spell might have been a little more painful that I expected, Aubrey thought. Some more work needed on that spell before using it again, perhaps.

  ‘So what shall we do?’ Sophie was concerned but determined. ‘We cannot leave him now we have found him. Not like this.’

  ‘This looks like my cup of tea,’ George said, rubbing his hands together. With a grunt and a heave, he lifted Théo and positioned him across his shoulders. ‘Tally-ho.’

  Théo was no great weight, but Aubrey knew that George would have borne the burden even if Théo had been a giant. He wasn’t going to let Sophie down.

  ‘Which way?’ George said, jauntily. ‘Back to the farmhouse or would we like to go dancing first?’

  ‘Do we have enough information, Aubrey?’ Caroline asked.

  A tricky question. ‘One never has enough information. I’d like to get a closer look at those super soldiers.’ He weighed up the options. ‘George, do you think you could get Théo into our elephant? Could you and Sophie wait for us there?’

  ‘Can do, old man. How long will you be?’

  Aubrey raised an eyebrow at Caroline, conferring. ‘An hour?’

  ‘I’ve seen the layout of this place, and the way it’s guarded. We’ll need two.’

  ‘Two hours,’ George repeated. He glanced at the stillcomatose Théo. ‘Then we really must be leaving.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Aubrey said.

  George grinned. ‘Just because I know how things can go astray, I have a suggestion. In two hours, the power will go out.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You see, old man, sometimes I think you work better with a deadline. A sense of urgency, if you will. Left to your own devices, you’re likely to wander all over this place until the cows come home.’

  ‘There isn’t any danger of that,’ Caroline pointed out. ‘I’ll be with him.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ George said. ‘And if anyone is likely to keep Aubrey under control, it’s you, Caroline. But on the other hand, just in case things get a bit sticky, it might be handy to know that the lights are about to go out.’

  ‘It could be useful,’ Caroline allowed.

  ‘Wait,’ Aubrey said. ‘Exactly how are you going to achieve this?’

  ‘Never mind,’ George said. ‘Leave the details to Sophie and me.’

  Aubrey sighed. Faced with such confidence, who was he to argue?

  Thirty

  Caroline was an expert at getting into secure places. Aubrey was happy to follow her as she led the way through a facility that was rather more active than Aubrey would have preferred. He supposed they should take some of the blame, with Caroline’s fire having the same effect as hitting a wasp’s nest with a stick.

  Nevertheless, after some shadowy lurking, a considerable amount of belly crawling, and a hair-raising wall scramble or two, she brought them to the far side of the warehouse, away from the invitingly open double doors that faced the parade ground.

  For a moment, they stood with their backs to the corrugated metal. The north perimeter fence was fifty yards away, with the deep woods just on the other side. The nearest guard tower was a good distance away at the front of the complex. Aubrey could just make out the upper storeys of the old buildings. The chimneys of the factory building were smoking away, and he could see the other guard towers on the perimeter fence, but their position was well away from most of the lights in the facility. They were swallowed up by darkness.

  ‘Too good to be
true,’ she said in answer to Aubrey’s whispered query as to why they hadn’t sneaked in through the double doors. ‘It must be guarded.’

  ‘So how are we getting in?’

  ‘Where there’s a train,’ she said, trotting off, following the long side of the warehouse, ‘there must be ... Here we are.’

  If Caroline moved more than a few yards away, it was hard to see her. Yet, some distance ahead, Aubrey could make out something blacker than the blackness around them, a mound higher than their heads, with a familiar, nose-tickling smell.

  ‘Coal,’ he said.

  ‘Correct. And where there’s coal outside a building, there must be a way to get it inside the building. I was prepared to look for a water tower if we had to, but I think scrambling in via a coal hopper would be easier than swimming underwater, in darkness, through a water inlet pipe.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ He paused. ‘There is a lot of coal here, wouldn’t you say? Rather more than would be needed to refuel a locomotive?’

  Caroline craned her neck. ‘You’re thinking that it’s needed for something else? For the manufacture of your enhanced coal?’

  ‘From the amount of coal here, I’d say this facility is the source of it.’ He wrinkled his nose at the tickly coal smell. ‘If the plan is to ship those mechanical soldiers by train to wherever is needed, then they’ll need to ship the fuel as well. Make it here, pop it in the cylinders, and off it goes. Neat, efficient, and very much the Holmland way.’

  Caroline clambered up the side of the huge mound of coal and peered over the top. Then she slid back down in a controlled and elegant manner that Aubrey could not have hoped to duplicate in a million years. She stood and started to dust her hands together before realising that she was so filthy it would make little difference. She made a small moue of disapproval, then as Aubrey watched, fascinated, she dismissed it from her mind. He knew it wouldn’t bother her from that moment on.