Moment of Truth

by Michael Pryor

  With as much haste as he could summon, he dragged the cover over the pit and locked it. He had enough time to totter to the racks and starting fumbling with the cylinders in an effort to make it seem as if they were the object of his attention. A harsh Holmlandish voice came from behind. ‘Take him.’

  He did his best to whirl around, but he was afraid it was more of a crotchety unfolding than the panther-like movement he’d been hoping for.

  Outlined in the doorway was Baron von Grolman, standing behind four armed troopers, each holding a rifle at the ready.

  ‘Caroline!’ he cried.

  ‘Aubrey!’

  Caroline appeared, hurling herself at the four troopers who stood in front of the baron. This distraction gave Aubrey a chance. He pulled out his revolver in one smooth movement – and stood, wondering what to do.

  Caroline was in the middle of a tangle of arms and legs. He couldn’t just blast away, and he wasn’t sure he would even if she wasn’t there.

  The hesitation was enough. One of the Holmlanders saw him, shouted a warning, and then – with commendable bravery – threw himself at Aubrey.

  Aubrey hurdled the brave Holmlander then aimed his revolver at the roof and squeezed off three quick shots.

  The noise was deafening and all the Holmlanders threw themselves to the ground. Aubrey was stunned. His ears rang but he kept his wits. He burst through the door and found Caroline throwing a Holmlander over her hip. Baron von Grolman was crouched behind a heavy steel workbench. ‘Stop them!’ he cried.

  Aubrey grabbed her hand. ‘This way!’

  She didn’t argue. Aubrey sprinted off, waving his revolver at anyone who appeared. White coats quickly dived back into their workshops. Soldiers backed away, but soon they were trailing a band of Holmlanders determined to take them.

  Panting, Aubrey darted left and right whenever a turning appeared, past stamping machines and presses, past metal pouring sluices and industrial ovens, past assembly lines with limbs of mechanical soldiers waiting for clay impregnation.

  Clay. That was what Aubrey was looking for. He spun them around one of the golem-making machines and they were faced by the huge bin of potentialised clay George had discovered on their earlier expedition.

  Aubrey gave Caroline his revolver. ‘Here,’ he panted, ‘hold them off.’

  Caroline reached for him, then dropped her hand. She nodded, sharply, then quickly scaled a hanging rope of chain before taking up position, lying prone on the golem-making machine.

  Immediately, she fired a shot, and Aubrey knew he had little time.

  He wanted to infect the clay as well. This was a good time to be a belt and braces man, leaving nothing to chance. Contaminating the enhanced coal with his spawning spell was good, but if he could do the same with the clay, the mechanical warriors themselves could pass on the contamination, simply by being in close contact. If he could adjust his parameters appropriately, simply lying in racks such as he saw could be enough. In their headlong flight through the factory, he’d been constructing such a variant.

  He dropped to his knees in front of the clay bin and launched into the spell.

  The second time around, it wasn’t quite as difficult, but the spell still left him dizzy. He staggered to his feet to see a dozen Holmland soldiers charging toward him, past a fuming acid bath. Behind them, Baron von Grolman urged them forward.

  He stood, eyeing the man in the vanguard – a large, blond soldier who looked terrified – looking for an opportunity to shift his weight and knock the man aside.

  At that moment, Caroline Hepworth threw herself from the top of the golem maker, bowling over four of Holmlanders before rolling, coming to her feet, and dispatching another with a lightning-fast strike to his sternum.

  For an instant, one of those distilled split seconds where everything stands still, she grinned at him across the mayhem she’d created. She was tall and slim in her fighting suit. He had enough time to notice how one cuff had unrolled, and that she had a scratch on the back of her hand that was bleeding.

  He couldn’t imagine anyone more perfect.

  He grinned back at her, then another Holmlander was on him, swinging a rifle butt. Aubrey ducked, tripped his attacker, then waded in and was hand-to-hand fighting.

  His combat skills had been enhanced by his training with the Directorate, and he did his best to be as scientific as he could. To judge from the grunts and cries of pain, he had some success, but as more and more Holmlanders appeared, he knew he was doomed. No bayonets were used, for which he was grateful, but the rifle butt that caught him in the side set him back, and the troopers had no qualms about using boots, either.

  In the end, it was numbers. Two dozen armed, veteran soldiers were simply too many. Aubrey was sure he had a loose tooth, and his ribs were bruised if not cracked. Caroline had left a swathe of unconscious troopers, but eventually they’d managed to throw ropes around her.

  Baron von Grolman limped through the press of injured Holmlanders to where Aubrey and Caroline were each being restrained by a pair of the brawniest veterans. ‘I’m glad I found you,’ he said in good Albionish. ‘You rats have caused enough mischief, scuttling about my factory.’

  Thirty-one

  When Aubrey last encountered Baron Von Grolman, he had been every inch the hospitable Holmlander, jolly and generous. A very different Baron von Grolman faced them over the desk in the office they’d been dragged to. Cold eyed, deliberate, incisive, this was a man, Aubrey decided, who could work with Dr Tremaine.

  After the fracas, they’d been bound and, in Aubrey’s case, gagged, so it was Caroline who took it up to the industrialist.

  ‘My mother would die of shame,’ she said, ‘if she could see what you’re up to.’

  The baron winced at this. ‘I like your mother. In the past, it did me good, to be seen with such a renowned artist. But now, I never have to step inside an art gallery again, which is a great relief.’

  The baron’s office was in the north wing of the original buildings, and – to judge from the exposed beam that divided the room in half – had once been two rooms before it was converted into this long, narrow space. The office wasn’t grand. It was a workaday place with a large desk over which the baron studied them. Behind the desk, a large window looked out over the railway line and the northern boundary fence to the dark and inviting woods beyond. A clock hung on the wall, a telephone stood on the desk, while vertical racks of plans and blueprints took up the other wall.

  From the time on the clock, Aubrey was able to see that half of George’s allocated two hours had gone.

  ‘What are you going to do to us?’ Caroline demanded.

  ‘You’re better off not knowing.’

  ‘As enemy combatants, we are entitled to be treated correctly.’

  The baron actually chuckled. ‘I’m afraid not, my dear. You two are clearly spies, not enemy combatants.’ He glanced at Aubrey. ‘One of whom is a magician.’

  Aubrey was heartened at the mention of ‘two’. It meant that George and Sophie were undetected.

  ‘Spies?’

  ‘You are wearing no uniform, you have no identification, you are from the enemy. That is the usual definition of spy. Different rules apply to spies. Spies are interrogated, and then they are dealt with.’

  ‘We aren’t spies,’ Caroline said.

  ‘Yes you are.’ The baron plucked a document from the pile in front of him and peered at it. ‘You and young Fitzwilliam are operatives of your Security Intelligence Directorate. You have been specially trained and sent on a mission to find out about my factory.’

  The baron’s voice was flat, as if he were reading from a furniture catalogue.

  ‘What nonsense,’ Caroline said gamely. ‘We’ve simply come to find a friend’s brother.’

  Aubrey’s spirits rose, and for a moment he was able to ignore the ropey taste of the gag in his mouth. This was good thinking – a part truth. As long as Caroline didn’t give away the presence of George and Sophie,
it could work.

  ‘Our intelligence is good. You are spies.’ The baron tapped the document.

  ‘Your intelligence is flawed. Who would say such a thing?’

  ‘Someone who knew. Someone who has benefited from your Directorate training. Someone who will help guide our interrogators, since she knows the questions to ask.’

  He rapped the desk and the door behind him opened. In walked Elspeth Mattingly.

  Aubrey’s efforts to loosen his gag dried up; he was stunned into immobility. The irony of his situation asserted itself when he realised that he was in exactly the same plight as when Elspeth last saw him – bound to a chair.

  She glanced at Caroline and, with a sunny smile, studied Aubrey for a moment before frowning. ‘But where is George?’

  ‘Doyle?’ the Baron said. ‘Is he here too?’

  ‘Teams of three was the standard arrangement.’

  The baron sniffed. ‘It is no matter. He will be found.’ He beamed at her. ‘Soon you will start on them, my dear. Are you eager?’

  ‘Baron, I can’t wait.’ She put a finger to her cheek. ‘Who will be first? Ah, decisions, decisions!’

  The baron glanced at Aubrey. ‘She is very good at what she does. Good at interrogation, but better at gaining trust. I’m sure you agree.’

  Aubrey did his best to remain impassive.

  Caroline jumped in. ‘You’ve trusted her too, Baron, which is a great mistake.’

  Elspeth laughed. ‘Everyone trusts me. I make sure of it.’

  Caroline gazed at her coolly. ‘I didn’t.’

  For an instant, Elspeth’s sunniness slipped and an expression of utter calculation flitted across her face. Aubrey blinked, but it was gone. She waved an airy hand at Caroline. ‘Well, people like you wouldn’t.’

  Baron von Grolman raised an eyebrow. He found a rough fingernail and picked at it. ‘I’m keen to hear why Miss Hepworth thinks it a mistake to trust you, Elspeth.’

  Caroline was silent for a moment and Aubrey could see her weighing up what to say. ‘She was detected as one of your agents very early on. Every piece of information she has gained was deliberately fed to her, full of falsehoods.’

  Aubrey tensed. Caroline was playing a dangerous game.

  The baron held up his fingernail in front of his eyes, happy with his work. ‘What you are saying now could be full of the same falsehoods. Or different ones.’ He sighed. ‘This world is full of uncertainties, is it not?’

  Elspeth nodded. ‘Never a truer word was spoken, Baron. Many a more interesting one, but we can’t have everything.’

  The Baron smiled at her in an avuncular way. ‘So, to make certain where we are uncertain, the questioning will need to be most direct.’

  ‘Direct?’ Elspeth said. ‘I’d better sharpen my instruments then.’ She looked tenderly at Aubrey, came close and loosened his gag. ‘I want you to know that you’re in very good hands.’

  Aubrey looked at her beautiful, smiling face and realised that she was loving every minute of this – and looking forward to what was to come. He swallowed a fearinduced lump in his throat and blurted out a question that had been nagging at him. ‘Last time, in the embassy, you had me helpless. Why didn’t you kill me?’

  Elspeth darted a glance at the Baron, then she shrugged. ‘My orders didn’t say anything about killing you, silly boy, so I didn’t. But now? Baron?’

  He snorted. ‘Do what you must.’

  After rearranging his gag, she left in an obscene combination of haste and excitement and he was relieved to sit back and watch as Caroline took to the baron.

  Sitting there under Baron von Grolman’s placid gaze, as Caroline upbraided him for his attitude and behaviour, Aubrey had a moment of utter dismay. He knew that at times he had been carried away in the thrill of the adventures in which he’d become involved. He couldn’t deny the excitement he’d had in successfully duping dangerous foes, or in inventing new magical methods under great duress, or rescuing his friends from peril. It was exhilarating. But now, the other side of the coin had been turned toward him. Failure didn’t only mean ignominy – although that would be bad enough. Failure meant death.

  As someone who had spent considerable time actually staring death in the face, thanks to being left on that precipice by his remarkably hare-brained experiment with forbidden magic, Aubrey had a healthy respect for death. Yes, he knew it was a natural process and other platitudes, but it was a natural process that he really didn’t want hastened in any way. He preferred to imagine a long happy life ahead of him.

  He had a prickle of sweat in his palms. He did his best to flex his hands but his captors had been efficient and left him with very little play.

  He tried to read the time without looking directly at the clock on the wall. Was there forty minutes left?

  While, with some effort, he could contemplate his own extinction, the prospect of Caroline being no more both outraged and distressed him. A universe without Caroline Hepworth in it? It was wrong, so wrong that he emitted a groan that the gag couldn’t stifle. Both Caroline and the baron interrupted their arguing to look at him.

  ‘This is just business,’ the baron continued after satisfying himself that Aubrey wasn’t beginning a spell. ‘Nothing more. War is good for such a person as me. My factories will be happy, my suppliers will be happy, I will be happy.’

  ‘That makes you worse than the generals,’ Caroline said. ‘They, at least, have some sense of duty and honour.’

  ‘Delusions. I have self-interest at heart and I make no quibble about it.’

  ‘Like Dr Tremaine?’

  Aubrey was fascinated to see that the baron actually shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the rogue sorcerer. ‘He has his interests, I have mine.’

  ‘And we know what happens to people who work for Dr Tremaine,’ Caroline bore in. ‘We’ve seen the results.’

  ‘I do not work for Tremaine. We are partners.’

  ‘Of course he’d tell you that.’

  ‘His expertise with magic, my expertise with manufacturing. It is a good arrangement.’

  ‘Dr Tremaine will get what he wants, that’s certain.’

  Baron von Grolman stared at her sourly, then he rapped on the desk again. ‘Take them away,’ he said when the door behind him opened.

  ‘I shall,’ came an amused voice. Aubrey sat bolt upright, as much as he could. ‘All in good time.’

  Dr Tremaine entered the room and was immediately the centre of attention. Baron von Grolman nodded at him in a disgruntled fashion. Caroline glared daggers at him. Aubrey wondered if his eyes were deceiving him.

  Dr Tremaine looked happy and healthy, as if he’d spent time on a tropical island rather than manoeuvring the world into war. He wore a dark blue cutaway frock coat, with a white shirt and an eye-catching red paisley cravat. He carried a cane – with no sign of the Tremaine pearl.

  ‘Tell me, Baron,’ Dr Tremaine said, his voice rich with delight at his partner’s discomfort, ‘when were you going to let me know you’d found the intruders?’

  The baron adjusted his bulk slightly, as if he knew it were a hopeless effort. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You were busy, Tremaine, doing your business with the coal essence. I know how you hate interruptions.’

  ‘Not as much as those who do the interrupting, once I’ve reminded them of my aversion to them.’ He peered across the room. ‘I knew Fitzwilliam had come to pester me again. And he’s brought the girl.’

  Aubrey could feel Caroline’s cold fury from where he was. He would not, ever, have wanted to be the object of Caroline Hepworth’s anger.

  Once again, however, she surprised him. With steely calm, she addressed the rogue sorcerer. ‘I’m happy that you’ve forgotten who I am. The less time I spend in that horror you call a mind, the better.’

  ‘Hah!’ Dr Tremaine perched on the corner of the desk, much to the irritation of Baron von Grolman. ‘Your father would have been proud of you!’

  ‘Don’t mention my father. Your li
ps sully his name.’

  ‘He’s dead, you know, so it doesn’t really matter.’

  He turned to the baron and launched into a discussion of train schedules and clay shipments, and so missed Caroline’s shock, and the look she shot him once she’d recovered. Aubrey wished he was able to capture that look, for top military magicians would be very interested in its weaponry applications. He waggled his head at her, trying to hook her attention. She rolled her eyes at his feeble efforts at indicating their bonds. Of course she would have thought of that, he thought. If only he could cast the spell to harden his tongue to a cutting edge, so he could sever the gag to allow him to cast a spell to harden his tongue...

  ‘I’ll take them off your hands, von Grolman,’ Dr Tremaine said.

  ‘I want them,’ the baron said. Again, he shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘I have the interrogators ready.’

  ‘The Mattingly girl is there?’

  ‘You know about her?’

  ‘Of course I know about her. She’s one of mine. I used her to dupe Delroy’s son into joining the Holmland army. Imagine that.’

  Aubrey went to gasp, but the gag made him choke. Dr Tremaine glanced at him.

  ‘Delroy?’ the baron said, stunned. ‘You have a hold on him?’

  ‘The boy is here. I’ll go to work on him soon, and then we’ll have someone neatly placed to bring down the Gallian government.’

  The baron stared at Dr Tremaine for some time. ‘I knew she was one of yours,’ he said eventually. ‘That’s why I found her useful.’

  Dr Tremaine laughed. ‘You lie so wonderfully poorly, von Grolman. That’s why I’m happy for you to work with me.’

  For an instant, Aubrey thought he saw the baron’s gaze flit around the room, a mouse trapped in a corner by a cat. Then he composed himself by lacing his hands on his chest. Aubrey begrudgingly awarded the baron some points here. He hadn’t achieved his fortune by being a weakling. The baron knew he was dancing with a tiger – but Aubrey thought he may have been making the mistake of assuming he was leading.