by Dave Butler
“Like Charlie!” Bob pointed.
Just like me, Charlie thought, remembering his attempts to corner the pale boy in Giantseat the night before. The possibility that Caradog Pritchard, his father’s old partner and fellow refugee, might be Isambard Kingdom Brunel made Charlie intensely proud. Why couldn’t his bap’s face be in murals in Waterloo Station, too? He put his hand in his pocket and took out the stem of his father’s pipe.
Ollie stood up slowly. He faced Bob as if to speak but stopped, looking at Charlie’s hands. “Mate…is that yours?”
Charlie shook his head then nodded. “It was my bap’s. It’s broken, and I lost the other half.”
Ollie frowned and plunged his hand into his own jacket pocket. “Did the other half look like this?” In his palm he held the missing cherry-colored bowl of Bap’s pipe, with the gold panthers painted on it in a ring.
“Thank you.” Charlie’s voice trembled slightly.
“You’re my mate.” Ollie smiled. “I found it in my pocket while we was in gaol.”
Somehow, in the storm that had wrecked the flyer, Ollie had ended up with the other half of Bap’s pipe. Charlie took the bowl and pressed it against the end of the stem—only the tiniest crack showed that the pipe wasn’t actually whole. “We rescue the Old Man.”
“I see it.” Ollie nodded. “We’ll go rescue the man, if we can. I only have one request.”
Bob’s grin nearly touched both her ears. “Name it.”
“I want to talk to the rabbit. I’ll help you save the Old Man, and you help me see Aunt Big Money again.”
“Of course, mate,” Bob agreed. “Can you tell me why?”
Ollie blushed and looked at his feet. “I…I’ve got a question for her. It’s kind of personal.”
Bob nodded. They both spit in their palms and shook.
“I think the two goals are ’ighly contemptible.”
“Compatible, Bob.” Lloyd Shankin saluted the aeronaut with a spoon to the brim of his hat and one eye drifting left.
Charlie turned to look at Gnat, who had sat through the entire conversation without speaking. “What do you think?”
“My mother’s throne, three great deeds, and Charlie Pondicherry.” Gnat smiled gently. “I’m with you, Charlie.”
“All right, all right,” Ollie said. “But all-for-one-and-one-for-all ain’t a plan. What are we actually going to do?”
“I’d ’ave thought that was obvious,” Bob said. “We ’ave to steal back the flyer.”
* * *
Nearly twenty-four hours later, Charlie lay on his belly on a mound of dirt beneath a tree. The tree was one in a grove of chestnuts within the park attached to the largest house in Machynlleth.
The largest house by far.
Machine-Town Palace, Syzigon had called it as he drove his wagon through the night to get them here. Lloyd had said the Welsh name for it was Plas Machynlleth, which sounded pretty similar. The palace stood on the edge of town, and its wrought-iron gates bore the gigantic initials WTB.
Climbing up onto Ollie’s shoulders and peeking through parted ivy into a carriage-house window, Bob had reported seeing the steam-truck.
William T. Bowen. The man who had kidnapped Aldrix, who drove the enormous steam-truck, who wore a pin that marked him as a creature of the Iron Cog. This was his house, and he had the flyer.
“Really,” Charlie said to his friends, who lay in the dirt beside him, “I’m not sure how this could be worse.”
“We need the flyer,” Bob said. “ ’Ow else can we reconvene the mountain?”
“Reconnoiter,” Ollie said. “He’s right, Charlie. It’d take us much too long to tramp about the slopes of that hill to look for more secret entrances and gates or to find your boy with the pushy hands. Plus, if we’re in the air, we ain’t getting bit by gigantic black dogs.”
“Don’t be so sure the Cŵn Annwn can’t fly.” Lloyd Shankin’s voice sounded nervous, but that might just have been because lying on his stomach pushed all his breath out of his lungs. “The old stories are full of surprising detail about Death’s Hounds.”
“That monster on the mountain isn’t one of the Cŵn Annwn,” Charlie said. “It’s a machine. At least in part.”
Syzigon had driven down long and winding lanes to bring Charlie and his friends to the far edge of the park from the house. The park was bigger than the town, and included meadows, small artificial hills, and groves of well-ordered trees. There was also a perfectly circular lake, a stone’s throw from the palace itself, with a statue in the center of an angel holding an astrolabe and a gearwheel. Lights glowed beneath the surface of the lake.
Thassia had insisted on coming with them. She lay with them in the dirt now, chanting and turning from side to side, dowsing with a forked hawthorn rod. Charlie thought she was using her magic to keep a watch for enemies.
The palace was three stories tall and had a parapet around the edges of its peaked roof. The two upper stories rose only over the central portion of the house, like a tower. The ground floor spread more widely—Charlie counted ten large windows on the back side of the first story alone, all of them floor-to-ceiling big, with triangular lintels over the tops that looked Greek or Roman.
Around the front side of the building, carriages—some horsed, but most of them powered by steam—had been unloading visitors for an hour. The windows were full of light now, and getting lighter by contrast as the sun set. Through the windows, Charlie saw servants bringing in food for guests in black evening wear. The guests sat around an immense dining room table, and on a stand in the middle of that table sat a gleaming, unusual centerpiece—
Bob’s flyer.
“Right.” Bob’s voice was gloomy. “We’d better go ’ave a closer look, at least.”
“Wait.” Thassia took the Dust of Distraction from inside her leather jerkin and held it ready in her hand, right next to her dowsing rod. “Now you can go.”
Bob sprang to her feet and walked briskly across the grass, almost too fast for Ollie to keep pace. Lloyd Shankin followed with Thassia; he hunched low so she could share her cape with him.
Charlie brought up the rear with Gnat. He looked left and right but saw no guards, and then he was pressing himself up against the wall outside the dining room with his friends.
“Look at that.” Lloyd Shankin pointed to the house’s main gate, at the end of the drive. “Isn’t that sad?”
“I’m sad the gate is shut,” Ollie said. “We might need to run out that way.”
“What’s sad about it?” Charlie didn’t know what Lloyd was trying to point out.
“The initials shaped into the iron, you see. You’ll remember what they said on the outside?”
“WTB,” Charlie said.
Lloyd nodded. “Look.”
Charlie looked and read. “GTB. The letters on the outside and the letters on the inside are different. I don’t understand.”
Lloyd Shankin frowned. “The man’s name is Gwilym Bowen, and he remembers it. That’s a Welsh name. But he tells the outside world his name is William; that’s the English version. Sad.”
“He’s given up his folk,” Charlie said. “That’s what you’re saying.”
“For wealth.” Lloyd sighed.
“ ’E’s not the one you should be feeling sad for at this moment.” Bob put a finger over her lips. “Now ’ush.”
They listened.
“…for that report, Brother Daniels. It’s gratifying to see that the society continues to take in more funds in dues, fees, royalties, and business profits than it spends in expenses. That bodes well for the continued success of our mission. I’m sure you’ll all join me in thanking Brother Daniels for the fine work he continues to do in his position as lodge comptroller.”
Charlie didn’t know the voice. There was a round of applause for Brother Daniels, punctuated with cries of “Hear, hear!”
“They don’t sound like an evil organization,” Ollie whispered. “They sound like a gardening clu
b.”
“Please join me also in welcoming our host, Brother William T. Bowen, who will report on the status of Project Icarus.” Applause.
“Gentlemen, welcome.” Charlie recognized Bowen’s voice. He listened to what the incorporator and kidnapper said, but at the same time he examined the building and the grounds for anything that might suggest a useful plan.
“I appreciate your coming here on short notice. As you all know, we have been aware for some time that one of our traitors was operating somewhere in the region of northern Wales. It has been my special portfolio to find Mr. Brunel and return him to the society, living or dead.”
Bob stiffened.
“I say,” muttered a trembling voice. “It mustn’t always be dead.”
“You will say you prefer living, no doubt.” Bowen’s voice assumed a placating tone. “And of course I do as well. But remember this, Brother Preece: we are building a new world here. One day, when Europe—no, when the world—lives in a state of leisure, peace, and universal good health, served and protected by machines and guided by the Iron Cog, we will look back at those who have died along the way with gratitude. The men we must kill today we will tomorrow see as heroes to the cause, as necessary sacrifices. And though some of us here, perhaps many of us, regard Brunel as a friend…well, the only true sacrifice is to surrender something—or someone—we hold dear. Is it not so?”
Brother Preece said nothing. Was he nodding silently?
Bowen cleared his throat. “We have long known that our friend Brunel uses certain families of dwarfs as his carriers and go-betweens. Surveillance of those families has been difficult, given the peculiarities of dealing with semihomo barbatus, but we have made excellent progress in identifying the families in question, infiltrating or turning them, and recruiting others.”
Applause.
“Bob, can you drive a steam-carriage?” Charlie asked.
“If it’s a mechanical device”—Bob jerked a thumb at her chest—“count me in.”
A plan was beginning to form in Charlie’s head.
Bowen wasn’t finished. “But I must give credit to our colleagues pursuing the other turncoat. After years of searching, and months of careful arrangements, they were able to find the traitor Dr. Joban Singh.”
Charlie shot his hand into his coat pocket and clutched Bap’s pipe fragments.
“Dr. Singh could not be persuaded to rejoin us, but the operatives of Project Icarus eliminated him.”
The biggest round of applause yet.
“We knew him as a friend. We recognized him as a threat. We should also remember Singh as a fallen hero. A moment of silence, please.”
The applause stopped abruptly and silence followed. Charlie gritted his teeth and struggled not to yell. He felt friends grab both his shoulders and squeeze.
“Sadly, you will have heard of the failure of Project Galatea. The queen sleeping in Buckingham Palace tonight is not the queen we would have wished. However, out of the failure of Galatea, and the success of Icarus in London, we have received important information. Here to recount their success are Brothers Heinrich Zahnkrieger and Gaston St. Jacques.”
Heinrich Zahnkrieger!
Charlie risked leaning out from the wall a bit so he could look in the window. Sitting around the table were men in black evening wear. One of them, sitting just twenty feet from Charlie, was the kobold Heinrich Zahnkrieger. Charlie had known Zahnkrieger all his life as his father’s partner, Henry Clockswain, only to find out too late that the kobold was an enemy and a traitor, and part of the conspiracy that had killed his bap.
“This flyer,” the kobold began, standing on his chair as he spoke so he was tall enough to be seen, “is captured enemy property. The scoundrels flying this device thwarted our attempt to…to improve Queen Victoria’s political and social views. Their vehicle here reminds us both of our defeat and of the swift vengeance we mete out to those who stand in our way.”
Charlie wanted to rush in and grab the little kobold by the throat. Instead he explained his plan to his friends. Bob and Gnat jogged away to do their part, though not before Bob shot longing looks over her shoulder at the flyer.
Thassia chanted, sprinkling Dust about Charlie in large quantities.
“I’ll leave, too; there are too many of us for that flyer.” Lloyd Shankin turned to go, then hesitated. “But I think I have a song that may be useful here.”
“ ‘Bread of Heaven’?” Ollie suggested. “Fly us all right out of here, wouldn’t it?”
Lloyd smiled and then sang a single verse in Welsh. The tune had the slow rise and fall of a lullaby, and the words several times included a phrase that sounded like see hey loolie. “That will help.”
Thassia finished as the kobold was wrapping up. “And so we telegraphed to Brother Bowen that our turncoat was likely living in the vicinity of the mountain Cader Idris, and calling himself Caradog Pritchard.”
Telegraphed!
Before Charlie had left London, the information that Caradog Pritchard was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the great inventor and builder and refugee from the Iron Cog, had reached the Cog’s men in Wales. Charlie’s mission had been a failure before it had even begun.
“At which point,” Bowen resumed, “we laid siege to the mountain, including by releasing Brother St. Jacques’s Hound.”
“Don’t think of it as my Hound.” Charlie recognized the voice; the speaker was the Frenchman he thought of as the Sinister Man. Charlie peeked, and he saw the man sitting a few seats down from Heinrich Zahnkrieger. “Think of it as our Hound.”
“And your—that is, our—other agent?” Bowen asked. He had a note of impatience in his voice. “The rakshasa?”
“Being procured.” Gaston St. Jacques smiled blandly. “A shaitan is not an easy creature to find in the best of cases, due to its nature. A shaitan who will work with us is still more of a challenge.”
“But surely,” Bowen said, “you are the man for the job. Should the siege persist, and should the rakshasa’s services be necessary.”
St. Jacques’s smile didn’t falter. “Surely.”
“You ready, mate?” Charlie asked Ollie.
The sweep nodded.
Charlie shook Thassia’s hand. “Thank you.”
She winked, pulling her rune-stitched cape over her head and throwing its edge over Lloyd Shankin. Before they had taken three steps, Charlie had lost sight of them.
Charlie and Ollie crept to opposite ends of the dining hall. Ollie bent to pick up a rock, and they looked at each other.
Charlie held up fingers and counted down. Three…two…one.
Ollie smashed the window nearest him with the rock.
Diners jumped up from the table.
Except that some didn’t. Some fell forward onto the table, snoring.
Ollie reached in to grab the handle and open the door. As he stepped inside, Charlie jumped through the window nearest him.
The diners who were alert turned to look at Charlie, but they had a hard time focusing on him. Especially when Ollie started his act.
Ollie clapped his hands. “Gentlemen! Your attention!”
Most of the men looked his way, though a few persisted in trying to stare at Charlie. Two more collapsed into sleep, one on a convenient sofa and the other on the floor.
Ollie muttered something. Bamf! He became a yellow cobra.
Shouting began. “Loup-garou!” “What is this?” “Bowen!” “St. Jacques!”
Bamf! Ollie was himself again.
Charlie was too far away to smell the stink of rotten eggs, but some of the diners held their noses.
“Gentlemen!” Ollie clapped his hands and began to dance a little jig. It wasn’t a very good jig, but it didn’t have to be. It just had to attract attention.
William T. Bowen, who wore a top hat and a ribbon on his chest in addition to his bottle-green coat and tails, lurched toward Ollie—bamf!—just as Ollie turned back into a snake.
Charlie jumped onto the table, kic
king dishes aside, and noticed that Gaston St. Jacques was drawing a pistol from his jacket.
Charlie sprinted down the table. Wineglasses and china shattered as he crushed them underfoot, and when he reached the flyer, shining and polished and perfect-looking, with the Articulated Gyroscopes buckled into their correct position, he grabbed it.
The diners who weren’t already asleep or standing pulled back, yelling, but very few of them looked directly at Charlie. Dwarfish magic, Charlie thought cheerfully.
One of the few who did, though, was Gaston St. Jacques. Something about Charlie caught his attention, and he turned to look at the last second—
just as Charlie kicked him in the face.
St. Jacques went down without firing a shot.
Heinrich Zahnkrieger stood up, his hands on the table in front of him.
Charlie happily jumped. He landed with both feet together, stomping as hard as he could on the kobold’s fingers.
Zahnkrieger fainted.
Somewhere behind him, Charlie heard shots.
He reached the end of the table and jumped to the floor. At the same moment, Ollie hurtled toward him—bamf!—and in midair became a snake.
Charlie grabbed his friend with one hand and kept running, right out the window, with the flyer on his shoulders.
Ollie slithered up Charlie’s arm and settled around his neck.
Behind him, Charlie heard more shooting. He turned and raced toward the circular drive.
He’d told Bob to get any steam-carriage she could and be ready. As Charlie looked now at the line of carriages, he didn’t see the aeronaut. Just black-suited drivers stumbling back in surprise as he charged through their ranks.
Crash!
The huge sound of splintering wood and shattering metal caught Charlie by surprise, but the instant he heard it, he knew where it had come from: the carriage house.
That was farther than he’d intended.
He ran faster.
For a moment, he thought his own speed would be enough and the flyer would pick him up and carry him away. But it didn’t, and as he reached the carriage house, he saw the vehicle of Bob’s choice and the back of her bomber cap as she worked the steering wheel, grinding a tight turn.
