The Curious Case of Simon Todd

by Vanessa C. Hawkins

Simon frowned. “Well pardon me for not being versed in all ways magic, Miss Stein!” His sleepiness was making him rather ornery. “I went to Barnaby’s Academy of Mathematics, I’ll have you know. All this nonsense about Hell Lords was not pertinent to the curriculum.”

  He clearly heard her scornful tsk, and his frown deepened. “I’ll also have you know that math is a kind of magic too, in a sense! Not everyone can see the patterns of numbers and formulate equations. It takes a practice, and dedication and a sharp mind.”

  “Quite right, Mr. Todd.” Dick nodded, propelling himself over another loose pipe. “Perhaps it’d be to your benefit to apply math to your fighting prowess.”

  Simon was quiet, looking for the same piece of pipe to ensure he wouldn’t trip over it. “Perhaps,” he said unsurely.

  Mr. Dashing continued, “Why, I’m sure you’d be a bruiser in no time if you could only find way to blend the two!”

  “Mr. Todd, a bruiser.” Molly chuckled. “Now that would need a bit of magic.”

  Mr. Todd frowned, but decided to not take issue with the remark. He was getting awfully tired of consistently running, even despite Mr. Dashing’s reduction in pace. Luckily for the Frelish fop however, the incline through the tower underbelly seemed to level out after a quarter of an hour, ending in a large portly door with the design of a spider’s web in the center as well as a chipped wheel in front. Many of the pipes, though not the entirety, flowed into a thick, toothed border surrounding the exit, and at times, thin streams of vapour hissed out, the sound reminding Mr. Todd of an old sick man sniffing.

  Simon was grateful for a pause as Miss Stein walked up to inspect the door. Her long skirts foamed behind her calves and were slightly soiled.

  “Where will this lead to?” Mr. Todd asked, removing his kerchief to wipe his brow and remembering the ghastly state the hanky was in only after he had done so.

  “We should be close to the East Tower. This door should lead to the engine generators that power Grimguild.” Molly fingered the spokes of the wheel, pulling off a flake of paint and crumbing it between her fingertips. “There will be people up here working.” She turned. “Most of them are dolls, not real people.”

  Simon wrinkled his nose. “What?”

  “An old wizard named Mr. Hoff created them a long time ago.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “They’re like living dolls. Golems.” Molly shrugged. “They’re creepy, but they operate a lot of the mechanical bits that keeps Grimguild in order. If we leave them be they should leave us alone.” She turned back, grasping a hold of the wheel.

  Simon could hear the ticking of gears unhinge as she began to turn it. After a moment the door slid inward, revealing the engine room.

  Darlington, the town in which Simon Todd had spent the majority of his life, was a small town. Composed of brick, mortar, gardens and steel piping, the buildings were small and quaint. Hershal Bank was the largest of them all, but even that would have easily fit into the colossal space that was now before him.

  A domed roof rife with wire and pipe and propelling machines meant to suck in the steam that came off the engines, was mostly obscured by lack of lighting. The tinny lanterns that did illuminate the room gave off a bronze glow that shrouded everything in a rather burnished lustre. To Mr. Todd, it looked quite akin to staring at the inside of a grandfather clock through the bottom of a glass jar filled with ale.

  Large pipelines, bigger around than a man’s torso and riveted with thumb-sized bolts, ran across the floor every which way. Hastily, hand-made staircases had been propped over them to allow easy navigation. While other, more ornate winding staircases rose up like springs to allow access to the taller engine turbines of Grimguild.

  Simon felt the heat as soon as the door was open. It was utterly stifling, and the air was so thick with steam that it felt like every inhalation had to be dragged into his lungs through thick gauze. Just as Molly predicted, there were figures outlined in the steam, going about their business in a manner that was most mechanical. Simon thought it rather uncanny the way they looked like actual people. They wore trousers and overalls with suspenders or flat caps and collar shirts unbuttoned at the neck.

  Simon had tried not to look at them when the party happened to pass by, but curiosity was rather insistent, and so as soon as he had been close enough, Mr. Todd had endeavored to take a peek at one of them.

  For all intents purposes, they were very human. They had hair on their heads and a chest that rose and fell. It was the sallow skin and milky eyes pricked in the center with obsidian that gave them an otherworldly mien. They reminded Simon of old Salvador. The young gentleman walking towards him had several yellowed spider veins twisting from out the collar of his shirt. Its arms shuffled at either side, and he had a bit of a hunch to square shoulders.

  Simon didn’t have a lot of time to regard it before he had had to turn away with his companions, but what he did witness caused cold fingers to sweep down his spine and make him shiver.

  There were at least a dozen or so of these creatures that caught Mr. Todd’s eye, but the majority for only a moment or two. None of the so- called dolls seemed to pay any mind to them, and so after a moment or two of what would have been impolite gawking, Simon kept his eyes stationary, on the back of Mr. Dashing’s fluttering duster jacket.

  That is, until they had begun to pass what looked like a glowing yellow heart.

  “My word!” Simon skidded as he paused. Black-blue veins crept along the leathery exterior of the heart like spindly ropes. From the front, a large gauge and turbine were inserted into the enormous organ, connecting wire and piping from the rapidly pulsating heart to engine generators that were feeding from other, larger riveted pipelines.

  “Mr. Todd!” Molly called to him, waving fiercely in his direction. Simon had barely heard her over the whirl of engines and hissing steam. He turned with an inquiry, and after noticing her impatient wave, moved to catch up.

  “What was that thing?” he yelled, looking back over his shoulder to the yellowed muscle thrumming in the distance.

  “How am I supposed to know?” Molly shouted back. They were running towards a large steel door with a wheel handle in the center.

  “You’re a mage?” Simon thought it was obvious.

  It was Mr. Dashing however, who turned to regard him.

  “I remember being told it was a heart of a Hell Lord. Miss Baxter told me once, that the very first Chancellor of Grimguild wasn’t a man at all but a Hell Lord who bound himself to several sorcerers. They were said to have been the first Arcane spell casters of Freland.” Dashing sniffed, rubbing at his moustache.

  “How do you know all of this?” Miss Stein asked as they neared the door, pausing to catch her breath.

  “Well it’s one heck of a story now, isn’t it? And I do enjoy a good yarn.”

  Simon was baffled at how winded he was compared to Mr. Dashing.

  Molly seemed unconvinced, but was quiet as she turned to regard the door. “I guess it could be true.” She shrugged. “In either case this door leads up.”

  Simon sighed.

  “We’re lucky because it’s late. We should be able to get into the dormitories relatively easily.” She began to turn the handle, a dull scraping of rust on metal grating in Simon’s ears as she opened it with the Mr. Dashing’s help. On the other side was, again, a set of stairs.

  “And once we’re there?” Simon asked.

  Molly smiled, clapping her hands together and wiping the perspiration from her brow. “You’ll just pop into Chip’s room and remove the key to his closet,” she said.

  Simon rolled his eyes. “Is that all?”

  “You can do it ol’ chap!” Dashing smiled, walking ahead as his boots clattered on steel stairs. “And if you get stuck, use math to fix the problem!” Dick winked.

  Simon furrowed his brow.

  “That doesn’t—”

  “Up we go, now! Miss Baxter can’t wait forever.”

  Mr. Todd sighed, reluctantly acquiescing
as he once again began the task of throwing one leg forcefully ahead of the other.

  Chapter 25

  A Miss Is As Good As A Chamomile

  It hadn’t gone to plan exactly, Simon thought, grimacing as the explosion almost knocked him out of his loafers. He had one hand in his back pocket, grasping the links of chain attached to his pocket watch. Mr. Dashing was ahead of him, facing in his direction as another shot of gunfire barrelled out the tip of his blunderbuss right through the front of Mr. Todd’s face.

  “Hup! Out of the way Mr. Todd!” he said a good moment too late. Simon had screamed, toppling forward with his hands on his head and landing with a thump on his posterior.

  “Blasted moron!” Simon cried, looking desperate. “Watch where you’re pointing that blasty thing!” he stuttered, his nerves getting the better of him.

  “It’s called a gun, and currently it’s in the employ of ensuring we all get out of here.” Dick Dashing was crouched down behind the door to the Eastern Tower. Molly was just behind him. The thunder from his firearm was still stinging Simon’s ears. Mr. Todd wasn’t sure what kind of augmentation Dick had added to that blunderbuss of his, but it certainly did the job of knocking the ol’ brain about its cavity, ghost or not.

  Simon was neither impressed with the result of their plan, nor the apparent situation ahead that was currently spinning out of control. Though they had done an adequate job of locating Mr. Ardale’s dormitory, they had done a not-so-great job of obtaining the appropriate key to the wizard closet. Chip must have been a mage, oh, apologies, wizard of some renown, as he had a room all to himself

  Simon had endeavored to enter Chip’s room in his much more mastered, ghost-like state, but no one bothered to remember about the red-haired wizard’s Alligaatorri. As Simon had deigned to enter, the idle beast still chained to Chip’s left wrist yawned open its jaws and snapped at the poor Frelish gentleman post haste, waking the young rapscallion in the process.

  Simon therefore, in his haste to escape the beast and the sorcerer, had leapt backwards onto the night stand. There really was nothing else in the room save a bed, a stand and a few discarded scraps of clothes. Simon, surprised to see a pair of familiar red spectacles beside the bed, pilfered them by slipping them into his back pocket. He also managed to grab a quill, topple a bottle of ink and stuff a charm around his neck as he bounded out the door once again, but the quill had been dropped, the ink splashed on his now rumpled suit, and the charm blasted by gunshot a moment before Simon had ducked away and fell to his knees upon the floor.

  Now the halls were all aflutter as mages and sorcerers alike threw their magic at old Mr. Todd. And here Dick was adding to the ruckus by hurdling cannon fire through that long gun of his.

  “Simon! Hurry up!”

  Inspired by Molly’s command, Simon pulled himself up, feeling something reaching out to pull at his coattails as he screamed.

  “Fiend!” he cried, watching as one of the shadowmancers’ creations slashed its spindly fingers across the tweed of his coat. That they all were seemingly immune to the state of Simon’s ghostly form caused a sheen of sweat to percolate on the poor gentleman’s brow. Nevertheless Mr. Todd felt his tired legs propel him forward, back towards his party of friends before he was caught in the clutches of the shadow monstrosities.

  “What do we do?” he asked, ducking around the corner as Mr. Dashing reloaded his firearm. The young man had given one of his decorated pistols to Miss Stein, to Simon’s surprise, and the young lady was currently unloading it down the corridor to keep the mages at bay.

  “Did you get the key?” Dick asked, goggles obscuring his eyes as runes floated over the lenses in an odd manner.

  Simon wasn’t sure the charm had, in fact, been the key, but considering there had been a little more than nothing in the actual room, he was willing to bet that it had the highest probability of being the item they had sought.

  “Well I did have it,” he lied, watching Molly hold off the band of wizards with a bit of self-conscious envy. “Until you shot me in the blasted face and blew it up.” Simon Todd couldn’t help but be a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal. He may have been perfectly fine, but when a shot of gunfire greeted a man’s face, your life still flashed before your eyes whether you were incorporeal or not.

  Dashing, to Simon’s shock, smiled. “Here,” he said, gifting the Frelish fop the brass colored, runic pistol with clockwork gadgets and magical chambers. “Then I’ll leave it to you to find Miss Baxter.”

  Simon curled his lip, refusing to take the thing. “What?” he asked, looking behind him to ensure the man wasn’t addressing someone else who had come up behind.

  “Well, I measure by the looks of things that we’ll be holed up here for a bit.” Mr. Dashing pressed the firearm into the stuttering gentleman’s hands, looking up towards the top of the tower. “The only way we may get out of here, I reckon, is through the top.”

  “The top?” Simon asked, already imagining his fellow companions leaving him behind when his legs gave out and he lay prone on the floor, gasping for breath.

  “Yes.” Dashing cocked the blunderbuss, and Simon noticed it also had glowing runes swirling about the metal barrel. He hadn’t noticed that before. “You’re the only one that can go through walls.” Simon sniffed. “So go through them, find Miss Baxter and we’ll meet back at Fallfield.”

  The pistol was heavy in his hands. Though it was smaller than his ledger, it felt awkward and not at all balanced the way a good book was. Simon snorted at the thought, feeling like a simpleton.

  “Al-alright,” he said, looking at the gun then to Mr. Dashing.

  Dick smiled, pearlescent teeth poking out from the bottom of his moustache in a somewhat goofy expression. “Don’t forget to use math,” he said, winking as Miss Stein called to him for backup.

  Simon, ignored for the moment as the two more capable individuals of his party turned to address the army of mages barrelling down their throats, tucked the decorated firearm into his pants, holding it there as he closed his eyes and visualized himself a dead man. He was getting better at it, he noticed, for as he began to walk through the wall, the pistol came with him with only a bit of resistance.

  Alright Mr. Todd. Miss Baxter! We need to find Miss Baxter and bring her and yourself to safety. Being inside a wall was akin to being 20,000 leagues under the sea. It was disorienting to say the least, and it certainly didn’t help that the pistol seemed to drag with him, wishing to be a solid but not knowing how to exist within another concurrent mass.

  Nevertheless, Simon pressed onward. Sometimes he had to pass through pipes, and gingerly step to the next wall without falling a story below, and sometimes he stepped into an occupied hall or room and had to hastily run forward before the individual had a chance to react.

  By jove!

  “Apologies Ma’m!” he called once, stumbling awkwardly past a woman in the midst of changing.

  After what seemed like a terrible length of time, Simon Todd fancied himself quite lost. Though he could no longer hear the gunshots of his companions, nor the frenzy of the spellcasting gangsters of Grimguild, he was quite certain he had been turned around in a very embarrassing way. This was buttressed by the fact that every room he stumbled into was not only empty, but seemed to be either a dormitory, classroom or hallway. It was only when he had found a set of staircases and began to climb that Simon began to think he may have been heading in the right direction.

  This place is tremendously large, Mr. Todd thought, sticking his noggin out between walls as he meandered through the hall. He was rather pleased that this wing of Grimguild looked a great deal more ornate than the others. Yawning corridors arched upwards while colonnades pulled the roof into a wide arch. The floor was cracked marble, but Mr. Todd thought it only part of the aesthetic as he walked forward, popping his head into doorways along the way and glancing upwards into the latticework of windows that interposed themselves within the domed roof and steel piping.

  When
he came upon a double set of doors, Simon paused, clicking his tongue at the sheer size of them. They were as long as five men and as wide as three with arms outstretched. Made of burled walnut, the two panels were decorated with several squares cut into a pattern, faces of grotesque monsters centered within. Some had long lapping tongues, others, large open nostrils with fingers of fire within. Some were fair creatures, something sinister about their eyes and the way their grins pulled wickedly at the corners of mouths made much too long.

  Simon grimaced, looking about himself before pressing a palm to the door. He was quite fatigued, but as a boom of laughter erupted beyond, Mr. Todd found his confidence as he pushed upon the door and it whispered inward, as though merely an apparition of the structure it appeared to be.

  Simon was, honestly, quite amazed he had found it. As he stepped inside the great room, the edifice of Grimguild University seemed to end. In fact, the entire room was mostly open window contained inside a brass trellis that expanded from the floor to opposite wall. Like a netted droplet of water, the room bubbled outwards, forming a peak at the top where two long ropes of cloth fell down into the center of the room.

  “Miss Baxter,” Simon whispered, sliding his body into the small recess of the open door before closing it behind him. No one had seemed to notice the young gentleman enter as the two wizards spoke within.

  Miss Baxter was in the heart of the room, tied in a chair situated in what appeared to be a summoning circle with four points. Simon felt the blood rush to his head as he regarded her. She looked utterly angelic, soft features framed by sunny curls that spun like gold from her salmon colored bonnet. Her hands were restrained behind her, her crook nowhere to be seen as Heironymous dangled overtop of her, his bare feet entangled within the silk scarves.

  Heironymous Grimguild was an aged man, past his prime yet still maintaining the appearance of youth. He had bronzed skin and dark hair flecked with gray and a rather pointed beard that matched a much more pointed moustache that curled at the ends. He was wearing a loose set of trousers, and his feet were bare. A thick leather belt with suspenders slashed across his midsection. Above that his bare chest was shamelessly on display, framed by toned arms that held him in place amidst the aerial scarves that dangled from the ceiling.