The Iron Assassin

by Ed Greenwood

  “I thank you,” he said, digging into the still-warm quail stew heartily. “It’s so nice to encounter the work of a cook who isn’t afraid to use a bottle or three of wine in the kitchen!”

  “Eat up,” Rose told him, accepting a half-filled glass from Hardcastle with a smiling nod, “and tell me how I can help.”

  Tempest nodded gravely, then shot Hardcastle a mock-severe glance and said, “I am informed, by the Lord Chamberlain no less, that you are aware of rather more about my, er, status than you let on knowing—and that you have been in the know for some seasons now!”

  Hardcastle shrugged, smiled, and handed his old friend his own half-filled glass of Islay. “We all have our secrets. No harm done, what?”

  “So we can speak freely,” Rose concluded, and waved her hand in a grand gesture that indicated Tempest should, accordingly, do so. She performed it with a flourish that would have done credit to a duchess.

  Jack Straker grinned at that. Then he set aside his plate a trifle regretfully. “Well, I’ll be some time healing, even whilst taking all of this excellent food aboard, so … as you can see, I’m wearing an exoskeleton. It was my prototype—I experimented on myself before attempting to work on Steelforce—and is a trifle crude. Prone to what we might term ‘locking up,’ I fear. So I’m somewhat less than my usual agile, dashing self. Which in turn means that, ladylike reputation to maintain or spurn, you’ll have to help Hardcastle with the usual running around posthaste, and the pratfalls, too.”

  “You make it sound so inviting,” she replied, amused.

  “Indeed. We invite danger into our parlors daily, we do. And all too often find ourselves practicing ever-wilder, more flamboyant, and ridiculous pratfalls.”

  “You make light of matters, Lord Tempest, but it seems to me that the Ancient Order of Tentacles is both a formidable foe and very much ‘up to something,’ as my father liked to say.”

  “They are. Right now those who lead the Order are thankfully embroiled in something of an internal dispute over ways, means, and priorities. So their full, concerted might is not being hurled at anyone. We cannot trust that this state of affairs will continue—and their feuding and their pursuit of various personal pigeons hasn’t stopped them employing another means of deviltry that may do their bidding at one remove, and so provide them both the fruits they seek and sufficient distance for them to escape all punishment for what befalls.”

  “You speak of this Silent Man, this Iron Assassin?”

  “I do indeed. My creation, so they can deny all involvement in whatever Steelforce does. Just now, it is quite likely under the control of a rival of mine, the unscrupulous tinkerer Norbert Marlshrike. He is almost certainly working for the Order now, in part because he’s chronically short of coin and they can both pay him and fund his work. His own greed and the history of thefts he’s developed as a result make it very easy for the Order to deny they’ve given him any support at all, if ever it came to exposure and hard questions in Parliament or from the Crown. Moreover, it’s quite clear that they’ve hired Marlshrike, who is the only other man in the world I know of aside from myself who can do such things, to achieve control over my Assassin and to devise new ones to serve entirely at their bidding. Sent to kill targets of their choosing—notably, right now, the Prince Royal.”

  “Right now,” Rose echoed.

  “Indeed. So Steelforce will be coming here,” Tempest warned, “and probably soon.”

  Hardcastle cleared his throat and said hesitantly, “Suppose you clear something up for me. I know your Silent Man is controlled by means of what you call a key, that the key that was in his head is damaged—likely beyond repair—and that Marlshrike probably has your old keys. Yet tell me how he controls this Steelforce. Does he dictate and somehow record commands, so they’re stored in the key and compel the man? Or can he send orders from afar, and change those orders without ever coming into contact with Steelforce?”

  Lord Tempest sipped Islay, sighed as its pleasant burn started down his throat, and asked, “The ‘from afar,’ not a recorded compulsion, though when I started out, it was the other way around. Have either of you ever heard of etheric telegraphy?”

  “I know of the telegraph,” Rose said without hesitation, “and ‘etheric’ implies the ether, the air around us, which in turn would mean, I would think, a telegraph that needs no wires but can send its signals through air.”

  “That explanation was ease itself,” Tempest observed triumphantly. “Imagine orders sent as electrical impulses into the brain—our brains work with their own electricity, you know—from afar, perhaps a mile or more. You see, there are waves we cannot see, hear, or feel that wash through the air constantly, and certain impulses and sounds can ride those waves. If you follow any of what the popular press sometimes calls ‘the fancies of so-called science,’ you might have heard the names Wilhelm von Bezold, James Clarke Maxwell, David Edward Hughes, or Sir Oliver Lodge … no? Well, let us just say by harnessing these invisible waves, Marlshrike can, across some distance, ‘turn on’ and compel my Iron Assassin.”

  “Yes,” Hardcastle said, “but how?”

  “It takes power,” Tempest replied grimly. “Lots of power. A steam engine larger than a coach—more the size of a small cottage—to generate the electricity needed to send influencing orders far enough on the waves.”

  “So Marlshrike must have such a machine, and it must be nearby,” Hardcastle mused. “So we must find it and smash it.”

  “As always, my friend, you demonstrate an effortless grasp of the essentials.”

  “Simplicity itself,” Lady Rose agreed with gentle sarcasm. “All we have to do is find this hidden and undoubtedly guarded machine and smash it.”

  Tempest chuckled. “Indeed. Only Marlshrike knows the effective range of the machine, so I don’t know how far afield we must search. And if we give him time enough to build more machines, he can send forth that many more assassins.”

  Hardcastle shook his head, looking grim. “You know what you’ve loosed on the Empire?”

  “I do,” Tempest replied curtly. “And I suspect all too soon I’ll know the price of my atonement, too.”

  As if his words had been a cue, a loud disturbance burst upon their ears—gunshots, men shouting, then a terrific crash of splintering wood and breaking glass.

  Hardcastle sprang up and reached out a long arm to haul Tempest to his feet. The Lady Harminster was already out the door and running down the passage like the wind, her unbound hair streaming out behind her.

  Guards were pounding down the passages, too, converging from all directions on the front hall, where the front doors stood open.

  Rose didn’t need to see who stood outside to know what was happening. The Iron Assassin was trying to break into Foxden.

  Guards were blazing away at the lone, lurching intruder with all manner of guns, including something Rose had heard of but never seen before: steam-powered air rifles that fired darts.

  The Iron Assassin was being hit repeatedly and was obviously injured, staggering and groaning in pain, clawing at the air as if to wave away all the projectiles, and his pain with them.

  Yet he was lurching doggedly forward. And the time came when there were no more guards arriving at a run and the forty or fifty guards gathered in the hall—the room seemed full to Rose—had no more ammunition left.

  Yet the riddled Silent Man outside the doors was still on his feet.

  And advancing. Grim orders were given, and the guards ran, however reluctantly, to meet the intruder.

  Defender after defender of Foxden hurled himself bodily against the Iron Assassin, slowing and staggering him, but paying the price by being maimed or knocked cold.

  By then, Tempest and Hardcastle had not only arrived, Tempest had taken a long and careful look at his creation.

  “Help me,” he told Hardcastle now, “and the moment I drive him back from the doors, you slip out and try to get the key out of him. But keep to one side, mind, or the chain
s will kill you!”

  Together, Tempest and Hardcastle plucked the sheets and then the two halves of the oval housing off the shrouded device that stood aimed out through the front doors.

  “Down and aside, everyone!” Tempest shouted—and everyone in the hall except Hardcastle and the Lady Harminster obeyed. Rose caught a glimpse of Malmerston calmingly going to his knees amid all the guards.

  At the sight of Tempest, the Iron Assassin let out a roar of fury and charged, but his creator caught hold of the chain-gun’s handles, stamped down on its lock lever, and fired it.

  At the proverbial point-blank range.

  Lengths of chain spewed out of the thing with a harsh rattling roar, and the Iron Assassin momentarily vanished behind a hail of whipping chain. When Tempest let go of the grips that both aimed and fired it, and the chain-gun fell silent, Bentley Steelforce had been driven well out into the graveled turning circle and looked to be wrapped in chain, his arms pinned to his sides. He jerked and shook, apparently helpless, sparks and rippling lightning playing about his chains.

  “Now!” Tempest called, and Hardcastle sprinted out through the open doors.

  Lady Rose Harminster was right on his heels, running hard.

  Tempest started to shout something more, then bit it back. If she was smart enough to keep out of his line of fire …

  She was. Hardcastle circled around to come at the Iron Assassin from one direction, and she ran at him from the other, shrieking like a harpy.

  Steelforce had sent a glare at Hardcastle and started to back away, but at her screams he turned his head to stare at her.

  And Hardcastle raked the back of his head, clawing open the little door and—wrenching out the control key.

  The Iron Assassin screamed, shrill and much, much louder than Rose. He staggered wildly back and away, shedding chain in a frenzy.

  Hardcastle sprinted for the doors, heading back into Foxden.

  Right behind him, Steelforce charged again, racing fast enough to make Rose gasp in disbelief. He was going to catch Hardcastle before—

  Tempest stared vainly at them all, unable to fire at the Iron Assassin—who was clutching his opened head and roaring in pain as he ran—without killing Hardcastle.

  Who somehow burst through the doors just before the not-so-silent man caught up to him.

  And then spun around, lowered his head, and rammed right into Steelforce’s gut, as hard as he could.

  He might just as well have run headlong into a solid stone wall.

  He reeled back, dazed, and the Iron Assassin caught hold of his shoulder in one large hand and flung him aside with casual ease, dashing him against the nearest wall.

  Hardcastle tumbled senseless to the floor, the control key falling from his grasp and clattering to a stop.

  The Iron Assassin lurched toward it.

  Rose burst through the doors, making a desperate dash for the key.

  One of Steelforce’s legs came down to bar her way. She’d just launched herself into a dive, arms extended—and slammed into his shin, coming to an abrupt halt.

  Her shoulder felt … broken. Rose rolled over on her back with a gasp of pain, saw a massive fist descending to shatter her head—and then heard the Iron Assassin blurt, “Pretty!”

  That massive fist halted in midair.

  Abruptly, Steelforce turned away and brought both fists down on the control key. Tiny pieces of it flew up into the air, and he stomped on it with his feet, one after the other, for good measure.

  By then, guards were slamming into him from all directions.

  He ignored them, as a bear ignores stinging flies, turning in dogged triumph to lurch off into the falling night, casually shedding guards in all directions.

  From somewhere, Malmerston flung a small round bomb at the back of the Assassin’s head. Its fuse was unlit, and it thudded off Steelforce’s skull, its only apparent effect being to slam the little door that had covered the key shut again.

  The Silent Man, now silent again, didn’t even bother to turn his head. He just lurched off into the darkening distance.

  Leaving everyone in his wake collapsed or at least slumped, exhausted or in pain, or some combination thereof. The splintered front doors of Foxden stood open.

  Through them, a few long and groan-filled minutes later, burst a breathless arrival, staggering out of the night.

  It was Algernon Hartworth, making his way past a guard wobbling to his feet in challenge, to pant, “Is the Lady Rose Harminster here?”

  “I’m here,” Rose managed to reply, from the floor.

  “Thank heavens! You’re the only one I could think of to warn! There were masked men in the forest, digging pits, and they caught a man with a head like a skull who was wearing metal cages all over his arms and legs. They said they sent him to kill the Prince Royal! That horrible killing man is coming here—you must be ready!”

  His words were met with bitter and then hysterical laughter from the men strewn all over the hall. He stared around at them in utter disbelief, really noticing them for the first time. Amid their groans, he received a polite “thank you, Lord” from the Lady Rose Harminster, who was somewhere on the floor amid them.

  OCTEMBER 11

  “Feckless and fickle,” a severe-faced housekeeper told the teapot, setting down the morning newspaper beside it with a snap that would have done credit to an officer on parade. “Can you really afford to continue this relationship?”

  “Miss Peabody,” the man with three sets of spectacles perched on the bridge of his long, sharply pointed nose said coldly, looking up at her darkly over all of them, “I don’t care to discuss this further. The manner and timing of my revenges are my own affair.”

  “I merely point out that your likelihood of remuneration from Finsbury and Sons has just sharply declined,” came the tart rejoinder, as the housekeeper’s bony forefinger tapped one of the lesser headlines, “and that the stack of billings I already have insufficient funds to pay is both thick and growing daily.”

  “That will do, Peabody,” Norbert Marlshrike snapped. “Pay the fishmonger so the cat won’t starve and ignore the rest. I’ll see that you have ample to pay them, very soon—and your own wages, too, of course.”

  The housekeeper nodded rather grimly and departed, leaving him to lift the domed lid of his breakfast platter and discover a thin mass of cold pickled oysters, whelks, and periwinkles, spread on soggy, still-warm toast.

  Hmmm. Money must be tight.

  Marlshrike thrust it all into his mouth, almost choking, rinsed it down his throat with the last of his tea, and hastened to his laboratory.

  If he didn’t get his own animated dead man up and killing to order soon, he might have to begin going out on the streets by night with a sharp knife himself.

  * * *

  “Well, who is it, Jenkins?” Lady Amelia Rathercoats looked up from her tea and her torrid book with some irritation. “One comes to the countryside to get away from all the London callers. I’ll grant that we can almost see our city home from here, but all the congestion at the bridges, and their relative paucity and therefore the lengthy journeys entailed, should free one from the interminable interruptions of society. It’s not as if we’re in trade here, or up to our eyebrows in steam-driven innovations!” The deepest Rathercoats scorn always seemed to include immersion to the eyebrows.

  “No, ma’am,” the butler agreed patiently. “It’s not a society caller. It’s…” He hesitated, then said, “A man from your past. Or so he claims.”

  Lady Rathercoats favored him with a look that would have frozen the heart of a lesser man but merely snapped, “And has he a name?”

  “He said to say he was once Bentley Roper.”

  Lady Rathercoats stiffened, then said slowly, “Well, well. Show him in, Jenkins, then close all doors and see that we are not disturbed. You may listen at a keyhole—so long as you have your long barrel loaded and ready.”

  “Very good, ma’am,” the butler replied expressionlessl
y, bowed, and went out.

  Leaving Lady Rathercoats alone to frown and murmur aloud, “‘Was once’? So what is he now, I wonder?”

  Her question was answered almost immediately. She tried not to stare, but the looming figure lurching toward her was … frightening. Yes, frightening.

  Conscious of Jenkins watching her, she straightened her back, lifted her chin, forced a smile onto her face, and said, “Mister Roper! Such a surprise! Will you sit and take tea and talk with a neglected old woman for a while?”

  His eyes were different, yet the same. They regarded her with more than a hint of malice, but a certain sneering humor.

  “Oh?” he replied. “You have a neglected old woman here? Where are you hiding her?”

  She barked startled laughter, and as her mirth ran down gave Jenkins a look. Obediently, he glided back out through the door and closed it.

  Leaving her alone with … with what the man she’d known so long ago had become. Bentley Roper loomed up over her, taller than she remembered. His face looked almost corpselike, his head was a bare skull but for a few stray wisps of hair, and his sunken eyes, fixed on her, were dark and terrible.

  He was clad all in black leather, a suit of many straps and buckles that was covered with a jointed metal frame like a series of intricate open cages fashioned to fit him closely, metal bars that were a-crawl with constant tiny bolts of crackling lightning that often spat sparks. He walked with a lurch, stiffly, and his hands and feet were bare—or, no, his fingertips were capped with gleaming metal.

  He was staring at her with something that looked horribly like hunger.

  “Please,” she said hastily, her rising alarm sharpening her words into a near command, “sit down.”

  She almost sighed aloud when he did so, taking the chair opposite hers.

  Those dark eyes never leaving hers for an instant.

  His hands were like shovels, the fingers hard and massive. He could probably tear her apart with ease …

  “We are alone now,” Lady Rathercoats murmured, pushing the dish of chocolate-dipped ginger biscuits in his direction with her fingertips, “so tell me: Why have you come? And whatever has happened to you?”