Metal and Magic

by Chris Paton

  “Miss Hanover,” he said.

  “It was Khronos,” Luise said as she fought to open her eyes. “We have to stop him.”

  “Yes, I know, but first we must stop the bleeding.” The doctor looked around the car for help and found the cord attached to the servants' bell. Luise watched as he ran to the end of the car and rang the bell. She heard the bell ring once and then all was black.

  Chapter 23

  The Svyato-Troitsky Cathedral

  Arkhangelsk

  July, 1851

  “Abraxas is a strange name,” said Nikolas as he waved at Molotok to give him a bit of space. The storage room was only just big enough for the emissary.

  “Perhaps,” said Abraxas. “But no stranger than you and your friend here,” he said and straightened his woollen cloak as he sat down at a desk. “The other emissaries are controlled by men with boxes. Where is yours?”

  “I don't have one. Molotok and I...”

  “You have named your emissary?”

  “Yes,” Nikolas said and he lifted his chin. “It is a good Russian name.”

  “It is the Russian name for a hammer.” Abraxas pointed a wizened finger at Molotok's fists. “Appropriate, too, I'd say.”

  “Molotok is good in a fight.”

  “Something you have been doing a lot of lately. Fighting, that is.” Abraxas pulled at the largest of the drawers in the desk and jogged it open with short tugs. Nikolas walked up to the desk and sat down on the chair next to Abraxas as the old man set a battered teapot on a charcoal burner he retrieved from the drawer. “Tell me, Nikolas,” he said, “how is it you can control Molotok without a control box?”

  “I don't really know. It's a bit like magic, I suppose.”

  “Magic?” said Abraxas and beckoned Nikolas closer to the desk. “Like this?” With his left hand, Abraxas tugged his right sleeve above his wrist and pointed his index finger at the charcoal inside the burner. A brilliant bolt of blue light burst from the old man's fingertip and lit the charcoal. “Demonlight,” he said as Nikolas let his jaw drop and stared at Abraxas' finger.

  “Are you a magician?”

  “Of a sort, perhaps.” Abraxas filled the teapot with water from a bottle on the desk. “Now, our kind of magic, your emissary,” he said with a nod towards Molotok, “and my demonlight, these are things best kept secret from the likes of Rutger Venzke and his men.”

  Nikolas sat up straight and held his head like he imagined his papa might do when talking about serious battle tactics. “I am not scared of Rutger Venzke.”

  “That might be so. But he is scared of you.”

  “Really?” said Nikolas and he dropped his adult-like pose. “He is scared of me?”

  “Don't get too excited about that, young man. Fear makes a man dangerous. And Rutger Venzke is a dangerous man. You have seen the reward posters, I am sure?”

  “Yes,” Nikolas said and reached into his satchel for the latest one he had ripped from a telegraph pole.

  “I don't need to see it, there are more than enough in the city. Which is why I would like to invite you and your friend to stay for a little while.”

  “Will you show me more magic?” Nikolas said as curiosity overcame him.

  “I might, but I want you to promise to stay with me for at least two days.”

  “And after that?”

  “Then you can go back to your night time ambushes.”

  Nikolas looked around the room, at the high ceiling and the blackwood ladder leading to a loft that, if he tilted his head, he could see had two wooden beds and a table between them. The bubble of the water boiling made Nikolas think of food, and he leaned to one side to look around the old man, and spied a shelf lined with packets of food and small sacks of flour and rice.

  “Can I eat your food too?”

  “Not all of it,” Abraxas said and laughed. “But of course, I would never invite a guest to stay without offering him something to eat.”

  “Do you have fuel for Molotok?”

  “As much as he requires.” Nikolas caught the look that Abraxas gave his emissary and it occurred to him that Molotok was perhaps the reason they had been invited to stay.

  “Why two days?” he said. “Why not one or five?”

  “You are welcome to stay as long as you want.”

  “Yes, but you said two days. And that look you gave Molotok...”

  “What look?”

  “Like you needed him, like he could be useful to you,” Nikolas said and tilted his head to one side to study Abraxas. “Is someone coming that frightens you?”

  Abraxas removed the teapot from the burner and selected black Russian tea from a cloth sack. He filled a brass strainer with tea leaves and put it in the teapot to stew. When he was finished, he looked at Nikolas and nodded.

  Nikolas thought about who might make the magician nervous and he decided that it might be someone quite important. “Who?” he said.

  “Someone from my past, and,” Abraxas said and leaned back in his chair, “someone or some people quite unexpected. I think we are in for a busy time, the three of us.”

  Abraxas opened the top drawer and took out a tin of biscuits. Nikolas recognised them as Navy hard tack, the kind his papa took on long journeys beneath the sea. He took two when Abraxas offered them to him, and dipped them in the tea the old man poured into a chipped cup. Nikolas sucked the biscuit and studied the old man. The wrinkles around his eyes were deeper than he had ever seen, even on the sick and the old in the hospital of Arkhangelsk – a common sight when he and his papa went to visit Nikolas' mother. Abraxas' beard was also whiter than most, with long thin hairs that rippled when he breathed. The magic though, what did he say it was called? Demonlight, yes, that was it. That was the strangest thing about the man, that and the visitor he was frightened of receiving.

  “What is demonlight?” Nikolas asked as he dipped his second biscuit. The crumbs swelled and bobbed on the surface of the tea.

  “Ah,” said Abraxas. “That is the magic of time.” Nikolas wrinkled his brow and Abraxas continued. “Demonlight draws its energy from time past, present and future. Like a clock that needs winding to keep ticking, time itself needs energy to keep moving forwards, faster or slower, as time and place allows. That energy, captured in each revolution of the earth around the sun, can be tapped into by people, like me, who have been in the Passage of Time.”

  “There is a passage through time?”

  “Not through but of. The passage is of time – all time.”

  “I don't understand,” Nikolas said and tried to hide a yawn with the back of his hand.

  “I will try and explain later. But, tell me, Nikolas, when did you last sleep at night?”

  Nikolas cast a guilty look at Molotok. The lodestone behind the emissary's grille glowed warmly for a moment and then returned to its normal brightness.

  “We have been busy.” Nikolas paused and then said, “Most nights.”

  “Then I suggest rest,” Abraxas said and stood up. He paused to take a sip of tea as shadows rushed past the window. “It seems we are not alone. Stay here,” he said and placed his cup on the desktop. “I will have a look.”

  Nikolas turned his head at the sound of crashing in the garden alongside the storage room. He pushed back his chair and walked to the ladder leading to the loft as Abraxas made his way to the door. Nikolas climbed two rungs of the ladder and used his elbow to rub a hole in the grime through which he could see. He recognised the officer that Molotok had knocked out earlier, before they had taken refuge with Abraxas. The man standing next to him, however, Nikolas knew by reputation only. He towered above the officer, held his arms stiffly to his sides and every piece of leather on the man's uniform gleamed, polished and smooth like his face and head. Rutger Venzke, Nikolas realised, was bald.

  “Please get down, Nikolas. I will get rid of Rutger Venzke, but that will be difficult to do if he sees you. Now, come down below the windows.” Abraxas paused at the door. “There is plenty of
fuel stacked along the far wall. Be sure to keep your friend well-supplied. I will be back shortly.”

  Nikolas climbed down the ladder as Abraxas slipped outside and locked the door. Molotok ducked its head and clanked towards the window, only to stop as Nikolas waved his arms in front of him. The emissary stopped and studied the small boy below him. He pointed a stubby bronze finger towards the wall. Nikolas shook his head and placed a finger on his lips. Molotok lowered its hand, the servos in its neck whined as it nodded its head up and down once.

  Voices crept through cracks in the glass of the windows and Nikolas pressed his ear against it. The wall amplified the sound of Abraxas and Venzke talking. Nikolas closed his eyes to concentrate.

  “Where is the boy, old man?” said a voice Nikolas imagined was Venzke's.

  “He is safe. He will not bother you again.”

  “You have him then?”

  “As I said,” Abraxas said – and Nikolas heard him sigh as if dealing with Venzke was more challenging than explaining the Passage of Time. “He is safe.”

  “I don't care if he is safe. I want him captured. Oberleutnant,” Venzke shouted. “Search the building.”

  Nikolas pushed away from the wall and clicked his fingers at Molotok. “The door,” he said. “They are coming in.”

  “You are making a mistake, Venzke,” Abraxas said, loud enough that Nikolas could hear him through the window. “You should know the boy is never alone.”

  “And neither am I,” Venzke said. Nikolas heard the scuffle of boots along the garden path and he searched for a way out of the building.

  If they come through the front door, he thought, then we are trapped. Nikolas looked up at the loft and imagined a window at the top. But Molotok can't climb up there. He turned around and bumped into Molotok's hands. The emissary's fingers closed around Nikolas' thin ribs as Venzke's men began to hammer on the door.

  “Molotok? What are you doing?” Nikolas said as the emissary lifted him up and pushed him onto the floor of the loft. “Molotok?”

  The emissary looked at Nikolas as the boy gripped the emissary's grille faceplate. The soft green light of Molotok's lodestone flushed Nikolas' hands for a moment and then the emissary took a step back and turned to confront the Germans at the door.

  “No,” said Nikolas as the first of the German emissaries kicked down the door and rushed into the storage room. Molotok leaped forwards and caught the emissary by the head and twisted it around and off the globus tank. The emissary crashed to the floor, trapping Molotok's left foot beneath its body. Molotok threw the head at the German soldiers and tugged at its foot only to look up as two more emissaries squeezed inside the storage room and hurled themselves at Molotok. Nikolas' friend and protector for over three months was buried beneath a flurry of brass fists.

  “Molotok,” Nikolas cried out and took a step towards the ladder. More soldiers poured into the storage room, scrambling over and around the emissaries. They pointed and shouted at Nikolas.

  Nikolas felt his lungs begin to squeeze like they did every time he exerted himself or became frightened. He fought for a breath and turned towards the window. There was a single chair between the beds and Nikolas picked it up and hurled it through the glass pane just as the first German soldier reached the loft. Nikolas wheezed as climbed out of the window and onto the roof. He felt the tiles slip beneath his tired shoes, the soles worn thin by rubble and running.

  “Stop,” the soldier shouted and reached out to grab Nikolas by the strap of his satchel.

  “Let go of me,” Nikolas said as he gasped for air. The strap buckle bent as Nikolas leaned back and the strap broke. He fell, tumbling down the tiles and into the air. The ground rushed up to meet him only to stop suddenly as Nikolas was cushioned by an electric blue pillow.

  “Demonlight,” Nikolas whispered as he felt himself lowered to the ground.

  “Thank you, Abraxas,” said a voice Nikolas recognised as Venzke's. “Release him and we will take him from here.”

  “Where will you take him?” said Abraxas. “He is just a boy.”

  “A boy that has been a thorn in my side for more months than I care to remember,” Venzke said and reached down to knock Nikolas' cap from his head. He took a handful of Nikolas' thin blond hair within his fist and pulled him to his feet. Venzke pressed his smooth-shaven face to within an inch of Nikolas' and leered at him. “You and your metal friend are finished, boy,” he said and turned Nikolas to see the cart being pulled by two emissaries and flanked by two rows of soldiers and the emissaries' controllers. On the bed of the cart, the door of its boiler hinged open and wet charcoal spread all around, Molotok lay, its lodestone was as dull as the day Nikolas had found it. Nikolas reached for his cap and used it to hide the tears welling in his eyes.

  Chapter 24

  The Russian Taiga

  Arkhangelsk Oblast

  July, 1851

  The copper-infused bullet crackled through the spruce trees on both sides of the forest road and slammed into Bryullov’s chest. The Russian slumped to the ground as sparks blistered from the bullet in a frenzied helix that pinned his arms to his side and made his teeth clatter. Najma pressed the Lightning Jezail into Jamie's hands, drew the knife from the curved scabbard at her waist and walked towards Bryullov.

  “Stop,” said Hari as he stepped in front of her. “Stop this.”

  “Out of the way, Nightjar. I will have vengeance.”

  “Truly, I understand, but we must talk to him. Don't kill him, at least, not yet.”

  The knife wavered in Najma's hand as Hari opened his hands and gave her a pleading look. Najma stepped around Hari to watch as the blister of energy on Bryullov's chest fizzed and spat until it was spent. She moved around Hari only to find the mystic blocking her at every turn.

  “Najma,” he said. “Please.”

  “Argh,” Najma said and stabbed the knife into the closest tree. “Talk to him then,” she said and pulled the knife free and sheathed it. She turned on her heel and stalked back to Jamie. For once, Hari noted, the young Englishman's nakedness seemed not to bother her.

  Hari nodded at Jamie and walked over to kneel beside Bryullov. He found the bullet embedded in the thick leather tunic Bryullov wore. Hari drew his kukri and prised the bullet free and dropped it into his hand.

  “Ah, hot,” he said and rolled it onto the ground. “But not powerful enough to penetrate your tunic, eh?”

  “No,” said Bryullov and groaned as he sat up. “But enough to knock me to the ground. That is twice in one day. And both times I was shot by a woman.”

  “Perhaps,” Hari said and smiled, “women do not like you very much.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Truly, I do not.” Hari sat down and crossed his legs. He held the kukri in a light grip, the tip pointed directly at Bryullov, something he noticed the Russian was aware of.

  “So what do we do now, Nightjar?”

  “Now?” Hari said and yawned. “Honestly, I could do with a rest, but time is not on our side. We must get to Arkhangelsk and you must tell us what you know to speed us on our way.”

  “And then?”

  “And then? Such a difficult question, Kapitan Bryullov. But I imagine our mutual friend...”

  “Najma?”

  “The very same,” Hari said and nodded. “I think she will have some say in the matter.”

  Bryullov leaned to one side to see around Hari. Najma glared at him, while Jamie stood in the middle of the road and gazed straight ahead with blank eyes.

  “Your other friend, the English lieutenant...” Bryullov said. “He seems distracted.”

  “He is djinn.”

  “Not right now.”

  “No. Now he is but a vessel,” Hari said and shuddered at the memories the djinni had shared with him. “You may have forced him into the pit...”

  “I merely gave him to Shah Orbalaye Bal.”

  “Who forced him into the pit, yes. But it was I that released him and forced him to
accompany me to Russia.”

  “Why?”

  “To fight a demon, but I fear, he has far too many demons of his own to fight.”

  “If I know my djinn lore,” said Bryllov as he settled himself into a more comfortable position. “It is not quite enough to be cast into the djinn pit, one has to have something in one's past to draw out the djinni inside.”

  “You are talking about Qarin? The voice of one's inner demons – the voice of all one's misdeeds.”

  “Yes.”

  “I see,” Hari said and sheathed his kukri. “And how strong is your Qarin, Kapitan?”

  “I shudder to think.”

  “Truly.”

  The sounds of the forest disturbed by their meeting returned as Hari waited for Bryullov to speak. The day was growing longer and Hari felt the need to press on, if the djinni was strong enough to continue. He glanced at Bryullov's horse and noted the froth around its nostrils and the sweat beading on its flanks. The beast is not strong enough to carry more than one person, Hari realised, and even then not very far. He turned his attention back to Bryullov as the Russian opened his mouth to speak.

  “The city is ringed by Cossacks. They plan to lay siege to Arkhangelsk and to free the people.”

  “Will they succeed?”

  “Perhaps. If they can control the river.”

  “Who leads them?”

  “Ivan Timofeyevich,” said Bryullov and a smile tickled his lips. “It was his daughter that shot me,” he said and showed Hari the bandage on his arm. “Timofeyevich is a wily fox when it comes to guerrilla fighting, but he is not built for a siege. He will grow bored and restless as time goes on. But,” Bryullov paused. “He is not alone. Kapitan Stepan Skuratov is with him, and he has more reason than any to get inside the city – his son is among the people under occupation.”

  “Occupation?”