by Paton, Chris
“Apology accepted.” I leaned back on the bench.
“The emissary, as we speak, is being refurbished. The battle marks beaten out of the brass plates and any parts needing to be replaced will be attended to. There is no need to return to the factory in Frankfurt. If you choose to accept this assignment, I will have the train rerouted to Transylvania.”
“And you?”
“I will get off at the next station.”
“We could too, Karl.” Seffi pushed the plate of pastries into the middle of the table. “Think about that.”
I thought about it. I thought about a life free of orders and assignments. I just didn't know where to go, and I had yet to understand Seffi's place in that life. I turned to face her.
“We?”
“Yes,” Seffi smiled. “I would come with you, as far as you wanted to go.”
“Why?”
“Why?” It was Seffi's turn to frown. “I think we we make a good team,” she spluttered.
“I think we do too,” I placed my palm over my pocket and felt the thimblestone inside.
“Then we can decide what to do once we get off at the next station.”
“Yes...”
“There's a but coming, isn't there, Karl?”
“Yes,” I looked at Schleiermacher. “I would like to talk to Seffi for a moment. Just the two of us.”
“Very well,” Schleiermacher pushed himself along the bench and stood up. “I will return before we arrive at the next station.” He pulled a fob watch from his pocket. “You have approximately thirty minutes.”
I waited until Schleiermacher reached the end of the car, until I heard the shush of the door sliding shut behind him. Reaching for Seffi's hands, I was surprised when she let me take them. The callouses and cuts ingrained in her skin scratching at my palms.
“Do you remember how I got up the mountain, after I was shot?”
“The emissary carried you,” Seffi nodded.
“Yes, but neither you nor I had a hand in that. The control box was around my neck. I was unconscious and you were pinned down in the rocks below.”
“What are you saying, Karl?”
Ignoring her question, I continued. “There was another time, when the emissary shook its head at you.”
“Karl...”
“And another time,” I cut her off, “When it waved...”
“You are making no sense, Karl. You are talking as if the emissary has a life of its own.”
“Not its own,” I gripped Seffi's hands. “Şteamƙin.”
“What?”
“It’s like your wilding ways,” I let go of Seffi's hands and leaned back on the bench. “Too difficult to explain, but too important not to.”
“Try,” Seffi curled her legs up onto the bench. “Try as if your future, maybe even ours, depended upon it.”
“All right,” I took a deep breath. “I think the emissary is possessed by some living form that controls it, that allows it to empathise and feel and respond. I think it is alive in some way, and if we don't take this assignment, I might never get the chance to fully explore or understand it.” I watched Seffi's face, waiting for her response.
“It's important to you?”
“Yes,” I reached for the cup of coffee, fiddled with the saucer without lifting the cup. “And if Wallendorf's reclaims the emissary, I won't ever see it again.”
“We have no commitments, family or otherwise. We could literally disappear, Karl. Go anywhere, do anything, and not have to think about money for the rest of our lives.”
“I understand that.”
“And yet, you want to go all the way to Transylvania just to spend some time with a brass monster that you think might be possessed?”
“Something like that, yes.” In the silence that followed I tried my warmest smile. “Schleiermacher said we were just going to show off the emissary, to negotiate a sales price.”
“Karl,” Seffi sighed. “This is from the same man who betrayed the most formative years of my life and made your own life forfeit, just because a minister told him to do so. Do you not think there might be more to it than just making a sale on behalf of the factory? If it was that simple, he could send anybody. But no, he wants you, the man who controls the emissary best, and he knows I will come with you, out of a sense of obligation...”
“You would come with me because you felt obliged?”
“Damn it, Karl. Don't twist this into something even more complicated.” Seffi turned her back on me, uncurled her legs and propped them on the opposite bench.
I waited for three whole fields to pass before breaking the silence.
“So what should we do, Seffi?”
“You have made your decision, haven't you, Karl?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Then you know mine.” Kicking her legs off the bench, Seffi stood up. Leaning over the table, she grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me off the bench. “Just don't make me regret it, Karl, or you will suffer for the rest of your life,” she let go and I slumped onto my rear, “and mine.”
The door at the end of the car slid open. Schleiermacher pressed himself against the door frame as Seffi pushed past him and stalked out of my sight. Whatever the outcome of our assignment, I realised then that Seffi Achterberg was forever going to be a part of my life, for better or worse, and I confess I smiled at the thought.
Chapter 5
Schleiermacher left the train quietly, with hardly a word from Seffi or I to mark his departure. Seffi had even less to say to me, and I found myself alone with my thoughts in the dining car as the train continued, next stop Prague. As night fell I left almost a full plate of food on the table and made my way to the cargo area at the rear of the train, passing several Wallendorf men on the way.
Stepping into the cargo car I was reminded of the first time I set foot inside the Wallendorf factory. The sights and smells were the same, ropes, pulleys, sodium lamps, leather and coal dust, only the scale was different. The emissary stood in the centre of Wallendorf's satellite workshop, secured to great iron eye bolts in the ceiling with chains and ropes as thick as my wrist. I nodded at the engineer working at a hardwood table to one side of the emissary, the battered faceplate pinched in a vice at one end of the work surface. I gave the emissary a quick look as I stepped over its huge cloven feet and joined the engineer at the table.
“I'm Karl Finsch,” I held out my hand.
“Dieter Mueller,” the engineer wiped his hands on a rag and gripped mine.
“You're a little young for an engineer. If it wasn't for your height...”
“I am seventeen.” Dieter wrung the rag between thick fingers. “I usually work on steamracers, but Herr Wallendorf put me on the train. F-for the experience, he said.”
“He must trust you to work on the emissary.”
“I am a f-friend of his daughter, Romney. I look af-fter her when she visits the f-factory.”
I nodded and walked to the end of the table. Pinching the faceplate between my fingers, I looked up at the replacement screwed into the front of the emissary’s head. The green flicker and glow of the lodestone inside the emissary’s head suggested everything was working as it should be.
“Was there much damage, Dieter?”
“Not to the inside of-f the head. The f-faceplate took all of-f the damage.”
“That's good.” I tapped the vice with the palm of my hand and looked at the young engineer. “Would you mind giving me a minute alone with the emissary? Perhaps you could have a break?”
“Ja, all right, Herr F-finsch,” Dieter tossed the rag onto the table. “I am f-finished. I just have to put my tools away.”
“Don't worry about that, I might need some of them. I will put them away after.” I paused at the look of concern wrinkling the young engineer's dust-smeared forehead. “Unless you would rather put them away yourself.”
“Ja,” Dieter relaxed. “I will put my tools away when I come back.”
“Of course,�
�� I waved as Dieter turned to walk out of the cargo car. The door between the cars slid shut behind him and I was alone with the emissary.
“Well,” I walked to the front of the emissary, leaned back and focused on the green glow behind the faceplate. “It must be good to get out of the crate,” I flicked my head in the direction of the wood planks stacked at the end of the workspace. Turning back to the emissary, I smiled up at the brass head shining dully in the lamplight. “I won't let them crate you up again.”
The green glow brightened for a moment and I was encouraged.
“There you are,” I reached forwards and placed my palm on the emissary’s thigh. “I have taken a bit of a gamble on you. I have a friend, Seffi...” I paused as the brass fingers of the emissary's right hand tightened into a fist. “No, no...” I took a step back. “Seffi is my friend, I feel...” I paused again, looking for the words. “I care for her. A great deal.”
The emissary relaxed, its fingers uncurling with a lubricated click of cogs and gears.
“I would like you to care for her, too. Like you did for me, when you carried me up the mountain.” I searched the emissary's face, holding my breath until the green glow brightened once more. “Thank you.”
I sat down on the floor of the car, the jostle of the train on the tracks vibrating through the floor and into my body. A brief sensation of nausea caught hold of my stomach and then passed. The emissary bowed its head, staring down at me over the bulbous curves of its brass furnace.
“A friend told me about the Şteamƙin, and I am beginning to believe that she is right.” I waited for the emissary to agree with another brightening of the glow behind its faceplate. “I can see that there is much for me to learn.” Scanning the workshop, I found the controller laying on a shelf, its lid closed, the harness draped on top of it. “I don't suppose I will need that much more, only for appearances.”
The emissary turned its head in the direction I was pointing, the metallic click as it moved back and forth was soft, like wooden butterfly wings. I waited for it to look at me, thinking that it would be appropriate to give the emissary a name. Something fitting, that signified the emissary's raw power, the sense of fathomless knowledge hidden behind the mask, and that one, glowing eye.
“I should like to call you Odin,” I nodded. “If that would be to your liking.”
The emissary's eye brightened, then narrowed as it clicked its head to look at the door to the car as it slid open. I pushed myself to my feet as Seffi stepped inside the workspace.
“I thought I might find you here,” her step light upon the car floor, she approached the emissary with slow, careful steps. “It's strange,” she stopped several feet from the emissary. “Since you have told me your theory, I find myself looking at a different machine entirely.”
“I have called him Odin.”
“Odin?”
“Because of the eye,” I flicked my finger in front of my right eye. “You do know Odin?”
Seffi took a step forwards. “I know him as Wuotan.”
“Wuotan?” I nodded. “Yes, I like that.”
Seffi paused as the emissary's head turned to follow her movements. “The controller?” She frowned.
“On the shelf. Over there,” I pointed.
“Okay,” Seffi nodded. “I think I am beginning to understand now, Karl.”
“Then you understand why I might want to spend more time with it?”
“Yes,” she folded her arms across her chest. “But I want to remind you that we had a way out, and you didn't take it.”
“This is bigger than that, Seffi.”
“So you say.”
“But what I want to know, is why you decided to stay. You could have left, Seffi.”
“And leave you alone in the world? You wouldn't last two days without me, Karl.”
“I lived thirty-some years without you. I think I could have managed.”
“And when I found you, leaping out of a window with stolen goods to escape a beating...”
“Yes,” I sighed. “There is that.”
“The world has changed since then, Karl.” She pointed at the emissary. “He has changed all that. Schleiermacher told me that Bremen is pushing for the emissary to be deployed with a controller in countries like Afghanistan and India. Can you imagine it?”
“To what purpose?”
“Diplomacy,” Seffi shrugged. “Intimidation, more likely. But whatever their purpose, the emissaries are just the beginning. War is coming, and Bremen is doing everything he can to ensure the German Confederation has the winning hand.”
“Then why send us to Transylvania? It doesn't make sense.”
“Not initially, no. But how much do you know of the history of Transylvania, and its Counts in particular?”
“Very little, I confess.”
“You and I both. But the Count must have something that Bremen wants.” Seffi unfolded her arms as the driver of the train applied the brakes. “We must be nearing Prague. Another day and we will be in Brașov. From there we must make our way into the mountains.” Her eyes on the emissary's head, Seffi walked across the floor to stand by my side. “I think I know what Schleiermacher is up to, the reason why he wants us to go to Transylvania.”
“Why?”
“I think he is hedging his bets. If we can impress the Count, then perhaps Wallendorf's and the German Confederation will gain a powerful ally.”
“But you said the emissaries are being sent to Afghanistan...”
“And India, yes. But there are enemies on all sides, Karl, and it pays to have powerful friends.” Seffi looked away from the emissary. Taking my hands in hers, the lamplight flickered in her eyes as she looked at me. “Promise me, Karl, when we are finished with this assignment, we will find somewhere quiet to live.”
“Together?”
“Well,” Seffi smiled, “we are at least friends, Karl. Yes,” she sighed, “yes, I see that now, and I need a friend, and I would like that friend to be you.” She looked up as the emissary twitched its fingers, the green glow behind its faceplate brightened with an intensity I had not seen before.
“I think Wuotan approves,” I laughed.
“Yes,” Seffi squeezed my hands.
“And after that? When we have found somewhere quiet. What then?”
“I don't understand?”
“Could we ever be more than,” I shrugged, “more than friends?”
“I...” Seffi withdrew her hands. “Perhaps, I...”
“It's all right,” I let my hands fall to my sides, stumbling against the emissary as the train braked to a standstill alongside the station platforms of Prague. “I understand.”
“Perhaps,” Seffi moved to the far door. “This is new for me, Karl. First a friend, and then...” Turning, she opened the door and stepped into the final car at the rear of the train. “I am going to get some air.”
Seffi walked through the car to the door at the rear. I watched as she opened the door and stepped outside, casting a glance back along the car before she descended the metal steps onto the platform. Wallendorf’s men took up position outside the train, guarding it as the train took on new supplies, but no passengers.
“Well, Wuotan,” I looked up at the emissary. “Perhaps I should get some air, too?”
The emissary nodded, its head slowing to a stop as Dieter entered the car.
“Everything all right, Herr F-finsch?”
“Yes,” I rapped my knuckles on the emissary's thigh. “You have done a great job. Now, I'll leave you to finish up while I get some rest before we reach Brașov.”
“Good idea, Herr F-Finsch. The train will take on water, sand and coal, just af-fter the station. The driver said it will be another day bef-fore we reach Romania.”
“Plenty of time to rest.” Offering my hand to the young engineer, we shook hands before I walked out of the cargo car.
The bustle of passengers on the platform staring at the Wallendorf train, obscured my view of Seffi, but I saw
her black hair once in a while as she made her way along the platform. Everything but the train was moving very quickly. I had confirmed, to some length, Abi's theory of Şteamƙin, and created yet another awkward situation between Seffi and I. It felt like an age since she had me carry a dead body up the stairs to my residence, and even the mountainsides of Suilven were blurring into the past. I though of Whistlefish and The Suilven Star, where they might be, how Abi might be faring. A rumble in my stomach made me think of Beatrice's tea, and amid the confusion of my thoughts, I found a moment’s reprieve and smiled. I made my way through the cars to the dining car. Sitting on the bench, Seffi hunkered over a huge map covering our table. I slid quietly onto the table, smiling at Seffi as she looked up at me.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes,” she tapped her finger on the map. “But you really have no idea what we are getting into, do you?”
“That's why I hoped you would stay with me. It seems I really can't survive without you.” I waited for her to laugh. Instead, she tapped the map with her finger.
“Surviving might be the right word. I hope your emissary can negotiate these contours. Because the Bucegi Mountains are going to make Suilven look like an afternoon stroll.”
I leaned over the map and stared at where Seffi was pointing. The realisation of what I had said yes to, slowly dawned on me.
Chapter 6
The light of the full moon lit the interior of the dining car as the train slowed into the Brașov rail station. The conical roofs of the station's towers cast pinnacle shadows onto the track, lost between the clouds as they scudded across the night sky. Seffi tossed my knapsack onto my lap as she fastened the leather envelope of knives at the back of her belt.
“It's light,” I slid off the bench and hefted the knapsack onto my back. “Such an amazing light.”
“It’s the just the moon, Karl.”
“I know, but...”
“We don't have much in the way of supplies,” Seffi reached into her pocket and pulled out a leather purse. “But we do have plenty of coins. Schleiermacher intended for us to pay our way into the mountains, after which we will be hosted by the Count.” Slipping the purse back into her pocket, she nodded towards the platform outside the window. “I will find our contact while you see to the emissary.”
