The Cog Chronicles Box Set

by P M Cole

  I was about to reply, when Lucas reappeared. “With some more wood, the fire in the living room will be heating most of the ground floor soon. But I need to send a message to the Palace. To let them know where we are.” He looked at me. “We need to send Auto on his way.”

  After doing so, and partaking in some food and warm beverages, we were all in the large basement room, the fire burning bright. On the reading table stood a device which to my eyes initially looked like an ornate lamp. A series of crystals balanced on metal rods, spread out from a turnstile, with a wheel and handle to keep it turning.

  I looked at a grandfather clock behind me. “It has been almost an hour, he should be there by now,” I said to the others.

  “Stand in front of the device,” said Charlotte.

  I walked forward, doing as she said.

  “This is a transmortation device. You and the mechanical bird are connected by your magic, and these crystals in front of you will strengthen that connection, meaning we should see what the bird sees.”

  She looked at Lucas and he started turning the wheel, causing the crystals to spin.

  “Now feel your magic inside you and, when you’re ready, project it on to the crystals.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm my thoughts, but all I saw were flashes of ruined buildings and monsters…

  “Concentrate,” said Charlotte impatiently.

  “I’m trying!”

  After another deep intake and exhale of air, I opened my eyes and let my gaze be taken by the cycling flickers of light from the spinning shards. I started to feel dizzy and spread my hands to catch my balance, but instead I caught Colin who steadied me.

  “Keep looking, allow the light to take you away…” continued Charlotte.

  A tingle started to rise inside of me, and I held my hands out towards the spinning machine. Purple sparkles jumped between my fingers, and then to the device. Lucas turned the wheel faster causing the light effect to become continuous. My magic coiled and fizzed over the crystals and metal supports until eventually the light unified and burst upwards forming shapes, then an image. It was similar to what the viewing device in the monitoring station at the Factory had produced.

  “I see homes, streets. Your little bird is flying,” said Charlotte. She turned to Lucas. “Keep up the speed Lucas.”

  “I… am doing so,” he said slightly out of breath.

  “You’re doing well, Cog, keep focused,” she said.

  We all watched a purple-tinted view of houses give way to snow-covered paths and grass, hundreds of feet below, and then… police… wagons with bars across their small windows… and lines of people being led to them.

  “No…” I whispered and the image spluttered.

  “Don’t let your emotions break your concentration! We need to see,” said Charlotte.

  I redoubled my efforts and the image came back to life.

  “Tell Auto to find Dax!”

  I whispered and thought the commands and the frost-covered park slid below us and then suddenly grew closer until we could see thousands of fragments of glass. Auto had landed and was looking upon the large entrance of the Palace which was without many of its window panes and what were still there were cracked and jagged. He suddenly took back up into the air, flying straight through one of the openings where bloodied bodies came into view. My thoughts became muddled once again, but I quickly focused, and the moving images continued. I could feel what everyone in the room looking on was fearing, I felt it too. I wanted to turn away, stop what I knew we would soon see, but I could not. We had to know.

  An elderly man, his head down, was slumped against the damp concrete. I heard a sound come from next to me, but I would not allow my emotions to break the connection. I had to know. Auto got closer, until he was on the ground hopping towards the broken body of Dax.

  The crash of crystal jarred in my brain before I knew what had happened. I blinked bringing myself back to the room around me. The device, with its delicate rods was in pieces on the floor, and Charlotte sat nearby sobbing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I stood on the roof of Wraith manor. It had started snowing again and the light was failing due to the sun beginning its downward slide to the horizon. I shivered. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could remain, leaning up against the eastward facing wall, but a tiny glint above the trees warmed my heart, and informed me my long wait had not been in vain.

  “Auto!” I shouted.

  Soon the speck of golden light became a shape with flapping wings, and then the mechanical bird flew past me half landing half skidding across the smooth surface. I ran to the little automaton and picked him up from the ice. “You made it!”

  “L…o…w…N…e…e…d…R…e…s…t.”

  The nearby door to the attic sprung open and Lucas and Colin appeared.

  “We heard the shout,” said Lucas. He saw Auto and smiled.

  “Hello, Owl!” shouted Colin.

  Auto chirped his usual remark on seeing him and I giggled with a tear in my eye.

  “He’s always happy to see me!” said Colin with a smile.

  I went to continue with my small whisper of joy but then remembered the reason I came up on the roof when I did, to get away from the anguish. Charlotte had retired to one of the bedrooms and despite the thickness of the walls and doors we could hear her grief. I had suspected, but her state confirmed that she and Dax must have been much more than mere colleagues years before. I looked at Lucas. “Has she come out?”

  He shook his head. “Come on, let’s get you warmed up. And we need to discuss what we do next.”

  I welcomed the wall of heat which washed over me when I walked into the basement room, and eagerly sat near the flames in one of the high-backed chairs. I placed Auto on the ground. He walked a few paces forward then stopped, his metal eyelids falling across his gemstone eyes.

  Lucas handed me a mug of hot tea, and some bread rolls which we had bought from the man with the cart.

  Colin sat on the floor in front of me, while Lucas pulled up a chair. Daniel remained at the reading table, seemingly lost in a volume.

  I took a quick sip of my tea. “Will they be coming here next? It seems everywhere we go, they find us…”

  “They may, but you might have noticed the lack of snow on the manor grounds. This house and what surrounds it are located on a nexus of strong magic. When I returned with…” He sighed. “Dax, we increased that protection. It would take a small army to make it inside these walls now. That’s the same for a god or casuals.”

  “It won’t matter to him, he will find a way in here eventually,” said Daniel looking up from his book. “He now has all the power of the British empire on his side. You really think some earth magic is going to stop him?”

  “No… I don’t. But it should allow us some time to come up with a plan of some kind for when that happens…”

  “We want him to come here,” said Charlotte standing in the doorway. A small blanket was draped around her shoulders. She walked forward and placed the necklace from the museum, and the odd little leather tube on the reading table. “We should now have enough power to break Chronus’s spell.”

  “What is in the leather box?” said Colin.

  “Why don’t you see for yourself?”

  Colin looked at me and then back to Charlotte. He then got to his feet.

  “I’m not sure you should,” I said to him.

  He smirked then walked to the table, picking up the small tube. He shook it, which made me and Lucas wince a little.

  “Be careful!” I said.

  “Open it,” said Charlotte casually.

  I took in a breath.

  Colin pulled the leather cap from the top. Immediately intense blue white light streamed from the end, casting a cone of light on the ceiling. Colin held it away from himself. “What the hell is it!” he asked.

  “Here, give it to me,” said Charlotte. He handed it to her. She carefully reached in and p
ulled out what appeared from where I was sat to be a rod of pure light, so bright we had to shield our eyes from it.

  Once my eyes adjusted, I put my drink down and walked closer. I could then see what it truly was. “Lightning…”

  Charlotte smiled. “It’s a tiny piece of one of Zeus’s lightning bolts…”

  “You had it all this time?” said Lucas not being as impressed as I was.

  She nodded.

  “But you knew I needed it!”

  “You needed many things back then Lucas, the least of which was this.”

  He sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry… I’m glad you have it.”

  Daniel’s eyes were wide. “That’s really a bolt from Zeus himself?”

  “It is.”

  “How did you get it?” he continued.

  “He gave it to me…”

  We were all too stunned to enquire any further. She placed it back into the leather container. “So, as I was saying. We need to prepare the spell, because sooner or later Hades will be here, and we need to be ready.”

  *****

  I lay in the same bed I had done a week before. When I left the basement room, Lucas and Charlotte were discussing the best way to cast the spell. The problem was the wards that protected us, also would weaken the magic required to send Hades back from whence he came. So, either it had to happen somewhere else, or the wards needed to be removed when Hades arrived. Neither option was palatable.

  I looked at the empty space next to me. Colin had walked me to my bedroom door, and from his disappointment had expected to enter the room together, but after the events of the day I needed to be alone. I wanted to make my own plans. It wasn’t that I did not trust Lucas and Charlotte, it was just that if I had learned one thing over the past few months it was that nothing happens as you think it will. So, I too wanted to be ready, in my own way. During my time spent on the roof of the Palace, and then again earlier on the manor roof, an idea had spawned. I told Charlotte I would replace her dirigible and that was what I meant to do. It would give us a means to travel without having to contend with the deluge of snow on the ground and it would also give us a means to escape if their plan failed. I would start in the morning by looking for suitable materials.

  I turned over and faced the ice-covered window. The tops of trees were just visible at the bottom of it. My meeting with Athena and what she had revealed to me came to mind. Each new piece of information or event had pulled me closer to my past but pushed me further into an unknown future. I took in a deep breath. My eyes were heavy, but my heart was pounding in my ears. Lucas said we were safe for the time being, but were we…

  Screams and crimson flashed before my eyes, which I opened into darkness. Another dream was quickly fading but had left its trace regardless of me not remembering it. I sat up, not being able to see much of the walls and furniture around me and realised how parched I was. The tea was enjoyable but had left me dry-mouthed.

  I pulled the blanket off and stood then threw a shawl over my shoulders, opened the door, and crept outside. A single gas lamp flickered in the hallway and I made my way softly over the rugs to the main staircase, then down, keeping to the edges so not to cause any to creak. My destination was the kitchen, but I only made it to the entrance to the basement as a light glow drew my attention.

  I pulled the door open some more and descended the cold stone steps, coming out in the basement room. The fire had died down but was still burning, and Daniel was still reading.

  He looked up. “Why are you awake? Can you not sleep?”

  “I wanted some water. Why are you still reading? Is the book that good?” I smiled.

  He did as well, placing the large vellum-covered book down. “I believe this is the twelfth of such volumes I have inspected since I sat in this seat.”

  I walked forward and sat in one of the chairs at the table, looking over the books spread out on top of it. “Ugh, I recognise some of these. Lucas told you to read them correct?”

  He smiled again. “Some, and others I found for myself.”

  “Why do they interest you so?”

  “I believe you saw the library that Hades has in his underground palace?”

  I nodded.

  “I spent many hours in that place, as I think you did.” He looked at the books in front of us. “But none of these noted texts were there. The books missing from his library were his lie of omission. Lucas’s books give me, shall we say a fuller picture of my foster father.” He sighed. “In some ways I feel sorry for him.” He must have noticed my shock. “No. I do not mean he does not deserve what we have planned for him. He deserves all of it and more. But I cannot help but think that his nature was chosen for him, by others. Namely his brothers.”

  I looked away. “You are starting to sound like my mother. You saw what he did to the Prime Minister, you know what he intends to do with the weapons he is building. There is nothing good inside him. Only a hate for this realm and for everyone that resides within it.”

  “I know…” He looked at me more directly. “But can you do it, knowing who he is to you? Can you send him back to hell?”

  I looked away from his gaze. “Yes.”

  He picked up his book. “For all of our sakes, I hope that is true.”

  “And what about you?”

  “What about me?” he said, peering over the top of the pages.

  “Grace, Cassandra, Byron, they will try to stop us. Will you stand against them?”

  He looked back down at the text. “I’ll do what is needed.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “So, this is all the agricultural machinery I have,” said Lucas.

  I stood at the doorway of a large barn, looking inwards at two carts, and a multitude of scythes, shovels, and crooks of various sizes. But what I was really interested in was Lucas’s pride and joy, a traction engine which took up most of the space available.

  He looked at me, concern painted across his face. “You’re going to pull it apart, aren’t you?”

  I briefly smiled. “I do need it…”

  He sighed. “Ah well, I guess it will still exist, but just in a different form.”

  “I’m going to need canvas as well to contain the gas, which I will take from the tanks in the manor. That will provide the lift.”

  “I have a number of hides in storage at the manor. But it will be a lot of sewing to make a continuous surface.”

  “I have quicker methods for joining the materials…”

  He smiled. “Of course.” He went to move away up the frozen mud path and into the cool morning air but stopped. “Umm…”

  “Yes?”

  He glanced back to the manor a few hundred yards away. “Daniel.”

  “What about him?”

  “I’m sure you will appreciate why I have to ask you this, but…”

  “You want to know if we can trust him?”

  He nodded.

  “You did not see his reaction on learning that Hades had been lying to him his whole life… I cannot speak to whether he will fight his foster siblings, but his hate for his foster father is real. We can trust him in that regard.”

  Lucas nodded and went to leave again.

  “How long do you think we have?” I asked.

  “Just build—” He waved his hand in the air. “Whatever you are building, as quickly as you can. I’ll have Colin bring you the hides.”

  I looked back to the machinery in the barn and started to picture in my mind the new craft I needed to create.

  Hmm… the roof of the barn is going to have to go…

  With my abilities, I pulled one of the carts outside for Colin to use and set about my task. By time he had come and returned with the first load of leather the barn was open to the elements, and much of the former farming equipment had been warped, bent, or completely melded with other pieces of metal. What was taking shape was similar to Charlotte's dirigible, but the steam engine I designed was capable of greater output, and the airframe and eventua
l envelope stronger and could resist greater stress. This craft would be faster and could fly higher and further. It was still not as exotic as some of the strange air machines I had seen in my visions, but they were still beyond my understanding for the time being. For now, this was still a good leap forward and should serve us well.

  “Whoa,” said Colin, pulling the cart to the barn. “It’s already looking like the one before… but better somehow.”

  I smiled and pulled him quickly inside the barn and kissed him. While I did, beams still danced through the air while bolts and rivets slid into place. I pulled back then pushed him away. He stood slightly in shock. “Quickly, unload the leather, then get me the next lot. I’ll need a lot more than that.”

  He smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The next few hours quickly passed with Colin making numerous trips and the sun moving past its zenith until it was on its downwards tilt. By the time the light started to fail, everyone was outside what was left of the barn, agape at what hung where the structure's roof used to be. The hides had been sewn together, forming a large envelope, but lay dormant, waiting for me to complete the trickiest part of the day’s venture, getting the gas from the tanks into the envelope.

  Each of the large iron cylinders had already been removed with some help from myself and brought by cart to the adjoining field.

  “Everyone stand back…” I said.

  They all took a few steps further into the long grass.

  I focused my thoughts on the pipes I had created and what lay in a heap inside the barn, and one by one they rose, their ends melting together, and forming a chain, stretching longer and longer until they connected to the first, then second, then all of the gas tanks. I then focused my concentration on the other end, and the iron pipe rose steadily to the ceiling of the barn and slid neatly into the opening on the envelope.

  With a moment's thought the valve was turned on the tanks, and I watched the meters show the gas was flowing.

  We all heard the hissing, and the pipes rumbled and rattled across the frozen ground.