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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


The bridge golem was busy taking Gregory apart one limb at a time when Ida returned. The party had gotten halfway through their plan to foil my dastardly trap when one of them slipped and set foot on the bridge. From there it was just a matter of initiative rolls, failed saving throws, and a lot of damage dice.

Fortunately for the team, the ceiling tiles of the room we were actually in collapsed as a cylinder of steel smashed through them, crushing a life-sized cutout of Galadriel and sending bits of foam insulation spraying across the room. Dust and debris floated in the air, coating everything in a fine layer of white, chalky powder. Coughing, I ran to the door and barricaded it with a fallen bookcase of complicated German board games before the owner of the store came to investigate the disturbance.

“What the hell is that?” Chesa swore, waving her hand in front of her face.

“I’m guessing Ida found her domain,” I said. A second later, the door thumped open an inch, revealing the store owner’s panicked face. I put my shoulder into the door. “See if you can get it open.”

The cylinder appeared to be a single piece of seamless steel. It extended up into the ceiling, and had embedded itself a couple inches into the floor, like a pillar of gleaming metal. Tesla, Tembo, and Chesa ran their hands over the surface while Greg, Addie, and I fought off the increasingly frantic efforts of the store owner. Bethany was filling her pockets with dice, while Tembo stared curiously up at the hole in the ceiling through which the cylinder had come. Eventually, Chesa gave up and started banging on the pillar. After a minute of that, a glowing line formed on the surface, traveling like a burning fuse in the shape of a hatch.

“Stand back,” Addie called. “Ida has a thing for explosive bolts.”

Fortunately, Ida had settled on a more practical solution. Once the blackened edge of the hatch was revealed, the door slid open, revealing a narrow chamber about the size of a coffin, with an opening at the top. The sharp sound of rushing air filled the room.

“Are . . . are we supposed to get in there?” Chesa asked.

“Well, we’re going to have to do something,” I said. The owner had deputized several other patrons, and together they were straining our skills as an immovable object. “Like . . . quickish.”

“Where others fear, heroes lead!” Gregory declared. He lunged toward the tube, fitting his wide shoulders into the chamber. His oiled hair stood on end as the rushing wind pulled at him. After a second of sitting there with his eyes squeezed tight, he peeked around. “Is there a lever or—”

Just then, a translucent tube with a rubber gasket around its lip descended from the opening at the top of the coffin. It settled over Greg’s shoulders with a thump. His eyes bugged out as the skin of his face smeared upward. His muffled screams disappeared a second later, when he was sucked wholesale up into the tube at incredible speed.

“Well,” I said. “Who’s next?”

“I’m going to wring that little nerd’s neck when I get up there,” Adelaide said. She folded herself into the tube, squeezing her eyes and mouth shut. The glass tube returned and took her with it. The rest of the team followed in short order, with Matthew laughing hysterically as the tube consumed him, leaving only Chesa.

I looked at her impatiently. “You’re up.” The door banged open behind me, upsetting a large pile of games and pulling the hinges out of the drywall.

“You’ll be okay?”

“Sure. Maybe hand me my shield before you go?”

Chesa sifted through the wreckage on the floor until she found my helm and my shield. She also pocketed a handful of dice. I cleared my throat.

“Anachronism, Ches. Leave the twenties. You can probably keep a couple of the sixes, if you’re dead set on it.”

“You’re no fun,” she said. With a sigh, she tossed the offending dice on the table, then handed me my shield. Then she pressed my helm down on my head, twisting it until my face popped into view. “Be careful, John.”

“I think I can handle a room full of gamers,” I said with a wink.

She smiled at me, then got into the Horrifying Tube of Sucking and disappeared.

I tightened the enarme straps of my shield against my forearm. There was no magic left in the shield, just steel, and with my amulet gone I was left with mundane skill. I seriously doubted the store owner and his cabal of gamers would try to do me any harm. Still, it helps to be prepared. Right after they gave a strong heave against the door, I released my grip on the handle and backed quickly away. A second later they struck again, this time piling through the unsecured door and landing in a pile on the floor.

“What have you done to my room?” the owner exclaimed, jumping to his feet. He was covered in the fine white dust that was still falling from the ceiling. The rest of his squad lay there, staring mutely at the destruction Ida had wrought. “You’re going to have to pay for this! Where . . . where did the rest of them go?”

“That’s really hard to explain,” I said. “So I won’t try. No chance I can have my sword back?”

He answered by screaming incoherently and scrambling across the shattered remnants of the table.

With a sigh of regret, I backed into the pillar, holding my shield tight to my chest and waited for the vacuum to pull me out. The owner was just lunging for me when the tube dropped over my shoulders, and the howl of a thousand hurricanes filled my ears.

I would have liked it better if the tube had been straight, or at least smooth. But for some reason, that horror ride was filled with bends, kinks, ribs, grates, significant decreases in width, and the constant, endless screaming. My screaming, of course, but also the high-pitched shriek of whatever hell-machine was providing the suction. I bounced through corners and around bends like a pinball before landing, head down, in a padded chamber. It was pitch black. At least the screaming stopped. The hell-machine’s, of course. I kept at it for a couple heartbeats. I lay there, head bent at an awkward angle, arms pinned to my sides, legs curled against the tube. Waiting.

“Hello?” I called out. “Am I in the right reality?”

Eventually, the doors opened and I was pried free by Gregory’s perfumed hands.

“We heard you coming a mile away,” he said with a smile. “Rattling around like a musket ball, you were.”

“There’s a handle on the inside, Rast,” Ida said. She stood at the controls to the world’s most complicated pipe organ, throwing stops and pedaling key-changes. “They’re trying to open the valve. I’m going to have to exit without the appropriate protocols.”

“Last thing you want is that crew finding their way in here,” I said. “Speaking of which . . .” I looked around. “Where is here, exactly?”

The room was the physical embodiment of Machina Mundi writ large. Gregory and I stood on a platform at the center of an enormous clockwork mechanism, surrounded by vast wheels and coil springs, inset with smaller cogs that ran their own trains of springs, escapements, and timing shafts, echoing in mechanical precision into the far distance, like a constellation of clocks seen from the inside out. For all the machinery, it was incredibly quiet. Only the faint ticking of the escapement and the gentle click of brass teeth sliding together disturbed the silence. Even the platform where we were standing was part of the mechanism. Its edge was lined with cogs, synching seamlessly with the surrounding clockwork.

“I’m thinking about calling it Clockwork Prime,” Ida said, throwing more switches, then hauling on a lever taller than your average bear. The terrible howling whine that I had simply taken as background noise cut out, and the metal coffin folded shut and retracted into the ceiling. “What do you think? Too pretentious?”

“It’s apt,” I said, looking around. “But where do you live? There’s no bed, no kitchen . . . nowhere to sit down and rest.”

“Yes, well . . .” Ida turned to face me, and for the first time since I’d entered the domain, I actually looked at her. “That’s not really a problem for me.”

Ida’s face and hands were entirely mechanical. Her brown curls, while still out of control and lustrous, were now coil springs and segmented tubing. Tiny clocks regulated the movement of her irises, and when she moved tiny wisps of steam puffed out of her back. As she made an adjustment to the console in front of her, the tip of her finger irised open and a small, articulated screwdriver emerged, pecking delicately at the keyboard before retreating into the digit. Her leather pants and oversized tool belt were fabricated from articulated aluminum, buffed to a mirrorlike sheen.

“Oh. Wow,” I said.

“Yeah. I’m adjusting to it. You can get the jokes out of the way, if you’d like.”

“No, no. No need for jokes,” I said quickly. “Just not what I was expecting.”

“I think it suits you,” Gregory said. “Do you think you’ll be like this all the time now, or only in the domain? Not that it isn’t lovely, just . . . wondering.”

“My data set on that inquiry is incomplete. Queueing . . . queueing . . .” She stood ramrod straight and began rocking back and forth. “Beep! Boop!”

“Uh . . .” Gregory and I exchanged nervous looks.

“Relax, you idiots,” Ida said, loosening up. “I’m just playing with you. Come on. The others are waiting down below.”

A door irised open in the middle of the platform, revealing an open shaft that was quickly filled with a second platform from below. This one at least had a handrail. Ida opened a gate in the handrail and ushered us through. A small console on a pedestal rose from the floor at Ida’s gesture. Her hand melted into the console, cogs and pistons disassembling and integrating with the face of the control panel. I tried not to stare. With a hiss of steam, we began to descend through the darkness. The lightless shaft smelled like motor oil and hot metal.

“So, the rest of the team is already here somewhere?” I asked, averting my eyes.

“Yes. Time works strangely in this place. They came through about an hour ago.”

“I should have mentioned that. Domain-time and real-world time run at different rates. I’m sure you could calculate a conversion rate, if you really—”

“I have already begun work on the time matrix,” Ida interrupted. “It would really help if you could carry watches with you next time you go through. I’ve created a prototype that monitors time flow, heart rate, and . . .” Her voice trailed off as she realized our complete lack of interest. “Please proceed with your explanation.”

“Right. Uh. Point is that time will run slower here. Gives you a chance to recuperate, or refuel, and whatever it is you do in that body.” Another awkward glance at Gregory. “Wait, Greg, you went through the portal before Chesa. Did you somehow arrive after?”

“He did not. But he insisted on waiting until you arrived,” Ida said. “In fact, he was getting quite anxious about your well-being.” She turned clock-face eyes in my direction. “He was trying to convince me to send him back through, in case you needed saving.”

“Let’s not exaggerate,” Gregory said with a snort. “I was more concerned he would screw up and let that mob through the portal.”

“Mm,” Ida said, and made no further comment.

“Nice of you to care, Greg,” I said, clapping the big man on the shoulder. “But you should know by now that I’m the one who pulls your ass out of the fire, and not the other way around.”

“Statistically and in my experience, you both require emergency assistance on a frequent and almost ridiculous basis,” Ida said. “But that’s just my . . . admittedly precise . . . observation.”

We both snorted and guffawed and generally pretended she was wrong. I was still mulling an appropriate response when the elevator reached its destination. We descended through the ceiling of a large room that would have been spacious if not for all the clockwork.

The interior of Clockwork Prime was a slithering mass of gears and pistons, glistening with oil and the clattering syncopation of eternal engines counting time. The floor appeared to be a series of room-sized cogs, very slowly grinding together, their facings and relative positions changing with each bone-shuddering tick. There were walls and doors, but they existed only as approximations of the real thing: dream-like memories of regular human habitation, rather than faithful or practical reproductions thereof.

Chesa and Adelaide waited in a miniature sitting room, the chaise longue and divan slightly too small to be comfortable. Tesla was fully engaged examining a gearwork orrery at the center of the room, while the rest of Knight Watch relaxed beside a series of horse-sized pistons that pumped soundlessly along the far wall. As we descended from the ceiling, they jumped to their feet. Chesa’s boot caught on the edge of a coffee table, overturning it. Ida glared at her with singular precision.

“You’re back! Or here!” Chesa said. “We were starting to worry.”

“She was worried. I was resigned to your death,” Addie said. “Try to be more punctual in the future, will you, Rast? For our sake, at least.”

“Sorry to be an inconvenience.” The elevator reached the floor, integrating smoothly into the clockwork ballet. The handrails hissed open with a puff of steam. I was just starting to disembark when Ida rushed past me.

“Those are really only meant for decoration,” she said sharply, brushing by Chesa to return the coffee table to its original position. She stepped back, considered the table, then made a slight adjustment. “Please leave the furniture alone.”

“Right. Sorry,” Chesa said, then turned to me. “So. Everything okay?”

“He’s fine,” Gregory said, a little more dismissively than was necessary. “I was about to rush to his rescue when he finally decided to turn up.”

“Just a reminder that I have no control over the time flow in this place,” I said. “I left right after you did. It’s not my fault Ida dreamed a clock within a clock outside of time.”

“Enough chatter,” Ida said. “We need to find where Evelyn Lumiere went.”

She crossed to another room in the rotating schema of walls, ignoring the heavy crash of gears as she stepped from cog to cog. The rest of the team joined us, though Tesla kept getting distracted by the machinery. We had to take turns pulling him away from examining the various wheels and dynamos that made up Ida’s domain.

“Have you gotten a bead on the scarab’s signal?” I asked, stepping carefully over to the next room. There was a wall rotating toward us, and Addie had to rush before it cut us off from the rest of the area. The rest of the team waited until the door opened again.

“Still processing. We seem to be working with three separate entities at this stage. Evelyn, who as near as I can tell is tied to the Unreal through her archetype as the original Vampire Slayer. Cecilia Lumiere, acting as some kind of poltergeist or medium for higher powers. And this Iron Lich character, who could be Evelyn, or her father, or some unknown third entity that has yet to reveal itself. In fact, I have a theory . . .” Ida said, then fell silent. This room looked suspiciously like the bridge of the Silverhawk, though instead of a bay of windows, there were smoky glass enclosures, populated by blinking lights drifting through thick fog. Ida went to one of the control panels and started pulling levers, adjusting knobs, and generally fiddling around.

When she didn’t continue her sentence, I prompted her. “And what is the theory?”

“Oh. Well, usually people stop paying attention when I start in on the theories. They just want the answer, as quickly and simply as possible. And I don’t have the answer.” She looked over her shoulder as Tesla, lagging behind the rest of us, finally made the leap to this space. “Do you want brief or complete?”

“Let’s go with brief,” Addie said warily.

“Very well. I believe that this Iron Lich figure is Claude Lumiere, resurrected by his daughter in an attempt to bring her family back together.”

“What? Why would she do that?” Addie asked.

“Heavens if I know. Families are nothing but trouble. My mother was very insistent on sending me to college, when I had a perfectly good library and plenty of notebooks at home. But no, that wasn’t—”

“Ida?” I said. “The lich?”

“Oh, yes. The lich. Well, considering she seems to have raised her mother from the dead and constrained her in that cage, I hypothesize that Evelyn was working on a similar solution for her father. Hence, the Iron Lich.”

“It’s also possible that this Iron Lich contraption was Claude’s intention from the very beginning,” Tembo said. “Zofia spoke of dealings with the Lumieres, and the father’s plans for immortality.”

“If that’s the case, why wait this long?” I asked. “Surely she could have enacted her father’s plan shortly after his death.”

“Perhaps Evelyn didn’t know about it,” Tesla said. “She was zealous in her pogrom against the vampires. Though when I knew her, she killed them in a more traditional manner.”

“Including her mother, if I remember correctly,” Bethany said. “Seems kinda weird, if your plan is to just resurrect them later on.”

“Claude Lumiere did not survive the attack, and Cecilia was turned by seeming accident,” Tesla said. “Though if your pet vampire is to be believed, the Lumieres were responsible for the slaughter, in their effort to complete the ritual that the vampires interrupted.”

“That’s a big if,” Addie said, crossing her arms. “I don’t trust that bloodsucker any farther than I can throw her.”

“Two point four meters,” Ida said. “On average.”

We all looked at her in confusion.

“The average distance a human can throw another human of equal weight and size. That makes some assumptions about grip, harness, passivity, and preparation time of—”

“Evelyn did say she had been reading her father’s journals,” I interrupted, cocking my head, trying to scrape the inside of my skull for a memory. “Maybe she figured out what they were trying to do, and decided to replicate it?”

“Are we sure she wasn’t just trying to finish her crusade against the vampires?” Chesa asked. “She did a pretty thorough job of it.”

“Doesn’t explain the scarabs, or the clockwork valkyries, or even the original attack on the bakery,” Addie said.

“We’ll have to ask her.” Ida threw another switch, and the fog in one of the glass cases began to clear. It resolved into an image, blurry at first, but quickly growing much sharper.

It was Evelyn Lumiere, accompanied by her two hounds, rushing down what appeared to be a boardwalk. The ocean crashed in the background, and the sky was the color of burnished pewter, churning with the opening stanzas of a tremendous storm.

“How are we seeing this?” Chesa asked.

“Science,” Ida said simply, then adjusted another knob. The image jumped forward, then came into much sharper focus. “Do you see what I see?”

There was something on Evelyn’s back. Though she was old and somewhat frail, she seemed to be lugging an enormous metal tube over her shoulder. It appeared to contain a series of glass orbs, each one filled with a glowing, greenish liquid. Steam hissed from the end of the tube, regulated by a series of dials and gauges.

“What is that?” I asked.

“We won’t know for certain until we catch up to her,” Ida started. “But . . .”

“If I had my guess,” Adelaide said, stepping in, “those are the souls of the vampires.”


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