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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


“John, I think you’ve been hit in the noggin a couple times too often.” Chesa followed about ten feet behind me as I marched toward the tower of smoke.

“What are you talking about, Ches?” I asked over my shoulder. “I’ve always made bad decisions.”

“No, I mean, literally. That hat doesn’t fit as good as it used to.”

“What? Oh.” I pried the clip free and pulled my helm off. The throbbing in my skull eased slightly. “Ah. Much better.”

“But the decision thing, too. What’s your plan here?” she asked.

“I’m afraid that if I told you it’d just ruin the surprise.” I tossed the bassinet aside and ran my gauntleted fingers through my hair. The side of my head was sticky with blood, and sensitive to the touch. I resolved to not get hit there again.

“Is that a clever way of saying that you’re making it up as you go along?”

“Ches! You besmirch my . . . something. Intellect?” I grinned wickedly. “Have some faith. I really do have a plan. Lumiere’s a lich. I’ve read the Monster Manual. If I can press him, I’m pretty sure I can get him to open a portal to my domain by mistake.”

“That’s a lot of ifs,” Chesa said.

“Well, it’s the best we have.” I reached the border of the smoke plume. A column of dark clouds roiled high up toward the barrel ceiling, easily twenty feet across, so thick that it was impossible to see even an inch into the murk. Though the surface of the cloud churned and stirred, the overall column appeared stationary. Other than the clank of my steel boots on the marble, and the delicate tapping of Chesa’s battle slippers, there was no other sound. I craned my neck to look up the length of the billowing tower. “Okay, Claude Lightpole. What you got going on here?”

“Careful, John. That stuff’s noxious,” Chesa warned.

“Oh, I remember. That’s a lesson I have thoroughly learned. In fact . . .” I cocked my head, thinking back to Lumiere’s laboratory in Evelyn’s basement. “Huh. I wonder if it really is that obvious.”

“If what’s that obvious?”

“The lesson. Tell Tembo he was always my favorite,” I said, then plunged forward.

A cacophony of sound struck me, a wave of hammering and clattering and bone-deep crashing that nearly deafened me. A couple feet in front of me, a wrought iron spiral staircase was corkscrewing out of the ground in fits and starts, each jerk upward accompanied by a shuddering thump. Counterweights on long chains dropped down the center of the staircase, driving whatever engine was lifting the contraption into the air. It was breathtakingly loud. I looked behind me.

The cloud of smoke was just that . . . a smoke screen, and not even a real one. Pure illusion. I could see Chesa mincing about on the other side, probably trying to decide if she should follow me in or go back for the rest of the team. I reached through the faux cloud and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her through. She had the decency to shriek.

“I’d say keep it down, but I doubt anyone can hear us in the middle of all that,” I yelled over the tumult.

“How did you know it was fake?” she yelled back.

“Remember Lumiere’s lab? The maze, and all the mechanical rats? He thinks like a scientist, and he’s training us to react the way he wants. Poison cloud, then an illusion to hide this tower. The mist itself probably dissipated shortly after he started. That’s why he was so anxious to get away, rather than wait around and finish us off. He had to get inside before the facade took hold.”

“Seems awfully elaborate. How’d he know someone would be here to chase him?”

“Good question. Not sure. In fact—” Just then, the tower stopped moving and locked in place. Its mechanisms fell silent. My last couple syllables were still at a full shout, and the words echoed through the empty Palais. I lowered my voice. “Hm. Well, he probably knows we’re here now.”

There was movement at the top of the iron staircase. The whole structure creaked back and forth. Glittering light flashed, then the groan of rusted metal.

“He’s opening the windows,” Chesa said. She had backed all the way to the illusion cloud to get a better view of the top of the tower. “There’s like a skylight or something.”

“We better start climbing,” I said.

Chesa drew and fired her bow in a heartbeat, barely taking the time to aim. Overhead, glass shattered, and Lumiere’s eerie voice barked out in surprise. Chesa smiled, then trotted past me.

“That’ll keep his head down for a little while. Might slow him up a bit,” she said. “Hurry up!”

“I thought you didn’t have any of that elf magic left?” I asked as I labored after her. Running in plate armor, while possible, was taxing. And I’d done a lot of running recently.

“I was a good shot long before I was an elf princess,” she said. “Just like you were a smart hand with that sword before you knew the first thing about Knight Watch.”

“I mean . . . a couple tournament wins isn’t exactly Lancelot,” I said, blushing furiously. “But, yeah, I guess I know a thing or two about hewing in twain.”

“Save the charm for the lich,” she said, taking the stairs two at a time. “And your breath for the climb!”

“Right, right,” I muttered.

We fell into an easy rhythm. Every couple turns of the spiral staircase there was a platform with pulleys and spent chains of weights. Chesa had to wait for me at each one. The first few landings, she leaned out from the tower to scan the ceiling with her bow drawn. After a while, she gave up on that.

“He’s gone through the skylight,” she said. “I’ve lost sight of him.”

“Mm-hm,” I gasped.

“What do you make of all this? The pulleys and stuff.”

“Mechanical . . . advantage . . .” I paused to catch my breath and lean against one of the windlasses. “All this is probably under tension, waiting to be triggered.”

“But why did it work?” she asked. “I thought we were in the Unreal.”

“Pulleys ain’t rocket science,” I answered. “Otherwise crossbows wouldn’t work. Looks like he knew the rules. Planned ahead.”

“Went medieval, rather than steampunk. I get it.” She rapped me on the chest with her knuckles. “Let’s go, Iron Man. We’re not even halfway up.”

It felt like an eternity before we reached the top, and when we did, I promptly collapsed against the rails. The empty sarcophagus rose from the center of the floor on an iron plinth in the middle of the platform, along with a slice of the marble floor. It rested about four feet below an open skylight. I couldn’t see beyond the ceiling from where I sat, and lacked the motivation to stand up and examine it. What I could see was the engine that had lifted the tower into the air. Enormous gears in the flooring, and chains as thick as my thigh, drove the tower. Four nozzles sprouted around the sarcophagus, attached to some kind of tanks and a pair of bellows that hooked into the main chain drive. I studied all of this from a seated position, while Chesa stalked around the skylight.

“Timed,” I said, thumping the tanks. “Once he triggered the sarcophagus, he was on the clock. When the cloud came out, he had to move or get left behind.”

“Or he could climb the stairs, like we did,” Chesa said.

“I don’t recommend that. Especially after you’ve just returned from the grave.”

“So what was the purpose of the staff? Of”—she shivered uncomfortably—“absorbing his wife and daughter like that?”

“Tech grounded in the Gestalt, maybe. But once the souls were captured, the energy could transfer.” I started to get up, but the weight of my armor kept me pinned in place. “Enough! If I’m doing this, it’s naked.”

“Hard pass,” Chesa said. “You can’t fight without your armor.”

“In point of fact, I can fight perfectly well without my armor. I just can’t take a hit. But that’s sort of the point of tournament fighting. I’ll just pretend I’m dueling the Tatertot again.” Our previous nemesis, Herr Totenshreck, had had a sword that killed at a touch. I lifted my arms in the air. “Come on, give me a hand getting out of this trash can.”

Chesa rolled her eyes, but several acrobatic minutes later left me stripped down to my dressing jacket, leggings, and coat of chain. I shook the feeling back into my legs and hopped up and down a couple times to adjust the lay of the coat.

“So much better,” I said with a sigh. “I’m beginning to think knight is a mug’s class. You and Bee have the right idea. Agility all the way.”

“Let me know how you feel after the first hit.” Chesa looked me up and down. “You kind of look like a kid wearing his favorite King Arthur footie pajamas.”

“Man, I would have killed for King Arthur footie pajamas.” I buckled on my sword belt and shield. “Okay. Let’s do this hero thing.”

A small set of stairs led up to the plinth where the sarcophagus rested, and a section of iron rungs folded down from the open skylight. I clambered out into the cutting wind and driving rain. Lightning flashed in the graying distance, followed by thunder that rattled the iron frame of the tower. My woolen undercoat soaked through in a heartbeat. Chesa followed close behind, though her elven armor seemed to wick the rain like a duck.

Elves, man. They get all the cool stuff.

There was no immediate sight of the Iron Lich. We were standing on a circular catwalk that ran along the base of a towering round joint that served as the base for the iron-framed generator arms. Now that we were in the Unreal, the arms had taken on an ephemeral quality. Still metal, but the orbs at their tips looked like crystal spheres, and instead of electricity they left a trail of stars in their wake. The stars expanded outward like waves against the cloudy sky. I peered at them curiously.

“Are those faces?” I asked, pointing. Chesa squinted through the rain.

“You might be right. What is this thing?”

“A soul cage,” I said. “Making those ghosts, I’m guessing. Man, this Lumiere guy is grim.”

“Speaking of . . . Where’d he go?” Chesa shouted over the storm.

“Up, I’m guessing. Unless he grew wings and flew away.” I trotted along the catwalk until I found a staircase leading into the wheel joint. “This way!”

Once we were beneath the main structure, we were briefly sheltered from the storm. The metal on metal grinding of the bearings briefly drowned out the wind and beating rain. It was like standing under a cement truck full of metal balls. The center of the joint was hollow, like a pipe, with a ladder leading straight up the middle. The ladder was anchored at top and bottom, but couldn’t touch the sides of the tunnel because the machines that drove the arms whizzed just inches away. There didn’t seem to be any other exits. I checked the straps on my shield, then prepared to climb. Chesa pulled me back.

“What?” I shouted over the din of the bearings.

“Rain’s ruined my bowstring.” Her voice was barely a whisper, though I could see she was putting her full lungs into it. “Supposed to be magic, but between the Gestalt and the Mundane . . .” She shrugged.

“Can you fix it?” I asked. She shook her head.

“Going to have to replace.”

I craned my neck to look up the length of the ladder. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like the space beyond was sheltered from the elements.

“Do it. Then catch up.” I started up the ladder. She grabbed me again.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Aren’t I always?” I said.

She smirked, then slapped my butt and turned her attention to the bow.

Crawling up the wheel joint was like passing through a tornado. The spinning walls of the passageway howled past me, barely inches from my knuckles as they clutched the iron rungs of the ladder. Each time the brass spheres at the ends of the arms sparked, the air of the passage filled with static electricity. The first time it happened, I almost let go of the ladder, I was so shocked, both literally and figuratively. And the noise . . . the sound of grinding ball bearings and rumbling steel arms, the thump of voltage passing through the tower, the bone-shaking hum of the generators revolving . . . by the time I reached the top of the tower, I was numb from brain to bones. I just wanted to get out.

Scrambling past the anchor at the top of the joint, there was about ten feet of solid steel before I got to the end of the passage. I paused on the last rung and looked down. There, far below, I could make out the tiny form of Chesa starting her ascent. I hooked my arms around the top of the ladder, shook some feeling back into my hands, then poked my head up and over the lip of the passage.

We were close to the top of the Tour d’Elysee. Atlantis spread out in all directions, a gray and black landscape, static against the churning whitecaps of the open ocean. On the far horizon I could see the shoreline, glowing like a cloud of distant fireflies. A storm-battered tarp spread over the platform to keep the rain off, but several tears in the fabric had already formed, and rivulets of water poured through. The platform itself was an uneven mashup of pipes and catwalks spread over thrumming engines and spinning gears. It was a great place to fall to your death. You wouldn’t even have to fall that far. The teeth of hungry gears churned mere feet away, ready to bite.

At the far end of the platform stood the twisted abomination of Claude Lumiere. He busied himself with a pylon that protruded from the floor. He fit a glass vial into a cavity in the pylon, then twisted a dial. The pylon retracted into the floor, locking into place with an audible sigh. When he was gone, Lumiere strolled to the edge of the platform and gazed out over the gray roofs of Atlantis. As I clambered out of the shaft, the mists that surrounded us began to clear, giving me a view across the ocean, to the glowing horizon of the city beyond. At first, I thought he was just admiring the scenery.

That’s when I noticed that the shore wasn’t glowing with electric light, or even the flicker of gas lamps. I could make out steel trestle towers, and grand halls, the collected delusion of the Gestalt all gathered in one place. Zeppelins traced patterns in the sky and, even from this distance, I could see clockwork wagons and the marble domes of an ancient Paris, brought back to life by the power of imagination.

And it was burning.


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Framed