Moment of Truth (36 page)

‘It could be useful,' Caroline allowed.

‘Wait,' Aubrey said. ‘Exactly how are you going to achieve this?'

‘Never mind,' George said. ‘Leave the details to Sophie and me.'

Aubrey sighed. Faced with such confidence, who was he to argue?

Caroline was an expert at getting into secure places. Aubrey was happy to follow her as she led the way through a facility that was rather more active than Aubrey would have preferred. He supposed they should take some of the blame, with Caroline's fire having the same effect as hitting a wasp's nest with a stick.

Nevertheless, after some shadowy lurking, a considerable amount of belly crawling, and a hair-raising wall scramble or two, she brought them to the far side of the warehouse, away from the invitingly open double doors that faced the parade ground.

For a moment, they stood with their backs to the corrugated metal. The north perimeter fence was fifty yards away, with the deep woods just on the other side. The nearest guard tower was a good distance away at the front of the complex. Aubrey could just make out the upper storeys of the old buildings. The chimneys of the factory building were smoking away, and he could see the other guard towers on the perimeter fence, but their position was well away from most of the lights in the facility. They were swallowed up by darkness.

‘Too good to be true,' she said in answer to Aubrey's whispered query as to why they hadn't sneaked in through the double doors. ‘It must be guarded.'

‘So how are we getting in?'

‘Where there's a train,' she said, trotting off, following the long side of the warehouse, ‘there must be ... Here we are.'

If Caroline moved more than a few yards away, it was hard to see her. Yet, some distance ahead, Aubrey could make out something blacker than the blackness around them, a mound higher than their heads, with a familiar, nose-tickling smell.

‘Coal,' he said.

‘Correct. And where there's coal outside a building, there must be a way to get it inside the building. I was prepared to look for a water tower if we had to, but I think scrambling in via a coal hopper would be easier than swimming underwater, in darkness, through a water inlet pipe.'

‘Good thinking.' He paused. ‘There is a lot of coal here, wouldn't you say? Rather more than would be needed to refuel a locomotive?'

Caroline craned her neck. ‘You're thinking that it's needed for something else? For the manufacture of your enhanced coal?'

‘From the amount of coal here, I'd say this facility is the source of it.' He wrinkled his nose at the tickly coal smell. ‘If the plan is to ship those mechanical soldiers by train to wherever is needed, then they'll need to ship the fuel as well. Make it here, pop it in the cylinders, and off it goes. Neat, efficient, and very much the Holmland way.'

Caroline clambered up the side of the huge mound of coal and peered over the top. Then she slid back down in a controlled and elegant manner that Aubrey could not have hoped to duplicate in a million years. She stood and started to dust her hands together before realising that she was so filthy it would make little difference. She made a small moue of disapproval, then as Aubrey watched, fascinated, she dismissed it from her mind. He knew it wouldn't bother her from that moment on.

‘What are you looking at?' she said.

Caught, he lunged for an answer and came up trumps. ‘I'm not sure. It's so dark...'

‘Hmm.' She turned toward the wall of coal. ‘This way.'

Aubrey did his best and kept up without disgracing himself too much, squeezing through a hatch in the wall to find that a locomotive was standing quietly under a row of electric lights, its nose against the massive wooden bumpers at the end of the track. By crouching, Aubrey could see that on the other side, a platform was built up for easy loading and unloading.

A dozen goods carriages were attached to the locomotive, all open and empty.

Caroline tapped him on the shoulder. She pointed. One, two, three guards. None of them looked particularly alert, but none of them was asleep, either. Caroline gestured and he followed her, duck walking, keeping low, shielded by the locomotive, waiting for the right moment until they were able to dart into the body of the warehouse.

Once inside, Aubrey had an awful moment of déjà vu. He was immediately taken back to Lutetia, the ghastly photographer's lair where poor, soul-deprived victims were stored in racks, one on top of the other like forgotten spare parts.

Racks stretched into the distance, a hundred yards or more away, and towering twenty or thirty feet high. Aubrey did a quick calculation and realised there were over eight hundred racks in the space. In each, as far as they could see, was one of the mechanical soldiers, silent, motionless, gargantuan.

Staggered by the implications, Aubrey wandered along the rows. This was an army, ready to ship anywhere at any time. He could imagine trainloads of the mechanical soldiers, stacked efficiently and uncomplainingly, rattling to the nearest front, ready to create mayhem. No need for elaborate barracks, or mess halls, or provisioning. No need for uniforms, medics or quartermasters.

Caroline peered at the nearest giant warrior with nothing but curiosity. Her lack of fear gave Aubrey every incentive to do his best to keep his disquiet well hidden, even though he'd already decided that if any of the things moved as much as one brass-plated finger, he'd grab Caroline by the arm and they'd be off.

He licked his lips, then thought clearly for a second. ‘Let's move away from here.'

‘Too close to the entrance?' So, despite Aubrey's misgivings, they crept deeper into the body of the warehouse.

When Aubrey judged they were far enough from the entrance to minimise being stumbled upon, he began a close inspection.

As he suspected, even though mechanical was the best description, he could now see that sizeable parts of the internal workings were actually made of clay. Potentialised clay was actually embedded in the torso. Gingerly, he probed with a finger and revised his first guess. The clay wasn't just implanted into the workings, it linked cables and joints, providing buffers for some metal parts and protecting others.

He found what could be a miniature firebox and boiler. It was cold, but it was intensely embedded with spells that he would have liked to investigate further. He squinted to see that part of the inner workings were tightly wound with copper wire. Was electricity incorporated into these creatures, harnessed as an animating principle, as well as steam?

But the animating principle was still uncertain. Electricity, steam and potentialised clay wasn't enough to create creatures capable of such tasks as he'd seen. Something else had to be included, something more flexible, more capable.

The size of the thing was impressive. It was even bigger than Aubrey had thought. It was closer to twenty feet tall than fifteen, and was clearly capable of great power. Aubrey could see the massive feet crushing anything in its path, and the arms swinging like scythes.

Each creature looked identical, an army of purposebuilt duplicates.

He spent some time over the creature's hands. He was appalled at how functional they were. They were designed to grip, to seize, to crush, and with immense force. It was breathtaking engineering, and would have been extraordinary in a single example, but he was surrounded by hundreds. All, as far as he could see, equally well made. Every part was exquisitely machined. Every surface highly polished – apart from the soot around the stubby chimney stack. Every seam welded to perfection.

Except for the neck.

Aubrey frowned. The neck of the creature was a mess and was entirely out of place. It looked like nothing as much as a failed flower pot, something that had fallen off the potter's wheel and splodged on the floor. It connected the clean, ingenious head and the rest of the creature, but the connection was crude and inelegant compared to the rest of the design.

With some squeamishness, Aubrey prodded at the seam where the clay joined the metal head and the hair at the back of his neck stirred. ‘The clay goes right up inside the head,' he muttered.

‘And what does that mean?' Caroline whispered.

‘I don't know. I can't tell what's inside the metal skull.'

‘Can you take it to pieces?'

Aubrey shuddered. He was quite prepared to tamper with the unknown, but he was very nervous about trying to remove the head of a giant mechanical warrior when a few hundred of its comrades were lying nearby.

Caroline had given him an idea.

The doughy neck was made of potentialised clay – potentialised clay that had been activated. It had been transformed and was undertaking some sort of magical task. If he could shape his magical awareness properly, with the utmost control, he might be able to divine exactly what it was doing – which should give him some indication of what was inside the metal head.

He had a suspicion that the workings of the head could tell him a great deal about the construction and capabilities of the mechanical warriors – and their animating principle.

‘I'm going to have to concentrate hard to investigate,' he said to Caroline. ‘I won't exactly be aware of our surroundings.'

She smiled, wryly. ‘Don't worry. I'll keep watch for both of us.'

Aubrey crouched down beside the mechanical soldier, as close to the neck and head as he could manage. He studied it for a moment, then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and extended his magical awareness.

Immediately, he had the pseudo-vision that a honed magical awareness provided. The world around him became vague and formless, apart from magical artefacts – and he was surrounded by them.

Every mechanical soldier was alive with magic – Dr Tremaine magic. It spread through every component, following every cable and running over every surface. The magic was dull red, making it look as if the hundreds of mechanical soldiers were red hot as they slept in their racks.

He moved his hand until it was hovering over the creature's neck, right where it joined the metal head. Quickly, he sensed elements that were applications of the Law of Cohesion and the Law of Elastic Deformation – and an unusual twist of the Law of Completeness. All of these would make sense if the clay was useful in joining disparate components, parts that wouldn't work well together otherwise. Then he hissed. He was sensing subtle, powerful spells, and some aspects reminded him of...

Death magic. Aubrey had run foul of death magic in the past, and it had left him teetering on the brink of annihilation until he had found a cure. He had a healthy respect for death magic, so healthy that he wanted nothing to do with it.

Yet this wasn't pure death magic. It had some of its flavour, but it was more involved with preservation and, intriguingly, connection –
again.
The clay was serving the function of preserving and linking something to the mechanical components of the construct. Something important, but what?

Aubrey probed more, carefully, with all the delicacy he could muster.

Then his eyes shot open, and he recoiled, hissing. He spat, trying to clear his mouth of the taste of corruption that had filled it.

He stared at the creature with horror, until he became aware that Caroline was grasping him by the shoulder. ‘What is it?' she whispered in his ear, concerned and urgent.

‘The creature.' He stumbled over the words. He was having trouble with his tongue. ‘The thing.'

‘Slow down, Aubrey. Slow down. Breathe deeply.'

He did what he was told until his heart was calmer, merely thumping along instead of racing out of control.

‘Now.' Caroline held his shoulders. ‘What have you found?'

‘We must go. We have to let them know.'

‘We will, don't worry. But what have you found?'

Aubrey swallowed, took a deep, deep breath, and found what he hoped was his poise. ‘I know where the wounded soldiers have gone. Part of them, at least.' He rapped the mechanical soldier on the head. ‘There's a human brain in here.'