The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (41 page)

One step down from the Princess would be the four Regents.  And they couldn’t possibly be in on the machinations. 
Could they? 

The too-near sound of the driver relieving herself behind the vehicle wasn’t doing much to help him think.  To his chagrin, though, it had almost no effect on his appetite; his stomach sounded like bear cubs in an echoey cave, having a growling contest and keeping their parents up all winter long.  Lundin picked up the jug at his feet and removed the cork.  It smelled like an herbal tea, minty and lukewarm.  “Here you go,” he said, offering it to Martext.

“Just look at him,” Elia said, moments later, through a mouthful of crumbs.  She and Lundin were sitting cross-legged, their knees almost touching in the cramped space.  Martext was propped up against the locked panel, sipping gratefully at the tea and taking little bits of his beef.

Elia gestured with her chin.  Lundin looked over his shoulder into the bright forest.  Willl with three L’s was standing in the ferns, his back to them as he toed something through the dirt.

“How could he do this to us?”

“You pay anybody enough, and they’ll go bad,” Martext said.

“Come on.” Elia ripped off a new hunk of bread, lowering her voice.  “A Civic for five years.  An apprentice with the Haulers for two years before that.  In all that time, did you ever hear him talking about money?”

“Never had a project with him until this.”

“I did in ‘74.  He was the same sort of bumbler, you know?  Pretty hard-working, but easily confused.  Not much of a sense of humor.  Never the one to volunteer ideas.”

“How’d he end up on our project?” Lundin said, turning back to them.

Elia adjusted her battered glasses and glanced over at Martext.  “I guess Dame Dionne picked him.  She picked me, anyway.  She knew that I’m a conscientious person, and that I was getting a little bored in Masonry and Materials.”

“She assigned me to help make your life easier,” Martext said, looking at Lundin over the rims of his glasses.  Lundin tilted his head a little, but didn’t say anything.  The hard look in the other man’s eyes made him pretty sure there were no more details coming.

“I mean, Dame Dionne knew mechanized wizardry was a big deal,” Elia said.  “Royal attention?  Yeah, she wouldn’t mess around with that.  So— now that I think about it— why
did
she decide to put a guy like Willl on the squad?”

“If it was her decision,” Lundin murmured.  He tapped his fist against his knee, thinking.  The piece of corned beef in his hand waggled between his fingers and thumb like a dog’s tongue.

“What are you saying?  She’s senior ‘naut.  Of course it was her decision.” Martext leaned forward.  “Only the Board of Governors can give her orders.”

He said it like it was impossible for the Governors to do anything remotely suspicious; an assumption that Lundin, still mulling over the odds that Princess Naomi had been in on her own assassination, had no intention of making. 
If Ouste can be corrupt, one of Governors could be too
.  But then the thought hit him:
who says she had to get a direct order to pick Willl with three L’s?  The bad guys have the best wizard in Delia on their side.  What if Ouste just planted a magical suggestion in Dame Dionne’s head?

The techs were looking at him.  “Who knows?” he shrugged, putting on a sheepish smirk.

Martext let a slightly disgusted expression creep over his face before tucking back into his loaf of bread.  Lundin ignored him, turning out to the open doorway again.  They could think he was stupid if they wanted to; there was no way he was going to fill them on the fact that Ouste was a big old traitor.  Not with torture chambers a very real and scary possibility in their future.  His face twisted with regret.  The Civics already knew too much to have any hope of avoiding interrogation.  The least he could do was not load them up with more information to have to worry about confessing.

Willl with three L’s was glancing over at the black box when Lundin looked out.  Their eyes met over the long distance.  Almost immediately, Willl with three L’s looked down into the plants, then up into the sky before turning away again.  Something about the look on the thin man’s face got his mind wandering, and he felt like he was back in the ‘naut warehouse, watching Samanthi stalk away with that pair of heavy seven-leaguers.  Watching his old squad head into danger and adventure, while he ran an errand for his new team.

“You ever want to be in two places at once?” Lundin said softly, not turning.  He sat back, curling his legs up to his chest.  The two techs stopped chewing behind him.  “You ever want to make two opposite sides happy?”  He pressed his toe against the edge of the wall.  “I think that’s Willl.”

“Why?”

“Just a feeling.  Would a real mercenary stand up to that big ‘naut just so we could have the door open while we ate?  I don’t think this is all for money.   Some part of him actually cares a little about what happens to us.”

“So why’s he doing it, then?”

Lundin turned to Elia.  “He’s just more loyal to them than he is to us,” he shrugged.

“Isn’t that obvious from the kidnapping?”  Martext said.

He bowed his head a little bit. 
Good point
.

“Is it better,” Elia asked, “if he’s turned traitor for something he cares about, instead of doing it for money?”

“Probably not,” Lundin admitted.  “But, for almost the first time since I met him, I’m really curious about what’s going on in Willl’s head.”

The back wall of the box resounded with three thumping sounds.  The driver’s age-lined face appeared in the open panel.  “Finish up there,” she said, taking stock of the remaining food.  “More ground to cover.”

Lundin tried to eat at the pace he wanted to, to slow down their trip and buy the search parties that much more time.  But it was seriously hard to not feel a little rushed when the ‘naut had the bad manners to stand in the doorway, blocking some of that late morning sun with his broad-shouldered body.  Little black flies sank lazily through the grating in the ceiling, and had trouble finding their way back out.  Lundin slapped one against the floor, and the ‘naut raised an arm disapprovingly at the sudden movements.  “Sorry,” he said despite himself.

It was all too soon before the loaves were gone, the salty, crumbly beef was safely stowed in their bellies, and the door was locked back into place.  Their box felt pitch-black now, even with the sunlight from above, and the noisy rattling of the lock made their spirits sink.  As least they couldn’t hear the whining wings of the flies anymore once the engine thrummed into action again.  With that bone-shuddering vibration they were getting painfully familiar with, the vehicle started trundling its way through the forest to wherever in the eight Spheres they were going.

Keeping a conversation going over that steady racket would have been impossible, even if they’d had much to say.  Elia curled her legs close to her body and turned her face to the wall, trying to rest.  Martext lay on his back with his eyes open.  One of the flies was fascinated with Lundin’s ear.  He brushed it away for the fifth time and reached a hand up to the ceiling.  Without straining, he could touch it with his fingertips from his place sitting on the floor.  They passed through shadows in the outside world, and the sunlight flickered like a candle through their hole to the sky.  Lundin’s eyes went unfocused as time stretched on.

So you’re going to wear one of the suits?

His mother wiped her hands on her blouse, turning away from the stew.  The sweet stink of turnips was still filling the kitchen, even though she’d put a lid on the bubbling pot.  Lundin shifted his weight, sitting at the well-worn family table, and shot a glance over to his long-faced father.

Like he said, he’s going to be a technician
, his father said, swallowing the ends of his words as voraciously as ever.  ‘Technician’ had no chance past syllable one; the rest of the word was gulped down, leaving nothing but mumbling crumbs behind.  Between his father’s weak voice and his mother’s increasingly bad ears, watching them try to understand each other was a barrel of laughs, if you liked that sort of thing.

Well, why’d you say ‘Petronaut,’ then? 

That’s what they call their technicians, too.  Uh.  Anyone who works in a squad can go by Petronaut
, Lundin explained, as she ripped through the soup with a wooden spoon, stirring out her frustration.

What’ll you be doing?

I.  I don’t know.  It depends on the squad I get for my apprenticeship—

Well, the Cavaliers are the best.   They’re always the most upstanding.  You want to be a Cavalier, right?

I just, I’m not sure yet.  We’ll have to see—

Speak up!  Spheres, you’re worse than your father.

He said, ‘we’ll see,’
his dad said, raising his voice for ‘He said’ and trailing to a croak by ‘we’ll see.’  Lundin’s mother went back to her stirring with a vengeance, and his father sighed, leaning back in his chair.

Will they pay you?
 he said.

Lundin looked at his father.  The balding man’s face was mostly blank, as per usual. 
Yeah.  It’s, uh.  It’s a career.

Enough to support a family?

…A small one, someday, maybe.  I mean—

So what’ll you be doing? 
his mother said with a frown, turning back around.

Something I love, all right?  You’ll never understand any more than that, so let’s just drop it!

He was on his feet, somehow.  His father’s mouth and eyes widened at the same rate.  A pseudopod of stew dangled off the edge of his mother’s spoon, dripping towards the floor.

Well
, his mother said, showing her teeth in something that was not a smile. 
If we won’t understand, Horace, I guess we should drop it
. 
As least
you
know exactly what you’re getting into.

The taste of that turnip stew was thick in the back of his throat.  Lundin wiped his eyes discreetly with his knuckles, turning his head away from Martext.  His parents were still back in Bohock district, not that he’d seen them in months.  And ‘Lundin’s Jewelry & Clockwork’ still attracted the same masochistic clientele; lesser nobles who’d bring their pocket watches to the cheapest repair shop in Delia, gambling that their timepieces would be in the lucky 60% that didn’t break further the instant his father touched them; and crafty hagglers who had figured out that the best way to get a good price out of his mother was to make her mad.  “You think that’s all that necklace is worth?  Well, just put your coins down and take it, brigand,” she’d snarl, stomping to the office before they even paid.  How she used to yell at the apprentice jewelers doing their piece work in the back room!  It only got worse when her ears started to go and she couldn’t hear if they were apologizing or not.

Lundin had traded life in Bohock for the ‘naut workshops without a moment of regret.
 
Now he and his team were locked in a black box rolling through the forest, facing dungeons, torture, and death at the hands of who knew who. 
Funny thing is
, Lundin thought, hugging his knees to his chest,
back then, I really did think I knew what I was getting into.  Well, if I never make it back, at least I’ll never have to admit to my folks I was wrong.

Lundin brushed a fly away from his ear as the treader rolled on.  “That sounded more comforting in my head,” he muttered to himself.

“Out.”

They blinked as the panel swung open.  Sir Ulstead’s eyes were shining, uncanny and gold, brighter than anything else in the world outside the box.  He stepped out of view, leaving them a wide-open portal for the first time in a full day.

Martext coughed with juicy vigor.  Lundin shuffled to the open door, placing a hand on the edge.  His back was laced with pain from being bent double for so long, and his throat was burning.  They’d drained the jug of tea hours ago, and it hadn’t been replaced.

Still, starting about an hour ago, they’d had a sense that the journey was winding down.  The engine had slowed to a soothing purr and the machine had stopped moving.  There’d been an endless series of rustling noises outside, like a pile of leaves or kindling being shoved aside one handful at a time.  Then the box had lurched forward again, and almost immediately begun a precipitous decline; not down a hill, but a stomach-turning corkscrew of a descent, a downward spiral so regular and so long that it had to be human-made.  The light had changed significantly from the dusky colors of early evening to the sharp, sporadic white of what looked like an occasional gaslight.  And the sound of the treads against the ground had turned closer to carriage-wheels on cobblestone than a sleigh on new-fallen leaves.  The muscular echoes of the treads and the engine had been unbearably loud.

“Are we underground?”  Elia had shouted, fighting to make herself heard.  A brief window of gaslight had shone across her face.  Lundin had shrugged, keeping his mouth closed to avoid being sick.

Well, wherever they were, it certainly wasn’t outdoors.  Lundin peeked his head out of the box.  To the right was a long hallway, with clean-burning lanterns hanging in wall sconces every four meters or so.  White stone buttresses kept the low ceiling off their heads.  To the other side was a whole array of machine shop paraphernalia, most of which was unfamiliar.  A ‘tum-powered grinder for making obscenely-sized gears; sprockets and sledges; metal pans and small furry filters; and loose rectangular plates a dozen centimeters wide and nearly a meter long that, a quick glance down at the vehicle confirmed, made up each segment of the treads that had carried them so successfully through the forest.  There was an open space in the middle of the stone floor that was about the same footprint as their vehicle. 
The stables
, he thought wryly.

Willl with three L’s and the driver were nowhere to be seen.  Nor was anyone else, for that matter.  There had been a long period of time between when the engine had finally turned off, after the long corkscrew down, and when the ‘naut had actually opened their door.  During that time, there’d been the noise of hinges and slamming from the driver’s cabin up front, and footsteps echoing in the stony hallway.  Who knew where the woman and the one-time Civic had gotten to by now.