The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (5 page)

“Good morning, all! Good morning, don’t mind me,” Dame Dionne’s voice rang out.  Lundin turned to see her among his three technicians, clapping backs and shaking hands merrily.  Elia adjusted her trapezoidal glasses after Dame Dionne hugged her around her slim waist with one arm.  Willl’s drooping blond bangs flopped over his eyebrows as he scratched his head, which was shaved down to the skin on each side.  Dionne waved at Lundin with her fingertips and took a long sip from the oversized teacup in her other hand.  “Pretend I’m not even here, Horace.  Just go right ahead.  What’d I miss?”  she whispered to Willl with the three L’s.  

“We were talking about languages.  I don’t know why,” Willl with three L’s replied at a completely normal volume.
Spheres save me, these idiots don’t even know how to whisper
, Lundin thought, heartsick.

“Languages!  Ooh, fascinating.  Can’t wait,” Dame Dionne said, beaming at Lundin over the rim of her teacup.

“Actually, we, uh, just need to talk about one language:  Mabinanto.”

“I don’t speak Mabinanto,” Elia said, raising her hand.

“Never heard of it,” Martext said.

“Well, it’s like Old Harutian—”

“I don’t speak Old Harutian.” Elia waggled her hand in the air.

“That’s okay!”  Lundin spat out, trying to smile.  “It’s completely, perfectly okay that you don’t speak a dead language.  I learned a little Harutian grammar back in school, but if none of you did then we’ll just go from here.  So please just put your hands down.”

Willl with three L’s had raised his hand tentatively above his shoulder when he saw Elia’s fingers stretched high above the tight brown bun on her head.  They both slowly lowered their hands, looking uncertainly into Lundin’s pleading face.  Martext had his arms crossed over his chest impassively.  Dame Dionne took a noisy slurp of tea.

“Mabinanto is the language of wizards,” Lundin said after composing himself, “and all magic spells use it.  So step one for all of you will be to get familiar with the language, so we can start casting some spells.  That is, uh, programming some spells.  So, actually, why don’t we just end the meeting here, and you three can go start learning?  Can’t do much else until you do.  I’ve got, uh, two books I can lend on Harutian declensions and structure.  A little dry, but, well.  And I’m sure the central library’s got other resources.  So,” he said, looking out at the four blank faces.  “Meeting adjourned?”

As one, the other technicians turned to look at Dame Dionne.  She smiled tightly.  “Take ten minutes, guys, then check back in.  All right?”

The trio murmured a chorus of ‘yesses’ and ‘sures’ and swept out of the room.  Martext closed the workroom door behind him, sealing Lundin and Dame Dionne inside with a quiet click.  Lundin leaned back anxiously, resting his palms against the smoothly sanded tabletop.  “Check back in with you, or with me?” he asked.

“With you, Horace,” she said, setting her teacup down on a table by the door.

“I—well, okay, but there’s not too much I can do with them until they know—”

“Do you know what makes a good leader, Horace?” she said seriously, taking off her glasses for emphasis.

“A good leader…?”  She folded the arms in on her glasses and looked at him. “Height?” Lundin said, drawing a complete blank.

Dame Dionne glanced at the floor, shaking her head and smiling.  “If only tall people made good leaders, I’d never have made it this far,” she said.  “What else?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said.

“Is a leader just someone who tells people what to do?”

This has to be a trick question. 
“No?” he tried.

“Exactly,” Dame Dionne said, reaching out towards him.  “A good leader doesn’t tell people what to do.  A good leader is who they
come to to
ask
what to do.”

“And when they ask, the good leader doesn’t tell them,” Lundin said, trying to sort this out.

“What?  No; of course, then, the leader gives them orders.”

“But why not just do that earlier on, instead of waiting for people to come—”

“The point is,” Dionne said, tapping her glasses against the palm of her hand, “that people
want
to be led by a good leader.  And a good leader doesn’t just tell his or her people
what
to do.  A good leader tells them
why
.”  She was nodding like this was important, so he nodded back at her.

“But the leader doesn’t just
say
why,” she went on, putting a hand on his arm.  Her other hand gestured expansively in the too-small space between their bodies as she spoke.  “The good leader paints a picture of the future.  The leader shows the people how the world will be better when their work is done.  The good leader, Horace, has vision.”  Her palm traced through the air in a long curve.  She looked up into his eyes.

“And should the good leader keep that wonderful vision inside?”

“Yes, until someone asks,” Lundin nodded.

Dame Dionne threw back her head with laughter.  Lundin looked down at his feet and grinned.  She did have a nice laugh; a little loud in close quarters, maybe, but  nice.  “No,” she said at last, through a final spate of chuckles.  Lundin frowned. 
I thought I had that one
.

“Horace, I think you’re an absolute treasure.  And from all I’ve heard, you’re a brilliant technician.  Now I’m going to challenge you to become a good leader too.”

He had a hunch the conversation was building up to something like this.
 
“Dame Dionne,” Lundin said, raising his hands.  “I don’t really see myself as the leader type.”

“Well, here’s the thing, Horace,” she said, putting her hard-edged glasses back on.  She ticked a list off on her fingers.  “You’ve got a vision.  You’ve got a staff.  And you’ve got a deadline.  You’re already a leader; so you might as well learn how to be a good one, right?” she finished, flashing him a smile.

His mouth went dry. “What do you mean, a deadline?”

Dame Dionne cocked her head.  “The next sharing is in nine days,” she said, bemused.  He was bemused right back at her, so she went on, “Every other week, Civic project leaders interface with community representatives for demonstrations, public comment, and collaborative networking. That’ll be you, Horace, in nine days.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t know how to interface,” he said.

“Horace—”

“And what do you mean by demonstrations?”

“We’re going public with the mechanized wizardry project in nine days.”  Dame Dionne put her hands on her hips.

Lundin’s jaw dropped, and dark black shock filled his mind. 
Going public?

“You’re a Civic now, Horace,” she went on, “and unlike some Petronauts, Civics don’t hole up in the workshop, doing clandestine research on brand new ways to kill people.  Our mission is to work with the rest of the city to make things that are good for all Delians.  We partner with industries.  Merchants.  We share our designs.  We spread technology outside this compound.  What we don’t do is keep secrets.”

“But I—”

“The Board of Governors transferred you here, which means two things, as far as I see it,” she said, her calm tone cutting through his objection.  “They agree with Her Highness that you’re on to something big; and they think that Delia needs to know what you’ve found.  And you’re going to do it nine days from now.”

She put a hand on his shoulder, looking frankly into his eyes.  “Do you see why I think you might want to tell your team something more than ‘go hit the library?’  Mister Leader?” Dame Dionne said.

Lundin’s head was reeling.  “I don’t know what else to tell them.”

“How about—I don’t know—a briefing?”  She clapped him on the arm and stepped back, blue eyes crinkled with humor.  “Why don’t you start with what you’ve done so far?”

I cast a spell on the court sorcerer to keep her from committing regicide, a fact that will get me murdered the instant it becomes public knowledge.

“Oh, it’s not that interesting,” he said weakly.

“Horace,” she said.  The clouds broke overhead, and the immaculate workroom was flooded with light.  “Do you believe mechanized wizardry can change the world?”

Lundin looked back at her, mulling over the flood of changes in his life since that day in LaMontina’s tent, a few short weeks ago.  “Yes,” he said.

Dame Dionne nodded after a moment, her round face shining in the sunlight.  “Tell your people why,” she said quietly, “and I think you’ll like what happens next.”

The door swung open several minutes later, and the three technicians filed back in.  Their eyes widened at the sight of the squawk box, front-and-center in the expansive room, its side panel pulled back to reveal two turntables and an array of gears and polished resonators.  Lundin was reaching into the mouth of the ornate trumpet on top of the box, making an adjustment to something unseen.  Dame Dionne was crouched by the open panel, lowering a perforated metal disk into place on the lower turntable.  They turned at the sound of the door, making last-minute adjustments before facing the three techs.

“Hey there, guys,” Dame Dionne said, dusting off her maroon slacks.  “Before you dive right in to the fascinating world of Old Harutian, Horace has something he wants to say.”

Lundin fought the urge to swallow as Elia, Martext, and Willl with three L’s turned to look at him.  He laid a hand on top of the squawk box, feeling the grain of the dark wood against his fingertips, and took a deep breath. 

“We’re here to fix magic,” he began.

Chapter Four

Fireside

Samanthi squinted in the firelight.  Gingerly, she pressed the tip of her screwdriver against the miniature ratchet, visible a centimeter beneath the side of the plundered armband.  With a sound like a brick dropping through a sheet of silk, three thin claws flashed into view, extending forward a quarter-meter past the mouth of the bracer.  “More like stilettos than daggers,” she mused aloud, flicking the closest blade with a dirty fingernail.  “From what Dame Miri said, the Petronaut they fought back home had bigger claws.”

“Parade squad exaggeration,” Iggy snorted.  “They’d probably be scared of someone with dinner forks for arms.”

“Spheres, I’d be scared of that,” Samanthi grinned, accepting the cup of applejack the older woman handed her.  Expert technician Ignatia Roulande squatted down next to her, absently scratching a mole on her bare, leathery shoulder.  The Aerial squad tech’s overalls were ripe from long days of consecutive wear, and Samanthi turned her head discreetly upwind. Iggy took a sip from her collapsible tin cup and frowned at the trio of razor-sharp claws.

“Spring-loaded, huh?  How do you ratchet ‘em back?”

“This ring twists,” Samanthi explained, gripping what looked like a decorative band encircling the cuff.  She gave it a half-turn and, with a few muffled clicks, the claws retracted a few centimeters.  Iggy shook her head emphatically.

“Awkward.  Not a Petronaut in the world who’d want to waste time like that in a fight.”

“Maybe you’re supposed to keep the claws out until the fight’s done.”

“Maybe you should carry a damn gun and leave the scratching to the tomcats.”

“Know what I think?  It’s a model,” Samanthi said, twisting the band until the claws were out of sight.  “A workshop sample of the real thing.  Look how smooth it’s fashioned; no space for fasteners anywhere.  This was never meant to be fitted into a ‘naut’s armor.  It’s just proof-of-concept.”

“The concept that three knives coming out of your arm are better than one knife in your hand.”

“There’s a proverb in there somewhere,” Samanthi said, thoughtfully.  Iggy chuckled as Samanthi drained her cup and reached for the growler of applejack.  The Aerial squad had a reputation for being the most committed alcoholics in the entire Petronaut community; which meant, as Iggy had been telling Samanthi for years, that the younger woman would fit right in with them.  The standing offer was a little tempting, since it was acknowledged that the Aerials had far and away the best toys (like Ironsides, whose armor Iggy had lovingly patched up after piloting her through the smugglers’ hail of gunfire that morning.)  But the best toys also had the greatest tendency to break, which was extremely hard on the pilots who flew them and the techs who had to rebuild them.  Besides, Samanthi mused as she refilled her cup, being an Aerial tech would be all about shop work, with fewer of the Recon squad’s varied assignments, inside and outside the city walls.  She liked being part of a little squad that did big things.  
Though our squad is littler than it should be now…
She narrowed her eyes and pushed that thought aside, thumping the earthenware jug back into the dirt.

“I think you’re right, Sam,” Sir Mathias spoke up quietly, lying on his back on the other side of the campfire.  Samanthi hissed and threw an acorn at him.  He flinched as it rebounded off the thin linen blanket over his chest.

“Quiet!  You’re supposed to recuperating.”

“I can’t think and recuperate?”

“Not out loud; no, Sir.  You sucked in a lot of smoke today, and the field physician told you to go easy on your lungs.”

“My lungs are fine.  Want to see them?”  Right on cue, Mathias sank into a particularly juicy coughing fit.  Samanthi threw up her hands, disgusted, dismayed and amused at the same time. 

“Why is it always the handsome ones who get set on fire?”  Iggy said, sipping wistfully.

Mathias sat up, his big hands resting on his knees as he got his cough under control.  “I figure there are only a few ways these smugglers could have gotten a hold of ‘naut gear,” he said, his normally rich voice coming out as a sad croak.  He ticked off his theories on his fingers.  “Killing a ‘naut and stripping a whole suit; stealing it from a workshop; or trading for it.  If they’d had a whole suit to cannibalize, we’d have seen them using other pieces.”

“And this cuff would look like it belonged to a set,” Samanthi agreed.

“If they stole it, that makes me feel good.  It means our mystery ‘naut shop out there is way more lax about security than we are.  But I bet the armband was part of some trade.”