The Iron Wyrm Affair

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Much as Time seeks to bring down every building, and Vice seeks to bring down every Virtue, the treacherous Assumption ever seeks to intrude a detail’s importance wrongly into Deduction. A proper Assumption may save a great deal of time and trouble, but an improper Assumption is a foul stinking beast, ever ready to founder the ship of Logic upon the rocks of Inaccuracy.

  Fortunately, the weapons of Reason and Observation do much to overthrow the false faces of Assumption. The decision to carefully and thoroughly question each Assumption as if it is a criminal, or a fool who does not differentiate Fact from Fancy, will serve each person seeking to strengthen his habit of Deduction faithfully. As the organs of Reason and Observation strengthen, the art of quickly finding the correct details becomes natural.

  We shall start with a series of Exercizes to strengthen the faculty of Observation any Reader assaying this humble work possesses. These Exercizes are to be done daily, upon waking and retiring, and at diverse points through the Reader’s daily work as opportunity permits…

  —From the Preface, The Art and Science of Deduction, Mr Archibald Clare

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks are due to the long list of the Usual Suspects: Miriam and Devi, for believing in my crazed little stories; my children for understanding why I hunch over typing for long periods of time; Mel for gently keeping me sane; Christa and Sixten for love and coffee. Thanks are also due to Lee Jackson for his love of Victoriana, and to Susan Barnes (soon to be a Usual Suspect) for putting up with me. And finally, as always, once again I will thank you, my Readers, in the way we both like best. Sit back, relax, and let me tell you a story…

  extras

  meet the author

  Daron Gildow, 2010

  LILITH SAINTCROW was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, WA. Find her on the web at: www.lilithsaintcrow.com.

  interview

  The Iron Wyrm Affair is your first experience with writing steampunk. How was it compared to writing your previous books?

  To be honest, I didn’t think it was “steampunk” when I was writing it. I tend to view steampunk more as an aesthetic than as a genre. For me it was a variety of alt-history mixed with urban fantasy. It was incredibly fun to write, and just happened naturally once the initial image—of Archibald Clare in his study, disheveled and bored almost to literal death—came to me. From there it was a race to uncover things as the characters did. I literally did not know what would happen next until Bannon’s Ride, near the end of the book.

  Where did the inspiration for The Iron Wyrm Affair come from? Were the Sherlock Holmes books a big influence?

  I loved Sherlock Holmes and Encyclopedia Brown as a child. The idea that the power of observation could be used like that… it was like a superpower ordinary people could polish. Also, when the recent Sherlock Holmes movie hit theatres, there were a couple scenes that were just such fun, so tongue-in-cheek, that they really fired my imagination.

  There is a wonderful spark between Emma Bannon and Mikal. An unusual choice since Clare is the other point of view. Why choose Mikal over Clare for the love interest?

  My goodness, Clare would not be attracted to Emma. Plus, he’s a mentath. Logic machines are hard to live with, as are Prime sorceresses. Initially, Mikal wasn’t even a love interest, and I hesitate to say he’s one now. He was simply an almostsocially-acceptable way for Miss Bannon to relieve, shall we say, a little pressure. He and Miss Bannon have a relationship more founded on mutual respect and a variety of trust than anything else.

  Clare, on the other hand, wouldn’t know what to do if he did have tender feelings for anyone, let alone Miss Bannon.

  When did you come up with the idea of jewels and jewellery as a source of power?

  Jewellery has always been a source of power and fascination. It’s very human to adorn oneself, and have that adornment carry power and significance. I realised about halfway through the book that Miss Bannon’s jewellery was a character in its own right, and during revision had to go back and write out every set she wore. It was almost like dress-up.

  Emma Bannon is such a fascinating character. So tough… and yet so proper at times. Where did you get the inspiration for her?

  Her influences are manifold, from Kage Baker’s Edward Bell-Fairfax (probably the biggest one) to Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, as well as Jane Eyre and a huge, choking load of Charles Dickens. I wondered what a woman, especially a woman who had escaped the confines of a lower class, would do with the phenomenal power of a Prime. There was also a very interesting tension in her character—Miss Bannon is, after all, expected to act in certain ways because she is a woman, and sometimes she doesn’t. There’s always a price to pay for that. It would be anachronistic to have it otherwise. The arrogance and willpower of a Sorcerer Prime and the powerful social strictures of gentility and gender roles make for interesting complexity.

  What is next for Bannon and Clare?

  Right now I’m hard at work on The Red Plague Affair, which starts with a cardiac arrest and goes on to involve plague pits, treachery and Dr Vance, Archibald Clare’s nemesis and most treasured opponent. It should be a lot of fun.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed

  THE IRON WYRM AFFAIR,

  look out for

  THE RED PLAGUE AFFAIR

  Bannon and Clare: Book 2

  by Lilith Saintcrow

  I am too bloody old for this.

  Archibald Clare spat blood and surfaced in a rush. He gave the struggling fellow opposite him two quick jabs to the head, just to calm the situation somewhat. The foul knee-deep semiliquid splashed, dark as sin and smelly as the third circle of Hell. Clare gained his footing, unwilling to deduce what deep organic sludge his boots were slipping in, and retched painlessly. The blood from his broken nose was making his stomach decidedly unhappy.

  Where is that blasted Italian?

  He had no worry to spare for Valentinelli. For Clare strongly suspected he had other problems, especially if what his faculties—sharpened by coja and burning like a star inside his skull—were telling him was truly so. If, indeed, the man in the long academician’s gown struggling in Clare’s fists, spluttering wildly and half-drowned, was not Dr. Vance…

  … Clare would not only perhaps have quite a bit of explaining to do, but would also have been bested twice by the sodding bastard.

  The man in Clare’s grasp ceased struggling quite so frantically. Since he was being held under some of the foulest sewage drained nightly into the Themis, it was not so amazing. However, Clare judged that his opponent was about to drown, and further judged his own faculties were not stunned by the knock on the skull he’d taken earlier that night. Which made his opponent a potentially valuable source of information to deduce Dr. Vance’s whereabouts and further plans from.

  Besides, drowning a man in shite was not, as Emma Bannon would say archly, how things were done.

  Now why should I think of that? Clare freed the obstruction in his throat with a thick venomous cough, wished he hadn’t because the reek was thick enough to chew, and dragged the false Vance up from a watery grave.

  Choking, sputtering words more fit for a drover or a struggling hevvy than the man of quality Dr. Vance purported to be, Clare’s bespattered opponent hung in his narrow fists like wet washing. Clare’s chest was uncomfortably tight, a rock lodged behind his ribs, and he wheezed most unbecomingly as his trapped opponent tried gamely to sink a knee into a tender spot of Clare’s anatomy.

  Bad form, sir. So Clare took the man’s feet out from under him and dunked him again, boots slipping in the sludge coating whatever passed as a floor to this foul tunnel. The echoes held a peculiar quality that made Clare think this part of Londinium’s sewers were built of slowly crumbling brick, which made them not quite as ancient as those built by the Pax Latium.

  An encouraging observation. He hawked and spat again, gratef
ul he could not see the color of whatever bodily fluid he had just thrown into the dark. His face would be a mask of bruising on the morrow.

  He hauled the man forth from the sewerage again, and wished his sensitive nose would cease its operation for a few moments. “Be reasonable!” he barked, and the echoes gave him more of the dimensions of the tunnel. Quite large, really, and quite a volume of almost-fluid moving through its throat. His busy faculties calculated the rate of flow and returned the answer that Clare was lucky it was a slurry; he would have been swept off his feet and drowned himself had it been any thinner. “Vance! Where is he?”

  The besmeared visage before him contorted. An odd sound rose under the plashing and plinking. What little unhealthy gleaming there was showed a rather oddly colored face under a stringy mass of black hair, a hooked nose decked with excrescence, and rotting teeth as the man Clare had been chasing howled with laughter.

  Dear God, what—

  The laughter swelled obscenely, and the man in his grasp went into convulsions. More filth splashed, and Clare swore with a ferocity that would perhaps have shocked even Miss Bannon, who could—he had discovered—let loose torrents of language that would make even the drabs of Whitechapel blush.

  Poison. Of course. And the reek blocked his nose, so he likely would not discover what variety of toxin in time.

  Dr. Vance was not above sacrificing a hireling or two. They were pawns, and life was cheap on Londinium’s underside.

  Clare swore again, dragging the suddenly stiff body back toward the tunnel’s entrance. He now remembered falling off the lip of the adjoining tunnel, splashing into this lovely place with a bone-rattling thump. The rock in his chest squeezed again, his left shoulder complaining as well. Perhaps he had strained it, in the excitement. He had chased the good Doctor from one end of Londinium to the other over the past two days, and at least denied the man his true prize—or so Clare hoped.

  “Eh, mentale.” A flat, queerly accented voice, falling against the thick water without so much as an echo. “You are loud tonight.”

  “He’s poisoned him!” Short of breath and patience, Clare was nevertheless gratified to find the Neapolitan assassin, as usual, did not ask useless questions. Instead, Ludivico Valentinelli splashed into the muck a trifle more gracefully than his employer had, and relieved Clare of the burden of his erstwhile opponent. A different foul reek arose.

  The man had voided his bowels. It was, Clare reflected, almost a cleaner stink. Certainly fresher, though hardly better.

  He took in tiny sips of the foetidness and choked. “D—m the man,” he managed. “D—m him!”

  “Too late!” Ludo was, as usual, infuriatingly cheerful. “He has risen to Heaven, signore. Or to Hell, who knows?”

  “B-Bring the b-body.” Why were his teeth chattering? And his chest was even tighter, iron bands seizing his ribs. “D-dissection.”

  Ludo found this funny. At least, he gave a gravelly chuckle. “You are certainly no Inquisitore.” He hauled the corpse to the entrance, heaving it up with little grace but much efficacy. Then, the assassin splashed back to Clare, who was suddenly much occupied in keeping upright. “Mentale?”

  How strange. I cannot breathe. Not that I wish to, down here, and yet— “V-v-val—”

  He was still seeking to speak Valentinelli’s name when the pain clove his chest and felled him. The dark was full of things no gentleman would wish soiling his cloth, and Clare’s busy faculties, starlike, winked out.

  BOOKS BY LILITH SAINTCROW

  Dante Valentine

  Working for the Devil

  Dead Man Rising

  Devil’s Right Hand

  Saint City Sinners

  To Hell and Back

  Dante Valentine (omnibus)

  Jill Kismet

  Night Shift

  Hunter’s Prayer

  Redemption Alley

  Flesh Circus

  Heaven’s Spite

  Angel Town

  Jill Kismet (omnibus)

  Romances of Arquitaine

  The Hedgewitch Queen

  The Bandit King

  As Lili St. Crow

  The Strange Angels series

  Strange Angels

  Betrayals

  Jealousy

  Defiance

  Reckoning

  Praise for

  The Iron Wyrm Affair:

  “Saintcrow scores a hit with this terrific steampunk series that rockets through a Britain-that-wasn’t with magic and industrial mayhem with a firm nod to Holmes. Genius and a rocking good time.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs

  “Saintcrow melds a complex magic system with a subtle but effective steampunk society, adds fully fleshed and complicated characters, and delivers a clever and highly engaging mystery that kept me turning pages, fascinated to the very end.”

  —Laura Anne Gilman

  “Innovative world-building, powerful steampunk, master storyteller at her best. Don’t miss this one…. She’s fabulous.”

  —Christine Feehan

  “Lilith Saintcrow spins a world of deadly magic, grand adventure, and fast-paced intrigue through the clattering streets of a mazelike mechanized Londonium. The Iron Wyrm Affair is a fantastic mix of action, steam, and mystery dredged in dark magic with a hint of romance. Loved it! Do not miss this wonderful addition to the steampunk genre.”

  —Devon Monk

  “Lilith Saintcrow’s foray into steampunk plunges the reader into a Victorian England rife with magic and menace, where clockwork horses pace the cobbled streets, dragons rule the ironworks, and it will take a sorceress’s discipline and a logician’s powers of deduction to unravel a bloody conspiracy.”

  —Jacqueline Carey

  Praise for

  Jill Kismet:

  “Jill Kismet is, above all else, a survivor, and it is her story that will haunt readers long after the blood, gore, and demons have faded into memory.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “… Loaded with action and starring a kick-butt heroine who from the opening scene until the final climax is donkey kicking seemingly every character in sight.”

  —Harriet Klausner

  “Lilith has again created a vibrant, strong, female heroine who keeps you running behind her in a breathless charge against forces you just know you would never be able to walk away from completely unscathed.”

  —myfavouritebooks.blogspot.com

  “Lyrical language and movie-worthy fight scenes are staples in Saintcrow’s novels, and this one is no exception.”

  —midwestbookreview.com

  “This mind-blowing series remains a must-read for all urban fantasy lovers.”

  —bittenbybooks.com

  “… ideal for readers who enjoy nonstop rough-and-tumble action combined with compelling characterization and a plot that twists and turns all over the place. Saintcrow… never fails to deliver excitement.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Praise for

  Dante Valentine:

  “She’s a brave, charismatic protagonist with a smart mouth and a suicidal streak. What’s not to love? Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton should warm to Saintcrow’s dark evocative debut.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Saintcrow’s amazing protagonist is gutsy, stubborn to a fault, and vaguely suicidal, meaning there’s never a dull moment… This is the ultimate in urban fantasy!”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick!)

  “The characters are rich in detail and the storyline continues on its own unique path of magical death and destruction.”

  —http://darquereviews.blogspot.com

  “Hands down, one of the best series I have ever read.”

  —blogcritics.org

  “This hard-hitting urban fantasy will keep you on the edge of your seat and the conclusion delivers a shocker that will both stun and please.”

  —Freshfiction.com

  “Without a doubt, Lilith Saintcrow has penned a fabu
lous, unforgettable story that will have readers lining up to buy her previous releases and waiting with bated breath for her next book in this outstanding new series.”

  —Curledup.com

  “… Dark, gritty, urban fantasy at its best.”

  —blogcritics.org

  1 The ability to draw a simple charter-symbol in charming is available even to the non-sorcerous. Those of very faint talent may perform the simplest of charter-symbols as long as said symbols are “married” to a physical item. A charmer must be able to hold a charter-symbol in free air for at least a few moments in order to be apprenticed; it is legal to indenture charters but not charmers or above.

  2 The last Skellewreyn, the famous and rebellious Agnes Nice, was hung in 1712 in Hardwitch. Afterward, Skellewreyn – too much talent to be a mancer and not enough to be a properly-Disciplined witch, driven mad and physically twisted by their sorcery – did not appear, or if they did, they kept to certain shadows. Some of the Morloks are rumored to be of their ilk.

  3 Witches are held to be Common, since their Discipline fills their entire brain with no room left for the “splitting” of focus a Sorcerer or above must perform. A Sorcerer may perform a Greater Work without losing track of one’s whereabouts; a Master Sorcerer or Adeptus may move physically while performing a Greater Work, and of course a Prime may successfully assay more than one Greater Work at once.