Steampunk'd

by Jean Rabe

  As the sun sank beyond the denuded hills to the west, a blast from a steam whistle brought several scores of sweat-stained workers trudging from the factory gate, a wrought-iron affair emblazoned with a pair of entwined salamanders. Some minutes after the gates clanged shut behind the final worker, they swung open again, and a coach and six horses came thundering up. It rocked to a halt inside the courtyard, in front of a door marked simply “Office.”

  Before the footman could hop down to open it, the carriage door burst open and a tall man dressed in a uniform of midnight blue stepped out. This garb suited him far better than the soiled overalls he had worn outside Neuschwanstein Castle. Waving the footman aside, he adjusted his sword and hat and strode through the door.

  Inside, an elderly clerk sprang to his feet. “So good to see you, Colonel Ames! You were not expected.”

  “A change of plans, Johan,” said Ames. “I must see the professor at once.”

  “He’s out on the floor, supervising some retooling.”

  “I know the way,” Ames replied, striding from the office into the factory beyond.

  On the cavernous factory floor, gaslights shed an orange glow over rows of benches, presses, and machines. Overhead loomed a web of belts and shafts. Mechanics busied themselves with a few of the devices, not even sparing Ames a glance.

  Shortly, Ames spotted a gray-haired man in a long coat, speaking to a team of workers who were busy dismantling a long row of machines. “I must speak to you immediately, Professor,” called the colonel.

  “Why, Colonel Ames!” exclaimed the professor, turning to face his visitor. “I thought your business had taken you to Bavaria!”

  “I’ve been there long enough to learn what I needed to know,” replied Ames. “There are now more urgent matters at hand.”

  “Splendid, splendid!” said the professor. “And the detector proved useful?”

  “Yes! Yes it was vital and continues to perform well. I am now quite certain that the Empress of Austria-Hungary is what scholars call a Pennatus Patricius—a kind of fey shapeshifter. Perhaps her cousin is too—they both have the characteristic thin build. And that would mean that the Hapsburg crown prince also has fey blood. I’m on my way to Vienna now to consult with a new contact we have there. We have an opportunity that won’t come again. I only stopped here to check on your progress.”

  “Splendid!” said the professor again. “As you see, we’re setting up a new line that will turn out cases and gears for the subharmonic watch. It can be tuned to produce a variety of effects. The human nervous system is quite susceptible to influences that fall outside what the individual can perceive.”

  “Yes, quite clever I’m sure. Any man might carry a pocket watch, but you might consider how a woman could be induced carry one of your gadgets.”

  “Oh, quite so!” replied the professor. “A conundrum, I’m sure.”

  “I trust that you have some prototypes to demonstrate.”

  “Prototypes? Oh yes, several. Several,” the professor managed. “Test subjects, now there’s a difficulty—oh yes. Quite.”

  “Is that so?” Ames skewered the man with a glance. “Well, resolve your difficulties and make your demonstration as soon you are able. I’m planning a mission that might benefit from some of these gadgets. In the meantime, I need to send a telegram ahead to Vienna.”

  A few hours later, lights burned brightly in a hastily cleared storage area behind the factory. A few wooden shipping crates—each perhaps a meter square and about that high—stood in precise ranks. On three sides of each crate, every second plank had been pried loose, turning the container into a cage of sorts that housed a shaggy, wolfish canine. A few nervous guards carrying sidearms and rifles kept a wary eye on the dogs, as though none too sure that the makeshift cages could hold the beasts. Fortunately, a sizable meal of meat and marrowbones had rendered the creatures docile—at least for the moment. Also in the room stood a half dozen mannequins—faceless, human-sized dummies clad in business clothes or military uniforms.

  The professor stood at a bench at one end of the line of cages, laying out at least a dozen very large pocket watches with gleaming brass cases and pale yellow faces. Once he had all the devices arranged in a tidy row, he picked up each one, sometimes opening the case to make some adjustment, sometimes manipulating the crown as if to set the watch, sometimes merely giving the crystal and case a hasty wipe. He was still laboring over his watches when Colonel Ames strode into the chamber, heels clicking on the stone floor.

  “All this seems quite puzzling, professor,” the colonel declared. “Surely you have not prepared a collection of gadgets fit only for zookeepers and dogcatchers!”

  The professor carefully laid down the device he’d been holding. “I am beginning to think, sir,” replied the professor coldly, “that I do not care for the term ‘gadget.’ ”

  “No offense meant,” Ames said affably. “It is merely a term I find convenient. A figure of speech, so to speak.” Ames paused for a heartbeat, then continued. “Nevertheless, I misspoke. My concern lies more in this direction. You have here a collection of dogs—all part wolf by the looks of things. I conclude that these beasts are to serve as the objects of our exercise. Are these—how did you name them—subharmonic watches—effective only where dogs and wolves are concerned? Or are they more broadly effectual?”

  The professor drew a breath and fixed Ames with a hard stare. “You have touched, Colonel, on an important point. But in the interests of avoiding a digression that you would undoubtedly find tiresome, let me assure you that the effects you see here will extend to most things that go forth on two or four legs—saving, possibly, a reptile.” The professor picked up a device and caressed it. “Let us proceed, and return to the subject of—ahem—field application, after my little display here has concluded.”

  “Agreed,” replied Ames.

  The professor took a device in each hand and gestured to one of the armed guards to place one watch in a mannequin’s breast pocket. The man did so then quickly resumed his station, scanning the cages to make sure nothing was amiss.

  With a glance toward Ames, the professor raised the hand holding the remaining watch and clicked the crown once. Instantly, a barely audible “ping” sounded from the mannequin, which trembled, swayed, and finally toppled with a dull thud.

  “That’s it?” asked Ames, puzzled.

  “That is not, as you say, ‘it,’ Colonel Ames,” responded the professor with evident amusement. “Examine the mannequin, if you please. Pay special attention to the pocket in which the watch was placed.”

  Ames bent over the fallen mannequin and tugged at the brass case inside the pocket. To his surprise, he found the watch locked into place. Four claws protruded from its formerly seamless case, penetrating deeply into the mannequin’s wooden body. The attachment resisted Ames’s attempts to remove the watch with his fingers. With a grimace, Ames produced a knife with a long, heavy blade and used it to pry at the claws. One by one, they came loose with the sounds of splintering wood. When Ames lifted the device free, he saw that, in addition to the claws, a slim needle a few inches long protruded from the watch’s back plate. Ames considered the needle’s length, which seemed considerably longer than the watch was thick.

  The professor watched Ames with some satisfaction. “It looks solid,” he said, “but it’s hollow and it telescopes. Even so, the needle isn’t long enough to deal any serious harm on its own.” As Ames studied the needle more carefully, the professor continued. “To envenom the needle would prove simple enough, and a watch could easily carry a lethal dose.”

  The professor gestured with the hand holding the second watch. “A single device can control many others, but more about that in a moment.” He returned the watch to the bench and took up another. “Strictly mechanical applications are essentially limitless,” he continued. Taking aim, the professor loosed a pair of spikes from the newest watch. They struck a mannequin with a sound like whips cracking, and the mannequin
shuddered and fell. Following that, the professor tossed another watch into the air, whereupon it whirled like a dervish and flew into the room, scattering the guards. Thin chains shot from its case, swiftly entangling two of the remaining mannequins and sending them crashing to the floor, heads and limbs nearly severed.

  The professor surveyed the wreckage with satisfaction before calling the guards back to their places. “Now,” said the professor, rubbing his newly empty hands, “Let us look into the non-mechanical.” He took up two watches and gestured to the guards, who quickly set about clearing away the wreckage of the mannequins. Once that task was done, four men, working in pairs, took up long poles and thrust them though the slats in a cage. The disturbance set the dog inside growling. Taking care to keep well away from the beasts’ slavering jaws, the four men pushed and dragged the cage to the center of the floor, then hastily withdrew their poles and took up their weapons again.

  The professor picked up a new pair of watches and beamed at Ames. “I believe you will find this demonstration quite satisfactory.” The professor paced deliberately up to the cage. He snapped open the cover of one watch and carefully set it on the floor, taking care to aim the open cover toward the cage. Then he took a few steps back and clicked the crown of the second watch. Ames briefly felt as though scores of insects were crawling under his clothes, and he fidgeted in spite of himself. Still, it was the dog’s reaction that commanded his attention. Every hair on its body stood on end. The dog yelped and started to chase its tail, but it only managed a quarter turn before collapsing in a heap.

  “Dead?” asked Ames, looking from the cage to the professor.

  “Oh no,” grinned the professor. “But it’s unconscious and insensate. It will remain so for several hours.” The professor returned the watch he held to the bench. “The effects from this application are extremely potent. Still, it is not necessary to operate the device remotely. With the proper gear, one can keep it in hand and bring down a target several feet away.”

  “You have such gear?” Ames asked sharply.

  “A prototype, Colonel,” answered the professor. “Indulge me for a moment, however. I have one more demonstration.”

  The guards once again rearranged the cages. When the flurry of activity was over, the remaining cages were pushed together in pairs with the adjoining panels removed, so as to create one common space for the two occupants. There were a few whines and growls, but in moments the newly paired canines were quiet once again.

  “A living nervous system is subject to disruption, as we have just seen,” explained the professor. “It is possible to enliven the senses rather than enervate them.” With that, the professor took up a new watch and twisted the crown. Immediately, the dogs stirred, growling and snapping. The first wave of aggression quickly escalated, and in a heartbeat the cages rocked as the dogs threw themselves on each other, snarling and biting. A few animals, wounded, but victorious over their rivals, threw themselves against the cage makeshift bars and broke through in showers of splinters. They stood for a moment, sides heaving and muzzles flecked with blood and foam, before rifle fire from the nervous guards brought them down.

  Ames stood transfixed amid the carnage. The smell of blood and gunpowder, and the reports of rifle fire, magnified to earthshaking thunder inside the warehouse, had briefly carried him back to fields where men in blue and in gray strove for mastery. He allowed himself a few moments of reverie before taking the professor by the arm and ushering him back to the factory office.

  “These devices,” he asked eagerly. “They can disable or enrage anyone?”

  “You wonder, I think,” replied the professor, “if they can affect the faerie folk. In theory, they can.”

  “In theory?” Ames snapped. “What good is theory?”

  “Theory, my dear Colonel,” replied the professor dryly, “made what you just witnessed possible.”

  “Very well, professor, explain further—if you please,” Ames commanded.

  “As you know, Colonel, we have had very few faerie subjects for testing. The faerie mind and body are not so different than a human’s, but they are, nevertheless, protected against outside influences.”

  “Yes, I know,” Ames said. “They can’t take a punch in the jaw, but mentally they’re as tough as old leather.”

  “Quite,” responded the professor. “But a careful researcher, or even an enterprising field operative, could take a device and work on one subject, adjusting it until it had the maximum effect.”

  “I have just such an agent,” said Ames with ill-concealed glee. “Pack up a set of these watches. I’ll take them with me.”

  For two days and nights, Elisabeth maintained a discreet watch over all visitors to the castle. On the evening of the third day, her vigilance bore fruit. A purveyor of children’s toys was admitted to the castle, where he entertained the courtiers’ children with a variety of hand-carved toys. Once he had them enthralled, he slipped away, moving unerringly toward the passage leading to the garden chamber that housed the portal to faerie. In the upper hallway, he tapped on the wall panels until he found one that sounded hollow. But as he felt for the lever that would open it, a blow to the back of his head rendered him unconscious. Stepping out of the shadows, Ludwina searched him carefully until she found the device that Elisabeth had described, then had him locked in the dungeon.

  Once in her cousin’s apartment, Ludwina threw open the window and assumed her eagle form. Flying low over the courtyard, she sped onward, the device clutched in her talons, until she found the carnival. She landed atop the carousel and dropped the device into the open maw of the carved dragon, then flew away at top speed. A few minutes later, the carnival’s patrons witnessed a curious sight. The carousel shimmered and seemed to fold in upon itself. Moments later, it was gone, leaving a large crater in the ground where it had stood.

  “As I thought,” said Ludwina later, upon returning to her cousin’s apartment, “the device had no special tuning. It merely turned whatever energy source was nearby in upon itself.”

  “At least this gate is safe for now,” said Elisabeth, locking her trunk. “But we must go to Vienna without delay. When I questioned that ugly little man, he said his employer’s next target is Rudolf!”

  “He plans to kill the archduke?” cried Ludwina. “But why?”

  “Evidently this Colonel Ames has discovered Rudolf’s fey nature and plans to begin his campaign to expunge nonhuman blood from Europe’s crowned heads with him. We have to stop him.”

  “Very well,” said Ludwina. “Mad King Ludwig will become engrossed in another lengthy project. But what about you?”

  “Empress Elisabeth will go on to Greece by steam-ship. As she has taken ill again, she will travel veiled and speak to no one. Teca has posed as me before; she knows what to do.”

  At a small railway station in the country outside of Vienna, a pair of slim women dressed in royal blue capes over gray traveling suits stepped out with the crowd of passengers from the evening train. A porter pushing a cart loaded with two great trunks walked at their heels. As the trio neared the platform’s edge, one woman smiled and pointed at a carriage parked in a long line of similar vehicles. Immediately the women quickened their pace, leaving the porter laboring to keep up.

  Both ladies turned when they reached the carriage and smiled broadly as the porter brought the cart to a halt. After pausing to catch his breath, the porter noticed that although handsome, the vehicle was devoid of any markings. Before he could remark on it, a footman with a stern face stepped down from the carriage and laid a hand on a trunk. He gave the porter one level, questioning glance, and soon the two men were hoisting the trunks aboard the carriage.

  The moment the task was done, one of the ladies extended a hand to the porter and dropped a coin into his hand. “Merci, monsieur,” she said with smile.

  “Danke, Herr,” added the second lady, also bestowing a coin.

  “D-d-danke, Fraulien,” stammered the porter, who could not help
being pleased with the double tip. He barely noticed as the women boarded the carriage and it thundered off at breakneck speed.

  “So good of you to meet us, Eduárd,” said Elisabeth as the carriage left the station.

  “I’m pleased to assist, Your Highness,” replied the man, who looked rather somewhat careworn. “How was your incognito trip across half of Europe?” He turned to Elisabeth’s companion and doffed his cap. “I’m Eduárd, servant and sometime confidant to Her Highness.”

  “Forgive me, Eduárd,” said Elisabeth. “You may call my companion Félice, from Reims. We’re just two schoolteachers on holiday who found each other while sightseeing. We found this charming shop in Munich where we just had to buy these matching outfits.”

  “I see,” replied Eduárd.

  “It is important that I speak to my son directly, Eduárd,” said Elisabeth, assuming a more serious mien.

  “He and his baroness have gone to his lodge at Mayerling, Your Highness,” Eduárd responded. “The crown prince has had a difficult fortnight. He seems out of temper. There was an incident between the officers of his regiment a few nights ago, and the emperor was livid. The two of them have had some kind of falling out, and the archduke has gone to sulk. Perhaps the baroness can bring him out of it. She seems to have endeared herself to most of the household, even with her odd gifts.”

  “Gifts?” said Elisabeth.

  “She has distributed these watches.” Eduárd produced a massive timepiece with a gleaming brass case. “They keep good time, but they’re oddly heavy and they have the look of mass production about them. No soul, so to speak.”

  “Well, tell me about this baroness,” said Félice. “I have not had the pleasure.”

  “My son’s newest lady love—she seems to make him happy,” said Elisabeth. “They met this fall at a. . . . By all the muses, Félice! They met at a carnival!”