The Second Siege

by Henry H. Neff

  “Is that nanomail?” asked Max, fascinated, as he ran his hand over a surface smoother than soap.

  “A singular set,” said Señor Lorca, holding it up against Max’s frame. “It is my second skin and has a very special provenance. Damascus steel and spider’s silk and many holy relics are bound within it. It will protect you, Max. Long ago I claimed it from the Red Branch vault, as was my right. Now I surrender it unto you, as a brother in arms.”

  “I’m not in the Red Branch,” said Max.

  “But you are meant to be,” said Señor Lorca. “I am old and my service is finished. It was no accident that Cooper brought you to my doorstep, Max McDaniels. You are meant to take my place among the twelve. You were born in March, were you not?”

  “How did you know that?” asked Max, narrowing his eyes.

  “Because I was, too,” said Señor Lorca. “The twelve members of the Red Branch are all born of different months and their powers wax and wane with the seasons. You are a child of March—the month of storms and war in the old calendars. Those gods will favor you as they did Cúchulain.”

  The old man stared down at Max like a cracked and weathered statue. Max felt another presence in the room. Cooper stood in the doorway.

  “Should I do it?” asked Max.

  Cooper said nothing; he merely stared at them, reading the scenario with a flat expression.

  “Would I report to Vilyak?” asked Max.

  “We all ultimately report to the Director,” said Señor Lorca. “Our members are wanderers upon this earth—no field office, no true home save Rowan, and it may be long years before one glimpses the solace of its gates. Are you prepared to do your duty?”

  Max’s mouth was dry as dust. He nodded. Señor Lorca gripped Max’s wrist with his long, steely fingers.

  “In the name of St. Michael and Conchobar mac Nessa do I, Antonio de Lorca, declare Max McDaniels as my heir to the Red Branch and bestow upon him my title, lands, and duties. May he be a true and gracious champion—noble of bearing, fair in judgment, and terrible to the foes of Rowan. Does he accept this honor?”

  Max paused. The sounds from the street faded to a hush. His attention zeroed in on the faint ticks of a nearby clock. His voice was strong and solemn.

  “He does—he does accept this honor.”

  As soon as he finished speaking, Max felt a searing sensation in his right wrist, as though a hot brand had been pressed against it. Despite the pain, he made no sound for the long minute that followed. When Señor Lorca released him, Max saw his skin marked with the dull red symbol of the Red Branch—a red hand surrounded by a slender cord. Señor Lorca smiled at him and removed his glasses to wipe a tear from his eye.

  “I have worn that mark so long, I feel almost naked without it,” he said, lifting his sleeve to reveal a blank, bony wrist. “You have done me a great favor, Max. I am old and ready to meet my fate.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Max.

  “Now that the mark has left him, Señor Lorca will pass on,” said Cooper. “He is over two hundred years old. It is his time.”

  Max gaped at Señor Lorca, who merely smiled and nodded at him.

  “I was born the very year Napoleon marched into my country—born into war and that is how I shall go. For over one hundred and sixty years I have been a member of the Red Branch. Those who bear that mark must make many sacrifices, Max, but it brings pleasure, too. Without that mark, I never would have met my María, no?”

  Max thought of the plump, kindly woman making sandwiches in the kitchen. If what Señor Lorca was implying was true, she would soon be a widow. His stomach felt empty.

  “I—I didn’t know,” he stammered, scratching at his wrist.

  “No regrets, eh?” said Señor Lorca, handing Max the shirt of nanomail. “Put this on. You can wear your sweater over it.”

  Max did as he was told, pulling the long shirt of nanomail over his strong, wiry frame. It shrank and clung to him, as warm and taut as though he’d been encased in a living membrane. He twisted his torso, and the nanomail bent with him, smooth and supple. Moments later, Max pulled his black sweater over his head; only a thin sliver of gunmetal peeked out from beneath.

  “You are now an Agent of Rowan and a member of the Red Branch,” said Señor Lorca, looking Max up and down. “I embrace you as a brother.”

  The old man creaked down and hugged him, smoothing the black, curling hair away from Max’s forehead the way his mother had when he was younger.

  “Go retrieve your weapon, boy,” said Señor Lorca, turning to close the door to his secret cache. “It has been waiting a long time for its true keeper. Tell the others to wait in the cellar—there is a secret passage there. Ask María to open it while I have a word with William.”

  Max hurried back through the den and up the stairs to the room where the spear was waiting. Arriving back in the kitchen, he found Miss Boon looking snappish.

  “I thought I said fifteen minutes,” she said.

  “Sorry,” said Max. “Got caught up. Señor Lorca’s back. Cooper, too. We’ve got rail passes,” he added, evading her stern glance. “Señora Lorca?”

  The elderly Spanish woman was bustling back and forth from the kitchen to the pantry. She stopped abruptly, holding an armful of bread.

  “¿Sí?” she asked with an expectant smile.

  “Señor Lorca asked for the cellar passage to be opened,” said Max. “We’re to wait down there.”

  She blinked, but the smile remained frozen on her elegant face.

  “You are sure?” she asked slowly. “My Antonio told you this?”

  “Yes,” said Max, puzzled at her reaction. A queasy feeling rose in his stomach as he watched her smile grow taut. Señora Lorca crossed herself before splashing cold water on her face.

  “Come quickly,” she murmured, taking a kerosene lantern from the pantry.

  “What’s this all about?” whispered Miss Boon as Max helped his father carry their bags down the dark cellar steps. David, Mum, and Nick had already curved around a bend in the steps, their footsteps sounding heavy and hollow on the old stone.

  “I don’t know,” said Max. “There’s some sort of secret—”

  Boom!

  The whole house shook and trembled. They froze like frightened mice on the stairs.

  “What was that?” screeched Mum.

  “Quick, quick!” cried Señora Lorca from far below. “Follow me!”

  Max put his father’s hand on Miss Boon’s shoulder and squeezed past them.

  “I’m going to see what’s happening,” he said.

  “Max!” hissed his father. “Come back here!”

  “I’ll be back—keep going,” replied Max, springing up the stairs.

  He ran into Cooper in the hallway. The Agent’s face was grim. The unmistakable sounds of a struggle could be heard from the front of the house.

  “Turn around,” commanded the Agent.

  “Where’s Señor Lorca?” asked Max breathlessly.

  “Ensuring our escape,” said Cooper, seizing Max’s wrist and pulling him back toward the kitchen.

  “No!” growled Max, twisting out of Cooper’s grip and dashing toward the front of the house.

  He was not prepared for what he saw.

  Señor Lorca stood in the center of the bookstore, surrounded by laughing children who clung to his legs and arms while he fought off a mob of grinning peliqueiros, who swung their great, heavy batons in wild arcs. A dozen of the masked figures already lay sprawled on the floor, but more were flooding through the front door. Señor Lorca staggered as a baton crashed down on his head from behind. The old Agent roared and a brilliant blue incandescence writhed about him, sending the children scattering away. Blue and purple flames swept up to the ceiling; there was the sound of breaking glass, and several of the heavy bookcases came toppling down. Max saw a great wolf shape back into the foyer as Señor Lorca pressed the throng of peliqueiros back in a furious offensive.

  An iron grip clamped
on Max from behind.

  “Obey orders!” seethed Cooper, wrenching Max backward with terrible strength and dragging him toward the kitchen. The smell of smoke permeated the air, and Max heard a chorus of shrieks near the front door. Once in the kitchen, Cooper barricaded the door with the heavy wooden table and a china cabinet in a jarring crash of broken plates and glass and pottery. Pushing Max through the cellar door, Cooper slammed it shut behind them. Whirling around, the Agent ran his hands along the door’s edges, murmuring quietly. What spell Cooper had placed on the door, Max did not know, but its contours began to glow with deep-sea phosphorescence.

  Down the steps they ran, to the cool, dry cellar stacked with rows of wine bottles and the accumulated clutter of many generations. Ahead was the dim light of Señora Lorca’s lamp. She blinked past Max and Cooper, staring at the dark staircase from which they emerged. Cooper placed his hands gently on her shoulders.

  “He is not coming, María—not this way. He will find you if he can.”

  Señora Lorca appeared dazed. A series of emotions flickered across her face while heavy footsteps thudded above them. The ceiling groaned under the weight of something enormous, whose bulk sent a slow, shivering tremor through the house.

  “What is that?” asked Mr. McDaniels, clutching Max and David to him.

  Cooper ignored him. “Please, María,” the Agent said to the elderly Spanish woman. “Antonio would want you to go.”

  Blinking away tears, Señora Lorca nodded hastily and led them to one of the wine racks toward the rear of the cellar. She reached inside its cobwebbed depths. More footsteps and great shrieking yells sounded above them. Smoke began to seep down into the cellar.

  “María, are you sure that’s the right one?” asked Cooper, his voice eerily calm.

  “I think so,” she said, furrowing her brow. “Antonio made me remember it.”

  Mum began to sob. Miss Boon murmured to her quietly while Cooper ran back to peer up the stairs. Señora Lorca strained and thrust her arm deeper into the wine rack. There was a grating noise, and the wine rack slid several feet across the stone floor. An open space was revealed—short, steep steps that led down to a dim tunnel. Max gagged at the smell of sewage.

  “You must hurry!” cried Señora Lorca. “It will close again in a minute.”

  Cooper ran back, and they squeezed down the narrow opening. Señora Lorca peered at them from above.

  “María,” hissed Cooper, beckoning. “Come down here!”

  “I’m going to find Antonio,” she said, turning away from them. The mechanical workings of the heavy rack began grinding shut again. Cooper’s face darkened. In a blurry burst of speed, the Agent shot up the steps and enveloped the old woman like a trapdoor spider, dragging her down into the sewer. Señora Lorca gave a howl before subsiding to muffled, shaking sobs as the opening ground to a close.

  For nearly an hour, they splashed and staggered along in a dark and nauseating reek. Miss Boon conjured a small orb of shimmering green and gold that floated ahead like a will-o’-the-wisp, revealing smaller tunnels that fed cold water into the main. At length, Cooper stopped at the base of a corroded iron ladder that rose fifteen feet to the street above. Mr. McDaniels retched quietly against the wall; even Nick snorted with disdain at a pair of sewer rats that scurried past. Cooper squinted at a map tucked among their papers and passes.

  “This is it,” he said conclusively, glancing at his watch. “The next train leaves for Bilbao in an hour. David, can all our things fit in your bag?”

  David broke from a fit of wheezing coughs. “I think so,” said Max’s roommate, peering curiously into his battered backpack.

  Cooper stuffed their packs into the backpack one by one, zipping it shut and slinging it over his shoulder. Climbing silently up the rusted ladder, he lifted its heavy covering and peered out. A flicker of annoyance crossed his features and he held up a finger for them to stay put. The Agent crawled out of the sewer on his belly until he had disappeared from view. Ten seconds later, his face appeared in the opening.

  “You can come up.”

  They climbed the ladder, sputtering and gagging, into the bright afternoon. They were in an alleyway; two peliqueiros were sprawled in the street, unconscious. Cooper held one of their stout wooden batons under his arm. He pointed to a nearby spigot while he riffled through the bundle of documents.

  “Wash off as best you can,” he commanded, glancing down the alley.

  Distant music floated in the air while they took turns at the spigot, splashing cold water over their shoes and pant legs until even Mum was satisfied that the odor had faded. Poor Nick huddled under the spigot, cold and miserable, while Max combed the water through his thick quills. He was careful to keep the red mark on his wrist concealed beneath his sleeve.

  “These are your papers and passports,” Cooper said. “Memorize your name and likeness. You are with the German ambassador. You are his aides and you are returning from a diplomatic conference. I will be the ambassador and speak for the group. Do you understand?”

  They nodded as Cooper distributed the documents. He paused when he reached Señora Lorca. “We need to get you out of Salamanca, María.”

  “I will do no such thing,” muttered Señora Lorca, squeezing the water from the hem of her skirt. “I am not leaving.”

  “Please, María,” said Cooper.

  The old woman shook her head defiantly.

  “Where will you go?” asked Cooper quietly.

  “My sister’s.”

  Cooper glanced down at the motionless man lying at his boot. He said nothing for several moments. Señora Lorca gently took his hand.

  “Go,” she urged. “I do not blame you, William.”

  “I will try to come back and find you,” said Cooper, kissing her on the forehead. Walking among them, Cooper spoke quickly in Latin, tapping each of them on the shoulder. The illusion complete, he shouldered David’s bag and strode quickly down the alley.

  “Vaya con Dios,” whispered Señora Lorca, waving farewell as they hurried away.

  Twenty minutes later, Max sat in a luxurious compartment on a private train for public officials. He gaped out its clean glass window. Black-cowled witches wove through the crowds milling about the station. Workers in red armbands swarmed like ants over tall scaffolding that enclosed the beginnings of a towering statue. Thin-lipped officials surveyed the work, fedoras pulled low while they scribbled on their clipboards. Small blue-faced goblins with long beaks and red gums scurried past on urgent errands. Squat, swaddled hags examined the goods in a street vendor’s cart. From the top floor of an apartment building, something with white, larval eyes peered out from a broken window. Trumpets blared, voices sang, and drums boomed while they sat in silence.

  “Are you all right, Cooper?” asked Miss Boon hesitantly as the train began to move.

  The Agent sat across the compartment. His face was stone.

  “The Book, Miss Boon,” he said quietly. “All that matters is the Book.”

  The train picked up speed and glided like a silver snake into the east.

  9

  CLOCKWORK MARVELS

  The train rolled on past abandoned farms and highways and swept up among the sloping shoulders of the Pyrenees. If Cooper slept, Max did not see it. The Agent sat upright, his eyes thin slivers of ice as he listened for the approach of conductors, police, or any of the other myriad officials. He managed to meet these individuals outside the door of their compartment, barking at them in a variety of languages with a stern, officious air. They crossed into France with a dull stamping of papers. A mob of dirt-smudged youths charged the train at Bordeaux, breaking several windows with chunks of hurled cement. The train stopped for some time in Paris, the city’s center as brilliant as a fallen star amidst the blackened wreckage of its smoldering outskirts. Many people boarded there; heavy boots sounded in the corridors. Gray and brown fedoras bobbed past the compartment window. The train went on.

  “I don’t understand,” said M
ax, watching small flakes of snow melt on the window. “All those governments—the military, everything. It’s like they never even fought back. I didn’t know anything like this could happen.”

  “Militaries and governments are only as strong as the people who run them,” said Miss Boon. “The Enemy has always infiltrated such organizations, but we severely underestimated the extent.”

  “Do you think they’ve infiltrated the Workshop?” asked Max.

  “It’s possible,” said Miss Boon. “They infiltrated Rowan, after all, when they got to Mr. Morrow. I don’t think much of Jesper Rasmussen, but I doubt he’s working with the Enemy.”

  “Whatever happened with Rowan and the Workshop?” asked Max. “Didn’t we used to be part of one Order?”

  “Long ago, there was no Rowan, no Workshop or witch clans,” explained Miss Boon. “Together, we numbered in the thousands—tens of thousands, according to the histories and YaYa’s accounts. During the Middle Ages, bitter disputes arose over our direction. And the inventions kept coming—water mills, clocks, compasses, cannons. . . .”

  Max nodded, noticing that the opportunity to teach seemed to relax Miss Boon. She sighed and plucked a stray hair from her sleeve before continuing.

  “Some feared it was only a matter of time until science and technology eclipsed our arts and we risked enslavement to those who mastered them. We must embrace technology, they argued, devote ourselves to its study lest we fall into ruin. There were others who viewed such ideas as heresy, outraged over the notion that we might turn away from the Old Magic that distinguished us among humankind. Factions developed and bloody power struggles ensued. The extremists from both sides were driven off to pursue their passions in other corners of the world. The technologists built their Workshop, and the witches fled to the mountains. Neither has wholly forgiven us for choosing the middle road. They hate each other with a passion.”

  “Have you ever been to the Workshop?” asked Max.

  “No, but I was offered an internship,” answered Miss Boon. “They offer one periodically to Rowan’s top student, but I declined. I don’t mean to boast, but I was valedictorian that year. . . .”