The Fire Cage

by Scott Hungerford

  Finally, the tunnel appeared to be coming to an end, and the walls opened up into a large, round chamber with brick walls. In the center of the room stood a metal spiral staircase, leading up into the buttressed ceiling, while another passage headed off to the left, descending at an angle into the earth.

  From down the staircase came a middle-aged, beautiful woman that Davin hadn’t seen before. With red, curly hair, resplendent in a rose-colored dress and red corset, her outfit was complete with a salon hat adorned with a single blood-red dyed peacock feather. As she stepped down along the grating steps in her expensive lace shoes, a trim, athletic man with short-cut dark hair followed along close behind, dressed to the neck in a century-old butler’s uniform.

  “Rajon,” she said with pleasure as she reached the bottom of the steps.

  “Charette,” he replied coldly. “I thought you were in the Baronies, all this time.”

  “No, I was here. Just me, plain old Mrs. Aston, with her loving husband, in a big old drafty house on the edge of the Thorny.”

  “It must have been frightfully boring for you.”

  “Terribly,” she said. With her manservant now off the stairs and standing by her side, she waved to Altius, who let down the barrel of the heavy gun with no small relief.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my daughter?” Rajon asked.

  “Oh, Verona?” Charette said. “She’s upstairs. And this must be the bright young man she’s told me so much about.”

  “You know who I am,” Davin snarled. “Leave her out of this.”

  “I know exactly who you are even without Verona’s help,” Charette said, as she came over to him, circling him once like some kind of predatory shark. “You’re Mercuri’s grandson, bastard by birth. But I bet the blood runs pure.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Davin asked, even as he got a trace of her perfume, a particular rose scent that reminded him of something.

  “You and I have some business to deal with. You do what I say, and things will work out well for you.”

  “Then let Rajon and Verona go, and we’ll make arrangements,” Davin said.

  Charette stalked back over to Rajon and ran a sharp nail right along his cheek. He stoically withstood her attentions, even though her scratch drew blood on the pale skin of his face. He flinched, as if was about to strike her.

  “Not so fast,” she answered, even as her handsome manservant pulled out a curved blade from within his jacket and held it expertly in hand, within easy reach to cut Rajon’s throat wide open. “With Verona and Rajon in my pocket, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to argue.”

  “Then what do you want from me?” Davin said.

  “The world,” Charette said, and laughed maniacally, her high-pitched laughter echoing in the echoing chamber. “Now, get up those stairs, gentleman, as there are wonders to be had. Wonders beyond the imagining of princes and kings, and time is short.”

  Suffering the butler’s threatening glare, Davin headed for the staircase, taking the lead in the climb up the shivering metal steps. Where he was going, he didn’t know. But he knew that Verona was depending on him just as much as Rajon was, and he would do anything he could to get them safe, no matter what risks it might entail.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As Davin let himself be manacled into the large metal chair, he grimaced as the butler locked his wrists within a pair of cold metal rings built into the arm-rest. Across the floor from him on his left side, about thirty feet away, sat Rajon, already locked into a similar chair that seemed to be bolted into the stone floor. To Davin’s right was Verona in a third such chair, with a gag over her mouth and Altius standing right behind her with a short blade held to her throat. To Davin, ever since he first saw Verona glaring at him from her chair, she looked about as mad as a wet cat facing a second dunking — and he wasn’t sure if she got free whether he or Charette would be in more mortal danger.

  Turning his head, Davin looked up at the high domed ceiling above him, which was completely covered with tubes, pipes, valves, and metal catwalks at multiple levels. Interlaced between the pipes were more of the crystal candyglass strands, winding this way and that between a number of large devices — devices that attached with hoses, wires, and pipes to a number of consoles, as well as to the back of each of the three metal chairs the three of them were trapped in. Somewhere in the background, Davin could hear the sound of rushing water, as if it were running fast through a drainage pipe, punctuated by the occasional drip-drop of water spattering somewhere on the stone floor nearby.

  When Davin’s chair was finally hooked up, and the butler did a final check to ensure all of them were secure, only then did Charette make her appearance. Having shed the red outfit for a white collared shirt, long white coat, black pants, fashionable rubber galoshes, and a pair of tight rubber gloves, her only other adornment was a pair of leather-strap goggles she wore upon her forehead.

  “Now that everybody is more comfortable,” Charette said with no small glee, “I think we can do a little bit of negotiation.”

  “You have me,” Davin stated again. “Let Verona go.”

  “I need your Verona for this display of science,” Charette said sweetly.” Going over to a sizable control panel covered with phosphorescent green dials and a forest of arm-length rubber-covered switches, she pulled a lever in the middle of the cluster, causing the sound of rushing water to greatly increase somewhere high above.

  “You see, up until just this morning, you were completely expendable,” Charette told Davin. “Indeed, by birthright, your father was Mercuri’s only son, just as much as I was Vermeni’s only daughter. But after your father’s… accident,” she said, biting back a little smile, “I didn’t think I would have any opposition to blending together the work of two of the greatest scientists the Empire has ever known.”

  “What makes me so special?” Davin asked, feeling a tremble of apprehension in his heart. He wondered what tidbit had Charette caught onto that made her change the rules of engagement so late in the game?

  Charette smiled, stalked over to Davin, then rummaged down into his breast pocket until she pulled out the mechanical butterfly. “This.”

  “It’s… it’s a toy.” Davin stammered, more than a little confused.

  “It’s a toy that your father spent most of his life trying to make function, but never could. As he was banished from Mercuri’s workshop at an early age because of his carelessness, he kept this purloined device his entire life, trying to make it work with nothing but the power of his own will. But from what Altius tells me, with a single touch on a sunlit afternoon, you got the thing to fly off your finger and flutter about the room, just like that.”

  “So?” Davin said.

  “So?” Charette mocked. “It means that the greatest gift your grandfather Mercuri had, you share. A gift that sadly skipped over your own father’s generation, and instead, ended up with you, a bastard son of a failed gambler and a lowly washerwoman.”

  “I don’t know how to do alchemy,” Davin said. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Alchemy isn’t something you need to learn,” Charette said, clenching her fingers in the creaking rubber gloves. “It’s something that’s a deep part of you; it’s something that you simply do. My own father had a knack for channeling spirits, an ability that thankfully passed down to me, his only daughter. But you, I suspect you are just as capable as Mercuri was in creating the ‘Ignis Incari’.”

  “The what?” Davin asked.

  “The fire cage,” Rajon said from behind her.

  “Exactly,” Charette said, giving the man a little nod. “A fire cage. A contained battery of energies that can harbor and preserve life force within. A battery that can act as a receptacle for the living spirit and keep it viable for decades.”

  “You killed my father,” Davin said, putting it all together. “The rose scented bit of lace I found in his possessions. It smells like you.”

  “The bit of la
ce was a gift, one of the last things I gave him. And yes, I stole from your father. I tricked him. I seduced him. In the end, I poisoned him,” Charette said, “but I did not kill him.”

  “What do you mean?” Davin asked. Reaching underneath her shirt, Charette pulled up a necklace with a diamond-shaped cube welded into the pattern.

  “I mean, dear boy, that I have your father safe and sound next to my heart. He refused me, just as much as he refused my final proposal of marriage and everything that it entailed. At the moment of his death, I used my own power to transfer his soul into one of Mercuri’s fire cages, just as I did when my own father died years ago.” She held the fire cage up on its cord, admiring it for a moment as it hung and spun from her fingertips. “But no matter how much I’ve cajoled him, no matter how much I’ve threatened or tortured Vincent through the years, your father’s talent just never came to form, never in a way that could be useful.” Charette tucked the amulet back beneath her shirt, patting it once and smiling as it came to rest against her breast.

  “I’ll never do it,” Davin said. “I won’t do anything you ask at all.”

  “Not even for Rajon? For poor little Verona? How heartless you must be. After all, I still have hundreds of the old fire cages that your grandfather made when he was still alive, and I have already put many of those to good use.”

  “Like, with Turk.” Rajon said.

  “Yes, with Turk. It was a most unfortunate end for such a talented murderer to betray me in his final hour. Predictable, but unfortunate.”

  “So what do you want?” Davin asked.

  “I want you to make me one more fire cage. One modern, reliable fire cage made by your own hand. If you can give me one new fire cage, one that I can move my father into safe and sound, I’ll give you, Rajon, and Verona your freedom and your lives. That is what I’m offering, on my father’s behalf.”

  “Vermini was a madman,” Rajon stated. “Davin, you can’t let him walk the earth again.”

  “He already does walk the earth,” Verona stated. “He has for decades, here within the lair, in a variety of metal bodies I’ve fabricated for him. He is currently conducting other important experiments and left you to my own devices.”

  “Then let me speak to him,” Davin said. “Perhaps he can be reasoned with.”

  “Never.” Charette stated absolutely. “You will do as I say, or suffer the consequences. No bargaining, no deals, and no stalling.”

  Davin tried to swallow the lump in his throat. When he looked over at Rajon, trying to get a sense of what to do, all he got in return was Rajon’s cold stare — don’t do it. Verona gave him a similar look, though she shook her head back and forth, emphasizing the danger and her final choice to die.

  “I won’t do it,” Davin said, with finality, earning Verona’s fervent nod of approval.

  “A foolish choice,” Charette said. “Then, you’ll need some extra persuasion from one of my father’s most important inventions.” With flair, she put on her protective goggles, spun on her heel and marched back to her machine.

  “What is it?” Davin asked, looking up at the arrays of equipment surrounding them, above them. “What does it do?”

  “While I call it an ether conductor,” Charette explained, “my father prefers to call it, ‘The Electric Death’. It’s a rare turbine device that derives static charge from a sluice that runs from beneath the waterwheel on Mercuri’s property all the way down here to the caves below my father’s estate. As the turbines spin, power is charged in copper coils which is ultimately channeled to the chairs. Then, as you fry, one by one, your souls end up in a perfect state for spiritual transmission, after which you’ll spend the rest of eternity trapped away in a metal prison without sound, sight, or sensation.”

  “Well,” Davin said, now frightened out of his wits, not sure what else to say.

  “Last chance,” Charette said, her hand on a different switch, ready to turn the terrible device on. “Will you help me preserve my father’s work, his legacy, for the good of the Empire? Or will you force me to kill Verona as an example of my will and intent?”

  After a moment, Davin gave his answer. “Yes,” he said dejectedly, at the edge of his wits, hoping for a gambler’s miracle. He couldn’t let Verona die. “I will.”

  “No!” Rajon yelled, even as Verona screeched behind her gag.

  “I thought you would see it my way,” Charette said, even as Altius chuckled across the room, amused by Davin’s sudden change in heart. Giving a nod to her butler, Charette watched as the young man strolled across the room to a metal wall table braced beneath one of the furnace pipes. Lifting something up from a box, he carefully came over to where Davin sat, and laid the large object down in his lap just close enough so his fingers could touch it, but not easily dislodge it from its perch. It was a large gold-gray metal heart, as big as a man’s head.

  “What do I do with it?” Davin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Charette said honestly. “That was your grandfather’s gift, not mine. But I will tell be able to tell you when you’re done.”

  Davin, more than a little frightened by the turn of events, touched the cold, greasy metal heart with his fingertips and tried to summon life into it, tried to find the spark of power somewhere in his heart or mind that would allow him to perform such a feat. But after a minute of silent concentration, he knew that he was no closer to success.

  “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can do as you ask.”

  “Very well, then,” Charette said, pulling the lever and starting the charge of the copper coils above. “Incentive you shall have, then.”

  “Wait!” Davin yelled.

  “Your grandfather learned to create fire cages by accident, and once he learned the skill, it only took him a few moments of concentration to create one. You have five minutes to find your own skill while my machine powers to full strength. After that, I’ll test the strength of your character, and your connection to Verona and her father, and will kill them if you don’t provide the end result I want.”

  “No! Wait!” Davin yelled.

  “Get working,” Charette said, even as she pulled another lever. From high above, it sounded like a huge tank of water was pouring into the pipes now. As the copper coils began to heat up, the smell of crackling ozone started to flood through the air. Not wasting any time, Davin gripped the metal heart with both hands and concentrated, working with all his might to unearth the secret within himself.

  As the clock ticked down, he tried everything he could think of, even as he mentally tried to ignore the rising whine of the machinery around him, and the gradual glow that was starting to emanate from the candyglass strands connecting the coils and turbines high up above. From here, he could see a blue nimbus starting to glow around all three of the ten-foot high copper coils, each suspended high above the ground on padded poles. Mechanically, he saw that with a simple throw of a switch, metal forked rods would be moved into a position where they could deliver their lethal charge.

  Catching the look of terror in Verona’s eyes, and seeing Charette waiting at the controls, with a small fire cage cube already resting on her palm, Davin returned to the work.

  Alchemy. Ether. Science. Fire. His grandfather, his father, his mother — Davin tried to remember everything that he’d ever heard about Mercuri, tried to raise every sensation he’d felt when he’d touched the mechanical butterfly or listened to Turk talk within the half-made toy. But as the time ticked down, and the whine of the coils amplified, Davin was no closer to success than he was when he first failed at the beginning.

  That was when Charette, without warning, threw the switch and sent a low current of torturous voltage into Rajon’s chair. Arching his back against the murderous sensations, Rajon howled through clenched teeth.

  “Stop it!” Davin yelled.

  “You stop it,” Charette called back over the shriek of the machinery. “Give me what I want, Davin and the gambler lives, in his own body, in his own tim
e. Otherwise he is doomed for all eternity!”

  Focusing down again, Davin tried to bring life to the heart, to roil its interior with alchemic fire. But the bursts and flashes of electric radiance coming from Rajon’s chair kept distracting him, until he was sitting wide-eyed, tears running down his cheeks, just watching the blue lightning ride under the surface of the older man’s skin. He kept trying to think of something that would let him stop the torture, something that would unleash the power within him. He thought about Rajon’s laugh, his boldness in battle, and the way he had helped Davin achieve his noble rank and try to ferret out the truth of his mother’s murderer, all in the last few days. But in his mind’s eye Davin kept seeing Rajon standing in the Fates, toying with him, in the just same way that he’d toyed with his father in the months before his penniless death…

  With a flourish Charette threw a final switch, and the candyglass connecting to Rajon’s chair flared red hot, then white hot, and his entire body was cast in a boiling net of flaring lightning arcs. As Davin and Verona watched, horrified, Charette raised the tiny fire cage up in her hand like a talisman, closed her eyes and concentrated, as if she were searching for the perfect moment to capture his soul.

  Then the power died down, as the coil expended the last of its charge, leaving the room in smoke-tinged darkness. Davin sat numbly in his chair, holding the cold heart, hearing Verona sob from across the way at the loss of her father, knowing with horror that he’d been too late. Looking up at Charette, he watched as she smugly pocketed the fire cage, then moved her hand towards a second bank of levers.