“Stop! Who goes there?” a harsh voice called from the battlements, amplified by a bullhorn and booming above our heads like thunder.
Joanna was the first of us to break out of this light-induced paralysis.
“Relax, man!” she called out. “It’s reinforcements!”
A pause followed, then the voice boomed again, less harsh this time:
“Reinforcements, eh?” it asked. “I take it you fellows know the password then?”
Joanna looked at us, clearly showing she had no idea what to do next. After a brief moment of more confusion, Daphne called out instead of her.
“How would we know the password if we’re new? We’re the new arrivals, we know nothing about the place!”
“New arrivals, eh?” the voice asked, followed by silence, which wasn’t a good sign at all.
“Wait!” I shouted out. “I’m the one with the password! The password is ‘Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’!”
The Keep remained silent. Then, after I already decided we were dead meat, the voice sounded again: “That’s the password for the basement,” it said. “What business may guardsmen have in the basement?”
“Well,” I said. “Someone must have messed up then. Gave me the wrong password. How else would I know it?”
The owner of the voice remained silent for a while, then grumbled something barely audible and distorted by his bullhorn, and then — clang! — the drawbridge was moving towards us again, the three of us barely able to hold back from laughing out and jumping with joy.
We entered through the main gates, then skipped the stairs leading down to the basement workshop infested by artificial rats, the place so familiar to me. Instead, we marched forward, on through the courtyard decorated with red tapestries on to the Lower Barracks, the place we would belong to if we were the real thing.
The barracks were really crowded at this hour. Redcoats were everywhere, their faces innumerable, their uniforms identical to ours. At first, it seemed we wouldn’t have to worry about being stopped at all. But then…
“Hey!” some bulky guard we just passed roared all of a sudden, his face as red as his coat. “Hey, ladies! Girls! Get over here! Join the party!”
“Girls!” another guard shouted, pointing at us. “Hey, look! We’ve got ladies on board!”
Then the red-faced guard who started it all tried to pat Joanna's back… and stopped, an ornate elven dagger pointed at his throat. The large room instantly fell silent.
“What is this?” the guard babbled. “What kind of weapon is this, even?”
“The Dagger of Piercing from the Enchanted Woods,” Joanna said. “Where it also glows, because it’s enchanted and so on. What’s wrong with you, man?”
I stepped in before the situation got any tenser. “Hey, look, it’s not a girl, don’t you see? It’s a man with a girl’s avatar, okay?”
This made the red face change color, fast. He looked at Daphne. She instantly raised her hands.
“I’m also a man,” she said, trying to sound masculine. “I’m just into cosplaying girls, eh?”
After this, the room fell into silent confusion, everyone muttering their opinions about men roleplaying girls, some poking fun at the guard who started all this. We proceeded through the stale air of the barracks in silence and soon, much to our shared relief, barged into the huge silent well of the central tower, the footing of its huge spiral staircase right at our feet.
“So?” I whispered. “Where’s the counterweight room?”
“Here!” Daphne pointed to a nook hidden by yet another piece of hanging tapestry. “I memorized it. There’s a lock though.”
“The lock is not a problem,” I told her quietly as the three of us slipped into the nook, which turned out to be a short L-shaped corridor. ”The elite guard is. Do you realize the first sentry is right above us now, maybe a bit ahead of us?”
“It’s fine,” Joanna said. “Just take out the lock, man.”
So I pulled out the Advanced Lockpicks she’d procured for me and got to work. The lock wasn’t hard to pick, really. It was no surprise, as the whole maintenance shaft we now stepped in made next to zero sense from this world’s perspective. There was nothing to maintain in here. No mechanic would actually unlock this door once in a while to work on the counterweight or do some kind of repairs. The counterweight wouldn’t ever break down.
The whole point of this little backdoor was simple: it was there for us, the infiltrators, who may want to sneak inside the Royal Keep and would probably want to reach the top of its central tower. This place was built and designed with us in mind, and this thought alone gave me courage. It was still a game. We were still supposed to have fun. It wasn’t that the fate of the two worlds depended on us.
“What now?” I asked as we latched onto the massive bronze weight, conveniently lowered all the way down (which meant the lift cage was all the way up of course). “You said something will make them use this thing after we get here.”
“Soon,” Daphne nodded at me in the dark. “It’s right about time. Soon you’ll see.”
And then I saw, or rather heard.
A powerful explosion thundered somewhere below, outside the Keep, from its side exposed to nothing, just the chasm surrounding it — BOOM! Then again — BOOM! KA-BLANG! And then, in an instant, hoarse commands followed from the barracks, echoing down our small corridor — the words distorted so much we could hardly make anything out. The floor and the counterweight shook together, with each mighty pounding sound penetrating the walls from the outside.
It sounded like we’d just been hit, a few times. It sounded like bombardment.
“What was that?” I asked, hardly able to believe it.
“An airship, Ben.” Daphne looked at me, her eyes full of pity for some reason.
“What do you mean, an airship?” I said. “That was gunpowder, all over again. We’re being bombed. If it’s Divine Kingdom, then where the hell did they get an airship?”
“It’s not,” Daphne said. “It’s us. La Republique.”
I merely looked at her, trying to grasp the meaning.
“La Republique?” I said finally. “Where did they get the explosives from, then?”
“From the Crescent,” she answered, and looked down. “We’re allies with them, Ben. It’s a joint strike on Queenstanding.”
Another explosion roared, nearer this time. Dust and stone debris rained on us again, their torrent so dense we had to cover our heads.
Suddenly it dawned on me.
“And you knew about it! You knew all along! This is the distraction you were expecting, isn’t it? The strike.”
“I ordered it, Ben,” Daphne said, still looking down. “I mean, it would have happened anyway, but I told them the precise time when it must happen.”
“So this is why the elite guard will be called down. To deal with… with whoever you called on our heads.”
“This is only a small raid, man,” Joanna told me. “Just enough hassle for us to get by unnoticed.”
“You!” I turned to face the Elven girl. “You don’t even belong here! This is my nation we’re talking about. And it turns out I was helping an enemy spy!”
Daphne looked at me then, her eyes dark and attentive.
“But you knew it, Ben,” she said. “You knew all along, didn’t you?”
“And since when is this your nation, man?” Joanna asked me. “You’ve been here what, for two weeks? Three weeks? Geez, man. It’s all a game. None of this is even real.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Well, ask her. Ask my DC girl, whose life may depend on what’s happening now, if it’s real to her or not! Ask her!”
“Ben,” Daphne spoke up quietly. “There’s only one way to stop it. To show who’s behind it. And you know it. We have to move on with the plan. We have to cross the desert and get to La Republique. We need to bring them the proof, explain to them who was behind the Baron’s murder. This is the o
nly way to stop this war before it’s too late. Yes, no?”
I just kept staring at them both, chewing my lips, trying to weigh what had been said and done, trying to make sense of the whole situation.
Then the counterweight trembled, its chains screamed, and we were yanked up without warning and pulled up through the darkness with breathtaking speed.
Then the darkness ceased, and we were suddenly in the open, three infiltrators clinging to a heavy copper weight sliding up a stone wall of the central tower inside a well of wooden scaffolding. We could see the entire front of attack from here, and my, was it huge!
“A raid?!” I shouted at Daphne against the wind. “You said it was just a raid?”
I swear at least twenty huge airships of La Republique were approaching Queenstanding from our side, from the chasm filled with slowly drifting clouds. Two of them were already near, pairs of Musketeers replacing each other on their decks, tossing the gunpowder bombs at our stronghold. I could see our walls were already breached in one spot, Janissary shock troops pouring in. Another flying fortress was spewing Spiders of the Crescent at us, the dark bat-winged shapes circling above our fortifications in a huge vortex, tens of them hitting the ground with every second.
“There’s a whole army attacking us!” I shouted.
“Relax!” Daphne called back. “Or don’t relax, the way you prefer! Most of these airships are dummies, wooden ruses and nothing more! And people who you see attacking are all either green noobs or cheap mercenaries! No good fighters for your Albion troops to kill! It’s all a show!”
And yet, the gunpowder bombs pounding on our walls were quite real, and this part was disturbing. The forces of Clockworld were balanced through world design and diplomatic measures: no side ever to be obliterated, no side dominating above the others. The way it seemed now, the balance was shifting like a rockslide, all towards Divine Kingdom, which wasn’t even present on the field.
Then we dove inside a stone well again, the vast battlefield panorama hidden from us. Huge cogs and gears of at least three different metals were spinning and clanking all around us — the lifting mechanism of the cage. A piece of scaffolding ran conveniently across the tower, so we were able to dismount from the weight as easily as a little kid would jump down from a swing — oh yes, we still have swings in the boring Wakeworld of the future.
Right as the trio of us disembarked, the giant counterweight plunged back down, lifting the cage up. We heard the muffled voices of the elite guard as they crowded inside — about ten of them, judging by its carrying capacity. The voices were happy and excited:
“Yeah, those Spiders are squishy.”
“You get hit by that powder bomb, we’ll see who’s squishy out here!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
We waited until the cage plunged down, and then Joanna scouted ahead, her dark attire perfect for hiding in the shadows.
“Clear,” she said when she got back. “Seems like all of them are gone, can you believe it? Oh man.”
Still, we moved out keeping absolute silence, only communicating in hand gestures, like a spec ops team straight of an ancient 2D movie. We didn’t have to travel far — on top, the central tower was basically one round corridor with the elevator access on one side and a pair of sturdy barrack doors on the other. The battle was still raging behind the narrow windows, and every guard niche we passed was empty. Seemed like Joanna was right, and the elite guard, down to the last man, was now down below. We were left alone with all the souvenirs we would be able to carry.
The upper barracks gate sported a complex mechanical code lock, well armored and equipped with a hidden arithmometer.
“No way Lockpicks will work on this one,” I whispered, staying quiet just in case.
“So, what’s the plan?” Daphne replied, also in a whisper.
“Watch me,” I said.
If we were to ever get inside, first I needed to remove the external plate of armor protecting the lock mechanism from any kind of break-in tools. So I started with the Frost Essence we brought, and sprayed the vaporous liquid all over this slab of metal. It froze up instantly — and yet I knew it was going to thaw back real quick, so I had to work fast.
“Check those nuts and bolts,” I told Joanna, who used to be Diego, my trusty employee. “Pick out the bolts with the sharp tip. I’m going to need at least four.”
While the Elven girl was sorting out my order, I used the small pickaxe to make four tiny dents in the corners of the slab, making them deep enough for those bolts to latch on. Doing her job as smooth as a nurse in a surgery, Joanna handed me four sharp-tipped bolts. I bit on three of them, holding them in my mouth, and placed the fourth one against one of the tiny dents.
“Now let’s pray they’re strong enough,” I said. “Hold this bolt in place… girl.”
The task wasn’t easy, for we had to keep our fingertips away from the frozen surface — I was going to need all of my fingers for the rest of the job. The shoemaker’s hammer was a perfect tool though; it had a flat striking pin on the reverse side, so I used it as a screwdriver, turning the bolt head clockwise. It did catch, and went through the frozen metal nicely. I drove the bolt deep enough so it would pierce the armor almost completely without damaging the mechanism behind it.
“Excellent,” I said. “Now, the next one. Quick, while the thing is still frozen.”
We did it — the four screws were in place, buried deep into the slab.
“And now,” I whispered, “the miracle happens.”
My shoemaker’s hammer replaced with the small pickaxe, I hit the frozen piece of armor straight into the middle and the metal slab cracked, breaking into four triangular pieces, each crack running through one of the bolts piercing it. I used the pickaxe to carefully pry every piece away and — lo and behold! — the lock mechanism lay exposed before us in all of its intricate copper glory.
“What now?” Daphne said.
“Now,” I whispered back, “I need to find the part of the clockwork which holds the entire thing shut.”
It wasn’t too hard, given my past experience. The whole thing was a puzzle anyway, a minigame of sorts, designed to reveal all of its secrets to a keen eye. Soon I spotted the small tube leading straight into the locking part of the mechanism, all surrounded by heavy springs meant to clamp down on the heavy lock catch and hold it in place forever, just in case some clumsy careless thief tried to force it open without bothering to solve the puzzle.
I wasn’t clumsy though. And I did suspect we’d be facing something like this.
“Retort,” I whispered to Joanna. “Acid. Gas burner.”
Reliable as ever, the Elven girl handed me all of the above. I filled the retort with a well-calculated measure of Acid and placed its nozzle against the locking mechanism access tube. All I had to do now was heat up the retort’s contents with the Gas Burner held in another hand. The greenish acid vapors went up, along this copper tube and straight into the complex arithmometer-controlled clockwork. They condensed inside, becoming acid once more, and then — click! — the huge lock popped open. The insides of the Upper Barracks, the entire royal arsenal, were out there for us to plunder.
Or so we thought.
Because the moment we threw the heavy doors open and stepped inside the barracks, we found out the room wasn’t empty after all. A dark robed figure, its face hidden under a rune-streaked cowl, stepped up to meet us, silent and terrible despite its moderate height.
And when Joanna pulled her bow on the strange figure, three arrows released in quick succession — those froze in mid-air halfway to their target, their feathers crackling and trembling, and then fell down to the stony floor, all three of them.
“A mage?” Joanna looked back at us. “How…”
And this was all she had time to say. Because the robed figure pointed with its hand, and — Pop! Pop! Pop! — the acid flasks the Elven girl had on her burst open, along with her liquid nitrogen s
upply, and before we knew, Joanna was dead and gone, frozen, despawned, and dissolved in a green corrosive cloud.
Daphne stepped forward next, despite my silent protest.
“Who are you? Show yourself,” she demanded. “I know you’re a DC. How did you do it? No magic is allowed in here. How — ”
And the next moment, my girl burst into flames, then collapsed and died at my feet without making any sound.
“Well, Benjamin,” the figure said in a quiet voice, subtly familiar. “Perhaps it’s time we — ”
I didn’t hear the last word, for the next moment I was charging the mage, swinging my small pickaxe, the only semblance of a weapon I had on me. I tried to run up to the stranger, and was stopped halfway by strange magnetic resistance, the air itself pushing me back and tickling my skin, making my hair move and crackle with electricity.
I swung my pickaxe, trying to get him. For I knew now it was him, and no one else.
Someone calling himself Mr. Reaper.
He sighed, watching me struggle, and then dropped both his hands as if giving up.
There was a flash of purple lighting before my eyes, followed by an intolerable sizzle and the sweet smell of cooking meat, and right the next moment, I was dead.
I woke up inside of my sleeping nook, sitting up so fast I nearly banged my head against its padded ceiling.
***
Ben stepped outside the nook, rubbing his eyes, suddenly aware that the battle-like noises behind the window didn’t cease with the dream. Something was pounding at the street below, and this sound was quite unusual.
It was the muffled booming of a kettledrum.
A kettledrum? Ben thought, feeling dumb and still half-asleep. How did a kettledrum get here?
He crossed the room, walked to the window and turned the handle to unseal the airtight pane, then threw it open, shivering in the cold January wind.
Enter the Clockworld Page 20