Time of Trial

by Michael Pryor

  Aubrey sighed and touched the Beccaria Cage. ‘If you wish.’

  They were taken to an office. It had been renovated reasonably recently, but its origins as a room in the original baroque palace were clear in the remaining cornices, where cherubs peered down at them from among plaster clouds and sunbeams.

  A beefy man was looking out the window, over the parade grounds. ‘The new Werner lorries have arrived,’ he said without turning. ‘The best in the world, you know.’

  His Albionish was harsh, but fluent. He was wearing a dark suit of conservative cut. When he turned, the first thing that Aubrey saw was the truly impressive set of mutton-chops that swelled down his cheeks to reach the corners of his mouth, as if two skinny cats were lounging about on his face.

  His head was mostly bald, which made his broad brow seem even broader. The whole effect was a man who was top heavy, especially since he was tall and large framed.

  ‘Chancellor Neumann?’ Aubrey said.

  The chancellor frowned, then nodded. ‘You must be Fitzwilliam. You have the look of your mother about you.’ He studied Aubrey for a moment. ‘And your father.’ He bowed to Caroline. ‘Miss Hepworth. I welcome you and your mother back to Holmland.’

  ‘Your Excellency.’

  ‘And Doyle.’

  ‘Sir,’ George said, startled to be recognised.

  Chancellor Neumann studied them for a time in a silence that soon became uncomfortable. He didn’t scowl – not quite – but Aubrey saw him committing them to memory. Eventually, he waved a hand – an impatient, peremptory gesture. ‘What is it you want?’

  Aubrey glanced at his friends. They couldn’t trust the Chancellor, but could they save the Prince without trusting him?

  It was time for subterfuge.

  ‘The Prince’s medication,’ Aubrey said. ‘He left the embassy without it.’

  The Chancellor’s impressive eyebrows shot up. ‘Medication? For the Prince? I have heard nothing about this.’

  ‘Oh.’ Aubrey did his best to look torn. ‘It was meant to be a secret.’

  Caroline came to his side. ‘You can’t keep it hidden, Aubrey. Not now. He could die.’

  The Chancellor’s eyes narrowed very slightly, while he shook his head with evident concern. Aubrey knew then that the trick had worked. The Chancellor was filing this titbit of information away. Prince Albert unwell? Needing life-preserving medication? Useful. ‘You have it with you?’

  Aubrey touched his appurtenances vest and was rewarded with the satisfying ‘clink’ from a tiny bottle of ink he’d stowed earlier. ‘Right here.’

  The Chancellor held out his hand. ‘I will take it to him.’

  That wasn’t the result Aubrey was after. He froze with his hand on his chest. ‘I...’

  The door opened. The Chancellor stiffened. ‘Your highness.’

  A young man stood in the doorway, and Aubrey was startled at the family resemblance to Bertie. He was tall, slim, dark haired, dark eyes, with a razor-sharp moustache. He was younger than Aubrey had thought, too, lucky to be thirty. He wore the dark blue uniform of the Holmland navy.

  ‘Neumann,’ the Elektor said, his expression open and curious. ‘Who are these people?’

  The Chancellor worked his jaw. It was apparent to Aubrey that the last thing he wanted to do was make introductions, but he had no choice. ‘Your highness, this is Miss Hepworth, Mr Fitzwilliam, and Mr Doyle.’

  The Elektor brightened. ‘Fitzwilliam? Aubrey Fitzwilliam, the Albion Prime Minister’s son? Bertie has told me so much about you!’

  Aubrey seized the opportunity so hard that he was in danger of throttling it. ‘It’s Prince Albert, sir. He’s unwell. I have to get his special medicine to him straight away.’

  ‘Bertie is here?’ The Elektor frowned. ‘You didn’t tell me this, Neumann.’

  What is going on here? Aubrey thought. The ambassador said Bertie had gone to see the Elektor!

  ‘He hasn’t been here long, your highness. I was about to inform you.’

  The Elektor clicked his tongue with exasperation. ‘And where is he, then? Quickly, man!’

  The Chancellor hesitated for only an instant, but Aubrey knew calculation when he saw it. The Chancellor was sorting through possible answers before arriving at one that he was obviously unhappy with. ‘The Prince is in your laboratory. He asked to see it.’

  ‘This way,’ the Elektor said to Aubrey.

  A strangled noise came from the Chancellor. Aubrey was startled to see that he was sweating, a fine sheen appearing on his forehead. ‘I don’t think that’s wise, your highness. We have word that an intruder is loose in the palace.’

  ‘An intruder? Why wasn’t I told?’

  ‘The matter has just come to light, your highness.’

  ‘I will take guards.’

  The Chancellor stood rigidly, his jaw clenched tightly. ‘I will go, your highness. It may not be safe.’

  ‘Not safe in my own palace with my own guards? Nonsense! I will find Bertie while you organise the search for this intruder. Now, quickly Fitzwilliam!’

  ‘I have always been interested in magic and in science,’ the Elektor said as they hurried along the corridor. The four guards trailing them jingled as they jogged.

  Aubrey was interested, despite wanting to find Bertie as soon as possible. The Chancellor’s obvious evasiveness was ominous. ‘You have good equipment?’

  ‘The best.’ The Elektor smiled wryly. ‘Many of our companies give it to me. They think it a good way to ensure support from the government.’

  Aubrey was about to query this when the Elektor stopped at a solid iron door. ‘My laboratory is through here. I had it built attached to the east wing.’ He shrugged. ‘I never liked the east wing.’

  Aubrey wrinkled his nose. The smell of ozone was creeping from under the door. Electrical experimentation, at the very least, was going on in there. ‘Best to wait here,’ he said to the Elektor. ‘With your guards. Just in case the intruder is inside.’

  The Elektor looked thoughtful. ‘In that case, you should have the guards.’

  Caroline stepped forward. Her pistol gleamed in the gaslight. ‘We’re well equipped, as well, your highness.’

  The Elektor’s eyes went wide. He looked from Caroline to the pistol and back again. He swallowed. ‘I believe you are,’ he said faintly.

  The door opened onto a short flight of stairs that were poorly lit by a single electric bulb. Aubrey led the way. Immediately, he was grateful, because Caroline put her hand on his shoulder and followed close behind. George’s heavy footsteps echoed as he brought up the rear.

  The stairs took them into a chamber that was larger than Aubrey had expected. Chains hung from the rafters a good twenty feet overhead. Electric cables snaked through them and carbon lamps hung from them like exotic fruit, but they couldn’t dispel the shadows that hung in the corners of the vast space.

  Large cabinets took up most of the room between work benches that were laden with glass and metalwork. The cabinets were heavy industrial make and all of them had thick electrical cables connected to them – sometimes more than one. A low, unsettling hum shook the whole laboratory, a sound Aubrey could feel in his bones.

  He paused, frowning. Short, sharp bursts of magic came to him from the installations on the other side of the laboratory and Aubrey was immediately alert. This was powerful magic that slid over his exposed skin – the back of his hands, his face – with a raw bitterness that made him hiss with disgust.

  This sort of magic wasn’t the tinkering of an amateur. It was directed, intricate magic, with a flavour he knew too well.

  Caroline looked at him. He grimaced. ‘Magic,’ he whispered. ‘Tremaine.’ She narrowed her eyes. Aubrey pointed in the direction it came from. George nodded, then eased to the left along the wall, peering ahead. They followed his broad back as they crept through the clutter of the laboratory, the noise of their passage masked by the sudden eruption of electrical arcing. Bright light sparked and jumped, maki
ng the shadows wheel and swoop overhead – and making them hurry.

  They rounded a large cabinet that hummed as they passed, and more brilliant white light crackled. Aubrey had to throw up a hand to protect his eyes. When he brought it down, purple spots danced in his vision, but that wasn’t what worried him most. He worked his mouth, trying to dislodge the sound of metal being rubbed together. As he rubbed his ears and tried not to hear colours, George tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the right, then hurried off, bent nearly double to take advantage of the cover provided by the overladen benches.

  Caroline came to his side. ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered urgently, cutting through the spitting of more electrical discharges – and the prickle of more magic on the back of his eyeballs when he nodded in response to her query.

  A tall figure was standing in front of the machine that was the source of the electrical discharges. He was wearing heavy leather gloves, almost gauntlets, extending to his elbows. He wore goggles on his face, tinted glass, Aubrey assumed, but he was surprised to see the man had a shovel in his hand.

  The machine was about eight feet tall, and about ten feet or more across. Two large ceramic insulators extended from the top, jutting at angles and looking like piles of dining plates. Four massive cables hung from the rafters and connected to the machine, as well as a six-inch pipe that ran along the stone floor.

  The front of the machine was a mass of switches and dials, with three large hatches.

  A mound the height of the man was heaped up on the left side of the machine. As they watched and crept closer, the operator stooped and shovelled from the mound into the hatch on the left. When it was full, he closed the door and dropped the shovel onto the mound. He flung a series of switches, and the result was the by now familiar burst of light from the top of the machine – and Aubrey felt the magical excess as slightly sweet on the tips of his fingers.

  Heart beating faster, he dropped and crawled closer.

  The operator of the machine seized hold of the middle hatch and pulled. The door opened and a long tray slid out. The operator studied it for a moment, then made a sound of disgust. He reached in, scraped around with his gauntleted hands, and then he hurled the contents away in a fury.

  Aubrey and Caroline huddled together as glassware crashed around them. A large lump landed on the stone floor near them and came to rest against the leg of the bench. Aubrey waited a moment until the operator started filling the hopper again with the shovel, then he scurried over on all fours, retrieved the lump, and hurried back to Caroline.

  He stared at what he’d found. It was about the size of his fist, heavy, orange-brown and misshapen. ‘Clay,’ he breathed and he darted a look at the machine. ‘We must hurry.’

  ‘What?’ Caroline said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I think he’s making a golem.’

  ‘Here? Whatever for?’

  ‘To substitute for Bertie.’

  Ever since the baron’s revelation, Aubrey had been worrying about how Dr Tremaine was to achieve his end of having a puppet on the throne of Albion. His initial thought was that he would use the same method that he’d use to turn Aubrey into an assassin, but after pondering it for some time, he’d discarded this. The mind control spell had worked, in a fashion, but Aubrey hadn’t acted normally. George and Caroline had quickly seen that he was behaving very strangely and were rightly suspicious. Besides, Aubrey hadn’t been any good for anything else. He had one task, one mission; his whole existence had been centred on killing the Prince. He had no mind for anything else.

  No, the mind control magic couldn’t be used to keep a replica Bertie in place, convincing all those around, conducting itself through the thousand and one duties of the heir to the throne.

  But Dr Tremaine was master of another sort of magic – one that could produce a perfect replica, and one that could operate with a degree of autonomy while still being under total control of its master.

  A golem.

  The clay-based magical creatures were difficult for most magicians to make, and so their use was generally limited to simple tasks. But Dr Tremaine, as Aubrey knew well, was no ordinary magician. And, to judge from his efforts with the Glauber golem and with the cloudy stormfleet, his powers were growing.

  But where was he?

  Aubrey gestured to Caroline. They waited their chance, then scuttled closer to another bench, only a few yards away from the machine. Aubrey lifted his head to peer across the bench, but his eyes widened when he saw what was lying there. He snatched it and lowered himself again.

  Caroline stared at it. ‘I don’t want to ask,’ she whispered, ‘because I think I know – but whose jacket is that?’

  He nodded, the confirmation turning his stomach to ice. ‘It’s Bertie’s.’

  The machine crackled again and white light battered them. Aubrey peeped over the edge of the bench to see the masked operator dragging more clay from the drawer, spitting curses as he cast the clay over his shoulder.

  The process wasn’t a straightforward one, it seemed. They may have some time.

  Movement caught his eye. Aubrey looked up and he nearly leaped to his feet. George was climbing through the rafters, negotiating his way through the chains and cables like an arboreal ape through the vines of a jungle.

  Aubrey clenched his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt. Those electrical cables looked well enough insulated, but if George even brushed a bare wire while he was touching just about anything else, he’d be doomed.

  Caroline saw him looking up and followed his gaze. Her eyes widened, then she took our her pistol. For a bizarre moment, Aubrey thought she was offering to shoot George, but then he understood that she was suggesting a shot at the golem machine – or the operator.

  Aubrey was pulled between choices and, as had been his recent custom, he touched the Beccaria Cage to help him think – but in the gesture he bumped the small bottle of ink in his appurtenances vest.

  The idea bloomed even as he thought of it. He leaned close to Caroline. ‘Do you have any paper?’

  She raised an eyebrow and whispered back. ‘Where would I keep paper?’

  ‘Wherever you keep your pistol.’

  She shook her head, but carefully reached up onto the bench. ‘Here.’

  It was good quality foolscap, obviously meant for notetaking. Aubrey signalled his grateful thanks and then set about folding it. With a few quick movements, he had just the sort of paper glider he wanted.

  Caroline watched silently as Aubrey scrabbled for a shard of the shattered glassware on the floor. With caution, he ground it under the heel of his boot, then scooped up a teaspoonful – wincing as the dust cut his fingertips – and deposited it in the folds of the paper aircraft.

  Then he popped his head up. ‘Over here!’ he yelled and he launched the paper glider.

  The machine operator straightened and, his goggles catching the light, he peered in their direction – which is exactly what Aubrey wanted. He rattled out a spell which used the Law of Attraction. The paper glider, which had been veering wildly, suddenly changed direction as the glass embedded in it was strongly attracted to the glass in the man’s goggles, thanks to Aubrey’s calculations. As the glass tugged at the paper, the glider lost its shape, unfolding and fluttering through the air before it struck the bewildered man and wrapped around his head.

  With an oath he dropped his shovel and staggered around, clumsily trying to tear the clinging paper from his face. Aubrey stood and, for good measure, uncapped the bottle of ink and chanted a variation a spell based on the Law of Propensity. The ink leaped from the bottle and flew straight at the flailing man and his paper-wrapped head, Aubrey having stimulated the ink’s natural tendency to bond with paper.

  The man let out a wild shout as his vision, which must have been quite obscured by the paper, was now blackened by the spreading ink.

  Then Caroline appeared in front of the blinded man. With a graceful movement, she snapped the heel of her hand up under his chin. He toppled l
ike a tree.

  Aubrey hurried to her side. She looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘I didn’t like the sound his head made when it hit the floor.’

  Aubrey hadn’t either, but he liked the shape of the back of the man’s head even less, especially its flattened look.

  A huge thump made them both whirl, only to see George landing on top of a crate. He eased himself down to the floor and dusted his hands together, looking disappointed. ‘A few more minutes and I would have had him.’

  ‘I’m sure you would have,’ Aubrey said. He knew he’d acted hastily in the end, but he hadn’t wanted George to do anything dangerous. He smiled ruefully when he realised that they were all doing dangerous things all too often. Still, if he could reduce the risk for his friends by taking more on himself, he was willing to do that. He owed them.

  Aubrey went to the golem-making machine. Three doors, two of which they’d already seen. The third then, logically, should...

  He took the handle and heaved. Another long drawer slid out on metal bearings. It was identical to the middle drawer, except this one was occupied.

  ‘Is he all right?’ George said.

  Prince Albert lay in the cold, hard confines of the drawer. His eyes were closed, his skin was waxy. He was naked.

  ‘I dearly hope so,’ Aubrey said and the groan that came from the drawer was the most rewarding sound Aubrey had heard for some time.

  The Prince blinked, then opened his eyes. ‘Aubrey?’

  ‘Bertie,’ Aubrey said. ‘Easy now. Don’t make any sudden moves.’

  ‘Your highness,’ George said, ‘what do you remember?’

  ‘Remember?’ He shivered. ‘Rather chilly here, isn’t it.’ He lifted his head and stared. ‘Good Lord. Where are my clothes?’

  Aubrey and George struggled to help the Prince out of the drawer until Caroline came to their aid. George coughed. ‘We’re fine. Really. Perhaps you should see to that other fellow.’

  ‘He’s dead.’ Caroline faltered, but gathered herself and went on. ‘And don’t be such a prude, George. I’ve seen more life models while Mother has been painting than you’ve had hot dinners.’