The Wizard That Wasn't (Mechanized Wizardry)

by Ben Rovik

  “No.”

  “You and I know that the public isn’t ready to hear we’ve got working magical machines.”

  “I know,” Lundin said, his hand on the squawk box.

  “And even if we could tell them you and I helped save the day, Kelley and Mathias would still get the press. The Regents would rather just deal with people with ‘Sir’ and ‘Dame’ in front of their names. That’s life, Horace.”

  “I know that.”

  Samanthi punched him in the shoulder, as hard as she could. “So what’s your damn problem?” she demanded.

  “You know who else got a medal yesterday?” he said, quietly. Samanthi cocked her head. “Ouste.”

  She blew her breath through her lips, looking at the ground. “Hey, Horace.”

  “‘For meritorious dedication in the protection and arcane restoration of Her Royal Highness.’”

  “Horace. What were we supposed to do?”

  “She’s still up there in that palace. She’s got the trust of the Regents and the Princess more than ever before. And just because we stopped her once doesn’t mean we have any hope of stopping her next time.”

  Samanthi put a hand on his shoulder, at gentle speed for once, not hitting speed. “At least we stopped her,” she said, clearly troubled by it herself.

  “I just feel like we let the Princess down. We don’t even know what Ouste wanted. Or that steward. Or who that Petronaut was, or even where she was from.”

  “So there’s more to do,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t stop to celebrate a job well done. It just means that, when the party ends, you sleep it off and go back to work the next morning.”

  Lundin smirked, shaking his head. “I’m always learning something from you, boss.”

  “If that were true, you wouldn’t still be such an idiot.” She grinned up at him.

  The door to the main warehouse hall swung open again. Sir Kelley stepped inside, his black-and-silver suit spotlessly clean. Mathias hovered in the doorway, his long hair slicked back, touching the collar of his black silk jacket. “Mister Lundin!” Kelley barked, his eyes hard but his mouth smiling. “Ms. Elena! So good to see you! Now why aren’t you out on the floor, like a couple of reasonable people?” Kelley’s mouth chomped open and closed several times after his words finished, and his forehead furrowed in confusion.

  Lundin and Samanthi stared at him. “Coming out right now, Sir Kelley.”

  “Lundin was just being melancholy,” Samanthi explained.

  “Melancholy?” Kelley growled. “Of all the self-indulgent—! Stars and Spheres, Lundin, sometimes I just can’t stand you. And sometimes I love you!” he said suddenly, his voice rising. His mouth flopped open and stayed that way for a long moment, until he used his hands to physically close it again. A certain bewildered frenzy was creeping into his eyes.

  “Spell’s wearing off,” Samanthi whispered to Lundin.

  “Or getting worse,” he whispered back. “Funny; I thought I would be able to tell the difference between those two things.”

  Sir Mathias stepped forward and put a gentle hand on Kelley’s shoulder. “You two should really come take your places out here,” he said. “Dame Julie said she spotted the Regents’ coaches a few minutes ago.”

  “Excuse me,” a female voice behind them said.

  The technicians saw Mathias and Kelley’s eyes go wide, and the two ‘nauts dropped to one knee, heads bowed. Lundin and Samanthi turned around to see the forgotten side door to the outside swinging wide open. There in the doorway was a massive woman, easily as big as Mathias, in ceremonial blue and silver dress armor. Lady Ceres had a tight smile on her face, her hand resting lightly on the doorframe. Standing in front of her was a slight girl in a pale blue tunic with dark blue leggings. Were it not for the platinum bracelets on her wrists, or the jeweled diadem in her short, fawn-colored hair, Princess Naomi might have looked like any other midling girl, laughing and playing in the streets. But there was something else, in her deep brown eyes; a striking maturity that told even a casual observer that this girl was beyond the ordinary.

  The techs sank to their knees. “Hail to her Highness, hail to the Regents,” the whole squad said in a confused, dutiful flutter.

  “Please stand up,” Ceres’ warm voice carried through the room. Uneasy, they stood up, eyes fixed on the young Princess. Naomi smiled at them, her fingers fluttering. “Don’t let the others know we’re here yet. Her Highness says to be very quiet, just like her,” Ceres translated with a grin.

  The squad looked at each, at a loss. “Do we laugh? Was that a joke?” The unspoken questions flew between them. But Naomi’s hands were already moving again, and Ceres continued to translate. “Before the award ceremony, Her Highness wanted to get a quick look into the, uh... the underbelly?”

  Naomi rolled her eyes and moved her fingers again, tracing a low curve with the tip of her index finger. “The other side,” Ceres corrected. “The other side of the Petronaut world. After everything you all did for her yesterday, she’s quite interested in your work, technicians and knights alike,” Ceres explained.

  “Her Highness takes after Queen Tess, then?” Sir Kelley asked tentatively, his mouth behaving for once.

  Ceres laughed; a low, throaty sound. “She just might,” she said. “Her Majesty was never happier than when she was hearing about some new gadget that smoked and spun.”

  “Our technicians would be honored to show you anything you want to see, your Highness,” Sir Mathias said, bowing his head. Naomi nodded back, a smile on her lips.

  Lundin turned, wide-eyed. “Sir Mathias, Sir Kelley,” he said, his mouth dry. “Wouldn’t you rather be the ones to, uh, tour the gear with Her Royal, uh?” he trailed off, star-struck.

  Mathias shook his head, grinning. “Her Highness said she wants to see the Petronaut underbelly. And I’m afraid that’s you two.”

  “Besides,” Sir Kelley said, raising his face into an almost-normal smile with great difficulty. “Petronauts are always only as good as their technicians. Ask away, Your Highness.”

  “Go on,” Ceres encouraged. “What would you like to know about?”

  Naomi’s eyes swept the room. Her gaze fell on the dented Melodimax, with the stacks and stacks of plate-sized metal disks piled up all around it. Princess Naomi laid a hand on the cabinet, her other fingers signing at breakneck pace.

  “‘This looks like a squawk box,’” Ceres said, frowning. “‘But so many disks! You listen to music while you work?’”

  Lundin and Samanthi looked at each other. They’d talked it over for a long time during the feastday, and decided that the city wasn’t ready to hear that mechanized wizardry was a reality. Between the hype and the hysteria, the advocates and the naysayers who would all come crawling out of the woodwork, too much publicity now would destroy the idea before it even began. For now, it needed space. The two of them needed space, too, to savor the quintessentially Petronaut joys of taking a chaotic slice of the world and trying to put a loving, orderly box around it. All they wanted was to dig their minds into the problem as independent researchers for just a little while longer.

  But here was Princess Naomi, daughter of Queen Tess, the greatest friend the Petronaut community had ever known, resting her hand on their mechanical mage and looking up with expectant brown eyes.

  With city-wide publicity, in the best-case scenario, their work would be taken away from them. There were any number of worst-case scenarios, and almost all of them involved Ouste figuring out who had enchanted her.

  The two techs looked at each other and shared a deep breath. Ulraexi Pillok Mentatum Est. All they could hope is that they were equal to do whatever was coming next.

  “Actually, Your Highness,” Samanthi said, stepping closer to the heir, “this is a special project we’ve been working on in secret; so secretly, that not even all the Petronauts know about it.”

  “‘I’m a head of state, almost. I can keep all kinds of secrets,’” Ceres translated, sh
aking her head. Princess Naomi gestured at them, her foot stomping and palms splayed open in a movement that needed no translation. <>

  “Your Highness,” Lundin said, his face almost as alive with excitement as hers, “It’s a wizard.”

  Princess Naomi’s brown eyes went wide.

  *******

  About the Author

  “In [The Wizard That Wasn’t], Rovik demonstrates his skill... convincing and realistic multidimensional characters... rich drama and intrigue... the dialogue is witty and fast-paced.

  I truly enjoyed Rovik’s work.”

  —Indie Book Blog Database

  “It's always a pleasure to discover a new indie author who knows how to tell a good story... If you want to see what it looks like when dieselpunk-fantasy is done well, get a hold of this one.”

  — Mike Reeves-McMillan, author of City of Masks

  *****

  Ben Rovik is the author of the Mechanized Wizardry series and the related short story collection Petronaut Tales. Ben is also a published, award-winning playwright (writing as Ben Kingsland), and spent many years as an actor before finally deciding to settle down into a sensible career: steampunk novelist. He’s one of ten people who graduated from Johns Hopkins University with no intention of becoming a doctor. He lives in Maryland with his wife, daughter, two cats, and a great deal of wine.

  Email: benrovik@gmail.com

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BenRovikBooks

  Blog: http://benrovik.wordpress.com/

  Twitter: @benrovik, #MechWiz

  Other Petronaut Tales

  Arm’s Length

  Sir Roland of the Bulwark squad has a suit built to take enormous punishment so his comrades don’t have to. When the Delian schooner Granite comes under attack from two corsair clippers, Roland and his tech are duty-bound to defend the sailors and civilians on board. But keeping the pirates at arm’s length is going to take some unorthodox measures…

  Ebook on Amazon

  *****

  Aloft

  Junior technician Ensie Thalanquin is the odd girl out in the Aerial squad. When she falls for a civilian machinist, can they keep a relationship afloat despite the differences in their backgrounds, the meddling of their superiors, and the pressure of a dangerous flight test a few short weeks away?

  Ebook on Amazon

  Sample Chapter from The Mask And The Master

  Book Two of Mechanized Wizardry

  Saving Princess Naomi was only the beginning for the Petronauts of Delia. It’s up to Horace Lundin and a brand new team to unlock the mysteries of magic before their enemies can, and it’s up to Kelley, Mathias, and Samanthi to lead the hunt for masked Petronauts outside the city walls. As they scour the Tarmic Woods for information, the Recon squad stumbles on some unpleasant surprises...

  *****

  Sir Kelley was intently listening to the knot of smugglers, his head cocked and his armored body absolutely still. The men and women were too far away for Sir Mathias to make out their low conversation, but Kelley had closed the distance enough that a single enhanced leap from his hiding place would land him right in their midst. If they were saying anything of interest, hopefully Kelley was picking it up.

  One of the smugglers stabbed his finger towards the ground, leaning in closer to the woman he was speaking to. As the man moved his arm, a long metal cuff slid down his wrist. Mathias frowned, tilting his head for a better view. It covered more than half of his forearm, but hung loosely, like a bracelet. The thin man unconsciously pushed it back towards his elbow with his other hand, continuing to speak and paying no attention to the ill-fitting accessory. Strange thing to be wearing, out here in the forest. It looked so awkward Mathias had trouble believing it was decorative, but what practical purpose could a too-big bracer on only one arm serve?

  The woman moved to a bundle on the ground and untied it with a sharp yank. Craning his neck, Mathias caught a glimpse of gleaming black fur underneath the oilcloth. Judging by the height, there were maybe three dozen pelts in the stack. A heavyset man was arranging another cloth on the ground as she rifled through the poached skins. The thin man with the cuff crossed his arms over his chest, visibly impatient. The woman lifted about a third of the skins from the stack, holding them away from her body, and set them into the other cloth. As the heavyset man tied up the new bundle, the woman put her hands on her hips and barked something to the whole group. “...want to kill yourselves, then go ahead!” came drifting up the hill to Mathias.

  The thin man closed the distance with the woman, his finger in her face. Every hand went to a weapon as the rest of the smugglers eyed each other. Far from being a unified group, it was clearly two against four now. The woman and the heavyset man wanted their cut of the furs, and the others weren’t inclined to give it to them. The heavyset man had a nervous hand on each of the pistols in his belt as he stood behind the woman, carefully watching as the guard let his musket drift towards the pair. The thin man gestured angrily at the smaller bundle of furs, then pointed south with one long finger. Mathias unconsciously drew closer to his tree as the man’s finger pointed essentially right past him, but none of the smugglers even looked up.

  The woman raised her palm. “... to Delia? Now?” her voice rose, as she looked the thin man and his three cohorts in the eye, one at a time. She dipped her head and rocked back on her heels with mock casualness, and her mouth moved through a slow series of words.

  It must have been an insult—and a good one—because suddenly the air was bristling with guns and swords, and the heavyset man was frantically trying to cover four enemies with two weapons. Spheres, Sir Mathias thought, shifting his weight. These idiots are going to kill each other before we learn anything! The arguing man and woman squared off against each other impassively. He extended his arm past her, pointing at the furs with an air of finality. His metal cuff slid out of place again, jangling down at the base of his wrist. With a lazy motion, she lifted a gloved hand from her hip and flicked the metal bracer, hard, with the backs of her fingers. There was a metallic impact, then a brief chattering sound—

  And three claws ratcheted out of the cuff.

  Just like the blades on that ‘naut in Drabelhelm! Mathias’ eyes went wide, his body tensing up. This band of thugs just became a thousand times more interesting.

  He shot a quick glance across the hillside to Sir Kelley, who was looking right back at him, his body language reading the same anticipation. Kelley pointed to the northwest, then raised two fingers and indicated the two of them. Iggy will create a distraction; then we go in. Sir Mathias nodded, and Kelley blew three quick chirps into his signal whistle. The sound blended right in among the scattered birdsong in the forest; as Mathias glanced back towards the smugglers, none seemed to have even heard it. The thin man was sputtering, grabbing at his wrist as he tried to get the blades to sheathe themselves again. The woman laughed, deliberately disregarding the weapons all around her. She turned her back on the thin man and walked towards the share of the furs she’d taken. Furious, he drew back his bladed arm for a blow.

  Then a flying saucer came hurtling towards him through the trees.

  The smugglers stared up at it, momentarily dumbfounded as the Aerial squad's impossible machine plowed through the low-hanging branches to their northwest, more than three meters off the ground. It exhaled a noisy stream of air as it flew, the raspy sound clearly audible to Mathias now, about two hundred meters distant. The machine was a platform, the bottom third of a hollow cone, ringed with inward-sloping walls. Its circular base was nearly a meter thick, concealing the mighty propeller inside, and the slanted walls rose up another meter. Its pilot, Iggy, was crouched out of sight as the machine, visibly tilting in the direction it was flying, powered through the air twice as fast as a man could run. The exterior of the floating platform was covered with interlocking panes of dull grey armor, studded with hundreds of rivets. Sir Mathias couldn’t help but smile at the sight of their implausible cavalry, charging
headlong towards the frightened smugglers.

  Go get ‘em, Ironsides, he thought.

  A chaotic volley of shots rang out from at least five guns, sending puffs of white smoke into the air. Most of the shots went wide, but the guard’s musket ball connected with Ironsides, sending the floating platform into a drunken wobble as it barreled forward. Half the smugglers toppled to the ground in fear as the machine flew over their heads, far too high to collide with them. The thin man raised his arms involuntarily to shield his face, and the force of the air column beating down on him drove his own claws into his cheek. He hollered in pain, sinking to his knees and pressing his other hand to his face. The claw-blades hanging by his side were tinged with blood. Ironsides continued gliding through the air past the disoriented mob, leaving a trail of twigs and splinters in its wake. Only one of the smugglers had the presence of mind to reload, already pouring powder into her pistol for a second shot.

  That means we’ll get you first, Mathias thought, stepping out from behind the tree.

  “Drop your weapons, by the Throne of Delia!” he bellowed. He fired, his shoulder rocking back with the familiar recoil of the gun in his arm. The smuggler spilled her powder as she leapt backwards from the shot at her feet. Then Kelley raced past her in a blur, his metal arm extended, clotheslining her into the dirt. Mathias lowered his arm and started to run towards the fray as quickly as he could without toppling his heavy suit over on the steep hill.

  Mathias watched as the heavyset man drew a massive hunting knife and leapt at Kelley, blade slashing towards the ‘naut’s chest. Sir Kelley flung his torso backwards and the point of the knife scraped along his armor, just below his pectorals. He kicked the smuggler in the stomach, his armored greaves knocking the wind out of the big man. In a fluid motion, Kelley drew his black baton from its loop on his back and brought it down in a great dark arc onto the man’s wrist. The knife dropped from his shattered grasp and he crumpled to the ground. Then Mathias noticed the other woman looking at him from behind the gaping barrel of a blunderbuss. She was the only one who didn’t fire at Ironsides, the ‘naut realized belatedly, swinging his arm up and hoping he could get a shot at her before—