The Clockwork Dungeon: An Inspector Ambrose Story (The Inspector Ambrose Mysteries Book 4)

by I H Laking

  Ambrose perused the bookshelves and found several interesting titles, including an original copy of Maslow’s Machinations & More, and a battered hardcover of Mechs in the Wilderness: A Novel. The most exciting find was a rare version of The Life & Times of Absolute Mechanics. After noting the contents of the shelves, Ambrose wandered a little, observing the messy nature of the desk, alongside the half-finished notes that had been stained by a spilt ink bottle.

  “Where my uncle passed, I’m afraid.” Ethan stood quietly beside the desk.

  After making a few sympathetic noises, Ambrose found himself drawn to the plinth in the middle of the room, where Felicity was studying the half-bodied Mech. Its body was a little dusty, and Felicity was almost touching its eyes as she leaned in.

  “I suppose this one’s not active, either?” Ambrose said as Felicity flicked the Mech between its bulging eyes with her fingernail.

  “Careful, I’ve killed people for less!” The Mech sprung to life, and Felicity let out a yell as she jumped back to avoid the Mech’s swatting arms.

  “Steady on, you’re not hurting anyone!” Ambrose cried. He scowled as the Mech folded its arms and shook the dust off its shoulders.

  “You’re right,” said the half-bodied Mech. “It’s not like I’d be able to track you down, being attached to this stupid thing.” The Mech gave the plinth a tap with her fist. “Alas, you’ve seen right through me; I’ve never killed a soul. Still, one can dream.”

  Ethan had rushed over to check on Felicity. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “I should have warned you about this one - she’s trouble.”

  “You!” The half-bodied Mech thrust an accusatory finger towards Ethan. She hesitated for a second, then said, “What do you want this time?”

  “The same thing I’ve wanted every time I’ve come to visit,” said Ethan. “I want to enter the dungeon.”

  “Oh yes, you and half of the Empire!” said the Mech with a chuckle. “I’ll not give up my secrets to simpletons! You have to ask the right questions if you wish to get past me.”

  Ethan threw his hands in the air. “This is where my patience runs out, Inspector. Here in the study with this infernal Mech. You may try your luck, but no matter what I’ve asked, I’ve never got very far.”

  “Yet others have!” the Mech declared. “But only the worthy may proceed. So come now, whoever you are: ask me some questions, and see if you can’t find a few interesting answers.”

  Ambrose let out a quiet sigh. Ethan was right - this appeared to be the way forward, and the only hope for avoiding dinner and a painful aftermath. Looking around the room, Ambrose noticed several points that could potentially hold a hidden door. But which questions would reveal the way out of the study?

  Percy cleared his throat, and the half-bodied Mech swung her head in the detective’s direction.

  “Oho!” she said. “The fat one speaks!”

  Percy’s face turned a deeper shade of red - something Ambrose rarely witnessed, as it was reserved for those with the temerity to make fun of Percy’s girth. But being the professional he was, Percy closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and proceeded.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked, in a far-too-sweet tone.

  “Oh, quite some time, fatty.” The Mech wasn’t letting up. “In fact,” she continued, “I was constructed for this very position. I am the creation of a master Artisan who was most skilled in the art of puzzle-making and challenges.”

  “Very good,” said Percy. “And is there a door to the dungeon in this room?”

  “Oh, no! No door, pork chops, no door in here!” The Mech cackled as Percy threw her a derisive look and made a note.

  “What do you mean there’s no doorway?” Ethan exclaimed. “I've done my calculations. There’s nowhere else in the house the entrance to the dungeon could be in!”

  “Oh, aren’t we just a barrel of happiness today.” The half-bodied Mech crossed her arms. “I can help, you know. But you need to ask better questions.”

  Ambrose had spent the past few moments thinking about what he could ask. Certainly, this Mech had some answers. It was simply a matter of…

  “Do you know where the entrance to the dungeon is?” Ambrose asked.

  The half-bodied Mech looked back silently.

  “Yes,” it said reluctantly.

  “Is it in this house?”

  “…Yes.”

  “Do we need a key to get into the dungeon?”

  “…No.”

  “Can you let us in?”

  The half-bodied Mech looked like she might burst as she tried to not answer.

  “Yes.”

  Ambrose felt a smug sense of relief. The Mech had clearly been designed for this sort of game, and it was losing fast.

  Time to finish this little dance.

  “What do we need to do for you to let us into the dungeon?” Ambrose asked.

  With a great groan, the Mech gave up. “You need to answer a riddle,” she said, folding her arms. “But you’ll never do it, you know. Far too difficult for the likes of you.”

  “Try us,” said Ambrose.

  “Fine.” The half-bodied Mech sat up straight, and held one hand aloft in a dramatic pose. “Prepare yourselves.”

  “An open house. A locked up house. She sees it, but even then it remains closed. Who is she?”

  The Mech cocked its head, waiting for an answer. Ambrose looked at Ethan, who shrugged. “Don’t look to me, Inspector. I’ve never managed to get this far. From here on out, it’s anybody’s guess what’s next. Perhaps I’ll go and check on dinner?”

  “Please stay, if you would.” Ambrose caught Ethan as he started for the door. “We may need your insights before long.”

  And the longer you’re here, the longer we can delay dinner.

  Ethan seemed a little miffed, but caught Felicity’s eye and proceeded over to chat with her. With a little relief, Ambrose turned to Percy, who had written the riddle down and was scratching his head with his pencil.

  “Any thoughts?” Ambrose asked, after a moment of pondering.

  “Afraid not, Inspector,” said Percy. “Reads like an ancient riddle though, so it’s unlikely the ‘house’ is actually a house. Probably represents something else.”

  “Yes, I was thinking that.” Ambrose gave his chin a scratch. He hated riddles, truth be told. They were always the domain of the sneaky, the snide, and the downright nonsensical. At least with criminals, there was a logic he could follow. This kind of conundrum demanded a degree of outside thinking that Ambrose detested.

  To make matters worse, over the following moments, the half-bodied Mech repeatedly interjected with her assessment of the detective’s performance. To say the least, the Mech was unkind, and made focusing an impossible task.

  “Perhaps you’d like to decipher the riddle in the chamber outside?” Ethan suggested.

  “Yes, that’s an idea.” Ambrose figured Percy might explode if the half-bodied Mech’s taunts continued any longer.

  With his head still spinning, and the half-bodied Mech’s cries of “Run away, run away!” ringing in his ears, Ambrose led the party out of the room. There, he leaned against the wall, trying to clear his mind. There was no self-evident solution to the riddle. What were the houses in the puzzle meant to represent?

  “I have an idea, Inspector.” Ethan cut across Ambrose’s thoughts. “Riddles are certainly not my strength, as I’m sure Felicity would agree. I propose she and I try and extract more information from the Mech.”

  “Well, it can’t hurt.” Ambrose waved Ethan and Felicity through to the study. As he closed the doors to ensure the half-bodied Mech’s prattling didn’t disturb his thinking, Ambrose looked up at the phrase etched into the doorframe.

  The Mech's riddle makes no sense, but neither do those words.

  A nagging feeling pulled at Ambrose’s mind. He looked at the letters above the door.

  “Percy, may I borrow your notebook?” he asked.

  As Percy acceded
to Ambrose’s request, the inspector wrote down the words once more:

  Oh, buoyant knowledge! One ticking with a curse!

  “What is it, Inspector?”

  “I think the first clue Ethan's uncle left is hidden in these words.” Ambrose rearranged the letters randomly:

  OBOD EUAT NEWA GTHI GNSH NOKL ENTC IWIC REOY UK

  “Still looks like gibberish to me,” said Percy.

  “Yes, but it’s just a giant jumble. For example, I can see DUNGEON there.” Ambrose scratched out the letters, leaving:

  OBOE ATEW ATHI GNSH KLNT CIWI CREO YUK

  Percy’s eyes lit up. “I can see BENEATH!” he said, and the letters changed again:

  OOWA TIGS HKLN TCIW ICRE OYUK

  And so it continued, with YOU, WAITING, THE, and IS all disappearing to leave behind:

  OOKLCWCRK

  “That’s simple enough,” said Ambrose. “It’s CLOCKWORK.”

  With a final satisfied swirl on the page, Ambrose read out the words in the only order that made sense to his mind:

  “The Clockwork Dungeon is waiting benea-”

  Ambrose never finished his sentence. Felicity’s terrified scream tore through the chamber, along with a resonant bang.

  Ambrose bolted through the door, colliding with the frantic figure of Ethan, who grabbed Ambrose’s arms, shouting, “She’s gone!”

  “How?” Ambrose pushed past Ethan, doing his best not panic. Sure enough, the room was empty and the half-bodied Mech was motionless once more. Ambrose ran over to it, with Percy and Ethan in tow.

  “She said something to the Mech when I was working away at the desk. The next thing I knew, she was gone.”

  “Where did she go?” Ambrose shot his question at the half-bodied Mech.

  There was no movement. The Mech stared straight ahead instead, unresponsive.

  “The Inspector asked you a question!” Percy said, giving the Mech a smack on the shoulder. It sprung up, taking a swing at Percy in the process.

  “Hey!” Percy ducked as the heavy arm brushed his hair.

  “Oh! So sorry, just a reflex action. I was sleeping.” The half-bodied Mech stretched towards the ceiling.

  “Mechs don’t sleep!” exclaimed Percy.

  “Says who?”

  “Anyone who knows Mechs could tell you that!” said Percy.

  “Well, if you were stuck to a plinth, you’d fake sleep too, you know!”

  “Now see here,” said Ambrose, “you’re going to tell us what you did with my sister. Where’d she go?”

  “You know where she went,” said the Mech. “I heard you solve the puzzle from above the doorway.”

  Ambrose’s heart sank. “You sent her to the dungeon?”

  “No, she sent herself to the dungeon.” The Mech waved a finger at Ambrose. “If you’re anxious to join her, I suggest you answer the riddle I gave you earlier.”

  Ambrose ran his fingers through his hair, the stress of not knowing what lay in wait within the Clockwork Dungeon playing on his mind. Percy was looking through his notes as Ethan fretted over how Felicity’s trip to an unknown dungeon would affect his chances of a long-term relationship with her.

  “Hardly a good look,” he kept saying as he paced back and forth. Ambrose and Percy had made their way to the desk, deep in frantic debate about the likely answer to the riddle. But as they talked, Ambrose got the worrying sense that something was missing from the picture. Felicity, of all people, had answered a seemingly unsolvable riddle. She had never shown a particular propensity for this kind of challenge, so why now?

  “Inspector, Detective, come quick!” Ethan beckoned the pair over to where he was looking intently at the base of the plinth.

  Crossing the floor in record time, Ambrose followed Ethan's finger, which pointed to small writing that was etched into the base of the plinth.

  Percy arrived and leaned in as well, and although the writing was tiny, Ambrose made out the words clearly.

  Mind the bump.

  There was no time to react. Ethan had stepped back, and his words to the Mech were clear and concise.

  “A blind woman.”

  “Correct!” The half-bodied Mech threw her arms joyously in the air as the floor beneath Ambrose and Percy dropped away into a smooth chute. Down they plummeted, with Percy yelling at the top of his lungs as the detectives tumbled over one another in a chaotic rush. The chute levelled out before Ambrose felt the metal drop away, and he and Percy cascaded into a chamber below, landing with a crash on the dirty ground.

  Percy’s cries didn’t stop with the end of the chute. He had hit the floor heavily, and was clasping his injured leg. While Ambrose gathered himself off the ground, Percy’s sheet-white complexion almost turned translucent as he checked his leg, continuing his stuttering yells until he was satisfied he hadn’t hurt himself further.

  As the dust settled in the chamber, Ambrose heard the sound of the trapdoor above them closing. He had been so captivated by the mansion that he failed to notice what was coming.

  Ethan had sent them tumbling into the Clockwork Dungeon.

  V

  “Well, Ethan is having some fun.” Ambrose attempted to brush the dust off his suit. “He’s done well, hasn’t he? This joke better have a good punch line, especially with Felicity taking such a shine to him.”

  Speaking of which… where is she?

  Ambrose scanned the room. In a wide circle on the floor beneath them, the words Welcome to the Clockwork Dungeon were written in brass letters. The floor was paved with dirty cobbles, and the walls were…

  What are those?

  Several torches smouldered on three of the walls, surrounded by thousands of gears of all shapes and sizes. All the gears were still, standing ready for whatever was to come. At the far and of the room, a set of double doors sat closed, with two handles in the middle fashioned into a C and a D.

  With a grunt, Percy pulled himself off the ground and started moving towards the doors. “I imagine Felicity’s through there,” he said, his hands planted on his hips.

  Ambrose didn’t move. It seemed too much for Ethan to send them down here alone. Why hadn’t he followed them down? Felicity wasn’t used to these sorts of situations, and there was no telling what Ethan’s uncle had hidden in the halls beneath the mansion. Anxiety nibbled at Ambrose, and for a moment he was riveted to the floor, staring into the distance. It was Percy who spurred him on.

  “Inspector, we’d better go. Whatever’s through those doors, Felicity is facing it alone.”

  Shaking himself out of his malaise, Ambrose rose to his feet.

  “You’re right, Percy.” Ambrose looked dead ahead. There was still a treasure to find, a girl to rescue, and several reputations to salvage.

  As Ambrose took a step towards the doors, a muffled scream rang out from somewhere nearby. Ambrose leapt forward with Percy hobbling close behind him. Putting his palms to the handles, Ambrose pushed hard on the doors.

  Nothing happened.

  Ambrose pulled on the doors instead.

  Still nothing.

  His shoulders slumping, Ambrose let out a quiet groan. They’d only just entered the dungeon, and it already felt like it was getting the better of them.

  But even as frustration and fear assailed Ambrose, the screams came again, and he pushed his doubts away.

  We’re getting out of here.

  Ambrose shoved the handles towards each other and they finally gave way, merging into a circle. As Ambrose stepped back, the walls sprung to life, whizzing and whirring. The large gears tumbled slowly into place as the small cogs rotated in a spinning frenzy. The doors split open, and a small section of the wall parted, revealing a miniature copy of the half-bodied Mech from upstairs, sitting on its own plinth.

  “Welcome to the Clockwork Dungeon!” the Mech exclaimed in a high-pitched voice.

  “You again!” Percy looked like he might just punch the Mech in a moment.

  “Me again?” The Mech sounded confused. “Oh! Yes, th
e upstairs Mech,” it said. “Not the same Mech, I’m afraid. No, I’m the real brains of this operation.” The Mech gave a little bow. “Me and the other Plinth Mechs, that is. We’re here to guide you through the Clockwork Dungeon.”

  “Did someone come through here just now?” Ambrose asked.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly discuss other clients with you,” said the Plinth Mech. “But what I can do is help you understand the way to exit the Dungeon.”

  “Please do.” Ambrose decided he’d had quite enough of unhelpful Mechs for one day.

  “Excellent!” With a flourishing hand, the Plinth Mech pointed to the darkness beyond the door. “Inside you will find three chambers. The chambers contain puzzles to test your logic, strength, and wit. If you can master these three disciplines, you too may reap a reward.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Percy grumbled as he jotted in his notebook.

  “Well then, no point in standing around gaping. Let’s have at it.” Ambrose stepped into the chamber and a dozen torches burst into life, revealing a round room with walls covered in clockwork dials and levers. The room was empty, save for a glass bottle in its centre that was suspended in midair with a note hanging from it.

  Curious.

  Ambrose made his way to the centre of the room, with Percy close behind. As they reached the bottle, the Plinth Mech called out from behind them.

  “All the best! Strength and wisdom be with you!”

  The doors slammed shut, causing the flames to flicker and nearly die. Ambrose exchanged a look with Percy, then moved to read the note.

  The bottle was clear, with a cork in its top and a small coin resting on the bottom. As Ambrose made to pick up the note that hung from the lid, he paused.

  That’s not possible.

  Ambrose ran his hand over the top of the bottle, then below it.

  No string.

  In the centre of the chamber, surrounded by an unusual warmth, the bottle was supporting itself. Ambrose rubbed his jaw; in all his years of detective work, he had never witnessed anything like it. But the warmth he recognised, almost as if…

  No time to think it over, we have to hurry.