Moment of Truth

by Michael Pryor

  ‘What are you looking at?’ she said.

  Caught, he lunged for an answer and came up trumps. ‘I’m not sure. It’s so dark...’

  ‘Hmm.’ She turned toward the wall of coal. ‘This way.’

  Aubrey did his best and kept up without disgracing himself too much, squeezing through a hatch in the wall to find that a locomotive was standing quietly under a row of electric lights, its nose against the massive wooden bumpers at the end of the track. By crouching, Aubrey could see that on the other side, a platform was built up for easy loading and unloading.

  A dozen goods carriages were attached to the locomotive, all open and empty.

  Caroline tapped him on the shoulder. She pointed. One, two, three guards. None of them looked particularly alert, but none of them was asleep, either. Caroline gestured and he followed her, duck walking, keeping low, shielded by the locomotive, waiting for the right moment until they were able to dart into the body of the warehouse.

  Once inside, Aubrey had an awful moment of déjà vu. He was immediately taken back to Lutetia, the ghastly photographer’s lair where poor, soul-deprived victims were stored in racks, one on top of the other like forgotten spare parts.

  Racks stretched into the distance, a hundred yards or more away, and towering twenty or thirty feet high. Aubrey did a quick calculation and realised there were over eight hundred racks in the space. In each, as far as they could see, was one of the mechanical soldiers, silent, motionless, gargantuan.

  Staggered by the implications, Aubrey wandered along the rows. This was an army, ready to ship anywhere at any time. He could imagine trainloads of the mechanical soldiers, stacked efficiently and uncomplainingly, rattling to the nearest front, ready to create mayhem. No need for elaborate barracks, or mess halls, or provisioning. No need for uniforms, medics or quartermasters.

  Caroline peered at the nearest giant warrior with nothing but curiosity. Her lack of fear gave Aubrey every incentive to do his best to keep his disquiet well hidden, even though he’d already decided that if any of the things moved as much as one brass-plated finger, he’d grab Caroline by the arm and they’d be off.

  He licked his lips, then thought clearly for a second. ‘Let’s move away from here.’

  ‘Too close to the entrance?’ So, despite Aubrey’s misgivings, they crept deeper into the body of the warehouse.

  When Aubrey judged they were far enough from the entrance to minimise being stumbled upon, he began a close inspection.

  As he suspected, even though mechanical was the best description, he could now see that sizeable parts of the internal workings were actually made of clay. Potentialised clay was actually embedded in the torso. Gingerly, he probed with a finger and revised his first guess. The clay wasn’t just implanted into the workings, it linked cables and joints, providing buffers for some metal parts and protecting others.

  He found what could be a miniature firebox and boiler. It was cold, but it was intensely embedded with spells that he would have liked to investigate further. He squinted to see that part of the inner workings were tightly wound with copper wire. Was electricity incorporated into these creatures, harnessed as an animating principle, as well as steam?

  But the animating principle was still uncertain. Electricity, steam and potentialised clay wasn’t enough to create creatures capable of such tasks as he’d seen. Something else had to be included, something more flexible, more capable.

  The size of the thing was impressive. It was even bigger than Aubrey had thought. It was closer to twenty feet tall than fifteen, and was clearly capable of great power. Aubrey could see the massive feet crushing anything in its path, and the arms swinging like scythes.

  Each creature looked identical, an army of purposebuilt duplicates.

  He spent some time over the creature’s hands. He was appalled at how functional they were. They were designed to grip, to seize, to crush, and with immense force. It was breathtaking engineering, and would have been extraordinary in a single example, but he was surrounded by hundreds. All, as far as he could see, equally well made. Every part was exquisitely machined. Every surface highly polished – apart from the soot around the stubby chimney stack. Every seam welded to perfection.

  Except for the neck.

  Aubrey frowned. The neck of the creature was a mess and was entirely out of place. It looked like nothing as much as a failed flower pot, something that had fallen off the potter’s wheel and splodged on the floor. It connected the clean, ingenious head and the rest of the creature, but the connection was crude and inelegant compared to the rest of the design.

  With some squeamishness, Aubrey prodded at the seam where the clay joined the metal head and the hair at the back of his neck stirred. ‘The clay goes right up inside the head,’ he muttered.

  ‘And what does that mean?’ Caroline whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t tell what’s inside the metal skull.’

  ‘Can you take it to pieces?’

  Aubrey shuddered. He was quite prepared to tamper with the unknown, but he was very nervous about trying to remove the head of a giant mechanical warrior when a few hundred of its comrades were lying nearby.

  Caroline had given him an idea.

  The doughy neck was made of potentialised clay – potentialised clay that had been activated. It had been transformed and was undertaking some sort of magical task. If he could shape his magical awareness properly, with the utmost control, he might be able to divine exactly what it was doing – which should give him some indication of what was inside the metal head.

  He had a suspicion that the workings of the head could tell him a great deal about the construction and capabilities of the mechanical warriors – and their animating principle.

  ‘I’m going to have to concentrate hard to investigate,’ he said to Caroline. ‘I won’t exactly be aware of our surroundings.’

  She smiled, wryly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep watch for both of us.’

  Aubrey crouched down beside the mechanical soldier, as close to the neck and head as he could manage. He studied it for a moment, then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and extended his magical awareness.

  Immediately, he had the pseudo-vision that a honed magical awareness provided. The world around him became vague and formless, apart from magical artefacts – and he was surrounded by them.

  Every mechanical soldier was alive with magic – Dr Tremaine magic. It spread through every component, following every cable and running over every surface. The magic was dull red, making it look as if the hundreds of mechanical soldiers were red hot as they slept in their racks.

  He moved his hand until it was hovering over the creature’s neck, right where it joined the metal head. Quickly, he sensed elements that were applications of the Law of Cohesion and the Law of Elastic Deformation – and an unusual twist of the Law of Completeness. All of these would make sense if the clay was useful in joining disparate components, parts that wouldn’t work well together otherwise. Then he hissed. He was sensing subtle, powerful spells, and some aspects reminded him of...

  Death magic. Aubrey had run foul of death magic in the past, and it had left him teetering on the brink of annihilation until he had found a cure. He had a healthy respect for death magic, so healthy that he wanted nothing to do with it.

  Yet this wasn’t pure death magic. It had some of its flavour, but it was more involved with preservation and, intriguingly, connection – again. The clay was serving the function of preserving and linking something to the mechanical components of the construct. Something important, but what?

  Aubrey probed more, carefully, with all the delicacy he could muster.

  Then his eyes shot open, and he recoiled, hissing. He spat, trying to clear his mouth of the taste of corruption that had filled it.

  He stared at the creature with horror, until he became aware that Caroline was grasping him by the shoulder. ‘What is it?’ she whispered in his ear, concerned and urgent.

  ‘T
he creature.’ He stumbled over the words. He was having trouble with his tongue. ‘The thing.’

  ‘Slow down, Aubrey. Slow down. Breathe deeply.’

  He did what he was told until his heart was calmer, merely thumping along instead of racing out of control.

  ‘Now.’ Caroline held his shoulders. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘We must go. We have to let them know.’

  ‘We will, don’t worry. But what have you found?’

  Aubrey swallowed, took a deep, deep breath, and found what he hoped was his poise. ‘I know where the wounded soldiers have gone. Part of them, at least.’ He rapped the mechanical soldier on the head. ‘There’s a human brain in here.’

  Aubrey explained, in tight, clipped sentences, what he’d found. The more he used dispassionate language, the more he was able to control his horror. Caroline was appalled, but her revulsion quickly turned to anger. ‘What can we do?’

  ‘We must get back to George and Sophie.’

  ‘But these creatures, the havoc they will create.’ She swallowed. ‘I can’t help thinking of the poor people, trapped inside all that metal.’

  ‘I don’t think they’re aware of their plight. Dr Tremaine has used the brain as a component, a superb component, to control the rest of the creature. It’s extraordinary.’

  Caroline narrowed her eyes. ‘You almost sound as if you admire him.’

  ‘I do?’ Aubrey reflected, and to his horror he realised that he had been verging on admiration for the man and his creation. The breathtaking daring of such a thing...

  Don’t be ridiculous, he thought. The man is a villain. An unprincipled, arrogant villain.

  ‘I have an idea,’ he said, finally. ‘I may have a way to stop these creatures.’

  ‘That’s better. Something involving large explosions, I hope.’

  ‘Something more subtle than that. I need to get to the brass cylinders again. The enhanced coal.’

  Caroline didn’t argue, which was perhaps a measure of her profound shock. She found one of the ways connecting the warehouse and the factory – and also found two white coats. These donned, Aubrey hoped, would give anyone at least a moment’s pause before suspecting them outright. He knew that in a single moment, Caroline could achieve wonders of mayhem. He could brandish his pistol, too, given enough time.

  It made them a formidable pair and he hoped anyone encountering them would realise it.

  The factory was subdued, not the overwhelmingly noisy place of earlier in the day, but it wasn’t silent. Hoists were moving and at least one conveyor belt was in action. Electricity flashed and hissed. The personnel on duty were absorbed in tasks or dozing, which made their passage remarkably easy.

  The door to the stone chamber was closed this time, and Aubrey cursed as they studied it from their hiding place in a tangle of pipes that emerged from the wall nearby.

  ‘I can get us in,’ Caroline said.

  ‘But what about whoever’s inside?’

  ‘No-one’s inside. Look closely: two locks, one in the door, and a padlock looped around the handle and through the eyebolt in the wall. You can’t lock yourself inside like that.’

  ‘But someone on the outside could lock you in.’

  ‘Aubrey, it’s a matter of weighing up the odds. We’re taking a risk just being here, but the odds of someone being locked in a bunker are low, if you think about it.’

  ‘Right. I’ll keep watch while you go to work.’

  He didn’t have to watch for long. Caroline approached the door confidently in her white coat. The padlock went quickly. The lock in the door was more complex, to judge by her frowning, but soon it yielded.

  Caroline didn’t look back toward Aubrey’s hiding place. She briskly stepped inside and left the door ajar.

  Aubrey waited until he counted sixty, slowly. Then he scanned the surroundings, climbed out of the pipes, crossed to the stone chamber and slipped inside.

  Caroline was crouching over the manhole, which she’d opened. ‘I assume,’ she said after glancing over her shoulder, ‘that your plan involves destroying these transportation cylinders so the mechanical soldiers can’t be refuelled.’

  Aubrey couldn’t answer for a moment. The magic that poured from the pit in the floor was staggering. It spewed from the open mouth like a fountain.

  He came to the pit and leaned close, squinting. His ordinary senses told him that it was simply thousands of small black balls. His magical senses, however, were assaulted by the web of spells that was embedded in the orbs of enhanced coal. Tartan patterns played on his skin. He heard colours – red, silver, black. His mouth was full of music, discordant and loud.

  ‘If we destroy the cylinders...’ Aubrey shook his head in an effort to clear it. ‘They can make more. It’s not an answer.’

  Caroline straightened. She took one of the cylinders from the rack and unscrewed the top. Inside, Aubrey was intrigued to see that it was packed with loose, spun material. Rock-wool?

  She put the open cylinder on the floor, then took another from the rack. ‘It may not be an answer, but it’s a start.’

  With that, she used one cylinder to hammer the other, destroying the thread and making it impossible to close. The chamber rang. ‘Unless you’re thinking of using that enhanced coal to blow up this place, this may be the best we can do.’

  Aubrey looked at the hundreds of cylinders. He thought of George’s helpful deadline and knew it would take too long to batter each one of the cylinders so that they’d be unusable. ‘I have a better idea.’ He knelt and peered into the pit again. ‘If this place is the source and repository for enhanced coal, then we could have a chance here.’

  ‘I hope it’s a chance that we can take quickly. I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.’

  An idea had been nudging Aubrey, demanding his attention; he finally yielded and gave it his full attention. He realised that a number of considerations had come together without his really thinking about it. The unexploded spell in the Gallian embassy had contributed, as had the attempt to stop the symposium in Fisherberg, but his cogitations had gone back further than that, drawing on every encounter with spell compression and interaction.

  He wanted to construct a tiny spell, one that was hard to notice – but one that had the ability to reproduce itself. A spawning spell.

  Aubrey was convinced that such a thing was possible, even though he’d never heard of it being done. The Law of Constituent Parts, the Law of Essence, the Law of Seeming, the Law of Origins, the Law of Separation and dozens more all danced about the concept of identity and being. If he could bring them together with derivatives of the Law of Similarity and an application of the Law of Contiguity, then he could have something. One half of the spell would be the infectious factor, the other would be the part that would do the damage.

  He wanted to infect the enhanced coal so that pieces in proximity would pass on the spell to each other. Any new enhanced coal in this pit would be infected by the rest. Any enhanced coal taken elsewhere would spread the infection.

  The damaging part? He rubbed his hands together. A tiny, imperceptible spell that would lie dormant until triggered.

  Aubrey considered the trigger and decided that a thermal point would be best. Nothing too early, or else the spell may be detected. No, it had to be when the mechanical soldiers were marching into battle, steaming at their most furious.

  Then the spell would spring into action.

  A startled gasp came from behind him. He turned to see Caroline lunge at the door, fling it open, drag a white coat inside and render him unconscious with a hold that Aubrey was sure hadn’t been part of Directorate training. ‘Well done,’ he breathed.

  ‘Not quite. The other one escaped.’ She sighed. ‘I wish they didn’t travel in pairs.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better make this quick, then.’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  Caroline smiled at him briskly, every inch the calm, professional colleague. It made his
heart ache.

  With an effort, he reapplied himself to his work.

  Aubrey chose the Chaldean language as best for this sort of synthesis. He ran through the elements in his head, wishing he had time to draft the spell on paper. It was going to be complex, and the implications of Ravi’s First and Second Principles of Magic resounded in his head: the more powerful the spell, the more complex the spell construction, and the more complex the spell construction, the more effort is required from the spell caster.

  What he was attempting really required careful planning, a team of magicians and a corps of assistants to help with recovery. Seeing as he had no choice, he plunged in.

  In a split second, he achieved the sort of focus that told him he was casting a very complicated spell indeed. The surroundings almost faded away, so intensely was he concentrating on a single ball of enhanced coal ... that one right there...

  Caroline’s voice came to him softly, distantly: ‘Aubrey, I just have to slip out for a moment.’

  He wanted to stop, to ask her where she was going, but cutting off the spell mid-stream would be a disaster. He’d have to find the strength and the wherewithal to start again – and he wasn’t sure if they’d have the time.

  He kept going, delineating the constants for dimensionality and duration.

  A shot sounded and it was immediately answered by another, louder firearm. Somewhere, metal rang. He ignored it.

  Compression, affinity, cohesion. He itemised each element, couching them with the appropriate variables, taking great care with his pronunciation.

  More shots. Sporadic, not volley firing. He took some small comfort in that.

  The end of the spell was close. All he needed was to delimit the sequence of the spell concerning attenuation, then insert the elements for attraction and he’d be done – once he put his final signature element at the end.

  When the last syllables dropped from his lips, a wave of exhaustion hit him. The muscles in his legs and back trembled, then threatened to cramp, and he had to steady himself against the floor with one hand. He closed his eyes, and snapped them open again. Falling asleep would be a very bad idea.