Strong Mystery: Murder, Mystery and Magic Books 1-3 (Steampunk Magica)

by Raven Bond

  Owen raised his eyebrows in surprise. Was the woman mad, he thought to himself? There was no stretch of the imagination that would get him to consider such an idea.

  “While I am sure your station is very fine, Mistress, I assure you I have no interest in it.” Whatever answer the Sorcerer would have made to this was forestalled by Lady Hastings calling for her. Mistress MacAllister climbed into the coach without another word. Lady Hastings looked a question at Owen.

  “I trust there is no difficulty?” she asked.

  “Not at all, My Lady,” Owen replied affably. Lady Hastings smiled at his response.

  “I believe that is the first lie you have told me,” she said cheerily, “Until tomorrow My Lord!” She bounded into the coach while Owen was still bowing. He watched as it clattered off downhill, then turned to go back inside, where he found Jinhao picking over the remains of the tea service.

  “You did very well with her,” she said as he entered the room. “That should keep her out from underfoot.”

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that listening in on conversations uninvited can lead to you hearing something you don’t want to hear? Here now, that’s the last scone! I demand half.” His hand swooped in and gathered up half of the scone she had just parted with a knife, wolfing it down.

  “Yes they have,” the Adept replied as she spread jam on her half scone. “And it has been my experience that the saying is often true.” She paused to take a bite.

  “That has saved my life more than once.” She looked at Owen critically. “Has no one told you that eating too fast will cause you to choke to death?”

  Owen was unabashed as he finished the crumbs of the very fine scone.

  “Yes they have, and it hasn’t yet,” he quipped. He held up a finger. “Wait here a moment.” He returned with a thick scroll, that Jinhao recognized as the type that told Barton, the clank man, what to do.

  “Barton,” Owen said walking up to the tall mechanical man, “Open for instructions please.” The metal man shuddered in place, and a doorway unfolded in his chest. Owen threaded the scroll through a series of rollers and pins, then nodded. “Roll instructions and close, please.” Barton shook again as the scroll began moving and the door closed.

  Barton moved his head back and forth, as he processed the instruction set.

  “Instructions for Beth-Lous-Non rolling Master Owen,” he crackled, “Order of particulars please.”

  “The study, from one half hour from now, until I emerge,” Owen said crisply. “All contingents are to be applied.”

  “Very good, Master Owen,” Barton responded. “Shall I clear the service now?”

  Owen smiled at him fondly.

  “Yes Barton, thank you.”

  The cog man began to load the plates and cups onto the tray. Jinhao moved her legs as he did so, looking at Owen suspiciously.

  “What are you doing?”

  Owen hefted his cane, looking decidedly determined.

  “Stopping a war, or at least trying to. I will retire to the study now. No matter what you may hear or see, do not under any circumstances try to enter it. Should Barton tell you to evacuate the house, do so at once, and do not try to stop him no matter how strange what he does may seem. Can you do this?”

  “You are going to do some sort of spell working,” she guessed, brushing the crumbs from her gown. “But it sounds very dangerous. Should I not also accompany you? I have for other workings of yours.”

  Owen regarded her seriously and shook his head in regret.

  “I’m sorry, really, but no, not this time. I need to know that you will do as I ask. It will not only be dangerous for you to do anything else, but may also be dangerous for me. Can you do this?”

  Jinhao nodded reluctantly.

  “Yes, I can do as you ask, but I feel my swords should be there at your back.”

  “Believe me,” Owen said earnestly, “There is nothing I would like more. But it simply isn’t to be done. Do not be concerned. Most likely all this is mere precaution, and nothing will come of it.”

  “Perhaps,” she returned, “But I do not think that you think so.” Owen bent over her hand as gallantly as if they were at court. She felt his lips, cool and dry, against her skin.

  “Oh”, he said, straightening, “would you mind taking this to your Alchemist friend to see what he makes of it?” Owen held up the strange piece of metal that Lady Hastings had given him, passing it to her.

  She regarded it in her palm.

  “I think you are trying to get me away from whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “Nonsense,” Owen denied, “It might be important. Fare you well, Jinhao, and good night,” he said softly and turned towards the study door. Her eyes followed his back until the door closed with a finality that seemed oddly disturbing. She was startled from her thoughts by the voice of Barton.

  “Would Mistress Jinhao like more tea? Given the hour, I would suggest the green.” The cog man stood inhumanly still, the filled tray poised in one metal hand.

  Well, if Owen was going to do whatever it was he was doing, the least she could do would be to wait up for him.

  “Do you know what he is doing?” she asked the metal man.

  “I am sorry, Mistress,” Barton buzzed, “but I do not understand the question.”

  No, of course you don’t,” she muttered darkly. She looked again at the metal shard. “I shall be going out Barton,” she said, “however, tea when I return would be lovely. Thank you.”

  Chapter 13

  Owen closed the study door, the ward sealing on its own, just as he had designed it to do, against such a day as today.

  His eyes took in the shelves lined with books against the walls, the comfortable chair with the mage light on the end table. To be honest, he was simply stalling. He knew what he had to do. He removed his coat and tossing it on the chair, followed it with his cravat, in a splash of purple against black, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  The theories on the need to be naked to perform a Greater Working had always struck Owen as specious at best. If Magia was not inhibited by stone walls, he didn’t see how mere cloth could stand in the way of his Will. In the same way, the notion that it added to the power by forming some connection to every Sorcerer in the past who had also gone bare skinned, did not really make sense to him either.

  Owen suspected that the true reason was much the same as it was for Sorcerous dueling. It was impossible to hide mastery of an element if the blood-bond etched into the skin glowed when called upon. Normally invisible, the sigils would light with an inner fire on the Sorcerer’s body, showing clearly what elemental forces they were bound to, and could call upon. No matter the truth of it, he wasn’t about to ignore any of the forms tonight if he could help it.

  Naked, he padded across the rich Persian carpet that covered the floor to the cabinet set into a bookcase. His Air sigil glowed faintly on his chest as he unknotted the spell lock on the door. Reaching within, he removed the electrum brazier, charcoal, and a small box of herbs, locking it again with a gesture and the power of Air.

  Looking carefully at the pattern of the rug, he judiciously set the brazier at the rug’s exact center and filled it. You could say what you would about the Persians, but they understood Sorcery. The rug had been made for exactly the kind of Working he was going to do tonight. It would save him hours of drawing lines in blood and herbs, in order to prepare to channel the energies he would call upon. When the brazier was filled, he crossed back to the chair, moving it so that was no longer on the rug, and picked up his cane. He faced a full length mirror that stood near the opposite wall from the chair.

  In the mirror, he saw a tall man, dark of hair, beardless, and strong like his name, stare back at him. His arms were crisscrossed with faint scars from sword fights, with one along the left side of his chest from a fight he had nearly lost. His eyes looked back at him, shrouded and dark rimmed. He looked older than he remembered looking, and then banished such thoughts as he focuse
d his inner power.

  Unlike the slap-dash spell-slinging that made up every day Sorcery, this would require calling on the full extent of his powers, for what he intended was nothing less than the manifestation of a powerful being from another world.

  Fire was the easiest to call and the hardest to control. He called to it, feeling the wild power of it fill his veins with heat. Burning suns and stars exploded across his vision, and he felt Fire’s exaltation threaten to overwhelm his reason. Wrestling with it, he tamed the wildness to a warm glow ready to flare at his Will. He saw in the mirror the deep red bond glow to life just below his belly button, and breathed out as the glow steadied.

  Water was next, to balance the Fire. He called out with his spirit, feeling the blood flow through his body, pulsing in rhythm to the currents of the deeps, mighty and rolling with all that had been and ever would be. He felt the powerful pulling that would drown him in its drum-beat, where he might be lost forever. Using a whisper of Fire, he brought the rhythm into harmony with his heartbeat. Looking into the mirror, he saw the flickering blue glow ignite just below his throat, and exhaled.

  Air followed. He called to it, feeling a wind caress his skin in the closed room, the wind lifting his feet off the carpet. The rush of a million voices filled his ears, threatening him with madness. With a touch of Water, the voices dimmed, soothed by the compassion of the endless depths. The sigil flared into golden light over his right breast and his feet touched the floor again at the winds’ retreat.

  Next he called upon Earth, feeling his body grow ever heavier. The low slow grumblings of the stone miles below him filled his bones, calling him to lay down with them, to claim the release they offered. A caress of Air buoyed him up with the knowledge that it was not time for him to yield to such a siren song. A deep emerald bond mark appeared over his left nipple as he exhaled.

  Balanced between the Elements that made the World, he reached deep within to call upon Spirit, the Power that all the other elements flowed from, that held the very World in its center, as lightly as a grain of sand. His heart was flooded by the infinity of that power, and he longed to dance among swirling stars and endless blackness until he dissolved into the beauty of it all.

  He called on all four Elements together and returned to gaze at the body in the mirror, seeing a brilliant design of white fire, lined in blackest black, spring from the center of his torso.

  Before he would call on the next bond, he doused the Mage light in the ceiling with a hand, and covered the mirror with the black shroud that was rolled up on top of its frame. Mirrors could be windows to any Demon or Sorcerer that flew on the aether between the worlds. Owen had no desire to be either spied upon, or interrupted.

  Turning to the brazier, he pointed at it with his cane, and the charcoal glowed into life, the special herbs sending up wisps of light as they gave up their essences to the heat. It was the smoke that would give the Other a means to anchor in this World.

  Owen called upon the raw power of all five bonds and began speaking in the tongue of the Shining Ones, a language that human mouths could only speak with the greatest of difficulty. The sounds twisted the very air, booming off the walls of the study, then fell into whispers, only to surge in volume once again. Owen felt the corresponding bond respond to the Calling, burning like a brand on his forehead in its attempt to rend the walls between the Worlds. The tendrils of radiant smoke swirled together faster and faster as he spoke. With a final word, he thrust his cane to strike with a loud bang on the floor.

  The smoke coalesced into a tall figure, more beautiful than any mortal woman, more handsome than any man. Owen felt his body respond to its beauty, even as he fought down the responses. Where eyes would be on a mortal, violet fires shone. The figure turned these glowing orbs on Owen.

  “So you have called to me,” it said in a voice that soared sweeter than a thousand Bards, screeching like the legs of a million beetles. The figure seemed to nod in satisfaction. “As I have predicted you would.”

  “Nothing has changed,” Owen rasped out. “I am still of the same mind as when you branded me with this Bond, against my will.”

  The figure wavered in the air.

  “Indeed? Do you not recall that it was only by the bond that your life was saved? Let me remind you.” The figure made a tossing motion towards him.

  Owen stood again on the Crimean battlefield, the infernal weapon of the Austrians sending out its rending vibrations. Owen knew that the next wave would disintegrate him, as it had every fighter on the field. With his heart filled with defiance and fear, he aimed his cane at the machine, channeling every grain of energy that a Master Sorcerer could summon. The wood of the cane exploded into splinters and a tear appeared in the World, a tear that Owen fell into.

  “Without the bond to my world,” the Shining One said, “you would not have been able to survive there, nor return to your world with your spirit and mind intact.” It regarded him curiously, “Why do you still begrudge this?”

  “You told me a lot of things,” Owen growled. “If I am not to believe in your—country folk, why should I believe what you say?”

  “Why not,” the voice soothed. “Have you found any of what I told you to be untrue?”

  When Owen came to after falling, it was in a place where even the colors were strangely wrong. His memories of that place were mercifully dim, but he knew that the being who now stood before him had cared for him, had even healed him. The being had told Owen that others of his kind had been dealing with the Obsidian Order since the Order’s founder had learned their language, nearly three hundred years earlier. The Great Doctor had made the Shining Ones the Order’s allies, helping to shape the British Empire as it spread across the globe, or so the humans had thought.

  Owen’s rescuer had revealed that, to them, humanity’s affairs where merely an amusing diversion, despite the high-minded rhetoric they espoused. They viewed the Order much like favorite pets, as they played their own games with the flesh and blood of mortals.

  His rescuer believed that this meddling had created a dangerous imbalance in humanity’s evolution, and that the Austrian’s alchemical physicks, devoid of any understanding of Spirit or Balance, threatened to tear the very universe apart. After revealing these terrible understandings, she/he had offered Owen a gift of the Electrum cane he now carried, and had sent him back.

  Owen had appeared in a small Greek fishing village, with the cane at his side. The revelations of the Shining One has caused him to resign from the Order. He could not bear the thought that all he had done, all the suffering he had caused, and had seen, was merely some grand chess game for bored Spirits. He had wandered the world until he came to this city half-way around the globe, and eventually now to this meeting.

  “No,” Owen said between gritted teeth. “I have found that what you said about the Order was true, at least. But men were not meant to be pawns in your games.”

  “Then why have you called upon me?”

  “I need your aid,” Owen admitted. “There is a scheme to ignite a world war by assassination. You have ways of knowing things, as well as power beyond what we might know, it has always been said. I need your aid in stopping this.”

  The Shining One flared more brightly for a moment causing Owen to shield his eyes. It took him a moment to realize this was a form of laughter.

  “You object to our interfering on one hand, then ask for that interference on the other. How typical of your kind. No, I will not stop what is to be.”

  “Then at least tell me the identity of the assassin,” Owen pleaded.

  “The killer is greed and fear, as it so often is for your folk,” the Shining One replied wearily. “The seeds of the Shadowed Ones that you call the Austrians begin to bear their terrible fruit.”

  “I do not understand,” Owen said perplexed. “Are you saying that an Austrian is the assassin? Who are they? How can I unmask them?”

  “Yes and no, no and yes,” the being answered. “You already have se
en the mask, but your eyes do not notice, and it is so easy. The one you seek is the one that you should expect to be at the side of dying men first.”

  Owen frowned. That made no sense to him at all. The beautiful being in front of him began to dissolve back into the incense smoke.

  “You bore me,” He heard as if from a great distance. “I shall go elsewhere unless you have something more entertaining, or…” the voice picked up just the slightest bit, “you wish to let me out of this smelly circle, into your world.”

  Strong smiled to himself, pushing more energy into the defense of the circle. He’d awaited this. The thought of an unbound Old One loose in his world was more terrifying than a world war, and he wasn’t about to let it happen.

  “No, I think not,” Strong said clearly, “I Close the Door.”

  The two wrestled back and forth, their Magia almost a physical thing to Owen, like a strong wind he leaned against. He heard a loud sigh, and felt the air pressure slump as the doorway closed.

  He remembered to turn on the oil lamps with his fire calling. That took the last bit of his energy, and he slid to the floor, unconscious before he came to rest.

  Chapter 14

  Owen awoke on his lounge on the outside terrace. He was wrapped in blankets, with Jinhao hovering near him.

  “Good, you are awake,” she said briskly. “Drink this.” This turned out to be strong coffee with a heavy brandy chaser. Owen found that a few sips laced warmth through his body, while also clearing his head.

  He wet his lips. “How did you get into the room,” he finally managed to ask.

  “I convinced Barton that something not covered by his orders must have happened,” Jinhao said. “Did you really expect that some alien spirit would possess you or destroy the house?”

  “I cannot answer that,” Owen croaked. He sipped more of the coffee and brandy. It was quite invigorating. He felt the cobwebs fly from his head as he remembered the events of last night, and his failure to learn anything useful, despite the danger. “It would appear that I’ve been something of a wishful fool.”