Dead Dukes Tell No Tales

by Catherine Stein

  Sabine and Cliff made their way to the small gate beside the castle’s chapel, skirting a second guard dragon with feline features and spikes on its back. Cliff tapped out the prearranged code on the door and they waited.

  A tingle of anxiety ran just beneath her skin. As Captain, she delegated tasks on a regular basis, but only to adults who had proven their competence. Tonight she had to rely on a child who had never done anything of this sort. Sabine had to remind herself of what she’d done at Lola’s age. She’d brought in nearly all the household money. She’d kept herself fed and bought her own clothing. Old before her time.

  The clank of the heavy bolt unlatching made Cliff jump beside her. A moment later the door creaked open. They slipped inside, and Sabine closed and latched the door with a great deal more finesse than Lola had opened it.

  Lola immediately wrapped her arms around Cliff’s middle. “Sorry I was noisy. It was heavy.”

  He hugged her back. “You did good. Show us what you’ve discovered.”

  She looked up at him. “Do I get a pirate eyepatch too?”

  “I’ll give you this one when we’re all done. Let’s go.” He put a finger to his lips to quiet her, and the trio started off through the dim castle halls.

  Lola led the way deep into the castle, whispering details on the relevant areas. “Dining hall. Lots of armor on the walls. Library. No armor, but lots of stuff. It’s like a museum. Classrooms down this hall.” She dashed up a set of stairs, silent on her bare feet, her nightgown swishing around her legs. “More classrooms that way, and down here are the dormitories.”

  Cliff walked her to her door and kissed her goodnight. “You did great, babe. Get some sleep. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  With Lola safely back to bed, Sabine nudged Cliff toward the classrooms. If they were anything like the rooms on the tour, they were unlikely to contain anything too extraordinary, but it was worth a quick investigation.

  She slipped into the first room, reaching behind her eyeglasses to slide her eyepatch from left to right. Cliff followed her lead. The classroom had none of the low-burning oil lamps that lit the halls, but the old pirate trick allowed them to see well enough to navigate the space and confirm that it contained no ancient helmets.

  Room after identical room, they continued, finding nothing. The dining hall was, indeed, full of armor, but none of it looked the least bit Scandinavian. Sabine shook out a few helmets, just to be thorough.

  “The library?” Cliff asked, adjusting his eyepatch and opening the door. Even in the darkness he hadn’t bumped into a single thing this evening.

  Sabine nodded, following a few steps behind. He walked quickly, without drifting. Peculiar.

  The library could have been decorated by the Mad Duke himself. Books and curiosities lined every wall, with more objects and art in display cases scattered throughout the room. A number of items had been set carefully in the center of tables beside notebooks and drawing implements.

  “Looks like they actually study some of these artifacts,” Cliff murmured, picking up a broken chunk of crockery and examining it.

  “But no helmets. We may have to look inside of things.” She grasped his shoulders and turned him to look the direction she wanted. “That chest beneath the window.”

  On closer examination, the chest was more accurately a padded bench, as long and wide as a grown man. Sabine tapped the side of it with her toe and it made a hollow sound. The top didn’t lift off, but a moment of running her fingers along the edge found a latch. She unhooked it and opened the bench to peer inside. Empty.

  She had just begun to lower the lid, when the echo of approaching footsteps made her jump.

  “Every time,” a disgruntled voice griped in German. “Something disrupts the guard dragons, and they make me walk the whole damn castle. A strong wind could disrupt those dragons! Worthless things. They ought to be sold for scrap.”

  The scrap man himself was already stepping into the hollow bench. He pulled on Sabine’s arm, and she climbed in after him, not seeing any better option. She pulled the lid down over them, hearing the latch fall into place.

  Not this again.

  How many times was she going to end up lying atop him or crammed into some small dark space beside him? Outside their tiny prison, the night watchman stomped around the library, still complaining to himself, but his words hardly registered. Her traitorous body had robbed her of all her senses, shrinking her world to the rise and fall of Cliff’s chest beneath her, the warmth of his body, and the strength of the arms that had wrapped around her.

  She inhaled sharply, her nostrils filling with the scent of ordinary soap. No fancy fragrances or smelly hair pomades for this duke. Sensible and unfussy. She liked that about him.

  The door to the library banged closed, but Sabine didn’t move. Get up, she told herself. Get back to work. Stop indulging your ridiculous, lustful urges.

  “I’m beginning to think you enjoy being on top of me,” Cliff whispered.

  Actually, she wanted to be under him. On a bed. Clinging to him so tightly that her nails dug into his skin as he pounded into her. For now she shut him up with a kiss.

  His tongue plunged between her parted lips, sparring with hers, tasting, teasing, setting her aflame. Their eyeglasses clinked together. His hands roamed down to her backside, cupping her buttocks, rocking her against the stiff bulge of his erection.

  To hell with everything. They hadn’t found the helmet tonight. They’d have to make another attempt tomorrow. Better to give up and return to the inn, where they could finish this in a bed.

  Cliff broke off the kiss suddenly. “Something’s poking me.” He shifted this way and that, his arm sliding off her to search for the offending object. “There. Not sure what—” His words turned into a stifled yelp as the ground gave way beneath them.

  20

  “Goddammit.” Cliff rolled over, trying to assess the damage. His ankle had almost recovered from his fall the other day, and now he had to go tumbling down some hidden staircase into total darkness. Even the eyepatch didn’t help down here.

  Gingerly, he tested his arms and legs. All working. More bruises to add to the collection. It was a very good thing he was going to stop kissing Sabine for certain this time, because if they ever got naked, they’d just be a mess of purple and yellow. Were there any spots on him she’d be able to touch without it hurting?

  He sat up, looking around, but the darkness was absolute. In the unnatural silence, he could hear his breathing and the roar of blood past his ears.

  “Hartleigh.” Sabine whispered his title in a sharp, commanding tone. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. You?”

  “You cushioned my fall. Flip your eyepatch. I’m going to use my torch.”

  Cliff moved the eyepatch and adjusted his spectacles. Her light clicked on, illuminating blank stone walls and an empty chamber with a single archway leading out.

  “Lola’s dungeons?” he asked.

  “Perhaps. But why would the castle builders hide the entrance?” Sabine shined her light up the stairs at the hinged bottom of the storage bench. “Could it be something that was done during renovations? There may be an ordinary entrance somewhere else, but this one is clearly meant to be secret.”

  He struggled to his feet. Ow. More bruises for certain. “Maybe they wanted to keep students out.”

  “Then close the whole place off.”

  “Maybe the faculty wanted to continue using the rooms.”

  “For what purpose? Dungeons aren’t warm, sunny, useful sorts of places.”

  “Storage?” Cliffed shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find the helmet down here in a pile of junk.”

  “You’re absurdly optimistic, did you know that? More likely we’ll stumble into danger and have to fight or flee.”

  He rubbed a sore spot on his arm. “Thanks. I feel much better now.”

  “One of us needs to be sensible.” She angled the flashlight at the passageway. “Shall we expl
ore?”

  He gave a nod and followed her into the dark hall. The corridor ran only a few yards before ending at another staircase—wider than the first and fully visible, thank God. It twisted down in a spiral, the steps disappearing into the darkness. Slowly Sabine and Cliff descended, around and around, at least two full stories deeper into the mountain, by his best estimation.

  “Not especially practical for storage, is it?” Sabine said dryly, starting down the long hall at the base of the staircase.

  “Make fun of me all you want,” he retorted. “I intend to continue believing that we will find the helmet and complete this next step. To think otherwise is to give up, and I’m not doing that.”

  That half-smirk he liked returned to her lips. “I do admire your tenacity. You may actually succeed at faking your death after all. Though I expect you’ll go through many both literal and figurative stumbles to get there.”

  “That’s life. Trip and fall, get up, keep going. I’ve never been one to lie around waiting for help.”

  “Neither have I.” She placed her hand on a simple wooden door that didn’t look especially dungeon-like. “Shall we?”

  Cliff looked directly into her liquid-brown eyes and gave her his best wicked smile. “Sure. What could go wrong?”

  She poked a single finger into the center of his chest. “You. Are. Evil.”

  “Simply trying to keep pace with my pirate partner.”

  She turned away, testing the door handle and slowly pushing into the room. “Pirates don’t—”

  “Have partners. Yes, I remember.” He moved closer, peering over her shoulder to see into the room. “So what’s… Damn. Was the Mad Duke here?”

  That was a bit of an exaggeration, he supposed. The room was crowded, certainly, but enough space had been left to allow him and Sabine to walk between the large steel and brass objects that filled the chamber.

  “Pieces of some larger device,” he mused, running a hand over a smooth piece of metal.

  “How do you know that?”

  Cliff grinned. “This is my profession, Captain. I’ve disassembled so many broken machines I could do it in my sleep. There is no joint, hinge, splice, or fastening that I haven’t seen. This here…” He touched the cylindrical end of one piece. “Fits into that hole, there.” He pointed. “This unfinished end is probably meant to be welded to another piece when the machine is constructed. Put together, I’m guessing this thing would be wider than the room.”

  “Can you guess at what it is?”

  “Maybe if I could lay all the pieces out and look at them. They would have to be hauled outside, one-by-one, and assembled outdoors.”

  “Not something the students here would do, I don’t imagine.”

  “Don’t know. Maybe older girls who want to be engineers?”

  Sabine gestured back at the door. “No helmets here. Next room.”

  The room across the hall was more of the same. Large pieces that may even have been part of the same machine as those in the first room. They glanced around quickly, then moved further down the hall.

  “Well.” The beam from Sabine’s flashlight traversed the third, much larger room. “This is where they make the pieces.”

  Cliff walked the room, examining the workbenches and tools of the underground engineering laboratory. The room was clean, highly organized, and fully-stocked. Small tools hung from pegboards on the walls. Large tools had their areas marked out with painted lines on the floor. Projects in progress sat up against the walls or rested neatly in the center of workspaces. Against one wall, a cabinet of narrow drawers held notebooks, schematics, and other drawings. A few sketches had been tacked to the wall above. The plan in the center caught his eye.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “What?” Sabine rushed to his side. “What did you… Scheiße.”

  “Does that, or does it not look like the machine that kidnapped us?”

  He didn’t know why he’d bothered to ask. The round chamber with its gaping jaws and fin-like propulsion system couldn’t possibly be anything else. The small sketch in the corner showing a mechanical arm lifting it onto a ship only confirmed his initial assumption.

  “Scheiße,” Sabine repeated.

  “Agreed. Someone at this school is manufacturing mechanical monstrosities, possibly using students as unwitting, unpaid workers. And Redbeard is a customer.”

  “Or an employer. His permanent home is in the Schwarzwald, at most three hours away by airship. He’s the criminal king of all of southern Germany and even moving somewhat into Austria-Hungary. Why not Switzerland, too? For all I know, he owns this school.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Cliff whirled away, racing for the door.

  Sabine jogged after him, grabbing his shoulder. “Hartleigh, where are you going?”

  “I’m getting Lola out of here, right now.”

  “No, you can’t. If we do that, we lose our chance to get the helmet.”

  “Fuck the helmet. Redbeard probably already has it. We’re screwed. I’m leaving and taking Lola with me.”

  Her hand clamped hard on his arm. “He doesn’t have the helmet. Whatever his connection to this place, he doesn’t know about the Sphinx or the clues. All he knows is that we’re searching.”

  “If anyone at this school is in his pay, then he knows we’re here. He might not know what we’re looking for, but he’ll be coming for us. I won’t leave Lola here all alone, and that’s final.” He shook himself from her grip and walked off, not knowing how he’d navigate in the dark if he walked out of range of her flashlight. It didn’t matter. He was leaving. Now.

  Sabine ran to keep pace with his furious strides. “I’ll stay.”

  Cliff stopped so suddenly that she crashed into him. “What?” He turned to look at her.

  “I’ll stay here with her. I can easily sneak into the dormitory area. Closets, trunks, under beds—the hiding places are endless. I’ll stay with her overnight. You return to the village, make certain our things are packed and put my signal light out on the roof so my crew knows to stay in the area after their next fly-by. If anyone asks after me, say I’m ill and sleeping and don’t want to be disturbed. I’ll make certain that both Lola and I are ready to depart tomorrow when you arrive for visiting hours.”

  “And what if you haven’t located the helmet?”

  “Then we’ll improvise.”

  “And if something happens during the night?”

  Sabine’s eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened. “I will guard your daughter with my life,” she vowed. She drew the dagger she wore at her hip and ran a finger along the edge until a bead of blood welled on her skin. “You have my solemn blood oath.”

  Cliff reached for her hand, wanting to tend to the small wound, but she dodged his touch, sticking her finger into her mouth and thrusting the dagger back into its sheath. He let his hand drop. She didn’t need him. He had to remember that. More and more often, though, he seemed to be needing her.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll go back. You watch Lola. Tomorrow we get that helmet and get the hell out.”

  “Good.” She pointed the flashlight in the opposite direction from the way they had come. “Let’s see where the hall leads. There must be an entrance large enough to move the machine pieces out. I would bet there’s a hidden door right in the side of the mountain. You’ll probably find yourself mere steps from the village.”

  “Now who’s being optimistic?”

  “Realistic, Duke. You’ll slip out the secret entrance, go back to the inn, and rest up for tomorrow. Everything will be fine.”

  “Yes, very realistic.”

  “It will be fine,” she repeated, her voice hard as iron. “I’ll make it so.”

  21

  From her cramped hiding place in the corner, behind a suit of armor and two pots overflowing with ferns, Sabine munched on the cheese she’d stolen for lunch and watched. Just like old times. Though Lola was an unusual sort of mark.

  Most of the students had abandoned the
sitting room, reluctantly rising from the leather chairs and plush couches to return to their classrooms. Lola lingered behind, wandering slowly, examining the tapestries hanging from the walls.

  The guard dragon Sabine had roped the night before limped into the room, its damaged rear leg slightly misaligned. Not as tough as it looked, apparently. It made a low, growling sound, but Lola bounded happily toward it. She looked it over, then patted its head and began to stroke its back.

  “You’re such a cute dragon!” the girl exclaimed. “Can I ride you?” She slung a leg over, positioning herself in the center of the creature’s back. It shook, trying to toss her off, but Lola’s excellent balance kept her in her seat. She giggled and patted the dragon’s head again.

  “Step down, Miss Kinsley.” The headmistress approached, and Lola slid to the floor with a sigh. “This is one of our guard dragons, and he is here for repairs, not for fun. He’s been having problems all night, it seems.”

  “What does he guard?” Lola asked. “Treasure?”

  “Of a sort. He protects the castle from intruders, keeping all you girls safe.”

  “That’s not as exciting.” She ran her hand along the dragon’s back. “You should make him growl meaner. He’s too cute to be scary.”

  “You like machines, Miss Kinsley?”

  Lola shrugged. “I like the animal ones. I miss my spiders.”

  “A school is no place for pets, I’m afraid, but if you are interested in dragons, we do teach engineering here. Most people think women shouldn’t be engineers, but we would like to change that outdated attitude.”

  By building giant machines in a dungeon laboratory? Sabine had to stop herself leaning forward for a better view.

  “Tagget Industries hires girls,” Lola said.

  Von Arx blinked in surprise. “Ah…”

  “Daddy said so. He says he’s not sure if he hates Mr. Tagget because he once sold bad luxene that could’ve been dangerous, or if he admires him because he doesn’t care what a person looks like, or if they’re a boy or a girl, he just cares if they’re good at their job.”