Lincoln's Wizard

by Tracy Hickman

  “What happens when we get there?” Laurie asked.

  Hattie’s face turned grim.

  “With any luck, we find a way to end the war.”

  O O O

  Colonel Beauregard Fuller was usually the first person to arrive at his office in the Confederate Engineer Bureau. He enjoyed the quiet of the early morning. It afforded him time to think. In Colonel Fuller’s opinion, there was far too little thinking being done in the world.

  This morning, like all the others of his tenure as director of the CEB, Fuller entered his office in the pale light of predawn. This morning wasn’t like the others. The glare of the gas lamps turned the rail yard and forges and machine shops below into islands of day in the pale, morning light. Everywhere he looked men were working. Most had been there all night, pressing ahead in an effort to overtake the damage the Federals had done to Jackson and the Tennessee River Bridge. A hot, damp mist filled the air as dozens of steam engines chugged away inside several of the buildings, and Beauregard’s shirt already stuck to his skin by the time he reached his office. As he entered and shut the door behind him, the cacophony of steam engines, hammering, shouting workmen, and the ever present gurgling of the Distillery dulled into a murmur.

  Fuller stood in the dark of his office for a long moment, listening to the diminished sounds from the yard. The sound was hardly conducive to thought.

  With a sigh, he lit the lamp on his desk, trimming the wick down to a low glow. He sat and considered the mountain of documents stacked neatly on the right side of his desk, away from the lamp. Ever since the Federals had cut the supply lines to the Gray soldiers along the western front, his life had been one emergency after another. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Whitney, took to calling it the Paper Mountain, in honor of the CEB’s home at Stone Mountain.

  For all his pretense about being early to think, Fuller just sat, staring at the stack of reports and requisitions awaiting him. He knew he should plow forward and get it done, but the more cynical part of his brain pointed out that as soon as it was gone, Whitney would be in with a fresh stack. Maybe if he didn’t do this stack, the next one wouldn’t come.

  He laughed at the thought, then sighed and reached for the topmost paper.

  Almost on cue, the door to his office opened and Lieutenant Whitney rushed in. He was a middle-aged man with a gleaming bald head and a prodigious, bushy mustache, as if his lip were trying to compensate for his head’s failure. He wore a pressed military uniform, a pair of horn horn-rimmed spectacles, and a harried look.

  “Colonel, sir,” he said, saluting as he crossed the floor. “I was just collecting the day’s work when a runner arrived from the telegrapher.”

  Whitney passed over a brown envelope with the word Urgent stamped across it in large block letters. Fuller accepted the telegram and turned it over in his hands, considering it. He’d received many of these over the last few weeks.

  “Six-thirty,” he said, checking his pocket watch. “Well this has to be some kind of record, Lieutenant. We should celebrate.”

  “The sherry, sir?” Whitney asked.

  Fuller laughed at that. It felt good.

  “It’s a bit early for that,” he said, knowing full well that Whitney’s suggestion had been in jest. “I could use a cup of coffee, though.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Whitney said, then withdrew.

  Good man, that.

  Fuller removed a long, slim letter opener from his desk drawer and slit open the seal on the envelope. He extracted the message and read that the Federal Engineer Braxton Wright, in custody in the Castle Prison, had escaped sometime during the night, along with one Hattie Lawton, a Federal spy considered extremely dangerous.

  Wonderful.

  Fuller sat back and rubbed his temples in the soft glow of the lamp. He’d pinned a lot of hopes that his agent could befriend Braxton, even convince him to work for the Confederacy. Now his best chance at a swift end to the war had disappeared into the wind with one of the Union’s most dangerous spies.

  “Something wrong, sir?” Whitney said, setting a steaming cup down on the desk.

  “Braxton Wright escaped last night,” he said, trading the telegram for the coffee.

  “What about your agent?” Whitney asked.

  Fuller shrugged. If Braxton and Hattie had slipped away into the night, there wouldn’t be any way for Fuller’s agent to follow them.

  “Buck up, sir,” Whitney said. “It was a long shot after all.”

  That, at least, was true. Fuller had hoped he could get an engineer of Braxton’s talent working at Stone Mountain, but he had no illusions that it would be easy.

  He sighed and sat up straight, dropping the telegram in his trash container as he did so.

  “We move on, then,” he said. “What’s today’s first order of business?”

  Before Whitney could answer, a knock sounded at the door.

  “Come,” Fuller called, and a young corporal came in.

  “Telegram for you, sir,” he said, with a snappy salute.

  Whitney took it and passed it on to Fuller.

  Two in one morning, and both before seven. Definitely a record.

  “Is there something else, Corporal?” Fuller asked as he opened the envelope. The Corporal remained, holding his hat, on the far side of the desk.

  “I was told to wait for a response.”

  Fuller shrugged and opened the folded paper from inside the envelope.

  Beauregard,

  Aeolus and Circe are on their way to her grandma’s in Raleigh. I missed the train but will follow on the next available one. Please send the recipe for mother’s peach cobbler as soon as you can as grandma is so looking forward to it. I’ll try to keep her occupied until I hear from you.

  Telemachus

  Fuller read the telegram a second time, then burst out laughing. It really did feel good.

  “Good news, sir?” Whitney asked.

  “The best,” Fuller said, withdrawing a piece of blank paper from his desk. “My man has found Braxton Wright and the Federal spy.”

  “They’re in custody?”

  “No, but he knows where they went. He’s asked me to send instructions about how to proceed.”

  “What will you tell him?”

  Fuller paused before putting pen to paper. He didn’t want his agent to blow his cover, but at the same time Braxton Wright seemed to sow chaos wherever he went. On top of that, if Pinkerton’s spy knew they were being followed, they’d disappear. No, this was his chance, and he’d have to seize it.

  He put his pen down to the paper and began writing with fluid, confident strokes.

  “It’s time to pick up Captain Wright,” Fuller said, running his blotter over the letter. “They can do whatever they want with the spy, but I want Braxton Wright brought here.”

  He folded the paper and sealed it inside a plain envelope with a stick of red wax.

  “Take this to the dispatch office,” he said, handing it to Whitney. “Tell them I want it hand delivered, no telegraph.”

  Whitney accepted the envelope with a puzzled look.

  “Tell the courier to take the next train to Raleigh,” Fuller went on. “Once he’s there, he’s to check every saloon and bar in town, starting with the ones nearest the rail station. He’s looking for a man, sitting alone, reading a copy of the Odyssey bound in red leather. He’s to tell the man that he has a letter for Ulysses, to which the man will respond that he prefers Odysseus from the Greek translation.”

  “Is he to wait for a response?” Whitney asked.

  “No,” Fuller said. “Once he’s delivered the letter, he’s to leave and return straight here. Do you have all of that?”

  Whitney repeated Fuller’s instructions word for word, then saluted and left with the confused corporal in tow. Fuller jumped to his feet as if burned and began to pace his office. He might not be Braxton Wright’s equal as an engineer, but he understood the engineering mind. If he could get him here, Braxton would help them. H
e wouldn’t be able to stop himself. No engineer could resist the smell of a foundry, the feel of a drafting table, and the sight of a workbench full of polished tools.

  He’d gone along with Confederate Intelligence’s plan to approach Braxton in prison, but now he had a chance to do things his way. Opportunity thundered at his door, and he wouldn’t hesitate.

  With his agent hot on Braxton’s trail, he could well have Braxton Wright in his office before the week was out.

  As Fuller sat behind his paper mountain and pulled down the first page, he felt better than he had in weeks.

  About the Authors

  International and New York Times Best-selling author Tracy Hickman has been exploring realms of speculative fiction professionally for over 30 years. Born in Salt Lake City, Tracy served as a missionary in Indonesia before returning home to marry his childhood sweetheart. She, in turn introduced him to Dungeons & Dragons, and laid the foundation for his career as a professional game designer and, later, fantasy novelist.

  Tracy has over 60 books in print and is published in most languages around the world. He still enjoys board games, biographies and history but his favorite occupation is spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren.

  Born in Washington DC and raised just east of there in Maryland, Dan grew up among the most practiced of storytellers, politicians. Despite that, he decided to become a writer rather than a professional liar or grifter. He moved west to Utah to attend college and studied writing. Like everyone who studies writing, he had to find some way to make money and worked as a mechanic, a customer service rep, a programmer, a web designer, a software tester, and, occasionally, a copy writer.

  Eventually, Dan’s writing caught the eye of Wizards of the Coast, and he began writing for their DragonLance: The New Adventures series. Most recently, Dan worked with New York Times Bestselling author, Tracy Hickman on a new alternate history Civil War series, Dragons of the Confederacy.