Seventh session, "Mystery of the Dying Clockwork"

Unraveled and unmourned

Excerpts from the journal of George Moriarty, footman in the household of Sir Cosmo Cowperthwaite

Sunday, 12 September, 1875

I landed on the spot where, just a moment before, Wilhelmina had been standing. The air hummed with the energy of a powerful spell. But I hadn't felt any sorcerer's raising that sort of power in the minutes leading up to their disappearance.

I knelt down and touched the grass where it was still depressed in the shape of one of Wilhelmina's shoes. Then I closed my eyes and started the Mantra of Intertwined Vines. Ordinarily I find Wilhelmina after only two or three iterations, but it wasn't until the 12th that I finally sensed her.

She was alive. She was quite cross, but she wasn't in a murderous rage. From that I concluded that Mrs Wooster had not been harmed, nor had Wilhelmina's dress been ruined.

But I could barely sense the direction of her feelings, let alone get any sense of what she was thinking. Because while the air and earth where I was still held only a faint echo of powerful magic, Wilhelmina's location was drowning in a thundering symphony of mystical power.

I continued repeating the mantra. Slowly I got a better sense of where Wilhelmina was: west-by-northwest of me, and between 40 and 45 miles away. She was talking to someone -- or something. She was still irritated, but she'd also gone into puzzle-solving mode. She was plotting an escape.

I pushed a bit of power into the mantra, and immediately felt the hostile energy twitch. I don't know how else to describe it. I didn't believe that the thing controlling the power had actually noticed me, but if I pushed any harder it would. And once it became aware of our connection, it would almost certainly be able to block it. Then I would have no way to track Wilhelmina.

So I relaxed.

Unfortunately, Albert had gotten involved. Sometimes, especially when he's dreaming, he comes through the link and peeks over my shoulder and comments on whatever I'm doing or seeing. And sometimes he finds the link to Wilhelmina and wanders over there. I'm sure Mrs Frazer would be scandalized if she knew. Of course, I don't think she's forgiven me for the way I saved Wilhelmina from the snake, so neither of us are likely to get back into her good graces any time soon.

I suddenly felt him. He was already looking over Wilhelmina's shoulder, but as far as I could tell, the thing holding her captive hadn't noticed him. Maybe he had already been there before the teleportation spell. I don't know.

I had to trust that he'd wait until Wilhelmina was ready to try something before he did anything. Meanwhile, I needed to organize reinforcements.

I opened my eyes. Things on the palace lawn were a mess. Someone was gathering the wounded, sending some into the palace, and others to the carriage house.

Mrs Cuthbert and her sister, the Comptess de Brabant, were both trying to scry for Wilhelmina. The Compte de Brabant was examining some of the wreckage, as was Admiral Klink, Sir Cosmo, Prince Stefan, Admiral Whipple, and Kommandant Wymms (or should I say the Duke of Wolfenbuttel?).

Her Ladyship looked as if she were trying to scry, as well. She was looking into that fragment of broken enchanted mirror that she's been carrying around. She seemed to be arguing with someone.

Mr Salmalin was standing nearby, also holding a captive crewman from one of the aerogunships. His clothes we torn and singed, and he'd lost his wig. He was just asking her ladyship what she wanted done with the prisoner, when Sir Cosmo joined us and suggested we should turn them over to the Carpanians.

I made an inappropriate comment. I didn't realize I had actually said it aloud, until later when Mr Salmalin scolded me. After the scolding, when I tried to apologize to Sir Cosmo, he insisted I'd done no such thing. Which is just him being generous.

We needed to question the prisoners, obviously, to find out just how the anarchists were mixed up with whoever had teleported Wilhelmina and Emily. But proper interrogations take a lot of time, which we didn't really have.

I suggested to Her Ladyship that we take my prisoner to the swan pond for questioning. She was more than happy to go along with the idea. I gave my wig to Mr Salmalin, then Her Ladyship and I walked to the pond.

I splashed water on his face until he woke up. I asked the prisoner if he was familiar with the stories of the Godmothers: the three witches who saved Princess Elisa fifty years ago. Confused, he admitted that he was familiar with the story.

I then explained how Her Ladyship is the great-granddaughter of Gwytha Chigwidgeon, one of the Godmothers. He alluded to Nanny's "demon cat" and I implied that Her Ladyship also commanded a demon, and that I was the demon in question. Her Ladyship did a very good job of being menacing and mysterious at the same time.

He protested that he wasn't afraid of dying, that his cause was just, and so on. So I told him Her ladyship had no intention of killing him. Directly. I said she was fond of turning people into carps, and once they were turned into a fish, I enjoyed feeding those fish to swans.

He said he didn't believe, and began to explain his group's goals.

I warned him that he would regret it if Her ladyship started chanting, and she began to warm up her voice as if she were going to sing. I started murmuring the Mantra of Intertwining Vines again, this time focusing on both the prisoner and one of the large carp swimming quite visibly nearby.

He did not like seeing the world from the point of view of a fish. He started begging Her ladyship for mercy.

She ordered him to answer my questions. Which he now did.

We quickly determined that he did not know that Wilhelmina and Emily were going to be kidnapped. He and his companions had been training for weeks in the mountains learning to operate the gunships. It had all been organized by someone he called the Crooked Man.

The Crooked Man, he said, was a crippled man rumored to have been maimed while undergoing grueling torture for his Republican and Anarchist writings, though exactly where those writings had been published, or who had tortured him were not known to our prisoner.

The Crooked Man's plan had been that the aerogunships would attack the garden party, killing as many members of the Carpanian Royal Family as possible. They had assembled with their weapons in an old brick factory in the northeast quarter of Potsdorf, where they had spent the last few days practicing.

Our prisoner said that plan originally had been not to attack until after 5pm, when, he was told, many of the decadent royals would be drunk from all the wine and brandy that they would allegedly be drinking. Except that earlier today, the Crooked Man had arrived at the brick yard and told them the plans had changed, and they needed to attack sooner.

When we pressed him for why the plans changed, he said they had asked the same thing, and that the Crooked Man had become angry at them for questioning his orders. He further said that the Crooked Man had been acting strangely. Specifically, he didn't want to inspect the weapons, and seemed almost afraid to touch them.

This was a sharp contrast to the Crooked Man's earlier actions, where he seemed to take great delight in handling the rockets, rocket launchers, and guns.

The aerogunships were supposed to return to the brick factory after their attack on the palace, where they would recieve their instructions and materials necessary to go into hiding.

He didn't seem to have any more useful information. With Her ladyship's permission, I knocked him out, and handed him over to the Carpanian soldiers.

A lot had been going on while we were busy questioning our prisoner. de Molineaus and M. Berri had questioned the crewmen they captured and learned details that corraborated what ours had said. Including the details about the Crooked Man's changed behavior.

We inferred that the Crooked Man who changed their instructions was actually a fairy of some sort, disguised as the Crooked Man. Being a fairy, he would not want to handle the steel and iron weapons. Which means that someone had learned of the anarchist's plans and decided to use them as a distraction for some other plot. It was possible that the abduction of Wilhelmina and Emily was simply another distraction for something bigger than either the anarchist plot or the trouble that von Ebersbach is plotting.

Mrs Salmalin, Mrs Frazer, Mr O'Flaherty, Mr Frazer, and the Inspector had all arrived at the palace having seen the exploding aerogunships from across town. They had noted that Count Lisowski, who is fourth in line for the throne of Carpania had been killed, along with his wife and several servants. The Crown Prince had been wounded, but not severely. General Kuhnster, commander of the Carpanian army, had been seriously wounded and was not expected to regain consciousness for days.

The King was quite angry. He appointed Prince Stefan to the rank of Generallieutenant and put him in temporary charge of the army. He told him he had two missions: rescue the two people who had been kidnapped from the Queen's party, and track down and arrest whoever is behind all these anarchist attacks.

The representatives of Carpania's allies all offered help or information. Admiral Klink believed that the aerogunships were stolen prototypes of a design the North German Confederation had been considering for a shore patrol vessel. He and Duke Wolfenbuttel pledged Prussian support in capturing the anarchists. De Molineaus offered his aerofrigate, Les Pandore, and the crew to assist in either operation. Sir Cosmo said that we'd be trying to rescue Wilhelmina & Emily in any case, once we figured out where they were.

I explained that I knew where they were. I pointed in the correct direction and said they were about 43 miles that way, alive and well, and plotting their escape. Mrs Salmalin was surprised that I could tell them, but before I could explain, Mrs Cuthbert gave me one of those looks and said something about how resourceful I alway am.

Prince Stefan and the Compte de Brabant said that would put the location just past the city of Durchenwald, possibly at the Count von Freiheff's castle. Which might explain why a fairy had interferred with the anarchist's

Prince Stefan began getting everyone organized for the rescue. A corp of combat engineers were sent to the brick factory, which assumed was rigged to blow up if the aerogunships had actually come back--since killing your stooges once they've done their dirty work seems the only reason not to tell me the escape plan.

The rest of us went aboard the aerocorvette and the aerofrigate and we flew off in the direction I'd indicated. As we got closer, I could make a more precise determination, and it soon became clear that we weren't going to von Freiheff's, but rather to the ruins of an old castle or tower, known locally simply as The Count's Castle.

Legend had it that the Castle is the one from the story of the Glass Clock, and thus was owned by the insane Count who tried to live forever by stopping time.

As we drew in sight of the castle, I could see that the aura of the place was like a huge, black hole. Mrs Cuthbert said it was a hole in time and reality, which is why she and the others hadn't been able to scry on it. I could tell Wilhelmina was underground, beneath the ruins we could see on the hilltop.

Before we had gotten that close, Hugo came and gave us a lot of valuable information. Until that moment, it had seemed that both Wilhelmina and I had avoided getting one of the stray slices of Master Zacharius' soul stuck in my head. But we were incorrect. One was in Wilhelmina's mind and another was in Emily's. The two Hugos had been assisting in planning he escape. Once Wilhelmina had enough information, she sent here Hugo to tell me where they were and what situation there were in.

A dragon had taken her. Not just any dragon, mind you, but V's grandmother, a dragon called Nituriax. Nituriax was over 2,000 years old, capable of doing quite powerful magic, and was intent on collecting the souls of people she believed were descended from Atlanteans. Which included Wilhelmina, Sir Cosmo, Galen, and myself. Not to mention Master Zacharias and Master Schultz. She has also been collected Atlantean automatons, and any other automaton she could find. Wilhelmina had identified artifacts created by Rambaldi, King Soloman, and the Greek god Haphaestus.

Nituriax was working with Jan Hollyshoes, the brown man fairy that had been V's loyal servant. Hollyshoes thought that the plot was to kidnap and kill Wilhelmina and Sir Cosmo to avenge V. Wilhelmina had determined that Nituriax had no intention of killing Wilhelmina or Sir Cosmo, at least not until she had removed their souls from their bodies to add to her collection.

Her cavern also contained a rather large number of the Atlantean crystals, including a device that Wilhelmina believed was the shattered remains of the original Glass Clock.

In addition to the dragon and Hollyshoes, there were a couple other fairy servants of the dragon: a red cap and someone who was half-dwarf and half-goblin. The automatons included several that were capable of combat, and all seemed to be under the dragon's control.

Wilhelmina had a plan to try to take control of several of the automatons and turn them on the dragon. She was just waiting for us to get close enough to help.

Prince Stefan planned to lead an assault by having the various combatants jump from the ship, with parachutes. He asked Admiral von Klink to take command of the aerocorvette and its weapons. Mr Salmalin, Monsier Berri, Sir Cosmo, and I wouldn't need parachutes. I did use my rocket belt--though not quite the way Wilhelmina intended. Since she was being held underground, I didn't want to waste a lot of time searching for an entrance. I hoped that the force of my rocket-propelled fall would be enough to blast a hole through the cave roof.

Before we were in position, a strange aero vehicle joined us. I felt it approaching before we could see it, as it was giving off rather powerful etheric vibrations. Sir Cosmo detected it, too, though neither of us knew what it was. When we saw it, it was shaped like a hybrid between a box kite and an albatross. The frame was made of wood and metal -- a great deal of it copper wire. There The wings were made of sailcloth. But the strangest part of the design was that if appeared to be covered with hundreds of lumps of amber. Except the crystals were charged with energy. The front of the machine had a barrel-shaped framework studded with the amber crystals and lodestones. This assembly was spinning like mad, propelled by the pedaling of the two men in the middle of the craft.

It was Lt Wooster and his uncle, Admiral Whipple.

Even stranger, it appeared that they were following an enormous vulture.

I knew that Admiral Whipple had been trying to train the bearded griffin vultures to deliver messages. Just as years ago he had tried to convince the admiralty that fish could be trained to carry messages between naval ships. I had no idea that he had an interest in flying machines.

I jumped out first, repeating the Mantra of Imperishable Letters as the rockets propelled me down. Mr Salmalin and Monsieur Berri were just behind me. It worked, generally. The rock shattered and I was in the cave. Mr Salmalin it a few moments later, busting a larger hole.

The fight was already going. There were scores of Atlantean Crystal powered devices. Dozens of them appeared to be copper statues of warriors, and most of them were charging toward us. Wilhelmina and Emily were already fighting one of the faerie creatures and several of the other devices.

I went after the dragon. I must saw, she was considerably larger than V. At least 45 yards long, and with fangs as big as my katars. Her scales were incredibly tough. My first several strikes didn’t seem to do a thing to her. But I got onto one of her wing-shoulders and just kept hitting the joint again and again.

Mr Salmalin and Monsieur Berri split their attacks between the dragon and some of the other creatures. Sir Cosmo, Prince Stefan, Mr O’Flahtery, Inspector MacGregor, and just about everyone else was soon inside the cave, taking turns attacking the dragon, or dealing with the other creatures. I stayed focused on the dragon, so when she decided to fly away, I was still chipping away at her defenses.

She flew down a long dark tunnel, which spilled out amid the trees. Then she flew up into the air, roaring with rage.

Mr Salmalin was climbing up her spine. And Sir Cosmo was following close behind with his rockets.

Once air borne, she was even more dangerous. Admiral Whipple’s flying machine was equipped with a sort of gatling gun, and Lt Wooster used it to good effect, managing to to hit any of as he fired. The cannon from the aerocorvette and aerofrigate were a bit disturbing, but she moved so quickly, they barely grazed her.

She opened her mouth and breathed on the flying machine. I thought Wooster and his uncle were dead for certain. But the strange contraption protected them. I could see the etheric and magnetic forces around the machine deflecting most of the flames. And the crystals, whose power level had drained so low that I couldn’t detect them from a distance, they absorbed a lot of the energy, charging back up. As the device zoomed by, I got a very strong sense of their etheric harmonies. The amber crystal vibrated at frequencies almost exactly identical to the crystals in the turbinate dynamo.

As they circled back, Nituriax bore down on the areo frigate. The two areo-ships were maneuvering to bring all their guns to bear, but if she breathed fire at either canopy, both would probably be destroyed. I saw someone leap out of the areofrigate, and as he fell, his body morphed into a dragon. Bigger than V, but far smaller than Nituriax. This dragon flew up into our path. The two dragons roared at each other. I think they were arguing. There was definitely a shape to the sounds not unlike words. Then Nituriax blasted the smaller dragon with fire, and he went spiraling toward the ground. But she has missed her chance at the aeroships, and she would have to circle back yet again.

The flying machine zoomed into our path, Wooster firing the guns while Whipple steered and yelled various victorious cheers. Several of Wooster’s bullets passed through Nituriax’s mouth and out the back of her throat. It was the most damage I’d seen anything do. Mr Salmalin and I were finally drawing blood, but we had been pounding each on our own spot for what seemed an eternity.

They zoomed by even faster after being blasted yet again, but now the vibrations coming off the crystals was quite alarming. It felt very much like an overloading autenite battery.

Nituriax was angry. Instead of continuing toward the aeroships, she turned sharply in midair and went after Whipple’s machine. The Admiral yelled something, and pulled a lever that dropped Wooster’s seat right out of the frame. I saw two wing-like structures pop out from the seat, which I presumed were meant as a kind of parachute. The Admiral started singing “God Save the Queen” at the top of his lungs.

The crystals were practically screaming, and I realized that if Nituriax breathed fire on it again, they would explode, probably at least as spectacularly as an autenite bomb. No wonder the Admiral was singing. He knew he was flying to his death.

I yelled out a warning to Mr Salmalin, and we both jumped off the dragon’s back.

I looked back and saw the wave of fire enveloping the flying machine… and I saw Sir Cosmo darting away from the explosion, dragging what could only be the Admiral.

Then the crystals exploded. And I had to concentrate on the Mantra of Imperishable Letters, without being able to see where I was falling because of the brightness of the explosion. It was quite an interesting sensation.

I had felt Mrs Salmalin and Mrs Cuthbert raising power earlier, and some sort of spell had been cast, but I wasn’t sure what they’d done.

There were explosions and shouts. I could also feel another set of Atlantean Crystals powering up. But they were different than any of the others I had felt before. I was just getting my eyesight back and had stumbled over to where Mr Salmalin was unstrapping an extremely dizzy Lt Wooster from his chair, when I heard a lot of familiar voices shouting “Run!”

Inspector MacGregor and Mr Frazer appeared first, one half-carrying Mrs Salmalin, the other Mrs Frazer. Wilhelmina, Mr O’Flaherty, Captain Stahlmacherson, and everyone else dashed out of the cave opening, all yelling at us to run. The power level of whatever was going on below was getting higher and higher.

I don’t know if someone communicated to the aeroships what was happening, or if Admiral Klink simply has a good sense of when to flee, because the ships were retreating as well.

A bright flash of light seemed to wash over us, and I saw a sapling just ahead of me spring up into a 20’ tall tree. I looked back over my shoulder, and saw an even larger pine tree doing the reverse, shrinking upon itself until it disappeared into the ground.

At that moment, I had a flash of memory from Wilhelmina: Lady Cowperthwaite and Galen inside the remains of the Glass Clock, all the crystals of the clock glowing and throwing off sparks, and Galen calmly trying to fix it.

For a moment I turned to go back. Mr Salmalin wouldn’t have left Her Ladyship, if he had known, even under direct orders. Except, of course, that he’d been with me on the dragon. There was no time to explain to him what had happened. It was possible I could be of some help if I hurried back.

But then there was another explosion, and I saw the hillside collapse.

The dark hole in the world’s aura was gone. We all had come to a stop on a small hill about a half mile from the cave. Everyone was panting to catch their breath. Wilhelmina was explaining to Sir Cosmo what had happened, when suddenly, Bay walked up with a tray filled with teacups. A second after he said, “Oompah?” I heard Galen’s voice behind us saying, “This cream is yummy!”

We turned around and there was Her Ladyship and Galen sitting at a small table having tea. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and turned my head in time to see a dairy wagon vanishing into a shadow.

It took a little while for everyone to explain what had happened. And we were quite a sight. My clothes were tattered and singed. Wilhemina’s hem was a mess. Inspector MacGregor was covered in blood, which he insisted was not his own.

Somehow, after the faeries were killed and all the automatons either destroyed or subdued, the clock had been activated. When it did, Her Ladyship and Galen were trapped inside some kind of etheric shield. Wilhelmina was trying to figure out how to turn it off, and Mrs Salmalin was going to try magic. Galen started calmly arranging loose and broken crystals into a pattern. Her Ladyship was meditating, then suddenly she had ordered Mrs Salmalin and Emily to run and take everyone with them, because something very bad was going to happen.

She told us that Kali had said the hole had to be plugged and everyone was in danger.

Waves of energy had come from the clock, turning some of the artifacts in the cave into rust, or in the case of one of the gold coins that Mrs Wooster picked up, reverting it to a gold nugget. The Glass Clock was messing up time. We are very lucky everyone got out.

Her Ladyship and Galen got out thanks to Mr Voach. Wilhelmina had had a small empty cheese box in her reticule, and before she knew when we would be arriving, she’d stuck a note in it and tossed it among the piles of antiques and such in the cavern. She figured that Mr Voach would come for it eventually, and if her soul had been trapped in a crystal by then, he might be able to get her out again. So Mr Voach had shown up after the hole in time closed, and he brought Her Ladyship and Galen back to when we were. Her Ladyship said that Mr Voach was going to tell a friend of his about all the Atlantean souls trapped in crystals (there were many dozen crystals with souls trapped in them, Wilhelmina tells me), and assured her that the friend would be able to take care of them.

I suppose the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse would know several people who could deal with that sort of thing.

We took a few moments to exchange information, before re-boarding the aeroships and returning to Potsdorf.

Among the crystals in Nituriax's collection had been a particularly fine sapphire, which contained dozens of fragments of Hugo's soul. Wilhelmina says the dragon has been trying to collect all of Master Zaccharias' soul for years. The Spanish Contessa who had been going around England pulling the sparks of energy from Zaccharias clocks had been the dragon in disguise.

The dragon had been threatening Mrs Wooster with the crystal (offering to take Hugo out of her head) just before we arrived. Emily had launched their escape attempt by throwing her tea saucers just so that it would knock the large crystal out of the dragon's claws and into one of the automatons--specifically one Wilhelmina calls The Golden Warrior.

That had transferred the captured Hugo soul bits into the uncharged control crystals of the Golden Warrior, which allowed the Hugo fragments carried by Wilhelmina and Emily to take control of the Warrior and attack the dragon.

Wilhelmina, meanwhile had made a run for the Throne of Solomon (yes, the character from the Bible), which she believed would give her control of the other devices. She was blocked by a bronze bull, one of the legendary ones built by the Greek god, Haphaestus. Wilhelmina jumped on the bull's back and tried to take control of it. With Albert's help she managed it.

And by then we had arrived and there was bloody combat on all sides.

A lot happened while I was busy with the dragon. Chief Inspector MacGregor killed the Red Cap, which is why he was covered in so much blood. Hollyshoes, the fairy, was killed about four times, between Mrs Wooster, Captain Stahlmachersson, Turgenov, and Lady Cowperthwaite. Mr O'Flaherty picked up a magical sword from the piles of the dragon's loot, and used it to great effect. We acquired one prisoner: a half-dwarf, half-goblin by the name of Tormessing. He was the dragon's curator, responsible for cataloging her piles of treasure. He isn't the most hardy person, with a crippled leg and a bit of a wheeze in his chest, so it was little surprise he surrendered almost immediately.

The Golden Warrior was the latest addition to the dragon's collection. Hollyshoes had acquired it somewhere nearby and very recently. Wilhelmina is convinced that it was made by Master Zaccharias. She's further convinced that Hollyshoes stole it from a whole warehouse full of hundreds of the things. She thinks the goblin we saw at Zaccharias' home has tricked him into building an almost unstoppable army for nefarious purposes.

Before they were killed, Hollyshoes and Nituriax made comments to the effect that they had tricked the Anarchists into attacking earlier than originally planned, just as we had concluded. Tormessing confirmed it, saying that the dragon had a keen interest in any humans using flying weapons. She had been spying on them for some time. He was able to give us the name of the pub where the faeries had spied on the Anarchists: Defektes Trommelbierhaus.
By the time we had returned to Potsdorf, a plan had been devised to visit the pub in question....

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