Sunday 12 September
1875
I have had about enough of this fairy tale business. We have had
a long, busy day, yet I am no closer to finding Arnwulf or his
mother. We have had a very long series of distractions.
Important matters, to be sure, but time consuming.
Mrs Salmalin, Mr O’Flaherty and I began the day with a visit to the
gaol, to speak to Wolfgang von Erbersbach. He was cheeky, and
thought himself very frightening, I don’t know who he thought he was
impressing. He is just like any privileged ne’er-do-well bully
and rake I have ever seen. According to Mrs Salmalin, however, he
has a very powerful aura, which is not actually his own. We
postulate that this aura is a part of the Fenris “curse.” The boy
has no actual idea of what he is carrying about with him. We
asked him about his mother’s plan, but he plainly has no idea of what
she is working on. I told him that she would trying to take away
some of his abilities. He didn’t seem to believe this, but I hope
that we have planted a seed of doubt that might make him question her,
which might slow down her plan.
I should mention that we asked Feldwebel von Erbersbach for some
information about the ground plan of her family’s chateau. She
would not tell us anything, saying it would be much too dangerous to us
to go there. I tried to convince her that we could use this
information in case we somehow end up at the chateau and need to find
our way out. She was not convinced--she is a very self-willed
woman.
We were en route back to Sir Spencer’s lodge via carriage when the next
disturbance began. I heard the sound of distant rockets, and
looked to see two smallish dirigibles over the palace. I deployed
my spyglass and noted that both were of a Prussian style, but flying no
colours. Mr Salmalin and Manfred Berri were busily wreaking havoc
aboard, and one had a rocket that looked like one of Wilhelmina’s
lodged in its magazine, shortly to cause the detonation of the
dirigible’s entire arsenal in one go.
We directed our driver to make haste to the palace. As we
approached, we could see burning buildings and injured
passers-by. The dirigibles had been firing rather
indiscriminately. This will certainly tell against them in the
court of public opinion.
When we arrived, a quick head-count revealed that all of our partisans
were unharmed except that Wilhelmina and Mrs Wooster were missing--in
fact they had vanished abruptly from view. Mrs Cuthbert was still
preparing a ritual to find them, when George announced that Wilhelmina
was angry but unharmed, 43 miles away WNW. That would be not far
from Durchenwald, and not far from the country manor of Count von
Freiheff. They had been abducted using a powerful and sudden
mystical transportation. Mrs Cuthbert informed us that their
location was impenetrably obscured to her senses. Unexpectedly,
Hugo offered the comment that our two partisans had been abducted by a
female dragon whose collection mania includes the imprisoned souls of
Atlanteans. This sounds absurd but not impossible.
Mr Salmalin and George had each managed to secure a prisoner from the
dirigibles before they exploded.
George and Lady Cowperthwaite had interrogated one of them using some
rather ingenious threats invoking Lady Cowperthwaite’s
Great-grandmother. By this method, they learned a few things
about the anarchist leadership (and I might add that the prisoner did
not seem to see any irony in the idea of anarchist leadership) and the
location of their headquarters.
This group received its orders from someone they call “the crooked
man.” The description matched that of a person suspected of
killing an anarchist prisoner previously taken into custody (this
happened during my trip to Prussia). The killer in that instance
used an etheric pulse weapon of some kind, likely to throw suspicion on
Sir Cosmo and our group. The orders for today’s attack had been
set up to a specific timeline, and the prisoner expressed some
puzzlement that the “crooked man” had uncharacteristically changed the
timing of the attack at the last minute and had not personally
inspected the rockets to be used as he usually did.
It is interesting to note that the two dirigibles
used were of apparent Prussian manufacture, but Admiral Klink (who was
invited to the party) insisted that these particular dirigibles had
been stolen from the airship yard where they had been scheduled for
decommissioning. He insisted that none of their “research”
dirigibles was equipped with a rocket battery. His statement was
borne out by the somewhat shoddily cobbled-together attachment of the
rocket batteries to the dirigibles (not in keeping with precise style I
expect from Admiral Klink’s workshops), and the fact that the rockets
were clearly products of Dr Fate’s line. I also have a great
regard for Admiral Klink’s personal integrity.
We also learned the location where the conspirators were instructed to
return after the attack--an abandoned brickyard in an older industrial
part of Potsdorf.
Before we could go haring off that way, however, the King intervened,
and insisted that our most urgent task was to recover Wilhelmina and
Mrs Wooster, and bring their kidnappers to heel. He was mightily
offended that anyone would dare to abduct his guests. He was
again impervious to the urgency of our mission to find Frau Metzger and
Arnwulf . He gave Prince Stefan a field promotion to allow
him to command this rescue party.
The interrupted garden party was conveniently attended by several
notables with access to airships. With an unusually small amount
of arguing, we divided ourselves between Prince Stefan’s aerocorvette
and the aerofrigate of Comte Mulineux.
The trip was rather pleasant, actually, allowing us to cross a great
deal of heavily wooded terrain in relatively short order. As we
traveled, our mystics described a "void" in the ambient magical
energy, and directed us toward it. The Carpanians nominally
leading our adventure seemed unsurprised as we came to some castle
ruins--a place infused with legends of magic and haunting.
Once we arrived, things began to get interesting. In order to
make a quick descent, we used a bold contrivance--a sort of harness
with a large piece of silk. One jumps out of the hatch while the
airship is at a middling altitude with the silk in a tight
bundle. After a few seconds of falling, one releases the silk,
and it billows up. This causes enough resistance to slow the fall
and allows one to land. I watched several others do this before I
jumped myself. Only some of our partisans have previous
experience with landing safely after such a long fall, but all of us
practice medium-height jumps and falls, and the silk provided
sufficient slowing to allow us to land mostly intact. The
experience was quite exhilarating.
We really did not know much about the place and what and who we would
find. Not so long ago, the assertion of a dragon might have made
me roll my eyes in disbelief, but given that we have seen, and
defeated, several dragons, in recent actions, the logical question was
"what type of dragon?"
We came to the ground quite dispersed, and we have a variety of foot
speed in our group. Not surprisingly, George and Mr Salmalin were
among the first to jump and to land, and were already out of sight and
into the cavern beneath the old castle walls. The rest of us went
as quickly as we could, but no one paused to reconnoiter and make a
coherent plan. Just as well, I suppose, because when we try to
plan, we usually just argue.
I decided to reprise the strategy used so effectively in the lift in
the dwarves' mine. I stayed close to Mrs Salmalin, to protect her
and help her over the difficult terrain. We made our way through
an entrance tunnel, rather after the more nimble persons in the group,
to find a massive cavern..
A significant part of the space was occupied by a quite large
dragon--we estimate her length at some 45 yards. She had a long
serpentine body, fore- and hind-limbs for walking, and broad, bat-like
wings. Her skin was covered in gleaming scales, each large as a
platter. Arrayed around her was an astonishing collection of
artefacts and a frenetic seething of battle.
We joined Inspector MacGreggor near the door, where he was
working to subdue the very same Redcap that we had seen on the
road between Gate 19 and Durchenwald. I helped Mrs Salmalin settle in a
corner, and as she began chanting, I assisted the Inspector using my
pistol. Before long, the Redcap simply burst--entirely
disgusting. The creature appeared to be no more than a sack full
of the blood of his victims--no bones or muscle or internal
organs. The Inspector was grotesquely splattered with gore.
While some of our partisans were attacking the dragon herself, most
were occupied with a mass of moving metallic figures. I
thought at first that they were armoured soldiers, but I quickly
discerned that they were all automata, of various models,
materials, and ages. It was difficult to see what all was going
on. Emily and Wilhelmina had just begun a melee when George and
Mr Salmalin came on the scene, followed by the rest of the party.
The automata were quite tough, and were giving Emily a bit of a
thrashing. Wilhelmina had found a particularly ancient machine,
in the shape of a bull, and managed to control it to defend herself.
Captain Stahlmachersson was doing fair damage with his sword, and
imagine my surprise to see that Mr O'Flaherty had a nearly identical
sword, which he had picked up somewhere among the hoard, and which also
cut through the metal of the automata without any resistance. The
cacophony was near unbearable, with the clashing of bronze figures and
steel blades, the shouts of our partisans, the reports of our firearms
in the echoing cavern.
Mr Salmalin and George had both tackled the Dragon herself, but she
scarcely seemed to notice them hacking at her with their full
(considerable) strength. Although the dragon was near impervious, so
many of our group were jabbing her and shooting her, she must have felt
at least annoyed. She decided to shift the venue and she charged
through the cavern and down a tunnel, carrying George and Mr Salmalin
clinging to her scales, and with Sir Cosmo pursuing using a set of
propulsion rockets. I presumed (and this was later confirmed)
that she had a doorway suitable for taking flight.
I was occupied with a more immediate difficulty, however, and turned my
attention to battling the automata and protecting Mrs Salmalin as she
employed her arts. At last, with Hugo taking over one of
the strongest automata, and Wilhelmina's control of the bull, and the
destruction wreaked by the two powerful swords and a number of
large-calibre rifles, we were at last getting the situation in
hand.
I had a brief moment to look around me. The dragon's hoard had a
variety of more common dragon collectibles--gold and silver, weapons
magical and conventional--but for the most part her taste was more
discerning. Her collecting mania had taken three paths:
Automata, especially of Atlantean manufacture; the personal effects of
the many score of Knights who had sought to battle her over the
generations; and an array of crystals alleged to hold the souls of
Atlantean persons.
Lady Cowperthwaite decided to investigate the area where the crystals
were displayed. Hugo became quite agitated as she looked at a
number of markings on the floor, insisting that it was the remnant of a
clock which must not be tampered with. Naturally, this only
piqued her curiosity. She wanted to figure out how to free the
souls trapped in the crystals. She started tinkering, and I heard
her invoking her patron goddess for guidance.
Galen came into the cavern (despite the fact that we
thought we had left him aboard the aerofrigate--I have yet to determine
exactly how he managed to descend). He joined his mother and,
without the least hesitation, started putting the crystals into
positions in the floor apparatus.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by a barrier, which was somewhat
permeable, but caused alarming changes in objects tossed through.
We could not safely extract our partisans, nor did any of us dare pass
into the area. Lady Cowperthwaite informed us that Kali had
decided to close the rift in time in this location, and that is what
she and Galen were doing. She then added that we leave the area
immediately.
Hugo set up an alarum, and insisted that we run away as fast as
possible, or we would be engulfed by a time-altering phenomenon and
probably die. There was not much opportunity to argue. Some
of us were picked up and carried out of the cavern and into the
surrounding forest, it being decided that we could not run fast
enough.
I could therefore see over Benton's shoulder as the barrier
expanded from where Lady Cowperthwaite and Galen were working.
This shimmering bubble passed over objects, some of them aged and
decayed as though a millennium passed in a heartbeat, while others
reverted to earlier states--a tree shrinking to a sapling, a seed, in
the blink of an eye. I felt the wind of time upon my face, and I
had a moment of wondering whether we would experience all those
compressed years, or if we would only die and crumble before we knew
anything.
Fortunately, the barrier stopped its expansion, and rebounded back into
itself. I was wondering who would break the news to Sir Cosmo,
who was just coming out of the sky with Lt Wooster's peculiar uncle in
his arms.
As Benton set me on my feet, I looked about in a daze, certain that I
must be dreaming. Not only had Lt Wooster and his uncle arrived
mysteriously, (Admiral Whipple was looking decidedly singed), but some
of our party were sitting down to tea at a little table which Mr
O'Flaherty's valet had conjured in a forest clearing. Next, a
jingle of harness and a creak of wheels heralded the appearance of Mr
Voach's dairy wagon out of the underbrush. Mr Voach gallantly
handed Lady Cowperthwaite and Galen down from the seat, the latter with
a cheerful smile and a great smear of cream on his face.
While we had been battling the automata in the cavern, the Dragon had
been defeated--rather narrowly. This required the combined powers
of both aerofrigates, an etheric flying machine invented by Admiral
Whipple, and the unexpected intervention of a Count Drachefegteberg of
the Carpanian court, who proved to be the son of the Dragon, and who
assumed a draconic form to intervene to protect the aerofrigate from
her wrath.
Ultimately, the Admiral's etheric machine overloaded
its batteries and he sent it right into the dragon's maw--he had been
fully expecting to die in the process, but was saved by Sir Cosmo at
the last moment.
We had gained a captive after the cavern battle--a half-goblin creature
called Tormessing. He had been in the dragon's service as a
curator of her collection. Now that his patroness was no more, he
sadly told us much about her. Her name was Nituriax, and she was
2500 years old. She was the grandmother of the half-dragon Vee,
who had courted Wilhelmina so persistently until Sir Cosmo bested him
in combat.
Her interest in collecting Atlantean souls had induced her to take
human form as the Spanish Contessa Donna DePriego and roam the world
collecting the pieces of Hugo Zacharias's soul which were powering each
of his many creations. When she learned of Vee's death, she was
annoyed but not enraged. It was not until Vee's former servant
Jan Hollyshoes approached her with an plan to seek revenge and an offer
of a new automaton and two Atlantean souls that she decided to abduct
Wilhelmina. It was Hollyshoes who had disguised himself as the
"crooked man" and instructed the Anarchists to begin their attack on
the palace earlier than the original plan.
Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Salmalin then used a button taken from Hollyshoes'
waistcoat to learn about his interactions with the Anarchists.
Thus we learned that the "crooked man" was Randolph Dolch, the brother
of the now-recaptured Feodor Dolch. Randolph had been a part of
the attack against us on the Iron Rhine train, and had been thrown from
the train in the fight. We had thought him dead; now it seems
that he had survived fall, but had sustained crippling injuries.
He has returned full of greater zeal and a desire for vengeance against
us. We also learned that the Anarchists meet at the "Two Goats"
tavern. We can hope to find them there.
We have regrouped and reboarded the aerofrigates, ready to return to
Potsdorf with all possible speed.
(later)
On top of their other crimes, we have learned that the Anarchists have
no respect for the Sabbath, for we found many of them at the Two Goats
pub. Mr O'Flaherty knew exactly where it was and the passwords
for clandestine Sunday drinking. A select few of us went in to
enjoy a quiet pint, while others surrounded the building and watched
all the entrances.
We had not been there long before we spotted Mr Dolch sitting down with
his co-conspirators. He apparently recognised us easily enough,
as I heard the distinctive noise of an etheric weapon charging
up. I promptly took defensive action in the form of a full glass
of (rather nasty) mangoldwurzel cider hurtling toward the man's
head. Matters went downhill from there.
When the furniture was all thoroughly rearranged, we found ourselves in
possession of a number of Anarchist prisoners. We had the added
bonus of nabbing a recognised member of the Carpanian court: the
secretary of Prince Heinrich of Niederlausitz. Prince Heinrich,
who this morning was fifth in the line of succession to the Carpanian
throne, and this afternoon, with the death of Count Miglias Lisowski in
a shocking Anarchist attack, finds himself in fourth place.
My hunch was correct, I think. I had suggested to the officers
remaining behind to guard the palace that they check whether the
particular rocket which destroyed Count Miglias' carriage had really
come from the "random" shots of the dirigibles, or might have been
launched specifically and deliberately at that target by someone closer
at hand. I have not yet heard their findings, but I will not be
surprised if our investigation uncovers deep involvement by one (or
more) of the heirs, secretly using the Anarchists to further his own
advancement.
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