"What a fascinating little gizmo. How did it come to be here, I wonder, buried down in the muck and mud of northern Gallia?
A question for later. Add it to the pile."
– Shafeela, the Marked
The ashen sky stretched from horizon to horizon, unbroken by any smidgeon of blue. Melancholy birds cried out across a melancholy landscape of sodden ground, hillocks, and straggly waterlogged trees.
Set on a rare outcrop of rocky ground in this forsaken place was an ancient castle – only many of the old buildings within its walls had been demolished and now brick towers rose up, spewing out black fumes day and night. Over the past year, the rocky causeway that led to this place of strangeness had seen a near constant flow of heavy laden carts. They arrived full of metal and gems and they left carrying things wrapped in thick tarred sailcloth. Watchful towers with bright magelights kept a vigilant eye on this one path to the fortress that had once been part of the duchy of Grantebrycge.
But through the trackless marshes, wicked things crept and slithered through the mud and slow-flowing streams. A figure with glowing eyes waded through the waters, wrapped in a dull cloak. In their wake trailed a hooded and red-masked demon who clanked when they walked, and behind them followed a savage band of forty-ish ugly, loathsome goblins.
"Lou?"
Squelch squelch squelch. "Yes, Jessica?"
"Next I get the idea to demand to do things in the field with you, rather than staying safe in my snug warm forge? Just shoot me."
"You know I wouldn't do that. Your father would literally murder me."
"Well, figuratively shoot me, then. Hit me with a rolled up journal. Whatever. Just stop me going out into the muck. At least last time it was down in the Abyss and it was warm. And I wasn't having to wear heavy armour."
"Didn't you say a unified aesthetic was important for my 'brand'?"
"Yes, but I was talking about you and Henri and Catt! I didn't think I'd have to wear this stuff!"
There was a long pause, broken by the cry of a marsh bird.
"Lou?"
"Yes?"
"You're resisting the urge to say 'I told you so', aren't you?"
"No I'm not. Not resisting, that is. Because I told you so."
"Lou…"
"I did tell you so."
"Yes, but I didn't listen. You should have told me more firmly. And the best thing is you seem happier now."
Louise considered her situation, knee-deep in marshy water. She was damp, everything smelled of rotting vegetation, and periodically they had to sink down among the marsh-grasses when the magelights pointed their way. And she was enjoying herself. Her nerves were humming and she could taste the anticipation on the tip of her tongue. "Well, of course. Attacking secret Albionese magical research facilities is easy." She sighed. "Relationships are hard."
"Well, you is just gonna have to talk to a world-famous para-moor like me," contributed Maxy, waist-deep in the swamp and looking at the water level with a slight edge of nervousness. "I can tell you pretty ladies all 'bout the art of romance." None of the minions liked water much, apart from the blues. Scyl was doing backstroke in between having to revive minions who'd managed to drown themselves when Louise looked away for half a second.
Louise and Jessica exchanged a long, meaningful glance vis-a-vis the implausibility of Maxy's claims and the abhorrence of the definitionally impossible mental images that it conjured.
"Oh look here we are, a position where we can be very very quiet when we're looking at the defences of the Albionese fortress and no one at all can talk about being a paramour," Louise said quickly, choosing a random hillock as her observation point.
"What a terrible idea," Jessica agreed, pulling out a pair of binoculars from her pack and passing it to Louise, before fetching her own and pulling down her red demonic armoured mask. They crawled up the hill, lying prone on the wet grass.
"It reminds me of bits of Amstelredamme," Louise said, staring at the towers that rose above the walls. "What kind of building is that? What are they doing to make that smoke?"
"Hmm. That's a factory, Lou," Jessica said with authority. "And that shouldn't be there."
"A what?"
"Exactly. You lot don't use them – well, not anymore – but we've got them in the Abyss and the elves have them and I think they might have some in Cathay and Rub al Khali." She peered at the smokestacks. "I don't think they're running them full blast. And it looks like an old design. Probably something pretty simple. Whoever sold them these designs didn't give the best stuff to your backwards bit of the world."
Louise harrumphed. "I'm not Albionese," she said, deliberately missing the point. "So what are they doing there?"
"Dunno. Could be a lot of things. But they're probably making something – and if the stuff from the files is what you said it was, odds are that this is where a lot of the metal they bought from Cathay has gone. They could be mass producing guns or armour. Or hulls for ships."
"Ships? You can't make windships from metal. They'd be too heavy," Louise objected.
"Didn't you say they'd been buying light and strong metals from Cathay?" Jessica reminded her.
"Sugar," Louise not-swore. "You're right. A metal ship is a ship you couldn't set on fire. And we've always relied on the Dragon Knights to stay safe from Albionese fleets." She pursed her lips. "We need to get in. Do you think we could get in somehow? Maybe… maybe through wherever they're getting the fuel? They can't be getting many trees from the local area, so…"
"Probably souls," Jessica said, peering through her binoculars. "
"Souls?" Louise asked, feeling faint.
"Duh. Souls burn. You can use the heat to do all sorts of things."
"Burnin' souls makes hell hotter," Scyl contributed.
"I mean, yeah. That's what fires are for. Plus, they're a renewable energy source. Well, I mean, more people die. They don't renew without that. And you get some pretty nasty fumes." Jessica frowned. "I guess it could be coal," she conceded. "Not many damned souls lying around the mortal world. Not like the Abyss or the Underworld."
"Oh."
"I mean, you'd have to be pretty evil to suck the souls out of mortals to burn them to drive your machinery. Wouldn't work without enough evil around to fuel the soul-suckers."
Pursing her lips, Louise scowled at the plume. "I see," she said darkly.
"I mean, coal's also made up of long-dead stuff just like souls, but it's the bodies, not the spirits and–"
"Jessica. We are getting in there. And we are going to blow that thing up." She paused, balling her fist. "There's a wall in the way. I could just go blow it up. Hmm. But then I'd be exhausted. And if there was anything else to blow up, I'm not sure I could. And that would be putting you in too much danger. Minions? I hate to ask, but do you have any ideas?"
"How about going in through the secret underground tunnel?" Scyl asked brightly.
"What secret underground tunnel?"
"I dunno. But it are an idea."
Louise stared up at the sky for a while, teeth clenched, until the urge to deplete her own forces had ebbed. "Moving on. I suppose I could work on getting some of the greens inside to open the gate for me. It wouldn't be subtle, but it could work. I just hate being so blind."
Jessica gritted her teeth. "Urgh. I hate doing this. I really do. But I think I can get us intel."
"Doing what?"
"I'm a half-incubus, yeah? Like, that's my thing. I can take on other shapes. I could turn into a crow and take a look around in there. Maybe turn into a guard when I'm there, if I need to get things open."
"That sounds… very useful," Louise said, frowning. "Why didn't you mention–"
"Because I'm an incubus, OK? That means I can only turn into male shapes. And that's… I really don't like doing that! It's not just the shape! It's me! Which really, really sucks!"
Louise rested her right hand on Jessica's shoulder. "Easy there," she said, producing a handkerchief. It was sodden since they'd been wading through a wet marsh, but it was the thought that counted. "Easy. Breathe deeply. You don't want to do it. I won't order you to do it. Plus, that way there's no risk of you being caught and me being eternally tortured by your father. No, I haven't forgotten about that." She took a deep breath. "So we just need to find another way in."
"We could go in through the secret passage!" a high-pitched voice piped up from among the minions.
"No, Scyl, that's what you said already and it was stupid the fi… wait. Wait." Louise rolled over to stare at the minions. "Who said that? That didn't sound like one of you."
"Me!" Magda said, mud-covered, beaming, blue-eyes gleaming.
Louise boggled. "What's she doing here?" she demanded.
"I'm a minion! Grr! Smashy smash! It's way more fun!"
"Maggat!"
"Yep, overlady?" Maggat tried to look innocent, which was an expression he had never had use for before and thus lacked any ability to fake. "What are the matter?"
"Why is this little girl with you?!"
Maggat contemplated the hard question. "Because… uh, we is so loyal that we borrowed one of Tifa's warlords just to help you?" he tried.
"Warduchess!" Magda corrected him. "I'm not a lord! I'm a duchess! The duchess of Grantebrycge! This all belongs to me! It's just they stole it when they killed my mummy and daddy and older brothers and sisters! I know how to find all our secret tunnels!"
"This information is provided in a commercially sensitive situation as part of an agreement of cooperation," her stuffed dollie said quickly. "My lady will require you to sign a non-disclosure agreement before we proceed."
Magda nodded, beaming. "Yeah! What Cuddles said."
Jessica rolled over too. "Wait. Don't I know… oh, aha ha ha ha! Cuddles! She calls you Cuddles!"
Dread Kuudeilza gritted his cloth teeth. "I detest you and your whole family. Especially Izah'belya," he informed Jessica.
"Well, go on," Louise told the little girl. "You're in charge of finding the hidden door."
"Yay!" Magda cheered, to congratulations from the minions who were so proud of her for how fast she'd managed to get a promotion.
"Ahem," said her dollie.
"Oh right! Yes! The…"
"Non-disclosure agreement."
"Yes, that! Sign it!"
Drat, Louise thought. She had been hoping the small child would forget that bit.
With all things properly drafted and signed, Magda set off, stomping through the mud and jumping in occasional puddles with childish glee. They avoided the magelights, and slowly edged up on the isolated fortified camp in the fens.
At the base of the fortress, colossal blocks of off-white stone served as a foundation amidst the muck and mire.
"I think it's about… here," Magda said confidently, primping and preening as she led the two much older girls. "Yep! It's here! Because there's the stone with the picture of a rowing boat on it." The little girl clapped her hands together imperiously. "Chop chop! Both of you, push the end of the boat!"
Louise nodded. "Hmm. Minions, push the end of the boat."
The minions got to work, heaving against the long thin carving of a rowing boat while Magda pouted. Something clicked and a door next to the boat swung open. Louise shone a light into the revealed space. There was a tight staircase heading up
"Nasty," Jessica said with approval, running her fingers against the edge of the doorframe. "That stone door is totally flush against the limestone. I didn't see it before. Nice craftsmanship for humans."
"Well, duh, it wouldn't be a secret if you could see it," Magda said smugly. "Now, come on!"
The hidden staircase was dry and musty. Louise was thankful for getting out of the damp, even if the air was stale and dust littered the ground. It clearly hadn't been used in a long time. As they ascended the staircase, the door slowly ground shut behind them.
"Londinium Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down," Magda sung to herself as she skipped up the stairs.
"Aww, man," Maxy said, "this are my jam. We is gonna rock out to this so hard later."
Fettid hit him with a rock. "So where are the jam?" she asked.
The climb was not a fast one, passing up narrow zig-zagging staircases and up shallow ramps in long-lost gantries. The stonework down here was different to the limestone outside – older, harder, more ornate. Louise could feel the kitten-warmth of Evil all around her, coming from under her feet. She didn't say anything. She had her suspicions as who had built the foundations.
Eventually they emerged up in a dusty basement, filled with sackcloth and empty barrels.
"Where are we, Magda?" Louise asked.
"Dunno."
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
The little girl shrugged. "I don't know this place. I only remembered where the secret door is because we always use the row-boat for secret doors."
"Boss, there are something what go up," Maggat reported, kicking away empty sacks that had obscured a fallen ladder.
"All right." Louise looked around. This place looked hidden. Safe. "Magda, you stay here and we'll come back for you. It's going to be dangerous and I don't want you getting hurt. Is that all right?"
Magda beamed up at her. "Nope!"
"All… wait, no! No, you're not coming with me!"
"Wanna eat faces," said her toy goat.
"See, Fluffles wants to eat faces!" Magda agreed.
"I don't care if your demoniacally possessed toys want to eat people's faces!"
"With all due respect," her dollie said, "it is merely the demon g–"
"You keep out of this!" Louise snapped at it. "I'm not taking a small child in there with me."
Magda pulled a face. "Tifa would let me do it!"
"I'm not her!"
"You're so mean!"
"I'm a dark overlady! Of course I'm mean!"
"So's Tifa and she isn't as horrible as you!" Big fat tears welled up in Magda's eyes, rolling down her face.
Louise folded her arms with a clanking of metal. She tapped her foot. "Do you think that impresses me? I was your age once! I know you're crying on demand."
Magda's eyes narrowed and the tears stopped. "How could you tell?"
Because Louise had been, by all accounts, a little monster as a child and it took one to know one, she didn't say. "Grown-up magic," she said instead. "You're staying where it's safe and that's that!"
"Lo… Boss," Jessica said, glancing sideways at Louise.
"Oh no you don't, Jessica! Don't you undermine me!"
"I'm just saying, she's a demonologist who's got two powerful familiars. And she's… what, five? Six?"
"Your point is?"
"Are you sure you want to leave her alone? What might she get up to? Speaking as a demon, I don't want her left alone. She might try to bind me into eternal slavery."
"I would! What's your true name?" Magda said, beaming. "I still want a suckybus friend dollie!"
"See! Boss, we can't trust her."
Louise opened her mouth. Louise closed her mouth. "You… you make an excellent point," she said slowly. "Drat. Fine. Fine. You're coming with us."
"Yay!" Madga cheered.
"And speaking as a succubus, I really, really don't want to be bound. There's lots of powerful spells that only work on succubae," Jessica added quickly. "I could do nothing against them. I hope she doesn't use them on me!"
Magda only beamed wider under her muddy, ill-fitting helmet.
Louise rested her hand on the little girl's head. "But," she said, "if you want to be like a minion, you have to act like one. And that means I'm in charge. And you follow my orders. Got it?"
"Yep!"
"Show me your hands. Hold them out in front of you." Magda obeyed. "Now, promise that you'll do what I say without crossing your fingers. Also, crossed toes don't count, no takebacks."
Madga's mouth dropped open at the unnatural insight that Louise was displaying. "That's so unfair! You're a cheat!"
Louise looked down her nose at Magda. She quite liked having someone short enough to do that to. "Tiffania might not be wise to your tricks, but I am! Promise it!"
"… promise."
"What do you promise?"
"… gonna do what you say."
"Do you cross your heart and hope to die?"
"… no?" She peeked up at Louise's expression, lit from underneath by her dark magic. "… fine. Yes."
Louise looked down serenely. "That's better." She cracked her knuckles. "Let's get going, then."
"Yes, oh dark one," Jessica said with a grin. "In future eras, they will sing of your terrible silver tongue and your dark deceptions, and how you were so wicked as to bind a small child into an oath of frightful potency."
Louise paused at the foot of the ladder. "Jessica?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
The hatch opened up onto an empty warehouse. All that remained in here were scattered cloth sacks and piled-up broken-open crates. A chill wind blew through the cracks in the greenwood walls. This place had not been built for strength nor had it been built for security. It was a roof and walls, which kept the rain off whatever had been in here.
"All right, lads and ladettes!"
"Ta, Maggat."
"No prob, Fettid. I want this place plundered for the overlady! If there's anything shiny in here, it are gonna need to come back here for her! Boss, what's your feeling about sacks? Is they a part of your plans?"
Louise blinked. "I don't need them."
"You lot heard that? Feel free to put the empty sacks on your head or wear them if you ain't got nothing better!"
"We is gonna get re-dist-rib-ut… sharing with this!" Char crowed.
With a cheer, the minions and Magda scattered.
"Hey, look at this," Jessica called out. "Look at this crate."
Louise peered at the overturned wooden crate. "Empty like the rest," she said.
"Yes, but there are traces of metallic residue in it." Jessica frowned, squatting by the box and taking off one of her armoured gloves so she could run her fingers around the inside. "Look at this. I bet if I could take it to somewhere with the right tools, I could work out where it was from. I'd just need to look at the spectrescopic residue to look for the ghost-imprints and–"
"It's Cathayan," Louise said firmly.
"How do you know that?" Jessica flipped up her mask, scowling.
"The labels on the box are Cathayan writing."
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That… that would also do that." Jessica slumped down.
"I'm sure you had a really good idea," Louise said reassuringly. "It was probably very clever. I'd have been really impressed if you'd done it." She patted Jessica on the shoulder. "And I did bring the translation glasses you made me. So really you solved it. Now, what does this all mean?" she asked, passing her the glasses.
Jessica put them up, and hummed as she read the labels. "Yeah, you were right, Boss. It's all technical specs on the weight and quality of the contents. This one was carrying starmetal, for example, while all the ones with the blue labels had aluminium."
"Aluminium?" Louise asked, eyes widening. There were a lot of blue labels. "But that's more expensive than gold! To buy so much of it…"
"There are cheaper ways of making it in the Abyss," Jessica said absently as she shed the cloak that had been covering her new armour. It resembled Louise's, though the mask of the helmet was a red demon-face. She had a demonic blackpowder weapon slung over her back. "And in Cathay too, I think I heard in Surface World Politics." She slapped the crate. "And aluminium is great for windship hulls."
Louise shook her head. "Still, the cost," she said, letting out a breath through her teeth. "And wood is good enough…"
"Unless you want to carry something very heavy and need to save weight. Or you're scared of fire dragons." Jessica pulled out a notebook, and jotted down a few figures. "And warships want both."
"Boss!" Maxy reported back, dragging a heavy sack of slightly shiny things behind him. "We no can hear humies around her. I is reckoning this place is mostly empty, even if there are still smoke."
"Right," Louise said, narrowing her eyes as she stripped off her wet cloak, revealing her full armour. "Let's take a look around here then."
Maxy had been right. Though this citadel factory was not abandoned, there was only a skeleton crew of workmen – who were fortunately not literally skeletons – left on. There were rather more soldiers, but they were at the walls. Well, according to Fettid they were allegedly at the walls, but actually they "was sitting around in their barracks no wearing shirts and making a poor may-den's heart go a-thump-a-thump".
Louise suspected that Fettid was being creative with the truth, but she had absolutely no desire to find out more.
By contrast the cold stone structures that had been the original citadel, now with scabs of brick and greenwood crudely build out of the sides, were mostly abandoned. Only one of the halls still seemed to be occupied, and that was where the smoke was coming from. Louise started on the other side, working towards it.
"Can you feel that pulse under your feet?" Jessica asked, as they made their way down dirty, wheel-scarred corridors.
"You're not going to tell me the building is alive?" Louise demanded.
"... no, I'm not. That's the turbines powering the machinery."
"Oh." Louise considered, well aware she had no idea what a turbine was. "Tell me if the building does come alive," she eventually settled on. "Maggat, find anything interesting?"
"Nah," Maggat said, dragging his club behind him. "The boys and girl boys is sayin' that it are like we has been through here already."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, there ain't nothing nice an' shiny in here. It are all grey and boring and clunky. Or dirty. Lotsa dirt and stuff here in the massive halls what got the armour thingies hanging from the walls."
Louise paused. "... wait, what?"
This had been a grand hall. Once. No longer. The vaulted arches were smoke-blackened and whatever paintings had once been hung up on the walls had long since been torn down. The high windows had been bricked up so none could see in.
So that none could see the metal skeletons that hung from supporting frames, in a state of half-assembly.
"What are those?" Jessica breathed, fingered twitching.
Louise jolted. "What do you mean, what are those? Knowing about that sort of thing is what you do!"
"Yeah, well… I don't! So there!" She brushed one hand across a hanging leg. "It looks like it must have been left here when they ran out of metal. Look at the walls of that pressure boiler! That's what they must be using some those Cathayan alloys for! None of the local metal would do the job. Hmm. Yes, that's clearly some kind of steam-powered mechanism, linked up to an armoured shell plating, to create a heavily armoured golem…" Jessica wandered off to touch and examine the strange armours in more detail.
"... I don't suppose you've seen things like this before?" Louise asked the minions. Something about the design of these golems was familiar. She had seem ones like them before. Not so long ago. Not at school – and not in a book, either.
"The helmet of that one looks like a lobster pot," Scyl contributed.
"It's called a lobster pot helmet," contributed Magda.
"Wow, that are so clever!"
"Let's take 'em!" Char declared. "To each according to 'is need!"
Fettid stabbed him in the back. "Her need!" she said, picking her nose as Char crawled along the floor, bleeding heavily. "I is needing a new bonnet more than you! So I is getting it!"
"No, I didn't think so," Louise said to herself. Why did she direct questions at the minions? Oh wait, that was it, because they'd known about the familiars of the Void all along and she hadn't asked them so they hadn't mentioned it. So she had to direct questions at the minions and put up with their stupidity, just in case they knew something and were too stupid not to volunteer it!
She was getting angry just thinking about that. Rather than set anything on fire, she instead returned her attention to the hanging armour. Louise frowned, running her gauntleted hand over the cold metal of the discarded scraps. She... yes, she hadn't been wearing her Gauntlet when she'd seen them the last time. They were... they were...
Oh. Oh no.
"Gnarl!" she snapped, holding her left hand to her ear. "Are you there?"
"Of course, your maliciousness. I'm always here, ready and willing to advance the cause of evil," Gnarl said. "How is Albion? Are you enjoying your rampant destructiveness unleashed? Have you tasted the local food, and then murdered everyone in the area for the crime of Albionese cooking?"
She had no time for his nonsense. "How much do you remember of the First War? The war from the stories you read to me in my sleep!" she said urgently. "The one you haven't been telling me everything about!"
"Your wickedness, what kind of a question is that? Surely you don't believe that I'm hiding things fr–"
"The bronze and gold golems used by the very short people with beards! Do you remember them?"
There was a long pause. "Oh, you will have to tell me some day about how you know about the steam-automata of the dwarves," Gnarl said, clearly choosing his words carefully. "It has been six thousand years. Have they shown up again? It happens every few hundred years, you know. Someone always finds a trace of their craft – or of craft inspired by them – and for some reason the first idea anyone ever has is to build steam-powered killing machines. I'd say there's probably some dwarven blood in humanity, but, well…"
"Brimir killed them all."
There was a long silence. "Your wickedness…"
"He was the second overlord. He took the power of the first, and it drove him mad. He killed all the dwarves. He nearly killed all the elves." Louise's eyes flared, burning more brightly than they ever had before. "Something you never thought to mention to me! That the Founder was corrupted by Evil!"
"Ha!" Gnarl gave a short, ugly laugh. "The man was a naive idiot at the start. And didn't get any brighter!"
Louise's head reeled at the idea that her advisor was six thousand years old. Rather than let that overcome her, she resorted to anger. "You never told me that I was an heir to the Void!" she snapped. "Like Brimir!"
"If I'd had to tell you, that would be a sign of your weakness. And you're not weak, are you, your darkness?" Gnarl said. Louise personally thought it was bullsugar. He just liked keeping secrets. "You're not like him, though. Always so disgustingly ambivalent about Evil, always blathering on about how he had to put it to the right end. And he nearly thwarted Evil at the end. Urgh. Six thousand years, and he still makes my skin crawl."
Something didn't quite fit, though. "Why would killing the elves have thwarted Evil?" she demanded. "They're elves!"
"My, my, my. You are a clever one. Indeed, your wickedness, he wasn't aiming the spell at the elves. Or, rather, by aiming at them he was aiming at his true target."
"Explain, Gnarl."
"Do you know what would have happened if he'd succeeded at wiping out the elvish race?"
"Let me guess, it would have been the end of the world."
"No. Well, yes, actually, it would have unleashed several dark gods and one or two cosmic horrors from the furthest reaches of space, but that's just how things go. No, what he was really aiming at was himself."
Louise's blood surged with the inherited insult. "Brimir was not an elf!" she flared, slapping the hanging armour.
"No, of course not. He wasn't an elf. He was part-elf."
"He was not!"
"Dearie dearie me. Your wickedness," Gnarl said, wearily, "I see we are once again in one of the eras when you lot forgot where you came from. You mages show up when someone who can use the First Magic does the nasty with a human. He was one of you lot from some tribes living on the border of elven lands. Back then, elven lords and ladies had a thing for hairy barbarians and their strangely rounded ears. They honestly still do. Just look at your rival, Tiffania. I'd be willing to wager her mother had a thing for round ears, small eyes and brown hair."
"This is stupid!" Louise flared, loudly enough that the minions all turned to her and Jessica paused in her examination of the steam golems. "I am not part elf!"
"Grow up, your darkness." He sounded old and weary. "How did you think Tiffania could enjoy the dark prestige of being an heir to Evil? Elves can't inherit the power of the Void. She's just a first generation crossbreed – enough that she's still got the elven ears. You lose them after a generation or two of breeding with pure humans or other half-breeds. Humans don't naturally have pink hair, either. Or blue hair or any of the other bright colours that show up among you mages."
"But then why would Brimir try to kill all the elves?" She clenched her jaw. "None of this makes any sense!"
"Why? To wipe out all the mages. One vast act of racial suicide."
Her blood ran cold. "He… he was the Founder, he…"
"He realised that the First Overlord had corrupted the primal void when he died – and he realised too late that he was furthering the corruption. He thought that if he killed all the Markay, it would be given time to heal. That no one else would draw on that evil." Gnarl chuckled; an ancient, malicious sound. "You know the funniest thing, your wickedness?"
Louise was silent, eyes blurring with tears, fists clenched into balls.
"It wouldn't have worked. He'd have just contaminated it further with all that death. And sooner or later, another bearer of the Void would have re-emerged. Markay can appear when a user of the firstborn magics have a child with a human, and demons have always been irked they don't count. But you don't need elves. Half-dragons, elemental-kin, angelic children... all ways new markay could show up. Evil always finds a way. Ah, pointless. Though it would have been annoying to wait, so personally I'm happy that Sasha cut him up."
She couldn't listen to it anymore, ending the spell. He couldn't be right. And even if he was right, he had no… no right to take a sledgehammer to her world like that! And she couldn't trust a word he said, because he was Gnarl and trusting him was like trusting a minion because that was what he was. And you couldn't trust minions to do anything apart from ruin literally everything.
And because reality liked confirming that she was in fact right in every single way, something clattered. She looked up. The minions were scaling the half-constructed steam golems, pulling bits off them, because of course they were. After all, she had left them unattended to have an existential crisis because apparently all the nobility, including herself, were part elf! Oh yes, and when the Founder had been murdered, he hadn't just been trying to kill all the elves – which was a viewpoint with some merits – but also kill himself and all the mages!
And that was like what Eleanore had tried to do with the power of the Void, only more so. Which raised some terrifying theological questions.
"Ha ha, got it," one of the minions crowed, pulling off the helmet of one high-up golem.
There she was again, getting distracted by her entire belief system going wobbly!
"Get down from there before you–" she hissed, far too late.
With the inexorable slowness of a carefully stacked pyramid of very expensive china mugs, the hanging metal frames overbalanced. One fell off, and hit the next one down, which overbalanced the frame and which collapsed forwards into the next one. Which itself fell, setting off a domino-like toppling of twisted metal and half-built golems.
'Loud' was an accurate, but inadequate way to describe the whole sequence.
Eventually it was over, barring the occasional clatter as the debris settled. One circular gearwheel rolled out of the mess, settling with a gloing-gloing-gloing.
The alarm bells were already ringing and there was the sound of shouting men and marching feet outside.
Louise was unsettled, upset, feeling uncertain and generally not in a good state of mind. Her ears hurt. She was still not, despite her attempts to repress it, over her feelings about Henrietta. And thus, as she tended to when pushed beyond her limits, she fell back on her good friend anger. "I am going to have you all executed when we get out of this!" she screamed at the minions. "Twice! At minimum!"
She could hear the voices outside. Something thumped against the great wooden door. It was locked, but it wasn't barred and sooner or later they'd break it down or find someone who had the key. She flinched as a musket roared and the wood buckled. Oh, wonderful! Now they were trying to shoot the doors down!
"Minions!" she snapped, looking around. There was plenty of cover here. Maybe she could get them to ambush the enemies as they tried to advance.
Magda tugged her arm. "You should go," she said, gesturing the other way. "I'll stay."
Louise blanched. "I know I said you were like a minion, but you're just a little girl," she said, wincing. "You're human. If you die, you die. And I'm not going to…"
"No no no." Magda's innocent blue eyes narrowed. "You don't get it, silly! You should go, because I'm going to kill everyone in the area. Apart from me, duh! If you stay, you die. And I mostly don't want that."
"Oh. Oh." Louise considered this. Was she serious? Could she really-
"Boss, we gotta go!" Jessica said loudly, tugging Louise's other arm. "If she's about to do what I think she is, we aren't safe!"
"Right!" Louise patted Madga on the head gently. "I absolutely forbid you to die or get yourself hurt. Tiffania would be so mad at me. Minions, with me!"
Then Jessica pulled her into a run, and the two older girls ran for it in a clatter of armour.
Magda smiled, showing gaps in her teeth. She was having so much fun today! Rag doll in her bag, toy goat held under her arm, she clambered up onto some of the fallen machinery and perched up there, swinging her legs.
"Do you think it's time for tea, Mr Fluffles?" she asked her toy goat. "I think it is. But we don't have any cups. Mr Cuddles, why didn't you bring the cups?"
"Because, my lady, you didn't order me to."
"No no no, Cuddles, play along! You need to explain why you're a failure!"
The doors burst open, and red-coated soldiers in iron helmets marched in. Muskets raised, they scanned the area, slow-matches adding smoke to the dust in the air.
"What the 'ell 'appened in here?"
"Fluffles, you know how I bound you with six seals, making you my toy for ever and ever?" Magda said cheerfully. She watched as the soldiers fanned out, advancing slowly to try to cover the angles. They couldn't see her. Covered in mud as she was, she blended into bent metal.
"Yeah," the toy grunted. "Someday I'll get my revenge."
"Oh, Mr Fluffles! You say such silly things! You're a silly billy!" Magda giggled. "Get it? Because I trapped you in a toy goat and they said in classes that a male goat is called a billy goat!"
"Wait, what? Who's talking?" called out a soldier, pointing.
"There's a little girl up there!"
"A girl? Is she one of the workers' children?"
Magda beamed down at them. "Hello, Misters Soldiers! Do you want to play a game?"
One of the soldiers advanced. "Little girl," he said, offering his arms up to her. He had a very silly face in Magda's opinion. He'd look better without it. "What happened here? You can tell us."
"Fluffles," Magda said. "Release seals one, two, aaaaaaaaaaand three." Her hands glowed a sullen, smoky red, and bright green light shone from under her mud-covered smock. She beamed at the soldiers. "The game is 'hide and seek'. Fluffles starts!"
That was approximately when the screaming started.
The building shook. A light rain of white dust drifted down from the ceilings. And something was roaring, something dreadfully loud and utterly inhuman.
"Sir Hansson!" The young and scruffy mage's feet pounded up the wooden stairs. He hammered at the door, bursting through into the head office. It was a fine place, and perhaps the only place where the ornate decorations had survived. Various designs of experimental golem lined the walls, the desk was stained teak, and the chair was rich red leather. It was also empty.
A scruffy blond head appeared from underneath the desk. "What the blazes is going on, Hooke?"
"We're under attack, sir! Someone's attacking the west hall! From the noise, it sounded like they smashed up the West Hall! That is, sir, the place where we do the assembly, in case it slipped your mind. They're saboteurs of some kind!"
Sir Michael Hansson nodded, head jerking up and down. "That's just awful! Just awful! You ought to go down there and show them what for! Give them the old Albionese fighting spirit! Show them that we won't be bullied! We won't be intimidated! We won't be threatened by Staytors or the wicked plans of Bruxelles!"
"... sir? I'm… well, I'm just a natural philosopher. I can't fight!"
"Hooke, Hooke, Hooke, this is no time for cowardice! Albion expects every man to do his duty! My thoughts and prayers are with you!"
"But…"
"Just know you'll be giving your life for a far, far greater cause! Slowing down these swine! There's a place for swine – especially when getting involved in japes at university – but this isn't it! Because it is vital for the sake of our great nation that I survive, with the plans for the Mark II and the prototype! Why, the very safety of the Albionese people could rest on my shoulders, so that's why you need to keep me safe!"
"Sir, if you're…"
"Good God, man, show some spine! Stiffen that upper lip! Albion needs every man to do his duty!"
"Yes… yes, sir." Shoulders slumped, the younger man turned and left. Then he re-entered, retreating away from the staff with a burning pink fireball at the tip held in his face.
"Sir? Uh…"
"Good day to you," said Louise de la Valliere. She jabbed her staff at the young man's head, and he flinched back.
"The St-Steel Maiden? What are you doing here? You should be in…"
"Taking your fortress," Louise told him. Her entire posture radiated barely contained fury. "You will order your men to stand down."
"Or what?" Hannson blustered. "I'm not scared of you!"
"You're hiding behind your desk!" Louise said, disgust thick in her voice. "You're not just a traitor. You're a coward. And if you don't order your men to stand down, they will all die. But maybe you don't care about that. So let me make this perfectly clear. I have not had a good day. I have had a very, very bad day. I want to hurt things. You are hiding behind a flammable desk. If you don't surrender and tell me what I want to know, I will set you on fire. And then I'll put out the fire, and hand you over to my minions."
"Um. Um. Um." Slowly Hannson rose, hands raised. "Give up. I give up. Pl-please don't hurt me. I'm just the p-person in charge! I don't know how these things work! Talk to Hooke if you want to know how the golems work!" He pointed at the man Louise had at staff point. "T-Tell her whatever you need to, Hooke!"
Louise shifted her attention to the younger man. "Is that true?"
"W-well, I do like to think I'm the one who makes everything actually work here, no thanks to him," he stammered. "But I shouldn't really…"
"I think you should," Jessica called out from behind Louise. "I'm really interested in knowing how these work. You can talk to me. I'd be really grateful…"
Really, now of all times, Louise wanted to say. She didn't, though. If she wanted to try to seduce the natural philosopher who knew how these things worked, that was up to her. The younger man wasn't entirely unattractive even if he was a little peculiar looking. Jessica deserved something nice. And Louise deserved steam-powered golems, of course.
"W-well…"
An expensive tea set smashed as Sir Hannson kicked his fallen chair in his desperate attempt to crawl away. His hosiery was stained, and not just with tea. "Maggat," Louise ordered, nose wrinkling. "I want him kneeling before me."
"Right your wickedness," Maggat said cheerfully, barging past her with his club hefted. "Here, piggy piggy. Get before the boss lady, or you'll be bacon."
With a terrified whimper, the man's desperate attempts to crawl only redoubled. His boots squeaked as he half-leapt, half-flopped towards one of the larger black-painted golems in his office.
His hand slammed into the plate on the front.
The golem shifted. Straightened up. Opened various valves with a sound like a gasped breath. A purple-burning brand ignited on its helmet, a word in the Old Tongue. Steam vented from ports in its breastplate with a thin whistle.
The man laughed with nervous glee. "How… how'd you like these apples!" he shouted. "The tables have turned, ha! Kill that goblin!"
The golem's fist descended, and crushed Maggat. Bones snapped like plywood and flesh liquefied. What was left under that mechanical bludgeon turned the stomach.
Louise immediately swung her staff at Sir Hannson. Fire surged forth, to break against the mechanical arm the golem interposed in its way. The man screamed in pain as the wash of heat ignited the left arm of his coat, but she'd been meaning to burn him to a crisp.
"Kill them all!" Sir Hannson screamed as he flailed at his sleeve, grasping for his wand. "Fear the wrath of the New Model Army!"
"Even me?!" squeaked the natural philosopher Hooke.
Sir Hannson conjured water to put out his sleeve. Beads of sweat were rolling down his face. "Of course," he said. "You'd just talk to them, ha ha. Know that Albion appreciates your sacrifice!"
And with that said, he threw him himself out the window, levitation magic leaving him making an excellent impersonation of a hot air balloon.
"Thunderbolt!" Louise snapped, channelling her not-inconsiderable anger at the way things were turning into seeing the man dead. She deserved that much!
The golem was there. Nothing that big, that heavy, should move that fast. And yet there it was, taking the full force of her spell to the chest.
It left a small glowing spot right at the point of impact. Electricity sparked around its limbs. And that was more or less it.
"Shit," Jessica breathed. "It's insulated."
"What does that mean?" Louise demanded, power already gathering around the end of her staff. "Come to me, Dark Flames of the Pit!"
The black-edged pink fire that slammed into the golem's chest rocked it back on its heels and left it slightly scorched.
"It… means we might be fucked."
Louise looked at the metal monstrosity. The heavy metal monstrosity. The heavy metal monstrosity in a room at the top of a flight of stairs which were made of wood. "Run away Jessica!" she ordered, turning to flee. "Minions, charge!"
With a roar, the minions surged past her into the room and prepared to sacrifice themselves for her escape.
They probably weren't aware that was her plan, but it was. She'd pull them back when she was safely away. But not until then.
