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The Night Maiden series #1: Riding a Black Horse

Chapter 6

When Mallory crept into bed from a long day at the workshop, it was late evening. Belle Isolde rolled over sleepily and her eyes opened.

“Mallory, where have you been?” she said. He leaned over and stroked the hair from her forehead. “I held dinner for you, but you didn’t come. I began to worry until I got the message from Joaquin.”

“I got busy working on a project and lost track of time,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back sooner.”

“But the curfew. You should have stayed put at the workshop if you were going to be working so late.”

“I couldn’t leave you alone all night. Besides, I know my way around the patrols,” Mallory kicked off his shoes and slid under the covers beside her. “I’ve got some important news.”

Belle Isolde blinked. “What is it, dear?”

“The project I’ve been working on,” he said. “It’s ready for testing.”

His wife smiled, caressed his cheek, and leaned in to kiss him, but Mallory pulled back a little. The corners of her mouth turned downward and worry lines creased her forehead and she noticed his rejection. “This is cause for celebration, isn’t it? Why do you seem so dejected?” she asked.

“I held off telling you until now. What I’m making is not a steam-powered reaper for the farming communes,” Mallory said. “It’s a military project. As it turns out, it could be a big one.”

“What do you mean? How big?”

“I’ve built a war machine. It’s a vehicle with armor far stronger than anything the Orloinians could ever penetrate,” he said. “Originally, I only intended it to be used against fortifications, but there were certain design problems I couldn’t overcome. I couldn’t mount a powerful enough cannon. I had to change my approach and mount an anti-infantry weapon on board. But it will be terrible weapon. If it works, it will burn people alive with a power much like the dragon’s breath of legend. It could kill dozens—maybe even hundreds—at a time, in the most horrifying way imaginable.”

Belle Isolde’s eyes widened. “Then maybe you should scrap the plans and destroy the prototype. Find another way to satisfy the Chancellor’s people. They can’t know about the machine yet, do they? The contract you signed was vague in that regard, wasn’t it?”

“It was, but they are going to expect something and soon,” Mallory said. His voice grew dark. “My apprentice says there’s a rumor about that the Chancellor himself is coming for a visit this week.”

Her eyes bulged even further. “Oh,” was all she could say. She withdrew her hand from his face and stared off into the distance a moment.

“I have to have something to show him for all the money they’ve given me, to maintain our lives of comfort,” he continued. He sat up and folded his arms. “This war is a dirty business and from what I can make of your brother’s letters home, it’s not going nearly so well as the government would have us believe. I just wanted to end it quickly. It’s dragged on too long and claimed the lives of too many of our countrymen.”

“And you think this weapon might provide a tipping point, to bring it to an end and bring Jakob and the other boys home?” Belle Isolde asked.

Mallory nodded. “But I worry now how it might be wielded. It’s just that… when I begin to design and build things, I am so focused on the problem at hand that ignore all the consequences these creations entail. I just give myself over to the power of creation. But now I worry about how these weapons of mass destruction could be used to commit terrible acts in the wrong hands.”

“And you feel that the Chancellor’s hands are the wrong hands?”

“My dear, I’m not sure who the right hands are.”

+++

Chancellor Newbold rarely traveled without an entourage. This usually entailed several body guards, a scribe, a body double, personal food taster or chef, a detachment of the imperial guard, and at least one senior advisor. As a matter of practicality, it was difficult to move incognito with such a large party. And yet, by gently mussing his hair and donning a citizen’s grey tunic and cloak, Newbold could slip away for and blend into the population—at least for a little while. He liked to do that because he wanted to what the common man thought, not what the echo chamber of his subordinates wanted him to know. He liked to that because he could find out which of the sheep were actually wolves in disguise. Knowest thy enemy and thou will never be a slave, a wise Fiorese statesman once said. Of course, the Chancellor had killed that statesman, but it made the words no less true.

When the imperial party arrived at the Oxwell city limits, Newbold nodded for his body double to take his place in the carriage and then slipped over a low stone wall and into an alley way next to a small tavern. He drew the cowl more tightly over his face as he neared the main street at the front of the building. He needn’t have done so, since there were no pictures of the Chancellor circulating about the empire, at least none that weren’t idealized depictions of him. Portraits usually smoothed out his crooked nose, filled in the pockmarks left behind by the plague sores and grew out the bald spots that made his formerly luxurious blonde hair look ratty and gnarled.

“Pardon me, sir. Could you spare a coin? I’m trying to put a beer together,” a drunk at the edge of the alley called to him.

Newbold surveyed the ragged man. He smiled broadly. A local man to add a little more cover to his disguise. “If you come with me, I’ll offer you a little more than just a coin,” he told the drunk. The man looked a little surprised and then seemed to give him suspicious eye. “I have some money, but I’m new to these parts and short of friends. You can drink to your heart’s content if you accompany me.”

The drunk nodded and ushered him around the corner to the entrance of the tavern. It was not a fancy affair, the Leaping Lizard, but it had a little rustic charm that these smaller cities of the empire had, especially those in the more rural districts. And, true to its poorly illustrated sign out front, there was a lizard—a miserable fire gecko—displayed in a glass aquarium to the side of the bar. Newbold limped across the wood floor and lurched onto a stool in the stiff manner he’d learn to adopt when undercover and ordered two ales for the two of him and a bowl of soup for his newly purchased friendship with the town drunk.

As he chatted calmly with the man about weather, he casually scanned the room and the other patrons. It was fairly busy for a workday in early afternoon, but the Chancellor’s mission was information, not to bust workers playing hooky from their jobs. At the largest round table behind them there was a party of factory laborers gossiping about the day’s events like a coop full of hens scratching at some seed.

“Did you hear that the Chancellor’s coming to town?” A burly man with a large facial scar said.

“I’ve been hearing that for days,” A smaller weasel of a man said, downing the rest of his mug and slamming it upon the table. “Doesn’t make it any truer than it was last week.”

“No, Frankie’s right. He was in Midberry two days. My wife’s cousin messaged her about it. And he’d been in Southberry the day before that. It stands to reason that he might hit here next,” a man with a salt-and-pepper beard.

“What could he want here?” weasel said. “Don’t he have better things to do?”

“He could be here to inspect the mills,” Frankie the scarface said. “The war effort needs steel production to keep it going.”

The weasel sniffed. “The war effort needs warm bodies more than cold steel. I doubt the Chancellor would waste his time in the ass end of the empire while his troops were dying on the continent. And if he is here, it’s probably not for a reason we’d like.”

“Like what?”

“Well, what’s that blasted inventor been up to lately? What’s his name—Mallory?” weasel said. “My house is just down the street from his workshop and I’ve heard is growling noises, like he’s been keeping some sort of huge beast pent up in there. Last night, my girls swore they saw a tower of flame come out of the roof of that building.”

“That’s weird, but what’s that got to do with the Chancellor’s visit? That spook’s been haunting this town since forever. He’s harmless,” Frankie said.

“Yeah, but where’s he been getting his money from to do all that anyways?” said weasel. “And what about the tower of flame? He could burn the whole city down? Don’t tell me that quack is harmless.”

“Hey, maybe he’s keeping a dragon as a pet,” salt-and-pepper beard said, giving the weasel a playful jab to his ribs.

“Dragons, my ass,” weasel growled. “He’s got something mechanical in there—and big. I bet he’s a government operative cooking something up for the Chancellor.”

“Or maybe he’s not a government operative, in which case he’s bound to stir up some trouble. Maybe the Chancellor’s come to take care of him personally.”

Weasel scowled. “That’s just nuts. If he were an insurrectionist, the Chancellor’d send an assassin and take care of him quick and quiet-like, not make a great big spectacle of it.”

“Well, excuse me, but who made you expert in all government policies?” salt-and-pepper mocked. “Are you an informant?”

“Shut up!”

The Chancellor who had sat side-saddle on his stool to give the appearance that he was fully engaged in conversation with the drunk, turned to face the group at the table fully. “Beg your pardon, but I couldn’t help hear you mention a dragon in the city.”

The group of workers looked up at the Chancellor in mild surprise. The one named Frankie filled the bowl of his pipe with some sort of herb from a stash in his pocket and eyed the stranger suspiciously.

“What’s it to you, friend?” he said.

“Many pardons. I didn’t mean to intrude,” the Chancellor said. “It’s just that I’m new to these parts, having just moved here from Southberry for a day job, and I can tell you that the Chancellor was indeed there just a few days ago for some mysterious purpose none of us could divine.”

“You sure talk funny for a day laborer,” weasel said.

“The folks in Southberry talk fancy like they’ve been to university,” salt-and-pepper said.

Newbold smiled to deflect the apparent insult. “Precisely why I left Southberry. I never felt like I fit in there. I much prefer the salt-of-the-earth I find here in Northberry,” he said. “But I thought dragons were just myths my parents told me to keep me indoors at curfew.”

“They are,” weasel said. “Total bull dung, and if you ask me.”

“Indeed,” Newbold purred. “But why would you say there would be dragon’s at this man’s business? Who is this… Mallory, did you say? He seems like an odd sort of fellow if you think he’d be wrangling mythical beasts.”

“He’s not a beast wrangler. He’s an inventor,” weasel said. He leaned across the table and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. There was no one near enough to hear anyways besides the Chancellor and the drunk, who was already starting to pass out on his stool. “He’s been up to some strange stuff the past few days. He brought in a cow and a few pigs just yesterday. The next thing I know, I see smoke and smell burnt animal flesh. The day before that a tower of flame came right up through the roof. He patched it up but you can still see the burnt roof tiles and charred bits scattered all around.”

The Chancellor nodded emphatically. “Certainly a fire hazard. And, if he’s smoking meats without a permit, that would be a criminal offense.”

“My thoughts exactly,” weasel said. “That nut should get what’s coming to him.”

“Oh, Henry, lay off will you? What’s that poor man ever done to you,” Frankie moaned. “You’re like a starved dog with a ham shank once you get your teeth into someone. Don’t go messing in other people’s business if they stay out of yours.”

“It will be in my business once that nutter’s burnt down the entire neighborhood,” Henry the weasel growled.

Newbold shrugged. “I think I should like to meet this man. Can you direct me to him?”

“You want to do what?” Frankie said. “I should think you’d want to stay far away from him. Even if he’s not doing the things Henry says he is, he’s drawing suspicion and with the Chancellor’s people possibly swarming the city, you don’t want to be anywhere that draws attention to yourself, especially since you’re an outsider.”

The Chancellor nodded. “A good point and well noted. I will proceed with caution. However, if you can just tell me where he is, I will get out of your collective hair.”

The group exchanged looks and then Henry the weasel pointed out directions for the Chancellor.

“Best heed our warning, stranger,” Frankie said.

Newbold smiled and tossed a coin on their table. “Much obliged. The next drink is on me, gentlemen.”