The Mask And The Master (Mechanized Wizardry Book 2) (44 page)

Was it really just four years ago? 
He nodded.

“I can tell you that, however bright the mood may have been in the streets, the mood among Delia’s armed forces was even brighter.  I was a General at the pleasure of Queen Tess.  I served with—” her hazel eyes grew distant— “many great patriots as we fought in the ‘60s to protect Delia’s merchants in the Halcyon, and the Islands.

“Queen Tess was fearless.  Visionary.  King Randolph had been a fine monarch, but undoubtedly his best decision was to marry her, after the Annulment with Queen Neve.  I’m sure you Petronauts agree, since she was the one who made Delia such a haven for you.”

“Father made the proclamation protecting ‘nauts the year after I was born,” Torvald said.

“Queen Tess could have gotten him to proclaim anything, he was so relieved to finally have an Heir.” Dame Hanah smiled.  “I still remember her voice ringing out, across the throne room, calling for this bold proposal, or that sweeping expansion.  Those years when she ruled as a widow… that’s when Delia became great.

“And when we Generals looked at Torvald, we knew that our past greatness was nothing compared to what we would become.”

Lundin remembered the feastday preparations in the Petronaut shops.  He’d just been an apprentice then, not yet assigned to the Recon squad, and so the Taskmaster had sent him bouncing across the warehouse to assist with every project that needed extra hands.  Cavaliers needing tune-ups for their performance drills; new Parade squad gadgets needing troubleshooting; Shock Troop firework shells needing breathtakingly dangerous testing on the range.  Everyone had pushed themselves twice as hard as they had for Naomi’s feastday this year; but despite all the work, there had been an electric mood of… something.  Anticipation?  Hope?

Dame Hanah was looking over at the young Haberstorm, memory carrying her far away.  Lundin felt a sigh rise in his throat, and gently pushed it back down.  Nostalgia aside, they all knew how the story had ended.  “And then you failed,” he said, trying (to his surprise) to take the sting out of the words.

Their heads swiveled over to him.  Lundin flinched involuntarily, but neither one looked angry.  Torvald just looked a little older, and the smile drifted away from Dame Hanah’s face.

“To think,” she said, “that in the year eight hundred seventy-two, we would still place some lunatic rules from our warlord past so far ahead of the national interest.  Do you understand when Master Torvald ‘failed’ in the Second Ordeals, Mister Lundin?  During the Ordeal of the Ten Crossings.  

“The Heir is supposed to walk ten long beam bridges, only twenty centimeters thick, back and forth across the deepest portion of the Malloy Bog.  Weak with thirst, dazed, drugged, mostly naked in the driving rain, he stumbled on the eighth beam and fell a meter and a half into the sludge.  As the fangfish started tearing into his unprotected body, he had the temerity to call for help, rather than let himself be eaten alive.  The attendants rushed to him with poles and ropes, and he climbed his way back onto the beams.  And do you know what our so-called failure did then, Mister Lundin?  He forced the attendants away, and he completed the last two crossings.  As he bled, the rain washed across his wounds and dropped into the water below.  The fangfish went into a frenzy at the taste, and they followed him every other step of the way, thrashing the water at his feet so hard it looked like a boiling cauldron.  Another misstep and Delia would have been lucky to fish a clean-picked skeleton from the point his body went down.”  She looked at Torvald, squaring her shoulders.  “But he didn’t fall.”

“A Haberstorm’s not supposed to get help during the Ordeals,” Lundin said, feeling sheepish for even making the point.

“Just as no King has ever turned to his advisors, or ministers, or ambassadors, or generals, or allies, or servants.”  Dame Hanah narrowed her eyes.  “Tell me how a King who gets eaten by fish is more fit to rule than a King who knows how to command.”

“Thank you, Dame Hanah,” Torvald said, quietly and kindly, bowing his head to her.

Dame Hanah took a breath, genuflected and, after a sharp look at Lundin, walked out the door.  It swung closed on its silent hinges and settled into place with a small, muffled thud.  “My staunchest ally, and one of my greatest friends,” the young man said, crossing one arm over his body.

“Why did you send her away, then?”  Lundin said, the hairs on his arms pricking up again.

“Because I know you have a question to ask me, and I like to spare her the topic whenever I can.”

Lundin hid his hands behind his back as his fingers tugged at each other.  Torvald’s eyes were blue and stern. 
‘I know you have
a
question to ask me?’
Lundin thought. 
Try a thousand, Mister King. 
But, in fact, there was a question that had to come before any real conversation with this man was possible.

“Did you try to kill your sister?”

“Yes,” Torvald said.

“Ouste.  Jailmap.  Volman, the steward.  They were working for you.”

“I don’t know who Jailmap is, but yes.  The attempt on Naomi’s life came at my order.”

Lundin started nodding and found he had trouble making his head stop again.  “I’d like to go, please,” he said.  A shiver was building up throughout his body.

“Being a King is not like being a brother, Mister Lundin,” Torvald said, resting an arm against the back of the still-empty armchair.  “There’s something bigger than family that commands your loyalty.  You’re a Petronaut.  A difficult life.  I imagine you’ve sacrificed much when it comes to your family.”

“I’ve never tried to kill them,” he said.  He didn’t like the way his voice was sounding.

“Delia is on the precipice.  We’ve never had a Regency since the city was rebuilt after the Warlord years.  A strong, single ruler is what’s needed to push our nation forward into the future.  Not a cadre of hidebound conservatives, whose profoundest hope for tomorrow is that it looks the same as yesterday.”

“Your mother appointed the Regents.”

“The Regents appointed themselves while my mother was sick.  You don’t know how ill she was, Mister Lundin,” he said, leaning closer.  “In ‘71 her body was already starting to shrivel.  Only forty-five years old.  Ceres, Portikal, the pack of them?  They saw how frail she was, and started to close in and offer to take on more duties.  I was watching it happen while I trained for the Ordeals.  When I finish, I said, I’ll be strong enough to call them out.  I knew that the Delian people were on my side, and that my mother wanted my help.

“But then came the Ordeal of the Ten Crossings, and suddenly I wasn’t fit to be a king because of that most heinous of sins: slipping on something wet.  My own mother sent me into permanent exile.  It was while I was along the coastal road, not three months later, that I heard the rumors of this plan to establish a Regency Council if my mother should die before Naomi was ready to take the Throne.  Naomi was nine years old then.  I knew my mother’s state.  I knew that this Regency Council would be ruling for most of the decade before Naomi’s Second Ordeals.  Sure enough, that spring, good Queen Tess passed away, and the Regents began their first year of illegitimate, unprecedented, unchecked power over what the Charter says should be ‘a nation graced o’er by a Throne.’”

“So you hate the Regents,” Lundin said, waving his hands.  “So, what?  You tried to cast a spell on them, and it hit Naomi instead?”

Torvald crossed his arms over his chest, smiling tightly.  He stretched out his legs and pressed his back against the tall red chair.  “You remember the sense of injustice when I was exiled, Mister Lundin,” he said.  “I don’t mean to be arrogant, but I know what kind of debate my treatment sparked.  The value of our traditions, versus the needs of the here-and-now.  Our devotion to our history, weighed against our devotion to reason, embodied best by our thriving community of Petronauts.  The Regents are lucky the worst they faced was a series of defections to my camp, General Hanah among them.

“Can you imagine if two Heirs in a row had had their potential snuffed out by the cruel, archaic, arbitrary Ordeals?  The hue and cry from all corners of Delia would have been overwhelming.  The Ordeals would have been amended, reformed for a modern age.  And, faced with a choice between seeing me formally returned to the succession, or looking forward to endless decades of a Regency governing on no one’s behalf, I know exactly what the people of Delia would have chosen.

“Naomi’s death would have restored the Haberstorm dynasty to the Throne and restored the public faith in Delia’s future, all without a single soldier needing to go to the battlefield.”

“Sweet Spheres,” Lundin said.

Torvald sighed, flicking his blue eyes to the ground.  “I’ve lost a great deal of sleep over what I did.  What I tried to do,” he amended.  “My sister is a miracle, in her way.  No one ever expected her to be born, especially not so late in my parents’ lives.  As children, I would make faces at her in the palace, or juggle for her, and she’d smile, and clap, and throw her arms around me.”

His eyes grew damp.  If it was playacting, Torvald belonged on a stage.

“But being a King is not like being a brother.”  Torvald said as he straightened up.  “Delia needs a strong monarch.  And, trust me: when Naomi turns nineteen, there’s no way she can pass the Second Ordeals where I failed.  And even if she does, there’s no way she could be the leader Delia needs after that.  How can you articulate a vision when you can’t speak?”

“She can speak,” Lundin said.

“Your loyalty is endearing.  Do you think other heads of state will be as indulgent?  Pirate warlords?  Captains of industry?  Disaffected crowds?  Even more, do you seriously think that someone like her will be allowed to run Delia the way she wants?  The people she relies on to speak for her will start speaking for themselves, soon enough.  And that’s the way Delia splinters, and a new age of warlords begins.”

“When that happens, you’ll fit right in.”

Torvald took a quick stride closer to Lundin, his eyes flashing.  He jabbed a finger at the taller man’s chest, visibly angry for the first time.

Lundin held his breath in the long silence.  Very slowly, Torvald Alexander Galidate Haberstorm lowered his hand.  “I do what I do to preserve the Throne you serve,” he said, his voice cold and controlled.  “I’m no warlord.  I’m no conqueror.  You know me, Mister Lundin.  I am your King; just as I was your Prince when we were both boys—”

“Why am I here?”  Lundin asked, unable to keep his voice from quavering.

The firelight played across Torvald’s face.  “A little bird tells me you’re the one who stopped Ouste from carrying out my plan,” he said.  “Maybe I brought you here to kill you.”

“I haven’t ruled that out, but it seems unlikely,” the tech blurted out.

Torvald stared at him.  “Seems unlikely, does it?”  His blue eyes lit up with amusement.  “Explain your reasoning.”

Lundin shifted his feet.  “If you wanted me dead, you could have killed me at Campos.  Or back in Delia.  Instead, you brought me here—” he gestured expansively, indicating the castle, “—and you brought me
here
.”  He pointed straight down at Torvald’s feet.

“Which means?”

“You want something from me.”

Torvald nodded, inclining his body towards Lundin very slightly.  “Hmm.  What are you offering?”

He phrased it like a genuine question. 
As if to say ‘why
is
it worth my while to keep you alive?’
Lundin was suddenly aware of the sword at the young Haberstorm’s hip, and the casual way his gloved hand had migrated down the the hilt. 
Burn me if I’ll offer you anything
, a part of him thought with shrill defiance.  But the rest of him, inside and out, began to tremble.  Depending on what he said right now, he might look back at this moment and say ‘that was when the torture began.’ 
I’m not ready.  I’m not ready
, he said to himself as the saliva vanished from his throat. 
Spheres, I need more time to—

“You think I want something,” Torvald prompted.  “What would I want from you?”

“To talk?”

A quiet smirk grew into a winning smile on the Haberstorm’s face.  “Fine,” he said, clasping his hands together at his waist.  “Let’s talk.”

Lundin’s heart sank.  There was more than one way to say the wrong thing.

“I’ve just told you how I planned to oust the Regency Council without resorting to the battlefield,” Torvald said, walking over to the door.  He grabbed a bell pull by its lathed wooden handle and gave it a quick, soundless tug.  “Since that’s not possible now, I hope to keep the upcoming conflict as brief and bloodless as possible by cultivating an overwhelming advantage in the areas that truly matter: popular support, and technology.

“Popular…?”

“I already have a strategy in motion to win the hearts of ordinary citizens; a group your four noble Regents don’t seem overly concerned with courting.  As for technology, on the modern battlefield, how many soldiers you can deploy matters infinitely less than what they are carrying.  Or wearing.  Or driving.  One musketeer can kill a dozen swordsmen.  One mortar team and three Petronauts can assault a Delian fortress.”  Lundin swallowed as the blond man smiled.

“I
was
confident that my forces’ technological capabilities were on the cutting edge… until your project was brought to my attention.”

“My project?” Lundin said guilelessly. 
Yeah,
that’s
how Kelley would resist interrogation
, he chided himself.

“I understand, Mister Lundin, that you’ve built a wizard.  And that your mechanical wizard can cast the same spell without fail every time.  And that a spell, once encoded, can be cast by anyone with minimal training and no innate magical ability.”

“…who told you that?”

“Your assistant, Willl,” Torvald said congenially.

The door swung out into the hallway, and Lundin squinted as the room filled with color.  The man standing there was either a wizard or a court jester, judging from the outfit; but with the embroidered demons and arcane symbols all over his silky red robe, and the intensity in his long-lashed black eyes, Lundin had a depressing hypothesis that the newcomer wasn’t here to tell jokes.