Ghosts of Engines Past (33 page)

Had anyone been sufficiently brave to mutter, they would have muttered, but silence ruled the hall. Lewrick shambled forward, looking bewildered, rather than afraid. Zarvora took a bloody gold sash with a bullet hole through the centre and presented it to Lewrick as he bowed his head.

“Henceforth, the Department of Robes and Protocols is abolished,” continued Zarvora. “Dragon Gold MacKention will rule the new Department of Information. This reorganisation of the structure of Libris has the unanimous endorsement of the mayors of the Southeast Alliance. This assembly is at an end, drinks and biscuits will be served in the Reading Hall.”

Zarvora did not go to the Reading Hall with the others. Accompanied by Lewrick, Vardel, and the squad of Tiger Dragons, she strode out into the corridors of Libris as attendants ran ahead to light the lamps.

“Frelle Griss, your codeword is
pressgang,”
said Zarvora softly. “Look to it.”

Vardel saluted, then turned off down a corridor with her squad. Zarvora led Lewrick down another corridor, where a group of artisans stood ready along the walls with tools and handcarts of timber.

“Fras MacKention, your codeword is
Calculor,”
Zarvora now declared.

The majority of those who had witnessed Zarvora's enrobement were rather severely in need of a drink by the end of the ceremony, so that the Investiture Hall was deserted by the time Lewrick returned there with his workers. Two Tiger Dragons stood guard at the open double doors.

“Calculor,” said Lewrick, and the Tiger Dragons stood aside as he led the artisans inside. “We are not to be disturbed,” he said as he closed the doors behind them.

Lewrick surveyed the ancient hall, but the eye within his mind was already seeing something entirely different to everyone else.

“All hangings, pictures and plaques are to come down,” he ordered, waving his hand above his head in a circle. “Clear the carpets, chairs and benches aside, they will be removed later. I'll chalk the layout for the first benches, and for the controller's desk. Hurry, hurry, we only have a few hours.”

High above, Zarvora walked a darkened corridor toward a point of light. The point resolved itself into a small lantern held by a little man of about twenty.

“And who are you?” asked Zarvora as she pressed the latch of the door to the Highliber's office.

“Vorion, Highliber, I am the lackey to the secretary to the Highliber, that is to say I liaised between the former Highliber and his secretary. Well, that is to say I fed the Highliber his gruel and changed the bedpans. He had a bed in his office, and—”

“Unlock this door.”

“Ah, I'm afraid the secretary holds the keys, and she is at drinks in the Reading Room. She will not return until morning—”

A blast from Zarvora's twin-barrel Morelack shattered the lock. She pushed the door open and began to reload the spent barrel.

“After you, Fras Vorion.”

Zarvora motioned him in, then followed. There was a musty smell of mildew and urine about the room, which was furnished with a bed, some small cupboards, and a chair.

“Beautiful ceremony, beautiful, Highliber,” babbled Vorion, his voice servile, yet not actually shrill with terror. “You do look so good in black, although I would have recommended black gloves as well. Mid-elbow length, and flared—”

“Fras Vorion, get a slate.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

Vorion hurried out. Zarvora opened the double leadlight French windows, then picked up a small cupboard carried it out onto the roof. After walking a short distance along some lead guttering, she dropped it over the edge of a wall. It smashed in the courtyard far below. She returned to the office.

“Highliber?” asked Vorion, who had returned with his slate.

“Firstly, send this message to my secretary in the Reading Room.
You are dismissed, return all of the Highliber's keys with this man, or meet me in the duelling chamber ten minutes from now.”

Vorion hurried away again. By the time he had returned, Zarvora had flung the entire contents of the office, including the bed, into the courtyard. Zarvora had also shot out the lock to the secretary's door, and carried two comfortable chairs and a low table into the Highliber's office.

“Highliber, I have the keys,” Vorion said tentatively, jingling them as he held them up.

“Come in, sit down,” said Zarvora, waving him to the unoccupied chair. “First, the position of Secretary to Dragon Black is abolished, I shall make do with a lackey. Congratulations, you are that lackey. Take over her office.”

“Highliber!” gasped Vorion. “I am most—”

“Second, fetch a locksmith, have both locks replaced. Third, fetch cleaners, have this place scrubbed.”

“Highliber, it is after dark—”

“Take six Tiger Dragons, fetch the cleaners and locksmiths at gunpoint if needs be.”

Vorion hurried away yet again. Zarvora explored the office of the secretary who had denied her access to her own office for the week past. Here she collected coffee, an infuser, and a mug, then she returned to her own office. She started a fire in the cast iron grate with a pinch of gunpowder and the striker of her flintlock.

“It promises to be a long night,” she sighed as she sat waiting for the water in the infuser to boil.

Out in the city, doors were being kicked in, and men and women were being bound, gagged, and concealed in sacks. Tiger Dragons were collecting registers, papers, books of codes, and lists of names. Waggons trundled the streets under guard, and the Constable's Runners had the sense not to challenge them. Great merchant houses stood open, their doors broken down and looters already at work within. Some houses were on fire, while the boom of demi-bombards warned that resistance would be crushed. The ancient cloisters of the University of Rochester were not spared. Struggling, human-sized sacks were carried out of certain colleges of residence, while shadowy figures stood ticking off names on slates by torchlight. By midnight, neighbourhood brigades were fighting the fires, the Constables Runners were standing guard outside deserted buildings, and distraught relatives were reporting the missing to magistrates. Amid all of this, the raids continued.

Across in Libris, the first two hundred prisoners to be rounded up stood together wearing only smocks, waiting as Zarvora inspected double rows of benches and abacus frames that had been built so recently that there were wood shaving on the floor and the scent of resin was on the air. Thirty armed Tiger Dragon were on hand to keep order, along with a dozen or so dragon librarians with swagger sticks.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” said Zarvora, walking up the aisle between the two rows of benches. “I am Highliber Zarvora Cybeline, Dragon Black. When next you sleep, you will probably have nightmares about me.”

She paused to let these words do their work.

“There are two rows of one hundred seats here. Go to the seat with the same number as is on your smock.”

The prisoners did as they were told, and were quickly seated.

“Congratulations, you have just formed a calculor. They have not been in operation for two thousand years, but they are very useful. I call it
the
Calculor, for there is only one. The unfortunate side is that you will never leave. Comfort yourselves with the fact that you will save the world, however. You will do calculations within this machine, and the two rows will do the same calculations in parallel, thus checking on each other. In time the Calculor will grow to fill this hall, and it will be operated in shifts, so that its work will never cease. Its work is important, so take it seriously. This Dragon Gold here is the system controller. He is a very important man. See that blood on his gold sash of office? That belongs to the last man who got in my way. Getting in my way is a very bad idea.”

Now Zarvora produced a sheet of poorpaper and handed it to Lewrick.

“I require the answer to this problem by sunrise, System Controller,” she declared, then strode from the hall.

Returning to her office, Zarvora found the locksmiths hard at work by lamplight, while cleaners scrubbed frantically and Vorion sprayed the walls with rosewater with one hand and waved an incense burner with the other.

“I shall be waiting out on the roof until you finish, Fras Vorion,” said Zarvora, stepping through the open windows.

Walking out along the lead guttering, she looked out over the city, which was still dotted with fires, then looked up at the moon, which as near its zenith.

“I know you are there, Greatwinter, but you do not know about me,” she said softly to the gleaming disk. “You have left it just a little too late, so you will certainly not destroy my world. With my Calculor, I shall strike you down. I am the Dragon Black of Libris, and my library is more powerful than all of your ancient war machines. I know of you, the books have betrayed you.”

With that Zarvora looked across to the windows of the Investiture Hall, where light burned brightly behind the windows.
Not only have I taken control of the vast and ancient library, I have given it a soul,
she thought, then smiled at her joke with herself.

“Frelle Highliber!”

The voice was Lewrick's, and Zarvora turned back to the window of her office.

“Here.”

Lewrick was not well coordinated, and picked his way out onto the moonlit roof with exaggerated care.

“Highliber, I really need you back in the Calculor hall. Issues and questions are arising by the minute, and I have few of the answers. You have the great machine in your head, I cannot work at speed without you to help tune it.”

“Very well, Fras Lewrick. The preparation of my office is taking longer than anticipated.”

“Highliber, a word before we go,” said Lewrick, raising his hands a little and waving them. “It's about the codes in the Oblivion Chamber.”

“Yes?”

“I have gone over the form of beamflash code, and compared them to the accession numbers on the books. They could not possibly have been used to store the beamflash codes. The codes are discontinuous, but the books are in a sequential progression.”

“Correct.”

“But—”

“I lied.”

“What?” exclaimed Lewrick.

“I managed to break just a single code, then I searched on a few key words in the beamflash codestream, including
buttocks.
As you can see, I chanced upon a very juicy little line. It described a couple indulging in adultery, a couple sufficiently important that the act could spark a war. That had to be a mayor and a mayor's wife. A lecherous mayor, who was sure to take any opportunity to travel in search of adventure. A mayor who was sure to come here, to my enrobements as Highliber, and Dragon Black.”

“Highliber, you took a terrible chance,” said Lewrick, putting a hand to his forehead. “What of all the other mayors? You did not have their codes.”

“No, but I bluffed them. My pages had no more than market statistics.”

“They might have called your bluff.”

“Lewrick, Lewrick,” sighed Zarvora. “Say you were in the market and some toddler pointed to you and shouted 'Daddy! Daddy!' What would you do?”

“Hurry away.”

“But would you have cause to run?”

“Not unless the toddler were seventeen—no, eighteen years old.”

“So, you see? Even the relatively innocent will shrink from accusation.”

“But—”

“I had a room full of mayors, and I was threatening to reveal selected secrets from the codestream of each and every one. All of them were guilty of
something,
and none knew what I might know. They wanted discretion, and they wanted the evidence destroyed without further examination. I promised to do all that, and to make those responsible disappear.”

Lewrick shook his head—then suddenly spread his arms and stood in Zarvora's path as she made to pass him.

“But Highliber, how did you break even one beamflash code?” he asked. “The codes are strong and complex, it should have taken you a hundred years of calculation.”

“It did, after a fashion.”

“I—you...” Revelation spread across Lewrick's face. “A hundred men for one year, or even—Frelle Highliber, have you already built another calculor?”

“Come, Fras Lewrick, no more silly questions. Our baby is having trouble with its lessons.”

Out in the city, merchants and their hired commerce militias stood guard over chests of coins and other valuables, without realising that it was actually their accountants that were being plundered by the Tiger Dragons. In Libris, Frelle Highliber Zarvora and Fras Lewrick walked amid the workings of their newly born child, and listened with satisfaction and pride to the clacking and swishing of beads that was its heartbeat.

It is 1899, and the fastest machines on the planet are steam trains.

The first human to fall off a cliff more than five hundred feet high was the first to travel faster than a hundred miles per hour. Doing it horizontally is a lot harder. For the interest of the technically minded, liquid oxygen was available in quantity by 1899, and the land speed record was held by a British steam train that could do 90 miles per hour. The Hellfire could have been built and would have worked, but it would have been a pretty wild ride. My story was actually inspired by Verdi's opera La Traviata. How would Frederick feel about his father after Violetta died? The curtain comes down and the audience begins clapping before that issue is raised in the opera, but I have my theories. The young hero might become very punk and want revenge, so why not add a steam engine and see where it takes him?

Can revenge be successful if nobody knows about it? I have been asking myself this question ever since Walter Shelton's revenge on his father, in Yorkshire, on the last day of the last June of the Nineteenth Century. Only I knew about it, and I was not free to speak out, so from 1899 to 1943 I told nobody about the marvel that Walter built out of love and hate. When I did finally break my silence, it was only because the fate of Britain, and possibly the world, was in my hands.