Clockworks Chronicles of Zahn

17) The Board Is Set

Mitzi was doing her best to find her way to the palace. However, she was new to this town, so she had, at some point, gotten hopelessly lost. So, something her grandfather taught her, “When you’re lost, backtrack to the place where you started and regather your reckoning”. So that was what she did, still being mindful of her surroundings and being careful she wasn’t being tracked.

She turned a corner into an alley she had passed through not 20 minutes before when she ran smack dab into the largest spotted hyena she had ever seen. She froze out of fear as the powerful looking beast sniffed at her and growled. She then felt something sharp point into her back and she heard an accented voice say, “You have my father’s scent on you. Where did you take him?!”

She stammered out, “Hey, I don’t know anything about your father. But I just escaped some Shadowmen…”

She didn’t know where the maneuver came from but she had reflexively spun around bringing the short spear along her body and leveraging it out of the tall dark skinned woman’s hands and then she ducked down and behind her and placed the blade of the spear to the base of her skull and said, “You better call your pet off or I’ll kill you. They say I’m immortal so all that will happen to me is a nasty mauling. You on the other hand will be dead.”

For about 15 minutes Elishira had been tracking this woman who seemed to be patrolling around the area disguised as a street person and had her dad’s scent on her. So, she sent Daisy around the other side of the alley in order to box her in. Next she followed in behind her and when the woman froze seeing Daisy she went in behind the woman and put her spear point in her back, “You have my father’s scent on you. Where did you take him?!”

The woman stammered out, “Hey, I don’t know anything about your father. But I just escaped some Shadowmen…”

Then like a flash the woman disappeared in a blur and she felt her spear wrenched from her hands. In that instant she felt the point in the base of her skull.

“You better call your pet off or I’ll kill you. They say I’m immortal so all that will happen to me is a nasty mauling. You on the other hand will be dead.”

Elishira raised her hands and with her mind she told Daisy to back off but look for an opening, “So you got me. Now take me to my father.”

“I said, I don’t know anything about your father. I just escaped some Shadowmen. If you’re not with the Shadowmen then they possibly have your father. They have my friend for sure. Now I’m gonna take this spear out of the base of your skull and we’re gonna talk nicely. I think we’re after the same thing.”

Several minutes and a talk later, Elishira and Mitzi were casing the warehouse that Mitzi had escaped from about an hour earlier.

Mitzi was surprised when Elishira pointed out several disguised guards around the building. Mitzi just thought of them as street people when she went past them the hour before. In addition to the sentries, several obvious Shadowmen were now out looking for her.

She felt Elishira pull at her sleeve and motion with her head they were to go back. Once they were far enough away to have a safe conversation Elishira asked her, “So do you think your Cooper can help us?”

“Well, according to Mike, Cooper singlehandedly took down the Shadow Lair, whatever that means.”

Elishira looked thoughtful then said, “I do not suppose if we walk up to the palace, they will just let us in?”

“No, but if we can get back to Mike’s shop, we can use his telegraph to signal. Mike showed me his open codes, just in case of emergencies he said. Well, I guess this counts as an emergency.”

“So which way Mike’s shop?”

Mitzi looked around her trying to find a familiar landmark then shrugged, “Not sure. It’s near Imperial Avenue and Prince Street. Do you know where it is?”

Elishira shrugged and said, “My dad hadn’t showed me around city yet. You and I are just as lost.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s safe to ask directions just yet. Let us head toward the river and maybe I’ll see something familiar.” So, the three of them went off toward the west and most likely the Regal River.

Meanwhile, Ouihan was showing Cooper the codex Sir Markus was copying about half an hour before.

Cooper asked, “Why would someone want or need this codex?”

“Only thing I can figure is he wants to activate or deactivate sentinels. It’s useless for other automatons. Actually, it’s really useless for anything. I only jotted down the codex here in my journals as a memory jogger. I put the complete codex in a separate arcana dedicated just to the sentinel. Which is over here.” He reached out and took a rather thick book down from the shelf.

“Is there any other way he can activate the sentinels?”

“Only by transferring a human soul like the shadow sentinels we had to deal with during the coup.”

Cooper looked thoughtful and said almost to himself, “And my guess is he doesn’t have access to any of those.”

Captain Randolph, who was standing next to him asked, “Colonel, do you want him arrested?”

“No, not just yet. He may be able to lead us to the Shadow Battalion so we can get them off the streets.” He then made a motion with his head and said, “Dani, did you get the address I asked you for?”

“Yes sir,” handing him a piece of paper.

Cooper looked at the paper then said, “Put our best tail on him. I’ll go massage this asset. I don’t think she’ll be amiable if anyone else were to try to recruit her.”

“Well, our best tail, would be your daughter Ehawee. I know you don’t want her to go so I’ll take care of it myself.”

Cooper shrugged and said, “Yeah, someday maybe she’ll be perfect but…” with a gleam of pride in his eyes.

Cooper turned to the children and said, “Ouihan you come with me, Sister you go tell Her Eminence what we’re doing.”

Sister looked perplexed and said, “But, I want to come with you.”

Ouihan said, “Sissy, I don’t think we, Cooper and I, will be able to concentrate if we’re worried about you getting hurt. We’re both immortal so we will be sure to come back whereas you…”

Victoria II had been working at her desk in the War Room, but she had to attend to some things she could only do from her main office so she and Mousy walked in that direction. While they were walking, she asked Mousy to see her pendant.

Mousy was hesitant. “Wit respects Emnence, are ya gonna give it back to me?”

“Of course. I only want to see the crest to see if I recognize it.”

Mousy reached around to the back of her neck and untied the string and reluctantly handed her the pendant.

Victoria II immediately recognized the crest. It belonged to the Quin family. A minor noble family whose holdings were adjacent to Calador.

“This is the Quin family crest. Their holdings were adjacent to Calador. Ten years ago, High Lord James said the family were taken by plague. So, he took their lands and wealth under protectorate status until a suitable heir could be located. They are now still under the protectorate of the High Lord Baron of Calador, Cooper.”

“Do you think I’m a Quin?”

“It’s possible. You’re about the right age their youngest daughter would be. We can have your identity magically traced. If you’re a Quin, then we will find out for sure. If you are then this means High Lord James was guilty of more crimes than just attempted coup and regicide. We will have Arch Mage Jamison investigate it as soon as We can.”

Mousy seemed to have a gleam of hopefulness in her eyes. Victoria II understood this. All Mousy’s life she didn’t know where or whom did she come from. Now, there was a possibility to answer these questions. It also inspired her to order Coop to investigate further back into James’ history to determine what other crimes he may have committed.

When Victoria, her entourage of security and Mousy entered her office the first thing she noticed was a clear but prismatic Alpian crystal rose on her desk. She felt strangely drawn to it and compelled to pick it up.

Tara James made her way back to her apartment, one of many she had strategically throughout the city. Once she entered, the first thing she noticed was a teenage boy sitting at her kitchen table. She then grabbed for her bolt gun only to find it was missing from behind her back. She turned to see Cooper leaning up against her door frame twirling her bolt gun with his left hand while holding his own on her with his right.

“So, you come to kill me like my father?”

“I had nothing to do with your father’s death. He died a few years ago, and I’ve only had this cane for two months. So, unless I can time travel, I couldn’t have.”

“But, you’re the only immortal to have the black sword…”

“It doesn’t take an immortal to kill another immortal with this sword. Mr. Alexander nearly killed me with it two months ago.” Cooper cut in. “Let me guess, Miss Alexander told you the sword can kill an immortal in another immortal’s hands, right? And you believed her?”

“Yes, I detected no lie.”

Cooper chuckled and said, “No she didn’t lie. However, she didn’t tell the whole truth either. Yes, an immortal can kill another immortal with this sword, but so can a mortal.”

Tara replayed her conversation with Miss Alexander in her mind and realized at how carefully she worded her explanation, “I’m going to kill that bitch.” She said coldly.

“Get in line. Alright, Tara, you and I need to have a talk.” Cooper handed her bolt gun back to her and he went on, “I know you’re gonna go after Miss Alexander, but I need you to uphold your commitment to The Civilization and Her Eminence first…”

Elishira and Mitzi found Imperial Avenue and were headed in the direction she smelled the river. They were moving along slowly, making sure they were not being followed.

Mitzi said, “Now this is starting to look familiar. But not exactly. I can only say the buildings look to be of the same type, so I guess we’re getting close.”

Elishira thought, ‘Well It feels like we’re on the right track.’ But she said out loud, “As soon as you see something familiar, let me know.”

After a few minutes Mitzi said, “There, that looks familiar.” As she pointed toward a man wearing a long black duster and bush hat.

Cooper and Ouihan had just left Tara James to her new assignment and were going to follow up on a couple of leads Ouihan wanted to check out when he saw the largest spotted hyena, he’d ever seen walking along with two women. He recognized one of the women as Mitzi, Igor’s friend. She was looking at and pointing to him, so he knew she had seen him as well.

Coop walked over toward the unlikely trio with Ouihan in tow trying not to get any undue attention from others.

Moments later the five of them were sitting at an outdoor café as Mitzi was recounting her experiences since early morning.

When she had finished, Cooper digested every bit of information she divulged and asked, “So Blake was still shackled to the table when you left him and the woman said she needed eight to complete the circuit?”

“Yes sir.”

Cooper looked to Ouihan and asked, “Does it make any sense to you?”

“Yes, it kinda does. They are going to try to syphon off the immortals’ life force. My guess they are either going to use it in a dynamo of some kind or use it to power some artifact. Whatever they are planning is going to take a great deal of life force essence to power it. That’s why they’re using immortals because we have unlimited life force.”

Cooper thought about it some more and said, “Well, eight immortals went missing last night, including Mitzi here, so I would guess the other seven are, Blake, Wingate, O’Hara, Muhamad, Hargrave, Maddison and Smith.”

Elishira said, “Wingate is my father. His scent is on Mitzi here. So, they must have touched each other at some point.

Mitzi said, “Well I was unconscious for a while, it could’ve happened then. I had woken up about ten minutes before I was able to escape. They left my apron on me with all my tools. That’s how I was able to pick the locks on my cuffs.”

Cooper thought out loud, “The only other immortals I know of in Gran City are the Valkyrie and myself.”

“The Valkyrie?” Mitzi asked.

“Yeah, Brenna Walkure. Some called her Valkyrie long ago.”

Mitzi asked quickly, “Do you know where she is?”

“No, no one ever does. She just shows up when she wants to. Why?”

“My grandma was friends with her. Actually, I guess I’m kinda related to her really.” She said absently.

The lightbulb lit up in Cooper’s mind. He was racking his brain why Mitzi looked kinda familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It was her eyes.