A Midsummer Night's Steampunk Read online

  © 2015 by Scott E. Tarbet

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. For information visit www.xchylerpublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in this story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

  Xchyler Publishing, an imprint of Hamilton Springs Press, LLC

  Penny Freeman, Editor-in-chief

  www.xchylerpublishing.com

  2nd Edition: September 2015

  Cover Illustration Egle Zioma & D. Robert Pease, http://walkingstickbooks.com/

  Interior Design by M Borgnaes, The Electric Scroll

  Edited by Penny Freeman and Danielle E. Shipley

  Published in the United States of America

  Xchyler Publishing

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Phaeton

  Chapter Two: Meet the Malieuxs

  Chapter Three: At the Oil Can

  Chapter Four: A Trip to the City

  Chapter Five: A Separable Spite

  Chapter Six: The Golden Gear

  Chapter Seven: On Barmy Green

  Chapter Eight: The Three Queens

  Chapter Nine: The Course of True Love

  Chapter Ten: The Kaiser’s New Army

  Chapter Eleven: Alex Who?

  Chapter Twelve: One For All and All Must Run

  Chapter Thirteen: All the Workshop’s a Stage

  Chapter Fourteen: A Mother and Child Reunion

  Chapter Fifteen: Love’s Labor’s Ludicrous

  Chapter Sixteen: Dog Pile

  Chapter Seventeen: Crypt

  Chapter Eighteen: Round the Curve of the World

  Chapter Nineteen: Mano a Mano

  Chapter Twenty: Gathering Storm

  Chapter Twenty-one: The Charge of the Musketeers

  Chapter Twenty-two: Enisled

  Chapter Twenty-three: Our New Friend

  Chapter Twenty-four: Regina Victrix

  Chapter Twenty-five: Those Endearing Young Charms

  Chapter Twenty-six: The Play’s the Thing

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Works by Scott E. Tarbet

  About Xchyler Publishing

  Sneak Peek: Ganesh

  Sneak Peek: Sindisiwe

  For my sparkle, my light,

  my Jewels, now more than ever.

  Across the sylvan, dappled wood

  I skipped into the verdant green,

  To catch the magic laughing sprite

  Whose voice would mock me now and then.

  I jumped up high and tried to sail

  Into the tangled upper leaves,

  But thwarted by my earthen form,

  I fell to rest upon my knees.

  No wings have I to give the chase,

  No eyes to see as fairies see.

  I look to where he rested yet,

  And only find a living tree.

  So here I wait, so very still,

  Pretending peaceful reverie;

  While in the branches very high,

  I think the fairy watches me.

  —The Chase, by Ginger C. Mann

  Prologue

  From one end of the sprawling London metropolis to the other, over palaces and hovels, elegant townhouses, rundown wharfs and warehouses, the micromechs fluttered.

  They rode the summer breeze through every open window, swooped down chimneys, crept in at every crack and crevice. Their multifaceted eyes searched and their ears recorded. Their tiny feet carried them silently across the ceilings of peopled rooms. Mingling with the insects of high summer, they went unnoticed and unremarked, even in the infrequent pools of gaslight through which they flashed on whirring, iridescent wings.

  In her private dirigible Ganesh, moored with other private and public airships in the Victoria Air Terminus that soared above sprawling Victoria Station, their “queen” waited patiently for their reports, the portal open to admit the summer breeze and her fluttering charges returning from the city below. They flitted around her brilliant crimson-and-gold sari like the dragonflies and hummingbirds and other flying beings they had once been, surrounding her like a dazzling bloom in the Indian jungle.

  One by one, their leaders—Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Mote, and Mustardseed—flitted past and whispered their negative reports into her ear: no sign of the half-man, the huge dazzlingly black mech who had stolen the automaton, Jubal, and fled India for England. But the queen was calmly confident.

  The night was young, the breezes were light, and the micromechs were spreading methodically from the airship across the city from south to north, from west to east. The massive black mech they sought would inevitably be found.

  Why the mech and his master had stolen her precious automaton, the queen could only guess. But the machine’s true value was more than they could possibly know, far more precious than the massive blue diamonds at his heart and in his eyes. She must recover him before the thief or his master stumbled over his true worth.

  The storm clouds of aggression and war loomed. The queens crafted their response. Their plan must not be thwarted. The automaton must be retrieved.

  ToC

  Late in the summer the strange horses came.

  We heard a distant tapping on the road,

  A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again

  And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.

  —The Horses by Edwin Muir

  Chapter One

  Phaeton

  Pauline Spiegel sprang to her feet and threw her arms over her head in celebration. The new cam fit, with only enough play for the lightest coating of lithium lubricant. But her exuberance was cut short when, to her dismay, the large, grease-smeared spanner flew from her slippery hand and clattered away across her father’s Knightsbridge workshop, directly at him. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched it bounce. Only when it skidded to a stop, scant inches from his feet, did she dare breathe again. Ernst Spiegel straightened deliberately from his workbench, swung the jeweler’s loupe away from his eye, and turned slowly to face his mortified daughter. “Oh, Papa!” she cried. “I’m so sorry! The spanner was slippery, and I . . .”

  “It is more careful you must be, mein Liebchen,” Ernst said, his thick Bavarian accent betraying concern the mild words themselves did not. “Very large your machine is, for our little workshop.”

  He pointedly ignored the spanner, and stepped over it to examine his daughter’s gleaming brass-and-steel assemblage that seemed to fill half the meticulous atelier. “Very large and ambitious this is. The largest automaton we ever built at the Golden Gear. Not even your sainted mother attempted anything so grand. The balance problem—it is overcome?”

  “Yes, Papa. I had to remill the cam twice. The tolerance was much finer than I had supposed.”

  Ernst nodded, not taking his eyes from Pauline’s handiwork. “Corrections you have made to the calculations in your notes and drawings?”

  “Yes, Papa. I certainly don’t need to make that same mistake again.”

  “Very good,” Ernst said. “This is how a good artificer learns—one mistake at a time. Now: show me.”

  Pauline nodded, drew a deep breath, checked coal and water levels, and lit the tiny boiler. As she waited for steam, she retrieved the fallen spanner, carefully wiped the grease
from it, and hung it in its place above the workbench. She moved about, greasing fittings and oiling moving parts, until the machine was in complete readiness.

  Finally, she wiped her hands, brushed dust from the knees of her long skirt, and climbed up to the saddle, nearly as high up as she was tall. She twisted to open a steam valve behind her, checked several gauges in front of the pommel, and adjusted the valve until she was satisfied with the pressure. She heard and felt the steam and hydraulic systems hiss and throb gently to life. Only then did she carefully lower the brake and ease forward on a mahogany control handle. Smoothly and almost without a sound, the machine raised one of its front hooves from the floor. Beneath her seat, she felt the opposing hind leg flex forward, but not yet leave the ground. This was the moment of truth—the moment of precarious balance she had worked for days to correct.

  Eureka! The newly milled cam functioned perfectly. The raised front hoof came down a split second before the back leg left the floor. Three feet were now on the ground at all times. Stability was good. There would be no repeat of the teetering fright the heavy machine had given her on its first test.

  She realized she had been holding her breath again, and let out a soft sigh. The mechanical horse took another step, and then another, before she eased it to a halt facing the large wooden door at the back of the workshop.

  “Oh! I say!” The pleasant contralto voice behind her was delighted. Pauline twisted in the saddle. There, framed by the heavy velvet curtain that separated the Golden Gear’s showroom from the workshop, stood the slender, elegant figure of Clementine Hozier, stylishly clad for an afternoon ride, crop in hand. “Paulie! Your horse is absolutely gorgeous!”

  Clementine’s large blue eyes sparkled, and she strode into the workshop to admire her friend’s creation, running her gloved hand down its sleek brass flank. “And how perfect that you are about to ride out, as I would so love your company on a turn through the park.”

  “Clemmie! How lovely to see you, my dear. But I’m not at all sure the steam horse is ready for a recreational ride.”

  “Oh, tush!” exclaimed Clementine. “This is not recreation. You need to test it out sometime, do you not? Why not now?”

  Pauline turned to her father. Ernst looked back at her, his head tilted to the side. “Is it ready? Are you ready?”

  Pauline stared at the floor for a moment, drew a deep breath, and swallowed hard. “Yes, Papa. I believe I am.”

  Without another word, her father stepped forward and slid the big door aside. The sun of the pleasant midsummer afternoon flooded the workshop. He reached up and handed her a pair of goggles. “For when you bring your machine up to full speed.”

  She fastened the goggles around her neck. “I will want to test it some distance at a walk, up into Hyde Park, then at a trot, before I bring it to a gallop.”

  “Weise das ist. Wise,” her father said.

  “Capital! Then it’s all settled!” Clementine announced. “My mare is in front of the shop. I will wait for you there.” She turned back through the heavy curtain, and out through the elegant cut-glass door.

  Pauline nodded nervously. She eased the control lever forward and ducked low as the horse stepped out into the alley. She laid the reins over the machine’s neck, and it turned its gleaming brass head until its flaring nostrils and dark carnelian eyes pointed toward Kensington Road. Steel hooves clopped slowly on the cobblestones of the narrow alley as she gradually gained the confidence to advance the throttle again. The steam horse accelerated to a fast walk, and Pauline smiled with satisfaction. Much smoother than the walking gait of an actual horse. Very satisfactory indeed.

  She pulled the stick back as she emerged from between the stone buildings that fronted on the high street. There Clemmie waited, sidesaddle on a small dapple-gray mare. An ancient retainer, the Hozier family’s stable master, sat quietly astride a bay gelding a respectful distance away, at hand should his young lady require his assistance. His toothless old mouth dropped open in comic astonishment as Pauline emerged from the alley astride her metallic creation. “What do you think of this, Jenkins?” she asked him, grinning.

  “It’s a marvelous modern age we live in, Miss,” he mumbled, knuckling his wrinkled forehead. “Better a steam horse than a steam locomotive, says I.”

  “It’s a wide world, Jenkins,” said Clementine. “Plenty of room for both, I should think.”

  “Indeed, Miss,” he said, clearly unconvinced.

  “The new century will be replete with such wonders,” Pauline stated firmly. “Every day we see new things that were never dreamed of a few decades ago.”

  “Indeed, Miss,” Jenkins said again. “The coachman what took Her Ladyship to Victoria Station last night says the sky above the station is just full of them airships, big and small, every color of the rainbow, with flags from all over the world.”

  “Moored at the Victoria Air Terminus for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I expect,” Clementine said. “I should very much like to see them.”

  “As would I,” said Pauline. “But the crowds must be fierce. It seems half the world, and all of England, is in town for the Jubilee.”

  “We should go!” Clementine said. “Perhaps tomorrow, on Midsummer Day.” She clucked her mare ahead, into the high street, toward the park. Pauline eased forward on her control stick and followed, her heart in her throat.

  Out in public for the first time, showing the whole world the machine she had spent the best part of three months creating. Would it fail, right there in the high street, in the midst of the afternoon crowd? The very thought made her a little dizzy. But the steam horse functioned perfectly, and soon the little party turned down the carriage drive that circled the eastern half of the park. So far, so good.

  Though the drive would be thronged with fashionable carriages tomorrow, and especially toward evening when the Jubilee events were under way, at teatime the girls had the lane to themselves. Gaining confidence, Pauline throttled forward to trotting speed, quickly catching up and passing Clementine, who spurred her mare from a walk to a trot. Both girls laughed with delight.

  Pauline could not have been happier with her automaton. Unlike a flesh-and-blood horse, which bounced and jounced and required a proper English rider to rise and fall to compensate, her machine’s gait remained level and smooth, as if barely moving.

  “We must give your horse a name,” Clementine announced as she drew alongside.

  “A name?” Pauline asked. “It’s a machine.”

  “And a very fine horse, no matter that it’s a machine.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “Hmm,” mused Clementine. “What about Xanthus?”

  “Achilles’ horse,” said Pauline. “Not bad.” At that moment, the low afternoon sun broke through the tall trees along the path and bathed the world gold. The polished brass of the steam horse dazzled. “Phaeton!” she exclaimed.

  Clementine beamed. “A capital name. After the chariot horse of Eos—“

  “—Titan goddess of the dawn,” Pauline agreed.

  “And when I build one,” said Clementine, “I shall call it Lampus, and we shall have the matched pair.”

  Pauline smiled as she patted the machine’s neck. “Yes, Phaeton you shall be.”

  Side by side, they turned north, accelerating smoothly toward the bridge over the Serpentine. Faster and faster they flew, Pauline’s long, dark, unruly hair springing loose and flowing back over her shoulders. Clementine remained unruffled and perfectly coifed, even at a full gallop. “Not fair!” she called. “Phaeton is far too smooth and untiring.”

  “And it’s a good thing!” shouted Pauline. “I’m not nearly the horsewoman you are.” She laughed aloud, the wind tearing the sound from her lips.

  She pulled her father’s goggles up from beneath her chin and settled them over her eyes just as the horses’ hooves clattered onto the Serpentine Bridge. The girls waved happily to the first people they had seen since entering the park, seven burly univer
sity boys and their diminutive coxswain speeding past beneath the bridge in a long, sleek racing shell. Their teamwork was perfect, the picture of powerful synchronization, until the girls waved. Then the poor coxswain’s mouth dropped open, he pointed up at the bridge, and the entire crew turned to stare at the strange pair clattering past overhead. All semblance of concentration and coordination ceased. Long oars banged and tangled. Their momentum was lost. But none of the crew seemed to care. They stared after the beautiful young women on beautiful horses, one a gleaming simulacrum.

  Pauline laughed again, then realized that at that speed, her open mouth was certain to ensnare some flying insect or other, which only heightened her mirth that much more. What a joy to race along on a contrivance of her own devising, in the warmth of a London summer afternoon!

  As they sped off the north end of the bridge and back onto the tree-lined drive, there was a sharp pop, like a shot from a small pistol. The needles on the gauges in front of Pauline fell to zero. She felt Phaeton lurch and slow until he came to a complete stop. Clementine surged ahead, then slowed and circled back.

  Pauline swiveled in her saddle, scanning ahead and behind, but could see nothing wrong. She swung down and dropped to hands and knees in the gravel beside the inert machine, popping open an access panel in the belly and twisting to peer into the dark interior.

  Clementine drew her mare to a stop alongside her friend. “I should say it sounded as if a steam line parted,” she said.

  “Indeed,” said Pauline. “You were always better with the steam engine practicum at school.”

  “And you were a whiz with the clockwork,” said Clementine. “As well you ought to be.” She dropped from the saddle, and joined Pauline on her knees at Phaeton’s side. “Did you bring tools?”

  Pauline felt her face flush. “I’m afraid not. Not so much as a screwdriver.”

  “Well, let’s see if we can get that clamp loose.” Clementine produced a tiny clutch purse, seemingly from nowhere, and extracted a steel fingernail file. “Jenkins!” she called.

  The ancient retainer had barely cantered to within earshot, in no hurry to keep up with the galloping girls. “Yes, Miss?”