Postulis. Hermenes had managed to make it to the wall, but no further. Through it all Tuck stood steady using his night vision. He had reached out a hand to guide poor Avers who stayed near.
“What is with all the commotion?” the professor asked. “You look as though you have seen the undead swarm the streets below.”
“What are you talking about?” Postulis asked.
The professor only gave her an inquisitive glare. With his machine running full speed he wiped his hands and placed his goggles around his neck. Without a word he left the room. Confused, everyone stayed behind looking at each other blankly.
After a minute the professor poked his head back in the room.
“Well! Aren’t you coming?”
Clumsily, they got to their feet. They found him in the library waiting. He was on his feet pacing and stroking his beard very hard. As they shuffled in he paid them no notice until finally he spoke, “You said that you wish to speak to my ruler, yes? Eh? Come on now. Cough it up.”
“Why yes, sir, we do,” Postulis said.
“For what reason do you want to speak to that damnable creature?”
“Sir?”
He paced the full length of the room walking right between everyone. The two seasoned warriors exchanged curious looks. Then finally he spoke, “Do you work for him? Are you sent to capture me and throw me back…”
At this he shuttered and fell to the floor. He curled up into a little ball trembling unable to even make eye contact.
“Professor Wiltkine!” Avers said. “Get up off the floor. We are here to…”
“No! No, leave me alone,” he pushed her away and tried futilely to crawl through the wall.
“Lady Avers,” Pepla said bracing her arm. Avers walked wobbly falling to Tuck’s side.
Taking a step towards him, Pepla knelt down, “Professor, we mean you no harm. My people, my sisters, they have been obliterated.”
“Obliterated?” he said with large wet eyes.
“In desperation my queen seeks an alliance. There are so very few of us. We have been attacked. Persecuted.”
“Obliterated?”
“It is forbidden in Amazonia for a woman to travel through The Great Wood to Nething.”
“But why?”
“Vapori. The evil…”
“Vapori? You forbid travel because of vapori! You know not what you forbid. Vapori is energy. Motion. Kinesis.” He looked to Brunhilde. “Life.”
He wiped off his wet face with his hands and then his hands on his coat. Standing he said, “It is what gives life to my sweet Brunhilda. The engine you saw me place coal into. That, that is your damnable vapori.” His glare fixed on Pepla. “You must not go to Adduo. The king is a tyrant. A dictator. He does not care for your alliance. He cares for no one other than himself and his glory.”
“Oh, this is terrible news,” Hermenes said.
“Why do you say this?” Portulis asked.
“Many years ago we…I entered a competition. A competition amongst many friends and peers to create a machine. Any machine. Something fun, something convenient. Something that pleased the king. But the king was a boy…then. And he judged the entrants. I had done well in years past even placing in the top 5. That one was a machine that pushed a wheel on a cart. You could move it around. Go up and down a hill with the pull of a lever. But the year that the boy came to power was not a good year.”
“What happened?” Pepla asked.
“My machine was no mere machine. It was something more.”
His eyes glanced towards the door.
“Brunhilda?” Avers asked.
He nodded.
“What happened?” Pepla spoke again.
“At that time there was much more to my sweet Brunhilda than you now witness. She had a body. A full body. Legs and feet and skin and a heart. Oh, she had a heart of gold, but he could not see that. She was fastened through an umbilical cord of wires to a box. This box was the key. It allowed her to do something no other man had before attempted. She could control a platform I had created. It was truly marvelous. You should have seen it. The advancement would have vastly improved our military, our commerce. Just about anything you can think of.”
He slunk his head down staring at the floor.
“Then what? Oh, professor,” Pepla said, “please continue. It is such a wonderful story. Won’t you finish it?”
He looked up at her and smiled.
“The boy did not like the idea so much. In fact, I don’t think he even listened when I spoke. He was so fixated on Brunhilda, for she was much prettier back then, but I do not think that is why he looked. For ere I finished my presentation he stopped me short. Said I had created an abomination. He ordered her destroyed and me thrown into…into his dungeon to be tortured.”
“Oh professor!” Pepla gasped. “How horrible. Is that why your eye is missing?”
“Why yes…well, no. I mean. I don’t know anymore. It could be. Where was I? Yes, anyways. Tortured. As the guards grabbed me I told Brunhilda to save herself. They grabbed at her and tore her to pieces, but she was able to call the platform to her side and climb on. She was able to escape even if it was just the half of her it was surely the better half wouldn’t you say? I don’t know how long it was, but I was in the dungeon for some time. Then one day she came for me. She broke in and broke out. The two of us floating through the air to safety on her platform. That was years ago. He has never found me though I do not doubt that this is for lack of searching. I see other platforms now flying overhead. Much like mine did. But they have never stopped here. Never stopped to ask me who I am.”
“That must have been the sound we heard when we stopped to eat,” Avers said.
“I bet you’re right. That must be why the queen wanted us to request the alliance,” Tuck said.
“They would understand us.”
“Or be impressed by us. Our technology is beyond theirs. Or so it seems.”
“Regardless of your intentions there will be no alliance.”
“How do you know? Your fondness for the king should not prevent you from helping others in need.”
He turned to Avers.
“King Vorstaln has been watching. And conniving. He waits only for the right moment to invade.”
“Oh, this is terrible,” Pepla said.
“How can we trust you?” Postulis asked.
“I thought you had never heard of Amazonia?” Tuck followed with his own question.
“Last things first. First things last,” he pulled at his hair with both hands. “I know he gathers his military forces to fight. I know they are marching to the South. You say you are from the South. That must mean he is marching towards where you came from. And as far as trust goes I will show you!”
At this the professor stormed out of the room and out of the barn altogether. Behind the barn was a lean-to with wide rolling doors that spanned half the breadth of the barn. It was old and rickety, but the professor opened it revealing an object covered by a canvas. He pulled the covering off revealing a little ship; a modified platform.
“I will only take two of you. Who wants to go with me?”
He sat down in the thing and started it up. He pulled levers and spun gears. It choked out a puff of smoke. Internal mechanisms ground against each other creating a high pitched squeal.
“Come on now! I haven’t got all day. Bother me with your affairs will you. Accuse me of lying. And now you do not want the evidence you seek? Fools! All of you. Are you coming or are you staying?”
The party exchanged uneasy glances. Clearly the thing could hold more, but Tuck dared not argue with him and he suspected everyone else felt just as wise. Hermenes wanted to go. So did Postulis and Avers.
“It would
be best if Avers went. She was requested to go by the queen. Tuck is much too large,” Postulis said.
“If Lady Avers goes then I want to go too. I am to guard her with my life. If something should happen to her...”
“No, Pepla, you should remain. Stay with Tuck. I will be OK.”
“So, which of you two wish to go?” Tuck asked the two Amazonian delegates.
“I outrank you,” Postulis said to Hermenes. “I shall go.”
“Fickle women! Make your decision. I am leaving whether you are on board or not.”
Postulis and Avers crawled into his craft. The professor had his goggles on, but did not offer the same precaution to his passengers. He moved more levers and twisted a large red knob. The platform built up speed as it traveled away from the barn. As it moved metal wings unfolded from underneath the belly. Soon, the smoke from its exhaust had turned to sparkling fire and they rose into the sky. It was a nice little ship afte all.
“Do you think they will come back?”
“I don’t know,” Pepla said to Hermenes. “I don’t understand.” She turned to Tuck, “Perhaps it is like with your people. Do you understand?”
“No, not really. He flies, but it’s different. Actually, I’m not sure how that thing got in the air. It looked more like a rock than a bird.”
“I wish I could know that Lady Avers is well.”
Tuck brought up visual controls on his faceplate.
“Calvin, is it ready?”
“Yes sir. Would you like me to start broadcasting?”
“No, not yet.”
Addressing the women Tuck said, “Before they took off I gave Avers a