Engines of Obsession: Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Pupprietress

The fading days of summer, coming so soon after a violent thunderstorm, had settled into a dry and dusty misery. Lord Byron had delivered on his promises, but having some new clothes and equipment for the just-purchased mule to haul didn't make the world more comfortable. Even the water tumbling into Turner's mouth from his waterskin somehow tasted dry and leathery.

"This town is bigger than I expected," Milo commented. He'd been more talkative the last day or two, Turner noted. The shock of the series of events had finally started to wear off, letting his natural curiosity show through once more. Good. Turner knew that the sooner he and Martin came to terms with what had happened, the sooner they'd really start to grow into their roles.

Nora made a vague noise of agreement. "We passed by a lot more farmsteads on the way than when we went to Hodgeworth. I'd have thought going further west would make them more sparse."

Turner spoke up as the quartet trudged on. "Laston is a lot older than you'd expect," he began, shrugging lightly. "Its name comes from Last Town, actually. Remember those old walls we saw in Hodgeworth? Those were partially from an older town built before the Death."

He paused as he heard Martin curse lightly and tug at Clinker's lead. The mule was largely well-behaved, but had the annoying habit of pausing to chew at anything that he wasn't familiar with. Fenceposts, wildflowers, wagon wheels; if it stuck out, Clinker chewed it. There was always something, with these creatures.

The clop of hooves resumed, so Turner did the same with his explanation. "Laston was the last true town before the old frontier. When the Confederacy made a push to reclaim some of it, this made for a good line to draw."

He nodded toward the old stone bridge coming into sight. "The meeting of rivers they built it on makes it into a good hub for people venturing out, or returning from any outings into the west. It's grown almost as large as Sparston, last I heard, just more spread out. I've never been here, but Vale mentioned it a few times in her visits."

"It's called a confluence, Turner. The meeting of rivers, that is," Nora added gently, but didn't correct anything else he said. Turner was pretty sure his vocabulary was half from Nora, rather than his own education, so he didn't argue.

Milo was right, though. Laston was surprisingly large, and just hearing that from someone didn't do it justice. Right now, the packed dirt road they walked on only had small houses and farms on either side, with the exception of an inn not far behind them.

Yet old stone bridge spanned a rather wide river, and led into what was clearly a bustling, large town with numerous buildings that went up three to four stories. Outside of the old, commerce-laden cities out to the East, or central trade hubs like Sparston, that was pretty rare.

"Any imports to declare?" A dull, bored voice interrupted Turner's thoughts. The bridge they were approaching had a small covered table set to the side of the bridgehead, where two guardsmen were playing cards. Spears rested against one of the support beams, but the overall look was pretty lazy. The question was perfunctory and dismissive, but Turner noticed that the guards eyes quickly darted to each of them, lingering on the mule.

Turner shook his head. "Private sales only, nothing planned. We're here looking for something... not even sure how long we'll be staying."

The guard nodded and waved them on, with the other guard -- who still hadn't looked up from the cards -- giving a simple thumbs up. Martin again tugged on Clinker's lead, pulling the mule short of gnawing on the signpost explaining the lazy guardsman.

LASTON

UNLICENSED MERCHANTS

DECLARE GOODS FOR TAX

As Turner and the others stepped onto the solid stone of the bridge, Milo asked, "Why only two guards? They didn't seem very alert, either. And why do merchants pay a tax here but not Sparston?"

Turner grunted, "They don't need to be too alert. They're here for a formality. Anyone who tries to force their way in, they'll be limited to the bridges. It'll give the town plenty of time to prepare. But it's better to have the goods noted here than inside where they can weasel out."

"They're as alert as they need to be," Nora added. "Don't take them for granted. The sort of guard who does this duty is intelligent and trustworthy. They need to be able to read well -- maybe even better than you two, now -- and work with percentages, and handle currency. Maybe even different currencies, but I think this far out they only seen Confederate marks."

Turner shrugged, "Maybe some old world coinage from treasure hunters. But deniers and sols aren't usually taxed here. They'd handle that in the city when selling them off."

Milo nodded slowly, but Turner could tell the hunter had gotten lost. It wasn't that he was dumb, not at all. But Milo and Martin's education had consisted of whatever was needed out in the little village. They'd been taught how to read, at least, but Nora was tutoring them on getting better at that. Turner forgot that at times.

Which meant they were pretty light on ancient history, too.

That wasn't important right this moment, and it was Nora's area of expertise anyway, so Turner didn't try to explain more. "For now, we go into town, find a guide, and have them take us to this Crafts Guildhall we were told about."

The bridge was pretty long -- these rivers weren't huge, but they weren't the sort you could casually ford either. The ancient Imperial concrete was patched with new stonework, especially up above, but looked well-maintained at least. It led into a true cobblestone road leading through the town, showing off some of the wealth of this last gasp of civilization.

Out here close to the frontier, a ragtag group such as theirs drew few curious eyes. Those who did look at them noted Turner's sword and Milo's rifle, and immediately categorized them as freelancers or explorers. It also tagged them as easy marks for a certain sort of scam, but Turner knew how to deal with it.

A shrill whistle from his lips, a quick gesture, and Turner called out, "Hey, kid!" The dark-haired, wild-eyed boy jerked in surprise, ready to bolt before Turner flashed two coins. "One fenning to show us to the Craftsman Guildhall. An extra to take us there quickly. Two more so you have something to give to the big guy." A quick wink and a grin to reassure got the right response.

The boy, about nine or ten, grinned back and scampered forward. "Dis way!" His accent was thick, and he had a subtle darker shade to his skin that had Milo staring. Oddly, Martin either didn't notice, or didn't care.

Nora spoke quietly, "Turner grew up among orphans, remember. This boy is probably mixed blood... likely from some of the castoffs. Remnants of the Old Empire that got left behind when it fell and the wildlands took over. Some pockets survived, and the remnants end up meeting the Confederacy when it expands."

Turner nodded, "Kids like this, they usually act as a guide, but milk you for it." He gave a nod to a passing pair of guardsmen, then continued, "You show them you know the scam, and are willing to just pay a little more up front, and they'll treat you okay. It's less than they might make if they ran us around all day, but frees them up quick. Everybody wins."

With only a minor detour to some shop selling fake charms, Turner managed to get to the guildhall pretty early in the day, just after noon. This was the place that had put in the order for Henley's lenses, so it was the place to start. A building of shelves, bookkeeping, and the faint scratch of pen on paper.

Unfortunately, it was just a start. In a town like this without a glassworks of its own, the guildhall commissioned items from other places when requested. This left a paper trail of who requested what, but to find out which citizen had put in the order, one had to go to the guildhall itself.

Turner wasn't being as cautious as usual, but his eye for detail mattered here. While the records were searched, he chatted with the clerk about the disturbing news he'd heard on the way over.

"So uh," Turner prompted awkwardly. "What's this I hear about the railroad being cancelled?"

The clerk lifted an eyebrow and paused whatever he was writing. Turner had correctly guessed that the brain-numbing paperwork could use a break. The pale fellow cleared his throat, "It does look like that. Sir Eberhard was heavily in favor of it, and used his connections for it. He was murdered a few weeks ago. Throat slit, likely by his son. We have him in custody. The boy is quite mad."

A heavy sigh, and the clerk turned back to his papers. "The local council is trying to push it through, but without Sir Eberhard's connections, it may not happen. I believe most of the investors think it too risky, and a high-profile murder like this... likely convinced them."

Turner glanced back at the others as the clerk resumed his work. He scooted away, letting the murmur of the busywork around him cover up his low-voiced words. "That places the murder not long before Henley's. Taking into account travel time..."

"This isn't just chance," Martin finished Turner's thought. The brothers weren't as paranoid as Turner, but they had some caution, and both of them had caught on to the timing.

Nora shook her head, "I agree, not a coincidence -- or not likely to be one, anyway." She frowned, running fingers through her hair and twirling one lock around a finger in thought. "What I don't understand is the motive. And then again, slitting a throat doesn't sound like the kind of death that machine did."

"And it wasn't subtle at all," Milo added. "Slitting a throat is trying to be quiet about it. Maybe Henley was a murder made to send a message? Or maybe they weren't done by the same person, and are related a different way." He made a grunt of disgust. "This isn't what I'm trained for."

Turner chuckled, "None of us are, but we do our best." He sighed and slumped back in the chair. "We should have squeezed a promise of payment out of Lord Byron if we found anything..."

"Mister Turner!" Another clerk called out. "We found the record for the purchase!" The man hurried over, huffing loudly with a flushed face from dash. He waved a small paper, then squint at it. "Oh -- I remember this one... that's odd."

Odd was never something Turner wanted to hear. "Odd?"

The clerk glanced up at Turner, then back to the paper. "I remember this because the woman was very specific about her request, but she ran a shop mostly devoted to puppets and dolls. She also had... striking red hair. Very memorable."

The red-faced man huffed, "We don't have much on her though. Her name is Anne Blakely, and her shop was called The Pupprietress. It closed up shop a while ago but I don't know where she went."

Turner frowned. Any lead was better than none. "Do you have the address of where the shop used to be?"

"I'm afraid not," the clerk sighed as he shook his head. "The store mostly appears to have bought from the local merchants, so rarely needed to come here. We do have her license on file, but it did not have an address. It's supposed to be updated when they put their shop in, but someone must have forgotten. I think it's on Angley Street?"

The other clerk nearby shook his head, "Pupprietress? No, that was on Menton Street. The next one over. Almost positive. Near the cobbler, remember?"

The first clerk scratched his head with a puzzled frown, "Was it? I thought it was on Angley. On the other side from the cobbler, back to back..." He shook his head, "Well, just head to those streets and ask around, and you should find where it used to be. I'm not sure who bought the storefront, but with the local government in chaos it might be easier to just ask instead of looking that up."

The confusion didn't sit well with Turner, but he thanked the clerks and went on his way. Something about this whole mess didn't sit well with him, and the sooner they got answers, the better.

Just asking around didn't have the intended results.

"That shop? I didn't realize it had closed. I think it was the next street over," one woman replied.

"I remember that shop. It was on the other side from the cobbler next to me," the chandler replied. "The owner moved on a few weeks ago. Pretty sure she let Langley, the cobbler, buy out her shop for storage."

The cobbler, Langley, looked confused. "Pupprietress? No, that wasn't next to me. I knew her a little. Lady had little sense of humor but kept to herself and was helpful enough. We traded leather scraps a few times." He pointed to the chandler's place nextdoor. "Her shop was on the other side of Fenton's place, I think, but pretty sure he boarded it up after she left town."

It was getting frustrating, and Turner paused the group to gather and figure out where to go. "This doesn't make any sense," he grumbled.

Martin snorted, "Pretty sure the street is right, but they can't even pay attention to their own neighbors?" He shook his head with a frown of disdain.

Quietly, Nora narrowed her eyes. "I think this isn't natural." She gestured to the shops lining the street. "I don't see a place for an extra shop here, and nobody has the same story about where it is or what happened to it. I think we might be looking at some advanced witchcraft. I'll try to study the area, but if it's weeks old there won't be much left..."

The brothers both looked at her, with Milo blurting, "Witchcraft can do that?"

Nora nodded, but her eyes were distant, her voice more a mumble than a real answer. "Yes... if powerful enough. I've never seen anyone who could do something this broad though. It's all about nudging and hinting beyond the normal. A ward that could make people pass over a storefront unless they were looking for it, certainly. But she interacted with people, and they still have confused memories. This is something beyond what I've ever learned, if that's what it is."

Turner only half-listened, more familiar with these quirks than the brothers were. He spied a shopkeeper hawking a new hat... a lot of hats, actually. The town's milliner, most likely. What caught his eye now was beside her, flicking marbles into a circle drawn in the dirt of the street. A small child.

"Nora, maybe the girl saw something," he interrupted, nodding that way. He was already walking toward the storefront, signaling for the shopkeeper's attention. The youngish woman looked at him oddly, but offered a polite smile.

Turner smiled back, "Excuse me, sorry if this sounds strange, but we're looking for a shop that used to be here." He nodded to the side. "Did you or your daughter ever go to the Pupprietress?"

The woman brightened, "I never went in there myself, mister, but I met the owner. She did something that healed my little girl's leg. We thought it would heal wrong, but she said she had a stock of remedies she'd gotten while traveling." She looked down to her daughter. "I have a customer... Gretchen, could you answer this man's questions about Miss Blakely? Don't run off, now. We don't know him."

Truthfully, Turner wasn't the best with kids, so he let Nora kneel down beside the curious girl. She looked about six years old, with wavy brown hair and wide eyes that stared at Nora's pale complexion. "Hi..."

"Hi there, Gretchen. I'm Nora," the witch murmured lightly. "We're looking for Miss Blakely. Your momma said you knew her?"

The girl nodded, standing up. "I broked my leg. She fixed it!" Stomping a foot to emphasize. This made a marble start to roll away, so she stooped down to pluck it up to safety. "She was nice... she had to go."

Nora nodded patiently while Turner just tried to smile. Milo and Martin spoke quietly with one another, trying to stay out of the way and not crowd the child. Nora purred, "Oh, that was sweet of her. Can you describe her? Or tell us where her shop was? What was it like?"

Gretchen nodded slowly. "Uh-huh. She had pretty red hair! It was long and she put it in a ponytail!" The girl made some gestures with her own. "And blue eyes. But she wasn't as big as you. Except her boobies, they were lots bigger!" The child made a cupping motion with her hands at her chest.

Martin and Milo stifled laughter, and Nora just coughed politely, trying to ignore that. "Oh, she sounds very pretty. Was she older than me? Younger? You went to her shop?"

The young girl nodded quickly, "I think she was a little older? Um. She let me play in her shop sometimes if I was good. It was all over, but I always found it." Huffing with pride, she stood up straight. "It had lots of toys in it! She let me play with them sometimes."

Nora glanced at Turner, who frowned and mouthed 'all over?'

"What did you mean the shop was all over?" Nora prodded gently, concern in her face.

Gretchen giggled, "It was all over!" She pointed to the street. "It moved when nobody was looking! Like hide and seek!" She pouts, "I hope she comes back soon."

Turner finally spoke up, pouncing on the comment. "You think she'll be back soon? Did she tell you that?" Nora gave him a brief look, but the child didn't seem to mind.

"Uh-huh!" Gretchen pointed down the street. "She left stuff in the big building! She's gonna come back for it, right? I miss my friends."

It was easy to see which building the girl meant. A storehouse over toward the river, likely so people could load and unload cargo from boats easily. Nora gave the girl a smile, "Thanks, I hope you see your friends again soon. Maybe we'll stop by later and play some marbles with you, okay?"

"Thanks, Miss!" Gretchen called out brightly, before something else caught her eye and she wandered off. Attention span at that age could be unpredictable, Turner knew. Probably best she wander off instead of latching on and trying to follow them.

"A moving shop, huh?" Milo asked, eyes wide. "What kind of magic is that?"

Nora shook her head, "It probably isn't a moving shop." She tapped her head, "It's a powerful charm, but it is likely just messing with perceptions."

"Children have a knack for seeing through these things, that's why she could always find it, but it isn't perfect." Turner broke in to explain. "That's why I wanted to talk to her. So whatever trick she was using probably muddled the girl's memory a little, but not enough to make her forget that it was strange."

"If we pressed enough, people would start remembering," Nora agreed. "But doing it that way can be stressful or even dangerous. People tend to react badly when they find their memories aren't reliable. I know some ways to protect us from this kind of thing, but they take time to set up."

Martin made a face, and Milo nodded thoughtfully. Both of them seemed to get it. Milo brought up the next question. "What do we do now, though?"

Turner smiled, "Now? We head back to the inn where we left Clinker, grab some stew, and make one last outing as the sun's going down."

"I still don't feel good about this," Milo complained.

Turner grunted, then plucked the thin metal wire from his lips to thread it into the lock. "That's because you're a good kid. If you felt good about this, you'd be in the wrong crowd." He felt resistance, and gingerly twisted the wire.

Nora quietly added, "We aren't stealing anything, just looking. But you two keep watch... if we get caught they'd naturally assume we're stealing something."

The lock clicked, and Turner carefully eased the door open. He'd checked for any kind of wires or other signs of some kind of alarm, but he wasn't an expert on breaking and entering. Laston was a lot more developed than most places on the frontier, they could have had something fancy.

They didn't. Turner eased the door open, slipping in with Nora silently stalking behind him. With the door shut, the light was too dim to see, but Nora gently brushed her fingers over the top of her staff. A gentle glow began to diffuse from the tip, just enough to see by. Another of those 'magic' spells that were just alchemical tricks.

All the same to Turner. He didn't get how it worked, and really didn't care. It gave light that wasn't flickering torchlight, and was soft enough it probably wouldn't be noticed.

"Not sure where her stuff would be," Turner whispered, threading through pallets of materials and goods. He could read just fine, but merchants who rent out space used their own systems. It was all a guess.

Nora hissed back, "It isn't that big of a place. And I'm starting to get that queasy feeling, too."

Turner paused and gestured for her to lean to the left. "Never mind, found it. Didn't they say it was a puppetry place?"

The light moved closer to another pallet. The glimmering, faintly green-shaded glow lit up a number of crates, along with a large frame supporting a half dozen wooden marionettes of various sizes. All were well-made, ranging from simplistic abstract figures, to elaborately-designed and jointed humanlike dolls wearing clothing.

Nora wrinkled her nose. "Yes... that feeling is stronger here. I think some of those metal monsters might be here."

Turner nodded, tugging the crowbar from his belt loop. "Right. Let's see what we can find, then."

"I was hoping you'd say that," another voice said. Louder, much louder, and youthful. Cheerful in tone, with a crisp accent that Turner placed as being more city-born, from the East like himself.

The largest marionette flicked a hand, delicately-jointed fingers curling as a dagger slid from the sleeve of the fitted black suit it wore. The dagger sliced through the strings holding the marionette aloft, dropping it to the floor with a wooden clatter.

Eyes lit up in a blue glow, as the wooden figure rose to its feet. Smooth - eerily smooth - and fluid movements that weren't at all like the mechanical construct. Wooden ball joints gave it a flexibility beyond flesh.

Yet nothing was there to move it. No engine chugged and puffed. Not even wires of an electrical power source showed. Just those pale blue eyes on a carved wooden face, boyish but artificial. A jaw that was just a simple up and down puppet's jaw, that clacked as it - he? - spoke.

"You know, we're supposed to keep a low profile. You destroyed one of my toys, but I would have left you alone if you'd forgotten about it," the chipper voice announced. Another knife slid from a hidden sheath, both hands twirling them with unnerving dexterity.

"But you just had to get curious."