Excerpt: The Eternal Spring

“Will the Emperor really hand over his empire for the Empress, sir?”
“Of course not. However, I think the problem of the Empress will distract him from this.”

Mayor Major pulled a lever. There was a slow ticking sound, and then a series of clicks as a row of lamps were lit by spring-loaded flint and steel mechanisms. The room was cavernous, the ceiling supported by huge iron girders as big as the trunks of the giant trees that once occupied this very spot, two millennia ago, back when forests ruled the world and humans cowered in their shadows. Shadows still lurked here, but the shadows were cast from iron, not ancient wood, and they were outlined by the harsh blue of gas lamps, not the warm yellow of the sun. Something else lurked here, something to make even trees tremble, if back then those trees could know what would come to reside here. Many somethings, gleaming like oil in the light of the lamps. All of them still, and huge, and monstrous - things of iron and glass. Both elegant in their lines and curves, and terrible in the purpose that was stamped on them for even the stupidest child to see. They almost resembled people, but in place of arms they had cannons, blades, and machines that nobody today knew - but which had, as their purpose, a plain intention. These things were created for destruction.

“Distract him as it may, sir, it will do you no good if he crushes you while this silent army remains mute and lame.”
“Yes, Razzlefat, that is the problem at hand. All other problems are nothing until this one is solved.”
“Even the zombies, sir?”
“Even the zombies.”
“Do you know what will wake them, sir?”
“Yes. The problem is finding it. What we seek now has been so long lost, and is so shrouded in legend, that it will be a rather difficult task finding it.”
“How shall we start then, sir?”
“Obviously, we start by having someone else do the hard work for us. It turns out that someone else has been, rather inelegantly but effectively, searching for the very same thing.”

Major handed Razzlefat a piece of paper; on it was drawn a man’s face, sketched to a very high degree of likeness. “Have this man followed - discreetly, of course. When he finds what he is looking for, take it from him.”
“What is he looking for, sir?”
“The Eternal Spring.”