Zachariah Eight Arms wiped his hands with a rag as he looked at the mass of wires

  and components. He had designed the new engine with the help of Gold Bug’s skill

  at building complicated machines that didn’t last. They needed to test it, but it should

  work better than the cart they had put together.

  He walked the length of the hull. He had left off wings. The flying machine didn’t

  need them, and he wanted things to be as simple as possible after the complicated

  engine array.

  He didn’t know how much power it would produce, but if it performed well in the air

  race, he could think about making an assembly line to make more of them.

  Then he could work on the next invention impinging on his mind.

  He had a thought he could build automatic building workers to put things together for

  carpenters and masons.

  The public door opened. He looked up. He didn’t expect any business. Maybe

  someone needed him to look at something. He walked out of the work space and into

  the foyer. He paused when he saw Ambassador Campbell and his associates.

  “Ambassador?,” said Zachariah. “What do I owe the pleasure?”

  “We came by to talk to you about the summoner you killed,” said Campbell.

  Zachariah winced at the bold wording, but he had killed the man with a weapon

  designed by Gold Bug. He couldn’t take that back now.

  And the man deserved it for trying to kill Messer’s Reach.

  “What about him?,” said Zachariah.

  “Can we sit somewhere?,” asked the Reacher. He leaned on a cane. “Then we will go

  over this and get it done so we can go about our businesses and claim due diligence.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Zachariah. “I didn’t think about that. We can use the common

  room.”

  He led the way through the shop to the living area they had set up to share. He pulled

  the wooden chairs together so they could sit.

  “Let me get you some ale,” said Zachariah. “Would you like something to eat?”

  “Ale would be enough,” said Campbell. “I don’t think you should have to cook for

  us. We won’t be here that long.”

  “All right,” said Zachariah. “What do you want to know?”

  He retreated to the small cooking area. An icebox had been set up to keep drinks cool.

  He reached in and pulled out four bottles of ale. He handed over three of the bottles

  before popping the seal on his.

  “Let’s start with the drawing,” said Grimes. “Then go ahead with how you tracked the

  man down, and the ensuing battle.”

  “I was on the roof thinking about the work we were doing to get into the air race,”

  said Zachariah. “I saw him write the drawing into the street after pushing one of my

  neighbors out of the way.

  “He started walking off. I didn’t know anything about the drawing, but it bothered me

  because I had seen something like it at some point. So I came down here and asked

  my daemon to build a machine to help me remember where I had seen the drawing.

  Once I knew where I had seen the drawing, I borrowed Sola’s daemon, and I used it

  to find the man before he could go to ground. The rest was a simple walk to where

  Hardy was and then I talked to the man checking in guests to find out which room he

  was in.

  “I took the daemons up to the room in the hope that he would peacefully give up and

  erase the drawing,” finished Zachariah.

  “Instead the two of you wrecked that floor of the building, dropped part of the wall

  on the street, and threatened the lives of anyone who couldn’t get away from you,”

  said the Reacher.

  “I wouldn’t put it like that,” said Zachariah.

  “How would you put it?,” asked the third man. One of his eyes projected green light

  as he looked at the machinist.

  “I defended myself from someone who might have had something to do with killing

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  an untold number of people, and might have done the same thing here if I hadn’t

  asked him what was going on,” said the machinist.

  “Would you do it again?,” asked the Reacher.

  “Not like that,” said Zachariah. “I would have thought about what I could do with the

  situation if I had to do it over again. I definitely wouldn’t have given him a chance

  to summon something.”

  “The witnesses said there were fell beasts loosed in the building during the

  confrontation,” said the Reacher.

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Zachariah. “Bolan’s daemon arrived and caused a fracture in

  their group. It didn’t last long, but it was enough for me to use something Gold Bug

  built to end the fight.”

  “The governments of Messer’s Reach and Riordiana are going to give you awards for

  your action,” said Campbell. “I received the note before we came to talk to you.”

  “Tell them no,” said Zachariah. He looked down at his empty bottle. He went to the

  icebox and got another one. “I don’t want it.”

  “Why not?,” said the man with the green light.

  “I didn’t do what I did for a noble reason,” said Zachariah. He put the broken seal on

  the sideboard. “I did it because this is my home at the moment. And I didn’t want to

  start over.”

  “There is a reward involved,” said the Reacher.

  “I’ll let that go too,” said Zachariah.

  The three men looked at each other. It had been a long time since anyone had turned

  down an award for doing the right thing.

  “What would you like me to tell the king?,” asked Campbell.

  “Tell him to give it to someone better than me,” said Zachariah. “Is there anything

  else, gentlemen? I have to get back to work.”

  “All right,” said Campbell. He stood up awkwardly.

  “One last question, Master Eight Arms,” said the man with the light in his face. “Did

  you see anyone else in the room with this magician?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Zachariah. “When we burst in, he was all alone.”

  “Thank you for your time,” said the man. “At the very least, we know what we’re

  looking for if this shows up again.”

  “What do you mean shows up again?,” said Zachariah. “The man’s dead. We reduced

  him to paste.”

  “You reduced a man to paste,” said the Reacher. “But he was part of a unit from the

  looks of things. There are others out there. We’re looking for them.”

  “So someone else might try to do this again?,” said Zachariah.

  “Maybe,” said the Reacher. “We don’t know. They might not like what you did.”

  “If I come across one of these madmen, I will gladly take him prisoner so he can be

  questioned,” said Zachariah. “I have built a new life here. I won’t let someone take

  it from me without a fight.”

  “If you see anything else, let us know,” said Campbell. “This might be the major

  threat until we stop them.”

  “I will keep an eye out,” said Zachariah. He showed the men out. The visit had cooled

  the elation of his flying machine actually looking like it will fly in the air race.

  Zachariah put the bottles in a wooden box to take back to the ale house to get them

  refilled before he went back to his flying machine. He walked along the skeleton

  waiting for plating. Bolan and Sola could handle that now that he had the innards

  working. The interior would have to go in over everything with a space inset for the

  controls.

  Gold Bug appeared on his shoulder. He looked at the hull as he stood in place. The

  machine looked better than he thought it would.

  “We’re going to have to go back to the library,” said Zachariah. “Campbell and his

  friends think our magician was not working alone. There might be a trail we can find

  if we look through some of the histories.”

  Gold Bug climbed down, walked over to the table with his supplies, and climbed up

  so he could reach the lumps of metal that was useless for anything. He ate into the

  pile. When he was done, he divided until he could build a machine that sat on the

  desk. He stood back from his creation.

  “And what does this do?,” asked Zachariah. He looked at the square without picking

  it up.

  Gold Bug pressed the switch on the device. A square of paper ejected from the top of

  the device. A picture slowly drifted into view as the paper sat there.

  Zachariah looked at the picture. It was him, but he could see the markings that

  allowed him to summon Gold Bug from his home.

  “We can use this, or something like it to find any other city killers,” said the

  machinist. “We can build it in the air ship.”

  Gold Bug waved his antennae as he backed away from the device.

  “We can make pictures of everyone we come across and the one that seems the most

  dangerous could be one of them,” said Zachariah.

  Gold Bug pushed the machine to an upright position. He pointed it at the door. He

  pressed the button again. The resulting picture had some hot spots but they didn’t

  look that serious to the machinist.

  Then he realized what the problem was. He needed something to do what the machine

  did, but constantly without guidance. It had to show him what people looked like

  while he went about his business.

  He nodded.

  “This is good but we need something that works constantly,” said Zachariah. “And

  we need to be able to mount them so we can watch the whole city. That is a lot of

  work for the three of us.”

  Gold Bug stared at him with its composite eyes.

  “I like the idea,” said Zachariah. “It just needs to be finetuned. First, we have to build

  the mechanical watchers. Then we have to mount them in places that could watch the

  street without being seen. And lastly they would have to send the pictures back here

  to be collected so we could watch for people at random who might fit the profile.

  “That is a major undertaking.”

  Zachariah paused.

  “We could install an alarm here so the watchers would trigger it when they saw

  someone who fit the profile so we don’t have to watch everybody,” said the

  machinist. “What do you think of that?”

  Gold Bug made a chittering noise with its mandibles.

  “All right then,” said Zachariah. “But before we do all that, we have to get ready for

  the race.”