Part One: Ashes
More often than not, idioms are built on exaggeration.
A child so dear you could put them in your eye and feel no pain. A joke so ridiculous it could make tea boil in your navel. Expressions like these are not meant to be taken literally.
Yet there are rare exceptions.
For example, the phrase not enough room to set foot had never been more accurately embodied than in the office of the man who called himself the greatest detective in town.
Papers overflowed from the shelves. Files lay in tottering stacks. Books, notes, diagrams, personal belongings, and things whose purpose had long since been forgotten covered every visible inch of the floor. It was not a metaphor. There truly was nowhere to step.
This, then, was the castle of the famed detective Henry Sholme.
And at the desk by the window, dressed in a white shirt and black waistcoat, sat the ruler of that castle.
Strictly speaking, he was not so much ruling as sleeping with his mouth open, producing a noise that sounded like a dying steam engine.
Unfortunately for him, his reign of peace was about to end.
A small shadow hurried through the entrance hall and down the corridor leading to the detective’s office.
“Professor! Professor Sholme!”
The voice belonged to Karin, his assistant.
She reached the wooden door and tried to force it open. Since the door opened inward, however, and since the other side was barricaded by the detective’s beloved geological layers of documents, it moved only a few inches.
“It won’t open… Professor! Honestly!”
She planted her feet and pushed harder, advancing little by little as if struggling forward through a storm with an umbrella held against the wind. At last, the door gave way enough for her to squeeze inside.
The sight that greeted her was every bit as disgraceful as she had feared.
“Wake up, Professor! Actually, forget that — get up!”
It took ten sharp slaps to the detective’s whiskered cheek before Henry Sholme finally returned to the world of the living.
“…For a moment, I thought the town alarm had gone off.” .”
He opened one narrow eye and recognized the young woman standing before him.
“Karin.”
Karin was twenty-seven years old, an age that would be considered perfectly adult in most civilized nations. Unfortunately, her small frame, round face, and neatly cut fringe made her look far younger. On more than one occasion, she had been refused alcohol, questioned by police after dark, and treated by strangers as if she had escaped from a school trip.
Sholme stretched so dramatically that his armchair nearly tipped over backward, then sat upright with a short sigh. He looked at Karin. Then he looked at the office.
“Karin,” he said, with wounded dignity, “how many times have I told you not to disturb the order of my room?”
Karin looked around the office, then back at him.
“With respect, Professor, I’m afraid a mediocre human being like myself could never hope to make this room any more chaotic than it already is.”
“No, no, that is precisely where you are mistaken.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, searching for words.
“For instance, the file under your right foot — the one concerning the unidentified flying object sighted over Country B ten years ago — has moved approximately ten centimeters closer to the desk since I fell asleep. And the documents you displaced while forcing the door open include notes on the ruins of an ancient civilization in Country L, as well as several testimonies regarding the giant creature observed in Lake S.”
“I see. Then I sincerely apologize for moving your garbage.”
“Garbage…”
“But that can wait. Right now, there is someone who wishes to see you.”
Before Karin had even finished speaking, Sholme’s gaze had already shifted past her to the entrance.
A middle-aged man stood there, uncertain whether he was welcome to enter. He wore a bowler hat and a long coat, and the look on his face suggested that he had not expected a detective’s office to resemble the aftermath of a paper avalanche.
Sholme rose from his chair and offered the man a pleasant smile.
“Perhaps we should speak in the other room. This one is not especially suited to civilized conversation.”
“I am Berla Wright.”
The man seated himself on one of the five sofas in Sholme’s reception room. The sofa in question was riddled with holes and had been purchased for a mere thousand daels at a yard sale held by one of the detective’s friends.
The rest of the room was hardly more respectable.
There was a carpet Karin had once bought during what she called “a journey of self-discovery,” after several persuasive men had led her into a back room and assured her it was an authentic Tolsian rug. There was also a vase that Sholme’s late grandmother had purchased from a “very kind gentleman” who promised it would bring good fortune.
Together, these cheerful relics formed the decorative pride of Sholme’s reception room.
The visitor placed his business card on the table.
Sholme glanced at it.
His expression, however, was not one of delight. If anything, it was rather sour.
The middle-aged man shifted awkwardly, as if wondering whether he had offended him. Before he could speak, Sholme cut in.
“I have often wondered whether a business card has any value when handed out by a man such as yourself.”
The visitor’s shoulders relaxed.
“So you know of me. I’m honored.”
“Well, naturally.”
Sholme tucked the card into the breast pocket of his shirt.
“Berla Wright. The so-called King of Inventors. Telegraphs, phonographs, antennas, incandescent lamps — one new invention after another. I doubt there are many people in this country, or indeed in the world, who have not heard your name.”
Berla did not bother to deny the praise. Instead, he leaned back with the air of a man perfectly accustomed to being admired.
Then his eyes narrowed.
They were sharp, clever eyes, like those of a jackal — the eyes of a man who studied others as carefully as others studied machines.
“In my work,” Berla said, “I entrust important matters only to first-rate individuals. The matter I bring to you today is of the utmost importance. I would ask that you listen carefully.”
As he spoke, he removed his bowler hat and looked around for a hat stand. Finding none, he placed it on the table and revealed a head somewhat thinner on top than his age might have suggested. Then he opened the leather bag at his side and began searching through it.
“I am looking for someone.”
“A missing person?” Sholme asked.
Karin entered at that moment carrying tea and sweets. At the words missing person, her interest immediately sharpened.
“May I ask who it is?”
“This person.”
Berla drew an old illustrated volume from his bag and opened it to a page marked with a slip of paper. At the center of the page was a reproduction of an ancient fresco.
It showed a woman bound to a post, surrounded by straw and firewood. Flames rose around her feet. Her face was twisted in agony. Around her stood a crowd, watching.
There was something unnervingly vivid about the colors of the fresco. The terror of the woman, the heat of the flames, the feverish excitement of the crowd — all of it seemed to press out from the page.
“The Stort witch trial,” Sholme murmured.
Berla’s eyes flashed.
“As expected of Professor Sholme. Yes. This illustration depicts the witch trial that took place in the village of Stort approximately four hundred years ago.”
Karin leaned closer, doing her best to keep up.
“If I remember correctly, the accused was a woman named Galinchi. She lived on the edge of the village and was said to practice magic and forbidden arts. A village physician denounced her, and she was eventually burned as a witch. Supposedly, she could communicate with spirits and fly through the air.”
Then Karin paused.
A new question had just occurred to her.
“…Are you asking us to find a woman who was burned to death four hundred years ago?”
“I am not looking for the witch,” Berla replied.
He pointed again to the fresco.
“I am looking for this child.”
Sholme and Karin followed his finger. Near the burning pyre, almost hidden beside the piled wood, knelt a little girl. Her face was buried in her hands as she wept.
“According to the records, Galinchi had a daughter named Cruz. Another legend claims that before her execution, Galinchi entrusted the girl with a notebook containing everything she had learned through her research into magic.”
Berla closed the book halfway, though his hand remained on the page.
“What I seek is that notebook — and the descendants of the girl who may still possess it.”
“I understand the nature of the request,” Sholme said slowly. “However…”
He looked at Berla.
“If you will forgive my curiosity, why would the King of Inventors be interested in the descendants of a four-hundred-year-old witch trial? I have not heard that you are especially devoted to the preservation of historical sites.”
“One hundred million daels.”
The answer had nothing whatsoever to do with the question.
Sholme blinked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If you resolve this matter, I will pay you one hundred million daels. Those are my terms. Do you have any further questions?”
For a moment, neither the detective nor his assistant spoke.
One hundred million daels.
It was nearly a century’s worth of Sholme’s annual income.
At last, Sholme looked down again at the woman burning in the illustration.
“Well,” he murmured, “that is certainly surprising.”
The following morning, Sholme took Karin with him to South Park, the town where Berla Wright’s research institute was located.
The day before, the sudden appearance of a client of such fame — and, more importantly, the promise of a fee of one hundred million daels — had left both detective and assistant in a state of mild paralysis. They had accepted the case, of course. Sholme remembered that much.
Unfortunately, in the confusion, they had failed to ask several practical questions. For instance: what exactly did Berla know about Galinchi? Why did he believe the notebook still existed? And what, precisely, did an inventor intend to do with the legacy of a woman executed as a witch four centuries earlier?
Since these questions were rather important, Sholme had decided to visit the man directly.
At the institute, however, the woman at the reception desk informed them that Director Wright was not present.
“Then where is he?” Karin asked.
The receptionist pointed vaguely toward the hills.
“In the meadow on the mountain side.”
This answer, while technically a direction, proved less helpful than one might hope.
The “meadow on the mountain side” was not a meadow so much as an enormous sweep of open grassland. From where Sholme and Karin stood, there was no sign of Berla Wright, no sign of any research institute personnel, and very little sign of civilization in general.
Sholme looked across the field.
“…It may be faster to return to the institute and wait for him there.”
“That may be—”
Karin stopped.
She tilted her head slightly, listening.
“What is it?” Sholme asked.
“I hear something.”
“Something?”
“An engine. I think it’s coming from beyond that ridge.”
The possibility of returning to the institute was instantly forgotten.
With the kind of curiosity that made sensible people miserable and detectives employed, the two of them began walking toward the sound.
When they climbed the ridge and looked down the other side, they found the man they had been searching for.
Berla Wright stood in the middle of a crowd.
Around him bustled dozens of men and women in work clothes, carrying tools, checking gauges, unrolling cables, arguing over measurements, and shouting instructions across the grass. From the way they consulted Berla at every turn, they were clearly members of the research institute.
But it was not the crowd that seized Sholme and Karin’s attention.
It was the machine.
A long rail had been laid across the field, rather like a railway track. Resting upon it was a contraption so peculiar that, at first glance, neither detective nor assistant knew what to call it.
It had two vast fabric wings, one above the other, held apart by wooden struts and a complex web of wires. Smaller wings projected from the front. Beneath the lower wing, a man wearing a helmet and work clothes lay face-down in a narrow frame. A parachute was strapped to his back. In front of him was a lever, which he held with both hands.
Karin stared.
“Is that… a glider?”
“No,” Sholme said. “It’s larger than any glider I’ve seen. And since when do gliders have engines?”
As if in answer, the machine coughed, shuddered, and roared.
Berla’s voice rang across the meadow, loud enough to challenge the engine.
“Target time is the same as before: three hours! Is everyone ready?”
“Ready!”
The researchers raised their hands.
The pilot lying in the machine gave a thumbs-up.
An odd tension spread through the field.
Then the machine began to move.
At first, it rolled along the rail at perhaps twenty kilometers per hour. Then thirty. Then faster. The wings trembled. The wires sang. The engine hammered like a furious heart.
Sholme and Karin watched, unable to look away.
The wheels left the rail.
For one impossible moment, the machine floated.
Karin’s hand flew to her mouth.
“It’s flying…”
Sholme leaned forward.
“It is.”
The machine climbed to perhaps ten meters above the ground and held itself there, skimming through the air with an awkward but unmistakable independence.
For a few seconds, it seemed the entire meadow had stopped breathing.
Then the machine lurched.
Its right wing dipped.
The pilot struggled with the lever. The aircraft swayed once, twice, then began to roll in a wide, ugly arc toward the ground.
“Ah—!”
Karin cried out.
The pilot threw himself free.
His parachute opened just in time, blossoming above him like a pale flower. The machine was less fortunate. It struck the earth nose-first, twisted, splintered, and collapsed into a heap of broken wood, torn fabric, bent wire, and useless ambition.
A groan passed through the researchers.
Berla swore under his breath.
“Damn it… Not again.”
One of the engineers, already running toward the wreckage, shouted back, “The problem is still engine output! Without more speed, we cannot maintain sufficient lift!”
“But increasing the power further would require a completely new engine design!”
The researchers gathered around the wreck, some checking the pilot, others examining the ruined frame. No one seemed surprised by the crash, which was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all.
Sholme and Karin descended the ridge toward them.
Berla noticed them as they approached.
“Professor Sholme,” he said, brushing grass and dust from his coat. “I have never hired a detective before. Is it customary for them to report progress the morning after accepting a case?”
“No progress report, I’m afraid,” Sholme said. “We came to ask you a few more questions about the matter from yesterday. But before that…”
He looked toward the wrecked machine.
“What exactly did we just witness?”
Berla followed his gaze.
“Ah. That.”
For a moment, despite the crash, pride broke through his disappointment.
“You may as well know. It is my newest invention. I call it an aircraft. Unlike a glider or an airship, it is intended to fly under its own power and remain under continuous control by a pilot. If we can perfect it, mankind will no longer merely drift through the sky. We will command it.”
He had only just begun to warm to the subject when a sharp young voice cut across the field.
“Father!”
A young woman burst from among the researchers.
She was small — nearly as short as Karin — but where Karin’s youthful appearance came from her neat fringe and round face, this girl looked like a compact explosion of restless energy. Her brown hair was cut short. A pair of goggles sat on the helmet strapped to her head. She wore a work suit far too large for her frame, which made her seem even smaller than she was.
“Father, let me pilot the next test!”
Berla’s expression changed at once.
“Ameri. I am speaking with—”
“I can fly it. I know I can. Let me take the next machine up.”
“No.”
The refusal came so quickly and so firmly that even Sholme blinked.
“You saw what just happened,” Berla said. “The pilot escaped by a hair’s breadth. One mistake, one failure of timing, and he could have died. I will not put you in that machine. Absolutely not.”
“But I understand it better than anyone!” Ameri insisted. “I’ve been working beside you from the beginning. I know the principles. I know the design. I know how to keep it level. I can fly for three hours — four, even!”
“No.”
Her eyes filled with tears, whether from anger or frustration Sholme could not tell.
“I wouldn’t fail you.”
Berla’s sternness faltered.
He stepped forward and placed both hands on her shoulders.
“Ameri… I’m sorry. But I cannot lose you too. Not after Abby.”
At the name, Ameri fell silent.
She lowered her gaze, biting back whatever she had been about to say. Then, with a face full of disappointment and fury, she turned and walked away across the field.
Berla watched her go, one hand rising helplessly to the brim of his hat.
After a moment, he looked back at Sholme and Karin with a weary smile.
“You have now seen both a failed experiment and a family quarrel. I apologize for the spectacle.”
“Not at all,” Karin said softly. “Was that your daughter?”
“Yes. Ameri.”
Berla folded his arms and sighed, though there was unmistakable fondness in the sound.
“Stubborn as a nail and twice as difficult to bend. More curiosity than sense. A girl should have a little caution, but she seems to have been born without the part.”
“One wonders,” Sholme said mildly, “where she inherited that.”
Berla gave him a look, then laughed despite himself.
Karin hesitated, then asked, “Was Abby your wife?”
Berla’s expression softened.
He reached beneath his collar and drew out a locket hanging from a chain. When he opened it, it revealed the photograph of a beautiful woman with bright hair and a gentle smile.
“Abby Karla,” he said. “She was… everything fine in the world. Brilliant, kind, impossible to replace.”
He closed the locket with his thumb.
“She died five years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Karin said.
“Ameri is all I have left. I have allowed her to work at the institute because she would have found a way to break in if I had refused. But allowing her into that aircraft…”
Berla looked toward the wreckage.
“That is another matter.”
For a moment, there was no sound but the distant voices of the researchers dismantling the broken machine.
Then Berla seemed to remember himself.
“But you said you did not come to report progress. What was it you wanted to ask?”
Karin glanced at Sholme.
The detective answered.
“We had several questions about the witch trial. Or rather, I wondered whether there was something you had neglected to tell us.”
Berla’s face tightened.
“Neglected? I don’t know what you mean.”
“I thought as much.”
Sholme smiled.
“However, I believe our business here is finished for today.”
Berla stared at him.
“Finished? But you have asked me nothing.”
“On the contrary.”
Sholme turned toward the ridge.
“I believe we have learned quite a bit.”
Karin gave Berla a polite bow and hurried after him.
Only once they had climbed far enough from the researchers that Berla could no longer hear them did she lean toward Sholme.
“Professor, what did we learn?”
“That Director Wright is hiding something.”
Sholme did not look back.
“And whatever it is, it lies at the center of this case.”
