The Last Thing She Engineered

A prologue for the Fantasy Prologue II challenge...you can listen to the professionally narrated version here as you read along.

Let me know in the comments if you'd like to hear the full story!

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The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished. I was calibrating pressure gauges in the workshop basement when it happened, the needle jumping past safe limits while father worked above. My fingers traced the familiar sequence - quarter turn right, pause for the mercury to settle, eighth turn back. Ten years of the same motion had worn smooth spots in the brass housing.

His wrench slipped - he never dropped tools.

Steam hissed through copper joints as I wiped grease from my hands, the rag already stiff with yesterday's stains. The differential regulator ticked behind me, counting pressure drops through the auxiliary steam lines. Another gauge clicked past red - third time this week. Like the machines knew what was coming.

A coal engine rumbled past our window, belching black smoke into the morning fog. Another noble converting to modern power. Father tightened a valve, muttering calculations under his breath, his fingertips leaving equations in the dust on the pipes. Our older steam systems looked antiquated next to the new machinery - cast iron manifolds and mechanical governors that Vale's men installed last spring, their brass fittings still untarnished. Nobody questioned outdated technology.

The workshop smelled like metal dust and coal ash, with undertones of copper oxide that turned my tongue bitter. I ran my fingers over the gauge housing, feeling for hairline cracks, the way mother taught me before the fever took her. One failed seal would flood the tunnels below. Would trap Her Highness in the passages we'd spent years preparing. Would mark us as traitors.

The wrench joined its companions, each tool nested in grooves worn smooth by decades. Father's pocket watch clicked open, clicked shut. Adjusted three knobs in sequence. The metal was warm under my fingers, almost alive.

The river groaned.

Through the window, Master Edmund Vale stood at the water's edge, expensive coat dusted with coal residue from his modern pumping station. His latest marvel: copper-plated pistons and pressure regulators, each stamped with the Northern King's seal. Brass gaskets and steam valves that should have detected any disruption in the main hydraulic lines.

The sealed blueprints on his desk showed neat rows of estimations, each one missing the crucial variable of human ingenuity. The Northern King's ultimatum sat beside them.

Marriage contract or war.

Vale's machines should have detected our older systems. Should have registered the way we bled steam through hairline fractures in their main lines, the way we redirected pressure through forgotten service tunnels that weren't in their diagrams.

Lord Commander Blackwood's boots scraped on metal stairs. His sword hilt caught the brass railing. Deliberate. I grabbed a rag but the stains stayed ground into my skin, black crescents under each nail that matched the ones under father's. Evidence of real engineering.

"Still maintaining your father's mechanical gardens?" Blackwood ran a finger along an engineered bloom's stem, testing for warmth from the hidden valves within. His other hand rested on his sword pommel, thumb running over the metalwork in the same rhythm as my safety checks. "Fascinating how they continue functioning without him."

"Regular maintenance, sir." I kept my voice flat. Adjusted a gear that didn't need adjusting.

"Indeed." He studied the notations I'd scribbled into the workbench edge. Traced one with his fingertip. An engineer's gesture. Smiled. "And these new effects - the reversed water flow, the pressure changes. Simple maintenance as well?"

A guard watched from the doorway. Young but with callused hands that bore the same burn marks as mine. His eyes caught on my formulas, lingered on the regulator diagram partially concealed under my sleeve. A slight nod. Then his gaze shifted to the maintenance shaft access panel behind my workbench, the one whose hinges we'd oiled last night. The panel that wasn't on any official blueprints.

The palace bells began their crisis toll.

Nine rings that echoed through secret passages.

Father was down there now, guiding Her Majesty through tunnels mapped by mathematics. Leaving me to maintain the illusion. The gauges sang their quiet song of pressure and release, a lullaby I'd known since childhood.

Pressure built in the secondary lines. The manometer needle edged toward red, its quiet tick matching my heartbeat. I made a show of polishing brass while plotting corrections, fingers moving in the patterns father had taught me before I could write. Dark fluid leaked from metallic petals onto my sleeve, marking time in steady drops. The brass flowers would need cleaning.

"The craftsman's daughter knows more than she claims." Blackwood's voice carried from the garden above, where spring roses bloomed next to our mechanical ones. "The Northern King's agents have traced the water disruption to this sector. Search everything."

Three days of borrowed time.

The guard with the callused hands passed me a folded paper, edges worn soft like well-used tools.

Inside, technical drawings showed weak points in Vale's new hydraulic system. Places where flow could be bled away. Power redirected. Modern machinery undermined by older methods.

More workers with oil-stained hands and careful calibrations, hiding in plain sight.

Waiting.

I pressed my palm against cold metal, feeling machinery pulse beneath the decorative shell. Father had spent my lifetime teaching me to solve complex problems with elegant solutions. Tomorrow they would come with more questions.

A manometer clicked steadily in the corner.

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©2024 Tiffany Harris All Rights Reserved

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this piece, you might have wandered here, searching for words that elude you. I’m probably not the writer you expected, but I might be the one you need.

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- Tiffany