Serpents and Stairways

Chapter VII - Part 1

A dark-skinned man wearing a sterile-white shirt was investigating mud. His respectable companion, whom the luxurious mustache and pale round face made look like a dandy mantel clock, stood to the side afraid of, savior forbid, trampling the evidence.

"What will be your verdict, Mr Gatteri?" he asked.

Michel Gatteri straightened his long body and extended his arm, wrapped in a falconer's gauntlet. He was a man of abnormal looks, although Insiders often appeared odd to those who spent most of their lives Outside. His dreadlocks were pulled back with a long velvet band embroidered with witchery symbols, bare headed, wearing an expensive traveling suit made of thin wool, goggles with many lenses, and a chatelaine—a waist belt with hooks for useful tools of all sorts, like a lot of well-off working ladies wear. It tinkled on every step.

"The carriage kept going, though I'd guess that this is where the dragon attacked, sir." Michel answered, and a mechanical bird  landed on his gauntlet. In its beak was a large copper ring, "I'd assume the following chain of events: the dragon pursued them. The coachman decided to make a turn to the forest, making a reasonable assumption that hiding between the trees would make escaping easier, but that did not work out. In the course of the pursuit they must've pushed out the chests that were in the lady's carriage to gain speed... I'd suggest looking for them—as finding one would give us a solid chance to figure out the victim's name."

"Hold on, Mr Gatteri! Wouldn't we have discovered the belongings on our way here, were that the case? And why do you presume it was a carriage, and not a wagon? Old tracks must make this deduction nearly impossible."

"Automatons cost way too much to drive around haywains, wouldn't you agree?" he spun the falcon's catch in his fingers, "An eye sensor rim. As for the belongings, they were probably tossed off back on the main road. It's rocky and busy. Tracks don't stick around for long on roads like that. And neither do expensive dresses."

The mustached one nodded in slight embarrassment—now that his interlocutor had explained it, the answer appeared obvious.

"Why do you conclude that the attack had happened here?"

"It is apparent that the carriage swayed, and the previously light tracks deepen from here on."

"Doesn't it mean the carriage got heavier?"

"Not necessarily. It might have also slowed down."

"Well then, one last question, Mr Gatteri, if you allow it. Why are you so sure that the attacker was a dragon, and not wild animals or bandits?" the mustached man asked, but immediately catching himself added, "Well yes, of course. In those circumstances, there would've been the pursuers' trail as well."

Micahel nodded without bringing up that wolves rarely chase carriages. He continued his investigation of the copper rim. Judging by the scratches, Scout (which was the name the falcon responded to) had pried it off itself, and they might find the entire eyepiece if they kept looking. It might bear the model's number.

"In any case," he walked towards the road, where their car was, "from this point on we can be sure that Herr Laplace is holding back information from us. The disappeared girl was either rich, or noble—or her travel would've been more modest. And although her disappearance couldn't have gone without a notice, there's not a word of this event in Laplace's documents on dragon attacks. Why?"

Something glimmered in the grass, and the young man crouched, picking it up with a pair of tweezers that were attached to his chatelaine. A chubby eye-lens, with a spiderweb of cracks in the glass.

A wonderful beginning.

"Herr Laplace, in general, is quite scrupulous in questions of who should know what," the clock-like gentleman evaded a direct answer,  "As one dealing with the nature of mystery itself must be."