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Capacity For Harm

Written by Richard Evans

Belfort, Franche Comté, 1633

 

            “So, Herr Doctor Lebenenergie.  You designed this yourself?”

            “Not exactly, Commissioner Vaden.”  Tomas cursed himself for ever thinking that coming to Belfort would be profitable. He knew that Franche Comté was rife with witch hunts again, but he just needed some extra copper wire and plates for his second machine.  Those could be made in Franche Comté. 

            “I met with some Americans a couple of years ago.  I studied their books on electricity.  While I was there, I saw them use a device that made that power available to them with a press of a button. They shocked a farmer back to life.”

            “Sorcery!”

            “So I thought at first, sir.  But it was nothing but a machine. I hied myself to this town they said they came from and just walked into their library and asked about these machines. I spent two months there.” Tomas tried to sit up straighter but the bindings prevented it. “I watched their doctors use similar machines and finally came up with the theory that applying this power in varying amounts to the proper locations of the body, one could rebalance the ichors within and cure maladies. This was proved to me when I saw a movie called 'Frankenstein.' They laughed and called it 'fiction' and said it was a moral lesson about a man's hubris. The machines in that movie were well within what we could make right now.

            “So I did.” Tomas knew now what that movie had been trying to teach him, but now it was too late. His only recourse was to make himself useful to these witch hunters. Somehow. “I built my Elektrischer Generator from parts I found near Geneva and Upper Genoa. The lodestone was the most expensive piece.”

            “Lodestone? Explain.” Someone just out of sight asked. Tomas felt someone moving up behind him.

            “Continue, Herr Eichemann.” The other Vaden waved the questioner back.

            “Certain stones, when hung from a string or wire, will always have one side point to the North.”

            “Yes, those I know of,” the elder Vaden interjected. “They are how the compasses on the ships work, gentlemen.” He shook his head. “We know that is not sorcery. Nor are we here for that reason. I believe this is much simpler. Continue.” The elder Vaden's cold, dead eyes compelled Tomas to obey.

            Tomas Eichemann took time to gather his thoughts. He wasn't sure exactly what the two witch commissioners wanted with him. No one he knew of had accused him of being a warlock—that he knew of. The two men had just ridden out to his camp and invited him to attend them back in town.  Invited him.  With their guards present.

            He should have left earlier in the day when he'd heard that there were people asking for the whereabouts of the traveling doctor and his magical device, the  Elektrischer Generator. It was always safer to leave when people started asking questions. Twice before he had managed to flee other towns just ahead of the authorities. Small towns were the worst; nowhere to really hide. Especially to those who had good clean clothing, their own wagon with many strange devices hanging from its side, too. Jealousy or suspicion always resulted in the same thing. Someone had sold the information to someone else who knew someone who was in a position of authority.

            But the smith had promised him that the copper plates for his capacitor and the wires for his two inductor coils would be ready that afternoon, no sooner. I should have gone to Geneva instead. No one would have cared about one more traveling merchant there.

            The smith had delivered them as promised.  Tomas had just managed to get a couple miles out of town and make camp when the two men with the wide-brimmed black hats and cloaks of official witch commissioners had appeared out of the dark. They hadn't been alone. Twenty guards on horse were with them.  All were wearing the colors of the Bishop of Strassburg. They had called him by name. The invitation hadn't been one he could have refused and lived. The four mercenaries he'd hired to see him safely through the battle lines had laughed when he ordered them to protect him.  Then the sorry bastards had faded into the nearby woods. Their laughs mocked him even now.

            “Continue, Tomas Eichemann. Yes, we know your real name."  The elder Vaden sneered at him.  "But we will get back to why you have given yourself the new title and name, later. Tell us more about why you needed a lodestone.”

            “The stones have a power inside them that can push something called electrons. Those are particles that are too small to see.  But when they are present in great numbers, we can see their results during a summer storm.”

            “This box makes lightnings?” The younger Vaden's eyebrows rose in disbelief.

            “Of a sort. Water?” The heads shook from side to side. There would be no comforts until all their questions were answered.  Tomas licked his dry lips.  “When spun inside a coil of copper wire covered in lac, the lodestone—the magnet, as the Americans call it—pushes the particles in one direction. That creates flow of power. It acts like a water wheel in reverse, pushing electrons through the copper as if it were a channel. Or you could think of it as a pump pushing water through the pipe.

            “When spun at the right speed it creates enough power in a small coil to make it magnetic, like the lodestone. The coil pulls a metal cylinder bound to a small spring and makes a contact under the lid. Just like a lodestone attracts metal filings or that nail that your brother has been playing with. This opens the circuit to let power flow from the smaller generator to a larger coil deeper inside the box. If the device is working, the two silver studs under that glass lid will throw small lightnings at each other. Then you throw that small lac covered lever there next to it to close a second circuit.

            “This lets the small power ...