An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors--A Novel

by Curtis Craddock

  “Get him what he asks for,” Felix said gruffly.

  “It would be easier to bring him to the records than to bring the records to him.”

  “We will all go,” Felix said.

  Two guards frog-marched Jean-Claude along behind Felix and Amerigo. “No need to be so rough, lads,” he said, being as cooperative as their rude handling allowed. They couldn’t have detached him from this opportunity with block and tackle.

  The Naval Orrery was said to be a miracle of modern philosophical engineering. It was an enormously sophisticated aetheric mechanism that kept track of every skyship with an Aragothic chartstone, anywhere in the great sky. It was to the average ship’s orrery what the Solar was to a candle. As such, it was a point of pilgrimage for empirical philosophers, cartographers, merchants, ship captains, and anyone else who made their living from the deep sky. To Jean-Claude it was a hope. Here there might be—had to be—a thread that led to Isabelle, if only he could find it before a twitchy guard jabbed something pointy into his vital bits.

  From the end of the hallway came a glow that limned the people in front of Jean-Claude with a green-bluish light, as if from an alchemical lamp burning underwater, and he became aware of a noise. It was not precisely a sound, but a vibration picked up by the hairs on the nape of his neck that settled into his mind as high-pitched humming.

  Up ahead, Don Amerigo was providing commentary. “This is the Observatory.” And the way he said it, Jean-Claude could hear the capital “O.”

  The curator turned aside, guiding Felix with him, and Jean-Claude stepped into the place of the curator’s reverence. Only fierce national pride kept Jean-Claude from gawping like a stunned bullfrog; l’Empire Céleste had nothing like this.

  He walked onto a balcony that girded a spherical room at least twenty meters across. The floor, if there was a floor down there, was obscured by swirling black clouds shot through with snaps of lightning, just like the Galvanosphere. The ceiling was a sprawling dome made up of hundreds of huge glass panes in a metal lattice that spiraled in, like the armor of some reef-dwelling mollusk, toward its apex. The light streaming in through those windows seemed to slick and slither through air, giving the whole space a glister of wetness.

  But the most amazing thing was the shoal of skyships plying the air. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands, but these were not the ghostly cloud pictures produced by simulacrascopes; they were tiny models made of wood, brass, cloth, and paint, all exquisitely detailed. The smallest was the size of his pinky knuckle, the largest the length of his forefinger with a sail span as big as his hand. They wheeled in vast slow schools, tacking and running, swooping and climbing around a perfect scale model of San Augustus and its harbor. The whole city was there, modeled with an obsessive attention to minutiae that was half art, half madness.

  Jean-Claude walked slowly along the gallery. He caught up to and passed a tall ship just making a turn off the coast of a barrier skyland. He almost imagined he could see tiny sailors aboard, trimming the sails.

  Isabelle would love this.

  The thought of her stabbed him and snapped his attention back to the task at hand. He had to find out where Kantelvar’s ship had gone and then find a way to get there without giving it away to the Aragoths.

  Amerigo led Felix, Jean-Claude, and half a dozen inconvenient guards through several unadorned corridors to a long room, really nothing more than a wide stretch of the hallway with rows and rows of desks on either wall and a long line of simulacrascopes down the center. The place bubbled with babble as maybe a hundred clerks exchanged a rapid patter of foreshortened Aragothic, mostly numbers and initials. Amerigo guided Jean-Claude to a long table upon which was spread a three-meter-long map of the Aragothic coast. The sky just off the continental cliff was divided up unto initialed boxes.

  “These are the precincts,” Amerigo said. “Each precinct is watched over by a simulacrascope. You will note that near San Augustus, the precincts are smaller and more densely packed because that is where we have our heaviest traffic. The farther you get from a harbor into the deep sky, the bigger the space one simulacrascope can effectively track.”

  “Impressive,” Jean-Claude said, but it didn’t tell him where Kantelvar had taken Isabelle. Damn it, with all this information wafting around, there had to be something he could use. “What do you use all this information for? It wouldn’t help you detect a lurking enemy because you wouldn’t have a shard of their chartstone.”

  “Correct. We use it for taxes, mostly. Any ship that passes through Aragothic sky is obliged to pay a fee for the protection afforded by the Aragothic fleet.”

  Of course. Only for money would people go to this much trouble.

  “This is not relevant,” Felix said. “Do what you came here to do.”

  We want miracles and we want them now. Jean-Claude examined the map. He doubted Kantelvar had docked his ship in the main harbor; it would be too obvious. More likely it had been stashed in a cove somewhere under the rim of the Craton Massif, away from the harbor, but not too far away. “I’ll need the lists for precincts eleven, twelve, and thirteen starting five days ago.” While he was waiting for that to happen, he asked, “And what happens if a ship just putters around in one precinct without crossing a boundary?”

  “The presence of every ship in a precinct is noted at the beginning of every shift, so it would still be noted … unless—and I bring this up only because you are looking for smugglers—the ship’s navigator removed the ship’s chartstone from its matrix, say, while it was hidden in some cove. He’d only have to put it in when he wanted to feign legitimacy in order to pass through without being confronted by picket ships.”

  Jean-Claude grunted, for that was likely exactly what Kantelvar had done. Otherwise, a ship clinging like a barnacle to the bottom of the city would attract attention.

  A clerk arrived with a tight stack of papers that he spread on the map table before Jean-Claude. They were covered in dense writing, mostly in an obscure condensed shorthand of letters and numbers that were too busy to speak in complete words, much less sentences. The clerk said, “This first code is the identification code of the ship, the second is its time of appearance or disappearance, the third is its coordinates in space.” The clerk pointed at the first set of numbers. “This is a merchant ship. You can tell by the ‘MC’ prefix. It entered precinct ten from the harbor at five minutes after seventh bell and”—he ran his finger down the column until he found a similar entry—“left the precinct at the number eleven boundary two hours later.”

  Jean-Claude stared at the number blocks in dismay, for nowhere did they seem to correlate to a list of ships’ names. “You wouldn’t happen to have a registry, would you?”

  Amerigo brightened. “Of course, we have dozens of them. What ship do you need to look up?”

  The last thing Jean-Claude wanted to do was spit out the name in front of Felix.

  “Yes, musketeer,” Felix whispered, leaning in close. “What is the name of this ship? Tell me or I start cutting off fingers.” The edge of a razor-sharp blade creased the knuckle of Jean-Claude’s least left-hand finger.

  “Señor, no,” Amerigo said. “This is a sanctified building.”

  Felix glared at Amerigo. “Then summon an artifex and tell him he’ll need to start over, unless this fat fool tells me the name of that ship right now.”

  “The Fisherman’s Dream,” Jean-Claude said, recalling the name of a wharf-side inn. Fortunately, the people who named taverns had the same sort of wit as those who named boats.

  “Very good,” said Amerigo, obviously relieved not to have blood on his floors.

  “Or maybe it was the Wandering Goose,” Jean-Claude said. It was a small tavern on the road outside Rocher Royale. “Or maybe it was the Bosun’s Ballast.” Demoiselle Planchette would get a good cackle out of that, if ever he survived to tell her about it. “My memory gets a bit slippery when I’m in pain.”

  Felix growled, “If I say you were killed tr
ying to escape, no one will doubt me.”

  “But if you do that, you’ll miss your one chance to catch your assassin. He’s not a man you want to stay loose very long, or by the time you catch up with his tail, his serpent’s head will have got round behind you.”

  “Assassin?” Amerigo asked. “I thought you said you were after a smuggler.”

  “The two categories are not mutually exclusive,” Jean-Claude said.

  Felix wrenched Jean-Claude’s arm up even higher behind his back, sending stabs of pain through his shoulder. “Be quiet.”

  Jean-Claude grimaced. “You cannot expect me to talk and be quiet simultaneously.”

  “Which registry do you want?” Amerigo asked. “I’ll bring it here.”

  That was a damned good question. “How are they organized?” Jean-Claude asked through gritted teeth. Finally, the guard got tired of holding Jean-Claude’s arm twisted up and relaxed enough so that his shoulder stopped screaming at him.

  “Chronologically.”

  “And how long has this project been going on?”

  “Twenty-three years. Of course we’ve made some modifications to the accounting since then.”

  Jean-Claude didn’t give a damn about accounting. The question was, for how long had Kantelvar stowed the Voto Solemne? And had he done it under that name? “Bring me the one from five years ago,” he said. That was when Kantelvar had supposedly come to San Augustus from the hinterlands.

  Amerigo dispatched one of his clerks at a gallop. To fill in the silence, and to stall Felix from trying anything else, Jean-Claude pointed with his nose at the day’s ledger of ships. “So what do all these code things mean?”

  Jean-Claude couldn’t have found a better delaying tactic if he’d had a month of planning. This clerk was one of those people who loved details. They didn’t have to do anything so long as he could keep himself occupied just knowing them. And he was more than happy to recite them. Jean-Claude let his ears listen to the man ramble on about how vessels were classed by function, type, and tonnage while his mind chipped away at the problem of what he really needed to know. It was like trying to pick a lock with a spoon.

  Even if he found the ship in the registry, it wasn’t along the coast anymore. It wouldn’t be on the scopes, and all Kantelvar had to do was get out of the local area of interest, then remove the chartstone shard from the orrery to make it disappear from all scopes. Of course, if he did that, his own orrery wouldn’t work anymore, either. The simulacrascopes worked on the principle of sympathy. The orrery on a ship had to have a chartstone matching the one in the ground beacon for them to be able to see each other. There was, however, nothing stopping a ship’s captain from having two chartstone flags, one for common spaces and another for secret destinations.

  Don’t burn that bridge until you’ve crossed it. The best thing he could do was wait for the registry. The fetch-and-carry clerk returned at a stagger, the weight of the huge book bending him like a sapling. He aimed at an empty table and dropped the tome onto it with a resounding thud.

  Jean-Claude stared at the volume in dismay. “Just how many ships are there in this harbor?” Certainly not enough to fill up a book that could double as a footstool.

  “That’s a yearly archive,” Amerigo said. “Only part of it is the ship’s registry. The rest is manifests, shipyard fees, and so on. Now, what ship are you looking for?”

  Jean-Claude glowered at the intimidating book; this was going to take longer than he’d hoped, if it was even the right track. “Open it up and I’ll let you know when I see it.”

  The whole book might not have been filled with ships’ names, but it was still enough to make Jean-Claude’s eyes cross. It was alphabetized by ship type and then name; he might as well have set the damned thing on fire and tried to read an answer in the rising entrails of smoke like some ancient haruspex. Still, he plodded on page after page, “Next” after “Next,” until even the detail-oriented clerk got bored with it. Every now and again Jean-Claude startled when he saw a name similar to the one he sought; other times he twitched when he just wanted to set Felix on edge. So it was that nobody took notice when his gaze caught on the Voto Solemne. It was a spicer, a ship designed for long voyages with small but expensive cargoes. It was registered not to an individual but to the Temple, and it was berthed amongst the prison hulks at the lowest level of the harbor. Jean-Claude committed the numerical code to memory and then had the clerk advance a few more pages before saying, “Bring me the harbor records from five days ago.”

  “You have it?” asked Amerigo

  “I’m on the scent,” Jean-Claude said; he wanted to make sure the ship’s number he’d just memorized matched an actual ship that had actually left.

  Jean-Claude returned to the maps and charts, scanning column after column. It took going over several dozen pages before he found what was he was looking for. TheVoto Solemne launched before daybreak the night after the fire, heading generally northwestward through several zones, and never returned. He cross-checked all five days’ worth of records before he was sure.

  “Got you, you bastard,” he growled. Of course the ship could have swapped chartstones and changed directions as soon as it was out of range of the coastal scopes, but that was a problem for later. He’d learned as much as he could without surrendering a point to Felix.

  “Where?” Felix asked, glancing at the chart without any comprehension.

  Jean-Claude turned to Don Amerigo, who had been watching him with a wary curiosity. “Thank you, señor, you have been most helpful. Felix, if you don’t mind taking us back to the palace, I have an answer for the queen.”

  Felix’s eyes bulged. “What answer? All you’ve done is lead us on a wild-goose chase.”

  “I have done what I said I would do,” Jean-Claude said. “I found the name of the ship on which the assassin escaped. I must bring her that information … or did you think I was going to hand it over to you so you could stab me like a dog in the street?”

  Felix’s glare promised Jean-Claude a slow, painful death, but Amerigo hastily interjected, “Gentlemen, this way, if you please.” He captured Jean-Claude’s arm and tugged him away from the spot where he’d been rooted.

  Felix followed, cursing not quite under his breath. Amerigo led the not-so-merry band out the door opposite the one they’d come in. Now that Jean-Claude had gotten over being awed by the Naval Orrery, he considered the backstage architecture of the building. Most of it was laid out in concentric circles joined by a few radial hallways leading out from the spectacular central venue. There weren’t many doors, and those few that did exist didn’t seem to have bolts that a man with bound hands could easily close. It was not a good place for an old man with a game leg to escape a bunch of young, fit soldiers. His best bet would be to ride Felix like a rented mule all the way back to Margareta, to flatter her for influence.

  From a great and muffled distance came the tolling of a bell. Amerigo stopped in his tracks and lifted his head like a deer sensing danger. Everyone else in the small parade piled up behind him. The bell tolled again, and was joined by another one, deep throated and slow, and another. The sound grew closer and louder until Jean-Claude guessed that every bell in the city must be booming.

  Amerigo sagged. “Padre de Santos.”

  The soldiers shuffled nervously. Felix gave the first smile Jean-Claude had ever seen him generate. It was even less pleasant than his scowl. “The king is dead.”

  Did that mean Alejandro was a murderer? If so, Jean-Claude could not blame him.

  “This way,” Amerigo said. He took Jean-Claude by the elbow and guided him through a door. It took Jean-Claude one heartbeat to realize which door. Amerigo had been leading them toward the edge of the building. He propelled Jean-Claude through into the park outside the orrery. Amerigo stepped out after him and slammed the door shut in Felix’s face, setting the lock before anyone inside had realized what happened. There was an outraged scream and several heavy bodies hit the door at once. I
t bowed outward, creaking.

  “Run!” Amerigo shouted, and pelted along the side of the building, heading for a corner. Jean-Claude lurched after him as fast as he was able, his game leg straining. Why? Who? He had no time or breath for the questions. He had almost reached the corner when a coach came around it, heading in the opposite direction. It carried Duque Diego’s banner. The doors swung open and the footmen riding outside boosted Amerigo in without slowing down. Jean-Claude lunged after him, slipped, and nearly got pulled under the wheels before strong hands grabbed his belt and hauled him in. He landed in a graceless heap on the floor.

  “Would somebody mind untying me?” he muttered into the cabin’s carpet.

  Somebody sliced the thongs on his wrists, then Don Amerigo and Diego himself helped Jean-Claude into a seat. Diego was dressed in impeccable court garb, all in mourning black.

  Jean-Claude said, “I thank you for the rescue. I’m guessing you two know each other.” He gestured to the winded academic. “I hope I have not put you out too much.”

  “Not at all,” Diego said. “When my eyes in the citadel told me that you were being sent to the Naval Orrery, I sent a fast messenger to warn Don Amerigo, who is my cousin.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you bothered exposing yourself on my behalf.”

  “Because my informants tell me you were there when Príncipe Alejandro was apprehended. I want your account.”

  “How much do you already know?” Jean-Claude asked.

  Diego made a balancing gesture. “I wish to compare it with what you can tell me. From the beginning, if you please.”

  Jean-Claude rubbed his rope-bitten wrists while he considered his options. Fortunately, Diego’s interests seemed mostly to square with his own, at least insofar as rescuing Kantelvar’s captives was concerned.

  “To be fair, I didn’t actually figure out that Lord DuJournal was Príncipe Alejandro until after he met me in the citadel…” He gave most of the story to Diego, omitting only the hellish bargain Margareta had tried to make with Alejandro. If the accusation of regicide was to be laid, let it be from other lips. “But the main point is that Kantelvar took ship on the Voto Solemne, and I believe he carried Isabelle and Julio into the upper sky somewhere spinward of here.”