by Jon Skovron
Willmont followed the narrow alley behind the shop out to the main thoroughfare of Artisan Way. He walked past fabric shops, glass-blowing shops, and other handcrafts. This was a popular block for nobles to shop, so elegant carriages frequently rattled past, and Willmont shared the sidewalk with neatly dressed servants, their arms loaded with packages.
As Willmont continued toward the tavern, he thought back, with equal parts pleasure and anxiety, on the day he’d been commissioned for this new piece that Blagely felt was so important.
Two young men had come into the shop. It was a large shop with four worktables, an apprentice at each one. His table was closest to the door, and Mr. Blagely was always urging him to make more of an effort to greet customers courteously when they came in, even if they were interrupting his work. Willmont had suggested he could move to one of the tables at the back of the store instead, and one of the other apprentices could make the effort of being courteous to customers. But Blagely had refused.
“You’re my prize apprentice, Willy, and I want customers to see your work first,” he’d said. “I just wish you’d mind your manners better.” Then he’d sighed with a weary resignation. “I suppose that’s what I get for taking on the son of a stonemason.”
It was true that Willmont’s father was a stonemason, and not one to soften his words with courtesy or manners. Oddly enough, the reason that Willmont had taken an apprenticeship in Blagely’s furniture shop was because his father deemed him altogether too delicate and sensitive to follow his older brothers in the family business. His father blamed the indulgence of a mother toward her youngest child, God rest her soul. Willmont felt it was more her untimely death than her parenting that made him a little emotional, but his father wasn’t the sort of man one could talk to about such things. And his father had been right about the choice of shops. The fine crafting of furniture was much better suited to Willmont’s temperament than the hard chisel and scrape of stonework. Mr. Blagely was far kinder than his father. Willmont even got along well with craftsmen from other shops, and soon enough had a small circle of friends. But there was a big difference between the simple, earnest talk of tradesmen, and the fine, lacy speech of the upper classes. Whenever he spoke with palace folk, a tiny version of his father awoke within him.
On the day the two young men came into the shop, Willmont was finishing some decorative detail work for the back of a chair. It was his favorite part of furniture making. Something he looked forward to during the earlier, simpler stages of the project. So when the two men came in and waited expectantly, he ignored them.
After a few minutes, one of them cleared his throat, and said in a clear voice, “I say there, fronzie.”
“Yeah?” said Willmont, still not looking up from his work.
“I was wondering who made that exquisite dove carving that currently sits in the windowsill of your shop.”
Willmont stopped his work and looked at them carefully for the first time. The speaker wore a bright blue frock coat, and his long dark hair was carefully curled. He had a light dusting of the orange powder on his face that many rich young people applied. To Willmont, he looked like any other customer. The other young man, however, was a bit unusual. He had a fine linen shirt, cravat, and soft leather boots like his companion. But instead of a frock coat, he wore a brown leather longcoat that looked like it had been to several different hells and back. He also wore fingerless leather gloves, and glasses that had been tinted so dark, his eyes were hidden behind them.
“I made the dove,” Willmont said finally.
“It’s a splendid piece,” said the man with the curly hair.
“It’s not for sale,” said Willmont.
The man smiled. “Naturally not. I’d imagine it holds far too much sentimental value to part with.”
“No,” said Willmont. “It’s just not what we sell here. We sell furniture.”
“Oh. I see.” The man was starting to get that mixture of confusion and frustration that Willmont often seemed to inspire in customers. When he saw that look, he was supposed to go get Mr. Blagely. But Mr. Blagely was out on an errand. So Willmont just went back to his work.
In his peripheral vision, Willmont could see the curly-haired man shift his weight back and forth a few times. He heard him take in a breath, as if he was about to say something, but then didn’t. The whole thing made Willmont uncomfortable. He tried to ignore them as best he could and went back to his chair detailing.
Then the man with the dark glasses stepped forward. “It’s like this, my wag,” he said in a cheerful, easy voice. “We wanted to know if you’d be willing to make a similar piece. But instead of a dove, it would be a…” He looked at the curly-haired man.
“A falcon,” said the man.
“Right. A falcon,” said the man with dark glasses. “Just as sunny as the one you made, but a different bird, keen?”
“That would take a long time,” said Willmont.
“Of course it would, old pot,” said the man. “We wouldn’t dream of rushing your artistry, if you don’t mind me calling it that. And naturally, you’d be well paid.”
“I don’t know…” Willmont didn’t particularly care for falcons or other birds of prey. They tended to eat the birds he did like.
Then the door opened and Mr. Blagely came bustling in. “Hello, honorable sirs!” He made his way around them to stand next to Willmont. “My name is Honus Blagely, owner of this shop. Sorry if Willy’s said anything terrible. He’s a damn fine craftsman, but not much good when it comes to…” When he got his first real look at the men, his eyes went wide and he bowed low. “Your Highness! My apologies for not recognizing you sooner!” He glanced over and saw Willmont wasn’t bowing, so he reached up and yanked him down as well.
Forced to remain bowing, Willmont craned his head up to look at the curly-haired man, who seemed a little embarrassed as he smiled. “It’s quite alright, Mr. Blagely. This is my first time out of the palace without a full escort. Apparently, Lord Pastinas here is as deadly as an entire troop of soldiers, and somewhat less conspicuous.”
Lord Pastinas grinned in what Willmont thought was a very unlordly way. “I do my best, Your Highness.”
“We are completely at your disposal, Your Highness.” Blagely slowly rose, letting Willmont come up with him. “How may we serve you today?”
“I really admire your apprentice’s dove carving and hope he is willing to make a falcon for me.”
“He’d be delighted and honored, Your Highness!” said Blagely.
“Excellent,” said Prince Leston. “Thank you… Willy, is it?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” said Blagely, because Willmont was strictly forbidden from speaking when his boss was in the middle of negotiating a commission. Otherwise, he would have told them that he preferred to go by his full name.
“Willy here expressed some concern about the time it would take to make it,” said Lord Pastinas.
“Oh, don’t you worry about him.” Blagely gave an uncomfortable laugh.
“I do want to make certain he is adequately compensated for his time,” said Prince Leston. “Would fifty gold be sufficient, do you think?”
Blagely’s eyes went wide. “Your Highness is most generous.”
“Marvelous.” The prince nodded to Lord Pastinas, who opened a pouch at his waist and began to count out fifty pieces.
Once Blagely held the fifty gold pieces in his apron, he bowed again to the prince. “I’ll deliver it straight to the palace as soon as he finishes, Your Highness.”
“I look forward to it, Mr. Blagely,” said Prince Leston. Then he turned and left, with Lord Pastinas close behind.
Once they were gone, Blagely let out a sigh. “Thank God I came in when I did!”
“It’s going to take a long time to make a falcon,” said Willmont. “I won’t be making any chairs for a while.”
Blagely put his hands on Willmont’s shoulders and grinned. “Piss on chairs! This could be our future, boy!”
“Making falcons?” asked Willmont.
“High-end decorative pieces for the nobility! Just imagine! If your falcon pleases the prince, he will have it on display somewhere in the palace. And all those fawning lords and ladies will admire it and ask him where he got it, and he will tell them about our shop. You know how those lacies all copy each other. They’ll all want some bird or other animal and they’ll all pay a great deal more than they would for a simple chair. If we play this right, we could become rich ourselves!”
Nothing was the same after that. Willmont stopped making chairs and spent every day working on the falcon for His Imperial Highness. It wasn’t that Willmont preferred making chairs. In fact, he loved coming into the shop every day and sitting down with the falcon that was slowly emerging from the thick piece of wood on his table. What he didn’t necessarily like were the things that came with it. Mr. Blagely hovered constantly, checking his progress, asking how it was going, how he was feeling, was he eating enough, and a hundred more questions that, when taken all together, made Willmont terribly anxious. The other thing the falcon brought was the Godly Naturalists.
Willmont had of course told his friends about his new imperial commission. A few weeks later, one of them, Kiptich, had asked if he wanted to help make the empire a better place. Of course Willmont said yes. Who didn’t want the empire to be better? So Kiptich had taken him to a tavern called the Thunder and Gale. It was much dirtier and smellier than the Wheelhouse. There they had met a droopy-faced man named Hannigan. Kiptich had to do a lot of talking to convince Hannigan that Willmont could be trusted. Then Hannigan asked Willmont a lot of strange questions about what he thought of the prince, the emperor, and even Lord Pastinas. He also asked what he thought about biomancers for some reason. Eventually Hannigan agreed that Willmont could attend the next meeting of the Godly Naturalists.
That was the meeting he hurried to now. The meeting Kiptich told him he absolutely could not be late to.
Willmont walked down the clean, wide streets of Stonepeak with the confidence of someone who had lived there his whole life. He knew there were many people who came and went, but he had never understood that. After all, Stonepeak was the largest island in the empire. It was also the richest and most powerful, since it was the capital. As far as Willmont knew, it was the greatest place in the world. Why would anyone want to leave?
In the north part of the island was the black mountain after which the city was named. Its base took nearly a quarter of the island. All the main streets extended out from the mountain like spokes on a wheel. Or more accurately, one third of a wheel. The buildings were generally two or three stories, with flat roofs and brick walls covered in a uniform beige plaster. Many cities had grown up haphazardly for one reason or another. But Stonepeak was a city that had been carefully planned right from the beginning. When Emperor Cremalton first united the islands, he chose Stonepeak as his capital because it had the highest mountain in the empire. He then built his palace into the side of the mountain so that he could look down upon his entire empire. There had been a small city at the base of the mountain before, but the emperor had it burned to the ground so he could start fresh. In its place, he and his chief biomancer, Burness Vee, designed a city worthy of His Imperial Majesty. Emperor Cremalton didn’t live to see it completed. But biomancers lived unnaturally long lives, so Burness Vee was present when the last brick was put in place. He died the next day, as if he had staved off death for that sole purpose.
It was just after sunset now, and the beige walls of the buildings were tinted gold by the last rays of light when Willmont arrived at the Thunder and Gale. He stepped inside, wrinkling his nose at the stench of sweat and stale beer. The tavern wasn’t crowded, which didn’t surprise Willmont. Who would come to a smelly, dimly lit place like this by choice?
Willmont walked to the bar at the back, as Kiptich had instructed him. Next to the bar was a hatch in the floor that led to the cellar. The bartender watched with seeming disinterest as Willmont lifted the hatch and climbed down.
The cellar ceiling was high enough for Willmont to stand up straight. Neat rows of barrels and crates were stacked on the soft dirt floor. It was almost entirely dark, but there was one light far at the end. He walked nervously toward it, trying not to think of all the spiders and rats that could be lurking in the darkness around him.
When he reached the light, he saw five men sitting around a table with a lantern placed in the center. One of the men was Kiptich. Another was Hannigan. He also recognized a silversmith who had a shop down the street from the furniture shop. Judging by their aprons and calloused hands, the other two were fellow craftsmen as well.
“You made it on time!” The light of the lantern showed relief on Kiptich’s gaunt face. He was a glassblower by trade, and claimed the fumes from melted glass never left him with much of an appetite.
“I promised I would,” said Willmont. “I always keep my promises.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” The skin around Hannigan’s eyes drooped low like an old dog’s, but the look behind them was clear and alert. “Have a seat, Willmont, and we’ll tell you why we’ve invited you here tonight.”
Willmont took the empty seat at the foot of the table. The two men he didn’t know sat on the left, the silversmith and Kiptich on the right, and Hannigan at the head.
“Firstly, let me tell you why the Godly Naturalists formed,” said Hannigan. “It’s because we see there is a problem with the empire.”
“A problem?” asked Willmont.
“You would agree that Emperor Martarkis, as a direct descendant of Cremalton, was chosen by God to rule, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course.”
“It may alarm you to learn, then, that in his old age, the emperor is being controlled by the biomancers.”
“Controlled how?”
“Biomancers have ways, you know. And old men can be easily fooled. The fact is, the emperor has lived an unnaturally long time, hasn’t he?”
“Over a hundred now,” said Willmont. “No normal man has ever lived so long. I thought it was God keeping him alive for some great purpose.”
Kiptich shook his head. “Don’t you see, Willmont? It’s the biomancers that are keeping him alive. Because they know that if Emperor Martarkis died, the rightful ruler, Prince Leston, would take over. So instead, they keep old Martarkis alive, just barely, prop him up once a year at the imperial pronouncement, and make him talk like a puppet.”
“But why don’t they want the prince to rule?” asked Willmont. “He seems pretty nice for a noble.”
“That’s the whole problem,” said one of the men Willmont didn’t know. “We all love the prince, and when he’s in charge, he won’t let the biomancers take our good, honest people to experiment on anymore. He’ll put a stop to such an outrage.”
“It’s even worse for other islands,” said the silversmith. “I hear the biomancers commandeer ships from the imperial navy and take them off to some small island on the outskirts of the empire and experiment on an entire population.”
Hannigan nodded. “Those biomancers mean to make something terrible and unnatural of the entire empire.”
“What do we do?” asked Willmont, who loved Stonepeak and did not want to see it turned into something terrible and unnatural.
“That’s where you come in, my wag,” said Kiptich. “We need to get word to the prince. Explain to him what’s really going on out there in the world. Those biomancers keep him so isolated, he probably has no idea. We tried approaching him in the street once, but his soldiers wouldn’t let us anywhere near him.”
“He doesn’t have soldiers anymore,” said Willmont. “Just one man.”
“That one with the dark glasses?” sneered the silversmith. “Who knows why he wears those. Probably could kill you just by looking at you if he wanted.”
“Or maybe he ain’t even got eyes,” said the other man.
“He didn’t seem that bad to me,” said Willmont. “At least h
e could talk regularly.”
“Point is,” said Hannigan, “we can’t chance it. We need to be smart. So we’ve come up with a plan to write the prince a letter. And then you’re going to smuggle it to him inside that falcon you’re making.”
“You mean like make a secret compartment?”
“Exactly!” said Kiptich. “It has to be hidden enough so that nobody else sees it, but not so well hidden that the prince doesn’t find it once he gets it.”
Willmont thought about it. “I suppose I could make a small slit in the base that the note could be slipped into. Then I could glue a panel over the slit to cover it. If I watered down the glue a little, it would only hold for a few days. Hopefully by then, it would be safely in the prince’s possession.”
Hannigan grinned at Kiptich. “You were right. This boy’s a gem.”
“Told you,” said Kiptich.
Hannigan turned back to Willmont. “Welcome to the Godly Naturalists, my wag.”
“Thank you,” said Willmont, looking around the table. “So is it just us?”
Hannigan laughed. “Oh no. There’s a few different groups. We’re the tradesmen group, but believe it or not, it was all started by a group of lords at the palace who were tired of watching the biomancers infect the empire with their unnatural ways. And there’s some wags over by the South Market, too. Mostly farmers, cooks, a few vintners, and the like. The way I see it, we all got a stake in—”
Suddenly, small blades protruded from Hannigan’s eyes. He shuddered, as blood oozed from his ruined eye sockets, then fell forward. Willmont had never seen someone killed before, and for a moment, his shocked mind could only stare uncomprehendingly at the dead man who had just been talking to him.
Then Kiptich whimpered a pathetic “piss’ell” and the spell was broken. Panic rose inside Willmont like a wave as he looked around at the other men at the table.
