Dragonspeaker Chronicles Box Set

by Patty Jansen

  Yes, it was definitely the one.

  “So, if the goat label doesn’t belong to him, then whose is it?”

  “That’s the strange thing, because it does belong to him, I found out. I saw a bottle of wine in one of the taverns, and I asked the owner whose it was, and he said the label belongs to the Guentherite order and they get Mr. Oliver to handle the bottling and labelling for them.”

  “Then why was the bottle out in the box?”

  Gisele shrugged. “A mistake?”

  Or they knew this bottle was trouble and wanted to be rid of it. But then they could as easily have smashed it, or at least taken the label off.

  “How do you know there was magic in this bottle?”

  “I found a test in an obscure book that says how quicksilver is repelled by magic.”

  “And you have quicksilver around?” Nellie thought that was the domain of the alchemists.

  “It’s an ingredient in some of the things we use.”

  Nellie was tempted to ask what things and whether she was an alchemist, but the time for these sorts of silly games of judgement were over. Her father had been very strong on judging people according to a set of rigid rules, only to find his core belief shaken.

  So instead of all the things she could have asked, she said, “How true is this test?”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  Without waiting for the reply, Gisele brought a shallow porcelain dish that contained a small amount of silver liquid that jiggled and shimmered as she moved. Nellie looked at it with fascination. She had heard of the fabled quicksilver, but had never seen it.

  “Don’t look at it like that. It’s not scary, it’s just a metal, but it’s liquid. Like water is hard when it is frozen, and then you make it warmer and it becomes a liquid.”

  “Does this quicksilver ever become solid so we can build things out of it?”

  “Some of the great alchemists say quicksilver is the base of all metals and that it can be formed into any other metal, but Rinius says their structures are different. He refers to the silver mines of Senoza where people use quicksilver to get the silver out of the stone, and that this may be the basis for the rumour. He says that, like all substances, quicksilver will become a hard material, but it may need to be so cold we couldn’t survive to see it.”

  And now it dawned on Nellie. “You’re a student of Rinius.”

  “Well, not him, because he’s been dead far too long, but he had some followers, most of all his son, Fabrice, who is maybe even brighter than his father. They have a house south of Lurezia where the greatest students of nature, men and women, live and study to figure out how things work by experimentation. Some people will call this magic, but really it is not, because magic depends on the ability of people, and this does not. They call it science. You might know about it.”

  Nellie had heard the word science, but her knowledge went little beyond that. “Aren’t magic and science the same thing?”

  “No. Magic is part of science but science is much more than magic.” She walked to the other side of the bench to collect the glass bottle. “Anyway, look at this.”

  She set the bottle in the middle of the dish with the quicksilver. And all the silvery liquid crept to the sides.

  Nellie frowned. “Why is it doing that?”

  “Magic repels quicksilver.”

  “How do you know that magic is doing it?”

  “Well, if you didn’t believe me, look at what happens with this bottle.”

  She took the bottle out and put one of the ones that stood on the workbench in. The bottom of the glass dipped into the silvery liquid.

  “I guess it would be on my say-so that this is caused by magic, but you would have to agree that the two are different, right? They’re both empty bottles.”

  Yes. “They’re both made of glass?”

  “Better than that, they were both made by the same glassblower who has a business in town. We can ask him because he is one of the few craftspeople who have not left. He makes bottles, simple objects, and does not use magic for his craft.”

  Nellie looked at the first bottle with the goat label, wondering how this would stand up as proof that the poison had been in the gin and that it was magical poison, in a country where magic was forbidden. No one would believe her, an old woman, who didn’t even have any magical ability herself.

  “How does one put magic in gin?”

  “You can do it in a couple of different ways. You can infuse gin with a magical object, that is, if you have an object that’s powerful enough and small enough to fit inside a container so you can cover it with gin. Or you can distil the gin with magical herbs. Since Mr Oliver’s brother made the gin, he definitely didn’t do the latter, so someone has infused the gin with a magical object after they bought it at Mr Oliver’s store. Before you ask, no I don’t know what kind of object. It can’t be too big, obviously, but it also needs to be powerful. I guess an amulet or relic of some description. Mind you, you might need to ask a magician.”

  “You mean you’re not a magician?”

  “I guess I’m something close to a magician. I’m an anti-magician. I can feel and see magic, but I don’t have any of it.”

  She also had a very good memory.

  Nellie had started out distrusting Gisele because she was so strange and unlike any woman she had ever met before. But now she was finding her very useful.

  She took a deep breath before starting on the second reason she had come here. “I have to ask you something.”

  “Oh?” Gisele’s eyebrows flicked up.

  “You said someone lived in the crypts, and I’m pretty sure that it’s Prince Bruno. I want to free him.”

  “You? How? First you’d have to—”

  “I have to tell you something. I have a secret. I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t know whether you would betray me.”

  “That is always a good position to take for people like us.”

  “People like us?”

  “People interested in unmasking the wrongs of the world, no matter how powerful they are.”

  Yes, Nellie thought with trepidation. That was her new situation. And then she realised that there was another word for people like Gisele: heretics. And that filled her with even more trepidation. Especially since these appeared to be the only people who, while the men of the church were fighting for power, appeared to be doing something for the good of all.

  So, although it frightened her, she was stuck with these people and the fear the shepherds liked to spread about them. Nellie wasn’t a heretic, because those people had lost their belief. She had lost the belief that the current leaders of the church were good people. That was different from being a heretic, wasn’t it?

  “Last time when I saw you, I asked you about the things that the church hides in the crypt.”

  “That was because of your father, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was, because he worked for the church. But there was one thing I didn’t tell you. When I got my father’s box with his book of notes just recently, there was a key in the bottom. It is in fact the key to the metal door in the grate at the end of the crypt. I went in there. I saw the things they keep down there, so I knew you were speaking the truth about them, about the ruby skull and the octagonal space in the dust.”

  Gisele’s eyes widened.

  “Well, I’m with a group of women and children who are planning a quite ridiculous operation, when you hear all about it. But we want to leave the city afterwards, and it makes sense that we take as many people as possible. If it’s true that the young Prince Bruno is locked up in the crypt, I would like to take him. Then I can return his dragon to him.”

  Gisele started laughing and didn’t stop laughing for nearly a minute.

  Nellie felt increasingly embarrassed. She was already sorry that she had mentioned this. “If it is such a ridiculous idea, I will carry it out myself.”

  “No, it is one of the most amazing ideas I have ever heard.
If you can carry that out, it will be the best thing ever. I would love to see the looks on the faces of the Regent and the shepherd.”

  “Does that mean you’ll help me?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Then come with me tomorrow night and we’ll go into the crypt.”

  Gisele agreed that she would do that, and they made arrangements.

  Then Nellie asked, “Since you know about things that happen in the church, do you know what has happened to Shepherd Adrianus?”

  “Many people are talking about it.” Gisele’s expression was dark. “I’ve only heard the rumours. He was said to have disagreed with the Shepherd Wilfridus and was punished and sent away from the city. Someone else has taken his church.”

  “Yes, I went to see him, but he was no longer there. Where is he?”

  “I presume he has been sent to a monastery somewhere outside the city to pay for his sins.”

  “But he was only trying to protect people.”

  “That is not how these men of power think. Anyone who threatens their position is an enemy, church or not. If anything, it is even worse in the church, because people don’t expect it and don’t look for it. But all these monks and all these priests are constantly at each other’s throats. Mind you, they have nothing else to do. If they don’t see the whores, and a lot of them truly don’t, all they can do is fight with each other and attempt to enrich themselves at the cost of the others. To be a monk can be a hard life. Some of these monasteries are doing very well, and it is not because they’re being nice to anyone.”

  Nellie felt ashamed for having judged her father badly because he had seen what was happening. “And I am guessing that one of the things they do is dabble with magic?”

  “I haven’t personally seen this, but I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Then why do they tell the Regent to get rid of everyone who has magic?”

  “It’s simple, really. It is so that they can control the most powerful magicians in this area. This city is like a blank canvas. There has never been much magic here, only a few people who dabble in it, but things are changing. Magic lines are never stable, and they’re moving into this region. And a lot of people want to make sure they get their share of power once magic moves into Saardam.”

  “Is that why the church put the Regent in place?”

  “It’s why they chose him. There were a lot of other contenders for the position, but the church chose the one least likely to pose a threat to their power. Now they are using him as a tool to get rid of anyone who can point out the hypocrisy of preaching against magic while also learning magic.”

  “Didn’t they make the excuse that in order to learn about a thing, you need to study it?”

  “That’s their official excuse, but many people aren’t buying it anymore. Anyone with magic knows it’s a blatant ploy to get rid of all magicians in the city. To what aim, we can speculate, but to keep the city safe is certainly not one of the possibilities.”

  “Which is why it’s so hard to find a wind magician. I need to know which is a safe place to hide after we leave the city. People say there are a lot of problems with bandits upriver.”

  “Not half as much as they make it out to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I travelled down the river.”

  “On that beautiful boat?”

  Gisele laughed. “No, that’s only for important people attending the banquet. We came with a coach and horses from the monastery. It’s a good two-day journey.”

  “You didn’t see any bandits?”

  “The only ones I’ve heard of are small groups of youths that are not terribly harmful. They will steal things if they can get away with it, in particular horses, but they’re not interested in occupying land or killing people. The threat is much blown up by people who have an interest in keeping the citizens in the city.”

  “But I still need to tell the women in my group that the river and the riverbanks are safe. I need someone who is a wind magician, and the local magicians have all left town.”

  “Oh, there are still some good ones. Some of the people in the Science Guild are magicians. There’ll be a meeting of that group tonight. Feel welcome to come as long as you can keep silent. The meeting will be of magical and non-magical people, and they mostly talk about science. But there will be someone there who can answer your questions and I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you there as a true child of your father’s.”

  “My father?”

  “He was one of the founding members of the Science Guild. I presumed you knew.”

  No, she didn’t know. Her father never told her or her mother anything. With the book she had received, a universe about his life had opened to her.

  Walking back home, Nellie thought she had finally dug through all the layers of her father’s message. Having thrown himself into church life in his younger years, when the Church of the Triune riled against the display of riches and the cruelty of the magic of the Belaman Church, her father had seen the new church become just as cruel and corrupt as the organisation it sought to replace. The break between the Church of the Triune and the Belaman Church was not as complete as people suggested. They shared many beliefs and customs. People went to Senoza for pilgrimage and study. In fact, they even still shared some of the monasteries. The Guentherite order accepted young men from both churches.

  So her father became disillusioned when the shepherd showed more interest than he thought was wise in old church relics and obscure, forbidden books. The virtue that mattered most to her father was honesty and transparency. None of this secret, hush-hush stuff. He loved numbers because numbers never lied.

  Her father had become a heretic which, finally, made her understand why he had so angrily refused visits from anyone from the church in his final years.

  Chapter 18

  GISELE TOLD NELLIE where to go for the Science Guild meeting that night, and Nellie was nervous. It sounded all secret and mysterious.

  Nellie’s apprehension was not made any better when she heard Gisele would not be going. She had monk duties to fulfil. “I already spend so much time doing other things. I need to attend the weekly service for giving thanks. If I’m not at the church, there will be talk.”

  Nellie understood, but it didn’t make her feel any easier about meeting a room full of strangers by herself.

  Gisele told her the names of some of the people who would be there, but Nellie didn’t know any of them personally, and there were even some people whose names she had never heard. They sounded like important businessmen.

  As to what they normally spoke about, Gisele said, “They report on experiments with new knowledge and techniques. The people of all the low countries were very much upset back when the Eastern Traders came into our harbours with their iron ships. But they have to be careful because the Regent forbids magic and science is closely related to magic. The people in the guild are in search of the ultimate truth. The iron ships are not powered by magic. They consist of parts that can be made to work when they are put together in the right way. The Science Guild is about finding this way to make better machines.”

  Nellie knew about the iron ships. She had been there when the ugly square ship with the fat masts that belched smoke came into the harbour. She remembered how everyone wanted to buy those ships, but the eastern traders weren’t selling anything except the produce they carried. So everyone tried to build their own ships, and this led to disasters more often than not.

  “But magicians will come to the meeting?”

  “Not all of them will be magicians, but some will be.”

  The meeting was to take place in a house in the artisan quarter that was a block away from the main street, and not too far from where Mistress Julianna lived. In fact, to get there, Nellie had to walk past Mistress Julianna’s house.

  She wondered if people like Mistress Julianna would be members of this group, because she still didn’t quite understand what they did. And her fat
her had been a founding member?

  As she came near the house, she noticed a number of other people walking in the same direction.

  All of them looked like ordinary citizens, and she even recognised some of them. They were shop owners and craftsmen who plied trades. One man she knew was a carpenter, and he was in the company of the very carpenter who had made the beam for the harness.

  He greeted Nellie. “I wasn’t expecting you here tonight.”

  “A friend said that I should come.”

  They went into a narrow alley that led past the back of the houses. In a little alcove at the end of the alley was another sight that Nellie knew well. A horse stood tied to a fence post. But it was not just any horse. This one was a beautiful grey stallion with dappled fur, a long white mane and fetlocks, and blue eyes. She knew this horse. It belonged to madame Sabine.

  “Is the Regent’s consort here?”

  “She is our most influential member. Didn’t you know that?”

  Nellie didn’t. She hadn’t asked, and Gisele hadn’t told her. She hesitated at the top of a flight of stairs that led to the door into a basement room where the stream of people were entering. The carpenter went ahead and she lost sight of him.

  Did she still want to go to this meeting when the only person who knew that she had stolen the dragon box was in attendance? Of course, Madame Sabine could easily have betrayed Nellie. She hadn’t, because it would mean admitting that she or someone working for her had taken the box from the church in the first place. She hadn’t, because it would shine the light on her own activities that no one knew about, which no doubt included coming here, because there was no way the Regent could know about this. If he did, he would never keep quiet about it.

  Which meant it was probably safe to continue.

  A group of people walked past her, down the stairs into the house. Nellie followed them.