Illusionarium

by Heather Dixon

  Captain Crewe arrived at the laboratory in the middle of our work, a metal box with fantillium in his hands, again informing us that the king wished us to work with Lady Florel.

  “I will not,” said my father, without looking up from his work.

  “The king is insistent, I’m afraid.”

  “The king can illusion, himself, then.”

  Captain Crewe saluted, and left with the box.

  “What do you think happened to her?” I asked him after the door had closed. “Lady Florel, I mean?”

  “I cannot say,” said my father. The color in his face, which had fled in Lady Florel’s cell on the Chivalry, had returned to some degree. He continued to copy my semaphore notes from Arthurise into his medical journal, and spoke without looking up. “But Lady Florel—the true Lady Florel—would never work with something like fantillium. It causes acedia.”

  “Aced—what?”

  “It means,” said my father, “it dulls the conscience.”

  I paused. I hadn’t noticed that. I’d felt more alive with the chemical in my blood—lights were brighter, sounds were clearer. The lab even smelled sharper. I hadn’t really paid attention to much else.

  “Well,” I conceded, “it is strange. But we may have to use it. The king seems a bit on edge. . . . Can’t say I blame him, either.”

  “It is better to disobey a king,” said my father, “than to disobey my own conscience.”

  He touched a finger to the center of his chest, and that was that.

  My father had this . . . belief.

  It was that everyone had a sort of compass inside of him. One that you could feel. And if you were doing everything good and right, it pointed to a northernmost light, and if you did ill, it turned and twisted and caused a sort of southerly darkness inside your soul.

  I myself had never felt a compass in me, figuratively or otherwise, and supposed it was just One of Those Things Fathers Say to get you to learn your sums or not hit your sister. But even now that I was sixteen, my father still believed it so ardently, he touched his chest whenever he felt the need to be Pointed.

  I adjusted the microscope lens, frustrated. A person’s conscience couldn’t cure a disease like the Venen. And—a darker voice in me added—it couldn’t throw you into a cell like Lady Florel’s.

  By evening, because I hadn’t slept in two days, my father made me retire to the library, where the airguard had set up cots for us to rest on. I’d nearly fallen asleep between the freezing sheets when a banging on the window roused me. I had to break the ice on the pane to shove the window up, but when I did, I was face-to-face with Hannah and her friend Alice, bundled up in shawls and wearing their best dresses and beaming at me.

  “Oh, ah, hello,” I said, transforming my shivering into a laugh. Growing up I’d mostly ignored Hannah’s friends, until one morning a year ago I woke up and they’d suddenly become funny and pretty and all shades of clever. I couldn’t string a sentence together around Alice. It was maddening. She had a mass of red curly hair that fell to her waist and her face and arms had freckles all over them, which was utterly charming. At times I’d catch her looking at me after I’d said something funny, and she’d smile at her feet and hug her books to her chest, and insofar as I could see, it was the beginning of a very promising relationship.

  Beneath all the shawls, I could see she wore a long homespun yellow dress with a bit of lace, which was dead nice, and she held a covered tray of what smelled like sweet rolls, which was even deader nice.

  “We wanted to come through the door, but there were soldiers there and we were afraid they’d turn us away,” said Hannah. “Can you come out?”

  Without hesitation, I climbed through the window onto the metal walkway. We retreated into the warmth of the nearest heat lamp, a length away in the courtyard. It loomed over our heads and could turn snowflakes to steam so quickly they snapped. We huddled in the lamp’s orange light, warming up and laughing in the shelter of the observatory walls. A lone light shone from a window on the second floor. My father’s shadow paced across it.

  “Sorry about the soldiers,” I said, warming my hands on the lamp’s metal rim. “The empire’s a bit tense right now.”

  “How’s everything coming?” said Hannah, her eyes alight.

  “Great, great. Um, what are you wearing?” I said, because I’d caught a second look at her, and beneath the layers of shawl she wore a violet dress with masses of silk puffs. Her hair had been pulled up into ringlets and ribbons. Hannah was only fourteen but had a figure that made my academy classmates snap their slate chalks in half.

  “Do you like it?” she said, twirling around, the ruffly bits poofing up around her. “There’s twelve yards of fabric altogether! I can hardly lift my feet. We ordered it last summer, but now I can wear it because there’s a dance tonight! At the Rosewine Theater, we’re just on our way. Can you come?”

  “A dance?” I said, laughing. “What, with who? All three boys who live here?”

  “No, stupid.” Hannah grinned. “The airguard is here, aren’t they?”

  That wiped the smile off my face. My head played mutiny with my soul as I imagined all the airguardsmen lining up to ask Alice for a dance. It double mutinied with the thought of that cocky one-eyed lieutenant snaking his arm around Hannah’s waist.

  “Oh, don’t be like that; Mum will be there to chaperone,” said Hannah. “Anyway, don’t you think you could use a bit of a rest? Maybe you could slip away for just one dance?”

  I glanced at Alice, who blushed at her platter, and I ran a hand through my mussed sort-of brown hair. Glancing up at the lit laboratory window, I shook my head.

  “Sorry,” I said, nodding to the second floor. “I can’t just run off like that. Not when the old fellow’s at work.”

  Hannah looked disappointed. Alice looked even more disappointed, which made me the most disappointed of all.

  “At least have a sweet roll,” Alice said, uncovering the platter. I eagerly took one, because fresh food was hard to come by on Fata, where most things were made with food from cans and bottles. Not to mention, I’d had Alice’s sweet rolls before.5 “Take one for your father, too,” Alice added. “And another one, if you want.”6

  “Don’t encourage him, Alice, or he’ll eat the entire—”

  Hannah stopped abruptly and leaned against the rim of the lamp. I hadn’t noticed until now how sickly pale she looked.

  “Careful,” I said, drawing her away from the red-hot grid. “You’ll get burned.”

  “She hasn’t been herself all day,” Alice said.

  “Stop it, I’m fine.” Hannah weakly pulled out of my grip. “Stop acting like such a—a surgeon—”

  She halted once again and closed her eyes. Then in one fluid movement, she folded up into a giant silk poof ball on the walkway.

  I dropped to her side and propped her up amidst the purple. Her eyelids flickered.

  “Hannah!” I said.

  “I’m fine—fine—” she said, feebly trying to get back up.

  I took her hand and pulled off her silk glove.

  Her fingertips were mottled black. Little crisscrossing rivulets of black capillaries. Alice gasped.

  I delicately slipped her glove back on with shaking fingers.

  “You know, let’s take a quick toddle to the infirmary, hey?” I said, pulling her to her feet. She hung limply on my arm.

  “I’ll be late,” she moaned.

  “Fashionably late,” I said, half carrying her down the walkway. “You’ll be back in time for biscuits and punch, you can bet on it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  She wasn’t back in time for biscuits and punch.

  The infirmary, a long brick building with rows of tall windows and white rooms that smelled of laundry and disinfectant, admitted Hannah so quickly in a blur of nurses and purple dress that I’d been abandoned in the hallway with empty arms, a bit dazed. I was still there when Mum came, dressed in a proper coat and gloves—Alice had run to fetch h
er from the Rosewine. She stood on her toes and kissed my forehead.

  “Hannah is in the wing?” she said quietly.

  I nodded.

  “Your father ought to know,” she said, but when she stepped forward, she collapsed. I caught her before her knees touched ground. She hardly weighed a thing. I guided her to one of the lobby chairs.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I—I’ve felt so oddly today—”

  I was already taking off her glove. Her fingertips were scored with black.

  “Oh,” she said, looking at her hand with great interest. “Is this what your father has been working on?”

  “Oh, ah, I don’t know,” I said, backing out of the hall. “Um. Why don’t I just go—and go—and go—and go and fetch him?”

  I fled.

  Minutes later I returned, this time with my father on my heels, his long coat flapping and his face ashen. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his apron. My mother, at Hannah’s bedside by the main wing, began to speak, but was stopped short by my father pulling her into a tight embrace and cradling her head against his shoulder. They remained still for a long time.

  I removed myself from the room, and ran.

  And ran.

  And ran.

  Into the freezing polar night, over the walkways and around the promenade that jutted around the perimeter of the city. The problem with Fata Morgana was that there was nowhere to run to. You either ricocheted back into the city, or leapt over the railing and fell into the ocean below. I ran until I felt my throat would turn itself inside out and collapsed onto the platform that led to dock three, on the south side of the city.

  Here, in the warmth and hum of the heat lamps, I leaned against the railing. This dock had benches and a plaque that marked the establishment of Fata thirty-one years ago (1851). Three telescopes stood along the platform, which would play a jaunty tune for a coin and allow you to look out over the ocean for ninety seconds. On a clear day you could see the Scandinavian coast.

  I drew a hand through my hair, shivering. The generator rumbled beneath my feat, chorusing with the jingle of piano and polite laughter that wafted out from the city’s center. And far below, the ocean. A great black expanse of unending nothing. I could sympathize with it.

  Six days.

  It began with weakness and fainting, and the fingertips and toes would begin to color. That was day one.

  Day two: Fever sets in. Discoloration spreads up the legs and arms and neck.

  Day three: Fever gives way to periods of unconsciousness.

  Day four: Loss of movement, loss of voice. The black spreads. The veins color over the face.

  Day five: The discoloration reaches the center of the body, the heart.

  Day six: Death.

  I smacked the telescope. It spun unevenly and slowed to a stop, pointing northeast. Six days was nothing. A blink. You’d inhale and it’d be gone.

  At the far end of dock three, the Chivalry loomed, all cannon and steel. Like Lady Florel, I thought. An idea took hold of me, and did not release. In a moment I was riding up the lift and recklessly hurrying over the platform to the ship.

  Captain Crewe stood at the top of the dock, just exiting the massive airship with several other airguardsmen. He seemed genuinely glad to see me.

  “Master Gouden,” he said. “I only just heard. I am so sorry.”

  “I need to speak to Lady Florel,” I said.

  To my surprise he said, “Of course.”

  He led me down the main corridors that smelled of burning orthogonagen, past rows of sleek lights and endless doors and spiral stairs. None of the airguardsmen questioned us, but rather saluted when we passed. We arrived at the brig, pipes hissing along the walls, to Lieutenant Lockwood. He stood and saluted smartly to Captain Crewe. His lone blue eye narrowed at me.

  “Lieutenant,” said Captain Crewe. “This is Jonathan Gouden, Dr. Gouden’s apprentice. He’s come to speak to Lady Florel. You will allow him entrance and do everything you can to speed him in his work, is that clear?”

  Lockwood clicked the heels of his boots together and saluted smartly again.

  “Very well. Master Gouden, I will see you back in the observatory.”

  Captain Crewe left me alone in the brig’s corridor with Lockwood. Lockwood’s cold blue eye hadn’t left my face.

  “If you could open her door?” I said when he did not move.

  “Why?” he said with a sneer.

  “Um. Because half the empire is dying? That enough for you?”

  With extreme bone-bending reluctance, Lockwood unlocked Lady Florel’s cell door and bowed me in with exaggerated politeness. I ignored him.

  In the darkness of the cell—koch dishes notably absent—Lady Florel stood behind the table, bundled in the coat, her graying hair pulled into a tight bun, facing away from me. She did not turn around as I removed my cap, but said, “Dr. Gouden. I knew you would come.”

  I coughed.

  “His son, actually,” I said. “But I can illusion, too. I think.”

  Lady Florel turned around with raised eyebrows and took me in. Something flickered in her eyes, and they glittered.

  “Of course you can,” she whispered.

  I twisted my cap, wary.

  “Lady Florel,” I said, and the words dried in my throat. My thoughts scattered. People dying in droves. The Venen spreading. My mother touching my cheek with her black fingertips. Hannah’s weight on my arm. You couldn’t condense it into something as clumsy as words. Instead I said, “Lady Florel, you said you needed an illusionist to find the cure. I can illusion. Tell me what I need to do. My mother and my sister—”

  I couldn’t speak anymore.

  Lady Florel smiled. Her brows wrinkled around the dimple on her forehead.

  “Did you bring a vial of fantillium?” she said.

  “Er—no,” I said.

  “Ah. Well, we cannot continue until then.”

  “What? Why not? Couldn’t you just tell me what to do?” I said, thinking of all the trouble this would get me into. “It would be better if it was just me, illusioning in my father’s laborator—”

  “No,” she said sweetly, cutting me off. “Bring a vial of fantillium to me. Then we move forward.”

  “Right,” I said, kneading my cap like a loaf of bread and thinking of Captain Crewe’s box. “Only—I mean, I’d probably have to take the fantillium from behind my father’s back, you see, and that’s—” I coughed. “That’s, ah, that’s stealing, you see. Textbook definition.”

  Lady Florel kept her cold brown eyes fixed on me.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “Bring the fantillium, or the Venen’s antitoxin shall never be found in time.”

  I placed my cap back on my head and turned to go, frustrated. This wasn’t the Lady Florel I’d read about. She’d do anything she could to find the cure. Perhaps my father was right—she wasn’t the same person.

  Six days.

  I turned sharply around, the scientist in me rearing his head.

  “I need proof,” I said. “Proof that you’re not mad. Proof that you can get the cure in time. I need proof right now, Lady Florel.”

  Lady Florel, her smile unceasing, tore a page from her blank research book and wrote upon it. I frowned as she penned an equation:

  And then:

  X = 288, then 1 Day = 5 minutes

  X = 1440, then 1 Day = 1 minutes

  X = 86,400, then 1 Day = 1 second

  φ = 1 Day in real time

  Ω = Illusioned Time

  “What?” I said, frowning at the paper.

  “This is the Quickening Formula,” Lady Florel said, handing the paper to me. “It’s a modified orbital equation.”

  Real time? Illusioned time? I recognized the equation for circumference, then parts of the equation of orbital gravity; the Earth’s distance from the sun; a semi-major axis.

  Illusioned time . . .

  The king’s words rang in my head: You can illusion time to go faster. . .
.

  Realization dawned on me like an early spring sun: This mangle of an equation, with its odd symbols, harnessed the rotation and orbit of the Earth.

  I could illusion time to go faster by illusioning the world to turn more quickly.

  “This is mad!” I said, nearly dropping the note. “Illusioning the entire Earth! That’s impossible! A person can’t even illusion a pocket watch!”

  “You asked for proof,” said Lady Florel, steel in her tone. “And here it is. If you are a good illusionist—and I know you are—try it, and it will work. That’s how you’ll know I’m not lying.”

  Disturbed, I folded the note and put it in my coat pocket and left the cell without bidding her a good-bye. Lockwood slammed the cell door behind me with a clang. Just .005 seconds later, his hand grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against the steaming pipes. I gasped for air as he pressed his arm into my neck and I was nose to nose and eye to eye patch with the lieutenant’s face.

  “You were trying to help her!” he spat.

  “What?” I said. “No, I wasn’t!”

  “You were going to help her escape!” he snarled. “I can sense these things, Johnny, the way I can spot an assassin’s light sig in a sea of Arthurisian lights and the way I can tell you, Johnny, have about as much moral fiber as a dead fish, and the way I can tell there’s something very wrong with her, Johnny, and that there must be something very wrong with you if you want to help someone who tried to kill your own father and let me tell you something, Johnny: I haven’t been put guard over her to let her escape! Is that clear? Johnny?”

  I shoved Lockwood away, which took a bit of doing.

  “I don’t even let my mother call me Johnny,” I snapped. “And I like my mother.”

  “Let me introduce you to someone, John-ny,” Lockwood continued, bringing his steam pistol up to my face. It was larger than my head. The pistons steamed and whirred in my ear. “This is a Benguela steel-forged new-model center-fire steam-powered three-piston revolver. So alive it nearly shoots itself.”

  “What is your problem?” I ducked away and retreated for the door. “Is that how you lost your eye? Playing with guns?”

  “I lost my eye,” he said, “scaling the Royal Palace of Madrid amid a hailstorm of bullets to save Robert the First, duke of Bourbon-Parma, and his wife, the Duchess Maria Pia of the Two Sicilies, from their impending assassinations.”