by Stephen Hunt
Hannah was about to answer that she didn't know, when a memory suddenly rose up unbidden. 'An empty altar! The cathedral here in the capital had an empty altar. We had a break-in. Some of our parishioners desperate to emigrate, no doubt. They cleared out all the silver from the altar.'
'When was this?'
'A few weeks before Alice was murdered.'
Jethro Daunt smiled. It was as if he had expected that would be her answer. He removed a little Circlist symbol from underneath his waistcoat, a metal circle in the form of a snake swallowing its own tail – the church's token for the infinite passage of life – dangling from a chain. 'It was Alice who gave me this.'
Hannah hesitantly pulled out an identical symbol of her own. 'I have one too. It matches the one that Alice wore.'
'I was hoping you might,' said Jethro. 'Except that Alice's pendant is missing. It wasn't listed among her possessions on the police report, and none of the fathers at the cathedral found it when they were cleaning up the confessional booth.'
'Nobody would have stolen it,' said Hannah. 'It's made of simple steel, not silver. You can buy one of these for pennies from any of the stalls opposite the cathedral.'
Jethro lifted up his pendant, pinching the snake's head and there was click, the circle swinging open on a concealed hinge to reveal a hollow tube inside. He knocked it against the side of his chair and removed a tiny piece of paper – a daguerreotype image of Alice Gray's face as she had been in her twenties. There was something sad and disapproving about her face, even then, despite her beauty. 'The students in our seminary used the circlets to pass messages to each other behind the monks' back.'
Hannah apprehensively pressed on her own circle as Jethro had done and was rewarded with a small click from the snake's head. 'Did Alice's locket have a picture of you inside it?'
'Once,' said Jethro. He watched her fingers tease out something from inside the hollow space. 'But not, I suspect, for a long, long time.'
Hannah was half-expecting to find a picture of Alice Gray – or perhaps of her parents – inside her circlet, but when she unrolled the stiff square of paper she saw it was a miniature of an oil painting. She recognized the scene instantly; it was a common church illumination, the first of the three images that made up the rational trinity. The tiny painting showed a man wearing white scholar's robes, kneeling down and humbly demonstrating a screw drill before a group of fierce-looking tribesmen, bringing water to the surface.
'Knowledge shall raise you,' whispered Hannah. The first of the church's core beliefs.
'And so it shall,' said Jethro. He held his hand out towards Hannah. 'If I may, damson?'
She passed him the painting while the commodore and Nandi peered over his shoulders to look at it.
'That picture isn't hand painted, is it?' asked Nandi. 'There's too much detail in it.'
'A good assumption,' noted Jethro, playing with the angle of the miniature in front of his eyes. 'The original would have been a full-size illumination. But this was produced by taking a daguerreotype image of the original, shrinking it and running off a miniaturized copy using a rotary gravure press. Forgers turning out high-quality fake bank notes use some of the same techniques.'
'It's a pretty little thing,' said the commodore, 'but what does the blessed picture have to do with keeping a Jackelian lass out of the hands of a wicked crew of murderers.'
'For that, I believe, keener eyes than mine may be able to throw some light on the matter.' He passed the illustration across to Boxiron.
Hannah watched as the steamman held the painting up in front of his image plate, the light that pulsed behind the crystal surface slowing and becoming steadier. There was a series of clicks from inside the steamman's shiny metal skull – his head's sheen such a contrast with the rest of his rusty, hulking body.
'What can you see, old steamer?' asked Jethro.
'Please give me a second. These flat visual interpretations are never easy for my kind to process. Your people always overcomplicate your strange art. I can see that there is a signature in the right-hand corner,' said Boxiron. 'The hand of its creator, I presume? It reads William of Flamewall.'
Hannah gasped. The name they had uncovered in the guild's transaction-engine vaults. The lover – and murderer – of the fiercely brilliant priest Bel Bessant. 'Why would Alice have given me a picture painted by someone that my parents were researching?'
'I believe the answer to that rather depends on what else this illumination may contain. Can you detect any traces of steganography on the surface of the canvas, Boxiron?'
'Searching,' announced the steamman. 'Yes, the desert soil in the painting shows signs of having been coloured in on a pencilled grid. Every tenth pixel on the grid has had its colour base altered.'
'A concealed code,' said Nandi. 'I've heard about the curators at the college museum finding such things hidden in their paintings.'
'The technical term for the art of hiding a code in a picture is steganography, and they are normally quite benign when they've been decoded,' said Jethro. 'Jokes about the stinginess of the patron commissioning the piece or the ugliness of those sitting for their portrait, deprecating comments about rival illuminators. It may be nothing more than a complaint by William of Flamewall that his billet in the cathedral was cold and uncomfortable, but…' he looked at Boxiron, meaningfully.
'The stegotext – the code – concealed in this painting is very advanced,' said Boxiron. 'Decrypting something so complex will be an unpredictable undertaking. It could take hours to break it.'
Hannah looked at the rickety creature in amazement. 'You can do that?'
'Boxiron has a talent for such work,' said Jethro. 'A talent that belies his rather basic appearance. You must get to it, old friend.'
'No, we should let it be,' advised the commodore. 'If there's a dark secret hidden away for so long, we should let the mortal thing slumber for a few centuries more. We don't need to be poking our noses into this foul business. Let's go downstairs to this hotel's magnificent dining room instead and test their chef's fare while we plan how to steal young Hannah aboard my precious boat. We can all be away and back to the green shores of Jackals and leave the Jagonese to stew in their dark hole.'
'I'm afraid that's not an option, good captain,' replied Jethro, 'even if we could break out of the harbour without getting blown up by the cannons along the coral line, we could never navigate the Fire Sea without a pilot. People have already been hurt because of this secret. First Hannah's parents, then poor Alice, and now it seems Hannah also.'
'Knowledge shall raise you,' said Hannah.
'Ah no, lass,' said the commodore. 'It'll sink us for sure.'
Hannah looked meaningfully at Nandi. 'And now we have another reason for me to go back to the guild's vaults and help you complete your research for the college. We need to find out more about William of Flamewall in the archives.'
'I will not risk your life like that,' insisted Nandi. 'The professor asked me to try and help you while I was here on Jago, not get you killed gadding about the island.'
'I think you should go, good damson,' said Jethro. 'I believe you'll be safe enough in the guild's vaults this time around.'
Hannah nodded her head in acknowledgement, hiding her surprise that the detective was taking her side in this matter.
'Whereas for me, I believe I will need to visit the less salubrious parts of the capital to put my theories about this shadowy affair to the test.'
CHAPTER NINE
Chalph urs Chalph stared nervously down the street – and with just cause. The Lugus Vault was without doubt the poorest area of Hermetica City, and that naturally went hand in hand with it being the riskiest to cross. Not only did its inhabitants resent the Pericurian traders more than the rest of the island's citizenry – as they did anyone with more money than they (almost everyone else in the capital) – but they were gazing at Jethro Daunt's obviously foreign clothes with appraising eyes.
If only the ex-parson had seen f
it to bring along his hulking manservant rather than leaving Boxiron behind to process some code from an ancient painting – as strange an excuse as Chalph could imagine for the two of them having to venture into dangerous lanes such as these unprotected. The eccentrically godless church that the Jackelians shared with the Jagonese might embrace pacifism, but judging by the cunning glances he and the investigator had been attracting since entering this vault, the locals of Lugus district weren't regulars in the cathedral's pews. It might have helped if there were fewer locals – but unlike the rest of the capital, depopulation didn't seem to be as much of a problem around the slums. Lacking the money and contacts to emigrate, there was always time enough – it seemed to the young Pericurian – to knock out another litter down here.
Jethro Daunt actually seemed pleased to see the urchins running around the streets – the lively presence of cubs a conspicuous difference from the Seething Round where his hotel was located, near the quality and all their money. Would he be so happy when one of the rascals dipped his wallet, though? No, that would stretch his Circlist tolerance a little too far, Chalph suspected.
In his own manner, the beak-nosed detective was just as obstinate as the matriarch baroness of Chalph's trading house. He might not insist on being carried everywhere by a train of Pericurian serfs on a sedan chair being served sweet-meats while every whim was satisfied now; but even as a mere member of the race of man, everything still seemed to work out being done Jethro's way. At least he wasn't presently humming one of his strange songs under his breath.
'You must have a very low opinion of me,' said Chalph, 'thinking that I would know how to meet the kind of people you are looking for.'
'On the contrary, I have an exceedingly high opinion of you,' said Jethro. 'But where there is a tightly regulated and taxed market with only a single point of contact with the outside world, a black market and smuggling always exists. And there's no one else to supply it on Jago but your house.'
Chalph watched a group of men sitting barefoot in a yard, cleaning freshly cropped cavern bamboo with machetes. They would bury the bamboo in the vault's ground for three months and it would be soft enough to make a not particularly nourishing gruel when they boiled it after digging it back out. The workers scowled across the street at Chalph and Jethro.
'You're a clever man, Jackelian. But not clever enough to avoid being sent to Jago by the Inquisition.'
'No, bob my soul, not clever enough for that,' smiled Jethro. 'You really don't like living on Jago, do you?'
'Not much more than they do,' said Chalph, throwing a shrug at the bamboo cleaners. 'Are you aware that there are forty-four castes in Pericurian society? I was born a Rig-Juna, that's a male chattel of a bonded merchant. I've been on Jago for as long as I can remember, but I can only leave when the baroness decides there's no more profit here or if the house loses its trading concession. My house may be of a reformist bent, but they're not nearly reforming enough to allow me my freedom.'
'Things will change for you and your people,' said Jethro. 'Change is the only constant in life. Your country has seen how our colonists in Concorzia live, the example of a true multi-racial society. Courageous ursines like Ortin urs Ortin would see your archduchess's rule tempered by a true parliament.'
'Yes, you shipped here with the new ambassador, didn't you? I saw him arrive when he presented himself to the baroness. A high-caste dreamer, indulged by his position, who likes the sound of his own voice far too much. Pericur will never be the Kingdom of Jackals. There is a place for everyone in Pericur and everyone is in their place. I shouldn't complain, it would be taken as ingratitude. Pericur has many noble titles, but the last word of most of them translates as mother. And mother always knows best.'
Jethro's sly eyes narrowed. 'And when you have helped your friend Hannah get the freedom that is denied you, what will be left for you here?'
Chalph growled. He didn't like this foreigner thinking he could see inside his soul with such ease using his godless church's tricks. 'Me, I'll do what I'm ordered, Jackelian, just like I always do. There's a change coming all right, but it's coming here on Jago, not back home. The Jagonese need a scapegoat for their troubles, and my people are it. Not that the opinion of a low-caste ledger keeper means much, but I just hope that the baroness wakes up to what's happening outside the trade mission's gates while our boats are still allowed to dock on Jago. It's going to be a very warm swim back home for us if she doesn't.'
'You shouldn't blame the Jagonese too much,' said Jethro. 'Good people in desperate times are mutable clay to those that would manipulate them.'
'I'll remember that when there's a mob chasing after me as if I'm a killer ursk that's just climbed over the city wall from the wastes outside.' Chalph pointed to the bottom storey of one of the tenements; there, a bow-windowed shop hunkered under a sign painted with the proprietor's name – Hugh Sworph. 'That's it.'
The shop's windows were old-style stained glass, an ostentation that pointed to a time when the store might not have been just a pawnshop. An older age when the vault's poor had been lifted up on a rising tide of prosperity. Now Hugh Sworph's windows were filled with faded furniture, carriage clocks, crockery, cutlery, paintings and a few old books. This was the place the city's criminals came to when they had something particularly difficult to fence.
A bell on a spring rang as the two of them entered the shop, but there was no sign of customers or staff inside. Just a maze of discarded debris from Jagonese life put up for sale amidst the swirls of dust and the rainbow illumination pouring in from the tall bay. Chalph and Jethro split up and searched through the crowded bric-a-brac, looking for the missing owner.
'Mister Sworph,' called the Pericurian. 'It's me, Chalph urs Chalph. I haven't come about the extras from the boat, this time. I've got a friend here who would like to talk to you.'
Silence. Odd. The door hadn't been locked and the sign was still twisted to read 'open'.
'Well, I'll be bobbed. Over here, good ursine!' exclaimed Jethro.
Chalph walked around a long rail hung with worn velvet jackets.
Jethro Daunt was kneeling by the proprietor's body, Hugh Sworph recognizable even lying face down thanks to his hairless skull. A dagger emerged from his spine and a puddle of blood pooled across the faded bamboo floorboards.
Murder had been done here. How odd it seemed to Hannah, to be back among the crimson-hooded ranks of the guild after having briefly returned to the streets of Hermetica City she knew so well. Exchanging the capital's bright, open vaults for the dark corridors and valve-studded canyons of the order that had claimed Hannah as one of its own. But the urge to return to the guild and find out what had happened to her parents had proved even stronger than Nandi and Commodore Black's urging not to risk her life to another sabotaged atmospheric carriage – or similar 'accident'.
The three of them had returned to their allotted study cell. While there was no sign of any guildsmen investigating the matter of the recently overloaded systems, as Hannah had half expected, the valves outside their cell and down on the canyon floor were clearly new – clear as a freshly washed window, rather than stained brown with the dark energies that flowed through the vacuum tubes.
As before, Nandi sat herself in front of the stone screen while Hannah manned the cell's punch-card writer, typing a tattoo of retrieval commands to bring up the record set she had found before.
The commodore risked a quick glance outside the cell, standing by the balcony overlooking the massive canyon of valves. Then he stepped well back.
'You don't need to worry,' said Hannah. 'That switching storm last time was a freak occurrence. You could wait by that balcony for a century before you'd see another one out there.'
'So you say, lass,' hummed the commodore. 'But fool me once and it's shame on you. Fool me twice and it's shame on me.'
There was a rattle as the injection system carried Hannah's first punch card away. Nandi leant forward, the stone screen changing colour in front of h
er to show a green oblong filled with text.
'This can't be right,' muttered the young academic.
Hannah turned on her bench. 'What is it?'
'See for yourself.'
Hannah left the punch-card writer and moved behind Nandi. There was a single line repeated over and over down the stone surface – the only response to Hannah's query.
These records do not exist.
'That can't be right,' said Hannah, trying to fight down the impulse to panic.
'Where is your parents' research?' asked Nandi.
'It's been deleted,' said Hannah in shock. 'But nothing is ever deleted from here.'
That was the cardinal rule of the guild. Nothing was ever deleted. Archived, yes. Assigned a middling document weight and forgotten along with a million similar records, certainly. But erased? Never. Hannah rushed back to the writer and composed another longer query. Injected it and awaited the results.
The stone screen began to fill up with primary code-level iconography similar to the symbols on the keyboard of Hannah's punch-card writer.
'There's not even an audit trail of an erasure,' gasped Hannah. 'It's as if the records were never there in the first place. Nobody can do this, it's simply not possible.'
'As impossible as that dark storm that shouldn't have brewed up outside here,' noted the commodore.
'That's almost a whole year of your parent's work,' uttered Nandi, her voice cracking. 'Is it just the bookmarks assembling everything into a coherent project that have gone, or have the source documents also been destroyed?'
Hannah ran back to the card writer. 'I'll check.'
Hannah had nearly finished composing the query when Nandi called her over again. The image on the surface of the stone screen was reforming. The code-level iconography Hannah had called up was vanishing, to be replaced by a single line sitting in the middle of the green oblong.
