Moment of Truth

by Michael Pryor

  Since being introduced into the murky world of espionage and conspiracy, Aubrey had been a quick learner. A plan was a good and fine thing, but a plan within a plan was even better. Alternatives, feints, fallbacks and ruses were vital tools in a world where appearances hid a thousand plots and countless motives.

  He was aware that some people lived their life like this, as a series of ploys and gambits, where each interaction was a struggle for supremacy, each conversation a chance to establish a position of power. Many of these people ended up in politics, and Aubrey’s father had had to deal with them. They often prided themselves on being sharp, being tough negotiators. Usually, however, working with them was a war of attrition where gains were made inch by inch. Sir Darius alternated between irritation and despair at this approach, so much time being wasted with such posturing.

  At times, this sort of carrying-on made Aubrey question his desire for a life in politics. Not for long, however. His view was that if he could win the confidence of the electorate, he might be able to help change these antediluvian attitudes. Bit by bit, progress would have to happen. Especially if Caroline Hepworth were serious about looking at a seat in Parliament.

  As he crept down the stairs, he considered this prospect with a grin. Votes for women were one thing – and his father had assured Caroline that he was about to present a bill to bring this about – but a female member of Parliament? He couldn’t wait to see the faces of the more longstanding members. Some of the backbenchers may even wake up.

  The Ancient Languages section shared the first basement level with part of the Forensic Squad. Aubrey had considerable interest in forensic magic and had been hoping that the training week would include some time with them. The specialised methods the Forensic Squad used to analyse magical residue were fascinating – and he had a notion that some aspects could be useful in other areas of magical endeavour. Madame Zelinka’s Enlightened Ones, for instance, and their battle with neutralising dangerous magical residue, could be interested in some of the machinery the Forensic Squad had developed to help their probing.

  He turned left, away from the lure of the Forensic area, and saw the lock on the door of Room B6. A large, smug, Perkins’ Invulnerable cruciform lock. He recalled that this was the same model that burglars had nicknamed the ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’.

  Aubrey scanned the other doors in the corridor. Each one was fitted with a cruciform lock – a sign of extreme caution? As if a normal pin tumbler lock weren’t enough, the cruciform lock effectively added three more keyways and, if he wasn’t mistaken, that wasn’t all...

  Very gently, he probed the lock, a mere feather brush of his magical senses, just in case it had any sort of detection built in. He smiled grimly. The lock was fairly quivering with sensitive magic detection overlays, just ready to go off if any magical methods were used to break the lock.

  He straightened and took out his pocket watch. The Brayshire Ruby, inset in the cover, gleamed softly at him. He snapped it open, studying the neat way the hand signified two o’clock, knowing all the while he was procrastinating, putting off having to come to grips with what was bound to be a fiendishly difficult lock.

  Aubrey rubbed his hands together. Given enough time, he could sort out the lock. But given enough time, someone was bound to wander along and ask themselves what a black-clad intruder was doing hammering away at a door. An explosion would sort out the lock, for instance, but explosions were renowned for drawing attention, so he reluctantly discarded that option.

  No, he needed to proceed with subtlety. While it may be less certain, a subtle approach had the virtue of not immediately landing him in hot water. Accustomed as he was to thermal aquatics, he preferred to avoid them if possible.

  From his appurtenances vest he withdrew the slim metal object he’d spent some time working on after dinner.

  He knew he didn’t have Caroline’s delicacy and sureness of movement that made her an uncanny lock picker, so he had to use magic to construct an appropriate tool.

  The metal object, for which two butter knives had sacrificed themselves, was effectively a rough blank cruciform key. It would fit into the slot well enough, but, naturally, it wouldn’t match the four sets of pins and so it wouldn’t open the lock.

  Not without some help.

  This was the tricky part, Aubrey decided as he studied his blank key and then the lock again. With magic, he aimed to vibrate each vane of the blank. This should jiggle each of the sixteen pins inside the lock until he could turn the blank, and hey presto!

  Just to make things harder, he had to set the blank vibrating and then remove all traces of magic residue from it before it came in contact with the lock. Otherwise the magic detection spells would sound an alarm. At the least.

  He didn’t really want to contemplate the most the spells could do.

  The vibration spell was a simple application of the Law of Position. He effected a minute shifting of the edges of the blank, backward and forward. Or was that up and down?

  One way to find out, he thought, and softly uttered the spell. Immediately, he grinned as the blank began humming, numbing the bones in his hand. He cast a neutralising spell which removed the tiny residual effects and the key continued humming.

  It was a high-pitched, whining noise, hardly noticeable, more a mosquito than a hummingbird. He had to steady himself to insert the blank into the key slot as it wove backward and forward, but in it went. Cautiously, he let it work for nearly a minute, restraining himself from jiggling it just to help, but then the vibrations lessened, dying away until the blank was still again.

  He grimaced and withdrew the blank, cast the vibration and neutralising spells on it again, and slid it back in the slot.

  Three times he repeated this, asking himself if he was flogging a dead horse, until, abruptly, the lock turned.

  It was some time before he realised that his plan had worked.

  He scrambled about, pushed the door slightly open, slipped his blank back into a pocket, and stepped into Room B6.

  Once he closed the door behind him it was black inside. He stood for a moment, gathering his breath and fumbling in his appurtenances vest until he found what he was after.

  He fitted the shell-like cups over his eyes and was immediately rewarded when the darkness disappeared. He could see clearly. The room was in shades of grey and silver, giving the workaday setting a gloss of moonlit glamour.

  At least this modified cat’s eye spell was working well. He’d refined the magic he’d used in their Banford Park escapade last year, and had succeeded in eliminating the fishy smell that he’d accidentally incorporated into the hasty first version. With the aid of these useful devices, he was able to make out the benches, the chairs – and the man-sized dark shape he’d come all this way to investigate.

  Of course, having entered a secure, top secret area, he now had to do his best to investigate and return to the dormitory undetected. No cover story would be enough now. ‘These cat’s eyes? I thought they might help me find my pen...’

  He approached the stone carefully, scanning the floor ahead for any dropped objects, anything that would make a clatter or a crunch.

  Then he froze. Arms extended, feeling the air ahead, he stopped dead in his tracks. Something was in the room. All was still, but Aubrey had the overwhelming impression that he wasn’t alone. His mouth was suddenly dry. Cautiously extending his magical awareness, he probed ahead, but sensed nothing. Then he tried to listen past the thundering in his ears that was his own heartbeat, but nothing came to him. At least, nothing rational. Instead, all he had was a primeval certainty, an impression no doubt formed from a collection of subliminal clues – a minute sound, a shifting in the air currents, a change in the temperature, in the way sounds echoed around the room...

  Light – sudden, blinding light. Aubrey hissed and threw himself sideways, then realised that he was dazzled because of hi
s cat’s eyes. He swept a hand over his eyes and rolled to a crouch, trying to see in all directions at once.

  In the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, was Commander Craddock. He held a slim silver fountain pen in one hand. ‘You’re looking for this, Fitzwilliam?’

  Three

  It was probably too late for Aubrey to pretend he was only sleepwalking, but desperation prompted him to give it a try. ‘Sir?’ he said, groggily. He put a hand to his head. So tired, I’m so tired...

  ‘Your pen, Fitzwilliam. You left it in the library. And that’s one of the worst attempts at sleepwalking I’ve seen all week.’

  So much for somnambulism. Aubrey climbed to his feet. He wondered exactly how much trouble he was in. Was his time in the intelligence community over before it had really begun?

  ‘How did you get in here?’ Craddock’s voice was even. Aubrey detected no censure. Not yet.

  ‘The lock.’ Aubrey gestured vaguely.

  ‘Go on.’

  Aubrey realised that he wasn’t about to get away with a nebulous explanation. He found the blank key. ‘I used this.’

  ‘Explain.’

  When Aubrey had finished his explanation, Craddock was silent for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Ingenious.’ Aubrey’s spirits rose a little. ‘And costly.’

  Aubrey’s spirits sank. ‘Sir?’

  ‘We’re going to have to replace all the locks with something more secure.’ Craddock narrowed his eyes. ‘Can you do this again?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  ‘Good. I want to you write down your procedure in detail. We may be able to adapt it for our field teams. It could be quicker than teaching them lock-picking, especially since some of the more fumble-fingered never seem to acquire the knack.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’

  ‘By Friday.’

  Two days. ‘Of course, sir.’

  Craddock studied him for a time. Aubrey was prepared for this and stood at ease, hands behind his back, and waited. ‘You do understand that you’re being tested while you’re here,’ Craddock said finally, ‘don’t you?’

  ‘I’m fit and well, sir.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. But we’re testing for other things. Aptitudes. Talents. Specialisations.’

  Aubrey thought of the other irregulars he’d seen that day and wondered where their talents lay. ‘Glad to be able to help, sir.’

  ‘From these tests and the tasks you’ve done for us in the past, it has been noted that you’ve developed some skills for covert activities. What your father calls unconventional approaches.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You have a flair for coping with the unexpected, and you have the sort of curiosity that is beneficial in this field.’ Craddock put his hand on the script-covered stone. ‘As such, I suppose you’re wondering about this.’

  Aubrey’s first impulse was to feign indifference at seeing the artefact. He quickly abandoned this. Craddock was no fool. ‘I glimpsed it earlier, sir. I thought it had disappeared.’

  ‘That’s right. You had some connection with Professor Mansfield, didn’t you?’

  ‘She was my lecturer in Ancient Languages. And a friend of my parents.’

  ‘The last report we have is that she is missing. With the Rashid Stone.’

  ‘But what’s this then? Sir?’

  ‘Use your magic.’

  Aubrey did as he was told, then raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s a fake.’

  ‘A reconstruction. We worked it up using the Law of Similarity and the Law of Seeming.’

  ‘It looks perfect.’

  ‘With one small problem. Look at this.’

  Arms crossed on his chest, Craddock walked around to the back of the stone. Bewildered, Aubrey followed and was agog when the reverse of the stone was completely bare. ‘Where’s the rest of the script?’

  ‘We don’t have it.’ Craddock ran his hand over the smooth, unmarked surface. ‘The Rashid Stone was in the Albion Museum for a hundred and fifty years. In that time, dozens of people copied the script, from both sides. When the stone was stolen from the museum, we became interested in it. Before we could begin studying it in any serious way, however, every copy we knew about vanished as well.’

  ‘Magic.’ It was the only way Aubrey could think of to achieve such a thing.

  ‘Gone. From Albion, from the Continent, from all the world. The only record we could find was a muddy stereographic image which we used for the front.’

  ‘I can only think of one person who could do something like that,’ Aubrey said.

  ‘Indeed. And anything that Dr Tremaine is interested in interests us.’

  ‘Have you made any progress?’

  ‘The current thinking is that the Rashid Stone may lead us to deciphering this script.’ He pointed at the lowest section of the artefact. ‘If our experts are right, it may shed some light on the actual relationship between magic, language and human consciousness itself.’

  Aubrey had had thoughts along the same lines, but hadn’t had a chance to pursue them. ‘Fundamental stuff.’

  ‘Correct. It’s entirely possible that someone who can bring these areas together in a unified theory...’ Craddock’s calm slipped for a moment and Aubrey was shocked to see something that – in another man – would be called fear. ‘Well, such a person could control magic itself.’

  After Craddock escorted him back to the dormitory, with a blunt word or two about remaining there, sleep refused to come as Aubrey’s mind whirred. He lay on his bed in the dark while a thousand thoughts tumbled through his head.

  The connection between magic, language and human consciousness was the great unsolved riddle of the age, a riddle that was consuming the entire attention of some of the finest magical minds of this generation. If solved, it promised to open whole new fields of endeavour and to lead to magical applications of untold power.

  When a shadowy figure was suspected as being behind mysterious events, Aubrey’s first, second and third choices were Dr Tremaine. Professor Mansfield had promised to appear at the Fisherberg symposium when she disappeared. Aubrey had been shocked to learn that Dr Tremaine was actually the organiser of this event – for his own ends, naturally. In the uproar over the revelation of Prince Albert’s claim to the vacant throne of Gallia, things like Professor Mansfield’s disappearance were overlooked, of small consequence in the days following the bombshell.

  Aubrey was now starting to see it as another of Dr Tremaine’s schemes within schemes, and the idea of Dr Tremaine controlling magic was a nightmare made real.

  He couldn’t wait to get home to look at the mysterious stone fragments that had come into his possession – fragments that Professor Mansfield had been sure could help unravel the puzzle of the Rashid Stone. He’d promised himself that he’d give the fragments to the Department after he’d hammered out some new probing spells that he’d been working on but, with one thing and another, he hadn’t quite managed it.

  One thing and another. He grimaced. They always get in the way.

  The next morning, as he sat in one of the Department’s demonstration laboratories, Aubrey went to stifle a yawn, only to feel another coming hard on its heels, so that his head almost burst with the effort. Through tears, he was glad he was sitting at the back, as he was sure his face had turned an alarming shade of red.

  The demonstration laboratory held perhaps thirty or forty people, the rows of seats sloping precipitously to provide a good view of the bench at the front. Commander Craddock stood behind it while one of the more anonymous operatives unloaded glassware and batteries from a trolley.

  ‘Good morning,’ Craddock said. He was wearing black, as usual, but not his typical long coat and wide-brimmed hat. His white-haired head was bare, and he wore a short, black jacket and a high-collared black shirt. And a tie, black. ‘I hope you all sle
pt well. You’ll need to be in top form today.’

  Aubrey winced, even though Craddock’s gaze didn’t linger on him. He ducked his head as another jaw-cracking yawn took hold of him, and pretended to fumble around in his satchel. When he was himself again, he looked up to meet Craddock’s gaze square on. ‘Now, let us consider the work of Lanka Ravi.’

  Aubrey’s weariness fell away from him. Lanka Ravi. Aubrey had been lucky enough to catch one of the great theoretician’s controversial lectures at Greythorn University. He’d been staggered by the insights the young man presented. One after another, Ravi had elucidated new ways of looking at fundamental laws, connections between areas of magic considered incompatible, conjectures about possible future applications for magic. Lanka Ravi’s intellect was dazzling, and Aubrey had been shocked to hear of Ravi’s death while on his way back to his home on the sub-continent. When Aubrey heard the news, he had a profound sense of loss, an awareness of all that would not be done because Lanka Ravi had passed away before his time.

  Aubrey rubbed his hands together, then he quickly opened his notebook. He didn’t want to miss anything. Craddock was a fine magician and a deep thinker. If Lanka Ravi’s work was of interest to him – and the Department – Aubrey was keen to find out why.

  Before Craddock could begin, however, the door to his right opened. A hesitant operative slipped in and was cornered by Craddock’s assistant. They had a hurried, hushed exchange. Craddock had stopped speaking as soon as the door moved. He didn’t turn; he simply stood, waiting, his face impassive, and Aubrey knew that something was afoot – and it may also explain why the head of the Magic Department was occupying himself with the relatively minor task of taking care of irregulars. This way, Craddock ensured he was at headquarters and ready to respond.