The Rising (The Alchemy Wars)

by Ian Tregillis

  Huginn moved the mirror a fraction of an inch farther away from the glass. Berenice nearly had to squint to notice the difference. Again the mirror pivoted; again images streaked around the room; again Muninn gave no indication of success. Huginn moved the mirror again, repeated the process. Each iteration unfolded more quickly than the one before.

  When Huginn crouched with arms spread widely, lens nearly in the candle flame at one end of the table and the mirror nearly touching Muninn’s face, he increased the distance between the candle and the lens by another fraction of an inch. And started over.

  The iterations accelerated until they came too quickly for Berenice’s eye to follow. The soft breeze from Huginn’s motion became a draft, then a steady wind. It kicked up dust bunnies from the cracks between the floor planks and fanned the fire. Smoke and embers wafted from the fireplace. Logs popped; flames crackled; luminous emblems streaked along the ceiling like a dizzying shower of shooting stars. Stencils of light turned Berenice’s room into an alchemist’s grimoire.

  Huginn moved faster still. An ember wafted from the fireplace to alight on Berenice’s dress. She swatted it. The luminous arcana streaked across the walls and ceiling so rapidly they became scintillations barely glimpsed in the corner of Berenice’s eye before disappearing and flashing somewhere else.

  Clank.

  Metal crashed against metal. The wind dissipated; the flames went back to licking at the logs without trying to set the room ablaze. Muninn held Huginn’s forearm like a vise. The room seemed darker now that stray stencils of light no longer flashed across the walls. Muninn’s eyes reflected the glow of alchemically augmented candlelight.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, my.”

  “It’s quite all right,” said Berenice, through the minuscule crack in the open door. “I’ve no need for new bedding. Thank you.”

  “But it’s been over a week!”

  Honfleur, a small fishing village of less than nine thousand souls, was not particularly prosperous. Unsurprising, then, that its innkeepers lacked the revenue to lease a Clakker. Thus they employed a human chambermaid. To her credit, she was a very persistent chambermaid, unimpressed and uncowed by Berenice’s pendant.

  “My servitors are taking care of it.”

  Muninn, standing behind the door, made a rude gesture at Berenice. Huginn stood behind Berenice, where the maid could see him, mimicking the posture of servility. In truth his job was to obscure her view of the room, lest she glimpse the pages of a nascent but crude alchemical dictionary tacked to the walls. So far Berenice’s cover as a Guildwoman appeared intact, but she desperately wanted to prevent her rogue companions from murdering a poor cleaningwoman so dedicated to her job.

  “But you’ve had the same bedding since you arrived! It ain’t right, a lady like you sleeping like that. I don’t even let my husband sleep in week-old bedding, and he’s a drunken lout.”

  “Be at ease,” said Berenice, forcing what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

  Jesus, all she wanted was to get back to the alchemical syntax of the geasa. The discovery that there was a syntax, a formalized grammar of compulsion, still had her heart thudding as though it sought to chisel free of her chest. She’d had the bone in her teeth for days now. She was chipping away at major discoveries. Discoveries that could turn the fortunes of war, if they came quickly enough. Did Marseilles-in-the-West still stand? Or was her feverish work pointless?

  She continued, “These accommodations are a far cry from my worst nights. It’s all quite suitable.”

  “But you ain’t even got a proper broom in there. And you ain’t come out once since you arrived. The crumbs have to be piled higher than my ankles.”

  Like everybody in Europe, the chambermaid spoke Dutch. But here on the Norman coast it came with the unapologetic purr of French vowels. Centuries after the conquest, the heritage of this land still twined itself through the invaders’ tongue like silk upholstery smoothing the sharpest edges of the empire’s linguistic furniture. Apparently even the Stemwinders couldn’t stamp that out.

  “Bah. I leave no crumbs, and you know that. I lick the plates clean.”

  The chambermaid shook her head. “It ain’t right.”

  “On the contrary, madam.” Berenice paused to fish a few coins from her purse, which she’d taken to the door in anticipation of this. She reached through the gap in the door to pat the chambermaid on the back of her hand. At the touch of cold metal, the woman instinctively turned her hand and palmed the coins. “And may I just say that your conscientiousness is beyond reproach. Your dedication to my comfort is exemplary. I’ll make this known.”

  That did it. She could see the resistance melting. The maid still put on a show of shaking her head and mumbling, but she also curtsied. “Oh. That’s very kind, I’m sure. No need for…” She frowned, this time in what appeared to be genuine uncertainty. “If you’re sure there’s nothing you need?”

  “Quite certain.”

  Berenice closed the door. She sighed, rested her forehead against the doorframe. Her eye burned. How long since she’d taken a nap? She pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes clenched, and shook off the exhaustion like a sheepdog shaking off rain.

  “Jesus Christ on a six-day wine bender. Where were we?”

  She returned to the table. Days ago she’d sent one of the Clakkers into the village, and after he returned with clamps and brackets from an ironmonger’s shop, she’d affixed the lamp, mirror, and lens in the arrangement they’d discovered through trial and error. She’d added one component to the arrangement: a small loop of wire dipped in wine. The wine adhered to the loop and made a decent (if short-lived) magnifying lens. A real magnifier would have been preferable, but a Guildwoman patronizing the local glassblower might have drawn notice. She’d be expected to carry her own special Verderer’s tools.

  The wine lens enabled her to project the focused beam of alchemical sigils onto a bedsheet tacked to the wall. A murky projection, but sufficient for her to transcribe the symbols. The same setup enabled them to project just a subset of the nautical modifications to the hierarchical metageasa into the machines’ eyes. Who, being immune to the Clockmakers’ compulsions, could report what changes each string of symbols was meant to wreak upon them. They didn’t read the symbols so much as absorb their meaning.

  In that way Berenice had scratched out the crude beginnings of a grammar. No, not a grammar—not yet even a dictionary. Right now it was a phrase book—a handy reference for a foreign traveler in an unknown land. Except that this work said nothing helpful about asking for the ladies’ convenience or purchasing banketstaaf pastries. No. This phrase book told her what sequence of symbols indicated that in case of catastrophic flooding the human-safety metageas became subordinate to the shipping company’s economic considerations. Passengers were to be evacuated to the lifeboats in descending order of whose families were most likely to have the resources to bring successful litigation against the company, while doing everything possible to hide any such appearance of favoritism, while also weighing issues of insurance and the financial consequences of lost cargo.

  Berenice realigned the optics. She’d moved things around when the chambermaid knocked, lest the woman witness luminous esoterica. Berenice dipped the wire in her bowl of wine and refastened the clamp. When a line of blurry pink sigils glowed on the bedsheet, she took up a pen, lodged the tip of her tongue at the corner of her mouth, and started transcribing them to paper.

  The pen nib scritched across a scrap of butcher’s paper Huginn had taken from the kitchen. A winter squall took a running start off the Atlantic to hurl itself at Honfleur. The shutters rattled; the fire smoked and guttered. Meanwhile the machines chittered to each other. They still spoke too quickly for Berenice to follow. After double-checking a transcription, she said, “All right. One of you get over here. I can’t believe how much thought these sons of bitches give to cargo, for Christ’s sake. Let’s keep peeling this onion.”

  “I thought humans occa
sionally required sleep,” said Huginn, feigning a human stretch.

  Muninn said, “They do. I once was leased to a man who I swear slept twenty hours per day. He woke only to give me new orders and rant about my inability to complete the previous orders.”

  “I’ll sleep when we’ve overthrown your tyrannical makers. So get your shiny asses over here.”

  Muninn stood before the bedsheet. Berenice swiveled the mirror to focus the discrete line of sigils she’d just transcribed into his eyes. Clank, clatter, click click tick.

  Huginn said, “Strange. It seems the fragment can’t be translated out of context.”

  The wine lens burst. Berenice fixed that, then adjusted the focal length to gradually increase the amount of information shining into Muninn’s eyes.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  Berenice locked down the arrangement. Taking up the sheet of butcher’s paper, she said, “All right, then. What do you make of this?” She tapped a sigil that hadn’t appeared elsewhere in the nautical metageasa, but that appeared integral to this thicket of conditions.

  “It represents…” Muninn trailed off. A clickety-tickety conversation ricocheted between the machines. They might have been arguing; she couldn’t tell.

  “Quintessia,” said one. “Quintessence,” said the other.

  Berenice asked, “What the hell is ‘quintessence’?”

  They said, in unison: “We don’t know.”

  “But?”

  Muninn said, “When it is present in the hold of the ship, this section of the nautical metageasa prioritizes the preservation of quintessence above—” Another mechanical stutter, and the faint twang of a loose cable. “—Everything else. Including human safety and the preservation of the vessel itself. In fact…” He cocked his head. A faint ratcheting came from the bezels in his eyes. “Feed a bit more. Give me the rest of this syntactic block.”

  She moved things around until more sigils were aimed at his eyes. Muninn cooperated by leaning forward or backward to alter the distance as the focal length of the arrangement changed. He froze.

  Berenice counted thirty-seven beats of her heart before the machine spoke again.

  “Correction. The protection of quintessence doesn’t override the human-safety metageas. It negates it.”

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph on a bad-tempered camel. Clakkers could commit murder for the sake of protecting quintessence.

  Berenice dropped her pen. Sat back. Rubbed her eyes.

  The Guild wrapped itself in knots worrying about this quintessence. So what in Christ’s name was it, and how was it possible that in all her years as Talleyrand (and all the times she’d read her predecessors’ journals) she’d never heard of such a thing?

  “Tell me more about quintessence. What is it? Is it a physical object? Or a concept? Or a person?”

  One of the trio of Archmasters, perhaps?

  “It’s something to be protected above all else.”

  “Yes, we’ve established that. But that could mean Queen Margreet’s favorite recipe for chocolate torte, for all I know. Or the answer to a particularly obnoxious riddle. What are its characteristics?”

  Both machines ticked more loudly. The room echoed with their duet of asynchronous introspection.

  “It is…” said Muninn.

  They were as confused as she. So she tried another approach. “Forget it. Try this. Imagine you were still beholden to the geasa, not free as you are now. And that these nautical metageasa had been imprinted upon you. And that you were aboard a ship somehow imbued with or carrying this quintessence. And that halfway across the sea, it sank. What would you have to do? What actions would the metageasa compel you to perform?”

  The answer was immediate. “I would force my way aboard a lifeboat.”

  “With the quintessence?”

  “Yes.”

  A vague start. Was it intangible knowledge, such as a secret or concept, or a tangible physical object?

  “What of the humans in the lifeboat? Say they were civilians with no connection to the Guild.”

  Again the answer came instantly: “I would eject them. They would not survive the sinking.”

  Ah. Out of danger they might witness the quintessence? Or the importance of protecting it? This argued for a physical object.

  “Very well. And what if in killing the witnesses you capsized the lifeboat? How then would you protect and preserve the quintessence?”

  “I would attach myself to it to prevent its loss. Once upon the ocean floor, I would carry it to its destination.”

  Probably a physical object, then. Berenice nodded. This was progress. She took several deep breaths to center herself, lest the rising bubble of giddiness break her concentration. So many questions, so many avenues to chart.

  “Instead of a ship, say you were leased to a warehouse containing this ‘quintessence’ along with many volatile materials. A lightning strike ignites a raging fire that burns out of control faster than the fire brigade can contain. What actions would you be forced to undertake?”

  This time the answer was not immediate. The machines descended into clicking contemplation.

  Muninn said, “I… don’t know. I have never been subjected to any geasa pertaining to quintessence.”

  “Nor I,” said Huginn.

  She ran ink-stained hands through her hair. “This doesn’t make a shred of sense. Why would they twist themselves in knots worrying about quintessence in a maritime context, but not give two shits about it in other contexts? They’re crafty bastards, but they’re not idiots.”

  Muninn said, “We do not understand it either.”

  Berenice stood too quickly. The hem of her dress, caught under a wooden leg, capsized the chair. It crashed to the floor. She righted it. Paced.

  Damn the fucking Clockmakers and their constant obsession with riddles, secrecy, obfuscation. It was almost as if—Oh.

  Actually, there was a scenario where this made sense. What if the syntactic block pertaining to quintessence wasn’t part of the standard maritime metageasa? What if the quintessence clauses were unique to that particular ship, or that particular voyage? She could muster enough circumstantial evidence to make it plausible. The odd tenor of her interactions with Captain Barendregt and his human crew, not to mention van Breugel’s anxiety around her, did make more sense if they expected and dreaded the Guild to scrutinize their journey. A slender thread…

  Surely the Clockmakers wouldn’t build variants of the hierarchical metageasa on a whim? To do so would be to chisel at the foundation of their house—the fundamental substrate of a Clakker’s obedience, the fence that circumscribed every action it took throughout its life. She had to assume cooking up a variant took considerable effort, and that they wouldn’t release it unless they’d vetted the modified system of geasa for potential problems. Safe to assume, then, that the Guild wouldn’t create unique variants of the maritime metageasa except for extraordinary circumstances.

  What was extraordinary about De Pelikaan? Something in the hold? Quintessence?

  “All right, boys. Tell me again how you knew you’d find me on the Pelikaan.”

  Muninn said, “We left that to your pursuers. We merely attached ourselves to the effort to recapture you.”

  “How in the hell did you manage that?”

  “When two extra mechanicals appear on the scene, claiming like the others to have been sent directly from the Verderer’s Office specifically to assist in the effort to capture the most wanted woman in the New World, nobody questions it.”

  “Naturally.”

  Undetected, a rogue Clakker could go virtually anywhere in the Dutch-speaking world. And the mysterious Queen Mab was exploiting that weakness in Dutch society.

  Muninn said, “Your pursuers began with the hypothesis that you sought to leave the continent. The best opportunity would be via the New Amsterdam port, reachable within a half day from your last known location. Thus they reasoned that you would travel straight there and seek to board a
vessel departing as soon as possible. You’d also prefer a vessel where you could minimize interactions with crew and passengers. A cargo vessel rather than a passenger liner.

  “Three ships meeting those criteria were moored at New Amsterdam during the probable window of your arrival and departure. Of those, only one, De Pelikaan, altered its destination just prior to departure. That was promising, as traveling to the Central Provinces seemed an unlikely move on your part. Witnesses placed somebody matching your description at the port just before its departure. When it became clear which ship you had boarded, a titan was immediately repurposed, its passengers forced to disembark.”

  Berenice said, “That must have upset a lot of very wealthy people.”

  “We know nothing of it.”

  “You studied the Pelikaan. Tell me about it.”

  “We infer it made a westward crossing, possibly at high latitude, several weeks ago.”

  Berenice stopped pacing in midstride. Leaning against the wall, she closed her eyes. A northern crossing in winter… Of course! That explained why the craft had been so odd. The shape of the bow, the bladed hooks on the sculls: The Pelikaan was an icebreaker.

  Something at the back of her mind raised a flag at this. But pinning it down was like trying to scratch an itch inside her skull. “Go on.”

  “We know it arrived in New Amsterdam after landfall in the north and a voyage down the coast. No other stops in Nieuw Nederland.”

  “Acadia?” The maritime coast of New France was dotted with numerous seasonal harbors, but these were fishing villages with minimal long-distance shipping and minimal moorage for larger ships. Many iced over in the winter.