Quintessence

by David Walton

  It was her fault. Controlling the void had been her job, and clearly that had failed. Sinclair had said nothing to her, just sat slumped dumbly on the floor while she slipped out. Perhaps she should have stayed and made sure he was all right, but at that moment all she could think about was escaping that terrible room.

  The thought of the horrible, yawning void and Maasha Kaatra's body tumbling into its depths made her hands tremble, and she clasped them together. If he hadn't released her wrist, he might have dragged her down with him into the nothingness. She clutched her wooden bedframe, desperate to feel solid matter. Reality seemed fragile, nothing more than a colorful mural painted on a thin sheet of glass. They thought they knew so much about quintessence, but in truth they knew nothing at all. They were living in a world vastly beyond their comprehension and meddling with elemental powers more dangerous than they had ever imagined.

  Voices whispered through her mind, voices she'd heard all her life, even when they hadn't been spoken aloud: She's only a girl. What do you expect? Leave the important work to men. The thing a girl needs most is a man to take care of her.

  Catherine buried her face in her bed, overwhelmed with grief for her brother. She needed Peter now. She needed someone who would enfold her in his arms and comfort her without condemnation. Since he had left, nothing had been right. And where was he now? In the bliss and joy of heaven, not needing or thinking of her at all? Or spinning helplessly like Maasha Kaatra in an endless, tumbling void?

  "Catherine?" It was Father, peering in at the door.

  "Go away."

  "I know what happened. At least, I know what you tried. Matthew told me."

  "He's a liar, then."

  "He saw you come out alone, and he was worried. He found me, and we went in and found Sinclair."

  Something about the way he said it made her look up.

  "No, he's alive. Furious to find us there, in fact. He wouldn't tell us any details."

  So this was why he was here. Not to comfort her. To find out what she knew. It made her angry, though she had not wanted his comfort a moment earlier. "And you expect me to explain it?"

  He sighed, that deep sigh he had used at home whenever he tried to talk to Mother. "When you're up to the task."

  "Why wouldn't I be up to the task?" she said, louder than she'd meant to. "I'll tell you what happened. Nothing. We tried to bring a man back from the dead!" Laughter spilled out of her throat. "It didn't work. He's still dead. And not only that, Maasha Kaatra . . ." Hating herself, she burst into tears again, but when Father tried to hold her, she fought him off . "I'm fine! Leave me alone!"

  "Is he dead?"

  Mutely, she nodded.

  "His body?"

  "Gone."

  Father walked away, then turned and stood hesitantly at the door. "We'll need to know more. When you're ready."

  "Here." Catherine plunged her hand into the pocket of her gown and pulled out a tiny bottle of blue liquid. "This might help."

  "What is it?"

  She averted her gaze. "A way to see."

  THE bottle was small and only half full. Parris used a brush to transfer a blue drop onto a seashell, the smooth inner surface making an ideal viewing background. He pushed the drop around, noting its color and consistency. Matthew peered over his shoulder at it.

  From a crowded shelf, Parris drew a thick book of rough paper, bound in dried skin. It was the Horizon version of the anatomical notes he had kept so scrupulously in England: an illustrated journal of the flora and fauna of the island he'd been adding to since they'd arrived. He leafed through the pages carefully, looking for a match to what he saw on the shell. It could be an alchemical mixture, of course, not even indigenous to Horizon, but somehow Parris didn't think so. Most of what they had discovered uses for had come straight from Horizon animals. Then he found it: a picture of a black lizard clinging to the side of a tree, surrounded by notes and measurements from its dissection in a small, neat hand.

  "Of course," Parris said. "A seer skink. That clever fool."

  "What is it?" Matthew said.

  "It's a lizard with prominent blue tear glands around its eyes. Its prey is the Hades helmet fly, which can turn invisible, but the skink seems to find it by sight even so. Somehow it can see what the rest of us can't. Sinclair must have found out how."

  Matthew picked up the bottle. "There's not much left."

  "He must have poured it in his eyes." Parris shook his head, amazed. "Trust Sinclair to take such a risk."

  "So this might allow us to see the tamarins, even when they don't want to be seen," Matthew said.

  "Perhaps. We don't know that it worked."

  "You said Catherine seemed to think so."

  "True. We should wait and see what she has to say."

  "Why? Do you think it's dangerous?"

  "Who knows? That's the point. How do you know you won't wake up blind tomorrow? Sinclair is reckless. He doesn't test, he doesn't communicate; he just risks everything to blaze ahead." The thought of whom Sinclair had risked this time made a hot flush of anger rise to his face. "He's a dangerous fool."

  "Tamarins!" The cry went out from one of the posted lookouts and was echoed through the settlement. "Tamarins!"

  Parris snatched the bottle and ran outside, Matthew at his heels.

  The palisade was about twice the height of a man, but constructed

  with platforms at regular intervals to allow men to see over the side. Parris climbed one of the platforms and looked over to see a large crowd of gray tamarins, as many as fifty, more than he'd ever seen in one place before. The heavy palisade gates were still wide open. The posted sentries on the wall and in the forest had given no warning. Apparently the grays had passed invisibly through the trees, only showing themselves when it was too late. They poured into the settlement, gathering in the open square, showing no sign of aggression beyond their sheer numbers.

  "We'll need Catherine," Parris shouted to Matthew over the din. "Go see if she'll come." As Matthew ran to get her, Parris glared at the governor's mansion. Would Sinclair come out and deal with this problem? Or would he hide inside, alone with his failure, and leave them on their own?

  Parris fingered the blue bottle in his hand. He remembered too well the scattering of bones in the church that had been all that was left of the first settlement. What exactly had happened they might never know, but if this crowd of tamarins turned invisible and attacked, they wouldn't be able to stop them. Perhaps it was time for a little calculated risk, after all.

  He unstoppered the bottle and, with his finger covering the opening, turned it upside down and then back again, so a small circle of blue appeared on his finger. Hesitating only briefly, he opened his right eye wide and spread the liquid inside. He blinked rapidly, allowing it to coat his eye evenly. Seconds later, it began to burn. Crying out, he staggered back and wiped futilely. It felt like his eye was being scoured away. Stupid! He didn't even know if Sinclair used it in this form; he might dilute it with water or oil. If it blinded him, it was his own fault.

  The pain stopped. He looked up. Despite the bright sunlight, he could see the stars, and from them a sparkling rain falling to earth. All the physical objects around him— at least those indigenous to Horizon— became translucent, scattering multicolored light onto the ground. Each of the people around him, and each of the tamarins, was the nexus of a fine web of bright strands, difficult to see even now. Lines emanated from him, as well, and as he lifted his hands and moved and turned, the threads pulled taut or loose, but never twisted or tangled. They led into the distance in every direction, away through the forest, apparently endless.

  He spun, astonished, the wonder of this sight taking his attention from the danger of the situation. Sinclair had discovered this, and yet not told them? This was more than just seeing invisible creatures. It was an invisible world. He had no doubt he was seeing the connection between the quintessence of the stars and life on earth, the source of all this island's magic.


  Oswyn Tate appeared at his shoulder, his matchlock rifle ready. "Are you all right, my lord?"

  "Fine," Parris said. "Any sign of the governor?"

  Tate pointed. Sinclair emerged from his house and walked toward the crowd of tamarins. He had cleaned up and was wearing his admiral's hat. The tamarins surrounded him, gesticulating.

  Tate raised his gun. "You can't do much good with that," Parris reminded him.

  "I just want to be ready."

  "Here," Parris said, handing him the bottle of skink tears. "This is what you need to be ready."

  Tate took it, suspicious. "What is it?"

  "Dab a little in your eye and you'll be able to see them, even if they turn invisible."

  Tate's eyebrows shot up. He opened the bottle.

  "Just a drop," Parris said. "And it hurts like the devil."

  Tate did, and once the pain had passed, stared around in wonder. He shook the bottle. "Do you have any more?"

  "That's it. Pass it around to your men, quietly. Stretch it as far as you can. Then be ready."

  "For what?"

  "For what ever happens."

  Three of the largest tamarins wore human clothes. Parris suspected that size was a sign of hierarchy among them, and that those with higher rank were granted the honor of wearing the clothes. Such a cultural marker could conceivably indicate an admiration for humans and a desire to mimic them, but Parris thought it was actually the opposite, that the wearing of clothes was like wearing the skin of an animal one had slain, a sign of the wearer's bravery and willingness to kill a human for his treasures.

  The largest of the three attempted to communicate with Sinclair, but it was not going well. Sinclair's crude sign language was baffling even to Parris, and he grew more and more frustrated as communication failed. Where was Catherine?

  One of the smaller tamarins jumped onto Sinclair in a quick, movement. It used its hooked feet to pinion Sinclair's arms and swung itself over his head, piercing his back with one of its pincered front paws. Frustrated with the failure of language, the tamarin was going to get information the way the tamarin on the Western Star had done it: directly. Sinclair fell to his knees. The colonists watching from the platforms shouted in alarm. Tate raised his weapon.

  But to Parris's astonishment, the largest tamarin didn't let it continue. He struck the smaller tamarin with his own hooked feet, a sharp slash that must at least have caused pain, if not serious injury. The smaller tamarin squealed and fell to the ground, releasing Sinclair. It flattened itself and backed away from the larger one in what could only have been a display of obeisance.

  Why? Parris knew only too well how effective that direct method of communication could be, to the point of fusing minds and memories as one. Why did the larger tamarin not want the younger one to use it? Out of respect to Sinclair? Out of a desire for a willing exchange of information, not a forced one? Or perhaps something entirely different, like disgust that a ritual important to the life of their clan would be used on a human being? Perhaps the gray tamarins were not as open to sharing their minds with humans as Chichirico had been.

  Matthew returned with Catherine. Her face was drawn and her eyes red. She walked under the platform and into the crowd of tamarins. A ripple spread through them and their ranks parted to give her room. She spoke and signed rapidly with them, with a fluency born of her bond with Chichirico.

  Once again, Tate joined Parris on the platform. "We're ready," he said. "They won't take us by surprise, not this time."

  "Don't do anything rash. We don't want to provoke them."

  "Don't worry," Tate said. "I don't want to die. But I don't trust these creatures. If they attack, I'm not waiting for orders."

  Catherine's young voice carried through the still air. "They're angry about the earthquake."

  "Were their homes destroyed? Do they need our help?" Sinclair said.

  Catherine made more tamarin speech accompanied by sinuous movements with arms and fingers. The movements were bizarrely alien the way she made them, but Parris had no doubt they carried more meaning than the stilted signs he used when trying to speak with them.

  "They say . . . I'm not sure I understand them. They say the"— she repeated an unintelligible tamarin word—"is gone forever."

  "Tell them we're sorry for their loss," Sinclair said.

  "They say an apology is not enough. They say . . ."

  "What?"

  "They say we must leave the island."

  Parris, watching from the platform, felt a chill go down his spine.

  "Excuse me?" Sinclair laughed loudly and unconvincingly. "Is this a joke? Are they trying to start a war? No— don't ask them that. How could an earthquake be our fault?" His voice caught a bit at this last sentence, and Parris feared he knew why. Though Catherine had not yet explained the details, something had happened in Sinclair's house, something none of them fully understood, and the earthquake could hardly be a coincidence.

  Sinclair's face twisted with scorn. "This is how these natives always are. Blaming gods or spirits or strangers whenever anything goes wrong. I've seen it before. I was at a Moluccan village when the natives— friendly up until that moment— blamed a freak storm on our presence there. They swam to the ship while we were asleep and set fire to the sails. Savages." He pointed at the tamarins as he spoke, though they couldn't understand him. At least, Parris hoped they couldn't.

  "They're angry," Catherine said. "Don't they have a right to be?"

  Sinclair's face turned cold. "Tell them to leave our territory."

  Catherine relayed the message. A moment later, the gathered colonists gasped and screamed. It took a moment for Parris to realize what had happened: the crowd of tamarins had all disappeared at the same instant. With skink tears in his eyes, Parris could still see them, but no one else could.

  Or almost no one. Beside him, Tate rose with his matchlock in hand. The tamarins ran in every direction except the exit. They weaved through the crowd, ran through walls, leaped into homes. There was no way to know their intentions, but they certainly weren't leaving.

  Tate blew calmly on the match, the slow- burning hemp rope soaked in saltpeter, to keep it burning. He dashed powder into the pan and brought the gun to his shoulder. Not that it would do any good. But surely Tate knew that, too. At the last moment, it occurred to Parris that maybe Tate knew something he didn't.

  Tate aimed and pulled the mechanism that touched match to powder. The gun erupted in Parris's ear. Across the clearing, there was a flash of fur, and a tamarin went down with a hole in its chest.

  Parris gaped. He turned to Tate and saw his satisfied grin, and only then realized his mistake. "No!" he shouted.

  "I thought that might work," Tate said. "Dip each bullet in a little beetlewood wax, and they punch right through."

  Parris had underestimated him. It wasn't only the Society that could make inventions, and Tate was no fool.

  At his opening volley, Tate's men began to fire from platforms around the periphery of the clearing, and gray tamarins began to fall dead. The soldiers were somewhat hampered by the presence of the human colonists, but the colonists had run for the buildings in panic as soon as the tamarins vanished, and clear tamarin targets were plentiful.

  Tate dropped to one knee and poured more powder into his matchlock with a steady hand.

  "Stop this," Parris said. "Stand your men down."

  Tate stuffed another metal ball and wadding into the barrel and drove it home with the ramrod. "You gave us that blue bottle just in time, my lord. Now let us do our jobs."

  "So you could watch them! Not so you could kill them!"

  "Better them than us."

  A tamarin scrambled up their platform before Parris could shout a warning. Tate swung the butt of his matchlock at it, but the wooden stock passed right through the creature's chest. He turned the weapon to fire at close range, but a prehensile tail whipped up around the barrel, pulling it down.

  Parris kicked futilely at the attacker. I
t wrapped a different tail around his neck and threw him easily to the side, but the moment of distraction was enough: Tate raised the matchlock and the tamarin's body exploded in red.

  Breathing hard, Parris lay still and peered over at the clearing, now wreathed in gunpowder smoke. He was surprised to see the tamarins fleeing out of the gate and escaping into the forest. The tamarins had no guns, of course, but they were quick, armed with killing claws, and, to most of the colonists, invisible. They could pass in and out of buildings at will. Surely the resistance of Tate and his men hadn't been enough to defeat them.

  If the tamarins had chosen to, they could probably have killed them all, just with the numbers they had today. Tate thought he was defending the colony from an apparent attack, and perhaps he was. Certainly their invisible infiltration had seemed aggressive, but who knew what they would have done? Perhaps only steal more trinkets and articles of clothing. They understood so little about these creatures. Now they had fired the first shot of a war that could only end in grief.