The Poison Master

by Liz Williams

  “What's the matter with her?” a drunken voice asked.

  “She's dead,” someone said. There was an indrawn rush of breath as the crowd leaned avariciously forward.

  “Call the Unpriests!” someone else snapped. “Can't you see she's killed her?”

  Alivet sat swiftly upright, with the heiress' corpse stiffening at her employer's immaculately clad feet. Genever was staring down at her and she was startled by the expression on his face. His usually melancholic demeanor had been sloughed away, to be replaced with a chilly calculation.

  “We didn't kill her,” Alivet protested. “We've done no such thing!” But it was too late. The sound of running feet indicated that someone had already bolted to summon the most feared of Latent Emanation's human citizens.

  DISSOLUTION

  And is there care in heaven? And is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures base, That may compassion of their evils move? There is: else much more wretched were the case Of men than beasts. But oh th'exceeding grace Of highest God that loves his creatures so And all his works with mercy does embrace, That blessed angels he sends to and fro To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.

  EDMUND SPENSER, The Faerie Queene

  Chapter I

  UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN 1548

  Remarkable,” Gerard Mercator remarked, as the metal bee hummed about the chamber. John Dee could tell from the cartographer's face that he was genuinely impressed, and felt a small glow of pride. It was as well that the bee had not been damaged by the voyage from England. The day of flying devices, Dee thought, would not come a day too soon. Even in the summer months the roads had been difficult, with Dee enduring the bouncing, jolting journey across the Low Countries as best he could, plagued by the fear that the equipment would arrive in a thousand pieces. The first thing that he had done on arriving in Louvain was to unpack the bee and it was this that now soared between the rings of Mercator's many astrolabes like a small, unruly moon.

  “I heard about your scarab,” Mercator murmured, scowling in sudden sympathy. “Rumor had it that there were accusations of sorcery.”

  “I prefer the term ‘thaumaturgy,’ ” Dee said, dryly. “But it's true, the experiment did produce an unfortunate stirring of the blood among the more credulous. It was a system of ropes and pulleys, nothing more. This”—he indicated the bee—“this is true mathematics: the use of incantations and number theory to produce flight. There is nothing of the black art about it.”

  “Do you anticipate difficulties on your return to England?”

  “I don't know. I trust not, but these are not quiet times.” Dee stared at the bee, which had now alighted on the sill and was crawling up the window toward freedom and the garden, where its living companions were buzzing among the lavender. Dee stepped forward, narrowly avoiding a stack of cross-staffs and measuring rods, and rescued the bee before it could make its escape.

  “It seeks sunlight,” Mercator said.

  “It seeks room to fly. I have only once let it outside, and that was within a walled garden. It moved from point to point, as if exploring.”

  “A cartographic bee,” Mercator mused. “If it proves capable of lengthy flight, then perhaps those ardent explorers of our day need not worry about the expense of locating the north-west passage. They can send the bee instead.”

  Dee smiled. “I don't think it would be capable of such a long voyage. But it's no bad notion.” Placing the bee back in its leather traveling case, he peered over Mercator's shoulder. The bee hummed angrily for a moment, then fell silent.

  Mercator's maps of the world were like none that Dee had ever seen. They showed four continents, not three, and the familiar features of such maps—dragons and the Garden of Eden, for example—were entirely absent. Dee watched in fascination as Mercator painstakingly measured the panels for his latest globe and his thoughts once more returned to that curious vision of the world as it must appear from the sublunary realms. Dee closed his eyes for a moment and imagined this new representation of the Earth; its seas and landscapes, viewed from afar. He wished it could be possible to inhabit the bronze body of the bee and send it up into the heavens, to map the gardens of the Earth.

  Then Dee's gaze slid past Mercator's preoccupied figure to where the theorick stood on its special table. The brass shone in the sun. And so must the light of reason fall upon the universe. The theorick was as revolutionary as Mercator's globes: ten rings for the spheres bearing the planets and stars instead of eight, including the sphere for the primum mobile, the engine that drove the universe. The sun stood firmly at the center: Dee and Mercator had discovered common Copernican ground. It was the sight of the theorick glowing so boldly in the sunshine that gave Dee the courage to ask the question that had been preoccupying him ever since the staging of the play at Cambridge.

  “What is your opinion,” he asked, “of the possibility of life beyond the Earth?”

  Mercator's mouth curved in a thin, sour smile. “My opinion? That it is inadvisable to speak of such things beyond the confines of this study. The Church—whatever its disposition—will call you a heretic; the academies will simply laugh.”

  “And within the confines of your study?”

  Mercator sighed. “My dear Dr. Dee, I would not have become a cartographer if I had not been so entranced by what might lie beyond the known world. I do not have a marvelous flying device, nor am I likely to set foot on one of the Muscovy Company's sailing ships and see these coasts, these mountains”—he gestured toward the globes that lined the paneled walls of the study—“for myself, and that is why I have become so occupied with the making of maps. And even during my thirty-six years on this sphere, so many discoveries have been made, of other lands and other peoples, that I am quite willing to countenance the notion of life elsewhere. After all, are there not spirits and angels, that the common run of folk do not see every day? Perhaps the universe is teeming with such beings like a millpond in spring.”

  “But how to converse with them?” Dee mused.

  “You had best put some work to your wonderful flying craft, and I to my maps,” Mercator said. He turned, smiling. “Together, Dee, we will be voyagers—what do you say? Travel the boundaries of the universe together, as far as starlight?”

  “As you say,” Dee answered, thoughtfully. “I will put some work to it.”

  Chapter II

  CITY OF LEVANAH, MONTH OF DRAGONFLIES

  The crowds of revelers, including the woman who had pressed her address upon Genever, had vanished like magic. Alivet found herself staring at the girl's sprawled body with a kind of numb curiosity. In death, Madimi Garland's skin had attained a faint translucence, reminding Alivet that the aristocrat had been only a few years younger than she herself—a girl whose only offense (as far as anyone knew) had been to purchase a few daring experiences after a girlhood of closed doors and repression. However Madimi had died, that she would never now enjoy even the limited experiences that she had so craved seemed the saddest thing of all. Alivet thought of Inkirietta and jumped as a hand closed around her arm.

  It was Genever Thant. His face was pale beneath its layer of powder; his black eyes burned. The laconic person he had been only an hour before was gone: mercurially transformed by the crucible of fear. Alivet found herself staring at a white-lipped stranger. He whispered, “They will take us both, Alivet. They will imprison us, take us to the torment chamber and be dissatisfied with every answer.”

  “We'll tell them the truth,” Alivet said, but she knew as soon as the words were out of her mouth that it would not be enough. The Unpriests were like their masters: capricious and cruel. Alchemical metaphors dominated her imagination: in the hands of the Unpriests, they would undergo dissolution, personalities and spirits rendered down. She went on, “Besides, don't you have aristocratic friends?”

  “They'll still blame us. I may have friends in the Nine Families, but not even the Families can save me from the Lords.”

  “Where are you going?”
Alivet asked. Yet she already knew the answer.

  “I'm getting out of here, Alivet. I suggest you do likewise. Madimi's dead. She's beyond any help we might be able to give her.” He was already fastening his coat with shaking hands.

  “You can't just go,” Alivet said. The reality of the situation was only now beginning to dawn on her. “Where will you hide? And what about me?”

  “There are people who might be prevailed upon to hide me,” Genever said. He gave her a brief, wintry smile. “I'm sorry I can't take you with me, Alivet. But I don't want extra baggage at present. I'm sure you understand.”

  “Wait, I—” Alivet began, but with a brief, ironic bow Genever was already vanishing through the door. The future unscrolled through her imagination like clockwork. Genever fleeing through the halls of Port Tree; the Unpriests pounding up the stairs; herself a fen-born drug-maker standing over the body of one of Levanah's wealthiest aristocrats. She remembered Inki, how her sister had looked when the Unpriest Enbonders had come for her. If she were arrested, Inki would remain forever in a Palace of Night.

  “Sorry, Madimi,” she murmured to the dead girl. She snatched up her bag and the empty phial of sozoma, then ran back into the deserted hallway. The elevator was whirring in a ponderous manner and Alivet veered away, heading for the stairs. She hastened down the narrow, paneled staircase toward the street. She was not entirely sure if that was where the staircase even led, but almost anything was better than an Unpriest's cell.

  Twelve flights below, she came out into a corridor adjoining the main atrium of Port Tree. Three figures were striding up the steps, dressed in velvet and metal and carrying strip- whips in their hands. Alivet dodged behind the elegant green fronds of a winter-fern and waited until they had stepped into the cage of the elevator. Then she fled out into the street.

  She needed to escape as swiftly as possible, but where to go? She could not return home. Enough people had seen her with Madimi, and all they would need to do in order to track her down would be to check Genever's records and match her image with the girl who had been seen in the fume bar. Moreover, that image was also on her records as a licensed drug-maker in the Apothecaries and Alchemical Merchants Guild. Nor was she willing to return to Edgewhere. The thought of Unpriests once more tramping up the steps of the stilt-house to where her aunt Elitta sat, unsuspecting over her knitting, was an appalling one.

  But she must warn her aunt nonetheless. With foreknowledge, Elitta would be able to vanish into the fens. The Unpriests were not popular in the backwaters. Alivet thought that she should do the same, but it would still be best to avoid Edgewhere. Her first priority, therefore, must be to reach the shore and send a message to Elitta. She winced at the thought of what her aunt would say when she discovered that her niece was about to be imprisoned for murder, but there was no helping it.

  The notion that she would be found innocent entered her mind for a fleeting moment, quailed at what it found there, and hastily departed. It was utter foolishness to think that she would receive anything resembling justice at the hands of the Unpriests. Alivet ducked beneath the rain-sodden branches of the sootwood and fumbled in her pocket for chaise fare.

  As she did so, she realized that there was something already in the pocket. Bewildered, Alivet drew it out and found that it was a curling slip of paper. She unfolded the note and read an elegant inscription:

  Is it your wish to save your sister and yourself? I may be able to help you. You will find me in Shadow Town tomor row evening. I shall be expecting you.

  It was signed: Arieth Mahedi Ghairen, Poison Master of Hathes. To Alivet's wondering mind, there could be only one candidate for the title, and that was the garnet-eyed gentleman whom she had last seen in the fume bar of Port Tree. Who was he, and what was a Poison Master? And whereabouts in Shadow Town, which must surely be over a mile from end to end? The situation did not sound promising, but it was certainly more appealing than the thought of the Unpriests.

  Now she had a purpose, albeit mysterious, and a destination, albeit vague. It was surprising how much better this made her feel. Alivet stepped out into the street and flagged down a chaise.

  Chapter III

  CITY OF LEVANAH, MONTH OF DRAGONFLIES

  It was starting to rain again. Fat drops spun down through the sootwood fronds, dappling the dust into mud. Port Tree curved behind her, its carapace glistening in the lamplight. Alivet tasted the rank aroma of the distant fens, mingling with the fresher fragrance of rainy sootwood and fried fish from the stall opposite. The combination reminded her unpleasantly of Kightly. Her fingers curled around the message in her pocket. Poison Master. It was not a reassuring title. If Genever had not abandoned her to the dubious mercies of the Unpriests, she could have asked him what it might mean, but Genever was gone. Along with all her business and the prospect of future earnings, though Alivet was trying not to think about that.

  And how did a Poison Master, all the way from wherever Hathes might be, know about her sister? Even more baffling, why should he care? The possibility of some cruel game was not far from Alivet's thoughts, but it was the first hope she'd ever had that someone other than herself might be able to do something about rescuing Inki. She did not dare allow those hopes to gain a hold.

  At last she managed to wave down a chaise from the midst of the trundling traffic. A wobbling wheeled shell swerved toward her, pulled by a loping anube, and Alivet scrambled in.

  “Little Swamp Street, please.” She would head for the fen docks and find a boat to the stilt-villages. Not Edgewhere— though a message could be sent on one of the outgoing craft—but perhaps Hopeless or Salvation. From there, she could catch a boat to Shadow Town, which lay farther along the river. Why couldn't this Poison Master have suggested a more convenient location?

  “Which end?” the anube asked, in its soft, moderated voice. She could see the brass cogs whirring in the implant in its throat, below the long bald jackal's jaw.

  “Not the Luce Vo end—the Flee Storms area. Take the by-route through Glissen.”

  “It will cost less to travel via Woeborough. The toll will be less expensive there.” The anube's callused hands flexed on the handles of the chaise.

  “I know, but I'm in a hurry.” There would be no boats to the villages beyond midnight, and it was close to that now.

  “Then I recommend Whin Passage, which has a medium toll and will add only ten minutes to your journey.” The anube's head sidled around to fix her with a gleaming dark eye. Its ears flattened.

  “Just go through Glissen,” Alivet snapped, cursing for the first time in her life the punctilious honesty of chaise drivers.

  “It is your choice,” the anube said sadly, and veered off into the traffic, its bulbous feet padding swiftly over the wet road. Alivet swallowed her frustration. The anubes, stubbornly and with quiet, unyielding insistence, carried out their work according to their own principles: transparent honesty and a melancholic attachment to fairness. Once the concept of money had been divulged to them, all those many years before, they had proved swift to reject it. Transportation was their sacred task, they explained, once they had been assisted in mastering human speech. For thousands of years they had ferried one another about on the endless pilgrimages which criss-crossed Latent Emanation's watery surface; they would do the same for the newcomers, too, even though humans remained baffled by the practice.

  Their human employers had eventually succeeded in persuading the anubes to accept a minimal charge, but no more than that. As entrepreneurs, they were a disaster, but as exemplars of the dignity of labor, they had proved to be a considerable success. This, however, was little comfort to Alivet, whose thoughts were concentrated entirely upon flight.

  Behind her, Alivet could see the multiple domes of Port Tree rising above the buildings of the Pleasure Quarter. The spires of the Quarter were lost in drifting cloud. Port Tree itself rose out of the rain like a nest of scarabs. They were drawing near to the public alchematorium; she could see the rain po
uring down from the brass globes on either side of the awning. Was Genever now running like herself into the tangled nest of the city? But despite his protestations, Genever was friendly with the aristocracy: he was doubtless sitting in someone's comfortable parlor right now, sipping a glass of wine with his feet stretched out to the fire…

  Self-pity, Alivet reminded herself sternly, would get her nowhere.

  Impatiently, she watched the city roll by: Foeside, Voynich, Winterwood—all the marsh-edge districts—until they reached the outskirts of Glissen and rattled over the maze of bridges. One day, Alivet told herself firmly, when this was all over, she would visit more of the city, stroll through groves of gland-trees and seek inspiration for new fumes.

  The chaise passed across Diabolo's Bridge and onto the Crossing of Limited Manifestation, where two of the city's main canals met and the causeway for the westernmost Night Palace began. Alivet peered impatiently from beneath the canopy, smelling tarry mud and waterweed, a trace of salt from the estuary, samphire sizzling in a pan on the raised and rickety sidewalk.

  By the time they reached Little Swamp Street, the rain had eased to a slow trickle. This was some compensation, at least. Alivet did not like the Little Swamp area; it was too close to the Night Palace, a haunt of Unpriests and water- children. And her friend Yzabet swore that she had once seen a Lord itself stalking through the damp streets, its lantern head swinging from side to side like a clockwork vulture. The memory made Alivet feel even more unsafe, and the anube did not seem happy, either. It tucked its long head into its chest and padded faster, causing the wheels of the chaise to leave a small wake in the flooded street. Finally, the anube put down the handles of the chaise with a sigh.

  “This is your destination.”

  “Thank you,” Alivet said, scrambling down from the chaise and pressing a handful of coins into the anube's hand. “Listen, I need to send a message. If I've missed the last boat here, I won't be able to send it until morning, and it's urgent.”