The Poison Master

by Liz Williams

Talbot began to stammer, as though speaking in tongues. Dee reached out and gripped him by the wrist.

  “Answer me!”

  “Yes, it is such a world. It is the nearest world in this system—I do not know what the angel means, it calls the world an ‘emanation.’ I do not think that they perceive reality in the same way that we do. They speak of ‘emanations’ and ‘membranes’ to describe the spheres: they appear to see different levels of existences. But the world of Meta Incognita is the one that the Cabala calls Yesod. There are others within the system. The Eastern people have already made a civilization upon one of them, and I see others, too: strange folk, no longer men.”

  Talbot's eyes were now entirely opaque and as Dee watched in horror, a single tear of blood crept from the corner of the young man's left eye and snaked down his cheek.

  “I can see too much,” he cried. “I can see between worlds.”

  “Talbot, enough.” Dee leaned forward and snatched the mirror away. “You will do yourself harm—no more.”

  Talbot blinked. The film was gone. He reached a hand to his cheek and stared at the red smear upon his fingers.

  “It is hard to see so far,” he said, wonderingly. “Human eyes are not the same as those of the angels. They are a different kind of creature altogether.”

  “You have done very well,” Dee said. Against the more ruthless part of his nature he added, “But I cannot let you proceed if there is risk of injury.”

  Talbot shook his head. “I need practice in this new art, that is all. This is not like the usual manner of scrying.”

  “No,” Dee agreed. “It most assuredly is not.” And went down into the hall to tell Clerkson that his client would be hired.

  That evening, the sky over London turned to a fiery crimson: the color of the garnets that folk used to banish melancholy and restore the spirits. But in this instance, the omens were wrong.

  MORTLAKE, LONDON WINTER 1582

  Dee locked the door of the study behind him and sank into his chair. He so disliked these arguments; they upset him for days and they had become increasingly more frequent since the scryer had come into his life and household. The young man was a menace, no doubt about it, but unfortunately there could also be little doubt about his spiritual gifts. Dee needed him, and the man who had been calling himself Edward Talbot knew it.

  Talbot had spent some months in Dee's household, working on the tongue of the angels: the language that would, if used correctly, unravel and remake the universe itself. It had become a tempestuous relationship: Talbot was alternatively choleric and melancholic, spinning from one to the other like a child's top and mercilessly whipped by his moods. He was never sanguine and rarely phlegmatic; there was not enough moisture in him, to Dee's mind.

  Dee took care to put such foods as whey and curds before his guest to induce phlegm, and kept him away from cabbage and spleen, but it did little good. He had always been thus, Talbot informed him, even as an infant. This surprised Dee, for as everyone knew, children were born phlegmatic and usually tended toward the sanguine as they grew older. Talbot was clearly an exceptional case and Dee wondered whether the heat and dryness in him corresponded in some manner to his facility for angelic converse. Whatever the reason, Talbot was an explosive presence in the household and Jane hated him.

  Dee sighed. If Katherine had still lived, perhaps she would not have taken against Talbot, for she, too, had been melancholic. But his new wife, Jane, was young and brisk and prone to marvelous rages when she thought that someone might be trying to cozen her husband. And when Dee's suspicions about Talbot's conviction for forging had been proved correct, Jane had become incandescent with fury.

  Dee could not help but appreciate her devotion, but it did not improve the atmosphere. When Talbot had stormed from the house, crying that he would not be treated thus, Dee had never expected to see the young man again. But in a matter of weeks, Talbot was back, all smiles and enthusiasm, and mentioning as a matter of passing interest that he had been traveling under an assumed name. His real one, it seemed, was Edward Kelley. Despite searching questions about the deception, the matter had never been satisfactorily explained.

  Now the angry voices of Jane and Kelley could be heard all the way up here in the study, sizzling through the cracks in the floorboards like wasps. Dee looked around the study in despair: at the globes and maps, the parchments containing the half-completed annotations of the universal tongue, and sighed once more. He needed both Kelley and Jane. But there was a good chance that one of them might slay the other before the task of deciphering the universal language was complete. If a gate to another world had opened before Dee then, he would have sprung through it as though Herne's hounds were at his very heels and not looked back.

  Chapter II

  TOWER OF THE POISONERS, HATHES

  Alivet sat on the bed, cursing her own stupidity. The parchment lay in her lap. What would Ghairen do if he found it was gone? Would he even notice? She picked up the parchment and studied it. It was very old—she could see the cracks in its surface—but it had been protected with a flexible laminated film, doubtless to keep it from falling into pieces. The diagram that it depicted made little sense: an oval inside a triangle, with lines radiating from it. Struck by an idea, Alivet fetched the book called Cabala and leafed through it, but at first none of the diagrams seemed to match. But as she was flicking through the pages, she came across a familiar image. Astonished, Alivet let the book fall to her lap. The image was part of yet another diagram: a series of circles connected by lines, and this time, the image was the same as the one on the parchment. But this diagram had pictures.

  The lowest circle contained an image of a woman's face, her hair billowing around it like the rays of the sun. From this circle, a line led directly upward to a second sphere, in which was shown a creature with an anube's face and four legs. From here, two more lines led out in opposite directions: one to a circle containing a thing very like a shiffrey, and the second to the image of a plant.

  Light was beginning to dawn: both book and parchment alike depicted no random sequence of symbols, but a map of the worlds. The sphere with the anube was surely Latent Emanation, and the sphere with the shiffrey must be Hathes. In that case, could the circle with the woman's face denote the Origin? Yet it was the fifth sphere that had initially caught Alivet's attention, for in this circle was a man, bound to the shape of a cross. It was the same image as her pendant. Lettering stood beside it: Tiphareth. Alivet frowned. Was this the name of the man? Patiently, she pored over the next few pages of the book until she found the word again:

  Tiphareth, also called the “Lesser Countenance,” or Melekh: the King. Its order are the Malachim, the Messengers. Its image is that of the sacrificed god.

  Alivet pulled the pendant from her dress. The sacrificed god. Well, the man bound to the cross certainly looked dead. She puzzled over the pendant and the diagram for a little longer, until the words of the book began to blur before her eyes. Then, turning off the lamp, she climbed into bed and lay staring into the darkness.

  Next morning, Ghairen unlocked the door, but did not come into Alivet's room. He said nothing about the missing key, nor did he make any reference to the previous evening. He looked both tired and haunted.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning.” Alivet felt equally subdued.

  “I hope you slept well?”

  “Well enough. Thank you.”

  They looked at one another for a moment. Ghairen seemed about to say something else, but hesitated.

  “I ought to get to work,” Alivet said quickly, to conceal her discomfort.

  He nodded. “I'll ask the maid to bring you tea.”

  Once in the alchematorium, Alivet took up the Philosopher's Egg containing the residue, then picked up the tall glass container and put it carefully inside the water-bath. She watched as the water began to heat up and tiny bubbles started to crystallize around the base of the egg. Looking through the transparent
neck of the egg, she saw that the glistening residue had slid down the side to form a molten pool at the bottom. With these preparations under way, Alivet took an alembic from the equipment cupboard and filled it half full of antimony. She set this on a stand and lit a flame beneath it. It would be necessary for both substances to reach the liquid stage together. And then the familiar processes of the alchemical art would be carried out: dissolution, evaporation, crystallization, distillation, calcination, and many more. With the sensation of Ghairen's touch still sharp in her memory, she felt as though she had passed through a similar process herself.

  Once the alchemical preparations were complete, she would see what kind of substance resulted. And if it appeared to be stable, she would test it. The antimony must be watched, however, for it had a lamentable tendency to ignite. Alivet sat down on a nearby stool, tucking her skirts under the workbench, and waited. She heard the door open behind her, but was too intent on watching the heating antimony to turn around.

  “Ghairen?” she asked nervously. “Is that you?”

  “No,” a small voice said. “It's me.”

  Alivet glanced up, to see Celana standing in the entrance to the alchematorium. The girl reached out and pushed the door shut behind her.

  “I saw you last night,” Celana said, accusingly. “In my father's rooms. What were you doing there?”

  “I was looking for anything that might help me get out of here,” Alivet said. The girl had witnessed her in plain view, there was little to be gained by dissembling and it was certain that Celana would not believe any excuse that Alivet had to offer.

  “I don't believe you,” Celana said. “I think you were trying to kill him.”

  “How? He's a Fifth Grade Poison Master. He's almost certainly immune to anything I could cook up. Have you told him you saw me?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Are you going to tell him?” Ask a pointless question, Alivet thought.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?” Alivet glanced back at the antimony mixture, which was starting to bubble.

  “On whether you promise to help me.”

  “Celana, why don't you come and sit down? You're making me edgy, hovering there in the doorway.”

  Celana did not move. She said, in an urgent whisper, “You have to help me get out of here. He killed my mother.”

  “Celana, I'm really sorry to hear about your mother,” Alivet said inadequately, thinking: Just what is the truth of this matter? “But why have you come to me? I'm sure your governess would help you.”

  Miserably, Celana shook her head. “My father has sent her away. He spoke to me last night—he wouldn't let us talk to one another or say good-bye. He says that she is not a healthy influence.”

  “I see,” Alivet said, dismayed. With Iraguila gone, she had lost her only ally in Ghairen's household, though a dubious ally at that. And what had Iraguila's dismissal to do with the night journey they had so recently taken? Had Ghairen learned of this?

  “She promised to help me,” Celana said. “We were going to escape—she knew of a place we could go, where we'd be safe. Somewhere my father would never find us. Then you came and Iraguila changed her plans.”

  That explained some of the resentment that the girl had appeared to feel for her, Alivet thought, noting that Celana had used the governess' real name. But there were still many unanswered questions.

  “Your father told me that he was on my world for some time. Wouldn't that have been the ideal time for you to go? Iraguila knew ways out of the tower. You could have been long gone by the time your father returned from Latent Emanation.”

  “That was the plan,” Celana muttered. “But then Iraguila discovered why my father was going away. She said that it was more important for her to stay here. She found out about my father's plot to overthrow the rulers of your world and she needed to find out more. She went to the drift-boat to do so. But now he's sent her away! I can't stay here for the rest of my life. You have to help me.”

  Agitated, Celana ran forward and grasped Alivet by the hand. But as she did so, her sleeve caught a leg of the heating tripod, which toppled. The alembic containing the mixture of antimony shattered, grazing Celana's hand and causing blood to spatter across the work surface. Molten antimony spilled out and a lick of flame touched Celana's trailing sleeve. Celana screamed. Alivet seized a cloth and, wrapping the girl in it, smothered the blaze. But a line of flame was already racing along the edge of the workbench.

  Alivet reached for Celana, but the girl had stumbled across to the other side of the alchematorium. Covering her face, Alivet threw herself to the floor. The residue exploded, sending a tongue of fire high above her head. Gripping the edge of the workbench, and coughing from the sudden boiling cloud of smoke, Alivet hauled herself upright.

  Celana was curled, unmoving, in a ball at the far side of the alchematorium. Alivet, her hands shaking, tore off her top-skirt, seized a container of the fire-resistant powder, and dusted it liberally over herself. Then, swiftly choosing a place where the flames were thinnest, she jumped through. The fire licked her hand as she passed through and the pain was so searing that she cried out. But she was past the fire now, on the other side of the alchematorium, and Celana was only a few feet away.

  Ignoring the pain in her hand, Alivet hastily wrapped Celana's trailing hair and face in the protected skirt, hauled the girl up from the floor, and put an arm around her waist. The sight of the flames leaping like a wall from one side of the alchematorium to the other nearly caused her to falter, but if she lingered they would both die. The smoke was suffocating. Averting her face, Alivet bolted through the firewall, rolling over and over with Celana beneath her to smother the small flames that had caught the hem of the girl's dress.

  And then there were voices, and hands raising Celana up and away. Choking, Alivet lay on the floor, unable to move. Flames billowed over her head and were gone with a great hiss. She smelled a sharp, chemical odor. Then she was being held against Ghairen's robes as he whispered reassurance in her ear. She buried her face in his shoulder, unsure whether it was his closeness or her own narrow escape that was making her shiver, and for the moment, no longer caring.

  Chapter III

  TOWER OF THE POISONERS, HATHES

  Alivet was somewhere stifling. Heat enveloped her, bathing her in perspiration. Alivet opened her eyes and a face swam above her, lizard eyes alight with curiosity.

  “You're awake,” a woman's voice said. “How are you feeling?”

  “I don't know,” Alivet said, and the woman laughed, low and not altogether kind.

  “I know you,” Alivet said, for it was the woman from her dream of the parc-verticale, with the striped, translucent skin.

  “Of course you do. I have visited your dreams. My name is Gulzhur Elaniel. And you will be coming to see me very soon.”

  “How?” Alivet asked.

  “Through your dreams, of course. How else?”

  “But you're not real.” Alivet was starting to wake up now. The woman's face was fading like a leaf in autumn.

  “Come,” Gulzhur Elaniel said, frowning, “you know better than that, Alivet. You know that the truth may be attained through dreams: the drugged visions that plants give you, or simply those that come to you at night, when you lie defenseless. Even in sleep, you seek out the truth. How much more eagerly will you seek it out when you are awake? I know about the Search. I know the store your people place in the royal roads of the unconscious.”

  “Listen—” Alivet started to ask the woman how she knew about the Search, but then Gulzhur's glistening face was gone and she was awake.

  “Alivet? Can you hear me?” She knew that voice. Ghairen was leaning over her. Her throat was raw and dry and her head throbbed like a drum. She was still fully dressed, wrapped in her own skirts as though mummified. She remembered clinging to him, shaking in his arms, and she felt the heat rush to her face.

  “I can hear you. Don't shout.” What was he doing here
in her bedroom, so early in the morning? Don't start thinking, Alivet told herself.

  “I'm sorry. I've been worried about you.” A cool hand brushed her forehead. Memories of fire and blood came flooding back.

  “Celana—is she all right?” Alivet doubled up, coughing.

  “Yes, she's all right. Her arm is burned and she has a cut hand, and you both breathed in a lot of smoke, but otherwise you'll be fine.”

  “Has she told you what happened?” How much did Ghairen know? Alivet wondered.

  “No. I gave her a sedative and put her to bed. What was she doing in the alchematorium?” Ghairen's glance was sharp.

  “She just wanted to see what I was doing, I think,” Alivet said. It was hardly a convincing explanation, but Ghairen appeared to accept it.

  “I'll talk to her later,” he said. “Are you well enough to get up? There's something I want to show you.”

  “What is it?”

  “It's in the alchematorium.”

  She had not seen Ghairen in this mood before, a kind of suppressed excitement, almost fey. It was as though the fire had clarified her perceptions, pared her down to the essence of the world. The immutable processes of alchemy: This is the phase of crystallization, where dreams start to become real.

  “Very well,” Alivet said. “Show me.”

  She could smell the smoke even before she set foot in the alchematorium. The hallway stank of its sourness. Her throat ached. Ghairen hastened along beside her, his robes stirring up a drift of ash.

  “Look at this,” he said, and held open the door.

  Alivet stepped through into the alchematorium. The fire had scorched the wall nearest to the door, coating it with a thick layer of soot. The room reeked of smoke and the smothering odor of the fire-powder, a cloyingly sweet smell. Alivet put her sleeve to her face. The remnants of the crucible that had contained the antimony mixture lay upon the workbench like shattered, frozen bubbles. But the workbench itself was glistening with a layer of frosted red snow. As Alivet stared, a shaft of sunlight arched through the window. The substance grew as bright as fire, as if touched by a taper, and Alivet cried out, momentarily blinded. She put a hand to her eyes. Red sparks flickered across the dark field of her palm. She turned to see that Ghairen, too, was shielding his face.