by Rob J. Hayes
“It looked like an Ooze,” Jacques argued.
Franseza rounded on him. “Oozes are little things that look like puddles only they move. That thing is not little.”
The door opened and Amaury stood on the other side, his pistol drawn and ready. Only once he had confirmed who was in the room did he slot the weapon back into its holster and motion for them to follow out onto the grandiose landing of the house.
“I saw it again,” Franseza said in a dark voice.
“Same one as before?” Amaury asked.
“You think there’s more than one?”
Amaury was silent for a moment. “I hope not.”
“What was it?” Isabel asked though in truth she didn’t expect much of an answer.
“Dangerous,” Amaury said with a glance back at Isabel and a smile. “And a good reason for you not to go wandering the tunnels without us.” He stopped at a door and knocked politely, after a couple of seconds there was a sound from the other side and Amaury pushed the door open and led them all in.
Seigneur Daron was sat behind a desk with bits of some small contraption spread out all along the padded leather surface. He spared them a brief glance before giving his full attention back to the task. His face looked pained and there was a bead of sweat standing out on his forehead.
Jacques strode confidently into the lavishly decorated study, chose a couch attached to one of the side walls and collapsed into it with a loud sigh. Isabel smiled and made to join him.
“Here please,” the Seigneur said without looking up from his task but waving to the two chairs in front of his desk.
Isabel changed direction and seated herself quietly and politely, a few moments later Jacques seated himself loudly and impolitely. Seigneur Daron chose not to notice.
“Saw that thing in the tunnels again,” Franseza said as she chose to seat herself on the arm of the couch Jacques had recently vacated.
“The big Ooze?” Seigneur Daron asked still focused on the device on the table.
“It’s not an Ooze,” Franseza complained. “They don’t get that big.”
“Why not kill it?” Isabel asked.
Amaury laughed. “Clearly you’ve never tried to kill an Ooze before.”
“I shot it once…” Franseza had a faraway look in her eyes for a moment. “It just… started eating the bullet.”
“Dissolving, Franseza,” the Seigneur said his eyes still on the table. “Not eating.”
“Why not go to the University?” Jacques suggested. “Surely they have people there who have done all manner of studies on the creatures. I have no doubt they have discovered how to make one expire.”
Franseza snorted. “What a wonderful idea, Baron,” she near spat the title. “Unfortunately they don’t tend to let people like me in. Now some cultured pute like yourself…” Isabel turned to glare at the woman to find she was wearing a dangerous smile.
Jacques grinned and Isabel could see the cogs in his head turning as he came up with an idea.
“Putain!” the Seigneur cursed, dropping the tool he was holding and sucking a small cut on his finger. He left the pieces of the device where they lay, picked up a pipe and gestured to Amaury.
“Why not just use an alchemical lighter?” Jacques asked. “They don’t tend to break so easily as the old flint ones.”
“Because,” Seigneur Daron began as Amaury struck a match and held it to his pipe. He took a couple of puffs and nodded sagely. Amaury put out the match with a wave and took a step back where he stood smiling at Isabel. “Because this particular lighter has great sentimental value and because I don’t like the way alchemical flame tastes.”
“You’re not supposed to lick the flame,” Jacques said with a grin.
“Very funny,” the Seigneur did not grin back. “So, what did you learn?”
“Marquis Toulard has a penchant for closets,” Jacques said offhandedly. “And urinating in them by all accounts.”
“I heard it on good authority that Baron Giroux prefers the company of young boys to women,” Isabel said, making certain her face was the very picture of shock and scandal. Amaury laughed.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Jacques agreed. “Did you happen to notice the way he looked at his wife?”
“I happened to notice the way she looked back.”
“Enough,” the Seigneur growled around the edge of his pipe emitting a puff of smoke as he did. “If I wanted childish gossip I would have hired people to spread it myself. I want actual information. What did you learn?”
Isabel ignored the edge in the man’s voice. “What you call gossip, we call valuable information. If one can sift the truth from the lies it can help one make a much needed friend or ally.”
“Or help pull a story from otherwise sealed lips,” Jacques pointed out.
“You hired us because we’re good at what we do…”
“The best.”
Isabel smiled at Jacques and he smiled back. “I like to think we are. So let us do what we do. And if you would like us to learn something specific about those you have us spying on it might help if you told us what it is we are looking for.”
Seigneur Daron’s face remained still but his eyes twinkled. “I’ll tell you what you are looking for when you are ready to know. In the meantime; what did you learn?”
Isabel held the Seigneur’s gaze with an icy coolness. She felt more than saw Jacques fidgeting beside her.
“Comte la Fien is grand, tough and well-loved by his peers, not to mention his connections to some of the more notable houses but he is not the reason his family is so rich,” Jacques blurted into the silence. “Not to put too fine a point on it but the Comte simply isn’t the brightest candle in the chandelier, I don’t believe he has the wit to make the shrewd business dealings he is known for. Someone is pulling his strings.”
“The Comtesse certainly has the intelligence,” Isabel chimed in. “What she lacks in beauty, she makes up for with a subtle intellect though she hides it well, at least as far as public appearances go.” Isabel turned to Jacques. “She has the most wonderful plant and herb collection I have ever seen, my love. You would have been in your element. The Comtesse has this conservatory where she grows her own ingredients to further her alchemical studies.”
Jacques face broke into a grin. Isabel knew just how much he would love to have his own such conservatory but given that their profession meant they were rarely in any one place for too long a spell of time it had simply never been a possibility.
The Seigneur cleared his throat.
“The eldest son, at least, has inherited his mother’s wit,” Jacques continued. “I spoke with him only briefly and I’m not entirely sure he took to me but he was cold and methodical. His intelligence was clear and clearly he did not get it from his father.”
“Duc Lavouré,” Isabel said frowning, remembering her strange meeting with the eccentric Duc. “He is a friend of the family?”
Seigneur Daron said nothing but gave a brief nod.
“A strange man, he seemed much lost in thought even when exchanging pleasantries, such as they were, but he was at the ball looking for the Comte’s son. It did seem strange at the time… He is young to be a Duc.”
The Seigneur shrugged. “His mother ran away with an Elemental. His father went to Great Turlain after her seeking revenge or… something but only managed to find himself death. Such is the way of angering an Elemental, I suppose. Their only son, barely twelve at the time, found himself suddenly a Duc and a rich one at that. What else did you learn?”
It turned out the Seigneur was interested in little else the two had dug up or at least he showed very little interest and it wasn’t long before he waved the interview to an end.
“I would say you’ve made some progress. That the Comte and Comtesse enjoyed your company is good but more so is your meeting of Duc Lavouré. The next ball is that of Duc Monnin in seventeen days, I trust you will make yourselves available.”
“I don’t beli
eve we’ve been invited,” Jacques said lightly.
“You will be,” Seigneur Daron assured them. “Get close to Lavourè and Thibault la Fien and stay close to them.”
“Your wish,” Jacques said standing from his chair and turning into a deep bow, “our command.”
The Seigneur rolled his eyes. “Franseza, show them back to their mansion.”
Chapter 9 - A Study of Zoological Origins
Jacques stepped down from the carriage door and immediately looked up into the clear blue sky. High above him a monster of an airship was sailing slowly towards the docks. It was a six-crystal cargo hauler and the largest of its kind Jacques had ever had the pleasure of seeing. It was hard to tell from the distance but he guessed it to be roughly five hundred meters long and another three hundred wide, he couldn’t hazard to guess how deep it might be but he knew the cargo haulers were designed to carry heavy loads and move slowly.
Even from this distance, the airship was sailing maybe a mile high, Jacques could just about hear the dull thrum of the crystals as they held the craft aloft.
Karl Trim politely cleared his throat. Jacques was vaguely aware of the carriage driving away but he paid neither any mind.
“I’ve never been on an airship,” Jacques said with a heavy sigh. “What I wouldn’t give to go up in one, even one like her.” The cargo hauler was a floating monstrosity, all hard angles and no sleek. She could maybe fly thirty miles in a day even with the wind on her side. She dominated the sky, a tribute to Sassaile’s mechanical ingenuity, but to Jacques she was beautiful.
“Baron…” Trim started to say.
“Do you know how she flies?” Jacques asked.
“No, sir.”
“Those bulbous devices protruding from each corner of the ship and the two from midsections,” Jacques pointed at each one, “are Vinet crystals. Named not, as many would have you believe, after the man that discovered them but actually after his wife who discovered their properties. When an electrical current is applied to a Vinet crystal it creates an anti-gravity field around the crystal causing it to quite literally float in the air. That slight humming noise you can hear,” he pointed to his ear without taking his eyes from the airship, “is the sound of the crystals actually vibrating from their own fields.
“You see the shielding around each crystal,” again he pointed at the ship. “They have to physically strap each crystal to the hull of the ship to stop them floating off. Now what you can’t see is each crystal will have a capacitor and a resistor attached to it…”
“Baron…”
“The capacitors for crystals of that size would be quite large but they’re usually kept within the housing for the crystal. The resistor is what dictates how much of a current is run through a crystal. Run too little current through and there simply won’t be enough lift to get the airship off the ground, run too much and the crystal could crack and shatter and that would produce no lift. Also the current running through a crystal dictates the force of the anti-gravity field which, I probably don’t need to tell you, determines altitude. As the cargo hauler up there is coming in to land, it is reducing its altitude so the crew are very carefully reducing the current applied to each crystal.
“Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘why six crystals instead of just one?’ For a start it would be virtually impossible to find a single crystal large enough to generate an anti-gravity field of sufficient force to lift a ship of that magnitude off the ground. There’s also the practical aspect; balance and limitations on space and such. Not that having multiple crystals doesn’t present its own problems. You see the anti-gravity fields cannot be allowed to overlap, the consequences of such could be wildly…”
“Baron,” Trim said rather loudly with a slight tug on Jacques sleeve.
“Hmm?” Jacques looked down, much to the sudden displeasure of the muscles in his neck and noticed for the first time that a Baron standing in the middle of the street with his manservant, staring up into the sky like a bumpkin who has never seen an airship before, was beginning to attract some attention. Quickly Jacques assumed the stony features of Baron Bonvillain and nodded to Trim. “Of course. We’re here to visit the University, not stand around gawping at a passing airship. This way, Trim.”
Bastien made purposefully manly strides across the street towards a collection of buildings that bordered on the antiquated. Some were large, others were larger but all were solid grey stone and built in a fashion that he knew from previous study predated air travel. One particularly large and impressive building sported a tantalising sign reading ‘Library’ above its double doors and an equally impressive flock of gargoyles watching from the rooftop. Bastien smoothed down his moustache and readjusted the pistol at his belt. He marched across the open courtyard, much of it full of students lazing in the midday sun, and up to the central building.
“You there,” he snapped at a young couple talking nonsense and staring into each other’s eyes. “This building, what is it?”
The man, if he could be called such a thing, didn’t even bother to look Bastien’s way but simply waved a lazy hand at roughly no one. The woman, on the other hand, gave Bastien a raised eyebrow that suggested she thought she was of better stock and therefore above his enquiries. She was undoubtedly right but Baron Bastien Bonvillain was not the type of man to suffer fools lightly. While the woman was watching he purposefully tucked the right side of his jacket behind his back, revealing his duelling pistol, and effected a rather sinister smile. The woman blanched, the man turned his head and caught sight of the pistol and very little else, in fact his gaze didn’t so much as move from Bastien’s holster.
“Admissions, Enquiries and General Administration,” the man said in a quavering voice. Bastien guessed him as a lesser son of a lesser nobody probably unused to any sort of violence registering above a slap from a pretty girl. The sight of a firearm attached to a man with a face like he wanted to use it probably had the boy needing a new set of undergarments. With a curt nod Bastien started mounting the steps to the building’s entrance.
The doors to the building were solid grey stone with well-oiled hinges but still as heavy as a cardinal sin and Bastien had to put more effort than he would have liked into pushing both doors open at once but first impressions were important and Bastien Bonvillain liked to make an entrance. He stepped over the threshold, letting his long jacket billow out behind him and approached the nearest clerk like a lion might its next meal.
“Can I help you, sir?” the clerk asked his eyes dropping to the pistol holstered on Bastien’s belt then back up to meet his steely gaze.
“Let us hope so,” Bastien said with a carefully neutral face.
Trim spoke up from besides and behind Bastien. “Baron Bonvillain requires a tour of the University and all of its academic departments.”
If the clerk was even the slightest bit intimidated by Bastien’s title he showed none of it. “Does the Baron have a sponsor?”
When no answer was forthcoming the clerk gave an apologetic smile that bordered on being convincing. “Any person wishing to attend the University must be sponsored by a previous alumni. I presume you wish to enquire about enrolling your son here? He will need to find someone who has attended and graduated in order for his admission to be considered by the Dean.”
Bastien took a step forwards so he was just the other side of the desk and gave the clerk the staring of a lifetime. In mere moments the clerk could no longer hold the Baron’s stare, still Bastien did not release the moment. After a length of time that had gone well past being simply rude and was easily transcending into an insult, a thin sheen of sweat appeared on the clerk’s forehead and a large bead of sweat collected at the base of his hairline and rolled down his nose to drip onto the desk. In the gathered quiet the drop hitting the wood sounded uncomfortably loud.
“I request a tour of the University grounds and all of its academic departments,” Bastien said slowly making certain to weight each word with the threat of vio
lence.
The clerk swallowed audibly. “Of course. Josephine,” he said quickly to a dainty woman who appeared to be happening by. “This is Baron Bonvillain.”
Bastien turned to the woman and bowed at the waist. It wasn’t strictly proper for a Baron to bow so low to a woman of unknown rank but then Bastien had always been one to appear gracious to a pretty woman and Josephine was undoubtedly so. She was short, but not overly so, and petite with large almond eyes the colour of burnt sand and long auburn hair. If Bastien had been five years younger and not hopelessly in love with Adeline he would have happily pursued Josephine tirelessly. “Baron Bastien Bonvillain. It is a true pleasure to make your acquaintance, Josephine…” he let the question of her family name dangle between them.
“Duval,” Josephine said in a voice sweeter than honey. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Baron Bonvillain.”
“Please, call me Bastien. Your father would be Marquis Duval?”
“Yes,” Josephine said with a smile that could make a rainbow seem like nothing more than a rainy day. “Do you know him?”
“Only by reputation,” Bastien admitted. “It would be my honour if you would allow me to accompany you on a tour of this establishment. I wish to see all the academia the University has to offer and I can think of no finer company and guide than a woman whose eyes dim the very sun.”
She blushed and looked away, a shy smile bursting forth from her lips. “You flatter me, Bastien.”
“No more than you deserve,” Bastien said with another slight bow. He just about caught Trim rolling his eyes but nobody else seemed to notice.
Their first stop was the department of history; little more than two small classrooms and a hall used primarily for whichever exhibit was currently in fashion. Josephine explained that the majority of study for the subject was carried out in the library, where one would have easy access to the relevant books, or in a warehouse the University owned which contained row upon row of shelves housing thousands of priceless artefacts from Sassaille’s past. They also happened upon an ageing professor by the name of Clarence who seemed so delighted about meeting Bastien, or perhaps being in the presence of Josephine, that he broke into an impromptu history lecture regarding the political basis for the end of the Great War. Bastien stood through the lecture with icy patience but was more than a little glad when the professor took note of the time and hurried away to a more formal class.
