by Rob J. Hayes
Josephine continued the tour, showing Bastien the Geography department, Metallurgy, Linguistics, two separate Physics departments (one for theoretical and another for applied), Philosophy, and Music. Some of the departments had professors willing to exchange pleasantries and impart unasked for knowledge and others had professors unwilling to give a minor noble like Bastien the time of day. Eventually he began to bore of the tour and decided a more direct route was required.
“I was wondering if you had a Zoological department?” he asked Josephine, giving his very best not-quite-a-smile. “It’s the study of fauna and it might be a subsection of your Biology department.”
Josephine nodded setting her auburn hair rippling and proceeded to skip the last few rooms of the building and lead Bastien and Trim across a bustling courtyard full of student activity. Some of the students were making use of the good weather by studying outdoors whilst others were gathering in groups and no doubt discussing issues they believed to be unfailingly important. Bastien heard one such group talking about the political beliefs of Arkland’s current ruler, a zealot and Monk of the Respine temple by the name of Furie, as if it were the most relevant topic this side of the Brimstone Seas.
Inside a squat grey building with a single floor Josephine stopped at the front desk and tapped a brass bell that sat on the wood with only an impressively large tome full of names and numbers for company. Bastien eyed it suspiciously.
“No one is allowed to simply wander around the Biology departments on their own,” she admitted with a shy smile. “They keep a great many dangerous things here.”
“Lions and Tigers and Bears, I imagine,” Bastien said with a sarcastic smile at Trim who said nothing back.
“Much worse,” Josephine said matter-of-factly. “Bacteria and viruses and fungi.”
A small man with a face like an absent-minded ferret stepped out of a nearby office and smiled a crooked smile at the sight of Josephine. He practically skipped to attention in front of her. “What can I do for you, my lady?”
“Bastien, uh, the Baron here would like to see the Zoology department,” Josephine said without a hint of disgust despite the intensely ugly man in front of her.
“I would also very much appreciate talking to a professor of the subject,” he said. “I have some…”
“It’s not strictly procedure,” the little man said.
Bastien was just about to bring the full force of his intimidating presence to bear when Josephine smiled her luminous smile. “Please, Desmonde. I’m showing him the full tour and it’s the first subject he’s seemed the least bit interested in.” She looked back at Bastien with a nervous grin then leaned in towards the little ferret-man. “It’s my first time doing a tour. I need to make a good impression.”
With a grumble that originated from somewhere south of his belly Desmonde nodded an assent and then told them to wait by the front desk while he looked for the professor.
“Interesting fellow,” Bastien said to no one in particular.
“Desmonde?” Josephine asked, her brows pulling together into a frown for the first time since they had met. “He’s mostly harmless although I was warned about him when I started at the University. I think all women are warned about him.”
After a few minutes Desmonde returned with a middle aged man in tow. The new fellow wore a white double breasted coat with a variety of old stains and was completely bald, not a hair on his head, not even eyebrows. He had a pair of glass spectacles that managed to give him a hawkish look despite the baldness.
“You’re a Baron, eh?” the man said in a short tone that left Bastien with no doubt that he considered the impromptu meeting to be nothing but a waste of time.
“Bastien Bonvillain,” he said holding out his hand.
The man looked at the proffered hand dubiously and made no attempt to take it. “Professor Jon Rainer.”
“You’re from Great Turlain,” Bastien said recognising the professor’s accent immediately.
“Yes that’s right.”
“I didn’t think… I thought you all studied the Elements over there.”
Professor Rainer rolled his eyes. “Not all of us are lucky enough to be born with the ability to command the wind or fire. I prefer to study more tangible areas and Sassaille is at the pinnacle of scientific discovery.”
“I couldn’t agree more, professor…” Bastien said.
“We don’t do tours.”
“I…”
“It’s for your own safety and everybody else’s. Here in the biology departments we keep any number of hazardous chemicals, contagions and organisms.”
“I see,” Bastien said more than a little disappointed. “I wonder if I may ask you some questions then?”
The professor made a motion with his hand that Bastien took to mean ‘go ahead’ or possibly ‘shoo’. He hoped it was the former.
“Do you know anything about Oozes, professor Rainer?” Bastien asked.
The professor seemed to perk up a little, looking at Bastien with a quizzical expression. “As much as anyone and more than most.”
“I recently happened across one of the fascinating beasts, unfortunately only for a short time, and I found myself most intrigued. I’ve spent most of my life near the borders of Arkland you see and before arriving here in Rares I had simply never seen one before.”
The professor was nodding along sagely. “They are an oddity, Baron. All over the world there is no creature quite like the Ooze and they are indigenous only to Rares. Come.” He waved them to follow and started up a nearby set of stairs. “It’s not strictly procedure but I’m willing to allow you into one of our observation labs. We have three different species of Ooze here at the University, I’ll show you.”
At the top of the flight of stairs the professor turned left into a white-washed room with a number of tables, no chairs, and a whole host of scientific equipment ranging from microscopes to alchemical infusers to micro-light intensifiers. There were even a few devices that Bastien could neither name, nor hazard a guess towards the purpose of. The professor sent a dozing lab assistant scurrying with the orders of bringing Ooze specimens three, four, nine, and twelve.
“Now the name Ooze is not a true description at all,” the professor continued his lecture picking up a piece of chalk and writing Ooze in the centre of a black board. Bastien had to suppress a smile and a quick glance at Josephine told him she had failed and was openly grinning. Trim wore a vaguely bored expression.
“It was named so because of the way it moves. It appears, for all intents and purposes, to be ‘oozing’ along but the name also implies it is ooze, that is a viscous fluid, certainly thicker than water but still fluid. The truth…” the lab assistant reappeared wheeling a trolley into the room upon which sat a large clear-glass box of maybe three feet by two. “Thank you, Patrice.
“Here you see our first specimen, Gelo bleu,” the professor paused and shook his head. “It translates quite literally to blue gel or blue Ooze.”
Bastien approached the glass and could see it was aptly named. Inside the box was a small Ooze, no bigger than the size of his hand, with a faint azure tint to its colouring. It laboured along slowly inside the case, stretching out and then pooling back in order to move almost like a caterpillar in reverse.
“So now you see it is in fact gelatinous in nature,” the professor continued. “In fact we call them Gelatinous Trans-Morphic Organisms.”
“So more like a common sea jellyfish then?” Bastien asked.
“Precisely!” the professor exclaimed with a smile. “Although in a similar fit of confusion the jellyfish is not a fish at all. I despair over the names some of our ‘educated’ minds give to things but once they are given… Regardless,” the technician wheeled in a second glass case this one housing a cloudy white Ooze. “There is as much we don’t know about these creatures as there is we do. This particular specimen,” he thumbed at the cloud white Ooze behind him, “has been here at the University longer than I h
ave been alive. We do not even understand yet if they do age.”
“How do you tell apart different species?” Bastien asked as the technician carted in a third Ooze this one tinged a dull rust brown.
“An excellent question,” the professor said happily; he was becoming more and more enthusiastic about the subject as each Ooze was brought in. “Normally, with almost any other creature on the planet, we would of course simply dissect the genitalia.”
Bastien saw Trim flinch, the professor saw it too. “You know it’s always the men that get squeamish on that subject, never the women.” He gestured to Josephine who smiled back radiantly. “As I was saying, we simply can’t dissect the genitalia with an Ooze because as far as we can determine they just don’t have any!”
“How do they have sex?” Josephine asked.
The professor frowned. “I believe you mean; ‘how do they breed?’ Another excellent question which I will move onto.
“As to the question of species. Originally we thought there to only be the single species and the colouration of each Ooze to be dependent upon the minerals it was digesting. You see, with clear Oozes such as these,” he pointed to the azure and rust tinged creatures as the technician brought in the fourth specimen, “take on slight colour changes dependent upon their diet. However diet does not appear to affect long term colouration; that, we are fairly certain, is dependent upon the species of each particular Ooze.”
“I see.”
“There is also this.” The professor pushed the glass case of the fourth Ooze next to the first, they were both the same tint of azure. He pulled on a pair of heavy leather gloves, the types blacksmiths use when dealing with their furnace, and slid open the top of each case just a little. Reaching down into the case of the fourth Ooze he clutched it with both hands. Immediately it tried to slither away and it was clear the professor struggled to hold it. Bastien caught a hint of burning leather on the air. The professor dumped the Ooze he was holding into the case of the first Ooze then closed the lid and removed the gloves. He was sweating heavily. “Just watch.”
Over the course of the next five minutes, in painstakingly slow movements, the two Oozes approached each other and merged into one larger creature. Bastien understood how the giant Ooze in the tunnels came to be. He let slip a slither of a smile. “Is it permanent?” he asked.
“Oh no,” the professor stated with certainty. “They will separate after a few hours or so. “I can’t see what purpose such a bonding would serve out in the wild but it is fascinating, is it not?”
“Could it be how they breed?”
“I suppose it is possible though I have never seen a pairing end with a third organism. Still, they must breed somehow.”
Bastien stroked his moustache. “What happens if you put two different species together?”
The professor grinned. “They fight and one cannibalises the other. It is a thing to see, I tell you. Unfortunately we cannot currently spare a specimen to show you. They are not easy to catch.”
“How would you go about catching one?” Bastien asked tapping the glass of the case. The Ooze inside hissed back.
“It’s a wonder, is it not? They have no mouth, no ears, no nose, no internal or external organs of any sort yet still they can make noise. As for catching one I would advise carefully or not at all. Actually I would advise not at all.”
Bastien gave the professor a predatory look; the man appeared to have grasped the root of Bastien’s questions. “An Ooze would make a wondrous curiosity, would it not?”
“It would make a dangerous curiosity, Baron.”
“I’m a careful man, professor. What is the case made of?”
“That’s a University secret, I’m afraid.”
Bastien made a show of considering the statement. “What if I were to make a charitable donation to the University? Specifically to the Biological Science departments.”
The professor shot a sideways glance at Josephine. “Well for the promise of a donation I could of course tell you, the exact composition of the alchemically tempered glass is far too complicated to remember.” He pulled a book down from a nearby shelf and read out a tediously long list of mixtures including the breakdown of parts per chemical ingredient. Bastien smiled along and agreed he would never be able to remember such a thing.
“One last question, professor. What do they eat?”
“Anything,” the professor said as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. “They can dissolve just about anything and will absorb the minerals that they require, leaving any excess material as a grey sludge.”
Thank you, professor,” Bastien said with a formal bow. “It has been a truly refreshing change to meet with someone of your obvious knowledge.”
No sooner were they out of the lab, with the distracting figure of Josephine leading the way, Bastien lowered his voice to a whisper. “Did you catch all of that, Trim?”
“Down to the decimal, Baron,” Trim replied in an equally quiet voice. “Charitable donation?”
Jacques let slip a flash of a smile. “Convincing the Seigneur to donate on the Bonvillain’s behalf will be the easy trick. Finding enough money to pay for the case will be nigh on impossible. Alchemically tempered glass is a small fortune… Actually it’s more like a large fortune.”
“Is there anywhere else you would like to see specifically or shall I continue the tour?” Josephine asked as they exited the science department building.
Jacques slipped back into the mask of Bastien in only a moment. “Do you have a Manufactorum?”
“Um, yes…” to say Josephine’s response was hesitant would be similar to describing the sea as wet, accurate but wildly understated. “I’m afraid only certain members of the University are allowed to enter the Manufactorum and…”
“Quite right,” Bastien interrupted. “Constructs are dangerous business and not for the general public. I would love to see your institution’s famous library before I leave though.”
Josephine brightened in an instant at the change of subject and the luminous smile returned to her face. As she led the way to the library she seemed to take great pleasure in informing Bastien that it held tens of thousands of books, if not more, and for a modest fee one could have an exact copy made of any book in the collection. Josephine herself was one of the best copy scribes the University had.
Chapter 10 - Varying Degrees of Honesty
“How are they doing?” Renard asked. Waiting on the King’s pleasure was quite easily the biggest chore of his job but it was also a vital chore. One did not simply ignore or hurry the King of Sassaille and the job of shadow conceiller was unfortunately entirely dependent upon the King.
Roache shrugged and then decided to turn the action into a rolling of his great shoulders. “Revou still can’t shoot for the love of his woman,” Roache frowned. “Which is something the little fool doesn’t deserve anyway.”
Renard studied his employee with cold, savage scrutiny. His fondness for Isabel de Rosier was plain for all to see but Renard was still unclear as to whether it would cloud the man’s judgement. “Has he hit anything yet?”
“He’s better off the draw than aiming,” Roache admitted. “He almost grazed the outer ring once… almost.”
“Then we had better make certain he never needs to shoot anyone, hmm?” Renard said rubbing at his face. He came across a stray wisp of a whisker that had somehow managed to evade his razor and with a grimace plucked it out.
Roache let out a low grumble.
“What about de Rosier?” Renard asked. He was confident talking about his plans even here in the palace. The nice thing, he had to admit, about being shadow conceiller, was that he knew all the secret passage ways, spy holes and thin walls and if anyone would be doing any spying it would damn well be him.
“She’s not half bad with a rifle, less so with a pistol and needs to take her time to aim. Franseza is training her in the finer points of sniping.”
Renard chuckled to himself. Roa
che may have a thing for Isabel de Rosier but she was most certainly safer from harassment with him than Franseza; the woman was as vicious as a viper but without the pleasant temperament.
“What about the Baron and Baroness?” Renard asked.
He had been unfortunately detained of late in a dispute along the Arkland border. A sect of zealots had taken up refuge in a forest close by to the town of Les Aines and were preaching doom to the citizens then poisoning water supplies and slaughtering cattle to ‘prove’ their point. The Arkland ambassador of course claimed no knowledge of the group and most certainly no involvement, but Renard didn’t believe that for a moment. The Arklanders believed feverishly in their one God and were willing to go to extreme, often violent, lengths to impose their religion upon others.
After a full week of impotent negotiation Renard had simply threatened to bring the Sassaille navy into the negotiations. There was very little that could stand up to a prolonged airship bombardment and the navy were always more than willing to flex their muscles. It did not take long for the Arklanders to send an envoy to the ‘renegade’ zealots who promptly withdrew from the forest and ran home with their tails tucked firmly between their legs. All in all the entire debacle had wasted almost three weeks of Renard’s precious time and in doing so he had missed reports from the last two of the Baron and Baroness’ social appearances.
“To hear Revou tell it he and Duc Lavouré are best of friends and tight as thieves but Thibault la Fien is not convinced and keeps asking leading questions.”
“Leading questions?” Renard asked. The Baron and Baroness’ covers were air tight but if their performances were even the slightest bit off it could make the whole operation worth naught.
