Wilhelmina explained, “Herr Rosenkreuz is the chief assistant to the Lord High Alchemist.” She gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “He is second to Docktor Bazalgette in the palace, but a first-class genius in his own right.”
The fair-haired young man inclined his head modestly but smiled with pride at Mina’s effusive recognition. “You are too kind.”
He smiled and removed his floppy hat. “Begrüssen Sie, alle.”
He then shepherded his guests into the lab. Cass entered first and was met by a sight and a stench that stole her breath away. In the massive fireplace at the far end of the room stood a huge black cauldron; the massive horned head of an ox was bubbling merrily away in a steaming bath, the noxious sulphurous vapours of which stung the nostrils with the aggressive rancour of rotten eggs.
The chamber itself resembled a storeroom for the Museum of the Weird. There were shelves everywhere and all of them stuffed, so far as she could tell, with jars, boxes, crocks, and cages, veritably groaning with all variety of curious objects—everything from ostrich eggs to silk worm cocoons to desiccated lizards and lumps of coal. There were tools of exceedingly arcane construction whose uses could not be guessed, as well as beakers and pots, mortars and pestles, tongs, pinchers, knives, and spoons of every size.
“Please, come this way,” said Gustavus. “We can speak more privately.”
He led his little troop of visitors through the lab towards a book-lined chamber beyond. If the laboratory was a branch of Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe, Cass decided, then the study was its rare book room. Not at all a large space, it was made even smaller by the floor-to-ceiling shelves lining every wall, each shelf crammed to groaning capacity with leather-bound tomes of all sizes; a table stood in the centre of the room, and it was heaped with books, papers, and scrolls. There were three chairs at the table and a bench on one side. Gustavus offered Wilhelmina and Gianni each a seat; he took the third, and Kit and Cass shared the bench.
“Thank you, Gustavus, for agreeing to see us. We’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” began Mina.
“Please, Fräulein Wilhelmina, my time is yours.”
“I will come to the point,” she replied. “You know those instruments you have made for me? The shadow lamps?”
“Of course, yes,” replied the young alchemist. He leaned close and with a sly smile whispered, “It remains our secret—of that you can be certain.”
“I fear I must presume upon your discretion further,” Mina told him. “We want you to make some more of them.”
“Six of them,” added Kit. “To be precise.”
Gustavus peered at them doubtfully and sucked his teeth. “So many?”
“We experienced something unexpected,” offered Mina. “Something extraordinary.” She went on to describe what had happened when she, Kit, and Gianni encountered an extremely powerful field of telluric energy—a region of such force that it destroyed the devices. “The lamps grew so hot they almost melted in our hands.”
Impressed by this information, the alchemist nodded appreciatively. “That would be extremely hot, as you say.”
“Stranger still,” Kit put in, “the energy was not confined to a line—it seemed to be contained in an absolutely enormous tree. And it was so powerful it completely destroyed the lamps. Burned them out. Phhtt!”
“The device is kaput?” wondered the alchemist.
“Stone-cold dead,” replied Kit. He pulled his defunct ley lamp from his pocket and passed it to the alchemist.
“Both of them,” said Mina. “Kaput.”
Gustavus examined the device, its bright brass carapace now dull and distorted, warped by the heat of the power surge that had destroyed it. “That must have been very exciting,” he observed.
Cass suppressed a smile at his heavily accented English: wary eggs hiding.
“It was astonishing,” granted Mina. “I had no idea they would do that.”
“Do you have your lamp with you?”
“Mine was the newer version, you remember,” she said, handing him her shadow lamp. “But it burned out too, just like the other one.”
Gustavus turned the ruined gizmo over in his hand, sniffed it, shook it, and listened as it gave off a faint rattle as if it had a few grains of sand trapped inside its hollow shell. “So now you wish me to make more such devices.” He glanced up to inquire, “Six, you say?”
“Six,” confirmed Kit. “I know it is a lot to ask, but we could really . . .” He trailed off because the alchemist was frowning.
“Is something wrong?” asked Wilhelmina.
“Es tut mir leid,” replied Gustavus, placing the ruined instrument on the table before him. “I cannot. I am lacking the materials.”
“We will happily pay for the materials,” suggested Mina quickly. “Whatever you need—”
“I have everything required to make these little devices,” said Gustavus, “all the materials except that which is the most important, ja? The substance that animates the mechanism.”
“What is the substance?” asked Gianni. “Perhaps we can get it for you.”
“I do not know what is the substance,” the alchemist replied, shaking his head. “This is the problem.”
The four questors looked at one another. Kit spoke up. “So you’re saying we don’t have enough of whatever it takes, and we don’t know what that is or where to get more,” said Kit. “Yeah, I guess that’s a problem, all right.”
“A classic compound problem, I’d say,” echoed Cass.
“Always Herr Burleigh brings me the special material,” explained Gustavus. “I use what he brings to make his devices, and then I make the copies mit what I have saved.” He blushed slightly as he confided, “So, maybe I do not tell him exactly how much is required to make a lamp like this.”
“Do you have any of this material left over from the last shadow lamps you made?” said Mina.
“A very little.” Gustavus rose and started for the door. “Come, I will show you.”
He led them back into the main laboratory where, from behind some jars labelled in Latin, he withdrew a wooden container about the size of a cigar box, which he placed on the nearby table. Opening the box, he took out a small glass bottle containing a grainy grey substance like dull, metallic sand. “This is the animating matter after preparation,” he explained. Producing a second, slightly larger bottle, he said, “This is how it comes to me.” Inside were small blobs that looked like dirty brown chalk. “It must be heated and treated with chemicals to refine it. Only then can it be used.”
“May I?” Kit took the jar containing the pale-grey powder, pulled out the stopper, and raised it to his nose. He took an exploratory sniff. “It smells like . . . I don’t know—rocks?”
He offered the bottle to Cass, who gave the glass a shake and sniffed. “I get traces of talc and maybe oxidised aluminium.” She passed the vial to Gianni, who took an exploratory sniff.
“Definitely metallic,” he said, passing the jar to Mina.
Wilhelmina put her nose to the opening and then shrugged. “To me it just smells like minerals.” Handing the jar back to Gustavus, she said, “What do you think it could be?”
“I have no idea,” he confessed. “The material is like nothing I have ever seen and, as I said, it is always supplied by the earl himself—the same with the basic plans for the device. They are from Herr Burleigh, although I make very good copies for myself.”
“Okay,” said Kit. “So first off we need to find out what the special ingredient is—that will tell us where to get more.” He looked to the others. “Any ideas?”
Cass said, “I know a few basic chemical analysis techniques. I could do some tests and see what turns up.” She tapped the jar lightly. “Who knows? We might get lucky.”
“I can help you with this, if you like,” offered Gianni.
“Or we could ask Burleigh,” suggested Wilhelmina.
Kit gave her a look that expressed his opinion that she was wildly and woefully mistaken if she imagine
d that to be in any way a reasonable idea. “Maybe you could ask him,” he suggested tartly. “Last time I met him, his earldom did his talking with a pistol.”
“I’m not saying it would be easy,” Mina muttered.
Kit gave her another look and turned to the alchemist, as if seeking a more rational ally. “How much of this stuff do we need, anyway, Gus? How much of the special powder does one lamp contain?”
“Twenty drachms,” replied the alchemist after a moment’s thought. He made a calculation in his head. “Jah, twenty drachms is correct.”
“That’s about thirty grams,” said Mina, translating for the others. “So that’s 180 grams altogether.”
“More would be better, I’m guessing,” said Kit. Turning to Cass and Gianni, he asked, “So what do you two need to test it?”
“Give us some time to think about it,” replied Cass.
Gianni added, “We’ll make a list of tools and equipment.”
“Then it is settled,” concluded Wilhelmina. “Gustavus, if you will allow us to take a sample of the stuff, we will test it. And if we can determine what it is, then we can probably find out where to get it.”
“How about it, Gus?” said Kit.
The alchemist quickly agreed. “I will personally aid you in any way I can.” He made a small bow of deference, then added, “However, I make one . . . ah, Bedingung . . .”
“Condition,” translated Wilhelmina.
Gustavus nodded. “I make one condition—that I should be allowed to accompany you on one of your astral expeditions.”
“You want to make a ley jump with us?”
“Please.” The alchemist gazed at the group hopefully. “It is my most sincere wish.”
“Well,” said Mina, “in light of your past service and present involvement, that seems reasonable.” She glanced to Kit for support. “I don’t see how we can refuse you, Gustavus.”
“Then we have a deal,” said Kit. “Where do we start?”
PART THREE
Hide and Seek
CHAPTER 15
In Which a River Becomes a Flood
For the last time, Giles, I did not steal the book,” Lady Fayth insisted. “It belongs to me. It was my Uncle Henry’s, and so it rightfully should have passed to me when he died. Therefore you need have no more qualms about it.” She gave him a stern look. “At all events, we will most certainly return to Prague before anyone can form the slightest notion that we have been away for even a moment.”
Giles, still frowning, passed a dubious gaze at the surrounding landscape: an empty plain of low hills covered with grass in all directions as far as the eye could see. A fitful breeze, cool out of the north, blew over this prairie sea in rippling waves. “You are confident our travel can be reckoned so precisely, my lady?” he asked.
“To be sure, Giles. I have done it before.” She started walking in the direction of the dull white glow of a sun slowly burning through heavy grey clouds.
“Where are we now?”
“This place? I cannot possibly say. It is merely an intermediate point on the way to our destination.” She glanced back with an expression of mild exasperation. “Any more questions?”
Giles knew better than to gainsay his mistress. “No, my lady.”
“I am heartily glad to hear it.” She quickened her pace. “Do come along. The next ley is some little distance, and we must be there and ready before the sun sets. I do not wish to spend the night out here in this”—she flung a hand around at the treeless, hillbound wilderness around them—“this godforsaken desert.”
They walked for a time in silence, listening to the hiss of the wind over the hills and the swish of their feet through the coarse grass; the occasional cry of a high-flying hawk fell from the empty heights above with a lonely shriek. The morning passed and afternoon wore on in a series of low hills, each the same as the other. At the crest of each hilltop they paused on the high ground to look across the rolling landscape, hoping to spot one or more of the standing stones that marked the ley for which Haven was searching. All that met their gaze was an endless undulation of treeless steppes, the green ocean-like swell of a limitless sea of grass.
“My lady,” said Giles after one such pause, “it occurs to me that we—”
“Listen!” Haven cocked her head to one side. “Do you hear that?”
“I hear noth—”
“Shh!” she snapped. There came a sound on the breeze, a faint riffling rumble on the wind. “What is that?”
“Thunder?”
The odd sound grew louder. Instinctively both travellers looked to the sky to see a small dark object streaking through the low cloud-cover, leaving a trail of grey smoke behind. The thing fell with blinding speed, smashing into the flank of a hill across the valley in front of them. Between one heartbeat and the next, the peace of the steppe was rent by an explosion that heaved fire and dirt and smouldering fragments into the air.
Giles and Haven glanced involuntarily at one another. Then Giles turned and started running for the hilltop. “Hurry!”
“Giles, no!”
But he was already racing away. Haven had no choice but to follow. By the time she reached the summit, Giles was bent low, hands on knees, gazing down into the shallow bowl below at a number of tent-like dwellings ranged along the small stream that coursed through the valley. Men and horses were running away from the crater made by the impact of the mysterious thing that had exploded in the midst of their encampment.
“What in the name of all—”
“Get down!” rasped Giles harshly. He pulled her down beside him. “They’ll see you.”
“Who are they?” she wondered aloud.
At that moment, the sound of distant thunder ruffled the air and another of the infernal salvos fell from the sky. They looked up to see the telltale signature of smoke as the thing streaked to earth, landing a short distance from the still-smoking hole left by the first one. Again there was a brief hesitation—time enough only for those closest to the object to throw themselves to the ground before the deadly fountain of fire and smoke and glittering fragments erupted once more.
“What are those things—those sky bolts?” she asked. “Have you ever seen the like?” Haven glanced back down at the encampment where those under this strange attack were attempting to escape—with much shouting and wailing—fleeing back along the valley course—most on foot, others on horseback—all of them abandoning their camp in desperate flight.
“We dare not stay here. We cannot risk getting caught up in this attack.” He looked right and left along the ridgeway. “Which way should we go?”
Haven’s face contracted in thought. “That way . . . I think.” She pointed in a northeasterly direction. “In all honesty, Giles, I cannot say.”
Giles scanned the landscape around about. “If we follow the ridge to there,” he said, pointing to a place where the hill line ended half a mile or more distant to the southeast, “that should not take us too far out of our way.”
Before they could move, the dread whiffling sound cleaved the air, swiftly becoming a scream as another of the awful things plummeted, driving itself into the soft earth. A bare breath later it erupted, shaking the camp, destroying three of the tented dwellings, sending wreckage into the air. Amid the smoke and sparks, small clods of dirt and debris rained down all around. People fled the destruction, screaming and wailing as they ran.
“We have to move.” Giles started away. “Now!”
They raced down the hillside, putting the flank of the hill between themselves and the strange sky-born weapons. Two more explosions in quick succession reverberated behind them as they ran, but they did not look back. When, after a time, no more eruptions were heard, Giles slowed, allowing them to catch their breath.
“Those poor people,” gasped Haven, pressing a hand to her side. “How unspeakably horrid. What in God’s good name were those ghastly, terrible things?”
“I cannot say, my lady. But there is trouble here, a
nd we best get to the ley line and make our jump before anything else happens.”
Haven agreed, and they moved on at a more reasonable pace, using the broad slope of the hill as a shield between them and whatever tragedy was unfolding on the other side. They moved along quickly, pausing now and then to listen, but they heard no more airy thunder or explosions. All was quiet—as if the chaos and destruction witnessed in the last minutes were already half a world away. As soon as Giles judged it was safe to proceed, they climbed to the top of the ridge once more and, crouching low so as not to be seen, took a good long look around.
As Giles had seen, the long, sloping ridgeway descended into a fold of the valley, merging and blending with two smaller hills to form a two-pronged fork of two narrow finger valleys: one leading away to the north and one to the southeast. “If the ley is that direction”—Giles pointed towards the southeast—“then it must lie somewhere beyond that rise.”
Haven, coming up slowly behind him, made no reply.
“Did you hear, my lady? I said—” Giles took one look at the chalky pallor of her skin and seized her hand; it was clammy to the touch. “I think we must sit down a little and—”
Just then her eyes rolled back in her head, showing white; a juddering sigh escaped her lips and she collapsed. Giles caught her as she fell and eased her to the ground, then knelt beside her, rubbing her hands and calling her name. “Lady Fayth!” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Wake up, Lady Fayth!”
A moment later her eyes fluttered open; she saw Giles looming over her and the cloudless sky beyond. “Giles Standfast! Whatever are you doing?” she demanded. “Let me up! Let me up this instant!”
She made to rise but was overcome by dizziness and sank back once more, closing her eyes.
“There now. You rest easy.” Giles continued to chafe her hands.
“What has happened?” she asked, her eyes still closed.
“You have had a swoon, my lady. Lie still but a moment and regain your strength.”