by Tim Susman
As he drew closer to the dock, the men stopped working, all except the otter, and stood to stare at him. His nose was full of the smell of the river and the trash in it, and to his eye the men all looked very similar, dressed in simple shirts and trousers, stained with water and darker fluids. All had rough, ruddy complexions and facial hair of varying lengths, and hard stares that tracked him from the river up to the edge of the dock where he landed. Wary, he kept his spell active as he walked past the first of the men.
The first few did not speak, but when he reached one who wore a flat cap on his head over a dark scowl, the man reached out and grasped Kip’s arm. “What business the sorcerers send you down for here?”
“What?”
“Seen you flyin’ cross the water,” the man said, as though they hadn’t all been staring at Kip for the last ten minutes. “Don’t see your sorcerer though. Whyn’t he send you to the Isle straight off?”
“I—he—” What could he say to them? That he was a sorcerer himself? The man’s grip on his arm was iron, and if Kip tried to fly off now, the man would surely come with him. “You’re not to harm me.”
“Now who spoke of harm?” The man’s mouth twisted into an ugly smile, showing two cracked teeth. “You come onto our docks and we’re asking you why. Seems simple enough.”
The otter walked back to the ship and up the gangplank without looking once at Kip. At this distance, he looked enough like Coppy that Kip felt a sharp sense of betrayal even though he knew the otter wasn’t Coppy and owed him nothing. “My business is none of your concern,” he said. “I simply want to pass through the docks. I’m headed to the Isle.”
“Then why did your master send you to our dock?” The man held out his free arm to his companions. “Isle’s right over there. What’s so special about our dock?”
“I don’t know,” Kip said. If he needed to escape, he could lift the man away and fly over the river in case the man fell. But he would prefer not to do that. “Maybe he didn’t want to alarm the Calatians.”
“Ha ha!” Without letting go, the man turned to the otter, who’d just reappeared carrying a crate. “Y’hear that, Dollo? Sorcerer don’t want to fly him to the Isle. Fraid he’ll alarm the poor Callies.”
The otter paused, then gave a quick nod and kept on walking. The man returned his attention to Kip. “I’ve half a mind to shove you off the dock and make you swim to the Isle.”
“My master—my master wouldn’t like that.”
“Rog,” one of the other men said. “Remember how that sorcerer gave Charley the pox?”
“Charley got the pox from your wife,” Rog retorted, but his grip on Kip’s arm lightened. “All right. All right. Then we’ll bring you to Mr. Gibbet and see what you have to say to him.”
Kip would not have minded so much being pushed down into the water, but now his best hope was that Mr. Gibbet was more reasonable than his name. Holding the spell was occupying some of his concentration, so with some regret he let it lapse. “It is important that I reach the Isle of Dogs,” he tried one more time. “My—my master’s business is secret.”
“Aye, well, Mr. Gibbet keeps plenty of secrets.” Rog pulled Kip away from the dock.
The men laughed behind him, and the otter returned from the warehouse to fetch another crate, still not even sparing one glance for Kip.
During the short walk from the dock to the low, flat wooden building adjacent to the warehouse, Kip tried to think of some legitimate reason for him to have flown to the dock. “Because I didn’t want to scare the Calatians” felt completely inadequate, and “because I didn’t know any better,” though also accurate, was no better. Even if he were to reveal that he had flown under his own power and not been levitated by his master, that would not explain why he’d alit on a dock full of humans. Calatians, he now felt, would have been much easier to explain his motivations to. At least he could tell them he had a letter for Coppy’s family.
Mr. Gibbet, a man whose thinning hair was kept close to his scalp by an oil whose perfume wrinkled Kip’s nose from ten feet away, looked up with sharp blue eyes as Rog pulled Kip in by the arm. “Ah, Roger,” he said in a dry, quiet tone that brooked no nonsense, “I was wondering what could possibly be of such importance as to distract nearly every one of your men from their job.”
“Yes, sir. Only it’s this Calatian, sir.”
“I see that.” Mr. Gibbet glanced at the ornate clock on his desk. “And do you see this?”
“Er, yes.” Rog’s puffed-up manner had almost completely evaporated.
“If you could read a clock, you would see that there are only forty minutes left before the customs inspector arrives to check those crates you are supposed to be unloading. Do you think you and your men can finish the job in forty minutes?”
“Yes, sir. If we put sole to stone.”
“Then I would advise you to do so.”
“Yes, sir.” But Rog, clearly trying to regain at least a little of his swagger, thrust Kip forward. “He come right over the water, like a sorcerer, but without a sorcerer. Says he was sent here for a secret. I think he’s spyin’.”
“A spy. Indeed. Come to determine the exact number of fish sent to us from Calais, was he?”
“Maybe.” Rog’s brow lowered. “Never know what them sorcerers want, do we?”
“No, we do not. Very well, I will interrogate him. You may leave him to me, as I am leaving the unloading of the Cliffside to you.”
These last words were enunciated precisely, and Rog took the meaning of the tone. “Yes, sir,” he said, and slipped back out the door.
Kip felt that Mr. Gibbet, demonstrating more education, would at least be more receptive to his story. “I’m so sorry for the disruption,” he said. “I was only trying to—”
“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Gibbet said, pleasantly enough save for the look in his eyes, “but have I addressed you yet?”
“No,” Kip said, “but—”
“Dear me, if there is one thing I have always admired Calatians for, it is their impeccable manners. And yet! There is always an exception to the rule.”
Baffled by this, Kip flattened his ears and stared. Mr. Gibbet stared back with a fixed, serene expression. “Now,” he said after a moment, “who is your master?”
“Master Cott.” Kip said. “He knows I’m here, but he didn’t order me to come to the dock.”
“Tch!” Mr. Gibbet’s brow lowered. He reached down to one side and brought up a thick truncheon, which he rested on the desk. “I find that the lesson of waiting until one is addressed before speaking is easily learned with the aid of this instructor.” His fingers caressed the club in long strokes. “I am certain your master will not mind the re-application of such a lesson.”
“H—” Kip got only part of one word out before Mr. Gibbet’s bony fingers closed over the handle of the club. The fox snapped his mouth shut. He hated that he was complying, but Mr. Gibbet’s confidence told him that there was only one way to escape this situation unharmed, and here in London he did not know the healer.
“Sometimes the instructor has only to make an appearance.” Mr. Gibbet smiled, and his fingers resumed their stroking. “Now, why did Master Cott send you to the dock?”
Hadn’t he just told the man that Cott hadn’t sent him? It was not worth protesting again; if he was assumed to be nothing more than a servant to be beaten on a whim, he would demonstrate a servant’s knowledge. “I don’t know.”
“Come, come, what did he send you down here to do?”
“To take a message to the Isle of Dogs.”
“And?”
“That’s all,” Kip said flatly.
“And yet he sent you to this dock rather than to the Isle. Perhaps…” Mr. Gibbet rubbed his chin. “No, I cannot imagine he sent you to examine the contents of the Cliffside. Have you recently been disobedient to him in some way?”
“No.” Kip shook his head.
Mr. Gibbet leaned in more closely. “Do you live on the Isle?
”
“No.”
“I am a human,” Mr. Gibbet said, “and you will address me as ‘sir.’”
“With all due respect,” Kip replied, eyeing the truncheon, “my master has told me to call only him by that title.”
It was a small rebellion, but by putting the responsibility on his supposed master, he hoped to get away with it. Mr. Gibbet’s eyes did narrow, but he did not grip the truncheon. “And where do you reside?”
“At the college, presently.”
“A servant of the school? But your speech rings almost like someone from the north, and yet different. Where were you born?”
“Massachusetts Bay.”
“A colonist. Of course that explains it.” Mr. Gibbet’s hand lifted from the truncheon. “In that case, I will simply ask you to remain here until I can receive a reply from your Master Cott verifying your purpose.”
“I’m to return in one hour.” Kip clasped his paws together.
“I’m afraid that will be impossible,” Mr. Gibbet said. “But if you are not on the Isle in an hour, your master may come looking for you and that will speed the process. Take heart in that. Now, you’ll stay in the small supply room here—”
“That won’t work. I need to leave now to complete my errand.”
Now those fingers curled around the handle of the club and lifted it. “You interrupted a human. Perhaps a lesson is in order after all.”
Mr. Gibbet stood from his desk and walked slowly around it. Kip took a step back, ears plastered flat to his head, working out whether he could get to the door and run faster than the middle-aged man. And then he had an idea, and without time to decide whether it was a good one, he acted on it. “I’m talking to Master Cott in my head now! He is not pleased that you have detained me. He says, he says to let me go now or he will set this building on fire.”
As Kip spoke, he gathered magic. At the sight of the purple flickering around his paws, Mr. Gibbet stopped. “What is that?”
“That is what happens when he talks in my head.” The fire spell was waiting in Kip’s mind, begging to be used. Having thought of it, he now found it difficult to battle the hunger and need of the fire, especially when he himself was so on edge, desperate. I can help you, the fire said, only let me out, let me out…
“Then Master Cott,” Mr. Gibbet called, “if you are listening, give me a reason I should not beat your fox.”
It was going to have to be fire. Kip muttered the spell, hoping Mr. Gibbet was too far to hear properly.
The wooden floor between them erupted in flame.
Mr. Gibbet jumped back with a cry. Kip found the sight and feel of the fire soothing, and working on keeping it focused in its small area calmed him. “I told you.”
But Mr. Gibbet didn’t hear him. “Fire! Fire!” he yelled, and ran for the door. Kip extinguished the fire and only then thought that this was his chance to escape. By the time he reached the door, though, three of the longshoremen were already running toward it, two with buckets and one with a straw broom.
They pushed past Kip and into the office. “Where is it?” one shouted while the other two looked around wildly.
Mr. Gibbet rushed in behind them. “Is it out?” he cried. “Is it—good job, men.”
“We ain’t done nothing,” the man with the broom said, turning. “Wasn’t no fire.”
“No fire? It was right there!” Mr. Gibbet pointed at the bare patch of hardwood.
The two men with buckets set them down, slopping water onto the floor. The man with the broom stepped forward, sniffing the air. “Smells a bit like fire, but no smoke, no burning on the wood.” He looked up at Gibbet’s desk and Kip saw his eyes light on a brown bottle sitting on the edge. “Ah, whatever it was, it ain’t here now, sir.”
Mr. Gibbet had also noticed the motion. “I am not drunk,” he said with forceful enunciation. “This Calatian said that his sorcerer sent fire down. He must have taken it away.” His face had grown redder, but his gestures were calmer and much more restrained.
“Course, sir.” The man with the broom turned and gestured to the others, who picked up the buckets of water with rather more visible effort than when they’d carried them in.
Mr. Gibbet watched them leave, gripping his desk with one hand, and when they’d gone, he drew close to Kip in two quick steps and grasped the fox’s wrist. “I don’t know what tricks your masters have taught you,” he hissed, “but you’ll learn not to bedevil good Christian humans with them.”
He pulled Kip toward one of the doors in the side of the room. “But,” Kip protested, “my master is a fire sorcerer—”
Mr. Gibbet stopped cold a foot from the door and then with a quick motion threw Kip against the wall. He did not let go of Kip’s wrist, and so the torque sent painful cracks through the bones there and up his arm even as Kip hit the wall. It wasn’t as forcefully as Farley had thrown him into the Tower, but it was enough to stun him. “What,” Mr. Gibbet said tightly as he opened the door, “did I tell you about speaking when spoken to?”
And without waiting for an answer, he shoved Kip into the open door and closed it after him, leaving the fox in mostly-darkness in the smell of paper and mice.
In a matter of seconds, Kip’s eyes adjusted enough for him to take stock of his temporary prison. Stacks of paper surrounded him, all smelling more recent than the paper back in his basement. No trap door in the floor or ceiling, no improbable door at the back of the closet. The only way out was the way he’d been thrown in.
He dropped to the ground, sitting with arms and tail around his knees, paw holding his injured wrist. The ache was bearable if he held it still and applied pressure around it. He didn’t think it was a serious injury, but when he rotated his wrist, a low grinding noise accompanied sharp stabs of pain.
Not even one full week in London and he’d already gotten into trouble. Cott would be disappointed, maybe even to the point of sending him back. And for all the power Kip had acquired, he was imprisoned here with several ways of getting out of the room but no ways of getting out of the trouble he’d caused. He could summon Nikolon, but without extra power, he wasn’t sure he could bind the demon sufficiently (would his own blood suffice, and if so, how much of it?). Besides, if he really had trespassed, as Mr. Gibbet’s manner suggested, breaking out with magic would only make things worse.
Thinking about Mr. Gibbet stoked a fire in his chest. Speak only when spoken to? What year was this? Calatians were free citizens with the right to speak when they chose. And yet this human had threatened him, broken his wrist, bruised his ear against the wall, and locked him in a closet, and Kip’s only recourse was to wait for another human to come and set him free.
Again fire called to him, and this time restraint was a greater effort. Burning down the warehouse office, as satisfying as it would be, would certainly get him sent back to Massachusetts Bay, if not expelled outright.
Coppy would tell him to be patient; Emily would tell him to stand up for his rights; Malcolm would tell him to fight back. But he couldn’t do the first very well, and the second two were impossible in this situation. The best he could hope for was that Master Cott would see to it that Mr. Gibbet was punished for the way he’d treated Kip. And since Master Cott had not wanted Kip to come down to the Isle of Dogs in the first place, that was not terribly likely.
Because he had nothing better to do, he recited all the spells he knew, practicing them in his head until the syllables became rote. The hardest was Master Jaeger’s, so Kip focused on that one. The exercise calmed him, but at the same time reminded him of sitting in the basement of the White Tower practicing spells with his friends. Loneliness seized his chest and constricted his throat so that he had to stop reciting for a moment. Coppy would want him to stay calm and protect himself, he repeated, and though he missed the otter terribly, imagining Coppy’s presence next to him soothed him enough to allow him to resume his memorization.
He must have dozed off at some point, because he was leaning a
gainst one shelf when the door opened and the small frame of Master Cott stood silhouetted in it. Kip recognized the scent before the face, and scrambled to his feet.
“Good God, have you locked him in there?” Master Cott asked Mr. Gibbet, whose form resolved out of the oil-lamp light in the office. “Penfold, are you all right?”
“My wrist is broken,” Kip said.
“We’ll get you to a healer. Come along. And you,” Cott extended a furious finger at Mr. Gibbet. “I’ll see you charged for this.”
The man looked genuinely puzzled. “Charged? For what?”
“Assaulting a British citizen.”
“He’s a Calatian. And a colonial.” Mr. Gibbet pointed back. “And he started a fire in my office, or caused a fire to be started.”
“Regardless, that does not give you the right to imprison him in a closet.” Cott propelled Kip gently to the door. Outside, darkness had fallen and the half-moon limned the clouds in silver.
“What time is it?” Kip asked. His stomach growled, though he still felt nauseated and wasn’t sure he could eat.
Mr. Gibbet said something about what this world was coming to, and then, loud and petulant, “He started a fire!”
Kip had a paw on the door frame, his ears swept back to listen to the exchange between the two men. The sorcerer, still pressing gently on Kip’s shoulder, called back, “I’ll start a fire if you’d like to see a fire.”
“You get out and take that insolent creature with you,” Mr. Gibbet called, apparently gaining some bravery at seeing the back of the sorcerer.
As Kip made it through the door, the pressure of the sorcerer’s hand disappeared from his shoulder, so he turned to see why Cott had stopped. The man’s face, dark in the silvery moonlight, stared out past Kip into the night. Without looking back, he said in a low voice, “I did warn you.”