The Twelve Dragons of Albion

by Mark Hayden

  ‘Never apologise for being early,’ I said. I stopped with the front door key in mid-air. ‘Unless you’re a day early. That’s pushing it a bit.’

  ‘What’s the rent on this?’ she asked as we climbed the stairs.

  ‘Do you mean “how much do you charge your tenant”?’

  She stopped on the half-landing. ‘Your tenant? You mean you own this place? And a house in Gloucestershire? How’d you manage that?’

  ‘That’s what Mina would like to know. I haven’t told her yet, so you’ll have to wait.’

  I did tell her about the principle of Clarke’s Mess, which she just about accepted. She slowly turned around the living room while I made coffee and warmed her a croissant (she’s not good in the mornings).

  ‘Talk about a bachelor pad,’ she said. ‘I can almost smell the testosterone. It’s clean enough, mind.’

  ‘Don’t say that to my last tenant. She’d be very upset. And all officers are house-trained – it’s drummed into us during basic training.’ I pointed to her trousers. ‘If I’d turned up on parade with ironing like that, I’d be up on a charge.’

  She looked down in alarm, then laughed. ‘What’s ironing? I’ve heard of it…’ She came over and patted my arm. ‘You’ll make someone a lovely wife one day. Hopefully Mina.’

  Now that there was a bit of distance between us and our encounter with Dean Hardisty, Vicky opened up a little about her student days at Salomon’s House.

  She had had to complete a four year apprenticeship that was much more hands-on and practical than most university courses. A bit like a medical degree, really. More than anything, I got the feeling that she had been frustrated there, not with her tutor but with herself, because she couldn’t find her true strength. Most Chymists – most Mages full stop – have a specialism, and although Vicky said that she was better at Sorcery than anything else, she wasn’t good enough. The lead Sorcerer at Salomon’s House is known as the Oracle, none other than Cora Hardisty in Vicky’s day. The future Dean had told Vicky that she wasn’t good enough to study for a doctorate.

  ‘So you joined the King’s Watch?’

  ‘Hannah came to speak, like a recruitment session. Unheard of, apparently. She said that she was creating two new posts as general Officers of the Watch to assist and support. I jumped at the chance ’cos I needed the money and the experience is dead useful.’

  ‘So what do you do for the Watch? What will I be doing, come to that?’

  She started unpacking the bag she’d borrowed from Salomon’s House. ‘Mine is a new role, and we’re still working it out. Some of it is taking the less dangerous work off the Watch Captains.’

  ‘So we can go out and get killed more often. Charming.’

  She stopped what she was doing. ‘You didn’t join for the quiet life and the paperwork, did you, Conrad?’

  She had me there. I didn’t deny it.

  The bag contained all sorts of boxes, which she started to lay out on the coffee table while she expanded on her job. ‘I’ve been doing all sorts of research on the Circles, especially the ones operating in London. I’ve been updating the records – that helped uncover a trade in stolen Artefacts, and I’ve been up to Scotland to see how Napier College does things. Napier is pretty much the same as Salomon’s House, but Scottish. They don’t have their own King’s Watch, as such, but Hannah has a Depute (with an E not a Y) who runs his own show north of the border.’

  No wonder she was glad to get out of Merlyn’s Tower with a job like that. Talk about being a dogsbody. If I hadn’t come along, and Li Cheng had continued to mess her around, she’d have been getting in trouble sooner or later. Bigger trouble than I’d rescued her from.

  She finished lining up the boxes and patted her thighs as a signal to herself that she was ready. With a deep breath, she said, ‘You need to know more about the way that magick actually works. Not the theory, no one knows that, but the practicalities of using Lux to do stuff. Like making and using locks. Not that you’ll be making them; that’s for Artificers.’

  I’ve thought a lot about the nature of magick since my Enhancement by the Allfather, and I’ve not got much further than understanding that Lux is a form of power which can directly affect matter and energy, with seemingly no limit on the ways in which you can bend the allegedly fixed laws of nature. Lux is also intimately connected to free will, consciousness and identity in ways that are a mystery to everyone.

  There were now seven boxes on the table, made of different woods, ranging from flimsy balsa to dense mahogany.

  ‘We can do this,’ said Vicky.

  ‘You’re not reassuring me. Is it really so hard?’

  ‘It’s a big jump from compressed air, but Hardisty’s right: if you can’t use Keyways on your own, you’ll be at a huge disadvantage.’

  ‘Even bigger than currently?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Definitely.’ She tapped her finger on the first box, the one made of balsa wood. ‘First question: what’s a lock?’

  ‘It’s a good job we studied philosophy in the RAF.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘No. Of course not. That doesn’t mean I can’t think for myself, though.’ I stared at the boxes on the table, the windows and the front door, scratching my chin. I nodded to myself and ventured this definition: ‘A lock is any form of device which prevents access to another object and which needs a second device, a key, to release it. A lock is not to be confused with a catch, which merely holds something in place, like the catch on a window or the magnetic seal on a fridge.’

  ‘Very good,’ she said with enthusiasm. ‘It took our class nearly an hour to come up with something like that.’ She pointed to the first box, physically the flimsiest. ‘Try this one. It’s as much as I can do myself in terms of lock-making.’

  The little box was different from the others in having an actual key sticking out of an ordinary looking lock. All the other boxes had nothing like a keyhole. I tried to turn the key. Nothing. I tried harder and felt the whole thing twist – any harder and it would come apart in my hands.

  ‘All I’ve done,’ she said, ‘is to make the mundane lock incredibly sticky. You still need a physical key to open it. Most Mages do this to their front doors when they go out.’

  I could see several flaws in that practice, but I’m the student here.

  ‘Take the key out and feel the lock with your eyes closed.’

  I did what she asked, turning the box round and round, then feeling the lock using my Sight. It tingled, randomly, with the white noise of magick. I’d been here before, and I knew that it would take patience. I put my finger over the keyhole and rubbed gently. There. Like an extension of my finger, I could feel a paddle just inside the lock. If I just flicked it…

  ‘I think I’m nearly there,’ I said, remembering the physical key. I put it back and felt for that little paddle with my Sight. There. The paddle was now against the business end of the physical key. Turn them both together, and … click. Wow. I didn’t try to keep the silly grin off my face until I heard the whoosh of breath from Vicky.

  ‘C’mon, Vic, it wasn’t that unlikely was it?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. Before Lunar Hall, I think you might have struggled.’

  ‘Have I passed, then?’

  She shook her head. There was something dangerously like pity in her eyes. ‘That wasn’t a Keyway, Conrad, that was just basic manipulation. It wasn’t even a magickal lock, just a bit of ectoplasmic glue with a reverse trigger. Try locking it again.’

  This time, the key turned back and forth with no resistance, and no magickal input from me. Aah well, two steps forward…

  Vicky passed me the second box. ‘This is a real magickal closure – like you said, a catch. There’s no lock or key, but we’re getting there.’

  The box was made of plywood, of no great age, and had a lock exactly where you’d expect a lock to be, but without a keyhole. I closed my eyes and touched the lock. There was something inside, like a spring pressing two pl
ates together, only it wasn’t a spring, it was inside the metal itself…

  ‘Is there magnetism in here? Holding the lock together?’

  Her dark eyebrows shot up. ‘Now I am impressed. Most Mages, no matter how strong, can only feel the lock, not the force holding it together. I certainly can’t.’

  ‘Which way is north?’ I said.

  ‘You what? How should I know.’

  I pointed to a corner of the room beyond her shoulder, then swivelled to my right. ‘That way’s north, and Merlyn’s Tower is that way, and that’s not because I live here. I just know it. I wonder if I’ve always had a better developed sense of the earth’s magnetic field than most people, and it got stronger when the Allfather touched me.’

  She gave it some thought. ‘You could be on to something, Conrad, but I’d keep it under me hat if I was you. I definitely wouldn’t tell the Dean.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to.’

  She looked over my shoulder, probably trying to remember something she’d learnt in school, something so basic that she took it for granted. ‘A mundane locksmith puts a lot of energy into making a lock. Heating the metal, bashing it, cutting and shaping it. That’s what an Artificer does with a magickal lock. Are you with me?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You still need energy to work the lock – you use the strength in your fingers to turn the key, don’t you?’

  ‘Or electricity in the case of my room safe.’

  ‘That’s right. Same with magick. There’s Lux in the lock, but you need to put more Lux in to flip it. Try to find the magickal switch in this one. Obviously, we’re still one step below an actual Keyway.’

  I took the box again and probed the lock with my Sight. I felt around the plates, so magnetic that they gripped each other in an unbreakable embrace. Beyond the plates were some little lugs, anchoring the Work to the box. One felt slightly different. I pressed the centre of the lock with my physical finger and channelled Lux to exert magickal pressure on the magickal lug. It was stiff, and I could feel the strain until suddenly the polarity in the bottom plate reversed and the lid flew open.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Vicky. ‘Now shut it.’

  The lid was now very reluctant to rejoin the base, until I pressed the magickal lug again, and nearly lost a finger when it slammed shut.

  ‘Oops,’ said Vicky. ‘I should have warned you about that.’

  ‘And I should have seen it coming. Time for coffee and a fag break.’

  ‘I’ve been looking into your little domestic problem,’ said Vicky over coffee.

  ‘Which one? Do you mean the draughts, the drains, the lack of an en-suite bathroom or the phantom book thief of Clerkswell?’

  ‘How old is the house?’

  ‘The house itself only dates back to the 1850s, but the well was definitely there for centuries before that, and there’s a stone carving in the house that could be any age. Probably at least Tudor.’

  ‘That helps. I must admit that I’m not keen to fiddle with the well, but if I can anchor Thomas to the house, I think I’ve got a way to give him a boost.’

  ‘Sounds good. So long as you’re sure.’

  ‘I looked him up last night. Don’t worry, I didn’t go to Salomon’s House: it didn’t exist when Thomas was in the flesh, so the records are in Merlyn’s Tower. I don’t agree with you about Dean Hardisty, but I get where you’re coming from.’

  ‘Paranoia can be useful, Vicky.’

  ‘Aye, well, I found out the reason that Thomas left Cambridge. He was betrothed to a Witch. Definitely not an option at the time.’

  ‘And he still loves her.’

  ‘Aah. Bless. A sentimental Spectre. How cute.’

  ‘This is my ancestor we’re talking about. Show a little respect.’

  ‘Whatever. I looked at the case file on the missing books. They only suspect him because there was a gap in the shelves, and because he re-wrote the index before he left so no one could do a full audit. There’s also a suggestion that he bribed his successor to say nothing.’

  ‘A true Clarke then.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ said Vicky. ‘Let’s get back to work.’

  She picked up the third box, which was very similar to the second except that it was made of light oak and there was what looked like a Doodad set into the top. It was long and narrow rather than circular like the ones Mages hang round their necks.

  ‘This is your first Keyway,’ said Vicky. ‘The fastening catch is the same as on the one you’ve just done on Box 2, but this time there’s a lock. The polarity will only switch if you apply magickal pressure using a Keyway pattern – that’s all it is, a pattern.’ She pointed to the Doodad. ‘We call these Stamps. They carry a copy of the Keyway pattern.’

  ‘Right. I’m guessing that most magickal locks don’t come with the key attached.’

  She dug in her pocket and pulled out a little bunch of Artefacts like the Stamp on the box, but smaller. She waved them around to make sure I’d got the message, then put them away and handed me Box 3.

  ‘When Dean Hardisty assesses you for the MA, she’ll give you a box and a Stamp. You’ll just have to open it. If you can get the principle with this one, you should be good for anything she’s likely to throw at you.’

  Before touching the Stamp set into the lid, I pushed my Sight into the lock. Instead of a simple catch, the whole of the magnetic plate had little pits along it. I counted eight of them, and tried to press down into a couple at random. It seemed to be the right sort of thing, an impression which was reinforced by examining the Stamp, where I found a series of pits and lands, like the diagram of data on a CD.

  I put the box down. ‘Is there a binary thing going on here?’

  ‘Mmm. I take it you’ve found the pattern?’

  ‘Yes. There are only 256 possibilities with this one. I assume things get more complicated.’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge later. I’ll save you the bother of messing around: you have to push the right combination simultaneously. That’s the hard bit.’

  She wasn’t wrong. Not only did I have to press pits 1, 4, 6 & 7, I had to avoid pressing 2, 3, 5 & 8. After ten minutes, I was sweating and Vicky was checking her emails. I was on the verge of giving up when my phone rang. The ID said Spain.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, heading for the bedroom. ‘It’s my parents.’

  It was my mother to be exact. ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘Yes, or I’d have let it go to voicemail. How’s things? How’s Dad?’

  ‘He’s fine, dear.’ The line went quiet. I had a good idea why she was calling, and a good idea why she was finding it hard to come to the point.

  ‘Rachael’s been on the phone. She wants to know how deeply you got in with that crowd of gangsters.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘Nothing, of course. I wish you wouldn’t use me as message service, dear. You should talk to her properly.’

  ‘What! That’s a bit rich, Mum.’

  ‘Whatever, dear. She was particularly vocal about that girl Mina, and how deeply was she involved with the money laundering. Something to do with the Financial Conduct Authority.’

  ‘I’ve heard of them.’

  ‘Conrad! Talk to your sister!’

  ‘I will. I promise. Just as soon as I’ve got myself sorted.’

  ‘I despair of you two, sometimes. How you can both be so successful, and both get into so much trouble amazes me.’

  ‘We get it from Dad. Well, I do anyway. What trouble has Rachael been in? This is news to me.’

  ‘Goodbye, Conrad.’

  ‘Are they OK?’ asked Vicky when I returned to the sitting room.

  ‘As much as ever. Honestly, they’re fine, but I might have some problems on the horizon with my sister.’ I picked up Box 3. ‘I’ve had an idea about this.’

  Vicky put down her sPad. ‘There really is only way to work the lock.’

  ‘Yes and no,’ I said. ‘Have you ever flown a helicopter?�
�� She looked at me as if I were insane. ‘Just checking. I don’t want to be accused of mansplaining.’ She snorted. ‘It’s been said that you need three hands to fly a chopper – and there’s some truth in that. Maybe I’ll show you one day.’

  ‘Only after a direct order from the Constable will I ever get in a helicopter with you. Or anyone, come to that.’

  I let that pass, and put my right hand on the lock, feeling out the pits with my Sight, then did the same with my left hand on the Stamp. Once I’d got the two Artefacts in focus, it was a simple matter to press the one with the pattern of the other. This time the box didn’t fly open because instead of reversing the polarity, the lock demagnetised both plates, and that took a lot of Lux. My fingers were aching and my eyes throbbed.

  ‘You’ve done well,’ said Vicky. ‘Better than I expected, to be honest. I don’t want to tire you out, so we’ll leave it there for today.’

  I put the box down. There were four more boxes untouched on the table. ‘What have I got to look forward to?’

  ‘You’re right about the 256 combinations. That makes it a level one lock. Up to level five, you just have to repeat the procedure, and do it in the correct order. I’ll let you work out how many combinations that gives.’ She smiled and pointed to the boxes in order. ‘This one’s level two, that one’s level three. Then we move on to what’s called a non-linear lock by the College, and a natural lock everywhere else.’

  The pain in my eyes was turning into a headache. ‘It’s bad enough having to learn a whole new load of jargon without there being two names for the same thing. Why is a spell called a “Work” in the College but a “Charm” in the Circles?’ I pointed to the boxes. ‘Why does the College call them “non-linear locks” and everyone else calls them “natural locks”?’

  Vicky cheerfully ignored my pain. ‘You’ll get used to it. Did I see lunch in the kitchen?’

  Over food, I gently probed her claustrophobia in anticipation of tomorrow’s trip underground. She made the right noises, or enough of them for me to press ahead with the plan. After that, I needed a lie down, and Vicky had to get back to Merlyn’s Tower. We agreed to meet at the statue of the Duke of Wellington outside the Royal Exchange, just above Bank station, and the place we’d first been properly introduced.