The Maelstrom

by Henry H. Neff

“Ha!” she laughed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. “Some other time? And when will that be, I wonder? See you in a few years, Max. If you’re still alive, perhaps you can meet our children.”

  “Julie!” exclaimed Thomas, glancing nervously at Max. “That’s a terrible thing to—”

  “It’s okay,” said Max quietly, holding up his hand. “I had it coming. Congratulations on your engagement, Thomas. Congratulations to you both.”

  Max left the pair behind, staring at his boots and listening to the wind in the trees, the distant drum of cold surf crashing on the beach. He walked past Old Tom and Maggie, glancing momentarily at the broken cliffs where Gràvenmuir had stood. The ocean was gray and dotted with whitecaps and the sails of merchant ships. The harbormaster’s bell rang and he watched as a goblin carrack from Svalbard eased past the watchtower. The ship looked as stout and weathered as an old boot, pushing through the icy water and giving the Blyssian xebec a wide berth as it steered toward one of the loading docks.

  The ambassador’s ship had not moved since its arrival. It was still moored in the harbor, tethered to the main pier by heavy ropes. Smoke drifted lazily from open hatches and stovepipes. The witch had disappeared from the deck, but the pillar of witch-fire remained near the prow. Max imagined the ambassador coiled behind runeglass in some luxuriant cabin, waiting for Rowan’s reply to his king’s demands. The solstice was just a few days away. Prusias would have his answer soon.

  As he stared out at the xebec, Max tried to take Julie’s words and consign them to some safe place within his heart or mind. But they resisted. It was not that she’d said anything unjust or unfair; he knew he deserved what she’d said and more besides. It was her hardness that lingered, the hurt and disdain that surfaced as soon as she’d seen him. His Julie had been playful and mischievous, a vibrant and loving soul who was always seeking some new adventure. The sad truth was that this new Julie seemed diminished. It was not a physical decline—she was still as beautiful as ever—but her inner radiance had dimmed. Life and circumstance had worn down her youth and sapped something in her essence, some spark of fundamental optimism or joy. Max hoped that it was merely surprise and righteous anger at running into an ex-boyfriend, but that was a lie. The painful truth was that he had sensed the change before she ever laid eyes on him.

  Turning, he left the bluff and its broad view of the harbor and the wide world beyond. At his back were Prusias’s armies; ahead loomed Maggie and the pinlegs deep down in its Archives. Max gazed up at the venerable gray building with her shale roof and squat chimneys puffing white smoke into the wintry air. With a sigh, Max kicked a stone and trotted up the path to her door.

  It was a long walk down to the Archives, a twenty-minute descent down winding staircases that plunged deep into the earth. The trip always reminded Max that much of Rowan was alive. Old Magic had created the school, and something of these wild, primal origins still pulsed within the hollowed stone and arches. As Max descended, the walls became damp and almost seemed to aspirate as breezes from below sent the torches sputtering. Visiting the Archives felt like climbing down into the ribbed belly of a whale or dragon.

  Where the stairs ended, they opened upon a tall vestibule whose double doors were guarded by a pair of shedu. At first glance, the enormous creatures looked like mere statues of man-headed bulls with great stony wings. But the eyes blinked and followed Max as he approached.

  “Max McDaniels requesting access to the Archives,” he said, holding up his Red Branch tattoo.

  The creatures stared implacably at the tattoo and at his face with fire-opal eyes. Shedu were bred to guard, to detect deceptions and illusions of all kinds. They were so effective that Max was not entirely surprised to hear an indignant sniffle behind him.

  “You’re looking very well.”

  Max turned to see Toby sitting dejectedly on a small bench that had been placed for visitors.

  “How long have you been here?” asked Max.

  “Oh, a day or so,” replied the smee glumly. “I tried to follow David down here—to help with the analysis. I tried to change into one of the scholars, but it was no go. I forgot about the ban. Instead of becoming a scholar, I just turned fire red like I was … like I was relieving myself. Well, the shedu slammed the doors and threatened to squish me like I’m just some common busybody!”

  “Hard to believe,” replied Max. He turned back to the guardians. “Would it be all right if he comes in with me? He was involved in a DarkMatter operation for the Director.”

  The stolid shedu glanced doubtfully at one another, but at last the massive doors opened.

  “I told you I was someone important!” roared Toby, twisting about to glare at each as Max carried him through the great archway.

  “How on earth did you make it down here?” whispered Max once they were inside. “There must be a thousand steps.”

  “Twelve hundred,” grumbled the smee. “And each a grueling humiliation … inching to the edge of each stair and flipping myself over like some acrobatic gourd. There should be a slide!”

  “Shhh!” whispered Max as several scholars glanced up irritably from their tables.

  “Well, I want to be able to change shapes at Rowan!” hissed Toby. “They should lift that silly prohibition. Promise me you’ll put in a word with the Director.”

  “Okay,” said Max. “But keep your voice down. You have to be quiet down here—it’s like a big library.”

  Indeed, the Archives were like a library, but one that was larger than any cathedral. It was a vast, arched space with many levels where millions upon millions of manuscripts were housed behind archival glass. Vaults were spaced along the main level, gargantuan steel doors set into the stone and protected with various runes and spells. One of these belonged to the Red Branch and housed their greatest treasures, but some belonged to different orders, including the Vanguard, the Minstrels, the Promethean Scholars, the Bloodstone Circle, and many other esoteric groups from Rowan’s early days. Light was provided by witch-fire lanterns and from pale shafts of daylight that filtered through translucent stone high above. Despite the crowded tables on the main level, the atmosphere was quiet and this reverential hush—even more than the space’s grandeur—reinforced the impression that one was in a holy setting, a temple of sacred antiquity.

  A domovoi directed them to David, who was hunkered down in one of several top-secret laboratories housed in a restricted wing. Cupping Toby, Max walked past many windows behind which Mystics were peering at various objects or even creatures suspended within glass orbs that held swirling vapors or shimmering lights of every color. He stopped at one, peering at an evil-looking creature that turned about in its orb, glaring at its captors. At Max’s knock, one of the Mystics glanced up, did a double take, and hurried over to open the door.

  “Hi,” said Max. “Sorry to bother you, but is that a Stygian crow?”

  “A very nasty one,” confirmed the Mystic, a graying middle-aged woman wearing glasses. “We captured a sortie from one of Prusias’s detachments.”

  “What are you doing with it?” asked Max as the creature gave a furious shriek that shot flames from its membranous blowholes.

  “Testing its sensitivity to various concentrations of Blood Petals and Zenuvian iron,” replied the Mystic. “Most promising.”

  Max nodded and took another gander at the hideous creature before leaving the Mystic to her work. David’s laboratory was at the end of the corridor, conspicuous among the rest with its circular iron door set into a wall of smoky runeglass. Max knocked.

  Miss Boon answered, looking tired and careworn.

  “Max,” she said, embracing him. “What a wonderful surprise to have you up and about so soon.”

  “Is that really him?” rasped a voice within the chamber. It was a heavy, Balkan accent and belonged to a man who had played a strange but instrumental role in Max’s life.

  Stepping across the threshold, Max saw Peter Varga sitting on the edge of a chair and leaning forwar
d on his cane. His black hair was now flecked with gray, but his face was less gaunt and harrowed than it had been when Max first saw him on a train in Chicago. Then, the man had been an outcast from Rowan—hunted and pursued for making unauthorized overtures to the witches and the Workshop. Having rescued Max from Marley Augur’s crypt, Varga had earned his way back into Rowan’s good graces, but it had come at a terrible price. Marley Augur’s hammer had broken his back and he’d never fully recovered. Even now, he refused a wheelchair and relied instead upon a cane to get about with ungainly, stumbling steps that invited inconsiderate stares.

  Few stared for very long, however. Peter Varga’s most arresting trait was not his injury, but his eye. While one was green and unremarkable, the other was entirely white and possessed a ghostly, sentient quality that seemed to latch on and study its subjects with chilling intensity. No one lingered long under the eye’s prescient gaze, and it, combined with the man’s lurching gait and notoriety, made him a popular subject for rumor and gossip. Even after Cooper invited him to join the Red Branch, few people trusted Peter Varga and many shunned his company.

  Max was among these, but his feelings had nothing to do with the man’s appearance. When it came to Peter, Max’s feelings were confused and deeply personal. Agent Varga had once protected Max and saved his life, but his prescience played a role in the disappearance and untimely death of Max’s mother. Gratitude, guilt, and anger were difficult feelings to reconcile, and Max did not try. Since his mother’s passing, he simply ignored Peter Varga and rebuffed every attempt at friendship.

  But he could not ignore him now. Pushing up from his chair, Peter hobbled toward him, smiling faintly as he took Max in. He stopped several feet away, uncertain whether a handshake would be welcome. It was an awkward moment. Max thought of Byron Morrow’s letter and the sad absence of any closure or reconciliation.

  “I envy your powers of recovery,” said Peter, shaking the proffered hand appreciatively. “David said your wounds were very serious. At least they were not in vain.”

  The man gestured toward a large, levitating orb of runeglass in which the pinlegs was scuttling about like a hamster running on a wheel. As the orb turned, its inscriptions changed, ranging from the most basic Solomon Seal to intricate pentacles involving hundreds of tiny runes and sigils. Every so often, there was a spark and the pinlegs jumped to avoid a particular rune or section of an inscription. When this happened, enchanted quills recorded the details upon a huge roll of parchment like a sort of seismograph. Several sheets had been torn away and hung upon the far wall, where David was appraising them, studying the dense symbols and patterns like an astronomer trying to identify one particular star among the infinite heavens.

  Sipping his coffee, the sorcerer spoke in a weary voice. “Did Mina charm you into bringing her? She’s been trying to sneak in.”

  “No,” said Max. “But Toby’s here. He was waiting in the vestibule.”

  “Toby,” chided David, his pale eyes never leaving the patterns. “What did I say?”

  “You said this was top secret,” recounted Toby, uncoiling as Max set him upon a table.

  “Exactly,” said David.

  “But I helped you acquire the awful thing!” the smee protested. “I—I’m part of the team!”

  “You are part of the team,” David assured him. “But you’re also an inveterate gambler who is willing to do or say just about anything to impress your audience. For example, did you not boast to a certain faun how your timely actions saved us above Piter’s Folly?”

  “I don’t recall,” sniffed the smee.

  “I do,” said David calmly. “It was three nights ago in Cloubert’s casino. You were at the roulette table and were already down four lunes and eleven coppers.”

  “H-how do you know that?” sputtered Toby nervously.

  “I bribed that faun to inform on you.” David shrugged. “A single lune was all it took for her to report everything you’d said throughout the evening. She didn’t even know—or care—who I was or why I wanted the information.”

  A beat of mortified silence as the smee swelled up with indignation. “That was an unconscionable assault upon my privacy!”

  “Very true,” David confessed. “It is also an invaluable reminder to you that we are on the threshold of war. Rowan welcomes refugees and new arrivals every day. Most are simply seeking shelter, but there are doubtless many spies and saboteurs among them—even in Cloubert’s. We cannot trust you with confidential information if you’re going to blab secrets to every faun that catches your eye at the roulette table. The stakes are too high.”

  The smee drooped. “You’re right,” he sighed. “I’ve been indiscreet. I will be silent, David.”

  “Very good,” said David, turning to join them. He smiled at Max, but there were deep circles beneath his eyes and he was still wearing the clothes from his visit to the healing ward. Limping toward the sphere, he stopped to peer in on the pinlegs and tap the orb with his finger. As soon as he did so, the pinlegs whipped about and attacked the very spot, its legs and pincers scrabbling madly for a hold on the enchanted glass. Venom dribbled from its mandibles, and for just an instant, Max caught faint flashes of red designs on the creature’s segmented body. When David stopped touching the sphere, the creature returned to its mindless, undulating trek.

  “Did you see it?” he asked, turning to them.

  “The symbols,” put in Max. “They flashed red when it attacked.”

  “That’s right,” said David. “The pinlegs is trying to arm itself. Miss Boon has gotten the thing to cycle through its operation settings. There’s a whole range: dormant, stealth, even the fairly terrifying seek-and-destroy mode you’ve just witnessed. On this setting, it will attack anything that comes near it, and this is the mode we’ve been trying to study.”

  “What’s the flash designed to do?” asked Max.

  “It’s to summon something,” answered Miss Boon. “We believe the intermittent flash indicates that it’s not working properly. In this mode, the pinlegs is trying very hard to establish some sort of connection, but the connection is failing almost instantly. Madam Petra said this one was not ‘paired.’ We have several theories on what that might mean, but we also think some trigger component is missing from this specimen. Perhaps another symbol or inscription is required to complete the cycle and let the creature sustain the necessary elements for a proper summoning.”

  “And so that’s why the runeglass is cycling through inscriptions,” said Max. “You’re trying to identify what the proper symbol is. You’re cracking a safe.”

  “Trying to,” said David. “But the Workshop’s people are very smart. There’s a lot of cryptography at play, and while we’re trying to optimize the testing, it’s very slow going. Theoretically, it could take years to play out the permutations. I’m trying to accelerate things, but we’re hoping Peter has a breakthrough.”

  “What David means is that we’re trying to cheat,” Varga chuckled. “I’ve been trying to concentrate on Prusias’s army and see if I can glean any information about these creatures or what they summon. I get glimpses, but they’re hazy. Little more than impressions.”

  “What can you make out?” asked Max.

  “Not enough,” muttered Varga, closing his eyes. “I can hear the pinlegs scuttling all around. There’s light and sound. So much sound! At first it’s like thunder, but then there are horns—they grow louder and louder. It’s hard to endure them. The earth shakes. I’m looking up, but something’s blotting out the sky. I can’t see it clearly, but it’s huge. And then darkness.” The man opened his eyes and cleared his throat. “There’s death in those visions.”

  “And we’d like to avoid it,” remarked Miss Boon. “The plan is to deconstruct this thing’s operations and find a way to sabotage them if we ever encounter them on our shores. We’re not there yet, but we’re hopeful that some of Sir Alistair’s intelligence will yield another prize. He’s identified several of the Workshop enginee
rs who worked on the pinlegs project. Only two live above ground, and Agent Kiraly’s tracked one to his estate outside Prusias’s capital. We hope to have him shortly.”

  Max nodded his approval. Natasha Kiraly was also in the Red Branch, an exceedingly capable Agent whose stealth and swiftness were legendary. If the target was accessible, Max had no doubt she’d get him.

  “One of my tunnels is near that location,” said David. “Agent Kiraly’s using spypaper to communicate with Ms. Richter each day. Once we confirm she has the target, we’ll give her the tunnel location and I’ll go retrieve them. With any luck, we’ll soon have a valuable prisoner.”

  “But won’t the Workshop know he’s gone missing?” asked Max.

  “We plan to install a replacement,” replied Varga. “To delay suspicion.”

  “Brilliant!” exclaimed Toby. “Who’s the decoy?”

  All eyes turned to the smee.

  “B-but, I’m injured,” he protested. “My latissimus nub—”

  “Will be fine,” interjected David. “You won’t have to do anything strenuous. You just have to pretend to be an elderly man who’s fighting a cold. The engineer’s a widower, semiretired with no children or regular visitors. With any luck, you can lounge in bed, putter about the grounds, and just keep up appearances. The malakhim were watching him, but apparently they’ve been reassigned now that the project is complete and the war has begun.”

  “And if I do this, I presume the unseemly ban on my shape-shifting would be lifted?”

  “You presume correctly.”

  “Well, then. I’m your smee!”

  “But what about the war?” asked Max. “What’s the latest news from Blys?”

  Rubbing at her eyes, Miss Boon poured more coffee from a silver carafe. “Lots of news,” she sighed. “Almost all of it bad. The Director’s office is practically covered with spypaper and updates from contacts all over the kingdoms. Prusias is now running roughshod over Aamon and Rashaverak. His initial losses drew their armies well within his borders and he is now grinding them to dust. He’s already won major victories in Raikos, Acheral, Lebrím … all the major duchies. His ships have cut off Rashaverak’s retreat, and we hear Queen Lilith is already making secret overtures for a treaty. Wherever the pinlegs have gone, victory has followed.”