The Alchemy of Chaos: A Novel of Maradaine (Maradaine Novels)

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  “Thank you, honored sirs,” Phadre said. Clearing his throat, he launched into his preamble. “Numina, of course, is the great mystery of magic and mysticism. We sense it, we use it, we manipulate it, but we are still baffled at understanding what it is, and what controls the way it affects the world, and how the world affects it.” All of sudden, the nervous, sweating wreck was gone. Phadre spoke to the group like he was born to it.

  “Only recently have we learned how to chart and measure numina with any degree of reliable quantification. We can measure its concentration in barls and its movement in barins.”

  Delmin started writing the vocabulary on the board, while Veranix took his cue and shifted a flow of numina at the barinometer, or what Veranix had been calling the barinometer in lieu of its proper name.

  “Of course, how can we know that what we are reading here is truly a measurement of numinic flow?” Phadre said, gesturing to the device. “Mages, of course, can sense it to varying degrees, but that is subjective. How can we show it in an objective manner consistent with the scientific methods of Natural Philosophy?”

  This was a change from the script. Veranix didn’t know what to do beyond maintain the flow he was providing, while Delmin looked completely confused.

  “The best way might be an independent form of observation. Miss Kay?”

  Jiarna came down from the upper balcony, already in position at the top of the metal spiral stairs. She was carrying her invention with her. Despite the shocked gasps from the professors, she spoke fiercely, not giving any chance to be interrupted.

  “Combining a camera obscura with a lens treated in dalmatium salt solutions, the flow of numinic energies can be observed by the human eye.” She held her device and opened the shutter. “With a plate treated in dalmatium nitrate that effect can be recorded.”

  She removed the plate and handed it to Professor Alimen.

  He glanced at it. “Mister Golmin, I must say, people rarely take such risks with their Letters Defense. I am quite put out by this brazen behavior.”

  “Sir, if I could—” Phadre started.

  “That said,” Alimen added, holding up the plate, “you and Miss Kay have my curiosity piqued. Pray to your saints you maintain that. Continue.”

  Giving the slightest smile to Jiarna as she came over to the slateboard, Phadre continued with his speech.

  The holding cells of the Aventil Stationhouse were overflowing. Benvin literally had nowhere else to put another prisoner. Cells were packed, and the injured prisoners were over in the ward under custody. No one was going to be moving for a while, at least not until he could get charges laid and bodies put in front of a jurist. The representative from the City Protector’s Office was taking his time getting down here.

  Which meant the patrolmen were all grumbling at having to deal with actual work. Saints forbid they have arrests, they clear the streets. Right now, every gang in Aventil was hurting, a situation which pleased Benvin to no end. The patrolmen didn’t like it, and neither did the other lieutenants. A few of them had been getting some kind of butter to look the other way, most likely.

  Benvin didn’t give one blaze about that. Last night he cracked the window, and soon he would shatter it.

  “We got numbers and names yet?” he asked as Arch approached.

  “Getting there,” Arch said. “We’re still sorting things out.”

  “I wanna start having sit-downs with captains, if we have any. Do we?”

  “At least a couple. I know that Waterpath Orphan captain is in there, since she gave me this gift.” Arch pointed to a gash stretching from chin to cheek. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

  Jace limped over from a back room, carrying a sheaf of papers.

  “I told you to take the bleeding day,” Benvin said. The kid had been through enough, barely surviving the stampede that the Thorn had probably caused.

  “Did you take the day, sir? Your night was worse than mine.”

  “I’ve got too much to do,” Benvin said.

  “Then I’m here to work. I’m not going to let a few broken ribs stop me.”

  “Kid,” Arch said, “you almost died last night.”

  “So did the Left, and so did Tripper. Yet they’re both on duty. I’m not shaming myself by not doing likewise.”

  Benvin didn’t let a smile show on his face, but he was proud of the kid. With most of his family sporting the green and red, Jace wasn’t about to let anyone say he wasn’t worthy of it. That was why Benvin had chosen Jace for his team.

  “Fine, then. Run through the names and numbers with Arch. The City Protector’s office is going to want to know who we’re gonna charge with what, and if we don’t have the lines all crossed, half these folks are gonna get turned back out on the street.”

  “Captain is of half a mind to do that already,” Arch said.

  “Can’t blame him. Blazes, I’d bet half the folks in there will claim they were just defending themselves, and they’d probably have a point.”

  Mal came up from the stairwell. “Hey, Left? One of the Orphan captains apparently wants to talk.”

  “Wants to?” That was a first.

  “Only to you, though.”

  “Is it the girl who was at the meeting? What was her name?”

  “Yessa, or something like that.”

  That sounded right. He didn’t have all the various bosses and captains of the seven gangs memorized. That’s why he had files and slateboards in his task room.

  He made his way to the interrogation room, noting how empty the rest of the stationhouse was. Captain Holcomb was fuming mad about how crazy things were on the streets last night, putting just about every body he could on patrol. He had even forced Wheth and Pollit out there, and only didn’t do the same to Mal and Arch because of all the folks in the lockup. Holcomb was aching to crack apart Benvin’s team. “Your little task force has done enough.”

  The girl—the Waterpath Orphan with her captain’s scars across her cheek—sat in irons at the desk. “Not bad little flop you have here, Left,” she said as he came in. “Me and my Orphans got a decent breakfast for once.”

  “Glad to oblige,” Benvin said, sitting across from her. “You have something to say?”

  “Well, as much as we’ve enjoyed it, me and the other Orphans would like to get back to our business.”

  “What business is that? Another row out there with the Rabbits?”

  “Rabbits will get theirs, but that’s not our problem. None of this is our problem, and you know that.”

  “How do you think that?” Benvin asked.

  “Look, stick. Whatever is happening out there, whatever happened last night, Orphans ain’t a part of it. All I did last night is fight back when a fight started on me. Ain’t that my right? You were there. You were poisoned, and the Rabbits jumped. I didn’t even want to be there.”

  “So why were you?”

  “Other gangs sitting down, with the reverend mediating, and no Orphans at the table? That ain’t good for us, either. But you got to ask, stick, why’d we have the sit down?”

  “Rabbits looking to deal in effitte, I thought.”

  “Are they? That’s what Tyson said, but I didn’t see none of that.”

  “Tyson. Colin Tyson, the Rose Street Prince?”

  “Yeah. He called that first church meet to bring in the rest of us. But all we had was his say-so about the Rabbits turning on the Pact, letting Fenmere cross the ’Path.”

  Fenmere. The captain had made it perfectly clear that Fenmere, over in Dentonhill, was not Benvin’s problem. The Constabulary force at that stationhouse was more than capable, according to Holcomb. Benvin had done some digging around, and as far as he could tell, the only sticks who weren’t hopelessly corrupt had been killed on duty last month.

  “So what are you saying?”

  “Tyson s
tarted this whole row with the Rabbits, and where is he?”

  He was still on the street, which Benvin regretted. The kid had pulled him out and saved him, but Yessa was right. Was he trying to play some long game to get everyone else to take out the Rabbits? “You think this is all his ploy?”

  “I’ve known Tyson a while, ain’t his style. But the one I don’t know is this Thorn.”

  “What about the Thorn?”

  “Near as I know, the Thorn is the one who told Tyson about the Rabbits selling effitte. And the Princes listen to him, for some reason. Or, at least, Tyson does.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve got me there,” Yessa said. “So the way I figure, the Thorn has his whole thing with Fenmere. Uses that to get the Princes to listen to him. Once he has them, he uses that to set them on the Rabbits, and with that, the rest of us on each other.”

  Girl had a point. That whole stampede business could have been the Thorn trying to cut down all the gangs at once. Blazes, for all they knew, the Thorn’s whole “war” with Fenmere might be some crazy show.

  “You know the streets are a mess right now, hmm? I let you and yours back out there, what do I get?”

  She leaned in over the table and smiled in a way that would be seductive if the girl didn’t have a cut-up face. “What do you want?”

  “Safe streets.”

  She smirked and leaned back. “You think I can pull that off?”

  “I think you can call a church meet or something. I think you can get people talking. If nothing else, you can get Orphans off the street. One less random factor in all this.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And maybe you’ll keep talking to me once you’re out there.”

  “Now you’re crazy, Left.”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m so crazy I’ll swear to the City Protector and the magistrates that you started the brawl in the Trusted Friend.”

  “Blazes, that’s a lie!” she snapped. “You couldn’t have even seen how things started!”

  “You think? Possibly. But the word of a Constabulary lieutenant means a lot in court if it isn’t gainsaid. And who is gonna do that for an Orphan captain? The Rabbits?”

  “The preacher would, and you know it.”

  “Maybe he would. Provided he survives this.”

  “I ain’t turning on the Orphans.”

  That gave him just enough to work with.

  “Then don’t. Get me word on what the rest are doing. What the Thorn is doing. Because, believe me, I want to put him in Quarrygate far more than any of your Orphans.”

  She sat silent for a while. He had seen enough to know she was on the hook.

  Someone pounded on the door. Arch popped his head in. “Boss, we’ve got a huge row on Waterpath and Lily.”

  “What?” That was Yessa. Didn’t surprise Benvin one bit. Right there was where Orphan and Rabbit territory met. “They fighting with Orphans?”

  “I don’t keep track of all that, bird,” Arch said. “Riot Call is out, and we’ve got to get in there.”

  Benvin got up. “Think on it, girl. When I get back, tell me where you want to sleep tonight.”

  He left the room, and found himself going down the hallway with Arch and Mal flanking him. “Let’s go in hard on this, boys. I want riot coats and helmets, and I want lockwagons loaded up with every blazing ganger we knock down.”

  “Running out of space to put them, boss,” Arch said.

  “Cram the bastards in.” At this point, he couldn’t give a damn about Orphans or Rabbits or Princes—though he’d lock them all up if they gave him the excuse.

  But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to take in the Thorn before the week was out.

  Words and numbers and terms Veranix didn’t understand flew back and forth. Professors asked question after question, and neither Phadre nor Jiarna faltered in response, though they often tackled opposite sides of the question—Phadre the magical theories in scientific terms, Jiarna talking the scientific analysis of magic. Delmin scrawled on the board when requested, and it struck Veranix that he had long since lost his footing in this presentation.

  Veranix struggled to keep up with the aspects of the demonstration that still applied, and followed instructions when told to channel numina toward one of the devices.

  “Which leads us to the inevitable conclusion,” Phadre said, though he was saying something Veranix had never heard before in rehearsing. If anything, it was a conclusion he was reaching at this very moment, fueled by his own back and forth with Jiarna. “That there is a cosmological body that affects numinic flow which we have yet to account for.”

  “Presuming that, how could such a thing exist?” asked one of the professors—an astronomy one, if Veranix were to guess. “I can accept there are things we haven’t discovered, but where might it be found? Or are you saying it can’t be seen?”

  “It can’t,” Jiarna said. “But its effects can be. Namely, in the Winged Convergence, which is an impossible event.”

  “A Winged Convergence is clearly not impossible, young lady, as we’ve seen it,” Professor Alimen said.

  “Poorly phrased, sir. It ought to be impossible, but as it clearly does occur—”

  “And has a profound influence on numina—” Phadre added.

  “This numinic-influencing body must also affect the light of Onali and Namali, refracting them to appear to converge at a time when they ought to be in completely different places in the sky.”

  Veranix added his own contribution, magicking up a visualization of Jiarna’s model, floating in the air next to her. She glanced at it briefly, and then gestured to the two moons on the model.

  “This is a radical theory,” the astronomy professor said. “Though, to be honest, no more radical than several other popular theories regarding Winged Convergences.”

  “True,” said another professor.

  “Hmm,” Alimen said. “Are there further questions for these two?”

  “Endless questions,” the astronomy professor said. “But in terms of our session, I am satisfied.”

  “I have one more,” Alimen said. “Should you—you both—be presented Letters of Mastery, what would your next intentions be?”

  “Further scholarship,” they both said in unison. For a moment, they glanced at each other and grinned, maniacally. Phadre gave a small bow to Jiarna, yielding to her.

  “As Professor Kellian said, these are radical theories we’ve presented, sir. What we’ve presented here is only the beginning of what could be a lifetime’s worth of study.”

  “Two lifetimes,” Phadre said. “I would . . . I would relish that opportunity, sir.”

  Alimen pulled himself to his feet, “I put it to the call, then. Are there denials? Are there objections?”

  The professors gathered stayed silent.

  “Then it is done. As high proctor, I then declare that this Letter—that these Letters of Mastery, to be bestowed on Phadre Golmin and Jiarna Kay, are defended, and their validity to be backed by the authority of the University of Maradaine.”

  The professors all applauded, and Jiarna cheered, wrapping her arms around Phadre. Phadre almost collapsed, knees buckling.

  “Gentles and ladies, I thank you for your participation,” Alimen told the professors, and they all filed out, each offering a final congratulations to both Phadre and Jiarna.

  “Miss Kay,” Alimen said. “I must apologize to you for my earlier dismissals of you. I will be honest, I am still skeptical of your theories, but perhaps that is because I don’t fully understand them. However, it is clear that you have shown yourself to be a scholar of unique insight.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Jiarna said.

  “And Mister Golmin, I am quite pleased with the courage you showed here. I might not have been so forgiving of your stunt to include Miss Kay.”


  “I believed in her, sir,” Phadre said.

  Alimen grinned. “Well done, Phadre. Both of you. However, I’ll impose upon the both of you to clean up after this. Mister Calbert, Mister Sarren, with me.”

  Veranix offered his own congratulations to the two of them and followed the professor out.

  “You both acted quite admirably,” Alimen said, allowing them to assist him as he walked. “I presumed from your reactions that Phadre surprised you both.”

  “Quite,” Delmin said.

  “I’ll have to confess, sir, I still am not sure what happened in there,” Veranix said lightly.

  “Given your scores on your theory exam, Mister Calbert, I am not surprised.”

  “My scores, sir?” Veranix didn’t even bother to hide his concern.

  “Don’t worry, you passed, with sufficient margin for further advancement.”

  “And I, sir?” Delmin asked.

  “You know you are receiving full marks, Mister Sarren, let’s not belabor it.”

  “So I presume next year we are both to be in the next level for theory and practicals?” Veranix asked.

  “Yes, indeed,” Alimen said. “At least, as far as I’m concerned, you both receive full marks in Practicals. I cannot speak toward your other exams.”

  Veranix laughed nervously. “In theory, sir, how poorly would I have to do on History or Rhetoric to be threatened with dismissal?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” Alimen said. “I highly doubt it would come to that, Veranix. But should it, rest assured that I would engage in a full inquiry to prevent it.”

  “So are we done for the semester, sir?” Delmin asked.

  “Officially, yes. Though I would appreciate it if you both attended the Ceremony of Letters tomorrow, for Phadre’s sake, if nothing else.”

  “We’d be honored,” Delmin said.

  “Of course,” Veranix added, even though that was the last place he wanted to be. “And then, sir?”

  “If you are asking if I am engaging you this summer, then yes, Mister Calbert. You as well, Mister Sarren, if you have not made other arrangements.”

  “Nothing formal, sir.”