“I know what you know—or even less,” said Trefallon, as they came up on the opposite bank.
Will gave him a calculating glance. “You do know something I would like to know. Just why did Rodaric and my grandmother choose you to join me here?”
Blaise winced, as though he had been hoping to avoid the subject. “I’m not altogether certain that I want to tell you.”
Wilrowan gritted his teeth; he had a sinking feeling that he knew the answer. “No need to try and spare me. Knowing my grandmother, I can easily imagine. I suppose she said I shouldn’t be allowed to wander about without my usual nursemaid.”
“Well,” said Blaise, “the metaphor in question was more to the effect of lunatics and their keepers, but you have the sense of it.” Now it was his turn to look embarrassed. “You knew, then, that I had been writing to your grandmother? I hope you aren’t offended by that?”
“My dear Trefallon,” Will answered airily, “sooner or later practically everyone writes to my grandmother. She has her little ways of convincing them to do so.”
The road divided, running north through a stretch of sparse shrubby woodland and west across rocky heath. Will urged his horse down the western road. “But I will tell you something my grandmother doesn’t know. The creature that Lili and I have been chasing after looks just as Human as you or I, but I’ve reason to believe she may be a Gobline—and you may draw what conclusions you will from that!”
“Maglore?” said Blaise, with a startled glance. “When and how did you learn that? You said nothing of this when you wrote to Rodaric.”
Will shrugged. “Suffice it to say that I, too, have my ways of learning things. Though unlike my esteemed grandparent,” he added gloomily, “I seem to have a remarkable facility for learning most of those things far too late.”
A day’s ride took them into the grassy foothills. Goats grazed there among ragged bushes of heather and gorse; golden plovers circled overhead; snipe and grouse started up out of the long grass. Beyond, a range of snow-capped mountains stood tall and forbidding.
Crossing into Catwitsen turned out to be more difficult than Wilrowan had anticipated. A freshly painted white gate had been erected across the road at the border, and a deep rocky trench—still raw and new looking—extended as far as the eye could see. The crossing was guarded by men in blue coats with military-style cockades on their hats. When Will and Blaise drew up at the barrier, two of the guards presented arms and a third man, wearing the insignia of a lieutenant, demanded to see a passport.
“A passport?” Will gave a light laugh, hardly knowing what to make of this. “Are Bridemoor and Catwitsen at war, then?”
“No, sir, Catwitsen and Lichtenwald,” replied the Lieutenant. “It is no joking matter. There have been several battles already, and the casualties have been very high.”
Will and Trefallon were stunned into silence, this was so far beyond anything they might have expected. “I beg your pardon,” said Wilrowan, at last. “I spoke without thinking. I never really supposed—”
“No, sir, most people don’t. Half the people we have stopped have said the same thing.”
“In any case, we are not from Lichtenwald,” said Blaise, restraining with an effort the leggy chestnut, as it danced before the gate. “We are citizens of Mountfalcon. What must we do to obtain a passport?”
The lieutenant gestured in the direction of a large canvas tent pitched beside the road. “You can wait in there until we send for the general. He is the only one who can issue you a pass.”
“General.” For a moment, Will and Blaise imagined they had misheard him. In a world where “captain” was the highest rank anyone achieved except under the most extraordinary circumstances, the archaic title had an ominous sound to it. There were a handful of ancient majors and colonels in Mountfalcon, dating back to a period of famine and riots sixty years before, but generals belonged to another age of the world entirely: an age of armies, conquest, and invasion. As Blaise and Wilrowan dismounted and led their horses toward the tent, the idea that large numbers of men were actually fighting gradually penetrated.
“Ye gods,” said Trefallon under his breath. “I said that the world was changing, but I never had any idea of this.”
“Nor had I.” Will answered him soberly. It was almost unthinkable.
They were still awaiting the arrival of the general at sunset, when the lieutenant came into the canvas tent with a lighted brass lantern. Will looked up from his seat on a low stool, where he had been brooding silently for the last half hour. “Tell me, if you are allowed to, if anyone has passed this way in the last fortnight.”
The lieutenant hung his lantern on one of the willow tent poles. “Many have tried, but only Sir Bastian Josslyn-Mather and his granddaughter were allowed to pass. That was ten days ago.”
“Sir Bastian Mather!” Wilrowan and Blaise exclaimed in chorus, starting up from their seats. Will because he remembered that name from Marzden’s report, and Blaise because he had finally recalled the name of Lili’s “civil old gentleman.”
“And who is Sir Bastian Mather that he was allowed to pass, when so many others were turned back?” Will muttered under his breath.
“Sir Bastian is a citizen of Catwitsen,” replied the lieutenant, evidently taking this for a question he was meant to answer. “He has been living in Mountfalcon for many years, but he was born in Catwitsen, where the Josslyns and the Mathers are very prominent families. The general knew him on sight, and issued Sir Bastian and the young lady a passport immediately.”
“How very convenient,” said Will, resuming his seat. “How damned convenient!” Crossing one leg over the other, he glared up at the lieutenant. “Now that I think of it, I believe that I know—the granddaughter. Chestnut curls, grey eyes, and a fair complexion?”
“Yes, sir, that would describe her exactly. Quite an attractive young lady, if I may say so.”
Will ground his teeth. “And they were riding in a coach—or was it an open carriage?”
The lieutenant shook his head. “In a barouche, behind two black horses. A very fine team, if I may—”
“And they were the only ones allowed to pass?” Will persisted. “You are absolutely certain of that?”
“All of the others were turned back. I should think, sir, that the same will happen to you.” With a brief touch to his cockaded hat, the lieutenant went out of the tent, leaving the lantern behind him.
Will glanced over at Blaise. “All of the others were turned back—or else slipped across the border in the dark some night. Which is what it may come to for us.”
“But we are following the Maglore women—not Lili and this Sir Bastian,” said Trefallon, crossing the tent and peering out past the flap to make certain that no one could hear them. “How can we be certain the creature is even in Catwitsen?”
Will jumped up and joined him by the tent flap. In the yellow lantern light, his face was uncommonly grim; there was a dangerous spark in his hazel eyes. “We are following the Chaos Machine, whoever has it. But Lili seems to be better than I am at tracking the Jewel, and where she goes, we should go, too. I can only hope that this ‘Lady Sophronispa’ has been delayed along the way. She is so dangerous, Blaise, I would far rather catch her before Lili does.”
Remembering all of those innocent people blasted into eternity at the Rouge-Croix, he felt his heart grow sick again. “We may already be too late. It may all be over. One or the other of them may be—dead.”
45
On a Passenger Ship Off the Coast of Rijxland
One Month Earlier—4 Floréal, 6538
The ship was luxurious, a great three-master out of Monte Luna in the south, carrying travellers for business and pleasure up and down the coast. But for one of her passengers she might have been a prison, walled and barred. Her comfortable cabins, the ample meals served each day, the gilded splendor of her poop-deck, bowsprit, and taffrails—all of these things were of little account to a man who lacked his freedom, w
ho had already been fretting for many days in invisible fetters.
The cabin Raith shared with his two captives was long and low. The nearness of the carved beams overhead did much to increase Luke’s sense of confinement, but the length of the cabin provided room for the incessant pacing that filled so many of his waking hours. Up and down, back and forth, he moved, like a man demented, and his frustration seemed to grow rather than diminish with every transit.
“This is,” he growled, “the single most humiliating and degrading thing that has ever happened to me in my life. How long do you think it is going to continue?”
The Leveller answered with a slight shake of his head. “Sometimes a humbling experience can be good for the soul.”
Luke rounded on him. “So this is supposed to be for my own benefit? The elevation of my mind, the improvement of my character?” Though he spat the words out with considerable heat, he kept his voice very low, so as not to disturb Tremeur, who was sleeping on one of the rosewood bunks.
“What you make of the experience is entirely up to you,” said Raith. “Speaking for myself, it is one I would have given much to avoid. If you find the situation distasteful, you may take what comfort you can from the knowledge that it is almost equally so for me. It was, however, the lesser of several evils and could not be avoided.”
Luke glanced over at his slumbering bride. She had fallen asleep fully clothed, rolled up in a plain grey cloak she had acquired in the south. No, not fallen asleep—that was much too gentle a description—she had finally collapsed from stress and exhaustion after several restless nights, and had been sleeping now for about sixteen hours.
When Raith slept was a mystery. Perhaps only when Luke slept himself—which was not very often—and for shorter periods, since he was always awake and alert again by the time Lucius opened his eyes. Whether Tremeur had ever seen the. Leveller asleep, Luke did not know. They had had no time to speak privately, not since that first moment back in Château-Rouge when Raith appeared, pistol in hand. Remembering that day, Luke suddenly wanted to know the truth.
“Would you have fired, that day in Voirdemare? If I had attempted to escape before you bound me with this fiendish compulsion of yours, would you have actually pulled the trigger?” Raith was silent—which led Luke to the inevitable conclusion. “Damn and blast!” he said, slapping the palm of his hand to his breast. “You would have shot me down like a dog, for all your former pretensions of friendship.”
The Leveller sat down in a mahogany armchair, which had been bolted to the hardwood planks to keep it from sliding. “I am reluctant to say anything that might make you even more uncomfortable than you already are. But since you insist on knowing—I brought, the pistol with me solely for your protection. There is something sobering about a firearm; it presents a threat that few can ignore. Had I come into the room unarmed, your pride might have compelled you to offer some form of resistance.” His large hands flexed. “In the midst of any physical struggle, I often find it difficult to restrain myself from doing more harm than is absolutely necessary.”
“This famous strength of yours,” Luke said sarcastically. Though he remembered quite well how easily the Rijxlander had lifted a heavy trunk one day. “But homicidal urges in a Leveller? Who could have ever imagined it? What other secrets are you hiding?”
Raith did not answer, but Luke persisted. “This magical society of yours—how did you ever become a member, in the teeth of your Anti-demonist doctrine?”
“As to that, I felt there was a great work that I was destined to do, one for which I had been singled out by Divine Providence, and that I might best accomplish that work within the ranks of the Specularii. Which, I should perhaps inform you,” Raith added, with a grim look, “is a name you will find it impossible either to write or to utter, should you ever attempt to do so.”
Luke declined to make the experiment. He had already learned, through repeated attempts, that he was helpless to resist the Leveller’s compulsion. He was not about to humiliate himself further by demonstrating that fact all over again.
Though to be perfectly fair—which was the very last thing Luke wanted to be just then—Raith appeared to have too much delicacy to use his power except when it was absolutely necessary. He never, for instance, asked Luke to stop his pacing, though there were signs that he found the habit intensely irritating. Recognizing this, Luke sometimes kept it up even after the restless mood had passed. It was a petty revenge, he knew, but one he seemed to require.
“Why did you ever mention the name to me in the first place, if I am never to speak it?”
“I have been wondering that myself,” Raith replied, removing something from his pocket as he spoke. It was a fish-skin box, about four inches square, and it opened up with a flick of the thumb to reveal inside a tiny terrestrial globe made of painted ivory. “Certainly, I should never have done so. But you do have a way of drawing things out of me, perhaps because of the extraordinary sense of friendship I feel for you.”
Luke ground his teeth and continued to pace. He would have preferred to maintain a dignified silence, but again his curiosity overcame him. “You spoke of a great work, a divinely ordained purpose. Might one inquire what that purpose is?”
Raith hesitated before replying, taking the exquisitely painted little globe out of its case and pretending to examine it. “You are the historian, Mr. Guilian. Also, you are extremely adept at detecting conspiracies. Perhaps you can tell me.”
Luke considered his own question at considerable length. “You and your magician friends have named yourselves after an ancient society,” he said at last, “supposed to have been dedicated to freeing Mankind from the rule of the Maglore. But I hardly think that can be your purpose now, since the Maglore—as every schoolboy knows—are all extinct.”
The ghost of a smile stirred at the back of the Leveller’s dark eyes. “Are they? But then, that would be perfectly appropriate: members of a society that no longer exists, in pursuit of a race that has long since disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Lucius glared at him. “The next thing you will tell me is that you are one of the Maglore yourself!”
Again that flicker of amusement in the Leveller’s eyes, as he juggled the tiny globe from hand to hand. “I think, Mr. Guilian, that is the last thing I would ever tell you—particularly if it happened to be true.”
The ship took a roll, a dip, and a plunge, and Luke clutched at the top bunk in order to keep from falling. Tremeur stirred in her sleep, but did not awaken. As the ship righted herself, Luke shot an angry look across at Raith.
“If we were friends, as you claim, you would have taken my word for it that I had nothing to do with the disappearance of the damned pocket-watch. If we were friends—”
“It is not a question of whether or not I am willing to take your word for anything. My own inclinations in this matter are so likely to lead me astray, I dare not consult them. For what it is worth—and practically speaking that is very little—I do in my heart believe in your innocence. Unfortunately for both of us, I do not feel I have the right to act on that belief.” He returned the ivory globe to its fish-skin case, and snapped the lid shut.
“And so you hold me helpless and impotent before my wife.”
“Naturally,” said Raith, with a brief flash of emotion, “since I am willing to do violence to my own feelings, I could hardly be expected to spare yours.” Yet his glance softened as it came to rest on the sleeping girl. “If it is any comfort to you, I do not think any of this diminishes you in the eyes of Mrs. Guilian. Indeed, I believe her regard is only strengthened by what you have suffered on her account.”
Luke gave him an evil look, and took another restless turn around the cabin. It was no comfort to him at all what Tremeur thought. He was diminished in his own eyes. He had meant to play the hero, to swoop down and carry her off, into a better and nobler life than any she had known before—and only look what a pitiful figure he made instead!
Driven by
a sudden surge of love and longing, Luke dropped down on the edge of the bunk and reached out impulsively to stroke his bride’s cheek—but remembering that Raith was a witness to his every action, he arrested the movement in mid-air, and drew back again.
Leaping to his feet, he crossed the floor and flung himself down in another chair. This lack of privacy, this constant constraint on any demonstration of physical affection, made everything worse. In the first blissful days of their union, it had been easy for him to be generous, to forget all the sordid details of her scandalous past, but now it was just one more insult among the many he was forced to endure, that while so many other men had enjoyed her favors, he was denied even the slightest intimacy.
On the other side of the cabin, Raith cleared his throat. As was so often the case, he seemed to be able to read his prisoner’s mind. “If you must blame someone, I direct your attention to Lord Flinx. He, after all, is ultimately responsible for this distasteful situation, and seems to be guilty of worse things besides.”
Luke’s eyes kindled, a deep flush rose in his face. “I haven’t forgotten Lord Flinx. I know how far he is to blame.” Indeed, Luke sometimes thought it was the only thing that kept him sane, thinking what revenge he was going to take on the Prime Minister if and when they finally caught up with him.
Once they had sailed past Rijxland and landed in Herndyke, Raith and his prisoners left the ship and set out on an arduous overland trek. The days that followed passed in a whirl of activity, a blur of fatigue for Luke and Tremeur. Raith was virtually tireless and kept them all to a terrifying pace, though the course he followed was highly erratic and often involved considerable back-tracking. They travelled by coach, carriage, wagon, barge, and cart, on horseback and even on foot, when the mail-coach they entered at Louu was ditched.
As they moved north, they passed into a wild fen country, where the roads were built up to keep them from flooding. A cold wind from the sea ruffled the pools on either side of these causeways; herons waded in the shallows; geese and teal-ducks paddled where the water was deeper. Except in the towns on the coast, where trade was brisk and smuggling was rampant, the people here were herdsmen and small farmers, who supplemented their meager stock by fishing and fowling. They were slow, silent, unemotional folk, who lived in low houses with reed-thatched roofs, and hex-signs made up of stars, hearts, and queer-looking birds painted or carved above their doors. The men wore big boots of water-proofed leather impregnated with fish-oil, and the women had a weakness for rust-colored petticoats and for bright silk scarves, which they tied in their knotted dark hair, two or three colors at a time. On the rare occasions when any of them spoke, they used a dialect so thick that it was nearly impossible for Luke to understand them.
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