Of Machines & Magics

by Adele Abbot

  Chapter 10

  The mesa had actually been in view for some time, perhaps as long as an hour, before anyone noticed it. It was an ancient volcanic core rearing up from the river—in actuality, a vertical sided island, the river dividing and foaming around its base. It was black basaltic rock, the sides cracked and flawed by the freezings and thawings of a geologic age. All manner of vegetation grew in the crevices and along the ledges and at the top was a fortified community, its castellated walls forming a lighter colored crown to the conical hill.

  A line which zigged and zagged down the side resolved itself into a stepped foot path. The path ended at a rickety bridge of stone bulwarks and wooden floor planks that crossed the river. One of the spans was supported by an overhead gantry of timber poles and counter-balances. A pair of dwarves stood at the bridge, ready to raise it should unwanted visitors chance by.

  At the very top, a tall chimney rose above the walls, and a waft of smoke or steam rose upward until a crosswind whisked it away in tattered streamers to the north.

  “This must be the place,” said Ponderos after staring at it for some time. “The map is inaccurate.”

  “I cannot believe that,” Calistrope looked from his map to the water-bound hill. “We are not yet halfway to where Schune should be.”

  “Is this place marked?” asked Ponderos, his finger stabbed at the map. “No, indeed it is not. Even though lesser landmarks are shown, God’s Finger for example. We passed it before coming to that place with the magic lantern, you remember?”

  “Yes, yes. I remember.”

  An interesting phenomenon, no more, yet that was marked, this is not and Schune is marked only as an afterthought.”

  “Suppose,” said Roli quietly, “that we visit this place. If it is not Schune then we can continue; if so, then our journey is shorter than we had expected, that is all.”

  Calistrope looked at Ponderos and Ponderos stared back. Ponderos was the first to smile; Calistrope, the first to speak.

  “Roli is, of course, quite right. The solution is a simple one. Was I not wise to choose him as my apprentice?”

  “Undeniably.”

  The bridge’s rickety appearance was no more than appearance. The wooden planks were reinforced glass, the counterweighted section was operated by a small humming motor and the two dwarves which guarded the bridge were a pair of cunningly made automata which smiled and greeted them as they reached the island side.

  Nor did they have to climb the forty ells to the top, a large open sided cage hung on a thick rope and wound them slowly to the top when they had all stepped inside. As the cage rose, the white foam of the river below reflected more and more of the sun’s color until it seemed a river tainted with blood. The air also grew noticeably cooler and each of them wrapped their cloak around themselves.

  The cage lifted them through a square hole in an alcove of the outer wall. A stout glass-fiber trapdoor thudded closed underneath them and the cage was lowered to the ground.

  “Greetings to all of you,” said a person who was obviously waiting for them. He wore bright clothes—a red jacket and yellow trousers, he smiled, bowed. “We get very few travelers here since the wasps built their nest upriver. May I inquire where you have traveled from?”

  “Sachavesku,” Calistrope answered.

  “From…! That is west of here, I believe. West and south.”

  “Indeed it is. The nest you mentioned is gone.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it. Trade has dwindled to nothing over the past generation. Come this way please.”

  The man who had welcomed them clapped a wide-brimmed hat back on his head, and took them over a courtyard to where an avenue opened. Judging from its length, it ran entirely across the small township.

  “The Street of Heroes,” he said with a flourish. “Along here you will find craftsmen if you need new boots or a cloak, bakers if you are hungry and an inn if you are tired—the inn also boasts an excellent dining room, fine ales and wines, too. To the left, as you go, is the shambles and to the right, the fishmongers.”

  “Thank you for your welcome,” said Calistrope. “I look forward to all your town has to offer. May I know what it is called?”

  “This is Peronsade,” replied their guide. “I am Mayor, official Hospitaller and Master of Banquets so I urge you to enjoy yourselves. On the other hand, I am Mayor, Prosecutor General and Jailer so beware of offending the citizenry.”

  “We shall bear all this in mind. Thank you Sir.”

  The Mayor left them and they walked along the street which had small trees planted in tubs along both sides of its length.

  “Well, it’s a pleasant enough place,” Calistrope looked forward and back, to right and left. “But not Schune.”

  “How can you say that? Perhaps the old name is forgotten and has been supplanted,” Ponderos shook his head. “We must make inquiries before we can be certain.”

  They began to walk. The Street was long enough for only a handful of heroes though there were no signs anywhere to tell them which heroes were honored. A few minutes later they came abreast of the side streets. Their noses confirmed the trades to right and left—the smell of flesh and the smell of fish, respectively.

  A little further on, they came to the Inn: a tall building of four stories and two gables with a frontage as wide as two small shops. Land was clearly at a premium in a place like Peronsade, presumably it cost far less to build upward than outward.

  They turned into the doorway where a counter of polished planks of black hawthorn confronted them, a white glass bell was the only item on the counter. Calistrope tapped it with a fingernail, a clear mellow note rang out and instantly a figure appeared.

  “Ha. Good day gentlemen,” said the Mayor. “Permit me to introduce myself: Lang Wonethop, Landlord of the Gad fly. May I offer you bed and board?”

  “Board,” said Calistrope.

  “Bed,” replied Roli.

  “Board and bed,” said Ponderos. “In that order.”

  “Very well, Sir. A copper sequin each, if you please and if you wish to stay longer, I can provide an abatement on the tariff. As to board, a main meal will be served at the eighteenth hour or light refreshment at once. I might add that all beverages—and they are all excellent—are brewed here, under my supervision. Wines as well, of course. Fermented from selected fruits of the neighborhood.”

  “How long is it to the eighteenth hour?” Ponderos asked.

  “Aha, travelers. Easy to become out of touch with the clock. Now, it stands at a third before seventeen. A little over an hour to dinner time.”

  They chose rooms on the highest floor for the view afforded by the windows. A view of the valley and the racing waters which lay ahead of them. “Think,” said Calistrope, throwing open the window, “if we had wings like wasps, how easy to fly along there.”

  “I have heard this before, it makes no more sense now than it did before,” grumbled Ponderos. “I am going to bathe in the hot tub in my room then eat myself into a daze. How, in the name of Fate, do they get hot water up here? Eh?”

  This was only one of the many mysteries of Peronsade. There were the constant streams of water that ran along the gutters in every street, the lights which lined the pavements to relieve the gloom on cloudy days and more lights fixed to the ceilings of the corridors and on the staircases.

  The dining room took up most of the ground floor with a kitchen occupying a walled-off corner and a pantry and storehouse. A beer cellar—they discovered later—was in a basement level below street level.

  The ceiling was made of roughly adzed boards supported on great beams as thick as a man’s waist. The unshaped trunks of nine great trees supported the inn, founded on the rock floor of the basement and extending upward to the roof beams above. Generations of diners’ exhalations and the steamy fumes from their dinners had stained the woodwork a rich dark brown which flavored the very air with pungencies from a thousand different dishes.

  Narrow windows along fro
nt and back let in red light though the high buildings on either side of the streets outside reduced this to a glimmer and a dozen globes had been fixed to the ceiling to augment this with a creamy light.

  The companions perused the menus and ate nuts and dried beans and drank tiny glasses of appetizing liqueurs before deciding on their food.

  The meal was excellent. Following a soup course—a bowl of thick vegetable broth flavored with chopped anchovies—they ordered the main course. As usual, Calistrope made a capricious selection of dishes: nuts marinated in vinegar, preserved eggs, leeks boiled in salt water and a bottle of wine dry enough to pucker the lips on the hobgoblin’s effigy carved into the wooden cornice above him.

  Ponderos went for bulk, three tenderly baked crabs in a piquant sauce and a mound of sliced and roasted turnips with fried beans. Roli ordered a panful of shrimp and a plate of red watercress. Both he and Ponderos had a jug of sweet beer.

  “Now that,” said Ponderos twenty minutes later, “was what I call real food. I shall keep these shells to use for plates on our travels hereafter.”

  “Then, you are persuaded that this is not the place our maps call Schune?”

  “Not at all. Our travels will include a return to Sachavesku surely?” a man-shaped automaton had come to the table. “… Ah yes?”

  The half-size humanoid shape was made of dull, copper colored glass with silver eyeballs and long, jointed, metallic fingers. “Would the gentlemen care for puddings or refreshing drinks?” There was no mouth to speak with but words trilled from a cone-shaped orifice at the top of the spherical head. It was dressed in sober white and dark brown clothes, as self-effacing and as deferent as the most expert of waiters.

  “Pudding,” Ponderos spoke before anyone else could utter a word. “What is there?”

  “Rice flavored with brandy pears in cold sauce suet dumplings in plum sauce biscuits of almond…”

  “Dumplings,” Ponderos cut off the unpunctuated recital as soon as he caught the word dumplings. “ Dumplings in plum sauce.”

  “As you wish Sir what of the other two gentlemen please.”

  “Another beer,” Roli said.

  “What refreshing drinks are there?” asked Calistrope.

  “Green tea, persimmon tea with butter roasted bean, tea sour plantain, tea hot lemon and infusion of nettles with pepper and green apple…”

  “Bean tea.” Had Ponderos and Roli laid bets, both would have lost their stake. Bean tea, they would have thought, could not have stood a chance against sour plantain or even pepper-nettle tea.

  When the servitor returned with their orders—exactly right, balanced on a tray and each offered to exactly the right person—Calistrope asked it about Peronsade.

  “Has the town always had this name?”

  “I have heard no other spoken of.”

  “Do you know of a city called Schune?”

  “I have not heard of such a place.”

  “Is there anywhere here in Peronsade from where the world can be moved?” Ponderos asked, a trifle bleary after his vast meal. He belched. “Pardon.”

  “Of course,” replied the mechanical servitor.

  Calistrope’s jaw dropped, Ponderos shot him a glance of triumph.

  “Whereabouts is this place?”

  “At the residence of Somta Pantel.”

  “Thank you,” said Ponderos and began to ladle thick cream over his bowl of dumplings and plum sauce. When the automaton had gone, he grinned at Calistrope. “You may congratulate me at your convenience.”

  “Well, yes. My congratulations, Ponderos. I did not imagine it to be so simple.”

  “You must learn that not everything is difficult, Calistrope,” Ponderos finished his dumplings and put down his spoon. “Now, I am off to my bed, after a meal of these proportions, my digestion works best in a horizontal position.”

  Calistrope found an opportunity to speak again to the servitor about finding the home of Somta Pantel.

  “Ask any of us,” it said, eyes sparkling in the dimness. “All of us know all of us know whatever the others do.”

  The companions slept, woke, took breakfast. They stood on the street outside the Gad Fly.

  “So, we go to talk to this Somta Pantel?” Roli asked.

  “In due course Roli. Our host said we could have new boots made if we needed them. Mine,” Ponderos lifted his right foot to show how the heel was worn away, “are almost finished.”

  Calistrope looked along the street in both directions, pointed. “There is a boot maker,” he pointed up the street where, above a narrow window, a wooden sign had been cut in the shape of a high boot. Bunda Freng it said and underneath in small red lettering: high quality footwear.

  They crossed the narrow roadway and while Ponderos went inside to be measured and to pay, Calistrope and Roli wandered along in front of the shops. Without exception, all were narrow fronted with living accommodation above on one or two stories. Here and there, gratings in the paved sidewalks showed where cellars had been dug out to provide extra space.

  Ponderos rejoined them. “They will be ready at the sixteenth hour,” he told them and showed them his receipt: an oblong of green cardboard with the number 16 written in red ink. They continued along the street, looking in windows which displayed everything from artwork to vegetables, books to wines. A steady stream of townsfolk passed them or overtook them. Most spared a moment to nod or to say a word of greeting, even to gesture at a wine merchant and comment on the day’s prices or to look at the sky and mention the possibility of rain.

  “Rain?” asked Ponderos after the last observation. He looked up and felt a spot of moisture on his face. “The fellow’s right?”

  “It was a woman,” Roli pointed out.

  “Then she’s right. Where is it coming from? The sky is cloudless.”

  “The vapor from that chimney must be steam,” said Calistrope, nodding to the tallest building of Peronsade. If the weather up here, or up there, for it must be fifty ells high, is cool, the town will have rain.”

  “Steam?”

  “Excuse me,” Calistrope spoke to one of the little mechanicals which walked purposefully along the street at intervals.

  “Sir you require directions to the house of Somta Pantel.”

  “That is so.”

  “One moment.” The mechanical bent, picked up a leaf which had blown into the street and popped it through a door in its chest. “Follow me.”

  They followed it as it paced along on short legs, stopping every minute or two to pick up a piece of debris, a dead insect or to move a stick which was blocking the water flow in the gutters.

  “Here is the house of Somta Pantel press the knob at the center of the door.” The street cleaner left them, it picked up a fallen scrap of paper and disposed of it, went on about its business.

  Calistrope pressed the large knob at the center of the large black door. A chime full of rich overtones sounded within the house. Presently, the door opened and a stout man with flowing white hair and a curiously blank look stood there.

  “Yes? Ah!” Comprehension flowed across his features. “Calistrope and Ponderos and Roli. They told me you would wish to speak to me. Please enter.” Pantel stood to one side to give them room and closed the door with a bang when they were all inside.

  They stood in the hall, long and narrow and with a number of doors opening off each side, each one was a shiny black set in a frame of similar material. The walls were contrastingly white with a line of glow globes along each wall to provide a brilliant light.

  “You wish to talk about moving worlds they said. How exactly can I help you?”

  “The sun is shrinking and the world gets colder. At some time…”

  “Yes, yes. The Freeze. The End of all things.”

  “But it need not be so. Is there a place we might talk more comfortably?”

  “There is of course. First, I wish to confirm that I am not about to be harangued by a visitation of religious fanatics.”

 
; “Religious? No, no. I don’t think we could be described as such. Ponderos and myself are mages from Sachavesku, Roli is my apprentice.”

  “So it’s magic, not religious zealots?”

  Calistrope looked disappointed. “Magic is merely a word, a name. Anything that is not understood can be called magic.”

  “Well it’s true enough. Come on then. This way.”

  Somta Pantel led them down the hall to the last door on the right. He opened it and ushered them in ahead of himself. The room was large though its exact dimensions were difficult to make out because it was only dimly lit by seven large globes of various colors. They hung at head height and many—in fact, Calistrope realized, all but one of them—had tiny globes accompanying them. Several seconds later, as Pantel indicated chairs, Calistrope realized what he was seeing.

  “This is an orrery.”

  “Just so,” laughed Pantel, pleased that at least one of his guests recognized the contrivance. “Since we are to talk of moving worlds, I thought this must be the most appropriate place to talk about it.

  And Calistrope began to see how large the room really was. Pantel was very wealthy or wielded great influence, so much horizontal space in Peronsade must be expensive.

  “Bluta,” said Ponderos. “Neptorn, Juba, Earth, Sadtun, Marr. And what is that one? Ah yes, the cinder world.”

  “Quite so. There used to be a ninth, you know? Merca. Very close to the sun, vaporized when the sun expanded, became part of the star itself. Relative to the far stars, each planet you see occupies its proper position.”

  “And the sun itself?”

  “Is turned off, it is easier to see the worlds. Pim,” he addressed a mechanical which evidently controlled the astronomical display, “Switch on the sun, low brightness.”

  An irregular cloud, roughly spherical formed at the center of the orrery. Its nebulous outer edge seemed to brush the world of Marr.

  “Now, what was it you wished to speak of?”

  “The sun is shrinking and as it becomes smaller, the Earth will get colder.”

  “Indeed that is so. Pim, take us forward a million old years.”