"It will serve," said the Troll King, turning on his heel. "You must follow me."
A door in a corner of the library opened on a narrow staircase, and the Duchess and Skogsrå followed Skullgrimm up two flights to a large chamber, which had been completely outfitted as a magician's laboratory, with copper vats and iron mortars, silver orreries, seals, wands, pentacles, bottles, scrolls, and such like clutter, all smelling of blood and incense.
It was a strange and intriguing room, thought the Duchess. A pale green fire burned on the hearth, like no fire the Duchess had ever seen before, undoubtedly sorcerous in origin. The laboratory boasted the usual stuffed crocodile, a collection of bones and skulls, a glass case containing tiny, mummified animals, and something standing up in a corner, gazing back at her with glass eyes, which—heavens, it was . . . it could only be . . . a stuffed dwarf! There were also a great many shelves filled with books, some of them marked with the serpentine sign of the Scolos, and one enormous black volume, literally groaning with ancient secrets, which hung suspended over the fire, bound shut with massive chains.
The Duchess drew in her breath. "May the Powers preserve us. You actually own an agrippa!" An agrippa, as she well knew, was the rarest and most powerful of magic books, so powerful that its very presence in any house must wreak havoc, unless its malice were restrained by bands of cold iron. The book shuddered in its chains and groaned more loudly still when the Troll King walked by.
On a long table in the center of the room lay a life-sized clay figure, bearing a faint resemblance to the human female form. The Duchess eyed this simulacrum with a great deal of skepticism; the figure was fashioned considerably cruder than she had anticipated. "And can you really animate this . . . this heap of clay? Will it truly become a convincing counterfeit of Elsie Vorder?"
"I can," said Skullgrimm, "but the means to achieve that shall remain a secret. I must celebrate the rituals and chant the spells in strictest privacy. Tomorrow afternoon, come to me again. You will know then the extent of my abilities."
At the appointed hour, the King's servants came to escort the Duchess and Skogsrå to His Majesty's bedchamber. There, seated in a richly ornament chair of the now familiar dark wood, was a demure figure in a pale gown and a gauzy white veil.
With a flourish, Skullgrimm lifted the veil. The Duchess gasped. Incredible to think that this graceful figure, those soft golden curls, that sweet fragile smile, could possibly belong to an artificial creation. "Amazing! Incredible. It is a perfect replica!" The Duchess clapped her hands together. "Does it speak?"
"It might, in time, learn to parrot certain phrases, but that is the most that you may expect," said Skullgrimm. "The blood you provided me—combined with my own spells—animates the monster, gives it the form that you now see. But for the golem to retain this semblance of life, you must feed it daily, according to my instructions. Have you considered a name? The monster will be more docile and responsive if you give it a name."
"Her name is Cecile," said the Duchess, walking a full circle around the chair, the better to examine the Troll King's creation. "A pretty name, is it not?"
Skullgrimm nodded his approval. "Elsie . . . Cecile . . . they contain the same sounds. Yes, it is an excellent notion. It will serve to bind the two more closely together.
"This . . . Cecile, then," he continued. "You must provide her with the viscera of living creatures every day. If you feed her by hand, again she will be more likely to obey you. The hearts of cold-blooded creatures, of fish or reptiles, will do at need, though the golem will then incline to be sluggish. The hearts of mice and birds are better still. The fresher they are—as, for instance, if they should be torn directly from the breast of the living animal—the greater will be her degree of animation. "
The Duchess shuddered distastefully. Though she was more than willing to sacrifice any number of tiny lives to feed the golem, she did balk at ripping out their hearts before they were dead. Her sensibilities were not tender, but neither were they entirely lacking.
"Ah well," said the King, recognizing her reluctance. "It is not an absolute necessity. You may kill them more gently first: using spirits of mandragora, or drowning them, or by any other method that you prefer. You are not (as I perceive) an artist like myself. You do not wish to do these things precisely as they ought to be done."
With smiles and many professions of gratitude, the Duchess took the monster by the hand and coaxed it out of the room. The Jarl followed after her.
"Be ready to leave in haste at sunrise," the Duchess said, very low, once they were out of earshot of Skullgrimm's servants.
The Jarl raised a painted eyebrow. "Why so hasty a retreat? Shall I notify Mr. von Eichstatt, or will you?"
"I do not intend to take the good Theophilus with me," said the Duchess. "He would only slow us down. Moreover, I am certain he would refuse to leave so soon. He will wish to remain, in order to monitor the King's recovery. But as for me . . . I do not wish to be in the palace, or anywhere in Skullgrimm's realm, when the flesh mutates and new paws continue to appear."
The Jarl registered extreme astonishment. "But is it not true that this can be prevented by cauterizing the wound as von Eichstatt has explained?"
"It is possible," the Duchess said, as they proceeded down the corridor with the obedient golem in tow, "but it is not a risk I care to take. You are (of course) aware that no one knows which of the Nine Powers created the race of trolls, that many scholars believe your people only a mutation of the human race. Theophilus proceeds from the misconception (and I confess that I was unwilling to disabuse him of the notion) that the singular properties of troll regeneration, quite as much as troll deformities, arise from a fleshly disease which afflicts your race."
"And you believe otherwise?" whispered Skogsrå.
"I am convinced otherwise. That does not necessarily mean that Theophilus will not succeed, but it increases the likelihood of failure." Her bedchamber door silently opened at her approach, and she led the docile "Cecile" across the threshold.
"I do not wish to insult you on this occasion, my dear Jarl," said the Duchess, once they were inside the room. "But I believe the odd characteristics of your race are due to some spiritual disease.
"Back in Thornburg," she continued, "Mr. von Eichstatt's colleagues, putting his methods to use, might do much good among those unfortunates who come by their deformities by accident of birth, or as the result of some injury. But I believe that some disfiguring . . . taint . . . of black magic, in which your people have literally steeped themselves over the centuries, has worked itself into the very fabric of your flesh. You are the victims of a spiritual disease, and for that you are not likely to find any bodily remedy."
"But then," said the Jarl, wrinkling his brow, "but then, if Mr. von Eichstatt's theories should be proven false, it is altogether likely that the King will eat him. For myself, I regard that consequence of little importance, but I had thought the Gracious Lady cherished a certain degree of fondness for that young man."
"As I do." The Duchess maneuvered the golem into a corner of the room and left it standing there, out of the way. "But really, I do not anticipate such a doleful fate for such a clever young man. For one thing, his flesh is diseased. Oh yes, I assure you. You have observed his pallor, his nervous habits . . . not altogether due to his discomfort in these surroundings.
"Such is his scientific zeal, his devotion to his philosophy," the Duchess went on, as she took a seat in a chair by the fire, "that he has actually infected himself with syphilis, in order to observe the progress of the disease at first hand. He confided as much to me in an intimate moment—or one, at any rate, which threatened to become intimate—and for all I know, he may have infected himself with worse diseases as well. There is no fathoming the scientific mind. But the syphilis alone should suffice to discourage Skullgrimm. I shall leave a letter behind, acquainting him with that circumstance, for his own sake as much as the doctor's."
The Jarl shook his head do
ubtfully and continued to frown, but the Duchess went on blithely. "But even more than that, I have every confidence that Mr. von Eichstatt will be able to formulate a new theory and present it convincingly . . . and then another, and still another, as proves necessary to appease the King and appeal to Skullgrimm's vanity. Until—who knows?—he may actually stumble on the true solution, and ransom himself with a successful operation.
"It is just," said the Duchess, with a faint little shrug, "that I do not choose to linger here as the King's prisoner in the meantime."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Which carries the reader Back to the continent of Calliope.
It was a brisk, bright afternoon in the season of Frost, when the mail coach carrying Sera and her friends lurched down the coast road toward the town of Hobb's Church. The journey south had been a long and tedious one, as well as most odiously round-about, a necessary precaution to cover their tracks. And Sera, who sat crammed into a corner by the window, felt weary, rumpled, and crushed. For two days, she and Mr. Jonas had shared the forward seat with a matron wearing a monstrous hoop under her skirts, and the matron's remarkably vain and remarkably foolish sixteen-year-old daughter. A constant stream of shrill, inconsequential chatter (thought Sera) would be enough to induce the headache even in someone who had not already suffered the many discomforts of a fortnight's travel. It was all she could do to stifle an impulse to give the girl a good shaking, and command her to hold her prattling tongue.
On the opposite seat, Elsie and Jed had fared slightly better, sharing the bench with a grim, elderly tutor and his cowed little pupil. Sera pretended not to notice that Jed and Elsie, for the last hour, had been holding hands, under cover of Elsie's squirrel-skin muff.
The rhythm of the coach changed as dirt road gave way to cobblestones, and the diligence rumbled down Hobb's Church High Street. Sera lifted the curtain and peered out her window, hoping to get some sense of the town as she passed through.
It was a typical colonial settlement, built, like most coastal cities and villages, on rising ground; a stout seawall protected the town from the devastating lunar tides. It appeared to be a village mostly of full-sized men, and had more of the seaport about it than Lootie's Bay: sailors in blue coats walked the streets, with a rolling gait and gold rings in their ears; a dozen ships rode in the harbor, with white sails and red, and gaily painted figureheads; some of the merchants had even nailed up wooden figures over their doors, in place of shop signs.
The village green was located in the exact center of the town, and there on the square—nothing more, at this time of year, than a plot of frostbitten brown grass—the mail coach came to a halt. Sera, Elsie, Jed, and Mr. Jonas climbed out, and the coachman and the guard swung down from their perch. While the gentlemen attended to the luggage, and Elsie stuck her head back inside the coach, bidding the other passengers a polite, if insincere, farewell, Sera shook out her petticoats, retied her cloak strings, and glanced around her.
A marble statue of King Henry IX, late of Imbria, held court in the frosty square, with pigeons and screaming sea gulls as courtiers and sycophants. On the far side of the lawn stood a modest white church with a high steeple, and two wych-elms to shade it during the warm seasons. Beyond the church rose a brooding eminence: Spyglass Hill, according to Mr. Herring's letter, with the famous Deeping Caverns below, and the Old Seamen's Cemetery sprawled across the upper slopes.
"What a quaint little town," said Elsie. "All the crooked buildings, and I do think the figureheads mounted over the doors are terribly droll, don't you?"
Sera swept a dark, apprehensive glance over the buildings clustered around the square. Most did present an oddly tilted appearance, as though they were perched on sinking foundations. "Highly amusing. I only hope the whole place may not tumble down about our ears."
From the square to the home of Mr. Siegfried Herring was only a step. Things were managed differently here in the colonies, and the "gentlemen Glassmakers" (which was to say those members of the speculative branch of the Guild not in any way involved in the manufacture of glass) were not the noblemen and merchant princes who formed the Continental guilds. No, the Guild drew its members from among the ranks of honest tradesmen of every sort and description: coal merchants, peruke-makers, joiners, upholsterers, printers, booksellers, and the like. Mr. Herring made his living as a cabinetmaker, and he lived alone. He ushered his visitors into his cluttered little cottage near the harbor, with many expressions of pleasure and good-will.
"A bachelor establishment, as you can see. You, my dear Sammuel, and you, too, Mr. Thorn, are more than welcome to lodge with me here, but as for the ladies . . . " As he spoke, he removed a pile of books and papers, a pair of gloves, and a woolen muffler from one of the chairs and offered the seat to Elsie. " . . . as for you ladies, it is well we have already made more suitable arrangements."
Mr. Herring was a lean, lively little Man, long-limbed (for his size), and as agile as a monkey. His linen was immaculate, his coat and his waistcoat of the fashionable cut, and he wore a brown wig, marvelously curled and pomaded. In contrast to the state of his apartments, Mr. Herring displayed an inclination to be fussy about his appearance.
"I have reserved a private dining room at the Eclipse, a most respectable tavern. We dine there at six," said Mr. Herring. "After that, I shall count myself privileged to drive the ladies out to the Academy. It is not much more than a mile."
They arrived at the Eclipse precisely on the hour. The landlord ushered them into a cozy private parlor, papered and paneled in rose and oak, and informed them that supper would be served in a quarter of an hour. In the meantime, Mr. Jonas took out some odd sketches he had made of the island-raising engine. Climbing up on a chair, he spread his papers out on the table, and proceeded to explain the remarkable device to Mr. Herring.
"Yes, yes," said the cabinetmaker, bobbing up and down in his excitement. "I see exactly what you mean. The bronze mirrors to capture the lunar rays . . . the magnets to draw the island up out of the depths . . . hmmmm, yes . . . and a most ingenious system of gears!
"I can provide you with a workroom behind my shop, and all the wood you need to build a framework for the engine," he offered handsomely. "And I know just the man to cast the mirrors and provide the worm screws. But, my dear Sammuel, how on earth do you mean to attune the magnets?"
"We have some Panterran relics, and among them a figurine cast in orichalcum, which may serve to produce a sympathetic vibration to set up the necessary attraction," said Mr. Jonas.
All during this discourse, Sera stood warming her hands by the fire, listening to Mr. Jonas with growing astonishment. At last, she had to speak. "Such nonsense," she said, under her breath, to Elsie, "I never heard in all my life. Or rather . . . I have, but never hoped to hear the like again!"
Jedidiah, who chanced to overhear her, crossed the room, scowling ferociously. "Yes, but it's true," said Sera, her eyes kindling. "You remember Dr. Mirabolo and the 'healing properties' of his magnetic tub. He never healed anyone with his horrid animal magnetism, only sent a parcel of foolish women with imaginary ailments into hysterical convulsions, and frightened poor Elsie so badly she was virtually prostrated." She glared a challenge at him. "You said yourself, Jed, that the fellow sounded like a dreadful quack!"
"That," said Jed, with withering dignity, "has nothing to do with the present instance. The healing properties of magnetized waters have yet to be proven, but any fool knows that magnets attract things!"
Sera opened her mouth to retort, but thought better of the impulse and held her peace. She was in no mood for one of Jed's painstaking lectures on "natural affinities" and "lesser luminaries" and "the first entity of metals," as though he could overcome her skepticism by explaining things slowly and carefully. As though I were a child or an imbecile, she thought.
But now the landlord and his wife were entering the room, and dinner was about to be served. Mr. Jonas rolled up his plans and put them back in his coat pocket, and Mr. Herring in
vited his guests to take seats around the table. They all made a good meal on pork pie, clam chowder, cornbread, and ale, then strolled back through the lamplit streets to Mr. Herring's cottage, the three gentlemen discoursing learnedly on pumps and flywheels, balances, valves, and verge escapements.
Along the way, they passed a clocktower, about a block from the square: a tall brick building with a most decided tilt. The clocks on all four faces had stopped, each at a different hour. "Indeed," said Mr. Herring, following Sera's glance and rightly interpreting her troubled expression. "The structure is so dangerous that no one dares to venture inside and reset the mechanism."
Jedidiah then asked if the town was built on unstable ground. Was the area prone, as many coastal regions were, to flooding and earth tremors at the full of the moon?
"We believe that our sinking foundations result from extensive tunneling on the part of hobgoblins," replied Mr. Herring. 'The local breed is very large and active. But you have nothing to fear, ladies. They are not at all vicious, only amazingly destructive. Indeed, at one time, we considered them rather an amusing novelty, they are such queer and cunning creatures. In a whimsical moment, the town fathers even named the village after them. But now they cause us a great deal of trouble. Besides their eternal tunneling, they are the most dreadful thieving little rascals you can imagine. Nothing very large, mostly trinkets of pinchbeck and paste, which people are inclined to leave carelessly around, bits of velvet or lace, needles and pins . . . they seem to collect these things, rather like magpies are attracted to anything that glitters. Efforts have been made to exterminate the vermin, but the community is not united on how to deal with them."
He lowered his voice, though there was no one on the street to overhear him. "Some few residents of the town, misled by the creatures' size and appearance, have conceived the fantastic notion that the hobs are actually Rational Beings. Yes, sentient creatures like you and me! An outrageous proposition, of course. But on those grounds, they insist that our methods are much too harsh.
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