The Poison Master

by Liz Williams

  “There,” he said, pointing. “That is Ukesh.”

  Alivet looked out across a sea of spires that reached to the horizon. The base of each spire was broad, perhaps a half mile in width: from the foundation, the towers twisted up into the heavens like spirals of dark sugar-candy. Between them lay plazas, edged with trees as sharp as the shadows of needles.

  “Hathanassi cypress,” Ghairen said, following her gaze. “Little else will grow outside.”

  At first Alivet thought that roads snaked between the towers, but with a silver flash from the last of the sun Alivet realized that they were canals.

  “Each tower houses a clan,” the Poison Master informed her. “There”—he pointed to the nearest spiral—“is the home of the Weapon Makers. And in that tower, festooned with ignatonic tracery, live the Master Communicants. That one, etched with sigils, is the Tower of the Linguists, who collect and analyze every known tongue. And over there, you can see my home: Sehur, also called the Atoront Tower. It is the Tower of the Poison Clans, in which I was born and raised. In that tower is my alchematorium.” He turned and pointed in the opposite direction. “And there is the boat on which we arrived.”

  The drift-boat, tethered above a platform, was like a collection of jade and black shells, a cluster of ammonites sliding unnaturally upon the winds. Clouds slipped past its sides. The umbilical that connected it to the platform—presumably the passage down which they had come—seemed too fragile to moor such a monster to the world. It was nothing like the boat that she had seen during the Search. It was like nothing she had ever seen.

  “Impressed?” Ghairen asked, softly.

  Alivet did not reply, embarrassed at feeling overwhelmed. She followed Ghairen back along the glass spur and down into the depths of what must surely be yet another tower. They crossed the vast hallway and went down through a series of passages. Here, staircases glided back and forth into a chasm.

  “We'll take the next boat,” Ghairen said over his shoulder. “Not so scenic as the vaporetter, perhaps, but quicker.” Alivet peered past him and saw a gleam in the darkness below. After a long descent, they stepped out onto an obsidian dock.

  “Watch your footing,” Ghairen warned. He reached out and took her hand, tucking it firmly into the crook of his arm so that her hand was trapped against his side. “You don't want to slip,” he murmured.

  Now that she was able to see more clearly, Alivet realized that the substance glistening below the dock was not water but metal: something mercurial and quick, that glided and swelled around the hull of a long covered barge. “We have very little water on Hathes,” said Ghairen. “We use what is available to us, but much of it is conserved for the plants in the parc-verticale. As one of the sources of our livelihood, they are precious.”

  “So what's in the canal?” She did not think it was mercury: this liquid flowed rather than moving in quicksilver droplets.

  “A liquid called aqua-vistra. All the canals are based on a system of spirals; the boat has no propulsion mechanism. Instead, the pilot simply unchains the craft and away it goes on the current. A simple mode of transport, but quick and effective.”

  The thin note of a siren sounded throughout the docking area and Ghairen helped Alivet down the steps into the barge. “The boat is covered, but you'll be able to see out.”

  Stumbling over her heavy skirts, Alivet took a seat near the front of the barge. Gradually, the craft filled up: the now- familiar men in their neat dark robes; women dressed like herself in long skirts and concealing blouses, some with tight hoods drawn up over their hair. For the first time, Alivet saw a child, solemn and saucer-eyed, clinging to the hand of a wizened old man. Everyone assembled without fuss and in silence. Their gazes slid over Alivet and away. Their expressions did not change, but she was certain that she had been observed and noted by everyone.

  When all the seats were filled, the siren sounded once more, mournful as a bird upon the marsh, and a heavy chain slipped down the side of the barge into the canal. The barge sailed out into the stream, gliding through great double doors that opened onto twilight. Alivet looked back as the barge was whisked through and saw a tower rising behind her, bathed in ruby light. The sun had gone, clouds massed on the western horizon, and she saw the glow of lamps in the passing towers. Alivet wondered once more about the origins of these people. Ukesh was like a forest of unnatural glass trees, leafless and blasted by the storm. She found herself longing for Latent Emanation: for crumbling wooden houses and the familiar, human odors of marsh and city. She turned her face from the great towers. Ari Ghairen touched her hand. Alivet jerked it away and rammed her fists into her pockets.

  Darkness fell swiftly across the world. Alivet began to doze, lulled by the rocking motion of the boat. She awoke with a start as the barge knocked against a wharf. People were leaving: the old man with the child; several rustling, whispering women. As the old man reached the steps, the child turned and stared back at Alivet with a somber, considering gaze. The old man tugged at its hand. It climbed the steps, still looking back. Ghairen smiled.

  “Curious, as always. Do you wish for children, Alivet?”

  “One day, yes,” Alivet replied shortly. When I've got free of you and rescued my sister. And the Night Lords are gone from my world and gold falls from the sky. The thought was self-pitying and it disgusted Alivet.

  “Well, you're young yet,” Ghairen remarked, indulgently. “I myself have three daughters.”

  Alivet stared at him. “You have children?” Ghairen still seemed so exotic a being that the notion of him having a family had never occurred to her. Nor had the possibility of a wife. Alivet felt herself grow small with sudden dismay. A voice inside her head said coldly: You are a fool. He has poisoned you, perhaps. He cannot be trusted. And another, less certain voice answered: I know. And yet…

  “Indeed. One by my first wife, and the other two by— other people. The oldest is thirteen, the youngest is three, and the middle girl is eight. I'd ask you to meet them, but alas, they have to be kept safely secluded, away from my colleagues until they have been fully inoculated. The eldest is nearly at her final dosage, however—perhaps you can meet her.”

  Alivet's imagination conjured three pale doll-like girls, as similar as peas in a pod, each one slightly smaller than the last. She blinked.

  “Will I meet their mothers?”

  “Unlikely.”

  What did that mean? That they were no longer around to be met, or that Alivet, as the hired help, was not in a position to be presented to the lady of the house? This was a fruitless line of inquiry, Alivet reminded herself with some sternness.

  “Your daughters. Do they have ambitions to enter the poison trade?”

  Ari Ghairen beamed at her. He seemed pleased that she was taking an interest. “My eldest girl, Celana, has more of an interest in music. The middle girl, Ryma, has already shown some aptitude with the substances: she poisoned her tutor last year. We were all very proud.”

  “What! Did the tutor die?”

  “No, no. He made a full recovery. It wasn't done from malice, after all. Purely in the spirit of scientific inquiry. As you said, the goal of alchemical science is transformation.”

  “Surely not from ‘alive’ to ‘dead’?”

  Ghairen leaned across Alivet and gestured. “And there it is. The Atoront Tower, home of the Poison Clans.” He rose to his feet and held out a hand to Alivet. Ignoring it, Alivet stepped past him toward the dock. The other passengers covertly watched her; she saw disquiet in a woman's face, which swiftly schooled itself back to blandness as Ghairen turned. No one else was leaving the barge. Alivet and Ghairen climbed out onto an empty wharf. The barge glided away, borne quickly from sight on the current.

  “You understand that there are procedures?” Ghairen asked. “We cannot simply stroll into the tower.” He drew her through a round door, embellished with stylized leaves and branches. The trumpet head of a metal lily nodded from the door frame and delicate tendrils of bronze ivy e
ntwined themselves around the lintel. “The tools of my trade, such plants,” Ghairen said, evidently noting the direction of Alivet's gaze. “Indeed, of your own as well. I'm sure that you'll find much to interest you here.”

  The door rolled shut behind them, trapping them in a cylindrical walkway. The air was hot and humming, adding to Alivet's unease. It made her feel drowsy. She smelled something sweet, a honey in the air, passing between her lips and melting soft as sugar on her tongue. A sudden astringent mist brought her wide awake. A silver bee zoomed out from the trumpet of the metal lily and settled in Alivet's hair. She batted at it. Ghairen said quickly, “Don't move. It's only a decontaminant carrier.”

  Alivet felt her scalp prickle and then the bee was gone.

  “Are all your methodologies so whimsical?” she asked, crossly.

  “The poison trade is a dark one, Alivet. We aim for beauty where we can.”

  At the far end of the room, a second round door rolled open. Alivet followed Ghairen into a farther chamber. This, too, sealed shut behind her and she was wrapped in darkness. Something was singing into her ear, faint and far away. There was an impression of many different voices, crowding in upon her. Her ears rang and a dim light appeared, glowing around her.

  “Ghairen? What is it?” she asked.

  “It's a linguistic device. It will be a little while before it starts to work properly, so you may have difficulty understanding people at first. Now, let's go up into the tower.”

  They passed through the round door into a passage. Like the boat, the walls were dark and silvered, but the air was cooler. Alivet and Ghairen climbed a staircase of wide, winding steps onto a high gallery. Alivet had a glimpse of a patterned floor far below and then the Poison Master was leading her through into an elevator.

  “Where are we going?” Alivet asked.

  “To show you your room, briefly, and then the alchematorium, if you're ready to begin some preliminary preparations?” The question was polite, but Alivet did not think he was offering her a choice. And indeed, she was eager to get on with whatever she had to do. The quicker she investigated the alchematorium, the more swiftly she could find out how real the threat of poisoning might be.

  Ghairen went on, “This part of the tower is my own, by the way. There's no reason to fear anyone here.”

  Only you, Alivet thought. The doors of the elevator opened out into a narrow hallway, lined with panels of bronze. Again Alivet's reflection marched off into infinity, revealing many Alivets and many possibilities. But her reflection was blurred: a faceless specter, enveloped in her skirts. Ghairen's reflection floated beside her like a ghost. As she followed him down the hallway, her footsteps muffled by a soft moss-colored carpet, she saw from the corner of her eye that one of the doors was open. An eye was peering through the crack. As Alivet whisked around, the door was hastily pulled shut.

  “What was that?” Ghairen asked, frowning. He strode to the door and stepped through, drawing it shut behind him. Alivet could not see who was inside, but she could hear Ghairen's voice raised in exasperation.

  “Celana, why aren't you in bed?”

  A child, Alivet thought. Was this the one who had poisoned her tutor? Or was Celana the eldest girl? She resolved to give the invisible, mutinous Celana a wide berth, but the distraction gave her the chance to look around the hallway. She needed to get her bearings in case there was a chance of slipping out of here. The thought of passing back through those barriers and down to the dock was intimidating, but how else would she contact Iraguila Ust? Where was Ust to be found, anyway? She could hardly go wandering about the tower, querying strangers. She gazed around the hall, noting with slight surprise that the furniture was both elegant and comfortable. A tall jade jar stood on a lacquered cabinet; a nearby chair was padded with worn velvet cushions. It was bemusing to find herself essentially a captive in someone's family home.

  At this point Ghairen stopped remonstrating with his offspring and came back out into the hall. Alivet was glad to see that he appeared harassed.

  “My eldest,” he explained. “If you ever have children, you must make certain that you nail them to their beds every evening, otherwise they'll be up and about the moment you turn your back.”

  “What about her mother?” Alivet asked, before she could stop herself. “Doesn't she have any influence?”

  “Her mother is dead,” Ghairen said. His back was turned, so that Alivet could not see his face, but his voice held no expression. She wondered if Ghairen's had been the hand by which the woman had died, and if so, why.

  “I'm sorry,” she said, taking refuge in commonplaces.

  “To each his monster,” she thought she heard Ghairen say. The strangeness of the phrase took her aback. No wonder Celana seemed to present problems. Or were Ghairen's mistresses the cause of that?

  “Through here,” Ghairen said. He held open a door and Alivet passed into a narrow room. Windows occupied the whole of one wall. She could see the lights of Ukesh beyond, and then darkness. A bed was placed against one wall; there was a desk of dark wood, inlaid with gold wire, on which stood a jug and a bowl of fruit that were the color of garnets. A frieze of metal leaves ran along the wall, coiling outward. Ghairen touched a lamp and colors appeared: moss green, mahogany, chestnut. Forest colors, Alivet thought, strange in this world of black glass and mercuric silver. It occurred to her that this room might belong originally to one of Ghairen's daughters: it had a lived-in quality. Or—macabre thought—was it the dead wife's room? If that was the case, then its occupant could have no further use for it. It was far from being the cell that she had envisaged ever since she had learned of the poisoning. Ghairen was clearly taking pains to treat her as an honored guest, but his courtesies unnerved Alivet almost more than anything else.

  “I hope you'll have everything you need,” Ghairen said. “If not, let me know. Are you hungry?”

  Alivet shook her head. “Not yet. Ghairen, as you remarked, the clock is moving on. I don't mind working at night. I do it often enough. Can I see the alchematorium?”

  “Of course.”

  They went back into the hallway to where a second elevator was situated. Ghairen stood between Alivet and the panel, so she could not see the display, but she could tell that they were moving upward. She tried to count the floors, but it was difficult: one? two? Then the elevator slowed and the doors opened out onto another hallway, very different from the one downstairs: all black glass and burnished silver. She caught a whiff of something chemical and stinging as they stepped through the doors.

  “Welcome to your workplace,” Ghairen said.

  It took Alivet's eyes a while to adjust to the darkness, then she saw that there were blinds covering the tall windows at the end of the room. Ghairen drifted down the alchematorium, flicking a hand at orb lamps, which began to glow. How did he do that? Alivet wondered. The lamps must be activated by physical presence. By their light she saw a low metal bench, arranged with instruments. An athanor furnace stood in the corner of the room, radiating residual heat. A tall container of fire-suppressant powder stood by the furnace; it was reassuring to see that Ghairen observed a few safety regulations, at least. Alembics and crucibles stood on racks, flanked by pelican vessels made of all kinds of glass: obsidian-dark, pearl-pale, configured in ridges and scales. Above, on a shelf, stood ash cupels and cementation boxes. To Alivet's professional eye, the equipment looked first-rate. Despite the circumstances, excitement rose within her at the thought of what she could accomplish in this laboratory. The air smelled pungent, like gunpowder: a familiar alchemical odor.

  “Best to work in low light,” Ghairen said into her ear, making her jump. “The preparations seem to prefer it.”

  “What am I to work on now?”

  “I'll show you.” Ghairen opened a cabinet and took out a rack containing a bowl. He carried it carefully across to Alivet. The bowl was filled with a black, crumbling substance, like resin. An acrid scent drifted upward. Ghairen pointed to the resinous powde
r.

  “This is a substance called tabernanthe. Since my anube contact's demise, I've spent the last year testing all manner of carriers—regis, for example, and khairuvet—but tabernanthe seems to have most of the necessary properties as far as being a bearer for toxicity is concerned. But what I'm having trouble in ascertaining is its hallucinogenic qualities. Despite the solid appearance of the tabernanthe, for instance, it is subtle, unstable, mutable. Like many drugs, it does not entirely lie in this world, and it has a spirit, for want of a better word, that animates it.”

  “All drugs have such a spirit. If you want to work with the animating force of this substance, you'll have to get to know it. Talk to it, spend time with it, make it your ally.”

  Ghairen smiled at her. “That's where you come in.”

  She wanted to tell him that such a process could take longer than anticipated, that if he wanted to be certain, he should wait until next year's banquet and spend the time in preparation. But he seemed so reluctant to wait, and if Iraguila was to be believed, had already taken steps to eliminate Alivet from further equations. She said nothing.

  “I don't have the training to assess this part of its nature, or to converse with the drug.” She could hear the frustration in his voice. “But you—as an experienced apothecary—do. Watch.”

  He lit a thin taper and drew the ensuing column of smoke across the bowl. Immediately, the tabernanthe wavered and shook, as though on the point of vanishing. Alivet frowned. It was as though she saw the substance through a haze of heat, but the warmth produced by the little taper would never have been enough to create such an effect.

  “If it isn't entirely in this world,” Alivet said. “Then where is it?”

  Ghairen smiled. “It is between worlds. It shifts. Like the Lords themselves, it does not entirely belong to this dimension. It lies between the living language of dreams, and the dead language of waking. And so we must interpret and translate—except that I don't have the skill.”