The Poison Master

by Liz Williams

  Alivet nodded. “You say it shifts. Just as our consciousness shifts during the Search. If this is true, then yes, it does have the qualities of a drug. Where did you get it from?”

  “I purchased it—at great expense, I might add, so don't waste it—from a colleague. Originally, it's the sap of a plant that grows high in the mountains to the very far south of Hathes, almost at the upper reaches of the atmosphere. It is thus a rarefied substance, and it's been treated so that it re mains in this form at certain temperatures. It also responds very powerfully to light.”

  “You said it was a carrier for a poison, not the poison itself.”

  “That's correct.”

  “So what is the poison?”

  “Light.”

  “I don't understand,” Alivet said.

  “Describe the Lords to me, Alivet,” Ghairen said, as he had asked once before. “Describe their essence.”

  Alivet thought for a moment, seeking the right words. “The Lords are dark. They keep to the shadows of their palaces.” She remembered the huge forms she had seen in the Palace of Night. “They seem made of shadow. They ban light from the surrounding area, allowing only enough for their human servants to work in.”

  “Has anyone sought to attack them with light? With lamps, for instance, or by letting daylight into a palace?”

  “Not to my knowledge. But I told you back in Shadow Town, I have never heard that light would harm them, just that they dislike it. I saw two of them in the hallway, there in the palace. They did not seem to shy away from the lamps. Although it's true that the lamps were dim.”

  She shivered, still thinking of the Palace of Night and her sister's wan, wounded face.

  “I see. And now describe your world.”

  “But you've been there.”

  “When you come from a place, Alivet, you take things for granted. You need to look at it with new eyes in order to consider things of importance. How does the light of Hathes differ from that of Latent Emanation, for instance?”

  “Hathes is brighter,” Alivet said slowly. “The light here seems more direct, somehow.”

  Ari Ghairen appeared pleased. “Exactly so. Latent Emanation—‘Yesech’ in my own language—is a twilight world. It is penumbral, as its name suggests. The Lords of Night prefer such places; they are creatures of darkness, after all. They come from a dark dimension.” Alivet opened her mouth to ask him how he knew this, but he held up a hand and went on, “They abhor light—not the ordinary kind, otherwise we could merely flood their palaces with it, torment them with lamps and fires—but a sort that can be ingested, that will act as a poison upon them. If I can find a way to force them to ingest this light, then perhaps we will be free of them.”

  “What will it do? Kill them?”

  “From the studies I have done, it could have a variety of effects. It might kill them, or change their form, or send them back where they come from. Any of those will serve our purposes. But the light needs a carrier, something that will allow it to work upon the Lords' other-dimensional nature. Because the tabernanthe is itself interdimensional, and because of its reaction to luminescence, I have selected it as such a carrier.”

  “Well, if it doesn't work,” Alivet said, “you can surely do some more research and try something else.”

  He turned on her, saying sharply, “No! It has to work, Alivet. This time, I—” He broke off, adding in a more conciliatory manner, “You must forgive me. I'm a little edgy.”

  Was it the prospect of murdering her that was making him so uneasy, Alivet wondered. He was on his own admission a professional assassin. How far was he really capable of guilt?

  “How much do you know about the Lords, Ghairen? How do you know where they come from? Do you know what they are?”

  “My employers are the governing body of Hathes: the Soret.” There was a flicker in his eyes; Alivet, watching narrowly, wondered what it meant, but the next moment his expression was once again unreadable. “They've been studying the Lords for some time—they know, for example, that the Lords were the ones who originally brought us to Hathes, thousands of years ago. At first, the Lords were benevolent, but over time they became corrupt. They were driven from Hathes and took refuge in their palaces on other worlds.”

  “How were they driven out?”

  “We don't know. We had our own class of Unpriests then—a group which has since become a more chastened religious order. They fought to regain control, buildings were destroyed, records lost. It was a chaotic period.”

  “So are you saying that the Lords haven't always been evil?”

  Ghairen grimaced. “I knew that talking about such things to you would open a floodgate of questions. I've told you all I know.” Unlikely, thought Alivet. He pointed to the bowl of tabernanthe. “I want you to study that. Familiarize yourself with its structure. Conduct the same kinds of experiments that you would undergo with your fumes and psychotropics. I want you to find out the degree to which tabernanthe has hallucinogenic properties, whether its animating spirit can be persuaded to ally itself with us. And now I have duties to undertake.” His mouth turned down. Alivet wondered if the duties were related to his offspring's discipline. “I'll be back later this evening. Good luck.”

  With a rustle of robes, he was gone, leaving Alivet to stare after him and wonder, not for the first time, whether the Poison Master was entirely in his right mind.

  As the door closed behind him, she heard the hiss of the lock.

  Many of the instruments in the alchematorium were unfamiliar, but Alivet found everything she needed in order to run preliminary tests, gathered together on a shelf. She made a quick inventory of alembics, crucibles, pestles, and votrices. The equipment was of excellent quality and must have been expensive. Clearly, mad or not, Ghairen knew what he was about.

  Then she searched the alchematorium, seeking any books or pamphlets that might contain information on the poisons that Ghairen employed, but could find nothing. There were no books. The cupboards were filled with equipment only. Alivet, standing in the middle of the alchematorium, dusted off her hands and resolved to do what she had always been accustomed to doing in times of crisis: to work. She could do nothing about the hovering fear with which Iraguila Ust's pronouncements had imbued her, but threats of death would have to wait until she gathered more certain evidence.

  She took a pinch of the tabernanthe, placed it in the alembic, and lit a burner. Then she watched as the resin began to bubble. The alchematorium began to fill with a fragrant smoke. Alivet poured a drop of the now-liquid substance into ten test tubes and reached for the pipettes. These contained the testing substances: first, the chemicals corresponding to the elements, and then the purifiers. Tested with sulphur, the tabernanthe shrank and smoldered. Rancid smoke drifted up from the test tube. When she introduced irachium, however, the tabernanthe expanded, coiling up the tube like a stroked cat. The test tube began to glow, then abruptly shattered. Alivet frowned. The next few tests yielded similarly extreme results. Two tubes melted over the workbench and a third crumbled into dust when Alivet's back was turned. She made a note: Tabernanthe responds with excessive force to standard elementals, particularly those that generate heat.

  It was time to try some combinations. Over the course of the next hour, Alivet prepared, mixed, and measured different fumes and alchemicals: combining ambergris and copper; myrrh and mercury; camphor, alum, and sulphur. Alivet became so absorbed that she even forgot about her death sentence. The air of the alchematorium became thick and stifling. When Ari Ghairen next stepped through the door, he choked.

  “I can tell you've been busy,” he said, coughing.

  Alivet blinked through the fumes. “Close the door; you'll disturb the balance.”

  Rather to her surprise, Ghairen did as he was told.

  “What have you found?” he inquired, coming to peer over her shoulder.

  “This tabernanthe is a volatile substance, certainly. It's not amenable to being mixed with other alchemicals�
��it has no ‘sister,’ as we say. It likes heat, phosphorescence, lumines cence—rather too much. It becomes explosive.” She gestured to the fragments of melted glass.

  “How much have we got left?” Ghairen examined the bowl.

  “I've been frugal,” Alivet told him.

  “So you don't think it would make a good carrier for latent light?”

  “From what I've seen of its properties, it's a reactive. So no, it would not make a good carrier as it is. It would need a stabilizer. But I've only been working on this for a couple of hours, Ghairen. I'd need to do more work on it before I decide for certain what it can, and cannot, do. I haven't tested its psychotropic qualities, for instance. And I'd like to leave some of this material in the athanor overnight to anneal and crystallize.” She suppressed a yawn, only then realizing how tired she was.

  “Very well.” Ghairen bestowed an encouraging smile upon her. “Make your preparations, then sleep. I'll take you back to your room.”

  He was, she thought, doing a thorough job of curtailing her movements, but now was not the time to protest. Under Ghairen's silent supervision, she placed the remaining substances in the little round vessel called the Philosopher's Egg, put that in the athanor, and set it on a slow, steady heat, then cleaned the workbench. There was some comfort to be found in the order of routine. Her tasks completed, she accompanied Ghairen to the rooms below.

  “Alivet. I hope you'll sleep well. There's food there if you want it.” He looked at her for an unfathomable moment, still with that slight and unsettling smile, and she thought of slow poison in her veins. She bit back frustration and anger, and something more that she was afraid to examine too closely. Then she bade him good night.

  As soon as she heard the snick of the lock behind him, she ran to the window and looked out. The windows were sealed shut. When she craned her neck and looked down, she saw the gleam of silver a thousand feet below. The sheer glass wall of the tower raced away beneath the window. To her right, a metal spine like a dragon's back climbed upward from the ground, but between it and the window, the wall was featureless. Frustrated, Alivet explored the room thoroughly, but could find no other exit.

  Instead, she turned her attention to the fruit that sat in a bowl on a low table. She did not like to think what it might contain, but she had eaten nothing all day, so she picked up one of the fruits and took a bite. It was as fresh and cold as water. Alivet ate it all, and spat out the shiny black pip. A moment later, she could hardly keep her eyes open. She splashed the contents of the water-jug over her face, but to no avail.

  As she climbed into the bed, she spared a thought for Ghairen's daughters and their mothers: were they, too, shut away in this luxurious eyrie away from freedom and the sun? Perhaps they would be amenable to the notion of escape. In the fleeting moments before sleep claimed her, Alivet resolved to find out.

  DIVISION

  …I consider that by nature we are composed of earthly elements and governed by heavenly, and…I am not ignorant that our dispositions are caused in part by supernatural signs…

  QUEEN ELIZABETH, writing to Mary Stuart, 1568

  Chapter I

  ANTWERP 1564

  It seemed fitting that the first tavern that Dee came across should be called the Golden Angel; for one who had dedicated much of his life to the study of omens, its appropriacy was clear. Apart from its name, and its proximity to the center of Antwerp, however, the tavern had little to recommend it, being more alehouse than inn and even more verminous than most. But it was also cheap, and after his experiences in Bonner's prison, Dee found that he had grown accustomed to discomfort.

  He stepped through the door and secured a small, shabby room that looked out onto an alley. This, he thought, would do well enough for his purposes. Besides, it was good to get out of the streaming rain of a February night; he had forgotten how cold and miserable this part of the world could become. Chilblains burned and gnawed at his toes and it brought back memories of winter in Louvain, of pissing on his feet to cure the cold. He laid his sodden hose and doublet over a nearby bench and rummaged in the bag for some dry garments. Then, ensuring that his bag was safely hidden beneath the bed, he went back down the stairs. A grimy boy was sitting glumly at the entrance to the kitchen.

  “You,” said Dee in his bad Flemish. “Would you like to earn a penny?”

  The boy nodded eagerly. “What must I do, master?” The child's dialect was so thick as to be almost unintelligible and Dee wondered whether he was in error in entrusting the task to such a lad.

  “I want you to take a message to a man. Can you read?”

  “No.”

  “Then do you know where might be found the house of one Abraham Ortelius?” Ortelius was well known, after all, and Antwerp was not so large.

  “Is he a man who makes maps?”

  “That is he. Tell him that Dr. Dee has now arrived from England and is residing at the Golden Angel.”

  “I know the house. Give me the penny and I will take your message.”

  “Upon your return,” Dee said, fixing the grubby child with a basilisk eye, “I shall surely do so.”

  The boy disappeared into the rain. Dee ordered a cup of Antwerp's strong sour ale and a meat pie and sat down at a bench to watch the usual panoply of whores and roaring boys. Dee had little interest in either. The tavern was stuffy and seemed steeped in the smell of salt cod; he might as well have taken up residence in a herring wherry. The spectacle would have been depressing had he not felt fortunate to be here at all. His spell in Bonner's prison had instilled in him a perpetual anxiety, disturbing his usually sanguine temperament.

  As he waited for Ortelius to come, Dee listened idly to the conversations around him. He was accustomed to the atmosphere of taverns. There were certain constant elements—the apple-squires each with their gaggle of whores, the moon-men, light heels, and jark-men, all of them drunken and quarreling—but the inns of each city had their own particular tune, a descant to the principal melody, and in Antwerp, that descant was composed of printing and money.

  “It is all in the stars,” a man was protesting to Dee's left. Dee's ears pricked up. He turned, to see a thin, nervous face above a pickled beard of the kind that he himself wore. A fellow astrologer, Dee thought, but the man's next words dispelled this notion. “My years in the financial markets have taught me that future prices are divinely ordained, and discoverable through astrological observation. People buy when prices are at their highest, for the upper influences so blind the natural reason with affections or desires.”

  Dee smiled to himself behind the cup of ale. If only it was that simple. Then he could return to England and make a fortune on the back of the market. But such a theorem did not take into account the subtler influences: the effects of restriction and balance generated by the planetary orbs. He was about to engage the star-broker in conversation when Ortelius' shambling figure appeared at the tavern door, accompanied by the boy, whom Dee paid and dismissed.

  “I have your books,” Ortelius said, without preamble.

  Dee felt a pang within his liver. “The Steganographia?”

  “Not yet.” Ortelius raised a woolly eyebrow. “You have let fond dreaming become fact.”

  It was hardly likely that Ortelius had hunted down the volume, Dee admitted. He had let his hopes run away with him. After all, Trithemius' famous book had been missing for sixty years; it would have been little short of miraculous if Ortelius had strolled through the door with the manuscript beneath his arm. But the thought of the knowledge contained in that book gnawed at him like a rat in a cellar, such wonders did Trithemius claim: a method of sending messages over great distances by means of fire, a way of teaching Latin in no more than two hours, communication that could be achieved without speech or signs… But it was the book's rumored Cabalistic content that interested Dee the most; a system of scientific incantations by which the powers of the universe itself might be harnessed. Dee remembered the gateway of which the angel had spoken an
d felt excitement course through him.

  And if it is no angel? his conscience queried him, but a devil come to tempt you? Dee sighed. It had become a familiar inner discourse.

  “Birkmann is still searching,” Ortelius informed him now. He eased himself stiffly onto the opposite bench and Dee winced. Ortelius was no older than he himself, not yet forty, but he moved like an ancient. The elements of water and air seemed to influence the humors to produce an unhappy effect upon the limbs. “I know this manuscript is the principal reason that you have come to Antwerp. But I should like you to meet a body of folk that will be of valuable acquaintance.” Ortelius' English was as stiff as his joints but Dee paid careful attention. He had great respect for the mapmaker, and besides, Ortelius was almost as much a master of his craft as Gerardus Mercator.

  “You have spoken of these people in your letters, have you not? And they are your own sect?”

  “They are. We call ourselves ‘Familists,’ for we perceive ourselves to be one family. We invite all lovers of truth, of what nation and religion soever they be—Christian, Jews, Mahomites, or Turks or heathen—to become part of one learned brotherhood. And sisterhood,” Ortelius added.

  “It is a worthy cause,” Dee said with approval. He felt a sudden spark of interest, as if Ortelius' words had touched a flint to tinder. These people will be important. A moment of precognition? It seemed that the sign of the Golden Angel was proving auspicious, despite its greasy surroundings.

  “Then, if you are willing, we shall see them upon the morrow. There are only a few of them here in Antwerp at the present time; they were forced to leave Emden a few years ago and since then have been scattered.”

  “Will they welcome me, then?” Such sects were wary of strangers, with good reason.

  Ortelius nodded. “If I am with you. Besides, they have heard of you. They are anxious to discuss your work.”

  When Ortelius had left, Dee took the books up to his room and examined them. Even if nothing else came of the sojourn in Antwerp, it would have been worth a visit for these volumes alone: books on cryptography and mathematics, and a single work on the Cabala—the subject which had led poor Trithemius to be accused of trafficking with demons. Slowly, Dee turned the pages, examining the familiar diagrams by which man could ascend the spheres of existence. All the worlds were here: the Earth itself, then Yesod, Hod, Netzach, and beyond, each with their own characteristics and descriptions.