At least Theo believes in me.
He held the moment a fraction longer, one beat, two beats, allowing the silence to grow. Then he clapped his hands.
“I have great pleasure in presenting to you, for one night only, the renowned philosopher of all things natural. A giant among men, an intellect the rest of us can only regard with an awe that is well deserved.” He bowed and sidestepped, gesturing back toward the center of the stage. “Please welcome our illustrious speaker, former Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy, now Professor Emeritus: Anton Sokolov.”
The crowd erupted into applause as the curtain—another temporary fixture, but one which Stilton had insisted was somehow installed and made operational, cost be blowed—rose. He beamed, savoring the moment. The audience reaction was uproarious and, it seemed, genuine.
Of course it was. He’d been right. So, they’d scoffed at him, like they scoffed at everything he did. A lecture? An evening of soporific discussion of Natural Philosophy? Pah. They’d thought it was nonsense about newfangled mining equipment and that nobody would come. That he would be a laughing stock. Aramis Stilton and his high ideas would be even further alienated from Karnacan society.
He rubbed his hands and retreated to the wings. Oh, how wrong they are. All of them.
He was sure of it.
The curtain rose to reveal two reclining chairs. The chairs stood on chrome pedestals, and were spaced to the left and right of the stage, angled at around forty-five degrees so the headrests were pointing to the stage center and the tall device that stood between them.
It was a machine of some kind. A construction of brass and copper and wood, set into an octagonal base in which, facing the audience, a glowing whale oil tank buzzed. Seated above the base was a series of angled panels, covered in switches and levers and dials, and rising from the controls were three metal columns—one brass, one copper, one silver—which rose nearly two yards into the air before disappearing into the base of a large silver sphere. Halfway up the columns, attached by sliding clamps, one to the brass rod and one to the copper rod, were two articulated metal arms, joined in three places and ending in a three-fingered clamp.
As the machine was revealed, the crowd gasped in appreciation, and there was another smattering of applause. Coiffured heads turned to each other, the audience murmuring quietly. Stilton glanced over to the royal box and saw Theodanis leaning toward his son.
Then, from stage left, strode Anton Sokolov himself, resplendent in a long velvet coat, unbuttoned to show an exquisitely embroidered waistcoat. His thick mane of gray hair was slicked back and glowed in the blue light cast by the whale oil tank. As he walked to the front of the stage, he nodded in recognition of the applause, stroking his long beard and regarding the crowd from under craggy brows.
“Thank you, Aramis Stilton,” he said over the noise. Then Sokolov narrowed his eyes and regarded the audience with a cold glare. The applause quickly stopped.
“In the year eighteen hundred and eight, I set out on the Antonia Aquillo for the Pandyssian Continent, leader of an expedition of thirty-eight men, the purpose of which was to navigate to that great land and to catalogue its multitude of flora and fauna.
“As many of you will know, the expedition was not without danger, but despite losses suffered from the very first day of our landing, the knowledge we gained from our time on the continent was invaluable.
“But, when we returned to Dunwall—those of us who still remained, that is—many long months later, we brought back with us much more than just knowledge—we brought specimens. And not just of the plant and animal life we found in Pandyssia. Our expedition was also of a geographic and geologic nature.”
Sokolov turned to the couches and the machine in the center of the stage. He walked toward it, gesturing with one arm, the other tucked into the small of his back.
“Until now, certain aspects of my analysis of the particular geology of the Pandyssian Continent has not been published, nor even discussed outside the walls of the Academy of Natural Philosophy itself. What I am about to demonstrate to you this evening is the culmination of many years of research, but only represents a fraction of the knowledge and potential of what I have thus far discovered.”
Sokolov clicked his fingers, and two stage hands appeared from the wings, carrying between them a rectangular wooden packing crate. They placed it beside the machine, handed Sokolov a small crowbar, then retreated silently.
Sokolov hefted the crowbar, then used it to point at the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “You are among a privileged few to bear witness to my research first hand. And I must admit, I had to consider the invitation to come here quite carefully for many weeks before I finally agreed that the time was right for a demonstration. The public have a right to know what kind of work goes on in the Academy, and while the work is incomplete, I must admit a certain eagerness to show the world the potential of my discoveries.”
With that he knelt by the box and levered the lid off, then placed the crowbar carefully on the stage and reached inside. He stood, then turned and held up his hands. In each he clutched a roughly spherical object, about the size of a large apple. Sokolov paced the front of stage as he spoke, holding the objects out so the audience could get a clear look at them shining in the footlights.
They were crystals, cut with mathematical precision into multifaceted polyhedra and polished until they glowed. From the wings, Aramis Stilton squinted, peering as he tried to get a better look—Sokolov had refused to show him the stones when he had asked that afternoon. Stilton frowned. They looked interesting, and now that everyone had seen the things, surely he could persuade the natural philosopher to give him a private showing.
He wondered how much the stones might be worth. You could cut a great many individual gems from them.
As Stilton watched on, Sokolov stopped in the center of the stage.
“These are two of the largest, finest mineral samples collected during our expedition. I will not bore you with their chemical composition, but it is safe to say that their analysis took many of my finest academicians many months, and their results were still inconclusive. We spent five entire years just planning the very first cut and polish— the slightest mistake, and they would be ruined, and our chance to investigate their amazing properties would be gone, if not forever, then certainly for my own lifetime.”
Sokolov walked back to the packing crate and gently laid the stones back inside. He then returned to the front of the stage, clasped his hand behind his back, and lifted his chin.
“For the next two hours, I will discuss my work regarding the electrostatic potentials of these crystals and alignment of their potential with the magnetic fields of certain alloys, which when brought together allow not just the carriage of power but its transformation from one state to another…”
Stilton blinked. He felt his own jaw drop.
Two hours? Did Sokolov just say… two hours?
Sokolov paced the stage, and talked, and talked, and talked.
Two bloody hours?
Stilton felt a sinking feeling somewhere in his stomach. Of course. He should have known. Sokolov had insisted on presenting a lecture before carrying out his practical demonstration, and Stilton had been forced to agree to it just to get the natural philosopher to come.
But this?
The sinking feeling turned to nausea. Stilton reached for his inside pocket and pulled out a silver hip flask. He unscrewed the top and took a long swig. Behind him, against the wall, was a tall stool, onto which he negotiated his not insubstantial frame. He sighed, his eyes fixed on the glittering gemstones onstage.
Tuning out Sokolov’s monotonous voice, Stilton tried to get comfortable and took another drink.
PART TWO
THE COLLECTOR
12
PORTERFELL, GRISTOL
20th to 25th Day, Month of Earth, 1852
“For an empire straddling several large land masses and surroun
ded by a boundless ocean, the most optimal sailing routes around the Isles have, quite understandably, been navigated for centuries. The southern and western coasts of Gristol offer placid, flat seas, ideal for close coastal travel, even in conditions that would be considered somewhat unsavory in other geographies. Further to the west, a strong ocean current traveling southward enables even larger vessels to make impressive progress; however, despite this advantage, traffic along these routes is lighter than on the eastern channels, given the heavier distribution of shipping industries along south-eastern Gristol, from the capital city of Dunwall up to the western settlements of Morley to the north, most notably the major ports of Alba and Caulkenny.”
—TRADE ROUTES AND THEIR NAVIGATION
Excerpt from A Discourse on Maritime Industries
Maximilian Norcross.
Daud had been given the name by Eat ’Em Up Jack. He had been given the place, too—Porterfell, a fishing town on the southern coast of Gristol—and he had been given transport. A steam-and-sail clipper used by the Sixways Gang to transport goods, piloted by a captain who wouldn’t speak and a first mate who couldn’t, on account of his tongue having been cut out.
The harbormaster at Young Lucy’s Grave, Malcolm, had personally rowed Daud out to the clipper, which was anchored in the open sea beyond the harbor. In the driving rain and howling winds, the sea seemed impossible—to Daud, anyway—to navigate in so insubstantial a craft, but Malcolm proved to be an able seaman indeed, and the journey had only taken an hour.
The next phase began immediately. With their passenger aboard, the captain ordered his mute first mate to set course, and they ploughed through the somewhat less violent seas, heading first south, and then west.
The journey was uneventful, and for that, Daud was grateful. The smuggling route the Sixways ran between Dunwall and the western settlements of Gristol was totally unmolested by any official patrols, although whether that was because of the situation in Dunwall or not, Daud wasn’t sure. His two companions for the six-day expedition gave no indication that anything was particularly unusual about the trip.
But after getting caught in the aftermath of the coup, and after the narrow escape from Wyrmwood Way, Daud had no problem with a few days of relative solitude. It gave him time to think and plan.
Maximilian Norcross.
Norcross was a collector, not exactly famous, but well known in certain quarters for not only owning one of the largest private museums in all the Isles, but for being an astute, practical businessman. He acquired art and treasure for personal enjoyment, but buying, selling, and trading—although he was already a wealthy man, according to Jack—also made him a tidy profit.
Which gave Daud hope—just a little, just enough. Because it meant that perhaps, if Norcross still had the Knife, then he’d be willing to come to terms of some kind. Daud had left one of the platinum caches on the table in the Suicide Hall back in Dunwall, but another pouch rested in a concealed pocket. If Norcross was interested in money, then money he would get.
And if he wasn’t, then Daud would take the Knife anyway.
Daud had expected Eat ’Em Up Jack to come with him, but on that count, he had been disappointed. The woman’s attitude was cold, the way she viewed the massacre at Wyrmwood Way with detachment, talking about it with the harbormaster as an unfavorable business situation, rather than the wholesale slaughter of her men and her friends—at least, Daud assumed that some of them had been her friends.
So she was staying in Gristol. She was already planning on regrouping with agents the Sixways still had along their smuggling routes. They may have been driven out of Wyrmwood, but Eat ’Em Up Jack was not so easily put out of business.
Daud admired her resilience. He also appreciated her efforts to arrange a meeting with Norcross. To achieve this, she gave Daud a coded phrase, one that set him up as an interested buyer, and directions on whom to give it to once he arrived in Porterfell. Once the code was accepted, Daud only had to be patient and wait until Norcross himself found him.
The plan suited Daud just fine.
In the meantime, he sat on the boat, watching the two-man crew work, ignoring their passenger completely, even leaving him to prepare his own meals.
That also suited Daud just fine.
The captain and his first mate were highly skilled sailors, and Daud had to admit he was impressed, considering the clipper was a reasonably large vessel, which under normal circumstances would have required a few more crewmen. Daud spent a lot of time on deck, the two-man crew ignoring him, losing himself in the peace and quiet of the voyage. It helped clear his mind.
A little, anyway.
* * *
Finally, they reached their destination: Porterfell, a small and unremarkable town, the economy, much like Young Lucy’s Grave, based almost entirely on fishing, although here on a much larger, industrial scale. As they approached port, Daud was surprised to find their clipper met by a pilot boat with the harbormaster himself at the helm, until he watched—through his spyglass—the clipper’s captain slip the harbormaster a satchel, presumably holding money or something else of value, as the two met inside the pilot boat’s tiny cabin. Of course, the Sixways Gang had total control of their smuggling routes and the ports along it.
Clever Jack.
Harbormaster bribed, the two crewmen continued with their almost studious disregard for Daud’s presence, and as soon as they were guided into dock, he left, and headed into the town, running the instructions given to him back at Young Lucy’s Grave through his head.
* * *
Eccentric was how some people described the geography of Porterfell. As he navigated his way through the complex network of ancient streets toward his rendezvous, Daud came up with several other words for the town’s layout that were far less polite. Porterfell was not large, certainly in comparison with somewhere like Dunwall, but it seemed to Daud that the town’s founders had tried to cram almost as many buildings as the imperial capital into a fraction of the space. The result was a dense municipality, the narrow streets and alleys lined with towering buildings of brick and wood that had an unnerving tendency to lean over the roadways beneath, dimming what little daylight managed to reach the streets. Although it was only late afternoon, the streetlights along the major thoroughfares were already on, casting an orange glow over the town and its inhabitants as they went about their business. The tight alleyways that branched off at intervals remained almost entirely dark, save for the occasional light spilling from a window.
Daud decided he liked Porterfell, even if the whole place did stink of fish.
He continued, following the directions given to him by Jack in his head. Soon enough, he found himself in a part of the town dedicated to the primary industry of the place: fishing. Gone were shops and houses, replaced by warehouses and wholesale markets, the street traffic having changed from citizens and shoppers to those employed by the fishing trade, running with barrows and carts over cobbled streets slick with sea water and slimy effluent running freely from the surrounding processing houses. While the more salubrious part of Porterfell had seemed relatively free of vagrants, Daud noticed the high number in this quarter, huddled in damp blankets around the market and warehouse drains, waiting for whatever scraps were thrown out.
The rendezvous was in a public house, the Empire’s End, at the corner of an intersection bounded by the main fish market and two warehouses. As Daud entered, he passed a group of three beggars slouched outside the pub’s doors. He felt rather than saw them watching him carefully.
He needed to be wary. While he was perfectly capable of handling himself, he was in unknown territory now.
* * *
The plan was simple. According to Eat ’Em Up Jack, Norcross’s agent used the Empire’s End as base of operations, keeping to a set of regular but rotating hours every other day in order to meet any potential clients of his employer. The pub was famous—locally, anyway—for the interior walls being covered in portraits not only o
f all the emperors and empresses of the Isles, but of the kings and queens who had ruled the various realms that had existed across the island of Gristol before they were unified. History was not Daud’s strong point—nor his interest—but he was to meet the agent under the portrait of Emperor Finlay Morgengaard I. As Daud crossed the pub’s threshold, he hoped that the paintings would be labeled.
The Empire’s End was very small and very busy, the whole place packed almost to standing room only by workers from the surrounding markets, warehouses and processing houses, the reek of fish covered admirably by the strong tobacco that most of the men—and they were all men, as far as Daud could see—seemed to be enjoying.
Daud approached the bar, where he discovered the selection of liquors on offer was meager, the shelves at the back stacked instead with boxes of tobacco.
The barman paid no attention to Daud, nor did any of the patrons, all too busy engaged in noisy conversation after a hard shift gutting and packing fish. Jostled on all sides, Daud turned his back to the bar and scanned the walls as best he could, trying to identify the meeting point. With so many people packed inside, he could hardly see any of the portraits, let alone identify one as Finlay Morgengaard I. But after a few minutes, he spotted a patron sitting at a corner table who looked so completely out of place among the muscular fish workers that Daud wondered why he bothered with the specific instructions in the first place.
The man was middle-aged with a thin face and razor-sharp cheekbones, his dark wavy hair crammed under an angled cap made of densely curled wool. He held a long, curved clay pipe—containing the only unlit tobacco in the pub—in his mouth, the bowl of which nearly reached the lowest of three large silver clasps that held his voluminous blue cloak in place.
The man was watching him, and as he and Daud looked at each other, the man extracted a hand from beneath his cloak and lifted a monocle on the end of a long ivory stem to his eye. He peered through the lens, and a moment later a small smile appeared. Lowering the monocle, the man nodded.
The Return of Daud Page 10