by Aidan Harte
As the Cadets proudly admired their own work and showed their gems off to the others, Torbidda wondered at their pleasure – and envied them, a little. Their work was pedestrian compared to his, but when he studied his jewel’s icy new clarity he felt only confusion at the nausea it inspired in him. It was like fire scorching his insides. He had worked hard, finding the planes then grinding and polishing to reveal the flawless gem within, but now the urge to ruin that perfection was taking hold of him.
He carefully placed it down and moved on to his next task. With Gem-cutting, progress was tangible; some subjects were more about learning to stumble through the darkness.
Alchemistry was taught in a cave cut even deeper into the mountain than the Anatomy Hall – but it was far warmer, thanks to the great furnace at its heart that fed on coal and dripping animal fats. Its roar and the feverish scent of scorched cinnabar filled the cave. The furnace sat on a raised platform beneath a bramble of tubes that stretched to the ceiling and tangled into ever-darker, more intricate knots. The far wall was lost in the gloom; it was only when they got closer, and their eyes had adjusted to the crepuscular light, that they could see it was moving, albeit with glacial slowness.
Varro collected a lubricating yellow syrup from taps that punctured the wall’s metal surface. He was more human than Flaccus; he treated the Cadets like fellow explorers, and took for granted that they shared his curiosity. As he tended to ramble, his classes were an oasis of calm in their crowded schedule, not to mention a chance for some of the Cadets to indulge in games of correspondence chess.
Varro was working the bellows when he suddenly pointed and shouted, ‘You! What’s your name?’
‘Sixty, Sir.’
‘And were you named for your father? The Grand Selector may prefer numbers to people, but he’s not the one asking. Come, lad, your real name.’
‘… Torbidda, Sir.’ He felt exposed before his fellow students; there was safety in anonymity.
‘Torbidda, is it? And how many elements are there?’
‘Ninety-two occur naturally. We’ll make more eventually.’
‘Ninety-two? Flaccus told you that, I suppose. Does that sound like the name of God? We’ll make more, you say, as if it’s a simple thing – it’s easier by far to create a new letter in the alphabet! What would we do if we found it? It would remake all texts. What babble was wrought leaping from Four to Ninety, and you blithely propose to go on? To rebuild the Tower until God throws it down again and sends a more lasting Flood so that we remember the lesson this time—’
This mystical tangent set eyes rolling.
‘Didn’t God die in Forty-Seven, sir?’ said Leto.
Varro erupted with laughter that filled the cave. ‘Oh, very good. What’s your name? And don’t give me a blasted number.’
‘Spinther, sir,’ said Leto loudly.
‘Ah! I knew your father. Well, yes, a certain priestly deity was a casualty of the Re-Formation. But I’m not referring to the idol of those paper-shuffling clerics. Our prey’s an older beast, and killing Him would be a great deed, great indeed. Perhaps one of you will manage it.’ He looked fondly into the furnace. ‘Where was I?’
‘The elements, sir?’
‘Ah, yes!’ Varro threw the bellows aside and picked up a beaker of water that reflected the dangling lights like falling stars frozen. ‘When speaking of primordial matters, best not multiply explanations. Simplify. This glass is the world. This glass is each of you. You are not numbers! You are water! You are air!’
He cast the water on the pipes and it hissed and bubbled and steam wafted up. ‘Look, children: the ghost flees! Catch it, and we’ll have power to move mountains. Air and water are God’s initials, the Aleph and Beth of a world at war. Fools like Flaccus will count the stars and list the elements and remain blind to the larger pattern. The Wave, children! It is majestic and merciless, and it is everywhere, even in the elements. Consider the valence of ordered atoms. It flows up – one, two, three, four, and down, three, two, one – and up again. As below, so above. As above, so below.’
There was a long, embarrassed silence during which Varro collected himself. ‘So,’ he said, ‘that’s what we’re about today: extracting oxygen from water. You’ll see the bitch holds on as fiercely as a mother does her child. Find a station. Take a beaker.’
The Cadets went about the experiment noisily, everyone competing to impersonate the old man’s eccentric manner. Torbidda tried to play along, but it wasn’t easy.
This was just a basic alchemical exercise, yet his hand trembled and his heart pounded. Frustrated at the sluggish pace of Flaccus’ teaching, he’d begun to study independently, and his grasp of Wave Theory was now sufficiently advanced to recognise that Varro’s hints of some grand hidden tapestry were at the very heart of the Bernoullian art. But though Torbidda might be suddenly conscious of the gravity of their search, he was in the minority. Cadets with a family background in engineering had more conservative ideas about the limits of Natural Philosophy, and Four spoke for these: ‘No wonder they keep this relic buried down here,’ he said loudly.
‘He’s the last Naturalist in any position of influence.’
‘But they say Bonnacio is one of his protégés,’ Torbidda said mildly. They were back in the refectory, and Torbidda was keeping his eyes on the second-years, even as he tried to find out what Leto thought of Selector Varro.
‘So much the worse for the Second Apprentice,’ Leto said. ‘The other two are Empiricists. Look, Torbidda: it’s easy to be taken in, but that kind of talk isn’t politic. The old man gets away with it because he fought the good fight in Forty-Seven but if you want to get a decent posting in third year, be an Empiricist. Or at least pretend to be.’
‘Sure.’
Torbidda understood this was a warning. Cadets were always under scrutiny, and not just by the selectors. Although he affected a carelessness, Leto was as manipulative as any of the Cadets; he was just more subtle than most. He’d known exactly how well Torbidda had done in the al-Buni when he had befriended him – indeed, all of Leto’s friends had turned out to be top students – but Torbidda didn’t resent him for his calculation. He took it as a compliment. Now he decided to heed Leto’s warning. Aside from the tyrannical bell, they were given no guidance outside the classroom; no behaviour was proscribed or recommended. They were on their own, and conspicuously following the wrong crowd could be fatal.
His first real fight, however, had nothing to do with political calculation. It was over a girl.
CHAPTER 4
Torbidda sprinted to reach the dormitory door before the bell sounded, but he was too late. It opened in front of him.
RATATATATATA TATTARATA TATA RAAT AT AT T T T T T
‘Still too slow, Sixty,’ said the monitor walking by.
She marched down the row, glancing at the neat beds in the cubicles to her left, and stopped at a closed curtain. ‘You had better be dead, Fifty-Nine.’
She pulled back the curtain and the boy in the bed shifted with a tired groan and pulled the sheet tighter. Furious, she stepped in and pulled back the bedclothes.
‘Morning!’ said Fifty-Nine with a happy yawn.
A hand shot out from beneath the bed and grabbed her ankle; and two silent boys appeared behind her. One slipped an arm around her neck and pulled her head back as the second closed the curtain and stood watch outside.
At the far end of the dormitory, Torbidda stood in the doorway looking back. He paused for a second before continuing out and closing the door firmly behind him. Whatever was about to happen was none of his concern.
A third boy emerged from the wardrobe with a whoop.
‘Please—’ she whimpered, and stopped struggling. When he came closer, she kicked his crotch with her free leg. As he keeled over, Fifty-Nine hopped out of bed and punched her exposed belly. The same moment another hand grabbed her other ankle and she lost her footing. Fifty-Nine and the other boy unceremoniously picked her up and threw her against the
wall above the bed. She fell onto the mattress with a grunt.
‘You’re so smart, how’d you get in this mess, huh?’ Fifty-Nine bared his teeth in a grin. ‘Well? Answer me!’ He hammered his fist into her nose.
‘Cover her face!’ he ordered the freckled boy emerging from beneath the bed. The city boy was shrill and somewhat panicked by the sight of blood, and at how abruptly the girl had stopped flailing. But as well as revenge for his earlier humiliation at the monitor’s hands, he intended to show his peers that he could organise fun and games as well as Four. Tackling a second-year was dangerous – she had a year’s combat training on them – but they’d come in strength. They piled pillows and sheets on top, and two large hands held her wrists while other hands pulled at her robes.
Torbidda knew he shouldn’t be here – he’d seen the boy standing watch and guessed what was going to happen. Now he was trying to walk crouched and quietly along the narrow walkway formed by the top of the wardrobes. The old wood creaked, but the boys were too excited to notice. He could hear them whooping with excitement. He should let them go about their business before they noticed him. She – she herself – said it: every Cadet was on their own, and the same rules applied to her.
Yet here he was.
Fifty-Nine was squirming on top, trying to get her legs open and his robe up at the same time. The boy holding her under the bedclothes was concentrating on his job, while the other was staring with something like reverence. The boy behind the curtain glanced in for a moment, then reluctantly returned to sentry duty.
Four would have enforced better discipline, Torbidda thought. Still telling himself this was none of his business, he dropped onto the nearest boy. He landed feet-first, clumsily, but his weight was enough to knock the boy into the one standing watch, and he pulled the curtain down with him. The boy holding the pillow didn’t wait for orders but abandoned his post to rush Torbidda, and as the girl felt the pressure ease, without even trying to remove the blankets, her fingers shot up, searching and finding Fifty-Nine’s eyes. The pillow boy had pulled Torbidda down and the three of them were kicking and punching him until he curled into a ball. Fifty-Nine’s scream made them turn just in time to see the girl pull her thumbs out of their leader’s face with an audible pop. She stood onto the bed and pulled herself up onto the wardrobe.
The boys forgot about Torbidda – he was stupid with the beating anyway – and leapt up on the bed to follow her. She’d get them individually if they let her escape. The three leapt for the walkway together, figuring to rush her. She kicked one in the face and knocked him back onto the floor, and as the other two got to their feet, she backed away carefully. She took the set of keys from around her neck and threw them at Torbidda’s foetal body. ‘Hey, Sixty!’
The jangle as it landed made him open his eyes.
‘Lock the north door behind you,’ she ordered.
Torbidda grabbed the keys and as he started crawling to the door she turned and limped towards the other, then stopped abruptly and turned to face her pursuers.
‘You’re trapped,’ one of the boys shouted, and laughed. ‘We blocked that door.’
‘I guessed you would,’ she said calmly, and raced towards them. She knocked the first boy aside with an elbow as she threw herself bodily at the other. They tumbled off together, but she twisted as she fell so that he took the impact. She smashed his head on the floor, just to be sure, then went to examine the other three. The one she’d kicked in the face, the first to fall, had broken his neck.
As he limped back from the door, Torbidda saw her kneel beside the one she’d elbowed off the walkway. He was clutching his ribs and moaning. She tenderly lifted his head into her lap, then twisted it sharply left. The moaning stopped.
Fifty-Nine was writhing on the bed, streaming blood from the holes in his face. As she carefully rechained the curtain, she looked at Torbidda and said flatly, ‘You’re late for class, Cadet. Leave my keys in the door.’
She didn’t need to say she owed him. It was obvious. Torbidda limped to the door, unlocked it and shut out Fifty-Nine’s smothered screams behind him.
CHAPTER 5
‘Flaccus believes in a mechanistic universe that can be mastered with levers and winches. Be warned. Nature is a far more subtle monster, and one that you must first understand if you are to tame her.’
The class stood in the Alchemistry Hall at the edge of a massive circular sheet, shivering in the frigid air. Five long chains were connected to the sheet. Varro ushered them closer. ‘Get comfy – not that close, Signore Vitale! Step back, Signorina Inzerillo. All right, let’s see …’ He looked at the levers in front of him, feigning confusion.
Torbidda stole a glance at Four and his acolytes and looked away quickly; Four was watching him. Fifty-Nine’s suicidal attempt to establish his independence had allowed Four to consolidate control of the city boys, making life trying for everyone else in general and Torbidda in particular: the girl was too big a target, so by default he had become the focus of Four’s campaign of vengeance. Leto observed that avenging fallen comrades was an excellent cause to unite a group – but Torbidda was less interested in history, than practical suggestions as to how he could survive.
Varro pulled one of the dangling chains, the sheet lifted and the children stepped back. The water started only two braccia down, but it looked at least five braccia deep. The pool’s surface was alive with writhing limbs, spastic hands and gnashing animal jaws as shapes turned and shifted unstably and cubes and spheres broke the surface and dissolved.
‘Look, children, at the monster our wisdom captured. Beautiful bride, isn’t she? The pseudonaiades are pure water, and water only. We compromised creatures are at once less and more than these elementals.’
‘All right, Torbidda?’ Leto whispered.
‘Fine,’ he said, fighting rising panic as Varro went on.
‘We’re going to get in. Don’t worry, it’s safe. To study pseudonaiades we must come to know it intimately. But let’s not get carried away with romance: the water of life is death to Man. First, I shall render it neutral.’
He began to work the crank beside the leavers and blue sparks hopped from the turning spokes. Varro watched the dial as he worked. ‘Spinther, be a good fellow and pull that switch – that one, there.’
As Leto did so, the slowly moving wheel changed direction suddenly and started spinning fast. The water’s surface was flooded with the cranking energy and an acrid metallic smell filled the room. The surface shot up in several agonised arcs and then, just as suddenly, was still.
Varro moved to another wheel and strained against it. There was a clunking noise, followed by sustained sucking, and the level of the water started to sink quickly. When it got past four braccia, the top of a tall rectangular box became visible, a layer of rust covering it like moss. As the water sank a little lower, they saw it was actually two connected boxes. Each had a door of thick greenish glass. The door on the left was open, and they could see an empty seat inside. The water level within the other container had not sunk.
Varro was climbing down even as the last of the water drained. ‘Come on, it’s safe. The monster’s sleeping.’ He jumped down into the quarter-braccia that remained and waded over to the box. ‘Wakey, wakey,’ he sang, tapping the other compartment. He turned to the class. ‘Well, come on! Don’t be scared.’
The children climbed down one by one, and by the time they were all in the hole, Varro was sitting inside the compartment on the right, strapping two domes over his ears. He inclined his head to the partition and the Cadets watched a column of water form, moving tentatively at first, as if testing the bonds of its prison, then it began to flow over the glass walls, searching for cracks. Torbidda took a step backwards, glancing at the ladder.
‘Look,’ said Four, ‘Sixty’s scared of water. It’s so true what they say about Old Towners and washing.’
His crew sniggered, even though the majority of them were from the Depths.
‘Can y
ou hear it?’ Varro’s voice was distorted, each word echoing and overlapping, and there was a shifting vibrato to each syllable. ‘The peak of our Natural Philosophy is the Wave, but it would have been impossible without this device. The Helens had the Delphic Oracle. The Etruscans had the Cumaean Sibyl. We have this! Bernoulli called it the Confession Box. Remember, frame your queries in numerical terms, or you’ll get answers that only a theologian could decipher. Who’s got a question?’
Four made a suggestion.
‘Bit morbid,’ Varro remarked, but he pushed the dial, cleared his throat and asked, ‘Water, how many of these children shall survive the year?’
The water column merely continued its swaying. Varro pumped the dial for a few moments then pulled hard on it. The floor of the glass compartment crackled with blue bolts. They vaulted up the walls passing through the pseudonaiad and bending in transit.
‘How many?’ Varro repeated firmly, his voice authoritative.
The sound that came out was like a staccato wail, Aaaamneeevvvaaa. Varro fiddled with dials and the dulcimer sound was heard again, distorted and marred by moments of blank silence.
‘laaaamneeed vaaaav—’
‘Anyone know what that means?’
Doubtfully, Torbidda spoke up. ‘It’s the Ebionite High Language, Sir.’
‘Madonna!’ Varro exclaimed. ‘We have a linguist! Very good, what does it mean?’
Torbidda swallowed and said, ‘Thirty-six.’
‘That’s all?’ said Four. ‘But how do we know that’s correct? Ask it how many will die today.’