by Mark Hayden
‘The first is not always at the beginning,’ said Lloyd. ‘That’s an old Gnomish saying. The main door to the treasury is the fourth along. It’s not locked.’
‘Why not?’ said Mina, a note of scandal in her voice.
‘Only those who are bonded to the mine can open the first door, and the treasury is common property, so there’s no point in a second lock.’
And there was one of the biggest differences between Gnomes and humans. There is no human treasury on earth that is kept in common for long. Sooner or later, it’s robbed or someone puts a lock on it.
‘Be very, very careful in here,’ said Lloyd. ‘I’m not joking, neither. Most of the Alchemical Gold is in stasis, but some of it is in a Collector lattice.’ He was looking at Saffron when he spoke. I think she got the message, but whether she’d heed it is another matter.
These doors stood proud of their doorways, and moved on runners. It opened with no more sound than the air being disturbed. Lloyd walked through the opening and I motioned for Saffron to follow. Mina took my hand. ‘I can feel it from here,’ she said.
‘So can I.’
The treasury room was wide, deep and low. I could touch the ceiling easily. There were pillars scattered around for roof support, and this was one of the most claustrophobic underground spaces I’ve ever been in. That was partly the oppressive roof, and partly the skin-crawling feel of magick.
It was in the air, on my clothes and up my nose. I hadn’t taken three steps inside when sweat started to trickle down my back.
‘The gold is this way,’ said Lloyd.
All around the treasury were pallets. Ordinary warehouse pallets. On each one was something individual. Some had neatly stacked steel bars, some copper, some other metals. Other pallets held one box, one trunk, one case. The smallest boxes were on trays to stop them falling through the slats. We passed a couple of electric pallet trucks, and somewhere outside must be a forklift. We were a long way from the surface.
Mina gripped my hand. ‘Even my Ancile is throbbing now. It hurts, and it feels like I’ve got something alive under my skin, and that is not nice.’
Sweat had broken out in my armpits, on my forehead and all over my chest. Where the Anvil touched my back, it felt like hot stones had been strapped to my skin.
Lloyd stopped in front of a wall formed from uncut rock. It was about seven metres long, and the treasury continued well beyond the ends of the wall. It looked like a shield to me.
‘Conrad, can you raise a deflector?’
‘Never heard of one. Can you show me?’
‘Probably not worth it. I’ve got some here.’
He picked up two thin gold chains, formed into a single loop. He placed one around Mina’s neck first, then me. The heat dropped, but only by a fraction. He ignored Saffron, so presumably deflectors are part of the curriculum for Artificers.
Lloyd had his serious face on. ‘If you feel burning on the soles of your feet, like walking on a beach in Greece with no shoes, then get out, quick. Clear?’
‘Clear.’
He walked round the end of the wall and into a bath of light and heat.
If I could have taken a photograph, you’d have been disappointed. There was a lot of gold, yes, but not that much, and it was spread around on more pallets, these ones made of steel. It wasn’t the quantity, or the fact that the gold was shaped into doughnuts, it was their presence. They felt alive.
If you walk blindfolded into a room, you just know if it’s full of people. I just knew that those gold rings were alive in some way.
‘Here you are,’ said Lloyd. ‘Now what?’
Mina reached into her bag and pulled out a magnifying glass. ‘How close can I go to them?’
Lloyd looked like she’d suggested hand-feeding hungry tigers. ‘Singly, they’re safe enough, but you’ll have to take off your Ancile. It might burn out.’
‘That is not possible,’ said Mina.
‘Why?’ said Lloyd.
Mina turned so that her back was to Saffron, and lifted up her left sleeve. The ink in her tattoo was moving. That really was gross.
‘Fuck me,’ said Lloyd. ‘I have never … Sorry.’ He shook his head.
Mina lowered her sleeve and handed me the magnifying glass. ‘You can play Sherlock.’
I took off the sword, and my jacket. My shirt was so sodden and so stuck to me, that I had to take that off, too, to get at the chain of Artefacts round my neck and remove them. For good measure, I took off my gun holsters. ‘What am I looking for?’
‘Makers’ marks,’ said Mina.
Lloyd bent down to rub at a spot on the metal pallet. ‘This one was created by Niði. Been around a while.’
Mina shook her head. ‘It will be on the gold itself. Perhaps there will be a discrepancy. I take it you don’t often get up close and personal with the goods.’
The heat of Lux got exponentially higher the closer I got to the golden doughnut. It was about an inch and a half thick and eight inches in diameter. Much hotter and I’d need to take my trousers off, too. I backed away and crawled round the pallet, just looking for an irregularity. Nothing. I sighed. ‘I think we might need to turn it over.’
‘I’ll get you some tongs,’ said Lloyd. He disappeared from the gold store and I moved right away from the treasure.
Saffron coughed. ‘Excuse me, sir, but did you get all those scars with the King’s Watch?’
I am a long way from letting Saffron into my past, but she deserved an answer. ‘No. Only the lion bite and the one on my hand. Oh, and that one.’
‘Here you go,’ said Lloyd. He handed me a pair of fabric gloves with silver thread running through them and a hefty pair of blacksmiths tongs.
I put the gloves on and bent down. At arm’s length, I couldn’t move the gold, it was too damn heavy. I shuffled closer and got a good grip with both hands. With a dull clang, the doughnut flipped over. ‘Aah. There, see?’
‘No,’ said Lloyd. Mina and Saffron peered from a safe distance and shook their heads.
I could see something on the bottom. With great reluctance, I took the magnifying glass and peered closer. ‘There are runes. Hang on.’ I committed the runes to memory and stood up. ‘Pen and paper?’
Mina shrugged, and it was Saffron who obliged. She handed me a lovely little leather notebook and folded open the second page. She’d obviously bought it or been given it to start her career in the Watch. I did exactly the same on my first day at Cranwell. I jotted down the runes and showed them to her first.
‘Niði’, she said. ‘In the Dwarfish variant of the Elder Futhark.’
‘Can you jot down Hledjolf, Haugstari and Ginnar?’
She obliged, and I tried another doughnut. Hledjolf this time. On the third, there was something different. ‘Niði again, and then a small triangle.’
‘Eh?’ said Lloyd. He double-checked the invisible inscription on the pallet. ‘This says Niði, all right. A triangle?’
‘Yes. Let me compare it to the first one.’
My knees were hurting by now, and my bad leg was playing up something rotten. The titanium tibia was really, really hot inside me, to the point where it had to be acting as a magickal antenna of some sort. With gritted teeth, I got as close as I could. ‘All the others were inscribed with a stylus,’ I said. ‘That one over there, the one with the triangle, was stamped.’
Mina lifted her eyes to the roof. ‘Thank you Ganesh.’ She looked at Lloyd. ‘There is the proof. That Alchemical Gold was not made by a Dwarf but by a human.’
‘How do you know? And how did you know that it was here?’
‘Can I put my shirt back on?’
‘No,’ said Mina to me. To Lloyd, she said, ‘In the end, it was the only thing that made sense. There is no magickal Bank of England to regulate the money supply, so the inflation in prices for magickal goods could only make sense in terms of a sudden influx of currency. The same thing happened after the Spanish looted Central America and brought shiploads of silver
back to Europe. I assumed that England was being used as a tax haven – that Mages and Creatures from elsewhere were sending deposits here.’
‘Some do,’ said Lloyd.
‘But not enough. And that isn’t all. Alchemical Gold is a physical currency. For this to make sense, actual physical deposits must be made. Again, with no clearing bank, this could happen. All I had to do was work out how and where.’
Lloyd looked suspicious. ‘Does this involve double entry accounting?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mina with a happy grin. If I didn’t love her, I would be convinced that lawyers and accountants were two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. If you are one of those, don’t take it personally.
Mina patted my arm. ‘Don’t worry. I shall keep it simple. If some Mage turned up with a truck full of gold, what would happen?’
‘Even Gnomes would ask awkward questions about that,’ said Lloyd.
‘Precisely. The magic figure – no pun intended – seems to be 200 Oz Troy.’
Lloyd rubbed his chin. ‘Sounds about right. No one would ask questions about that.’
‘And that was another reason for me to see Niði this morning,’ said Mina. ‘It is not easy to pull the wool over the eyes of a Dwarf, but Conrad tells me that anyone can walk into the offices of Flint Holdings and make a deposit.’
Lloyd looked embarrassed. ‘Up to a point.’
Mina tsked. ‘Well beyond that point. Hundreds of accounts for fake Mages were opened around the country with every Gnome and Dwarf and Human who takes notes of deposit. The physical gold was deposited here, in small amounts in their names. At least one of your cashiers must be in on this. The gold is transferred to accounts elsewhere, but only on paper. It then gets shuffled around the country until the deposit is credited, here, to one of four fictitious accounts.’
‘Eh?’ said Lloyd. ‘The data was anonymous. How do you know they’re fictitious?’
‘Mr Flint, you have four account holders with over 200,000 Oz each, none of whom has ever made a withdrawal, and all of their deposits were laundered.’
It made sense. With no single authority to regulate things, it would be exactly as Mina described it. She was the first person ever to have had access to all the data. Brilliant. ‘You are a genius,’ I said. ‘Well done. Now please don’t tell me I have to check every single doughnut.’
‘Torus,’ said Lloyd. ‘That shape is a torus. I’ve got an idea. Let me get the scale. Please put your shirt back on, mate.’
I buttoned up while he fetched a little trolley with a special scale on it. There was a gibbet-shaped structure on the platform, about a metre high and made of cast iron. From the arm dangled a hook with a canvas sling.
Lloyd took off the sling and opened it out. ‘This is a two man job.’ He looked at Saffron. ‘Or two person.’
It wasn’t just me who was getting hot. Saffron was now positively red in the face, so you couldn’t tell whether she was hot, embarrassed or angry. Probably all three. ‘I think Conrad’s done enough,’ she said, and stretched out her hand for the other end of the sling.
Lloyd took his end and stood to one side of the torus with the triangle stamp. ‘We slide it underneath and lift. As this one’s upside down, can you flip it over, Conrad? Then we put the sling on the scale. Right?’
‘Right.’
They got in position, I flipped the golden torus and with a grunt, Saffron hoisted her end and they moved round to the scale.
‘What do you hope to discover?’ said Mina.
Lloyd waited until the sling was safely attached to the hook. ‘Whoever made this thing used a mould, and poured from a distance. It’s the same size exactly as Dwarven work, but I’m betting it’s a different weight. They’ll have used slightly different materials, and by Archimedes’ principle, this will weigh different. This scale only weighs one thing: a torus of gold. Have a look at the red needle, Mina. Where is it?’
Mina peered at the neck of the scale. ‘It is stuck to the left of the red zone. Nowhere near the green.’
Lloyd checked for himself, then stared at the scale. This was a huge fraud, and it had been perpetrated on his clan. It was going to take a lot of digesting. He shook himself awake and said, ‘Conrad, you and Mina can make some tea. There’s a kettle in the store room of the Chamber of the Mother, and you can smoke in the little room at the end. Saffron, can you give me a hand to weigh some more?’
She couldn’t really refuse, could she?
We both breathed deeply when we walked out of the treasury room. That felt very good. So good that I took Mina in my arms, and we enjoyed a big kiss. ‘Congratulations, love,’ I said. ‘That was immense.’
‘I know. I’ve a feeling I’ll never get the same chance again, once word gets round. They were far too generous with their data. Especially Lloyd.’
‘It wasn’t Lloyd, it was his uncle Wesley, the Clan Chief, which tells me that Wesley had no idea what Irina was up to.’
Mina turned right, the way we’d come.
‘Let’s try this way,’ I said, going left. ‘I’m sure there’s a more direct route.’ There was. The treasury was down two levels from the Chamber, but Lloyd had brought us up one and down three. It was at least two minutes quicker. ‘Don’t tell Lloyd about this,’ I said when we got to the Chamber.
The store cupboard was more of a suite, with lots of tables, benches, boxes of tankards and other party goods in one section. There were hot-plates in a small kitchen and a long urinal in a separate room. It took Mina a couple of minutes to find the two tiny cubicles for women. I let her make the tea while I found the smoking room.
I had idly wondered about ventilation before, because there was no obvious source of fresh air. The smoking room had its own extractor, and wasn’t far from the surface, but the mine as a whole? There must be some very well disguised vents on the hill somewhere.
As well as speculating about ventilation, I was trying to put together a plan. It was wonderful to find evidence of money laundering, but we hadn’t arrested anyone. There was so much weight in gold down there that they’d obviously left it. We had to shake the tree, somehow, and in a way that led to Irina and her accomplices turning up to the mine. By the time we’d carried the tea back to the treasury room, I had a plan.
Saffron was on the verge of passing out. I wondered if Lloyd was pushing her for the fun of it or assuming that she could cope until she said differently. Or until she dropped to the floor.
‘How’ve you got on?’ I said, passing Saffron a mug of tea. She drank half of it without taking her lips from the rim.
‘We’ve found six, all close to the front, but not in the front row. Easy to get at, but not the first to be moved if you need a pallet.’ He pointed to the electric pallet truck. ‘Should I move them?’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’re going to ambush them in here, tomorrow afternoon.’
‘I like the sound of that. What are you gonna do? Give them a call and make an appointment?’
‘You need to get Wesley out of Flint House tomorrow morning, but make sure he’s back in the afternoon. And you need to be there in the morning, but gone in the afternoon. We also need Vicky, her new partner, and also one of the Merlyn’s Tower Irregulars.’
‘Mmm?’ said Saffron. ‘Why have I never heard of them?’
I passed her an Irregulars badge. ‘I give these to people I think might be on our side. One of them is an Enscriber, and she’s at Elvenham, which is where we’re heading now.’
‘Elvenham? Your home?’
‘Yes. There’s plenty of room.’
‘Is there a hot shower and cold beer?’
‘Yes to both.’
‘Then I don’t care how much room there is.’
12 — Chain of Command
‘You need to give him your gun,’ said Lloyd.
‘Eh?’
‘What?’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’
We were gathered in the function room of the pub we’d been to yesterday
, ready for part two of my plan.
Part one had gone smoothly this morning, when Vicky and I had turned up at Flint House in Earlsbury and kicked up a fuss. We’d demanded to see the Clan Chief (whom Lloyd had sent on a wild goose chase) and demanded an audit of the clan gold deposits. We’d done it visibly and loudly to ensure that as many Gnomes and human employees as possible knew why we were there.
I’d left a packet for Lloyd, and in that packet was a forged document knocked up by Erin last night. She’d had great fun producing a fake warrant from the Cloister Court for Lloyd. It would be very wrong for Vicky and I to serve a fake warrant, but Lloyd…
After we had gone, Lloyd had waved the warrant around and left it where it could be read by anyone. That same anyone would also know that we were due back at two o’clock to see the Chief. And when I say we, I mean that loosely. Vicky had done all the talking this morning, and would do the same again this afternoon. Her silent partner, however, would not be me but Xavier Metcalfe.
That illusion of me he’d done during the selection process had given me an idea. He was very good, and once he’d practised my limp last night, he was pretty much spot on. Except for the gun, apparently.
‘Once you’re inside Flint House,’ said Lloyd, ‘that gun and all its magick stick out like a sore thumb. With your gun, no one will suspect that he’s using a Glamour. Without the gun, everyone will look twice.’
‘You can’t go down the mine without the Hammer,’ said Vicky. ‘You won’t even have an Ancile. Way too risky.’
‘You’ve got the Anvil,’ said Lloyd. ‘Inside the Mine, you should be able to activate it. I’ll show you.’
‘Too risky,’ said Vicky.
I pulled my lip. ‘It’s a risk, yes. If I can’t activate the Ancile, the operation is aborted.’
‘Do you promise?’ said Vicky.
That wasn’t her right. More than anyone except Mina, Vicky knows that I can’t break a promise. She shouldn’t be asking that. I put it down to her worry about the mine and what happened at Niði’s Hall. ‘Just this once,’ I said. ‘I promise.’