Mainspring

by Jay Lake

  Picking the feather up, Pryce stared at Hethor. The green gaze seemed to deepen as some balance of impatience and consideration struggled within. Finally, like they were being forced out, the words slowly came.

  “It’s a legend, boy. Silly, magical nonsense from the Southern Earth, like the Philosopher’s Stone or the Sangreal. People look at God’s Creation, His tracks and gears high in the sky, and they believe that there must be a role for themselves in influencing the progress of the stars and planets. People who believe in things like the Key Perilous, in ancient secrets and lost knowledge, those people can be dangerously unbalanced. Whoever put the notion of the Key Perilous in your head is no friend of yours, Hethor. No friend at all.”

  “He gave me that,” Hethor said. Pryce was trying to talk Hethor out of his own epiphany. “An angel came to me in darkness, told me to seek the Key Perilous, and gave me that feather as proof of his words. Have you ever seen its like?”

  “Hethor, any jeweler’s apprentice could cast this from a simple mold. I’ve no doubt you yourself could, if my father kept such tools about his workshop.” Pryce sighed. “Angels no more touch the lives of ordinary boys than do kings and princes. Less so, for kings and princes walk the Northern Earth, while angels are just metaphors for God’s divine agency within His Creation.”

  “The angel was real,” Hethor insisted, still trying to rally Pryce to his cause. He was losing, though; he knew it. And Pryce held the feather. “Despite what you say. No metaphor at all. Gabriel was as real as anything I’ve ever seen” More real, in a way.

  Edging past the end of the table where Hethor stood, Pryce walked to the door of the receiving room. “Go on about your business, Hethor. I’ll have Porter Andrew write you a note that you were here at my behest. It may spare you some trouble.”

  “My feather …”

  “I’ll return it to my father.” Pryce shook his head. “I don’t suppose you’ve actually stolen it from him, as you wouldn’t have the backbone to show it to me if you did, but an apprentice has no business with such a thing in his possession.”

  The door clicked shut.

  Despite his sixteen years, tears of anger and frustration stung Hethor’s eyes. There was nothing more to do or say. As an apprentice, he was bound to his master almost as tightly as any slave. Unlike a slave, when Master Bodean chose to elevate Hethor to journeyman, he would have considerably more freedom, perhaps be on his way to true independence. But for now, he was as powerless as any woman or child.

  And he’d just been turned out like an errant brat. Without even Gabriel’s tiniest feather to show for his visitation.

  Hethor turned his right hand to look at the cut the feather had made the night before. Where he expected a thin scab, or perhaps an angry red line, there was only the faint key-shaped scar.

  “By the gears of Heaven,” he muttered, “what does this mean?”

  Porter Andrew handed Hethor a sealed note on his way out. Hethor scuffed back down the steps toward Elm Street, wondering what he was to say to Headmaster Brownlee, when he saw a signpost pointing toward the Divinity School library.

  Libraries had books, with illustrated plates. Surely in all of history someone had captured an image of Gabriel.

  He could find some proof of his story. Proof for himself, at the least. At any rate, it was another path toward an answer.

  “MY MASTER has sent me to find details of paintings of Gabriel, the Angel of the Annunciation,” Hethor said to the library porter. He waved the note from Porter Andrew, backside out in case the porter recognized the handwriting. He knew he appeared of no consequence—a narrow-chested, sandy-haired boy of medium height, no different from half the young men in New Haven. Only the subterfuge of the note protected him.

  “Who did you say your master was?” The library porter was a young man with wide-spaced eyes and a face that tended toward vagueness.

  “Master Bodean the horologist.”

  The porter’s expression narrowed, so Hethor hastily amended himself. “Clockmaker. My master is a clockmaker.”

  “Horo … horo … what’s a clockmaker need to look at pictures for?”

  Good question. The library porter was not as vague as he seemed. “Ah, well, we have a painted clockface we are repairing. There has been some damage to the brushwork. Master wants a reference to give to the artist who will be doing the restoration.”

  The porter thought that over for a moment. “Very well, go in and speak to Librarian Childress. You will find her at a black desk through the second set of arches.”

  Her? “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’m not a sir,” grumbled the porter with injured pride. “I work for my keep.”

  Hethor grinned, hopped his way through a little bow, and scuttled inside.

  LIBRARIAN CHILDRESS was indeed through the second set of arches, two pointed vaults of granite that soared over a black-and-white marbled floor showing stylized representations of the twelve stations of the horofix, one for each chiming of the hour. She was also indeed a woman, behind a tall desk that resembled a priest’s lectern, her graying hair pinned back so severely that it might have been painted on her scalp.

  Hethor knew little about girls and less about women, but he guessed Librarian Childress to be older even than Master Bodean. The skin of her face was lined. Tiny wrinkles folded tight around her deep brown eyes. Her lips were thin and bloodless. For all that, there was something compelling about her. He might have paused a moment to discreetly watch her had they passed on the street.

  “I will assume,” said Librarian Childress, “that you told some sufficiently creative story to the porter to find your way in here, rather than clambering through an open window like a petty thief.” Her tone was as cold and pointed as her expression.

  “Ah …” Hethor felt even more foolish than usual.

  “Yale students are for the most part not quite so young as you.” She sniffed. “Even our prodigies do not ordinarily wear work boots,” she went on. “Especially so stained and scuffed. You also carry three secondary texts on mathematics and geometry. Texts that any student here at Berkeley Divinity School would either have long dispensed with, if he were a Rational Humanist, or never have come near in the first instance, if he were a Spiritualist.”

  “No, ma’am,” Hethor said.

  “No?” She leaned forward. “No, you are neither a Rationalist nor a Spiritualist. No, you are not a Yale student. Or no, you are not a petty thief.”

  He wanted to sink to the floor and crawl away. “No …” Hethor found his resolve. “I have a question.”

  “Then ask. As it happens, I can spare a few moments for an enterprising young apprentice such as yourself.”

  Hethor felt like he’d just participated in an entire conversation that had never actually been spoken aloud. “How do you do that?”

  “I look at what my eyes find before them, not what my mind expects to see. Now what is your question?”

  “I need to see pictures of the angel Gabriel.”

  “Archangel,” Librarian Childress corrected. “Perhaps you should be at the College of Fine Arts. This is the Divinity Library.”

  “Please, ma’am, I was lucky to even get here. I don’t expect I’ll be allowed to come back.”

  She sighed, then vanished briefly behind her desk before reappearing at the floor level. Librarian Childress was thin, and perhaps as tall as Hethor’s chin, but somehow she seemed much bigger. She wore an ankle-length black dress that communicated absolutely nothing about the shape of her body. “Come into the reading room, young man.”

  “Don’t you want to know my name?” he asked, following her to a set of double doors carved with scenes from the life of some saint.

  “No. Because then I can say I’ve never heard of you when trouble comes. Trouble does follow you, does it not?”

  They walked into a room lined with tall shelves. Three windows at the far end admitted sunlight. It smelled of dust and paper and leather—the very scents of educati
on and learning.

  “No!” Hethor exclaimed. “I mean … well, maybe. Now. But I’m new to it.”

  She laughed. Her severe voice loosened like a brook running through the woods of Hethor’s childhood. “A boy freshly grown to manhood? New to trouble? You’ve led a terribly straitened existence, my apprentice friend.”

  In that moment he decided that perhaps this woman was his friend. Or at least, she could be. “Maybe so, ma’am”

  They stood in front of an enormous table, overlain by a sheet of glass. Yellowed maps were pressed beneath like ancient butterflies from other lands. Librarian Childress patted the tabletop. “Wait here, please.”

  Hethor watched her walk away. The heels of her leather boots echoed on the marble floors. He stood a while—five, then ten minutes—wondering if she’d gone for the library porter, or even worse, the New Haven bobbies. Had she forgotten him? Abandoned him? Even in her brief, sharp-witted observations, Librarian Childress had treated him with more dignity than Pryce Bodean ever had.

  She reappeared, pushing a little cart laden with several large books bound in various shades of calfskin.

  “Art,” she announced, “so righteous that it must be locked within covers and hidden from the mass of men.”

  The first book hit the table with a resounding thud. Hethor read the cover, Religious Images of the Latest English Century, before Librarian Childress slammed it open.

  “Look through here,” she said sharply, then reached for the next book. Pausing, “You can read, yes? Those aren’t someone else’s schoolbooks you’re carrying for a disguise?”

  “Yes, ma’am. English, Latin, and some little French. I can recognize certain Chinese marks as well”

  “All the great languages of Northern Earth. A studious apprentice indeed.” The librarian sounded to Hethor as if she approved. The next book slammed down on the table with another resounding thud. “And here are the Italians.”

  Hethor began to flip through the first book, the Englishmen. It was filled with pictures of men, animals, and angels, reproduced in engravings, some of which had been tinted various colors in imitation of the original oils or watercolors.

  “This one!” he shouted. It was a picture of an angel leaning over some roses to speak to the Virgin Mary. The Earth’s brass tracks soared into the sky behind it.

  “Shh,” said Librarian Childress. “This is a library. At what are you looking?”

  “Dante Gabriel Rossetti.” Even the name seemed significant, albeit out of place in a book of Englishmen. “This angel”

  “Archangel. What about it?” Her voice was kind.

  He had already spilled his secret to Pryce. There seemed little point in hiding from this woman, who might know enough to help him. “It came to me,” said Hethor, miserable. “Last night.”

  She reached up to stroke his cheek. “You poor, poor boy. What on Northern Earth did it want?”

  Something in the way she asked the question tore away the last vestiges of his sense of secrecy. “The Key Perilous. I’m to find the Key Perilous. The world’s gone wrong, and I’ve been chosen to fix it.” His breath caught in his throat.

  Librarian Childress’ hand covered her mouth, her eyes wide. “Goodness. Such a burden. How did you know it was the Archangel Gabriel?”

  That she did not laugh, or call him mad, was an immense relief. “It told me.” Hethor nodded at the engraving. “This is the angel I saw.”

  Childress began flipping through the Italian book. “There are other pictures of Gabriel. Many others. Let us look some more.” She turned a few pages, then glanced up at him again. “I believe that you mean what you say, but what you remember may not be the truth. The Key Perilous is legendary, in several senses of the word.”

  “It’s real,” said Hethor. “What happened, I mean. Gabriel gave me a silver feather.”

  “Where is that feather now?”

  “Pryce Bodean took it from me. Said I didn’t deserve to have it, all but accused me of stealing it.”

  She looked at Hethor’s boots, a slow, pointed stare that was hard to miss. “One might be excused for wondering why an apprentice would be carrying silver, especially if one were a Rational Humanist such as Mister Bodean. He does not miss much in his search for a hard-edged kind of truth.”

  “So what do I do? I need to understand my mission.”

  “If this is true, you will need help.” She stopped, one hand resting on the Italian book, and gave him a long, careful look, like a greengrocer with a questionable load of lettuce. “But if this is not true, if you are just a foolish boy, taken with fever or a bout of imagination, I would be more the fool to help you.”

  Somehow Hethor was sure that she knew something. She knew what he needed to do. How could he convince her of the truth of what had happened?

  The scar. Of course. He opened the palm of his right hand and held it out to her. “Here is the scar from the feather. Its edges were sharp as a sword, ma’am.”

  Librarian Childress took his fingers in her own and studied the scar. “This is old, and in the shape of a key.”

  “It healed overnight. I don’t know why it is in the shape of a key.” Hethor felt like a fool, but he kept trying. “A sign, ma’am. A miracle, that I need to understand.”

  “A reminder, perhaps?” She smiled at him, genuine humor in her face for the first time. “Listen, boy. Her Majesty’s viceroy in Boston currently has a court mystic in residence, a self-styled sorcerer called William of Ghent. It may be possible to convince him that your visitation was real. If William believes you, then you may receive help, or at least advice, from the viceroy and his court.”

  Hethor withdrew his hand from her touch, closing his fist. “Do you believe me?”

  “I believe that you are telling the truth as you see it,” said Librarian Childress carefully.

  “But you want to see the silver feather. As proof.”

  She nodded. “As proof. As will William. Without the feather for examination and analysis, your scar is interesting, but no more.”

  “I don’t know how to get my feather back from Pryce.”

  “I do” Librarian Childress smiled. “Leave that to me.”

  EATING A LIGHT lunch of cucumber sandwiches and tea with Librarian Childress in the staff room somewhere deep in the Divinity Library, Hethor realized that he had lost any chance of reclaiming that school day at New Haven Latin. He wasn’t sure how much he cared. Gabriel’s message was becoming more and more real to him as the hours went by, even in the absence of the feather. Or perhaps because of that absence. Hethor realized that his faith alone should have been sufficient—he was growing ashamed of having asked for a token.

  “How is it,” he asked around a mouthful of unfamiliar white bread, “that you work here? I thought only men were permitted at Yale.”

  She gave him a sour look, which quickly left her face. “Women were put on this Earth by God to bear children. Just ask any man. Intelligent women are here to have intelligent sons, and otherwise keep their mouths shut. Let us just assume I wasn’t interested in having any intelligent sons.”

  “But how did—”

  “Let us also assume that your mother apparently wasn’t interested in having any intelligent sons either.”

  Hethor subsided, chewing on a mouthful of cucumber and pale bread. After a few moments, he swallowed. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  She surprised him by saying “Thank you.”

  A little silver bell above the door jingled. Hethor glanced up to see a whole series of bells, with pull strings vanishing into the walls.

  “They’re tuned,” said Librarian Childress. “Each note has a different meaning. Now follow me, please.”

  She led him back to the reading room and pointed up a ladder that ran on rails along the largest bank of shelves. “See the alcove up there? Climb into it and behave as though you were a statue. If you lean against the paneling at the back wall, you will be invisible to anyone in the room down here.”

 
Feeling strangely excited, Hethor climbed. The alcove was dusty, littered with mouse droppings and shards of wood. It smelled of mildew. Somehow it was comforting to know that even Yale had mice, though the thought of the little creatures near all these books worried him.

  He sat back, seeing only the shelf across the room from him and part of the windows to his right, now letting in the light of the afternoon. After a moment, the door squeaked open. Had she shut it on her way out, while he was climbing?

  The librarian’s voice echoed from below. Her tones were formal. “Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice, Mister Bodean.”

  “It is my pleasure, ma’am.” Pryce was less certain and haughty in his manner with her, Hethor noted with glee. “Ah … your note indicated that you were acting on behalf of Dean Holliday?”

  “Yes. He has been investigating a rumored series of, well, apparitions here in New Haven. I have been charged with certain aspects of that work, in order to insulate the office of the dean from small-minded accusations.”

  “Such as we Rational Humanists might levy?” Pryce’s voice reeked with false good humor.

  “Precisely.” She paused, diplomatically perhaps. “I have heard that something of potential importance was delivered to you today by a tradesman. A sort of minor … token.”

  Hethor was struck by how Librarian Childress’ speech was slipping from her usual tart precision to the sort of self-important puffery that characterized the diction of the students. Hethor wondered if Pryce knew he was being mocked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know wh—”

  Childress’ words cut across Pryce’s like a lash, in her sharp librarian voice this time. “What you don’t know would overfill this room, Mister Bodean, but please do not pretend ignorance. My sources are good, much better than yours. I need to examine this token. If it is your property, I will be pleased to return it to you.”