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Following Alban’s several shocking disclosures, an appalled silence fell. I wrestled with a growing sense of panic, and more or less succeeded in stuffing it back down. Worst time in the history of magick to panic, Ves.
Jay shook himself. ‘Plan?’ he said. ‘We need a plan.’
‘I suppose the plan’s unchanged,’ I said, watching Wyr with narrowed eyes. Something about him didn’t seem quite right… ‘I mean, we still need to get into Torvaston’s secret mountain enclave.’
‘Right,’ said Jay.
‘Just with a bit more urgency than before… you aren’t actually deaf, are you?’ I said, the latter directed at Wyr, who lay prone on the floor. His air of casual ease had seemed a bit studied.
He rolled his eyes and sat up. ‘She’s good,’ he said, indicating Emellana with a nod of his head. ‘But so am I.’
‘So you heard all of that.’
‘A fair bit of it, yes.’
‘I’ve a theory,’ I said. ‘Let’s test it.’
Wyr waited.
‘Ancestria Magicka.’
Wyr sat like a stone, carefully failing to react.
‘Last time I said that, you twitched.’
‘Doubtful.’
‘You did.’
‘Did not.’
‘Can’t I just wring his neck?’ I said plaintively, to no one in particular.
‘No,’ said Jay.
‘Damnit.’
‘But I might.’
Wyr held up his hands, and scooted back a bit. ‘I deny everything.’
‘He’s heard of Ancestria Magicka, I’m sure of it,’ I said, ignoring Wyr. ‘How do you suppose that’s possible?’
‘He’s met them before,’ said Jay.
‘Right. It’s no coincidence that we ran into you, is it?’ I nudged Wyr with my foot, a gesture not quite a kick. ‘You were meant to intercept us.’
‘Nope,’ said Wyr.
With a sudden, swift movement, Emellana did exactly what I’d been dying to do. She swept the stupid hat off his head, and hurled it out over the peak. The wind caught it, and sent it sailing merrily away.
‘Hey—’ said Wyr.
He got no further, for Emellana picked him up, and stood poised to send him sailing straight after his hat. ‘Still no?’ she said in a pleasant tone.
Wyr swallowed. Good he might be, but I’d love to see the levitation charm that could contend with a precipitate fall down about a thousand feet. ‘Er,’ he said. ‘Okay, I might have heard of them.’
‘They hired you,’ said Em.
‘Maybe.’
‘What were you supposed to do?’
Wyr sighed, hanging in Emellana’s uncompromising grip like a sack of bricks. ‘I was meant to help you.’
‘Help us?’ I said, frowning. ‘Why? Oh.’ I scrubbed at my face, frustrated with myself. ‘They wanted the scroll-case.’
Wyr smiled nastily. ‘It was good of you to make it so easy for me.’
‘And Addie?’
‘The unicorn? Anything else I could get off you I could keep. That was the deal.’
‘Except the scroll-case?’ I growled. ‘Did you hand that over, or did you keep it?’
Wyr opened his mouth, and shut it again.
I found that Emellana was looking gravely at me. ‘You’ve an idea?’ I said to her.
‘I think it is a good thing that Wyr has crossed our path again.’
I blinked. ‘It is?’
‘For one thing, it seems clear that the scroll-case may be important. If Mr. Wyr no longer has it, he is one of the few people who knows where it is.’
‘All right.’
‘He may also be one of the few people who knows where Torvaston’s hideaway is to be found.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘Why were you hired?’ she said to Wyr. ‘You’re some kind of treasure hunter, aren’t you?’
‘It’s a nicer name than “thief”, I’ll give you that,’ said Wyr.
‘You know all the old stories, especially those pertaining to ancient magick and potent artefacts. And you’ve made it your life’s business to track them down. You’re clearly on the best of terms with the traders up at Vale.’
‘What’s your point?’ said Wyr.
‘You know where Torvaston’s hideaway is because you’ve been there. Ancestria Magicka probably hired you for that very purpose.’
Wyr examined his fingernails. ‘I hate to contradict you when you’re being so charmingly complimentary, but you’re giving me too much credit. I haven’t been in there, because no one has.’
‘No one?’
‘No. The entrance is known, but what’s behind it remains a mystery because no one can open the damned door. Believe me. I’ve tried.’
‘The scroll-case,’ I said. ‘Is that why you wanted it?’
‘I don’t imagine you noticed,’ said Wyr, ‘because it’s faded, and camouflaged to boot. But there’s a mark on that map just about exactly where the entrance is. Coincidence? I think not.’
‘So you think something about the scroll-case either opens the door, or could explain how.’
‘We’re hoping so.’
By “we”, I supposed he meant his crummy employers, too.
But.
‘The case itself?’ I said. ‘Or something, perhaps, that was in it.’
I had the satisfaction of having, finally, disconcerted Wyr. ‘There was something in it?’ he said, looking in disbelief at me.
‘When we found it, yes.’
‘And you did what with the contents, exactly?’
‘That would be my business.’ I looked at the Baron. Hopefully my eyes said: Tell me you brought the fork, the watch and the snuff box.
Hopefully his smile said, Of course I did.
For once, Wyr appeared to have nothing to say.
I smiled. If he’d trotted off to Fenella Sodding Beaumont with that scroll-case and imagined he’d solved the mystery, he was in for a disappointment. They all were.
Provided, of course, that I was right, and it wasn’t the case itself that held the secret.
Was it madness to gamble the entire success of our mission on the probability that a silver fork, a gilded pocket-watch and a questionably-decorated snuff box held the key to a lost enclave that generations had failed to penetrate?
Yes.
But madness is kind of my style.
‘Well,’ I said to Wyr. ‘You’d better throw in your lot with us.’
‘What?’ said Jay.
‘Why?’ said Wyr.
‘Because that case isn’t going to get either you or Ancestria Magicka very far without its contents. And that means we’ve a much better chance of getting in than any of the rest of you.’
‘Therefore?’
‘Therefore, showing us the door is likely to work out better for your greedy little dreams.’
‘Right,’ said Wyr. ‘You’re just going to turn me loose in there and let me grab whatever I want. Sure.’
‘There’s one thing in there that we want. I don’t think we need to care too much about the rest. Anything merely materially valuable is yours.’ If we didn’t manage to put a sock in him somewhere between here and the other side of that long-sealed door, anyway. I didn’t give a crap about jewels and courtly goblets and what the hell else. I just wanted Torvaston’s failed moonsilver project, and the books.
‘Ves…’ said Miranda, doubtfully.
‘Got a better idea?’
She hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Me neither.’
Nor did anyone else, judging from the silence. Alban, to my delight, exuded a serene confidence in my judgement that I found highly gratifying.
I hoped it wasn’t just a pretence.
‘You’re on,’ said Wyr at last, and held out his hand to me.
I crossed to where he still dangled in Emellana’s grip, and shook it. ‘One thing,’ I said. ‘If you screw us over again, Emellana and the Baron will have you for dinner.’
‘We like meat,’ Alban offered, with a friendly smile.
Wyr gave him a sour look. ‘Got it.’
Emellana didn’t so much set him down as drop him from a great height.
‘Ouch,’ said Wyr, and picked himself up. ‘Thanks for that.’
‘Just deserts,’ said Em.
I did so like her style.
Jay sidled my way. ‘Where did all that come from?’ he said in an undertone.
‘About the contents of the case?’ I whispered back. ‘Do you recall much about the history of table etiquette?’
‘Not… really.’
‘I was forgetting it myself, until just now. See, we saw a metal utensil with a handle and twin prongs and immediately connected it with tableware. And it does resemble an early fork. But the fork didn’t come into common use in western Europe until the eighteenth century, and this thing has to be like a century and a half older than that.’
‘It isn’t a fork!’
‘Exactly. Also, the pocket-watch isn’t so badly out of place, except that it has two hands. Early ones had only an hour hand.’
‘So it… isn’t telling the time?’
‘Might be. Might be tracking something else entirely.’
‘And the box?’
I shrugged. ‘Snuff was coming into fashion by the early sixteen hundreds, so it could just be a snuff box. Then again, maybe not. And there’s no saying that it was used to hold snuff, even if it is.’
Jay grinned. ‘Who knew a taste for historical trivia could be so useful.’
‘Well, me. It’s not like it’s the first time.’
‘The secret of your success?’
I thought about that. ‘Yes,’ I decided. ‘It pretty much is.’
- Writer
