The Sea of Ash – Part Two

Back in the now-askew interior of the first wagon, Doctor Ezekiel Herongräss was speaking urgently with his head assistant, Tabitha von Dunklewasser. She was in her mid-twenties, and he her first major posting from the postgraduate apprenticeship office of the College of Natural Philosophy. The eagerness to prove herself to her new superior was settling down, to their mutual relief, but she remained effused with the unmistakable energy of the new kid.

‘Shouldn’t we test it tonight then, Doctor?’

‘Out of the question, Dunklewasser. We only have so many inscription tubes, and no idea if any of them were damaged in the crash. If we waste them here and find ourselves lacking once we reach the Spire, then all of this will have been for nothing.’

‘But if the machine itself is damaged, then the expedition has already failed. Better to find out now than later, don’t you think?’

‘Well…’ She was getting through to him.

‘And it needn’t be many tubes. We’re carrying spares for calibrating the optics in any case, so it wouldn’t be impacting our capacity at all, really.’

‘It would limit our exposures for optics correction. If even one of comes out unfocused the Collegial Court will eat us alive.’

It was a sobering thought. The Collegial Court’s official position on the Spire was that it did not exist. Any documentation of the site that was not spotless would almost certainly lead to a ten-ten for the Doctor, and another for herself as a collaborator. Fighting down a wince, she addressed her superior with a level gaze.

‘That won’t be a problem, Doctor. I’m the best operator alive.’

Herongräss’s shoulders slumped, and she knew that she had won.

‘You are, Dunklewasser. And you are right. Better to know now, and turn back if we must. Returning without proof is a disgrace, and will make future expeditions more difficult to fund, but returning with anything that could be called false or inconsistent will damn us.’

‘Then you will allow it?’

‘I will.’ He looked up sharply. ‘But only one exposure, and you will take full inventory of the tubes, record any breakages. I will inform the team of the delay that this-’ he gestured to the general disorder of the wagon’s interior incurred by the crash ‘-has caused. Be discrete. If we do have to turn back, word that we brought the machine will surely reach the Collegial Court if it is seen. No sense in forewarning them, if we can scrape together the funding to come out here again. The caravan master is a reliable man, have him help you with the equipment. I know the two of you talk.’

The Doctor stood, almost brushed the dust from is coat, then thought better of it. He went back outside, leaving Tabitha alone. Before the heavy curtain had even swung shut behind him, she was levering at one of the two hefty crates sat toward the back of the vehicle with a crowbar. After a false start or two, the prongs merely carving chips from the lid, she got a good angle. The nails squealed as they were levered free from the box. Careful to avoid stabbing herself, Tabitha tugged the lid the rest of the way out and set it aside, quick to unfold the calico lining and examine the carefully wrapped packages within.

They were cylindrical, around five inches long, and perhaps one in diameter. Tapered on one end to a point, and flat on the other. Gingerly, she untied the twine around the thick brown paper, and let the inscription tube fall into her other hand. It had a pleasant weight to it, she thought. Like a mango. The first time she’d eaten a mango was when she was six. It was given to her by her grandmother, plucked straight from a tree in her orchard, still warm from the sun as it was placed in both of her tiny hands. Then Grandmama had taken out her small, pearl-handled pocketknife, and shown her how to cut so you could hold a slice without getting juice on your hands. Not that it had mattered to the girl, who had gone back to the house with her face and hands very sticky, and thrown her arms around her mother.

Tucking away the fond memory, Tabitha took her Grandmama’s knife from its little sheath fastened to her belt and pried away the brass cap that covered the tube’s contact points on the flat end of the cylinder. The pins were straight and evenly spaced. That meant the delicate filament within the tube hadn’t been snapped by the jolt, and boded well for the rest of the equipment. Just to be sure, she gave the tube a little shake. Sure enough, the pins didn’t shift or rattle. Snapping the cap back on with a satisfying click, she pocketed the tube, and opened the second crate.

Once the lid was sat next to the first, she pulled aside the wrappings to reveal a pristine Thaumic Luxostat. The Luxostat was a reasonably novel invention, essentially a method of alchemically fixing the images cast by Camera Obscura in glass plates. Previously objects thought of merely as aides to landscape painters, the rapid-exposure variants were gaining popularity and acclaim among the nobility, not least for their deployment at the victory line in horse racing. The Thaumic Luxostat was on its way to becoming even more explosive. The inscription method was virtually identical, except that instead of light cast into glass through the exposure of compounds of silver, thaumic fields were cast into hecatite through the ionic disintegration of a platinum filament.

By doing so, and precisely tuning the exposure of the filament to the thaumic radiation by use of specially constructed wyrdglass lenses, the precise formulation of any spellcraft could be determined. The repercussions were enormous. For as long as there had been spellcrafters, it had been an instinctive, inherently creative act.  Every cast was as unique as a performance. Never quite replicated identically, each time a subtle variation or quirk. Every student divergent from their master, and all their art was their own.

Capturing the cast of a spell, and binding all that unconscious thought and instinct that went into a spellcrafter’s work in cold mathematics was tantamount to blasphemy, but it did allow for the precise replication of a spell. A predictable, reliable, identical unit of magical power. It was revolutionary, and all the cries in the world about the destruction of an art form were silenced by the brutal calculus of statecraft. The order given to the College of Natural Philosophy could not have been clearer: Perfect this machine.

That was the second purpose of this expedition, known only to the College’s board, Doctor Herongräss, and herself. Only three Thaumic Luxostats were in the possession of the College, and this the one portable enough for field work. Far too tempting a target for opportunistic thieves, and even the commendable Marten von Donnerheim would not be able to fend off all the attention such a prize would bring. The story told to the rest of the academics, including those on the expedition, was that this was a geological survey.

Convincing the board that the Sea of Ash was an ideal location to test the machine was, Tabitha thought, a masterstroke. The board of the College of Natural Philosophy was comprised of men of deep knowledge of their own fields, and remarkably shallow knowledge of other matters. None were deeply interested in the Sea of Ash, or the scattered stories concerning the Spire, and it is always easier to disguise one’s true motivations to a group when they already believe themselves in on a secret.

Only she had been taken into Doctor Herongräss’s confidence, and it was with that assurance she armed herself as she donned her dust gear. The coat was ankle-length and not overly heavy, but the wool itched, and the colour, originally a powder blue, was now faded grey. Her bandanna was in scarcely better shape, but it served to minimise the amount of dust she would inhale. Though not hazardous, so far as anyone could tell, it was gritty and unpalatable. The horses certainly weren’t pleased to be inhaling it all day on the road, and were being given more water than originally planned to ease their parched mouths.

Carefully buttoning down the curtain after herself, she took a moment to adjust her vision to the outside light. The inside of the canvas-walled cabin was filled with warm yellow from several hurricane lanterns. Outside, the afternoon sunlight was muted by the cloud of dust kicked up in the caravan’s wake, casting everything in half-shadow. Marten was examining a wheel when she approached him, but quickly stood, then threw himself into an expansive and theatrical bow.

‘Miss Dunklewasser, I’m sorry to report there’s been a delay to your journey.’

She brought her hands to her hips and stuck her nose in the air.

‘Intolerable delay, Mr. von Donnerheim, and how am I to make it to my many duties as a Lady of State without my chariot?’

Marten fell to his knees, clasping his hands in supplication. ‘My lady! Oh but I am remiss! Tell me ma’am, would my immediate suicide please her Grace?’

‘T’would not, coachman, though your feudal duty would have you bled at my feet even now-’ the façade broke ‘you owe me that story about the emeralds.’

Laughing, Marten took the offered hand and pulled himself to his feet. ‘That I do. Perhaps tonight, once this mess is seen to. You know what I’m going to say.’

‘And you know what I’ll tell you back. The doctor doesn’t like to have it out of his sight. It stays in the front wagon.’

Marten’s good humour from their little playact slid away. ‘I can’t have them staying where they are, Tabitha. They’ll just snap the axle again.’

‘Now there,’ she gave a wry grin, ‘I can help. Can’t move it myself, and we’ll need it up and down again before he’s done rallying the troops.’

Marten looked where she had indicated Doctor Herongräss, who was calling the rest of the research team to assemble in the second wagon.

‘No time to lose then. Some kind of fancy machine, is it?’

She was slightly put out. ‘How did you know?’

‘One, you’re from the university. Two, it’s heavy. Heavy and valuable to bookfuckers, it’s either books or something that helps you get the stuff to put in ‘em. Three, it’s secret. Something you don’t want the other bookfuckers seeing. Four, it’s delicate. Why else would you want it set up and down after a jostle?’

‘You’re wasted on the road, you know that? There’s not a burgher or statesman in the entire republic that wouldn’t want you as a spy.’

‘Road folk don’t often live long, but we live longer than that sort. It’s the block for all the underlings when their man falls off the greased ladder’

Tabitha cast him an appraising look. Marten cut an imposing figure, almost clearing seven feet, and tough as his boots, which were probably older than her. Because of that, and his genuine joviality lying beneath the deferential professionalism of a workman to his employer, it was easy to forget that he possessed a mind with a kind of brutal, carefully honed sharpness. Like an assassin’s blade, there was no room for ornamentation or sentiment when his life or liveliness were at stake. Throats and purses, she mused, how many had that man emptied?

But she was getting away from things. And being perhaps a little uncharitable to him, who was after all a joy to while away the slower moments of the journey in the company of. The task at hand, though, that would have to come first now. Once they were inside, and she had shown Marten the best places to grip the Thaumic Luxostat’s base section, he hauled it over his shoulder with apparently only mild strain.