“We know he studied a Ghost Penny,” said the Queen, and the twin red Terrors nodded. “From this he may infer, eventually, the existence of our post.”
A murmur swept the gathering.
“I am to take him on my rounds tomorrow,” said Tobianus. “He will accompany me throughout day, which means the Spectral Mail will stall completely.”
The Queen dismissed his fears with a small flick of her hand. “For the duration of this emergency, We are suspending the Courier’s exclusive contract and putting all delivery in the hands of the citizens. Ferry your own correspondence. If you wish to pool your efforts, We will leave that to your discretion. Use the astral paths. Eschew the main routes. And especially avoid engaging with the Courier while he is compelled by the Inspector.”
“But who will tabulate the Motivations?” Tobianus asked. “My quarters are under scrutiny. I dare make no calculations.”
“Again, for the duration of the emergency, all citizens are to be responsible for their own tabulations. We hereby suspend the Haruspices of the Shuttle and refer you to rely on the actions of dice, as in days of old. We trust you have all retained the original Codex of Action and Circumstance. If your copy has been misplaced, you will need to confer with a neighbor.”
Apparently many copies had been misplaced, which pleased Her Eminence not at all. Without the basic Concordance, they were all at odds and evens; her ongoing addenda were useless on their own. Various complaints were made regarding the clumsy process for emergency Concatenation. Few remembered how it was done, many of the original dice had been misplaced or swallowed by pets and small children, there was endless room for erroneous interpretations, &c., &c. At last the Queen was forced to make a ruling.
“Very well,” she said, without hiding her exasperation. “We will perform one final Compilation tonight, before the Inspector puts the Courier under compulsion. The matter will be submitted, all possible actions Concatenated, and a course revealed. We will rule for the collective, but each of you must then make your own tabulations until the threat passes. Therefore watch carefully. We are disappointed, however. It was never Our intention that the knowledge would settle in one place, the procedures forgotten by all of you. That is a dangerous way to organize the Kingdom, for centralized knowledge is vulnerable and easily lost. You must, in future, do better.”
A light rain began to fall as the Queen and her chastened cabinet adjourned. She was wrapped in water-resistant robes of state and her sedan chair readied; and then off they went on the public road, fortunately little traveled at such an hour.
The Kingdom was a perfect square and their destination lay in the northwesternmost corner. No need was there to consult a map, for in its superficial aspect, Spectralia exactly corresponded with the familiar demesnes of Binderwood. The true measure of the Ghost Kingdom extended into spiritual depths. It was a land of mysteries, carefully papered over, only to be peeled away through an unending series of Initiations. Tobianus had been granted six of these. Certain citizens had three times that number. The Royal Terrors claimed their Queen had bestowed them with three and thirty Initiations, all in the course of empowering them to look after her affairs.
Any (purely hypothetical) outsider, following on their heels in the dark, damp night, would see only the common byways marked on any map. But for the citizens of Spectralia, the path was illuminated by numberless Evocations. They passed the Dire Domicile, from whence an evil light leaked out, known as the source of the Luminous Scourge, which had stricken children and kine alike and was avoided by all, despite the good-natured widow who appeared to inhabit the place. Then followed the Cavernous Extant, a pitted pasture riddled with tunnels and subterrene architecture built by a race of serpent men widely hoped (but not proven) to be extinct. Beyond was a copse that must never be crossed—the Copse Uncrossed, they called it, simply because the Queen found the name amusing and none dared question her wisdom, any more than they dared cross the copse. They skirted it discreetly.
At last they arrived at the Cot of Concatenation, and here the Courier was privately pleased to see that word of mouth and gossip had yet to supplant the Ghost Penny Post. Not a single member of the household was expecting the arrival of the Spectral Lady and her retinue. All the Cot’s inhabitants were forcibly roused, that the Weaver could be put to work. There was some consternation due to the hour and the Weaver’s advanced age; outnumbered by the presence of so many loyal subjects, however, the complainers gained no foothold with their sleepily mutinous mutterings.
The Weaver’s frailty was a threat to the Spectral Crown’s continued existence, but it appeared both she and the Kingdom would survive another night. Her stalwart grandson, the Cotter himself, volunteered to feed the flame and boil up vapors enough to power the steam-stoked Loom, but the Queen insisted that tonight they would rely on older methods. As the Weaver sorted strands of wool, all those assembled stated their names and status in service to Spectralia. For each citizen, a thread of yarn was drawn. A tally was made also of the unrepresented citizenry, for not every subject was free to leave their home and join the Court in darkness, much as the Queen might have wished it. While the Weaver sorted, the Queen busied herself with her combing-cards, punching holes into the rectangles of thick cardstock in the patterns she had devised to represent both the open-eyed will of the Kingdom and the actions of blind fate. She handed the cards to the Weaver. The old woman fit the boards into her Loom, then set to weaving. It was slow and quiet work as the shuttle wove, and Tobianus dozed and woke several times while the Cotter made tea and offered it about with oatcakes. The Ghost Queen never nodded. Her bright red eyes watched enrapt as the blind fingers danced; as she studied the weave that gradually emerged, her expression grew solemn and skeptical. At last they reached the end of what the cards had written and the strands of wool were severed. The Queen took the length of cloth and laid it across her knees, studying the pattern writ in textiles.
“Weaver, your job is done.”
“Oh, aye, Your Majesty!”
“Hm… We chose no strand for the Inspector, and yet his presence is everywhere in this. With regard to the Kingdom, only a few of us are specifically addressed in these Motivations, our Courier chief among them.”
“Yes, my Queen,” said Tobianus.
“Tomorrow, along with your regular mail, you are to carry one letter of the Ghost Penny Post. You will receive it first but deliver it last, and deliver it only to Us. Understood?”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“The Royal Terrors shall see you have it before your departure. You will make no effort to hide it from the Inspector, but you will not permit him to touch it until your regular route is done. London’s hand in this is clear: as an agent of the competing post, this letter is for him alone to deliver. Tobianus, We will leave you to determine your own course. Your facility with the dice is almost the rival of Our own.”
“Why, thank you, Your Majesty!”
“The remainder of you shall spend the day in ordinary pursuits. At midnight, we will all reconvene at the Specter’s Seat. Tomorrow night will be as taxing as this one, We suspect. Therefore return to your homes and sleep. We release you now—all but the Terrors, of course.”
The party dispersed into the spongy, silent night, plashing through puddles, the risen moon a grinning lookout playfully dodging clouds.