Owen nodded. “So the bounty of your community would attest.”
“God is pleased. This is why He has granted us another great gift.” Ezekiel headed for the fort. “This is why He brought you to us.”
The five of them caught up with him, Rathfield in the lead. “If you don’t mind, Steward, what are you talking about?”
Ezekiel giggled, and were his voice not so full of delight, Owen would have thought him completely mad. “Up there, when God drained the lake, He did so to give us a great teaching. Two tablets, there in the tabernacle. Gold, written in His own hand.”
The man threw open the door to the fort’s main building. “I cannot translate them-I cannot even lift them, but my deacon, he can do both and is even now writing down what God wishes us to know.”
As they entered the room, a hulking man with a shock of red hair looked up from a table and the twin golden tablets thereupon. “Nathaniel Woods, as I live and breath.”
Nathaniel swung his rifle around with one easy motion. “That won’t be for long, Rufus Branch, not long at all.”
Chapter Twenty
10 May 1767 Prince Haven Temperance Bay, Mystria
Prince Vlad ushered his wife into his laboratory and bade her sit at a small table. It had been cleared entirely of books and specimen jars. Instead it had a wooden panel two feet tall clamped to the middle, and two small blocks of wood set between it and the chair Gisella lowered herself into. Each of those blocks had a small brass firestone retention collar fitted to it, and firestones trapped beneath the collars, ruby on the right, amber on the left.
She smiled up at him. “I am certain this will work.”
“As am I, which terrifies me.” The Prince pulled a blindfold from his pocket. “It is not that I don’t trust you…”
Gisella laughed. “Despite my father’s best efforts to keep me ignorant, I do understand certain things about the manner of Ryngian science. You must blindfold me so I cannot possibly react to anything I see.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you.” He slipped the blindfold over her eyes and knotted it at the back of her head, being careful not to tangle any of her golden hair in the knot. “There, right hand on this block, left hand there.”
“I know, husband. When I feel heat beneath my palm, I am to raise that hand.”
“Perfect.” Vlad retreated to another table, similarly shielded. Behind his shield he had corresponding blocks with identical firestones. He also had a quill, an inkpot, paper, and a die. He rolled the die and it came up a five. Since it was an odd number, he touched the amber stone on the left. He triggered the spell to light a candle and pushed it into the firestone. Then he waited.
About four seconds later, Gisella raised her left hand.
The Prince continued through twenty trials, randomizing each time. In seventeen of twenty tries his wife raised the correct hand. The only failures came in the last five attempts, when he was so excited he wasn’t concentrating as well as he should have been. With shaking hands he capped the inkpot and set the quill down. “We’re done.”
She pulled off the blindfold, her blue eyes positively bright. “How did we do?”
“Seventeen of twenty.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I shall do better. May we go again?”
He stood and crossed to her, taking her hands in his. “No, darling, that is a very good result, better than I expected.”
“Then what bothers you?”
He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “What bothers me, my love, is that in doing what we have done, we have invalidated a perceived truth of magick. As we are taught now, to make you feel heat, I would have to touch your hand and invoke a spell.”
Gisella raised one of his hands to her lips. “You do not need magick to have that effect on me, beloved.”
Vlad looked down upon her face, both unable and unwilling to hide his smile. How he had been so fortunate to have her chosen for him by his aunt was completely beyond him. She had become his partner in every way, sharing some tasks equally, but willingly shouldering some burdens alone while he handled yet others by himself.
He had not, in fact, intended to tell her at all about his discovery concerning the Good Book, but he had read the concern on her face as easily as he could read Scripture. She knew he was worried and asked if she could help. He confided in her and instead of recoiling in terror, she had smiled eagerly. “My ability to use magick is tiny, but it is at your disposal, beloved.” And when he agreed to let her help him, he could scarce remember a time she had seemed so happy.
He nodded toward the wooden blocks with the firestones affixed to them. “I did what I could to eliminate some variables. The blocks and the brass fittings are all from different places and types of trees. The firestones are from the same lots and as close to a match in color, shape, and clarity as I could manage. Now it could be that the magick just passed through the air from one stone to the other, or through another channel, or that I directed it to the stone under your hand, since I knew what it looked like, without the stone under mine having anything to do with it.”
Gisella’s eyes narrowed. “We could blindfold you, too, and someone could mix up the blocks, so you only touch one. You’d not know what color firestone it was. I would still raise my hand. We’d need someone else to record the results. Caleb Frost, perhaps?”
“You’re right-blindfolding both of us would work. As for an aide… I dearly wish Owen was here, or Count von Metternin. I trust Caleb, but he is still young and enthusiastic.” Vlad frowned. “He might let things slip by accident. The fewer people who know, the better. If Bishop Bumble ever comes to suspect what we’ve learned, we’re undone. The same is true of Colonel Rathfield.”
“Do you truly think Colonel Rathfield was sent here to find Ezekiel Fire and destroy his settlement before he could share the secrets of the Good Book?”
Vlad slipped his hands from her and began to pace. “I’d not have thought so, save for Bishop Bumble wanting Fire returned here to stand trial for heresy. It also bothers me that papers which Bumble claims to have had destroyed have come into my possession anonymously. A second packet has been delivered, which confirms things in the first, and hints at Fire’s having taken things further. Someone knows things that Bumble does not, and wants them shared on a limited basis. Or do I imagine that the notes were sent to me so they could be found on me, setting me up for a trial on the same heresy charges? What we have just done here would make a prima facie case against us.”
“Will that concern stop you?”
“I would stop if you ask. For the sake of our children.”
“But not otherwise?”
“How can I, really?” Vlad looked at her directly. “What we have discovered here must already be known in Tharyngia. Owen described as much in terms of things du Malphias was able to do. This means that failure to pursue studies would put Mystria at risk.”
“Norisle, too.”
“Yes, of course. I meant Norisle and her colonies.” Didn’t I? “The risks here, at least in the eyes of those like Bishop Bumble, would be that all controls over magick would vanish. We would end up with those who are strong magically carving out their own little empires and lording their power over others. This has not happened in Tharyngia, however, and when you look at it, has not the Church set itself up as the same sort of tyranny through magick, albeit covertly?”
“We may believe the Church has, beloved, but what proof have we of it?” She turned in her chair and smoothed her skirts. “Do you see Bishop Bumble as some sorcerer?”
Vlad remembered back to Bumble and his hardships on the way to Anvil Lake. “No, but if he were indeed one, and had been tasked with watching over magick in Mystria, would he be effective if he could be easily spotted? Were Richard Ventnor sent on that sort of mission, he would be suspect immediately.”
Gisella shivered. “The idea that Duke Deathridge could wield powerful magicks frightens me.”