“Never said I did, but that’s on account of I knowed him before and after.”
Rathfield smiled. “And yet you won’t allow Brother Rufus to show you who he has become. I would have thought you were more fair-minded than that, Woods.”
Kamiskwa made a comment in Altashee. Makepeace chuckled and the tips of Nathaniel’s ears flushed with hot color. “I ain’t saying he hasn’t changed. I am just saying I am powerful disinclined to believe it. And as my brother has taken it upon himself to remind me, I have done me a bit of changing down through the years. Ain’t never been because God paid me no never-mind, but I done changed.”
Owen made a quick note in his journal. “Colonel Rathfield, might I ask you a question?”
“Of course, Strake.” The man beamed. “How may I help you?”
“I just wanted to record your reaction to the fact that the Steward was able to move Nathaniel’s rifle without touching it, and to prevent the rest of us from firing our own weapons.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Did you see what happened in there?”
The blond man nodded solemnly. “The Steward gestured and Mr. Woods, being polite, followed the implied request.”
“Ain’t exactly how I remember it.” Nathaniel sat back down again and began reloading his rifle.
“Me, neither.” Owen looked up from the page. “Colonel, I was unable to fire my rifle.”
Rathfield’s face darkened. “Do you mean to tell me you actually tried to fire your rifle?”
“Yes.” Owen looked at Makepeace and Kamiskwa. “Did you two try?”
Makepeace shook his head.
Kamiskwa shrugged. “It was not necessary.”
“Try now.”
Rathfield raised both hands. “Absolutely not. I forbid it. You took what the Steward said to be a declaration of his ability to stop your rifle from working. It was clearly a request for gentlemanly behavior which, I am pleased to see, at least two of my companions agreed to.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this sort of magick, Colonel. If you read the reports I sent to Horse Guards, you’d know that Guy du Malphias was able to do the same thing: to make magick work at range.”
Rathfield exhaled slowly. “You’ll be pleased to note, I believe, that certain officials were able to put your dubious observation into perspective, Strake. Your attempt to call undue attention to yourself was apparent, and treated properly. You alone saw du Malphias wield this sort of magick. None of your companions did, did they?”
Nathaniel laughed. “Someone has to have a fancy word for this. You is asking me to take the word of a drunken, murderous scoundrel that he ain’t no more any of them things on one hand. and then suggesting that a friend who ain’t never lied a day in his life is lying about something that important? That do beat all.”
“The fact of the matter is, Woods, that we know, because of centuries of tradition, that magick only works through touch.” Rathfield’s eyes became angry slits. “You are asking me to accept Strake’s word for something that contradicts hundreds of years of teachings by Church authorities. That’s a rather tall order, don’t you think?”
Nathaniel didn’t even look up from his rifle’s breech. “It might be, Colonel, but then, you might want to think on it this way. Just because a baby ain’t never taken a step on its own, don’t mean that someday it might not. Maybe all your tradition just speaks to times when men is crawling through magick, and Owen here, he done seen men beginning to stride proudly. Ain’t no fault of your own that what you think you know is wrong.”
Rathfield hesitated, then glanced down. “Your commentary warrants some thinking, Woods.” His head came back up. “Regardless, I expect all of you to abide by the Steward’s wishes. We leave our guns here. We leave all of our weapons here. We shall get to know these people and their customs.”
Owen forced himself to nod and put on an angry expression. He knew that’s what Rathfield expected. It gave him the opportunity to hide his true reaction, which was complete astonishment. Rathfield’s command was at complete odds with the nature of his mission as stated back in Temperance Bay. And as the discovery of the Antediluvian ruins had led them to the golden tablets, Rathfield should have been demanding that they be turned over to him. And then he should have ordered the people back over the mountains.
I wonder if the petition was the only missive sent to the Queen. The Steward had welcomed Rathfield, which was an act that would seem to have been at odds with the nature of the petition. What had Rathfield expected to find in Postsylvania?
Owen began to write out a list of questions for which he would try to get answers, but he didn’t get very far before a boy can running breathless into the workshop. “Please, come; the Steward wants you to come. Something’s happened.”
Rathfield looked down. “What, boy?”
The child shook his head. “I don’t know, but it has to be bad. He said you should bring your guns.”
Chapter Twenty-two
10 May 1767 Prince Haven Temperance Bay, Mystria
Prince Vlad’s wife found him on the dock down by the wurmrest. He smiled at the softness of her tread and turned slowly to watch her. “Good afternoon.”
“Good evening, you mean.” She returned his smile, then caressed his arm. “You’ve been here for hours. I thought you were going to train Mugwump more but…”
He glanced over at the wurmrest and noticed that the building’s shadow had almost reached him. Has it really been that long? “I was thinking.”
“Apparently.”
Vlad slipped an arm around her waist and pulled Gisella to him. “What we did this morning, and what I did after, it has me thinking so many things. I wanted to fly Mugwump, but then I got to thinking about a way I could direct his flight using what little I’ve learned. And that made me wonder so many other things.”
She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. “Such as?”
“You brought up the idea that we need to assess how fast magick can travel. If the speed is immediate, this has incredible implications for the future of the world. Imagine that I have a partner in Rivertown, down in Fairlee, and he tells me that the cotton harvest has been fantastic. The abundance means cotton is priced very low. With this knowledge I can solicit sales and contracts here in Temperance Bay, locking in what is, in Temperance Bay, a below-market price, but still considerably above the price in Fairlee. I tell my man in Rivertown how much to buy and to ship. Those waiting for the same information to come by land or ship, or those just waiting on the shipments themselves, will be at a severe disadvantage.”
Gisella laughed. “You are far too kind in your example. Imagine a pirate learns what ship is sailing and what cargo it holds.”
“Well, yes, that, too, would be an example. I got to thinking of how I could work with a series of disks to transmit numbers which would be keyed to coded phrases-much the kind of book cipher I use now-so transmission would be quick. So if magick travels faster than a man on foot, or a ship at sea-and if it is not subject to weather delays it would not have to be that much faster-it is incredibly useful. And this got me thinking about whether or not there are ways to speed it or disrupt it.”
“Disrupt, how?”
He pointed toward the river. “Few people see the river for what it really is: a lot of energy. Could it be that the river itself has a presence not only in the natural world, but that it casts a shadow into the supernatural world? Might a message designed to flow along with the river travel faster than one going against it?”
Her brow wrinkled. “That is a good question.”
“And there is another. In Norisle, and even here, there are places that people believe are sacred sites. Men who have studied them claim they are linked by straight lines that intersect at precise angles. Could it be that magick sent along those lines will travel faster? If so, it could be that a trading post built on one of those intersections could be more valuable than one built at the convergence of several rivers? Economic information that allows a downriver merchant to get a good price on furs would be more valuable than the furs themselves.”