“Oh, I give up,” Caldera said. “Fine—like this?”
Caldera fiddled with the dart, trying to find a way to open it as Landis watched eagerly. After a moment, she found the right angle and unscrewed the top until it came off in her hand. Beneath was a complex arrangement of crystal rods, each glowing with a small but powerful orange light. Together they looked like a weird miniaturised furnace, and very dangerous. Out of reflex I started searching through possibilities, figuring out whether this thing was safe.
“Excellent!” Landis clapped his hands happily. “There you go, Variam! Doubting Johns, eh?”
“Are we done here?” Caldera said. “It’s not as though—” She started to move her hand towards the glowing crystals.
A future suddenly jumped into my sight in horrible clarity. “Don’t touch that!” My voice came out as a yelp.
Caldera paused. “Don’t touch what?”
“That thing’s a bomb!” I couldn’t take my eyes away from Caldera’s fingers, only a few inches away from the central rod. I’d just had a vivid image of what would happen if she touched it. “The crystal in the centre’s a pressure sensor. You hit it and it’s going to blow up the whole room!”
Caldera stayed still for a second, then, very carefully, moved her hand away from the trigger. “Landis?” There was a dangerous note to her voice. “Would you mind explaining?”
Landis had disappeared to a bench in the corner and was digging through spare parts. “Yes, yes, the tragedy of our violent natures, but what can one do, hmm? Certainly can’t deny the artistry in the affair . . . Ah! There you are, you little rascal!” He strode back with a slim-handled tool in one hand.
“Mind telling me why you wanted me to open it?”
“Fluctuations, my dear girl! No use in setting the circuit if it’ll lose containment as soon as it brushes up against some unfriendly spell, eh?” Landis paused, stroking his chin. “Though earth’s not quite the ideal test, should really have brought a water mage—no chance you’re planning to spontaneously change to that type, is there?”
“I don’t know why I expected anything else,” Caldera muttered. She thrust the bomb and its cap at Landis. “Take your little do-it-yourself suicide kit back, all right? I’m not your lab assistant.”
Landis took the parts from Caldera and spent a moment juggling the things in a way that made me cringe. He ended up with the bomb in one hand, the tool (which I recognised as a conductor probe) in the other, and the cap in his mouth. “Look,” Caldera said, following him back to the bench. “You said you knew what that focus was, right?”
“Mf crth uh dr,” Landis said around the cap, his attention on the bomb as he fiddled at it with the probe. “Brth urf yrr crld yrf way uh mrmuh . . .”
“How often does he do this?” I said under my breath to Variam.
“All the bloody time,” Variam said gloomily. He’d withdrawn to behind a bench, and I could sense he had a fire resistance spell up.
“Hah!” Landis dropped the tool on the bench, spat out the cap, and looked at the bomb in delight. “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, eh? Well, until it goes off, but only in life’s transience do we truly see, et cetera et cetera.”
“Landis?” Caldera said.
“Hm?”
“The focus?” Caldera was obviously trying very hard to be patient.
“Secrets hidden in the craftsman’s hands! Of course!” Landis flung himself into a chair and put his feet up on one of the desks, crossing his legs. “Variam, make us some tea, there’s a good chap. They must be parched.”
Variam disappeared quickly, probably glad to be out of the blast radius. “Right then!” Landis said. He was still holding the bomb in his left hand, and the safety cap was still off. The pressure sensor glowed menacingly; I knew it would only take a strong tap to detonate it, and I had to restrain myself from flinching as Landis waved it in my direction. “Good old Vari told me the story. Fascinating account, wish I’d seen the fellow who went after you, Verus, must have been quite the spot of exercise, hmm?”
“You could say that.”
“Wish I’d been there, but we’re still on standby. Tedious business, but ours not to reason why.” He sighed for a moment, then visibly brightened, set the bomb down on one arm of the chair, and rooted around in his pocket to produce the same focus I’d given Variam last night. “Not much to look at, is it?” he said with interest, studying the green marble. “Hidden depths, though, the data array is mightier than the sword, hmm? At least when we’re talking Council politics.”
I kept a wary eye on the bomb. Landis had balanced it on end on its fins. It would only take one jerk of the chair to knock it to the floor, in which case it had roughly a fifty-fifty chance of landing on its tip and blowing apart the chair, the benches, the floor, and probably us. “Data array?” Caldera said.
“Indeed! Good old-fashioned storage device. Lovely craftsmanship, don’t see many of them these days.” Landis studied the focus admiringly, then glanced up as Variam came back. “Ah, man of the hour! Just in the nick of time.”
Variam distributed teacups. Landis leant forward to take his, making the chair sway, and I winced. “Okay, so you’re saying . . . um . . . is there any chance you could put the cap back on that bomb?”
“Eh? Goodness, you’re right! Memory like a sieve.” Landis caught up the bomb, twirled the cap back onto it, and then threw it without looking in the direction of the sofa. Even though I knew it wasn’t going to blow up I couldn’t help but close my eyes briefly. The bomb thumped into the cushions, bounced once, and lay still. I let out a sigh of relief and shared a glance with Caldera. She looked relieved too. Variam hadn’t moved—maybe he was desensitised to it.
Landis, meanwhile, was in full cry. “. . . marvellous design! Completely stable once they’ve been set to the user, and no energy requirements at all. You see that distinctive little fractal pattern at the centre, little universal-tinged beggars? That’s the Halicarnassus influence. Tricksy things, bugger to forge but worth the effort.” He beamed at the two of us.
“So let me get this straight,” Caldera said. “It’s a data storage?”
“Right on the bull’s-eye!”
“Can you read it?”
“My dear girl, weren’t you listening? What’d be the point of a signature lock if any Tom, Dick, or Jehosaphat could come along and take a gander?”
That rang a bell. “Wait,” I said. “It’s a signature lock?”
“The very same!”
“Okay,” Caldera said to me. “You know what he’s talking about, right? Any chance you could say it in English?”
Landis watched with interest, steepling his fingers, and gave me an approving sort of nod. “It’s a type of security system,” I said. “I’ve read about them, but . . . oh.” Suddenly it all made sense. “That’s why the thing didn’t respond. I mean, I was looking for a password, but if it’s signature-based—”
“Then no more use than common pebbles!” Landis looked very happy. “So nice not to have to explain everything, you wouldn’t believe how slow these young fellows can get.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t get it,” Caldera said, “so if you don’t mind slowing down for the benefit of those of us who don’t spend their free time messing around with magic items, maybe you could spell it out?”
“It’s a data focus,” I said. Now I understood how the thing worked. “Mind magic core, you channel a bit of energy in and access the information telepathically—you guys use them, right?”
Caldera frowned. “Those things? We stopped using them years ago. Capacity’s great but you can’t transfer the data, and finding anything is a pain in the arse.”
“But those were the regular kind, right?” I said. “Anyone could use them?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because these are signature locked,” I said. “That’s their selling point. They’re made in a morphic state, can’t hold anything to begin with. Once a mage uses them, they shape to that specific magical signature and they won’t react to anyone else. Kind of the magical equivalent of a DNA lock.” I glanced at Landis. “Right?”