Illusionarium (6 page)

Inside the cell, Lady Florel had not moved save to turn around, slowly, and smile at me.

“The quickening formula worked,” she said.

“Yes—yes, quite,” I said, removing my cap and twisting it like mad. “You—you were right, Lady Florel.”

“Of course I was.”

She walked around the table and past me, her heavy coat brushing me, and stepped out into the hall. I followed out after, and the fantillium air frosted my lungs again. Cold air hit like a hammer.

And the illusion returned. Ice blossomed up the walls as I felt my veins turn cold, the corridor growing white around us. Lady Florel stared aghast at the sheer winter beauty before us.

“Look, Lady Florel,” I said, kneading my cap like bread. “I—I had a vial of fantillium and I—ah—I used it
on the boiler to, ah, get to your cell. But I expect we can go to my father's laboratory and get another one. Er—if we can get past the guards. Actually, perhaps you ought to stay here and I'll be right back—”

“You illusioned all this?” she breathed. Her eyes glittered.

“Right, um, we don't have much time. . . .” I stepped quickly over Lockwood's unconscious form and grimaced. I was going to be in so much trouble. . . .

“No need,” said Lady Florel, stopping me as I made for the door.

And she began to illusion.

She illusioned like it was an art, her gloved hands turning around themselves, glistening streams emanating from them in whorls. The air warped around her fingers and extended across the hall, growing in layers of white.

Awestruck, I stepped back as the illusion solidified and grew on the corridor's wall. First the white outlines of an arched doorway, which darkened into decayed colors of white and gray, and rotting textures of wood and brick. Rusty iron hinges and a latch formed. It looked like it could be a door from Old London and smelled thickly of must and rot.

My head swam, thinking of how many elements and metals she had to know to form something so complex. Wood . . . iron . . . stone . . . how was this possible? I
stared at the illusioned door, stunned.

A voice from beyond the brig hall echoed distantly into the corridor.

“Lieutenant?” It was Captain Crewe's. My heart began to bang against my rib cage.

“Lady Florel—” I began, panicking.

Lady Florel swept up Lockwood's steam pistol, which had lain by her feet, and held it with experienced authority. She swept to the illusioned door, grasped the latch, and opened it.

Warm air blew into the corridor from the doorway. Watery sunshine and the smell of orthogonagen offal washed over us. I winced against the light, and when my vision caught up with me, stared at what stretched before us through the illusioned door.

It was a city.

An expanse of building and towers and bridges, black and gray stone in ruinous grandeur. I stepped forward, pinpricks of memory stinging; I recognized some of them! I'd seen pictures of Arthurise before. There stood the Elizabeth Tower before us. And there, like a golden sliver, the same river that ran through Arthurise.

And yet, it was not our capital city. It lacked the spires, the tall railway bridges, the semaphore towers. In the distance, an unfamiliar glowing white building with pillars and domes rose from the tangle. And above
the expanse of the illusioned city, hundreds of airships bobbed, darkening the skies with their hulls. Beyond even that, high above everything, stood crisscrossed steel beams and glass. The entire city was encased inside a giant glass building.

“Lady Florel!” I choked, twisting the life out of my cap.

Lady Florel smiled at my reaction.

“This is Nod'ol,” she said simply, motioning to the door. “The cure to the Venen is found here. Come along, no time to sit here gaping.”

“What?”
I said. I backed away sharply. “What is this, Lady Florel? How—how did you illusion all of this?”

“Lieutenant, have you seen the Gouden boy?” Captain Crewe's voice called into the brig hall. I whipped around as Captain Crewe stepped into the corridor.

Lady Florel raised her pistol and fired.

The crack shattered the air.

The bullet hit Captain Crewe.

His face registered surprise, then pain. He fell back, hitting the wall and then the ground. It vibrated under my feet.

“Captain Crewe!” I ran to help him.

An arm grabbed my throat and yanked me backward to the brig floor. My vision filled entirely of Lockwood, entirely conscious and seething in my face. His blue eye flared. Shouts filled the air from beyond the brig hall.

I writhed out of his grip. The ice around us had begun to fade. The boiler was running out of fantillium. With a futile effort I made for Captain Crewe; Lockwood pounced again and thwacked my head against the nearest pipe.

In a sweep of coat, Lady Florel fled through the illusioned arched doorway, into the city of airships and glass sky. She slammed the rotting door behind her, and—

Disappeared.

I gulped hot air. The brig darkened as the pipes sputtered and the steam grew transparent white again. The fantillium had run out.

Lockwood knocked my head against the pipes again, giving me one last glimpse of the corridor. The ice had gone. The illusioned door was gone.

And Lady Florel was gone.

My consciousness gave up, and I surrendered myself to darkness.

“G
et up!
Get up!”

A large, thick boot attached to a large, thick leg attached to King Edward VII kicked me awake. I groggily peered up at the towering king, who glared down at me over his stomach and pointy beard.

I lay in the exact spot I'd passed out, flat on my back and surrounded by angry airguardsmen, a wall of blue uniforms, belts, and brass buttons. My father stood among them, a pillar of brown beside the king, looking pale and worried.

I leapt to my feet. A dozen gloved hands grabbed me and shoved me back to the floor.

“Captain Crewe!” I said. “He's been shot!”

“Not that you care,” Lockwood spat, standing with the airguardsmen.

“What gives you the right to steal my fantillium and
attack my airguardsmen and release my prisoners?” the king yelled, dragging me back up by my collar. “Where is Lady Florel?”

I writhed and twisted out of his grip and straight into the airguardsmen's clutches, as the events before crashed over me. The illusion! The
doorway
!
She had disappeared into an illusion!

“Your Highness.” An officer saluted at the brig hall's entrance. “The ship has been searched. She's not here. All the dinghies are accounted for, as well.”

“Keep searching,” the king said. “Search the city.”

“She's not in Fata!” I choked. “Lady Florel illusioned a door! She went through it and disappeared!”

The king's buggy eyes narrowed at me.

“I
know
it sounds mad,” I pled. “But that is what happened, I swear it! The—the lieutenant saw it, too! Just before the illusion ended! He'll tell you!”

All eyes turned on Lockwood, who stood with a bruise across his hollow face and his yellow hair mussed. He turned his eye to the floor.

“I don't know what I saw,” he muttered.

The king wrenched me up by my collar again, and with fists the size of boxing gloves, throttled me. My glasses shook off.

“Enough, please!” said my father.

The king gave me one last shake and shoved me away.
I fell to my knees by my glasses, hand at my throat and gasping for air. The blood returned to my head.

My father knelt in front of me, peering intently at me with his yellow-brown eyes. The past three days had drained years from his face.

“I
swear
it's the truth,” I said fervently to him. “She said she could find the cure. All she needed was fantillium! I—I had to do
something
!” I pled.

My father brought a hand through his mess of graying brown hair and shook his head.

“If my son says she disappeared into an illusion,” he finally said, standing, “then that is what happened. My son would not lie.”

“And I suppose your son does not steal, either?” said the king. “Or help criminals escape?”

My father mouthed words, but no sound came.

“Two—two days ago, I would have emphatically said no.” His shoulders began to shake. “But now, I am not sure of anything.”

My heart sank in my chest. The airguardsmen seized my arms and wrenched me to my feet. They twisted my hands behind my back and clamped iron shackles around my wrists. I struggled.

“I had to do
something
!” I cried to my father. “I couldn't just let Mum and Hannah die!”

“Take him out!” the king yelled.

The airguardsmen dragged me into the hall. I caught one last glimpse of my father, his long coat unbuckled and his tie askew, and I could see him crying.

The airguardsmen forcibly escorted me to dock five on the other side of the city, up the lift, and into the old, small military airship, the
Valor
. I was locked in a brig cell. I lay there on the metal floor, exhausted, bruised, and sick inside.

My own father hadn't stood up for me.

I pulled myself up and paced—discontent, angry—and the feeling only intensified when the airship's engines rumbled to life and the brig guard informed me that I was being taken to Arthurise to await a trial there.

“What?” I said, grasping the crisscrossed bars on the cell door. “To Arthurise? But—no! I'm Dr. Gouden's apprentice, surely—surely they need me here to help!”

“King's express orders, I'm afraid,” he said. “Can't go against those, eh?”

I nearly strangled him through the bars. Instead I returned to pacing, pitching across the tiny cell when the ship jolted forward. I peered out the tiny port window in my cell, watching Fata Morgana growing smaller and smaller in the pitch-black sky. It stung my vision. The dome of the observatory, the chimneys and roofs and row houses, the prickly mining towers, all suspended in the
air like a sliver of the moon. The city grew small and disappeared into the distance.

It felt like my heart had waned and disappeared with it.

I'd never been to Arthurise, but I knew it was a full day-and-a-half flight away. All that time the illness would progress in Mum and Hannah. For hours on end, I banged around the cell, refusing the gloppy food they tried to give me, kicking the door and walls until I could see the bars and rusty bolts of the door when I closed my eyes, every inch of it copied in my mind.

When the
Valor
lurched out of the southerly aether streams, all I could think was:
Four days left. Only four days.

Presently, a sturdy officer with his arm in a sling unlocked my cell door. I recognized his friendly face and straightforwardness immediately.

“Captain Crewe!” I said, relieved. “You're all right!”

The captain smiled. I noted Lady Florel's shot had hit him just below the shoulder. If he was in pain—and I knew he would be—he did not show it.

“Have you seen Arthurise before?” he asked.

“Only in books.”

“Then come.”

I followed him up a staircase and emerged onto the command deck, a large open floor with windows all
around the sides, and officers and navigators at their posts. Weak winter sun shone over us. Afternoon. I walked to the side and peered, fascinated, at the expanse of city that stretched below the ship.

It was like the city Lady Florel had illusioned, but far grander. Steel and marble shone in the sun. Light semaphore of all colors made the city glitter over a tapestry of train tracks and commerce. Airships of all regulations and sizes docked to vertical ports and stretched as far as the eye could see. I could even smell it through the windows: burning orthogonagen and wet brick.

Arthurise. The City of Virtue. Years ago it had been called London. That was before the Assemblage of the Round Table. Now it stood before us, the largest and greatest city in the world.

“City is in mourning,” said Captain Crewe as we waited for permission to dock in the Old London sector. “Quarantine, too—though it's doing little good. The Venen's already spreading to New England and India. I had hoped the king would let you stay and work with your father, but—” He stopped and shook his head.

I stared miserably at the towers and architecture that surrounded us as the
Valor
descended into the scrubbed brick of Old London. We docked; Captain Crewe and several airguardsmen led me out, handcuffed, into the docking lift. I couldn't believe how warm it was here. At
least thirty degrees! And the sounds! Airships. Distant trains. The lift opened into a courtyard and I stepped onto grass—
grass!—
strange and spongy beneath my feet. Leafless trees lined the stone wall around the courtyard, their spindly branches like veins. It smelled so thickly of a hundred muddled scents that I gagged when I inhaled.

The Tower of London. I knew this place only from books. I stared up in awe at the water-worn towers attached to massive stone walls. Slotted windows and ancient doors punctuated the fortress. Queens and dukes had been held prisoner here hundreds of years ago. I hadn't realized it was still used as a prison.
⁹

A large building stood in the middle of the courtyard made of brick, domed towers at each corner and arched windows in between. An Arthurisian flag flew from a pole at the roof, a blue-and-gold ensign. We climbed a wooden set of stairs to reach the entrance. I read a plaque next to the door that designated it as the White Tower, then my eyes caught the door.

It was wooden and arched, with iron hinges and latch, and I immediately recognized it.

It was the door Lady Florel had illusioned.

And it
wasn't
.

This door had been tended to, polished and cleaned over the years, and the hinges weren't rusting. But it
was
that door!

I shifted impatiently, nearly bursting with the revelation, as the head yeoman—the main guard of the tower—reviewed my papers in his office, and exhaled loudly at me.

“Why is it,” he said to no one in general, “that when the king is in a foul temper,
we
are always full?”

Passed over to the tower's stewardship, I managed one last word with Captain Crewe before we parted.

“This door,” I said as we were led out the entrance again. “This is the door Lady Florel illusioned!”

Captain Crewe's brow creased and he looked at me, confused.

“It was older—rotting,” I said. “But it was this
same door
. I'm sure of it.”

“What can it mean?” he said.

“I don't know. “But—Captain—will you tell my father? He might be able to sort it out—”

“I am not returning to Fata Morgana, Jonathan. I have been given leave. My wife and daughter are dying.”

I was struck speechless.

We parted without another word. Cold rain drenched me as my new guard escorted me across the courtyard, up
slick stone stairs, to a jutting tower in the wall. Here they unlocked a groaning door, and a musty-smelling dank rolled over us.

“You'll have to share this cell,” the head yeoman said wearily. “I
really
don't want to hear of any trouble, is that clear?”

I cautiously entered. My eyes adjusted, taking in stone, wood beams, an old empty fireplace, names carved into walls. A figure in the corner separated from the darkness. I noted the blue uniform, the glint of medals and buttons, a handsome figure with light hair and an eye patch—

Lockwood recognized me the exact moment I recognized him. A feral cat couldn't have pounced on me faster. My head hit stone and his hands gripped my throat.

“You little maggot!” he snarled. “You disgusting flap of cut-off flesh, you murky chunk of
filth
! Thanks to you I've been stripped of my rank!”

I kicked him off and dove, raining all my frustration and anger of the past four days upon him. He threw fists into my stomach and face. A
crunch
sounded in my head. I sputtered as blood poured down my lips.

I didn't care what I hit, so long as it was made of Lockwood. My glasses knocked off my face and skittered at our feet as he soundly thrashed me.

Yeomen's hands dragged us away from each other. Blood dripped down my chin as they held us apart, three
yeomen keeping Lockwood from dismembering me. The head yeoman stood at the door, looking duly unimpressed.

“Gentlemen,
please
,” he said. “Quite enough, what! I assure you, outside my office there is a
lovely
museum of torture instruments
heartily
used hundreds of years ago and I
have
always wondered what
exactly
they do. So unfortunate to have to use them on fellows so lithe and young, what! Shake your barking hands. Right now.”

Lockwood and I glared at each other with concentrated loathing. His one eye had swollen up, giving me great satisfaction. With unexpected friendliness, he suddenly straightened and offered his hand. I grasped it to squeeze the life out of it, and was confused when he shook it firmly and fairly.

“There. See? Aren't we all so happy now?” said the yeoman.

Grinding glass sounded against the stone. Looking down, I saw Lockwood's boot driving my glasses into the floor with his heel.

I dove at him.

Five minutes later, Lockwood and I stood at opposite ends of the tower room, nursing our wounds as the head yeoman, still threatening us with all shapes and sizes of torture, locked us in. I fumed, face pulsing, as I examined the crack on my broken lens and slid them back on. I could hardly see without my glasses, so it appeared I'd
spend my time in prison with the world half-broken.

Through the slit of the window in our cell, I watched the
Valor
discharge from the long line of airships above us and sail away. Back to Fata. I couldn't sit still after that; I paced the cell, and eventually settled on scratching the Venen's chemical makeup on the floor with a piece of broken stone.

“What are you doing?” Lockwood's voice broke the silence from the other side of the room, the first words he'd spoken in hours.

“Mapping out the Venen,” I said, and added, “not that you care.” I doubted he had any family that would die from it. Most of the airguardsmen—especially Northern airguardsmen—joined because they were orphans and could be on duty for months at a time with no one to miss them. That explained, anyway, why he was so miserable.
¹⁰

Church bells an hour later startled me from my work. They rang from the White Tower in the center of the courtyard. On top of those, bells began to chorus all over the city in symphonic discord. The dissonance filled our cell.

“Why are the bells chiming?” I said, alarmed. “It can't be Sunday already! It's only just Monday, right? Wait—how long was our journey to Arthurise?”

I scrambled to the window, and called out to the
yeomen in the courtyard below. They patrolled the area, lamps held aloft.

“Ho there!” I yelled. “Yeomen! Why the bells? What day is it?”

The yeoman nearest called back to me, and his voice broke.

“The queen is dead,” he said. “God rest her soul.”