Chapter 13
Chapter
“Impossible.”
Henry shook his head.
“You’re lying.”
His lips curved into a smug smile.
My stomach lurched. A manifold reliq. A real, true manifold reliq.
“Please, Mary. Sit down, and I will explain.” He gestured for me to take his seat on the narrow pallet next to Ajax. The room was so small, our knees brushed as Henry settled into the single wooden chair.
“It isn’t a lie, and it isn’t a trick, either. That fossil in your hand holds the equivalent of seventy conventional reliqs,” Henry said. “That’s how I was able to heal Ajax so easily. Test it, if you’d like. It’s practically still full.”
Tentatively, I did as he suggested. There was no perfect metaphor, but if tapping a normal reliq was cupping water out of a pail, then this was peering into a deep, deep well—or standing at the edge of a ship and looking around at the vast expanse of the ocean.
From first breath to the last is magic.
The amount of magic that any given reliq could contain was a factor of both its material and the size of the object.
While a small jewel would hold more magic than, say, a large rock, a larger reliq could store more magic than a small one of the same material.
But anything too big quickly became impractical, since reliqs required contact with the skin to charge.
I did once read that it was fashionable for knights and ladies to wear hammered gold breastplate reliqs, which seemed like a sweaty nightmare.
But nowadays, most folk just wore a necklace or bracelet, and switched out when necessary. Well, the rich did.
These limitations were the whole reason we had the slicks. People like me just waited until we’d filled our personal reliqs back up.
But if you could afford it, there was no reason not to buy as many reliqs—filled by others—as you liked.
I’d never had multiple reliqs of my own, but I’d seen Buckland work enchantments with them before.
When clearing a dig site of debris, for example, he methodically pulled from one after the other after each drained out.
But even then, you couldn’t combine them.
You couldn’t multiply their power or use them together to amplify the effect.
Which isn’t to say people didn’t try.
No one knows where reliqs were first developed.
The Bible never mentions reliqs at all, and the earliest hard evidence of their use in these isles comes from the accounts of occupying Roman soldiers, who wrote of a king with a magic sword called Caledfwlch.
And the oral histories of many peoples beyond our islands claim their ancestors used reliqs even before that, as early as the invention of iron.
But all of history since is bloody with attempts to achieve precisely what Henry was claiming to hold. The manifold reliq.
It was the stuff of fairy stories and cautionary tales.
The Girl with Bright Fingers, who killed her brothers and sewed their reliq-ringed fingers to her palms to try and make herself more powerful.
Charlemagne, famously promising his throne to any man who could produce a manifold reliq, and whole armies dead in the attempt.
The Crusaders, strapping stones to captured Muslims and burning them alive to test whether heated flesh would do it.
The Aztecs, sacrificing a thousand souls at the temple to try.
There was a glow of pride on Henry’s face, the shine of success in the curve of his lips as he calmly took the reliq and slipped the chain around his neck.
Cold slid down my back like ice.
“Did you do this?” My voice was hoarse.
“I think you already know the answer.” His voice dripped with self-satisfaction—if I weren’t so afraid, I would have rolled my eyes.
I rose, lurching for the door.
He shot up, face flashing confusion. “Wait—oh, dear—Mary, where are you going?”
“To tell Buckland what you’ve done.” I gathered my courage and burst from his room, running for the stairs.
I glanced over my shoulder with every second step, expecting at any moment to find Henry with his knife at my throat.
He’d made a manifold reliq.
I’d known he was selfish. I’d known he was ruthless. Ambitious. But I’d never guessed he was capable of this. On one point, all the legends and stories agreed: manifold reliqs could only be forged with blood. Who had died for Henry’s?
I gulped cold night air. The ship was quiet, the waves gentle, and the stars bright.
I ran through the scattered crew members, sleeping on pallets or tossing dice, up to the deck where we’d gathered earlier.
Buckland was reading by reliq-lamp, feet propped up on a small crate.
He frowned and set the book on the bench beside him. “Mary? What’s the matter?”
I staggered. “It’s Henry. Ajax was sickly, and I took him to Henry’s room. Oh God, I left him in there; I didn’t even think—what if Henry hurts him?”
I started to run back, but Buckland caught my arm.
“What did Stanton do?”
“A manifold reliq,” I said, shuddering. “He’s made a manifold reliq.”
“Ah.” Buckland’s shoulders dropped. “That.”
My eyes bulged. I stepped back, catching myself on the railing. I could see the truth written on his face. “You knew. You already knew.”
“It’s not what you think,” Buckland said. “It’s a machine, you see—”
“What’s going on?” Lucy’s head popped up, and I gave a strangled scream. She climbed over the rail, her golden hair wild with the wind.
“Where did you come from? Actually, never mind,” I snapped. “Apparently Henry has created a manifold reliq.”
Lucy gasped.
“Right,” Buckland said, running a hand through his hair. “Well, as I was just saying—”
“I would wager,” Henry said, swaggering over to the stairs—Ajax snuggled against him like a kitten; Henry had taken the time to dress in his day clothes again—“the professor was just about to tell you that the mechanism was his own idea.”
“It was,” Buckland said, eyebrows knitting. “And I know what you’re thinking, Mary. But it is a safe process. No one died for these reliqs, Mary, I promise. It’s simply a machine.”
“A…machine?”
Both men seemed to think we were having a perfectly normal conversation on a perfectly normal topic. Only Lucy looked as shocked as I felt.
“The theory has always been quite straightforward, you see,” Buckland continued. “A basic exponential function. When the magical reserves of one person are compounded with those of another, and those are—”
“And in practice,” Henry interrupted, and Buckland’s lips pulled tight, “it’s a bit like weaving.
Many threads combined into something greater.
Which is why, when I designed the compounding machine five years ago, I named it the Loom.
” His eyes glittered. “Can you imagine the things we shall be able to do? Even I have trouble comprehending the scope of it! Enough magic in the palm of your hand to sail this ship when the wind is dead. Or keep your hearth lit for a week in winter. Or heal a fatal wound. Or a sick pterodactyl,” he added with a smirk.
“When before someone would have needed a barrelful of reliqs, now they will need just one.”
“Or,” said Lucy sharply, “the bearer might sink the ship, or light their rival’s house on fire, or cause that wound in the first place.”
Henry arched a brow. “You have a poor opinion of human nature, Lucy Murray.”
“Comes with experience,” she said.
“Well, if one had ill intent against their fellow man, couldn’t they do any of those awful things now, just as easily, with enough reliqs on hand?”
Lucy scowled, conceding the point.
“Only,” Henry continued, “it would cost seventy poor souls a week or more of their magic—when this costs only seven men or women the magic of one day. One day! And I can assure you, they are compensated handsomely. One shift at the Glasswater Mill pays a wage of one pound seventeen shillings per day.”
“Hell’s bells!” I clapped my hands over my mouth.
“I told you,” Henry said. “They are paid very well for work that requires nothing more than sitting still for a few hours. Far, far better than a lifetime of servitude to the slicks—wouldn’t you agree, Luce? Your brother certainly does.”
Lucy’s chin jerked. “Edgar would never condone such a thing.”
“On the contrary. Ed is one of Glasswater’s leading investors.”
Lucy looked to Buckland, who shrugged. “It’s true. Viscount Merlton has been very supportive.”
“Well…well, then.” Her face twisted, pulled between distaste and loyalty to her beloved brother.
Henry made at least some effort to hide his smirk, but Lucy and I both scowled in return.
Buckland scrubbed at his brows, pacing. His cabin was only three strides wide, so he pivoted constantly.
It was just us two; Lucy had taken Ajax to our room, and Henry knew better than to follow us into Buckland’s cabin.
“This wasn’t how I wanted to tell you. I had a whole presentation prepared for when we arrived at Palmanaeus House,” Buckland said, and sighed.
I snorted. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Yes.” Buckland blinked. “The manifold reliqs are still new. The project is in partnership with the Reliquemical Guild—they supply us the serum for the procedure—but other than that, few outside the Society know of its existence. Though that will change soon; Stanton has been renegotiating the Society’s contract with the guild. ”
“Why?”
“Oh, it’s boring and complicated.” Buckland waved dismissively. “The Geomagical Society is currently barred from selling fossils directly to consumers for use as reliqs. Which has never been a problem before. None of our members want to waste their own time selling fossils and rocks.”
He didn’t mean it for a slight, and I was careful not to let him see how it hurt.
The Society filled its coffers by providing fossils, gems, and minerals to the Reliquemical Guild.
Society members were responsible for submitting a set number of artifacts each year, as part of their membership dues.
But they earned that value back, many times over, in the annuity paid out of the Society’s treasury.
Buckland continued. “Of course the Society would prefer—and I’m sure some of our potential customers would prefer—the discretion and…oversight provided by a more direct distribution model.”
In other words, the Society wanted to control who got those manifold reliqs. That was probably for the best; it wouldn’t do for some rich maniac to get their hands on one in the slicks and level half of London.
“As I said. Boring and complicated.”
But I didn’t find it boring. Now that I’d gotten over the shock that they even existed, my brain was spinning with the potential. I could see why both Henry and Buckland wanted to claim credit for the invention.
I caught my breath. “Wait. This was why you fell out, isn’t it?” Henry said he’d designed the Loom five years ago. That was about when Buckland and Henry’s friendship ended.
Buckland inhaled deeply. “Stanton spoke often of his father’s factories and the steam-powered looms when he was at Oxford with me. It was like a revelation; I realized that such a machine might be used to distill magic from multiple parties into a single reliq.
“After Stanton graduated and joined the Society, we spent almost a decade collaborating on the Loom’s design,” he said, and I recognized the wistful tone, even through my jealousy. What I wouldn’t have given to be the one entrusted with that.
“And then?”
“And then we argued.” Buckland sighed. “He was working on his book. His grand theory. Natural Disasters and the Magical Transmutation of Species?”
“I’ve read it.”
“And what did you think of the argument?” Buckland tapped his hands. “That it is actually natural disasters that generate magic?”
“Well, I remember thinking, Oh, Buckland will hate this.”
Buckland chuckled. “I did. I do. Stanton would take God out of the matter of magic completely. As if magic were not the Creator’s design for the redemption of man’s soul. As if it were simply a result of some natural law.”
“Like gravity,” I said, remembering Stanton’s argument from the book. “But that was all? You argued theomagic, and he cut you out of the project?”
He frowned. “Yes. Well, no. You see, Henry had a specific theory about…” He hesitated. “About the nature of magic. One that I believed to be particularly blasphemous. Dangerous, in fact.”
“What was it?” I was hard-pressed to imagine any theory much more blasphemous than the ones Henry had already published.
He frowned. “I think it best not to say. But eventually, I took my concerns to President Davies.”
I winced. “Ah.”
“Davies commanded him to strike the theory from the manuscript. Or Stanton would be disbarred as a Society member. Stanton was furious, but in the end, he agreed. On one condition.”
“You were cut off.”
“Yes.” His mouth was tight with resentment. “And so, the Loom is Stanton’s now.”
Ajax was curled on my pillow, Lucy stroking his spine. She popped up as I entered.
“Can you believe the two of them?” she said furiously. She’d been stewing. “And whatever Henry wants to claim, I’d wager a hundred pounds it’s a deeply unpleasant experience to fill those reliqs, no matter what wage they’re getting. I will be having words with Edgar about this, have no doubt.”
I ignored her. “How is Ajax?”
I checked him over carefully, running a hand down both legs and then along his spine and each winged arm. He seemed uninjured, as far as I could tell, and he calmed under my touch. I scratched his chin, and he cooed a little.
“He’s perfectly fine,” Lucy said dismissively. “And working conditions aside, it seems terribly reckless to loose such powerful reliqs on the world.”
I patted my lap, and Ajax warily climbed over to settle on my thighs.
“Has he showed any more signs of illness?”
She shook her head. “Did Buckland say what they’re going to do with the manifold reliqs?”
“Sell them,” I said. Ajax snapped at my hand with his toothy beak, searching for a snack. “Don’t you dare bite me”—I wagged my finger—“or I’ll put you right back in that crate.”
“Mary.” Lucy’s tone was serious. “I’ll have to tell the others. You know that, right? This changes the whole game.”
The Prometheans. I nodded slowly. I think I’d known as soon as Buckland confirmed manifold reliqs were real.
“Yes. I understand. But Luce…”
She nodded for me to go on.
“If it really is a faster, more efficient process? And those wages…Henry’s right, Luce. The pay is good. I suppose my point is, maybe the Prometheans should support the mill instead. Honestly, this might be exactly what you’ve all been looking for. A way to really reform the system for the better.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Lucy muttered, so softly I don’t think I was meant to hear.