Chapter 40
there are sympathetic tendencies in all things
the bird seeks the cage
the hawk seeks the bird
the sky seeks the hawk.
—Meditations on the Vanished Arts, lecture series
The snake-eyed man waits for her in the half-darkness of his shop. His skin is leaf-thin, the veins blue as ice beneath. His laboured breathing rustles like a stack of dropped papers. He beckons her to a seat as she enters.
His voice is quiet, almost lost in the soft sound of his settling robes.
‘The Shipwright herself. An honour.’ A thin smile, but his eyes are bright above it, like sparks struck in the lamp of his tall skull. A few brief wisps of hair cling to either side of his head.
‘Thank you,’ she replies. ‘That’s not … I mean. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’
He smiles again, like a flipped switch. ‘Wicktwister; the lord keeps me on for my services, my stock.’
He busies himself to the back of the shop where a massive apothecary’s cabinet looms. Its drawers are opened and closed with speed, his head still half-turned to Shipwright as he works.
‘Tell me what you need. Your magic is alien to me, and the lord is …’ his smile flickers. ‘Not magically inclined.’ He brings forth a selection of thin, metal sheets on a small wooden tray and offers it across to her.
‘I find it … I find you fascinating.’ His fingers linger on the metal, then guide Shipwright’s hands towards it. ‘A whole new magic. So foreign to our shores. Imagine, the things you must have seen. The things that must seem foreign to you!’ That smile again. ‘What a delight.’
He opens more drawers, brings small, precise tools, tongs and hammers.
‘But I digress. You are a craftsman, as well as a sorcerer. That I know, that I understand better than anyone in this city.’ He leans in close.
‘In this, city, on this earth, if I dare say.’ His breath smells of aniseed, faintly medicinal. He leans back, fans the tools out.
‘Teach me, an ignorant, eager student. Which of these will make your magic sing?’
Shipwright lets her fingers drift over the samples and sighs gently. Alloys of the finest sheen. Metal that bruises like butter, that bends like willow.
‘These are amazing,’ she breathes.
Wicktwister dips his head. ‘Too kind. But not too kind, really. Rarities, the finest of my collection. Worked and layered and smelted, just so.’
He fans out a selection, and she watches the calluses and burns dance on the tips of his fingers.
‘See, here – coast ore – it sucks up the salt in the rocks – marvellous conductive. Heat, lightning. An obliging metal.’ Pats it approvingly, holds up a finger.
‘But, weak. No friend to a fire.’ He smiles proudly.
‘But marry it to iron, keep it held over embers for days, and it will learn to like the heat.’ His head slides inquiringly. ‘You follow?’
She nods. ‘I think so. This is fascinating. I’ve only ever used copper, brass.’
He nods. ‘So it needs to be malleable, yes. But the durability? An issue? At sea, great stresses on the toughest materials.’
He begins to make some notes. Stops, scratches a line through them. Sets the quill down.
‘First principles. Tell me how it works. I need to know the system before I can help you build the machine.’
She flicks a glance at the door.
Wicktwister raises a calming hand.
‘No trade secrets required.’ His head bobs. ‘Not that I would betray such. I am sworn to the archive, mouth, hand and bone.’
He pulls his lip revealing a scar like a stretched crescent on his gum; shows her the mirror of the same on his hand. It doesn’t mean much to her.
She starts sorting the metals, weighing them in her hand, discarding them by feel. ‘The archive?’
He murmurs in agreement. ‘Not a full-fledged archivist, no, not me. Methods too direct, too physical. A consultant only.’ He catches himself, slows.
‘The archive keeps the secrets of the city. Its dead, once they have gone to glass.’ Tips his hand back and forth.
‘Secrets, dead. There is much overlap. The ramifications for you? I do not share a syllable without consent.’
Shipwright scratches her chin thoughtfully. ‘Good enough for me. I’ve never met anyone else that could do this anyway, other than my parents.’
She opens her mouth. Shuts it. ‘I’ve never tried to explain this before. Bear with me.’
Wicktwister nods encouragingly. ‘Of course. Water? Tea?’
Shipwright demurs. ‘This won’t take long.’
She leans forwards, separates her hands. ‘Everything I do starts with spinners. Have you seen one?’
He shakes his head, slowly. ‘Heard tales. Read reports.’
She digs into her satchel, takes out a small brass sphere that hums and whirrs.
The spinner sits on the table where it rotates gently under its own momentum; a buzzing sphere of beaten metal, folded like the petals of a flower, or the segments of an orange.
Shipwright points to it. ‘The folded metalwork’s not usual, but it’s my style. Helps the vibrations.’
Wicktwister moves towards it, glances up for permission. She nods. ‘Sure, it’s harmless.’
He picks it up, lets it dance across his knuckles like a drowsy bee. ‘Wondrous.’
Shipwright laughs. ‘Hardly, to me. Can you feel inside? The loops that intersect? The hum?’
Wicktwister cups it gently, waits, nods as the vibration spills gently through his bones.
Her heart warms at the joy on his face. ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’
He grins. ‘Lovely, yes, but lovely will not teach me which metals you need, which hammers must beat upon this beautiful bird’s egg. Basic principles, Shipwright.’
He holds the spinner up between them. ‘This is the tool of your will. What is your will?’
A good question. She waits a quiet moment, but for the slow tick of a clock, the muffled murmur of shoppers outside.
An elderly grey cat limps through the room pausing to butt its head against Wicktwister’s ankles.
He scratches absently between its ears. Shipwright leans across and pats its flanks. ‘She’s lovely.’
Wicktwister chucks the cat’s snaggle-toothed chin fondly. ‘She is an old faulty machine. I keep her around for warmth, for love. Too much sentiment in my heart for simple things, for this cat.’
Shipwright runs her hand over the cat’s bones, stroking the purr down her spine. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Nubbin,’ Wicktwister replies with a laugh.
Shipwright lifts Nubbin gently onto her lap, where she settles down in short order, nose under tail. She shifts her legs gently, before she looks back to Wicktwister.
‘Spinner magic’s about two things. Stasis and speed. Increasing one at the expense of the other, usually. Sometimes, on rare occasions, creating stasis for speed to work within.’
She strokes the cat, fends off its rough little tongue.
‘Where I come from, it’s not common, but it’s known. We’re told about it as children. The brass magic, the magic that pins the world.’
Wicktwister raises a set of tongs, examines them critically. ‘Pins?’
She nods. ‘My people. And me, I suppose, we believe that the world exists in layers.’ She moves her hands until they’re atop one another, palms flat.
‘Spinner magic,’ she interlocks her fingers. ‘Spinner magic holds the layers of the world together.’
Wicktwister retrieves the quill and writes softly. ‘Continue.’
‘The top layer’ – she wiggles her hands – ‘above the sky, that’s gods, or where the gods used to be. Flux. Momentum. Good change. The middle, that’s us. The real world. Earth and sea and stone. Below that’ – she lowers her hands – ‘Death. Destruction. Chaos. Dissolution.’
Wicktwister raises an eyebrow. ‘You believe this?’
She shrugs. ‘I was raised with it. It’s more complicated than that though. Above us, that’s also like … the future. Below us, that’s the past. And everything gets associated with everything else. The past is death. The sky is momentum.’
She strokes Nubbin and rubs her eyes. ‘It sounds a bit mad when you explain it all at once.’
Wicktwister shakes his head. ‘Hesper does not believe in mad. Only the unknown not yet comprehended. Continue.’
Slightly surprised, she does. ‘So, if you believe all that, change is the natural state of things. Onwards or downwards. Spinner magic either arrests that, or speeds it up.’
Wicktwister’s pen dots a line, stops. ‘It sounds fearsome. How are we not all your humble slaves? You could rule worlds with this.’
Nubbin stretches, yawns pinkly. Shipwright waits before she continues. ‘No. See, it can do a lot. It can shield you from other magics, so long as the spinner lasts. It can keep things going, machines. Ships.’ She smiles. ‘Even people, though that last is dangerous.’
‘But it’s all localised. One spinner only stretches so far. A room. A body. An object. I don’t know how anyone could ever make one big enough to affect more than that.’
Wicktwister looks sceptical, ‘No one has ever tried?’
She rolls a hammer over her palm. ‘Of course. We have stories about those people. Rooms, bodies torn apart by a mistuned vibration. Buildings lost, people disappeared. We’ve found shards of things that might have been spinners once.
Old, ragged, long as your arm.’ She points the hammer.
‘Anything larger than an orange, and things get weird. It’s hard to regulate the vibrations. ’
Wicktwister glances up at her. ‘And a broken spinner? What cost?’
Shipwright thinks. ‘Small stresses can be repaired, if they’re caught quick enough. After that, damage can mess with the balance. With time, with the substance of things. Fray away at objects, bodies.’
Wicktwister makes a few more notes, draws a graph and annotates it. ‘You said localised? How localised?’ He crosses to the other side of a room. ‘I am a spinner, here. Can I affect you?’
She smiles. ‘Yes, most likely, but it depends on your position. Are you held in a hand? Are you hung from the ceiling? Atop a mast? A tower?’
He nods. ‘Understood. I am now atop a Thriftglow apartment. Can I affect you? The district?’
She shakes her head. ‘The room, most likely.’
He turns to a work bench, jiggers open a can with sharp, swift movements, decants some oily fish into a bowl. ‘I begin to understand.’
He sets the food down. Nubbin stirs herself, and hirples slowly to the bowl.
‘Here the limitations, then.’ He checks them off. ‘Materials, size, position, duration and task. Correct?’
She nods. ‘Seems about right. We could add in location, speed, interference.’
He does. Nudges the cat towards some missed scraps with his foot.
‘You mentioned a danger. Spinners. Bodies. A bad combination?’
Shipwright takes her own small spinner back. ‘Not necessarily. I use them. To speed up my reactions. Watch.’ With the spinner in one hand, she takes a shard of metal and dances it between her fingers, faster and faster, until there is only the briefest blur.
Wicktwister grins. ‘Useful, I imagine, in a confrontation. In all sorts of ways. Again, please.’ She obliges, and he makes notes. ‘Fascinating. An interface on the muscular level, perhaps. On the firing of the nerves. Guiding the lightning of the body to new, unexpected efficiencies.’
He watches the spinner slow again as she sets it down.
‘Vulnerabilities, obvious now. Damage the spinner, detriment the effect. One cannot encase, in armour say, or other protection, because thus the vibrations would be affected.’ He sketches as he talks.
‘Further, one imagines the risks involved in bodily use. Fatigue of the muscles, fitting, seizures, ruptures and sundering of the major organs, likely death.’
She pales, a little. ‘Don’t tell Shroud.’
Wicktwister taps his lips with the quill. ‘Not a syllable, never fear.’
She fights a surge of relief. ‘Does that help?’
He nods. ‘There is the omitted component, of course.’
She laughs. ‘I’m impressed. How did you know?’
‘I am a craftsman. As are you.’ He looks at his notes.
‘Some motive force, non-mechanical, likely sorcerous or spiritual. Not derivative of the gods, for they, alas, are dead and gone. Thus, some other force, but one not limited by your home geography. One which you can perceive with relative ease, but which others, perhaps, cannot.’
Shipwright watches him in amazement. ‘How did you?’
Wicktwister shrugs. ‘Extrapolations. Reading the not-said as much as the said. I would surmise something in the vibrations. Perhaps a sensitivity. An ability to harness or find something amid them. To capture, cage, inject or sublimate it as needed.’
She starts to reply and he brushes a finger lightly against her lips. ‘No need. I have enough to assist, and the safest secret is the one unshared.’
He closes his notebook. ‘Make your selections. I shall have a package delivered, with materials, tools, instructions.’
He taps the tip of the quill on the book’s cover. ‘Would you allow me to produce a few prototypes, according to your design? I would like to experiment. You then might test them in the field … for efficacy.’
Shipwright thinks. ‘I don’t see why not.’
Wicktwister’s eyes light. ‘Excellent. After all, it is only metal without you.’ He glances at the shelves. ‘But what metal it shall be.’ He stands, brushes his robes. ‘Enough of your time, I suspect. And a genuine pleasure. You will return, I hope?’
She smiles. ‘I will. It’s been really good to talk to someone.’ A sudden rush of emotion in her voice. She tries to hide the shake, but has little hope it’ll pass by.
Wicktwister lays a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘Indeed. Unusual. Most often I despise company. As does Nubbin.’
Shipwright laughs. ‘Can I test her in the field too?’
Wicktwister shakes his head. ‘She has been extensively tested over many years, and found lacking in most every department, I regret. So she remains here with me, adorable and useless.’ He stops, scratches her ears. Smiles up at Shipwright.
‘Farewell, Shipwright. As much speed as you need, and not a drop more.’