A Star Shall Fall (39 page)

His English had improved. Had the Arab really spared the time and attention within that room to better his command of the language? It made no difference for those waiting on the outside, and certainly there were days enough to spare, but it spoke volumes about the genie’s dedication to his purpose. “And that perfection is the philosopher’s stone,” Galen said.

“Yes. Ordinarily the alchemist begins with some base substance, the
prima materia,
and this he subjects to many processes in his laboratory—from calcination to congelation.” The genie pointed to a list on the second page. “He does this in order to obtain sophic sulphur and sophic mercury in their pure forms. Purity is necessary: without it, you have the same corrupt matter that all metals are made of, instead of the philospher’s stone.”

“But we aren’t working with metals.”

“No. And that is why I wished to speak with you privately.” Abd ar-Rashid settled back in his chair, folding his hands together like one at prayer. Like a Christian, at least; the genie regularly went above to carry out his scheduled prayers, five times a day, but Galen had never watched him at it. He had a difficult enough time understanding that this creature could be both a faerie and a worshipper of God—even the Mohammedan God.

Despite the detailed notes in front of him, Abd ar-Rashid seemed to have difficulty articulating his concern. “The notion of Dr. Andrews is that the Dragon is sophic sulphur. I think he may be correct. This allows you to escape the labor of purification—for one substance, at least. But you also need sophic mercury.”

His reluctance was clear; the cause of it was not. “That is a challenge,” Galen conceded, “but with the Calendar Room at our disposal, I’m sure we have the time to think of a suitable source—”

The Arab frowned more deeply. “I have already done so, Lord Galen. But I fear the answer is not one you wish to hear.”

Galen stilled. After a moment, he said, “You needn’t fear any retribution from me, Lord Abd ar-Rashid, for anything you say. Tell me what you know, and we will continue from there.”

The genie said, “Your Queen.”

It was more unexpected than offensive. Galen had been thinking of the Thames; they said it was home to an old god, that fought the Dragon back in the days of the Great Fire. But no one had spoken with Father Thames since then, except perhaps the river fae, and maybe not even them. “Don’t you need a spirit of water?”

“Water and earth are the elements associated with sophic mercury, yes. But it is also other things: feminine, for one. And also this.” Abd ar-Rashid handed another paper to him with a bow. It held a sketch, copied with painstaking care from some old woodcut, showing a richly dressed man and woman joining hands. The symbolism of both figures was clear. “As philosophic sulphur is the sun king, so is mercury the moon queen.”

Lune. They called her a daughter of the moon; for all Galen knew, it was literally true. She certainly looked the part. Abd ar-Rashid was right; that wasn’t an answer Galen wished to hear. “She’s already fought the Dragon once, sir, and been wounded badly for it. But no—we aren’t talking of fighting, are we? So you would want to—”

It died in his throat. Abd ar-Rashid said, “As I understand it, sophic sulphur was obtained by cutting the heart of the Dragon from its body. The obvious answer would be to obtain sophic mercury the same way.”

Galen set the paper down with excessive care. “Obvious, perhaps—but not acceptable.” He’d promised not to punish the genie for speaking; he had to hold to that. Whatever he felt inside.

Abd ar-Rashid held up a mollifying hand. “And this is why I asked to speak in private, Lord Galen. Others will think of this. The image of the moon queen is widespread in European alchemy; no one can look into the matter without encountering it. And the connection to her Grace is clear. If it is not too presumptuous of me to say—be very cautious with whom you share this plan.”

The door opened, and Galen almost jumped out of his skin. But it was only Edward, bringing in the tray with its coffee and bowls. Galen dismissed the valet and poured for himself and the genie both, needing the coffee to steady his own hands. “Thank you,” he murmured, out of sheer habit. “I will. Be cautious, that is. You said this is a thing of European alchemy—does Arabic practice offer an alternative?”

“If it did, I would have presented it to you already,” the genie said, with obvious regret.

Then they would have to find their own alternative. Some other source for the mercury, or a way to obtain it without harming Lune. Surely there would be something.

Galen burnt his tongue on the coffee, hissed in pain, and set it down. “May I see those papers?” Abd ar-Rashid handed them over with a bow. A quick perusal told him very little; his Latin and Greek were even rustier than his French, and the Arabic escaped him entirely. “Translate these for me, if you will. The original we will keep in strictest security; my copy will be shown only to a very few.”

“Dr. Andrews?”

The man had such hopes for this plan. Galen could not blame him; the philosopher’s stone was said to cure all ills. Including, perhaps, consumption. But under no circumstances would Galen allow Lune to come to harm. “I’ll tell him myself. The Queen will decide what to say to the court as a whole.”

The genie bowed again, accepting the papers back. “I trust to your wisdom, Lord Galen.”

The Onyx Hall, London: October 31, 1758

After her visit to the Grecian, Irrith was ashamed to be offered a position among the Queen’s ladies when they rode out on All Hallows’ Eve.

It was an ancient tradition; not even the concerns of the Sanists, that it wasn’t safe for Lune to absent herself from the Onyx Hall, could put a halt to it. All Hallows’ Eve was one of the great nights of their year, and Lune had duties she must maintain. Tasking them to another would only create more fear than her departure from the palace ever could.

Riding with the Queen was the sacred part of the tradition, if that word could be used for a faerie activity. Others in the Onyx Court would find their own, coarser amusements. This was the dark mirror to Midsummer’s gentle diversion. Black things would happen tonight, frights and horrors and hauntings, with the court’s goblins leading the way. But while they entertained themselves in the streets, Lune and her companions would ride above, collecting the ghosts of the dead.

Hairy How, the Lord Treasurer, distributed bread to them all. Irrith ate hers slowly, feeling the mortal weight upon her tongue. Such labor went into it: the farmer in his field, planting and reaping the grain; the miller grinding it to flour; the country housewife mixing and kneading and baking it into bread. Or perhaps this was one of Dr. Andrews’s tithed loaves, bought in a London marketplace, or carried from house to house by a street-seller. So many humans, doing so much work—and how many of them knew of the fae who ate the result?

A few more, if they looked up at the right moment tonight. But grand faerie spectacle had gone out of fashion with the Puritans; even now, when folk went rambling in the countryside on Sundays instead of attending church, it wasn’t wise to draw too much attention. They would ride because the fae owed a duty to the dead, not because they wished to announce their presence to London.

“You’ll have new chance to mock my riding skills tonight.”

Irrith jumped. When the Queen rarely went anywhere without a host of attendants, it was easy to forget that she could move very quietly indeed. Lune stood behind Irrith, wearing a riding habit of black. She only wore the color on All Hallows’ Eve. It cast a grim pall over her usual serenity.

A pall that was somewhat countered by the dog frolicking at her side. Teyrngar, a cream-coated faerie hound, knew full well what night it was, but the solemnity mattered less to him than the chance to run free. Smiling, Lune scratched behind his red ears.

With her good hand, of course. The left, as always, hung in a stiffened claw. Irrith wondered if it hurt her, as the iron wound surely did.

Belatedly she remembered her manners and dropped into a curtsy. “I would never mock you, your Majesty.”

Lune’s smile turned wistful. “You used to. I confess a part of me misses it.”

It was true that the Queen was a terrible rider. Living in the Onyx Hall, she rarely had cause to sit a horse. But the terrible weight of knowledge and doubt inside Irrith’s head made her reluctant to open her mouth, for fear something might slip out that shouldn’t.

“Ride alongside me,” Lune said, taking Irrith’s arm with her good hand. “Then you can catch me if I fall.”

If she fell, it would be the fault of her mount. The tatterfoals and brags changed before they passed through the Old Fish Street arch into London, dropping to all fours and growing into horse shape. But the arch was too low to admit a rider, and so they went in pairs into the small courtyard outside, where the riders climbed astride and rode out onto the larger street. When their company had formed up, all thirteen riders and the hound, well masked by charms, Lune gave the command—and they leapt into the sky.

The surge took Irrith’s breath away with delight.
It’s been too long since I rode beneath the moon.
Not that there was any moon now; it was in its dark phase, and the ever-present clouds veiled the stars. The only real light came from London below, lanterns marking the better streets, candles burning late into the night.
Still. Free air—above the coal smoke for once—and a horse beneath me, and no politics to concern us.

Old Fish Street was the easiest passage for horse-shaped beings, but they had to ride east to begin the night’s work. Irrith marveled as she saw how far the city stretched: past the Tower, past the docks, houses stringing out along the river, the water clogged with ships at anchor. “Wapping,” Lune said at one point, nodding downward; that was where Abd ar-Rashid lived. Though he was more in the Onyx Hall than not, lately—him and the mortal doctor both.

When they’d reached Lune’s chosen point, she gave the command, and they turned westward once more. Irrith’s gaze swept the ground below, seeking the telltale flickers that would indicate a ghost. A goblin in the Vale had said once this ritual was like a housewife sweeping her floor: it didn’t get all the dirt, but without the effort, filth—or ghosts—would pile up until there was no living among them. With the number of people London held, she imagined they had more shades than most.

Cries rose from three throats at once, but Irrith was the first to move. Her horse swooped downward, carrying her with terrifying speed toward a dingy house. Irrith leaned sideways in her saddle, hand out, and concentrated as she skimmed over the battered roof tiles. Goblins were better at this than sprites, but she was here first, and she was determined not to miss.

A feeling snagged her fingers, like fog. She seized hold and wrenched upright, and when her mount leapt upward once more, a tattered wisp of white trailed from her fist. It moaned as she rejoined the company above, bearing their first catch of the night. “My child,” the dead woman sobbed, face rippling in the wind. “Oh, my poor child, lost, lost . . .”

“What happened to your child?” Irrith asked, but the ghost showed no sign of hearing her.

“Few of them will converse,” Lune said. The Queen made a regal figure on her white tatterfoal—so long as you ignored her good hand’s desperate clutch on the reins. “The ones with that awareness often resist joining us, because they know they must go on at the end of the night.”

Teyrngar dove to retrieve a second ghost. “What makes them stay?” Irrith asked, studying the ground once more. “Any of them—the ones we clear away each year, or the ones that go on haunting. These aren’t
all
the dead mortals; we’d have to sweep the city every week for that.” The children alone would form a train to the far horizon.

Lune shook her head, gazing out over the city with a melancholy air. “Any number of things. Love for kin who still remain—that seems the most common. Sometimes it’s hatred instead, especially among those who were murdered. Or attachment to material things, their wealth or their home . . . anything a human cares passionately about can tie them to this world.”

Riders flew up and down, harvesting the night’s crop. Already they’d gathered enough ghosts that Irrith couldn’t get an accurate count, and they were only now passing the Tower again, heading west. The eastern end of London had contained a great many specters. “Or interaction with faeries,” Irrith said.

“Yes,” Lune said softly. “Sometimes.”

Thinking of her dead lover, no doubt. Irrith wished he’d had the consideration to die in the spring, further from All Hallows’ Eve. Or to leave a ghost, so Lune would have him in some form.

She went down several times more, but the goblins, annoyed by her early victory, outraced her to most of the ghosts. Irrith ended up mostly riding by the Queen, sighting the shades for others to catch. After calling out three in quick succession, she said, “I’ve often wondered what it must be like, knowing there’s something after death. Hell wouldn’t be so pleasant, of course, but there’s always the chance of Heaven—and maybe something, however bad, is better than nothing at all.”

A howl snapped her attention downward. The fetch Nithen rode toward them, cackling, one hand dragging a struggling ghost by the scruff of his neck. That one, it seemed, was not happy to leave. Perhaps he knew he was destined for Hell.

She almost missed Lune’s response in all the noise. “They say, you know—some scholars do—that not all faerie souls come to an end when their life does. That some go onward, though where, they do not know: perhaps Heaven or Hell, or the deep reaches of Faerie, or somewhere else entirely.”

Curious, Irrith asked, “Do you believe it?”

“I do.”

They were no longer riding in a straight line along the river; with London stretching so far north, they had to make gentle bends, sweeping the city and even crossing into Southwark. Their ghostly horde grew ever larger. Lune tried turning to survey their ranks, but quit when she slipped in her saddle. “I’ve seen it happen—at least, I think so. The faerie in question vanished, so who can say what happened to her. But I believe her spirit continued on.”