Nick looked at Dorrance again and decided that even if it meant having to work out some other way to get across the Perimeter, he was not going to answer any of Dorrance’s questions. Or rather, he would answer them vaguely and badly, and generally behave like a well-meaning fool.
Hedge had been an Ancelstierran originally, Nick remembered as he followed Malthan and the professor out. Dorrance struck him as someone who might be tempted to walk a path similar to Hedge’s.
They left through the door Nick had come in by, out through the opposite door, and then rapidly through a confusing maze of short corridors and identical riveted metal doors.
‘Bit confusing down here, what?’ remarked Lackridge. ‘Takes a while to get your bearings. Dorrance’s father built the original tunnels for his underground electric railway. Modelled on the Corvere Metro. But the tunnels have been extended even farther since then. We’re just going to take a look in our holding area for objects brought in from north of the Wall or found on our side, near it.’
‘You mentioned photographic plates,’ said Nick. ‘Surely no photographic equipment works over the Wall?’
‘That has yet to be properly tested,’ said Lackridge dismissively. ‘In any case, these are prints from negative glass plates taken in Bain of a book that was brought across the Wall.’
‘What kind of book?’ Nick asked Malthan.
Malthan looked at Nick, but his eyes failed to meet the younger man’s gaze. ‘The photographs were taken by a former associate of mine. I didn’t know she had this book. It burned of its own accord only minutes after the photographs were captured. Half the plates also melted before I could get them far enough south.’
‘What was the title of the book?’ asked Nick. ‘And why “former” associate?’
‘She burned with the b-b-book,’ whispered Malthan with a shiver. ‘I do not know its name. I do not know where Raliese might have got it.’
‘You see the problems we have to deal with,’ said Lackridge with a sneer at Malthan. ‘He probably bought the plates at a school fete in Bain. But they are interesting. The book was some kind of bestiary. We can’t read the text as yet, but there are very fine etchings—illustrations of the beasts.’
The professor stopped to unlock the next door with a large brass key, but he opened it only a fraction. He turned to Malthan and Nick and said, ‘The photographs are important, as we already had independent evidence that at least one of the beasts depicted in that book really does exist—or existed at one time—in the Old Kingdom.’
‘Independent evidence of one of those things?’ squeaked Malthan. ‘What kind of—’
‘This,’ declared Lackridge, opening the door wide. ‘A mummified specimen!’
The storeroom beyond was cluttered with boxes, chests, and paraphernalia. For a second, Nick’s eye was drawn to two very large blowups of photographs of Forwin Loch, which were leaning on the wall near the door. One showed a scene of industry from the last century, and the other showed the destruction wrought by Orannis—the Destroyer.
But the big photographs held his attention for no more than a moment. There could be no question what Lackridge was referring to. In the middle of the room there was a glass cylinder about nine feet high and five feet in diameter. Inside the case, propped up against a steel frame, was a nightmare.
It looked vaguely human, in the sense that it had a head, a torso, two arms, and two legs. But its skin or hide was of a strange violet hue, crosshatched with lines like a crocodile’s, and looked very rough. Its legs were jointed backward and ended in hooked hooves. The arms stretched down almost to the floor of the case, and ended not in hands but in clublike appendages that were covered in inch-long barbs. Its torso was thin and cylindrical, rather like that of a wasp. Its head was the most human part, save that it sat on a neck that was twice as long; it had narrow slits instead of ears, and its black, violet-pupiled eyes—presumably glass made by a skillful taxidermist—were pear-shaped and took up half its face. Its mouth, twice the width of any human’s, was almost closed, but Nick could see teeth gleaming there.
Black teeth that shone like polished jet.
‘No!’ screamed Malthan. He ran back down the corridor as far as the previous door, which was locked. He beat on the metal with his fists, the drumming echoing down the corridor.
Nick pushed Lackridge gently aside with a quiet ‘Excuse me.’ He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but it was not from fear. It was excitement. The excitement of discovery, of learning something new. A feeling he had always enjoyed, but it had been lost to him ever since he’d dug up the metal spheres of the Destroyer.
He leaned forward to touch the case and felt a strange, electric thrill run through his fingers and out along his thumbs. At the same time, there was a stabbing pain in his forehead, strong enough to make him step back and press two fingers hard between his eyes.
‘Not a bad specimen,’ said Lackridge. He spoke conversationally, but he had come very close to Nick and was watching him intently. ‘Its history is a little murky, but it’s been in the country for at least three hundred years and in the Corvere Bibliomanse for the past thirty-five. One of the things my staff has been doing here at Department Thirteen is cross-indexing all the various institutional records, looking for artifacts and information about our northern neighbours. When we got Malthan’s photographs, Dorrance happened to remember he’d seen an actual specimen of one of the creatures somewhere before, as a child. I cross-checked the records at the Bibliomanse and found the thing, and we had it brought up here.’
Nick nodded absently. The pain in his head was receding. It appeared to emanate from his Charter Mark, though that should be totally quiescent this far from the Wall. Unless there was a roaring gale blowing down from the north, which he supposed might have happened since he came down into Department Thirteen’s subterranean lair. It was impossible to tell what was going on in the world above them.
‘Apparently the thing was found about ten miles in on our side of the Wall, wrapped in three chains,’ continued Lackridge. ‘One of silver, one of lead, and one made from braided daisies. That’s what the notes say, though of course we don’t have the chains to prove it. If there was a silver one, it must have been worth a pretty penny. Long before the Perimeter, of course, so it was some time before the authorities got hold of it. According t
o the records, the local folk wanted to drag it back to the Wall, but fortunately there was a visiting Captain-Inquirer who had it shipped south. Should never have gotten rid of the Captain-Inquirers. Wouldn’t have minded being one myself. Don’t suppose anyone would bring them back now. Lily-livered lot, the present government … excepting your uncle, of course …’
‘My father also sits in the Moot,’ said Nick. ‘On the government benches.’
‘Well, of course, everyone says my politics are to the right of old Arbiter Werris Blue-Nose, so don’t mind me,’ said Lackridge. He stepped back into the corridor and shouted, ‘Come back here, Mr. Malthan. It won’t bite you!’
As Lackridge spoke, Nick thought he saw the creature’s eyes move. Just a fraction, but there was a definite sense of movement. With it, all his sense of excitement was banished in a second, to be replaced by a growing fear.
It’s alive, thought Nick.
He stepped back to the door, almost knocking over Lackridge, his mind working furiously.
The thing is alive. Quiescent. Conserving its energies, so far from the Old Kingdom. It must be some Free Magic creature, and it’s just waiting for a chance—
‘Thank you, Professor Lackridge, but I find myself suddenly rather keen on a cup of tea,’ blurted Nick. ‘Do you think we might come back and look at this specimen tomorrow?’
‘I’m supposed to make Malthan touch the case,’ said Lackridge. ‘Dorrance was most insistent upon it. Wants to see his reaction.’
Nick edged back and looked down the corridor. Malthan was crouched by the door.
‘I think you’ve seen his reaction,’ he said. ‘Anything more would simply be cruel, and hardly scientific.’
‘He’s only an Old Kingdom trader,’ said Lackridge. ‘He’s not even strictly legal. Conditional visa. We can do whatever we like with him.’