making each component of this magic as efficient as possible, to maximise its chances of success.’ Aubrey looked towards the stern of the battleship. ‘Silver is a better electrical conductor than copper, and I’ll wager that Dr Tremaine has found a way to use this to increase the channelling of magical power.’
Aubrey paced a few steps, grappling with the observations, theories and deductions he’d been juggling for weeks. ‘These are the twenty-seven magical artefacts that were at Fremont. Dr Tremaine has brought them here to help power his magic.’ He put both hands on the cabinet frame and leaned close. The vase was tall and black, with antique figures incised on its sides, caught for millennia in their chariot race. ‘I can’t feel any magic coming from the displays because the silver mesh catches it, then conducts it up and into the cables overhead. The mesh is a shield.’
80
They found Sophie and George peering at a rusty spear. With reverential tones, Sophie said, ‘I think this could be the Spear of Salange.’ She winced and rubbed her forehead. ‘Salange was a great hero who died defending the king of Gallia against a thousand warriors. He was fearless and loyal, but his spear was lost hundreds of years ago.’
‘Dr Tremaine has managed to find it,’ George said. He gestured with his head. ‘Your Rashid Stone is over there, old man.’
‘I thought it would be here somewhere.’ Aubrey hesitated. He would have liked to investigate the Rashid Stone but he was conscious of the time they had already spent in their cautious advance. ‘Caroline, what’s the best way to organise our approach?’
‘The manual says it’s a matter of using the available cover.’
‘What does it say about the element of surprise?’
‘“In an offensive manoeuvre, surprise effectively doubles the numbers of your force.”’
‘Much like the Scholar Tan: With surprise, one becomes two.’
‘You obviously have a plan, Aubrey – why don’t you share it? This is hardly the time or place for guessing games.’
‘The cables. What if I levitate us and we can haul ourselves along to wherever they’re going? That way, we should have the element of surprise on our side. No-one will be looking up.’
Caroline tapped her foot while she stared at the floor. Then she looked up. ‘It’s a good plan.’
‘Won’t we be exposed, floating about like that?’ George asked.
‘It depends on how fast you can pull yourself along,’ Aubrey said. ‘I’ll make sure that I can get us down quickly, if your hundred snipers happen to appear.’
George grimaced. ‘I have a feeling that I’d much rather be facing a hundred snipers than what’s waiting for us down there, but we can’t have everything, can we?’
D ESPITE A UBREY’S OBJECTIONS, C AROLINE INSISTED on organising the order of their advance. She ticked off his objections one by one until he even tried ‘I’m in command’, fully knowing how feeble it sounded.
She smiled tolerantly. ‘And a fine commander you are, too. Now, I’ll lead off. George, you take the rear.’
Aubrey contented himself with staying very close behind Caroline as they swarmed along the festoons of cables that were strung along the barrel-vaulted ceiling. He found time, in between rehearsing an extremely localised heat spell and a dazzling light spell, to admire her litheness as she made the awkward hand-over-hand grappling look like flying. He knew it may have been improper or poorly timed or inappropriate, heading as they were to a confrontation that could mean the end of everything, but it was hard not to notice some things.
More than once, his Symons rifle was nearly his undoing. It slipped from side to side, unbalancing him and once dangling directly underneath him. His shoulders were in constant motion, and his rifle strap worked its way around his body in the most incommoding way. Finally, he worked out that it sat best if he thrust his head through the strap, crossing it over his chest. It was more secure, but it also meant that he’d be unable to access the rifle quickly.
They followed the main bunching of cables that ran along the centre of the ceiling. Lesser cables and wires joined from either side of the hall, gradually making the ceiling look as if a fishing net were suspended there.
As they pulled themselves forward, Aubrey’s fingers began to tingle, as if he were receiving a low-level electrical shock. He looked back to see that Sophie was frowning and he guessed she was feeling the same.
The end of the hall gradually resolved itself from what had appeared a misty distance. At first, Aubrey doubted his eyes but, when they came to within a stone’s throw, he gave up and accepted that they were, indeed, facing the entrance to a classical temple.
At the end of the Collection of Curiosities, giant pillars stood on either side of a gap. They supported what Aubrey thought was an arch, but he realised it was essentially a continuation of the barrel-vaulted ceiling they’d been following.
Caroline led off and they floated ahead, then they clustered together, hanging, using their closeness to cope with the scale of what they were entering.
The arch opened onto an immense circular area surmounted by a dome that was dizzying in its circumference and its height. Numbed by the profound majesty of the place, Aubrey wouldn’t have been surprised to see clouds forming in the faraway loftiness. More giant pillars marched around the perimeter, reinforcing the impression of a classical temple – but one inflated many, many times. Right in the centre of the floor was a round window a few yards across, admitting light from the world below. A spicy hint drifted through the air, reminding Aubrey of incense. At first he’d thought it silent inside the dome, but when he listened more carefully, at the edge of perception was a faint, constant hum.
Aubrey didn’t need any confirmation of Dr Tremaine’s powers, but this unlikely edifice inside a magically conjured battleship was evidence of his mastery of magic. The dome was a feat that would be impossible without prodigious magic. No natural material – stone, metal, timber – could support its own weight over such an expanse, a hundred yards across. As well, its diameter was easily larger than the beam width of the Sylvia, a casual twisting of the Law of Dimensionality – but to what end?
After the initial, overwhelming impact, Aubrey was puzzled by the gaudiness of the whole thing. It was loud, bombastic, vainglorious. Dr Tremaine enjoyed theatricality, but the magnitude of this display was unlike him.
Aubrey had never thought that the ex-Sorcerer Royal was prey to the overweening pride that affected so many of those who achieved power, even though his power was far beyond the measuring of most mortals. His ambitions, although extraordinary, were entirely self-centred. Extending his life was an entirely natural decision, making the most of an excellent state of affairs where he was who he was. Power, riches, control were only important in that they enabled Dr Tremaine to be Dr Tremaine forever. No need for godhood or anything like that. Tremaine Eternal was all that anyone could wish, after all.
Which is why this display upset Aubrey. It was too grand. Who was he showing off for? When he had nearly succeeded in destroying Albion from beneath, his base of operations had been a noisy, clanking monstrosity of pipes and cables: ultimate functionality. Here, though, was a statement of pride that Aubrey would have thought Dr Tremaine completely indifferent to.
Just inside the arch, Caroline leaned back against the curved inner surface of the dome, just above the pediment, and pointed. He narrowed his eyes, blinked, and peered again.
Each pillar stood on a large block of white marble. On top of many of these blocks, before the fluted lines of the pillar began, was a lifelike human statue.
‘Caryatids,’ Caroline said softly.
Aubrey nodded, but he wondered at how tall the caryatids were, the size of the dome making it difficult to gain a real sense of perspective.
The air of careful precision created by the silent space was only ruined by countless cracks in the surface of the floor, spidery fractures that spread in all directions, marring its surface right from the raised walkway just inside the circle of pillars to the very edge of the central pool of light. Aubrey shaded his eyes, blocking off the central shaft of light, and the cracks sparkled in a way that was startlingly familiar.
‘Silver?’ Sophie murmured.
Aubrey thought so. The floor wasn’t cracked. It was covered with a silver tracery that was almost vegetative,
