Chapter Text
“My lord, your guests have arrived.”
“Just a moment, I – blast!”
The crystal vibrated one long ominous moment more and then did just that, sending broken fragments flying. Lord Anthony Stark, High Wizard of the Seven Cities, brushed shards out of his hair and ruefully accepted the faded towel that his butler, one Mr. Edwin Jarvis, proffered without comment. The terry cloth quickly gained numerous red spots as Lord Stark dabbed at the little cuts he now sported across his face, and he sighed as he shoved the protective goggles he’d been wearing up over his head.
“Your coat, my lord,” Jarvis fussed about him, ushering him out of the heavy protective leathers he was wearing and into a coat with enough filigree to outshine the sun.
“It’s just Van Dyne and Pym,” Lord Stark protested, quickly hushed as Jarvis set about dabbing his cuts with salve.
“Indeed,” the elderly butler returned, not without a degree of censorship. It was enough to force his Lordship to meekly hold still, the point made: Anthony Stark was not fit to appear before company. The unfortunate terry cloth was not merely stained with blood from the latest mishap, but the accumulated dirt and oils of two days spent in the laboratory without washing; and on top of this, his Lordship was unshaven, possessing a dark shadow about his lower face. In short, he was an entirely unappealing host – but what were friends for, if not to inflict oneself upon them?
That, however, cut both ways. Ten minutes later, Jarvis admitted Lord Stark into the parlour where he’d stashed the pair. Lady Van Dyne was a vision of elegance and grace, her magically woven dress – all her own work and design – shimmering ever-so-subtly, just enough to be reminiscent of fairy lights. Magistar Pym, on the other hand, was whispering to growing crowd of ants perched on the rim of a plant pot.
The appearance of Lord Stark – or, more accurately, his formidable butler – was enough to break the Magistar’s concentration, and induce him to quickly (very quickly) explain, “Ah, I’m trying to convince them to move.”
“In, or out?” Lord Stark’s voice was as dry as the legendary deserts of old. A casual observer, if not already induced to a swoon by the crowd of gathered insects, might have thought the question unduly sarcastic; one more familiar with the history of Lord Stark and Mgr. Pym, however, would realize that the question was not unfair, as the pair had alternatively and sometimes co-conspiratorially terrorized the University back as students – a practice that they had continued even after each had earned their first Masteries. Such pranks had turned more vicious during the disconsolate years in which Mgr. Pym had been sighing over then-Mga. Van Dyne from afar; rather unfortunately for their friendship, Mgr. Stark had not been above monopolizing Mga. Van Dyne’s dance card at some of Society’s most interesting balls – events that one so lowly-born as Mgr. Pym could never hope to attend. Speculation about the joining of two great Houses had spread across the whole of New York, and to the other Flying Cities, besides; it was usually spoken of in shocked tones, that then-Lady Van Dyne would permit her daughter to be courted by such a rake. That neither of the young heirs had a desire to marry the other was not, unfortunately, generally understood.
But that had been years ago. Hopes had been surpassed; Society had been thrilled with a scandalous courtship of an entirely different sort; friendships had been restored, and Mgr. Stark had toasted the both of them at their wedding with all the best will. Now, Mgr. Pym rolled his eyes at his old friend. Then, quickly attending to the more important matter, he returned his attention to Jarvis and explained, “There have been problems with them coming in on bananas – several of the cloudchasers managed to get packed full of them.”
“I shall look into it with the grocer,” Jarvis said pleasantly. All other parties winced, although His Lordship and Her Ladyship hid it well. The grocer was no doubt in for a trying afternoon – morning? Lord Stark privately realized he wasn’t quite sure, and checked his coat. It seemed like an afternoon coat. And – aha. Jarvis had materialized a tea service from somewhere, ergo, it must be past noon. Had it been earlier or later, there would have been coffee – in Lord Stark’s opinion, an infinitely preferable option, but in Jarvis’ well-known opinion tea time was for tea, and although coffee might be an acceptable substitute at other times, this hour was sacrosanct.
“It’s so good to see you again, Lord Wizard,” Lady Van Dyne said, folding her hands daintily over her visiting dress. Lord Stark’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Lady Van Dyne, after all, was formally Lady Magistra Van Dyne, and (as Society was fond of noting) not really a proper lady in some ways. Certainly, she was not sweet unless she had something up her sleeve; and as her Mastery was in Transmutation, oftentimes that might be something larger than might be allowed even by such voluminous apparel as she currently wore. “After receiving no response to my calls for so long, I’d half-begun to believe the rumours that you’d taken deathly ill.” Her tone sweetened into pure spun sugar; her eyes dropped down over Lord Stark’s appearance, subtly enough that Mgr. Pym – still engrossed with his ants, and now acting with considerably more hurry –took no note of it. Lord Stark, on the other hand, did not fail to miss the open mocking. “Though it seems the rumour does have some merit.”
“Lady Magistra Van Dyne,” Lord Stark crossed over to offer the usual courtesies. It was often said among Society (and repeated by the more knowledgeable of the Commons) that Lord Stark was a man of unusual talent, and in this moment he proved it entirely true, managing to set aside his unwashed, unshaven state by sheer force of will – and life-long training. “As always, you are a vision of elegance.” The compliment was delivered with a charming lack of art. Although all of Society knew that Lady Van Dyne’s (well earned, if scandalously so) vanity was her work, it a rare observer who had enough magical training to appreciate it in full.
But even Lord Stark’s skill could not maintain the illusion of wellness for more than a moment in the face of so much evidence. The hollows beneath his eyes spoke for themselves, as did the multitude of new lines crossing his face, aging him by a decade. Within the next minute, Lord Stark found himself somehow sitting, holding a cup of tea, with a plate in front of him piled high with scones – jam pre-spread, as though he were a child.
Jarvis, approving, retreated quietly through a side door while Lord Stark looked around in some mild confusion, uncertain how this situation had developed. After a minute, he recovered himself enough to return to the courtesies. “Mgr. Pym, thank you for coming as well.”
“You might as well admit that this invitation was sent the wrong way ‘round, Anthony. It’s not as if I don’t know that Jan has spent the past two months pestering Jarvis for some sign that you’re alive. The University Council’s been concerned, too.”
“Why, Lord Xavier remarked on it to me last week, at the ball he threw in honour of Miss Grey – excuse me, Magistra Grey,” said Lady Van Dyne, sweetly ignoring any mention of her own deep concern.
Lord Stark nearly snorted crumbs all over himself; the coat was only saved by luck and grace. Magistration, the University’s formal recognition of a student’s first Mastery of one of the seven schools of magic, only occurred on the equinoxes – and by force of custom as old as the Flying Cities themselves, the High Wizard must be present. For the first time in a hundred years, he had not been... and Lord Xavier was far from the only Magistrar who might take offense at the slight to a prized apprentice. Yet his absence this last week from the Spring Equinox was not without defence. The same magical influences that made the equinox such a good time to hold the ritual of investiture had other applications, too, and he’d had need of them: if he’d waited until the summer solstice, those brand new Magistrars might not have much time to enjoy their hard-won titles.
The reminder made the rest of the scone taste like ash upon his tongue; he set the plate down and forced himself to swallow, then drained his tea, ignoring in a practiced manner the way it burned his throat. “Thank you for coming,” he said to both his guests, entirely serious this time: the time afforded to greetings and frivolities had passed. “I need your help.”
It was a blunt request: terribly impolite, and terribly revealing. Both of his guests blinked at him in dismay.
“I’m sorry, I must have misheard,” said Mgr. Pym.
“Hank,” said Lady Van Dyne reproachfully, and then, businesslike, “As High Wizard or as Lord Stark?” And, gentler: “Or as an old friend?”
The sincerity of her offer was breathtaking – but Stark lords were made of iron. A brittle, easily shattered metal, the present Lord Stark reflected ruefully; not really good for anything except rusting spells until forged into an alloy. He smiled self-depreciatingly and stood, shucking his coat, for where they were going now was no place for gold filigree. That much untuned gold would draw Light like water running downhill, and the measurements he was taking in the lower laboratory were both delicate and critical. “It’s easier if I show you.”
The stairwells he led them down were cramped and narrow, though spotlessly clean: a good many members of the unlearned public, and many more trained minds from the University as well, had mistaken Jarvis for possessing a Mastery of Transmutation himself – though so far as Lord Stark knew, his butler and manservant had never studied magic to such a formal degree. Still, by the time they reached the bottom Lady Van Dyne’s elaborate visiting grown had transformed itself into equally fine but eminently practical clothing: trousers, blouse, and boots, all as sturdy as a mage could wish, and adorned with embroidery so fine that the eye could not pick out individual stitches.
“Light and Day,” Mgr. Pym grumbled as they reached the last landing. Lord Stark shoved open the heavy iron door there, and they emerged into the cavernous lower laboratory. It was brightly lit enough to make eyes accustomed to the dimness of the stairwell water. From the centre of the room, inch-thick gold wire spiraled out to cover the entire ceiling in a network of pure gold, all glowing with Light that was caught and refracted by diamond arrays, drawing the eye and granting not only bright illumination, akin to that of full sunlight on a summer’s day – but filled with more besides: the peace of a majestic dawn, the bliss of a love returned, the glory of sunset after a storm. Bathed in the joyous Illumination, other, mundane magicks seemed all the stronger – and there were a great many of those magicks present. All around the room, a multitude of other experiments were in progress – measuring and weighing hundreds of different variables in a thousand different ways. Both Mgr. Pym and Lady Mga. Van Dyne observed them with some covert fascination; if their fellow mage had been a recluse for the last three months, then here was proof that he had not been – horror of horrors to a mage! – unproductive.
Mgr. Pym had relaxed beneath the Light, and now as he continued his complaint was a good deal more jovial than it might have been. “I thought we were going to fall out the bottom of the city. How far down are we?”
“At the bottom of the city,” Lord Stark replied drolly, and clapped twice. The floor rumbled as the spells embedded there caught the gesture. Though Lord Stark had not (yet) pursued a Mastery in Transmutation, like his guests his innate abilities at magic were hardly limited to one school; and the old Lord Stark, Howard II, had been determined to see his son educated to exacting competence in all of them. In the centre of the lab, a circle of stone about fifteen feet wide rippled like water, and then poured itself up the sides, collecting to form a squat wall around the hole it left behind.
The three mages strode forward, Lord Stark offhandedly snagging one of the smaller Light-filled diamonds as he passed a desk. Mgr. Pym’s and Lady Van Dyne’s steps immediately shortened, however, as soon as they were near enough to see over the low wall; it was not without a certain amount of distaste that either put their gloved hands upon it to look over properly. Lord Stark, on the other hand, stuck his head quite over with all the propriety of an ill-raised child.
“You know, there is some truth in that old saying about staring too long into the Dark,” Lady Van Dyne ventured after a moment, the lightness of her tone strained as she looked down through the hole to the nothing below.
The glaring blackness stared back at her – looking up at her, she almost felt, and she could not restrain a shudder.
“Didn’t you know?” If Lady Van Dyne had aimed for lighthearted and missed, then Lord Stark shot past the target of ‘uncaring’ by an even larger margin. “Scions of House Stark are granted an exemption to that rule – we’re all born mad.” He flipped open his pocket-watch with his left hand; in his right, he held out the diamond, and in the same moment he both started the timer upon the watch and let the diamond fall.
Into the Dark.
Although schoolteachers might attempt to teach otherwise, as far as common citizens of the modern era were concerned, the idea that the surface of the Earth could reflect the sun was preposterous. That anything a whole two miles down – such a fast distance! – might still be visible was an impossibility, never-mind that any halfway observant person who might find themselves aboard a cloudchaser would note that they could observe any of the Flying Cities from far greater distances in fair weather. In truth, however, it was not a lack of history that contributed to the general ignorance of the masses, much though the University liked to pretend it was so. (Divination students studying for their Masteries, in particular, were prone to lament with a great many speeches and very few solutions the almost entirely oral nature of all histories from before the Rising.) No, the reason for the continuing confusion was the same as the reason why the wall about the city of New York wall was thirty feet high, although five would have been more than sufficient for safety’s sake: no one wanted to look over the edge. The very thought of contemplating the Darkness below for even the short amount of time it would take to discern the obvious, unnatural effects upon visibility...
Mgr. Pym was staring at the ceiling, a refuge from the sight below – and a concern of its own. “Anthony... are you experimenting on the Dweomer? That is beyond dangerous.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Lord Stark shrugged, keeping his gaze on the swiftly dwindling pinprick of Light from the diamond. Lady Van Dyne shuddered delicately and took a step back. “The Dweomer is still secure under spell and craft – upstairs.”
“Then what is this laboratory for, my lord?” Lady Van Dyne asked, her eyebrows rising sharply. Like her husband, her obvious suspicion had been that the High Wizard required aid with the Dweomer – the most powerful magic ever woven by humankind, forged by Lord Anthony Stark’s own great-grandfather, Howard I. The Dweomer was literally the lynch pin of the Flying Cities: it held them fast to the sky, in defiance of all standard magical theory, lifting humanity free from the poisonous miasma that had poured forth from the broken streets of Old York a century ago.
No one could long survive in the Dark – or so it had been thought, until Mr. Anthony Stark, not then head of House Stark, had submitted to the University the research that would earn him his Mastery in Abjuration and the title of Magistar. But even the Darkwards he’d invented were fantastically difficult to learn and cast. Few wished to invest the time and energy to learn them: there was nothing down in the Dark that anyone wanted to see – anyone except, perhaps, Lord Anthony Stark himself.
Now, he flipped his pocket-watch closed; the diamond had vanished from sight, swallowed up by the hungry Dark. He grimaced at the pocket-watch. “This is a very rough estimate, you understand, but I do like to check with my own eyes, at times. Just to be certain.”
“Certain of what?” asked Lady Van Dyne, sharply suspicious, just as her husband inquired, “Certain of driving yourself mad?”
“Certain that madness, to whatever degree it might apply, is not affecting my spellwork. I yet retain hope it may be... determining the numerical realities to any real accuracy does require a properly spelled apparatus, however – like this one, come, look.” Lord Stark hurried over to one of the many configurations of crystals about the room, indicating the movement of the primary diodes with a displeased but unsurprised eye. A lesser mind might have required a slate and good deal of chalk to determine the result from the byzantine configurations, but as none of the three mages in the room qualified as such, all three had worked it out before more than five seconds had ticked passed on the timing display.
“Two thousand, six hundred eleven yards,” Mgr. Pym interpreted, “with a standard deviation of thirty-four feet, measured over... one hundred square miles? Light.”
“An altimeter,” deduced Lady Mga. Van Dyne. She shared a significant look with first her husband, and then both of them turned to stare at the hole in the floor before looking back to fix the High Wizard with pale stares.
“Exactly.” Lord Stark returned their stares with a tight smile. “Steady for the moment, thankfully, though it won’t hold. On average, we’ve been losing a good ten yards a day.”
“You don’t mean to say...” Mgr. Pym choked himself off.
“I do.” Lord Stark’s gaze turned back to the hole in the floor, and most unwillingly, the other two mages found themselves staring in that direction as well. “The Flying Cities are sinking. We’ve dropped over half a mile since Midwinter.” His voice was very small in the vast reaches of the laboratory. “And I don’t know why.”
The mages retired to the parlour upstairs to be fortified by coffee, dosed liberally with brandy. Mgr. Pym and Lord Stark had both regained their colour – and then some – by the time they’d reached the top of the long upward stair; Lady Van Dyne instead elected to use her much-lauded ability to shrink down to somewhat less than three inches tall, grow wings, and fly the way up. At the top, she grew again to full size – the much larger proportional strength of her smaller form was necessary to support flight; at full size, her wings were nothing more than exceptionally pretty decorations – and by the time the men had arrived, both quite out of breath, she was well through her second well-doctored coffee and had regained her colour as well.
When Jarvis had withdrawn they sipped coffee for some time in silence, each deep in heavy thought. The proportions of brandy to coffee in each cup increased; more coffee was brought and drunk. Finally, Lady Van Dyne stirred herself to say, “The Dweomer is failing, then.”
Lord Stark shook his head, a sharp, almost violent motion. “I may not yet know the reason why, but I have managed to confirm a great many reasons why not. The Dweomer is perfectly fine.”
“The Dweomer is the least understood magic in the world.”
“The most closely-guarded,” Lord Stark corrected, not without an unpleasant air of superiority. It was a true statement, however: since the Rising, House Stark had guarded the Dweomer’s secret jealously. Howard I had told only his eldest daughter, Natasha Stark, who in turn had entrusted the secret to her son, and he to his son, a line unbroken. Since Howard II’s passing years ago, Lord Anthony Stark had been the only living soul to hold the ability to bypass the powerful protective wards upon the Dweomer, and the knowledge of how it worked: a situation that had made certain knowledgeable parties within the University most nervous. “The Dweomer itself is quite simple.”
“Yes, of course,” said Mgr. Pym. “It is by sheer incompetence that all other mages cannot spell flight into a cloudchaser weighing more than a few hundred tonnes.”
“It is not the Dweomer that lifts the Cities.”
Mgr. Pym and Lady Van Dyne set their coffee cups down sharply, a unified gesture of protest. Lady Van Dyne’s cup chipped; Mgr. Pym conjured a spell to mend it without needing to glance in her direction.
“The Dweomer powers those spells, nothing more. It produces no other effect. The Flying Cities are lifted by simple levitation spells, of the exact sort taught to second year students at the University – although their placement is rather more involved, you understand, being spread out as they are over so many square miles.”
It was fortunate that Mgr. Pym had already set his cup down; from the expression on his face, had he been taking a sip at that moment, the carpet before him would now have been covered in sprayed coffee. “You can’t lift billions of tonnes of rock into the air with levitation spells!” he protested. “That’s impossible! The power required – ” his open mouth worked soundlessly for a suitable description; none arrived.
“The Dweomer is a very good power source. But that is all it is: just a source. It has no use all by itself. It could be used to power any spell imaginable – although diverting it from the levitation spells would, of course, have grievous effects.”
“Levitation spells?” Lady Van Dyne asked. “Not flight spells?”
“Flight spells would be even more absurd,” her husband protested. “That would cube the power requirement!”
“Levitation spells require an anchor,” she volleyed back. “And unless Lord Stark here has invented time-travel as well, then up until a few years ago there was no possible way to protect such an anchor placed upon the surface of the Earth. The Dark eats all other magic.”
“A Paladin could have done it,” said Lord Stark.
“A magical Paladin! You are giving weight to childhood games and fantasies.” And rather more adult fantasies aside; tall tales of the hedonism of the surface world had been the interest of nearly every young person of their generation, but such wild fancies were for play, and there could not have been a more inappropriate time for Lord Stark to allude to such.
“The peculiar powers of the Paladins are documented fact.” His words were sharp; for the first time, now, he exhibited some impatience with his guests’ incredulity. There was no sign that he was not dead earnest in his suggestion. “They were perhaps not mages, but their legendary abilities were quite real, including their skill at wards, and Howard I specifically noted that they were never affected by the Dark. Perhaps their skill at wards extended to crafting one that could protect the anchor for a century. Or perhaps Howard was even more brilliant than history claims; sadly, he did not specify which or how. But he did document the existence of the anchor that supports New York, some two miles below us.”
“And the other cities?”
“New York supports them; their anchors are located here.”
“But they were lifted later,” theorized Mgr. Pym, picking up on his wife’s thinking. “Why, New Palestine is only eighty-seven years old. Could it have overstressed the main anchor?”
“Having not yet directly examined the anchor, I cannot be certain. But Howard’s notes provide for up to ten times as much weight as is currently used, presuming enough power could be provided for so many levitation spells – and presuming that we could lift so much weight up to an acceptable height in the first place. A mere seven cities should not be taxing it so, and indeed, the levitation spells show no other sign of being so taxed. Every other test I put them to indicates that they are yet underutilized – indicates, in fact, that the distance between New York and the anchor has not budged a foot; it is exactly where it was decades ago.”
“You are speaking in contradictions,” said Lady Van Dyne. “Did you not say before that we have sunk more than half a mile since Midwinter? Yet you claim as well that the distance between the anchor and New York is unchanged.”
“You are correct; and all my exertions have borne evidence that this is true. You see what has so occupied me for these past months! But the altimeter, at least, is verifiable by dropping a diamond down – or a warded rope, for better accuracy. No, you are correct in your thinking: either there is something fundamentally wrong with the anchor, so that now the spells meant to test it return false results, or the anchor has been moved.”
There was silence, during which Lord Stark reached out and added another splash of brandy to his coffee (which was, in truth, more brandy than coffee, and had been for some time). Both his guests watched him, and then wordlessly put forward their own cups for the same treatment.
“The Last Paladin died a century ago, and your illustrious ancestor not long after,” Mgr. Pym said finally. “If you do not know how the first anchor is, was, protected... would the Dweomer be able to support your Darkwards upon a new anchor? Those wards do require a fiendish amount of power themselves, and I cannot imagine that the anchor would be anything but immense.”
“It would require dropping one of the Cities,” Lord Stark admitted. “Nor can I say for certain that the Darkwards would last years, or even months; I have not tested them beyond a few days, and I do not trust their long-term resilience.”
“Light above,” exclaimed Lady Van Dyne in alarm. “You’ve spent full days down there? You are mad!”
“And madder still.” Lord Stark placed his brandy to one side and leaned forward. “Do not think me entirely unwise; I have long since spoken privately to Mga. Danvers about the creation of a new anchor, and she has begun construction.” Levitation spells, like most flight spells, fell under the aegis of the school of Evocation, which was the fiercely-defended domain of Mga. Danvers; a curious classification on the surface of it, but which mages thought eminently sensible, as the principle behind both was simply to vent magical power in the opposite direction to that which one wished to travel. “But it will be several more months before it can be completed, and then its long-term stability is, of course, unknown. The experiments that I can run from my laboratory have been exhausted; the truth of the matter cannot be laid bare unless I go down and find the anchor, and so far my day trips have discovered no sign of it. I believe it must be underground.”
“You must have a better idea of its location than that.”
Lord Stark shook his head. “The surface of old York has been much changed by the years and the Dark, I’m afraid. The histories are all useless – I can find nothing that matches any description within them. But at least this trip will provide a good beginning in testing the long-term resilience of the Darkwards, for I cannot imagine that it shall take less than a month to complete even a cursory search of old York.”
“A month!”
His face was utterly still. “I had intended to go alone – but I was persuaded that this might not be the wisest course of action. And so although perhaps it makes me a terrible friend, I would like to ask that you accompany me, if it is not such an outrageous request that you will strike it down immediately.”
Mgr. Pym and Lady Van Dyne looked down at their elegant coffee cups. There was but one man in the world who could have convinced Lord Anthony Stark to consider his own safety, or that his magic alone – almost impossibly impressive though it was, as was the case with all Stark scions – might be insufficient for such an overwhelming task. Edwin Jarvis had been a child in Lady Natasha Stark’s household seventy years ago, and had been responsible for raising her grandson many years later after the lady passed away, as neither the boy’s mother nor father were much given to parenting. And if Jarvis possessed no magical ability as the University would define it, then there was still much to be said about the powers of love and affection.
There was also much to be said about the necessity of success for a mission upon which the lives of every man, woman, and child in the Flying Cities might hang; Lord Stark proceeded to explain his particular choice in a voice of cold analysis: “Of necessity, we must leave soon – indeed, I fear I have delayed this expedition too long already, vainly pursuing other hopes... there is no time to teach the Darkwards to one who does not know them.”
At this, Mgr. Pym flushed. During that unfortunate time when Mgr. Pym and Mgr. Stark had been rivals of perhaps a more heated nature than was best for their friendship, Mgr. Pym had obsessively studied the other man’s spells – and was aided in doing so by a somewhat annoyed Lady Van Dyne. But he hadn’t been aware then that the High Wizard had noticed; in his mind, the other man – set apart by birth, rank, and wealth – had his nose too high in the air to notice what other magistrars might be doing. Lady Van Dyne had known better – indeed, she had occasionally witnessed a jealous rant from Lord Stark about the prodigious Henry Pym’s latest research breakthrough. Now, she took her husband’s hand and squeezed it lightly.
She also did not miss the slight pain that creased Lord Stark’s expression at witnessing this gesture. Not, she thought, for her – nor for Mgr. Pym, either, for that matter. She dropped her gaze to their clasped hands. No one bothered making many remarks about Lord Stark’s dalliances these days; even Society considered him too easy a target. The follies of his younger years had forever established him as a hedonist as terrible as one of the ancient pagans before the Rising, back when humanity had worshipped gods – easily humanized figures, and so often given human vices that vices themselves were made holy. Unlike those ancient pagans, however, Lord Stark had not fallen into catastrophe before learning some measure of discretion. And yet... Lady Van Dyne found herself wondering when she had last heard of Lord Stark being seen arm-in-arm with some outré, daring darling – or even with a demure, Socially-accepted younger son or daughter – and realized that it might have been years.
Was it merely discretion? She filed away the thought in the back of her mind for later examination. This was not the time... but it nagged at her, even so. In the Dark, all loneliness was... amplified. This, she knew first-hand – and although she had not experienced it for more than a single hour nearly a decade ago, she yet had to suppress a shudder at the memory.
Lord Stark, unaware of Lady Van Dyne’s brief contemplation of his attributes, continued after a beat. “You both already know the spells. Few others do. Of those remaining candidates, you are by far the best choice – for I fear that none of the others will be able to maintain the Darkwards for the months required. But with your ingenious shrinking spells...”
“We couldn’t shrink you down, though,” Mgr. Pym put in quickly, before the thought could be aired aloud.
Lord Stark looked slightly disappointed, but waved it off. “I will be well enough.” It was true, Stark mages had always demonstrated a great deal more than their fair share of personal magical power. In light of certain of the recent revelations, this made a great deal more sense than it once had, although certainly not all the mystery was gone.
It was also true that any other mage would likely find the power required from the Darkwards prohibitive, should they attempt to cast them for more than a few hours. Not so for Lady Van Dyne and Mgr. Pym. Like his wife, Mgr. Pym was capable of shrinking himself down to minute sizes – the size-changing spell had been his invention, in fact.
“Your aid would still be valued with whatever equipment we might bring. Once underground, to return to the surface constantly would waste far too much time... your talents would prevent the need for that.” Casting Darkwards from a distance was nearly as taxing as casting them over a large target – any equipment, therefore, must be kept near at hand, and small. Lady Van Dyne and Mgr. Pym were uniquely suited to saving Lord Stark’s proposed expedition from becoming a logistical nightmare.
“Well, I suppose you could hardly take a cloudchaser down there,” Mgr. Pym joked weakly.
“In which case you could use a second flier,” said Lady Van Dyne, sharply amused. “One not wearied by their method of transport.” Her wings were her pride and joy – and she was the only mage in the city to fly by transmutation rather than evocation. Flight for an evoker was a constant expenditure of magic, and limited to the very powerful; through transmutation, however, Lady Van Dyne could fashion new muscles and fly as if born to it.
She squeezed her husband’s hand; in return, he put his other hand overtop, so that he clasped hers between his two. Lord Stark looked away, from politeness or some other habit, as husband and wife shared a long, wordless communication – a conversation that required no voice. They reached the same conclusion both independently and as one unit.
“Of course we will come,” Lady Van Dyne declared. “It will be... something of an adventure.” She paused. Lord Stark had gone briefly boneless in the peculiar way of a person suddenly relieved of a great weight, and appeared quite unable to speak; to cover his lack of reply, she continued, “We shall need a few days to make arrangements, however. And although I do not think that the public should be told, not yet, some of the University Council certainly must.”
“I shall be leaving instructions regarding the Dweomer to Mga. Danvers, in the event that... events go ill,” said Lord Stark carefully, recovering his composure. “I cannot lie to you – they may go very badly indeed. This is not a safe expedition.”
“You do not really think that the anchor could have been moved, though,” said Mgr. Pym. “There’s no one down there to move it – you reported that yourself.”
Lord Stark’s eyes went distant, lost in uncomfortable memory. “I’ve not seen anything down on the surface,” he managed at last, “yet at times... there are things, further away in the shadows, which I sometimes think have moved between glances.”
Lady Van Dyne shivered, looking appropriately horrified for a moment; then she returned to her usual practicality and said, “We shall have to be on the lookout, then.”
“I always have wondered if there might be some species of insect that could survive even the Dark,” Mgr. Pym mused, beginning to sound almost enthusiastic about the whole idea. Lady Van Dyne reached over and patted his hand, and they shared a private smile.
“I am very grateful to you,” Lord Stark said quietly.
“Nonsense, my lord, it is our duty to the Cities,” said Lady Van Dyne. She was uncomfortably certain, suddenly, that had they refused, he would have had no one else to ask. He would have gone alone – and, she was equally certain, doomed himself thereby. “It is also our duty as mages. Is it not in the oath we swear upon earning our Masteries? ‘I shall seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; and in the seeking let it harm none.’”
“Perhaps,” allowed Lord Stark.
A pleasant evening arrived and passed; Lord Anthony Stark saw none of it, nor anything of his bed. Messages were sent out, and the next morning, an unamused Jarvis dragged his recalcitrant lord from the bowels of the laboratory and lured him into the smaller visiting parlour with a large carafe of coffee. His visitor was already there: one Mr. James Rhodes, personal pilot and close confidant of Lord Stark – although he could not be said to have enjoyed the latter position very much over the past year, having spent nearly all his recent time away from New York in performance of the former role.
Mr. Rhodes and Lord Stark had met long after childhood (although some members of Society, and indeed even of the general public, might be inclined to comment that Lord Stark’s ascent to actual adulthood had been in doubt until well after their friendship had begun, beset by such perils and pitfalls as irresponsible young women, irresponsible young men, expensive liqueurs, and of course, the University). Yet the nature of their acquaintance and correspondence was such that they forewent a handshake in favour of an embrace. Jarvis met Mr. Rhodes’ slight nod with a small smile, and slipped out the door as the guest poured a cup of coffee for his dearly un-rested host.
“Did you just return?” Lord Stark inquired, after inhaling his first cup and while Mr. Rhodes poured him a second. “I had thought you’d not make it in time.”
“Lord Xavier’s message was persuasive about the need for haste,” said Mr. Rhodes. His expression did a rather admirable job of not betraying his thoughts on this matter. Lord Xavier held both the Enchantment Seat and a second Mastery in Illusion; most persons whom he summoned from a far distance never spoke a word about the experience after, but they tended to wear far more shaken expressions.
Lord Stark, on the other hand, had held an extended conversation with Lord Xavier in just such a fashion not more than a few hours ago, and was one of the few who could claim to have walked away from such a situation entirely unruffled – although this might have had more to do with the limited quantity of sleep Lord Stark had had in the past few days. He nodded at Mr. Rhodes’ explanation and carried straight on, “I need you to pilot the Maria for me out on a long trip – a few weeks, perhaps, or even longer.”
“You’ve taken up studying weather again?” Mr. Rhodes asked with some surprise. Although it was not unknown for Lord Stark to achieve flashes of brilliant insight which then led to manic fits of spellcrafting – it seemed unlikely that a man like Lord Xavier would consider such feats... urgent. It seemed rather more likely to Mr. Rhodes that Lord Xavier would have summoned home Lord Stark’s closest friend in an attempt to impose some sanity upon the man. But the message from Lord Xavier – brief though it had been, over such a distance – had explicitly stated the opposite.
“So the public will be informed,” Lord Stark said, curling his fingers around his coffee mug and unconsciously hunching his shoulders in until he had a wholly possessive look about him. “It makes for a good excuse, doesn’t it? I’ll promise them a new class of cloudchaser by next year, I suppose. I’ll go out with you, of course, quite visibly on the Maria and with enough supplies for two people for six months – or three months for four – but we’re going to meet up with a few friends along the way, and after that I’ll take my leave of you. Then all you’ll have to do is keep the Maria away from anyone else for a bit – not hard for you!”
Put in such a manner it was an unenviable assignment, and Mr. Rhodes’ frown deepened. He was a first-class pilot, the only man in history to have flown a cloudchaser through the upper reaches of the Dark – saving Lord Stark’s skin during one of their many misadventures – and could handle hurricanes with relative ease. Months of acting as a decoy would be a deeply boring task, and would hardly test his skill in any fashion. As he opened his mouth to demand an explanation, however, he was interrupted by a deep thudding noise echoing from the front hall: someone was using a great deal of force to knock on the heavy front doors.
“Light, who is that?” Mr. Rhodes demanded, standing at once. Jarvis would be the only other servant in the house, and in the good pilot’s opinion, neither he nor Lord Stark were in any condition to defend themselves from anyone who could knock quite so hard as that! Lord Stark, of course, had other opinions on the matter; and so it was that the pair of them together half-ran into the grand entranceway, just in time to see Jarvis draw back the door with frosty civility.
The man standing beyond was not what one would have considered to possess great strength; but he did possess a mighty walking stick – more a club than anything else. Lord Stark looked at it in distinct irritation, but anyone else in Society would have scoffed, considering it a great waste of precious real oak. It was the end of the walking stick which the visitor had applied to the door, while his hand was still some halfway down its length, so that the force of his blows was made much greater by the leverage.
“Good morning, sir,” Jarvis said. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
The man in the doorway looked taken aback, and his gaze went to the club. Instantly, his expression turned contrite. “Forgive me,” he begged. “That was inexcusable rudeness. I was so caught up in my enthusiasm that I had no thought for courtesy. But I pray, do not turn me away, Lord Stark,” his eyes lit upon the man so addressed, “for I must speak with you.”
“Do we know each other?” Lord Stark asked, eyes narrowed.
The uninvited guest shook his head with a rueful smile. “All of New York knows of you, my Lord, but we have never met before; save that I dreamed of you last night.”
Mr. Rhodes coughed uncomfortably; Jarvis, however, sensing some unspoken cue from his Lord, stepped aside to let their visitor enter. He did so leaning upon his club to walk; unlike so many of Society, his use of the cane was not mere affectation (though none in Society would have touched such a gnarled stick of wood if they had been lacking an entire leg).
“You’re not a mage,” said Lord Stark, pacing about him as Jarvis took his coat. Mr. Rhodes watched his friend carefully; the sunlight that the grand windows of the front hall let in showed exactly how bloodshot Lord Stark’s eyes were, and the paleness of his face beneath the dirt and scruff.
“I am not,” said the visitor. “I am a doctor – Dr. Donald Blake. And it seems to me, my Lord,” he too was watching Lord Stark carefully now, but despite his earlier words, it was with something colder than a doctor’s concern for a man obviously in a state of high excitement, “that you were already quite aware of that.”
Lord Stark threw back his head and laughed for some seconds, startling all present. When at last he contained his mirth somewhat, he clapped his hands together and crowed, “Oh, well done!” His eyes danced merrily. “Not all my titles are for show, doctor; of course I knew of you.”
Dr. Blake bowed low, leaning heavily upon his cane. When he rose his expression was not entirely amused, but there was more resignation present than anger, and his good humour appeared restored to Mr. Rhodes’ suspicious eye. “Then if I say that I dreamed last night that in two days you would be taking a journey, and that it was imperative that I accompany you, would you still listen to me despite knowing that I have devoted my life to healing, and not to magic?”
“I would,” said Lord Stark, much to Mr. Rhodes’ amazement; and he gestured both his guests back toward the visiting parlour. “But not without more coffee.”
More coffee was procured and poured. Lord Stark downed one cup straight, frowned at it, and poured himself another. Dr. Blake, upon taking a sip of his coffee, raised an eyebrow at Mr. Rhodes; Mr. Rhodes stared back at him levelly, and after casting an appraising glance in Lord Stark’s direction, Dr. Blake gave the pilot a small nod. If he picked up on this byplay, Lord Stark gave no sign of it; his attention appeared fully devoted to his coffee, and the brandy which had by now made its customary appearance.
“If you’re not a mage, doctor, then how is it you dream of true things?” Mr. Rhodes asked at length, when it was apparent that Lord Stark would be content to continue frowning at his coffee for quite some time. “It sounds like witchcraft.”
That, at least, attracted Lord Stark’s attention; his gaze snapped up and he scoffed. “Witchcraft, by Light? Rhodey, please. Let us not decry the gentleman as a charlatan. ”
“Then what do you think it is, my Lord?” Dr. Blake asked. His eyes were shadowed by a great weight.
“I don’t know.” Lord Stark sighed and ran a hand through his hair – ordinarily a practice that would have earned him an invisible, disapproving glare from Jarvis, but in his present state the gesture hardly made matters any worse. “Certainly no magic that I understand, although of course, I haven’t devoted a great deal of study toward it.” His leaned back in his chair with a speculative look; if he hadn’t been in such disarray, it might even have been called predatory. “I hadn’t thought you’d appreciate it, doctor.”
“Long ago, I would have,” Dr. Blake said quietly. “But these past few decades I have been happy.” His shoulders slumped.
Mr. Rhodes’ eyebrows raised in an expression of surprise, for Dr. Blake could not have been more than perhaps thirty years old, making the words seem pretentious – and yet there was nothing of pretension about the man. “If I may ask...?” He spoke with some diffidence, for although the question was obvious, equally so was the quiet pain about the doctor.
“Some eighty-seven years ago, I awoke in this city,” Dr. Blake said with a weary smile. “I knew nothing – not where I had come from, not even my own name. I am fortunate that I was found by those who would help me, but alas, their ability to do so was limited. But time is a great equalizer, and I found I had much of that; I have not aged a day. Nor have I found the answers to my past, but I have been happy – married these many long years.” He looked down at his left hand, and drawn by his gaze, so too did the other two men; there was a simple wedding band upon his ring finger. “But immortality is not contagious.”
Lord Stark’s expression shuttered; he murmured condolences. Mr. Rhodes, made wrong-footed by sudden claims of immortality, was a moment behind him.
“Thank you,” said Dr. Blake, and for a very long time he was silent.
“But the dreams – that is new. You did not dream true decades ago,” Lord Stark said, seeming to jerk back to full wakefulness all a sudden.
“When I last asked the Magistrars of the University for aid? No. My dream this past night is the first time this has occurred to me, in all my years that I remember.” Dr. Blake grimaced, a small downturn of his mouth.
“Tell me of this dream, then.”
“I was upon a high square tower, looking down,” said Dr. Blake. “A staircase wound around it, and we were walking down it, you and I; and two others, a man and a woman. Two flights of stairs we climbed down, and so by it I somehow knew you planned to leave in two days; and by that time the sun had set from high noon and been swallowed up by the Darkness below. A hand reached out from the Dark, and you reached out for it – but when I looked again it was a stranger, and you were the one within the Darkness.” A look of intense frustration passed over his face. “I could not move forward; I could not lift my walking stick from the stairs.”
“You had that same walking stick eighty years ago,” Lord Stark observed.
Dr. Blake blinked at him, looking taken aback. “Yes.”
“Has it ever failed you before?”
The doctor shook his head. “Never. It is sturdier than any tree. As I believe your man will attest to,” he added, his face tinged with pink. “I am sorry about the door. I awoke in such a state – I knew who you were and what I had to do.” He was leaning forward in his chair now, his walking stick balanced across his knees, and his whole self suffused with earnestness. “I had given up looking for answers decades ago, or so I thought. I have not regretted it, nor do I do so now; just the opposite. But my life has changed. Eighty years ago I knew not where to look, so I looked to the mages, to their towers in the sky – that seemed the right course of action to take. But I am certain now I was incorrect. My answers lie in the Darkness below – and you are the one man who can take me there, I think.” He met Lord Stark’s eyes squarely.
“Into the Dark? Tony, have you gone mad?” Mr. Rhodes leaned forward, wholly irate; it was a wonder he did not jump to his feet. “I thought you’d tired of all that – and I thanked the Light, that I would no longer have to fear your corpse disappearing in those depths!”
Lord Stark winced. “I am sorry, Rhodey,” he said, and to his credit he did sound truly contrite. “But this... is not a thing of whimsy. Dr. Blake, if you had approached me at any other time, I should have been happy to aid you; but time now is of the essence, and I cannot spare it.” He glanced apologetically at the cane. “You would slow us down, I fear, and that would be catastrophic.”
“I have worked on cloudchasers and skydocks; and I walk ten miles every Sunday and Wednesday. I will not slow you down.”
The two men locked expressions, both uncompromising; one, the suddenly high and remote Lord Stark – though rather diminished by his current state – and the other, a doctor of indeterminate age, his full years now visible to the perceptive eye.
Mr. Rhodes looked between the two, and broke their stalemate for them. “Enough; Tony, explain.”
Lord Stark obliged him. It was a brief explanation; there followed a great many arguments from Mr. Rhodes, but they were futile arguments, as he had known from the outset. At last, his old friend worn down to resigned acceptance, Lord Stark yawned and glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner, where the hands were pointed at half nine. “Light, I shall have to ask Jarvis how old this coffee is,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “It’s not doing a damn thing.”
“Then you might as well go to bed, if you’re so set on haring off like a mad fool in two days,” Mr. Rhodes grumbled.
“Nonsense. I’ll – ” another great yawn split his face, and Lord Stark sagged into the couch cushions. “ – perhaps think better after a nap,” he mumbled, and Jarvis appeared to shuffle him off.
Mr. Rhodes and Dr. Blake were left sitting in the parlour; the doctor picked up his own cup of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought decaffeinated coffee to be something of an abomination, but I must admit, this is an impressive blend.”
“Jarvis does good work – though if he hadn’t been so tired, no doubt Tony would have recognized it.” Mr. Rhodes’ voice was cold, but this fact was lessened by the use of the familiar name, and all the worry that managed to attach himself to it. “At least he is bringing along a doctor, I suppose. Mgr. Pym and Lady Van Dyne – ” Mr. Rhodes grimaced, and he looked away. “I would not speak ill of them, but when I speak of mages with more Masteries than sense, all three qualify.”
“A doctor whose dreams chase him over to the manors of unfamiliar lords,” Dr. Blake reminded him wryly. “If you look to me to impose sanity I am afraid I must disappoint you.”
“Fear not; you have already done so,” Mr. Rhodes said with a hard look, for in truth Dr. Blake had been of no help at all to Mr. Rhodes’ opposition to Lord Stark’s plans, and occasionally quite the detriment.
“If it is within my power to see him home safe, I will do so,” said Dr. Blake, and Mr. Rhodes grimaced and forced himself to be content with that.
“Do you really think this wise?” Mgr. Pym asked his wife two days later as they stood inside one of the Maria’s bulkheads. The cloudchaser was a medium-weight, perfect for both lengthy explorations and – after a great deal of personal attention by Lord Stark – capable of beating out even a great many light-weight ‘chasers for speed.
“It’s a bit late to be having second thoughts, dearest,” Lady Van Dyne returned. She spoke in a low voice, although she scarcely needed to; already the dock workers responsible for stocking the Maria had left, and the other three occupants of the ship were all up in the cockpit, far away from being able to overhear them. But both she and her husband were still somewhat in the grips of flushed excitement from sneaking onto the ship – not hard, at their present sizes. Their strength increased in comparison to their size as they shrunk, enabling the Lady to carry Mgr. Pym without extraordinary effort, even in flight.
“Oh, I have been having them ever since Anthony brought us down to his... lair. He’s not well.” He gave his wife a somewhat annoyed look. “And if I can see it, I know you can’t have missed it. Staring into the Dark as a pastime, stars above.”
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Lady Van Dyne promised. “Darkness or no, this scheme of his is sounder than any other option I can think of.”
“If only it didn’t involve hiding on a cloudchaser,” Mgr. Pym moaned, as their hiding-place wobbled with the last minute preparations for flight.
To be fair to Lord Stark, their current deception was no suggestion of his at all; it had been Lady Van Dyne’s idea to announce that she and her husband were leaving for a private, romantic vacation to New Amsterdam, so as to cover their own absence from New York. Their private cloudchaser had left several hours earlier – and if they never once emerged from their chambers even upon arrival, then their staff were far too fond of them to carry gossip that their employers might not, in fact, be on the ship at all.
The cabinet they were hiding in rocked more violently now as, outside, the Maria’s enormous floats ballooned with lighter-than-air gas, and husband and wife clung to both each other and to the wooden walls. It was a very smooth take-off, considering the high winds of the day, but of course all small motions were suddenly much larger for persons standing only two inches tall. For this venture Lady Van Dyne had forgone all her skirts; she was dressed entirely sensibly, though of course still extremely fashionably, in cheerful, vivid yellow silk that followed the shape of her figure in a most becoming fashion; and although she wore trousers, they were gathered and buttoned in such a fashion that they somehow appeared to have been transfigured into a dress – all without restricting her movement in the slightest. In the back of her mind she was already considering new windswept fashions; weather-related phenomena cropped up in Society’s tastes every few seasons, and Lady Van Dyne was always ahead of the curve.
“There, I think we can get out, now,” Lady Van Dyne ventured a few minutes after the worst of the bouncing had subsided – the internal cue that the Maria’s wings had swept out from her sides to provide stability and direction to their flight.
“Let’s,” Mgr. Pym groaned. Not the easiest sailor, he had turned an alarming pale shade during that first critical minute before the wings could be extended. “I do not care if we are caught.”
They grew some – enough to push the bulkhead open – and then jumped out, each growing to full size in midair, so that by the time their feet hit the floor it was hardly more than a step down. Immediately, Lady Van Dyne crossed over to the portholes lining the cloudchaser’s side and looked out, although she kept herself back a ways, in case anyone watching had a good telescope. New York was fast falling behind them; they had crossed over the bounds of the city wall, and now the Dark could be seen stretching out below them, barely covered by a few whiffs of low-hanging clouds. From further off the city began to look like a lumpy disk, a once-flat coin that had been dented here and there, beaten out of shape. Once, history told, it had more closely resembled the upside-down mountain that it was built from – but the underside of its great structure had been mined away extensively over the years for the raw materials required to build upward, ever upward. Almost every section of the city was now covered in towers, great mage-structures stretching to the sky; New York had been the first of the Flying Cities, and it was still the most crowded. But atop and amidst all those towers was greenery, trees and creeping vines planted everywhere, tiny parks that the population could enjoy; and Lady Van Dyne wore an expression of fondness as she looked back upon her home, before a large, dense patch of clouds suddenly obscured the view. She jumped back slightly from the window, and frowned in the direction of the cockpit.
“Oh, I hope that pilot knows what he’s doing,” Mgr. Pym groaned from behind her, where he stood with a hand bracing himself against the wall. Cloudchasers were so named because they chased clouds, or went around them – only those who didn’t mind the possibility of collision went through them, for the water concentrated in the air obscured such divination spells as were used for flying at night.
“Mr. Rhodes is an excellent pilot,” Lady Van Dyne assured her husband, perhaps somewhat more strongly than she herself felt. But it had to be admitted that the cloud cover made quite sure that no one could get a good look at the passengers of this ship, who were meant to number only three: it was excellent weather to cover the couple’s story of a private vacation out in New Amsterdam. “Come, Hank, you know your skysickness will be better with some fresh air flowing by.”
Holding steadily to the hand-rails, they made their way up to the cockpit, where much to their dismay they found that Mr. Rhodes was not currently their pilot; rather, it was Lord Stark who sat in the chair, hands firmly upon the controls, and firmly engaged in an argument with Mr. Rhodes. “There, nothing happened,” he was insisting as the two Transmutation Magistrars entered. “You’re being over-protective, Rhodey! That was marvelous, I haven’t gotten to do a straight takeoff like that in ages.”
“And you shan’t be doing one again,” Mr. Rhodes said firmly. “Out.”
Dr. Blake, standing at one side over by the vents, tapped the floor with his cane; Lady Van Dyne did not quite manage to conceal a wince at the sight of the hideous thing. “Come, my lord,” he said, his voice already gaining some of that steady patience so necessary for those used to spending long amounts of time with Lord Stark. “There are more preparations to be made, if we are to be on the ground within the day.” There was more enthusiasm in his voice for the concept than from the rest of the cabin combined.
“Ah, enough with the ‘my lord’s, Blake; titles will get wearisome very quickly,” Lord Stark said, getting up from the pilot’s chair with a none-too-gentle helping hand from Mr. Rhodes. “But of course, you are right,” he added hastily, rubbing at his arm where the pilot had gripped.
“Then no ‘my lady’s either,” Lady Van Dyne declared, and she planted her hands firmly upon her hips when all of the men in the room turned to look at her, appalled. “We are Magistrars and doctors and pilots in this room – creatures of action, gentlemen.”
“Well said, Van Dyne,” Stark surrendered with a laugh; upon seeing his reaction Blake nodded in concession as well, although not without visible reluctance. “Forward, then – let us act!”
Action, for the next few hours, involved a great deal of sorting through supplies, checking and double-checking that they were suitable, then giving them to Pym and Van Dyne to be shrunken down and tied to tether-strings. In deference to Pym’s potential skysickness, they had cracked all the windows in the hold wide open, and thus were quite often forced to pause their work to chase down loose bits of packaging that had been blown away by the stiff breeze.
As they worked, they spoke; Blake asked eagerly of their experiences in the Dark, and although Van Dyne and Pym were not looking forward to the enveloping grip of the Darkness, neither could deny the surge of excitement they felt when Stark spoke of the surface of the Earth – for of them all, only he had visited it before. Both Pym and Van Dyne had dipped into the upper reaches of the Dark to receive proof positive that they had mastered the complex Darkwards, but they had hardly been inclined to go further down.
For a time it was a great deal like those days where, upon completing the testing of the Darkwards, the triumphant young Lord Stark had re-emerged to both the University and Society and scandalized all and sundry with his daring tales of the alien nature of the lost world below; before the perpetual gloom had worn away at the people and they had begun to think him entirely strange for dwelling upon the matter at such length. Of course, Stark had already seen the change in the winds and moved onto a new exciting discovery, a shield spell that acted so much like solid ground as to allow the easy expansion of the Cities; now, faced with the prospect of viewing the ground themselves, it was a choice between giving in to either enthusiasm or despair: and both Pym and Van Dyne were, at heart, stubborn souls.
“No light down there, of course,” Stark explained. “Fire burns perfectly well – I spent days studying exothermic reactions down there, looking for a difference, but there are none I can detect if the wood is warded. Yet even then the light goes nowhere – only Light allows one to see.” The subtle difference in his emphasis made it clear what he was speaking of: Soul-Light, or as it was once called, Paladin-Light.
Superficially it was the domain of all mages practised enough at the art to learn the spell, but it had been the ancient Paladins of old who could summon Light and use it in their innate spellcraft: more limited than proper magic, and even now the basis for so many misunderstandings about what proper magic could do. Light in the hands of a mage was a blessed thing, apt to calm the tempers of those who looked upon it; Light in the hands of a Paladin was said to have been able to heal physical wounds. Though the Magistrars of the Conjuration and Transfiguration schools had long searched for ways to be able to replicate the feat, there remained no spell to knit flesh, nor to cure any sort of illness. Frustrating their efforts, of course, was the fact that no Paladin had survived the Rising: nearly all had perished in the few years before when the Second Chaos War swept over the lands, and the Last Paladin, their foremost captain, had been lost at the very end of that catastrophic War, when the Darkness bursting forth from beneath York had rendered all human conflict immaterial.
“But the surface itself – tell us of that,” Blake asked, flipping over packages and parcels of food to check them off. It was all very slap-shod: had this been a proper University expedition, all the supplies would long since have been taken care of; but their great haste necessitated that it be done at the last minute, for there were no earlier minutes at which it could have been done. “I recall from the papers your statement that there were no trees, no signs of life at all; but do you truly think that nothing lives down there?”
“I have never been to the ground, but I was never able to make contact with any insects from the air,” Pym noted, earning himself a startled but discreet look from Blake.
“Of course, there could be some that I did not see,” Stark made a half-aborted shrug as he spelled wards onto another crate – not Darkwards, but protections against shifting, damage and rot. “It would take more effort than even I could expend to summon lasting Light that would banish back the Dark for more than fifty paces. But the air down there is still, oppressive; there is no wind, nor sound from above, and I heard no noise. Occasionally it would seem that something moved in the distance, but whenever I arrived at that point, there would be nothing but the same dull grey rock.”
“Yet what of York? The fabled mage-towers there were said to soar far higher than those of modern times.”
“An incorrect belief, though there is truth in that they soared very high indeed. But I have found nothing of such things. I do not even know where the center of York is; I have never seen any buildings, or anything to mark that a human soul set foot upon that stone. It is possible that the Dark has eaten everything, wearing it down over the years until naught but stone remains.”
“And the current anchor,” Van Dyne said thoughtfully. “Can you not determine its location to a rough degree?”
“Without my full laboratory at hand, I shall need to be much closer. For the first leg, we shall have to rely upon compasses – directional magic is unreliable.” One corner of Stark’s mouth quirked downward as he said this: a suitably understated reaction to a memory of a very nearly lethal event. He pressed the tips of his fingers to the crate he had been warding and magic flared, a small but intense white-blue that vanished a moment later. He stepped back and cast his gaze about the nearly empty-hold. “Are we done, then?”
The others looked about as well; Blake, who had been keeping the records, nodded. “Nearly so.”
“We shall stay and finish,” Van Dyne said, putting a hand upon her husband’s shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze; without looking, he caught her fingers in his own and squeezed back. “You should go check with Mr. Rhodes.”
Stark nodded, brushing dust from his clothes and taking his leave; his footsteps sounded down the passageway, and the three remaining members of the company looked at each other in awkward silence, for none had met before Lord Stark’s brusque introduction the previous day. Blake, large hands suddenly clumsy, picked up one of the strings of parcels that Jan had tied together and squinted at it, beginning to double-check the large-print writing on the side of each against the list that he had already made while they remained of normal size.
Husband and wife glanced at each other; Van Dyne gave a small nod, and Pym shrugged helplessly. “Dr. Blake,” he began formally, waiting for the other to look up again, “there is more that you should know about the Dark than what we have said so far.”
“Please, the title is not necessary,” Blake said quietly. He cast a glance at the door. “This could not be said in front of Lord Stark?”
“Perhaps,” Pym admitted. “He may have already told you, but – the Dark has a... habit, of weighing upon one’s mind. It is not merely the oppressive lack of light; there is a detectable magical effect, although I had not fully measured it in my own experiments and to be honest, did not wish to try. But if you have doubts – I would advise you, no, beg of you, to reconsider accompanying us. The Dark will break open any weakness.” The words were spoken with the bleak tone of experience; Van Dyne gripped his hand more tightly.
Blake paused, looking between them with keen eyes, seeing the way they supported each other. “I have doubts, of course. In my rational mind I have every doubt. But in my heart...” he shook his head. “There is no room for such considerations. I must do this.” He paused. “But that is not the sole reason for your warning.”
“Stark has locked himself away for three months,” said Van Dyne. “And it seems likely that he’s spent the entire time diving down into the Dark to look for that damned anchor on day trips. He has never been the most stable of personalities.” She glanced away – an excusable tell among friends not of Society.
Stark had toasted her and Pym at their wedding – but had they been drifting apart since even then? This business with the Dark had blindsided her; of all the problems to concern the High Wizard, she’d not dared dream of the truth. She could not help but feel that she would have known better, sooner, when they were children... but he had changed. They both had. It was the way of children grown into adulthood, and yet that did not mean the loss was not worth noting, or mourning.
“You think he shall succumb?” Blake asked, frowning with a doctor’s concern.
“We think,” Van Dyne gave her husband another squeeze, and he gave her a small, adoring smile in return, “that he shall need a close eye, and the support of friends.”
“These he shall have,” Blake promised.
Quickly returning footsteps broke their discussion, and they returned hurriedly to their tasks; Stark was returning after only a few minutes. “We are here,” he announced, entering, and flicking his hand up, palm at a right angle to the floor, he cast a projection of a map into thin air. Despite how he had been surrounded by the act of it for the past two hours, Blake was yet unused to such careless magical acts, and looked impressed; Van Dyne and Pym, on the other hand, were simply interested in the map’s contents. It showed their path of the last two hours – a wide circle, bringing them to not more than five miles from New York itself; it was a good thing for their secrecy that they were hidden in the substantial cloud-cover, but both Pym and Van Dyne, realizing the other implications of that, closed their eyes and gave silent thanks that they had encountered no difficulties.
True to Stark’s words, a few seconds later the ship began experiencing that curious light rocking characteristic of setting a cloud-anchor. Both Stark and Blake began bedecking themselves in the luggage strings, while Pym and Van Dyne finished with the last ones; there was no point in the latter two carrying luggage, however, as they would be shrunk down the vast majority of the time, and if their strength grew proportionally than it still lessened absolutely with their spells.
They had not quite completed all their preparations by the time Mr. Rhodes came to fetch them, but with the pilot’s help and their own forced eagerness, they were soon well-prepared. Pym and Van Dyne shrunk, and Van Dyne grasped her husband’s hands and lifted him easily to Blake’s shoulder, whereupon Pym cast a tether to the (now much larger) man so that he would not fall. They all made their way to the open deck above: a small deck, for the Maria’s owner had not much use for large parties upon her – he had other, larger, less-favoured cloudchasers for that.
The dismal grey clouds were all above, now; they were very near to the upper edges of the Dark, and its gloom seemed to make the daylight above even dimmer. It was an empty, featureless black mass: entirely relentless, entirely inhuman. Only Van Dyne permitted herself to openly shiver, but she was not the only one to feel a chill.
“You are all of you mad,” said Mr. Rhodes, staring down at it. He placed a hand upon Stark’s arm. “Tony – do not get yourself killed down there.”
“Certainly,” said Stark, and snapped his fingers. Blue-white fire lines appeared about his wrists, and spread across his body, entwining and winding about him until they reached his feet: the powerful flight spells he had designed as a young mage-student. “Blake?”
With visible reluctance, Mr. Rhodes let go of his friend and stepped back; Dr. Blake stepped forward instead, and took Lord Stark’s offered hand without hesitation. The spell-lines poured over to him as well, and with but a thought from Stark, they both rose into the air, Pym grabbing hold of the equipment straps on Blake’s coat to steady himself. A moment later they were over the side of the rail and disappearing into the darkness.
Van Dyne stayed a moment longer, hovering, her wings whirring faintly. “We will be careful, Mr. Rhodes,” she promised, her voice full of compassion – and then she, too, was gone, diving down into the Darkness below.
Rhodes stepped forward and placed his hands on the rail, leaning over and watching them. Many times before he had seen his friend make this descent; but never for more than a few hours at a time, and never for such stakes, in such a hurry. The light of their spells was swallowed quickly; for a moment, there was a brief flare in the Dark as at least one of the Magistrars summoned Light, but then even that, too, was gone.
“Come home safe,” Rhodes murmured after them, and then turned to make his way back to the cockpit.
“Spells that are failing, for reasons unknown,” Lady Van Dyne said sharply. “You cannot be certain your diagnostics are not failing as well. What of the other cities?”