Arcanum by Simon Morden Page A

Nikoleta could sense magic was a given: her first tattoo, since embellished and extended, allowed her to differentiate clearly between the enchanted and the mundane. That ability had nearly sent her mad. She was, after all, surrounded by sorcerers. She’d learnt painfully – there was no other way – to block out the roar in her head, so thoroughly that the only time in the last few years that it had proved inadequate was that very morning in the White Tower.
    Now that she had cause to look at it again, in the quietness of her austere cell, it told her another story. She could still feel the magic around her, in her, and yet there was cause for real fear. She could now sense its absence elsewhere.
    The knot in her chest tightened. The other adepts were confined to their cells by the master in charge, and she could tell from the auras around her where they were. But they were faint where they should have been vivid. They should have found her probing offensive and threatening. They should have retaliated.
    That she was not under immediate assault from half a dozen furious adepts told her more than she wanted to know.
    She waited. Waited for what, she didn’t know, but it was all she could do. She had neither permission nor reason to leave the adepts’ house: to do so without either would have been cause for severe punishment.
    She heard footsteps. They were coming closer, and she shut down her magical senses completely. The adept master was stalking the cloisters. The pacing stopped outside her unlocked, unwarded door. Adepts were not permitted such luxuries as privacy and secrets.
    She stood by the foot of her bed, as she’d been told to do countless times before. The door didn’t open, but a parchment note slid under it with a crisp hiss. The footsteps receded. She didn’t move for a few moments, making sure that the master wasn’t going to return, then walked to the door and scooped up the letter.
    It was novices who were used to pass messages on from mundanes, not masters. Which meant that the novices were confined to their quarters, too. She closed her fist on the stiff paper.
    Then she opened her hand and smoothed the parchment flat. She looked at the letter. The wax seal was a library mark, with the Latin letters B and I prominent on opposite pages of an open book. That was how mundanes sealed their writing against tampering. It was little more than pathetic.
    She almost destroyed the note. Instead, she opened it and read:
    Felicitous greetings from Under-librarian Frederik Thaler in the name of Prince Gerhard V of Juvavum in the Palatinate of Carinthia, by the authority of the Master Librarian, to the Masters of Goat Mountain. By royal agreement and past custom, I require the following information to be transmitted with all due haste to the Protector of Wien. A Juvavum bookseller recently had the opportunity to acquire a previously unobtainable work,
On the Balance
by Euclid, but has been cheated. The library is determined to regain this invaluable book if at all possible – suspicion has fallen on the bargemaster and crew of the
Donau Bride
, which left Juvavum this morning, believed heading to Wien.
    The Protector’s men are requested to seize the barge and search it, before there is an opportunity to dispose of the book within Wien. I am authorised to offer a reward of one hundred shillings for information leading to the return of the book, and our prince’s brother Protector Waldemar is assured of his goodwill and favour.
    Written and signed this day, the fourteenth day of March in the fifteenth year of the reign of Gerhard V of Juvavum, Under-librarian Frederik Thaler.
    It was perfectly reasonable. This Thaler was expecting nothing more than his due – invoking the name of the prince – to have a message sent to Wien. It would take no more effort than Thaler had taken to write his absurdly wordy letter for her to go to the projection room and transmit their contents near or far. It was a common