Henry Neff - The Maelstrom

Glancing at the pinlegs, Ms. Richter considered David’s words.

“So what is it that you need from me?” she said. “And be very specific. I have no uncommitted resources. Anything you request must be taken from something else.”

“I understand,” said David. “I’m asking for all the Promethean Scholars for the next two weeks.”

Ms. Richter shook her head. “David,” she replied. “The latest intelligence estimates that Prusias’s main fleet will be here in two weeks. Meanwhile, the Promethean Scholars are working on a dozen initiatives that I know have value. Your pinlegs project is the most critical, but there’s been no real progress in over a month. I realize that you’re excited about this new theory, but it’s still in its infancy and may well come up empty. I simply cannot redirect all of Rowan’s best minds to help you research your hypothesis at the expense of everything else they’re doing. It’s too big a gamble at the eleventh hour unless you can prove to me that Prusias’s force is more than two weeks away. Have you been able to use your observatory for scrying?”

“No,” David admitted, pacing once again and looking irritated. “Scrying hasn’t worked at all since the demons went to war with one another. I think the Book of Thoth is behind it; otherwise I might be able to break the spell.”

“So you think Astaroth is causing it?” asked Max.

“No,” replied David. “I think Prusias is causing it—creating his own fog of war to blind his enemies. Don’t forget that Prusias has a page from the Book embedded in his cane. I think that would be enough.”

“So you can’t tell me when Prusias’s armada will arrive,” said Ms. Richter pointedly.

David shook his head.

“If that’s the case, then I have no choice but to rely on intelligence reports,” she said. “And my most reliable sources say that Prusias is due here sooner than we could wish. So let’s negotiate.”

The pair went back and forth in rapid succession, making offers and counteroffers until Ms. Richter finally agreed to let David have three Promethean Scholars along with four spiritwracks of his choice.

“Names?” she asked, retrieving a slim notebook.

“Smythe, Oliveiro, Wen, and Olshansky.”

“Done,” she muttered, jotting them down. “Now, you must excuse—” She broke off as someone started knocking furiously upon the door. Raising an eyebrow, Ms. Richter strode over to the door where she found Ms. Kraken looking like she’d seen a ghost.

“Come outside, Gabrielle,” hissed the aged teacher. “Something’s happening!”

Suspicious at this urgent intrusion, Max touched his ring, but it was cool. Glancing uneasily at one another, Max and David followed the Director back into Founder’s Hall. The huge room was eerily silent. All eyes were fixed on the wall that displayed the Florentine spypaper. A dozen glowspheres were converging at a section whose larger, unencrypted sheets were used to correspond with distant Rowan settlements. One sphere settled above a sheet marked for Grayhaven. Another halted at Sphinx Point while others slowly came to rest by Blackrock, Fellowship, North Spit, South Spit, Cold Harbor, Anvil … every coastal township within two hundred miles. All of the spheres began to pulse, their collective radiance filling the hall with a sickly yellow light. Max heard gasps as the messages started to appear. Ms. Richter called for silence, walking briskly through the crowd with Ms. Kraken, Max, and David trailing in her wake.

Even from a distance, Max could read the messages. They appeared simultaneously, and each contained but two words scrawled in heavy black ink.

SAVE US!

Quickly scanning the other parchments, Max found the sheet for Glenharrow and saw that it and most of those for the inland settlements were still blank. Just as Ms. Richter was about to speak, drips and smears of black ink appeared like pattering raindrops to muddy and obscure the pleas from the coastal towns. Recognizable patterns soon emerged, as though fingers were dragging through the wet ink and tracing a common design: three circles set between opposing sheaves of wheat.

It was the seal of Prusias.

“That’s impossible,” muttered Ms. Richter. “Alistair insisted that they wouldn’t land for at least two weeks. They’re supposed to be in the middle of the ocean!”

Flipping open a portfolio where she kept highly classified correspondence, the Director riffled through several pages of spypaper before removing one and reading it through her decrypting lens. From where Max stood, its grisly message was perfectly clear.

ALISTAIR DIED BADLY

As Ms. Richter crumpled the sheet, Old Tom’s bell began to toll in deafening peals that shook the very hall. The Enemy had been sighted.

When Old Tom’s ringing ceased, Ms. Richter strode to the head of Founder’s Hall and raised her arms for silence. Her voice was admirably calm.

“The Enemy is here,” she announced, surveying the room. “Rowan needs us and I know she will not be disappointed. Each face I see fills me with that confidence. There is no time for long speeches or debate. I will say only this. Rowan is not merely our home; it is a haven for all humanity. Prusias is strong, but I remind you that Rowan has stood for nearly four hundred years and has never been more prepared to meet such a foe. He has underestimated our strength and our resolve, and he will pay dearly for it. Do your duty and may God be with you. Sol Invictus .”

Everyone present responded in kind before setting out for his or her assignments. A surreal energy permeated the hall—brisk professionalism tempered by fear and excitement. There was no wasted discussion, no cries of anguish or despair, and no evident panic. Striding to her table to retrieve her most critical papers, Ms. Richter glanced at David.

“I’ll send who I can, but don’t wait for them,” she said sharply. “Can you look to see if ships are landing? We may need you to do what you can there.”

Clutching the pinlegs, David nodded and hurried out, joining the rapid exodus of Agents and Mystics.

Ms. Richter’s eyes snapped to Max. “You are the Hound of Rowan,” she said. “You are our champion, and Prusias fears you like nothing else upon this earth. Do not forget that.”

Before Max could even respond, the Director was already engaged in other matters. He hurried out of Founder’s Hall as Old Tom sounded the alarm anew.

It was pandemonium in the Manse’s corridors, a crush of people hurrying out to their stations or rushing to the dormitories to retrieve some needed item or weapon. Max also needed to retrieve something, but it was not in his room. Squeezing past a cluster of anxious-looking students, he crossed the foyer and spilled out with the others into the clear, cold night.

YaYa was already waiting by the fountain, humans streaming past her like floodwaters parting at a great rock. The ki-rin’s eyes were glowing, her breath pluming from her nostrils in white billows. Hurrying down the steps, Max slid a foot into a stirrup and swung high up into the saddle.

“We have to go to the smithy!” he shouted, straining to be heard over Old Tom’s clanging and the incredible din as thousands hurried across the quad. At the slightest pressure from Max’s knee, YaYa wheeled and lumbered heavily toward the township.

The ki-rin could do no more than walk as they swam against a tide of people. It was fifteen minutes of impatient agonizing until they could get through the Sanctuary tunnel and YaYa could manage a lumbering trot. A great heat was coming off the ki-rin, and periodically she shivered as though growing feverish.