hellonspectacles | The beginning of a beautiful friendship

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The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Palamedes has been in Darrow for two weeks, and the days have begun to blend together. Some days, he stays up so late that it’s nearly early, other times he rises before the sun. Most days he works on theorems that have begun to wallpaper his apartment, or sips tea in Gideon’s kitchen, or surrounds himself with a citadel of books in some corner of the public library. Darrow has yet to give up its secrets, but Palamedes is still determined, and he often pontificates at Gideon about his latest theories. Sometimes he talks to the kitchen table instead, since it’s less likely to talk back.

“Warden, you need to get out more,” says the voice in his head—the one he thinks of as Camilla’s—as he paces his apartment restlessly. She’s right, of course. Camilla usually is. On impulse, he picks up his phone and texts one of the few people he actually knows in this strange city.

Mr. Darlington,

Do you like tea? I would be very interested in meeting up to learn more about these portal magicians of yours.

I promise, I’m slightly less of a raving lunatic these days, though my furniture may believe otherwise.

I look forward to your response,

Palamedes Sextus.

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“Just like the rest of us,” Palamede echoes. “I really do think that must be true. Whatever mechanism brought us here—I’d call it a theorem, but even doing that requires making more assumptions than I’m comfortable with—must also draw these things of ours. There must be a veritable web of connections crossing dimensions and universes—“ He grins and shakes his head. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. Can I see inside?”

Pal doubts that he could get a read on an entire building all at once. He needs to focus on some portion of it, some detail he can isolate.

"It's enough to make you want to map it, just to see if you'll understand a fraction of it," he says, understanding completely. Whatever power fuels Darrow is different from the nexuses under New Haven, the pools and streams of magic whose ongoing existence no one could satisfactorily explain, but the general principle applies. Nothing was truly unknowable, not if you were willing to put in the effort.

Palamedes asks to see inside, and Darlington nods. "Of course. Although..." He looks up at the house, musing for a moment. "You should know the house is warded. Basic stuff, but for Alex's sake I'm wary of taking it down completely. Is that going to interfere with what you're hoping to do?"

The question surprises Pal, and he looks at Darlington with renewed curiosity. He had already gotten the impression from their initial meeting that Darlington understood more than most people about matters of necromancy, even if they called most things by different names. Their conversation this afternoon further confirmed this impression. But he hadn’t expected wards.

“They shouldn’t, though it might depend on the wards. You said Alex is your girlfriend, right?”

Darlington smiles a little at the sudden surprise on Palamedes' face; he hadn't meant the question to startle, but neither is it a complete mystery why it had. "She is," he says. "Back in New Haven, we'd only just started to become friends, but that developed into more here." He can see how it might have there, too, if whatever occurred that night in Rosenfeld hadn't happened the way it did--or the way it would, a distinction he still finds strange to consider. Before he can sink too far into thought, he pulls himself back to the matters at hand.

"It's understandably not something she shares with most people," he says, "but Alex sees ghosts. And has for...as long as she can remember. They've always been there for her, whether she wanted it or not. It's why Lethe was so interested in bringing her in as a delegate." He looks up at the house, at its looming tower of crumbling stone and the wide bank of windows that marks out the nearest wall of the ballroom. "We warded the house against them, along with a few other places around the city, so she'd have some quieter places to go."

“Revenants are called to her spontaneously?” Palamedes’ eyes go wide as the implications of such an ability run through his mind. “Emperor’s bones, but she must have some kind of way of harnessing thanergy without even realizing it…” He shakes his head, awed and horrified in turn. “That must have been terrifying when she was a child, and I can’t imagine it’s particularly pleasant now.”

Pal has about a thousand questions, too, but mostly he just feels for the poor girl.

Palamedes' shock echoes what Darlington's had been during that late summer conversation with Dean Sandow, but without the note of envy at the back of it. He'd learned, over time, how misplaced his jealousy had been, and thinking of it now is faintly embarrassing. He nods. "Greys, what you call revenants, are drawn as much to magic as they are to reminders of life," he says, starting to walk towards the front door again. "Blood, sweat, strong emotion. Even the mere fact of being acknowledged can be enough. Her ability to perceive them was like a beacon, and her subsequent fear when they came only made that signal clearer."

Darlington's expression grows sober, unable to keep from thinking of the worst stories he knows from Alex's past. They're not his to tell, but he thinks of them regardless.

"Like a dreadful feedback loop," Palamedes observes grimly. "I suppose I don't have to tell you that revenants can be quite unstable. Most people who practice spirit magic in the Empire would say that they are inherently unstable, though I have reason to believe it's not as simple as that." He had, after all, constructed an entire plan on the assumption that he would never become a troublesome kind of ghost. "But the fact remains that most are."

"Trust me, I've read enough and seen enough to know how unstable they can be," Darlington says, equally grim. The reports from Lethe's history were bad, the accounts of the few missteps they'd made and the damages they'd either failed to prevent or had to cover up after the fact--but the stories of the abuses from before were even worse. "But you're right, there's plenty we don't know. And simplifying the problem is an imperfect solution, if it's a solution at all."

"Death is traumatic, regardless of its circumstance." One does not need to have died to figure that out, though the answer sounds unexpectedly strange to Palamedes' ears, now that he has experienced it himself. The effort to avoid examining too closely the vivid memories of his own death remains both exhausting and necessary. "And I suspect that eternity, even the prospect of it, can make a person lose touch with reality. But if one could ensure the right kind of structures for the right mind, then the results might be different." He shrugs ruefully. "Difficult to test, for obvious reasons."

"All true, unfortunately," he says, and though there's not as much hollow finality in that, Darlington can detect a whisper of it, an echo to the brief moment of bleakness that colored much of what Palamedes had said. The things that happen to him in the Rosenfeld basement aren't the same as a death; he can't think of it that way, as some kind of appointment at St. Elmo's, especially when all he knows is colored by Alex's own guilt. They get him back. Wherever he's gone, he trusts Sandow and the rest to fetch him home again.

"Whatever you have planned for today," he says, unlocking the front door and pushing it open, "isn't going to be quite that challenging to test, I'm guessing."

"Oh, God no." Darlington has no way of knowing, but the comparison makes him smile. "This will be child's play--or it should be." His confidence doesn't falter, exactly, but it's tempered by thoughtfulness. "To be honest, I'm still trying to decipher the exact affect of doing necromancy on a thalergenic planet."

Palamedes follows Darlington inside, and is greeted with an interior as grand as the exterior promised. He is still awed by how much wood is used in construction in Darrow--and by extension, in pre-resurrection society. Here, it's warmth and shine is on full display.

Now that he's here, he properly considers the options for his demonstration. "Is there a part of the house that is integral to its construction, but could conceivably have been built independently, at least in part?" Pal tries to remember some of the more old-fashioned aspects of Canaan House. "A fireplace, perhaps?"

"Thalergenic?" It's a word Darlington's heard him use before, a term he can guess at the definition of, but he feels no shame in asking rather than extrapolate. As they step into the house, he can't help taking note of Palamedes' reaction, his curiosity and awe at the wide sweep of the staircase and the dark paneling on the walls, the tiles of the foyer giving way onto the polished wood boards of the floor. Introducing people to Black Elm for the first time, showing them this piece of himself and his heart, was always one of his favorite things.

The question and its limitations has him nodding, thoughtful, and when Palamedes mentions a fireplace in particular, Darlington smiles. "In the great room," he says, nodding towards the vast open space just beyond where they're standing. Since the house's arrival in the city, he and Alex--mostly Alex--have spent a lot of time and money turning it into a place that suits them both, with new paint and updated furnishings, decorative objects on the shelves and a few pieces of art on the walls. Still, there are some parts of Black Elm neither of them are able or willing to change. The fireplace fills a good portion of one wall in the great room, its dark stone blackened further by generations of fires, the wide wood mantle above the hearth burnished to a gloss over the years. He's always loved it.

“Sorry—thalergy is life energy; thanergy is death energy,” Pal explains as he follows Darlington into the next room. “Thalergenic planets mostly produce thalergy, though they produce thanergy as well. Everything dies, after all. On thanergenic planets, like those in the Empire, it’s the reverse. Necromancy requires thanergy, so I have less to work with here, literally.”

When he sees the fireplace he grins. “Perfect.” Without further ado he approaches it, lightly running his fingers over the mantlepiece. He never likes to make assumptions about an object based on necromancy alone, but he knows almost nothing about the aging of wood or styles of architecture on pre-Resurrection Earth, so he can’t say much about it by observation alone. He rests one hand on the stones of the hearth and explains, “The Sixth House specializes in psychometry. We’re trained from an early age to read thalergenic and thanergenic signatures on objects to determine their age and other characteristics of their history. Rather good skill for a librarian— Hmm.”

He’s not getting much. A trace of age, yes—two hundred years? Three hundred? But other details remain out of his grasp. Dozens of people must have laid their hands on the fireplace over the years, but it’s like they’ve blurred into the background.

He nods, filing the terms away, appreciating the internal logic of them; life and death and the cyclical nature of both. "It makes about as much sense as the nexuses I'm familiar with, just...more universal. A greater well of power to draw from."

They go into the great room, Pal's delight immediate and palpable from the first moment he sees the fireplace, and even that is a reward in itself. Not the same as revealing a new piece of magic to an unsuspecting person, but close enough--showing a bit more of a place he loves to someone so rapidly becoming a friend. "That is a useful skill," he says. "Psychometry's not something practiced by any of the Ancient Eight, or Lethe, and even what little I've read on the subject is incomplete. I think the closest anyone comes is...Aurelian, maybe, but even they are..."

Noticing the frown on his friend's face, Darlington stops talking. "What is it?"

“The house is about two hundred years old. Have I got that right?” Palamedes sounds distracted, and his gaze remains focused on his hands where they rest on the mantlepiece. “And it has been in your family since the beginning, if I’m reading the genetic patterns correctly. But…” he shakes his head a little, falls silent, and concentrates.

But additional details about the house remain out of reach. With a huff he turns away from the fireplace, taking off his spectacles and pressing his fingers against his closed eyes. “I should be able to get significantly more than that, but it’s like trying to read a street sign without my glasses. Damn.”

"Roughly," he says, his awe at the information Palamedes is able to glean from a mere touch blunted by the clear frustration that still lingers in his friend's face. "It was built by my great-great-great grandfather with the first flush of the Arlington fortune, and it's been ours ever since." It's not as direct as Pal's use of genetic patterns, but it means the same thing, in the end.

Darlington winces in sympathy, seeing him pinch the bridge of his nose and press fingers against his eyes. "What can I do to help?"

"Well, I got that much, at least." Pal sighs and returns his glasses to his face, leaning against the mantlepiece with his arms folded. "Not much, I'm afraid. At home we have a gel that can sometimes assist with conductivity, but I haven't figured out if there's a substitute here. I may be able to adjust the theorem to make up for the low levels of thanergy...Actually," he brightens slightly, "do you have something to write with? I'd like to take some notes while it's fresh in my mind."

His eyebrows tick up, his expression shifting to a keener interest when Palamedes mentions the assistive gel. It doesn't sound like the same thing as the Bullet, not in application or intent, but the general principle was familiar enough. Something to reveal a bit more of the world than you could discern on your own, a way of pulling back the curtain a few inches further and glimpsing something special.

The idea is fascinating, but the questions will have to wait. When the other man asks for something to write with, Darlington breaks from his train of thought and nods. "This way," he says, inclining his head towards the open doorway that leads to the kitchen. "I know I have at least one notepad in a drawer." It's old habit, carried over from when there'd been a land line in the corner of the kitchen; messages taken down in Bernadette's neat penmanship and his own far messier scrawl, grocery lists and rough outlines of planned menus for the Layabouts' occasional visits. He and Alex might only use their cell phones, but the junk drawer remained.

Entering the kitchen, Darlington finds a pad of paper and a pen, setting them on the counter next to Palamedes.

"Perfect," he says with a curve of a smile, immediately picking up the pad and pencil and setting to work. The page is soon filled with a series of letters and numbers that distinctly resemble the sort of equations usually employed among theoretical physicists. "Have I told you yet how remarkable paper is? I still can't quite believe how casually people use it here. You can find it back home, but it's terribly rare and precious."

He stops abruptly and pauses, tapping the end of the pencil on his chin as he looks over his notes. "Well, it's a start. I may need to sleep on it." With a rueful smile Pal turns back to Darlington. "I'm afraid my demonstration didn't live up to expectations," he says. "Sorry about that. What I get for being so cocky."

"Not in so many words," Darlington says, quietly amazed at the speed at which Palamedes scribbles on the paper. The complex equations mean nothing to him, another puzzle he doesn't have the key to, but just seeing them take shape is fascinating. "But I got a sense of it on our walk to the train station, after you saw that woman throw a newspaper away in front of you?" He grins, though the idea of a future where paper was a precious commodity--not just manuscripts or old books, but literally anything paper-based--still seems unbelievable, even shocking.

When Pal stops writing and looks up, apologizing, Darlington smiles, shaking his head. "No need to be sorry," he says. "Even if it didn't go as planned, it was still...I told you what little experience I had with psychometry, so even those few impressions you were able to glean were fascinating. And once you find a way to work with whatever Darrow's doing to limit your abilities, you're more than welcome back to try again."

“I should have been able to tell you to eye color of your ancestor’s bricklayer,” Palamedes sighs. But that’s just his own vanity talking, and he knows it. He offers Darlington a rueful smile. “But I’m glad it was interesting enough. And I meant it—this has been a useful exercise, if not the one I was expecting. I would very much like to try again once I’ve figured out a work-around.”

He finishes with his notes and folds up the piece of paper, tucking it in his pocket. “In any case, enough psychometric show-and-tell. This house is absolutely remarkable.”

"Anytime," says Darlington, and means it. When Palamedes compliments the house, he grins. "There's been a lot of work put into it," he says. "Here and when it was in New Haven. A lot of time and money spent, but it's been worth it."

He takes in the kitchen, the Delft tiles above the countertops, the rack of pots and pans above the stove, the heavy door of the old refrigerator and the dark wood floors that stretch into the butler's pantry and through the rest of the house. Affection, bone-deep and utterly genuine, flickers in his face for a moment. "It's the only place I ever really called home."

The pride just radiates off Darlington, and Pal can't help but grin as well. Darlington looks like a boastful parent--a relative, at least, and maybe that's accurate. For all he loves the Library, Palamedes has never considered that a place could be a sort of family, but that's clearly what this house is to Darlington.

"Is there anything magical about it?" he asks. "Not that a house needs magic to be precious."

"Nothing overtly magical," he says. "The wards on the house, I set myself, and planted protective species along the borders of the garden, but there was nothing there to precede it."

Black Elm looked like it should carry some kind of enchantment--a portal to another world at the back of the hall closet, a shelf full of ancient and arcane tomes in the library or a chest of strange artifacts in the corner of the attic. That had always been its blessing and Darlington's curse, the thing that molded him as solidly as anything his grandfather did or that the Layabouts hadn't. If he'd grown up in the sun-soaked West like Alex, in a house of clean lines or suburban conformity, maybe his life would have taken a different track. He'd never really know, and he hadn't ever wanted to.

"The magic of it is in the history, really," he adds. "That it was built, and lived in, and imbued over the years with everything my family was and is. And could be."

“That’s always where the real magic lies.” Palamedes makes a face. “Which sounds awfully sentimental, but I think there’s some truth to it. Sometimes I think we rely too much on psychometry, back on the Sixth. Some junior scholars are so caught up trying to read a thalergenic signature that they don’t even look at a manuscript.” He gives a disappointed sort of sigh. “Looking for molecular traces, they forget the people. At least with a place like this, that’s a little more difficult to do.”

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