“Kind of brown actually,” said Caliph, “on account of all the boxes. But inside the boxes there’s a lot of gold. Stacks and stacks of trade bars. There are collections of jewelry and gems. I don’t know. I guess it’s pretty standard.” He threw his hand in the air.
“You arrogant prick!” said David.
Caliph laughed.
“I dunno, sounds ticky,” said Sigmund. “I’d be a damned arrogant prick too if I was High King. Get me a chambermaid in a short frilly skirt.”
“One-track mind.” David jerked a thumb at Sigmund and rolled his eyes.
Caliph shrugged.
“So what else is new?”
Sigmund lowered his voice. “Well, that’s another thing I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. I . . . er, we . . . got our hands on some blueprints when we was in the south.”
He gnawed at his beard and looked over both shoulders, making sure they were alone.
“Solvitriol blueprints, Caph. Hard shit. Coriolistic stuff too. Though I’m not sure if I have enough information to make anything coriolistic-wise . . . but solvitriol tech—”
He whistled.
“I’ve got some theories—some ideas after looking at ’em. Stuff that’s never been tried before. I want to tell you about it sometime. Maybe over breakfast or something.”
Caliph was too stunned to speak. Solvitriol technology was the unattainable jewel behind Iycestoke’s might. Like most power sources it supposedly had its foundations in holomorphy, but everything else about it remained a mystery.
“You’ve got blueprints?” Caliph whispered. “Here? With you?”
Sigmund licked his lips and repeated the southern hand sign for yes many times in rapid succession.
“It’s crazy shit too, Caph. You’re not going to believe it—I mean you’re not going to believe what it runs on—how it works.”
“But how?” stammered Caliph. “How did you get them? You said you went to Pandragor. Pandragor doesn’t even have solvitriol tech.”
“Not yet. But they were going to get it. We came across this crashed zeppelin—you should have seen it—it must have been shot down by an army of bandits—some diplomatic airship strewn across the eastern ribs of Nifol. All the cash boxes broken open and emptied except for letters and deeds . . . and blueprints. I realized the idiots had overlooked the most important stuff in the lot.
David piped up.
“Iycestoke was shipping their secrets to Pandragor. That’s what me and Sig figure. Maybe one of the Three Kings is trying to stab the other ones in the back or needs money.”
Caliph tugged his lip.
“And that’s not bad reasoning. Probably as good as Vhortghast could manage.”
“Who’s Vhortghast?” both men asked in unison.
“Never mind. The point is you don’t have to be connected to figure things out. I’ll bet Pandragor is combing the hills for those blueprints. Yet they can’t say a thing.”
“Yes!” Sigmund jumped up and gave a shout of unrepressed elation. Several maids and sentries appeared in various doorways, looking worried. “I knew it! I knew you were the right one to bring them to! Set me up, Caph. Give me a workshop, tools, things that need juice to run. I can bring Isca into the modern fucking age.”
The sentries and maids melted away at a sign from the High King.
“Do you have the plans with you?” Caliph sounded mildly skeptical.
Sigmund’s excitement choked on the question. Caliph could see momentary apprehension flicker behind his friend’s eyes.
“Um . . . no. I, ah . . . I left ’em at the hotel.”
Caliph looked bemused and clamped Sigmund reassuringly on the shoulder.
“What are you worried about? You think I’m going to cheat you out of something you rightfully stole?”
Sigmund’s hesitancy melted into denial.
“I never said that. Of course you’re not. Sheesh. We’re friends. Why don’t I bring them by tomorrow?”
“Over breakfast?” asked Caliph. “They make pretty good breakfast here.”
“Sure!” Sigmund beamed at the proposition of food.
David, grown slightly bored, had begun poking around the room, examining the heads of halgrin and gruelocks, otter-things, a sledge newt, mystikoos and a soot-tailed deer. Caliph noticed his distraction and turned the conversation back to more general topics despite his excitement.
“I want to see. I want to hear all about it. Breakfast it is. In the meantime why don’t we take that tour—check out the treasury along the way?”
David perked up.
“Sounds good to me.”
Caliph summoned Gadriel and the High Seneschal played guide with his usual decorum, uniquely devoid of condescension.
Gadriel’s particular charm lay in his ability to exist in a desert of self-imposed sobriety while dispensing a fountain of pleasures to castle guests. His graciousness had no discernable limitations.
As afternoon approached and the tour wound down, Caliph