Three knocks sounded on the front door of the house belonging to Jacoby Flynn, and a few seconds later, sounded again, just as they had been for a full minute since they first began. Finally, the knob turned and the door opened, leaving Count Hänsel von Vergoldetflügal III standing in the open doorframe, the early afternoon sun illuminating his white, three-piece lounge suit brightly. It was not the event of the door opening that had caused to to stare skeptically into the foyer and living room behind the door, but the fact that after it seemed clear that nocreature was currently in the residence, the door had not been locked.
Often citing that many of the items in his house posed a legitimate risk to those unfamiliar with their purpose, Jacoby always locked the door when he was away, and sometimes even when he wasn’t. This was, by itself, more than enough to cause Hänsel to tense and prepare himself for action, in the event his friends were potentially in trouble.
“Herr Flynn?” Hänsel called out.
Silence answered.
“Herr Stonehoof?” Hänsel called out.
Silence answered.
Furrowing his brow, Hänsel stepped fully inside and took care to close the door behind him as quietly as possible. Another glance into the living room just past the foyer revealed that nothing had changed. The mantle was still in the center of the wall. The armchairs, coffee table and sofa were right where they had been a moment earlier. The rug on the floor had not moved in the slightest. The wall hangings were still where they had always been hanging. And most critically of all, there was still nocreature standing about in it.
After a moment’s pause, Hänsel unbuttoned his jacket and quietly hung it on the coat rack, and then slowly slunk forward to inspect the areas around the corner of the entryway that he couldn’t see. Ducking his head just the slightest distance in, he glanced left, only to see nothing unusual, then right, only to see nothing unusual, and then left once again.
Just inside of the living room, to the left of the entrance from the foyer was a simple writing desk that had little more covering its surface than a capped ink well and a dip pen (which had recently begun to catch up to quill pens in terms of popularity). It was, of course, what wasn’t visible that Hänsel was interested in. With a forceful slam of his knuckles against the top of one corner, a hidden compartment popped open, and the Count quickly withdrew the pistol hidden inside, pulling the hammer back with his free talons. Suitably armed, he moved fully into the living room and towards the right wall, away from the stairs leading up to the bedrooms and the door leading back into the dining room and kitchen. The hallway off the rear wall led to the drawing room and a washroom, and was uninteresting. The door on the right wall, however, led to the study. If Jacoby was, in fact, at home and just silent, he would be in there. If not, then Hänsel would know that he should depart the premises immediately and alert the police.
Stopping just outside the door and taking a breath to steel himself, Hänsel grasped the knob, turned it, and then pushed the door opened, aiming the pistol at the space ahead of him. He was completely unprepared for what he saw not because it was horrific, but simply because it was entirely unexpected. The study was more brightly lit than usual, much of the furniture and seemingly all of the wall hangings had been pushed to one end, leaving the rest to be filled with the oddness that Jacoby Flynn demanded of the powers that be as he stood at the far end of the study, leaning over a table to examine something, completely unaware that he had even been joined by another body.
Jacoby was a disheveled mess. He prided himself on his tidy appearance, even if he did not follow fashion closely, and the fact that he was working naked when he always at least wore a shirt was telling enough. His fur was dirty and starting to mat. His feathers had likewise not been cleaned or preened in what was clearly days, and a few feathers were even beginning to fall out. His face was partially obscured by a large pair of goggles that had several loupes ready to swing down into his field of vision at a moment’s notice, although their exact function was less-than-clear, given the fluorescing runes carved into the metal rims of the goggles and perhaps even etched in the glass; it was difficult to tell exactly how enchanted the eye gear was. But no matter how enchanted, at that moment Jacoby looked less like the runecaster, inventor and tinker that he was, and more like a mad scientist from some penny dreadful.
The workspace that had been set up in the study was just as disheveled as Jacoby was. A makeshift laboratory had been added, with a number of electric lamps and electrostatic generators scattered about, along with numerous other equipment that Hänsel was not prepared to even guess the purpose of. Placed on the numerous tables and kept under glass were a variety of ‘samples,’ including a knife borrowed from the Count’s kitchen, a talonful of wool from Lerchenwiese, and what looked to be a pebble from Eisendorf, labeled with a location and various other data. The bookshelves along the furthest wall had been thoroughly ransacked, with what looked like half of the volumes on display now spread about, opened to different pages, and with several slips of paper stuffed in them to serve as bookmarks.
But the crown jewel of the laboratory was a large map of the entire High Confederation of Wings that was pinned to the wall where there had previously been a landscape painting showing some small village or another that Jacoby had felt deserved to be the most prominently displayed artwork in the study (and which he presumably moved to a safer location). The map itself would not have been notable outside of its placement had it not also been covered in patterns of pins and red and blue threads that surely held some meaning to Jacoby, even if it was lost on the rest of the world.
The final piece of this bizarre puzzle to catch Hänsel’s attention, however, was a bottle of green liquid, a small jar of sugar, and a recently used glass on a small table by the door. Even taking just a moment to examine the label on the bottle, written in Equestrian rather than Griffish, revealed the concoction to be absinthe, a brew of alcohol, herbs and extracts of Equestrian origin that he would continue to maintain was among the foulest tasting beverages he’d ever tried. It was said to expand the mind and induce visions, although it was almost certain those visions were creations of a mind that had been effective to what was essentially a mild poison. Hänsel was not quite certain he believed all the rumors regarding the supposed hallucinogenic properties of ‘the green faerie’ (as Equestrians allegedly called it), but Jacoby swore that half of a glass of absinthe would help him see the connections when there was some puzzle or equation he couldn’t quite solve.
Given that the bottle was slightly less than half empty while still looking almost brand new, it was clear that Jacoby had, over the past few days, been drinking considerably more than he typically did.
Hänsel had seen more than enough. "Vell, I'm glad to see zat ze Conspiracy Loom is operating at full speed,” he said, carefully lowering the hammer of the pistol and placing it by the bottle of absinthe.
Jacoby turned around to face Hänsel, pushing his louped goggles up to his forehead, looking at first surprised, and then annoyed to see him. “Remind me again why I let you call it that,” he said.
“Vell, because zat is exactly vat it does. In go ze zreads of information, und out comes a beautiful tapestry of madness.” Hänsel’s answer did absolutely nothing to placate his friend.
“Yes,” Jacoby began, “That is why you call it that. Why do I allow you to call it that?”
“Because, welchen unterschied macht das?” That, plus a simple shrug, comprised the Count’s answer. “I’m sorry, Jacoby. It vas not my intention to upset you.”
Instantly, Jacoby slumped tiredly. “I know,” he said, turning back to his laboratory setup. “It’s just… all this, everything. I’ve been working on this for days, and I feel like the only progress I’ve made is establishing what won’t work. I know I irritate her, but the Duchess is counting on me. Eisendorf is counting on me. Thousands of griffons hoping that one of them is a genius and can fix everything. I don’t know if I can do this, Hänsel. Not again.”
For a few moments, Hänsel was quiet, allowing Jacoby time to collect his thoughts. When it seemed that the collection was not going well, he started explaining. “Alex sent me an express letter, Jacoby. He is very concerned for you.” He closed the distance between himself and his friend, coming to stand next to him. “You vake at dawn, you have a cup of strong coffee, eat a piece of bread smeared viz jam, if you eat anyzing at all, und have a glass of absinze. You zen lock yourself in here for five or six hours. You come out again, you have anozer coffee, perhaps a small sandvich, und anozer glass of absinze. You lock yourself in here again, und do not come out until midnight to go to bed, save for vun night ven you fell asleep or fainted in here, und he carried you to bed. You cannot live like zis.”
“‘On my honor,’ Hänsel. Those were my exact words to the mayor. What other way can I live after saying something like that?”
That question had no easy answer. It was time for a new question. “Vell, vhy not start by telling me about zis map cozy you appear to have been veaving.” Moving quickly so as to be more distracting, Hänsel approached the map on the wall with colored strings criss-crossed over it. “Vat is it, exactly?”
“That is a carefully constructed diagram that correlates all the data I’ve collected,” Jacoby replied. Small though the change was, he perked up just a bit when his attention was directed to something he actually had mastery over. “But it tells us much, much more than simple correlation between facts. Follow that red string northeast out of Adlerheim, and then answer me a question.”
Hänsel directed his attention towards Adlerheim, needing a moment to find its location, and because tracing the aforementioned string by tracing a talon along it. As he did, Jacoby continued speaking. “What do self-organizing cutlery, perfectly timed clocks, and a dancing frog all have in common?”
The answer, at the end of the apparent trail, was a very obvious geographical feature on the map, and it was impossible not to notice. “Die Berg der Wilde Blitze?” Hänsel asked, turning to look to Jacoby. The other griffon’s grin was equal parts smug and excited.
“Exactly."
It would be wholly incorrect to say that Hänsel was unfamiliar with die Berg der Wilden Blitze. Everycreature within the Confederation knew of it, and many without knew of it, if only by a different name: Storm Peak, so named for the gigantic, seemingly permanent storm supercell that concealed the topmost portion of it in swirling, angry clouds that regularly flashed with lightning. There were only two kinds of griffons that ever tried to reach the mountain's peak; the insanely heroic, and the heroically insane, and it was frequently impossible to determine who was which. Other creatures generally had the sense to stay as far away from the peak as possible.
“You mean to say zat zese phenomena are related in some vay to die Berg der Wilden Blitze?” Hänsel asked, gesturing to the map with his talon.
“Oh, there is absolutely no doubt about it,” Jacoby answered. In a flash, he was right next to Hänsel. “Observe, for instance, Griffondorf.” He jabbed a talon at the map. “The storm is visible from here, but it’s still quite distant. Accordingly, no phenomena. But then Adlerheim.” Another jab. “Still distant, but closer. Ergo, phenomena.”
“Perhaps closer by a few leagues, certainly, but ze mountain is still hundreds of miles avay. Zat can’t be enough to really make zat much of a difference, can it?”
“Normally, it wouldn’t, you’re right. But observe the blue threads.” Jacoby’s talon now traced along such a thread, running from the pin over Storm Peak and moving just past the pin indicating Adlerheim. “I had to read my Equestrian books over and over again, you remember them, the ones I bought from the smuggler because it’s illegal to import them, even though there’s nothing prohibiting ownership. I had to read them over and over again, but the blue threads show us, as best as I could approximate them, the locations of every ley line originating from the mountain. This one moves directly through your estate, making your kitchen the closest location in Adlerheim to the ley line. Ergo, phenomena.”
For the Count, it was as if the lights had suddenly turned on; the map made complete sense. His estate was far from what Jacoby had clearly identified as the source, but because of the ley line, had a direct connection to it. Other places, such as the pin labeled Eisendorf, were not near a ley line, but were much closer to the mountain, and so still experienced activity. And still other places, like Griffondorf, were far from both the mountain and from ley lines, and so experienced nothing.
“All zat from a few visits to towns und villages? Jacoby, I know say zis about you perhaps too frequently, but zat’s amazing. How did you even know ze ley lines vere to blame?”
“I didn’t at first.” Throughout his explanation, Jacoby’s smile never faltered, and his energy never flagged. Even when admitting to a fault came into question, he seemed more and more ecstatic. “But when I tried to model a field, it never worked out. It either couldn’t reach as far as Adlerheim, or it was too strong and the predicted effects in Eisendorf didn’t match my observations. And then I remembered reading about ley lines, and sure enough, that was the missing puzzle piece.”
“Predicted…” Hänsel paused. After a moment, the exact implications sunk in and his eyes widened in surprise. “Jacoby, did you invent a scale of units just to measure und, predict ze effects of zese occurrences?”
“Of course not. Or, maybe a little bit. It’s just a placeholder, really. It’s not like I came up with names for an absolute scale used to measure the force and intensity of persistent magical fields, and for the units comprising that scale, on the spot, just because I needed some convenient way of measuring something that hasn’t really ever been encountered before. I admit that I may have gotten a little carried away.”
Hänsel quirked his brow, and after a moment of silent deliberation, decided that the best course of action was to not ask any more questions regarding that particular subject and hope that Jacoby would forget all about it before long. Instead, he posed a more pertinent question: “So, vat does it mean?” That single question put an immediate end to Jacoby’s smile.
“I don’t know.” Once again, he slumped. “So the source is the mountain. So what? A source isn’t a cause. Maybe it’s excess magic from the storm, but then why is everything so orderly? I’ve held a thunder cloud in my talons, Hänsel, and even when it’s perfectly safe, it still feels like it’s barely controlled, like it could escape from you at any moment and do who knows what. The rivers of light had to have done something to the storm, but without knowing what they were, I can’t even start to guess what they might’ve done. The only other explanation is that magic is coming from the outside and into the mountain, but then everycreature would be panicking over it. There’d be research teams everywhere looking for clues, and Parliament would be throwing money at us, but that isn’t happening. The mountain being the source is the only explanation that fits, and I have no idea why or how. I feel like I’m flying blindfolded.”
“Und zat is exactly vhy you vill stop vorking zis instant-“ Hänsel placed an arm across Jacoby’s shoulders- “Leave your veaving for later-“ Turned them both around and pulled his friend towards the door, despite his feeble resistence- “Und eat somezing, drink somezing zat is not coffee or alcohol, und take a nap. I vill make you somezing, simple, uncomplicated. Somezing common. Und zen, you vill be able to zink clearly again und find your answer.”
Jacoby gave a coughing chuckle, and then stopped resisting the Count’s efforts to pull him away from his work. “If I either you or Alex were never a part of my life, I don’t know what I’d do with myself."
Lunch was simple, but hearty. Sandwiches made with thickly sliced ham and hot mustard, crackers with hard cheese, biscuits that were too stale to eat until they were dipped in cream, and pears that were almost, almost too ripe.
It was common, just as Hänsel promised, but it was perfect. Jacoby's choleric spell was broken, and he ate as if he hadn't seen food for a year. Afterward, he retired to bed while the Count left to attend to other business. But Jacoby did not sleep.
In his mind, he was already back at his Conspiracy Loom, unraveling the mess of threads he’d been failing to make sense of earlier. The time away from everything had pulled it all into an appropriate perspective, and it almost seemed silly the way he’d fixated on this or that aspect when now it wasn’t clear if they had ever been a part of the problem.
And then inspiration struck like a bolt of lightning. Jacoby leapt out of bed and charged through his house as fast as he could, down the stairs, through the sitting room and into the library that housed his workspace. In a sudden frenzy, he flicked switches to activate this generator or turn on that light, not paying attention to what he was doing so long as there was light. Hurrying to the table, a misjudgment overturned a bottle of black ink onto a stack of paper.
“Scheiße!”
Righting the bottle and using some of the ruined sheets to blot up the worst of the mess, Jacoby quickly grabbed an unused sheet and, after locating a pen and dipping it in what remained of the ink, began to quickly inscribe rune after rune with furious precision. In seconds, the center of the paper sheet was covered in gibberish, runes that were off-proportion or backwards, runewords that would try to collapse on themselves, try to ignite the paper and extinguish it at the same time, try to produce light and snuff light at the same time, an absolute, perfect mess of nonsense that was just as likely to do anything as it was to do nothing.
Dropping the pen into the bottle, Jacoby lifted the paper up and waved it through the air several times to help dry the ink, and then returned it to his workbench before placing his talons on either side of the runes and mentally reaching out into the æther, grabbing strands of magic in the air around him and wrapping them around his runes, as much as something with only two dimensions can be wrapped by something existing in more than three.
The paper flashed with light and grew warm, and then settled back to its original temperature while the runes fluoresced red. Nothing happened, the variety of enchantments failing to take effect, the words unable to support their structure. But the magic did not dissipate back to where it had come from, and the words, however it was that they managed to, held their energy. The griffon gave a shout of joy, grinning at his success before his attention turned to the pebble from Eisendorf and his grin turned manic.
“Jackpot."