The Doktor's Spyglass

Chapter 6.2

Keynish Helg was not a man who slept in his bedroom. Thijis knew that from the moment he set foot inside. He'd suspected as much after seeing the doktor's state of affairs with Krizner when all this started. Obsession and a good night's sleep do not make good bedfellows, literally or figuratively. No, a man like Helg, to the extent that he slept at all, slept in his workplace. There had been no cot in the lab downstairs, but the articulated chair they'd found Helg lying in looked perfectly comfortable.

None of which made looking into his bedroom a waste of time. A man's bedchamber was a private place, a place where memories and secrets were stowed. A place to keep things close to the heart, the same things a woman might keep on her person or in a remembrance chest.

Helg's was high-ceilinged and paneled in exotic, striated wood from Cor. The paneling looked in need of oil. He wondered again who kept Helg's house for him, and whether Krizner or Gebbing or whoever was currently conducting what passed for an investigation had located her. Thijis still didn't know if the anonymous "constable" who had tipped Krizner off had made up the maid entirely or not, but clearly Helg had someone sweeping the floors and making him supper. Finding her—or him; a manservant was just as likely—would be the next step.

There was little of interest in the bedroom proper, however: a few unguents in the bed table; several shirts, all white, hanging in a wardrobe. On a console table against the wall was a bronze sculpture of a rearing stallion with a bare-chested Eberai brave on its back.

It was in a small, adjacent room behind a set of louvered doors that Thijis found what he was looking for. A simple writing desk with a few drawers built in sat in a kind of enclosed balcony. The walls and ceiling were glass, set in tarnished bronze: a bedside greenhouse, built for some long dead Lady Helg, no doubt. Entering it felt like walking into the night itself. Beyond the windows was a sea of black peppered with the dim lights of the city, a poor mirror image of the bright white pinpricks of the stars above. Or is it an observatory? A single hexagonal pane of leaded glass made up the gathered center of the ceiling, an oculus to the night sky. Yes. He saw the grooves in the floor, now: an impressive device had once sat where the doktor's desk now trespassed. A telescope, probably heavy and brass, mounted and balanced for stable viewing. Like the great dome at the University, but in miniature.

The desktop was clear aside from a cold lamp and an empty glass inkwell. In one drawer he found the usual things: a fountain pen, a stack of expensive writing paper, a few bottles of ink. In the deeper of the two side drawers were a few thick scientific texts: Advanced Phirotics, Physical Properties of Elekstone at the Microscopic Scale, The Motion of Iota in Nature, Natural Astronomy. Thijis smiled when he found a novel at the bottom of the stack, one of the newer soft-covered pulp books, with a drawing on the cover that appeared to be an elekstone ship traveling to the moon.

The center drawer was empty but for a stick of charcoal that rolled around noisily. Sticking his hand in, he felt around beneath the top of the desk and found it: cold metal, intricate—a key, resting on a hidden lip formed by the woodwork comprising the trim of the desk. He curled his fingers around it.

"Mr. Thijis, I presume," said a deep, melodious voice. "I'm so glad you could join us."

Irik's shoulders tensed in panic but he didn't jump. He palmed the key and managed to slip it up his sleeve before the truncheon came down at the base of his neck.

* * *

Someone was talking to him. The deep voice again. Thijis felt carpet beneath his cheek and a pounding in the base of his head. Someone was pressing him into the floor and fumbling for his hand. The jingle of metal. Manacles? He squirmed, worked his arm under him, making it seem like he was waking up, moved just enough to drop the key back down into his palm, squeezed. Just in time. Whoever was on top of him—male, heavy, grunting—found his wrist with a pincer like grip and twisted his arm behind his back. Moments later he was shackled, and they heaved him off the floor like a baker hefting a sack of flour. His brain sloshed in his head. The pain was so white hot for a moment he squeezed his eyes shut and just tried to breathe.