Malon's directions lead me, as promised, to a worse part of town. The sun goes behind a cloud and the soot thickens as I approach the Industrial Zone. I can see the wall dividing it from the Estates. It's taller and thicker than the one by the Workers' District, and the lightning wires shine brighter and crackle audibly.
As the road curves around to the right it climbs a small hill, and I see what Malon must have meant by "the crossroads". Where the four districts meet, many layers of road stack on top of each other in closed iron tunnels. This district's entrance is at the top, so that the rich who condescend to visit the other districts can walk on the surface. The workers who scurry constantly between the factories, terraces, and their homes must march through claustrophobic, rattling passages literally under the feet of their wealthy neighbours. Though I've read about such extreme differences of privilege in books, I find the sight of it unsettling.
I needn't have worried about recognizing the professor's house when I saw it. The houses in this end of town are less luxurious, and vacant lots separate some of them. One house stands out, surrounded on all sides by these vacant lots. It is a four-storey monstrosity, one whole corner of the house missing as if blown off and covered by a tarpaulin. The many windows host telescopes and elaborate instruments (for measuring atmospheric conditions, at a guess), are boarded up, or both. No soot rises from the many chimneys, and only a faint light shines from within as I approach the door. I knock.
I knock again. As I raise my hand for a third time, the door swings open with a creak. Nobody is visible inside. "Hello? Professor? Talon?" I call.
"Do come in before the soot builds up. I can't stand the scrubbing." The voice is tinny, old, cracked, and without source. Stepping inside, the door squeaks closed behind me. I see the cord that pulled it open and follow it through a series of tubes into the ceiling. An old brass device that looks like the business end of a telescope catches my attention. The image of a giant distorted eye appears in it for a second, and I flinch.
"Come on up, come on," the voice continues. "I know it's rude, but I don't have a manservant to greet or escort you and my joints ache too much to manage the stairs for mere politeness' sake. Turn left, then right, then straight up the stairs. We're in the drawing room."
I take another second to scan the dingy interior and spot the speaking tube that carried the voice. Satisfied, I follow the directions up the stairs.
Two men sit in armchairs in an orange-lit room. Bookshelves line the walls, and the hearth contains a glowing slab of rock instead of a fire. It emits the warm light, as well as the literal warmth that floods the room. I take off my half-cloak in the heat.
With visible effort, a very old man scoots the chair nearest the hearth around to look at me. Wild tufts of white and grey hair fly out of his head at odd angles. His face is lined and sunken, almost skeletal. His hands peek out of the sleeves of his deep purple robe; they are thin and covered in liver spots and chemical stains. "Talon!" he yells.
The other man snorts awake. He's middle-aged, heavily built, with black hair and a thick black moustache. As he comes to, he wipes his hands on his blue overalls. "Huh? Yeah? I'm awake. Is it morning already?"
"Very late morning," I reply. "Malon needs you back at the LonLon Café for the lunch rush."
"Oh… Ahh!" he exclaims. "I'm really gonna get it! I musta drowsed off again! I always lose track of time in this musty old room! Why don'tcha have any windows in here, you old codger?" The last is directed at Quinlan.
"My joints need the warmth and my lungs can't handle the soot," the professor replies primly. "And you need to sleep more at night."
"That's been awful hard, since… my wife… the war…" Talon bumbles around a little, finds an empty glass bottle on the side table and shoves it into a pocket. He immediately removes it again and peers at it. "Is this one yours or mine?"
"I've got mine right here, old chap," Quinlan replies in a gentle voice. "Use the meditation I've been teaching you. It works here, doesn't it?"
"Can't argue with that," Talon says, shakes Quinlan's hand, and clatters down the stairs at speed.
Professor Quinlan catches me assessing him. "I've been waiting for you, young Zelda."
I start. "How did my grandmother let you know I was coming?"
He chuckles. "No 'how did you know who I am' or 'wait, I never told you my name'? I do so love that part."
With a shrug, I explain: "You obviously know my grandmother since she described you as a friend. If you're friends, you are presumably in contact. Since you know my name, she must have told you about me at some point. I just can't figure out how you knew I would be here today. Does she have a secret, magic way of contacting you? Are you both sorcerers? Are you… my grandfather?"
At the first question he opens his mouth to respond. At the second, he closes it to smile. At the third, he breaks out into a ragged cackle that goes on long enough to be uncomfortable, and then long enough for me to worry about his health. It drags out into a long cough, which ends with him sipping a glass of water from his side table. I sit in Talon's chair and wait for him to recover.
"No, child, I'm not your grandfather," he chuckles again. "Your grandmother's not so much of a cradle-robber as all that. 'Sorcerer' is a complicated and arguable label and I won't speak for her, but I suppose it could apply to me. And no, she doesn't." His keen eyes find mine. "I didn't start waiting for you today, young miss. Check your assumptions."
I think about this for a few moments. "My grandmother's been captured by Calatian soldiers. The Sheikah were unjustly accused of training an illegal militia. I escaped, and my grandmother told me to come to you. For advice." I hold eye contact.
"For advice?" His patchy eyebrows raise. "I'm surprised she thinks so highly of my judgement. Did you know that I'm a battle-mage of the Calatian Empire?"
I stand and instantly tense to flee. He waves at me to sit. "Used to be, used to be. They let me go. I'm quite mad, you see. But I needed to prove a point. How could you be sure I wouldn't call the guards the moment I heard you had escaped from the dungeons? From my own king's dungeons!"
I sit slowly, rest at the edge of the seat. Feet on the floor, hands in my lap. "My grandmother said you were a friend. You don't seem mad."
"Friends aren't always trustworthy. I'm not mad… at you." He cackles at his joke. "Your grandmother is a remarkable woman, and an excellent judge of character. I'm certainly not going to turn you in. In fact, you're welcome to rest here." He glances at a clock on the wall. "I can even treat you to a midnight snack. You seem hungry."
"It's not midnight. It's around noon."
"I can never keep those two straight. A noon snack, then! Doesn't roll off the tongue as well." He takes another long sip of water, settles deep in his chair, and closes his eyes.
My stomach gurgles. "Um…"
"What are you waiting for?" His eyes snap open. "The kitchen's right through the door behind me. Well, down the hall, third door on the left. No, third door on the right, the left is the chemical laboratory. Help yourself. Fix me a sandwich while you're in there, won't you?"
"A sandwich?" I say icily, my gratitude rapidly going sour.
"Listen," he whispers, eyes closed again. I lean forward. "I'm going to teach you maaaaagiiiiic. Surely a sandwich isn't too much to ask of an apprentice. Don't wake me if I'm asleep when you get back. Whatever I say to Talon, I can't sleep at night… either…" He lets out a soft snore. It sounds fake.
The kitchen is where he said it would be, and I assemble two sandwiches. Salted meat, brown bread, spinach. The kitchen has an ice box, but the fresh bottle of milk Talon just delivered is left out on the counter. It's very full, yet after I pour two servings for us it's empty. Curious, I examine it; though it's large, the glass is extremely thick. I rinse it at the faucet and marvel at the engineering behind this city. I'm used to hand pumps, or boiling water from streams.
Professor Quinlan is motionless when I return. I check to be sure he's breathing; he is.
I set down my bundle of shawl and gauntlet, eat my sandwich standing, and examine the drawing room's library. A volume entitled "Mysteries of the Arcane" catches my eye. Opening it, I find that Quinlan is credited as the author. Before the preface is the inscription: "Recommended pre-reading: 'Solved Problems of the Arcane', also by Prof. Quinlan."
Sandwich gone, milk finished, I sit to read by the hearth light. I love reading, even dry non-fiction, but the words blur together in the orange light. "Mysteries" does presume a familiarity level with "time dilation mechanics, mass inversion principles, and fourth-dimensional rhetoric" which my education has not provided me. I drift off…
…And wake with a start from a dream. A dark shape with iron fingers was choking the life out of me… I slumped in my sleep and my collar was tugging at my throat. The hearth slab is dark, and the only light is a trickle from the open door to the hall. Quinlan is gone. I look around in flaring panic; the shawl lies open and the gauntlet is nowhere to be seen. In its place is a note. In almost illegibly elaborate handwriting, it reads: "Find me in my study. – Q"
I force my breath to slow. In, out. I recover my hooded half-cloak. This probably isn't a sudden yet inevitable betrayal. Still, I slide out of the room without a noise. In the hall, I set my feet down carefully near the walls to minimize creaking from the floorboards. I glide back into the kitchen.
A small knife with a leather blade sheath vanishes up my left sleeve, but then immediately tumbles free. Hmm. Right. This isn't Sheikah clothing, with a thousand practical pockets. I find a length of string, tie the sheath tightly to my arm under the sleeve. After some practice wiggles and gesticulations to make sure the knife won't fall free of the sheathe as I move, I set out to explore the house.
Besides the kitchen and drawing room, three doors lead off the second-floor corridor. Two are locked, but one is ajar. I push it open cautiously with one hand, staying out of the doorway so that I won't be silhouetted against the light of the corridor. Nothing happens. It's dark in the room.
I slide in along the door and then whisk myself behind it. I let my eyes adjust, but I recognize the smell of this room at once. It's a wardrobe. No performer could miss that scent of clothes in storage.
I gradually make out closets lining one wall, mostly open. They contain set after set of clothing: mostly the professor's signature purple robes, but in many sizes. Opening one of the closed closets, I see more varied outfits. These seem mustier, like their storage is long term. Near the top, one catches my eye. Short and loose white pants, knee-high sandals, and a green vest… I close the closet.
On the other side of the room is a long shelf with a long row of green ceramic pots on it. They're all empty. Curious. Just decoration?
In the center of the room, set into the hardwood floor, is a circle of metal. It's hard to see in the dim light, but there are engravings running along the outside edge. I take a care not to step into it.
Leaving the room, I notice similar engravings around the doorframe. I steel myself for some magical disaster as I step out into the hall, but nothing happens.
At the end of the hall, a landing. Stairs reach up to the third floor to my left, and this passage of stairs once had a fine row of south-facing windows to light it up. Now they are boarded over. Peeking through a gap, I see that the sun is setting. Malon's lunch rush is long over.
There's a light at the top of the stairs. As I reach the top, I see that what I took to be third and fourth storeys from the street are one huge room. It plays host to a number of huge and complex clockwork apparatus that I would ordinarily love to examine, but my focus is drawn immediately to the center of the room.
Professor Quinlan stands on a stool behind a large desktop workspace, facing the stairs. He's fixated on the gauntlet, which sits on a tiny podium of dark metal. He has clamped it in place with leather straps, like a patient in surgery. As I stride forward, not quite willing to shout across the vast room, he attaches two thin wires to two separate fingers and flicks a switch out of my sight under the desk. One wire glows an indigo colour that my eyes can't bring into focus; the other stays dark.
"That's mine," I say, as soon as I'm close enough to say it with the determined dignity of a noble hero in a play. He looks up in mild surprise, eyes framed by round gold spectacles. In that instant, an explosion of air bursts from the gauntlet in all directions. The professor tumbles backward off of his stool; the gauntlet bursts off the table with enough force to carry the podium with it. The wire snaps loose and writhes frantically along the top of the desk, scorching its stone surface. Quinlan scrambles, flicks the switch again, and the cable falls limp and dark. The podium and gauntlet land on their side at my feet with a dull clunk.
I hastily unfasten the gauntlet and slide it back on. The fit is still perfect. I appreciate how supple the leather is despite sitting in that display case in the keep for who knows how long. I admire the fine carvings in the metal of the vambrace, the triple triangle design inlaid on the back of the hand. My attention is brought back to the present by the professor's groan.
"Oh… ow… I think I broke my wrist!" He says, drawing to his feet slowly and holding his left hand like it was a dead bird.
"What were you doing?" I ask, not quite sympathetic.
"Hmm? I was trying to break it, of course," he replies.
"What?!"
"If I could have, it couldn't have been the real thing! Now I can assure you that you hold the true Gauntlet of Gamelon. Congratulations," he grunts, obviously in pain.
"But what were you doing, specifically, as I came in?"
"Well I'm sure I don't know how long you've been here, young lady! I never heard you come in! Maybe you came in while I was taking a rubbing of the engravings, or perhaps while conducting a photocentric examination of the gem. You certainly could have snuck in as I prepared the safety precautions. You know, I had to rig up a pulley system to get the lead insulator on the table?" He gestures sadly at the podium at my feet. "It weighs nearly fifty kilograms*. I thought that would be plenty."
"I spoke as soon as I was close enough! What were you doing with the wires?"
"Ah! Well, then, you missed the etheric conductivity test. Total absorption. Like the gauntlet's a sinkhole to another place entirely. You would have entered just in time for the thaumic resonance examination. As you can see, there was quite a bit of it!" He gestures at the papers, pencils, and other equipment scattered around the room from the burst of air.
My heart rate slows a bit. "So when you say you were trying to break it, you don't mean you made an attempt to destroy it. You were testing its properties."
He looks at me like I'm the madman. "Of course that's what I was doing. That's what I said." He heaves himself up to a sitting position on the stool.
"And… thaumic energy created that indigo light. That's a sort of magic, isn't it? I've read about the thaumaturgy practiced by Calatian battle-mages. You were testing its 'resonance' and 'conductivity', so essentially you wanted to know if different types of magic would pass through the gauntlet, be stopped by it, or produce an effect. Is that about right?"
He started nodding along half way through this speech and now cuts in. "Yes, yes, quite. As has been documented about the gauntlet, it absorbs etherium, resonates with thaumaturgy, and who knows how it responds to sanctorium. Who knows how anything responds to sanctorium! Blasted substance. Terribly far from our reach."
I mull this all over and put my questions on hold. "When this gem is inserted into the back of the gauntlet, I can create bursts of focused wind. It's strong enough to lift me, and I'm a little over sixty kilograms. I'm not surprised it had no trouble with your weight."
"Ah!" He leans forward. "That is good data! That is new data! That would have been very good data to have when taking safety precautions!"
"You could have asked. As the bearer of the gauntlet, I might know more about it than you do. For that matter, you should have asked me for permission to experiment on it!"
He blinks at me owlishly. "This truly never occurred to me. Ah, my. It is so long since I have had visitors besides Talon. Not much social practice. Not at my age."
I find another stool, right it, and sit across the desk from him. "How old are you?"
"Forty-two." I notice he has to glance over at a calendar on the wall to answer the question.
"You… don't look it?" I say to the withered, liver-spotted man across from me.
"Eh… don't I? Well. I may need to skip back a few steps anyway. This pain… rather distracting! Can't teach if you can't breathe freely, that's what I always say! Would you mind looking away for a minute? I need to change my pants."
This is all a little much for me. Either he's being inscrutable on purpose, or him being mad is not entirely a joke. Having no wish to discover exactly why he suddenly needs to change pants, I turn and walk away a good dozen steps to examine one of his machines.
A dozen metal rings are set inside one another. Each can rotate independently, and each ones axis can rotate within the ring around it. The outermost ring is the only one fixed in place. Fully two meters in diameter and attached to a giant flat stand, the whole arrangement in motion would probably look like a giant globe. It's not clear what would set it in motion, though…
There's a whip crack sound from behind me and I spin around. The professor stands behind his desk – I recognize his face, even without the wrinkles – but he stands straight now. His legs are longer, and he seems double the height. His face is young, and he has a full head of deep black hair. He rolls his left wrist and flexes it experimentally.
"Thank you, Zelda," he says in a deep baritone, removing and folding the gold spectacles. "Would you like to ask questions, or shall I explain?"