Van Eck took a deep breath and tried to set his suit to rights. “That cane is quite a piece of hardware, Mister Brekker. Is it Fabrikator made?”
It was, in fact, the work of a Grisha Fabrikator, lead-lined and perfectly weighted for breaking bones. “None of your business. Get talking, Van Eck.”
The mercher cleared his throat. “When Bo Yul-Bayur sent us the sample of jurda parem, we fed it to three Grisha, one from each Order.”
“Happy volunteers?”
“Indentures,” Van Eck conceded. “The first two were a Fabrikator and a Healer indentured to Councilman Hoede. Mikka is a Tidemaker. He’s mine. You’ve seen what he can do using the drug.”
Hoede. Why did that name ring a bell?
“I don’t know what I’ve seen,” Kaz said as he glanced at Mikka. The boy’s gaze was focused intently on Van Eck as if awaiting his next command. Or maybe another fix.
“An ordinary Tidemaker can control currents, summon water or moisture from the air or a nearby source. They manage the tides in our harbour. But under the influence of jurda parem, a Tidemaker can alter his own state from solid to liquid to gas and back again, and do the same with other objects.
Even a wall.”
Kaz was tempted to deny it, but he couldn’t explain what he’d just seen any other way. “How?”
“It’s hard to say. You’re aware of the amplifiers some Grisha wear?”
“I’ve seen them,” Kaz said. Animal bones, teeth, scales. “I hear they’re hard to come by.”
“Very. But they only increase a Grisha’s power. Jurda parem alters a Grisha’s perception.”
“So?”
“Grisha manipulate matter at its most fundamental levels. They call it the Small Science. Under the influence of parem, those manipulations become faster and far more precise. In theory, jurda parem is just a stimulant like its ordinary cousin. But it seems to sharpen and hone a Grisha’s senses. They can make connections with extraordinary speed. Things become possible that simply shouldn’t be.”
“What does it do to sorry sobs like you and me?”
Van Eck seemed to bristle slightly at being lumped in with Kaz, but he said, “It’s lethal. An ordinary mind cannot tolerate parem in even the lowest doses.”
“You said you gave it to three Grisha. What can the others do?”
“Here,” Van Eck said, reaching for a drawer in his desk.
Kat lifted his pistol. “Easy.”
With exaggerated slowness, Van Eck slid his hand into the desk drawer and pulled out a lump of gold. “This started as lead.”
“Like hell it did.”
Van Eck shrugged. “I can only tell you what I saw. The Fabrikator took a piece of lead in his hands, and moments later we had this.”
“How do you even know it’s real?” asked Kaz.
“It has the same melting point as gold, the same weight and malleability. If it’s not identical to gold in every way, the difference has eluded us. Have it tested if you like.”
Kaz tucked his cane under his arm and took the heavy lump from Van Eck’s hand. He slipped it into his pocket. Whether it was real or just a convincing imitation, a chunk of yellow that big could buy plenty on the streets of the Barrel.
“You could have got that anywhere,” Kaz pointed out.
“I would bring Hoede’s Fabrikator here to show you himself, but he isn’t well.”
Kaz’s gaze flicked to Mikka’s sickly face and damp brow. The drug clearly came with a price.
“Let’s say this is all true and not cheap, coin-trick magic. What does it have to do with me?”
“Perhaps you heard of the Shu paying off the entirety of their debt to Kerch with a sudden influx of gold? The assassination of the trade ambassador from Novyi Zem? The theft of documents from a military base in Ravka?”
So that was the secret behind the murder of the ambassador in the washroom. And the gold in those three Shu ships must have been Fabrikator made. Kaz hadn’t heard anything about Ravkan documents, but he nodded anyway.
“We believe all these occurrences are the work of Grisha under the control of the Shu government and under the influence of jurda parem.” Van Eck scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Mister Brekker, I want you to think for a moment about what I’m telling you. Men who can walk through walls – no vault or fortress will ever be safe again. People who can make gold from lead, or anything else for that matter, who can alter the very material of the world – financial markets would be thrown into chaos. The world economy would collapse.”
“Very exciting. What is it you want from me, Van Eck? You want me to steal a shipment? The formula?”
“No, I want you to steal the man.”
“Kidnap Bo Yul-Bayur?”
“Save him. A month ago we received a message from Yul-Bayur begging for asylum. He was concerned about his government’s plans for jurda parem, and we agreed to help him defect. We set up a rendezvous, but there was a skirmish at the drop point.”
“With the Shu?”
“No, with Fjerdans.”