Garth Nix - Newt’s Emerald

There were only the five of them for the meal, for the Admiral was not fond of society, or any neighbours save the Newington-Lacys. Truthful played her role as hostess from one end of the table, and the Admiral that of host from the other.

Turbot with lobster sauce, several boiled fowls, a turtle, a ham, and a quarter of lamb with cauliflowers adorned the table in rapid succession, followed by a gooseberry and currant pie, a soft pudding, and five different sorts of fruit, all washed down with the Admiral’s champagne, burgundy and madeira, though Truthful surreptitiously drank lemonade in her champagne glass, with the knowing cooperation of the servants.

Everyone ate heartily, the young men gently chaffing the Admiral to tell tales of his naval exploits. He needed little encouragement and proceeded to do so at some length, stressing his advice to Nelson at Trafalgar (neglecting to mention he was actually on a different ship), and the importance of “cutting the line”.

Then he turned from tales of war at sea to tales of storm and shipwreck. He had barely moved on from describing some common storms to the story of a hurricane off Jamaica, when the air began to cool, and the sound of distant thunder could be heard like the far-off guns in the Admiral’s tale of Trafalgar.

“Why, bless me!” he cried. Like many naval officers, he was a weather-wizard, and had grown too enthusiastic in his storytelling, investing power in his words. “Here I am talking up a storm, and there it is! Truthful, please ring the bell for Hetherington. We must secure the place for a gale.”

“Batten the hatches?” asked Stephen, smiling.

The Admiral, his good humour further sustained by an excellent dinner, laughed and said, “Just so, my boy. Hetherington! Ah, there you are. We are about to have a storm upon us, and the shutters aren’t on! Have them brought to and fastened, and make sure James is with the horses. You know what to do.”

Hetherington almost brought his fist to his head to salute before remembering to bow instead. He had been the Admiral’s coxswain, and still found it difficult to play the butler rather than the petty officer he had been for twenty years. Retreating, his stentorian voice could be heard above the approaching storm, directing the footmen and maids to their tasks.

“Now, my dear,” said the Admiral jovially. “A storm is a good time to show your heirloom and its powers. A little advance glimpse of the stone that shall be yours when you turn twenty-one.”

“Twenty-one!” exclaimed Truthful. “I thought I wouldn’t inherit the Emerald till I am twenty-five.”

“Twenty-one, twenty-five, what does it matter!” cried the Admiral impatiently. “I can never remember the details. Your mother wore it so seldom, you see. Unlike my mother, who wore it on every possible occasion, and used it, too.”

He turned to look at the portrait above the fireplace behind him, which portrayed a stern-looking woman backed by dense stormclouds.

“That’s her there, lads. Truthful’s granmama, Héloise Newington, wearing the Emerald.”

“May I?” asked Edmund, indicating that he wished to look closer. The Admiral nodded, and Edmund got up, took one of the candelabra from the table, and raised it to the portrait.

The sudden light falling on the painting made two things leap out at the watchers: Héloise’s green eyes, and the glowing emerald that hung on a silver chain about her neck.

“Why,” said Edmund, “she has beautiful eyes. More beautiful than any gem.”

“She broke many hearts before my father caught hers,” chuckled the Admiral. “Though some say it was the Emerald that caught her, not father.”

“Oh no!” exclaimed Truthful. “Surely not!”

“No, my dear,” said the Admiral. “She loved the Emerald well, but it was not the stone that sealed the marriage.”

“It must be a remarkable gem,” said Stephen, who had got up to examine the portrait as well. “It is cut in an Oriental fashion, if I’m any judge.”

“Though what Stephen knows about such matters you could inscribe on the head of a pin,” remarked Robert, smiling to show he wasn’t serious.

“On the contrary, dear brother,” replied Stephen. “I have recently read a most learned monograph on the subject of the cutting and ensorcellement of gems, and have also in fact visited Messrs. Longhurst and Everett in London to see just such an operation.”

“Well, perhaps the head of a very large pin …” said Robert, gesturing with his arms to indicate a very large pin indeed.

“I didn’t know you were so interested in the subject,” said Edmund, turning from the portrait in surprise. “But then, it is no stranger than any other subject you have pursued.”

“And much more salubrious than the sorcerous enlargement of frogs,” added Robert, causing everyone to laugh, except Stephen, who exclaimed that it was very important work and that huge Anuran steeds might one day serve as amphibious cavalry.

“Enough of this talk of frogs!” interrupted the Admiral, to quell the laughter. “It’s Truthful’s birthday, and she must see the Emerald. Please wait here.”

With a grunt of exertion, he levered himself out of his chair, and crossed to a small and discreet door in the wooden paneling of the south wall. Opening it with a tiny key shot from a ring on his forefinger, he stepped within.

As he did so, lightning flashed outside, followed by thunder and the sudden din of rain. All around the house, those shutters still unfastened began to bang against the window-frames.

Another bolt of lightning struck, and everyone blinked. When they opened their eyes, the Admiral had closed the little door behind him.

“I always thought that was a cupboard,” said Robert. “It can’t open into the hall or into your parlour, Truthful.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Truthful. “I’ve never really thought about it. Papa rarely opens it, and I presumed it was a pantry to store his more precious port.”

The storm sounded again as the small door re-opened, and the Admiral’s emerging face was lit with a flash of lightning, closely followed by a resounding clap of thunder.

“By Jove, the storm’s closing fast. Bigger than I thought, too strong to quell now!” exclaimed the Admiral. “That last levinbolt damme near got the house, and the shutters still ain’t up!”

He crossed to the windows, and looked out into the heavy rain, much as he must have gazed from the heaving quarter-deck of a ship of the line.

“Where is Hetherington?” the Admiral asked peevishly, but before anyone could answer, his question was dramatically answered. The lightning flashed again, revealing an oilskin-clad Hetherington and several sodden footmen struggling up to the windows with a wheelbarrow stacked high with shutters.

“I didn’t realise you’d had the shutters taken right off,” said Stephen. “Why on earth—”

“Oh, Father likes to have them repainted at least twice a year, each room in turn. So they have to come off,” interrupted Truthful hastily, with a warning glance to Stephen. “They’ve been drying in the coach-house.”

“Namby-pamby things anyway,” said the Admiral, waving to Hetherington to hurry up as the two men struggled to fit the first shutter on its heavy iron hinges. “Wouldn’t put them up at all if it weren’t for the women-folk. A few shards of glass never did anyone any lasting harm. I like to feel a good storm. Why, I remember off Cape Finisterre in ’08, I was in Defiant, and …

“Sir, you were going to show us the Emerald,” interrupted Stephen, earning him a stern glance from Edmund.

“Why, of course,” replied the Admiral, as if he‘d suddenly thought of it himself. “I’ve got it right here.”

He lumbered back to his chair, and gently lowered himself into it. Once secure, he felt in the pockets of his waistcoat, first the left, then the right. A look of consternation began to spread across his face, to be rapidly mirrored in the others.

The Admiral laughed, and pulled a package from inside his waistcoat.

“Thought I’d slipped my moorings, didn’t you?” he chuckled, pushing the bag over to Truthful. “Open it, my dear. But don’t put it on. You aren’t ready to wield it yet. Particularly not in a storm.”

Truthful leant forward eagerly, then deliberately slowed herself. Taking a little half-breath, half-gasp, she carefully untied the gold drawstring of the small velvet bag. That successfully done, she reached inside, and pulled out … the Emerald.

A huge, heart-shaped gem of the clearest green, it hung suspended from a silver necklace of filigreed leaves. The candle-light flickered on the silver, and small green fires danced from the many facets of the stone, hinting at the sorcerous powers that lurked within.

“It’s beautiful,” said Truthful. “Too beautiful for me. I can’t possibly wear it! Not even when I’m twenty-five.”

“You will,” said the Admiral fondly. “You have your mother’s looks, you know. A good thing too, I’d have disliked it excessively if you’d had mine.”

“Oh, father,” cried Truthful. “Don’t be silly! It must be worth too much to wear anyway.”

“At least thirty thousand pounds, I would say,” said Stephen. He held out his hand, adding, “Is it safe for me to hold?”

“Aye,” said the Admiral. “It don’t answer unless worn at the neck, and only to the family. The womenfolk. It has never answered to a man, so far as is known.”

Truthful reluctantly handed over the gem, the silver leaves trickling through her fingers as the stone dropped into Stephen’s palm. Truthful watched its slow fall, dazed at the beauty and size of the gem. Even from the brief moment in her hand she felt an affinity for it, and had to suppress an urge to ask for it back. Privately she was very sure it was far too beautiful for her to own. Let alone wear it or attempt to use its powers. Whatever those powers might be. The Admiral had never really talked to her about what the Emerald’s powers were exactly.

Stephen looked at the Emerald for several minutes, holding it close to his right eye, even dragging a candle to shine behind the gem.

“There is an ancient power in the stone,” he said. As so often, he seemed to know what Truthful was thinking and asked her question for her. “What precisely is its nature and how does it manifest?”

“Precisely never you mind,” retorted the Admiral. “Ain’t none of your business.”

Stephen smiled and passed the stone to Robert.

Robert looked at it, felt the weight, and said: “Sell it at once, and put the money into Mr Watt’s new steam donkeys.”

“Don’t be silly!” exclaimed Edmund, taking up the gem. “It’s an heirloom of the family, and besides must be a restricted item under the terms of the Sorcerous Trading Act. Besides, it will look very handsome indeed on Truthful.”

He put the gem down in the centre of the table, and pushed it a few inches towards Truthful.

“There, back to its rightful place …” he began, just as lightning struck the iron-framed windows.

Light flooded the entire room. Simultaneously, someone outside cried in pain, glass shattered, and thunder clapped. The wind and rain rushed in, quenching the candles and plunging the room into total darkness.

Truthful leapt to her feet, knocking her chair backwards. The men shouted, and crashing and splintering noises attested to their efforts to get up, knocking chairs over and sending the table sliding on its castors as they struggled to get free of the debris from the broken windows.

Lightning flashed again, further away, the instant of light showing wild figures leaping around the table, and the shapes of men grappling together outside. Then all was dark again, and thunder resounded through the room, quickly followed by the bull-roar of the Admiral’s sea-going voice of command, infused with the full strength of his native sorcery.

“Be still!”

Quiet came after his shout, the elements also bound by his command. The lightning and thunder retreated, the storm rolling out across the cliffs towards the sea. A few seconds later, a dull roar announced its departing cry. At the same time, the double doors opened, revealing Agatha holding a storm lantern, its wick turned high. Behind her stood one of the kitchen maids, with a fire bucket full of sand.

The flickering light of the lantern lit a scene of destruction. One of the unfixed shutters had blown clear through the windows, showering both glass and bits of frame throughout the room. Outside, Hetherington and three footmen slowly let each other go and stood back, scratching their heads.