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Overview
A fascinating new urban fantasy series by an award-winning author
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429963497 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/03/2010 |
| Series: | Black Swan Rising , #1 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| File size: | 361 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Black Swan Rising
By Lee Carroll
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 2010 Carol Goodman and Lee SlonimskyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-6349-7
CHAPTER 1
The Silver Box
I'd never been in the antiques store before.
That was the first strange circumstance. I knew the Village like the back of my hand. I grew up in a town house in the West Village, which I'd just learned was so heavily mortgaged that even if my father and I sold it we would still be under a mountain of debt. It was that news — along with a litany of dire economic circumstances — that had left me so shocked and disoriented that I'd walked back from the lawyer's office in lower Manhattan in a daze. I hadn't even noticed the light rain that had begun to fall or the fog rolling in from the Hudson River.
Only when a sudden violent deluge forced me to duck into a doorway did I realize I was lost. Looking out through a curtain of rain, I saw I was on a narrow cobblestone street. I was too far from either corner to see a street sign through the heavy mist. Somewhere in the West Village or Tribeca, maybe? Had I crossed Canal Street? This part of town had changed so much, become so much trendier, in recent years that it all looked different. I must be near the river, though. The wind was blowing from the south carrying with it the smell of the Hudson and, from beyond the bay, the deep Atlantic. On chill autumn days like this, with low-lying clouds obscuring the tops of buildings and fog softening the edges of brick and granite, I liked to imagine myself in an older Manhattan — a Dutch seaport where traders and merchants came from the Old World to make their fortunes — not the hub of the financial world on the edge of economic collapse.
I shivered — I was soaked to the skin — and turned toward the door to see if I could find an address. I found, instead, a tall, wild-eyed woman staring back at me, her long black hair hanging limply in front of her pale face like a vengeful ghost out of a Japanese horror film. It was my own reflection. I was pretty sure that when I left my house this morning I was a reasonably attractive twenty-six-year-old woman, but this is what bad news and rain had done to me. I tucked my hair behind my ears and leaned down to look for an address, but the gilt letters on the door had been worn away long ago, leaving a sprinkling of gold dust like a magician's veil and a few scattered letters. The only intact word was mist. Probably the tail end of chemist. It wasn't a chemist's anymore, though. It was an antiques store, that much was clear from the contents of the window — Georgian silver, sapphire and diamond rings, gold pocket watches — all beautiful, but a bit too precious for my taste. Peering through the glass door, I saw that the shop itself looked like a tiny jewel box, the walls paneled in dark wood, the sparkling glass cases lined with garnet-colored velvet, a curtain of wine-colored damask hanging behind a polished mahogany counter carved in sinuous art-nouveau curves. The white-haired man who sat behind the counter looked as if he had been set there as carefully as a pearl in an onyx brooch. He was examining something through a watchmaker's loupe, but then he looked up — one eye grotesquely magnified by the lens — and saw me standing in the doorway. He reached under the counter and pressed a button to ring me in.
I can ask for directions to the closest subway station, I thought as I opened the door. I wouldn't be so rude as to do it right away, though. I hated when tourists popped their heads into our art gallery to ask for directions. I'd look around first, although I doubted the shop carried the signet rings I used for my molds and I hardly ever shopped for myself anymore — and it didn't look as if I'd be doing so in the near future. I wore on my right ring finger the silver signet ring my mother had given me for my sixteenth birthday. Engraved in the silver was a swan, its neck arched and wings spread out as if about to take flight — or in heraldry terms, a swan rising. Encircling the swan, reversed so that they would appear correct when pressed into wax, were the words Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno.
"'A rare bird on earth, very much like a black swan,'" my mother had translated for me. "That's what you are, Garet, a rare bird. Unique. Don't ever let anyone make you think you have to be the same as everyone else."
Someone had rubbed his finger over the words so often they could barely be read, and fine cracks ran through the design, but when I had pressed the ring into hot wax, the image and words were remarkably clear. My mother, who had worked as an apprentice at Asprey's in London, had shown me how to make a mold from the wax print and cast a medallion from the imprint of the ring — the same medallion I still wore today, and every day. So many people asked about the medallion that I had gone out looking for more signet rings and made more medallions, which I had sold to students and teachers at my high school and to clients at the gallery. I'd made enough to put myself through a jewelry design program at FIT and to start a small company with a studio on the top floor of the town house. I called it Cygnet Designs after the Latin word for swan. It was doing pretty well four years later, but I didn't make enough to repay the enormous debt my father had incurred.
How many of my customers will feel like they can afford to buy little trinkets like my medallions, I wondered as I entered the shop. How long will quaint little businesses like mine — or this one — survive if things really get bad?
If the proprietor of the shop was anxious about his present prospects of making a sale, he didn't show it. He continued to tinker with the watch he was fixing as I browsed the shelves. They held a strange assortment of wares. There were lockets opened to show sepia-toned photographs under mottled glass, and brooches woven from the hair of the deceased. Many of the rings and brooches were adorned with urns, willow trees, and doves — all traditional symbols of mourning. One whole shelf contained nothing but brooches of painted eyes. I'd read about these in a jewelry history class. They were called lover's eye brooches, a Georgian style that had been made fashionable by the Prince of Wales when he commissioned his court miniaturist to paint just his mistress's eye so no one would guess her identity. I'd seen pictures of them in books and one or two in antiques shops, but it was disconcerting to see so many of the disembodied eyes in one place.
"Was there anything in particular you were looking for?"
The question was voiced so softly that for a moment I thought it was only in my head. I couldn't help responding, in my head, A way out of my troubles, thank you very much. But aloud I said, "I'm always on the lookout for old signet rings. I use them in my jewelry designs." I held up my necklace for the man to see. He held up his magnifying glass and leaned over the counter to get a better look.
The moment he saw the design he lowered the glass and looked up. His eyes were a curious shade of amber, all the more startling in a deeply bronzed face framed by snow-white hair and carefully trimmed goatee.
"Are you by any chance Garet James, the owner of Cygnet Designs?" he asked.
"Why, yes," I said, pleased at the recognition. I'd gotten some good press, but I wasn't used to being "recognized." "That's me. I'm surprised an antiques dealer would know it."
"I like to keep abreast of modern times," he said. When he smiled, a million fine lines spanned his deeply bronzed skin. I had the notion that he had spent time at sea, squinting into sun and rain at the helm of a ship, but it was more likely he'd just played a few too many rounds on the golf course. "I read the piece in New York magazine last week. I admire the way you make use of old materials to make something new. You're a real artist."
"Just a craftsman," I said quickly.
"You're being modest."
"Not really. I know the difference." I'd grown up among artists — painters and sculptors — and I knew what it meant to be a real artist, but I didn't have to tell this stranger all that — or that the last thing I wanted to be was an artist.
He narrowed his eyes. "I've looked at your designs on your website. But I don't believe I've seen this particular design there."
"No. This was the first medallion I made ... from this ring." I held out my hand so he could see the signet ring. "I've never reproduced it again."
The jeweler took my hand in his and held it up to his loupe to see the ring better. His fingers were cold and powdery and he held my hand for what seemed like longer than was necessary. Maybe he was having trouble reading the quote.
"The words are backwards. It says, 'A rare bird —'"
"I know the quote quite well," he said, dropping my hand abruptly and looking up. "In fact, I've seen this insignia before ... wait ... I'll show you."
Before I could object, the jeweler rose from his stool. He was taller than I'd thought — and more robust. The long loose cardigan he was wearing had disguised his bulk while sitting, but when he stood he had quite a presence. He must have been close to my father's age — mideighties — but where my father had recently begun to look frail, this man looked powerful. Almost disconcertingly so, as if the cardigan and white hair were a disguise.
He excused himself and disappeared behind the maroon brocade curtain. I took another turn around the shop but there really wasn't much space to turn around in and wherever I stood those disembodied eyes seemed to follow me. I stared out the fogged window at the rain-slicked street instead. Why was I even waiting? I certainly had no intention of buying anything. Not after the news I'd received this morning.
My father's lawyer, Charles Chennery, had laid it all out for me in his blunt, Connecticut lockjaw. Five months ago my father had taken out a $2.5 million home equity line of credit from a Wall Street firm against the $4 million value of the Jane Street town house. He'd used it to buy several paintings — steals, he'd assured Charles — which had been appraised at $5 million value for resale. But that was before the world financial and art markets had collapsed this autumn. Much of the artwork hadn't even sold at auction, and what had, sold for much less than what my father had anticipated. Now even well-collateralized loans were being called in prematurely. ("No one ever reads the fine print," Chennery had somberly told me when I expressed surprise that investment banks could do that), and with the true value of the town house dropping every day, no creditor was likely to take chances. Indeed, the Wall Street firm was threatening to repossess the house and gallery in thirty days (by January 11, I mentally reminded myself) if we couldn't repay the loan. Chuck Chennery had outlined various ways of restructuring the loan, but none of the options had sounded even remotely feasible. If we restructured the debt, we'd have more time to repay it but at a significantly higher interest rate. We'd owe $50,000 each month. Where would we get that kind of money in this market? And if we sold the gallery to repay the loan, what would we live on? And where would we live? The town house was our home as well as place of business. Just thinking about it made me feel seasick. No wonder I had gotten lost walking here.
"Yes, I was correct, the crest on this is nearly identical to the one on your ring and medallion." The shop owner's voice broke into the ever-widening gyre of financial ruin spinning inside my head. "In fact, I believe it might be the same crest."
I turned and looked at the object the jeweler had laid atop a blue velvet cloth on the glass counter. It was a shallow silver box about the length and width of my thirteen-inch MacBook, and so tarnished it was hard to make out the etched designs even when I moved closer to it. I was surprised the proprietor of such a fastidiously clean shop would allow the object to remain so tarnished. I peered at the design on the top of the box, looking for the crest he had spoken of, but the decoration on the lid was an abstract pattern of concentric ovals.
"The crest is here," he said, pointing to the front of the box along its seam, to the place where there should have been a clasp. Instead of a clasp — or perhaps over the clasp — was a round lozenge of silver sealing the lid of the box to its base. Its edges were irregular and bulged around the perimeter, exactly like a pool of wax that has been stamped by a seal. It looked, in fact, a great deal like the medallions I made from wax seals. And it looked exactly like the seal on my ring: the same swan flexing its wings, the same Latin motto, even ... could it be?
I leaned closer to the box and the jeweler wordlessly handed me his magnifying loupe. I raised it to my right eye, startled by a tingle of electrical energy that ran along my eyebrow and cheekbone, as if the metal had picked up a charge from the jeweler. I bent down until the seal came into focus through the thick lens. Fine lines were impressed into the metal. I knew from experience that they came from cracks in the seal that made the image. I looked back at the ring on my finger and then back to the box. The lines were identical.
"That's amazing." I straightened up, the loupe still in my right eye, to look at the jeweler. The old man wavered in my vision, the edges around him blurring and streaking like sunflares. A cloud of shimmering lights, like a swarm of fireflies let loose in the shop, hovered above his head. I put down the loupe and closed my eyes to clear my vision.
"Sorry," I said, "I get —"
"Scintillations? Metamorphopsia?" the jeweler asked, naming two of the symptoms of an ocular migraine, a condition I had suffered from since my teens.
"Exactly. You must be a fellow sufferer."
"Many of us are," he said enigmatically.
What did he mean by us? The man was definitely a bit strange. I should ask for directions and get out of here. I certainly had no intention of buying the box. Not that I didn't want to. I felt, in fact, as if the box should belong to me. What were the chances of coming across an object that had been made with the very same ring my mother had given me? And on this day of all days when everything else in my life seemed so bleak? But that was exactly the reason why I couldn't even think of buying such an inessential item — it would be frivolous and foolish in such dire economic circumstances. Still ... I could imagine polishing the silver until it shone. ... I placed the tip of my finger on the surface of the box, imagining the whirling pattern released from its carapace of tarnish ... and was startled to see the finely etched lines glow blue. I leaned closer and watched in amazement as the incandescent lines rippled, swayed, and spread out from my fingertip, as if the box were made of water instead of silver and my touch had been the cast stone that disturbed its surface.
I moved my finger away and the lines stilled and turned dull again. I looked up and saw that the jeweler was staring at the box. Slowly he lifted his eyes up. They seemed to be glowing with the same incandescent light that I had seen in the box a moment ago. His look was so intense I was afraid I had done something wrong. Damaged the box, perhaps. But instead of taking the box away he pushed it toward me. "I have a proposition for you," he said.
"What?" I asked, alarmed at the wording of his request.
"I'd like to make a trade." He fluttered his hands between the seal on the box and my ring. They were trembling. When I'd entered the shop his hands had held the delicate tools of the watchmaker without a tremor, but now his hands quivered midair like butterfly wings.
"I'm sorry," I said, afraid of agitating the man further. "I don't understand. I don't really have anything to trade —"
"A trade for your services." He clasped his hands together and forced his lips into a polite smile.
"What services?" I was suddenly aware of how isolated we were, alone in this little shop on a deserted street, the front door locked, the heavy rain like a curtain of silver chain mail separating us from the rest of the world. Was the man crazy? A hectic gleam was in his eyes and he was wringing his hands as if he were afraid they would fly away of their own volition.
"Your soldering services. I've seen what fine work you do with Cygnet Designs ... and you do metal sculpture as well, don't you? I believe you had a show last year in Chelsea. ... I've been looking for someone just like you for this job. It's quite delicate, you see ..." He released his hands and gestured toward the seam of the box. I noticed two things. He didn't touch the box and his fingernails were the same shade of yellow as his eyes. "The box has been sealed all the way around."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Black Swan Rising by Lee Carroll. Copyright © 2010 Carol Goodman and Lee Slonimsky. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title,Copyright,
Dedication,
Acknowledgments,
The Silver Box,
A Snowy Field in France,
Shadowmen,
Air & Mist,
Tea and Scones,
Jaws,
Saint Lion,
The Watchtower,
The Manticore,
It Is the Lark,
King of Moonshine, Prince of Dreams,
Gone to Earth,
King of Shadows,
A Wandering Eye,
Night Flight,
The Train to Tarascon,
The Diamond Dairy,
Angel of the Waters,
The Source,
Deliquesce,
The Red Shoes,
The Exchequer,
The Assessor,
The Lover's Eye,
The Wrong Way,
The Transmigration of Atoms,
The High Tower,
The Amber Room,
The Summer Country,