by Scott Lynch
“Jean … wait …” whispered Locke. He stood transfixed, tied to Patience’s hand by a silver strand, his eyes gleaming. The trance lasted perhaps fifteen seconds, and then the dreamsteel withdrew. Locke wobbled and clutched the taffrail, blinking furiously.
“Holy hells,” he said. “What a sensation.”
“What happened?” said Jean.
“She was … I don’t know, exactly. But I think you’ll want to see this.”
Patience turned to Jean, extending the hand with the silver needle. Jean leaned forward and fought to avoid flinching as the narrow silver point came toward him. It brushed his open eye like a breath of cold air, and the world around him changed.
4
FOOTSTEPS ECHOING on marble. Faint murmur of conversation in an unknown language. No, not a murmur. Not a noise at all. A soft tickle of thoughts from a dozen strangers, brushing against an awareness that Jean hadn’t previously known he’d possessed. A flutter like moth wings against the front of his mind. The sensation is frightening. He tries to halt, is startled to discover that the vaporous mass of his body refuses his commands.
Ah, but these aren’t your memories. The voice of Patience, inside his head. You’re a passenger. Try to relax, and it will grow easier soon enough.
“I don’t weigh anything,” Jean says. The words come from his lips like the weakest half-exhalation of a man with dead stones for lungs. Squeezing them out takes every ounce of will he can muster.
It’s my body you’re wearing. I’m leaving some things hazy for your peace of mind. You’re here for a study in culture, not anatomy.
Warm light on his face, falling from above. His thoughts are buoyed from below by a sensation of power, a cloud of ghostly whispers he can’t seem to grab meaningful hold of. He rides atop these like a boat bobbing on a deep ocean.
My mind. My deeper memories, which are quite irrelevant, thank you. Concentrate. I’ll make you privy to my strongest, most deliberate thoughts from the moments I’m revealing.
Jean tries to relax, tries to open himself to this experience, and the impressions tumble in, piece by piece, faster and faster. He is struck by a disorienting jumble of information—names, places, descriptions, and, threaded through it all, the thoughts and sigils of many other magi:
Isas Scholastica
Isle of Scholars
—Archedama, it’s not like you to keep us waiting—
(private citadel of the magi of Karthain)
—is it because—
… feeling of resigned annoyance …
—Falconer—
(damn that obvious and inevitable question)
… sound of footsteps on smooth marble …
—can well understand—
His presence has nothing to do with my tardiness.
—would feel the same in your place—
As if I’d hide from my duties because of him.
(gods above, did I earn five rings by being meek?)
There is a plain wooden door before Jean, the door to the Sky Chamber, the seat of what passes for government among the magi of Karthain. The door will not open by touch. Anyone attempting to turn the handle will stand dumbfounded as their hand fails again and again to find it, plainly visible though it is. Jean feels a flutter of power as he/Patience sends his/her sigil against the door. At this invisible caress, the door falls open.
—pardon, did not mean to offend—
… the warm air of the Sky Chamber, already packed with …
I will not take the wall to my own son!
—no need to get annoyed, I was merely—
… there he sits, waiting.
(watching, watching, like his damned bird)
The Sky Chamber is a vault of illusion that would make the artificers of Tal Verrar weak-kneed with envy. It is the first object of free-standing, honest-to-the-gods sorcery that Jean has ever seen. The room is circular, fifty yards in diameter, and Jean knows from Patience’s penumbra of knowledge that the domed ceiling is actually twenty feet beneath the ground. Nonetheless, across the great glass sweep of that dome is a counterfeit sky, like a painting brought to life, perfect in every detail. It shows a stately early evening, with the sun hidden away behind gold-rimmed clouds.
The magi await Patience in high-backed chairs, arranged in rising tiers like the Congress of Lords from the old empire—a congress long since banished to ashes by the men and women who emulate them. They wear identical hooded robes, a soft dark red, the color of roses in shadow. This is their ceremonial dress. Gray or brown robes might have been more neutral, more restful, but the progenitors of the order didn’t want their inheritors to grow too restful in their deliberations.
One man sits in the foremost rank of chairs, directly across from Jean/Patience as the door slides shut behind him/her. Perched on one robed arm, statue-still, is a hawk that Jean recognizes instantly. He has looked directly into its cold, deadly eyes before, as well as those of its master.
(watching, watching, like his damned bird)
A bombardment of questions and greetings and sigils comes on like a crashing wave, then steadily fades. Order is called for, and relative silence descends, a relief to Jean. And then:
Mother.
The greeting comes a moment too late to be polite. It is sharp and clear as only the thoughts of a blood relative can be. Behind it is an emotional grace note, artfully subdued—the wide bright sky, a sensation of soaring, a feeling of wind against the face. The absolute freedom of high flight.
The sigil of the Falconer.
Speaker, she/Jean replies.
Must we be such prisoners of formality, Mother?
This is a formal occasion.
Surely we’re alone in our thoughts.
You and I are never alone.
And yet we’re never together. How is it we can both mean the exact same thing by those statements?
Don’t wax clever with me, Speaker. Now isn’t the time for your games—This is as much your game as it is mine—I WILL NOT BE INTERRUPTED.
There is strength behind that last thought, a pulse of mental muscle the younger mage cannot yet match. A vulgar way to punctuate a conversation, but the Falconer takes the point. He bows his head a fraction of a degree, and Vestris, his scorpion hawk, does the same.
At the center of the Sky Chamber is a reflecting pool of dreamsteel, its surface a perfect unrippled mirror. Four chairs surround it; three are occupied. The magi have little care for the ungifted custom of setting the highest-ranked to gaze upon their inferiors. When so much business is transacted in thought, physical directions begin to lose even symbolic meaning.
Jean/Patience takes the open seat, and reaches out to the other three arch-magi. It’s as easy as joining flesh-and-blood hands. Archedons and archedamas pool energies, crafting a joined sigil, an ideogram that fills the room for an instant with the thought-shape of four names:
-Patience-Providence-
-Foresight-Temperance-
The names are meaningless, traditional, having nothing to do with the personal qualities of their holders. The fused sigil proclaims the commencement of formal business. The light in the chamber dims in response; the early-evening sky is replaced by a bowl of predawn violet with a warm line of tawny gold at the horizon. Archedon Temperance, seniormost of the four, sends forth:
—We return to the matter of the black contract proposed by Luciano Anatolius of Camorr.—
There is a twist, a wrench in Jean’s perceptions. Patience, the here-and-now Patience, adjusts her memories, shifts them to a context he can better understand. The thought-voices of the magi take on the quality of speech.
“We remain divided on whether or not the consequences of this proposal exceed the allowances of our guiding Mandates—first, the question of self-harm. Second, the question of common detriment.”
Temperance is a lean man of seventy, with brown skin the texture of wind-whipped tree bark. His hair is gray, and his clouding eyes are milky agates in deep, dark sockets. Y
et his mind remains vigorous; he has worn five rings for half his life.
“With respect, Archedon, I would call on the assembly to also consider the question of higher morality.” This from a pale woman in the first row of seats. Her left arm is missing, and a fold of robe hangs pinned at that shoulder like a mantle. She stands, and with her other hand sweeps her hood back, revealing thin blonde hair woven tightly under a silver mesh cap. This gesture is the privilege of a Speaker, announcing her intention to take the floor and attempt to influence the current discussion.
Jean knows this woman from Patience’s subtle whispers—Navigator, three rings, born on a Vadran trading ship and brought to Karthain as a child. Her private obsession is the study of the sea, and she is closely identified with Patience’s allies.
“Speaker,” says Jean/Patience, “you know full well that no proposed contract need be proven against anything broader than our own Mandates.”
Patience gets this out quickly, to create an impression of neutrality that is not entirely honest and to stress the obvious before someone with a more belligerent outlook can seize the chance to make a fiercer denunciation.
“Of course,” says Navigator. “I have no desire to challenge the law provided by our founders in all their formidable sagacity. I am not suggesting that we test the proposed contract on my terms, but that we have an obligation to test ourselves.”
“Speaker, the distinction is meaningless.” Foresight speaks now, youngest of the arch-magi, barely forty. She and the Falconer are associates. She is also the most aggressive of the five-ring magi, her will as hard as Elderglass. “We are divided on questions of clear and binding law. Why do you muddle this deliberation with nebulous philosophy?”
“The point is hardly nebulous, Archedama. It bears directly upon the first Mandate, the question of self-harm. The sheer scope of the slaughter this Anatolius proposes risks some diminishment of ourselves if we agree to it. We are discussing the single greatest bloodbath in the history of our black contracts.”
“Speaker, you exaggerate,” says Foresight. “Anatolius has been clear concerning his plans for the nobility of Camorr. Few, if any, would actually be killed.”
“Candidly, Archedama, you surprise me with your dissembling. Surely we are not such children as to delude ourselves that someone reduced to the state of a living garden decoration by Wraithstone poisoning has not, by any practical measure, been murdered!”
There is a brightening in the artificial sky as the sun peeks above the horizon. Regardless of the justice of Navigator’s argument, the assembly approves of the manner in which she’s making it. The ceiling responds to the mental prodding of the magi in attendance. The sun literally shines on those that capture general approval, and visibly sets on those that stumble in their arguments.
“Sister Speaker,” says the Falconer, rising calmly and pushing his own hood back. Jean feels another chill at the uncovering of his familiar features—the receding hairline, the bright dangerous eyes and easy air of command. “You’ve never been coy about the fact that you oppose black contracts on general principle, have you?”
Jean draws knowledge from Patience’s whispers. There are about half a dozen Speakers at any time, popular and forthright magi, chosen by secret ballots. They have no power to make or contravene laws, but they do have the right to intrude on Sky Chamber discussions and indirectly represent the interests of their supporters.
“Brother Speaker, I’m not aware of having been coy about anything.”
“What, then, is the full compass of your objection? Is it all higher morality?”
“Wouldn’t that be sufficient? Isn’t the question of whether we might be found wanting at the weighing of our souls an adequate basis for restraint?”
“Is it your only basis?”
“No. I also put forth the question of our dignity! How can we not do it an injury when we reduce ourselves to paid assassins for the ungifted?”
“Is that not the very credo by which we work? Incipa veila armatos de—‘we become instruments,’ ” says the Falconer. “To serve the client’s design, we make ourselves tools. Sometimes that makes us weapons of murder.”
“Indeed, a murder weapon is a tool. But not all tools are murder weapons.”
“When our prospective clients want us to find lost relatives or summon rain, do we not take the contracts? Such is the condition of the world, however, that they tend to want our assistance in matters which are regrettably more sanguine.”
“We are not helpless in the choosing of the contracts proposed to—”
“Sister Speaker, your pardon. I interrupt because I fear that we are prolonging this discussion unnecessarily. Allow me to lay your points to rest, so that we may return to cutting our previous knot. You say it’s the scope of this particular contract that earns your strenuous objection. How do you suggest that we scale it down to a more agreeably moral operation?”
“Scale it down? The whole enterprise is so bloodthirsty and reckless that I can hardly conceive of how we might mitigate it by sparing a few victims among the crowd.”
“How many would we have to spare for such mitigation as would please you?”
“You know as well as I, Brother Speaker, that this is not a question of simple arithmetic.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve listened to proposals for many black contracts over the years, contracts involving the removal of individuals, gangs, even families. You might have objected in principle, but you never made any attempt to have them disallowed.”
“A contract for a single murder, while an undignified thing in itself, is at least more precise than the wholesale destruction of an entire city-state’s rulers!”
“I see. Can we agree, then, on a point at which ‘precise’ becomes ‘wholesale’? How many removals tip the balance? Are fifteen corpses moral, but sixteen excessive? Or seventeen? Or twenty-nine? Surely we must be able to compromise. The low triple digits, perhaps?”
“You are deliberately reducing my argument past the point of absurdity!”
“Wrong, Sister Speaker. I take your points very seriously. They have been treated seriously in our laws and customs for centuries! And they have been treated thus: Incipa veila armatos de! We become instruments. Instruments do not judge!”
The Falconer spreads his arms. Vestris flaps her wings, hops to his left shoulder, and settles back into comfortable stillness.
“That has been our way for centuries, precisely because of situations like this. Precisely because we are not gods, and we are not wise enough to sift the worthy from the unworthy before we take action on behalf of our clients!”
Jean has to admire the Falconer’s cheek—appealing to humility in defense of an argument that magi should be free to slaughter without remorse!
“It is madness to try,” continues the Falconer. “It leads to sophistry and self-righteousness. Our founders were correct to leave us so few Mandates by which to weigh the proposals we receive. Will we harm ourselves? This we can answer! Will we harm the wider world, to the point that our interests may be damaged? This we can answer! But are the men and women we might remove penitent before the gods? Are they good parents to their children? Are they sweet-tempered? Do they give alms to beggars, and if so, does this compel us to stay our hands? How can we possibly begin to answer such questions?
“We make ourselves instruments! Anyone we kill as instruments, we deliver to a judgment infinitely wiser than our own. If the removal be a sin, it weighs upon the client who commands it, not those who act under the bond of obedience!”
“Well put, Speaker.” Archedama Foresight is unable to suppress a smile; the sun has risen while the Falconer has made his arguments, and the chamber is flush with a soft golden glow. “I call to my fellow arch-magi for binding. We have no time for the diversion of philosophy. The subject of a specific contract divided us this morning. It divides us now. One way or another, we should end that division, working firmly within the context of the law.”
“Agreed,�
�� says Temperance. “Binding.”
“Reluctantly agreed,” says Providence. “Binding.”
Jean/Patience feels a warm glow of gratitude. Providence has bent a point of etiquette, speaking his judgment before that of the more senior Patience, but in so doing he has confirmed the verdict, three out of four. Patience, whatever her actual thoughts on the subject, is now free to conceal them and do a small kindness to Navigator.
“Abstain,” Jean/Patience says.
“Binding,” says Foresight.
“Bound, then,” says Temperance. “All further discussion outside the Mandates is set aside.”
Navigator pulls her hood up, bows, and sits. The assembly is restored to its previous stalemate. Providence has refused to sanction the proposed contract, while Foresight has endorsed it. Temperance and Patience have yet to express their opinions.
“You have more for us, Speaker?” Temperance directs his question at the Falconer, who remains standing.
“I do,” says the young man, “if I don’t strain your patience in continuing.”
Jean is struck by the ambiguity of his insight into this affair. Is it possible to make puns in thought-speech? Was that the Falconer’s design? Or is Patience, in translation, highlighting nuances her son didn’t intend? Whatever the truth, none of the arch-magi take exception.
“I bear no particular love for the people of Camorr. Neither do I bear them any particular ill-will,” says the Falconer. “The proposed contract is drastic, yes. It will require deftness and discretion, and the removal of many people. It will have consequences, but I would argue that none of them are relevant to us.
“Let us look to the first Mandate, the question of self-harm. Do we have any particular attachment to the current rulers of Camorr? No. Do we have any properties or investments in the city we can’t protect? No! Do we invite trouble for Karthain by causing upheaval two thousand miles away? Please … as if our presence here couldn’t protect the interests of Karthain, even were Camorr two miles down the road!”