by A Van Wyck
In his mind’s eye he saw the crime scene rendered in exquisite detail, examined again the scrawled cuts, marks and brands. Cryptography had never interested him in and of itself and he had devoted only enough time to the pursuit thereof to become appallingly proficient at it as opposed to perfect. He found ciphers of all descriptions arresting only insofar as they revealed something of the writer’s nature. The content of the writings were, in most cases, secondary if not outright puerile.
Based on repeating patterns that resembled some form of syntax, he felt confident the symbols and sigils left at the crime scene were writings of a sort. They certainly shared no roots with any language he was familiar with – and yet something about them teased at a half-held memory of his. He was on his way to his personal library right now, hunting a comparison in the age old books and scrolls he’d collected, confiscated and ransomed over the years.
He turned the corner and pushed open the door to his spacious office.
He knew immediately that he was not alone.
Nevertheless, he refrained from letting his eyes hunt for the intruder. Instead be made his way unhurriedly to the side table on the opposite side of the room and busied himself with the decanter and glasses there. The Temple-made crystal chimed deep, lingering notes as he poured himself a drink, the polished surface of the stout tumbler – held just so – reflected the indistinct shape in the chair behind his desk.
His chair. His desk.
The audacity of the act denoted someone of influence.
“I’m afraid I don’t drink alcohol,” he said to the side table. “Can I offer you some water instead?”
“I doubt I’ll be staying that long.”
The Imperial accent was dry, cultured and coolly confident. But more than that, it was familiar.
Mattanuy replaced the decanter of water next to its twin, which contained highest grade, clear methylated spirits. You’d be crazy to drink the stuff. He himself could stream no more than a lick, barely enough to light a candle. But if he had to defend himself, a single candle flame would turn the contents of that bottle into an inferno. He would probably lose some of his prized books but it would be a small price to pay for his life.
“And how might I aid the Emperor?” Mattanuy asked and only then turned toward the speaker.
Archon Emmion Hallet, the Emperor’s spiritual advisor and head of the Emperor’s Council sat in the great leatherback chair, hands sedately in his lap as if this were his own office and he were entertaining Mattanuy at his leisure. Mattanuy’s question hung between them.
As an archon, Hallet’s authority within the Temple was second only to that of High Archon Prelace. But his true power lay in his position as the Emperor’s spiritual advisor – chief among the advisors, in truth. Anyone with any political savvy at all knew Hallet had the Emperor’s ear. Mattanuy suspected Hallet had the Emperor’s mind and soul as well. If the Emperor had any opinions, most likely Hallet’s was the mind wherein they were born.
“You know of the modernist movement?” the man asked.
It was a rhetorical question. Calling the modernists a ‘movement’ was generous. Movement implied progress. It implied some level of organization and a recognition among members of a clear, common purpose. The modernists were a half-formed idea hatched in a half-formed mind. What value in granting the colonies their freedom? And in abolishing some of the more established Imperial laws and practices for good measure? No one with half a brain would entertain that fantasy for longer than the moment necessary to dismiss it. The colonies needed the Empire. Without Imperial governance, trade and protection, the majority of them would revert to mud huts and savagery within a generation. Besides which, bolstered by Imperial rule, the colonies in turn strengthened the Empire. The Skordian campaign was being fought almost exclusively by Rasrini conscripts.
“A minor irritant,” he nodded, “noblemen in their cups, bemoaning the injustice of the singular view from atop their mountains of privilege… yet making little effort to shovel some downhill.” He should know. He had files on each of those noblemen. And what they said in their cups as well as into their pillows.
Hallet regarded him with an unreadable expression. “That is the popularly held opinion,” the man said.
Oh?
His brain took off at high speed. He skipped over all the obvious questions, constructing and revising in his mind a modernist movement capable of snatching at the Imperial advisor’s attention. The idea was… intriguing.
“Who?” he finally asked.
Hallet’s cheek twitched in what might have been the death rattle of a smile. Satisfaction briefly lit the man’s flat eyes.
He quashed the resentment he felt at being so casually reeled in like a fish. So the Emperor’s advisor would set him on the trail of the modernists? Intellectually he had no objections to being used – knowledge of being used could be used in turn. And he especially did not mind if it offered an opportunity to fully utilize his talents – which seemed more likely by the moment. Added to which, it would advance his career – he’d make certain of it. The Temple’s Advisor to the Emperor was as high a stepping stone as he could have asked for.
“Someone of some position,” Hallet said at length as if he were only now considering the question, “with an intimate knowledge of the politics of the Imperial Court, the Temple, the Chapter Houses and the influential players of each. Someone who tugs the right strings and dangles the right carrots without their hand being seen. Some misguided soul who perhaps genuinely believes they act in the interests of the Empire.”
Emion Hallet could be describing himself – though Mattanuy was smart enough not to let such thoughts grace his countenance. What he said was: “And will you point me in any particular direction?”
Hallet’s description was vague unto uselessness. If this were nothing but some political maneuver – a stealthy jab at one of Hallet’s many enemies – the man would probably not be able to resist naming names. The mere whisper of inquisitorial investigation had brought powerful houses to their knees before.
Silence hung between them.
“I have long suspected,” Hallet drawled eventually, “channels of covert communication between the Empire and the Renali Kingdom.” The tall man rose easily from the deep chair, signaling that their conversation was at an end.
As directions went, it was a poor one. Even wartime had never been able to completely stifle the trade of goods and information across the Renali border. Mattanuy had stacks of information on such missives, garnered by his own network of agents beyond the borders. The challenge would be sifting the mutinous from the mundane.
And you, he thought, watching Hallet move toward the door, have proof of the former you won’t share. Why? He left the question unasked. Though he would not let the advisor go without wringing out a concession of his own.
“Why not go to Crosius with this?” he asked of Hallet’s back.
“No need to tax the High Inquisitor with this,” the archon answered, not stopping. “He’s getting on in years, after all.”
So, he thought, the position of High Inquisitor is to be my carrot… It’s a start.
“One last thing, brother,” Hallet said, halting by the heavy door.
“Of course,” he said, reading the implicit threat in the familial address. “Absolute discretion.”
That near invisible smile bucked across Hallet’s cheek again. “Good,” the man said in parting. “One of my agents will be in contact.” And the man, arguably one of the most influential in the Empire, was gone.
Mattanuy stood unmoving for a long time. His mind alight with calculation.
* * *
“It’s been almost a month, Cyrus,” he raged, pacing back and forth in the old healer’s apartment. “A month!”
His grey maned friend tracked his progress from behind the desk, eyes sashaying back and forth, quill forgotten in one hand.
“He hardly speaks to anyone anymore. And when he does you’re lucky to get mo
re than single syllables. His instructors tell me he might as well not be in class. His friends – former friends, I should say – tell me he might as well not be vertical. He’s not eating. He’s not sleeping. He’s slowly wasting away before my eyes and I just can’t seem to get through to him.”
“This is young Marco we’re talking about?”
He rounded on the healer.
“Who else would I be talking about?!”
“Don’t get snippy with me, young man. I didn’t just barge into your office unannounced.”
Coming to himself, he hid his face in his hands, breathing deeply.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled through his fingers.
“Hmm,” Cyrus huffed, “I should think so.”
Cyrus put his suspended quill back to parchment, scribbled some last notation and then put it aside. “Now,” the healer invited, folding his hands on the desk top, “tell me about this problem with young Marco.”
“I just did.”
“No, you just had a nice comforting rant and now that you feel better, you’re going to tell me exactly why you’re struggling with this.” The old priest sat back in his creaking chair. “It’s unlike you. You usually slide into people’s heads like a bad habit. What’s keeping you?”
He ignored the jibe.
“This is a unique case,” he said, starting to pace again. “And frankly, I’m at a loss. I’m no closer to understanding what happened that night in the yards. Bar a series of extraordinary coincidences, I don’t see how Marco could have survived.”
Commander Grayston’s investigation had revealed no empty cages in the Imperial Menagerie and harsh questioning of every trader at anchor had delivered no easy answers. There had been no increased sightings of feral dog packs in the city and no further attacks had been reported. The commander’s demanding workload hampered his efforts and the case was slowly sinking into obscurity beneath the fresh load of everyday horrors. Which was exactly as Justin would have it. The fewer eyes were turned Marco’s way, the better.
The old healer huffed noncommittally.
“We have a word for such a series of extraordinary coincidences,” he reminded Justin.
“Yes, I know,” he snapped irritably, slowing his pace. “It’s just…”
Cyrus regarded him with a wry eye, smirking. “You prefer your miracles to be a bit more… explicable?”
“Damn it, yes!”
“Come off it,” the old priest scoffed.
“What?”
“You’re lying to yourself,” the old man accused, leaning across his desk. “This isn’t a special case. You do this every day. The problem,” the irascible priest jabbed a finger at him, “is you!”
That halted his pacing. He stared at the healer.
“You’re too close to this boy,” Cyrus continued in a more even tone. “You’ve let him worm his way into your heart, not that I can blame you, but now you have trouble seeing him – and the issue – clearly. And it’s affecting both of you.”
Another man might have argued but an empath who lied to himself about his own feelings was just begging for a contradictory migraine. Nonetheless, he rallied.
“Are you certain the memory block is no part of this?” he halfway accused, grasping at straws.
“As far as I can tell,” the healer assured him in an irritatingly reasonable tone, “the spell has degraded no further since a month ago.” The old priests eyebrows drew down. “You need not search for a magical explanation when a mundane one will do.”
“You seem to be just full of answers today,” he growled, unreasonably angry at Cyrus for pointing out the obvious. “Have you got one for my problem as well or is helpful critique beyond you?”
The old priest smiled slyly, looking unaccountably pleased with himself.
“Very well,” the healer acquiesced, steepling his fingers in what Justin considered a gesture of classic theater villainy and in poor taste. He scowled, wondering how long Cyrus had been rehearsing this coming speech.
Cyrus’s smile broadened momentarily at the sight of his scowl before disappearing behind the analytical healer’s façade.
“The boy has been through a violent, physical trauma,” Cyrus began. “It could not have come at a worse time. He was only just discovering his own masculine identity and this incident has left it in tatters. That is unfortunate. This may prove the pivotal experience in his future development.” The healer raised his eyebrows archly. “The boy is at a crossroads.”
Justin nodded impatiently. All this he knew, perhaps better than Cyrus.
“It is an inconvenient but inescapable fact,” Cyrus stated with a shrug, “that we as men define ourselves by our own perceived virility. No doubt it is a leftover in our collective psyche, dating back to a time when men defined their relative standing by being the men left standing.” The priest wagged his head in mock embarrassment. “It ill suits cultured, civilized men to think in such barbaric terms but, in my professional opinion,” Cyrus fixed him with a beady eye, “the boy has had his power stolen.”
Expectant silence followed.
Seeming to collapse while still standing, Justin pressed his fingers into his closed eyes.
“I know,” he sighed into the silence.
“Well then,” the healer prompted, as if that solved the matter.
“But I’ve been trying, Cyrus!” he raged in defeat. “I give him the tools he needs to rebuild himself! I set him tasks and challenges! But none of it seems to bring him any kind of reward! Far from not even trying, he really doesn’t care!”
“You’ve been trying to give him his power back,” the healer observed.
“Of course!”
He needed to inject some self worth into the boy or he feared he would lose him to this dire despondency.
“That would be your mistake then.”
Cyrus’s flinty eyes challenged him to disagree. The moment dragged on.
“What do you mean?” he finally demanded of the old priest.
“His power was taken from him,” the healer explained, waving a hand. “However much you try, you cannot give it back.” Cyrus stretched out a clawed and spotted hand, clenching his fist around the empty air. “He must take it! And he must want to take it! Otherwise it will have no value.” The old priest sat back in his chair. “You would’ve already seen that,” his friend added, “if not for this wall-eyed parental urge of yours to step between the boy and more pain. Pain can be formative in a good way too.”
The healer sat regarding his guest, who seemed to have frozen solid, bar the widening eyes. Cyrus grunted, satisfied, and reached for his quill again.
“Close the door on your way out,” the old healer instructed, not bothering to look up again.
Justin’s head spun. He walked down the passage in a daze, the carpet drinking his footfalls. His thoughts were a tangled mess.
Cyrus was right, of course. He could see that. Should have already seen it. The irritating healer had the truth of it… But being aware of the problem brought him no closer to solving it. To his mounting frustration, he found he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – excise the part of him that felt the urge to protect Marco. And, ironically, it was having the opposite of the desired effect, keeping him from considering strategies that would ultimately benefit the boy.
He shook his head, paying little attention to where he was going. Pacing always helped him think.
This was going to require some careful thought. Besides his irritating insight, Cyrus didn’t seem to have any staggering suggestions as to how to aid the boy.
He turned a corner, randomly opting to stay within the sunlit corridor rather than winding down the sparsely windowed stairs. He briefly considered taking the central lift up to the High Vantage but didn’t want to spend that much time confined in that old iron casket.
Whatever plan he formulated, the challenge would be getting Marco interested. Otherwise there would be no point. It would be ideal if engagement with the subject matter were not simply r
equired but forced. A pre-requisite of the task.
His pace increased as his thoughts deepened.
For preference, the task would have to be something that addressed the problematically male issue Cyrus had raised. It boiled down to self worth, didn’t it? The boy felt less than worthless. And so close on the heels of his glaring failure at streaming…
He shook his head as guilt gnawed him about that. It had been obvious fairly early on that Marco had no facility with streaming. However, the issue of Marco’s memory block and the madness waiting behind it was never far from his mind. So he’d taken the opportunity presented to encourage Marco in certain mental exercises – under the guise of streaming training – to strengthen the boy’s mental bonds. To arm him against the failure of the memory block Cyrus was so sure was imminent. If, he reasoned, he could force some structure on Marco’s psyche, those structures might act as breakwaters when the dam finally broke and the madness came flooding out. If he could get Marco to firmly establish his own personality, the boy would have a bulwark from which to resist the madness.
But this business – it could be a deathblow to his efforts. He needed something to offer the boy. Something solid. A cornerstone Marco could start reconstructing his self-respect and identity around–
He was so deep in thought he didn’t even register he wasn’t alone until he collided with someone very solid.
“Pardon,” he gasped, stumbling back from the contact. He looked up, forcibly jarred from his reverie, and then had to look further up.
“Apologies, Keeper,” said a deep voice, taking in his chain of office, “I’m walking around with my head in the clouds.”
Not like he has much choice, Justin thought, straining to see all of the mountainous masha’na at once. He’s tall as a tower.
It was an inherited trait of the Inith, he knew, that once or twice in a generation they birthed veritable giants. Supposedly those individuals were revered, but he’d yet to get an Inith to speak of it.