A Clatter of Chains

by A Van Wyck

  The Imperial Advisor, Emion Hallet, was by far the youngest archon among them, having not yet seen his fifth decade. Surrounded by the stooped shoulders and frail limbs of his peers the man caught the eye like spume tossed by a distant breakwater.

  It was only by the minutest, deliberate degree that Mattanuy turned his head as the youngest archon neared, deep in discussion with the priests on his left and right. The Emperor’s spiritual advisor betrayed no outward sign but Mattanuy knew that he had been seen.

  So you watch the shadows, Master Advisor. Even here, in the Temple. Is it paranoia? Or are your enemies more tenacious than even I know?

  He watched as the man continued another dozen paces before making polite excuses to his compatriots, who continued gamely with their discussion and their trek up the hallway, leaving Hallet behind.

  The younger archon stood patiently as his peers filed slowly out of sight. The slight stiffening in his shoulders bespoke displeasure as he turned and marched back the way he had come, sweeping the hanging drape aside to join Mattanuy in the alcove.

  “We have established channels of communication exactly so we may forego such clandestine meetings, Mattanuy,” were the man’s words of greeting, voice quietly convivial despite the obvious irritation.

  Ah, yes, Mattanuy thought. The established channels were a doughy priestess called Annochria – the agent Hallet had promised he would send. He suppressed a shudder. Though he would never admit it, the woman unnerved him. With her fish eyed gaze and paralytic manner, he could not read her at all. Their meetings always left him feeling off kilter – and in need of a bath.

  “I thought this rated a face-to-face,” he told the archon.

  Hallet’s eyes sharpened on him. “Have you found something?” the man demanded.

  “An… intriguing idea,” the inquisitor said, “has found me. A unique opportunity presented by unprecedented circumstance.”

  “You mean the Renali peace offer?” the archon asked, still possessed of a modicum of anger.

  “So it is a peace offer?”

  “If you’re half the man I think you are,” Hallet stated warningly, “then we both know it is. What of it?”

  “My best efforts have proven insufficient,” Mattanuy admitted. “At least,” he qualified, “in so far as finding your conspirators’ covert communications…” he watched Hallet’s expressionless face, pausing to let his unspoken comment sink in.

  Yours I found quite easily. Cleverly hidden. But not cleverly enough.

  Hallet sneered thinly. “Yes. An ongoing disappointment. Get to the point. You have a suggestion?”

  “We set the board and see which game pieces move to block us.”

  Hallet considered this. “How?”

  Mattanuy smiled.

  He could see his own hands and arms if he held them up, bathed in a lurid red light. But otherwise it was pitch black. He was confused. His thoughts had a soft edge to them and were refusing to work properly. That should worry him but his skittish attention skirted the issue, making it so he couldn’t concentrate.

  Drip…

  He looked up from his red bathed hands to stare into the endless darkness, trying to pinpoint the sound. It had echoed hugely. The space felt close but it must be enormous for a drip of water to echo so–

  Drip…

  He turned. The narrow doorway was a slightly lighter smudge against the blackness. Walking felt strange. He couldn’t remember if he’d told his legs to take him there and couldn’t feel them now as they did so. He neared the opening. One of his pale crimson hands appeared, gripping the side of the opening. Touch, devoid of tactile sensation, wakened knowledge. He knew the rough entrance to be hewn from the same raw stone as the rest of the cave.

  A cave…

  The door was a passage. Shallow stairs dropped away into the gloom, disappearing around a long bend. He stared into that darkness, aware of every fiber of self-preservation in him pulling him in the opposite direction. But they were powerless against his ghost limbs and he felt himself move. Looking down, his foot hove into view, walking without sensation. He watched as it dropped down onto the first of the steps. His bare sole patted down onto the rough stone–

  The cavern rang like a struck gong. The vibration lengthened and deepened, going on and on. The rock around him strained painfully.

  He cringed in the knowledge that something was speeding up and around the wend of the stairway. He stood frozen as the deafening sound boiled around the curve of the stairs, pushing the air before it in a visible haze. It struck him, lifting him off his feet. Flesh flayed from him as it tossed him away into the darkness. He felt the stone wall speeding up from behind to catch him. Invisible muscles tensed for the impact…

  Smack!

  He shot up in bed with a yell, causing Lokus to topple off the edge where he’d perched. Throwing his hands up in an unconscious effort to ward off whatever nightmare had woken him, he cast around frantically. His heart was pounding out of his chest and his breath came in short gasps.

  The familiar interior of the room they shared resolved from the murk. No dark horrors lurked in the corners. The wooden door remained firmly shut. He looked at his hands, relieved to see they… were…

  A half-grasped idea flitted by on the corner of his mind, draining slowly through his fingers as he watched.

  He whipped his head around but his friend’s bed was empty. He frowned.

  Someone groaned from the floor by his cot. A vague memory surfaced.

  “Lokus?”

  Another groan.

  “Lokus, is that you?”

  “If not,” his friend said in a pained voice, a slender hand appearing on the edge of his bed, “then I hit my head harder than I thought.”

  Lokus hoisted himself up onto his knees, wincing as he massaged at his scalp.

  Marco frowned, glancing again at Lokus’s empty bed.

  “What were you doing?”

  “What do you think?” his friend queried, voice going from severe to teasing in mid-sentence. “Waking you from your magical sleep with a kiss, of course, princess.” Lokus winked. “That’s my handiwork there on your cheek.”

  For the first time he became aware of the burning sensation on the side of his face. He raised tentative fingers to probe at the puffy flesh. Watching him, Lokus made a show of shaking some feeling back into his hand.

  “Bastard.” It was a word he had adopted since coming to Clatter Court. Or perhaps it had adopted him. You couldn’t spend all day hitting people with sticks and then express your dislike with words like scoundrel and ninny. Had he truly once thought those words were too uncouth to utter?

  Lokus shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly, a faint smile playing around expressive lips. Standing, his friend moved away towards the other bed.

  “You could have just shaken me awake, you know,” he directed angrily at the other boy’s back.

  “Tried that,” Lokus informed him, diving back under the covers. Blankets billowed palely in the dark as the slender boy shook them out. “But you were too deep in, twitching and moaning like a dog chasing carts. So I took pity on you.”

  Still angry but unable to think of an appropriate retort, he lay back down.

  “What were you dreaming about?” Lokus injected into the silence.

  That cut through his anger. His brow wrinkled in the dark.

  “I… can’t remember.”

  “Maybe that’s just as well. You were really putting on a show. What if you told me and I started having the same dream?”

  “At least then,” he said wistfully, “I’d get to slap you awake, too.”

  “Yeah,” Lokus mused thoughtfully, “you’d have to wait until I’m asleep to land a blow.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  His lone pillow winged across the room. He heard it hit the wall and flop onto Lokus’s bed. He sat smiling vindictively into the darkness. A heartbeat later his vision blanked as Lokus’s expertly flung pillow bent around his face, knocking him back down.


  He sputtered.

  “You’ve got eyes like an owl!” he accused, spitting out a mouthful of the linen. “What do they stuff these things with!?” he ranted. “Rocks?” He beat at the pillow angrily before stuffing it under his head.

  “Those would be my weighty thoughts and solid good nature,” Lokus supplied archly.

  “Hmm,” he grunted, trying to sound like he’d come to a momentous realization. “Makes sense you hide them in your pillow. Goddess knows you don’t carry them with you.”

  There was a snicker and a rustle of blankets. He threw an arm up just as his pillow winged home. Laughing, he ripped the pillow from beneath his head and let it fly. His eyes, better accustomed to the dark now, saw Lokus snag it from the air and roll it under his head.

  “Now go to sleep!” he reprimanded his friend.

  “You,” Lokus declaimed in bardic tones, finger stabbing the air theatrically, “are not the boss of me!”

  “Oh, I am too the boss of you!” he affirmed, a smile plucking at a corner of his mouth. It was hard to remember his life before Lokus’s effortless friendship.

  “Hmph!” Lokus scoffed. “Someone gives you a red rope to keep your pants up and you think you’re a Prime returned?”

  He rested his hands behind his head.

  A Prime? No, he’d never compare himself to one of the four founding warriors. His eyes turned to the pegs beside his bed and to the red silk sash that was no more than a darker stain in the gloom.

  It had been an austere ceremony. Half a dozen masha’na had been in attendance, as required by temple law, to act as witnesses. Civilians weren’t allowed in Clatter Court but some of the parents were quite high placed people and had expressed an interest in seeing their offspring graduate. So the ceremony had been held in the south garden chapel, crowded with students from the other classes and their parents, sitting in the gallery.

  The priest, Reader Sule, who’d done the opening prayers and address, had seemed dry and disinterested. He’d smiled perfunctorily, muttering congratulations as he’d worked his way down the line with Master Crysopher handing him the sashes.

  He felt a stirring of pride at the memory of when he’d knelt, head bowed and the dry priest had laid the warm length of silk across his up thrust palms. He’d barely heard the man’s congratulatory mutter. He had heard Master Crysopher’s whispered comment.

  “Two years now, stripling. I’m impressed.”

  The customary disparaging tone had done little to tarnish the rare compliment. It was worth almost as much as the silken badge.

  Master Crysopher had quietly disappeared after the ceremony, while Reader Sule had come alive, wasting no time in making animated conversation with many of the attending nobles. The awaited reunion between many of the parents and their progeny had been touching, if a little bitter, to witness. He’d watched, sitting out of the way, next to Lokus.

  The twins, the full force of their boundless energy unleashed, had gone flying into the arms of a man they greeted with a chorused “Patri! Patri!” The thickset Kender in dark silks had smiled as he’d caught them, causing others to duck as he whirled his daughters around in a gesture that had obviously survived from their toddler days.

  “Looks just like his mother,” Lokus had commented and he’d turned to see who his friend was referring to.

  Across the crowded hall, Jeral had stood conversing quietly with his parents, his hands clasped sedately behind his back, the stance a stark contrast to the twins’ familial reunion. Jeral’s parents, equally severe, had looked up as Reader Sule made a bee-line for them. Jeral’s father was a large man with intelligent eyes and a merciless jaw. But it was obvious the mother was the source of her son’s razor sneer and frozen regard.

  He’d been scanning the hall, trying to catch a glimpse of Djenja, curious to see what her parents looked like, when Lokus had elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Isn’t that your sponsor priest?”

  Frowning, he’d followed his friend’s pointed gaze.

  Through a gap in the milling crowd, beyond the light of the lanterns and across the kempt grass, he’d spotted a figure in priest’s robes, indistinct beneath a tree. He’d squinted, his breath catching. A keeper’s chain had glinted in the darkness. Jumping up, he was already half a dozen paces away before he’d hesitated, turning back. He hadn’t wanted to abandon Lokus. They were both technically without family and alone in the Temple. There was kinship in such things. He’d warred with his conflicting desires but Lokus had waved him on.

  “Go, idiot!”

  Smiling, he’d bounded out the door. It had indeed been Keeper Justin.

  “Congratulations,” the priest had smiled as he neared.

  “You’re here!” he’d exclaimed.

  “Of course.”

  “Why didn’t you come inside?”

  Justin had glanced at the lighted chapel. Muted voiced had drifted out across the grass.

  “Too crowded,” he’d explained, smiling. “You know how shy I am.”

  Shy? He’d laughed disbelievingly, earning a grin. But the keeper had always had his own way of doing things.

  “Besides,” the priest had amended, “I came here for you, not them.”

  “You asleep?” Lokus interrupted his remembrance.

  He sighed, sinking deeper into his pillow.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well. Goodnight then.”

  “Goodnight.”

  The silence stretched.

  “Lokus?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  He ignored that.

  “Where do you think we stand?”

  He didn’t need to explain what he meant. They were a much larger class now, half a hundred-count of red ribboned students, practicing every day under a succession of trainers. That had upset their unofficial ranking system. While it was certain that the top students, like Djenja and Jeral, remained at the head of the queue, he’d been moved farther away from them by other students slotting in between. It was frustrating.

  “Still somewhere in the middle, I should think,” his friend mused. “For all the master’s moaning about how worthless we are, I’d say we’re notch above the other classes.”

  His thoughts turned to that horrible first day he’d come to Clatter Court and what the giant masha’na had said to Keeper Justin.

  “I once heard someone say he was the best the Temple had.”

  “Obviously it’s rubbed off on us,” Lokus opined, sounding pleased.

  Maybe.

  Either way, he’d have to work a lot harder now if he ever wanted to catch up to Djenja.

  That thought followed him to sleep.

  Less than a bell later, Lokus rose quietly from his bed and padded across the room to stand over his friend.

  It was going to be one of those nights.

  Marco moaned softly in his sleep, an errant twitch briefly animating one foot.

  He waited, watched as eyes behind closed lids at first sashayed, then sprinted back and forth. Deep breathing rose by increments to a panicked gasping. The twitches worsened until his friend was flopping like a landed fish.

  Easing himself onto the bed, Lokus raised a ready hand, taking aim.

  * * *

  “It’s open!” came Cyrus’s muffled call.

  He pushed at the door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you already had company.” The old priest’s cryptic missive had failed to mention it. He nodded politely to the big, bearded priest seated across the tea bearing table from Cyrus. “Shall I come back later?”

  “Nonsense,” Cyrus waved his offer away. “Please, join us.”

  Closing the door, he moved to take an empty chair.

  “Justin, you know Sitter Willion Willionson?”

  “Of course,” he said, though they’d never officially met. He extended a hand toward the speaker as he sat down. The bearded man had a light grip.

  “Keeper Wisenpraal, a pleasure.”

  “P
lease,” he invited, “just Justin.”

  “Then you must call me Willion,” the speaker insisted. “I have heard much about you.”

  “And I you,” Justin returned. “Your proposal on colonial reform was a gripping read.”

  “Thank you,” the man inclined his head, the great beard rising on his chest like a like a bobbing buoy. “Though I fear the Islanders and Tamorians are still generations away from benefitting by it.”

  “If you never start, you’ll never finish,” he paraphrased.

  The speaker smiled, recognizing the borrowed words.

  “I’ve always enjoyed the books of Argeamon. For a war prophet, he certainly did know when to use a kind word instead of a spear.”

  “Ahem,” the impatient Cyrus interrupted them, turning to Justin. “As you know, apart from being a speaker in the Assembly, Will is also on the foreign affairs committee.”

  The bearded priest’s mood darkened at this.

  “You’ve heard that the Renali diplomat has addressed the Emperor’s court?”

  Justin nodded.“I would have liked to see that myself but the timing proved unfortunate,” he said, thinking of Marco’s graduation. “So, the offer of peace is confirmed?”

  The speaker and his beard nodded in opposite directions.

  “That is a good thing, surely?” he suggested, trying to unravel the source of the speaker’s black frustration.

  “Certainly,” the man agreed. “Now if we can only make it work. The Renali offer was couched as an invitation to hold the talks on Renali soil. The Emperor is weathering heavy criticism already for agreeing to that.” The priest growled, giving vent to his frustration. “The traditionalists don’t seem to realize that the Renali are offering peace, not surrender.” The man shook his head in disgust. “And the Chapter Houses are already clamoring for their piece of flesh – no better than the godless merchant princes of the Purlian waste–.”

  “A diplomatic contingent is being put together,” Cyrus interjected when it seemed Speaker Willionson was fixing to go off on a tangent.

  The bearded priest nodded at him, shaking off some of his black humor.