Corambis

by Sarah Monette

  “I think you’ll find the lighthouse itself very interesting,” Virtuer Hutchence said, kind of hopefully, “and there are several centuries’ worth of records. Nobody’s ever catalogued Virtuer Grice’s papers, for one thing, and he’s the one who did the initial workings.”

  “You have pinpointed my weaknesses with uncanny accuracy,” Felix said, but he looked like he was fighting a smile.

  “Was that a yes?” said Virtuer Ashmead.

  “Yes,” said Felix, and his shoulders finally relaxed.

  Kay

  Was excessively odd, how people kept asking for my opinion on matters. I had no authority of any kind, and yet Murrey wanted me to tell him what he should do about the Usara, and the Reeve of Howrack wanted me to tell him what he should do about the Primrose Men, and Murtagh wanted my opinion on a thousand things, and no matter how many times I said, “I know not,” they kept asking. I would have thought it a conspiracy, save that Murrey was the most contrary man in Caloxa and one could no more successfully conspire with him than one could teach a pig to preach.

  And finally, for they would not leave me alone, I told Murrey to let the Usara go with their sworn promise to return to their clan halls, the reeve to bid the Primrose Men return to their homes and families. “No more death,” I said. “Please, for the love of the Lady, let there be no more death.”

  Was even more surprising that I was obeyed. Dothaw insisted on coming to swear to me personally, as if were more binding to swear to me than to Murrey. Trant and Vyell also came to bid me farewell, though they were both unhappy with me. “Gerrard is dead,” I said to them. “The Insurgence is over.”

  “Nothing has changed,” Vyell said.

  “And if you keep fighting, nothing will change except that sooner or later, you will be dead.”

  “We would die for you, my lord,” said Trant.

  “I know that,” said I. “And I want it not. Would rather that you live, not for me but for yourselves. Go home, raise your families. Fight when you must rather than merely when you can.”

  Vyell came closer; I felt him kneel down beside my chair. “Would stay with thee, my lord,” he said very softly, “an thou wouldst let me.”

  I knew not for certain what he offered—most likely Vyell knew not, either—but I knew I could not accept it. An it was fealty, I was no longer his lord, nor any man’s lord, and could give him nothing in return. An it was love, I loved him not. “Go home, Angel,” said I. “Leave the war behind you.”

  “Is not that simple,” he said.

  “I know. But wilt thou try? For if no one tries, then it will never end.”

  “I hear you, my lord,” he said, and he kissed my forehead. “Very well.” I knew that most of the Primrose Men would return not to their families, but to their hidden dens, to their scheming and skirmishing. But I had done all that I could, and at least, after they left, the reeve let me be.

  Murtagh was the worst, though, insisting on discussing the magicians’ inquiries with me, asking if I was content to have Felix Harrowgate as the Virtuer of Grimglass. Finally, I could bear it no longer. “What does it matter if I am content? Is not my decision, neither my responsibility nor my concern.”

  “Have you not been listening?” Murtagh said. “I’m sure I’ve said distinctly at least three times that when you marry Vanessa, you will be Warden of Grimglass.”

  “Is but words,” said I. “I will be a blind man pacing a nursery in Whallan instead of a blind man pacing a nursery in Esmer. Is all.”

  “Will you stop that?” he said, so sharply and so suddenly close, that I startled back in my chair.

  “Stop what?”

  His hands closed on my shoulders, pinning me in place. “You think you’re useless, but you’re not. Do you know how long the Pallisters have been mismanaging Grimglass? It’s at least ten indictions, since the death of Rodger Pallister’s father, and in truth, I’m willing to bet it’s more like fifty, since no one ever said of Everard Pallister that he could count to twenty with his boots on. Vanessa is a shrewd woman and a better politician than most of the Convocation, but she doesn’t know how to deal with an estate the size of Grimglass. She doesn’t have the training. It’s nearly the same population as Rothmarlin, you know, and although there aren’t Usara raiding every summer, it has its own problems, some of them fairly dire. Kay, for once in your mule-headed life, listen to me and try to believe what I am telling you. I am not giving you Grimglass, either as a gift or as an excuse to be rid of you. I am saddling you with Grimglass because I know that you will not merely take responsibility for it, but you will care for it, that you will be the same good steward for Grimglass that you were for Rothmarlin, and that you will fight Darne tooth and nail to protect it. Because you don’t know any other way to be. So stop assuming that I pity you or hold you in contempt or whatever it is you imagine my motives are. For I tell you now and tell you plainly, I do not.”

  “I hear you,” I said.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “I . . . I will try to.”

  “Good,” said Murtagh, and let me go. “Because I’m thinking of sending Julian out there with you.”

  “Julian?”

  “You deal with the boy far better than I do. And you can teach him much that he needs to know. He’s too frightened of me to learn.”

  “Is your own fault,” I said.

  “I know that,” Murtagh snapped. “But I cannot . . . I had an elder brother as well as a younger, you know.”

  “No,” I said. “I knew not.”

  “I did. Clovis should have been duke, but when he was Julian’s age, he started seeing things, going into trances in public, having screaming fits in the middle of our father’s receptions.”

  “An aethereal.”

  “Yes. And he could not or would not control it. He just gave up. He is an anchorite somewhere in eastern Corambis now. I don’t even know where. And I cannot bear to have Julian . . . Never mind. The point is, I want Julian to learn from you. And he’s quite excited at the thought of going to Grimglass with you. I think he is not as happy at the University—”

  “Now that everyone looks at him as he were a plague carrier,” I said.

  “Quite,” said Murtagh. “But he will be an excellent secretary for you, and you certainly need not fear that I have sent him to do your job.”

  “Murtagh,” said I, “that was unkind.”

  “I have my moments,” said the Dragon Duke.

  Julian, when he came to see me, was indeed excited, nearly incoherent with assurances that he would not fail me and he would work extremely hard and he was already practicing to improve his penmanship.

  “Good,” said I, “for I have a letter I wish you to write.”

  “A letter? Me? Now?”

  “Unless you need more time to practice.”

  “Oh no,” he said. “I’d be happy to . . . Who are you writing to?”

  “Have you pen and ink?”

  “Just a moment!” he said, and there was a tremendous flurry, as I had asked him to build an engine to take us to the moon. “All right. I’m ready.”

  “Good,” said I and rose to pace. “To Richard Pallister of Grimglass from Kay Brightmore. Although we do not know each other . . .”

  Felix

  I had my magic back, and the feeling was both like joy and like the cessation of pain. In its profound relief, I could admit that Mildmay was right. I had let the Circle cast the choke-binding on me, and perhaps it was because I deserved the punishment and perhaps it was because of what had been done to me in Bernatha. Either way, now I understood why Mildmay had been so angry with me, why he had fought so hard against something I had considered both right and inevitable.

  It was another thing I wouldn’t do again; eventually, I might be able to tell him that.

  In the meantime, it was a pity the Duke of Murtagh was so carefully avoiding being alone with me.

  And there were other considerations. I owed it to Kay to talk to him before I a
ccepted the position of Virtuer of Grimglass, even if I didn’t know what I’d do if I didn’t take it. I left Mildmay with Corbie and Julian because I didn’t particularly want witnesses for this, even a witness who already knew what I was going to say.

  Howrack had no hotels, so Kay and the duke were established in the reeve’s house, and the reeve’s nervous wife led me to the front parlor, where Kay was sitting by the front window, enjoying the sun as unabashedly as a cat.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Felix.”

  “I am not surprised,” said Kay.

  “I thought, before I accepted the position, I should give you the chance to . . . I should let you know what you’re getting. And if you say no, I won’t take it. You shouldn’t have to be saddled with me.”

  “Saddled with you?” he said, his eyebrows going up. “How would that be?”

  “I, um. I’m developing quite a reputation in Corambis, and I’m afraid it’s well earned.”

  “A reputation?”

  “As a monster.” Which wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but once the words were spoken, I couldn’t deny their truth.

  Kay considered for a long moment; my heart was beating painfully in my chest.

  “Do you consider yourself a monster, Felix Harrowgate?”

  “I . . .” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  So I told him. I told him everything, starting with the fantôme and the Clock of Eclipses, continuing to Malkar and the Virtu, to Mildmay and the obligation d’âme, and ending, finally, with Gideon and Isaac Garamond. Somewhere in the middle, the reeve’s nervous wife brought lemonade; without it, my voice would probably have dried to a husk before I finished. And Kay listened; he listened as intently and patiently as Mildmay, and he did not interrupt.

  “And you consider yourself a monster because of this?”

  “Yes. Because of what I did.”

  “To the man who murdered your lover.” His voice seemed to catch a little in the middle of the phrase, but I might have imagined it.

  “And to my brother.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “What?”

  He sighed impatiently. “Sit. Here.” And when I sat, he reached and found my hands, and held them firmly, his gaze as steady on my face as if he could see me. “When you sent your brother into danger against his will, why did you do it?”

  Hindsight made the reasons all cruelly specious. “I thought I could . . . I wanted to make Malkar show himself, so I could . . .” I swallowed hard. “So I could kill him.”

  “And the other? The man who murdered your lover?”

  “I wanted to hurt him,” I said flatly. “That’s all I wanted.”

  “And when Malkar hurt you, when he raped you with his magic, what did he hope to accomplish?” Kay’s hands on mine were like anchors, and I needed them, for I felt otherwise as if I might simply fly apart.

  “He broke the Virtu,” I said. “I told you what—”

  “Exactly,” Kay said. “When he hurt you, he did it for gain. When you . . . The things you did, you did from your own hurt. Not to profit from them.”

  “And that makes it better?”

  “Does not make it worse. And if what you have done is wrong, surely is better to have done it for the right reasons.”

  “Revenge is a right reason?”

  “Love,” he said. “Grief. Rage. They are better reasons than envy and malice and pleasure in destruction.”

  “You describe Malkar as accurately as if you knew him.”

  “I listened to you,” he said and let me go. “You knew him very well.”

  “When you live with a beast, you learn its habits. You have to.”

  “A beast, you call him?”

  “He was brutal. And . . . he was very very old. Brinvillier Strych must have been more than a hundred years old when I finally killed him, and I don’t know—no one knows—if Brinvillier Strych was the name he was born with, or if that, too, was a name he chose and assumed after some other name wore out. He was not Mélusinien, you see.”

  “Are sure?”

  “Oh yes. If he had been in Mélusine all along, there would be stories, as there are stories about Brinvillier Strych.”

  “You think him older than the name Strych, then.”

  “ ‘Think’ may be too strong a word. I believe him to be older because it explains so much about him.”

  “How so?”

  “How bored he seemed sometimes. Power interested him. Pain interested him. Nothing else seemed to. He wasn’t interested in magic for its own sake, and he’s the only wizard I’ve ever met who wasn’t. Conversely, though, he knew a tremendous amount, especially for someone who wasn’t particularly interested. And . . . Mildmay said once he was like an evil wizard in a story, and it’s probably the truest thing anyone’s ever said about him. Because he was. He was more like an evil wizard in a story than he was like a real person, and I think it’s because he had been a blood-wizard for so long, and because he used blood-wizardry to extend his life. Considering the stories told about her, I suspect his pupil Vey Coruscant was starting to go the same way.”

  “You mean he traded his humanity for his magic?”

  “No. That would almost be forgivable. Honestly, I think all wizards do that to a certain extent.”

  “Then what?”

  “Blood-wizardry is based on pain—on human blood, and not that of the caster. So Malkar chose to extend his life by those means, and he extended his life so that he could continue his practice of blood-wizardry. He traded his humanity, very broadly speaking, for the opportunity to continue hurting people for power.”

  “Had not much humanity to begin with, then.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Did you love him?” he said, very gently.

  “Loved him, hated him, feared him, worshipped him. And then, of course, I killed him.”

  Kay seemed to consider me, although I knew it was an illusion. “You say that as if killing him should free you from your love and fear.”

  “Shouldn’t it?” But there was no conviction in my voice.

  “Why would it?” Kay said. “My father has been dead these twenty indictions, and I love him still. And resent him still for the love he would not show me. Killing Malkar freed you from him, right enough, but you cannot kill your own monsters by killing another man.”

  “Oh,” I said—stupidly, because of course I knew that.

  “You are not a monster like your master, whatever else you may be.” He reached out, laying one blunt hand on my chest. “Your heart is not made of gears.”

  “Like clockwork?” I asked, trying to follow the logic of his imagery.

  He leaned back again. “Is an old story about the Automaton of Corybant. It was a magician who made himself a heart of gears, and then a body to go around it, and then, as he had forgotten love, he destroyed that which he had loved the most.” The sunlight made his eyes very clear. “You have not forgotten love.”

  “No,” I said, almost inaudibly.

  “Moreover, I have no right to judge you. I am as much a monster as you are.”

  “You . . . What?”

  “Know you how many men I’ve killed?”

  “You were a soldier.”

  “And that serves as excuse and exculpation all in one?” His tone was sardonic, and I flinched a little. “The Corambins call me a beast and a butcher, and I have earned those titles seven times over. My heart, I fear, is more gears than flesh.”

  I started to protest, but he cut me off. “We are both monsters, Felix. But I would not slay you, and you, I think, would not slay me, either.”

  “No,” I agreed, feeling something knotted in my chest relax. “I would not.”

  “And as your brother is as much a monster as I, or as you, then I think we may be fairly said to suit.”

  “My brother? You’ve—”

  “We have traded tales of monsters,” he said. “Felix. I admire your bravery, and I appre
ciate your honesty, but your concerns are groundless.” He tilted his head, seeming to appraise me. “Will you come to my wedding?”

  “Of course,” I said, and he finally smiled.

  The wedding of Vanessa Carey Pallister and Kay Brightmore was held at Our Lady of Mirrors, the largest and most beautiful cathedral in all Corambis—or so Julian Carey earnestly assured me. Mildmay and Corbie and I all dressed up to the occasion. I slicked my hair back, and as I was straightening my tie in our crooked mirror, taking a childlike delight in illuminating my efforts with my witchlights, Mildmay came in and put an oilskin package down on the table in front of me. It clicked sharply.

  “What in the world?” I said.

  He caught my gaze and held it. “Your rings,” he said, slowly and as distinctly as was possible for him.

  “My . . .”

  “Your rings that I’ve carried all the way from Mélusine. They’re yours. And you’re a virtuer now, and you ain’t in disgrace, and will you please put them on?”

  I looked at him. He was going red. “You miss them.”

  “Fuck me sideways,” he muttered. “Yeah, I miss them, okay? You don’t look right without ’em. And”—a sharp flick of eyes green as sin—“I wanna see everybody’s eyes bug out.”

  “You are an evil, evil man, Mildmay Foxe,” I said, which pleased him. “Well, all right.” I opened the package. Ten massive rings, gold and garnet, strung together on a narrow gold chain. After a moment’s puzzlement, I recognized the delicate flower-shaped links of the chain and had to blink hard. It was Shannon’s, the only thing he had of his mother’s. He never wore it; as far as I knew, he’d never shown it to anyone but me.

  I unfastened it, drew it through the rings. Mildmay raised his eyebrows at me.

  “It belonged to Gloria Aestia,” I said. “Shannon . . .”

  “He understood,” Mildmay said.

  “Yes.” I slid the chain into my inner waistcoat pocket, where it would be safe. And then, one by one, I put on my rings. I had missed the weight of them without even knowing, half the time, what it was I missed, and they blazed across my hands like fire. I raised my hands, backs outward, and looked at the effect in the mirror against my sober, dark, Corambin suit.