by J. S. Morin
“Who is she?”
“One of their first airship commanders, widow of a failed warlock, none-too-secret lover of the most powerful sorcerer Veydrus has known since before that dragon you killed was hatched,” said Anzik. “I met him when I was younger; at first I confused him for Tallax, because his Source shone brighter than the noontime sun—just like the Tallax in the stories.”
“What’s this got to do with Harwick and the books?” Jamile asked. She was put out, having decided to spill her mind on the matter and now being prevented from following through.
“Nothing,” Anzik replied. “Everything. If those books came from her, they could be a trap, or a sign that she and Brannis have returned to help our cause. It could be a thousand things. The ways of deceit are a maze. Rushing headlong can lead to a dead end. I need to think … I need to think …” Anzik began to pace the room.
“Can you at least talk with Harwick?” Jamile asked. “If you two can come to an understanding, it might make it easier for us to get the rest of the books translated.”
Anzik stopped in his footsteps. “What has come of them thus far?”
“Instructions for the world-rippers—it calls them transport gates—some chemistry things, including a youth cure-all, and a machine that calls for help.” Jamile ticked them off on her fingers as she reported them. “Oh, you can’t tell Cadmus about the call-for-help machine. He doesn’t know yet.”
Anzik furrowed his brow. “Why not?” There was something about talking with her that evoked actual emotive response from him. Jamile felt a pang of pride for bringing him a bit closer to being a normal boy.
“Madlin worried that he would use it,” Jamile replied.
“Why is that a problem?”
“We don’t know who it might call.”
Anzik nodded.
“So … Harwick?” Jamile persisted.
“Very well, I’ll meet with the man. However, his life will be forfeit should he try to avenge his twin’s son’s twin … which could turn out to be his actual son, now that I consider the matter.”
The Harwick Estate was dark, save for a light in the sitting room. A lone sorcerer, not so elderly anymore, lounged in a high-backed velvet chair before a somber fire. The walls and furnishings were cast in flickering reds and oranges; the glassware on the liquor cart glistened. Anzik had already seen the study, with the stacks of books so clearly labeled, and the stack of translations which he could understand with some effort. The temptation had pulled at his soul, to fall into his father’s own trap of betrayal and deceit. Take the books. Kill Harwick. Slaughter everyone in the heart of Korr’s moon. It would have been so easy.
Of course, none of that accounted for Rynn. While she lived, vengeance would be certain, and Anzik doubted he could evade her for long. His magic was strong, his illusions convincing, but when boiled down to their essence, the tinkers vexed him. They solved problems they had no right to solve, and solving a lone sorcerer, no matter his strength, seemed well within their powers. Still, the temptation existed, and Anzik was forced to live with that as he pulled the lever that switched the viewframe to the active position.
Harwick’s first reaction to the open hole was a long-winded sigh and the draining of his liquor in one gulp. It was not until after that he frowned at Anzik. “And who might you be? Have I become a way-watch for lost Korrish? No … you’re not Korrish, are you?”
“No, I am not,” Anzik replied. He stepped through into Harwick’s sitting room and gestured to a chair. “May I?”
“By all means, and pour yourself a drink if you like,” Harwick replied. “We don’t stand on law and formality here. The age of accountability is a bit lower in Megrenn, especially for a sorcerer, is it not?”
Anzik’s eyebrows rose a hair’s width. “I’m not dressed in Megrenn style. How did you know? Did Madlin warn you?”
“That girl thinks the world is a game of Crackle. I swear if she played chess, she’d hide her pieces,” said Harwick. “But I’m not blind, nor am I the fool some have taken me for. You look just like your father when he was your age.”
“You knew Jinzan?” Anzik asked.
“Knew him?” Harwick replied. “Of course I knew him. He was schooled in the empire, or did he never mention that? We had allowed any fourth-generation occupied Megrenn to attend the Academy, and he was among the first. Supposed to have been long enough to breed out the memory of a free Megrenn, but by the look of it waiting for at least the sixth might have been more prudent. I taught there, like most of the Inner Circle did earlier in their careers. Your father was a brilliant, bitter bastard, stronger in Source than the others in his class, but that light haze of brown in his skin set them against him. In Tellurak, you’d never have known him from full-blooded Acardian, but he could never fool anyone in Kadrin into thinking he was a native.”
“I knew he attended the Imperial Academy, but—”
“You know who I am,” Harwick said, “and I know who you are. The question is: why are we both here right now? I have my answer. I’m here to rest my eyes, burn my throat, and let a warm, pleasant glow settle in my belly after a long day’s work. What about you?”
“I came to tell you about your son’s twin,” Anzik replied.
“My what now?” Harwick asked, setting down his glass and leaning close.
“Danilaesis Solaran had a twin.”
“Blast it and bugger all,” Harwick swore. He stood to pour himself another drink, shaking his head. “All that time I watched for it, he had to awaken after I died. Who is he? Where can I find him? Blessed winds, who mothered him?”
“He went by a shortened form of his Veydran name: Dan. I don’t know what name he was given here, or who his mother was. He’s dead now though.”
Harwick stiffened. The decanter in his hand stopped halfway to the glass. “Dead?”
“He worked with Madlin for a time,” Anzik said. “He fell in with a twinborn named Tanner, and the two of them entered into an arrangement with Madlin and Cadmus Errol. Eventually, Dan’s madness prompted her to end the arrangement.”
Harwick set down the bottle and fixed Anzik with an unfocused glare. He knew the look; Harwick was checking his Source with his aether-vision. Anzik had hoped not to find violence on his visit, but knew it was possible, given what he planned to reveal. He had never before shied from battle, but rarely was a battle so personal, so intimate, as the one that brewed in Harwick’s eyes. Anzik found that his stomach churned and clenched. Harwick was not so old and feeble as calendars said he should be, and he had decades more experience in magic. His Source was weaker, but not so weak that the prospect of facing him held any certainty of victory.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Harwick asked, surprising Anzik yet again with his insight. “Madlin used you as her cudgel.”
Anzik denied nothing. “Your son fell into the sway of Rashan Solaran. He became an obsessed devotee of the late warlock’s philosophy, but without the centuries of control over his power. Rashan was a force of politics and scheming, backed by violence. Danilaesis Solaran is that violence ruled by whim and spite. Dan was a shadow of the Veydran twin, but just as mad.”
Harwick slammed his glass on the table, sending up a spray of shattered crystal. “You dare show up in the middle of my sitting room, admit to murdering a son I never knew I had, then tell me he had it coming? What nerve, young sir. What nerve. You think you can get away with it because I’m just Telluraki? You can see my Source and assume I can’t fight back? Well, you—”
“I came as a courtesy,” Anzik replied. “You’d have found out eventually. I see that all the more clearly now, given your other surmises. I came to give you truth from the headwaters. I killed Dan because he is my enemy. I killed him because Madlin feared for her life even having him as an ally. I am responsible for the protection of Ghelk and all the Megrenn Alliance, and your son is the most destabilizing force in Veydrus at the moment. He is Rashan Solaran without the cruel, heartless cunning. He has nearly as much K
adrin blood on his hands as he has Megrenn. You failed him. He had nothing within him to resist the urge to destroy. My father was many things, but at least he taught me self-control.”
“Danil was always a handful, but his grandfather did his best,” Harwick said. “Blast me if I had the time to look after him. I was trying to keep the empire from collapsing in on itself.”
“It seems it might have been better in collapse, and with a better disciplined warlock to defend what remained,” said Anzik. “Now you are faced with an opportunity. I don’t want this war; few among my people do. But you might be able to talk sense into them. Dam the flood your son has caused, and you might save the Kadrin Empire. You’ve seen what the transport gates can do. It’s only a matter of time before the weapons the tinkers create are turned against Kadris itself.”
“If you think that, why would you want my help?” Harwick asked. “Seems your tinker friends might just be rid of us for you.”
“At what cost?” Anzik asked. “How many needless deaths will it take to stop Danilaesis Solaran’s war? How much better to end it by him seeing reason? I abide my principles, no matter the cost. You hate me because I have killed your son’s twin—who perhaps is the product of your own loose loins in this world. You probably think me a hypocrite, being the son of a pirate.”
“I didn’t know Zayne was twinborn until after it was too late to matter,” Harwick replied. “I’d have made the navy send more ships after him, had I known.”
“I killed him for you,” Anzik said. “Well, not for you specifically, but I could not allow him to continue. I needed him when I was younger; he taught me much, and he protected me in his own way. But I was not blind to his nature. If Jinzan Fehr was a man who made questionable choices with good reason, Denrik Zayne was a man whose choices served no one but himself.”
“Patricide doesn’t typically vouch for one’s character.”
“What about my father was typical? How many men live in the shadow of a father who is a blight on civilized society, yet they follow him and defend him out of a misplaced sense of filial duty?”
“You’re a strange one,” Harwick said. Turning his back on the Megrenn sorcerer, he poured himself the drink he had abandoned moments earlier. Anzik found the resumption of Harwick’s primary vice to be a positive sign in the negotiation. His odds of success seemed to have passed the break-even point.
“I have been told some variant of that same sentiment on more occasions than I can recall,” said Anzik. “And in general, I have excellent recall. So what is your answer?”
“What are my options? Kill you here and now? Sadly, I fear that option passed me two or three glasses back,” Harwick replied, throwing down the contents of a half-filled whiskey glass. “Tell you to go piss up a tree? I doubt you’d even find the humor in it, and it would get me nowhere. No, after all you’ve said and purportedly done, you still offer me the only chance I’ve heard to see my son again. Even Madlin didn’t offer me that.”
“You asked?”
“No, but I don’t think she quite trusted me. Now I know why,” said Harwick. He shook his empty glass in Anzik’s direction. “I’m warning you though, boy. If my son has not wandered the dark, bloody path you claim, we’re going to have a disagreement.”
“I am not unaware of the risk that you will pursue vengeance for the twin’s death,” Anzik replied. “But unlike many of your people, peace is my ultimate goal.”
Harwick filled his own glass, plus a second that he handed to Anzik. “To peace, then.” Harwick threw back his drink, and Anzik raised his in acknowledgment and took a sip.
The workshop was dark. Strange machines were visible as vague outlines of shadow upon shadow in the faint light that spilled in from the corridor. Anzik felt along the wall and found a metal box with a finger-sized switch and flipped it up. Harsh yellow light burst forth from a series of glass bulbs along the ceiling, bringing color to the conglomeration of iron, steel, and brass of the machines. Though he had seen them in action, he was only passingly familiar with their workings. Unless he ever had need to work them himself, he could content himself with ignorance on the subject.
The pages scattered around the drafting table made more sense, but still painted an incomplete picture. The annotations were a language of their own. Anzik could tell that they depicted a world-ripper of some sort, because he recognized the general form of one from the diagrams that the annotations swarmed around like flies. He scanned other documents, finding familiar shapes of pieces of the larger devices that had transformed the war with Kadrin, and Madlin’s own war on her world. Several were obscured by other sheets overlapping, but Anzik touched nothing. Any page that rested atop another was sacrosanct; even being in this room was an affront he knew, and he would not compound his transgression. He merely idled and took in as much as his magic-thinking mind could of the strange technology around him.
Footsteps in the hall quickened as soon as he heard them. They grew louder, so someone was on the way. Quiet yet insistent, the stomping feet of someone with soft-soles on her shoes and not enough heft to thump on the stone floor. Madlin. Kaia and Jamile were too meek. Greuder too heavy. Cadmus’s shoes had soles like wood. Anzik turned to face the door and meet the verbal lashing he was about to take.
“What in Eziel’s bloody footprints are you doing here?” Madlin snapped.
“I wanted to speak with you and I didn’t wish to wake you. I knew you would come here soon enough.”
“Wonderful. Now get out!” Madlin pointed to the door.
Anzik bowed his head and proceeded past Madlin into the halls. There were faint sounds from the kitchen, but Madlin pulled him aside into one of the storage rooms. It seemed she wanted to keep their meeting private. “I met with Harwick.”
Madlin frowned. “What did she do to convince you? I figured you’d wall her off like you do everything else.”
“She made a reasoned argument. At worst, I would have been forced to kill the twin of an enemy of my people. She made me curious.” There was no need to specify who ‘she’ was. Both knew it was Jamile who had been intent on meddling.
“So, what’d you do with him?”
“He’s quite alive and well,” Anzik replied. “I believe you’re confusing me with Dan. I don’t kill wantonly or impulsively. Harwick wants to see Dan’s twin, and I offered him the chance to end our war if he can talk sense into Danilaesis. He will continue his work on your books in the meantime.”
“How do you know he’s not going to give that information to the Kadrins?” Madlin asked. “You’re as much handing them their own copies of the books.” She shook her head. “I can’t allow that.”
“If you would grant me one thing, I think I can arrange that they do not fall into Kadrin hands.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to fire a shot from the Jennai’s gun,” said Anzik.
Madlin gave a single laugh. “Why would I let you fire it? Besides, it’s Cadmus you’d need to convince.”
“It’s your army.”
“People keep saying that, but he’s got say here,” Madlin replied. “What do you plan on shooting at?”
“You wouldn’t know it. A place in the Kadrin Empire.”
“I thought you wanted Harwick to help negotiate a peace,” Madlin replied.
Anzik smiled. He had to force it, and he hoped it was convincing. He had been practicing. “Every negotiation has an opening offer.”
The sun was low in the west, casting the city of Kadris into shadows. Among the few locations that stood tall above the sea of buildings was the Tower of Contemplation. Despite being the northwestern tower of the Imperial Palace, it predated the rest of the building by centuries. Its black marble was streaked with veins of green, carved with runes that kept it from aging, and unbroken by either seam or mortar. It was the very symbol of Kadrin magical might.
The air above it parted like a curtain, its edge crackling with a hint of lightning. A world-hole opened, and a second later,
a sound like the sundering of a mountain split the air and shook the earth. Boats in the harbor were tossed on jolted waves. Glassed windows shattered across the city. Peasants panicked, screaming and seeking cover from a disaster whose nature they could not describe.
The ancient tower still stood, its runes holding it together when a lesser building might have crumbled. But a hole had been punched from roof to sub-basement and beyond. The hole in the sky closed, as if it had never been.
Chapter 19
“When in doubt, buy land. It will not spoil or rot. It never goes out of fashion. It will never wear out in your lifetime or those of any descendant you might imagine.” – Parjek Ran-Haalamar, trader
Birdsong filled the air, and dawn’s light glistened on the dew-speckled grass. There was an earthy smell, one that Madlin could barely recall anymore. It came to Tinker’s Island a few days a year, and mostly while she was still abed. But Khesh was vast, and aside from the depths of winter, there was at least some portion of the empire that had such mornings. With Hayfield and Jamile in tow, she marched across the untamed grass, which snarled and tugged at her ankles while leaving them wet.
“Why doesn’t anyone live here?” Madlin asked the fourth member of their group. He was a Kheshi of middle years, dressed more for a job of ink and paper than for a countryside jaunt. He wore his receding blond hair pulled back in a tail, and a pair of round spectacles gave him a superficial resemblance to her father.
“Lack of roads,” the Kheshi official answered in excellent Takalish. For Jamile’s benefit, Madlin had hidden the fact she spoke Kheshi fluently. He pointed to the north. “Three hours by horse to the Kurjin Trail, and that’s if you know the marshes. If you don’t, it’s quite hazardous. Lord Stilvaar hunts these lands, but your offer has given him pause.”
“It better have,” Jamile muttered in Korrish. She proceeded to translate the Kheshi’s comments to Hayfield.