[The good and the bad path.]
[Sort of, but usually more like the bad and worse path. Not every decision leads to death, but sometimes life forces you into a corner and whatever the decision, it’s a tough result. You could have died, and you still could.]
Totelun smiled at her reassuringly. [I want to understand,] he wrote. [Can you give me some examples?] He tentatively reached out and brushed her grey hand with his fingers.
[Like what?] she wrote, resigned to a course she couldn’t change.
[Do I get home? Do we destroy the Medusi? Can you tell me how to kill Noctiluca because you have already seen how it’s done?] Totelun handed her the leaf, and then resumed his sewing. The tough part was getting the crotch to sit right, but they’d work. He waited in trepidation, wondering if it could be so simple. Ask someone who has seen something in the future to tell you how to do it in the what, present?
[No, it doesn’t work like that,] Cassandra wrote back. It was a long note. [You are talking about a paradox. I see something in the future, you learn how to do it, but how did you learn how to do it when I saw it, before I told you. Do you see? You’re trying to break time.]
Totelun couldn’t even begin to muddle that out, but he didn’t need to answer. Cassandra was writing more.
[I only see outcomes of decisions. Not the decisions themselves. You could fight Noctiluca, but I’d only see you dead, or her dead, and not know how it happened. I can’t see what I want to see, just fragments, presumably fragments that this Medusi wants me to. Maybe it doesn’t want to show me clues about how to destroy it.]
Totelun read the leaf but put it aside. He pulled the final thread on the trousers, tied it off and bit through it. He handed them to Cassandra. She beamed at him, her bright blue eyes visible even in the low light.
Cassandra stood, took off her boots and pulled on the trousers over her undergarments, but under the night dress. She had little modesty, but it was dark, and Totelun made sure to avert his eyes.
She was a princess after all.
She tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a leaf.
[Thank you so much. I love them. They are rough on my skin, but I can feel they are strong and warm. Good for a hike up a mountain.] When he looked up, she was inspecting them with interest, walking around the fire that had burnt down to embers, and then walking back.
[They need some rope to hold them up. I will see if I can make you anything else. You’ll still freeze to death up there if I don’t.]
Eventually Cassandra sat down again in her new trousers.
Totelun handed her another leaf and began packing up to sleep. [What about immediate things then?] it said. [Cartracia. Do you see us at the top? You must do.]
Cassandra nodded as she wrote. [I see us near the top, but I see nothing else beyond it.]
[You mean no Islands?] Totelun handed her the note and yawned. He curled up on the soft ground near the last dying light of the fire.
[I mean no visions. It’s like everything just stops up there.] Cassandra lay down a foot or so across from him, next to the fire, her head near his.
[Why?] He wrote back after a while.
It was a long while before he was nudged awake by Cassandra passing him a last leaf. [Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew? It’s hidden from me. Remember, I said that choices are concealed, but that I can see the consequences. The top of that mountain is like a dark cave. I try to light a torch to see, but it gutters out immediately. My only guess is whatever happens up there is something too significant, too far-reaching for simple outcomes. You will be forced to make a terrible choice, Totelun, something that will change your future.]
Totelun didn't like the sound of that. He’d kept to himself that an assassin had told him to go there, but he worried himself to sleep with visions of his own, reaching the top and finding only a dark abyss to fall into.
Chapter Thirteen
Aurelia
Over the next few weeks, life in Argentor fell into some kind of rhythm for Aurelia. She was woken regularly by Terietta, who seemed to think that the role of a major-domo was instead that of a glorified nursemaid; the woman would bustle about clearing up after her, tutting and changing towels after Aurelia had another long soak. It would have been heartening without the constant barrage of complaints regarding the indignity of having to serve the enemy of the city.
Aurelia had thoroughly washed even the memory of the road from her skin and hair, with six baths in as many nights. She whiled away the days meeting with Nepheli, lounging on her terrace in glorious weather, or participating in verbal sparring matches with the ladies of the court. After the disastrous reception she’d received the first time, these meetings had generally been just one or two of the ladies at once, rather than the entire onslaught, but Aurelia didn’t thank Nepheli for protecting her. If anything, she wanted to go back to court and give Meredith Larkisron a public verbal lashing she’d never recover from.
Nepheli was friendly company but seemed to deflate fast as her game turned sour; it no longer looked like Aurelia would be the next big thing. She had a group of maids brought to Aurelia’s suite and they spent one full day having manicures and being anointed with soothing oils, while Nepheli revealed every last piece of gossip she had about everyone at court; Aurelia learnt who was sleeping with who, careers that were on the decline and who was making name for themselves, who’s children were surely the big players of the future, and whose fantastic new business had taken off. She promised to introduce Aurelia to Faibryn Argentor but never did.
By way of apology for the meeting debacle, she swore she would arrange a consultation for Aurelia with the Premiers, who had so far shunned any such association with the former Empress. She had sent multiple letters and Chrysaora to broker an audience, but this only served to illustrate how trapped she actually was; Chrysaora was sent back in manacles and almost feral from acute anxiety. She had a real problem with bindings of any kind it seemed and had caused quite a scene.
Between them, Terietta and Chrysaora wouldn’t let Aurelia out of their sight. Chrysaora took to her role as bodyguard as if there was a real and present threat of danger at all times. She did not like the open plan freedom of the palace and let it be known whenever Aurelia would listen. She kept tabs on Aurelia’s movements, and chaperoned her limited excursions around the grounds.
Mostly, Aurelia wondered what she was really doing here. The Duke had not deemed to ask for a second meeting, and the ladies of the court that would speak to her revealed that his condition was only worsening. She was not arranging an army to ride out and overthrow that tyrant sorceress, she was being entertained, and possibly even deliberately distracted by Nepheli. She felt guilty. She languished in a sprawling complex of gardens and balconies, eating chilled grapes, while her people were enslaved, and forced to eat Overlords knew what. They were dying in Theris, and she was relaxing; she felt terrible. She looked out on the city and mourned her freedom and that of her people equally.
On the seventh day, Marcus made his presence known again, appearing in Aurelia’s rooms while Chrysaora was out on an errand. Aurelia had sent her out muttering and complaining just so she could be alone for an hour; she hadn’t really needed anything and she hadn’t intended to have company. Marcus, if that really was his name, clearly had the run of the place, but who was he? Where had he been the last week? Aurelia resolved to find out. She would catch him in a revealing truth, or a lie, whichever served best.
Marcus smiled a devilish grin at her from the foyer. He had only just made it inside when she heard him. He was as bad as her brother, sneaking around all the time. ‘Liath,’ he said. ‘My duties did not allow me to return until now. I trust you are well?’
She would maintain her fiction, but who was Liath? She still didn’t really know.
‘Oh Marcus, how pleasant. I wasn’t expecting company. I have washed the dust of the road away, but I remain a prisoner here, unable to leave.’ She felt she sounded like a character in a bad pl
ay.
He flashed his beautiful white teeth. ‘Why are you a prisoner, Liath? The court demands to know,’ he said, playing his part.
Chrysaora had advised her to embrace Liath fully, to become her. Blend away into Argentori society and create a new life for yourself. What was her backstory again?
‘My father is the greatest tailor in Arceth,’ said Aurelia. ‘I am held prisoner to guarantee his good behaviour. He has been commissioned to create stunning clothes for the Duke and if he doesn’t work tirelessly without complaint, my life is forfeit.’ It didn’t matter that it was farfetched or that Marcus probably knew the Duke would do no such thing; they were playing the game still.
‘That’s simply terrible,’ he said, smiling. His grin said it was great. ‘I feel simply terrible that you are cooped up in these tiny rooms,’ he gestured to the massive suite around them, ‘while your father slaves for the evil Duke. What you need is a manservant with no regard for rules to break you out and show you the city.’
Marcus enjoyed the game a little too much, but he made no sign he was going to drop the act.
‘Where could I find such a man?’ she said, stifling a sigh.
‘Why, he is right here,’ said Marcus, hands on his hips.
Aurelia laughed and decided to disrupt his pantomime. ‘Surely not, you are little more than a boy.’
His pout made it worthwhile immediately. ‘Liath, please you are ruining my game. Seriously, let me take you on a tour of Argentor. You can get out of the palace, feel the sun on your skin, I will show you how this great city works. Your captors will be none the wiser, and we will have you back before the Duke’s men know you’re gone.’
It was tempting. So tempting. Aurelia had just been wishing she could leave, that truth had seeped out of her own fiction. She thought of Chrysaora and found herself reluctant to leave while she was still away, but the offer to see the city was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. Besides, if Chrysaora were here, she would just forbid her.
Add to that the draw of Marcus himself, a mystery she wanted to solve. It wouldn’t hurt to leave for a few hours would it?
*
Marcus was as good as his word. Once they had stolen from the palace, which was easier than Aurelia had expected, his tour of the city took them first through the markets and gambling districts, the low places that nestled up against the high palace complex. Her senses were assaulted by exotic-smelling spices from the far West slave lands brought down the twisting Sarpenti river on wonderful ornately carved merchant tugs. Stall owners called to them, offering succulent freshwater fish, seeds, nuts, strange fruits, cheeses and meats; hosts offered their parlours where patrons smoked hallucinogenic opiates that Marcus explained, while steering Aurelia away, were made from the crushed seeds of a vibrant flower that only grew in total darkness. Aurelia could only imagine the types of nightmares they would impart, and shuddered. Others offered the oldest trade in Arceth; brothels lined one particular street, their wares on full display cavorting behind lilac veils that hid nothing but allowed the practice its legality.
Marcus kept her entertained with an impressive array of stories regarding every type of produce benign or intoxicating. He told her the history of the docks, their spiky piers jutting into the Sarpenti river on both sides like fingers trying to grasp the water itself. The tugs navigated the slalom of berths looking for their destinations and hawking surplus produce as they sailed past.
Aurelia wore a green cloak, a sumptuous version of the dirty wrap she had worn on her journey to the city, with a thin hood to hide her identity. It was unlikely anyone in such a low part of the city would know the Empress of another city by sight, but Chrysaora’s paranoia had been contagious. The sailors, stocky dockworkers, river pirates and thieves that made the wooden runways heave and creak under their feet could hide assassins without trouble and would sell her up the river for half a bronze piece.
The river itself was strange; it didn’t flow from a high altitude and wind through the country towards the sea. Though it started like any other, a few hundred miles away in the west, Argentor was its final resting place; a nation landlocked in every direction. The river met its end in a large lake; Marcus explained that divers had found that the reason it never overflowed, despite the river feeding it constantly, was that in the lake’s depths there were great holes in the earth that drew the water away underground. The farmers claimed the mineral upsurges that sometimes came from these holes in the lake bed were good for the fertility of the river valley and had been the reason the city was sited here.
Aurelia enjoyed Marcus’ tales, but she wanted to get to know him rather than his regurgitated histories. When they caught a river tug towards the lake, she had a chance to talk to him. She tried to guess who he was; she would put good money on a noble courtier, his long flowing chestnut hair catching in the wind and a small scruff around his chin. Few men wore beards in the more temperate regions north of Theris, but that didn’t stop youths from letting their first grow in.
‘Your city is wonderful,’ she said on the deck of the tug.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ he said looking at her. ‘But it is nothing when compared to you, my lady.’
‘I am no lady,’ she chided. ‘Just a simple tailor’s daughter. How long have you lived here?’
‘My whole life has been spent under the Argentori sun, my father before me.’
‘You haven’t travelled?’
‘No. Where would I go that would compare to this? I am not an adventurer like you.’ The river ahead of them glittered and shone.
‘I’d hardly call my travels adventures. It was only the first time I had left the city of my birth.’
‘Theris.’ He said it as a statement. Does he know who I am? ‘How are you finding court life in Argentor?’
‘Apart from my lack of freedom, I can’t complain. I have met the ladies of the court-’
‘Vile nest of snakes,’ he spat.
‘Excuse me?’
‘They are a constantly sniping group of women, with delusions of grandeur. Forgive me, I have no time for them. My work thankfully keeps me from their notice.’
‘I am visited often by Nepheli Opetreia. She seems like the best of them.’
Marcus looked at her and smiled, but it was a smile one might extend to an ignorant relative one didn’t want to argue with. ‘I will attribute that to naivety on your part. But you are new here, my beautiful little bird, and have not yet seen the hawk’s shadow fall upon you. Be wary of Nepheli Opetreia. She has been known to turn on people for the slightest infraction.’
‘She I know,’ said Aurelia defensively. ‘All I have for you is a fake name. If there is anyone I should be wary of…’
Marcus ignored her attempt to make him bite.
‘Maybe you need to know a little more about her and her family. Ferdinand Opetreia is old money, founding of the city old. The House of Opetreia say they are in agriculture, but that’s a nice way of saying their ancestors bought up as much fertile land as possible in the early days of the city, and now lease it to every farmer with dreams of owning his own land, at extortionate rates. The family has become one of the most powerful in the city. You may have heard the Duke has issues with ambitious nobles?’
Aurelia nodded.
‘It is because they hold the real power in this city, their guilds and their secret cadres, even the Premiers are part of it. The Duke is little more than a figurehead they allow to make peripheral decisions. He doesn’t move the army, Opetreia and his cronies do.
‘And Nepheli, well she is just a symptom, but she is vile. A vacuous socialite who sticks her nose into everything. You would be wise not to let her in, else she tear you down.’
Aurelia didn’t have a ready response and the tug had almost reached their destination. She realised she was shocked; he had revealed not just a nugget of truth but a whole vein. ‘You sound, I’m not sure, jealous?’
‘I apologise,’ said Marcus. ‘Maybe I am. I did not intend
to insult anyone today but alas, it comes with the territory talking politics in this city. Can we speak of more pleasant things?’
Aurelia didn’t answer.
Their next stop after disembarking the tug was an ambling walk into the tiered farming lands on the city’s outskirts. Aurelia watched Marcus try to pay the tug’s helmsman and get emphatically refused. The man even bowed slightly as she’d seen the merchants do to nobles in the market. Marcus immediately stopped him.
What am I doing here? she thought, not for the first time. The man was mysterious, but was it possible the mystery was actually not that interesting? Was he just a bored noble? He certainly acted like one, as if he was better than most around him. Or was it just his clear education? Did she seem like that, to Chrysaora for example? She berated herself as soon as she thought it. At the same time, she found herself attracted to him, his bearing and strength. Maybe if they changed the subject as he’d suggested.
Marcus led her away from the river but by no means away from the water. The only dry area was a raised cobbled road through a maze of stepped paddy fields on either side that climbed the shallow incline of the valley. Aurelia could smell the heady fertile mixture in the water, almost fermenting as it grew the produce of the city.
‘Argentor has grown rich off its bountiful lands,’ said Marcus, ‘but they aren’t naturally as abundant. These terraces grow both rice and a kind of aquatic bean.’ The road followed an aqueduct that she had been able to see from almost anywhere in the city, its rising arches swooping over them as they walked. ‘The aqueduct draws water from the river up the sides of the valley,’ said Marcus pointing, ‘and irrigates the pools and fields as it goes. Without the first aqueducts, built hundreds of years ago, the city would not be the size it is, could not support the population, and would be nothing like as wealthy. We make a surplus, and trade with territories in the West and East. We used to trade south if you go back a few decades, but the war put paid to that.’
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 20