The Godstone

by Violette Malan

His nod was stiff, as if he also felt cold. “I tried to destroy it. I failed. Sealing it away took all my power.”

  And maybe a little more. “And if they open the seal, this dangerous thing will be loose?” Another nod. He still looked at me, but as if he did not see me. “Perhaps we will be lucky, perhaps the law of the Red Court will side with you and not the White Court.” His eyes snapped into focus. I grinned. “It could happen.”

  “Well, we do have a secret weapon,” he said. I barely felt the pat on the knee he gave me through the thickness of the lap rug. “We have you.”

  “Somehow I do not feel better.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Two days later I suggested that we stop at Last Inn before the City, rather than press on. We would have arrived before dark, but not much before, a bad time to be looking for lodging. You tend to take the first you find and that’s almost always a mistake. Last Inn, while not up to City standards, looked comfortable and inviting, the flagstone area wide enough to allow the largest carriages to turn around. The windows were sizable, though paned with small pieces of glass. The stables were off to one side rather than behind the main building. This Mode is so narrow, I wondered if we would still have the barouche in the morning, or something more elegant still.

  “Once we reach the City, you can stay in the White Court,” Arlyn pointed out. I felt that thinking of him as Arlyn was safer.

  “And leave you where? Do you know the City better than I do? Have you ever stayed anywhere other than the Court?”

  He frowned, thinking. “Maybe, but it was so long ago . . .”

  It must have been. Despite what I had said before, I should have heard of Xandra Albainil before Arlyn mentioned him. I had never seen the name on any of the lists, never heard him talked about. His was a story we would have studied, surely? If only for an object lesson on the dangers of overreaching.

  How long ago did all this happen? Just how old was Arlyn?

  “There we are then,” I said aloud. “We will stay here for the night and go in fresh first thing in the morning. I am sure this landlord can suggest a good hotel.”

  We allowed ourselves to be helped down from the carriage and escorted into the inn while Terith was led away, glancing back at us before he was out of sight around the western corner of the building. We were given a double room, no doubt because of my status, but, oddly, my smiles weren’t returned very warmly.

  Once in our room, Arlyn swung open the window and stood watching the traffic on the Road. Hooves struck sharp sounds from the hard surface. He rubbed at his face before leaning forward, bracing his hands on the windowsill. Knowing what I knew now, it felt wrong to see him in fawn trousers, low tight-fitting boots, deep blue waistcoat and jacket over a pale lilac shirt and cravat.

  “Is there any point in telling them the truth?” I wondered aloud, pulling out the room’s one upholstered chair and sitting. “You are not dead, and if they cannot declare you dead, they cannot open your vault.”

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. I squared my shoulders and crossed my arms. “Well?”

  At first I thought he would not answer. Finally he turned away from the window, straightening his cuffs. “Logic isn’t a great defense when people in power want something. Someone wants to open my vault badly enough that they’ve gone to the trouble of creating false documents, having a relative tracked down and summoned,” he pointed out. “Somehow I feel a small matter like my being alive won’t stop them. Alive and powerless, remember. Besides, if there’s a way for me to come out of this without having to reveal myself, I’d like to try.”

  I thought about his intention to return to the village. Could he do that if everyone knew he had been a practitioner? Would the White Court even allow it? “Wheels within wheels,” I said. “They might very well decide that if you are not a practitioner anymore, your vault is no longer your property.”

  “I hope that wasn’t meant to make me feel better.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The Road expanded as it entered the City, becoming a smoothly paved thoroughfare wide enough for three or possibly four carriages to move abreast of each other. Though there were now buildings all around us, the openness of the Road gave the illusion of space. The whole inner City was open squares surrounded by narrow, elegant houses, spacious thoroughfares, well-manicured parks. Before we were sent out on the Road, part of our training as apprentices involved patrolling and policing the City’s darker places, where the poorer and less honest segments of society lived. Since the White Court took charge of it, everyone else—including the Red Court—could pretend these areas didn’t exist at all.

  Hal used to say that if we really wanted to deal with the less honest among our inhabitants, there were other, richer places to look.

  “Were there gates in the City walls in your day?” I asked Arlyn as we clipped along the main street. Terith at least was enjoying himself, nodding at the other horses that passed. This early in the day, the few carriages were outnumbered by carts and wagons making deliveries. These vehicles were banned from the city center after midmorning. We were looking for Bridge Square, and the hotel recommended to us.

  Arlyn looked sideways at me. “How old do you think I am?” His smile did not reach his eyes. Of course, it rarely did.

  “I think you will tell me when you are ready.” I gave him the same kind of smile back. “When I studied under my mentor, the Lorist Medlyn Tierell —”

  “You never said your mentor was a lorist.” Arlyn’s tone was speculative.

  “Senior Lorist, in fact. His books say that the City walls once had gates, with armed guards.” Medlyn kept these books apart, in his own private library, for safety, though mundanes could not read them, any more than they could see the changes as they traveled the Road.

  “Your earrings just flashed. We must have passed the perimeter.”

  I raised a hand to my ears but let it fall. After so many years, you can forget you are wearing them. The earrings mark a practitioner’s class and position. We are given our first pair the day we are accepted to the White Court, our final pair on the day we graduate. The Court could keep track of us through them, and it’s said that only death will allow them to be removed. When I apprenticed here, observation wasn’t carefully kept, and Medlyn had told me this was still so. Now it was far more likely that off in some dusty old room in the least comfortable tower some slow or careless apprentice deserving of punishment was sitting, attending to the device that told the White Court who had entered the City and when. Hal and I had never been able to prove it, but we believed the reports were rarely if ever read.

  I glanced at Arlyn’s unadorned ears. How had he managed to get them off? Was the loss of his power a kind of death?

  I have been a graduate long enough that I do not have to ask for permission to leave or enter the City, though there are quite a few old stick-in-the-muds who believe I should be required to report in. Technically, I suppose those rules still existed, but they hadn’t been enforced in anyone’s lifetime. Unless . . . I looked sideways at Arlyn again.

  Ginglen Hotel stood exactly where we had been told to look for it, one of a row of three-story houses, facing into the narrow but sunlit Bridge Square, one of the smaller, less fashionable squares, in an area populated more by merchants and professionals, less by the monied and the noble. The hotel had a façade of dressed stone on the ground story, and stuccoed brick on the upper two. Traveling alone, I could have gone to a more fashionable address, or straight to the White Court itself, but Arlyn, while clearly a gentleman from his dress, was more limited in where he would be welcomed—and in what he could pay for. I remember my mother once saying that it was better to be slightly too good for your surroundings than the other way around.

  As we drew up in front of the hotel an hostler’s boy immediately ran out and took charge of Terith an
d the barouche, ready to lead them off around the corner to the mews that no doubt ran behind the houses. Terith gave me a snort and a roll of his eyes, but he knew what it meant to be in the City as well as I did.

  The host was a small man so thin as to be skeletal. He was scrupulously dressed, down to the contrasting buttons on jacket and waistcoat. Even the footman standing at the ready was carefully and neatly fitted out in shirt, waistcoat, breeches, hose, and buckled shoes. The hotel might not be on the best street, but the staff clearly wanted to attract the best clientele they could.

  “I have a two-room suite available for immediate occupancy, Practitioner, or will you be going to the White Court?” The stiffness in his smile equaled that of his posture.

  “We will take the suite, thank you, Dom . . . ?”

  “Ginglen, Practitioner. Owner and host.”

  “Dom Ginglen. I am Practitioner Fenra Lowens and this is my client, Arlyn Albainil.”

  “Albainil? The cabinet maker?” This time the smile seemed more genuine. “Or no, apologies, that would have to have been your grandfather. I have an Albainil piece in my private drawing room. It’s our family’s pride and joy.”

  “I’d love to see it, when time allows.” Arlyn bowed. His grandfather, was it?

  “Of course, of course. In the meantime, Itzen here will take you to your suite. Any luggage?” He would know, of course, that practitioners traveled light.

  “Just two cases in our carriage, if you could have them sent up?” Arlyn said. “Oh, and when it is convenient, I would like to have a message sent, if I may.”

  “Give your message to Itzen, he’ll take it himself. And for now, if you will.” He opened the ledger to another page. “If you would sign here, Practitioner, I will send the bill to the White Court.” Was I imagining it, or did his face stiffen on those last words?

  I drew a leather wallet no thicker than an envelope from my breast pocket. “That won’t be necessary. While he is out on his errands, perhaps Dom Itzen would be kind enough to have this changed for me.” I extracted my last letter of credit from the wallet and handed it over. Smiling, Ginglen passed it to Itzen without looking at it.

  “Two bedrooms?” Arlyn murmured in my ear as we followed the footman up the stairs.

  “More comfortable, don’t you think?” I murmured back. After three weeks on the Road, he had to be as tired of my face as I was of his.

  * * *

  Arlyn

  “What message must you send?” Fenra stabbed her walking stick into the stand provided for it, placed hat and gloves on the nearby table, untied her cravat. As I remembered them, a practitioner’s clothes were always comfortable, but it had been a long time since Fenra had worn so many layers. Like me, she was more used to the gowns and tunics of the outer Mode. My hat joined hers, and I had my jacket off before she had even started on her buttons.

  “I’d like to delay as much as we can,” I said. Fenra carefully hung her jacket in the closet provided for it, and just as carefully left mine where it was. “I’ll tell the advocate of the Red Court I’ve arrived, and ask for an appointment.”

  “You still have the letter?” she asked. She sat down on one of the narrow-legged chairs and stretched her legs out in front of her. At first I thought she was contemplating removing her boots, then I realized she was admiring them. This was a side of her I had never seen.

  I had to pat all my pockets to find the one that held the letter. I almost missed it. It was paper now, not parchment, and it folded more closely than when I first received it. I placed it in Fenra’s outstretched hand.

  “You’ll notice it lacks the White Court letterhead,” I said.

  “Then I agree.” She tapped the folded letter on the leather-topped table. “Our message should be to the advocate of the Red and not the White. Let him—” She flicked the letter open again. “Yes, it’s a him, let him explain things to us.”

  I leaned back against the table, considering whether to take off my own boots. “You can’t come. Simple cabinet makers don’t travel with practitioners, no matter what you told the host.”

  She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, frowning. “That may have been a mistake, though I cannot see what else I could have done if we wanted to stay together.” She looked at me with raised brows. “Can we think of a reason for you to have a practitioner with you?”

  I took the letter from her, tucked it away again. “I’ll hold you in reserve,” I said. “When the advocate tells me what this is about, I can call you in as my advisor. Until then, you’re just a friend who accompanied me to the City, as the only person in the village who’s been here.”

  “It would mean your going alone to the first meeting.”

  “I’m not without my own resources,” I said.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Welcome, Dom Albainil, welcome. I’m Advocate Lossingter, as I’m sure you must realize. Come in, come in. Can I get you a beverage? Jossen! A lemon drink for Dom Albainil. Ice?” he said, finally turning to look me in the eye.

  “Certainly.” I sat down in what was obviously the client’s chair and let the fussy little man—evidently the advocate who’d written the letter—sit down on the other side of a hideously carved and paper-strewn desk. Much the same description could be used for the advocate himself, at least the hideous part. An uglier, more overdressed man I’d never seen. Even his hair wasn’t natural, neither in color nor in abundance.

  “It was very good of you to come so promptly, Dom, very good indeed.” This opening was interrupted by the appearance of the clerk with a tray carrying a beautiful blue glass pitcher, two matching glasses, three lemons, and a bowl of ice. “Was the trip very trying?” He waved away the clerk, preparing the drinks himself.

  “As comfortable as you can be when you’re not at home.” I used the broadest country accent I could, considering where I was supposed to have been living my whole life. Travel to the City wouldn’t entirely remove all signs of a person’s class, profession, or area of origin.

  Lossingter stopped fussing with the lemons, added ice, and handed one of the glasses to me. “All the more reason to thank you for coming so promptly, and to move forward quickly so that you can return home.”

  He’d stopped being so twitchy once he had the lemon drink in his hand—meaning there was something unmentioned either in his drink, or in mine. We saluted each other, raising our glasses to eye level. I put the edge of my glass to my lips, but lowered it, drink untasted. Once I would have known immediately if the drink had been doctored. I began to regret not bringing Fenra with me.

  “Tell me, how much do you know about your late cousin, Xandra Albainil?”

  I rested my lemon drink on the small stand to the left of my chair. The sweating glass would stain the dark wood if something wasn’t done, though I wasn’t offered a coaster. I pressed my lips together, reminding myself I was not at home. “ ‘Cousin’ is a nice loose word, isn’t it?” I said. “I’ve heard the name, of course, but I never knew him personally.” I shrugged. “I don’t know of anyone in the family who did. May I see his testament? Did he name me specifically?”

  “The testament itself is with the Red Court processor.” Lossingter folded his hands on the desk in front of him. His own glass rested on the tray, half empty. “I did read it myself, however, and as I believe I told you in my letter, you are cited by name. Records were consulted. Under the circumstances, the White Court was happy to help with location difficulties, and here you are.” His smile was as full as if he’d done all the work himself.

  “I see. And what do I do now? There are instructions, I suppose? I’ll have to see the testament myself eventually, won’t I?”

  “Oh yes.” This time the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “We’ll give you every assistance, naturally. However—” Here he paused, pulling down his brows and tilting his head to show me how ser
ious he was. “Things are more complicated than you might suppose.”

  No, they’re more complicated than you might suppose. “How? Exactly?”

  “Did you know that your distant kinsman was a practitioner?”

  I trusted that my hesitation was so small as to go unnoticed. “Was he the one, then? I knew there’d been one in the family somewhere. At least, that’s what my father always said.”

  “Your father was quite right. What most people don’t realize is that the testaments of practitioners are handled a little differently from those of ordinary people.”

  I nodded to show I was following.

  “Yes,” he cleared his throat, “in the case of practitioners the White Court is always considered as a party in the testament, whether they are specifically named or not.”

  “Why would that be? Is it like a tax or something?” I did my best to look suspicious, and hard done by.

  “Ah no, no, no. Nothing like that, I assure you. It’s simply that any practitioner will have left scientific artifacts and appliances—machines, theorems—that can’t be used by ordinary people. The White Court reserves to itself the right to take such property and examine, distribute, or even dispose of it as they find necessary. Everything else named in your kinsman’s testament, any monies, real property, jewelry, and so forth, is yours to deal with as specified in the document.” Now he leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, and spoke to me in a more intimate voice. “The fact is, my dear Dom Albainil, the residue of Xandra Albainil’s estate will come to you.” He raised his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. I looked as innocent as possible.

  “Well, that’s all right, then,” I said. “When does this all happen?”

  “I notified the White Court when I got your message yesterday and they will see you in their receiving hall tomorrow, at midmorning.”

  “Tomorrow? So quickly? Did Xandra leave lots of important scientific stuff, then?” My stomach knotted, my mouth dried. I took a tentative sip of my lemon drink.