by Ken Scholes
“But why me?” Rudolfo asked.
Vlad Li Tam shrugged. “Why not you?” The old man tossed a book into the fire, and Rudolfo watched the flames consume it. Whose lives were those? What deeds had been done, there on those pages? How had that river been moved and at what price?
It was a Whymer Maze that Rudolfo wasn’t certain he could navigate. And each question only drove him in deeper. “And what is your forty-second daughter’s role in this?”
Vlad Li Tam’s face became a mix of sadness and pride. “She’s my best and brightest, an arrow that I’ve sharpened since the day she was born.” His voice sounded paternal. “She was made for this time, just as you have been.”
One last question called him deeper into the maze. “What of Sethbert? Was Windwir part of your work?”
Vlad Li Tam’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I snuff out the light in order to save it? Sethbert’s actions are Sethbert’s responsibility.”
But Rudolfo heard no answer in his reply, and saw the care with which the old man avoided the question. And there was anger in his tone… maybe even fear. He knows more than he tells me.
“If I am your so-called Shepherd of the Light, perhaps you should be more forthright in your answers,” Rudolfo finally said.
But Vlad Li Tam said nothing. Instead, he dropped another book into the fire.
They stood by the fire and said nothing for a time. Vlad Li Tam continued methodically tossing in books, and Rudolfo watched secret history upon secret history go up in flames. All of the work of House Li Tam over the centuries, first under the guise of shipbuilders and later as the greatest bank the Named Lands had known.
Finally, Vlad Li Tam reached the last book. The Book of Rudolfo, Shepherd of the Light. He held the book gently in his hands. “You don’t ha‹€don?ve any children, do you, Rudolfo?”
“You know I do not.”
Vlad Li Tam nodded, slowly, staring into the flames. “Our friends in Windwir could’ve helped you with that,” he said.
Could they have? Perhaps, but he doubted it. Rudolfo shook his head. “Androfrancine magicks are often greatly exaggerated.”
“Nonetheless,” Vlad Li Tam said. Then his voice went quiet. “I have had many children.” His eyes shifted from the fire and met Rudolfo’s. “I’ve given sixteen of them to make you the man you are. Seventeen if you count the daughter who denounces me because of her love for you.” He looked away. “If you had children,” he said, “you would appreciate how seriously I take my appointed work in this world.”
Rudolfo nodded, his fingers slipping to the hilt of his scout knife. “I do not have children,” he said. “But if I did, I should not treat them as game pieces.”
He would have drawn his knife then and killed Tam where he stood, but something stopped him. Something he’d seen a long time ago when he was a boy standing with a very different man by a very different fire. He’d seen it there by his brother Isaak’s pyre where he stood with his parents. He saw it now here with Vlad Li Tam.
It was a tear running down the line of a grieving father’s face.
Rudolfo watched that tear, his fingers caressing the hilt of the knife. Each question had taken him in deeper, and now, at the heart of this labyrinth, he found himself uncertain of what to do next. And that uncertainty revealed another discovery-that somehow, not being sure-footed was more alarming to Rudolfo than the idea that this old man before him had cut this Whymer Maze into his soul with a physician’s salted knife, changing the course of his life by carving away pieces of it at key moments. How far had it gone? A twin, older by mere minutes, dies in childhood of a treatable disease and the youngest becomes heir. Two strong and loving parents are murdered, thrusting that young child into leadership at a fragile age. At a place of intersecting alliances, a close friend-a last anchor to innocence long lost-is murdered, and a strong partnership of marriage becomes rooted in the fertile soil of grief comforted, and blossoms into something like love.
Inquiry had led him into the center of this maze, and from this place, Rudolfo could see clearly now that he could drink an ocean of questions, and find himself adrift in doubt and thirsting for yet more answers.
Vlad Li Tam did not meet his stare. He raised that last book up over the fire, and Rudolfo turned away.
He did not want to see this grieving father burn the book Rudolfo’s l‹€olfoRife had written. “If I see you again, Lord Tam,” he said over his shoulder in a tired voice, “I will not hesitate to kill you.”
As he mounted his horse, he did not look back.
Behind him, Rudolfo heard the book land in the fire and heard the hiss and crackle as it ate the pages of his life.
Petronus
Petronus looked at the storm of paper that had gathered over the surface of his desk and sighed. Through the open window behind him, a warm breeze carried the smells of the town mingled with the scent of flowers blossoming in Rudolfo’s gardens.
He rubbed his temples. His eyes ached from the steady march of cramped script he’d read over the last few months, and in the past week the headaches had started up. His hand hurt, too, and he’d even sent Neb to the River Woman for salts to soak it in. The amount of paper was daunting even when he’d first arrived here, but it had increased steadily from that point and so had the hours he’d needed to put in if he was to untangle the knots and tie off the loose ends before the council. It was dark when he entered his office and started each day, and it was dark when he left.
Today would be no different.
He heard Isaak’s approach beyond the partially closed door-the clicking and clanking of his gears and motor, the heavy footfalls and the slight hiss of escaping steam preceding the metal man’s tinny voice. He poked his head into the room. “Father?”
“Hello, Isaak,” Petronus said. “Come in.”
Isaak walked into the room. In one hand he held the cage containing the golden bird that Petronus had asked him to investigate, and in his other he carried a small stack of paper.
“I’ve finished my work with the mechanical bird,” Isaak said. He placed the golden bird on the corner of the desk, and Petronus noted that he set it in exactly the place he had picked it up two or three weeks earlier.
Petronus stared at it. Isaak had wanted to repair it, but Petronus had not wanted to take that step until they knew more about it. The bird lay in the bottom of its cage, its head twitching and its one good eye rolling loosely in its socket. One of its charred wings still lay bent and sparking, and its metal talons opened and closed mechanically. He forced his gaze back to Isaak. “Did you learn anything?”
Isaak’s eye shutters flashed. “Its memory and behavior scrolls were significantly damaged by fire. Any more recent instructions are beyond retrieval, but it is indeed the property of House Li Tam. I found an inscription from Pope Intellect VII, gifting it to Xhei Li Tam.”
Surprised, Petronus looked from Isaak to the bird. Intellect had been Pope centuries before the Order had begun its research in Old World mechanicals. “It’s not Androfrancine work, then?”
“No, Father. It is a restoration, not a reproduction.”
Petronus chose his next words carefully; Xhum Y’Zir’s spell was a sensitive subject for the metal man. “Is the damage consistent with the… events… at Windwir?”
Isaak’s eyes darkened, first one and then the other. He turned away. “Yes, Father.” A gout of steam whistled, and his mouth flap opened and closed. Petronus had learned early on how to read these behaviors. Isaak was troubled. Finally, the metal man spoke again. “I do not understand it, though. It is certainly of durable design, and it was significantly damaged.”
Petronus nodded. “Yes.”
Isaak’s voice lowered. “The other mechoservitors and I were on the ground in the midst of the Desolation. Why weren’t we damaged?”
The old man shrugged. “Your leg was damaged.”
Isaak shook his head. “Sethbert’s Delta Scouts damaged my leg. The spell itself did not damage me or the others of
my kind. I do not understand this.”
Petronus felt his eyebrows raise. He hadn’t realized the injury was not a result of the spell, and he wondered why he’d not thought about this sooner. There were fourteen mechoservitors in total, and all but Isaak were in the library when Windwir fell. He’d seen the blackened wreckage, the ruined remains of the few Androfrancine artifacts the gravediggers had collected in the wagons. Very little of it would be salvageable. And yet the metal men had emerged unscathed for the most part. “I do not understand it either.”
Isaak placed the stack of paper on the one remaining bare surface of Petronus’s desk. “That brings me to the other matter you asked me to investigate, Father.”
Petronus rubbed his temples and tried to remember. His head felt full and he could feel the ache behind his eyes. “Which matter?”
“I have reinventoried the Order’s holdings regarding magicks and mechanicals adaptable for military use. My process and findings are in this report.”
More paper. Petronus looked at it but did not pick it up. “Can you summarize your findings for me?”
Isaak nodded. “Certainly, Father. In short, there are none remaining.”
Now Petronus reached for the report and scanned the first page. “None?”
“No, Father. Though it should not be a surprise. Brother Charles was very careful to remove the most sensitive knowledge from his mechoservitors.”
Petronus sighed. That part of the light was now lost, but perhaps that was a buried blessing in all of this. If it weren’t gone, they would have been forced to make hard choices. After seeing what the worst of that war-making magick could do, he could not bring himself to grieve the loss of that darker light. His stomach sunk, suddenly, and his head snapped up. He fixed Isaak with a hard stare. “What about the Seven Cacophonic Deaths? What has become of it?”
He’d expected a reaction, but when it played out before his eyes, Petronus jerked backward in his chair. Isaak’s entire body started shaking, his jeweled eyes rolling as his mouth flap whistled. His long metal fingers opened and closed, and his helmetlike head rolled on his slender neck. A low whine grew in pitch, and a gout of steam shot from his exhaust grate. Water leaked from his eyes and mouth. His chest bellows pumped furiously. “Father, do not ask me-”
Petronus felt a desperation edge into his voice, lending it an angry tone. “Under Holy Unction, Isaak, I compel you: What has become of the Cacophonic Deaths?”
Suddenly, Isaak stopped shaking and his shoulders went slack. When he spoke, his voice was flat and reedy, as if far way. “That portion of my memory scroll was damaged in the casting of the spell, Father.”
Petronus leaned forward, his voice more calm. “Damaged beyond any possible recovery?”
Isaak nodded. “Yes, Father.”
Petronus nodded, relief flooding him. Still, it broke his heart to bring it up. Over the months he’d worked with Isaak, he saw more and more how that deep wound within shaped the metal man’s soul. “I’m sorry to be so forceful, Isaak. But some things should never have come back from the Churning Wastes. Some parts of the so-called light should stay in darkness.”
Isaak looked away and said nothing. Petronus couldn’t tell if the metal man looked relieved, troubled or both. He decided to change the subject. “So has there been any further news on Lord Rudolfo?”
Isaak shook his head. “No, Father. Lady Tam has heard nothing. First Captain Aedric and the Gypsy Scouts have sent birds back-they’ve made inquiries along the coastline, but have no news as of yet.”
Petronus nodded. The Gypsy King surprised him, abruptly vanishing after Sethbert’s capture. Rudolfo was a wily one, but like his father, his sense of duty anchored him. When he concluded with whatever private matter he attended to, Rudolfo would be back to finish the work he’d started here, because like Petronus, he would do what he was made for. “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” Petronus said.
“Yes, Father.” Isaak turned to the door. “If that is all, I have a meeting with the bookbinders to discuss logistics.”
Petronus forced a smile. “Thank you, Isaak.”
The metal man left, and Petronus relaxed in his chair. Outside he heard a child laughing, and for the briefest moment his nose filled with the smell of salt water and freshly caught fish as the laughter evoked unexpected memory. His feet could nearly feel the warm wood of the boat docks slapping at them as he raced a young Vlad Li Tam for his father’s waiting boat.
The sudden image of his friend as a boy flooded Petronus with sadness. Beneath that sadness, he knew, lived a terrible wrath toward someone he once loved as a brother.
“I was made for this,” Vlad Li Tam had told him long ago when Petronus had asked him if he ever wondered what his life would’ve been if he weren’t Lord Tam of House Li Tam. Afterward, they’d gone fishing together for the last time, and it had almost touched the magic of earlier days, before destiny had found and chained them.
I should go fishing, he thought. Surely one of the servants or Gypsy Scouts could point him toward rod and tackle. The river that cut through town was not very wide, but he’d seen deep patches of green beneath the shade of the trees that lined its edge, and he knew that trout rose in it, their brown backs rippling the water as they fed.
But in the end, Petronus stayed at his desk and worked until his eyes blurred and his hand ached, unshackling himself from the desk long after the sound of frogs filled the forest-scented night beyond his window.
“What I was made for,” he said quietly to that dark.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam awoke in the middle of the night to commotion in the halls, and crept to the spyhole in her suite’s sitting room to look out over the stairwells and landings of the seventh manor. She saw servants and scouts rushing about as quietly as they could up and down the stairs, in and out of the doors.
She’d slept lightly these last two weeks, apprehension growing inside of her. It was unlike Rudolfo to simply vanish without a word. He’d turned Sethbert over to his Physicians of Penitent Torture, then ridden off without escort and without letting anyone know where he went or why.‹€or why.‹
One of the Gypsy Scouts had brought word back of Sethbert’s capture, and she’d practically interrogated him. The Overseer had surrendered personally to Rudolfo.
Sethbert said something to him. But what? Something about Windwir? Something about the motive for his terrible crime?
Whatever it was, Rudolfo had left without a word and without the Gypsy Scouts whose sworn duty was to protect their king at all times and all costs.
And now, she surmised, he had returned. She slipped into a light silk robe and went to the door that led to the bathing room. She could hear movement in the suites beyond her. Low voices whispered hurried instructions as his room was readied.
He must have caught them unawares. She chuckled. He’d probably used one of the many concealed halls, and now they were scrambling to dress out his room, despite the fact they had done so each and every morning in expectation of his return. Of course, he would’ve never asked for such a thing. But they knew their king.
The commotion quickly dissipated, and after a few minutes of silence, she heard soft footfalls in the hall. They fell in a measured stride she’d grown to anticipate over the months, and she listened as Rudolfo paused by her door before continuing on down the hall. She heard a door open and close, and she waited another ten minutes.
Quietly, she slipped through the bathing room and into Rudolfo’s bedchamber. He wasn’t there.
Jin Li Tam moved from room to room, not finding Rudolfo in the den or the sitting room. She went to the main door of his suite and opened it onto the wide hallway that encompassed the row of children’s rooms and the main entrance to her own suite.
Of course, she realized. She walked to the door of that first room, the one that had belonged to his brother. She raised her hand to knock and then lowered it. Gently, she turned the knob and pushed the door open.
Rudolfo sat on the
small bed. He was wearing nondescript clothing, his curly hair framing his face. He looked younger without the green turban of his office, despite the salt and pepper of his beard. He was holding the small sword in his hands, and he looked up at her.
I will not ask him where he’s been. “I’m glad you’re home.”
His eyes met hers for a split second and then darted away. They had been angry eyes, she saw, and he had not wanted her to see them. “I am glad to be home.”
I will not ask him where he’s been.
But he started talking as if she had asked him. “I’ve been to the Emerald Coasts to speak with your father,” Rudolfo said. “I’ve had a lot of time on the way back to think about what I would say to you, the questions I would ask.”
More than the words, the very tone of his voice struck her like a fist. It was flat and distant, almost devoid of emotion. She’d heard it before, but only during the worst of his grieving over Gregoric. And those times, it was not so calculated.
He knows now. Some part of her had hoped she was wrong about her father. Some part of her that surprised her, that had never existed before meeting this man.
Before, she would have left no room for flights of fancy. But now she realized how desperately she’d hoped she’d been wrong about what her father had done to Rudolfo to make him the man he was.
She didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry.”
“How long have you known?”
She stepped into the room and pushed the door closed. “I’ve pieced it together since I’ve come here.”
Rudolfo nodded and stroked his beard, his eyes again meeting hers. “And would you have ever told me?”
She shook her head. “I would not.”
“Did you know that your father is leaving the Named Lands?”
“I wondered when I saw his library arrive,” she said. “I am no longer in communication with my father.”
Rudolfo looked away again. “They are loading the iron armada with livestock and goods. There is another library-a secret library-and your father has burned all of its books.” He looked back to her and his eyes narrowed. “You should know that I have vowed to kill him if I see him again.”