by Ken Scholes
Then, before either of his guests could speak, Frederico’s guards formed up around him in the anteroom just beyond the curtain and they were moving with their emperor, escorting him to his rooms where he could face his demon alone and unashamed.
His shoulders shook as they closed the doors behind him and he let the sob out slowly. Despair and despondency washed him and rather than resisting, he fed them memories of Jazrel. Jazrel fresh from the bath. Jazrel at breakfast on the balcony. He carried himself to his bed, scooping up a bottle of his most potent liqueur. Jazrel beneath him and above him. Taste and need. The tears wracked him and he lost all sense of time. He could not tell when he stopped drinking and started clutching at the silver crescent. Drunkenness pressed him into reluctant sleep and he felt the cold metal pressed up to his wet face as he finally fell away into warm gray.
In the distance, he heard the singing of the frogs.
And then something else. Something so amazing and alarming that he suspected he was already asleep.
A voice: “Who is there,” it asked. “Why are you crying?”
Then sleep further folded Frederico inside himself and carried him into dream.
* * *
Frederico heard music, distant and metallic. It pulled him awake and he went willingly though his head hurt fiercely from tears and drink. His bed was tangled and the sheets were wet from the fever of his melancholia but he’d come through the night and had not harmed himself, nor had he poisoned anyone else with the darkness in his soul. He could not bear another Sasha. Or another Jazrel.
Relief flooded him. Music, he remembered.
A harp, he realized. He stared at the silver crescent and remembered his dreams. A voice. “Hello?”
His voice sounded raspy and afraid. Swallowing the foul taste in his mouth, he spoke again. “Is someone there?”
The music stopped and he suddenly realized that he no longer heard the running water or the frogs. Instead, he heard soft footfalls and then a voice. “Hello?”
It was a girl’s voice; she sounded young. Staring at the crescent, he willed his words to form, his mouth to frame them, but both betrayed him. She spoke again. “Hello? Are you there?” Then, as if by afterthought: “Do you feel better now?”
Frederico felt his eyes narrow. “Who is this?”
When she laughed, it was music much like the harp. “I am Amal Y’Zir,” she said. “Who else would I be? But surely you know that already, Spirit?”
Spirit. “I do not understand you,” he said.
She spoke slower this time. “I am Amal Y’Zir, Spirit, but you should know that.” She snorted. “If not, what manner of ghost are you?”
Frederico felt several things at once. Frustration and confusion fought for predominance. “Where are you?”
Now, she laughed. “I am in my rooms, of course. I’ve been at my music again.”
He paced, now, holding the silver crescent to the side of his head. “You play the harp,” he said.
“Father tells me that all cultured women of a certain intellect master at least one instrument.”
It sounded reasonable to Frederico and he found himself nodding before he realized he was doing so. Then, he shook his head. “Your father sounds very...wise. What is his name?”
More laughter. “You are really not much of a ghost. My father is Raj Y’Zir. Surely you’ve heard of him? He’s very powerful.”
Her laughter was contagious; he suddenly found himself smiling. “Perhaps you’re right; I’m not much of a ghost after all.” Of course, he knew there was no such thing.
Her voice took on a note of concern and lowered in tone. “You’re not going to start crying again, are you?”
“No,” he said.
“Because,” she added, “I really wasn’t sure what to do. You’re my first ghost.” She paused and when he didn’t answer immediately, she continued. “Are the other ghosts as sad as you?”
He opened his mouth to speak and the bell ringing at his door caused him to close it. He thought for a moment, then lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “I’m going to have to go away for a bit,” he told her. “But I will come back as soon as I can.”
“Off with you,” she said, “to your ghostly affairs.” She chuckled again, then added in mock imperiousness: “If I have time, perhaps I will speak to you when next you haunt me.”
Frederico hastened to his bedside and put the silver crescent deep beneath the pillows. Then, he rang for his servants and instructed them that he was taken ill and not to be disturbed until the next morning.
Still, after they’d left him alone, he sat for a long while and stared at the silver crescent. The waters and frogs had soothed him, had become a secret calm for him in distress he could not fully comprehend. The weeping took him more often, it was true, but he’d found scarce comfort in times past. The two wives he’d most delighted in had not been able to live with the knowledge of his sorrow—the sorrow that was his family’s to bear for reasons no record remained to speak of.
But last night, clutching that slice of moon to his ear as he wept, gentled by the frogs and the brook of some distant place, he’d felt better. As if it had known his need and bent towards it. And now, this new development both intoxicated and terrified him. A voice. A girl by the name of Amal Y’Zir...how young, he could not say. Some part of her voice was all the innocence of maidenhood but there was sly intellect—cunning even—beneath the skin of it. He made a note to ask after that House. House Y’Zir; it was not familiar to him.
Could it be as easy as that? And why not? Perhaps this bit of mirrored silver was truly a toy of the Younger Gods, a way to speak across great distance. Some leftover like the hills of their long-ruined cities, or the sighs and groans that leaked out from their tombing caves or those rare lights that swam the deep ocean floors. Their playthings scattered the world. It wasn’t unimaginable.
Perhaps this Y’Zir was some minor noble in the Engmark Republic. Perhaps the toy had lain untouched in some shadowed place near a stream until this Amal Y’Zir had found it, drawn to it by the sound of Frederico’s weeping.
A chain of coincidence? Frederico thought not. For those not of noble birth, coincidences like that were what life was made from. But not for a Czar. Everything ordered and purposed.
Taking a sip of water from the crystal glass on his night table, Frederico reached into the pile of pillows and drew out the silver crescent.
Amal was at her harp again and the tune was the same that had haunted him awake. He could not see her fingers move over the strings but he heard them as a dream filled with passion and woe.
They weep, he thought.
And Frederico smiled.
* * *
Frederico lay in his bed and did not feel the weight of weariness he should have felt for having gone without so much sleep.
For three days, Frederico hid in his rooms beneath the spell of the silver crescent and the girl’s voice within it. He took his meals there, barking for the servants to be quick as he hid the crescent behind his back or beneath the silk sheets of his bed. And when they left, he brought it back to his ear and resumed a conversation days in the making.
For her part, Amal had less freedom than he did and those times that she had to leave at her father’s bidding for one lesson or another, Frederico sat at his desk and wrote out from memory what details he could discern from their conversation. There had not been many, but enough to keep him busy for a few hours here or there. Books with titles he did not recognize. References to places he had never heard of. These were the barbs on a larger hook that held him fast and kept him never more than a few spans away from the bauble that had gone from offering strange comfort to defining something empty within himself that he had not noticed before. And it had done so in such a short amount of time that it frightened him but the fear could not compete with the sense of exhilaration.
He had not wept once in those three days.
Now, he lay upon his back and stared up at the moo
n, waiting for Amal to return. Tonight, he would have to sleep. Tomorrow, despite the strong desire not to, he would return to his work. Still, he would take a few hours with her tonight before giving himself to rest.
Her voice reached him, out of breath. “Are you there, Ghost?"
He chuckled. “I’ve told you; I’m no ghost. I am Frederico.” Then, he chided her gently. “It is more polite to call a person by their name.”
He heard the noise of her thrashing her way into bed. He’d noticed the first two nights she’d done the same and in his mind’s eye, he saw the girl crawling beneath the covers of her faraway bed, kicking and wrestling them into a more comfortable disposition. “But why should I do that,” she said, “when I know of a certainty that you are a ghost?”
There was coquettishness to her voice that played him like a harp. “And what is your certainty of my ghosthood?”
He could hear her smile now around her words. “Because, Frederico, you haunt me so very well.” And now, gone was the innocence and in its place, the voice of a woman. “You haunt me when we speak; you haunt me when I am away. I can not escape your voice, even when you are silent. Today, my father scolded me three times for my inattention to his alchemy lesson. He thinks I’ve fallen in love with one of the Machtvolk boys. He’s quite cross about it and has confined me to my rooms.” She giggled and the girl was back in her voice now.
Frederico noted the unfamiliar word but lost it when the rest of her words registered. He thinks I’ve fallen in love.
“If I am a ghost for these reasons,” he said, “then perhaps you are as well.”
“Oh,” she said, “I can assure you that I am not.”
He smiled. “Then how do you explain my own haunted state?”
“I am Amal Y’Zir, daughter of the Great Blood Wizard, Raj Y’Zir. You are not haunted; you are merely enchanted by my powerful magicks.”
They both laughed and Frederico didn’t bother to tell her this time that there was no such thing as magick.
After, they fell into another conversation that carried them until dawn touched the sky with pink fingers.
* * *
Frederico’s ministers waited around the table for him and he came in late to remind them that he did not operate on the schedules they made for him. He smiled at them and noted their surprise.
The Minister of the Interior spoke first. “Is the Lord Czar feeling better? We’ve been quite alarmed by—”
He started speaking as he sat. “I am quite well, Minister Josefus.” He offered another smile and inclined his head first—a rare honor he now granted.
Blushing, Josefus fumbled with the papers before him then realized he had not returned the nod. He blushed even more and inclined his own head. “Thank you, Lord Czar. I am delighted that you are well.”
Frederico opened the portfolio in front of him and scanned the agenda for their meeting. He glanced to Pyrus and Josefus. “I’d like to meet with you both after we’re finished here this morning.”
They nodded and then the meeting swallowed them all. There was unrest in Espira—accusations of Lunarism that led to violence in the taverns and streets as that region continued to grieve their lost wife. “We believe it will stabilize once you’ve chosen your new wife,” Pyrus said and Josefus nodded in agreement. Frederico smiled at this as well.
The meeting continued beyond the unrest, covering plans to evade increased trade tariffs with Engmark and their other neighbors, intelligence reports of muster fires in the northern tundra region of the Hanh, and an executive session regarding the last action items of the Lunarist Purge and the earliest reports of re-socialization potential among some of the captured cultists.
As the meeting flowed on around him, Frederico found himself engaging as if it were a fencing match. He darted in with a thrust of a sentence here, a parrying question there, steering the meeting to a crisp and quick conclusion.
As the others left, he stood and waited with Pyrus and Josefus. When all but the guards had vanished, he bid them sit.
Frederico sat last. “I have need of your assistance,” he said.
“We are sworn to it, Lord Czar,” Josefus said. Federico glanced to Pyrus. The Minister of Intelligence said nothing but inclined his head ever so slightly.
“I need information on a House Y’Zir and its master, Raj Y’Zir.”
Pyrus cleared his voice. “If I knew more, I could serve better, Lord Czar.”
“I don’t know more. I believe it is in a tropical clime either near or on a sea. Inquire of the Shippers Guild; put the word out to our agencies at home and abroad.” He looked up and locked eyes with each of them for but a moment, giving them his most sober stare. “Spare no expense.”
Josefus opened his mouth to speak but Frederico rang the bell of dismissal and stood. They turned their eyes down and he paused out of respect.
He resisted the sudden urge to thank them and left the room quickly.
I am changing. He felt more confident; found himself doubting less in his own decisions. The fog of the sadness was lifting from him now.
And it came from the slip of a girl who believed he was a ghost.
Until her, he thought, perhaps I was.
* * *
Frederico lay in his bed and stared up at the blue green moon. Over the last month, he’d grown to love these nights and, he thought, perhaps even to love the young woman Amal Y’Zir. .
“It can’t have been much of an empire,” Amal said. “There’s no record of it whatsoever, back to the time of the Younger Gods. And it’s a small world. I’d have known of it.”
Frederico laughed. “It is the greatest empire in the known world—a vast world. My people consider me a god.”
“Considered,” she said, laughing. .
“Considered?" Frederico asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Considered...past tense. You’re a ghost, remember?” She giggled now. “Obviously a mad one.”
“Perhaps,” he said with as much sarcasm as he could muster, “you could cure me with your so-called magick.”
He heard the mock incredulity in her voice. “I’ll have you know, Lord Czar Frederico, that I will indeed cure you once I’ve earned my Alchemy Rankings. And perhaps I’ll even restore you back to life so you can serve me better.”
Frederico chuckled. “I would indeed serve.”
“Aye, you would.”
He rolled onto his side, feeling the warm metal against his cheek. “You know I’m looking for you?”
He heard the sound of her skin moving over cloth. “Silly ghost. You’ll not find me.”
He smiled. “I started some time ago. I’ve got ships to the nine seas now, asking after you at every port.”
Now she laughed. “Nine seas? Don’t be absurd. That would be an impossible amount of water.”
Frederico joined her in laughing. “Said the girl who believes in magick.” Then, he lowered his voice and he heard resolve in it. “I will find you, Amal Y’Zir.”
Her voice took on playful taunting. “And what then would you do with me?”
Frederico pondered this. What would he do? Sail the world to make an offer to her father for her hand? Have Pyrus forge papers and establish her in Espira or—bolder still, extend citizenship to her and provide her an estate openly, risk disappointing the populace? He let playfulness enter his own voice. “I can describe several of the things I would do with you, Lady Y’Zir, if you wish it.”
But the softness of her moans told him she’d already started imagining those things herself.
Smiling, he joined her.
* * *
Frederico pointed to the corner of his bed chamber and watched the servants as they put the harp in place beside its ornate stool. It had been his grandmother’s though she’d never played it. He remembered that it decorated her rooms and towered above him; it seemed much smaller now.
The Palace Steward waited by the door. “Is everything satisfactory, Lord Czar?”
Frederico smiled. “It
is, Felip. Thank you.”
A momentary cloud crossed the steward’s face and he looked away. “I am pleased to serve, Lord Czar.”
Frederico studied the man. He withholds something but does not wish to. He waited until the servants left, then as the steward turned, he called to him. “Hold, Felip. Come in and close the door.”
Paling, the steward did so and when Frederico pointed towards an armchair near the unlit fireplace, he smoothed his saffron robes and sat carefully. Frederico joined him.
“Something disturbs you, Felip. I’d know what it is.”
Dots of sweat appeared above the man’s upper lip and upon his brow. “It would not be proper, Lord Czar, for me to—”
Frederico chuckled and leaned forward. “It is proper if your Czar asks it of you.”
Felip took a deep breath. “There are whisperings, Lord Czar, that you are profoundly unwell.”
Frederico smiled. “Do I seem unwell to you?”
The steward shook his head. “You seem...happy. The servants comment that they’ve not seen or heard the weeping in a goodly while.”
Frederico sat back in the chair. “I am happy, Felip. What else have you heard?”
The old man shifted in his seat, his eyes darting to the left and right. “That Jazrel wasn’t truly assassinated by Lunarists but a suicide. That she spent a night with you during your weeping not long before. That you can be heard speaking in your rooms when no one is present, sometimes late into the night.” Now, with his tongue suddenly loosened, his words came faster, almost jumbled together. “Some say you’ve driven yourself mad with grief and guilt over Jazrel, falling into some kind of grinning mania. Some say you speak into a silver mirror. Some say you are speaking with the moon.”
Frederico felt the teeth of Felip’s first words as they chewed their truth into him, then the last caught his attention. and he looked up. How I respond is important here, he thought.
“The staff will always talk,” Frederico said as casually as he could. Then, he chuckled. “You can certainly assure them that I am not speaking with the moon, nor am I mad. I know their words trouble you, but don’t let them—it means nothing. Still, I would have you keep your ears open and bring any other tidbits of gossip my way that you hear.” He leaned even further forward. “And do discourage the staff from that Lunarist nonsense.”