by Alec Hutson
Keilan glanced at Philias uncertainly as the sound faded away. She rolled her eyes and sighed, crossing her arms. “Take note, Keilan. No matter where you go in the world, those with a little authority—but no real power—are all the same.”
As if summoned by her words, a small man in a white damask tunic stamped with the black eye of Lyr strode inside, his back straight and his chin held high. He surveyed Keilan and Philias with disdain. “You are summoned before the Council of Black and White. Follow me.”
Keilan hurried to stand, but Philias laid a hand on his arm. “Perhaps a simple ‘please’ is in order, Demarchus? The boy was a personal guest of Dymoria’s queen, you know.”
The man’s lip curled. “Quiet, creature. The Crone isn’t here.”
“Oh, she isn’t?” came a familiar voice from behind the man. His face instantly drained of color, and he whirled around, dropping to his knees.
“Lady Numil!”
The old woman stumped inside the chamber, leaning heavily on an ebonwood cane. Behind her came the man in gray, smiling like a cat who had just caught a bird after endless hours of watching it flutter just out of reach.
Keilan thought he saw a few of the pikemen struggling to hold back grins.
When she reached the groveling servant, the old woman rapped him sharply on the shoulder with her cane. “Idiot. Boy, please excuse his rudeness. His master is an old rival of mine, though while his duties to Lyr could be done by a troupe of trained monkeys—such as this fool here—my own require very unique talents. And the council knows that.” Her gaze settled on the half-finished game. “Roped him into playing, Philias? Does he show any skill?”
Philias shrugged. “The boy’s not about to become padarasha, but he has some ability.”
“That’s good,” the old woman said, turning to him. “You swim in dangerous waters, Keilan. Queens and shadowblades and paladins—the sharks will feast on you sooner or later, unless you have a decent head on your shoulders.” She thrust backwards with her cane, spearing the prostrate servant in his side, and he shrieked in pain. “Which Demarchus does not. But he is correct: the summons has come, and the archons are waiting. Let us go.”
Without another word she turned and hobbled from the room, the man in gray falling in behind her. As she passed the man splayed out on the floor, she paused. “Stay like this until the tenth bell and I just might forget that vile name I heard you call me.” Then she leaned in closer. “And you know I’ll be watching, Demarchus. This is my home, and the walls have eyes.”
With a grin, Philias pushed herself from her stool, beckoning for Keilan to follow.
The Crone snapped her fingers and two of the demon-helmed guardsmen turned sharply on their heels. The other pair waited until Keilan and Philias had stepped across the threshold, then moved behind them. Keilan caught a final glimpse of the servant, still on his knees with his head lowered, before one of the guards drew the door closed.
“Come along, boy. No dawdling.”
Keilan found his legs moving faster at the whip-crack of command in the Crone’s voice. She reminded him in many ways of the queen: when she spoke, it was never a request, and he couldn’t imagine what her reaction would be if he failed to respond quickly. He didn’t want to find out.
The shadowy corridors twisted oddly, and the scrape of their footsteps echoed. They passed through no large rooms or galleries, just endless branching corridors lined with iron-banded doors.
“What is this place?” whispered Keilan. His memories of being ushered inside the great doors to this fortress were clouded by the fog of exhaustion, but still he hadn’t thought the building was this large. Much of it must have been hidden underground.
Philias didn’t bother keeping her own voice low. “The lower levels of the archon’s palace. We call it a palace, but really the archons only meet here—they all have their own manses on the Hill or in the Bright. It’s somewhere to put important people they don’t want wandering about that’s at least a bit nicer than the pits.”
“Then it’s a prison?”
“Well, you can consider yourself an honored guest who is not allowed to leave.”
“Certainly sounds like a prison,” Telion said from in front of them.
“Come to think of it, it does.”
After many twists and turns the corridor emptied into a large chamber. Its high ceiling was painted with a series of images of Lyrish daily life: men in white masks presiding over some dispute between two finely-dressed nobles, a boat laden with fish returning to the city’s docks, and a cloth merchant hawking bolts of his wares in a market square. The far wall was dominated by an arched entrance; the space beyond was dark, but Keilan sensed its vastness. Deep within this chamber a pillar of light stabbed down from above—its brightness did not illuminate much else, and the rest of the room remained draped in shadow.
The Crone turned to him. “We’ll leave you now, boy. You must pass beyond and stand within the circle of light. Do not worry overmuch: if you answer the archon’s questions truthfully, I doubt any harm will come to you or your friends. The archons do not have the courage to anger Cein d’Kara.”
Philias gave him a gentle push towards the entrance. “I’ll be watching from the balconies. Don’t try to use any sorcery, or things could get messy.”
Keilan swallowed and stepped into the chamber. He approached the falling light, passing through a forest of dark pillars, blinking as his eyes traveled to the distant ceiling and the circle of blue sky cut out of the soaring dome.
Shapes resolved from the dimness: to his left was a long, curving table of black stone, and on his right its twin, though carved of some strange material so white it gleamed almost nacreous in the semi-darkness. A dozen men sat behind each table, and their murmuring conversations quieted as Keilan moved into the circle of light. Their faces were hidden: the archons behind the black table wore featureless white masks, while those seated at the white table had donned black masks.
Keilan shifted nervously, acutely aware that he was the center of the room’s attention. He felt almost naked, standing in a puddle of light while the archons gazed at him from out of the gloom. A thought came to him as he stood there, clenching and unclenching his sweaty hands—if someone could stand at the lip of the hole cut into the roof, the scene below would resemble an eye: the two tables would shape its outline, and the spot of light he stood in would be the gleaming pupil. He glanced up, narrowing his gaze against the brightness, and noticed there was a second floor to the chamber, well above their heads, a gallery within which moved more dark shapes. Keilan glimpsed two burning embers hovering in the shadows. Philias’s eyes, he supposed. For some reason, knowing she was there gave him a small measure of comfort.
One of the white-masked men rose from behind the black table, and the last lingering whispers died away. “Keilan Ferrisorn,” the man said, his fingers splayed on the gleaming dark stone in front of him. “You come before the Council of Black and White. We welcome you to Lyr.”
“Thank you, my lords,” Keilan stammered, ducking his head respectfully.
Another man stood, this time from the middle of the white table and wearing a black mask. He was slightly stooped, and even before he spoke Keilan knew his voice would quaver with the weight of many years. “Tell us, Keilan, how you came to be outside our gates.”
“I… I… came with a troop of rangers. From Dymoria. We were chasing a paladin of Ama.”
“Why?”
“He had been involved in a plot against the queen. Assassins tried to murder her.”
“And he tried to steal you away,” said the man in the black mask.
“Y-yes,” Keilan stuttered, surprised that they would know this.
“And why did he take you? The Pure are not known to abduct boys. Not unless they are tainted by dark sorcery.”
Keilan cast a quick glance at the gallery above, mee
ting Philias’s burning eyes. She must have already told the archons that he was indeed gifted—nothing could be gained from trying to evade the question. “I am not a trained sorcerer, but I could become one. Or that’s what they told me.”
Whispers rippled the length of the tables. The man in the black mask waved for quiet. “You admit to being a sorcerer. The paladin has already come before us and explained how he was on a holy mission to bring you back to the High Mendicant. By the ancient treaties signed by the elders of our city long ago, we are obligated to give you up to the servants of Menekar.”
Louder mutterings followed this pronouncement. Another archon in a white mask rose. “Old pieces of paper signed at the point of a sword. They have little relevance in this changing world.”
“But if the emperor or the High Mendicant knew we harbored a sorcerer,” the black-masked archon countered, “and had taken him from the Pure, they could use this transgression as a justification for war.”
“You heard what that thief, the Lyrish girl, said—the paladin slipped inside Saltstone in the company of shadowblades. Shadowblades! How could the chosen of Ama consort with those creatures? Perhaps other powers employ the sullied Pure.”
“You saw his armor and his white-metal blade. And he carries an artifact from the hand of Tethys himself!”
“I saw a paladin so uncertain of himself he struggled to admit what he had done without wilting in shame!”
Keilan’s head whirled as he tried to follow this argument. More archons were rising to their feet as the council deteriorated into chaos, but whatever they said was lost in the surging tumult of voices. He wished there was something he could lean against.
Keilan blinked in surprise. From the small gap where the curving tables nearly touched a small girl, perhaps nine or ten years old, was walking calmly towards him. She was dressed in a simple white robe, and her golden hair was coiled in a long plaited braid atop her head. Gradually, the archons noticed her arrival and fell quiet. By the time she stopped a few span from Keilan, the audience chamber was completely silent. She searched his face for a long moment, as if making sure of something. Then she turned back to the council.
“The Lady has seen this boy,” she said, her voice so soft a few of the archons leaned forward to hear her better.
The black-masked archon who had spoken first cleared his throat respectfully. “Priestess, what does the Oracle say?”
“That he and the paladin must come at once to the House of Many Streams. She awaits them with great anticipation.”
A stunned silence followed this pronouncement, broken by the sound of Philias’s laughter echoing down from the gallery above.
During his time in the archon’s palace, a storm had come raging out of the Derravin, transforming Lyr into a city of ghosts. Black clouds writhed in the slate-gray sky, their edges occasionally lit by the flicker of distant lightning, and tendrils of fog slithered like blind serpents through the empty streets, coiling around shuttered merchant stalls and the columns of elaborately carved porticos.
Any residents of the city sheltering inside their houses who happened to glance out their windows would no doubt be surprised by the procession fighting its way through the freezing wind and rain. A troop of the archon’s demon-helmed guardsmen escorting a finely-wrought carriage stamped with the black eye of Lyr was surely not so uncommon a sight, but at the head of the column a young girl sat cross-legged and straight-backed on a litter carried by four tonsured monks in sodden white robes, seemingly unaffected by the lashing rain.
Senacus adjusted the straps of the ill-fitting cuirass that had been given to him—the archons had insisted he don the armor of a Lyrish guardsman when he ventured outside the palace, as having a paladin of Ama marched through the city to see the Oracle could give life to all sorts of rumors. He wished he’d kept the sellsword garb he’d worn while traveling to Dymoria, but he had cast that armor aside soon after fleeing Herath in an attempt to lighten the burden for his horse. The boots they’d pressed on him were at least more suited to sloshing through the streams now running through the streets, and were doing an admirable job of keeping his feet dry, despite the terrible weather.
This district seemed more prosperous than the little of the city Senacus had glimpsed yesterday as he was ushered through the streets to the palace. The buildings here soared several stories and were constructed of some sea-green stone which glistened wetly in the dampness. Many of these manses were crowned by cupolas or towers, and Senacus guessed this was so those within could watch the harbor for the sails of their family’s boats returning to port. Lyr was the hub of a vast merchant empire, its sleek, black-hulled ships famous in every port in the known world. And because their commercial interests were so widespread, Senacus did understand why the archons had been so hesitant to choose between Menekar and Dymoria. Whatever decision they made would be bad for business. He’d been worried about which side the archons would choose, but also curious what they would do. And then, to his great surprise—and apparently the surprise of everyone else—this summons had come.
The Oracle of Lyr. Ancient and mysterious, its prophecies and pronouncements had toppled empires and changed the fates of kingdoms. Even High Mendicants had made the long pilgrimage to its temple to ask for counsel. One of the later books of the Tractate included a tale that Tethys himself had come before the Oracle, though what he had asked and if he had been given an answer were not revealed.
In any of the stories about Lyr’s Oracle, Senacus had never heard of someone being summoned to the temple. Supplicants begged for an audience, and if granted the Oracle would dispense cryptic hints about what it had glimpsed in the future. Sometimes those glimpses were true, sometimes not, and sometimes the Oracle’s words could only be understood after many years.
Senacus lifted the heavy demon-helm from his head, wiping away the water from his eyes. Each of the helmets was fashioned differently, and he had suffered the bad luck of being given one that had strange jutting horns that seemed perfectly shaped to funnel the rain down onto his face. Terrible design in a city where it rained all the time—perhaps that was why none of the other guardsmen had claimed this helm.
He caught a glimpse of the boy up ahead, closer to the front of their procession. His cowl had been drawn up and he was hunched against the storm, but Senacus knew it was him. Even though he wore the relic of Tethys he could feel the sorcery emanating from the child, curdling the very air. The slight figure beside him in a dark hooded cloak must be the girl who had become his companion since that day she had stolen Keilan away from him. Senacus felt a stab of relief seeing her alive and unharmed. He had begged Demian not to kill her when she had surprised them in the corridors of Saltstone, and the shadowblade had apparently kept his word. Or she had slain him instead, but that seemed impossible. Senacus remembered how helpless she had been as she strained against the invisible chains binding her. And there had been someone else in that passageway, a man with the look of a warrior about him, but Senacus couldn’t see him up ahead. Perhaps he’d stayed behind in Herath.
Their procession passed down narrow, twisting streets, the dark stone buildings rising up like canyon walls. Rain hissed upon the slanted tiled roofs and was channeled into the gutters feeding the squat stone goblins crouched upon the eaves. Those leering creatures in turn spat or urinated upon those passing below.
Senacus’s thoughts returned to Keilan. His world had been shattered in the months since the boy had come into his life. First had come the embarrassment of having him stolen away by a Dymorian sorcerer, but that paled when compared to the shame Senacus had felt when he returned to Menekar and the High Seneschal confronted him about his decision to save the life of the same sorcerer beneath the cursed city of Uthmala. He had hoped to absolve himself before Ama by recapturing the boy and bringing him back to be Cleansed, only to discover that his companion on that quest, a man personally chosen by the High Mendicant, was
almost certainly a sorcerer himself.
The thought that the leaders of his faith were being manipulated by powerful sorcerers—or were perhaps even in league with them—had shaken Senacus to his core. How could this be possible?
They emerged onto the city’s docks, a great wooden expanse cluttered with crates and sacks and the skeletons of half-built boats. Skiffs and dhows bobbed in the churning waters beyond the low seawall, tied to long quays. One of these jetties was very different than the rest, a ribbon of black stone that extended far out into the water, quickly vanishing within the curtain of rain. The litter-bearers did not pause for even a moment before they started upon this span, and Senacus noticed the priestess had pressed her palms together in front of her and bowed her head, as if praying.
Keilan and the girl followed soon after, stepping carefully upon the darkly glistening bridge, and then came a detachment of the Lyrish guardsmen. It was very obvious to Senacus that the soldiers had been positioned so that they separated him from the boy—was that because they feared he would snatch Keilan away? As if in answer to this question, the girl suddenly twisted around. Her gaze found him, and her face hardened in anger. He could see the venom in her eyes even from this distance, and he felt a chill that was separate from the cold rain. He glanced away from her, and when he looked back after a few long moments she had gripped Keilan by the arm and leaned in closer to confide something. She hated Senacus, that was clear.