The Floodgate зкик-2

by Элейн Каннингем

  Matteo nodded. Elves were rare in Halruaa, where being non-human was virtually synonymous with being sub-human. A few people of mixed race became wizards, and a few elfblooded wizards had risen to the Council of Elders. The most common profession for half-elf women, however, was that of courtesan. If the soldiers serving Kiva approached her in this manner, how much bolder were the wizards with whom she dealt? He did not like Kiva's assumptions about him, but he understood the path her thoughts must have taken. The jordaini were forbidden to marry, and he'd never heard of one siring a child, but he suspected that course, had he followed it, would indeed have destroyed him.

  "Why couldn't Kiva kill me outright? What 'alarm' would this set off?"

  Iago set to work with a hoof pick. "What do you know of the Cabal?"

  Matteo let out a bark of startled laughter. "Strange context Iago. Are you suggesting that a secret conspiracy has been formed to ensure my safety?"

  The small jordain's face closed. Matteo instantly regretted his sarcasm. "Your pardon, Iago. If there is something I should know, please tell me."

  The jordain shrugged. "It's not uncommon for a jordaini student to pursue a personal obsession. With Andris, it was the Kilmaruu Paradox. Mine was the legend of the Cabal. Some of the stories seemed to sing in tune with what Jinkor implied, that's all. It is nothing." His tone left no doubt that the matter was closed.

  "Kiva's plan lacks logic," Matteo said, returning to the previous matter. "Had I followed the path she anticipated, it would have been obvious that I had not undergone the ritual. The college records would confirm this. I would not be held blameless, but since I did not know the nature of this rite until today, neither would my actions be deliberate treason."

  "The college records would not confirm it," Iago countered. "Nor would the records support your innocence. Jinkor told me that a peasant man, one close enough to you in age and build to pass as your double, rode into the college on your horse. This man wrote your mark on the records, and submitted to the ritual. The attending priest never knew the difference. Nor, I suspect, do the jordaini masters. Obviously, I was the first person in whom Jinkor confided."

  Matteo rose slowly to his feet, his hands clenched into fists. It was bad enough that a jordain should submit to such a thing! The peasant who'd taken his place had no part in Halruaa's laws of magic and power! "Do you know what became of this man?"

  "No, but if you value his life, you should not seek him out," Iago pointed out. "On the other hand, if you value yours, perhaps you should. There would be an inquiry if he died while answering questions, and perhaps the spell could be traced back to the spellcaster."

  "Are you suggesting that some might suspect me of arranging this travesty?"

  "You were released from prison with ample time to ride back to the college, yet you came a day late. Another man rides in on your horse just in time. At whom, logically, will the fingers point?"

  "Kiva, of course."

  "Therein lies the problem," Iago said grimly. "Kiva is nowhere to be found. If a magehound examined you, he might find you innocent, and he might not."

  "That's absurd!"

  "Is it? Now that you know the nature of the purification ritual, would you return to the Jordaini College and willingly submit to it?"

  “Would you?" Matteo countered.

  Iago smiled thinly. "There you have it. A magehound's magic would discover your rejection of jordaini rule. Guilt or innocence is often a matter of tone. The details are like pieces in a strategy game-they can be used by either side, to very different result."

  Matteo could not dispute this. "Does anyone else in the college know of this?"

  "I don't intend to tell anyone, if that's your concern. Just…be careful."

  Matteo placed a hand on the jordain's shoulder. "Thank you for telling me this. You are a good friend."

  "Just get me out of this stable and onto a horse's back, and we'll call the debt paid," Iago said with a faint smile.

  The stable lights flickered on, responding to the approach of twilight. "Lord Procopio will be in shortly," Matteo said. "We'll speak again as soon as I've news."

  He hurried to the wizard's tower. Procopio received him at once with a grave face and without the formulaic courtesies demanded by Halruaan protocol. He ushered Matteo into his study and shut the door firmly behind him.

  "You're not going to like this," he said bluntly. "I've no idea what to make of it."

  Matteo swallowed hard. Never had he heard Procopio make so bald an admission-the wizard prided himself in reading all things clearly. "Go on."

  The wizard's hawk-black eyes bore into Matteo's. "The ice building where you and the girl were attacked is owned by Ferris Grail, headmaster of the Jordaini College."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Matteo hurried to the queen's palace, his mind a whirl of confusion and anger. He had no reason to doubt Procopio. He fervently wished he did.

  His belief in the jordaini order had long been eroding. Now it was crumbling under him. Zephyr had been turned by Kiva. Matteo had tried not to dwell overmuch on Andris's disappearance, but as time passed and Andris did not surface, Matteo had to face the very real possibility that his friend had turned traitor. The possibility-he would not accept it as truth unless he saw Andris at Kiva's side. Was it also possible that the headmaster of the Jordaini College might have employed thugs to silence a jordain's search for truth?

  He strode toward the heavy doors that separated Beatrix's court from the rest of the palace, determined to receive the queen's permission to leave the city. If she did not grant it, he would do as Tzigone had advised and leave anyway.

  Several men and two women, all of them carrying crafters' tools, waited by the outer door while the sentry loosed the magical wards. Judging from the clatter and bustle within Beatrix's rooms, the sentry had been kept busy with the various comings and goings. There were three doors, all of them carefully locked and warded.

  Again Matteo recalled a jordaini proverb:

  Precaution is the grandchild of disaster. Such careful measures would not be taken to isolate the queen's workshop from the rest of the palace unless the need was real and proven. However, King Zalathorm had dismissed the rumors about Matteo's predecessor, and Matteo could not believe the king had lied.

  He fell in with the laborers and nodded to the harried sentry as he passed. The man, recognizing Matteo, raised his fingertips to his forehead in a salute, then rolled his eyes to express his opinion of the goings-on. Matteo nodded in heartfelt agreement.

  Inside the queen's workshop, chaos reigned. A smith's forge had been set up in a massive hearth. Hammers clattered as they beat metal into thin, smooth sheets. Metalworkers bent over a long table, shaping heated metal with tiny tools and painstaking care. Stout, hairy-footed halflings from nearby Luiren perched on stools and fitted tiny gears, their clever small hands darting with practiced ease. Off to one side of the room, a trio of artificers argued over a mechanical behir, a twenty-foot crocodilian with twice the number of legs nature usually allotted. As the debate grew more heated, one of the men kicked at the metal beast in frustration, harder than he might have had he not been so distracted by the argument. The ensuing clang rang out loud and long. He howled and limped around in a small circle as his comrades hooted with mirth.

  Matteo looked around in growing bewilderment. At least two hundred workers toiled in the vast chamber, and he glimpsed more in the rooms beyond. The results of their labor-clockwork creatures of every size and description-ringed the room like sentinels. They were propped against walls, heaped in piles, stacked on shelves, suspended from the ceiling beams. These mechanical marvels ranged from a life-sized elephant to metallic hawks to monstrous beasts, including fanciful constructs for which there were no living counterparts. Metal renditions of creatures Matteo had never seen and could never begin to imagine stood ready for some unfathomable command.

  Matteo went in search of the queen. He found Beatrix in a windowless room lit by a low-hanging
chandelier ablaze with candles. The queen stood alone, studying a hideous metal creature with thin, batlike wings and a pointed snout filled with steel fangs. It looked vaguely reptilian but for the bristling mane that ran the length of its spine. Each hair was a metal filament, fine as silken thread.

  "It is wondrous, my queen," he said softly, not wishing to startle the woman.

  She did not start or turn toward him. "It is a darken-beast," she said in her flat, toneless voice. "The wizards of Thay fashion them from bits of dead flesh."

  Matteo wasn't sure how to respond to this odd pronouncement "You use steel. This is a better way, Your Majesty."

  Beatrix tipped her head negligently. Her elaborate white and silver wig sparkled in the light of the candles. "Flesh or steel. It matters not. They will both be plentiful on the battlefield."

  She spoke with a certainty that chilled him. "Battlefield?"

  When the queen did not answer, he took her by the forearms and turned her to face him. He captured her vacant stare and gazed intensely into her kohl-rimmed eyes.

  "I hear the future in your voice. Diviners reading auguries in the flight of birds speak with less certainty. What battlefield?"

  A flicker of life crept into Beatrix's brown orbs. "I do not know," she whispered. "War is coming. War goes wherever it wills."

  Matteo did not dismiss her claim. The queen showed little interest in the world around her, but perhaps she heard things, sensed things others did not. At the moment, she seemed almost lucid.

  "I must leave the city and learn more of this coming conflict."

  She considered him for a long moment, as if weighing whether or not he might be able to do what he offered. Before she could speak, a loud shriek rose above the clamor in the main room. A fierce clatter followed, then a chorus of screams and a panicked rush for the door.

  "By your leave," Matteo said hastily. Though protocol demanded it, he did not await the queen's dismissal. He whirled, drew his weapons, and ran into the main room.

  The laborers were pushing toward the exits, trampling anyone who stumbled. One of the halflings lay battered and unmoving. Most of the clockwork creatures stood silent. A few paced unsteadily about, abandoned to their toddling first efforts by their panicked creators.

  Matteo heard a metallic creak above him. He glanced up, then dived to one side.

  A nightmare creature leaped to the floor from a pile of crates, landing with catlike grace despite the resounding clash of its impact. Its body resembled a suit of plate armor such as a northern warrior might wear. The creature held no weapons and needed none. Each of its four fingers ended in a curving steel talon. Long spikes covered its metal body, and its head suggested the unlikely offspring of an ogre and a shark. A piggish snout bristling with small spikes rose at the end of long, fang-filled jaws. The fangs were even more peculiar-sharp triangles that fit neatly and tightly, like the teeth of a giant piranha.

  The clockwork knight snatched a dazed and moaning woman from the floor. It jerked her in close and crushed her to its spiked chest in a deadly embrace. The woman's shriek of agony ended abruptly, and the clockwork monster peeled her corpse away.

  There had been no time for Matteo to intervene. He thrust aside a numbing wave of horror and guilt and forced himself to take stock of the battlefield. One thing was immediately apparent: His daggers would be of little use against this foe.

  No better weapon lay near at hand. Remembering Tzigone's quick thinking in the icehouse, he glanced up.

  A gigantic metal seabird hung from the ceiling, suspended by a pair of thick ropes connected to the tip of each massive wing. The trick Andris had played not long ago lent him inspiration.

  Matteo mentally measured the distance from the floor to the avian construct, then noted the angle of the sun streaming through a window high on the walls. He seized the metal fist of an iron centaur and clenched its jointed fingers around one of his daggers. The highly polished metal of the weapon caught the sunlight and reflected it precisely toward one of the ropes.

  Now, to stay alive long enough to let the sun do its work!

  Matteo lifted his remaining dagger and lunged at the clockwork monster. He struck a ringing, futile blow and then leaped away. The construct dropped the dead woman and swiped at its new foe.

  Matteo was gone, running lightly around behind the creature. He kicked its metal backside hard enough to leave a dent. The monster made a ponderous turn and began to stalk Matteo with a slow, heavy tread.

  The jordain kept it moving, staying just beyond the reach of the construct's talons and the increasingly frenzied snapping of its piranhalike jaws. All the while, he watched the smoking, fraying rope high above. When the moment was right, he moved into position. Feigning a stumble, he dropped to one knee.

  The clockwork beast lumbered in, its hands flexing in anticipation.

  The rope snapped overhead, and the giant seabird creaked into motion. The monster's head snapped back, and its glowing red eyes flared suddenly at the sight of the massive wind slashing down toward it.

  Matteo dropped flat and rolled aside. The metal bird swung like a pendulum, slamming into the clockwork creature and carrying it along. The enjoined machines crashed heavily into a stack of metal orcs. These came clattering down, rolling like logs off a badly stacked pile of lumber, burying the spiked metal warrior in a steel cairn. The seabird swung free of the mess. Its metal wingtip scraped the ground with a grating screech.

  Matteo rose. Before he could take a relieved breath, the pile of metal orcs began to buckle and heave. The spiked warrior fought free and barreled toward Matteo like a gigantic hedgehog berserker.

  The jordain looked about for a weapon or an escape. He noted a rope tied nearby to a metal ring on the floor, and his swift gaze followed it up to a metal pulley, then to the indescribable winged creature suspended from the other end of the rope. He seized the secured rope and began to climb it frantically. The clockwork monster leaped at him.

  Matteo swung out as far as he could, trying to move beyond the reach of those deadly teeth. The metal jaws clashed shut-not on Matteo's legs but on the rope.

  It snapped beneath him, and the winged creature tied to the other end began to plummet to the floor. As it fell, Matteo sailed up toward the ceiling. The bird-thing fell squarely on the clockwork warrior and buried it beneath a pile of crumbling metal.

  Matteo clung to the rope until he was certain that the battle was over. He swung back and forth until he could reach the longer part of the rope. Wrapping his arms and legs around the main line, he tied his end securely to it, then slid down to the metal pile and climbed off to survey the damage.

  Sheets of the monster's plate armor had broken loose and skidded across the floor. Gears rolled like spilled coins. Pinned beneath an enormous wing, the remains of the clockwork monster twitched like a hound beset by nightmares. Little sizzles and faint grinding noises came from its metallic innards, growing reassuringly fainter. The light in its glowing crimson eyes faded and, finally, flickered out.

  Matteo scanned the room. No other clockwork devices stood ready to pick up the banner. A few people huddled at the far wall. He bade them tend the wounded and went to check on the queen. After an hour's search, he found her-not in the candlelit antechamber but in a secure room much deeper into the palace.

  Beatrix was seated on a tapestry-covered settee, studying a drawing of yet another clockwork creature and busily employing a stylus.

  "The problem is here," she murmured, making several tiny marks on the drawing. "The crystals inside distort the spell of activation. Magnetic stone would serve better, perhaps absorb the energy of the life-spell. Yes, we shall try that. Yes."

  Matteo spun on his heel and stalked out, his own task still untended. He could not stay in the queen's presence another moment without letting his anger flow in a treasonous torrent. His oath to the queen still stood, but his sympathy for the woman was sorely shaken. How could anyone, however troubled, treat the results of her deeds with such blit
he disregard?

  He found the queen's steward standing at the doorway to the workroom, staring with bulging eyes at the mess.

  "See to this," Matteo snapped. "I am leaving the city with tomorrow's dawn. The queen did not withhold her permission. I take that as assent."

  The steward simply nodded, too overwhelmed by this disaster to pay much heed to the angry jordain. Matteo brushed past him and stormed into the king's council hall, shaking off the restraining hands of the heralds at the door. He strode directly to the throne and dropped to one knee before the king. He did not, however, lower his challenging and furious gaze.

  Zalathorm raised a hand to warn off the guards, then directed a silent command at his seneschal. The man promptly began to herd courtiers from the room. The king and the counselor locked stares until the doors firmly shut behind the last man.

  "Well?" Zalathorm inquired. The single word echoed ominously through the empty hall.

  Matteo took a steadying breath. "Not long ago, you asked me if my ultimate loyalty is to Halruaa or to my patron. I had hoped that this dilemma would never arise. I deeply regret to inform you that one of Queen Beatrix's clockwork creatures has killed a craftswoman."

  "That's impossible," the king said flatly.

  "I was there. I saw it happen."

  Zalathorm's hands gripped the arms of his throne until the knuckles turned white. "You would contradict your king?"

  "My king was not there. I was."

  The diviner nodded somberly. "Very well, jordain. Rise and tell me what you saw."

  Matteo described the spiked warrior, and the other dangerous beasts that Beatrix had constructed. Zalathorm listened without comment until the jordain was finished. Abruptly he rose from his throne and strode toward the queen's palace.

  They walked in silence down the long corridor that led to the queen's workshop. Matteo entered, and then stopped short.

  The room was almost empty.

  A few metal constructs remained, but only the more whimsical and least frightening creations. There was no sign of the spiked warrior or the enormous winged beast whose fall had crushed it. The dead woman and the wounded halfling were gone. A few artisans looked up from their tasks and dipped into surprised bows when they noted the king was among them, but Matteo did not recognize any of them.