“Anything juicy in the Inquisition’s records?”
Heath made a throwaway gesture with his hand. “Not sure yet. Nothing screams blackmail if that’s what you’re asking.”
The scholar stroked his chin sensuously. Heath found it amusing to see Sireen’s fluid movements enacted by a gangly teenager.
“They present a unified front, but in any faction there is always tension. Look to those with the least prestige first, find out where they’re unhappy, and provide a solution. There have to be rivalries you can exploit. You should meet with everyone, especially those who would not meet you. That alone will raise suspicions.”
“So I should destabilize.”
“Exactly.” The scholar leaned forward. “You may have only recently become a Stormlord, but you take quickly to this. Create a crisis in leadership while providing an opportunity for one of the weaker houses to step forward. The real art will be getting them to trust that your interests align.”
Heath smiled. “I can be extremely persuasive.”
The scholar bit his lip and brushed his hand over his clavicle and down to a nonexistent bosom. “Mmmm. I’m sure. Let us know if you need anything from our end.”
“I will. And Sireen?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for your advice. You’ve been a revelation in this whole crisis.”
The scholar flipped his hand flirtatiously. “We both just want what’s best for my niece and her baby.”
“I’ll update you when something happens.”
“Likewise.” He blew Heath a kiss.
Then the scholar’s demeanor shifted back to his reserved, clerkish expression. “Magus Turnbull ended the correspondence.”
“Gantrick?” Heath asked.
“Um… yes?”
“I need your personal assurance that this discussion will be kept confidential.”
Gantrick pulled at the collar of his tunic. “Of course. The guild prides itself—”
Heath flashed a broad smile. “Scholar Bower, I know you’re working here to repay thousands of ducats in loans from the Magesterium for your education. On behalf of Empress Jessa I’d like to wipe your debt clean in exchange for your discretion.”
“I don’t know if I can accept that—”
Heath steepled his fingers. “The alternative is that I kill you. Ultimately, I will have your silence. I prefer to make threats a secondary motivation. It’s a more civilized way, don’t you agree?”
Gantrick nodded. “I understand completely… sir.”
“Thank you. The funds will be transferred in three weeks, you have my word,” Heath said as he walked out of the booth.
Sireen had given him a lot to think about.
THREE
The Salon of Forgotten Gods
MADDOX
Nizyai: A woman in a brown frock with straight brown hair. The goddess of dogs; keeper of the kennel. Her offerings are animal bones, tossed sticks, and table scraps. Her favor grants kinship with dogs, the prevention of canine messes, and the health of dogs.
Tallius: A man in black, holding a red quill. The god of brutal honesty; the unpleasant dinner guest. He can be invoked by making insulting remarks before a mirror bearing his inscription. If pleased, he will appear in dreams and tell his petitioner exactly what she does not wish to hear.
Whirling Angel, The: A spinning woman with long white braids. A goddess of spinning in place; the dizzy mistress. She can hear the prayers of anyone whirling in place for several minutes. She sometimes answers.
Urineptune: A golden merman riding a yellow wave. The god of male public urination; patron saint of the pee shy. His offerings are urine. His favor allows for the free flow of piss whilst others are watching. Answers frequently.
Dirt Creature, The: A filthy thing no one likes but is older than all gods. God of dust; the god that will outlive everything. It accepts no offerings and is deaf to prayer. It is constantly intervening and nothing can stop this from happening.
—SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM THE DICTIONARY OF DEMIURGES: VOLUME 3, A SACRED TEXT FOR THE OMNITHEISTS
MADDOX HAD BEEN in the city for only a week and had yet to find the truly perfect watering hole. The Backwash of Rivern was a squalid, dangerous district where people died on a regular basis. By every account it was a hellish place, but he missed the feeling of adventure and possibility. The Salon of Forgotten Gods was the closest thing he could find in terms of something out of the way that offered refuge to people just wanting to get sauced with a small hardcore group of crusty drunkards.
The bar took its name from the assortment of idols set around the place. They were archeological finds of possible religious significance. Until recent events, Kondole had been a fixture above the bar. But with his newfound popularity, that spot was occupied by a crudely carved round stone idol. The Sword’s memories guessed it was likely a slave god of the old Sarn empire. Slaves during the Second Era were bred in deep underground pens for magical experiments—they never learned language, but still, somehow they created their own religions.
“Hey, Titus,” Maddox said as he pulled up his barstool.
“Maddox. Bad day?” The bartender was a Patrean, with neck and arm tattoos denoting an impressive military service. He rarely spoke about his past or why he was running a bar instead of serving as Warmaster. Maddox had stopped asking.
“You ever have a person you cared about more than anything in the world, and then all they do is piss you off? And you just want to say, ‘Buddy, I would die for you, but I can also fucking kill you with no effort whatsoever.’”
Titus chuckled. “I punched a sergeant in the face once. She put me on latrine duty for six months. Totally worth it though.”
Maddox ran his fingers through his hair. “Only he’s not my sergeant. He’s my partner. But he acts like he’s so fucking superior all the time when we’re supposed to be equals—you know?”
Titus slapped a wine bottle in front of Maddox. “This sergeant and I, we came up in the same breeding rotation. She was good at tactics, which got her promoted, but she sucked at strategy. She wasn’t a bad commander—just short sighted. I pointed that out by punching her in the face. When I was digging latrines as punishment for my insubordination, a third of my unit was slaughtered in an ambush by Thrycean forces. I had the most experience, so I got the field promotion. Best thing I ever did for my career.”
“Patreans,” Maddox said. “You guys are fucked up.”
“Everyone in the world is an asshole. Most of the time they’re all right, but you don’t want to be under one when it starts shitting all over the place,” Titus said. “That’s why I like working for myself. No one to punch in the face, except me.”
“We’ve been partners for five years,” Maddox said. And lovers for a tumultuous six months, although that had been before Maddox had merged with the Sword. “Plus he’d just heal himself if I punched him.”
“I can’t tell you what to do. I’m just a bartender.” Titus shrugged and wandered over to another customer.
Maddox chugged straight from the bottle. His mind raced back over his conversation with Heath, thinking of so many things that should have been said. I love Maddox more than you ever did. I just want him to be happy, and he’s been through enough shit. I know you’re trying to help, but he doesn’t deserve this punishment. There’s got to be a softer way to handle this.
Maddox shook his head and slammed the bottle on the table. He examined the label, HOUSE IBAZZ ESTATE, and nodded appreciatively. He was developing a taste for the regional wines. His beverage of choice was a punishingly hot firebrandy they served in the Backwash, but it was not a popular drink outside Rivern and was hard to come by after the cataclysm.
More customers wandered in as he finished his first bottle in silence.
A statuesque Patrean woman approached the bar and placed a burlap bag on top of it. She had the face of every Patrean woman but had incredibly detailed spiraling cornrows. “Found something in the catacombs you might
like, Titus.”
“Oh? What did you bring me this time, Jada?” Titus smiled amiably. Patreans could always identify each other perfectly.
She opened the bag. “No fucking clue what it is, but it looks like a religious idol.” She pulled the cloth down to reveal an eight-inch statuette of a figure with a massive eyeball perched on eight tentacles.
Titus scratched his head. “What kind of god is that?”
The Sword recognized it instantly, and Maddox chuckled. “That’s not a god; it’s a child’s toy. In Sarn they used these things to train children how to focus magic.”
Jada cocked her head. “Are you an expert in antiquities?” She sounded genuinely curious rather than defensive.
Maddox smirked and willed his Seal of Movement’s magic into the toy. The pupil of the eye glowed bright lavender and the thing emitted a guttural string of words in the ancient Sarn tongue. In retrospect, it had been an ugly language.
Titus and Jada stepped back.
“The fuck did it say?” Jada said.
“It said, ‘Play with me. I’m bored.’” Maddox added, “It’s amazing that it still works. It doesn’t walk around anymore, though.”
Jada smiled. “If it’s magic, this is worth a lot more than what I thought. You should come with us on our next expedition to the catacombs. There’s so much strange stuff down there.”
“They’re not catacombs,” Maddox said. “They’re slave pens where people were kept and bred for magical experiments to power the ancient magic of the old city. This would have been the toy of a member of one of the Houses. He probably took it down there when the Long Night fell and the city went mad. His parents probably thought it would bring him comfort.” Maddox shut his eyes. He had seen what went on down there and had no desire to return.
“How do you know this?” Jada inquired.
Maddox sighed. “You buy my next bottle, and I will tell you everything I know about the old city and the Glorious Sarn Empire.”
Jada sat down next to him and nodded to Titus. “You heard the man. Get him whatever he wants.”
Maddox spent the next few hours lecturing as Jada sat rapt. She even produced a notebook and began writing things down. He described the wonders of the crafting houses and how everyday objects like utensils and jewelry contained intelligence that informed their users how to perform tasks. As he rambled on, he thought mournfully how much Maddox would have enjoyed being a teacher.
After many more bottles, he concluded, “So the whole problem of trying to recreate this old magic is that every advance is based on whole bodies of established disciplines. The magic required to create the magic that powers this fucking toy doesn’t exist yet. That’s why reverse engineering is a dead end.”
“You are either completely full of shit or the most brilliant antiquities scholar in all Creation. Not even Quill writes to your level of specificity.”
“First,” Maddox held up a finger, “Quill is a self-important prick. Secondly, I must say how impressed I am that you know who he is.”
“Cause I’m a Fodder?” Jada challenged. “You surely realize my people are the last living descendants of the Patrean empire. We do know and care about some stuff that isn’t about guarding cities and waging pointless warfare.”
“I just meant I’ve known my share of Fod—Patreans, and you are nothing like most of them. Shit, they don’t even have libraries in the training compounds. They don’t teach you how to read the Thrycean script in your fucking contracts till you make the rank of sergeant. I also know that, no matter who your father was, you were born to a Patrean mother so you more than likely grew up in a compound.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Not many outsiders know so much about us. And that’s not something we share.”
Maddox’s last body, the imaginatively named Scar, had been Patrean, although he had been a deserter who turned to a life of violent crime. “Like I said, some of my best friends have been Patrean.”
Jada waved for more wine. “Some of us feel differently about our role in society. Just because we haven’t mastered the art of magic, it shouldn’t consign us to a lifetime of fighting other people’s battles. Our progenitors were great wizards. Perhaps we can be one day as well.”
Maddox slurred, “Your people’s creators made that impossible. You have to dream to be able to use theurgy. This is a secret no one knows—”
“I’ve heard of dreaming,” she said. “Strange hallucinations that occur during sleep? That’s where magic comes from?”
Maddox shrugged. “The Guides appeared to the First Mages in dreams. That’s how this whole thing got started. It’s the only way they could communicate.”
Jada stroked her chin. “A girl in my barracks growing up screamed in the middle of the night for no reason. She flailed under her bed sheets as if fighting for her life, but nothing was there. The next week, she was pulled out of my unit and reassigned. I have no idea what happened to her. But if what you’re saying is true—”
“Oh, I’m just getting started,” Maddox said.
“If you drink any more, you’re going to die.”
“Yeah, it’s not a big deal,” Maddox said. “I just don’t want to go home tonight.”
Their conversation continued although the details were becoming blurry. Maddox found himself nodding off at random points, and eventually a dreamless darkness swallowed him.
Titus woke Maddox by shaking his shoulder. “Time to go, buddy.”
Maddox still felt buzzed, and the grogginess made his head feel heavy. “Aw, fuck. What time is it?”
“Well past close.” Titus helped Maddox out of his chair and walked him to the door. The place was empty.
He walked out into the night air and looked up at the stars over the alleyway. The lights in most of the shops and the residences above them were dark.
The moon was at half fullness, a cluster of twinkling lights barely visible in her waning umbra.
He staggered to one of the alcoves embedded in the wall. A small statuette of a blond man with a fishtail riding a golden wave beckoned with a trident. They had a god for everything in Dessim. The god of urination was considered to give good luck to those who peed on him in a public street. Maddox yanked his trousers down and let loose.
He braced his arm against the alley for stability as he felt the enormous rush of relief.
“Hey, buddy.” A dark-haired youth in a sleeveless shirt emerged from the shadows. He was tawny and toned, with a perfect jaw and ice blue eyes. “Are you okay?”
Maddox rubbed his face, realizing he was three sheets to the wind. “I just need to die before I pass out so I don’t wake up with a hangover.”
“You need to sleep it off.”
The youth grabbed Maddox’s arm to steady him. The young man had the desperate look of a street hustler and was just a few years younger than Maddox’s twenty-five summers.
“You’re cute, but I’m still too loaded to fuck,” Maddox slurred as he was led down an alleyway.
The youth asked, “Do you have a place we can sleep tonight? I just need somewhere I can stay for one night. I’ll make sure you get home safe.”
“We’re renting a villa on Embassy row, but I don’t wanna go back there. Just leave me in the alley. I’ll be fine.”
“I can’t leave you here,” the young man said. “I’m not a street thug. At least let me walk you to an inn. There’s one around the corner. We could share a room. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor—I just can’t be out here.”
Maddox grabbed the boy’s cheek. “What’s your name?”
“Lawrence.”
Maddox laughed. “I used to be a man named Lawrence.”
“You’re drunk.”
“You should have seen me earlier.”
Lawrence shivered. Maddox felt the chill as well, and it awakened his senses slightly. A bulky cloaked figure was staggering down the end of the alleyway. It was seven feet tall and as wide as two men, shifting to and fro clumsily. Three shrouded heads o
n the shoulders seemed to sniff at the air.
“Get behind me,” Maddox said. “Then run.”
“Please, let’s get inside,” Lawrence said.
Maddox flung his hand and tossed the young hustler farther back in the alley. It was not time to be gentle. Maddox drew the bastard sword, a gleaming blade of ancient alloy and theurgy, and leveled it at the shambling horror in front of him, sobered by the thrill of battle.
He twirled the Sword in an elaborate flourish inspired by the dueling stances of the Mirrored City. “Yeah. That’s the business. Come at me, freak.”
The hooded monstrosity dropped to its hands and proceeded to gallop on all fours at full speed toward Maddox. He threw out his hand and hurled a blast of telekinetic force that staggered the creature. Maddox was a mage of unprecedented power by the current era’s standards, and the Sword gave him over two thousand years of collective battle experience.
One of the hooded faces roared, and the thing vanished. “The fuck?” Maddox scratched his head.
Before he could formulate a hypothesis, he felt something slam into his back, breaking ribs and sinking deep into his chest cavity. His heart seized before being ripped from his body. The pain was unimaginable, but he lost consciousness before he hit the ground. His last fleeting impression as he fell into darkness was the screams of Lawrence.
It was not a good way to die.
Maddox opened his eyes.
He felt dull and empty. The Sword was gone, and life felt like a pointless brutal torture. He was on his back, head turned toward a wall, atop a slab in some kind of workshop. His mind recognized the trappings of necromancy—the bones, the anatomical diagrams, the skeletal cat pantomiming the motions of cleaning its butt atop a pile of books. He was naked, but that was not unusual.
“Sword,” Maddox said.
“Fucking shit!” a Volkovian man’s voice exclaimed as a chair toppled over, clattering to the floor.
“Sword.”
“By the Ancestors,” whoever was standing behind Maddox said.
The Mirrored City Page 2