by karlov, matt
The party halted before the gate. A bell sounded somewhere below, but Clade was scarcely aware of it. Someone emerged from the building and crossed the forecourt, struggling with the gate for a moment before opening it. As the first figures passed between the cannons and stepped into the courtyard, he felt something brush the edge of his outstretched awareness: a breath of wind, almost imperceptible at first, then condensing, still light and fragile but now also tangible, a swirl of otherness touching his mind. The presence of the god.
Clade allowed his consciousness to surface, and his sense of the god evaporated like mist on the Tienette. The cart drew up in the forecourt, the gate swinging closed behind it. Five storeys separated him from the group below. Despite an unimpeded line of sight, he’d failed to notice anything until the god was almost directly beneath him, and even then his perception had been faint and tentative. Distance, it seemed, was still a greater barrier to his senses than he’d hoped.
Someone paid the driver, and the rest of the party began moving into the building with their bags and boxes. Clade left the gallery and headed for the staircase. Five storeys. How far is that when turned horizontal? Far enough, probably. Down on the thronged streets he’d be lucky to see anything that far away. And if he knew in advance where to look, the question was academic anyway.
But if he didn’t know…
He descended the stairs, hand hovering over the banister, his steps beating a quick rhythm against the solid timber boards. Somewhere below, the god was entering the building. Seeking distraction, Clade turned his thoughts to spell construction, began reciting the basic forms that comprised the foundation of all sorcery. The ground, a binding’s source of power. The scaffold, to provide structure for the rest of the binding. Converters. Connectors. Combine this piece with two of those to form a compound structure resistant to motion. Chain such resistors together like so to strengthen the effect. Add a trigger — a delicate piece in its own right — and connect it to the rest to form a rudimentary locking mechanism. Nothing a reasonably strong adult couldn’t force open, of course; but if one substituted the resistors for a more complex piece that knit the two surfaces together —
A shadowy tendril touched the edge of Clade’s concentration. He halted, releasing his focus, and the shadow expanded in a dark, ethereal swirl, spreading over him like unfurling wings.
Clade tensed, an instinctive reaction born of months of subterfuge and concealment. The god’s presence washed over him and he resisted the urge to shudder. It was close, but not immediately so. He stood on the landing between the first and second floors, out of sight of the entry hall. Voices echoed up from below: the stern tones of the majordomo; a high, female laugh, infectious and familiar; and a thin, half-heard chuckle that Clade couldn’t quite place. And somewhere among them all, the god.
One and a half floors up, and maybe a dozen paces across. Not a bad result, all things considered. Better than he’d managed the last time he’d had opportunity to test it. There was no chance any more of it sneaking up on him while riding someone else. The only way the god could surprise him now was by coming upon him directly, and that particular risk was simply unavoidable.
Satisfied, Clade resumed his descent, stepping down into the invisible fog of the god’s presence and the wide space of the entry hall. The domestic staff had already begun to lead the new arrivals away to their temporary lodgings. Another laugh bubbled up from the room’s edge, and Clade caught a glimpse of curly hair as a young woman disappeared around a corner. She made it, then. Good. An unexpected warmth rose within him, and he paused on the step to allow himself a moment’s gladness.
The moment passed. Clade nudged his pleasure into a cage and shut the door. The hall was almost empty now, save for a pile of uncollected luggage and a woman leaning awkwardly on a walking stick. She turned at Clade’s approach, iron-grey hair brushing her shoulders, and he blinked at her in startled recognition.
“Ah, Requiter, there you are,” she said. “I was beginning to doubt my welcome.”
“Councillor Estelle,” Clade said, pushing a smile onto his face. “Forgive me, I didn’t know to expect you. How was your journey?”
Estelle waved a gnarled hand. “Like all journeys these days. Best when over.” Her expression softened. “It’s good to see you again, Clade.”
“And you, of course,” Clade said. “What brings you here? Are you staying long?”
“A while. I have business in Anstice. I’ll be staying for a few weeks, give or take.”
“Indeed?” Oculus business in Anstice was usually Clade’s to manage. “Well. I trust it won’t occupy all of your time. I’d hate to see you leave without a chance to catch up.”
Estelle smiled and leaned closer, lowering her voice. “No need to worry. We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the way back.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “I’m sorry?”
“The Council has an opportunity for you, something I think you’ll like. You’re going home, Clade.”
What? Clade shook his head. “I can’t leave Anstice right now. I’m sorry.”
The smile faltered, just enough for him to notice. “This isn’t the kind of job that waits. This is the kind you take the moment it’s offered.” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry. You’ll like it. I promise.”
Estelle turned away, the clack of her walking stick echoing in the hall as she followed in the wake of her fellow travellers. At the edge of the hall she paused and glanced back.
“We’ll talk later, Clade. Start thinking about what needs doing to get the place in order.” She gestured with the walking stick, taking in the building, the city. “You’ve done well here. I’m proud. We all are.”
He gave a slight bow, trying to keep his expression pleasantly neutral. She inclined her head in response and resumed her course, her progress punctuated by the staccato beat of the walking stick, the sound fading as she turned a corner and disappeared from view. The faint redolence of the god settled in his mind like a bitter aftertaste, no longer near but not quite distant enough to ignore.
It owned him, yes, but it did not control him.
And neither did Estelle.
•
Dinner was more lavish than usual, a gesture of welcome to the newcomers, particularly the sorcerers who would be staying with them in Anstice. Clade kept the pleasantries short. Meals were not the time for speeches.
For some reason, Estelle took a seat at the far end of the table rather than with Clade in the middle. Clade let it be, content to avoid further cryptic remarks about his future, and passed the meal in conversation with some of the party who had arrived that afternoon. The god flitted back and forth between sorcerers, occasionally disappearing entirely, but never for long. Clade watched the reactions of his dining companions as the god came and went, but saw nothing to suggest any awareness of its presence. As far as he could tell, they were entirely oblivious to it.
Sweetmeats were served, and several of the travellers excused themselves with pleas of weariness and the need to resume their journey early the next day. Clade glanced down the table. Estelle sat with her chin on her hands, absorbed in conversation with Garrett and another of Clade’s sorcerers, Sinon, a brute of a man with a raw, intuitive talent and a sour temperament. Garrett said something inaudible, gazing at the ceiling in affected earnestness, and the others laughed.
Movement across the table caught his eye. Clade looked back to see Sera slipping into the vacated seat opposite him, a bright grin on her face.
“Hello, Master Clade,” she said, then clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I should say Overseer Clade now, shouldn’t I? Overseer Clade. Overseer Clade. Sounds strange.”
“Strange indeed.” Clade bit into a piece of marzipan. “The sorcerers here call me by name. ‘Overseer Clade’ is what the staff call me.”
“Ooh. So I should just say ‘Clade’?” Sera stared at him, scandalised. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
Clade gave a mock-frown. “Councillo
r Estelle told me you’d be joining us as a bound sorcerer. Perhaps she was mistaken. Let me find her and check —”
“No!” Sera yelped, then laughed. “No, Clade, that won’t be necessary. Oh, that sounded strange.”
“I’m sure you’ll get used to it.” He relaxed into a smile. “It’s good to see you, Sera. How was the ceremony?”
Sera pulled a face. “Horrible. You didn’t tell me how horrible it could be. I felt like my insides were being squashed and stretched and twisted, all at once. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that feeling.”
Probably not. Sensations from his own binding still haunted his dreams, even after more than twenty years: the blood pounding in his ears; the moment in which everything stopped, for what seemed an eternity; then the feeling of his heart being wrenched, as though ripped from his body. And then a whispered touch on his mind, the faintest smudge, barely even there; the feeling he would eventually come to know as the presence of the god.
“It’s done now, anyway,” Sera was saying. “Please tell me we never have to do anything like that again.”
“Oh, no. Once is all it takes, believe me.”
“Thank the Dreamer.” She looked up, the cheer returning to her eyes. “So what will I be working on? Valdori research? Something else? Do you even do any research this far from Zeanes?”
“We do, and we’ll see,” Clade said, his attention snagged by Estelle as she rose from her seat and started toward them. “My adjunct, Garrett, will show you around tomorrow. But if you’ll excuse me, I think the Councillor would like a word with me.”
“She would indeed,” Estelle said, joining them. “Overseer Clade and I have some matters to discuss.”
Sera stifled a giggle. “Yes, Councillor,” she said, not quite managing to keep a straight face. “Master, um, Clade. Sorry. Goodnight!”
Estelle watched her scurry away, bemused. “What was that about?”
“I suspect she’s still adjusting to her new rank. Nothing that won’t pass.”
“If you say so.” She glanced around. “Where can we talk?”
Clade opted for a small lounge tucked away behind the main dining hall. Pale panelled walls softened the light and held in the aroma of lavender-scented lamp oil. Estelle sank into a chair with a sigh, propping her feet up on a footrest as Clade poured glasses of brandy.
“Bad news first,” she said, accepting the glass. “I’m afraid there’s only one new sorcerer for Anstice from this group. I’m sorry. I know you were promised two.”
“What happened?”
“We lost three to the binding. Your second sorcerer was one of them.” She looked up. “To be honest, I thought we’d lose Sera before some of the others. She’s such a flighty one.”
Clade seated himself and took a sip of the brandy, savouring the feel of it as it slid down his throat. “I don’t think she is, actually. High-spirited, yes, and a little naive. They all are at that age. But she completed her training. You don’t do that without commitment.”
Estelle gave him an arch look. “You sound like an offended father. No, no, you’re right. No-one can deny she has talent, and her discipline is clearly strong enough to withstand Azador. More than we could say for three of her peers.”
Withstand Azador. That was what everyone was told: that the god tested you once and then left you alone. He had never heard Estelle suggest anything else, even in private, even though he knew that the Council knew otherwise, and the Council knew he knew. When the god was with a sorcerer, it saw through their eyes, heard through their ears. Clade had seen the proof of it firsthand. But still Estelle and the Council persisted with their pretence, and nobody ever seemed to ask why sorcerers who had endured the ceremony were called bound.
“What brings you here, then?” Clade said. Despite Azador’s connection to its members, it rarely permitted one of Estelle’s rank to leave the island. The Oculus had others who were more commonly sent when the god required it — those trained to hear its voice in the artefacts of dark, twisted rock through which it spoke.
“Council business,” Estelle said. “We’ve confined ourselves to Pazia for too long, Clade. It was necessary to begin with, I suppose. We were few. We were weak. We’d forgotten so much. But a time comes when the cradle ceases to nurture and begins to stifle.”
He frowned. “The Oculus have been in Anstice for decades. We’ve sent people on assignment as far west as Chogon.”
“A handful. And even in Anstice, our presence is barely known. You’d be lucky to find a dozen people in this city who’ve so much as heard of us.” She looked up from her glass. “The Empire fell centuries ago. Anstice was our first attempt at crawling out of the nursery. All we’ve done since then is crawl a little further. It’s time we learnt to stand on our feet. Time we tell the world who we are.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“I can’t tell you that. Not yet.” A hint of a smile turned the corners of her lips upward. “But that brings me to my other reason for coming here.”
Clade waited in silence. Once, a moment like this would have filled him with trepidation. But now, as he looked within, he found only a calm, assured stillness. Control. Above all, control. Without it, he’d never escape the god.
“You know that Councillor Weneth has been ill for some time,” Estelle said. “The sickness comes and goes, but it never truly leaves him. He finds himself increasingly unable to leave his chambers. Some days the shaking is so bad that he can’t even feed himself.”
Clade nodded. The trajectory of her words was clear. “He’s stepping down.”
“As soon as a replacement can be found. Which is to say, at once.”
He kept his voice carefully neutral. “You want me to join the Council.”
“The sooner, the better. We’ll leave together, as soon as my business in Anstice is done.” Estelle raised her glass. “To you, Clade. The god’s Requiter, now Councillor-designate. I know you won’t disappoint us.”
Chapter 5
Of the origins of the Valdori, I could find only scraps. Even the site of their great city, Asi-Valdor, remains unclear… Yet the empire must have begun somewhere; small at first, like a seed or a phoenix ember, or the pebble that starts the avalanche. Had the fire not come, had the pebble not fallen, how different might the world have been?
— Niele the Deserter
in an untitled treatise
suppressed by the Oculus
It took Eilwen the entire day to read the box of reports. When at last she extinguished the lamps and crawled into bed, her head was pounding and her eyes weary of the sight of Ufeus’s handwriting. The crabbed, awkward scrawl appeared at the foot of each report and intermittently in the margins, making reference to other people or events or reports in a way that evidently made sense to Ufeus but left Eilwen bewildered. She’d struggled through as best she could, reading each report and trying to use what she learnt to decode Ufeus’s cryptic notation, but in the end she’d been forced to admit defeat.
The reports themselves revealed a far more sophisticated intelligence operation than Eilwen had imagined. The Guild’s agents had contacts in city chambers, banks and moneylenders, rival merchant companies, even one in the Tri-God pantheon. One agent spent most of his time furnishing the Crimson Sails with selectively inaccurate information, apparently in the hope of sabotaging their supply plans and luring away some of their business when they were caught flat-footed. Another had infiltrated the local office of the East Mellespen Syndicate and was working to gain access to their account ledger, with the ultimate aim of answering certain questions about the Syndicate’s use of Gislean caravans. A third attempted to track the activities of the Quill and other groups of sorcerers, aided by Caralange, the Guild’s own sorcerer. And this was just within Anstice. Beyond the city were other Guild agents, overseen by Havilah himself yet occasionally mentioned where their activities touched on those within Anstice, keeping the Woodtraders Guild informed of the actions and plans of parties throughout the Fr
ee Cities and beyond.
We’re supposed to be a mercantile company, aren’t we? Since when did buying and selling require all this? But having read the reports, she could guess the answer. Since everyone else starting doing it to us.
The scale and complexity of the operation made her wonder again at her selection for the role. It seemed incredible that Havilah would look beyond his own trusted agents to fill a position like this. No matter how thoroughly he had examined her past, he couldn’t possibly be as sure of her as he would be of one of his own. And she had no experience in analysing such information, no idea how to piece together the myriad fragments and form a coherent picture. Nothing in her life qualified her for a job like this.
Her misgivings pursued her into sleep, and she spent a restless night drifting in and out of slumber, at times unable to tell whether she was awake or if her sleep-muddled doubts had transferred themselves to her dreams. She woke early, uneasy and unrefreshed, but relieved to avoid sleeping late for a second day.
Eilwen’s interview with Brielle was scheduled for mid-morning. With nothing else demanding her attention, Eilwen picked through the reports, separating those from Brielle and trying to extract some sense of the woman behind their content. Unlike some of the other agents, Brielle seemed to lack a specific focus: her sources ranged throughout the city, from the sister of kitchen hand in the archon’s palace to a beggar positioned just inside the city’s northeastern gate on the road to Borronor’s Crossing. The reports themselves were terse to the point of abruptness, but whether this indicated clarity of thought, disregard, or even contempt, Eilwen could not tell.
A clamour of bells sounded in the distance, marking the beginning of a new hour. Eilwen stared through the window at the enclosed garden, trying to guess at the sun’s position from the depth of the slanting shadows. I could just go outside and check the sky. But something held her back, and she knew what it was. The egg was there, just outside her door, an arm’s length below the ground.