by karlov, matt
Clade coughed, swallowed, and waited.
Estelle looked up. “Garrett cast the binding. Then what?”
“He began to cast it again.”
“The same binding? Are you sure?”
He allowed himself a short glare. “No, I’m not sure. I didn’t have the luxury of making myself sure.”
She waved her hand, conceding the point. “He began another binding, then. Is that when you struck him?”
“Yes.”
“With a marble bookend.”
“Yes,” Clade said again.
“From behind.”
“No.”
She frowned. “I have the physician’s report here. It describes a single wound to the back of Garrett’s head. How did you come to strike him there?”
“Very simply. He turned away at the last moment.”
Estelle looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. Clade met her regard in silence. Further embellishment would do nothing for his credibility; on the contrary, it would simply invite contradiction. Truth was bland, dreary, boring. Meaningless elaboration was a sure sign of a nervous storyteller.
“This is the third Oculus death in Anstice in the past year,” Estelle said. “The rest of us would be forgiven for starting to feel a little nervous.”
Clade snorted. “The others had nothing to do with me.” Bes had been knifed in an alley by some passing gutter dweller, while Farna had managed to fall under a stonecutter’s wagon on East Bridge. “It’s all in the reports.”
She turned back to the stone, her brow furrowed in concentration, and suddenly Clade understood. You can scarcely hear it. Even with that thing, you can barely tell it’s there. The god shifted about the room, restless, the swirling motion-without-motion forcing Clade to press his hands against the table to steady himself. Yet Estelle stared at the twisted rock like one straining to hear a whisper in a crowd, oblivious to its agitation, unable to discern whatever it was that Azador sought to convey.
At last she removed her hand and sat back. “Clade Alsere,” she said. “In the sight of Azador, it is my judgement that this hearing be suspended and transferred to Zeanes, there to take place before the entire Council. You will depart this city tomorrow —”
“No.”
Estelle gaped. “I beg your pardon?”
The words seemed to come of their own volition. “Forgive me, Councillor, but I cannot leave Anstice. It is imperative that I stay in the city.”
“Explain.”
Clade moistened his lips. The shock of his interruption was already gone from Estelle’s face, replaced by a strange mixture of offence and curiosity. Azador, too, was still, waiting for his response. He hesitated. Once he opened this door, there was no closing it again. He could speak now and remain in Anstice, bring the resources of the Oculus to bear on the elusive urn, and in doing so multiply the risk of exposure a hundredfold. Or he could play it safe and remain silent, returning to Zeanes and biding his time until another opportunity arose.
Assuming it ever did.
So much for avoiding attention.
“Councillor, I believe I am close to determining the location of a Valdori golem army.”
A surge of greed broke over him, voracious and potent: the lust of the god. He jerked his hand back from the table, away from the stone, retreating inward and barricading himself against the storm. He heard a distant gasp, saw Estelle flinch back from the rock as if burned. She spoke, but the words were muffled, as though his ears were wrapped with wool. He hunched down in his chair, eyes closed, and waited for the assault to pass.
“Clade.” A hand touched his shoulder, shook it. “Clade. Are you ill? Answer me.”
He blinked up. Estelle’s face hovered just above his own. He straightened, suppressing a groan, and loosened his defences a fraction. Greed still filled the room, pungent and foul, but the first intense burst seemed past. He brushed Estelle’s hand away and took a deep breath.
“Clade. Say something.” Concern touched her voice. “Are you ill? What happened?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “It’s nothing. An old complaint. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll call a physician. We can conclude this later.”
“Thank you, no. There’s nothing the physician can do.” Clade met her gaze, held it. “Let me stay in Anstice. Give me more time.”
She looked at him as though trying to measure the weight of his words. “Who else knows?”
“Nobody. Garrett was assisting me, but he didn’t know what we were working on. Estelle, I’m sorry for keeping this from you. I’d hoped to wait until I had everything in place.” He shrugged. “Surprise you.”
Again the measuring look; then, like the slow but irrepressible sunrise, a smile crept over her face. “A golem army,” she whispered, her eyes lit with excitement. “This time, Requiter, you have truly outdone yourself.”
His answering smile felt flat, inadequate to her exhilaration; but if she noticed anything amiss, she gave no sign.
Chapter 10
Once upon my travels, I met a man who claimed to have found the secret to happiness. “’Tis simple,” said he, kneeling beside the tavern wall. “One merely beats one’s head against the stones, like so.” I observed that such a practice, though no doubt providing some fleeting satisfaction, seemed an unlikely path to lasting happiness. “Ah, ’tis true,” said the fellow, pounding industriously at the wall. “But think of the joy I shall possess when I stop!”
— Eneas the Fabulist
One Hundred Truths and Ninety-Nine Lies
The Quill schoolhouse in Anstice was impossible to miss. Situated on the crown of a small hill, the old estate house brooded over its former fields, now crammed with the wood and brick and stone of tenements, townhouses, and cramped, winding streets. Its fluted marble columns and high arches recalled the graceful lines of ancient Valdori architecture, but the blunt corners and floral motifs revealed its true provenance to be the early Coridon period, no more than a few centuries past. Viewed from the east, the dirty white pillars seemed to hover just above eye level, like a storybook temple caught in the moment of being lowered to earth.
It was, Arandras supposed, the sort of visual metaphor the Quill would approve of.
The journey from Spyridon had been less wearisome than Arandras had expected. Mara had not been planning to travel for another day or two, but the prospect of saving several scudi by joining the party on one of the Quill’s horses proved sufficient incentive for her to rearrange her plans. She struck up an immediate rapport with Narvi, quizzing him as they rode about the Quill, sorcery, and his travels throughout the Free Cities and elsewhere.
“In Kharjus, the Quill operate most of these,” Mara said as they queued at a turnpike on the first evening. “My father used to tell me the reason the roads were so smooth was because the Quill used sorcery to keep them that way. Then I came here and discovered sorcery had nothing to do with it.”
Narvi chuckled. “Anyone can build a road if they have the will. Most places, only the Quill have enough vision to do something that goes beyond a city’s borders.”
“But not here.”
“Yes. Thanks to the republic.” Narvi launched into a history of the Coridon Republic, its rise in the wake of the Confederation Wars that also saw the establishment of the Gislean Provin, and its eventual collapse in the War of Freedom that gave birth to the Free Cities. “This area owes it more than most people like to think. Standard coinage, for one thing. Roads like these, for another. Dozens of small things that make trade between the Free Cities vastly easier than anywhere else in Kal Arna.”
Not to mention the fact that most of the so-called Free Cities are anything but, Arandras thought as they filed past the guards in Spyridon red. The border between Spyridon’s territory and that belonging to Anstice still lay another day ahead, just this side of Poet’s Corner, Anstice’s southernmost tributary.
On the second night, conversation turned to Arandras’s time with the Quill, and he sat in sile
nce as Narvi told Mara about Tereisa and her death. Mara seemed to read far more in his expression than the bare events outlined by Narvi, and he found himself staring at his hands, watching the play of firelight over palms and fingers. When he bedded down, sleep seemed as remote as the moon; but the next morning he woke feeling unexpectedly refreshed, as though a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying had somehow been lifted.
The remainder of the journey was at once tiring and invigorating. He rode alone as much as he could, falling behind the others to enjoy what passed for solitude on the road. On the third day, as the sounds and smells of horse became familiar enough to ignore, he found himself increasingly attentive to the high, piping birdsong, the scent of eucalyptus, even the breeze on his face. The evening found him sore but content, pleasantly exhausted and soon asleep.
Entering Anstice the following afternoon was like donning an old set of soiled clothes. The noise of the city and its wild mix of aromas hung about Arandras in uncomfortable folds. He sat gingerly in the saddle as they rode past the outlying redoubt, reluctant to move, as if by keeping still he might pass through the clamorous miasma untouched; but the further they entered, the thicker it became, brushing against his face and leaving a gritty taste on his palate. He grimaced, torn between an urge to spit and a reluctance to open his mouth.
Not until they passed the heavy timber gate and dismounted in the grounds of the schoolhouse did Arandras feel capable of breathing normally again. The patch of lawn between the front of the building and the outer wall was barely a dozen paces wide, but in the middle of the crowded city it seemed an oasis. Short rows of saplings stood on either side of the path, their slender arms swaying in the breeze like boys playing soldier before the low, heavy schoolhouse.
“Recent plantings,” Narvi said, as if there were some confusion as to how trees might come to be growing in rows. “There’s more out the back. You’ll like it there.”
Arandras gathered his bags and said nothing.
The house sprawled atop the hill like a giant that no longer possessed the energy to stand. With the exception of the northernmost wing, the entire structure was only two stories high; but what it lacked in height it more than made up for with its spread. Inside, wide, low-ceilinged hallways stretched away at odd angles and curved out of sight. Even the doors seemed unusually square, with heavy, overlong lintels that emphasised their breadth.
Narvi led them down a long, gently curving corridor that smelled faintly of damp fur. A series of engraved images ran the length of the wall in a narrow, waist-high band, the scenes too small for Arandras to make sense of without stopping. Lamps hung in pairs on either side of the hallway, low enough to put Mara at risk of striking her head if she strayed too far from the centre. Passing Quill eyed the group with mild curiosity or else ignored them altogether, hurrying by on errands of their own.
“Friendly bunch,” Mara muttered, and Arandras smiled.
They came to a broad staircase, the shallow steps worn smooth by centuries of use. Stone leopard’s heads stared at them from the bottom of each banister: symbols of Anstice, now hung with tassels in the ochre and black of the Quill, the lips of one curling as though preparing to snarl, the other impassive. Narvi gave the expressionless one a perfunctory pat as he passed.
The stairs emerged onto a wide, rooftop courtyard. Climbing plants roamed free over the rough stone walls, their dark leaves dotted with pale, red-throated flowers that filled the courtyard with a delicate fragrance. The west side of the yard lay open to the setting sun, affording a view of the grounds behind the schoolhouse and the rooftops beyond. One of the city’s nine surviving redoubts stood a short distance away, its ruined top caught by the sun in such a way that it seemed for a moment to be lit with an inner flame.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” Narvi said, dropping his bags by one of the deep, rectangular pots that lined the walls. “Fas is expecting us. I’ll only be a moment.” He turned and disappeared back down the stairs.
Mara dumped her bags and ambled to the railing at the courtyard’s edge. The open display of any weapon larger than a dagger was forbidden within the city, so she’d been forced to pack her cutlasses into one of her bags, though the protruding hilts left little doubt as to what lay within. She looked different without the blades hanging from her hips; simpler, somehow, yet no less dangerous, as though the potency of the weapons had, in fact, derived from her all along, and now she had simply drawn it back. Like a panther sheathing its claws, but losing none of its swagger.
He joined her at the rail, one hand raised against the sun. The schoolhouse grounds sloped away beneath them to the outer wall, the lawn dotted with saplings, some still small enough to be guarded by stakes and rags. By the wall, a gaggle of children in ochre hoods played a game Arandras didn’t recognise; something involving a wicker ball and an arrangement of squares marked out on the grass with sticks. As he watched, one of the children snatched the ball from another, who responded with a piercing squeal and was immediately shushed by a large woman hovering nearby.
“I suppose one of those is Narvi’s,” Mara said, nodding at the children.
“Mm-hmm.” Arandras peered down, but they were too far away to distinguish faces beneath the brown hoods. Some would be the children of sorcerers and scholars who worked here; others would be students at the schoolhouse, their places paid for by those among the city’s wealthy and influential who thought a Quill education desirable for their son or daughter. A brood of future Quill and their friends. And so the Quill ensures its continued prosperity.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Mara said.
“And do what? Give up?” Arandras shook his head. He’d tried everything else there was to try. The Quill were the only option left.
Voices sounded from the stairway, followed a moment later by Narvi and another man, taller than any of them, with thick brows and short grey hair that fringed the dome of his head. The newcomer strode toward them with a broad smile, his hand raised in greeting, Narvi hopping in his wake to keep up.
“Arandras, Mara, this is Fas. He —”
“Damasus Fasurathal,” the man said, clasping Arandras’s arm. “Call me Fas, won’t you? Of course you will.”
“Fas oversees all our research projects here in Anstice,” Narvi said, slightly out of breath.
“I hear you worked for us in Chogon for a time,” Fas said. He leaned in, closer than Arandras found comfortable, and peered into Arandras’s face. “Thinking of coming back, perhaps? We can always use a good linguist.”
“No,” Arandras said, shuffling back half a pace to restore an appropriate amount of space between himself and the other man. “Thank you.”
“Ah? Well, of course, you are your own man now.” He turned to Mara, eyes flicking up and down. “Delighted, I’m sure,” he said. “Narvi was vague on your area of expertise. Are you a linguist too?”
“Not exactly,” Mara said, an edge of amusement in her voice.
“Then what —”
“She’s with me,” Arandras interjected.
“Not exactly that, either,” Mara said smoothly.
Arandras glared at her from behind Fas’s back. Her response was a cocked eyebrow and a grin. Fas frowned and looked confusedly between her and Arandras.
An awkward silence followed.
Narvi gestured toward the tables. “Shall we sit?”
“Well,” Fas said when they were seated, his fingers drumming a tattoo on the table. “This is quite the puzzle. Three dead Quill, a copied journal, and an untranslatable urn. Needless to say, we’re keen to find out what’s going on.” He bent toward Arandras. “As are you, I understand.”
“I want to find whoever’s looking for the urn, certainly,” Arandras said. Even with the table between them, the man seemed able to make him feel crowded. Would it kill you to just sit still?
“Just so.” Fas nodded as though some point was now settled. “Narvi will head up the project. You’ll both be on the team, of cou
rse, along with whoever else I can spare. We have rooms being made ready for you, including a work area. There’s a secure coffer where you can leave the urn overnight — Narvi can show you there on the way. We expect —”
“No,” Arandras said. Fas blinked at him in confusion, and Arandras felt a small measure of satisfaction.
“I’m sorry,” Fas said. “No to what?”
“No to your presumptions.” The words came out harder than he intended, but there was no opportunity to pause and try again. “This is not a Quill operation, Damasus, and I am not part of a Quill team. The urn is mine, and I will retain custody of it throughout. I’ve agreed to provide access to Narvi and his colleagues, and to work with them to decipher its meaning. That’s all. I will not subordinate myself to your people, I will not even accept payment, because I am not working for you. Is that clear?”
Silence settled over the table. Fas pressed his lips together, surprise shifting rapidly to cool politeness. Beside him, Narvi gazed skyward, his face a mixture of frustration and embarrassment.
“For the record, I will accept payment,” Mara said.
Fas ignored her, turning instead to Narvi. “Is this acceptable to you?”
“Yes, yes, it’s fine,” Narvi said, in the tone of one seeking to dismiss an unpleasant matter as quickly as possible.
“Very well.” Fas summoned a thin smile. “You’ve had a long journey. I suggest you rest tonight and begin work tomorrow. Narvi can show you to your rooms.”
I’ll stay elsewhere, Arandras almost said; but a pleading glance from Narvi stopped the words on his lips. He hesitated, aware of Fas’s already chilly regard. So far, the man’s displeasure had been unavoidable, but aggravating him further would make a poor start to their time here.
It’s just a room and a bed, I suppose. It needn’t mean anything more than that.
“Fine,” Arandras said. “I’ll pay you one scudi for each night I stay.”
“As you wish.” Fas stood. “If there’s nothing else?”