Aethersmith (Book 2)

by J. S. Morin

  “There is little to tell; the servants are under the same oblivious compulsion as much of the palace staff. They remember what pertained directly to their jobs, and nothing else. The murders were daggerwork but no weapon was found.”

  “What of whoever was tasked with answering doors?”

  “There was a visitor at one of the three, as far as the chamberlain remembered, but of course, no identity, nor even a clue as far as time.”

  Kyrus said nothing, but seemed to have discovered a clue that Dolvaen was either overlooking or refusing to share.

  * * * * * * * *

  The food was slop, but at least he was no longer chained naked to the walls. Faolen counted it as progress at least. His merchant disguise had been ruined during his capture. The clothing the jailors had provided was undyed wool, still smelling of the pasture by Faolen’s reckoning. It itched against his bare skin, stung where it rubbed against raw wounds—which was pretty much everywhere on him. He was constantly putting up with scabs tearing loose and seeping blood. The latter, strange as it seemed even to him, proved to be a boon.

  When Anzik Fehr has returned the Staff of Gehlen, Faolen had proven the truth of his end of the bargain; he had access and some degree of influence over Anzik’s Tellurak counterpart. The return of the staff fulfilled his end of the deal he had made with Jinzan Fehr, but the boy’s escape had forestalled any thought of release. After all, Faolen might be the only one still able to track the boy down.

  Thus Faolen had been upgraded to the sort of prisoner who was fed and clothed, the sort who was not tortured for information. He was now in fine company along with killers, rapists, and thieves.

  Why did the boy run? Faolen wondered. Jadon had been no help in answering that. Wendell got blank stares when he asked about Anzik. He got blank stares back from the boy when he asked about a great many things, but if it were possible, they grew blanker when the subject of his twin came up.

  Faolen had not been idle in his waiting. Left alone for long hours in the deserted lowest level of the old Kadrin dungeon in what was once occupied Megrenn, he worked at the beginnings of a plan. His fingernails had grown long and ragged, sharp enough after a bit of careful filing against stone that he could cut skin with them. Far from an effective weapon to overpower jailors with, it was enough to begin altering the runes that the vile Megrenn spymaster had cut into his flesh. It would be a long time before the wounds healed enough on their own for him to try drawing aether, and there was no guarantee that there would not be scarring that might allow the runes to remain effective.

  The effect of the runes on his own Source was impossible to judge. Allowed to actually use his Source, he could use magic to examine it, and determine how immediate his peril was. Day by day, though, as he was denied the ability to access the aether without triggering the lightning wards, he felt himself growing weaker. Painful though it was to deface himself with new cuts, he knew he had to fracture the wards’ control over him.

  That morning, Narsicann had come along with the jailor. Faolen had asked to speak with Jinzan Fehr again, but the presence of the spymaster told him that his request had been denied. He stood, pacing the small cell as his captors approached. He had a plan concocted for this contingency—one he had not been sure that he would get another chance to enact.

  The jailor carried a tray with a bowl of stew and a mug of what Faolen knew would be ale, likely watered down with the jailor’s own urine. He tried to put the thought from his mind as they neared his cell. The jailor balanced the tray in one hand as he fumbled a ring of keys free from his belt, and unlocked Faolen’s cell.

  “Fair morning. I understand you wished to see Councilor Fehr,” Narsicann greeted him. The saccharine in his voice could have rotted a rat’s teeth.

  “I do.”

  “Well, Councilor Fehr is far too busy with other important matters, and this is really more of my little corner of Megrenn than his, anyway. You can say to me what you would have said to him.”

  As Narsicann spoke, the jailor handed the tray to Faolen, who set down the tray and mug to begin devouring the stew at a rate much quicker than his appetite demanded.

  “I wanted to discuss the conditions of my release,” Faolen managed, speaking without regard to the fullness of his mouth. He tried to ignore the sour, spoiled taste of bad meat in the stew.

  “There are no ‘conditions’ as you put it. When Councilor Fehr is satisfied with your side of the bargain, he will decide your fate. It is a family matter, and it would not be fitting for me to interfere with how he goes about getting Anzik back, were I even inclined to.”

  “Has it also possibly occurred to you that I might be interested in furthering my career among your people, rather than returning home?” Faolen suggested. He had thought long and hard, and decided it was the subject he felt most likely to prolong the conversation. He continued working at his stew as fast as his stomach would let him. The stew was leaving a foul, slimy feeling in the back of his throat the more of it he ate.

  “Hah. I suppose that if they find you had access to the Staff of Gehlen, and traded it for your own worthless skin—no jest intended, I assure you,” Narsicann said, glancing meaningfully down at Faolen’s exposed forearms, and the carved runes they bore, “there might not be so welcome a return in store for you.”

  “You saw during my capture that I have useful skills. Had I not the misfortune of bumping into Councilor Fehr, you would never have known I had gone,” Faolen said. He fought back the urge to vomit his stew, and forced down another mouthful.

  “True, perhaps, but ultimately you failed. I might not be the one to boast to of those skills. After all, I got the best of you,” Narsicann teased.

  Faolen finished the last spoonful. His stomach felt the worse for it, but it seemed that the stew was content to merely protest its location in his stomach, not seek relocation to the floor.

  “How many would it have worked on? I got Councilor Fehr to release me just for appearing as Rashan Solaran,” Faolen bragged. He eyed the remains of the stew in the bowl, nothing but mushy trails left where the spoon could not get everything. Suppressing a sigh, he wiped up the last of the stew with a finger, sucking it clean.

  “Well, I think it is a matter of more than just competence. You should have saved your offer for Jinzan; he is less cautious about things of this sort than I am. I deal in spies all day long. Trust is slow to earn, quick to lose. You are already betraying your own kind. What makes you less likely to do so with Megrenn?”

  Narsicann meant the question rhetorically, Faolen knew, so he just shrugged in reply. The Megrenn spymaster took it as a sign that the usefulness of the encounter had reached an end.

  Faolen picked up the mug of ale, the empty stew bowl held awkwardly in his other hand, spoon in danger of toppling over the edge.

  “I will hang on to this for a while, if you do not mind,” Faolen said, gesturing to indicate the ale. “You can take this away, though.” Faolen said, leaning past Narsicann to push the bowl into the jailor’s hands.

  The spoon slipped …

  There was a brief commotion as the spoon hit the floor. Faolen and the jailor both bent to retrieve it. In the process, Faolen spilled half his ale as he bumped shoulders with the jailor. When it was all resolved, Faolen backed meekly away, hands spread wide in contrition.

  “Sorry,” Faolen said, a wan smile on his face.

  “Set that down, and search him,” Narsicann ordered. “Check that he did not just sneak something from you.”

  The jailor set down the bowl outside the cell. Before searching Faolen, he checked his own pockets, seeming to find nothing amiss. Faolen spread his arms wide, careful to keep the ale from spilling, giving every indication of compliance. Finding nothing, the jailor gave a cursory examination of the rest of the cell. Given how little there was, it did not take long for him to conclude that there was no contraband present.

  “Keep my offer in mind,” Faolen told Narsicann as the jailor locked the door behind th
em.

  “Patience. You will be of no use to anyone for a while yet,” Narsicann replied, prompting a self-deprecating smile from Faolen.

  He watched Narsicann and the jailor depart down the cell block. He stayed silent, listening for their footsteps to fade up the stairs.

  Once he was sure they were well and gone, he fished Narsicann’s set of keys from the ale mug, wondering idly if they had improved the taste of the beverage. It would not be long before Narsicann discovered the theft of his keys, Faolen suspected. He tried three keys before finding the one that unlocked his cell.

  With the door open, the real key to his escape was at hand. He drew in aether, cautiously at first. He felt one of the wards kick to life, shocking him in the left side of his abdomen, but it did not intercept remotely enough aether to stop what he had in mind.

  With a thought, Faolen used a spell he knew back to front. He vanished. With a few fumbling key twists along the way, he vanished from the Megrenn dungeon as well.

  * * * * * * * *

  One additional perk of Rashan’s absence in the city was that Kyrus felt free to pursue a research project of his own. Of course, that freedom involved visiting libraries in the Tower of Contemplation with a sack, and taking twelve additional books he did not need. It involved delegating a number of tasks that he likely ought to have overseen personally. Lastly that freedom also required that he ward himself up in his bedchamber, lest anyone see what he was doing. Strange though the freedom was, it felt far safer without the imminent threat of being summoned by the warlock.

  “Dolvaen was right about one thing. One day I am likely to overstep my bounds with Rashan. I need to unravel his game before I do so. It might be that he is in the right. It would be so simple merely falling into the role he sets before me,” Kyrus said aloud to himself, the freedom to voice that sentiment was a relief. He had not realized the tension he felt in the warlock’s presence until it was removed. That presence Rashan had was the sort that lay over the whole of Kadris like a shroud.

  Kyrus had filled his quota for poking hornets’ nests for the day as well. Dolvaen had given him more information than he had realized. Kyrus had fresh insight into his standing with Dolvaen, as well as the elder sorcerer’s investigation. But Kyrus was always unsettled by confrontation. Humiliating Dolvaen once more—in private this time, at least—took a major potential ally, and threatened to turn him against Kyrus.

  Kyrus sat at his desk, quill in hand, cross-referencing a number of books, foremost among them The Warlock Prophecies. Against that schizophrenic mass of gloom and vengeance, he pitted the forces of Kadrin’s historians. He had six books that chronicled various aspects of the Empire in the latter days of Rashan’s first term as warlock—anything that covered roughly from the First Necromancer War to the Battle of the Dead Earth. He also had a copy of The Diplomacy of Fire and Steel. He hoped that, amongst all the references at hand, he would be able to assemble the prophecies into a timeline, and place them in context. It was the sort of thing that students found excruciating and tedious. Kyrus was finding it fascinating.

  Brannis had always had a sort of general curiosity about history, but mostly as related to war and conquest. It was a phase many boys went through, especially those encouraged by the School of Arms. Kyrus was finding little tidbits about the lesser aspects of Kadrin history as he delved deeper into a particular era.

  For long hours, Kyrus made little progress on the meat of his search. He got sidetracked, and read entire passages even after discovering straightaway that they were not germane to his search, at least at first. After a time, he realized that the whole era of history was wrapped around Rashan like a cloak. There was no aspect of either the Circle or the military that he had not insinuated himself into. Rashan had the emperor by the chin, pointing his head wherever he chose him to look. Of all the books, The Diplomacy of Fire and Steel was the only one written after his apparent death that cast the warlock in a positive light. Had the thought not been so implausible, Kyrus would have reasoned that the author knew Rashan would return one day and read it. Every other account immediately after the Battle of the Dead Earth seemed to thank Rashan for saving the Kadrin Empire from Loramar, and backhandedly thank Loramar for saving them from Rashan.

  The picture he assembled of Rashan was both tragic and frightening. He had few friends over the hundred and forty or so winters he lived prior to his disappearance. While he got on well enough with many of his apprentices, there was always the implied dynamic of the master-apprentice relationship at work—they could not afford to get on poorly with him. The closest person to Rashan had seemed to be Emperor Liead the Only, to whom Rashan was friend, mentor, and surrogate father. Rashan’s early writings, once Kyrus began to pick up enough clues to begin placing prophecies amid historical markers, showed occasional signs of irrational anger. His later writings, after the death of Liead, showed little else.

  One interesting conclusion he drew was that there was a large gap in the entries. He had already taken note of a passage that read:

  Fallow field, fertile mind

  Potato planted but grows into grape

  The vintage will only tell with time

  We sip the vintner’s craft whether we choke or revel in it

  A drunkard captains the ship we all sail on, but does not steer it

  Kyrus had learned from And They Knelt Before Him, a treatise on the lives of several Kadrin emperors around Rashan’s time, that the warlock had gotten on poorly with Tameron the First. He had come to the conclusion that the passage was a reference to the birth of Liead. It showed a skeptical sort of optimism that his days serving a “potato” of an emperor were giving way to an era of a quality yet to be determined. Kyrus did not need histories to hear how Rashan spoke of his friend and emperor Liead. Throughout the rest of Liead’s lifetime, there was not another entry in the book of prophecies.

  Once he established a foothold in the timeline, Kyrus’s work accelerated. The loss of Rashan’s only true friend tore him apart. The prophecies darkened. By all accounts, Rashan had liked Merenon the Second well enough, but was always just a mentor to him. Merenon ordered the creation of the Red Riders, Rashan’s sorcerers who trained as knights, and used their draws only to defend their own Sources against Loramar’s powers. Rashan understood the decision. It was rational, logical, and cold-blooded. Merenon was not the one who had to train the sorcerers from adolescence, knowing that in the end their destiny was to be thrown against the undead legions until one side or the other was exhausted.

  Kyrus found that the three passages he had marked previously as important were hinting at Rashan’s developing plan to defeat Loramar by becoming immortal. He made his own copies of the passages, and pieced together what he could infer from both other prophecies and the happenings of that era.

  Death fights the act of death—Loramar and himself, warlocks being bringers of death

  How many times must Death be killed

  One more—First Necromancer War

  One more—Second Necromancer War

  Never

  To stop the rebirth of Death

  First defeat death—He capitalized it when he meant Loramar; he meant “become immortal.”

  Then Death

  Kyrus felt confident that he had the thrust of the prophecy correct, whether or not he had it exactly right in the details.

  Broken vase spills blue-white blood—Aether? Is the vase the mortal Source?

  The missing pieces are keys that lock the final door

  Patch the wholes that are only halves

  …

  One vase, filling fast, spilling faster—Another Source reference? A leaking bucket?

  To see another, no mirror may reflect it

  Where to find its shadow, an absence not a copy

  Seek a way among the spirits—Could there be spirits in the aether, as the Denku think?

  The first of the three making some sense to him did not help decipher the other two. They seemed as important as
ever, but the imagery was too vague. They seemed to say that the Source needed to be repaired, but did not give a clue as to how, aside from seeking an answer among the spirits.

  Kyrus was disturbed from his research by a knock at the warded door. It surprised him only insomuch as he had not realized the time that had passed.

  “Come,” he called out, releasing the wards as he said it.

  Celia was there when the door opened. Kyrus beckoned her inside.

  “My, what an undertaking,” Celia commented upon seeing Kyrus’s pile of open and ready books, hovering open in midair when they were not in use. Kyrus was not worried that she would piece together his puzzle, since all the clues he had discovered were written in Acardian, as good a cipher as he was likely to come up with that was not a hindrance to his work. If she could read it, all the more evidence that she was really Abbiley.

  Kyrus shut the door behind her, and re-warded it. Celia turned around as the door slammed a bit upon closing, startling her.

  “Intent that I not leave?” Celia smiled coquettishly, tossing her hair.

  Kyrus maintained a stern expression despite the rise of other feelings beneath the surface. Curse all women, my brain stutters over the simplest of looks. How do they manage such aetherless magic?

  “That depends, in part, on why you are here,” he said.

  “Well, business first, I suppose. Caladris wanted to know how your meeting with Dolvaen went,” Celia told him. She held her hands clasped in front of her, posture rigid with her chin straight out, as if she was reciting spell words before the whole class.

  “I am closer to uncovering the mystery of the murders than Dolvaen is,” Kyrus said, leaving vague whether he was closer because of some special insight or merely disparaging Dolvaen’s progress sarcastically.

  “He is doing that badly, is he?” Celia smiled, relaxing from her “business first” posture. Kyrus nodded. “So was that the ‘why’ that lets me stay a while or the one that gets me sent away?”