by J. C. Staudt
4. RESPONSIBILITIES.
A. Department of Health
1. Identify and assign, in coordination with the Cellular Research Division, a Director of Operations for the duration of the project, whose responsibilities shall include:
The memorandum continued for four more pages.
The next document in the stack showed, in a bulleted list, minutes from a progress meeting held at a Ministry building in Belmond, dated several months after the original memorandum was signed. The Ministry had appointed a man named Harold T. Beige as Chief Scientific Officer and Director of Operations for the project.
“Hastle’s grandfather,” Raith said.
“Huh?”
“Harold T. Beige. The man named in this document. It’s my friend Hastle’s grandfather. He was one of the chief scientists for the Ministry.”
“Is he one of the dways who’s here with you?”
Raith shook his head. “He was killed in Belmond the night we arrived.”
“Oh, I’m… sorry.”
“He was one of dozens the Scarred Comrades murdered in cold blood. Don’t get me started. There’s more here. We’ve got to keep looking.”
By the time they’d come to the final page, Raith had learned plenty about how Decylum had been conceptualized and built. He’d discovered several facts that both intrigued and disturbed him, but only one that might be of use in getting him and the Sons home. It came in the form of a handwritten note, scrawled in the margins of a document outlining Decylum’s size specifications, guidelines for building materials, and cost estimates. In a loose, unrefined hand, written in red ink, were the numbers -36.5654, 145.3318.
Raith dismissed the scribbles at first, until he noticed the comma between the two sets of numbers. Coordinates, he realized. Someone at Glaive Industries wrote down the mapping coordinates of the secret facility they were building for the Ministry, he thought, laughing to himself.
“What’s so funny?” Savannah asked.
“Do you have an atlas?”
“What’s that?”
“A book of maps and geography. Is there one in your study at home?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Raith stood. “We’ll put this all back later. We’ve got to go see.”
“Okay. Did you find something?”
“I think so.”
They picked up their lamps and headed back out into the big garden chamber. The weeds stirred beneath them as they crossed the suspended walkway. Up the stairs, down the hall, through the entry chamber, and into the above-world they went. They closed the shipping yard gates and hurried back to the Glaive Estate, where a shelf in Savannah’s study yielded a thick atlas holding maps of every corner of the Aionach.
“Do you know what this means?” Raith said, barely believing it himself.
“What?”
“If I can get your commscreen to work… there’s a chance we can get home.”
CHAPTER 48
Judge and Betrayer
“You return with great wealth, Lethari. The plunder and slaves you sent ahead of you have arrived week after week, filling my palace with riches and my markets with plenty. Yet I have also heard some news which distresses me.”
“I know the news of which you speak,” Lethari Prokin told the master-king. “It is false. A lie told by an expert deceiver who seeks to wield power in my place.”
Tycho Montari gave a smirking laugh. “In your place? That is hard to believe.”
“Not if you consider the aspirations of every young captain in every feiach under your rule.”
For a moment, the king looked confused. “Oh, that. I mistook you. You mean Cean Eldreni’s news.”
“Yes, of course. What—”
“You are not helping yourself, Lethari. Though you have won great victories in my name, your misdeeds have put a cloud over them and all else. Your fealty rings hollow; your love, untrue.”
“I swear to you, my master,” Lethari said. “I love you well and truly. I would not have you believe anything else.”
“No, apparently not,” said the king, “as I have recently come to find out.”
Lethari’s heart was already pounding, but something in the king’s tone made it skip a beat. “I hope you will tell me what it is you mean.”
“The pale-skin you loved,” Tycho Montari said. “He shared with you the plans of the traders.”
“Twice,” said Lethari, nodding. “As I have shown you.”
The master-king shook his head. “Thrice. There was another set of plans. Those he gave to you before he died.”
“No, my lord… I swear it.”
The king raised his voice. “You would swear to me a lie? What makes you think you are any better than Cean Eldreni, who comes to me in the night, carping and wailing about how he watched you end the life of your wounded captain?”
Cean did not lie to the king, Lethari realized. He told the lie to Dyovan and his men so they would set him free, but he told Tycho Montari the truth. “If Cean told you I gave Sigrede a mercy, then he told it true. I do not understand why you think Daxin Glaive gave me a third skin.” Lethari was glad then that he had decided to bury the goatskin rather than carry it home with the intention of hiding it later.
Tycho Montari’s eyes narrowed. “I did not say it was a skin. But I know the pale-skin gave his plans to you.”
Lethari couldn’t imagine how the king had found out. He thought it through. Could his father have told? No. Eirnan Prokin was the one who had encouraged him to value his wife above the king in the first place.
My wife. It could not have been Frayla, either. She had pouted until Lethari had agreed to keep it for himself.
So Sigrede Balbaressi had let it slip, then. He had told someone in confidence before he died, and that person had told the master-king.
Lethari’s resolve was weakening. He was on the verge of throwing down his sword and crumbling to his knees to beg for mercy.
He didn’t let himself. Though he could feel the sweat beading on his brow and dripping down his flanks; though his nerves sought to betray him, he stood firm. He cleared his throat and said, “If there was a third set of plans, they were not given to me.”
The master-king stretched and let out a great yawn. “Your words trouble me greatly. You are not the loyal servant I thought you were, Lethari. Surely you did not believe you could experience so much success without raising suspicion. You are a great warrior, and an even greater warleader. But all warleaders lose sometimes. All warleaders shift from good fortune to poor under the winds of the fates. For such a streak of victories to go unbroken, you would’ve needed help from somewhere. I would have seen that, even if I had not been told of this third record.”
“There was no third record,” Lethari insisted, despite himself. He did not know why he was continuing with this lie, except it seemed sensible that he should hold it up. He only wanted to know how the king had found him out.
“Lethari. Never before has one of my warleaders done so much to further my dominance over these lands in so short a time. Not even during Aodhan Mairagh’s rule were we able to cripple the pale-skins so severely. Had you given the plans to me, I would have split them among my warleaders to be used to even greater effect. Instead, you kept them for yourself. For your own glory. That is what I believe to be the truth. As valuable as you are to me, I will not suffer betrayal. Go home to your wife and think on this. In the morning, you may return. If you do, the words you speak must be the truth.”
Lethari feigned offense. “I have told you the truth, my lord.”
“You have until morning. Leave me.”
Lethari exited the throne room bewildered. He had never seen Tycho Montari behave in such a reserved, mature manner before. If anything, Lethari had expected him to be harsher. Either the young king was growing up, or he was determined to give Lethari another chance.
Talk of the goatskin record had thrown him off-guard. They had barely spoken of the circumstances surrounding Si
grede’s death, over which Lethari had been poised to defend himself.
Who could have betrayed me to the king? he wondered. If he could find out before tomorrow morning—before Tycho Montari had his head off, or had him thrown in the dungeons for the rest of his days—he would take his vengeance. A last act of retribution before he met the fates. Strange, though, he mused, that he should find himself seeking revenge when he was the one whose selfish untruths had caused this great debacle in the first place.
When he arrived home, his servants were there to welcome him. Frayla, however, was nowhere to be found.
“Maigha Prokin has not been home in several days, my master,” Oisen told him.
“Have you not sent someone to look for her?”
“I have,” Oisen said.
“And?”
The elderly steward cleared his throat. “I am told she was found to be staying in a merchant’s household.”
“Her father’s,” Lethari said.
Oisen shook his head.
“Then whose?”
Oisen hesitated. “That of Oale Haelicari.”
Lethari was taken aback. He didn’t like the way Oisen was acting. “What do you mean she is staying there?”
“She did not expect you back so soon. Perhaps she was lonesome, master.”
“So lonesome she could not sleep in her own bed?”
Oisen said nothing.
“Where does Oale Haelicari live?”
“His household is on the fourth level. Sixth from the northern stair.”
“When was she last seen there?”
“Yesterday, master.”
Lethari reached back to make sure Tosgaith was still in its scabbard, a habit he’d picked up since he lost it in the sea. “Have supper readied. I will return.”
Short of knocking any unsuspecting passersby over the side, he made his way toward the merchant’s house with no regard for anyone around him. All that mattered in those few minutes was finding out why Frayla was not at home.
When he found the dwelling Oisen had specified, he marched through the front entrance and collared the first servant he found. “Whose household is this?”
The startled woman squirmed in his grasp. “Maigh Haelicari’s,” she said, cringing away from him.
“Where is he?”
She raised a shaky finger toward a door down the hallway.
Lethari let her go and stormed through the den. He drove a shoulder into the door without checking to see whether it was locked. When it wouldn’t budge, he pounded on it with a fist. “Open this door.”
“Who is it?” came a man’s voice from the other side.
“Open up,” Lethari shouted.
“Not until you name yourself.”
“This is Lethari Prokin. Oale, is that you?”
A moment passed. Lethari thought he heard the brush of fabric. When the door opened a crack, he shoved it inward, causing the man who’d answered it to stumble backward. Oale caught his balance on a long low dresser as Lethari entered and closed the door behind him.
The chamber was spacious and richly appointed. Evening light shone through the arched opening, where a small veranda overlooked the western Brinescales. In a cushioned deck chair, wearing a sheer lavender evening dress, sat Frayla. Her long legs were crossed, one foot bobbing beneath the table. She did not move when Lethari came in.
“Lethari… I did not expect you—”
“Back so soon. Yes, I know. What are you doing here, Frayla?”
“Oale is—keeping me company,” she stammered. “We are discussing business.”
“What kind of business?”
Lethari had done business with Oale Haelicari before. They had loaned and rented slaves from one another on several occasions. Lethari had even transported a number of the merchant’s muirrhadi back from the steel city.
“I was telling her my plans for the short year,” Oale said. “There are many, and since you were not around to attend to the duties of your household, Frayla was kind enough to step in on your behalf. I was hoping you would move a few slaves for me on your next time out from the city.”
“There will be no next time,” Lethari said.
“Why not?”
“Tomorrow morning, I will go before the master-king, and the honor of my household will be taken from me, if not my life as well.”
Frayla was on her feet. “What are you talking about?”
“Why do you think that?” asked Oale.
Lethari drew Tosgaith. The blade flashed as it caught Infernal’s waning light like a mirror.
Oale tripped over his own feet and went reeling backward to the floor.
Then Frayla was there, holding her hands out as if to block Lethari’s path. “Lethari—stop. Take control of yourself. This is not right.”
“Out of my way,” he roared. “You will watch as your paramour dies.”
“Do not do this, Lethari. The king will expel you from his grace tomorrow, yes. But if you murder Oale, he will take your head.”
Lethari lowered his sword. “Expel me? What about you?”
“I… I meant us.”
“No. You did not. You meant me. You mean to reject me in favor of him. A simple merchant.”
“Lethari,” she began. “I—”
“Is the child mine, or no?”
She dropped her arms to her sides. “I could not say.”
“You have been deceiving me for a long time, then.”
Frayla said nothing.
Lethari was numb. He wanted to be angry. Jealous. Wronged. Instead he felt nothing. All that had once held life and promise was now cold and stale. “You told him. You told Tycho Montari about the goatskin record. This was your intent all along.”
She gulped. And then, as if expecting it to be the last movement she ever got the chance to make, she closed her eyes and nodded.
The blade was heavy in Lethari’s hands. Not too heavy, though.
He left Oale Haelicari’s house and trudged through the streets, headed nowhere in particular. In the morning, he would face the master-king. He would tell him the truth about everything; how he had hidden the record, asked Sigrede to keep it a secret, and then killed him as soon as he’d had the chance to do it cleanly. He would tell him about Frayla and Oale Haelicari, and he would receive the judgment he deserved.
After a few hours of aimless walking, Lethari found himself on the heights, above where his father’s household and those of the other elders were hewn into the sandstone of the mountainside. Had Daxin Glaive been buried in the sky, this was the place where it would’ve happened. Vultures and carrion birds circled above, sensing the flesh of those soon to be offered.
Lethari looked out over the Calgoar Vale, the place of his home and his people. He glanced down at his hands and did not like what he saw there. Did he care nothing for tradition anymore? Had he lost his zest for life, now that his wife and child were taken from him? He had accomplished much toward the goal of ending the pale-skin plague, but what did that matter if he sacrificed his household, his honor, and everything he loved in the pursuit? Did any of it make the smallest difference?
He stayed there until long after dark, watching until the city lights burned low and were replaced by the fires of camping travelers and distant villages. The stars came out and bathed the mountains with their silvery gleam. Lethari was preparing to leave when he heard a voice behind him.
“What has the world done with my son?”
Lethari turned. “Father.”
“One of my house guards told me you were up here.” Eirnan Prokin sat beside him, grunting with the effort. “I did not know you had returned. How was your campaign?”
“The fates could not have favored us with better fortune,” Lethari said.
Eirnan gave an approving nod. “Is this your first night back?”
“Yes.”
“I would have expected you to be with your wife right now.”
“I was with her earlier,” Lethari said.
Lethari thought then that if he had splintered into a thousand-thousand pieces, they would’ve been too few. “I did not leave her alone.”
Eirnan inhaled, but did not speak. Neither man did, for a long while.
“Have you come here to pay tribute to those who have gone before you?”
“I do not know why I have come here.”
“Then let me tell you, my son. It is to consider all this good fortune you have come into. That would be a lot for any man to endure without a means of reflection. You can win at everything for a time; you can experience such victory as to feel invincible. But it never lasts.”
“How much did you love my mother?”
“With everything I was. For without her, I am less.”
Lethari Prokin had not understood his father for many years. Now, he thought he finally did. “I will not see you again, my father,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Would the king send you off again so soon?”
It is not the king who would have me leave, he might’ve said. “Tycho Montari is pleased with the wealth I have brought him. He will not send me away again.”
“Then I am sure we will see each other again, my son.”
Lethari helped his father up. By the time they reached the front entrance of Eirnan Prokin’s palace, the light-star was rising. He said goodbye to his father and began his descent from the heights. On the next street, they came upon him, faces shrouded in darkness, weapons drawn.
“Lethari Prokin?” asked one of them, tightening his grip on his spear.
“Yes. I am on my way to see the master-king.”
“We have been sent to escort you.”
“I know.”
“We have looked for you everywhere. Why were you not at home?”
“I was with my father.”
The guard said nothing, only prodded him forward through the city.
The luchair swallowed them in darkness and torchlight. When they brought him into the throne room, Lethari ripped Tosgaith off his back and tossed it down to clatter on the floor before the king.