Shadowscent

by P. M. Freestone

“Was?” she asks, suddenly intent on the point at hand.

  I guess there’s no point in waving a stick of incense around if you’re not going to light it. “Sephine’s dead.”

  The Archivist recoils as if I’d slapped her. “When exactly did her death occur?”

  I lost track of time when I was locked up, but it’s not like I want to blurt that out. This woman already seems like a hard sell, no need to add accused criminal into the bargain. “The night before the Flower Moon.”

  Her expression goes flat. “Then there’s nothing to be done. One of my Chroniclers will escort you out. They’ll provide sultis for you to ingest along the way.”

  Chew sultis leaf? In the sixth hell I will. My memory’s staying right where it is. “You don’t care about finding out how a Scent Keeper was poisoned?”

  “I have more pressing concerns.”

  Ash stiffens. “More pressing concerns than preventing the Empire from erupting into civil war?”

  “I doubt the veracity of that hypothesis. The Founding Accord has endured longer than any other political arrangement in history. Even if one includes the longer periods of peace between the small kings, nothing comes close. While the current Emperor doesn’t care for Scent Keepers, his influence is nothing more than a grain of sand in the desert—necessary, but inconsequential, to the whole. The diplomatic ripples of Sephine’s death will soon be nothing more than marginalia on a scroll.”

  “Perhaps,” Ash says. “But there was another victim. First Prince Nisai.”

  The Archivist’s white eyebrows arch so high they almost disappear into her hairline. “The Prince is dead?”

  “He’s unconscious, but alive.” I grimace. “At least he was when we left.”

  Ash shoots me a dark look. “We’ve reason to believe there might be information on what ails him, and how to counteract it, here in your Library.”

  “Sephine thought so,” I add. “She sent me here with her last words.”

  I still can’t understand half of what I’m caught up in, or what kind of pawn I was in the elaborate plan the Scent Keeper had been distilling. But all I can think of is the way she spoke with her last breaths, her lips stained with black blood.

  The Archivist folds her hands primly, pallid skin stretched over blue veins. “We serve Asmudtag—”

  Ash glowers. “You turn away from the true gods in favor of an ancient idol?”

  “We prefer ‘primordial deity.’ Asmudtag is a being of balance. Asmudtag is all. Any gender or other trait we assign is our own human foible,” the Archivist says sniffily.

  There’s now two dozen or more Chroniclers gathered and hanging on her every word, and each time another wanders into the main chamber from one of the wheel-spoke halls they’re drawn to the Archivist’s platform, bringing with them a cloud of cinnamon and orange, dust and ink. They seem harmless, yet I can’t help but tighten my hand around my satchel strap.

  We’re surrounded.

  The Archivist gestures expansively. “It’s true we revere the same deity. However, the Scent Keepers meddle in the political affairs of the Empire, while we Chroniclers decided centuries ago to keep the Library outside such pettiness. Whatever games the temple and the palace are playing in Aphorai, it isn’t our concern. Perhaps it’s time the capital let that territory secede from the Empire. Who can say?”

  Ash steps up to my shoulder. “The Emperor. And the Commander of the Imperial Rangers. Prince Iddo is hunting for the perpetrator, and he’ll have the Rangers scour every inch of Aramtesh until he apprehends the culprit. Your Library won’t be lost for long.”

  “Pah!” a Chronicler shouts. “The entrance is concealed.”

  “To a caravan trader, perhaps. To the Empire’s best trackers?” Ash smiles slowly. It’s all teeth, and I’m suddenly, uncomfortably, reminded he’s a trained killer.

  The Archivist regards us over indignant murmurs and the shuffling of slippered feet. “Tell me what you’ve observed.”

  I recount the night before the Flower Moon, from when I first smelled smoke to being thrown in the dungeons. Ash fills in the gaps. Somewhere in the middle of our story, the Archivist pulls her long white braid over one shoulder, stroking it like it’s a bizarre pet.

  When we’re done, she turns her stylus over and over in her fingers.

  “Where I and my predecessors dedicated themselves to the preservation of knowledge, the Scent Keepers developed alchemical traditions, using scentlore to unlock intrinsic abilities within themselves. Sephine was the most senior and skilled in the Empire. If she couldn’t save that young man, nobody could. I appreciate your dedication to your Prince. I do. As far as rulers go, what we’ve read of him speaks of great potential. But I cannot help you.”

  On her last words, she weaves her stylus into her braid. What is with this woman constantly playing with her hair?

  “You mean you won’t help us,” Ash grates from between clenched teeth.

  “If it gives you comfort to frame it as such, so be it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I—”

  Akred steps forward, producing several scrolls from the voluminous sleeve of his robe. “Archivist, this is all very entertaining, but I’m still waiting for your approval of the minutes from the most recent meeting of the Committee for Pre-Imperial Parchment-Eating Fungus Management meeting. We also await your signature on the latest resolution from the Arbitration Board for the Safe Return of ‘Borrowed’ Styluses.”

  “—have work to do,” the Archivist sighs. “My assistant will show you out.”

  Our escort—the Chronicler who first greeted us—nods toward the distant side of the vaulted cavern. “Follow me.”

  We cross the floor in silence, until the thud of the Delvers’ distant excavating resumes. There’s something not right here. If the Archivist is so keen to keep her operation a secret, why allow two intruders to be escorted out by one unarmed elderly woman?

  We’re led through one of the myriad doors lining the main chamber, Rakel the only one of us who doesn’t have to stoop to avoid smacking their forehead on the lintel.

  Out of sight and earshot of the others, the Chronicler’s demeanor changes, affable openness replaced with hushed tones. “It was half a century ago, but my second specialism was poisons; I should still be able to navigate the collections. We must hurry—Akred will pontificate at the Archivist until he turns blue, but even that windbag will eventually deflate.”

  “What’s the point?” Rakel snaps. “We’ll forget everything when you dose us up with sultis on the way out.”

  “I’ll not be doing that.”

  “Oh.” Rakel almost manages to appear contrite. Almost. “But your boss made it plain as stink she wouldn’t help.”

  The Chronicler folds her arms, pushing each hand into the opposite cuff of her robe.

  “Her mouth said that, yes. Her signals said the opposite, and it’s my role to follow those.”

  “Heh,” Rakel says, now looking impressed. “So that’s what all the fidgeting was about.”

  The older woman sighs. “The Archivist does what is needed to keep our people united. Some, like Akred, believe we should sever all contact with the outside world. His fear is not without foundation—there has been more than one Emperor in the last cycle who would have gladly had inconvenient documents destroyed.” She spreads her hands. “But what is knowledge worth if it is not shared?”

  Hope flares. If I’ve learned anything at court, it’s that the actions of leaders don’t always match their words. That sometimes they must say one thing when they mean another to keep things together.

  “If your Prince really is the future ruler the initial reports show, perhaps we needn’t continue to dwell here in secret. He could safeguard the Library and we could coexist with the new ways.” She sighs. “Or perhaps that’s a dream the Archivist and I should have long woken from.”

  I press my palms together respectfully. “We truly would appreciate any assistance. As would Prince Nisai, I’m certain.”

  �
�If you could show me a sample of the poison, it would make the search swifter.”

  Rakel rummages in her satchel and holds out a vial of green-black liquid.

  I’ve never seen poison, but this matches what I’d imagined, thick and viscous against the faceted glass of its container, a strange symbol carved into the stopper.

  Every muscle in my body stills.

  She had this all along? And didn’t say anything? Why would she hide it?

  Doubt creeps through me, fear breathing down its neck. I made the wrong decision, didn’t I? The single time I act beyond the bounds of my role, this is what happens. I should have done my duty. Should have apprehended her and returned to Aphorai when I had the chance.

  Should act now, if there’s any chance of salvaging the situation.

  I’m about to grab Rakel by the arm, when she hands the vial to the Chronicler. “Sephine dropped it in her last moments.”

  The older woman holds the vessel out at arm’s length.

  “It’s sealed. I made sure of it.”

  “Some would say this is poison, in its own way,” the Chronicler says. “It’s the elixir of the Scent Keepers. The key to their ability to channel the will of Asmudtag—healing those that would be lost to any other intervention by taking the ailment into themselves. You can see it in their eyes—the more a Scent Keeper has healed, the more of her own light she’s sacrificed.”

  “Could they use it to make someone sick?” Rakel crosses her arms, tone skeptical.

  I shift my weight from the balls of my feet, poised and ready to move, back to my heels. Unless she is a better actor than the palace theater players, it seems Rakel knew barely anything about the vial.

  “I’ve not seen any documented cases. The only accounts of related deaths describe an apprentice failing to survive the first absorption. Sadly, most fail. Even those who survive tend to have their minds … addled. I’m not the first and won’t be the last to imagine what the Empire would have been if that weren’t the case …” She sounds nostalgic, almost whimsical, as her eyes take on a faraway look.

  “This isn’t what poisoned your Prince, it’s what Sephine used to halt the effects of the poison, taking more of it into herself than she was capable of absorbing.” She hands the vial back to Rakel. “But without a sample of the toxin, it makes it difficult to deduce what class of poison was used, let alone the exact formula. Proceeding without all the information would be … How do they express it in contemporary parlance? It’s to throw dice with the Lost God.”

  The blasphemy grates, but I keep my feelings hidden. “How so?”

  “One poison’s antidote is another’s accelerator. Ignorance could be deadly.”

  I run my fingers over my stubbled scalp and exhale loudly. So much risked, so much forfeited, and we’re back where we started. A theory about what the problem could be, and no convincing ideas of how to solve it.

  I force my voice to evenness. “A friend had a theory that the poison’s origin could be ancient. There was a particular symptom: lines of, well, darkness, spreading in and around the Prince’s eyes. Like …”

  “Sephine?”

  “No, not like a Scent Keeper, more as if …”

  The Chronicler’s brows pinch together. “Was there a fever?”

  “Not discernably.”

  “Strange,” she muses. Then her eyes light up. “It could be nothing, but …” She trails off and strides away toward one of the carved stone halls.

  Rakel frowns, and I motion for us to follow the Chronicler. The older woman’s cerebral vagueness makes me think of Esarik. I wonder what he’s made of my disappearance. I hope he would understand. I hope Nisai would understand.

  Deep in the bedrock, the Chronicler turns into a side corridor that opens out into another chamber. It’s narrower and plainly designed compared to the main hall but stretches back until it disappears in shadow. We pass shelf after carved-sandstone shelf, the first ones stacked high with new-looking scroll cylinders inlaid with familiar mother-of-pearl phoenixes against Ekasya obsidian.

  “Keeping a closer eye on current politics than your Archivist would have us think?”

  “We collect from every era,” the Chronicler replies mildly.

  We pass a small desk at which the first young Chronicler I’ve noticed hunches over a tattered manuscript, piecing it together with fine pincers. “That’s coming along nicely,” our guide notes, giving the younger woman a nod of approval.

  Farther still, we arrive at a rack of tablets. The Chronicler counts silently down them, her lips and fingers moving. “Ah yes,” she says, satisfied. “Here. Second century pre-Accord.”

  Rakel’s eyes widen. “People wrote back then?”

  I suppress a smile. For someone so streetwise, she can be unexpectedly naive.

  “The written word is far more ancient than imperial doctrine would have you believe,” the Chronicler explains as she pulls on one of the racks. It glides smoothly into the aisle on a track embedded in the floor. I make a mental note to share the idea with Ami if I ever see the Ekasya library again.

  “Let’s see,” our guide begins, “Emoran’s Law Code. The Epic of Saryad. Enib’s Descent into the Underworld. Yes, here it is.”

  She blows dust from a cylinder, revealing dull yellow beneath.

  Rakel gives a slow, disbelieving headshake.

  It’s made of solid gold. Engraved lettering runs down its length, the script so sweeping and elaborate it could only be Old Imperial. The Dance of Death.

  Reverently, the Chronicler removes the parchment from the cylinder and unrolls it inch by careful inch. “I first came across this when I was cataloging as an acolyte. Your friend is correct—the poison itself is pre-Imperial, from the time of the small kings. Blackvein, they called it. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the etymology. This particular account suffers from the paranoia of the time, and a Scent Keeper’s predilection for the archaic and aphoristic, but what it distills down to—so to speak—is the formula.”

  I frown.

  “A recipe,” Rakel whispers.

  “Obviously. But what use is knowing the ingredients of the poison when we’ve already identified it as the one threatening Nisai?”

  “Ah,” the Chronicler says, tapping her temple. “In this case, the poison and its antidote have the same ingredients.” She clears her throat and begins to read:

  When Riker’s heart faced the eternal plight

  The sky was devoured and the Twins’ lives sown

  When Azered’s bones danced in the breath of blight

  Esiku’s first children were turned to stone

  When the darkness bloomed across Kaismap’s night—

  The young Chronicler we passed earlier hurries between the shelves toward us, out of breath. “You’re here, thanks be to Asmudtag. Chronicler, you’re needed. Please, there’s trouble.”

  The older woman nods. “Wait here.”

  As soon as she has disappeared around the shelves, Rakel rolls up the parchment.

  “That’s an important historical document.” I gape at her as she scrunches the priceless artifact into her satchel.

  “And we’ll be an ink blot on an important historical document if we don’t cure your Prince.”

  “You’re a thief!”

  “I prefer the term ‘discerning borrower.’ We can return it … someday.” She peers around the edge of the shelf and motions for me to follow.

  She’s right, we need the scroll, but I can imagine Nisai’s dismay if he knew what we were desecrating in his name. “He’ll be horrified,” I mutter.

  “Your Prince? He’s into this kind of thing?”

  I keep my voice as low as I can, even though there’s no sign of the Chronicler or the acolytes among the shelves as we pass. “He’d live in a library if he had things his way.”

  “Surely the First Prince does what he wants.”

  “His life is the Empire’s, not his own. They’d have him reviewing petitions and hosting receptions every w
aking hour if they could.”

  “But you at least know your way around a library, I’m guessing?”

  “More or less.”

  “Right, then. Find us a way out of here.”

  I venture out into the side corridor, pausing at the junction with the main hall. The Chroniclers have scattered, scurrying across the floor like ants when their nest is disturbed.

  “What’s going on?” Rakel asks.

  “Kaismap only knows. But something’s got them spooked.”

  Figuring the best way out is the way we came, I begin to retrace our steps back to the main chamber. Our guide intercepts us along the way, her wrinkled cheeks pink and her robes scrunched in one hand so she doesn’t trip on the hem.

  “Our sentries report a group of soldiers entering the next branch of the canyon.”

  I tense. Rangers. They’ve tracked us.

  “Quickly, you must go.”

  I don’t have to be told twice.

  We sprint for the entrance, our boots boomingly loud compared to the Chroniclers’ slippers. We run headlong up the winding path, the still-healing wounds in my side protesting as I suck in larger and larger breaths. At the entrance, I throw an arm up to shield my eyes, momentarily blinded in the sunlight.

  Rakel edges ahead of me, threading her way along the safe route through the rigged-up flagstones, toward the concealed entrance to this part of the gorge. Back in the main branch of the canyon, she sticks her fingers in her mouth and lets out a shrill whistle. The sound reverberates around the cliffs.

  I groan. It would have been heard a mile away.

  Then there are hoofbeats, and the black mare canters into sight. The three of us work our way along the base of the cliff until we find a path wide enough for the horse to climb out of the canyon. I admire the beast’s courage as its hooves slide in the scree. At the top, I raise my arms over my head, catching my breath from the steep ascent.

  Rakel climbs into the saddle and sniffs the air.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Sandstorm.”

  I follow her line of sight. Sure enough, the horizon is a blur of yellow-brown. A chill runs through me despite the heat of the midday sun. I’ve never seen a sandstorm, but I’ve heard enough tales of the abrading winds, of travelers blinded and flayed raw by the grit, of whole caravans buried, only to be uncovered a generation later by treasure hunters.