The Invisible Hand

by Chris Northern

  "You are too dangerous to let close," Duprane said. "I won't have you near me. Another step and I'll kill you if I can." Her voice expressed her fear better than her brave words.

  I saw him shrug but otherwise he made no move.

  "Did you get him?" I tried to sound off-hand.

  "Do I look happy?"

  Not much, I had to admit. Definitely blood. One sleeve was also soaked. I could see blood dripping from his left hand. "Do you need a healer?"

  He shook his head, still not looking at me, gaze fixed on Duprane. "How do you know my name?"

  I wanted to interrupt and ask why I did not know it, but kept silent as Duprane dipped for tea, eyes still fixed on Sapphire. The wolf stared at him also. "I have spoken to your dead. I tracked your path through the otherworld. Not one spirit had a kind memory of you. There's more humanity in Velentin, here, than in your cold heart." The wolf’s ears twitched and it whined softly at mention its name.

  "That's enough," I said, softly. "Dress your wounds, my friend. I'm safe enough here, I think."

  Sapphire said nothing, just stripped his tunic and began the task, unmoved. Duprane watched, mouth bitter and eyes intent. The wolf, Velentin, shifted closer to her, close enough so that she didn't have to reach far to pet him. After a moment she fed the wolf some meat, blowing on it to cool it first. She never once took her attention from Sapphire as she did so.

  I put my mind back to work. I was here for a reason and I could live without the distractions. She had asked me what I wanted, but I needed to know what it was she desired if I was to achieve my aims.

  "What do you want, Duprane?"

  She glanced at me and away. "I want what everyone wants. I want you to go away and take away everything you have brought with you."

  It was not a good place to start a negotiation, and I said so.

  "Drink the tea, it's not poisoned."

  I did. It was good. Someone had to show some trust or I'd get nowhere. "Do you know who that was that just tried to kill me?"

  "No, but I have some guesses. What are they worth?"

  "You want the Keep returned to you."

  "So I can dwell there as your vassal? A tool waiting to be used for your purposes?"

  "Were you not that for the Necromancers?"

  I had her attention now, or most of it. "Their power spread this far and further; I had no choice but to deal with them. Their threats proved credible. Resistance cost me a husband of fifty years and more. There's no price left for me to pay, no threat you can make. As they passed, so will you, in time. I can wait."

  "You attacked my people," I reminded her, "they did not attack you."

  "Had I stayed my hand when my aid was required it would have cost me more than my life. I had freed the spirit of my husband from the corpse where they imprisoned it; but who would free me? My knowledge and abilities would have passed into their hands, and what use do you think they would have made of it? I am glad their power is broken, but I won't aid you openly while any of them remain."

  I wanted to smile at the exposed chink in her armor, but I didn't. I won't help you openly, she'd said. But I didn't need her to help me openly.

  "The Keep is yours if you tell me what you know, everything about the Necromancers and whatever you guess about the man who tried to kill me tonight, about whoever is killing my people in Darklake. No ties and no interference."

  She snorted. "You think they are your people? Well, maybe they are for now; some more readily than others. You should speak to the Necromancers’ ilk who dwell with you; they know that nothing changes. Subject to one or subject to another with little to tell between them. We are too close to Battling Plain for change to be tolerated. You are on the edge of their territory and they won't much like that. They will see you as the threat that you are and my guess is that one, at least, has come to test you."

  "The Keeps?"

  Duprane seemed to lose interest in me. She watched Sapphire for a moment and I glanced his way. His wounds were bound and he watched the night, seemingly giving us none of his attention. I watched her pull meat from the spit and cool some for herself and some for the wolf. She passed the spit to me without meeting my gaze. She took some more tea and settled to watch Sapphire, seemingly relaxed and disinterested in further conversation.

  I had to prompt her with something. "How long did you hold the Keep?"

  For a moment I thought she was going to ignore me, then: "Everyone abuses any power that comes into their hands. Human nature is what it is. Sometimes that can be forgiven," she ruffled the wolf’s fur around its neck and it glanced at her, mouth hanging open, tongue lolling, "so long as abusing power isn't all you do."

  I let it pass. I had nothing to say to that.

  "The Grave is a dark place. The Keep of the Grave always produces cruel masters; they stare into the Grave and learn about death and corruption and are both attracted to it and hate it, fear it. As you look into it, so does it look into you. If you dwell on visions of your own death and rotting flesh each and every day of your life, what life will you have? What kind of life will you want?"

  I had no answer. I had looked into the Grave. I didn't remember what I had seen there, if anything. I hadn't looked for long.

  "It is a good thing that you drowned it, but the Grave won't stay drowned forever."

  So, she had ranged that far. Had she seen with her own eyes or sent another to see for her?

  "My own Keep is different. It is about life. It offers the chance to blend one life with another, giving birth to something new." The wolf whined and snuggled close under her hand. "Velentin had taken a fall that broke his back. He had no life worth living and not long left to live it. The wolf was old. So I took as much of Velentin as I could and put it in the wolf and the age and infirmity of the wolf I put in him. Part of them is dead now, of course," the wolf whined and looked away, "but they also live on. It was the best I could do." Velentin's ears pricked up at the sound of a distant howl, long and warbling. Duprane cocked her head and listened. "They lost the scent of him, the one who followed you. Call them back, Velentin." The wolf lifted its head and howled, as mournful a sound as I've ever heard. The ululation sounded like language and my curiosity was piqued, but I didn't let myself think about that. Duprane had more to tell, I knew. Much more.

  When the howl dripped to a bitter end, I asked her. "How many Keeps are there? What mastery do they offer?"

  She gave a wry smile, a dance of humour in her eyes. "We haven't struck a bargain yet, patron of the city. You can't have everything I know; it would take a lifetime to tell it."

  "I only need to know about the Keeps; what they are and who controls them, what powers they can bring to bear, and most importantly, how do I deal with them?"

  "That last is seemingly easy enough. They will speak to me as an equal. But which of them would speak to you and to what end? There are many Keeps and many powers; there are rivalries and jealousies, alliances and enmities, thefts of abilities and gifts of knowledge, loves and friendships, betrayals and hatreds and a whole tangled mess of powers and politics that may be of no use to you. Who to deal with? One or all, it's all the same as none. They don't want you here, let alone closer. Same as last time and the time before. Deal with them?" She snorted, not quite a laugh. "Good luck dealing with them. Better to let the ants lay in their nest than stir them up and then ask how to deal with them. Kill them all? You could; the whole city could, but there would be a cost to that. Didn't the Necromancers cost you something and won't they still exact a price before they are dealt with? This whole valley and the Keep within it are mine and no one of yours or controlled or influenced by you comes here without my leave or invitation," she changed track so fast that I almost missed it, "and in return I will give word amongst the Keeps that you are willing to treat with them each alone or collectively as they see fit."

  "And you give me your guesses about the man who tried to kill me tonight," I said.

  "The one who is among your people and kil
ling them in the night, him I'll talk of but no other. I'll not play traitor to my own kind for you and I will offer you no aid openly, no aid save these few words, are we agreed?"

  "We are," I told her. "Now, tell me everything."

  "Hard to see, wasn't he? Wreathed in shadows, and so a Shadow Walker; he has walked the path of thieves. Also I have heard that you think he walks through walls, so a Stone Weaver also. There are three it could be, then. But he is a match for Iscarian, so from the three I choose one, though Iscarian won't like to hear it. I think this one is Silgar, a Ku Mirt, an assassin out of the east."

  I looked to Sapphire and his face showed nothing; nothing at all.

  "There are others?"

  He shrugged. My question deserved no other answer. Of course there were others. Sapphire didn't exist in a vacuum, he hadn't sprung from nowhere.

  "He would be older than you?" Older, and more experienced, and a Shadow Walker and Stone Weaver with abilities that we could only guess at for the moment.

  A minute twitch of the lips was Sapphire's only reaction. "His age didn't slow him down any. Either I will kill him or he will kill me. There's no other possibility now."

  "You knew?"

  Sapphire shrugged. "I suspected. He has tried to reach you twice; and we have tried to kill each other. One of us will succeed eventually." Our gazes held for a long moment. "I told you there were people trying to kill you."

  People? "But he has killed others? Kidnapped children?" Is that the same man?

  Sapphire inclined his head minutely. Yes.

  I turned back to Duprane. "Someone will have hired him?"

  "Almost certainly, though he is paid by everyone to kill no one," Duprane said. "Can we guess who is his paymaster in this? Three Necromancers are living corpses, and only two others survived your cull; one of the three liches holds a fastness deep in Battling Plain but close enough to hear word of the outside world, close enough to know of Silgar and pay his price."

  "The other two?"

  She shrugged her bony shoulders. "One hides from the others, and who knows where he is? The third is far to the north, living in the cold wilderness of Jharvind, too far away to know and too isolated to care. It can be neither of them; Chel Udrethen, then, is my guess for paymaster. You won't reach him without an army; all of Battling Plain would oppose you; all the Keeps would rise against you if you tried."

  I thought about it. I had killed one lich; I could kill another. I'd carried Kukran Epthel into the flames and broken his neck, leaving him there to burn. I'd been burned doing it and those burns had barely finished healing. But I had killed one. I could kill another. What would it take? I thought about it and no one interrupted my thoughts. I thought of Chel Udrethen, a creature like Kukran Epthel, dead and emotionless yet animate. Seated in a cold stone hall, a recluse in his fatness deep inside Battling Plain. "It's not him," I rejected the idea. "It's too soon and too much. What's his motive for hiring an assassin to kill me? Revenge? He has no emotions left in him, just like Kukran Epthel; a desire to control, yes. But passions?" I shook my head. "Kukran reacted to everything slowly and deliberately; a creature of habit. Has Chel used Silgar before?"

  Duprane sneered, shrugged. "How would I know that? Who else has a motive to see you dead, Sumto Cerulian?"

  I looked to Sapphire. "What do you think?"

  "You make a point. What motive? The death of Kukran? The destruction of the Grave? Word would have to reach him, a decision would have to be made, a message sent to Silgar, Silgar to travel. Maybe if the motive is revenge or to remove an obstacle to their ambitions of expansion, but you aren't that obstacle and their ambitions are failed. The destruction of the Grave? He doesn't need it, he has its secrets already. His power base is inside Battling Plain, away from the rest of his kind. I think you are right. But if not him, who?" We both looked to Duprane.

  "How would I know? Your being here might be reason enough for some."

  "Send word to the Keeps, then, that I am willing to meet and treat with them, to negotiate openly to achieve some agreement, whatever their desires might be."

  "I have already said I will do that, and I have told you all I guess about Silgar and who might have hired him to kill you. Right or wrong, that's what I undertook to do and it will be done."

  "Now tell me about the Keeps."

  “Haven't I said I won't betray their secrets?”

  She had. I tried to think what more I had to bargain with. “I will return your library.”

  She closed her eyes and gave a slight nod and a defeated sigh. "I'm tired."

  "Then tell me quickly."

  Reluctantly, she told me what she knew. It took some time. The healers, the shape-changers, storm-bringers, face-dancers, fire-weavers, and more than a dozen others. Clans and families controlling what could only be made by city sorcerers and left in other hands. When and why, I could only make the broadest guess. The Grave had been made by an ancestor of the Samant family, an artefact crafted with stone, a weapon isolated but ready to be used in need. Where there is one there might be others. When? Long enough ago to be buried, to be stricken from the histories, and hidden, kept secret and lied about. No one could keep a secret like this today, I thought; they must have been created back in the time of the kings, when the orders of a tyrant applied to everyone. Murders and book burnings to keep secrets and even the actions themselves hidden and forgotten. It couldn't happen today; but then I wondered as I listened to Duprane's seemingly endless list of Keeps and powers. What would have happened if Tahal had killed us, would not the Samant family still want the family secret kept and be willing to kill to keep it? And who would be exempt from that threat? The sorcerers of the colleges who had sworn oaths of secrecy already, as I now knew Jocasta had done? And perhaps Balaran? Which families had made the other Keeps? And what would they do to keep them secret?

  "What is it?" Sapphire spoke over Duprane. "What did you just think?"

  I looked at him, my face cold and still. "I'll tell you later," I croaked.

  If I was right, we were in a hell of a lot more trouble than I had thought.

  #

  There were riders on the plain before Darklake; half a dozen men heading our way.

  Without consultation we had stopped on the edge of the woodland, standing in shadow and cover to watch the plain and see what moved there.

  "Balaran," I said as soon as we saw them.

  "Doubtless," Sapphire agreed.

  I rubbed at the stone embedded in my forehead. He was tracking me, I suspected. He would always know where I was, or at least in which direction I lay. That thought might have brought me some comfort before; now I wasn't so sure.

  "Why didn't you tell me?" My voice sounded petulant to my own ears and I didn't like it.

  I would meet the riders to ensure they would not travel into Duprane's territory in search of me and thus break the fragile agreement I had made with her. Duprane, once my enemy and now... well, probably not an enemy but far from an ally. Duprane would resume residence of her Keep and I would prevent intrusion into her territory. That was what we had agreed and I would uphold the bargain. She had no word of the scout who had passed into the east; she knew he had passed through her territory but no more than that. He had not come to harm at her hands, or so she assured me; he simply had not yet returned.

  "Why didn't you tell me you had encountered Silgar before tonight?"

  "What good would it do?"

  I thought about it. It was Sapphire's weakness, his only flaw. He wouldn't ask for help because he thought he was the equal of any situation; that he could handle it alone; always alone. He had known that Silgar was dangerous and hadn't asked for help. Balaran could have supplied him with magical enhancements, an edge. But he had not asked.

  "You don't trust Balaran," it came to me, maybe because I was having doubts myself.

  "Do you?" Sapphire asked. "Remember the Grave."

  I did. Balaran had ridden ahead when I slowed us down. Sapphire had then said
of Balaran, he is playing his own game now. Maybe he always had been. Maybe I was a player in a far bigger game than I knew.

  "The Keeps," I ventured to express the thought. "There are a lot of secrets to be kept."

  "You would think they would be known."

  You would. Six or seven hundred miles north of the city? Well within our range; and we had been here before; Duprane's Keep, Learneth and Hederan all spelled that out clearly enough. Yet I had known nothing of the Keeps; and if anyone else did, they were not admitting it. I put that aside for a moment; there was something else bothering me.

  "Why would someone be kidnapping children?"

  Sapphire shook his head. "I don't know. The Necromancers took hostages; we know that. Maybe one of them is close by, maybe one of them is here, though I doubt that."

  It was possible. "We need to speak to the parents. Figure out why their children have been taken."

  Sapphire shook his head again. "Not possible. They are all orphans of Learneth, they seem to have nothing in common other than that."

  That made no sense. It shamed me a little that I had paid so little attention to this. And that I still had to put it aside. There were other matters to consider. The Keeps. The whole situation.

  "How much does my father know?"

  Sapphire shrugged. "As much as I know; which is as much as you know."

  "But he guessed. He wanted to find out more. The incursion of the Necromancers was an excuse to act. He sent you to explore. And me. My brother-in-law’s threat was made at his urging, wasn't it? He sent me here to act for the family; someone expendable in his eyes should things go sour, someone he could cut loose at little cost. That's why Orlyn stayed south, that's why he is moving north so slowly; plausible deniability. If challenged, if this all goes sour, if there are Patrons who would kill to keep these secrets, then Orlyn will be outside the situation, ignorant, safe. Just as he is, plump with what information I have gained for him, yet sufficiently removed from the situation to be overlooked."