The Invisible Hand

by Chris Northern

  Vesan had crossed to my side and was taking my pulse, examining me with a critical eye. "I know what you are going to ask and I'm not going to do it."

  My smile faded to a frown as I gave him my full attention. "I can rest later," I told him, irritably.

  "You picked up a concussion at Learneth, were recovering from burns received at the Eyrie, and before that you were tortured and starved at Undralt. You don't have any reserves left in you. More enhancements now would probably kill you."

  "I am not going to sleep through tonight," I told him. My head swam and I could barely keep my eyes focused.

  "And I'm not going to risk killing you by casting further enhancements. If I heal you again it will only be because you'll bleed out if I don't. Your body can't take any more. You need to rest, eat, sleep, build up some reserves."

  I closed my eyes. Decided it was a really bad idea and forced them open again. "Think of something you can do," I told him.

  He did me the courtesy of pretending to think about it as he stepped away and looked me over, shook his head. Then he shrugged. "Eat and sleep for an hour, then I'll decide. I may cast a low level vitality spell but nothing more. It'll burn up what you've eaten and when it wears off you won't have any choice but sleep," he told me.

  The plate of food seemed a long way away but I pulled myself straight and reached for it. Dumping it in my lap I grabbed the first thing to hand and began to eat mechanically.

  Vesan settled on a couch, seemingly intent on watching to be sure I ate enough to suit him. The only way I could force the food down was with more wine. I concentrated on the task and remembered a time when I'd no responsibilities, a time when I wasn't responsible for anything. The only decisions I'd had to make were which book to read next, where to drink, and how to get enough money to do both. There are people who are inclined to take up a burden of responsibilities and I'd come to the conclusion that I wasn't one of them. After this was over, after I'd returned to the city, I determined that I would go back to my old, simpler life. After the trials were over, of course. Maybe I'd be exiled. That would be the end of any false hopes for public office and a distinguished career, no matter how late started.

  "What is he looking for?"

  I looked up, resumed chewing and glanced to see that Vesan watched Sapphire at his task. I swallowed the mouthful I'd been chewing and explained about the water-filled tunnels that Silgar had made, and how Caliran made use of them. Then I told him the rest of it.

  Vesan considered for a moment then pulled free the six carat stone he wore as a pendant around his neck. "If you'd told me sooner," he muttered, brow furrowed in concentration as he slipped the chain off his neck. He held it up and let the stone dangle from the chain.

  If I had known sooner I might have told you sooner, I nearly retorted, but luckily my mouth was full. Apart from a few cantrips, I knew nothing much about magic. It suddenly occurred to me that if my concussion was more or less healed I might be able to use them again; the hot oil I could spit from the stone in my forehead would have been useful once or twice in the past couple of days; maybe I'd try it out, when I was feeling a little less of a mess. The extraneous thought was wiped from my mind by the flash of non-light that heralded the use of magic.

  Nothing appeared to happen. I watched Vesan as he peered at the hanging pendant for a few silent moments. I noted his frown, saw him shake his head in irritation before he spoke. "Not within forty feet of this spot."

  "You're sure?"

  He gave me a reproachful look. "Of course I'm sure, I wouldn't have said it otherwise. There is no running water within forty feet of where I'm sitting."

  "So move." I leaned forward, suddenly anxious. Sapphire passed me, heading for the door. "Find the tunnels." I put the plate on the table and started to struggle to my feet. "Find the closest entry point and we'll set a trap there..."

  Vesan laid his free hand on my arm to stop me. "I will, if you stay here and eat, and then sleep. Nothing is going to happen till moonset, you say, and you are going to be no use to anyone if you don't rest."

  I gave it up. He was right. I felt as capable as an abused kitten. "So go with Sapphire and Parast," I collapsed back into the chair and turned my attention to the centurion. "Bring our men back to hold the hall, and make damn sure there are enough men to take Caliran when he does make an appearance. The last thing I need is Resh Ephannan forced to act against us."

  They went, leaving Hetkla guarding me. Not that I felt like I needed it. Or the food, for that matter. What I needed most was sleep. Still, Vesan would check my plate to see if I'd followed his instructions, so I forced myself to take it back into my lap and eat. I'd barely finished that when Seldas made an appearance, complete with a couple of his armed clients. Inesk was with him, and there was Hetkla at the door. They admitted Seldas, but kept the clients outside. I was glad of it; I wasn't feeling very trusting at the moment and caught myself searching Seldas' face for signs that he had been affected by the pattern. Not that I was sure what I was looking for. Whatever it was I didn't find it and so put my paranoia aside. I had a message for Resh Ephannan, and wanted news of Elendas.

  "Elendas is well," Seldas said, taking the seat recently vacated by Vesan, "but refused to return, saying he was achieving more where he was."

  I didn't know what to make of that, but was loathe to just put it aside. "Did he seem coerced?"

  "Tense," Seldas admitted, "but that is true of all the chieftains gathered with Resh Ephannan. They are concerned for the safety of their wives, sisters, daughters and children. Ephannan silenced the most actively aggressive chieftain by choosing that his daughter be the one released from among the hostages. Still, some press that force be used, others see Elendas as a bargaining chip and counsel patience, but Resh Ephannan openly gave him permission to return if he so desired. Elendas refused, possibly concerned for his own people who have gathered at the chieftains’ camp, seeking his protection."

  I could see his position and sympathise with it. Even had I not, I would just have to live with it for now. I related as much as Seldas had to know of the situation and bade him tell Resh Ephannan that though Caliran planned to use the hostages to force him to act, I had no such intention. "But remind him who he will face if he attacks us, and that the enmity of the city is assured should he do so."

  Seldas inclined his head, calmly accepting his instructions, though I could see the hint of concern in his expression.

  "There's something else?"

  He frowned thoughtfully. "It may be nothing, Patron, but one of my clients reported a rumour amongst the people out there," he made an offhand gesture of dismissal. "It's probably nothing, yet I should report that there is a possibility that some of the chieftains have sent for more warriors to join them here..." he trailed off uncertainly."It is hard to be sure how effective such a call would be or how soon it might be answered but I thought you should know of it."

  I resisted the urge to close my eyes and groan in despair. No matter how bad things got, they could always get worse. More hot-headed young warriors gathered with Ephannan and the other chieftains could tip the balance in favour of direct action. I was tempted to send the hostages out and bid Ephannan be gone, and would have if I could be sure that he’d take all the rest with him. "How many could arrive, and how soon?"

  Seldas considered. "The worst... a hundred, possibly more. When, that would depend on when the call was made, which may have been even before they set out to travel here."

  I had a sudden vision of over a hundred more young warriors encamped scant miles away, chafing at the bit and eager for action. It wasn't a comforting thought. And I hadn't a spare man to send as scout; nor could I be sure that sending a scout past Resh Ephannan would not be negatively interpreted. There didn't seem to be anything immediately to be done about the situation. The most important thing was to keep the hostages safe, and I trusted to Parast, Sapphire and Vesan to do that.

  "You look tired, Patron," Seldas said smoothly. "You should
get some rest."

  I nodded absently, and waved a dismissal, barely aware of the ironic understatement. "I'll rest now," I told him.

  As I watched him go, I reached for the last of the food, and took some wine to wash it down with. I considered making for one of the bed chambers, but the couch was closer and looked just as comfortable. I barely made it, rather more passing out than falling asleep.

  #

  Images of violence danced in the back of my mind, kept at a distance by my own unconscious decision not to think or remember. I drifted like smoke, aware yet unable or unwilling to focus.

  "Can you hear me?"

  I didn't want to hear the voice so I drifted away from it, deeper into the shadows of the library, past shelves of books shrouded in darkness. I couldn't feel anything. Maybe I dare not feel anything. There was darkness, and hints of light that I turned away from. Each time I turned away the light shifted so that it was in front of me. Candles forming twin pools of light, illuminating a desk, and seated behind the desk a figure I recognised and was drawn to but, like everything else, did not dare face.

  "Sumto?"

  Darkness as I turned and fled the voice, then light as I found that the figure behind the desk was before me once more. Her face was lovely, full of a gentle innocence that burned me like the sun. I didn't want her looking at me, seeing me, so turned away once more.

  "You need to know about this, Sumto, so stop moving and listen."

  There was no running away in a dream, I realized. No hiding. I gave up, turned and looked at her. Really looked. Somehow she looked older, more mature, more... I shied away from the thought. She looked now like a woman, and somehow I was sure she had taken someone to her bed. Envy and anger welled up in me, and pain burned deep in reaction. She wasn't mine. She would never be mine. Someone else’s.

  "You asked about the Speculative Histories," she reminded me. "I heard of them, hints anyway. They are also known as the Unwritten Histories."

  "Is it safe to tell me? What about the oath?"

  She gave a quirky smile, almost derisive. "I circumvented the oath; every time I break it a rat dies." She shrugged. "I'd hardly be telling you if it weren't safe for me to do so. Whether it is safe for you to hear it, that's another matter."

  I shrugged. "So tell me."

  I watched her frown, her gaze both considering and appraising. Her voice was also considering, as though she wanted to say something else but thought better of it. "The Speculative Histories relay not events but the political manoeuvrings behind them. There's no proofs offered, just a pattern of hints and clues, movements and outcomes. The theory is unproven, and any one event is easily dismissed, but taken as a whole the..." She must have noticed how little attention I was paying. "It comes down to this; factions regularly arise within our own assembly, amongst either the patrons or knights. The extremists in opposition inevitably move toward war, civil war in effect, but these civil wars are fought in secret and outside the provinces. The bulk of the Patrons stay out of such conflicts, and would unite against any that threatened stability, that threatened true civil war."

  I can't say I was surprised, and said so. That factions came into conflict politically was well known, that war is just an extension of politics is a given.

  "You are missing the point, Sumto. It's the consequences that matter, not the fact. These wars are covertly carried out in other lands, don't you see? Started by us for our own ends, manipulating events, bring war to others to resolve our own political differences. You know the consequences of war to the people."

  I had a fair idea. Troops need to be fed. War brings famine as sure as fire brings ash. Innocents suffered even if they didn't get caught up in the fighting.

  Wait a minute. "Are you saying that the war against the Alendi... that the Necromancers were encouraged to bring the Alendi and others to make war on us? That this whole conflict is the result of two political factions resolving their differences?"

  She worried at her lip. "It looks possible, if the theory is correct. That theory is what the Speculative or Unwritten Histories are all about. Provoke a nation to war against an ally of the city and inevitably certain specific individuals will move to counter the enemy. The assembly itself rarely becomes involved. If some other patrons or knights covertly aided our enemies the political opponents might be eliminated in the conflict. Those on both sides of the political conflict trying to kill each other in a foreign war they themselves started to mask their actions. Any deaths would be unattributable, thus preserving the illusion of unity and a purely political resolution to the point in contention. Dead people can't vote, or push forward their political agendas, or..."

  "Wait." My head was swimming. For a moment I was lost in the complexity, consequences crashing in from all sides, but then it all became clear for a moment that bordered on revelation. It would all make more sense if it were two nations, each too powerful to oppose each other openly, instead using proxy nations to fight for them to resolve points of contention. But we are one nation, one people, one body politic. If this were true, then we warred amongst ourselves but made others suffer the consequence, mere tools of our political squabbling. Using weapons like the Plain Lords, kept isolated as a matter of policy, and brought out by one family or another, one faction or another, as needed. "That would be an abomination," I rejected the idea. "My father would never be a party to that." I didn't like him, but he wasn't evil, and there was no other word I could think of for this monstrous idea.

  "Maybe not, but he can't be ignorant of it, though I don't doubt many are..." she trailed off for a moment, head cocked to one side, considering. “Maybe he isn't a party to it, though. Why did you join up in the first place?"

  The point of her question struck home. My father hadn't sent me here, he had sent Sapphire after me, yes, but he had nothing to do with me being in the north. That responsibility lay with Yuril Kelenthis Terian, my sister’s new husband. He had threatened me, coerced me to join the army heading north. I gave a small contemptuous snort, imagining how I would now react to such a threat and amazed I'd so meekly caved to his will. In any case, I'd assumed at the time that his motives were purely to do with his own reputation, which would be tainted by association with a ne'er-do-well like myself. Now his motives took on a more sinister tint. Had he sent me here to serve his own ends, to die in such a way that he could not be implicated? But that made little sense; if he was marrying into the family he must surely be an ally? I shook the thoughts away and returned my attention to Jocasta. I was starting to tie myself in knots again and none of this would be resolved until I returned to the city and confronted my father. Whatever he knew I resolved to learn from him. I thought of all the Alendi and others who had died and been taken as slaves just to resolve a political spat between two rivals in the Assembly of Patrons. It was an obscenity. And I had been made part of it.

  If it were true. "Is there any proof?"

  Jocasta gave a light shrug, her gaze dropped to the open book in front of her. "They are not called the Speculative Histories for no reason, Sumto."

  It didn't matter. I knew it was true. Nothing else made sense. I already guessed there were factions at play here. Already knew that Silgar had been paid by my father not to kill me; that the Keeps had been kept out of the official histories, that every knight and patron here had hidden agendas and secrets of their own. Apart from me, a dupe, a tool in the hands of others. What was it Elendas had told me? Knowledge is power, but that so is ignorance; that the difference is that ignorance is power in the hands of another.

  The thought depressed me and I opened my mouth to say so when a scream wrenched me from the dream and I came awake already moving.

  #

  One foot came down on the table as I rolled off the couch. Everything on the table shifted, the empty bottle of wine fell and rolled away. Bleary-eyed, my gaze lit on my sword and I steadied myself, caught my balance and snatched up the blade. As I pushed myself to my feet, wobbling on shaky legs, I shook the bla
de free and let the sheath fall to the floor. Screams, shouts and the clash of arms sounded from nearby. Closer still, the echo of running feet. Barely able to focus, eyes stinging with fatigue, I headed for the door where Hetkla and Inesk stood, swords drawn, both tense and aware.

  Inesk had half turned my way, taken a step into the room. "The hall," he said, as soon as he was sure he had my attention. I closed on him as fast as I could.

  "How long," I struggled to articulate the thought through a fog of fatigue, "did I sleep?"

  "Barely," he let me pass.

  I wasn't sure why it mattered and didn't have time to think about it. "The hostages," I barked as passed into the corridor. I glanced about, struggled to get my bearings through a fog of exhaustion. Right, past the passageway that led to the treasury, a straight corridor to the hall. It wasn't far. Hetkla was already on the move and we followed close behind. Dim light made everything unclear but there were a mass of people in the corridor ahead of us, heading for us, and a riot of movement beyond them.

  Soon the crowd threatened to engulf us. I put my back to the wall and set myself against the press. Across from me, Hetkla had done the same. Beside me, Inesk cursed in a low monotone, chafing at the delay. All I could do was press against those who tried to push me back and take slow half steps the way I wanted to go. Hetkla fared no better and we slowly inched our way forward. I seethed with frustration but there was nothing else to be done. I leaned into the task and moved as best I could against the tide of humanity that pushed against me. I could hear the violent struggle ahead of us but there was no way to get there any faster.

  A boy stumbled and fell at my feet. I reached down, grabbed him by the shirt, hauled him up and pushed him past me. I grabbed the corner of the wall and levered myself into the hall.

  Just at that moment there was a flash like lightning and a deafening crack of thunder that both blinded and deafened me for a moment.