Alyneri shifted a humorous gaze between them both. “He sounds so familiar somehow.” She wondered why they were both just standing there. “Aren’t you coming inside?”
Carian eyed the steward who was waiting by the door. “In a minute.”
The man bowed apologetically. “My master prefers that the pirate should smoke outside of the mansion, Your Grace.”
“Very well.” Alyneri headed up the steps and inside, through an impressive three-story foyer into—
Well…it wasn’t the largest party she’d ever seen, but it might’ve been the most diverse.
Alyneri felt transported back to Rethynnea’s famous Thoroughfare as she stood beneath the carved marble archway. Looking down a long gallery, she saw the colorful cloth of multiple nationalities and heard the rhythmic cadence of multiple languages being spoken in concert. “It appears your master is hosting an afternoon party.” Alyneri smiled at the manservant beside her. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”
“Not at all. Please make yourself at home. I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.”
The moment he left, a steward came over bearing a tray of bubbling wine. Alyneri accepted a glass of the golden liquid, feeling slightly out of place and a bit underdressed. Fynn had told her they’d be traveling to Veneisea, so she’d donned a bustled silk dress and jacket appropriate to that kingdom’s customs, but she might’ve arrived in one of her desert gowns and felt equally at ease. She would’ve blended in with several honey-haired Avataren women who were strolling the gallery sipping Cassius’s golden wine.
Elsewhere, she saw pale and powdered Veneisean high-born dressed in elaborate lace and satin speaking with golden skinned Bemothi in colorful silk kurtas. Khurds in jeweled turbans shared couches with dark-eyed Nadoriin, the latter’s heads and shoulders draped in patterned keffiyehs—the two kingdoms’ frictions apparently overlooked for the chance to converse in their own language.
And she saw other races less familiar to her but equally as distinctive—long-haired, blonde men in black coats with silver rings piercing noses and brows lounged beside women wrapped in tangerine gauze like delicate confections; warrior-types wearing sleeveless leather vests to better display the tattoos decorating their muscular arms strolled beside almond-eyed women in platform shoes and satin gowns nearly too tight to walk in; Highlanders in plaid kilts conversed with dark-eyed men with moustaches that flared as widely as the hems of their coats…the list seemed endless.
As did the supply of golden wine, for nearly everyone held a glass.
As she drank her own, it surprised her that she could feel so…comfortable, so sure of herself. Confident, even—her, Alyneri, only daughter of the striking Melisande d’Giverny, ever the subject of gossip and criticism, ostracized and generally unwelcome among other ladies of Dannym’s court…
Yet now, none of that mattered.
Now she was a Healer learning to Pattern, elae-bound to Prince Trell val Lorian, sword-sister of a zanthyr, a princess of Kandori and a descendant of an immortal drachwyr. What carping criticism could possibly cloud her truth now?
As she pondered the shifts in her own self-image, Alyneri recognized that this newfound confidence stemmed in no small part from her training with Vaile. What was it about being physically strong that made her feel as though she had more agency in her own life?
Certainly she felt more secure knowing she could reach Trell in any moment via their binding, and Vaile also, via the bonded dagger the zanthyr had given her, which she wore in a hidden sheath strapped to her calf. But it wasn’t having the dagger that made her feel secure; it was knowing how to use it, knowing that she could defend herself and those she loved. For the first time since her mother died, Alyneri felt like her life was truly her own.
“It is quite the congregation, is it not?”
Alyneri turned to see a man wearing a wide-brimmed, aubergine hat plumed with ostrich feathers coming up beside her. He was tall enough that his hat might’ve equally shaded her face from the sun. His long velvet coat, blood-red with a fox fur collar, hung open over a white shirt unbuttoned to his waist, where leather pants hugged his hips and muscular thighs. The shirt stood out brightly against his chocolate skin.
The contrast of light and dark continued in his expression, which seemed to her both whimsical and slightly challenging, an enigmatic smile enhanced by a truthreader’s candid gaze. And his crystalline eyes amid his chocolate skin were as dazzling as the large diamond studding his ear. He lifted his glass to her but nodded towards the assemblage. “Rather remarkable, when you think upon it.”
Alyneri thought he was rather remarkable. Then she wondered if he’d caught her thought. His secretive smile certainly seemed to hint of that he had.
She looked back to the gallery. “I was reminded at first of Rethynnea.”
“A fair comparison.” He sipped his wine while he surveyed the guests. Two Sormitáge rings glinted on his ring finger, and another banded his pointer finger. Becoming a stacked truthreader and a ringed Espial was no small accomplishment. “Rethynnea plays host to outcasts and pirates, expatriates, freedom-seekers, freedom fighters…you might say it harbors a special strain of humanity.”
She cast him a puzzled look. “I’m not sure I understand the comparison you make.”
He nodded to the guests. “They’ve come here because all other avenues are closed to them. If you will permit my presumption, I would hazard to say you look across this gathering and see Nadoriin, Avataren, Bemothi. I see Nodefinders blocked from using their innate gifts, Healers fleeing Eastern prejudices, Adepts at odds with their various guilds, merchants seeking means of conveying their…unique…wares outside the auspices of port authorities and tax collectors.”
“So this isn’t a fête?”
He smiled, shrugged. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. It’s a fête comprised of uninvited guests. A party of convenience, you might say; a neutral gathering of the like-minded and equally malcontent. A place for forming mutual alliance against oppression.”
“Oppression.” She smiled dryly. “Something tells me you and I construe this word differently.”
He looked her over speculatively. Then he smiled. “Let me show you something.” He led on without waiting for her accord. Being a truthreader, perhaps he already knew she would follow.
And she did, smiling beneath a wondering gaze as she trailed behind his flamboyant hat with its ostrich feathers beckoning like a lady waving a kerchief out the rear window of a coach.
The feathers drew Alyneri outside where more guests lounged, gamed or strolled the extensive grounds. On the terrace, servants were clearing away the remains of high tea. The late afternoon sun had fallen behind the mansion and was casting the gardens in shadow, but the air beyond the mansion’s shade appeared very bright. The colorful clothing of diverse races dotted the extensive grounds. For a gathering that wasn’t a fête, it certainly looked like one.
“All of these people came here unbidden?”
Strolling beside her, he waggled a hand. “With a few exceptions.”
“They’re all welcomed generously, it would appear.”
“Our host looks upon each of his guests as potential business associates. A little wining and dining goes a long way in establishing the necessary rapport.”
“Drunken guests make poor negotiators.”
He flashed a smile of perfect white teeth, very bright against his ebony skin. “That assessment rather depends upon which side of the negotiating table you’re sitting on.”
“So our host is less about altruism than opportunism?” Alyneri inquired, smiling.
“Our host is a business man. He spent two lifetimes acquiring wealth—not merely in gold but in location. His nodes are beyond the reach of kings or guilds.” He added with a wink, “He is his own vested interest.”
A servant approached holding a box and two goblets on a silver tray. Alyneri’s flamboyant guide set down his empty goblet and opened the box, out of which he drew a siqaret, but one unlike
any Alyneri had ever seen. Expertly rolled in black paper and printed all over with gold patterns, it had an alien elegance to it.
He cast her an inquiring look. “Will you smoke?”
“No, thank you.”
“I thought not—and especially not these.” He placed it to his lips and lit it with a thought—Alyneri perceived the slightest flare on the currents—and when he inhaled, the gold patterns flared to life all the way back to the gold-wrapped filter. He exhaled pale smoke scented with cloves and some…other herb that she couldn’t place, but which made her heart flutter uncertainly.
He handed her a fresh goblet from the steward’s tray and took the other for himself, then motioned them along the terrace once more. They passed two Veneisean women napping on lounge chairs and two men, presumably their counterparts, hunched over a King’s game, powdered wigs askew and silk coats unbuttoned. Both men were scowling at the board. So many people who’d apparently come to Cassius of Rogue with pressing business…but if they’d come on business, why were they still there, lounging about?
Alyneri shook her head and muttered, more to herself than to him, “What are they all still doing here?”
He surveyed the scene as if to view it through her perspective. “Our host is a busy man. Some of his guests wait to make their proposals. Others await his decision. He has many proposals to consider.” He drew upon his siqaret, gold patterns flaring. “Some decisions affect more than just himself. Some negotiations affect other negotiations already underway. Sometimes deals must be re-negotiated, based on new deals. He’s found it efficacious to encourage involved parties to remain and partake of his hospitality until all related negotiations are concluded.” He turned her a pointed smile. “He didn’t get this far by carelessly making enemies at every turn.”
No, I’m sure you didn’t.
If Cassius heard this thought of hers, he gave no indication of it, but merely waved with his siqaret. “This is not to say he is universally adored. That would be asking too much. A hawk doesn’t adore the huntmaster, nor a kenneled wolf its keeper. And his fees can be exorbitant,” he gave her a knowledgeable nod to this truth, “but then, sometimes, so are the profits that his business partners stand to gain through the use of his network.”
She smiled in return. “So you make your home in Veneisea, but you don’t exactly espouse the Virtues?”
“You speak, of course, of our host.”
When Alyneri merely held his gaze, he exhaled. “I find it so much more edifying to talk about myself in the third person.” He took a long draw from his siqaret, those gold patterns burning all the while, though never seeming to burn up, and let the smoke filter up lazily around his head.
“What were we speaking of? Ah, yes, the Virtues…” he cast her a sagacious eye. “I don’t think the Veneiseans aspire to emulate the Virtues so much as hide behind them. They’re convenient buffers against inconvenient obstacles like morality and conscience. Veneiseans hang the Virtues as fenders along the beam of their ships and sail on past conscience’s quay without giving it a second glance.”
“Such an environment would seem suitable to your purposes, if you’ll forgive my saying.”
“On the contrary, your candor is refreshing, Your Grace.” He waved airily. “I prefer a nation of hypocrites, to be honest. The Veneiseans can be depended upon to flagrantly violate any virtue they profess to follow, and vilify anyone whose vices resemble the slightest shadow of their own. Yet…imagine how tedious life would be if everyone practiced what they preached. Who would ever find anything to gossip about?”
Alyneri blinked at him. Did he really believe the things he was saying? He was a truthreader, so he couldn’t lie, yet some of his opinions were startling, to say the least.
She understood now what Carian had meant when he said Cassius was hard to read. It was as if he spoke in mirrors, mercuric views espoused from a façade that flashed with mirrored sides. Equally depthful and shallow, philosophical and mundane, flamboyant and pragmatic…the man was a consistent paradox.
And Alyneri had no doubt that her host had worked as diligently upon crafting this illusion of himself as he had upon honing his craft—truthreaders were excellent, natural illusionists, after all—and as he had upon building his network of nodes.
They turned a corner at the terrace’s end and walked to a balcony overlooking—well, they must’ve been facing east, from the direction of the sun, and yet…
A boxwood maze embroidered the sloping hill, beyond which lay a stripe of forest and then a deep valley that looked nothing like the one she’d traveled through to get there. Mountains jutted in the distance, snowcapped and forbidding.
Alyneri looked swiftly to him. “When did we cross a node?”
“The tunnel beneath my walls.”
Alyneri felt pricked by paradoxes again. “So we’re not even in Veneisea?”
He gave her another of his enigmatic smiles, full of sage wisdom, hinting of mischief. “Well, the node is. But look there, Your Grace.” He directed her attention to the vista. “Do you know what you look upon when you gaze across that valley?”
“Other than surprise?”
A half-smile tugged at his lips. “That,” and he pointed with his siqaret, “is the Seam.”
“Which is?”
Another draw, another flare of intoxicating smoke. Alyneri tried to step aside from its path. She was starting to feel slightly lightheaded just breathing in the fringes of it. What must it be doing to him?
“The Seam is one of Alorin’s wonders—nodes aligned thick as a lode of gold, strung all through this valley. So many that all of them haven’t even been mapped.”
Alyneri thought of the hovering sphere in the rebellion’s headquarters, which she’d seen so many times. The node points on the world grid were aligned geometrically. What he was describing didn’t seem possible.
“You’re right. It’s quite impossible,” he nodded to her unspoken thought, “which is why it’s held my curiosity for decades.”
“And why you built your home overlooking it?” She arched an inquiring brow. “For study?”
“If by study, you mean so he can constantly find new ways to exploit it,” came Carian’s voice from behind her, “then yeah. Study away, mate.”
“Ah, Carian, Fynnlar.” Cassius turned with a smile that seemed more hungry than amiable. “I wondered where you two had wandered off to. My steward alerted me to Her Grace’s honoring presence but barely mentioned yours.”
“That’s because the bastard locked us out of the house.” Fynn scowled in the steward’s generally assumed direction. “We had to walk all the way around the gardens to find a way inside.”
“My staff well know I do not associate with pirates,” Cassius said with stern look at Carian.
“Maybe not of the genuine variety.” Carian’s smoke roll bobbed on his lips, shedding ash on his vest.
“Nor do I appreciate that foul-smelling weed of yours, vran Lea.”
“The pleasing aroma adds to the experience.” Carian plucked his smoke from his lips and shoved the burning stub towards Cassius. “And tabac don’t mess with your head like that alien stuff you’re so addicted to.”
“Contraband siqarets from Eltanin.” Fynn spoke the words with reverent awe. “One case of those things sold on the black market and I could buy a nice island in the Palma Lai archipelago, build a mansion for myself and my wine-conjuring dragon…” he swayed slightly on his feet, perhaps beneath the heady weight of this contemplation.
Cassius snapped for a servant, who rushed out of the shadows immediately. “Get Lord Fynnlar some wine. Can you not see he’s nearly falling down with sobriety?”
The servant bobbed a bow and rushed off.
“I hope he returns with two goblets on that platter, mate,” Carian said.
Alyneri handed the pirate her glass while simultaneously waving off the smoke from Cassius’s siqaret. “I’ve never heard of Eltanin. Is it a city?”
“That’s gratitu
de for you.” Fynn sullenly eyed Alyneri’s goblet, now in Carian’s hand.
“Eltanin is another realm, Princess.” Carian saluted with Alyneri’s wine and tossed back a large swallow. “One of the few realms that welcomes intrepid Nodefinders to its shores—so long as they’re willing to ply its wares to the highest bidder elsewhere in the Thousand Realms.”
Alyneri’s head was starting to spin a little—from the wine, Cassius’s drugged smoke or all the startling information, she couldn’t quite say. “But I thought…isn’t it forbidden to travel between the realms?”
Carian grinned. “Yup.”
“And aren’t you imprisoned or executed if ever caught?”
“Yup.”
“But that’s where the real money is, Your Grace.” Fynn sighed despondently. “Why couldn’t I have been born a Nodefinder—or at least why couldn’t one of my cousins have the talent? I might’ve exploited them so profitably…” his eyes strayed longingly after the vanished servant. “Well, maybe not Sebastian, but the other two—”
Carian blew a smoke ring at Cassius. “It’s how this one made his fortune, sure as silver.”
Cassius flashed his brilliant white smile. “The Guild has never been able to prove that.”
“Because you’re not one of the brethren.” Carian looked him over inhospitably. “You’re a bloody imposter-truthreader-wielder-I-don’t-know-what.”
“Don’t be fooled by the colorless eyes, Your Grace,” Fynn grumbled. “Cassius is a rogue from balls to bones.”
“A rogue whose services you seem rather desperate to employ, Fynnlar.” Cassius strode over to a grouping of couches, flung his hat onto a table, then seated himself and extended both arms along the cushioned back. His siqaret, with its black wrapper and glowing golden patterns, emitted a thin trail of smoke from between his fingers. It hadn’t burned down even a fraction.
Carian followed after him. “Mate, you know Niko’s edict is going to inconvenience you sooner or later—probably sooner, the way he’s running things.” He flopped onto a couch across from Cassius. “The long arm of Niko’s greed won’t long ignore the ripe pluckings of your network.”
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