“I’m about to make an impression.” Tyvian smiled, and then threw open the door.
With Hool on his arm, he blasted past the doorman before the fellow could quite unlimber his lips to form a protest. The entryway was all dark wood paneling and deep carpets. An ecclesial hush seemed to hang over the place. Expensive portraits in gilded frames eyed them as they passed by, and here and there a suit of antiquated plate armor was propped up on a stand or a bust of this or that fellow from who-knew-when. There were even a few tapestries. The doorman toddled after them, attempting to gain their attention with a few meek “Excuse me’s.”
At the foot of the stairs to the main floors, the fellow caught Hool by the hand. “My lady!” he said, breathless. “This club is for members only!”
Hool glowered at the short man in the powdered wig until he seemed to wither beneath its heat. “Let. Go.”
The man let go and then bowed deeply—a kind of apology. Tyvian said nothing. Up they went.
The second floor was sitting rooms and smoking parlors. Fat men in expensive clothes lounged in leather armchairs so deep it seemed a corkscrew and a lever would be needed to pry them out again. The smell of good Rhondian tobacco was embedded in the tapestries and the carpets beneath their feet; the rumble of avuncular conversation drifted through open parlor doors. There were coldfires in the hearths, their unnatural blue flame pulling the summertime heat from the rooms, allowing a soft draft to blow in from the open windows.
Tyvian and Hool marched in like they owned the place. Heads swiveled in their direction and then locked on, following the sight of Hool’s show-stopping shroud as much as trying to puzzle who the fellow sporting the mageglass rapier and the rakish grin might be. Tyvian smiled to a few old fellows he remembered from his youth—men who might as well have been sitting in these same seats for the last fifteen years, for as little they’d changed. If they recognized him, he couldn’t tell. They nodded politely, tapping the ash out of their pipes into levitating ashtrays, and probably started calculating how Tyvian’s appearance might affect the markets.
“Remember faces, remember scents,” Tyvian hissed under his breath, knowing full well that Hool could hear him perfectly.
“Why?” Hool asked. She was eyeing a levitating tray silver tray that was following them.
Tyvian turned to it. “A bottle of Haubert ’26, please—unopened.” The tray whisked away. Then he said to Hool, “I’m shaking some trees and seeing what falls out. I’m the target, you’re the observer—got it?”
Hool nodded. “This is going to end with you jumping out a window, isn’t it?”
Tyvian smiled, and then they were headed to the third floor. He figured he had maybe five minutes before every person in the club knew a stranger was here—a stranger who looked alarmingly like Xahlven Reldamar, only shorter and with ginger hair. Within ten minutes the mirror men would be all over him. The only question was who would bring them and how.
The third floor was mostly open, with cavernous, vaulted ceilings. Fifteen-foot mageglass windows that ran from the carpet nearly to the chandeliers covered one wall, affording club members a panoramic view of the Foreign District and the Saldorian Exchange itself, which stood only two hundred yards or so to the southeast. The wide floor of the hall was filled with men and women deep in hushed, hurried conference. The energy in the room, even in the early afternoon, was intense and frenetic. Most of those present had the look of someone chased by a wolf, and having been chased by wolves before, Tyvian knew the look well.
These people, when they looked up, did not, of course, look out the windows at the exchange, but rather at the opposite wall, where stood a series of mirrors of similar height and dimensions as the windows that faced them. These mirrors were uncommonly dark, as though reflecting something dimmed and distant. Words and symbols floated up from the depths of each mirror, reflecting prices of certain commodities as they were traded on the floor of the exchange or reporting on deals struck between major trading companies, firms, or individuals. At the end of the room, beside an open window, stood a basin of pure lodestone—Dweomeric energy mixed with base earth to form a solid. From this basin darted courier djinns, each bearing a message for the club member’s representatives on the floor of the exchange.
“What is going on here?” Hool asked in a very poor stage whisper.
Tyvian scanned the crowd for someone he recognized. “These people are attempting to remain wealthy at the expense of others.”
“They are stealing things?”
“Not exactly.”
Hool snorted, apparently abandoning any attempt to understand the activity in the room. “The blue-haired man from last night is here. He is getting closer.”
Apparently, Gethrey was no longer the kind of man to sleep past noon. He was wearing a hat decked out to appear like a sailing ship in a storm, its sails billowing in an invisible wind. His blue hair formed the waves. “Hool,” Tyvian whispered, “stay long enough to meet him, then make some excuse and make yourself inconspicuous. We’ll meet up later.”
“Where?”
“The waterfront. Somewhere.”
Gethrey was beside him, shaking his hand. “Tyvian! I must say I’m flattered—didn’t think you’d take me up on the invitation!”
People were beginning to take note of them. Rumor from downstairs had trickled up and interrupted some of the action on the trading floor. Tyvian caught a glimpse of a few people whispering about him. He saw a woman give him the kind of physical inspection usually reserved for horses at market. He saw two or three young dandies grin. He saw five or six older fellows frown deeply.
Five minutes before trouble. Maybe six.
Tyvian smiled at Gethrey. “Good to see the old place again, is all. Tell me, is Xahlven in?”
Gethrey grimaced. “He’s . . .” He looked left and right and then let his eyes travel upward.
“I see.”
“Feel free to wait—I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Can I get you and your lovely companion some refreshment?”
“No,” Hool said.
Gethrey blinked and produced a half laugh, but when Hool didn’t join him, he stopped. “Tyvian? Your lady companion is being rather . . . well . . . rather rude.” He bowed to Hool. “I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance, madam—you are?”
Hool favored him with a withering glare. “You smell funny. I am going to go stand somewhere else.”
Gethrey’s mouth fell open as Hool walked away. “I . . . well . . . I . . . did she just . . .”
Tyvian put an arm around Gethrey. He could feel Gethrey’s shoulder through his coat—it was bony, thin—the shoulder of a man who had slacked off in his fencing. “Walk with me, my friend.”
Gethrey recovered himself, smiled, and put his arm around Tyvian’s shoulders as well. “Where are we going?”
“Across the hall, to the open window over there. I believe my coming has been expected.” Tyvian began to guide them both through the crowd. A few people came up to Gethrey to say hello; Tyvian found himself smiling and shaking hands with various dandies and kissing the knuckles of giddy dandizettes.
If trouble was going to come, there was no way to avoid it—he didn’t even want to avoid it—he only hoped Hool would get a good look or whiff of what happened and how. Hool had disentangled herself from the press of polite society by simply pushing people out of the way. There were a rash of “Oh my”s and “Can you believe that”s in her wake, but none of it slowed her a pace. Tyvian could see her standing at the other end of the hall—she was a full head taller than the other women present, her hat serving as a marker in the crowd.
Then they were at the window. Tyvian was shaking hands with a portly fellow with more beard than face. “I remember saying to my wife this once—‘you know that Tyvian Reldamar,’ I said, ‘I can’t imagine he’s half so b
ad as the Lord Defender says.’ You know Trevard, don’t you? He and I are like siblings, understand? No sense of humor, has Trevard. Comes from upbringing—his father—”
Tyvian extricated his hand. “I’m sorry—would you excuse me for a moment?”
The man, his anecdote interrupted, underwent a kind of conversational collapse. Disjointed syllables tumbled from his mouth. “Well . . . ah . . . yes . . . but . . . um . . .”
Tyvian jumped out the open window.
He would have preferred to do it when no one was looking, but it probably only served to enhance his reputation among those who seemed to believe him some kind of folk hero. Were the fact of it not so annoying, the whole situation would have been hilariously funny.
In any event, he had been “jumping” out of this particular window since he was old enough to enter the club. Just outside was a cornice that was just within reach if you got a good jump from the sill. Then it was simply a matter of pulling oneself up onto the roof and walking.
Most members of the Famuli Club assumed the club had but three floors. They were wrong. There was a fourth floor—a secret floor. It was a domed chamber at the center of the club’s roof, invisible from the street thanks to the simple architecture of the building. From other tall buildings, it just looked like a dome with windows that would pour sunlight down into a central rotunda, but it was not. The only people permitted to access the fourth floor were staff-bearing magi. Tyvian had no idea how they got up here—he had always climbed on the roof and slipped the catch on one of the windows to get in.
Today, though, the window stood open already. Tyvian found himself grinning despite himself. “Xahlven. Of course.”
The Secret Exchange had existed on the fourth floor of the club for almost forty years. What appeared to be a small dome was actually Astrally expanded into a vast domed space of white and black tile and alabaster walls some fifty yards across. Rather than mirrors reflecting the action on the floor of the mundane commodities exchange down the street, here was a flat, five-sided reflecting pool at the dome’s exact center filled with silvery, utterly still water. About its edge were a number of magi, their staves in hand, peering into its depths and muttering things to invisible scribes or self-writing pens that floated beside them. Numerous anygates were situated around the borders of the room, each flanked by golems carved from white marble and gilded in mageglass and silver. Tyvian knew most of those anygates would have their output within or very near the Saldorian Exchange itself, should a mage find it necessary to go there in person.
Where the Saldorian Exchange dealt in the prices of fungible commodities—things like rice and grain and karfan beans—the Secret Exchange did something infinitely more complex. On a basic level, it was engaged in what Tyvian’s brother called “derivatives”—essentially contracts between parties to exchange particular goods at particular times in the future. For instance, a mage would purchase a derivative guaranteeing to pay a trading firm a certain value for a shipload of oranges by such-and-such a date. In theory this would serve to guarantee the trading firm a price and would also guarantee the mage a shipload of oranges (which could then be sold to others at a presumed profit or, perhaps, to allow the mage unlimited orange juice for the foreseeable future). Altogether, the idea was to safeguard the Saldorian Exchange (or, as the magi called it, “the Mundane”) from the risk of collapse by guaranteeing fair prices and making Saldor a reliable place to do business. The magi had established it because they felt they had an obligation to secure the well-being of their home city and, furthermore, since many magi had the ability to see the future to a limited extent, such derivatives were a reliable and functionally foolproof way for them to make money.
That the whole affair had been corrupted less than a decade after its founding would surprise no one if, in fact, the average person knew anything about it. Even the members of the club a floor below only had the barest notions of what the magi (acting collectively as the Arcanostrum) actually did with the money they received and invested through their Secret Exchange. The old policy of hedging against loss with conservative derivatives had been more or less abandoned by those magi who traded here (who were, by definition, those magi most interested and talented in the sorcerous disciplines of augury, scrying, and conjuration). Since Tyvian had been alive, the magi who acted as brokers for the five colleges of the Arcanostrum were engaged in a kind of educated speculation that boggled the mind. Rather than trading directly on specific goods or companies, their investments had transformed into a variety of amalgamated “commodities.” What they traded on most often now were things like Hope, Fear, War, Joy, Anger, and a half-dozen other things that were simply stand-ins for a whole series of industries and goods. Invest in War, and the derivatives would speculate as to the price of iron, leather, horses, and even things like the harvests of grain that might not come in or the public works project that would not be completed and affect trade as a result of regional conflict. Money from the magi’s coffers would trickle down to the Mundane, and if their auguries had been good (and they almost always were), the profits would roll in.
Tyvian reflected for a moment that if Sahand had known how much money the Secret Exchange was making around the time of the Battle of Calassa, he would have known his bid to conquer Saldor was doomed to failure long before Varner sallied from the gates. It might have saved everybody a whole lot of trouble.
A clear, well-enunciated voice called out from the shadows. “The man who would rule must understand that iron is not his inspiration, nor is silk. Rule like water, and understand the hearts of men ebb and flow like the tides.”
Tyvian scowled and turned around. “Valteri, Meditations on the Disposition of Souls. Book . . . nine. No, ten.”
“Book eight.” Xahlven emerged from behind a pillar. He was older than Tyvian by seven years, taller by four inches, and more handsome by at least two or three degrees. His golden hair was wavy without looking mussed, and the years had blessed him with just the hint of silver at his temples. He had chiseled, masculine features—the face of a hero on the cover of a chapbook, with dimples in all the right places and a little curl that came down at the center of his forehead. His eyes, like Tyvian’s, were a sharp, incisive blue. He was smiling now, as he often was. “You need to brush up on your philosophy.”
Tyvian shrugged. “I’ve been traveling a lot. Turns out lugging books around is quite a bear.”
Xahlven nodded. “You look good. Very rugged, for a change. A life of adventure has roughened your edges just enough to make you look dangerous.”
“They’re called scars, Xahlven, and they weren’t a fashion choice.” Tyvian eyed Xahlven’s black robes and elaborate, onyx-topped magestaff. “Archmage, now? Mother must be overjoyed.”
“With mother, how would one ever know?” Xahlven smirked.
The conversation died for a moment. The two brothers stood three paces apart, regarding each other with the silent expectation that the other would make some kind of sudden move. Tyvian had no interest in shaking hands, and Xahlven, knowing this, didn’t offer. The time for pleasantries had apparently ended. “What’s your hand in all this?”
Xahlven laughed. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
Tyvian rolled his eyes and gestured to himself. “Do I really? The brother you haven’t seen in over a decade is here, standing in front of you, and you’re claiming not to know why?”
His brother shrugged. “I can imagine two minor reasons and one major one, though only you know which is the truth. You are here because you have run out of money, you are here because of Myreon Alafarr, or you are here because of that.” Xahlven pointed at Tyvian’s ring. “Actually, it is mostly because of that, isn’t it?”
Tyvian felt the edge of his mouth tighten before he could prevent it. Dammit. He wasn’t surprised that Xahlven knew about the ring, of course, but he took no pleasure in being correct. W
hen dealing with his family, he was dealing with people who used others like most people used currency—they invested, they saved, they guided, they spent. Every piece of information Tyvian gave them was a weapon in their arsenal, and every piece of information they provided in return was a lure, a trap. It was very much like dealing with himself, actually.
Xahlven, though, was smarter than he was. He knew it and Xahlven knew it. Tyvian liked to think his life outside of Saldor had allowed him to come to terms with that, but it hadn’t. The fact that he had gotten the wrong book for the Valteri quotation burned in his guts for no good reason other than Xahlven had corrected him about something, and he hated being corrected by Xahlven. When they were children—Tyvian no older than ten and Xahlven a teenager just entering the Arcanostrum—Tyvian had tried to stab his older brother in the hand with a letter opener for criticizing his handwriting on a card he was writing to his mother for her birthday. Xahlven laughed at him. So had his mother, come to think of it. The thought of it still made him angry, as did every stupid trivia question his brother had ever asked. Xahlven knew this, too, and had asked him the idiotic Valteri question anyway.
Tyvian took a deep breath. “What does she want with me?”
“Mother, as you well know, does not share her plans with me, Tyvian.” Xahlven waved his staff for a moment and gazed into the distance—the motion was too subtle and clever for Tyvian to divine what kind of spell it was. “If you’re here to get a leg up on whatever she has planned, I won’t be much help. I suppose you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
Xahlven didn’t “suppose” anything—he knew and was being deliberately obtuse. “Mother has never had a plot whose aftermath you didn’t seek to exploit, Xahlven. Just tell me.”
Tyvian’s brother sighed and gave him a long look, as though trying to decide something. Tyvian imagined this display was meant to imply that Xahlven was making a gut decision to trust him with some kind of information, but Tyvian knew his brother too well. Xahlven had probably planned to tell him this weeks ago. “Very well,” Xahlven said, “but if I tell you, will you leave? You’ve already been noticed by three magi so far, and I can only feasibly erase the memories of two of them without causing a fuss.”
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