The Liar's Knot

by M. A. Carrick

  He knew Ryvček well enough to expect her laughter, but that didn’t make it any easier to sit through. “After all the work we—”

  “I know, I know.” He folded his arms and glared at her. “You could take this seriously. I nearly died.”

  “Nobody dances the kanina for you today.”

  He understood her blithe attitude. Every Rook courted death; she was one of the few who’d survived long enough to retire. If he had died, she would mourn him—but since he lived, why worry?

  Ryvček hadn’t felt that curse. The foul wrongness of it, leeching away his vitality, burrowing into his bones. It wasn’t only pain; it was the loss of the desire to live.

  Her laughter died as he explained how he’d escaped the net. “You gave yourself to the Rook? Grey—”

  “It was the only way. He wanted to continue. I… did not. But once he got me past that, I regained control.” He met her gaze, letting her search as if she might find some hint of the Rook’s shadow there. He wasn’t sure she wouldn’t.

  Most people thought of imbuing as relating only to crafting, the making of physical things. Some could imbue performances instead, achieving feats of supernatural strength or dexterity; Ryvček had taught him to do it with fencing.

  The connection between the Rook and his bearers went beyond even that. They didn’t imbue him as strongly as his maker had—they didn’t have to, with the framework already there—but they added to it, a new layer with each person who wore the hood. And unlike numinatria, imbuing didn’t pull its power from the outside. It came from within: a thread of the spirit, woven into what they made. That was why imbuing the inscription of a numinat was lethal. Pouring too much of oneself into the Rook…

  Other bearers had lost themselves to the hood, never removing it, never resting. Or thinking as the Rook even as they carried on their normal lives, until there was nothing left of the original person. Ryvček had told him, again and again, that he needed to hold some part of himself back.

  Last night he’d held nothing back.

  If he hadn’t, he would likely be dead. But there would be consequences for his choice.

  What Ryvček saw must have reassured her, at least for now. “So you just gave Renata the hood? And the Rook…”

  “Tolerated her,” Grey said. “But didn’t accept her.” The Rook chose his own successor and bound them with ties that lasted after death. Ryvček told him once that she thought the Rook claimed their szekani—the part of the soul that was supposed to go into Ažerais’s Dream.

  That was fine. It wasn’t like his kin would summon him with the kanina anyway.

  Ryvček’s eyebrows rose. “For a real chance at this, it seems even our hooded friend will compromise. Who will you terrify first, the actor or the fool?”

  “Actor. The longer we keep him, the less likely it is he’ll survive if we release him.” Fontimi was an oblivious tool in the schemes of the nobility and, Grey suspected, an expendable one. That wasn’t a crime worthy of death.

  Ryvček smirked. “In that case, I think a bit of stagecraft is in order.”

  Grey met that smile. Ren was right; some parts of being the Rook were definitely fun. “Rooftop?”

  “Rooftop.”

  He went through the motions of farewells and leaving before circling around to the narrow gap between Ryvček’s house and her neighbor’s. Pulling the hood out, he smoothed the wool with a reluctant hand… then made himself slip it on.

  Shadow impressions of the night before swept over him. No clear memories, but a grudging sense of forbearance when Ren donned the hood. Amusement when they faced off against a second imposter. Triumph when Beldipassi showed them the medallion.

  And simmering mistrust when Ren recognized the similarity to a medallion she’d once owned. Even if she hadn’t known what she held, even if she hadn’t consciously used it, that power had tainted her.

  Yes—and then she let it go. Not voluntarily, not the first time, but she’d left it behind without a second thought during the confrontation at the amphitheatre. As much as a part of him wished she hadn’t—how were they going to get it back?—what the Rook hated above all was the lengths people would go to for that power. Walking away, even in ignorance, was a mark in her favor.

  Setting thoughts of Ren aside, he braced himself against the walls and chimney climbed to the roof.

  The flat rooftop deck was built as a nighttime refuge from stuffy summer air. Today fitful gusts off the Dežera, bearing the first bite of autumn’s chill, set the Rook’s coattails snapping. A moment later, Ryvček shoved a blindfolded man through the roof hatch—still dressed in the remnants of what was clearly meant to be the Rook’s disguise.

  “You should have kept to your usual stage, Fontimi,” he said as Ryvček pushed the man onto his knees. “I don’t take kindly to imposters.”

  He knelt before removing the blindfold, so the actor’s first sight was the depthless shadows of the hood. Fontimi’s swallowed shriek came out as a frog croak.

  “Thank you for your assistance, duellante,” the Rook told Ryvček, standing but keeping his attention on Fontimi. “You can leave him to me.”

  “Just leave no mess for me to clean off my stoop,” Ryvček said, with a meaningful glance at the drop to the street below.

  The Rook let his tone sink into playful menace. “That depends entirely on my imitator’s cooperation.”

  “I’ll cooperate! I’ll cooperate!” Fontimi babbled as Ryvček left the roof. “What am I cooperating with?”

  Intimidation worked much better than pain for persuading people to talk. Intimidation, and the promise of help if they played nice. “You’re going to tell me who hired you, and what you were hired to do. Answer honestly, and I’ll protect you.”

  “Nillas Marpremi! He hired me. Gave me this costume, too. It’s much better than the one I wear on stage. You wouldn’t believe how flimsy that thing is, no lining or anything. And nobody would believe me as the real Rook if I were flashing my chest—” Fontimi caught himself, sweating. “You don’t care about that part. Marpremi hired me to get some kind of medallion. Said I should talk Beldipassi into giving it to me, or taking me to wherever he’d hidden it if the thing wasn’t on him. Kind of implied I should beat him up if he didn’t hand it over, but I wasn’t sure I would do that part. Marpremi wasn’t paying me that much, and besides, I only know stage combat.”

  “Then what?”

  “Once I had it, I was supposed to go to the fountain in the Plaza Giotraia and deliver it to Marpremi. By now he’ll know something went wrong.”

  If it hadn’t been for the death curse, the Rook might have chalked this up to ordinary business. The zero-aligned Illi medallion was nearly impossible to track down; it changed hands too frequently, cursing those it left behind. His predecessors had only been able to trace its path by the devastation it left in its wake.

  But the ambush was far too sophisticated for a man angling to be the medallion’s next holder. He suspected Marpremi was a middleman working for someone else. But who?

  Vargo didn’t have Illi-zero after all—but maybe he wanted it. The man was certainly a skilled inscriptor. Skilled enough to scribe the curse that caught the Rook?

  A few more questions proved that Fontimi knew nothing else of use, and the Rook’s impatience to question Beldipassi next made him brusque. “Mistress Ryvček will give you some coin and a change of clothes,” he said. “I suggest you hire on with the next traveling show leaving Nadežra and not return for… a while. If ever.”

  “But—” Fontimi’s expression crumpled into disoriented shock. “My career is here in Nadežra. My life is here.”

  In the grand scheme of things, this man’s losses were nothing. But this was what the struggle over the medallions did: It ruined people’s lives, in ways great and small.

  “That life will be very short if you remain,” the Rook said, tying the blindfold back in place. “The choice is yours.” He knocked on the rooftop hatch and waited until Ryvček had b
undled Fontimi away.

  For Beldipassi, different tactics were required. Ryvček’s attic was one of her stashing places for her seemingly endless series of cousins who rotated in and out of the house. It had a single window, just barely large enough to admit passage, but the Rook had squeezed through smaller. If the effort made his arms tremble with residual weakness, Beldipassi didn’t have to know.

  He found the man dozing in a reading chair, dressed in an ornate lounging robe, open book fallen into his lap. Beldipassi startled awake when the Rook removed the book and perched on the footstool.

  “Ten Summers in Seteris,” the Rook said, examining the title page before setting the book aside. “Are you fond of poetry, Mede Beldipassi?”

  “I prefer history, but it was the only book in here.” Rubbing sleep and astonishment from his eyes and a bit of drool from his chin, Beldipassi said, “You came back.”

  “You have something of great interest to me.”

  “This?” Digging into the pocket of his robe, Beldipassi pulled out a timeworn medallion. “If you want it, you can have it. After last night, I want nothing to do with it.”

  The disc of gold was both familiar and not, something the Rook had seen but Grey had not. Nausea rolled through him at the sight, and he fought the urge to back away. Only two centuries of poise kept his voice steady. “I’m afraid it’s not so easy as handing it over.”

  Beldipassi shivered, fingers curling protectively around the disc. Would he really have surrendered it, if the Rook had reached out? Whatever gave the medallions their power, it was seductive. The more a person used one, the harder it was to give up, like an addict with their drug. “What is it? I saw you at Essunta’s party, and I knew—I’m not even sure how—I knew you could answer that question for me.”

  No question that Beldipassi had made use of the medallion, then, knowingly or not. “It gives you insights into the people around you. It guides you to the things you need to accomplish your goals.”

  Beldipassi examined the medallion as though for the first time. “Ah. I thought it was just lucky, but that didn’t make sense for an Illi medallion. Luck is Quarat’s domain.”

  “It has nothing to do with luck. With a deep enough understanding of numinatria, you can even make those around you want whatever you want them to.” The Rook nodded when Beldipassi blanched. “You said you prefer history to poetry. Can you tell me what Houses Persater, Contorio, Taspernum, and Adrexa have in common?”

  Fingers tightening around the medallion, Beldipassi whispered, “They all died.”

  “They all used—then lost—a medallion from the Tyrant’s chain of office. Like the one you’re holding.”

  Beldipassi dropped the medallion.

  Then he shrieked and snatched it up again. “No! I didn’t mean it! I only dropped it—tell me that’s not the same as losing it!”

  A laugh ghosted out of the Rook. “If only. I could have set my hood aside ages ago if people had to keep the medallions in their possession at all times. No, ownership is more than mere contact. Do me a favor and place it back on the floor.”

  Beldipassi obeyed with alacrity, then retreated even faster when the Rook drew his blade. The odds of this working were vanishingly small… but he couldn’t not try.

  This wasn’t the first medallion the Rook had managed to find in his centuries of effort. All previous attempts to destroy them, however, had failed. He had two theories as to why: Either they could only be destroyed when all brought together, or the destruction had to start at the beginning. With Illi-zero.

  Taking his sword in both hands, he slammed the point into the medallion.

  Ordinary gold would have given way. An ordinary blade would have snapped. Neither happened: The Rook’s imbued sword bent and then sprang back, and the medallion showed not so much as a scratch.

  Biting down on a curse, he sheathed his sword once more. Numinatria had made the medallions; it would almost certainly take numinatria to unmake them. He would need to either find an inscriptor he trusted enough for this… or sink himself deep enough into the memories of past Rooks that he could see what they had tried before.

  Both held more than a hint of danger. And neither was something he should attempt today.

  Sighing, the Rook said, “Mede Beldipassi, I’m going to ask you to do something very difficult.”

  Beldipassi’s throat flexed as he swallowed. “You’re going to make me keep it, aren’t you?”

  “Until I can figure out how to destroy it. Keep it, and not use it—which will be the harder part.”

  “Don’t think about what I want? Oh yes, that should be easy.” Beldipassi’s snide response dulled into fear with his next question. “What happens to me if you destroy it? Will I…”

  “You’re in luck. I know a way to remove the curse.” The Rook wondered at that luck—if it was somehow due to the medallions’ influence, if he might not have learned about Fienola’s discovery if he hadn’t worked with Ren the night before. Ren, who used to hold Tricat.

  A man could go mad, wondering where that influence ended.

  It might even be responsible for the ambush. “How did someone know to send an imposter?” the Rook asked. “Who did you tell about our meeting?”

  “Nobody!”

  The answer came readily, but he didn’t believe it. The Rook merely looked at Beldipassi in silence until the man squirmed and said, “Just my valet. I wanted him to know not to disturb us!”

  The Rook’s teeth clenched so hard they ached. His valet. But for that stupidity…

  He wouldn’t have almost died. He wouldn’t have revealed himself to Ren.

  Maybe things had worked out for the best after all.

  “Your valet is almost certainly in someone else’s pay. I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, I don’t recommend going home.”

  Beldipassi blanched. “No, but—will I live in this attic? For how long?”

  Not the attic. Sooner or later people would gossip about Ryvček’s reclusive boarder. Given the reputation she’d built over the years, it was likely that some people already suspected her of being the Rook; keeping Beldipassi here would only increase that risk.

  But where? He couldn’t send the man away, like he’d done with Fontimi; he had to make sure this medallion didn’t slip through his fingers. Beldipassi couldn’t hide with Grey, though, because he needed someone around to watch him. Nor with Ren, either, because then there were too many people around.

  Someplace a person might take a room, without it being an item of gossip. Someplace he could trust.

  There were no good options. All he could do was choose the least flawed one.

  “I’ll send Grey Serrado to you,” the Rook said. “He’ll take you elsewhere. I need your oath on whatever you hold most dear that you will stay there, and not tell anyone where you are or what you have.”

  Falling to one knee with a hand over his heart, Beldipassi said, “I swear on my collection of golden walnuts from the Tomb of the Shadow Lily!”

  That would have to do. Meanwhile, the Rook needed to change back into Grey and have a chat with Dvaran about a temporary lodger at the Gawping Carp.

  Whitesail, Upper Bank: Canilun 4

  Renata didn’t stop to consider whether her new cousin would be ready to receive guests. Fortunately, Tanaquis didn’t recognize ceremony well enough to stand on it. Instead of letting Zlatsa show them to the salon to wait, Renata hauled Meppe up to the garret observatory. Then she stopped at the doorway in bewilderment.

  Sprawled facedown on the polished floor in nothing but chalk-dusted trousers and a fitted shirt, Tanaquis clutched a stick of chalk in each hand—and also between the toes of each foot. Her limbs swept up and down, tracing sweeping arcs onto the slate. At Meppe’s croaked giggle, she lifted her head and blinked in confusion.

  “Was there something I was supposed to do that I’ve forgotten?” She rose to her knees and removed the chalk from her toes.

  Despite her urgency, Renata couldn’t help but ask,
“What are you doing?”

  “Hm?” Tanaquis followed Renata’s glance to the chalked arcs. “Oh! Chalking the dimensions of a personalized numinat. Of course, you can use standard measurements—most inscriptors do—but I’ve found an organic approach can be more effective when determining the terminus of the spira aurea in relation to—”

  “Right. I understand now,” Renata said, before Tanaquis spiraled off herself. “I brought Meppe because of that matter you brought up last night. The cleansing?” Turning to Meppe, who was looking utterly adrift, she improvised, “Tanaquis was concerned that, because the Indestor register was burned rather than being properly undone, there might be some negative effects for you. I wanted to make certain we dealt with that as soon as possible.”

  Tanaquis had stood, and was hopping on one foot as she tried to wipe a rag between her toes. “That’s not—Oh. Yes.” She turned a brilliant smile on Meppe; Renata only hoped it didn’t look as false to him as it did to her. “Burned register. Let’s fix that. Renata, would you, ah, oblige me by getting that… thing you used before?”

  She had a deck with her, the replacement she was using for her mother’s. Stepping over to the table, she pulled out the cards and shuffled them, her back to the others so they wouldn’t see her lips moving in silent prayer to the Vraszenian ancestors. Then she drew a single card: Sword in Hand.

  “Do you always shuffle seven times?” Tanaquis asked as she handed it over. “Fascinating. I wonder if there’s some relation to Sebat. What does this one mean?”

  It means I’ve taken up the Rook’s crusade. “It’s the card of commitment,” Renata said. “I think in this instance, it signifies Meppe’s commitment to his new house.”

  Tanaquis frowned at the card. “Before, you drew three.”

  Because she’d been laying a three-card line for House Traementis. But also for the curse laid for Tricat, whether she knew it or not. “I think,” Renata said, then hesitated. If the Rook was right about Mettore holding Sessat… “For Cousin Meppe’s new loyalty, it ought to be six this time.”