The black-clad men drew close to the contingent, halting a few feet away. They were led by an exceedingly old soldier with long silver hair that spilled out from beneath his helm and pooled on his mail-clad shoulders; Kelrob almost cried out with relief. It was Captain Lorgas, the aged keeper of the gate. He knew Kelrob well, was often there to personally order the formal openings and closings of his charge. Now he looked harried, his dark eyes glittering feverishly as they swept over Jacobson, then Kelrob. To the mage’s vast relief they immediately softened.
“Master Kael-Pellin, is that you?” Lorgas rumbled in a voice not dissimilar from gravel. The gate-warden’s eyes lanced to the sergeant, who bowed and beat a hasty retreat back to his men.
Kelrob nodded shakily. “Yes, captain.”
“Well, I’ll be an Ak’s cleft anus.” Captain Lorgas bowed as deeply as his age-distorted spine would allow. Straightening with a wince, he said, “Lord Azumana ordered us to keep a lookout. You were supposed to be here days ago.”
Kelrob nodded again. “I was waylaid on the road,” he said. “Just made it into town when the first explosion went off.”
Lorgas’s heavily-creased face fell into a profound despair. “You come to us on a very black day, my lord.”
Kelrob inclined his chin, stymieing a hot wave of guilt. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg Lorgas for forgiveness; instead he turned and motioned imperiously to Jacobson, who was clutching at his head and moaning with all due theatricality. “I have a wounded man here, my bodyguard. I need space and medicine to tend to his wounds. Will you conduct us to House Azumana?”
Captain Lorgas blinked, then nodded, his frown ever-deepening. Turning, he barked an order to the men behind the gates. Within moments, and with an uncharacteristic squeal, the iron portals swung wide, revealing a finely cobbled road winding away beneath the lush boughs of the evergreens.
“There you go,” the old captain said, turning back and bowing his helmed head to Kelrob. “Once you’ve seen to your man, I implore m’lord to return to the gate and lend us your aid. Magisters are suddenly in short supply, and the men will feel much better knowing they have magic on their side.”
Kelrob blushed, lowered his eyes, and nodded. “I will consider it.” Shoving his burned hand in his pocket he made for the open gates, motioning for Jacobson to follow. Jacobson, like a good servant, obeyed, though not without a few parting groans and staggers. Together they passed through the gates, beneath the watchful eye of the sentries and the unwavering scrutiny their weapons. Kelrob kept his steps firm, his chin upraised, all the while fighting an unwholesome urge to turn on Jacobson and command his arrest. He was conducting the ferret into the heart of the hen-house, against all better judgment and loyalty to his class; if Tamrel decided to break their bargain, the blood would be on his hands, a fresh coat added to their already-layered stain.
Beyond the gates the air was cooler, calmer, less foul. Kelrob was vastly relieved at this; the spells protecting the Entitled Lands must be functioning if the environmental enchantments were still in place. The gates swung shut behind them with a dull clang. Though he had asked for an escort, none emerged, and Kelrob continued to stride forward until a bend in the roadway shielded the gates and towers and watchful guardsmen from sight. Then, quite unintentionally, he collapsed to the ground in a swoon.
“Lad!” came Jacobson’s strange, gruff voice. Kelrob tried to answer, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He felt the big man’s arms slide beneath him, hoist him aloft, bear him effortlessly further down the path. A clatter of booted feet raced by, doubtless more guards bound for the gate and their duties, but Kelrob kept his eyes screwed shut. He was exhausted, trembling, and he allowed himself the moment of incapacitation, his scorched finger burning dully with every beat of his heart. Reaching down, he prised the false ring from his finger and let it fall to the roadway.
Visions clouded his mind, contorted faces, pools of freshly-spilled blood. All the events of the previous days flooded him, drowned him, sensation upon sensation assailing his mind until he grew numb. Above it all hovered the smiling visage of Tamrel, the mask dangling like a profane ornament in blank space. Tendrils of darkness reached for Kelrob, mimicking the plumes of smoke rising above Tannigal; he resisted them with a gnash of his teeth, and was suddenly once more awake and aware. He looked up into Jacobson’s face, eager to express his gratefulness, but found only a lifeless mask staring down at him, human eyes flickering behind twin shields of porcelain and smeared blood.
“I have no idea where I’m going,” Jacobson said. His voice was muffled, but intelligible.
Kelrob pulled himself up in the big man’s arms, rallying his senses for another pummeling go-around with reality. He glanced around them, was surprised to find the path idyllic and well-swept, the cloistering pines closing in tightly on both sides. They seemed suddenly far from the tumult of the city; the trees obscured the sky, concealing the signs of blast and burning. Only the sick lambency of the siege-dome overhead dispelled the illusion.
“Keep going forward,” Kelrob croaked, willing to speak but unable to fully surrender his lassitude. He hung like a rag doll in Jacobson’s arms, feeling strangely weightless. “You’ll start to see paths that veer from the main road. Take the third on the left.”
Jacobson glanced around them, a frown clearly marking his face behind the mask. “Never been in one of these hoity-toity urban refuges before,” he said. “Fine trees. Spruce and alder pine, if I’m not mistaken. Are you all right?”
Kelrob nodded his head in assent, though his limbs remained nerveless. “Just give me...a moment,” he said, feeling selfish for his need. “My head is swimming.”
Jacobson nodded, carried him on. “That was some fine intimidating you did back there. Almost sounded like a real magister for a moment.” His tone was light, but his words stung; Kelrob tensed in his grip.
“I did what needed doing.”
“Aye. And I’m grateful. I’ve oft been the victim of a magister’s haughtiness; never thought I’d need it to save my hide.” Jacobson adjusted his grip on Kelrob, his steps strong and sure. The stink of ozone was lessened here to near-palatability, lending the air a strange richness. Blackness fluttered at the corners of Kelrob’s vision, and he groaned, yearning to surrender the burden of his awareness.
“Jacobson?”
“Aye?
“I think I might pass out.
“Go on then. I’ll get you there.”
Kelrob’s head lolled backwards, his eyes closing against the contaminated rays of the sun. “Thank you.”
“Bah.”
The mage fell back into half-consciousness with a grateful sigh, thinking vaguely what a grim pair they must look: a bandaged gore-coated mercenary bearing the limp, birdlike frame of a boy. Not a man, no; he realized now that he had never adjusted to thinking of himself as a man. Nor was he a child, but some indeterminate creature, locked between the starry fantasies of youth and the smooth, cold clockwork of the rational world. The smooth, cold clockwork, now over-oiled with blood and tarnished with the film of blasting powder, whining and grinding and spitting cogs...Kelrob wondered at Tamrel’s offer, and his blood beat faster, though it left him ultimately chilled. Brief unconsciousness took him; he only stirred when Jacobson lowered him to the ground outside a familiar set of curling gates, wrought of polished silver and topped with the sigil of a swooping desert-hawk, blazon of Lord Azumana’s noble and timeworn line.
12: House Azumana
Kelrob stood in the perfume-rich arboretum, a cold glass of wine held in his hand. He hadn’t tasted the vintage, which the House majordomo had assured him was of the most subtle and inacidic temperament. His mouth was still dry, still grit-ridden, but he felt a strange reluctance to banish the taste. He stood at one of the large, curving windows, framed by the coiled tendrils and water-speckled fronds of exotic plants, and stared out over the city o
f Tannigal, just visible beyond the obscuring line of trees. There had been no further explosions in the last hour, but many of the fires had spread, engulfing entire sectors. Here and there blasts of azure magic fought the blaze, though Kelrob suspected the surviving magisters were little more than adepts like himself. Their use of the chromox was clumsy, almost amateurish; he watched as a wall of blue light sprang to life in the garment district, blocking the flames from further progression but pushing them towards a cluster of warehouses. Tannigal was burning; unless something drastic was done, half the city would be consumed before nightfall. Kelrob grimaced and flexed his right hand, the poultice binding his burns tingling and itching. He let his eyes stray from the city down into the rolling, pristine forest, pierced intermittently with the spires and halls of the old merchant families. No smoke rose from withing the enclave of the Entitled Lands, though the birds had been driven mad by the siege-sphere, attacking each other and darting across the sky in frantically squawking droves.
The house of Lord Azumana was constructed on the highest point in Tannigal, a small hill that surged up from the plains to a gentle, rolling crest. In the past, when Tannigal had been little more than a belligerent trading post, a fortress of limestone and iron had been constructed on the hill. There the local lords had gathered to celebrate their budding nobility; there they huddled in times of siege, guarded by little more than their loyal mercenaries and the most rudimentary of defensive magics. When, a century past, Tannigal had mustered its resources and declared itself an independent state, the fortress had been torn down, the land seized by the city’s most prominent and influential family. A minor palace had been raised on the old foundations, humble when compared to the opulent dwellings of the Living Conglomerates in the Great Cities, but still vast enough (so Kelrob had learned when he was young) to get lost in. The forest had been seeded and nurtured by the ministrations of Biomancers, plots left barren for the future halls of the rich; Lord Azumana’s ancestors had built a lesser abode in the northern reach, but a subsequent century of wheelings and dealings, not to mention a near-monopoly on the flow of cardamom and curry powder to the northlands, had flushed the family’s coffers, and put them into the enviable position of seizing the city’s most august property when its original builders fell into disgrace and dissolution.
Kelrob and Jacobson had been admitted to the estate quite graciously, considering the chaotic circumstances surrounding their arrival. The servants had recognized Kelrob immediately, and ushered him inside, stripping off the mage’s robes and bringing him fresh, clean linens before he’d scarce had a chance to return to complete consciousness. Now, dressed in soft clean-smelling clothing that in no way advertised his expertise and position, Kelrob felt like an imposter. Jacobson, meantime, had excused himself from excessive triage, primarily in an effort to keep the bandage-obscured mask hidden for as long as possible. He’d kept the false bindings in place, but washed the stain of blood from Tamrel’s porcelain cheeks. Together they had been guided from the entry hall down a labyrinth of passages, bound for the arboretum where Azumana preferred to receive his guests. Kelrob knew the place well; it always aggravated his allergies, left him sneezing and watery-eyed, yet he always relished the magnificent enclosed dome of crystal and the idiosyncratic gathering of flora it preserved.
Today, however, he hadn’t spared the sprouting hyacinth a glace, barely lingered by the bubbling pool of ever-yawning lotus blossoms. His thoughts were on the city, on Jacobson, on Tamrel. He wondered how he would explain the mask to Lord Azumana, wishing that they’d scrounged up a cowled cloak for Jacobson to wear. His hand swirled in a clockwise motion, the wine sloshing and spiraling accordingly; reaching up, he toyed with a coiled petiole of atherflower, the bristly stem catching on his bandaged fingers.
The servants had brought food and drink in a tizzy, their eyes full of questions that they dared not ask. Kelrob had said nothing about the situation in the city, standing by his story that he and Jacobson had just arrived in Tannigal when the consulate fell. He’d dismissed them with a word of thanks, poured himself a glass, and set to pacing while Jacobson tore into the tray of candied delicacies and cold meats, cramming food and wine through the narrow slit of the mask with a fervency that betrayed his own panic. Now sated and calmed, he sat on the lip of a small stone fountain, watching as the water spilled endlessly from the distended mouths of stone fish and pattered down into a pool of blooming lily pads and crawling, blossom-starred moss. Exotic fish swam in the depths, their rainbow scales sparkling in the glow of a ball of artificial sunlight burning at the apex of the crystalline dome.
At last Kelrob turned from the view. Raising the wine glass, he took a tiny sip that nonetheless inflamed his esophagus and set his stomach to boiling. Damn you ulcer, damn you, damn damn damn. Going to Jacobson’s side, he followed the big man’s gaze down into the depths of the water.
Jacobson glanced up at him. “I imagine they’d make fine eating,” he said, gesturing to the sail-like outline of a massive bioluminescent fish as it swam close to the surface.
Kelrob shook his head. “I’d advise against it. The same thing that makes it pretty makes it poisonous.”
“Then why keep the blasted things? Oh, of course, my apologies — I’m forgetting the tendency of men to lose all notion of sense when they accrue a little wealth.” Reaching down, Jacobson touched the surface of the water, then raised his fingers to the nostril-holes of the mask and sniffed. “Not even good for drinking,” he said with disgust. “I’ll never understand the rich.”
Kelrob felt a dozen aesthetic arguments bubble to his lips, but he swallowed them back down, further contributing to his dyspepsia. “They’re enjoyable to observe,” he said simply.
“Aye, that’s the curse of wealth. It makes good men into voyeurs, just as sure as it makes bad men into tyrants.” Much to Kelrob’s horror, Jacobson tried to spit into the pool; the saliva caught in the slit of the mask, trailing down the curve of Tamrel’s frozen lips like drool.
“How dare you!” Kelrob said, nearly breathless with scandal. “Remember that Lord Azumana is our host, his home our refuge. Remember that you’re supposed to be my humble servant!”
Jacobson gestured around the enclosed garden. “Only when someone else is watching, lad.” He wiped at the mask’s chin, then pried suddenly at its edges. “I keep thinking I can take him by surprise, peel it off while he’s lost in his recuperative lull. But he’s always awake, always listening.” Jacobson stood abruptly and bent his nose to a richly purpled inflorescence of wisteria. Inhaling deeply, and said, “So strange, to see them blooming in autumn. Hideously unnatural.”
Kelrob rose, leaving his barely-touched wine resting on the lip of the fountain. “I’m sorry,” he said, the words coming easily to him, as they always did.
“Why are we here, lad? You say you know a way out of the city, then lead us straight to its heart.”
“Remember the terms of my bargain with Tamrel? We need to find an instrument he can’t play, and Lord Azumana has a conservatory on the grounds, one of the finest collections to be found in the midlands. Assuming the defensive spells remain in place, I can get us access.”
Jacobson harrumphed. “Ah, yes, the quest. Tamrel is practically giddy about it. Though I thought the real plan was to get ourselves out of this blighted city.”
Kelrob bit into his cheek, drawing blood. “I do have a plan beyond the conservatory,” he said.
“I’ve no doubt. Tell me.”
“I can’t do that. Whatever you hear he hears. You said so yourself.”
A growl built in Jacobson’s chest. Drawing his sword, he began hacking at the wisteria, cloven flowers spewing a sickly honey-sweet fragrance as they were felled. Kelrob watched in frozen, half-abashed horror, his eyes darting toward the glass doors of the arboretum. He could only look on as Jacobson spent his rage, the fragrant carnage only ceasing when the big man’s arm grew numb. “I’m alread
y weary of resisting him,” Jacobson said between heaving breaths, staring down at gummy mess clinging to his blade. “I can feel him rummaging through my mind, savoring my memories, taking them for his own.”
Kelrob stepped forward hesitantly, half-afraid that Jacobson would turn on him and hack him to bits. “I’ll gain us access to the conservatory as quickly as possible,” he said in a small voice. “Though your outburst might hurt our chances. Lord Azumana is very particular about his flowers.”
“Fuck his flowers, and fuck this parody of a quest. This Tamrel-bastard can play anything, lad. You know it. Hell, he can play me down to the subtlest notes. This could even be him talking, and you’d have no idea.”
Kelrob quested for the proper words, his mind addled with fatigue and the lingering effects of trauma, all clotted into a dull brain-ache that his few sips of wine had exacerbated. “I have a plan,” he said again, in a soft voice. “It isn’t a good plan, but I bought us a month, and that’s what truly matters. I’m not going to abandon you, Jacobson. There must be a way to save you. We will find it.”
Jacobson actually laughed at him, a harsh ugly noise that caused Kelrob to retreat a step. “A month of this leech inside my brain, and why? So you can heroically save my wretched life? You don’t owe me that, lad; you’re no hero. Neither am I. But Tamrel wants us to be, wants us to writhe and dance like figments in some petty mythology.” Jacobson raised his sword and sniffed at the plant-gunk, the weapon held steady in his grip. “Before we met, I was trying to die, trying with all my damnably beating heart. But I was too frightened to do it abruptly. A little hesitance, I suppose; I’m not adverse to living, when there is work to be done. But there is no good work left in this world, lad. Only amusements, distractions, the worthless diversion of meagerly-paid duty. I’ve grown tired of the flesh and its entailment. I’d give it to this creature, yield myself to his will, but that would be just another defeat in the long, hideous chain. If I’m to die, I’ll die for myself, and no other.” Suddenly he held out his sword at arm’s length, positioning the tip against the bulge of his throat. Kelrob cried out, rushing forward, but too late; Jacobson drew back the sword and drove it in, a muted cry sounding from his lips.
Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01] Page 17