‘And here I thought you said you were only going to tell two lies.’
The smile on Cressia’s face widened until it became almost obscene. In that instant I knew I’d made a mistake. They’d wanted this, wanted me to challenge them so they could prove she was beyond my help. ‘No, wait, I belie—’
‘Too late,’ said the voice.
26
The Third Lie
It began as a darkening around the irises of Cressia’s eyes, the deep brown turning to pure obsidian. She screamed as black tears the consistency of oil dripped down her cheeks. When the drops fell from her jaw, they evaporated into a shadowy mist. I put the copper-dipped needle back on the tray and took a second one that I dipped in molten silver – the metal used to extract the worm. But as I came closer, the black mist set me coughing uncontrollably, scalding my lungs. I could see the faint beginnings of burn marks on Cressia’s cheeks. Even though every part of her shook uncontrollably from the agony, she stopped screaming. ‘When the worm has fully … settled into its new home,’ the voice said, calm and controlled despite Cressia’s trembling, ‘it begins to feast on its host, and in so doing, develops some rather wondrous abilities.’
‘Stop it! I believe you. I won’t try to remove the worm!’
Her mouth opened wide, so very wide, and oily black tendrils emerged, reaching for me. I stumbled back to get out of the way. My hands dropped the needle I’d been holding and instinctively felt for the powders at the sides of my belt.
‘Go ahead,’ the voice said, the words slurred like a drunk’s because the black tendrils were making it impossible for her mouth to form the proper shapes.
Her eyes were bleeding black tears freely now, and the room had filled with their shadowy mist, choking me. In a moment I’d have to flee the room and leave her here alone. ‘Please, just tell me what you want!’ I coughed.
The doors to the workshop burst open and Janucha raced in, followed by a man who looked to be about my father’s age, though slender and clean-shaven. ‘Cressia! By all that’s decent, what have you done to her?’
‘Oh, good. Daddy’s here!’ The tremors shaking Cressia’s body increased as the black tendrils emerging from her mouth danced in the air.
‘Damn you, stop this!’ the man said, grabbing hold of my arm. He was surprisingly strong.
‘Altariste, husband, it is not the boy’s doing,’ Janucha said. Her reaction to all this was the complete opposite of his. She examined everything in the room – the shadowy mist, the black tears down her daughter’s cheeks, the tools and liquid metals I’d laid out to remove the worm. She took it all in with an almost perverse dispassion, seemingly trying to calculate the way to her child’s rescue.
‘Too late, Mummy! Shouldn’t have made that little birdy!’
Altariste let go of me and made a dash for Cressia, but the black tendrils slammed into him, tossing him aside. Janucha helped him up. ‘Do not do that again, husband.’ I would’ve expected him to rail at her for her lack of response to their daughter’s suffering, but instead he nodded and took his place beside her.
‘Go away, Mummy,’ Cressia said drunkenly, the black tendrils from her mouth waving at her. ‘I want to talk to Kellen, not you. Get out before I …’ The tendrils began to bloat, and I could see poor Cressia’s neck expanding as if it were about to split open.
The inventor didn’t hesitate, not even for a moment. She took her husband’s arm and led him out of the room, backing away as she closed the double doors behind her. She locked eyes with me, and in that moment I understood her message clearly: If I am denied a mother’s rightful fear and fury in the face of my child’s suffering, then you had damned well better find an answer to this atrocity.
‘She’s gone,’ I said. ‘Talk to me. Tell me what you want!’
Suddenly the tendrils shrunk, almost withering. Slowly, horribly, they retreated back inside Cressia’s mouth. Her throat expanded and contracted over and over as the mages controlling her forced her to swallow the worm’s tendrils back into herself. When it was done, she gave a sigh. ‘There, now was that really so hard, Kellen of the House of Ke? Can we not speak as friends now?’
‘Yes,’ I relented. ‘Let’s speak as friends.’
That earned me a nod of approval. ‘First, you will destroy the inventor’s abhorrent creation. Crush it. Burn it. Drown the contraption in acids if necessary, but ensure that whatever magic gives it the illusion of life is utterly destroyed.’
‘You’re wasting your time,’ I said, giving the words just a hint of derision. ‘I’ve seen the mechanical bird up close. It’s a toy. A few gears and springs cheaply charmed and triggered by specific words Janucha uses to make it seem as if—’
Cressia – or rather the mage controlling her – laughed. ‘For a traitor, you are inadequate even at deception.’ The hysterics stopped as quickly as they had begun. ‘Your second task will be to secure all of the inventor’s notes and burn them.’ Cressia’s eyes darted around the room. ‘While you’re at it, obliterate this place. It’s disgusting.’
She closed her mouth then, and eased back in the chair. Somehow I knew that wasn’t the end though. This pause in the list of demands was either for dramatic effect or to test me, to see if I was smart enough to figure out there was more. But I’d finished with Jan’Tep tests the day I’d left my clan. I started for the door. ‘Well, if that’s everything, I’d best—’
‘One final task will be required.’
I turned back. Cressia was smiling, which made what they forced her to say next all the more obscene. ‘The inventor, Credara Janucha zal Ghassan, must take her own life.’ A pause. ‘Or you can do it for her. We don’t mind either way.’
‘But why? If she swears not to—’
‘Even without her research, the inventor could still be compelled by her people to repeat the experiments. Their secret police can be … very persuasive.’ A slight giggle. ‘They might even threaten her daughter.’
‘You’re out of your mind,’ I shouted. It was a dangerous possibility: what if this wasn’t some grand and carefully thought-out plan? What if the mages controlling the worms were insane and now just playing games with their victims?
‘Not only am I perfectly sane, Kellen, what we do – everything we do – is for the good of our own people.’ Another pause. More theatricality. ‘For the good of all peoples actually, even the Gitabrians.’
‘Since when do the Jan’Tep care about anyone but themselves?’ I asked.
‘We care about preserving the natural order. Should Gitabria ascend, either the Daroman empire or the Berabesq theocracy will be roused to respond. Escalation will follow and war will be inevitable.’ Cressia’s eyes glanced down at her body. ‘You care about this girl? Millions will die if her mother continues down this reckless path.’
‘You don’t know that. She hasn’t even—’
‘Why don’t you have your little Argosi friend explain to you how it works?’
Ferius’s words when she’d first seen the mechanical bird came back to me: ‘The damned fool has created a new kind of weapon and she doesn’t even know it.’
I considered the mages’ arguments, looking for signs that might have slipped through the glib words, that might give me some clue as to their identity. But there was only one real flaw in all of this, and one question for me to ask: ‘Why didn’t you tell Janucha all this? Why use me as your conduit?’
‘Gitabrians underestimate the power of Jan’Tep magic. The inventor’s instinct will be to believe that, given time, she can out-manoeuvre us or find some means to disable our spells. You will convince her otherwise. And, should she resist – should her obedience to her masters exceed her love for her daughter – you will do what is necessary.’
There was a depraved intimacy to the words, as though we were co-conspirators setting out our plan. ‘I’m not some damned Jan’Tep spy or assassin. You can’t expect me to—’
Cressia’s eyes rolled back into her skull. Her body began to shak
e, the jerking motion so severe I worried she’d snap her own neck. Even through this, they made her speak. ‘The worm begins to reach into her heart,’ she said, the words vibrating from her convulsions. ‘It won’t be long now.’
‘Stop!’ I screamed. ‘I’ll kill you for this! I swear to our ancestors, I’ll murder every one of you!’
A trembling, fading laughter. ‘Really? A moment ago you expressed outrage at such notions. Besides, we are thousands of miles away.’
‘Then I’ll find you. I’ll—’
‘Watch closely now, Kellen, watch as the light fades from her eyes.’ A pause. ‘Almost there. Time to say goodbye.’
‘Wait! Wait, please! Make the worm stop! You get nothing if she’s dead!’
The shaking halted, and I could see Cressia’s eyes again, though the irises were still as black as coal. Her chest was pumping like bellows. ‘Then … let us both … ensure … the girl lives. Convince Janucha of our determination. Ensure the inventor does what is right, and thus prevent the deaths of the many rather than the one.’
The black fled from Cressia’s eyes and the lids slipped closed. Her head fell back. The trauma must have left her unconscious.
It took me several seconds to remember to breathe. My hands shook. My whole body began to shiver uncontrollably as the horror of what my own people had visited on Cressia replayed itself over and over in my mind.
It’s too much. I can’t do this any more.
I wasn’t some heroic mage like the ones in the stories I’d grown up on as a child. I wasn’t even an Argosi like Ferius. I was just a seventeen-year-old outcast, trapped inside the machinations of great nations. ‘Why me?’ I cried out, so loud that I was glad there was no one to hear me sobbing. ‘Why in all the hells are you forcing me to be part of your damned plans?’
Suddenly Cressia’s head came back up and her eyes opened wide. She grinned, her teeth blackened from the oil of the worm’s tendrils. ‘Because you are a turncoat, Kellen of the House of Ke. It is only fitting that we should bind you to our service for the benefit of the very people you betray at every turn.’
The eyes closed again as she slumped back into unconsciousness. I watched her, searching for any sign that this was another ruse, but she was asleep this time. This last piece of theatrics had been to ensure I understood their command over Cressia was absolute. There would be no word shared between her and Janucha that they could not hear, nothing she could see that they would not see, and nothing she did without their express consent.
They were in control now.
27
The Alloys
Janucha and her husband were waiting in the hall for me as I left the workshop. Nephenia rushed past them, her hyena close behind. ‘Kellen, are you all right?’ she asked. ‘I heard you screaming and then …’ She hesitated, but not in the way people do after being afraid you’d died. More like when they’re slightly embarrassed for you.
Reichis, perched on the flat crown atop an arched window that looked out onto the gorge, confirmed my fears. ‘We all heard you blubbering.’
Reflexively I reached up to wipe at my eyes, which only made things worse.
Cressia’s father stepped forward. ‘Forgive me,’ he began, then proceeded to butcher my name. ‘Magizier Kellen fal Ke té Jan’Tep, is it?’
‘Just Kellen is fine.’
‘Ah, yes, as you say. I am Credaro Altariste té Ghassan. I must apologise. When I entered the workshop … what I saw unnerved me. I overreacted.’
Janucha took his hand. ‘You are a father, Altariste, one whose love for his daughter overtook him. There is no shame in this.’ She sighed. ‘Let there be one of us at least who is guided by the heart and not always the mind.’
The smile Altariste gave her was as much one of admiration as affection, and made me feel as if I were spying on someone’s private moment. Fortunately, Janucha put me out of my misery. ‘We heard the demands they made of you. No doubt these mages believe this information will cause me to act rashly. They will find I am not so easily beguiled.’
‘My wife possesses the greatest mind of our generation,’ Altariste declared. ‘Hers is a genius that comes not once in a hundred years.’
I wasn’t entirely sure that geniuses were any less prone to being manipulated, but I let that go.
‘If these fools believe they can command the death of Gitabria’s master contraptioneer then they are truly mad,’ he added.
I got the sense he might have gone on at length had Janucha not interrupted. ‘No, husband. Lunatics do not have the capacity for such finely tuned levels of control over the world around them.’ She turned to me. ‘Have you any confidence that the ones who possess this onyx bracelet would honour their agreement, if I were to fulfil their requirements?’
‘You cannot—’
She cut Altariste off. ‘We are merely exploring what is possible, before we decide what is not! Well?’ she asked me. ‘What do you believe of these mages of yours, Kellen?’
The way she implied a connection between myself and the people hurting her daughter wasn’t lost on me. ‘I wouldn’t trust any of them, Credara Janucha. I’ve spoken with these mages through the obsidian worms before. They’re ruthless and arrogant beyond measure.’
The inventor tapped at her temple. ‘Arrogant. Arrogant is good. Might we perhaps goad them to honour their agreement simply to prove their strength? If you were to imply that failing to do so would be seen as an admission of weakness?’
Ishak gave one of his little barks – an odd noise for an animal that was related more closely to the great cats than to dogs. Nephenia looked down at him, her expression thoughtful.
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
Altariste stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. ‘What would an animal—’
‘Ishak says it’s the mechanical bird they want,’ Nephenia said.
Altariste looked sceptical, but Janucha began pacing excitedly around the hallway. ‘Ah, ah ah,’ she muttered.
‘One of their three conditions was that we destroy it,’ I reminded her.
‘Yes, yes. They made a great many demands, didn’t they? Negotiation is a part of every trade, and they have ensured their opening bid requires something Gitabria could never allow. The lords mercantile would lock me in a cell before they let me destroy my work, let alone take my own life. Yet with all these demands, they leave out the obvious prize: my little bellegenzia bird.’
‘Because they know we would refuse,’ Altariste said angrily.
‘Before, of course. But now, with my very life at stake? Everything I could ever do for our people? Perhaps they believe I would become desperate and offer them the bird.’ She turned to Nephenia and me. ‘Could these mages truly be so conceited as to believe they could—’
Nephenia nodded. ‘They will believe that given the bird and enough time they could use silk and iron magic to work out its properties.’
‘Interesting,’ Janucha said, then repeated the word twice more. ‘This gives us something to consider. Insight to work with.’ She smiled at Nephenia. ‘It is fortunate you were here to provide it.’
‘Ishak’s the one who figured it out,’ Nephenia corrected, grinning as she patted the hyena’s head. ‘He’s clever that way.’
Great. Her familiar’s a strategic genius. I looked up at Reichis sitting on his perch atop the window, utterly disinterested in the conversation. Whereas my squirrel cat business partner mostly just bites me and steals my stuff while I’m asleep.
Altariste put his hand on Janucha’s arm. ‘You cannot be giving this serious consideration. Your invention is the pride of our people, the future of our country!’
‘No, husband, my contraption was a mistake. A beautiful, miraculous mistake. A hundred times I have tried to repeat the experiment. Each time I have failed, destroying the very metals themselves in the process. The next hundred attempts will end no differently. My designs are flawed. Every one of them.’
‘Now it is you who are being illogical,
my love,’ Altariste said. ‘You just need more time. Your discovery will be Gitabria’s glory for a thousand years.’
‘Alas, it is not time that binds us.’ She removed the mechanical bird from her pocket and held it out for our inspection. ‘You’ve shown yourself to be clever, Magizier Kellen – can you discern the second flaw in my country’s great ambitions for our future?’
I might have, had Nephenia given me time. ‘It’s the metals, isn’t it?’ she asked, peering closely at the avian contraption. ‘Even setting aside the question of how you’ve given it the will to act on its own, gears and springs wouldn’t account for the way it moves. You’ve been hiring charmcasters to bind the necessary spells onto each mechanism, to make it move, or fly or sing. But ordinary materials of this size can’t hold on to a spell.’ She held out a hand for the bird. Janucha placed it carefully in her palm. ‘These alloys, I’ve never seen anything like them … Am I right that there are five different ones?’
Janucha smiled at me. ‘She is clever, this one. She is full of … What was it Servadi Zavera called it? Arta precis? Perception?’ To Nephenia she added, ‘An excellent skill for an inventor. Perhaps you should become a contraptioneer.’
Nephenia beamed. ‘I would certainly like to learn some of your techniques if you would allow me, Credara Janucha.’
Reichis jumped off the window arch and landed on my shoulder, sniffing at my face.
‘Don’t say it,’ I warned him.
‘In any case,’ the inventor went on. ‘You are correct. The mechanisms are constructed from the alción mistivae. The “exquisite alloys”, as you might call them, are forged using methods my people have forgotten, out of rare metals that no longer exist.’ She led us to a cupboard just outside her workshop and unlocked the door. As she opened it, dozens and dozens of broken mechanical birds clattered to the stone floor. The metal surfaces looked worn down. Rusted. ‘With each failed experiment, the alloys perish,’ she said.
Altariste looked troubled by his wife’s admission. He knelt and carefully began returning the fragile corpses to their grave inside the cupboard. ‘What little of the alloys remains is so rare that it is illegal for anyone but a contraptioneer to possess them.’
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