by Kat Ross
It was an odd way of putting it, but Alexei believed her. He had to, or he’d never be able to walk away.
“Don’t forget about me, Katarzynka Nowakowski.”
“Never, Alexei Vladimir Bryce.”
He kissed her thoroughly one last time to make sure she didn’t, then walked down the stairs, feeling both happier and sadder than he ever had in his life, certainly not both at the same time.
The gypsy cab was parked where he’d left it a few blocks away—with three tickets waiting on the windshield. He stuffed them into the glove compartment, hoping the girl hadn’t reported the car stolen, which she would be entirely justified in doing. He’d taken her livelihood, after all.
Traffic was heavy on the main avenues, but he knew every back alley and short cut through the city. The road to Kvengard was on the western side of the river. Once he sorted out his Marks, he’d try to find Misha even if it meant venturing alone into the Void. Thirty thousand square kilometers of jungle, all of it Black Zone. At least his brother was with Lezarius. The old man could protect them both.
The shocks on the cab were nonexistent and he was slowly navigating the cobblestones of Armourer’s Alley when a car pulled up and blocked the intersection. Alexei threw the gears into reverse, but another Curia vehicle boxed him in from behind. He killed the engine and waited.
A tall, slender form approached the car. Gloved knuckles rapped on the glass. Alexei rolled down his window.
“Fra Bryce?” Sharp black eyes, lined heavily with kohl, peered at him from inside the raised cowl. “I am Sor Tessaria Foy. May we speak?”
He leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. She slid into the car and lowered her hood. Graying dreadlocks fell down her back. The vestal had a face that could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy and he reckoned she had been a great beauty once. Still was, even as she stared at him with barely suppressed fury.
“If I had my way, Bryce, I’d have rooted you out of my god-daughter’s bed days ago. But since you have a knack for sticking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you, we decided to let you be.”
The Conclave. And now it was concluded with Falke triumphant. Well, if the axe was going to fall, he’d as soon get it over with. “Am I under arrest?”
“No,” Foy said sourly. “The charges against you have been dropped.”
He blinked. “All of them?”
“All of them.”
“Why?”
“Lack of evidence. The main witness cannot be located.”
“Oto Valek.”
She didn’t react to the name, but Alexei knew it had to be the orderly. “Your partner now denies that he saw you attack Massot. He claims he was pressured by the investigating officers and has retracted his statement. It’s a serious accusation. Normally, OGD would launch an inquiry, but both agents were killed by Invertido during the riots at the Batavia Institute.”
“And the knife that was planted in my chamber?” he said pleasantly. “Let me guess. It’s disappeared from the evidence room and no one is looking very hard.”
Tessaria studied him without expression.
“So I’m free to go?”
“Don’t be a fool. The Reverend Father requests an audience and you will grant it to him without delay.”
“What does he want?”
“That is for him to say.” Sor Foy’s gaze swept Alexei from head to toe. “I’ve been told the Bryce brothers are legendary, but you don’t look very impressive to me. What Kasia sees in you, I’ll never know.”
He smiled lazily. “Nor do I, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped anyone.”
“Watch your tongue, boy. You think you know what’s going on, but you haven’t a clue.”
He scrubbed his jaw. “Am I allowed to shave first?”
“Oh, do be quiet, Bryce. Leave the car here.” She glanced at the sparkly unicorn air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. “It will be returned to whatever teenager you stole it from. Now, get a move on.”
Crowds surged around the Dacian Gate, contained by lines of traffic police in yellow rain slickers. The crush of bodies continued all the way up the Via Fortuna and spilled into the plaza before the Pontifex’s Palace, packing it from edge to edge.
Heavy clouds promised another downpour, but so far it had held to a drizzle. The sea of black umbrellas pressed against barricades lining the main thoroughfares. According to custom, the Reverend Mother’s body would be laid out in the basilica for veneration of the faithful. After a six-day mourning period, she’d be interred in the crypts with her predecessors. There was supposed to be a pontifical interregnum in which the Curia was without a spiritual leader, but Falke’s faction had circumvented it by invoking emergency wartime powers.
The car wound its way at a snail’s pace, joining a long line of black vehicles. Tessaria gazed out the window. She did not speak to him again until they reached the parking lot at the rear of the Pontifex’s Palace and an aide came out to collect him.
“Good luck, Bryce,” she said crisply.
“Sor Foy. It’s been a pleasure.”
“No, it hasn’t.” She scowled. “But I won’t have my god-daughter heartbroken so for the Saints’ sake, behave yourself. I think you’re capable if you try.”
The aide, an elderly bishop named Ustinov, escorted him through the palace, past hurrying chars in mourning black and knights in the blue and gold tunics of the Pontifex’s personal guard. They were all men, which Alexei found disconcerting.
At last, Bishop Ustinov paused before an ornate door. He knocked and received a summons. The door was opened by yet another aide who met his eye and stood aside in silent invitation.
Alexei put on his lawyer face and strode inside with the same energetic zest he felt on the first day of a major court case, ready to charm or dismember as the situation required. It was not the formal audience chamber, but rather a more intimate study. They were on the third floor and he could see the ocean of black umbrellas stretching across the plaza.
“Reverend Father,” Alexei said, bowing his head.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Dmitry Falke looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
Dark pouches hung under his eyes and deep lines framed his mouth. Yet standing before the window, resplendent in a pure white robe and without a silver hair out of place, Falke appeared every inch the most powerful man in the Eastern Curia. He dismissed his aide with a nod. She retreated, the door silently swinging shut.
“You must be worried about your brother,” Falke said. “We’ve managed to find all the patients except for Captain Bryce and one other. His name is confidential, but I believe you know him. Patient 9.”
Alexei gave a cautious nod. “They were friends.”
“Do you have any idea where they might be?”
“None. Is that why you’ve summoned me here instead of throwing me back in a cell?”
Falke sat down behind a rosewood desk. It held a handsome copy of the Meliora bound in embossed leather and a collection of his own books, with FALKE stamped in large block letters along the spines. He must have been in the midst of writing missives for there were a dozen brass cylinders of the sort Curia messengers carried for high-level diplomatic communications.
“Our interests coincide to a much greater degree than you imagine.” He gestured to a chair. “Please, at least hear me out before you pass judgment.”
Alexei saw no point in antagonizing him, not until he knew what Falke wanted. He sat down.
“You view me as an adversary.” Falke tilted his head. “You think it was I who ordered your death. An understandable but erroneous assumption.”
Alexei said nothing.
“You overreached so I reined you back in. But if you know anything about me, you’ll realize the great esteem I hold for the knights of the Beatus Laqueo. I would never condone the extrajudicial execution of one of my own. Unfortunately, I was not consulted on the matter. The party involved has been reprimanded.”
Kireyev. Unless Falke was shifting the blame, but why would he care? He could do whatever he liked now. Alexei’s gaze drifted across a rectangular space above the desk, lighter than the surrounding woodwork, where he guessed Feizah’s portrait used to hang. Across the city, people would be peeling down her picture and replacing it with one of Dmitry Falke.
“Did you order the charges to be dropped?”
A faint smile. “Domina Novak demanded to know why I was punishing you. She was quite forceful in her argument. At this point, I agree. Arresting you again would be counterproductive.”
“I’m innocent, Reverend Father,” Alexei said. “We both know it.”
Falke regarded him blandly. “I believe you are, Bryce. So let us move on to other matters. I’m aware of your personal motivation to locate Malach, just as you must be aware that I knew your brother quite well before his accident.”
“It was no accident,” Alexei said coldly.
“Of course not.” Falke gazed out the window. “I am not usually a man who shelters behind euphemisms. The last days have been . . . trying.”
The Conclave. Alexei could well imagine the hostile factions jockeying for power in the hours after Feizah’s death. But the Curia never did anything quickly and Falke must have expended a vast amount of mental energy to force a binding vote within two days.
“Your brother was a fine man. I cannot compare my loss to your own, but I mourned him deeply.”
“May I ask you something, Reverend Father?”
“Go ahead.”
“What happened when he went with you to Kvengard?”
Falke nodded slowly. “I won’t conceal the truth from you any longer. Captain Bryce volunteered to infiltrate the mages by taking a Mark.”
Alexei could easily see his brother doing such a stupid, courageous thing—but only if he had something tangible to gain from it.
“But why? We’d already won the war!”
“Not exactly, as you well know. And there were other reasons. Substantial ones. We needed to broker a deal, but he didn’t trust them. Nor did I. There was no other way.”
“Do you know what he asked for in return?”
“Yes. He asked for your life. I should have told you before, but I’d promised him I wouldn’t. He didn’t want you to carry the burden.”
Alexei looked away, unable to bear the sympathy in Falke’s eyes. “That sounds like my brother.”
“I can only assume Malach learned of his treachery and decided to Turn his Mark as punishment. He must have done the same to Ferran Massot.”
It was time to test the waters. Alexei still didn’t know why he’d been summoned to Falke’s study, but he knew where the whole mess had started.
“It was you who had the doctor eliminated.”
“That’s a rash statement, Bryce.”
“I’m just trying to get all this straight in my mind, Reverend Father. I have no sympathy for the man. He got what he deserved.”
Falke eyed him stonily.
“However, in light of the evidence that Dr. Massot abused his patients in the most vile fashion, I must wonder if the Curia was aware of his predilections prior to last week?”
“The Curia was not aware. And I resent the insinuation.”
“Forgive me, Reverend Father. I merely find it disturbing—”
“Enough.” His voice hardened and Alexei caught a glimpse of the most feared and admired officer of the last half century. “I will not be cross-examined by you. Massot was corrupted by his association with Malach, of which I was entirely ignorant. I regret ever using him, but I had my reasons. And that’s why you’re sitting here, Bryce.”
Falke rose and went to a cabinet, returning with a glass cube that resembled a paperweight. He handed it to Alexei. The glass encased a heavy gold signet ring, trapped like a fly in amber. It was identical to the ring Falke wore on the third finger of his left hand, but instead of the Raven, it had a different emblem.
“Do you know what that is?” Falke asked.
Alexei studied the circle with twelve jagged rays resembling lightning bolts. “The Black Sun of Bal Agnar.”
“It was Balaur’s ring. I cut it from his hand the day Bal Agnar fell. I keep it as a lesson, Bryce. The nihilim lost because their power, both political and military, relied entirely on mastery of the ley. When it was taken from them, they failed to adapt.” He set the cube on his desk. Alexei stared at it in fascination. The Pontifex of Bal Agnar had been the worst of them, a monster now used to frighten children.
“I’ll be blunt,” Falke said. “The Curia is in crisis, one of our own making. My predecessor had good intentions, but she was unwilling to face the truth and thus left the problem to fester.”
“Crisis?” Alexei asked warily.
Falke steepled his hands. “What do you know about the events that led to the civil war?”
“The Pontifexes of Bal Agnar and Bal Kirith broke with the Via Sancta, issuing their own doctrine which they called the Via Libertas. They were excommunicated from the Church in the year 945. In response, they declared war on us.”
“But what was the exact nature of the schism?”
Alexei felt like a pupil summoned to recite before the class. “The essential moral nature of humanity. According to the Via Libertas, the only path to utopia is absolute freedom, allowing the strong to dominate the weak in a perverse form of natural selection. The Shadow Side is an inevitable aspect of human consciousness and the impulses it represents are beneficial to the evolution of the species. The role of the Church should be to allow nature to take its course, which would ultimately lead to a superior race. That was the true meaning of the Black Sun and Broken Chain. Of course, it was nonsense. They actively encouraged the worst and punished the best, while pretending to be above it all.
“Eventually, the ley itself grew corrupted and this taint spread through the cities until anarchy reigned. Most of the cardinals and bishops went along with it. Those who didn’t were martyred. The ringleaders wore red. The symbol of abyssal ley.”
A color that had since been banned for clergy throughout the Curia.
“But before the schism, nihilim were called by another name, yes?” Falke prompted.
It was in the Meliora. “Light-bringers.” Lucifers, in the old tongue. “They were our saviors after the Second Dark Age. They built the six Arxes and founded the Via Sancta.”
“Indeed. Some theorize that inbreeding led to the madness that seized them. Did you know that we share ninety-nine percent of our genetic code?The one percent deviation is related exclusively to the structures of the brain.”
Alexei did, in fact, know that. “It lets the nihilim manipulate the abyssal ley.”
“Among other things. There’s something else I want to show you, Bryce.”
They left the study, trailed at a distance by guards, and walked to a cloistered passageway overlooking an interior courtyard. Six children in blue robes were playing a game of tag among the columned archways. None were younger than eight nor older than twelve.
“This,” Falke said, leaning his forearms on the marble balustrade, “is the next generation of the Eastern Curia.”
Alexei stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“They can bestow a Mark, but the ability will die with them. There’s no chance it will be inherited by the offspring.”
“Why so few?”
“Why indeed, Bryce? You graduated at the top of your class. You must have an analytical mind. What changed in the last generation? What have we lost?”
He thought of the blood-soaked earth of the Void. “There were thousands of casualties. Knights, mostly.”
“And that’s the winning side,” Falke said dryly. “What about our enemies?”
“Annihilated.”
Falke watched the children laugh and run about. “Almost,” he said softly. “But not quite. Which turns out to be rather fortunate since we need their blood to bestow a Mark.”
The words hung in the air. “That’s
heresy,” Alexei blurted before he thought better of it.
“Yes,” Falke said mildly. “It’s also the truth. I know what you’ve been taught. That only the most highly evolved among us have the ability. That bestowing Marks is a consequence of enlightenment. But it is not so. We use Sublimin to induce a state of openness, but the act itself requires the abyssal ley. I myself carry Light-bringer traits—enough to Mark others, but not enough to create offspring with the ability. Believe me, Bryce, I’ve tried. Of the ten children I’ve fathered, not one has the ability.”
“Saints,” Alexei muttered, deeply shaken. “But the abyssal ley is inherently tainted. How could it be used in the service of the Church?”
A vestal called the children to lunch. They fell into a line and left, chattering voices fading into the distance. Falke’s soft exhalation broke the vacuum of silence that remained. “The human psyche is analogous to an iceberg, da? The visible portion is the conscious mind. Thoughts, memories and feelings of which we are fully aware at any given moment, the mental processes we can discuss in rational terms. But the vast underbelly remains submerged.”
Alexei had shelves of books on the subject. “The unconscious and subconscious.”
“Precisely. They are far more powerful in governing our behavior—all the more so because we are blissfully unaware of their existence. So it is with the ley. The abyssal is deeper and stronger, yet it is neither inherently good nor evil. Merely transformative. One day, we will not need Marks anymore. The human race will have evolved beyond our base instincts. But that day is not yet here and we will never reach it without the nihilim.”
“So they were always using it?”
“Only to bestow Marks,” Falke said. “Until Balaur and Beleth codified its use in other areas. Their predecessors understood the dangers and managed to avoid temptation for nearly a thousand years. Few know it anymore, but the white of the Pontifex’s robe signifies the unity of all colors of ley.” He sighed. “We lost a third of the Church hierarchy in this miserable conflict. A third! There are still some among us who can bestow Marks, but we are all old.”