Shadows of Ivory

by T L Greylock

  “If you must.”

  The man laughed and leaned back against the railing. “Eden.”

  “Very informal.”

  “You started it.”

  They both smiled then, recognizing something in the other, and the crystal clinked between them.

  “I’m not a thief, you know,” the Regatta Master said as he slipped into one of two chairs and plucked up a grape. He rolled it between his fingers and then popped it in his mouth.

  “Neither am I.” Eska took the other chair and sipped her wine.

  “And yet here we are discussing how to open a vault that hasn’t been opened in more than three hundred years.” He spooned out a slice of soft cheese with a minuscule knife. “I’m a consultant of sorts. When I’m not organizing the annual regatta, of course. Which keeps me very, very, very,” he drew each repetition out longer and longer, “busy.”

  “Of course. And what sort of things, may I ask, do you consult on?”

  “Security sorts of things. The extraordinarily wealthy tend to be quite paranoid, if you haven’t noticed, Eska. They like to keep the things that make them wealthy safe. I assist them. I also assist those who have,” he paused and looked Eska in the eye, “an interest in acquiring those things.”

  “You play both sides.”

  Eden cast his head back in exaggerated horror. “You wound me. Such a vulgar way of saying it.” And then he winked.

  Eska laughed. “I give you permission to phrase it however you like. I myself am the owner of a fine set of lock picks, though I’ve never quite gotten the hang of them. But why trust me with this?”

  Eden studied her for a moment. “You came here with a man I mostly trust.”

  “Mostly.”

  “More importantly, I trust my own judgment. It’s a great deal more reliable than trusting anyone else.”

  Eska, who also happened to trust her own judgment, could appreciate this. She chose an olive and then speared a piece of meat with a tiny silver trident. “What makes you think you can get to the vault and open it?”

  “Tell me why you want it open and then I’ll give you my answer.”

  “Tell me about your tattoos first.”

  If Eden was surprised, he didn’t show it. The grin that curled his lips was exceedingly sensual. He pushed back his chair and stood, then, without taking his eyes from her, undid the sash holding his robe closed. He let it fall from his shoulders to the ground.

  The silver ink covered nearly every part of him, forming words across his chest and abdomen, patterns that ran down his thighs, symbols on his arms. He turned slowly so that she might see his back, his sun-bronzed skin moving over lean but strong muscles. From his shoulder blades down to his pelvis, the silver ink caressed his skin in the shape of a phoenix in the moment of immolation, wings spread wide, flames consuming all.

  “Well, you do make a good canvas.”

  Eden roared with laughter and turned back to face her. He retrieved his robe from the terrace tiles, draped it over his shoulders, and returned to his chair.

  “Do you put on such a show for all your visitors?”

  “I see no reason to find shame in the beauty of the human body. Modesty is a crutch for those who seek to control others. But, no,” Eden grinned, “I am not always so inspired.”

  “What does it all mean?” Eska selected an apricot from the tray and took a bite, the skin over the ripe fruit peeling back under teeth.

  A more serious expression settled over the Regatta Master’s face. “My family has been in Cancalo for many generations. But once we had roots in a small country called Venadascar. It no longer exists. Swallowed up by the might of Irabor at the end of its years of conquest. My people chose that moment to leave, rather than face the undoing of everything they understood and held dear. They took little in the way of possessions, but they carried with them their memories and among those memories was a poem, the kind of poem that tells the story of a people.” Eden gestured to his torso. “This is but a glimpse of the words they passed down through the generations of my family, a verse that I chose for myself.”

  Somehow Eska knew not to ask about that verse. “And the phoenix?”

  “A symbol of Venadascar. Not of its dead war lords, but of the very land itself.”

  “It’s beautiful. As is the body that carries it.” It was not said with a smile or a knowing glance or a gleam in her eye, not in the wake of the sincerity he had shown her. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  “I usually tell people it was copied from an ancient erotic manual.” The grin returned to Eden’s face.

  Eska laughed. “With the intent of getting them into your bed or chasing them away?”

  “Both. And with a very high rate of success, I might add. It’s all a matter of knowing your audience.”

  “And to which audience do I belong?”

  Eden smiled again, that strangely dazzling, genuine, warm smile. If she weren’t already warmed from the sun over the terrace, Eska knew he would have seen a flush on her cheeks.

  “The one that gets the truth, apparently.” Eden emptied the wine from his glass. “Now, I’ve told you about my ink. It’s time you told me why you want the vault in the lake open.”

  “Because I want to see inside.” Eska ate a grape and smiled at the Regatta Master’s raised eyebrow. She ate another grape and then settled back in her chair. “I don’t believe the stories, the ones that say it’s empty. I’m an archaeologist. An academic. My research indicates there’s something in that vault. Something I would like to see raised from its watery grave.”

  The eyebrow stayed up. “You’ll have to do a bit better than that.”

  Eska raised her hands in defeat. “It was worth a shot.” She waited while Eden poured them both more wine, using the moment to choose how candid she wished to be. She watched the light play off the silver letters on his chest He watched her expectantly.

  “Have you ever heard of the Godforged? The Hands of Fate?”

  Eden shook his head, the diamonds in his ear glittering.

  “Not many have. It’s an old story, one of the oldest, as far as those who have studied it can tell. There were twelve, once, or so the story goes. Plucked from the moon or a fallen star, or fashioned from the hearts of twelve griffins, or forged in an island volcano by inhuman hands. Immortal hands, or at least close enough. There were probably as many stories about their origin as there were discs. They were given to twelve rulers, kings and queens of lands whose names we’ve long forgotten. Six disappeared soon after. How and why, we do not know. But six remained. The Hands of Fate they were named. Or Godforged, depending on which stories you might be inclined to trust. By whatever name, their stories are woven into the making and breaking of power for years uncounted. Until they vanished. Stolen, lost, reclaimed by their creator.” Eska shrugged. “They became legends and then myths and then they were forgotten. Mostly. Few believe they ever existed, that they were created by mortal minds to explain the unexplained. Just as we create heroes when we need them most.”

  “And you believe?”

  Eska sighed, trying to put words to the very thing she had grappled with since childhood. “It’s not so much a matter of believing to me. I don’t follow any gods. I hold the human mind as the most powerful thing in the world—after the chaos of nature, of course. Everything I have read and studied points to the existence of something, not just an idea or a story, something physical. Whether that something is capable of controlling the winds or tearing down walls or speaking to the dead…” she trailed off. “I reserve the right to doubt. But I also know that there are people who walk this earth who can conjure and control water and fire, and all the librarians and scholars in the world couldn’t convince me there are not stranger things still that I will never lay eyes on.” Eska looked at Eden, aware that she was, in some way, laying bare her soul not unlike he had. “And while I work within a domain of logic and common sense and evidence, I do not deny that I am also drawn to the idea of things
I cannot imagine or comprehend.”

  Eden had not taken his eyes off her as she spoke. “And if one of these Godforged is in that vault. And if it can do the things the stories say it can. What then? What happens when you bring it out of the darkness of myth and into the light of this age?” There was no accusation in his voice, no judgment.

  It was a question that had lurked on the edge of Eska’s mind since fleeing Toridium in the night, Albus’s letter freshly imprinted on her mind, but not one she had truly put words to, as Eden did in that moment, or allowed herself to think on.

  “Then I have to think that the human mind, that second most powerful force in the world, will be able to think of a means of containing it.” Eska stood, not sure how well she was bearing up under the weight of his gaze. She went to the balcony’s railing and spread her hands down the length of the warm iron. She could see a slice of the blue waters of Lake Delo. “Knowledge is my greatest treasure. But it is also my greatest weakness. And now that I am here, now that I have been led to the vault out there,” she went on, gesturing to the lake, “I cannot let it go.” Her blood was rushing in her ears by the time she finished and she didn’t hear Eden get up from his seat, didn’t hear his footsteps.

  But she did feel his hand on hers.

  “Do you know, I think that perhaps for the first time in my life, I am persuaded that the beauty of the human mind is perhaps greater than that of the human form.” His voice was low, earnest, slightly surprised. Eska dared to lift her gaze from where his fingers brushed hers. And somewhere in his dark eyes she forgot he was nearly naked, forgot they had just met, forgot what, precisely, she was doing there. “And to find both together,” he went on, “combined to the highest degree of perfection. It seems I am in rare company.”

  Eska tried to laugh. “Now you do flatter me.”

  Eden gave a small smile. “Ah, Eska,” he said, sadness interlacing with the humor in his voice, “now you do wound me. You and I, strangers who have given each other a piece of ourselves. I would not be foolish enough to throw that away with careless, empty words.”

  He kissed her then. Or she kissed him, she wasn’t really sure. Either way, it was the kind of kiss she had not had in a very long time.

  There could have been more. Eska opened her eyes at the end of the kiss and saw the same desire she felt looking back at her. But they both drew back. Not entirely. Eden’s hand remained on her waist, hers on his warm, silver-inked arm, and she could practically count his eyelashes. But it was as if they both knew there was business yet to conduct, and that if they didn’t immediately return to the matter that had brought Eska to his door, well, it might be a rather long time before they managed it.

  “I can get you into that vault,” Eden said.

  ***

  The warehouse on the shore of Lake Delo smelled faintly of resin and alcohol. Wood varnish, Eska realized, as she followed Eden through doors wide enough to allow a ship’s hull to pass through.

  The interior was dim and cool—and vast. That was the second thing Eska noticed. She was aware of Eden watching her take it in, just as she had been aware of his—now fully clothed—presence beside her on the bench seat of the small, open carriage they had taken to the warehouse district. Just as he had prepared the meal himself, he had driven the carriage himself, and the guards at the warehouse were the first sign of anything resembling a servant. They greeted the Regatta Master with respect, one murmuring a “Good morning, Master San-Germain”—giving Eska his full name at last.

  “My workshop,” Eden San-Germain said. “It serves also as a boat-building school, a ship-designer’s paradise, and a test facility. Master ship-builders come from all over the world to learn and share techniques and tools.”

  “Test facility?” Eska asked.

  Eden grinned. “Below-ground pool, not to mention the slipway to the lake when our tests require more space.”

  They stood between the bones of two ships, one, a swift, slender racer nearing completion, the other a much larger beast, a pleasure barge only beginning to take shape. In the shadows beyond, Eska could see more hulls under construction.

  “How does one get to be the Regatta Master of Lake Delo? And how does anyone work in such poorly lit conditions? And where is everyone?”

  “Ah, I believe you’ll have an answer to the second in a moment.” As Eden finished speaking, a loud metallic clang in the rafters had Eska looking up. The sound of wood grinding against wood followed, and then a crack appeared in the roof, widening gradually as a large section of the roof slid open. Three men, Eska saw, worked a system of ropes and pulleys from the ground. When they finished, they moved deeper into the warehouse and began to repeat the process, gradually spilling light into the depths of the building.

  “As for your third question, I give a day of rest for every four days of work. And to answer your first,” Eden said, “it helps if one wins the champions race twice before one is technically old enough to enter.”

  “That’s very enterprising of you.”

  Eden dismissed this with a shrug. “I spent far too much time on the water as a child.” He took Eska’s hand, an entirely natural gesture, and began to lead her to a narrow staircase that led to a loft at the back of the warehouse. “Come. I want to show you something.”

  They ascended the stairs and emerged onto a platform that covered nearly a third of the space under the roof. The loft was full, brimming with tools, model ships, oars of different designs, stacks of lumber in all hues, sheets of sails hanging from the eaves, and pieces of equipment Eska could not name. But there was order to it, and an epicenter.

  Three large easels stood there, each holding drafting paper and carefully drawn designs and blueprints. A worktable four times as long as Eska was tall was covered in more paper. Despite the quantity of things, Eska understood that everything was exactly where it needed to be, not unlike her own excavation sites. No gauzy curtains and intricate mosaics here.

  “My private studio,” Eden said.

  Eska wandered here and there in silence and he, standing quietly near his easels, let her. “Is everything up here of your own creation?” she asked at last.

  The Regatta Master nodded.

  “Then I wonder why you have not yet recognized the beauty of the human mind. Clearly yours is capable of a great deal of wonder.”

  He shrugged, uncomfortable under her gaze for the first time, and went to the worktable. “Here.” Reaching under it, he opened a small trunk and lifted a swath of dark fabric.

  She brushed a hand against it. Silk. “What is it?”

  “Diving silks.” Extending his arms above his head, he let the fabric unfurl. “Unexpectedly warm.”

  Eska took her hand away and held it close to her nose. “What do I smell?”

  Eden smiled. “Something not unlike the resin mixtures we make to seal wood. But you won’t find its like on a hull anywhere on this lake. Far too precious. The sap comes from a pine that doesn’t grow anywhere within one hundred leagues of this city. It protects the silk, keeps the elements at bay. These particular silks have been passed down in my family for four generations, but you wouldn’t know it.”

  “They’re beautiful.” Eska frowned. “But Lake Delo is far too deep to dive to the bottom.”

  Eden smiled. “Let me show you something else.” He led her to a corner of the loft to where a heavy piece of canvas was draped over something bulky. “Take a look.”

  Eska reached up and seized the canvas, then, with a yank, pulled it away to reveal a strange contraption of leather, copper, and glass set upon the head and shoulders of what looked very much like a tailor’s mannequin. Straps and buckles dangled from the apparatus.

  “What on earth is it?”

  “I call it a diving helmet.” Eden reached around the back of the mannequin and produced a coiled leather hose that, Eska now saw, was attached to the back of the copper helmet. “Surface-supplied air.” Eden dropped the heavy coil into Eska’s arms and turned back to the helmet.
“Exhaled air exits here,” he said, pointing to a small copper tube that projected off the side of the helmet, “while a valve keeps water from entering.” He rapped on the glass, an oval that seemed to stare at Eska. “The strongest glass man can make.” Eden took the coiled hose back from Eska. “In theory, it would allow a diver to stay below indefinitely.”

  Eska allowed herself a moment to take in the design, to understand what the man beside her was saying. She then fixed him with her most skeptical expression, the one she usually reserved for Albus when he was being particularly difficult. “In theory.”

  Eden San-Germain sighed. “It hasn’t been tested. I made the mistake of sharing the early stages of my design with the eminently wise Tribune of our fair city.” A scowl crossed his face for the first time. “Unnatural was the word he had for it. I was forbidden from finishing it, a directive I, of course, ignored. But experimentation is all together a more public venture. And so it sits, gathering dust.”

  “You know,” Eska said, feeling a smile forming, “I’m not a citizen of Cancalo. I don’t have to do what your Tribune says.”

  Eden remained serious and shook his head. “I don’t even know if it works. You could drown. I won’t allow you to be the one to risk it.”

  They were standing very close, Eska realized. The acuteness of his gaze was nearly as heated as the warmth that emanated from him.

  “Then how quickly can you make a second one?”

  Interlude 10

  Excerpt from Corin and Bravi’s Genuine & Noble Bulletin

  A DISCOVERY FOR THE AGES!

  Deep in the Heart of the wild lands of far off Omin Dara, Firenzia Company, under the Masterful guidance of Valentin de Caraval, has uncovered the Cavern of Sorrows, a place out of Myth and Legend. The Expedition endured every Setback imaginable and faced, with Brave spirits, the infamous Storms and Wrath of that dangerous land. This Bulletin has it on good Authority that they fought three Warlords who wished to bring Pain and Death to our good People, and that Valentin de Caraval himself brought down the third with a Sword once wielded by the Celestial Knight Myrmidon. How Remarkable that one so Young should make his Mark upon the World! How bold! How valiant! His noble Countenance shines with the very Light of the Sun!