by T L Greylock
You see, Albus, our current Arch-Commander, the illustrious Domenico de Farenault, is a man who feeds a grudge with his blood and the blood of everyone he meets. And it just so happens that Domenico de Farenault has been nursing a grudge against my father for half his miserable life.
If Sascha and I were married, de Farenault would never name him as his successor. And I refuse to keep the man I love from being what he is meant to be. If I tell him this truth, he will throw away everything for me and he will regret it for the rest of his life.
You must never breathe a word of this to Sascha, to anyone. I do not believe you would, Albus. You know I trust you as I trust myself. And yet my heart demands this promise of you because my heart is crying out for shelter and you are the only harbor I have left.
I do not know how long I intend to stay here. I came to Vachon looking for peace, but I grow weary in that search. I will write again soon.
Yours, because I can no longer be his,
Eska
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“That which is precious is not always valuable.”
My dearest Eska,
I am directing this letter to your family home in Arconia. I can only hope it reaches you, wherever you are, in a timely manner.
And now I must beg pardon for my unexpected departure. I received word that my aunt had fallen ill and, as her only living family member, I have traveled to her bedside to do what I can for her. Her condition is serious and I expect to be here for some time. She speaks of strange things in her sleep, most often a masked eagle, and I find I can only give her small comforts. I ask that you pray to all seven gods for her recovery, though perhaps it would be better to pray for a painless and easy death.
Do not fear that I neglect my work. I have, however, left behind that treatise you and I spoke of, the one by the six monks of Altiere. Perhaps you can provide a better translation of the passage about the lettering and symbols on the Ulyssian tomb.
Messengers are hard to come by, as you know, in these small mountain villages, so I cannot anticipate when next I might be able to write to you.
Please pass along my greetings to our friend Val. I look forward to a time when we can all be together as we once were.
Fondly yours,
Albus
“Your aunt?”
Albus nodded.
Keleut frowned over the paper in her hands. “I granted you permission to write to this,” she glanced back at the top of the page, “this Eska so that you might assuage any fears regarding your safety—not discuss monks and treatises.”
Albus swallowed. “I thought the point of this letter was to make sure no one went looking for the kidnapped librarian.” Keleut directed her frown at Albus, but he carried on. “Eska and I always discuss work within our letters. If I don’t, it will be very suspicious.”
Keleut kept her gaze trained on Albus for an interminably long moment. Surely she was about to call out one of the lies in the letter. There were many to choose from—though in the end he had not dared to include the one he most wished to write. How does one slip in a warning about an impending invasion when the invader is going to be examining it for that very thing? Whatever courage and boldness he had discovered on the sea wall of Onaxos had deserted him. But Eska would puzzle out the meaning of the letter. She had to.
After what felt like a lifetime, the Seycherran pirate looked down at the paper once more and refolded it. “Very well. You may send it immediately.”
Albus nodded his thanks, not trusting himself to speak. Only when he had left the room did he allow himself to exhale fully. But he had little time to recover his nerves. Aurelia was waiting for him. The slender girl stood between two pillars at the end of the fountain room, the arched window behind her framing her in the golden light of the morning.
They had begun the past two mornings this way. Aurelia would take him to part of the city and explain something of Onaxos’s heritage or customs. She had given no reason for these lessons, and Albus had submitted to them without question, more to satisfy his own curiosity than to avoid angering the strange, pale-haired twins. Not that he wanted to anger them or the large brute who seemed permanently attached to the shadow of whichever twin he was in the presence of.
“What will you show me today?” Albus asked as he put a pleasant expression on his face.
Aurelia smiled. “Today is a secret. But we are leaving the city. Are you ready?”
Albus made a show of looking around. “And your friend?”
The girl laughed. “Where we are going, I have no need of Manuba’s protection. Though,” she said, leaning toward Albus as though they were sharing a great secret, “he thinks otherwise, of course.”
Albus matched her smile but his insides twisted in—guilt, shame? He wasn’t sure. The twins fascinated him, but he was afraid of what they could do. More specifically, he was afraid of what those who believed in their divinity would be willing to do. To make it worse, he had searched in vain for any sign of an adult’s guiding hand, an authority to whom Aurelia and her brother answered, who was dictating the course of their actions. The absence of any such figure was frightening and Albus was forced to attribute the twins’ composure and competence to them alone. His mother had warned him against unsupervised children—for vastly different reasons, but Albus was fairly sure the principle still applied.
The fact that they often engaged in childlike behavior made it all the more confusing. Not petulance or tantrums or spite. But laughter and games and giggling.
As for the Wisdoms of Onaxos, they might as well have been nonexistent. After that day on the sea wall, Aurelia and Aurelian had taken Albus and Keleut to a vast house situated on the highest terrace of the city. They didn’t rule—not as Albus would define it. They didn’t settle disputes or give orders. They certainly didn’t dictate law. But they were revered. They were adored. And they were far more visible than the Wisdoms.
It had only taken a day in the city with Aurelia for Albus to understand what he had glimpsed that moment in the garden with the statue of the divine Twins framed behind Aurelia and Aurelian—they had the power to attract followers and keep them. The Wisdoms might be the mind of the city. But Aurelian and Aurelia nox Macedonos were its heart.
If the Wisdoms had any sense, Albus had concluded, they would arrange for an expedient, tragic accident. But then, the Wisdoms of Onaxos had demonstrated none of that stuff for which they were named.
“I love a secret,” Albus heard himself say. It earned him a delighted smile.
They took a litter as they had the other mornings—but not down through the city. Instead the servants trotted them upward. They passed across the sprawling white stone terrace and then under the shadow of the spire. Upon reaching a high wall spanning the entire width of the promontory and manned by trident-wielding warriors, the litter slowed, but only until Aurelia showed her face. A barked order followed and the iron gate set into the wall swung open to release them.
“The Plains of Naxos,” Aurelia said, waving a hand through the sheer white curtain of the litter.
Onaxos, Albus realized, was situated between two seas. The first was the wet kind, of course, but this, this was a sea of grass the most remarkable shade of green. It flowed around the knees of the litter-bearers and crested in waves driven onward by the wind.
Aurelia gave him a moment to appreciate the beauty of the plains before asking, “Do you know why the grass is this color? It is unique to the Plains of Naxos.”
“I do not. But I should like to.”
“You’ll have the answer soon enough.” The girl shifted so she faced Albus squarely. Her face had turned serious. “Master Tarvonos,” she began, using the false name Albus had given on a whim, “what you will see today are among two of the greatest secrets of my city. With our divine Twins’ favor, one of those secrets will become known to the world soon enough, but for now, do I have your word that you will not divulge them to anyone?”
He was not, thanks to Kel
eut, likely to be divulging much of anything to anyone. The Seycherran captain had given no indication that she might be inclined to grant him his freedom. But Aurelia could not know that. As far as she was concerned, he was a Bellaran who had forsaken his home in favor of Seycherra. Keleut had fabricated some story about Albus feeling a connection of the heart to the people of Seycherra and choosing to abandon the woman he loved in favor of a life on a Seycherran ship.
Albus had been forced to cover his laughter with a coughing fit.
“You have my word,” he said in his gravest voice.
Aurelia smiled and Albus took the opportunity of a captive audience to attempt to fish for information.
“You have, princess, shown me a great deal of your city.” She had never demanded the use of a title, but neither had she rebuffed it. “But you have shared only a little of yourself. Your prestige and position are remarkable for your age.”
“The name Macedonos is an old one. Many of my ancestors served as Wisdoms when Onaxos was a great and feared city on the Anerrean Sea.”
“Forgive me, but that was many, many years ago.”
Aurelia sighed a little. “It was. When the last of my ancestors was called to Wisdom, a rift grew between the occupants of the spire. In the end, one faction overruled the other and cast out the dissenters, my ancestor included. Not violently, for that was not the way they believed things should be done. But they forever changed this city. Our decline in influence and significance began that day.”
“What caused this rift?” This was no history Albus knew. He had learned only of a gradual and natural decline as other cities on the Anerrean Sea rose to power—as had happened countless times before. The books did not speak of internal strife. But Albus had learned by then that Onaxos was very good at hiding things from the world.
Aurelia was quiet for a moment, her smooth face contemplating the waving grass. “You have seen our Wisdoms as they are today. You have seen how they look only inward, how they ask questions of the stars rather than seek answers among the people.” She shifted her gaze to Albus. “No Wisdom has set foot outside the spire once entering it for a generation.”
Albus frowned, his confusion genuine. “How do they rule?”
Aurelia shrugged elegantly. “The day to day work is done by faithful followers. They adhere to their tasks. The city functions. Barely.”
“Can they not be reasoned with? Made to see the harm they cause?”
Aurelia smiled as though Albus were the child. “My dear Master Tarvonos, they are the product of generations upon generations of philosophy stating that the Wisdoms are the divine conduit of Taalo and Toora, that this is how they protect the city. Nothing else matters but their conversation with our gods. There is no reason in them.”
“Protect the city. From what? I do not wish to offend, princess, but Onaxos is far from the minds of the conquerors of the world. Even the Alescus never thought it worth their time.”
“You do not offend, Master Tarvonos. I am well aware of what the world thinks of us. My parents, the product of two of the remaining families who hold on to the memories of what Onaxos once was, taught me well. But I have not told you all there is to know about the rift that brought about our decline.” Three slender fingers pushed aside the curtain and Aurelia glanced out the window. Albus sensed they were descending slightly.
“The Wisdoms argued over a prophecy. My ancestor and her followers believed the Twins were trying to tell us of a threat originating from within the city. The faction that won insisted the threat was external and that by turning inward, the city could be saved.” She looked at Albus. “Remarkable, isn’t it, how the world can hinge upon the interpretation of only a few words. But I don’t need to tell you that, master interpreter.” She sighed. “They fulfilled the prophecy themselves, you see. They drove the city in on itself. They shut the sea wall, they built the defenses behind the spire, they shunned visitors and any trade, they cast suspicion on their allies. You can see, I’m sure, how that might contribute to a once great city’s downfall.”
“Indeed,” Albus murmured. “How is it that Onaxos wasn’t swallowed up by a rival as she weakened?”
Aurelia laughed. “I think we owe that to the Peliades.”
“Of course. The Anerrean Sea was in chaos. I hadn’t thought of the timing.”
The girl nodded. “By the time the Peliades were finished killing each other off, Onaxos’s sea wall had been shut for decades. Most people who knew what might be gained from taking the city were dead or in chains. And so we were allowed to be forgotten.”
Albus almost felt a pain of sadness. Almost. After all, as a historian, to learn that Onaxos had been shut off from the world, all on the words of a few god-addled minds, it was, in Albus’s mind, an intolerable loss.
And yet, thanks to two children, that very city was contemplating conquering his own.
“We’re here,” Aurelia said.
The litter came to a halt and was lowered to the ground. Aurelia stepped nimbly through the sheer curtain. Albus followed.
The sea of grass waved around them, stretching as far as Albus could see, infinite and unblemished by manmade structure. He followed Aurelia a short distance from the litter, and only then did he see the narrow chasm splitting the sea in two.
The gorge ran north to south through the Plains of Naxos and carved deep into the earth. As Albus stepped as close to the edge as he dared, he was aware of Aurelia watching him with a proud smile. The bottom was a distant idea more than a reality Albus could see. He could hear water running, the sound amplified by the stone confines of the chasm, but only saw flashes of the buried river, the rest obscured by protrusions of rock and vegetation clinging to the canyon walls.
But Aurelia wasn’t interested in the strange plants with their purple leaves or the beautifully layered formations of rock showcasing yellow limestone and blue granite and greenschist that featured a pale version of its namesake color. She was pointing south.
Albus shifted on the edge of the chasm, adjusting his perspective so he could see what Aurelia wanted to show him.
“Scaffolding,” he murmured. It clung to the cliff face like a parasite, obscuring the layers of geological history, a skeleton sucking the earth of life—for Albus understood what he was standing over, what the gorge concealed.
“A mine,” he said.
“Not just any mine, Master Tarvonos. You asked how Onaxos has survived. I told you the Wisdoms suspended all nonessential trade. Onaxians were expected to live off fish and the inadequate quantities of grain and vegetables they could grow in their small garden plots in the city. It is possible, but such a life prohibits growth or innovation, as you might imagine. Our people were so intent on surviving and feeding their children, they stopped inventing, they stopped making music and art and poetry. In time, as things stabilized, those beautiful talents resurfaced, but that time of darkness cost us.” Aurelia’s young face held a perfect expression of sorrow—and yet Albus could not find it genuine, and not just because of her youth.
“I digress,” she said, smiling apologetically. “But other work suffered, too. A century ago, a discovery was accidentally made here on the Plains of Naxos, a discovery that once would have made Onaxos wealthy. But the Wisdoms forbade our finest minds from exploring it. My father finally convinced the Wisdoms to open this mine not long after my brother and I were born. It was his life’s goal. And he sacrificed himself to it. But it worked. And thanks to the discreet assistance of our closest island neighbor, the contents of the mine flow out—in small quantities only—and in return, Onaxos once again has access to the finest lumber from Anderran forests, iron from Parphea, and grain from Umoria. Out of necessity, it is a slow process, for we do not wish to attract the greed of those who would like to lay claim to our greatest resource.”
“And what is that resource, princess?”
“I’ll show you.” Aurelia beckoned Albus onward and they traversed the edge of the chasm until they reached a point where
the scaffolding extended to the surface. A short descent on a wooden ladder anchored to the stone brought them to a platform and a great deal of rope and rigging. A man waited there, pale and skinny, dressed only in trousers cut off above his knee. He spoke not a word and did not so much as look at Aurelia, but he began to adjust several components of the rigging, then leaned over the railing of the platform and gave a sharp whistle. The platform jolted to life under Albus. He reached out a hand at empty air to steady himself and gritted his teeth as Aurelia maintained perfect balance, her arms behind her back, her face politely refusing to register Albus’s wobble.
They descended perhaps halfway down the gorge, stopping when they reached a second platform, this one manned by two more shirtless men who, like bell ringers, had been taking turns heaving on the ropes. They, too, stood completely still as Aurelia passed, their gazes staring vacantly over the top of her head. Albus tarried behind her, unable to take his eyes away from the strange men.
She led Albus along a wooden walkway, one of many crisscrossing the walls of the chasm. Several hairpin turns later, they reached a tunnel boring into the rock. Albus expected Aurelia to enter, but instead she extended a hand toward one of two men waiting at the entrance to the tunnel. The second man held a burning torch. The first placed a small object in her palm, a vial, which she held up between thumb and forefinger to show Albus
It was empty.
Albus frowned.
Aurelia laughed.
“I’m not making a joke, Master Tarvonos,” she said, “though your confusion is to be expected.”
“I don’t understand.”