by R A Fisher
“Inaccurately, yes. By helping us, you might further your own goals. They are not anyway unrelated.”
“Might? As in, you might give me what I’m looking for, or you might not?”
“Just as your Ma’is Ormo may give you what you seek, or he may not. However, he will be less gracious toward the task of satisfying your revenge than we. He also has reason to deceive you, perhaps betray you. We do not, and we will greet your honesty with our own if you choose to trust us with it.”
We don’t have any way of knowing if he’s lying or not.
Syrina laughed. “I’ve got quite the choice, don’t I?”
“It’s serving us or death. Or lying to us, which will lead to death, because we will know. Even the Kalis cannot deceive. But we think you’ll take our offer and you will not lie to us. Otherwise, you would not have submitted as you did. Other Kalis have come here and told us stories, but you are one of the first to parlay with honesty.”
If you think I can help you lie to Ormo, maybe I can help you lie to this guy instead. Let’s give it a shot and try to get the hell out of here. It might not be too late to get what we came for.
Syrina was done with Ormo and the damn voice. “Take control, then, and do it yourself,” she said under her breath.
The voice had the good grace not to answer, but Syrina could feel it sulking. The Astrologer raised an eyebrow at her but refrained from comment.
“Like I said, quite a choice,” she said to the Astrologer. “Fine. It’s as good an offer as I could’ve hoped for. Better, in fact.”
He nodded and made an almost imperceptible gesture. The door opened. There was a clatter of locks and bolts and keys from the coffin. And just like that, Syrina was free, if still covered in paint, now stiff and flaking. She wondered how the old man could be so sure she was telling the truth, but since she was, she figured his methods must work well enough.
“You’re welcome to explore the prefecture building at your leisure, but we ask you to remain within it. Your lack of restraints would upset the populace if it were to becom known.”
“And then what?”
“When we’re ready, we will tell you certain things.”
“Um. Okay. And then?”
“That depends on what we tell you.”
Syrina frowned.
That’s a pretty shitty deal.
“Fair enough,” she said.
“Please show our new guest to the Visitor’s Wing,” the Astrologer said to the guards at the door behind her. “And find her suitable quarters.”
The soldiers were disciplined enough to not openly react, but they couldn’t hide the glance they gave each other as they turned to lead Syrina from the courtyard.
She hoped that whatever closet they stuck her in this time, it would at least have a bath.
24
History
Syrina expected her suitable quarters to be another unlit closet, but it ended up being a suite of three large, square identically-sized windowless rooms. The walls were unadorned obsidian, so even with all the lamps burning, it seemed dark. She wondered why the astrologers seemed to have the same black-room fixation the High Merchants had, but she didn’t mind. It was still brighter than the closet had been.
The chambers were furnished with overstuffed goat leather furniture, an enormous quilted feather bed, and a raised brass bath with an oil stove under it. There was a knob on the side of the tub to adjust the heat without getting out of the water. She was never a fan of sitting on gigantic furniture, and as always, she slept on the floor, but she made good use of the tub.
She was a good girl, mostly. Kept to herself and didn’t pull anything, and she only left the prefecture building a handful of times, just to explore. She was sure they watched her go, even as careful as she was. She couldn’t even get out a hall window without passing under at least a few of the hooded lamps which made her tattoos glow, though, no one was around to see her, as far as she could tell. She assumed it was a test. Even if they couldn’t keep an eye on her after she left the prefecture building, they could keep their ears to the city, listening for anything to go down that they could blame on her. But they let her go and come back, and they never blamed her for anything.
Vormisæn was a small city, maybe a hundred thousand people, which included the sprawl of outlying farms, orchards, and forest reserves. The police force was modest but well respected. The streets were lit by gas lamps at night and bustled with people long after Syrina would expect a city of that size to sleep. The primary industries were pickling the fish carted in from the coastal towns and selling fruit from the surrounding orchards. Syrina noted all of it more out of habit than anything else. She couldn’t discard the possibility that something might be useful to her later.
Most of the streets were wide enough to accommodate four camel wagons abreast, and down the center of the major boulevards, fruit trees and palms separated the lanes, creating a sense of peace and order amid the chaos. She was surprised that they only seemed to use camels here and not the steam cars she was used to seeing around Eheene. But there was a dirigible docking tower perched at the south edge of the city, and there was always an airship there when she went out.
Brown thick-walled stone buildings lined the avenues, one sometimes two stories, hunched behind low walls and sloping gardens. More often than not, the exterior wall of one house became the interior of the one next to it, making some streets meander for a span or more before coming to the next intersection. It made rooftop travel even easier than it was in the Foreigner’s District, but Syrina dreaded the thought of needing to find her way through the city while confined to the maze of streets. Vormisæn grew out of a wide, low valley, spilling over the edges, into the adjacent hollows, like a bowl overflowing with chunks of brown curd.
She didn’t get so much as a hello from the Astrologer for a fortnight, until one evening, a sweaty, nervous little government messenger arrived at her door and invited her to join the conversation in the courtyard.
It was an hour before midnight and clear. The Eye was new and not up anyway, and stars splattered across the sky. The Astrologer had taken his place in the spot under the gazebo. This time, he didn’t approach her. He had a stack of papers in his hand, which he rested in his lap when he looked up at her. They hadn’t subjected Syrina to the coffin-prison again, but a servant had painted her white, with a fine floral-scented powder before she entered the courtyard so the Astrologer could have something to look at. She was grateful it wasn’t the fishy paint they’d used the first time. That stuff had been hell on the bathtub.
There was no light beyond the stars, which were bright enough to illuminate the old man’s dusty face. He looked calm, considering he was being approached by an unrestrained Kalis, but it was stupid to think there wasn’t at least thirty crossbows or their equivalent trained on her from the dark eves and windows.
“I hear you’re going to tell me something about the world,” she said after the silence had drawn on long enough to annoy her.
“Did you know the Ancients didn’t name this world Eris?” he asked, in Skald.
She couldn’t read his tone and wondered what his point could be.
She shrugged.
“It was not this world, but the orb known now as the Eye that was named Eris,” he said as if he were reciting a lesson he’d taught many times. “Named after a goddess of discord that was ancient even to them. She is not our moon. We are hers. The Eye is a thousand times bigger than the nameless globe we ride, a fact that has been forgotten by most and brushed aside by the few who remember. They named it Eris because of the disharmony it caused the world on which they chose to live. When the Ancients came to this lonely moon, the tides that pulled at our seas were many, many times stronger than they are now. Those were the tides that heaved the Black Wall up from a turmoil of stone and water and molten rock, a million years before our ancestors first arrived. Eris’s moon ever quaked in the beginning times, and waves ten thousand hands high shaped
and reshaped the land. Only the meanest and most tenacious life had existed here when the starships landed. Who knows why humanity’s Ancestors chose such a savage world? Perhaps they found something of value here that is now lost to us. Perhaps they had no choice. There is too little of the past left to guess.”
The Astrologer stood with a long sigh and gazed at the stars, brow furrowed as if he was trying to figure out which point of light the Ancients might’ve come from all those thousands of years ago.
His voice was quiet, but it carried well in the acoustics of the courtyard. He leveled his eyes at Syrina again. She brushed a few grains of white powder from her eye.
“The power and knowledge of the Ancients were vast,” he said, voice stronger. “Even now, after ten thousand years of study, almost everything they accomplished is beyond our understanding. Over two thousand generations, yet the more we learn, the more we know is lost.
“They brought with them many creatures from their home, though once again, the reason why has faded to dust across the eons. Some died out, others thrived and went wild. The Ancestors, their servants, and their beasts were able to travel from another sun to settle here among the ferns and high trees and methra fish and karakh, and not just survive, but prosper. Though they couldn’t diminish the energy of the tides, they constructed devices able to absorb and tame them, protecting their new home from the destructive pull of Eris.”
“The Tidal Works.”
“Yes.” He glanced at the stars and sat again, in one graceful act, punctuated with a little grunt: the sound of an old man settling down to rest after a long day’s labor. After a short pause, as if catching his breath, he continued. “Our Ancestors, no doubt, had more use for such relentless quantities of energy than heating and lighting cities and pumping hot water, but the principle was the same. When they turned the machines on, the seas stilled, the quakes calmed, and the mountains ceased their heaving, flaming belches.”
“Wait a minute,” Syrina said. “If that’s what the Tidal Works is doing, isn’t there a lot of energy that’s not being used? It couldn’t take that much power to heat Fom’s water supply and light their glow lamps.”
The Astrologer flashed a small, pleased smile. “Indeed, some of the energy stored in the Tidal Works is cast off as steam, shrouding Fom in its famous fog, but there must be much, much more we cannot account for. Neither do we know how many such devices there are. Some records say five, others hold the number to be as high as forty-one, but all the remaining histories that mention such things were written long after the Age of Ashes and are sourced from third- and fourth-hand records of much speculation, themselves. We are, however, sure that the failure of more than one of these tidal devices is what caused the Age of Ashes. Thus, you can see why the continued functioning of the remaining machines is in the interest of all living things.”
“Oh,” was all Syrina could think to say for a minute, her mind racing. “So that’s why you’ve been funding NRI’s research.”
“In part.”
“You mean it gets better?”
“The forerunners to the High Merchant’s Syndicate were the first to rise out of the Age. Even children in N’narad are taught that, but no one ever asks why. No one ever asks how.”
“How? Why?” Syrina was disappointed the sarcasm didn’t seem to carry over in the translation, or else the Astrologer ignored it.
“The Age of Ashes did not begin as a gradual thing. Within a day, perhaps an hour, the world was black with soot belched from the ground and all the cities reduced to ruin. All comfort and wisdom lost. Humanity itself almost extinct. When the clouds of ash lifted, a few thousand survivors, perhaps less, remained in tiny pockets scattered across the shattered world. Yet the Syndicate somehow held onto a portion of their knowledge. They were able to protect their secrets and maintain their position of power. Consider your tattoos. Only the Fifteen members of the High Merchant’s Syndicate know the secrets necessary to create a Kalis, passed down for thousands of generations. Secrets kept even from you. Secrets held above the ashes, while around them all else burned.”
“So the Syndicate’s claim of existing before the Age of Ashes is true? They are direct descendants of the first rulers of Eris?”
“Certainly.”
Syrina wondered. Ormo had taught her that the Syndicate could trace their history all the way back to the Ancients, and she’d believed it long before she’d started to doubt it out of principle. But now she was beginning to believe it again.
The Astrologer continued. “They were ready for the darkness. At least, more than others were. Even so, they would never regain all that vanished.”
The Astrologer looked to the stars again. A daystar, catching light from the Eye somewhere beyond the horizon, glinted and faded back out.
“What pools of knowledge did they swim in when they first arrived on Eris’s turbulent moon?” He asked.
His tone was rhetorical, and Syrina didn’t respond.
He turned his gaze back toward her. The dusting of hair on his head and face glowed silver in the dim light.
“Whatever their reasons,” he said, “coming here must have been an act born of desperation. Their journey from another star was a one-way trip. Any flight from the surface of this world is rendered nigh-impossible by the wind that tears across the highest parts of the sky, another invisible gift from Eris, and made even more difficult by the lack of iron beneath the soil. The N’naradin Church and the Syndicate squander what few flimsy dregs they can drag from their mines for war and ornament. Building machines that might once again take them to distant stars is beyond their primitive interests, just as it is beyond Ristro’s. As to all our Ancestors lost, we can only guess at the fathomless knowledge that slid from their grasp. Whatever was forgotten, though, today’s Merchant’s Syndicate has nevertheless gained almost absolute power over a world washed in ignorance. Even the Church, whatever they claim, always, in the end, bows to the Syndicate’s whims.”
Syrina coughed. “An ignorant world? That’s a dubious prize.”
“Is it now? Even if it’s the only world we know? Well, regardless of what they knew or did not, our Ancestors designed the tidal machines to last until the dying breath of the sun, but only as a whole. When one failed, another failed, and then another. When the chain reaction was over, Eris’s moon had been plunged into an Age of Ash which stretched across countless hundreds of years.”
Syrina nodded, understanding dawning in her glittering eyes. “And you’re concerned about the additional strain on the remaining machines, however many there are, which is why you’re willing to fund your enemies. In return, I’m guessing you get to see NRI’s findings.”
“The High Merchant Kavik has been unprecedented with his cordial interactions with Ristro. Perhaps through his own research of the Tidal Works, he has recognized the tip of the depths of the problem we face. Even so, NRI and most likely even High Merchant Kavik have only the inkling of the true significance of what they study, yet it would not serve us to inform them of more.” The Astrologer sighed, equal parts sad and resigned. “Even if politics become the doom of us all, we are nevertheless slaves to its confines. But regardless of politics, at the very least we must know what signs the Tidal Works may give before it stops functioning if we’re blessed enough to be given any sign at all. We believe the disaster some two thousand years ago which reduced the nation of Kamahush to a poisonous wasteland was another such machine giving out, adding yet more strain to the remainder. While the continued functioning of these Artifacts is more important than any nation’s petty differences, ancient or new, we cannot trust the Fifteen to think so. Even with High Merchant Kavik, we can’t know his true motives. Anyway, we have little to tell them that would be of any assistance and nothing that will add for them a sense of urgency. Perhaps the machines will last another hundred thousand years, and we worry and dread for naught. Perhaps the rest will fail tomorrow and the energy released will shatter Eris’s only moon to bits, and humanity ca
st into the void.”
“But why should I believe you know all this thousands of years later when no one else does?”
Syrina caught herself looking up the stars and lowered her gaze toward the Astrologer, who sat eyeing her, his expression unreadable.
“Before the Age of Ashes, when the eventual founders of the Syndicate realized there was a problem with their machines, a few of the ruling class wanted to give the world what little warning they could. The majority disagreed, thinking the truth would spread needless chaos and panic. They thought their efforts would be better spent preparing for the inevitable, preserving what they could of their wealth and knowledge. The minority split and fled when dissent wasn’t tolerated. The majority declared the rebels a threat and hunted them, but then the Age was upon them all and the rebellion forgotten.”
“The rebels became the Astrologers.”
“Long, long, long after. The dissenters’ priority was to shelter the truth about those that they saw as betrayers of humankind, and they did so, using it to fuel their rage against the Syndicate, who had turned a blind eye toward the deaths of billions. Through either the foresight of our ancestors or blind luck, the Age ravished what’s now the Ristro Peninsula less than the rest of Eris’s moon, and we lost less than most, besides the Syndicate itself, who had spent their time preparing for it.”
Syrina was surprised by the illogical rage rising in her voice.“Then why didn’t you rise up when you had the chance?” Syrina was surprised by the illogical rage rising in her voice. “Spread the truth while the Syndicate was still in turmoil right after the Age? Or better yet, take them out when they were in disarray?”
She realized the irony of asking the Astrologer that, but if he drew any comparisons between her question and her inaction against Ormo, he kept them to himself.
“Because our own Ancestors were not without their flaws. Their sole priority was to preserve the truth. They believed the Syndicate destroyed, wiped out by that which they prepared for but wouldn’t endeavor to prevent. By the time the forefathers of the Fifteen had emerged, they were already too strong to be stopped with as something as gossamer as the truth. But not even the Syndicate is our greatest threat anymore.”