“I’m sorry, sir,” said Maradith, diplomatically, “but I can’t have heard of everyone, and stuff like that is pretty easy to take for granted. Just cause I see these things every day doesn’t mean I think much about them.”
“Never mind. It’s not important,” he replied, wearily but apologetically. “It’s hardly your fault that RepSec managed to lose all trace of her over fifty years ago, though I believe some heads did roll over that little cock-up. She was about the last person I expected to find here, short of the animated corpse of King Heremod himself. It’s just … a little depressing, I suppose. Almost makes me sympathise with her. She invents a device that revolutionises society and lays the groundwork for an entirely new field of science, and no-one gives a damn. On the other hand, she puts on a weird costume, names herself after a semi-mythological character, and stages a violent coup, and now she’s on everyone’s lips and the front page of every broadsheet. Doesn’t give one much faith in humanity.”
“If you now admire her, then by all means marry her and take her back to Lucinia with you,” suggested Saskia, with no shortage of irony, although Maradith sensed she would not be at all unhappy if that fantasy could be realised.
“I’d rather not, thanks all the same,” replied Kasimir, his own deadpan jesting undercut by a serious edge. “I’ve got enough problems to juggle with already without adding jealous suitors to my list, and I don’t like to imagine how Lord Lycon deals with rivals in love … though I’ve a hunch it could involve a bit of flaying.”
“Goddess, don’t even get me started on that topic,” said Saskia, vehemently. “It’s bad enough to have her as Queen, without that ambitious barbarian crawling around the hem of her skirts. My only consolation is that the wretched man’s too cagey and distrustful of his worthless countrymen to be open with her. Fortunately, I think I’ve managed to convince her that he’s only interested in her as a matter of politics, and with any luck he’ll come to grief before she can learn otherwise.”
“That was nice of you,” observed Maradith, nastily, although her tone could not equal the look that Saskia then gave her for pure venom.
“I’m sorry. Would you prefer it if I arranged a nice candlelit supper for them?” she asked, so coldly that no candle would have endured long in her presence. “I fail to see how that would help to preserve the heritage and independence of my people, or to reduce the odds of yours being blasted to bloody shreds by the Brython fleets, but perhaps I underestimate the healing power of love, sweet love.”
Fair enough, you sour old hypocrite, thought Maradith, but kept her mouth shut. Though harshly put, they were fair points, and they concurred with the advice Kasimir had given her. Nevertheless, she too was starting to sympathise with Gloriana, although for different reasons than him. If that’s the sort of honesty and encouragement I can expect from my own courtiers and counsellors, I might cosy up to mercenaries as well. At least you know what you get with them.
“Never mind the royal amours, or lack of,” declared Kasimir, indifferently. “It’s only Dr. Kytt– … the Queen who I’m interested in.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Lucinian. You’re not Lord Lycon’s type.”
“Take a memo of that joke, Maradith, and then please ask me the obvious question,” quipped Kasimir. Maradith, preferring not to be used to prove other people’s intelligence, thought back over the conversation and sifted it for facts that would lend themselves well to an ‘obvious question.’ She did not need to search for long.
“You mean how does an Alvere come to be in the Lyceum over fifty years ago, when even nowadays they can barely get their kids into a regular school?” she asked, triumphantly. Kasimir raised his eyebrows in gracious defeat before replying.
“Indeed, or perhaps, to boil it down to its core, how does a woman who was not an Alvere fifty years ago come to be one now?” Now it was Maradith’s turn to look surprised, although she noticed that the only emotion Saskia displayed was discomfort. She knows something, alright. Kasimir had taken good note of it too, as he was leaning towards the priestess and pressing his advantage. “Of course, if you’re reluctant to tell me, we could always have a telepathic duel, but I’ve had my share of headaches this morning already, and you’ll get these papers all the quicker if you just come clean. How about it, then?”
“You’re not quite the callow fool I took you for … but don’t let my age and unpopularity convince you that I’d make a harmless enemy,” advised Saskia, with delicately-judged menace. “I bear the authority of the High Archon himself, though he has elected to give our new queen the benefit of the doubt. However, if I can give him evidence that she is in fact a traitor to her people, every temple in Alvenheim will send adepts and Shadow Guards to support me in ousting her. That would be a good time to count me as a friend.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” he said, unflinchingly, “but the glaring fact right now seems to be that you obviously need evidence that you can use against her. These papers might help – not that I know what you’d consider sufficient evidence – but my question stands. How did it happen?”
“You insufferable piece of … Very well,” she conceded, sullenly, “but you may live to regret asking this, and that is no threat. The fact that you don’t know already is either a great testimony to Lucinian cunning or Lucinian stupidity, or more than likely both.”
“You mean– ?”
“Your nation keeps its secrets well … and it keeps ours too. When Virana Kyttsen came here, she was very much like you: an inquisitive nuisance, constantly prying into things that didn’t concern her, one of which was our Rite of Transition. That is a sacred mystery. Even your Senate does not allow it to be discussed openly, though I don’t think that has anything to do with sensitivity for our traditions.”
“Probably not,” agreed Kasimir, casually, although his face had turned even paler. “I remember, now: the last that was known of Dr. Kyttsen, she was losing interest in her technical researches, and instead she’d become fascinated with Alvere lore. She tried to get the Lyceum to back her, but they denied all her requests, and then she had the delators dogging her footsteps. She managed to give them the slip, though. Some said she’d defected to the Autokracy. Others thought she’d joined one of those activist groups who used to smuggle supplies and weapons to the Alvere. That was back when Alvenheim was still a Republican dominion and Lucinian settlers kept trying to seize chunks of it … when the vargs weren’t seizing chunks of them.”
“And the others were right,” replied Saskia, as scornfully as ever. “She was indeed one of that depressing, deluded legion of do-gooders who thought they could atone for the sins of their nation with a few pathetic and belated acts of generosity. Unlike the rest of them, though, she also seemed to feel that this gave her an entitlement to stick her nose into our people’s most privileged secrets.”
“Including this ‘Rite of Transition,’ which I can only assume means–”
“A human can become an Alvere?” Maradith finished for him, in amazement, as she remembered the subject of yesterday’s theatrics. “Then that old myth was true … at least in part. But how in the Abysm have we never heard of this, sir?”
“Very valid question,” replied Kasimir, with a sick and troubled look, which was met with an unsympathetic smirk from Saskia.
“Oh, you Lucinians are good at deceiving yourselves. It does my heart good to see you are as dishonest to your own people as you are to others,” she remarked, almost happily. “The Rite of Transition used to be the very strength and cornerstone of Alvenheim, until it became its downfall. In spite of our long lives, our birth rates are low – never more than merely sustainable – but the Rite enabled us to grow as a society. The priests would select those who were worthy – those who had performed some great service for the Alvere, saved an Alvere life, were devoted to our faith, or possessed some talent that we needed – and we would perform the Rite in secrecy, the neophyte blindfolded and the adepts silent. By choosing only the best a
nd the worthy, we safeguarded both the strength of our race and the integrity of our culture.”
“Obviously not very well,” observed Kasimir, wiping the self-satisfied look from Saskia’s face. She resumed with her accustomed scowl.
“That is all you know. For centuries it worked, and we ruled most of this continent while your ancestors were just a pathetic rabble of brawling, dung-stinking fiefdoms. We pitied you in those days, and delighted in finding worthy neophytes to rescue from the squalor and indignity of life under your warlords. Unfortunately, they began to chafe at losing so many of their finest seers and adepts to us, and they passed laws forbidding their subjects from emigrating to Alvenheim. Our leaders panicked – they thought it was only a matter of time before we diminished, and became an easy prey – and so they changed the laws of the Rite. We of the temples protested, but to no avail, and they forced us to give up our secrets. They sent Shadow Guards scouting over the borders, at first looking for anyone they deemed useful, but then it became a cult: the ‘Azelian Revival,’” she declared, with intense bitterness. “Suddenly, all of these wretched, idealistic young acolytes were arguing that we had no business to deny the Rite of Transition to anyone. In fact, that it was our clear duty to spread it to everyone who desired it, or even to everyone who didn’t, for their own good. We Alvere were stronger, more beautiful, more spiritual, longer-lived, clearly better-attuned to nature … all of this by the freely-given blessing of Azelia, and we should only aim to emulate her generosity, and her lack of judgement. The fools …”
“Sounds pretty fair to me … apart from the ‘for their own good’ bit,” said Maradith, perceptively, and was rewarded with a grim nod from Saskia.
“That indeed was our bane, Maradith. Some ambitious Shadow Guard captains interpreted that commandment very freely … Whole villages were seized, and the peasants transitioned by threat and force. Some who resisted were killed. Not for nothing are there many Alvere in Lucinia who still have no desire to settle among ‘their people’… Even holy temples were sacked, and priestesses who had lived lives of peace and chastity were transitioned and forced to become captains’ whores. Our own common folk knew nothing, of course. They thought we were ‘liberating’ the poor, unblessed people of the south, but the southerners did not share that belief. The worse our excesses became, the more unified they became to resist us, until eventually they appointed the Archduke of Thalmark as king over all the fiefdoms. Thus was a new kingdom – Lucinia – born. But this is your history. I may lament your ignorance of it, but I will not be held to blame for it.”
“I knew most of it,” protested Kasimir, tensely. “Just this ‘transition’ business somehow managed to get itself completely erased from the official histories.”
“No doubt your Lyceum had only the kindest reasons for making that omission,” remarked Saskia, with vicious delight. Kasimir glared sullenly at her for a few seconds, before leaning back in his chair and shoving the papers across the table at her, with an utterly demoralised air.
“Good luck with those,” he muttered, while Saskia seized them greedily, and began leafing through them at once. Maradith, both concerned and a little shocked at her superior’s lapse into apathy, felt duty-bound to object.
“Lord Citizen, isn’t there more to tell?” she pointed out, although their best leverage was now in Saskia’s grasping hands. “What about Gloriana? How did she get ‘transitioned?’ I gather you weren’t keen on her having it,” she added, to Saskia, who looked up from her studies with a distasteful expression.
“I certainly was not,” she replied, firmly, “but it was forced upon me. She had been living among us for about a year, in a village near my temple. Malketh, they called it. An independent sort of place, they always used to cause trouble for the old Lucinian governors. That, however, was the year that Lucinia decided we were no longer worth our keep, so they ‘graciously’ allowed us self-rule under their puppet, Prince Rowan. One of his first actions, to consolidate his rule and to demonstrate loyalty to his mentors, was to bring all of the troublesome communities into line. In Malketh’s case, however, he obviously decided it would be simpler just to cleave, burn, and rape it out of existence. The villagers had a little advance warning of the attack, and Virana delayed her own evacuation to help the children and elders escape … though few enough did, and she paid the price for it. By the time we could make it down from the temple to tend to the survivors, more of them were in need of shrouds than poultices. Virana was barely alive. Some said it might have been kinder to have let her die, but her body at least had no wounds that would not heal. That is, no wounds that an Alvere could not heal. Transition was the only way to save her life, and even I could not deny her then, though it might have been better for us.”
“Maybe,” said Maradith, unconvinced and deeply chastened. For the sake of ancient bloody history, what the fuck have we done to these people? To our people as well, by the sound of things. “So what’s she been up to for the past fifty years, then? I’ll lay odds you haven’t been grooming her for the throne yourself.”
“Correct. We thought at first that she might find some peace as an acolyte, but she quickly proved to have neither the aptitude nor the inclination for a spiritual life. The commander of our temple suggested we train her as a Shadow Guard instead, which seemed acceptable. If nothing else, it gave her an excuse to keep her face covered, which was as good for us as it was for her. The risk that she should ever be recognised was too serious to trifle with.”
“And who in the Abysm would have recognised her in an Alvere temple? Not that I expect I want to hear this,” asked Kasimir, despondently, which proved the perfect bait for Saskia’s taunting but informative comeback.
“Your ignorance is not shared by all of your people, ‘Lord Citizen.’ Some of your most senior countrymen – senators, generals, and the like – come to us when they retire, and the fear of death is heavy on them. In exchange for considerable quantities of aid, we allow them to take the Rite and live an anonymous, secluded life within our temples. We never allow them to achieve higher rank than that of senior acolyte, of course, or that would spell disaster. However, I do believe we help them to rediscover peace and simple pleasure after a life spent carving a career in your world of deception and intrigue, which cannot be less than torture for the soul.”
“No doubt. And would you mind explaining to me how, by any definition, those are worthy people?” he asked, now matching her for seething bitterness. She was slightly taken aback as she replied, defensively.
“Their gold saves many from starvation, and pays for the preservation of our culture. Bribery or not, is that not a great service for our people? It has done more good for us than any number of well-meaning, imbecilic idealists. I would not let Virana jeopardise that arrangement. Thankfully, her self-pity was my friend, and she was never seen without a hood or a mask in public. I grew complacent … and before I knew it, she had made friends among the guards and some of the younger acolytes, inspiring the fools with her ill-conceived ideas for restoring Alvenheim to its former glory. Even the commander was taken in. By the time I was aware of the danger, it was too late: the rebels had raided our temple vault, and absconded with many of our heirlooms, though they were very selective in what they took. Only small quantities of gold and silver, and several talismanic crystals, finely crafted, though of no inestimable value: a few pyrochites, some ærolian quartz, a few spheres of ydrillite, that nazarlyk she uses for an eye … None of them as common as dirt, but scarcely irreplaceable. What she wanted with them, other than with the nazarlyk, I can’t imagine.”
“So what does it do, apart from fill in empty eye sockets?” asked Maradith, recalling that Kasimir had mentioned this thing the previous evening, implying that it might explode, which did not say much for Dr. Kyttsen’s remaining sanity. Call me an old stick-in the mud, Maradith thought, but I’ve always preferred to carry grenades on my belt rather than in my head.
“It’s an amulet,” explained Kasimir
. “The Daevastani have used them for centuries to protect against spiritual attacks, though in fact all they do is absorb thought vibrations. Some scholars now think that the ancient Alvere used them as receptacles to record thoughts, though if so no-one has a clue how they could ever have retrieved or purged the thoughts from the things. The Queen, I imagine, is using hers as a telepathy blocker. As for your pyrochites,” he said, turning to Saskia, “I can tell you where they ended up: they’re in those Brython heat weapons. You’ll learn all about it if you read through those papers, and if you can understand them.”
“Yes, heavens forbid my ignorant Alvere brain should measure up to yours,” seethed Saskia, “but you’ll perhaps you’ll be good enough to explain one thing: if an experienced adept, or even a master magus focuses their whole will upon a pyrochite, it can produce enough heat to light one of our ritual fires. Not, however, to melt rock and demolish whole buildings. Perhaps your understanding is also less than perfect.”
“Did your adepts and magi ever think of sticking the crystals into mirrored tubes full of fixed air, applying galvanic excitation to them, letting the energy released build up, then discharging it all in one go? Didn’t think so,” he declared, at her infuriated but nonplussed expression. “She did. She takes your traditional magic, applies science to it, and makes it hundreds of times more effective … and deadly. A brilliant mind. Bloody senseless waste of it, though.”
In spite of Kasimir’s melancholy mood, Maradith was feeling decidedly uplifted by this news. So we’ve got the dirt on the heat weapons? A mark to a penny, that saves us from having to assassinate Her Highness, and thank Alyssa for it. Poor woman’s obviously been through enough shit, and her people too. Saskia seemed less elated at the news, replying with a derisive sniff.
“Indeed. Would that she had kept her ‘brilliant mind’ where it belonged, in dusty libraries where it could do no harm. At any rate, from the time she absconded from our temple, you know as much or as little of her as I do. Now, I’ll examine these papers at my leisure, if you’ve done with your prattling questions,” she declared, and turned to leave.
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