by A. C. Cobble
“Of course, m’lord,” said the servant, offering a short bow as was proper. “Shall I tell the, ah, the priests another half turn of the clock?”
“No,” said Oliver. “Send for them now. They can break fast with me or just watch me eat if they prefer, but there’s no sense in standing on protocol when we have work to do.”
“I couldn’t agree more, m’lord,” said the servant before turning on his heel and disappearing through the sitting room.
Oliver sighed and sipped his coffee again, wincing as the steaming liquid passed over his lips and tongue. He stepped into the sitting room and eyed the silver tray Winchester had set out for his breakfast. Puffed pastries filled with jams or fruit and dusted with powdered sugar. Fat sausages bubbling as their juices leaked out of the casings. A silver pitcher, which he hoped contained more coffee. A plate of sliced melon arranged carefully into a fan, and a covered plate he suspected was a heaping pile of fluffy eggs.
His stomach roiled, protesting at the liquid diet he’d subjected it to the previous evening. Fighting down the urge to be sick, he collected two of the sausages and walked to two tall doors set in a wall of windows. Framed by iron, the glass looked out over his veranda and the greenery beyond. He put the sausages between his teeth and opened the door, stepping out into the cold, autumn air. He felt his skin prickle and a rash of tiny bumps formed as the breeze stirred the hairs on his arm.
Biting into one of the sausages, he walked along the veranda, looking out over the walls of his compound at the park that surrounded it. The park was public, at his request, though he owned the deed to it. Walls, six yards high, separated his private property from the lush greenery. It gave his guards fits, that people could walk up to the edge of the compound, but he felt it was a waste to keep the green space to himself. Besides, when he had a quiet moment, he enjoyed sitting and watching the people in the park. If someone managed to scale the six-yard high wall, avoid the notice of his guards, climb the side of a balcony to an unlocked door, find him inside the palatial building which he only rarely visited, and attack him, he supposed that determined of a person was going to get him anyway.
Below, inside the wall, a gardener tended to his gardens; rose bushes, trimmed and dormant in the cold weather; and small evergreen topiaries formed into fanciful animals. Bushes, trees, winter-brown grasses, it was all teased and guided into something quite exquisite. The finest gardens in Westundon, some said, though he preferred the park outside with its rolling lawns, towering, centuries-old trees, and pebble-strewn pathways that even in the winter held a few bundled walkers. Small wildlife scattered before the walkers, disappearing into the lush undergrowth and hidden parts of the park. The land in the park was just wild enough to sate his passion for seeing the next horizon. For a little while, at least.
At night, the park was dark, only a handful of lanterns from the watchmen and the moon’s reflection off the surface of a palace-sized pond giving any sort of illumination. It was peaceful, and the light on the water reminded him of being aboard an airship, traveling to some far-off place, some simple place. In the chill autumn morning, the pond was blanketed by a low layer of mist, but he could still see walkers striding along the pathways, taking their exercise, breathing the fresh air. No matter the weather, someone was always out there walking.
“A little chilly, isn’t it?” asked Sam.
He turned to find her and her mentor eyeing him at the door to the veranda.
“It’s waking me up,” he replied.
“Long night?” queried Sam.
“It always is,” asserted Oliver. “The Winter Gala is the height of the social activity in this season. That means it’s full of sycophants, boot-lickers, and money-grubbers. I’ve found the quickest way through is to drink yourself into an uncaring blur.”
“Did you do any dancing?” questioned Sam.
He sipped at his coffee, not answering the question he knew she was asking.
“Is she here?”
“No,” he replied before taking a bite of his second sausage.
Sam frowned, looking down the veranda toward the windows of his bedchamber.
“Go check if you like,” he offered.
“No, I won’t. I just thought… I thought, you know,” she mumbled, eyeing him suspiciously.
Thotham glanced back and forth between them. “Is there something I should know?”
Oliver finished his sausage and took another swallow of his quickly cooling coffee. He couldn’t keep a satisfied smile off his face.
“Damnit!” exclaimed Sam. “You did, didn’t you? I told you she… she…”
“Apparently not as much as you thought,” murmured Oliver, walking past the two priests to the doorway. “I’m getting a refill. You want anything?”
The Prophet I
He eyed the boy and his apprentice, certain there was something he was missing, but neither one seemed eager to share, and he didn’t have time to address it, so he simply said, “Attend me.”
The nobleman slurped his coffee, and he could see the young man’s eyes were glassy from too much drink the night before. The breakfast the man had scarfed down wasn’t enough to cure his ills. His apprentice, though not drunk, looked just as distracted. Neither one appeared up to what he had planned. Not yet, at least.
“I’ll let you nap before we trigger the trap,” he offered. He turned and began explaining what he’d arranged.
“Thotham,” interrupted the duke. “I’m no expert, but hasn’t the Church made all of this rather… illegal?”
He turned and studied the nobleman. Finally, he allowed, “Yes.”
“And, don’t you work for the Church?” questioned the duke. “I want to catch the murderer, or murderers I suppose, just as badly as you do, but this seems like the exact kind of thing we’re trying to prevent.”
“You’re a trader, yes?” asked Thotham. Then, he continued quickly as evidently the nobleman didn’t understand the question was rhetorical. Speaking over him, he asked, “How do you beat another trader to close a deal?”
The duke sipped his coffee and looked back at him.
Thotham waited, but no one spoke. Sighing, he answered his own question, “You beat a trader by playing his own game better than he does. You offer a better deal, faster service, a better experience. You do what he does, but you do it better.”
“I’m not sure that’s a very good analogy,” complained the duke.
“We’re locked in a battle, m’lord, and losing is not an option. Sorcerers have done terrible damage to Enhover. We paid a terrible cost because we were not prepared. Perhaps you are too young to remember—”
“I recall what happened to Northundon, priest,” snapped the duke. He looked at Sam then back to her mentor. “I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. I don’t need you to remind me the cost we paid. That is… was my city. My city, my land, my people, priest. What I need you to do is tell me why this is any different than what happened there. Tell me this isn’t some dangerous step toward what the Coldlands used to be.”
Thotham nodded, rubbing a hand across his face. Northundon, of course the man… What was he thinking? He had to concentrate, to be present in the moment, and not… elsewhere.
He shook himself, and continued, “My apologies. I forgot, m’lord, and I shouldn’t have. My mind… Much of… what I was is now in the spear. Much but not all.”
“Let me explain,” offered Sam.
Thotham nodded and moved back, rubbing the side of his head with one hand, leaning against a table with the other. He felt thin and brittle. The plan his apprentice had hatched seemed risky, but he was so fuzzy, he could not argue. He knew he should have finished his original design and fallen on his spear. He should have let the rune-etched steel sink into his heart, spilling his blood over the symbols and patterns, pouring himself into the weapon. A weapon that could bite, that could help. Now… he was so tired, so ready to sit down. It wasn’t him, not all of him, but it would have to be enough. Right or wrong
, they’d set out on this trail, and he had to see it through.
Besides, the head-strong girl had taken his spear from him and wouldn’t give it back.
“Four decades ago,” began Sam, “in Enhover, there were still druids — shamans or wizards as some call them — practitioners that were connected to the life spirits. They could call upon those spirits, enlist their aid, and hold the forces of darkness at bay. That’s the way it still is in the United Territories, druids roaming the land, shepherding it, communing with the spirits there. They keep them vibrant and strong. I imagine you could find similar in the tropics or just about anywhere else in the world.”
“But not here?” asked the duke.
“Not here,” agreed Sam. “The advent of the technological revolution, the use of red saltpetre mixtures to power the mechanical carriages, the rail… It began to sever the connection with the spirits.”
“I’ve heard this from my tutors,” remarked the duke, “but they could not explain why. They said the world changed, and Enhover had to change with it. They implied the rise of technology was an answer to the falling tide of magic, not the cause of it.”
“No, not exactly,” disputed Sam. “The magic of life follows an ebb and flow, and from what I understand, it had ebbed when technology bloomed. Science caught the fancy of your ancestors. The druids didn’t leave, though, merely because of a natural cycle in the world. They were supplanted by technology. Who needs to call upon some mountain sprite to ease passage across her peaks and passes when you can lay a rail line around the mountain and make the journey in a quarter of the time? Why pay homage to the water spirits in the sea when you can simply hop aboard an airship and sail unimpeded far above stormy waters?”
“Glae worms, fae lights, the stones within those airships you’re talking about,” retorted the duke. “Those are life spirits, are they not? They work just fine in Enhover.”
“They are spirits, but with the exception of the fae, they are not alive in the way spirits are elsewhere. They’ve been infused into the substances used in those technologies, or in the case of the fae, they are simply trapped,” replied Sam. “A fae cannot survive outside of the sealed globe in Enhover, you know this, yes? A druid does not bind the spirits. He communes with them. He doesn’t force their help. He asks for it. A druid is a negotiator and, to be honest, occasionally a cajoler. A sorcerer controls a spirit and forces them, just like Enhover’s technology. A life spirit, if found, can still be subjugated, but that is not the way magic works, not the way druids work, at least.”
The duke frowned.
“Your technology is really sorcery used to bind the spirits of life,” clarified Thotham. “It’s the same principle. Some could say that you Wellesleys—”
“That—” snapped the duke, glaring at the old man.
“Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter for us today,” interjected Sam, shooting her mentor a dark look. “What matters is that the life spirits native to Enhover have gone dormant. They’re still there, as spirits do not die, but they no longer respond to the whispers of the druids. They no longer dance and frolic where man can easily commune with them. Technology rules Enhover now, and the druids left because there is nothing here for them.”
The Wellesleys… Why had be started down that path? Thotham clamped his tongue between his teeth and offered his apprentice an encouraging nod.
“The balance between magic and sorcery is gone here,” continued Sam. “For a time, it was believed that sorcery was gone as well because all exists within balance. Life, death. Pleasure, pain. Light, dark…”
“I get the idea,” mumbled the duke. “What does it mean for us now? That because there are no druids, there is no answer to sorcery?”
“It means the life spirits are not the answer,” agreed Sam. “For centuries, the Church realized it needed strong measures to counteract sorcery. The strength of the druids, the advances of technology, they could no longer be relied upon to provide protection against those who sought power from the underworld. The only sure way to stop sorcery, it was thought, was to explore that power ourselves, to understand it, and, if necessary, use it in self-defense.”
“I don’t recall Bishop Yates making that argument at any service I attended,” challenged the duke.
“The bishop represents the new Church,” stated Sam. “After the Church failed its mission and your father was so successful defeating the Coldlands raiders, the argument began anew in the Church. Men like Bishop Yates took over, arguing successfully that the ancient threat we meant to oppose was no longer a threat. Not much of a threat in the United Territories either, after your father and uncle were done with the Coldlands. And for twenty years, Bishop Yates’ faction was proven correct. There was no threat from sorcery.”
Thotham continued, taking up her story. “In the new Church, Bishop Yates’ Church, the role of the spirits is that of a distant being, one that no one expects to encounter. We represent the old Church, in which interaction with the spirits is common and necessary. In the old Church, there was an organization formed — centuries ago as Sam explained — that anticipated the interaction and strived to contain it. Do not get me wrong. There is nothing evil about the spirits in this world or the underworld. They are like the wind and the rain, simply elements. Unlike the wind or the rain, though, they can be used to give a practitioner terrible power. The Council of Seven was created to ensure that the manipulation of the spirits remains benign. Led by Whitemask, the first action of the Council was to ban sorcery in all territories affiliated with the Church. Then, the Knives were recruited.”
“The knives?” wondered the nobleman.
Thotham nodded. “The council monitored the nations where sorcery was still practiced openly, watching for that knowledge to spread into Church territory. When it did, the Knives stopped the spread.”
“Assassins,” breathed the duke.
“And priests,” added Thotham with a smile. He looked to Sam and gestured for her to continue.
“Between the Church’s public remonstrations of sorcery from the pulpit and the knives’ quiet battle in secrecy, sorcery was stamped out in Enhover, Ivalla, and Finavia. In Rhensar, it fled underground, conducted by hedge-witches and other outcasts even to this day. It remained strong in the Coldlands, though, and it wasn’t until your father’s men marched to war that the Church finally got a foothold there. Admittedly, it’s a tenuous one at best.
“Some in the Church, such as Bishop Yates,” continued Sam, “believe that sorcery is effectively dead everywhere and that the only thing resembling it is the silly secret societies the nobles play in.”
“Much of what those societies teach, their rituals, has the flavor of sorcery,” added Thotham.
“But none of its power, right?” asked the duke.
“So we thought,” replied the old man. “Over the years, the knives have snuck into some of the secret societies, even progressed through their ranks, and never did we witness true power. We never saw anything more than a tenuous connection to the underworld. Communication, perhaps, but not control. We did learn, though, through our interaction with those groups coupled with our own internal study.”
“We never had to perform sorcery of our own because there was nothing to combat with it,” declared Sam, taking the narrative back over. “Now, Bishop Yates and his ilk have denounced the need for the council to the point none of its members are welcome in Enhover. To the point that Thotham and I are the only two knives left in these lands.”
“What about in the Unitited Territories? Do you know of any there?” questioned the duke. “I can charter an airship and we could have them back here within days.”
“We don’t know the others,” replied Thotham. “Like the sorcerers themselves, our organization operates in absolute secrecy. Bishop Yates knows something of who I am, but no one else does. We answer to the cardinal, the Council of Seven, and its leader Whitemask. None other and none outside of the council know the true identities of all of the knives
. So, there could be more, but I have not seen evidence of their presence here in Enhover in years.”
“Can we contact this Council of Seven, ask them for help?” wondered the duke.
Sam turned to her mentor. “That’s actually not a bad—”
“No,” said Thotham, shaking his head. “There are no glae worm filaments crossing to the United Territories, and even if we used Duke Wellesy’s significant resources and commandeered an airship, it would take days to reach the Church in Ivalla. Hiding that the duke hired an airship to deliver a single message to Church leadership would be nearly impossible. Recall the assassin who attacked me in Middlebury was a fellow priest. We cannot trust anyone… and any of our enemies who found out about it would be certain to infer what the duke was doing. Instead of luring them into a trap, we’d be setting ourselves up for a surprise.”
“Oh,” murmured Sam. “I didn’t think about all of that.”
Thotham smiled at her. “I’m not entirely gone, girl. Not yet.”
“So, what is the trap, then?” asked the duke.
Gesturing for Sam to continue the discussion, Thotham found a chair and collapsed into it. He wasn’t gone, yet. He wasn’t far from gone, though. His apprentice took over, and he folded into himself, her conversation with the nobleman happening like he was watching from a dream.
“We’re not sure who or what we’re facing,” said Sam, leading the duke further into his empty banquet hall. “We can assume they are more skilled than either Thotham or I in the arts of sorcery. If Countess Dalyrimple is the one who developed the circle on Farawk outside of Archtan Atoll, and our foes are her superior… We’ve studied some theory, but this is not what we do. It is what they do, and they are more skilled than anyone we’ve heard of since the Coldlands War. Sorcery is a game of preparation, though, and we’ve prepared while they will be walking in uncertain of what they will face.”
“Maybe,” mumbled the nobleman. “Remember that scepter and shadow-monster thing they sent after Standish Taft?”