Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (19 page)

Vidarian put the piece of sugar into his mouth as Khalesh had done. It was candy-sweet but pleasantly smoky, and the hot tea added just the right bitterness. “I will tell you all that I can, and find out for you whatever I can,” he said carefully. “But the Alorean Import Company keeps him quite closely guarded.”

Khalesh gave a violent wave of his hand, and his expression darkened so deeply and swiftly that for a moment Vidarian thought he would spit. “The Company. A scourge on the free traffic of information, and on the Animator's Guild, from the moment they began.” He took a long draught of his tea, and visibly mastered himself. “They were the ones who awakened Iridan, you say? It explains why we've been able to find out so little.”

Vidarian nodded. “A senior partner named Justinian Veritas, one of the only Company elders to survive the gate opening.” He blinked, remembering something. “And—as it occurs to me—the last time I saw him with Iridan, he seemed to be controlling him.”

Khalesh had been about to take another sip of tea, but halted mid-sip. “How do you mean?”

“He was giving a kind of musical performance. I was there when he first woke—” Khalesh's eyes widened with speculation at this, but Vidarian plowed ahead— “and he was asking about his brother and sister. He didn't ask again for some time, until that day. It was strange—he heard a word, and seemed to wake up from a dream.”

“What you're describing sounds like an inhibition geis,” Khalesh said, caterpillar-thick eyebrows drawn down with worry. “By the northern guild, they're forbidden altogether, and by the southern, strictly avoided except in the direst circumstances—such as an automaton going mad.”

“That can happen?” Vidarian gripped his glass, then deliberately relaxed his hands. He had not thought of the possibility of Iridan losing sanity, and now that he did, he imagined the terrible strength of that metal body bent against a human. A terrifying thought.

“Very rarely, thus the application of inhibition geasa was tightly controlled in my forefathers' day. I can only think of a handful of recorded uses.”

“I have to confess,” Vidarian said, “I came here for information of a rather different sort. I wanted to know if you, or anyone you know, would be capable of crafting a body like Iridan's.”

He expected thoughtfulness, but Khalesh homed immediately in on the oddness of his request. “A body.”

“I have a—a soul for it already.” Vidarian reached into his coat pocket and brought out a supple leather pouch. He untied the strips of leather holding it shut, and emptied its contents into his palm—a sun ruby, the empty companion to the one that now contained Ruby. Gently he passed it across the table to Khalesh, who accepted it and peered closely.

“This is a prism key.” He held it out to the light of the fire, and it brightened. “Finely made. A very complicated kind of opening device.”

“You recognize it? My friend's mind has been trapped inside one of these—”

“You bound a prism key to a human mind?” Khalesh had been turning the stone between his fingertips, but now he stopped, powerful jaw slack as he looked at Vidarian.

Vidarian couldn't bring himself to answer, and Khalesh carefully set down his glass and stood. He went to one of the tall bookcases and extracted a heavy, leather-bound volume. Still balancing the sun ruby in his left hand, he thumbed through it, then returned it and pulled another. He repeated this for four more volumes, then finally seemed to find what he was looking for—a particularly old book, its metal cover spotted with mineral residue—and returned to his chair.

Pushing aside the tea service with a massive forearm, Khalesh set the book down and began flipping through pages, calluses on his hands brushing through them so quickly that he seemed to move them with his thoughts alone. “It shouldn't be possible…” He murmured unhappily to himself as he pored, sometimes stopping to read individual pages, but more often flipping through entire sections. “Here…yes.” He traced a passage with his fingertip. “An elementalist who wields multiple polar elements could do this in theory. The binding occurs
between
the elements…” His eyes came up, his words slowed. “And then the subject must die.”

“That—is a fair description of what happened.” Vidarian closed his eyes, then rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger. The binding—foolishly, he'd agreed to bind the gem to Ruby the way that Endera had bound the sun emerald to him. Her words came back to him across what seemed an eternity:
In order to bind that stone to your life, I had to bind some of your life—just a little part—to the stone.

And so he had bound Ruby's life to the prism key. A chill crept through him—did this also mean that, should he die, part of him would persist in the sun emerald? Was it also a prism key, or something else entirely? He'd given the stone to An'du…

“I'm sorry to say that what you've done is not advisable at all,” Khalesh was saying, clearly torn between sympathy and professional outrage. A slow dread had been congealing in Vidarian's stomach as Khalesh spoke, and now it was bubbling over.

“Could a body like Iridan's be made for her?” he asked softly.

“It could, but it would be—well, it could be disastrous.” Khalesh flipped the book shut, boring urgently into Vidarian's eyes with his own. “You have no idea how much of her made it into the stone. By its size, it's not possible that it was all of her. And you don't know what was already in the stone when she was put in there.”

At this Vidarian looked up, and Khalesh's jaw firmed.

“You've seen evidence already. Knowledge she shouldn't have, things she says outside of her own control and consciousness.” Miserably Vidarian nodded, and Khalesh leaned forward, his voice low with sympathy. “Whatever is in that stone, my friend, and however much it seems to be this woman you know—it isn't. Not all of it. It's a mirage, an echo—and possibly a dangerous one.”

“She's my friend,” was all that Vidarian could say, knowing that the words were a child's.

“If she was,” Khalesh said firmly, “what you owe her is to protect her—and those you care about—from what she has become.”

V
idarian left Khalesh's home that evening in a haze of shock. He'd promised to bring the Animator more information as soon as he could obtain it. If he could, he'd bring Khalesh to the palace himself—if there would be a way of getting him there without Oneira's knowledge.

He'd promised Iridan a report, and so when he arrived back at the palace—long after dark, the place was a moonglow fantasia of multicolored elemental lights—he went straight to the Arboretum.

Whenever it was that Iridan slept, it didn't seem to be by night. The automaton sat at a small wrought-iron table in the main atrium, poring through one of his many books.

Sitting across from him, revealed too late to allow a hasty retreat, was Justinian. He stood as Vidarian drew near. “Ah, Vidarian!” He smiled for all the world as if they were old and dear friends. “I had hoped to see you. Iridan said you would be paying a visit.”

“I thought that I might,” Vidarian said, carefully choosing his words. He intended not to let on that he even knew of the existence of the Animator's Guild.

Justinian turned toward Iridan. “My friend, would you mind terribly leaving us for a bit?”

“
I'm quite interested in what the good Captain has to say
,” Iridan said. It was too genteel to be an argument, which the automaton surely intended.

“Well, he can deliver it to me, and I can deliver it to you. You look a bit peaked—perhaps you should rest for the night?” With that, Justinian placed a gloved hand on Iridan's shoulder.

Iridan's eyes dimmed, and his arms lost their tension. Vidarian managed not to gasp, but inhaled sharply. Justinian only smiled, and Vidarian relaxed; let him think that Vidarian was merely impressed by his exertion of control. He wanted to fight him, to destroy whatever it was that Justinian was using to control Iridan, but showing his hand now would only jeopardize them both.

“He'll sleep for some hours. Perhaps we should leave him?” Without waiting for an answer, Justinian turned then, walking down the corridor and disappearing through an archway obscured by thin, willowy vines that hung from floor to ceiling. Vidarian followed, brushing through the plants, and found himself in another hallway, a dark one, that sloped gently downward to another vine-covered arch and one of the Arboretum's many subterranean chambers. He emerged shortly into a brightly lit room with polished stone walls, and it took several moments for his eyes to adjust to the light.

Justinian stood over a sand table—the most expensive and detailed Vidarian had ever seen. Terrain was picked out in different colors of sand, and landmarks, even forests, had been re-created in miniature. As he watched, Justinian passed his hand over the table, and some of the sand shifted, rearranging itself. A narrow “river” of it carried cavalry markers toward an opposing force.

Vidarian could not sense the power that Justinian used directly, but it hummed in his bones. Earth magic.

When he looked back up, Justinian was leering at him, an unpleasant expression that may not have been intentional. A long, jagged cut marred the left side of the man's otherwise lined but perfect face, distorting his smile into something that could not appear anything other than sinister. “So shocked, are you, Vidarian?” he said. A genuine sneer curled the corner of his lip. “Your friends in the priestesshood are no longer the only keepers of elemental power. A little earth magic has always run in my family.” He turned back toward the sand table and beckoned Vidarian closer. “And like so many things,” he said softly, “it can be manipulated.”

At this distance Vidarian could see that he wore gloves not unlike the ones Khalesh had worn, though these were no workman's garment. The gems set into them were tiny and subtle, and tuned to Justinian's life energy; they glowed and dimmed with his thoughts.

Try as he might otherwise, Vidarian's eyes kept trailing back to the cut on Justinian's face, and he noticed. “Women,” he said, and the sneer was back redoubled, though he tried to cover it with a conspiratorial grin. “Would you know broken ceramic has quite a keen cutting edge? I think the Qui have been using it for weaponry for some time…” Not much could have brought Vidarian to pity Oneira, but Justinian's derision came close.

“At least you've come out of hiding, then,” Vidarian said.

“I hadn't much choice, had I?” Justinian chuckled. “The emperor is quite put out.”

“You lied to all of them,” Vidarian said. “They were genuinely grieving.”

“You must stop pretending to be so naive, my boy.” There was just a hair too much flatness in Justinian's voice. “You'll have me wondering whether you can do what must be done.”

“I'll not be tasked by anyone,” Vidarian said. “Much less your Company.”

“Of course, of course.” Justinian picked up one of the figures from the sand table, a carved Sky Knight. “And yet you are here at the bequest of the emperor.”

“As are you,” Vidarian said, probably too sharply.

But again Justinian only smiled. “That's where you're wrong.” He put the knight back in its place on the sand. “This is the beauty of commerce. Commerce recognizes all lines of force, and bows only to the greatest among them. Commerce is not bound by tradition or mindless loyalty.”

“If you're suggesting that my loyalty to the emperor is mindless—”

Justinian raised a placating hand. “The furthest from it. I am suggesting that balances of power change. Kingdoms and empires come and go.” He looked closely at Vidarian. “Power changes hands.”

Unsure what Justinian was implying, and uncomfortable with many possible variations, Vidarian turned his attention to the sand table. The battle it displayed appeared to be north of Isrinvale, a coastal front. “And yet the Company itself expends resources even on nations not our own, and for no foreseeable profit.” An array of little skyship and infantry markers had been painted red, as had the supply ships coming from the southern island nation of Rikan.

Justinian shrugged. “The Rikani are quite excellent at killing Qui. Much practice, you see.”

“So it's about efficiency?” Vidarian asked. “Dispatching the enemies of the Alorean empire?”

Now the look that Justinian turned on him was measured. He was silent for several long moments. “My colleagues—the young Partners—would think this foolishness, but I believe that the future health of the Company depends upon cultivating relationships with the new brokers of power in this changed world of ours. People,” he paused, reaching out to knock over a handful of the cavalry figures, leaving a blue-marked one standing. “Like you. And I believe that the way to earn your trust is to give you information, which so many of your other allies have denied you.”

The mark hit home, and Vidarian tried not to show it. The tension of the conversation was pulling him apart, and he felt a sudden bone-deep exhaustion at all of it—the palace, the Company. The world.

“I know you to be a man of integrity,” Justinian said slowly. “And therefore trustworthy with such information, which the Company has gone to great lengths to obtain.” He walked away from the sand table then and toward a low bench upon which was sitting a silver tray with a wine bottle and two tall glass flutes. He poured a delicate blue ice wine into each, and presented one flute to Vidarian before sipping delicately at his own. Then he took a seat on the bench, quaffed the rest of the glass in a single gulp, and poured himself a second. “Some years ago,” he began, “in its ongoing study of the patterns of inheritance in elemental magic, the Company came across a rather startling finding.” He drank again, a long draw. “Over the centuries there have been many changes to the dynamics of inherited magic, but one consistency: as sentient populations—humans, gryphons, humanoid shapechangers—increase, inherited magic decreases. As I've told you, the Company has always been interested in—a pruned world. Nicely trimmed. More to go around.” Justinian's eyes came up, and this time they seemed almost tired. He rolled the ice wine around in the flute. “And therefore…?”

“The Company benefits from any war,” Vidarian said, not believing it could be possible even as the words left his mouth. “It benefits from any large-scale loss of life that does not directly impact the Partners.” It was impossible. “But—you're not suggesting that the Company was involved in
starting
the war.”

“Come now, Vidarian,” Justinian said softly. “You don't think the Qui just up and decided to cross that border all on their own? We've had advisors at Emperor Ziao's court for decades.”

The room seemed to spin, and he closed his eyes, which made the effect worse. He opened them again and looked at the ceiling. When he recovered himself, he could barely look at Justinian. A basic instinct said to kill him, to stop anyone who could seek such an insane path before they could do more damage. But to do so would be to cut off his only reliable source of the Company's true motives. “And all this, for…what?”

“For future generations,” Justinian said softly. “A smaller population—a larger, more thriving world. A world organized by strength of elemental magic.”

“Why would you trust me with this? What if I go to the emperor?” Vidarian said, his mouth dry as dust.

To his shock and annoyance, Justinian laughed. “And tell him what? That this war he's now embroiled in is sheer folly? That he has sent his own people to die for no proper cause? Do you think even the great Lirien Aslaire can hear that message? And then what?”

“I trust him with his own empire,” Vidarian said. “With my empire, my home. For centuries his family has been entrusted with this.”

“Ah, but Vidarian,” Justinian said, raising his glass. “You are power. You are our future.”

Justinian seemed unsurprised when Vidarian left the Arboretum without another word. He hadn't touched the ice wine, but nonetheless felt drunk on his feet. He staggered back to his rooms, nearly tripping over Rai, who had stretched himself just inside the door, stripped off his clothes in a half-aware haze, and fell into the bed.

But in spite of the exhaustion that sent his head into a kind of perpetual whirling dervish, sleep would not take him. Rai, cat-shaped, came to lay his massive head on the corner of the bed, and Vidarian reached over to scratch between his ears. Rai's head started to rattle, and he jerked his hand back with surprise; it stopped, and he realized: he was purring. The effect on an animal with thorn-spines the length of one's forearm was rather striking. When his heart calmed back down he resumed scratching again, and the purring returned. He shifted and rested his head in the crook of his free arm.

When he opened his eyes again, the angle of the moonlight coming cool through the window had changed. And there was a presence, a sense in the air like the moment before lightning. Rai's purring had turned to a low, menacing growl.

A pair of slender legs, folded neatly at the knee, faded into view feetfirst. On the feet were pointed shoes of silvery metal, and the rest of the legs, disembodied, flowed upward from them.

“Poor, poor Vidarian,” a voice echoed. “Does he need someone eviscerated?”

“Go away,” he mumbled.

“No,” she twinkled. “But thank you for asking.” Now all of the Starhunter was there, wearing a feathered hat and a strapless dress made out of some silver satiny material that stretched with her movements. To Vidarian's annoyance, Rai had stopped growling, and came over to rest his head in the Starhunter's lap. She cooed at him and his tail flicked happily.

“The Company wants to kill millions of people. Don't you give a damn about that?”

She blinked pupilless starscape eyes. “You weren't here before the millions got here. It wasn't so bad. I can see where they're coming from.”

Ice seeped through his veins, and he started to choke on an answer.

“On the other hand,” she tapped her lips with a fingertip. “Mass death is such a downer. Total buzzkill, like imagining your grandma naked.” Her face turned into his grandmother's face, and her dress started to disappear.

Vidarian realized she was toying with him, first with strange words and then the clothes. He turned over and pressed his face into the pillow.

“Oh, don't be boring,” she sighed, and bounced restlessly off the bed. Vidarian turned and opened one eye. Rai had followed her, tail swishing, and she pounced, turning into a cat that was a purple copy of him. At first Rai was startled, but then fell into the game.