Oracle: The House War: Book Six (22 page)

“The magi?”

“Uncertain. The guildmaster believes that demons are summoned; the magi are therefore the weak link between safety and disaster. She is known to be both harsh and unforgiving when members of her Order indulge their curiosity for the forbidden. She is not, however, infallible. It is possible that you might converse with her about this subject. You are not talent-born, and you are therefore not her responsibility.”

“You fail to understand Sigurne if you believe that.”

“Do I?”

Jarven turned to Finch.

Finch, however, was uninterested in joining this small game on Jarven’s terms. “Why do you insist on involving Haval?” she asked. Her voice was mild, as was her expression. She did not, however, blink.

“I have not involved Haval; he has involved himself, in an entirely roundabout way. He advises The Terafin.”

“She is, as you well know, absent. Absent, she does not require his advice.”

“I see I am to be surrounded by the harsh and unforgiving this morning.” Jarven’s smile implied that harsh and unforgiving were his elements; the implication, in Haval’s estimation, contained a truth that Jarven’s implications generally lacked. “Haval is correct in his assessment; he is, however, incomplete. There are elements at play that he has failed to mention—and given Haval, I assume the failure a deliberate oversight. I am honestly not certain why he bothers when he is speaking with me; he cannot hope that I will overlook it. And given the information, he cannot hope that you will.”

“I am not part of your game.”

“You, my dear, are close to the heart of it. If circumstances were less dire, I would be less extreme. But I am an old man. I do not have the time. And the city—the Empire—has perhaps as much time remaining as I do if this game is not played, and played
well
. Haval is part of the game; we are all now part of it. We have little choice in the matter. What choice we have is, as Haval suggested, limited by our nature—but we are not consigned to be victims.

“I am not,” he continued, holding the gaze that did not waver, “Rymark.”

Finch was not nearly as careful with her expression as either of the two old men in the room. “I would,” she said softly, “kill you myself before I let you become him.” There was no doubt at all in her words. She did not stoop to plea.

Jarven, however, laughed. The laughter did not change her expression at all. It would have darkened Jewel’s—but Jewel had, as she so often pointed out, the advantage of her peculiar talent; she could be lax. It would not kill her.

“You see what I have raised, Haval? The young are unforgiving.”

“She means it,” Haval replied. “And I would almost like to see how it played out, in the end.”

This, on the other hand, did deepen Finch’s frown. “Haval, please—do not encourage him.”

“You simultaneously understand Jarven and fail to understand him,” Haval replied, modulating his tone and softening its edge. “He will never become Rymark. Rymark is inelegant; his self-indulgence is far too obvious. He desires power because he believes it will allow him to live without consequences, and in this particular instance, believes it will allow him to survive what will follow.

“Jarven does not believe his survival rests in anyone else’s hands. Or he does not believe that it should. He is not content to serve any purpose but his own. We are fortunate in that his purposes are relatively benign.”

“I am almost offended,” Jarven said.

“I fail to see why.”

“You do not.”

Finch’s glance slid between them; her expression eased slowly into a more traditional form of disapproval.

“She learned that from Lucille.” Jarven’s smile was fond. To Haval’s eye, the affection was genuine. “I do not have the time to waste,” he said again, in the same tone. “But I have confidence, Finch. If I had a decade, I would look forward to crossing wits with you; you might be—at the end of my life—a worthy opponent. So few are.”

“If you consider gods and demons worthy opponents,” she replied, “you would almost certainly be disappointed.”

“They are not worthy opponents in the same way because theirs is not a game in which any great artistry can be involved; we are forced to play on the same board, but it is a crudely drawn, temporary board—a thing forced by circumstance.

“Nor is it ever truly complete. The game itself is too large. I consider my part in it very much like a leg of a relay race. I can handle and carry the baton perfectly on the prescribed path; that path, of necessity, is an overlap of our concerns. I do not see the whole of the game board. But, Finch,
neither do they
. The narrow area through which I can run is an area that they barely perceive; I am certain they consider it beneath them. They do not therefore understand all the subtleties; they do not understand the mastery I have over my chosen sphere of influence.

“If I do not see the whole of the board on which the game is to be played at large, they do not see the whole of the board upon which I am master. There are mistakes to be made on either side, but I am willing to grant them superior knowledge in those spheres they control; I highly doubt they are willing to grant me the same. Well, Haval?”

“I have little to add. I believe your assessment and mine in this case to be similar. I have had little truck with the demonic, but will agree that they are possessed of a certain arrogance—and a certain crudeness, at least when dealing with mortals. I have had more of a chance to observe the hunter. Lord Celleriant.”

“And?” Jarven’s question was sharp with delight.

“His suggested solution to a small political problem was the assassination of the entire Terafin House Council.”

Jarven laughed. Finch, notably, did not.

“Could he?”

“Kill the House Council? Certainly. I think there are one or two who might put up some resistance, but the resistance itself would, in the end, be futile.”

“That act would fall within the rules of exemption.”

“Yes.”

“But clearly it was not an option that The Terafin considered.”

Finch’s mouth fell open. She shut it without allowing the words that obviously wanted escape their freedom.

“And so we come at last to the heart of the game: the thing that binds the whole—immortal, demonic, godly, and mortal.”

Haval’s guard was almost never lowered in Jarven’s presence; raising it made no effective or visible difference.

“The Terafin.”

“She is not,” Finch said, “yours. She is not a piece in any game you choose to play.”

Jarven returned to his desk. He sat behind it, his position crisp and unbowed. His expression was bright, hard; this was the face he brought to negotiations that had proved immune to the subtler wheedling and sleight of hand he employed when he was lazy or when he considered his opponent so far beneath him respect was not required.

Finch’s lips compressed; she saw what Haval saw. “No,” she told him, engaging where Haval would not. “This is
not
a negotiation. The Terafin is not an object of simple barter. Or complicated barter,” she added, as Jarven opened his mouth.

“It is not The Terafin’s disposition that we are now discussing. I understand that you do not speak for The Terafin; no more do I, although in theory I have that authority within a limited capacity. I expect you to speak for yourself. Intelligently.”

She was silent.

“What does The Terafin want?”

Finch exhaled. “She wants the safety of the House. She wants,” she continued, after a longer pause in which she considered her words, “the safety of the city.”

“The House is trifling. Difficult, yes, but not a difficulty that is insurmountable. Is it, in your considered opinion, a necessity for the safety of Averalaan?”

“She wouldn’t doom the city because the House fell.”

“While clever, that was not an answer, and I do not think I will allow it.”

She was silent.

Jarven said, “I will not insult you, Finch. I have Haval for that, should my frustration demand an outlet. You are hesitant. You have that perfectly understandable desire to trust what you know—and the more admirable hesitation because what you know is me. I will not feign insult, today; it seldom works where you are concerned, and I will husband my resources. If I play at age, it is not entirely feigned.

“I am invested in the game that I have been given no alternative but to play. It is dangerous for me to play such a game without understanding the consequences—but absent that understanding, I will play it regardless. Arm me, or arm my opponents, as you wish. I am not a particularly cautious man, as you have observed; I am not without malice, but at the present time, feel none toward either you or The Terafin.”

“I want more than careless proclamations of lack of malice.”

“Yes, I imagine you do. And—as we are wasting time—tell me what form such solid assurance will take. I cannot think of one I would willingly accept were our positions reversed. What would I do?”

“If you wanted to reach an agreement? You would bargain; you would demand; you would, depending on your opponent, threaten.”

“Even given your lack of ability to trust any agreement that might be reached?”

She nodded. “In this scenario, I feel that you are utterly necessary—for the moment. I have already attained the House Council seat—which is necessary in my opinion; I would trust that a position on that Council would give me the balance of power should I be forced to act against . . . me. Your position, of course, would not be entirely stable; your power in the Merchant Authority is divided—at the will of The Terafin. We do not share authority; we each possess it.

“You have crossed political swords with every merchant that is close to the Council; you have annoyed Haerrad—but anyone who breathes and thinks for themselves does that. But you have also cunningly sidelined some of Elonne’s interests; you have not proven yourself entirely friendly to Marrick. Your power on the Council is therefore muted until you build necessary alliances. You will build those by compromise and negotiation; given your past record, no one will move quickly. You are not, by your own design, much trusted.

“The Terafin is not, however, in her seat. You do not face her—you couldn’t, given the way she came to power.”

Haval watched Finch’s expression with interest; she had lost, sentence by sentence, the wary frustration that had characterized the earlier part of their conversation; what was left was the puzzle set in front of her by the man who had trained her, honing and sharpening the observation that lay beneath her quiet, hesitant appearance.

Jarven was watching as well. “So. You would not stoop to cajole; you would assume the full weight of your authority. You would begin by relying on the friendship we have built over the better part of almost two decades.”

She nodded.

“If you were me, Finch, what would
you
want?”

“If I were in your position?”

“Ah, no. If you were
me
. If you were Jarven ATerafin. We have played these games before, you and I. You have observed me. You have seen me at my strongest, and you have seen me at my weakest; I do not necessarily expect you to identify either state accurately, but I am curious. What, exactly, do you believe I want?”

Finch was not Jewel Markess ATerafin. She saw the world as it was; she did not look ahead, to the world and the life that
might
be; she did not choose to live in the future; she navigated the streets she had lived in by the rules she had learned. She had been abandoned by her family, and perhaps that should have colored and scarred her view of the world, as it did so many, especially given the place to which she had been sold. A brothel, as an unwilling participant, did not afford the best of experiences.

But she had been saved by two young women: Duster and Jewel, two disparate strangers who could not possibly feel any obligation toward her. Between them, they had risked their lives to save hers. She had not doubted their intentions; they were as poor and as helpless as she herself had been.

The weak gathered in numbers; it gave them the illusion of strength. In the case of Finch, it had given more: a family of choice. This, too, she had never doubted. She had seen Jewel Markess clearly. She had seen Duster clearly as well. She accepted that the world housed both darkness and light; that if she lived and breathed, she would encounter both for the rest of her life.

But she did not privilege the glimpses of one over the other, and in her quiet way, she reached, always, for warmth. But she reached for the warmth at hand; she did not force herself to believe, as many could, that her daydreams would one day become her reality.

Yet, he thought, her reality now was the product of daydreams that most, born where she was born, did not have.

She was ATerafin. She served The Terafin, a close personal friend. She no longer feared hunger or winter. She did not steal simply to survive. No, he thought; she had translated those skills into these ones. Theft was more subtle, threats more oblique. Strength was not measured in daggers and the numbers a den could amass; it was measured in wealth, much of it theoretical.

She understood wealth. She understood that it was tentative; she understood that much of it was proclaimed by appearance: the cut of cloth, the expense of fabric. She did not choose jewelry, and that, Haval thought, would have to change.

“I . . . don’t know.”

“You don’t wish to take the risk of insulting me.”

“I don’t wish,” she replied, “to make a mistake that puts others at risk.”

“And now, you
are
insulting me.” His eyes gleamed. Haval thought he was even telling the truth, which surprised him. “You have made decisions, mere hours ago, that will put many people—who are not you—at risk. You have made decisions which, should they be wrong, have the weight to destroy lives. I have even encouraged you to make them.”

“I don’t know what The Terafin knows. I would happily let her make any decision that involved you.”

“But she cannot.”

“No. I have made decisions in this office that reach well beyond House Terafin; I have—as you have pointed out—done so with your encouragement. But I have done so with knowledge and experience. What The Terafin knows, what The Terafin
can
know, I cannot. Any decision I make on her behalf, however tentative, is done at the whim of
Kalliaris
, and only a fool bets on her smile.”