“I’ve noticed.”
Mother Avignon arrived just then, leaning heavily on her walking stick. Cadmia jumped up to help her to her chair; as she eased herself to a seat, the old woman remarked, “Rose told me I should expect you, but I wasn’t sure if I should believe her. People say no one is more devout than a convert, and after you left the Order of A’hknet that saying appeared true.”
Cadmia wasn’t sure how to answer that. Officially, she had joined the Order of Napthol after their healers had saved her lover, Cinnabar’s, life—but that had been an excuse. She had felt stifled in her life as “Scarlet Paynes’ daughter,” where everyone anticipated that she, too, would grow up to follow the world’s oldest profession.
“Have you heard from Cinnabar?” she asked, following the train of thought. Cinnabar had ceased to be her lover when she pledged herself to the Napthol, but he had remained her friend. He had fled the city after his testimony had sent the Quin after Xaz.
“He’s settled in an A’hknet meetinghouse in Tamar. He—” She broke off and her eyes locked on the door, which had just opened to admit another member of their party.
Not one they had invited. At least, not one Cadmia had invited. At first, she couldn’t make herself do anything but stare at the seemingly-young man who she knew was at least decades old, and whose copper eyes glowed as if molten. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hansa shove himself to standing and scramble back as if faced with a poisonous bug. Alizarin stepped up and wrapped his tail around Cadmia protectively.
Of all people, Ginger was the first to find her voice and say, “Na—Naples?”
Naples—it couldn’t be Naples, he was dead, Alizarin had killed him, but somehow it was him—also appeared taken off guard by the stammered words. Still framed in the open doorway, he asked, “Do I know you?”
Hansa gasped out, “You’re dead. Why are you not dead?”
His words, too loud and carrying, broke Cadmia from her trance. Much as she didn’t want to close herself in a room with the Abyssumancer they had killed on their quest to retrieve Terre Verte, she wanted even less for their conversation to reach unsympathetic ears.
“Keep your voice down,” she said to Hansa as she pulled away from Alizarin and shut the door, barely giving Naples a chance to move into the room first. “Naples, take a seat, and kindly explain to us why you’re not dead.”
The Abyssumancer swung himself into a chair, but his entire response was, “It seemed like the thing to do.” His copper eyes rested then on Alizarin, who was watching the no-longer-dead mancer and growling lightly. “Nice to see you, too, Alizarin. Modigliani sends his regards.”
Alizarin swallowed his growl and swished his tail nervously. Having Naples reference the king of the Abyss seemed a thing worth being nervous over.
Ginger’s patience snapped. Her voice almost a shriek, she demanded, “What is going on?”
All three of them looked to her. Cadmia wondered if this was the kind of situation where introducing people even made sense, but she tried. “This is—”
“I know who he is,” she said.
“And who in the Abyss are you?” Naples snapped.
Ginger flinched as if he had slapped her, looking momentarily not like the grizzled, powerful matriarch of the local A’hknet community and more like the girl she must once have been.
The door opened again, this time admitting Umber, who instantly began a string of profanity directed at Naples. Cadmia once more had to hastily close the door.
“We were just getting to why he isn’t dead,” Hansa volunteered as Umber stiffly walked past Naples to join Hansa.
“The last time I saw you,” Ginger said, “you had just been devoured by an Abyssi.”
Naples leaned back in his chair, and put his feet up on the one next to him. “That would be surprising, since to my recollection that only ever happened recently.” He shot a look to Alizarin. “And you weren’t with us at the time.”
“But . . . but . . .” Ginger couldn’t seem to get the words out.
Cadmia cleared her throat. “Naples, did you and Ginger know each other before you ended up in the Abyss?”
Naples jumped so badly he knocked over the chair he had propped his legs on, sending it scattering loudly across the floor. “Ginger? Ginger Cremnitz?”
“Avignon, these days,” she said coolly.
Cadmia was more than a little amused to hear how dazed Naples sounded as he said inanely, “At least you didn’t marry that prat of a doctor.” He leaned forward to study Ginger’s face. Had they been the same age when they last met, when Naples had been the young man he still appeared?
Lydie was the last of their expected guests to arrive. Unlike everyone else in the room, she walked in, looked around, closed the door, and didn’t appear remotely upset or surprised as she said, “Oh, you found the dead man!”
“Who in the Abyss is she?” Naples asked.
Alizarin was smiling in a way that showed too many teeth. “Necromancer,” he said.
Cadmia felt a similar smile spread across her own face as she wondered aloud, “How dead are you, Naples?”
“I’m not dead!” Naples objected, pushing to his feet.
“Sit,” Lydie snapped.
Naples sat, only to then shove himself back up.
“No,” Lydie said as he started to step toward her. Then again, “No,” when he went for the door. “Sit down, and let’s talk about this like reasonable people,” she suggested. Firmly. “Because you seem to be dead enough. And unless I’m mistaken, you’re the one who nearly killed Hansa. So sit!”
He sat down again, though it didn’t stop him from glaring.
“Way to go, Lydie,” Hansa said, fighting not to laugh.
“As amusing as it would be to watch the necromancer dance our Naples about like a puppet, let’s not abuse him so much he figures out how to fight back,” Umber suggested. “I don’t want to test a fourteen-year-old necromancer’s power against a century-old Abyssumancer.”
“I concur,” Lydie agreed. She shrugged at Naples. “I couldn’t resist.”
Naples growled, an unnerving sound to hear from someone who looked human. Alizarin’s hackles rose in response before Naples shook his head and grumbled, “Don’t do it again.”
“I’m not the only necromancer in Kavet,” Lydie pointed out. “You’re still wearing the taint of your own death, which is what responds so eagerly to my magic. I can see that taint sloughing off you, but until it’s entirely gone, it doesn’t seem to matter how powerful an Abyssumancer you are—you have no protection against my kind.”
The door opened one more time, this time to reveal a cheery-looking young man in the Drunken Horse’s black-vest-over-green-shirt uniform. “Welcome! Should I bring a pitcher of ale for the table? Or mulled wine?” he asked.
“Fuck, yes,” Naples replied.
The waiter started back, swiveled toward Naples’ vehement response, then cleared his throat. “I’ll bring both, then,” he said.
“Whiskey for me,” Naples added.
“And that’s all,” Umber said, with a glare at Naples, who didn’t look remotely abashed. The moment the waiter closed the door behind himself, Umber ordered, “Explain.”
Naples leaned back in his chair, languid and insolent. Honest, or a pose? Cadmia couldn’t tell.
“My patron, Modigliani, was a prince of the fifth level when he made me a mancer, and has since become lord of the Abyss. You can’t tell me anyone here is shocked to see me?”
When Naples had been killed, Umber had speculated that death might not be permanent for him. They hadn’t known at the time how powerful his Abyssi was, but they had known how strong Naples himself was, and that he had been killed in a cell designed to contain power.
“I am,” Ginger said.
Naples’ gaze settled on Ginger, and some of the lazy calm left his face as he asked, “Is anyone else still alive?”
She let out a choking gasp, as if shocked by the arrogance of the qu
estion. “How should I know? Alive and dead don’t seem to be quite as fixed as I always thought them to be. You bastard. You’re sitting there, like you haven’t aged a day. Do you have any idea what we went through? Do you have any damned idea?”
Her voice broke, and Naples winced.
“I have some idea,” he said, the last of his posturing gone, “but I hope you will tell us the rest of the tale. I’ll say what I know, then I’m hoping you can help explain how we got from the last thing I remember to here. Then, we’ll need Alizarin to go further back, to what the Abyssi call the time before.”
They all turned toward the Abyssi—even Lydie, though she then looked quickly away, as if whatever she saw was painful to behold, and Ginger, whose brows knit with confusion before her eyes widened in alarm as she deduced who or what they were looking at.
The waiter returning with drinks, crusty bread, and plates of honeyed almond paste for dipping at that moment, provided a brief distraction. Once he was gone, Naples seemed ready to begin.
“Once upon a time,” he began, with a smirk at the fairy-tale introduction, “there was a nation called Kavet. It was ruled, as it had been for a thousand years, by a royal line known as the Terre. They were high-magic practitioners, sorcerers, but not mancers. The last mancer to walk the realms did so back in the days of the old wars.”
“The old wars?” Cadmia asked. She couldn’t remember seeing the term in her studies. “And isn’t mancer another word for sorcerer?”
Naples shook his head. “We’ll have Alizarin tell that tale, once Ginger is done with hers. For now let’s just say, there were sorcerers in Kavet, some with powers that leaned toward life or death or the Numen or the Abyss. They didn’t understand their powers, or why some people worked better with ice and some with blood, why some people had power and some people didn’t.”
He paused and took a sip of his whiskey. Ginger was nodding, following his tale. She looked poised to add to it as necessary.
“In this once-upon-a-time land, there was a prince, who was also a very powerful sorcerer. And,” he added, dismissively, “there was an annoying little cult, small but rapidly growing in size, called the followers of the Quinacridone.”
“Hey!” Ginger protested. “The Followers of the Quinacridone began in response to what they saw as abuses of power by the sorcerers, mostly in the city, and the over-reliance of magic to solve every-day problems, as well as the complete social isolation and aristocratic placement of the Order of the Napthol.”
“Which in those days,” Naples clarified, “was where those gifted with high magic went to study. It’s where I grew up. It is not where Ginger grew up, as her family was devoutly and absolutely Quin.” He gestured to the bracelet she was wearing, engraved with the mark of A’hknet, and added, “I notice you’re wearing a different symbol these days.”
She nodded, but apparently felt no need to explain her change of allegiance to Naples.
“Well,” Naples said, leaning back to stare at the ceiling beams as he spoke. “Obviously, it fell apart. Terre Verte was killed protecting the country—his job, you know—and his parents lost their lives trying to save him. Sorcerers started dying from magic ripping them apart and everyone blamed the dead royal house. Oh yes, and I saw my very first Abyssi, summoned him into this world and would you believe it was an accident?”
“The king resurrected his son,” Ginger said, with a questioning tone as if she weren’t entirely sure of the details.
“The king . . . half resurrected his son,” Naples corrected. “He was able to revive and sustain his body, but the prince’s soul had already crossed to the next realm. It was Celadon Cremnitz, preacher-leader of the Quinacridone movement, who dragged Terre Verte’s soul back from the Numen.”
Around the table, there was a moment of silence.
Hansa was the one who asked, “The leader of the Quinacridone . . . dragged Terre Verte’s soul . . . back from the Numen?” There were deliberate pauses between each of those highly improbable bits of information.
Naples nodded. “The leader of the Quinacridone, Celadon Cremnitz, happened to be a very powerful cold-magic user. He didn’t understand what he was doing when he saved Terre Verte. He had no idea he had opened a rift to the Numen to do it, or that one of the Numini bonded to him and rode him back into the mortal realm.” He took an overly-large gulp of his whiskey, then suggested, “Ginger, maybe you should take over. After all, it is difficult to imagine the way the world has changed, between the days of the Terre and today. I’ll fill in the details along the way.”
“All we knew,” Ginger said, taking up the story, “was that magic was killing people. Celadon, my brother and the Quin’s leader, somehow brought Terre Verte out of the palace, but then they . . . they . . .” She looked at Naples. “Every witness said something different. In the end, Celadon was dead. Terre Verte was dead. We thought you were dead, Naples, that you and the Terre had both been killed by that Abyssi, and several other members of the Order of the Napthol were dead. Abyssi and Numini were killing people, and we had no idea why.”
She looked at Naples, who said, “I’ll explain that later. Go on.”
“So we did what we could to stop them,” Ginger continued. “At first, it was just . . . suggestions, recommendations, incentives, anything we could think of that would weaken the Others’ hold on the mortal realm. But the deaths continued and people got scared, and every meeting there were more people wanting to make the laws stricter. After enough time, they wrote another law. Dahlia Indathrone didn’t even like it, but she hadn’t kept a veto power for herself, and the majority voted it into power. That’s when I left the Followers of the Quinacridone and joined the Order of A’hknet, the day Citizen’s Initiative One-Twenty-Six passed. And that brings us to today.”
Naples turned toward Alizarin.
“In all our pillow-talk,” he said, a term that made Cadmia cringe as she remembered that Naples’ first reason to dislike her was that Alizarin had been his lover before hers, “you mentioned your own plans, but you never mentioned the history. You never talked about the Gressi.”
“Gressi?” Hansa asked, brow furrowed.
“Abyssumancer,” Naples replied. “Numenmancer. Gressumancer.”
“Gressumancers have power over all five planes: mortal, life, death, Numen, and Abyss,” Lydie said. “Terre Verte seems to be one.”
“Wrong. Terre Verte has power over four planes because he inherited power from his family’s years of study, and then was granted power by the Numini and the Abyssi, separately,” Naples said. “A Gressumancer is something different altogether, something that begins with the Gressi, and the old war. Alizarin?”
Part Two
Winter, Year 3988 in the Age of the Realms
Year 81 of the New Reckoning
I sing of realms and times before,
when worlds were one and life was more,
than skin and bone, but soul and pow’r
divine and ice and blood and fire.
And I sing of a love, deep and true,
forgotten by most, remembered by few
between a Numen lord, young and fleet,
and one born of Abyssal heat.
In those lakes of fire
lakes of blood
of flesh and need, and hungry lust,
crystal seeded with death
were nursery
to a slick-furred youth:
one Knet by name.
Next Aureoline from Numen ice,
full-grown and lovely like all his kind.
His wings were gold, his skin red silk,
deep sunset—or an Abyssi’s milk
and from the first moment
all who knew
Aureoline loved him deep.
But none who adored him
were his desire;
none knew that he
would seduce the fire.
From “The Seduction of Knet”
Traditional Tamari Ballad
&nb
sp; Chapter 25
Cadmia
“I’m young for my kind,” Alizarin began. Cadmia translated for Lydie and Ginger, who could not hear him. “I was not hatched before Kavet fell to the Quinacridone. So the time before and the old war are myths to me. Even Modigliani was not alive for those days, though his sire saw the soon-after.”
He continued the story, using the simple phrases and descriptions the Abyssi used to tell their history.
This is how the Abyssi note the ages: the time before, the old war, and the soon-after. Then there is this age, which is the today. We don’t know what the today will be once it becomes tomorrow. Abyssi don’t usually think that way.
In the time before there were no planes. The world was full. The Abyssi delighted in the world-that-was even when it was chaos, but the Numini made order. That was fine. There was always food. The Numini tamed some of the lesser creatures and they became servants. The servants made things, and they worked in the Numini’s order. They were not dirt, but the Numini were displeased when they were made meat, so the Abyssi did not hurt them unless the Numini gave them away. There was other food to be had, and the lesser creatures had other uses.
“Did you inherit memories of this?” Umber interrupted to ask. “I can’t imagine a time when the Numen and the Abyss and the mortal realm were all combined.”
Alizarin shook his head. “Even the oldest Abyssi are too many generations away from the time before to remember. I can only tell it the way it was told to me. Some of the Numini might remember. They live longer.”
He continued.
That was the world in the time before.
There were Abyssi, and Numini, and Gressi, who were both feathers and fur. One of the Gressi, named Scheveningen, loved the lesser creatures. He wanted them to be free. The Numini did not understand the desire for freedom. He wanted them to be safe, but food cannot be safe. It can only run.
“Feathers and fur?” Lydie asked once Cadmia repeated the phrase. “What does that mean?”