In one of its grotesquely gnarled hands it carried a thin blue oval with tattered edges that gleamed iridescently in the reflected light of the pool water. Each side of the object’s surface bore an etching; it was the image of an eye, obscured by clouds on one side, clear of them on the other, the engraving worn almost to invisibility by time.
The seneschal smiled broadly. There was something so pleasing about seeing the scale in the hands of his child that he could barely contain his delight. Faron’s mother had been the last in a long line of Ancient Seren seers to possess some of the scales, and her power to read them had passed through her blood into Faron’s. Imagining the horror she must be suffering in the Afterlife made the demon that clung to his soul shout with joy.
He watched reverently as Faron plunged the ancient scale beneath the surface of the gleaming green pool. Clouds of steam from the heat of the fire that burned naturally in Faron’s blood began to rise, white vapor that filled the air like ghosts hovering above, longing for a view.
Earth, present in the scale itself, the seneschal mused, staring through the billowing mist. Fire and ether, ever-present in Faron’s blood, water from the pool. The cycle of the elements was complete but for one. Given the distance over which he wished Faron to see, great power would be needed.
Slowly he took hold of the hilt protruding from the scabbard at his side, and with great care drew Tysterisk. A rush of wind whipped through then catacomb, stirring clouds of mold spores from the floor as the blade came forth from its sheath, invisible except for a shower of sparks of flame as if from a brushfire in a high breeze.
A deep tug resonated through both his human flesh and his demonic spirit, the bond of connection to the elemental sword of air within him blazing as it always did when the weapon was drawn. Holding Tysterisk in his hands was the most powerful pleasure of the flesh he had ever experienced, an orgiastic sensation that dwarfed all others his body had felt. He held it over the glowing green pool, sending waves crashing over Faron where a moment before there had only been gentle ripples.
The elemental circle was complete.
Beneath the surface of the green water the scale glowed.
The clouds in Faron’s occluded eyes cleared; their bright blue irises shone like stars in the reflected brilliance of the pool. The seneschal noted the change, the demon within him crowing with excitement.
“Can you see her?” he asked the ancient malformed child again, struggling to keep his voice steady.
The gnarled creature stared into the windy water, blinking in the dark, then shook its head, the hanging folds of skin beneath its chin quivering.
Impatiently the seneschal fumbled in the bag that had contained the eels and withdrew a soft tallow candle, formed from caustic lye and human fat rendered from sickly old people and children, the useless booty of privateered ships that had been picked clean of more valuable captives and treasure. He tapped the wick with his finger, calling forth the black fire from within his demonic soul, his very essence, and sparked the flame. When the taper began to glow he held it up over the pool, casting more illumination over the submerged scale.
“Can you see her?” he demanded again; the fire burned in his voice, dark with threat.
Faron squinted, studying the scrying scale. A moment later the monstrous face turned up to meet the wild blue eyes of its father, and nodded.
Blazing excitement, replaced a moment later with impatience, roared through the seneschal.
“What do you see? Tell me more.”
The mute creature stared at him helplessly.
“What is she doing? Is she alone?”
The creature shook its head.
The fiery excitement soured to blinding fury.
“No? She is not alone? Who is with her? Who?”
The creature shrugged.
The wild storm in the seneschal’s eyes broke, like the wind-whipped waves in the gale.
He plunged both his hands up to the last joints of the fingers into the misshapen creature’s soft skull, twisting them as its fishlike mouth dropped open at the sides in agony, a silent scream bursting in waves of gushing air exiting its quivering lips.
As Faron’s body went rigid with shock, the seneschal closed his eyes and concentrated. Intently he focused his concentration inward, untying the metaphysical bonds by which his immortal demonic nature clung to his corporeal form, seeking the vibrations in Faron’s blood that matched those of his own. He found them easily.
Like threads of spun steel, the tiny tethers of power stretched between his body and his soul. Meticulously he unhooked them one by one and retied each one to the misshapen mass of human flesh writhing in his hands, whose blood burned with his own.
As the fire of his essence slipped into Faron’s body, his own corporeal form cooled, withered and sank into itself, shriveling like a mummified skeleton. It clung to Faron, its ossified fingers still protruding from the child’s head.
Faron’s twisted form, now the vessel, the host of the immortal soul of the demon, straightened and grew substantial, the cartilage hardening into bone. The demon peered out through Faron’s clear blue eyes.
He stared into the blue waves of light reflecting in the scale just below the surface of the glowing green water.
At first he saw nothing but a distant shadow. Then, a movement, and his bearing sharpened.
In the rippling waves of the pool he could make out the watery image of a face, both alien and innately familiar to him. It was a face he had studied at great length a lifetime ago, stared at in portraits, gazed at intently when in close proximity. He knew every line, every angle, though in the clouds of steam it was not exactly as he remembered it.
Perhaps it was the expression that was confusing him. The face he had known was a guarded one, one that rarely smiled, and when it did, that expression was wry. The emerald eyes within the face had burned with contempt, coolly disguised beneath an aspect of disinterest, especially when fixed on him.
Now, though, in whatever blue light through which it passed half a world away, this familiar, unknown face was wreathed in an expression he did not recognize.
There was laughter in her eyes, caught in this moment of time, and something more, an expression he could not place, but did not like, whatever it was. Her face was shining in the reflected glow of candleflame, but more — it was generating its own light.
She was talking to someone.
More than one person, it seemed, from the way her head moved, someone whose face was at an equal height to her own to the left, and another who was taller to the right. When she looked in the latter direction, her eyes took on an element of excitement that burned like elemental fire, pure and hot from the heart of the Earth. There was something so inviting, so compelling, about this face that involuntarily he reached into the glowing water and touched the back of her neck, where the golden hair he had dreamed about for more than a thousand years hung in a silken fall. He drew Faron’s gnarled finger through the ripples in an awkward caress.
Half a world away, she froze. A look of revulsion, or perhaps fear, washed the smile from her face, leaving it blank, pale. She glanced over her shoulder, then put her hand to her throat, as if shielding it from a bitter wind, or the maw of a wolf.
His touch had made her recoil.
Again.
Whore, he whispered in his mind. Miserable, rutting whore.
His anger exploded, causing Faron’s body to jerk and quiver with the physical manifestations of rage. With a furious sweep of his squamous hand he slapped the surface of the water, sending the scale spinning out of the pool and into the dank darkness of the catacomb.
He breathed shallowly, trying to regain his focus.
When reason returned, he closed his sky-blue eyes, concentrating on the metaphysical threads that bound him to Faron’s human form, loosing and retying them once more.
As the demonic essence rushed back into the seneschal’s body, the withered mummy swelled with life again, the angry light ret
urning to his dried-out eye sockets. Faron’s body, by contrast, grew supple and twisted again until it collapsed under its own weight.
The seneschal breathed shallowly as he pulled his remaining fingers from the soft skull of his child, stanching the blood that dripped from the holes. Tenderly he gathered Faron, who wept silently, deformed mouth gasping at the edges, into his arms and caressed the wisps of hair, the quivering folds of skin, gently kissing the creature’s head.
“I am sorry, Faron,” he whispered softly. “Forgive me.”
When the creature’s soundless moans resolved into light panting, the seneschal cupped its face in his hand and turned it so that he was staring into its eyes, now cloudy again, though still the same blue as his own.
“I have wondrous news for you, Faron,” he said, stroking its flaccid cheeks with his fingers. “I am going on a long voyage, far across the sea —” He pressed his forefinger to the creature’s fused lips as panic came into its eyes.
“And I am taking you with me.”
The dark staircase that led to the Baron of Argaut’s tower was built, except for the last few steps, of polished gray marble veined in black and white. The stairs, like the passageway itself, were narrow; the noise of footsteps ascending or descending was reduced to soft, ominous clicks instead of the echoing cadence that walking through the other corridors in the Hall of Virtue produced.
At the top of the staircase the last few steps were hewn from blood coral, a stinging calcified sea plant — a living creature when in the sea, it was said — that formed poisonous reefs thousands of miles long near the Fiery Rim, many ocean leagues away. It blended with the marble of the steps, forming a deadly barrier to anyone not immune to the bite of fire, the sting of venom.
The seneschal climbed the last stair and stopped before the black walnut door bound in steel. He knocked deferentially, then opened the door slowly.
A rush of dank wind and consuming darkness greeted him.
He stepped quickly into the chamber and closed the door behind him.
“Good evening, m’lord,” he said.
At first no sound replied except the skittering movements of mice and the flutter of bat wings in the eaves above.
Then, deep within his brain, he heard the voice, words burning his mind like dark fire.
Good evening.
The seneschal cleared his throat, casting his eyes around the black tower room, the darkness impenetrable. “All is progressing well in Argaut. We had another successful day in the Judiciary.”
Very good.
He cleared his throat again. “I will be leaving tonight on an extended voyage. Is there anything m’lord requires before I go?”
The silence swelled around him in the dark. When the voice spoke again, it burned with menace, stinging his ears and the inside of his brain.
An explanation, to begin with.
The seneschal inhaled deeply. “I’ve had some news today that someone who owes me a very great debt, an oath struck on the Island of Serendair before the Great Cataclysm, survived the awakening of the Sleeping Child and is alive.” He let his breath out with the words. “I need to collect on that debt.”
Why? the burning voice demanded. Send a lackey.
Wisely the seneschal swallowed the retort that rose, unbidden, to his lips. It was not prudent to enflame the baron.
“That is not possible, m’lord,” he said in a measured, respectful tone. “This is something to which I must attend personally. I assure you, however, the prize with which I will return will be more than worth my absence.”
In your estimation, perhaps. But mayhap not in mine. The anger in the voice seared the inside of the seneschal’s head. If you leave, who will procure the slaves? Maintain the terror? Who will sit in the judiciary? Attend to the burnings? Who will fulfill the law?
The seneschal’s eyes burned red at the edges in response as he struggled against his own wild ire.
“The infrastructure is well in place, m’lord. All of that will be done, and more.” Impulsively he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. When he spoke, his voice carried an excitement that the expansive darkness of the room could barely contain. “But to please m’lord, before I go I will attend to your will. I will accomplish a rash of burnings sufficient to light the sky to a crimson glow that will linger for days! I will move up the dockets, deploy the fleet, set in motion whatever m’lord desires. But I must leave with the tide ere morning; I have a contract to enforce.” He raised his eyes to the darkness again. “An oath to make someone uphold.”
The silence echoed around him. The seneschal stared into the endless darkness, waiting.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the voice spoke. It was filled with reluctance, a disappointment that was palpable.
Very well. But be certain to return as soon as you have claimed whatever is owed to you.
The seneschal rose quickly and bowed from the waist.
“I will, m’lord. Thank you.”
The dark voice spoke softly, the tone in its words fading into the blackness again.
You may go now.
The seneschal bowed once more. He backed away in the darkness, feeling for the handle of the door. Once he found it, he opened it, stepped through quickly, and closed the door behind him, taking his leave.
Of a completely empty room.
Yellow
Light Bringer, Light Queller
Merte-mi
3
THIEVES’ MARKET, YARIM PAAR
It never failed to amaze Slith how much power could reside in a single word, a word that was merely someone’s name.
Particularly Esten’s name.
Now as he followed Bonnard’s quivering form, the rolls of flesh vibrating with each step along the cobbled alleys of the Market of Thieves through which they were traveling, he pondered whether invoking that name had been wise or not.
Bonnard’s sneer, upon finding him shirking his duties in the privy, had melted quickly into an expression that straddled the border between consternation and fear when he had uttered his need to be taken to the guildmistress. Slith cast his eyes down at the dusty red cobblestones and smiled to himself, remembering their exchange.
What — what would the likes of you need to see Esten about?
Certain you wish to know, Bonnard? That will make you the only other one besides me.
The journeyman had considered the question for the span of ten heartbeats, then scowled, shook his great jowled head quickly, and motioned for Slith to follow him.
Now, as they traveled deeper into the Market of Thieves, Slith wondered whether invoking that name had been the most foolish thing he had ever done.
As a young child he had once ventured as far as the Outer Market, the bazaar of merchants and goodsellers from all over the known world, and undoubtedly parts of the unknown world as well. He had found it to be a place of open-air shops and street booths, of exotic animals prowling the areas near shopkeepers’ wares, of brightly colored silks and bags of pungent spice, the scent of incense and perfume mixed with the slick, heavy odor of the peat fires over which meat was roasting. His mother had brought him along with her in a vain search for a tonic to heal his ailing father; after seeing her pay every coin she had for a bottle of glittering liquid that had proved completely ineffective, Slith understood on an innate level at the age of six how the market had gotten its name.
Never, however, had he been this deep in, this close to the poisonous danger of the Inner Market. He could feel the threat in the air around him; it was somehow heavier here in these back streets, these dark alleys, where the color and pageantry gave way to hidden alcoves and shadowy porticos. The mudbrick buildings, dried to the color of blood, as all of Yarim was, the kiosks of straw and sheets of oilcloth dotting the streets, teemed with secrets.
Gone were the merchants loudly hawking their wares, the chanters and the singers and the screaming carnival barkers. The Inner Market was a place of thick silence, furtive glances, where hid
den eyes followed every move.
Slith kept his eyes downcast, as instructed, watching the heels of Bonnard’s hobnail boots. He could feel the gaze of what seemed like a thousand of those hidden eyes on him, but knew that attempting to meet that gaze could be fatal.
Finally Bonnard stopped. Slith looked up.
Before him loomed a tall, wide, one-story mudbrick building, dark from the coal dust that had been mixed with the red Yarimese clay when it was fired. Like most of the buildings in Yarim it was in a state of advanced decay, the coal dust clay flaking off the building’s edifice ominously, signaling a deeper rot. The inconsistent patches made the building look like it was bleeding.
On the door was a crest, the sign of a raven clutching a gilt coin. Slith suppressed a shudder; he had seen the guildmark before, on the day of his indenture, when his mother brought him to the counting house of the Raven’s Guild to be inspected by Esten. The Raven’s Guild in the city center of Yarim Paar was a grand building, housing the largest trade association in the province, a confederation of tile artisans, ceramicists, and glassblowers, as well as smiths of all sorts. The guild also provided an intraprovince messenger service. It was the worst-kept secret in Yarim that they were a formidable coterie of professional thieves, thugs, and highwaymen who ruled the dark hours of Yarim.
And Esten was their undisputed leader.
Cold beads of sweat trickled down his neck as Bonnard opened the door and motioned him impatiently inside. He followed the journeyman’s gesture to an alcove to the left of the door, and watched nervously as Bonnard disappeared into the darkness before him.
Slith blinked rapidly, trying to force his eyes to adjust quickly in the absence of light. The room seemed to have no visible boundaries; the space before him melted into the farthest reaches of his vision. A battered table, rough-hewn from ragged wood, stood a few yards from the door to his right; at least that was what it appeared to be by shape. Around it were mismatched chairs of various heights and styles. He thought he could see a cold fireplace behind the table. The harsh odor of coal and rancid fat hung thickly in the stagnant air.