by A. C. Cobble
Sam picked up her ale mug. “We’ve been here long enough and I’ve grown tired of watching you pore over the Book of Law. Will you teach me what you taught Kalbeth?”
“Some,” confirmed Goldthwaite. “Some of that and some of what I taught your mentor as well.” The mistress waved her hand around the circular chamber. “It’s fitting we are here, so close to the old man’s nest. He and I spent a lot of time there together, studying the dark arts, swimming the current of life. We were two opposites, then. We balanced each other.”
“Are you… are you saying you slept with Thotham?” asked Sam, suddenly sitting forward.
“Girl,” chided Goldthwaite, grinning at her, “I’ve slept with nearly everyone. For a man desperate to maintain his grip on the current of life, I was like a rope thrown over the gunwale of a ship. He clung to me like I’d save him. For a time, I like to think that I did. That was before his prophecy, before he found you and Kalbeth, of course. Things changed after that.”
Sam fell back and sipped her ale, uncomfortable at the revelation.
“Don’t believe me?” questioned Goldthwaite.
“No, I do,” murmured Sam. “Is that why you have your own nest here, so close to where his was?”
Goldthwaite nodded. “I had little other reason to be in Middlebury. This is not my kind of place, you know. Too much noise, too little fog. With Kalbeth, it was too far from her and the Barnacle. I’ve maintained it so I have a place to flee if it ever becomes necessary. Sorcery is about preparation, ey? I’ve stayed prepared.”
“Let’s get on with it, then,” said Sam. She raised her mug. “We’re suitably fuzzy-headed now, are we not? What can you teach me?”
“Everything must balance,” said Goldthwaite, pulling on the tube that led to her water pipe and then exhaling a huge cloud of smoke. “Our world, the underworld. Life, death. Man, woman. Light, dark. Cats, dogs. You get the idea. It is all in balance.”
“Yes,” agreed Sam. “Everyone knows that.”
Ignoring her, Goldthwaite kept smoking her pipe, inhaling and exhaling the sweet poppy syrup. Finally, she continued, “The shroud, the barrier, whatever you want to call the space between our world and the other, is more than just a way of keeping separation. It’s a pivot point between the two opposites. It does keep them apart, but it is also an inflection where order is restored through the natural force of balance. Sorcery is the art of breaching the barrier, cutting through the shroud to the other side. Good sorcery is done without upsetting the balance.”
Sam sat, listening, her mug of ale forgotten in her hands.
“What you described Raffles, Yates, and William Wellesley doing, trying to bind the dark trinity, trying to upset the natural orders of power, that is bad sorcery,” continued Goldthwaite. She frowned. “Bad… I mean that from the perspective of the craft. Sorcery, as you know, frequently involves acts which could be construed as bad in terms of what we think is evil. Sacrifices of blood, of the soul, yes? For the purpose of our discussion, I mean to be ambivalent as to the cost of sorcery.”
“Ambivalent?” questioned Sam.
“Sorcery, despite its steepest costs, is neither inherently good nor evil,” claimed Goldthwaite. “To be certain, it is more often used for terrible purposes, but it can be used for benign ones as well. When I say good or bad in reference to sorcery, I’m speaking solely of upsetting the balance. A skilled sorceress will not upset the relationship between the worlds, while an unskilled one may. Disrupting the balance is often a greater danger than whatever the sorcerer is trying to achieve. Spirits manifested physically in our world, a breach in the shroud left open, massive loss of life like your former foes were planning to achieve an epic end. These are what I describe as bad, and they are why the Church banned the practice.”
“Not because of what people were achieving, but because of what could go wrong?” asked Sam.
“Kings and queens like Edward do not need sorcery to cause havoc in this world,” pointed out Goldthwaite. “He can direct his royal marines to rain bombs upon any city within reach of an airship and obliterate it. The damage done to the natives in Imbon was not from a sorcerous attack, but a mundane one.”
“Northundon was destroyed by sorcery,” challenged Sam.
The mistress nodded. “Aye, and the reprisal that obliterated the Coldlands was not sorcery. You see my point, girl? People can do terrible things regardless of what we know. Ignorance of the occult has never prevented a war.”
Sam nodded slowly. “That makes some sense. Sorcery is a loaded blunderbuss, a tool. How it is used is up to the one aiming the weapon, but like a blunderbuss, it has the chance of a misfire.”
“Sure, I suppose that’s as good an analogy as any,” said Goldthwaite. “In its eyes-clenched-shut wisdom, the Church banned all sorcery. Like any scared, helpless beast, it overreacted. And like any beast that overreacts, it faced unintended consequences. Sorcerers were killed. They were scattered like leaves on the wind, and they went into hiding. And in hiding, they were free to pursue their art with no constraints, no review by their peers, no one to tell them to stop. Power, unrestrained and hidden, is an awful thing, Samantha. That is how something like Northundon occurs.”
Sam stood and stretched.
“Bored already?” asked Goldthwaite.
“No, but I need another ale,” replied the priestess. She crossed the room and poured from a pitcher there. “If good sorcery is about balance, and catastrophes like Northundon are bad sorcery, then what was the consequence of that event? Rogue sorcerers caused death and mayhem. What brought the world back into balance? Or is it even in balance?”
“That is a good question,” said Goldthwaite, “and I don’t know the answer. These things may take time, yes, and the changes that happen can be difficult to discern even for experienced practitioners. We are small sparks on the grand stage of the world. Sometimes, balance may be restored quickly and violently. Sometimes, it could take years or even decades.”
Sam slowly walked around the edge of Goldthwaite’s nest, noting the thick layer of dust on most of the items stored there and the differences between what the seer kept and the brik-a-brak that others accumulated. There were no blood-flecked daggers, no suspicious-looking bowls that could have only one purpose, no casually stored bones or dried pieces of skin, none of the items which she associated with sorcery, except the symbols and the books.
The seer, like all who practiced the dark art, had symbols and designs scrawled about her nest. Protection, Sam guessed, or merely practice for drawing the real thing. Also like others, Goldthwaite had accumulated small mountains of ancient-looking texts. Knowledge written down and then hidden.
“Why do sorcerers feel compelled to write down what they know?” Sam asked. “I’ve never done it, but it must take an entire season to write a book. For a group of people so bent on gaining power, they’re awfully generous with their time. Of course, they never show anyone their writing, do they? Is it so they can recall the details? If so, why organize it into consumable fashion? Lilibet Wellesley’s notes were a sprawling, unintelligible disaster, but I’ve no doubt she knew what she’d written. She had the reminders she needed. She had an audience of one, but others spend ages on books that no one else will ever read.”
“That’s a curious question,” admitted Goldthwaite. “Not one I’ve considered before.”
“Do you write anything down?” asked Sam.
“Not for others to read,” responded Goldthwaite.
“Neither does Kalbeth, from what I saw,” said Sam, still walking the perimeter of the room. “Isisandra Dalyrimple, Marquess Colston, Raffles, Yates, William Wellesley… none of them had anything other than personal notes.”
“Perhaps there is something different about the authors of those books, then,” said the mistress, following Sam’s steps as she perused the small library in the room. “They might be seekers of knowledge looking to understand and to classify what they learn. Or perhaps, once they understand what t
hey’ve found, they are too affrighted to actually do it. The pull of the dark path is irresistible, but it does not pull us all the same way.”
“What of the sorcerer who sacrificed Northundon?” asked Sam. “What happened to them, do you think? Were they killed during their ritual and that is why we’ve never heard from them again? Surely, someone capable of such a feat would not vanish into obscurity after. They must have had some purpose for the bargain they made.”
Goldthwaite set down her smoking tube, frowning. “Lilibet Wellesley was the one who conducted the sacrifice, no?”
Sam shrugged. “She said she was not, but who else? She was there, and she survived.”
“But what did she gain?” questioned Goldthwaite, guessing Sam’s thought. “For such an act, the world must have shuddered violently to return to balance, but how? If she successfully completed the sacrifice, what was her reward? Perhaps she told the truth, and she was not the one. Perhaps the bargain had not yet been completed.”
Sam stopped walking.
Goldthwaite stared at her.
“If whatever the sorcerer was attempting had not yet happened,” said Sam, “then it may be happening now. And if it was Lilibet, then— Hells. If it was her, then her bindings are broken.”
The seer stood. “Northundon. We should go to Northundon.”
The Cartographer XVIII
Oliver and his father stood in the garden looking down at the work happening below. Swarms of men in their shirtsleeves were trundling huge wagons filled with rubble down to the harbor. There, other men took over and rolled the heavy blocks into the sea, building new wharfs and raising the seawall that protected the harbor.
“It would have taken us years to haul that material out of a quarry,” observed King Edward.
Oliver grunted. “You could make the argument that it did.”
“This port will be the best protected one on the continent when they’re done,” continued the king, ignoring his son’s jibe, “the best protected anywhere in the world, I suppose. Those walls will keep out the worst of the winter storms, and you’ll be able to fit four of the Company’s largest freighters on the docks. I’d guess a couple of dozen large ships could shelter at anchor behind the wall if it was needed.”
“Aye, but why do we need the capacity?” questioned Oliver. “It gives us something to do with the material, but the room in the harbor will be far more than Northundon can use. There’s no longer any industry in the north, no reason for the Company to come here. After the work camps break, we’ll only have a few hundred hearty souls in residence. We may as well use the rubble, but—”
He frowned at his father’s small grin. Oliver glanced back down at the work below, the expanding harbor, the slowly clearing streets, and the sea beyond. What was the old man planning?
“The Coldlands,” said Oliver suddenly. “You mean to begin logging the Coldlands and sail the timber here. You’ll expand the rail as well?”
“The budget for the rail ministry is due a review, is it not? I’m sure they’d appreciate a chance to build out,” replied the king, sounding pleased at Oliver’s realization. “We haven’t extended the footprint of those tracks since my father’s time. The Coldlands is nearly endless forest, son. Untouched and unclaimed. The people are gone. You said that yourself, did you not? There’s no one to challenge the Crown’s claim of ownership. It’s an abundant resource, Oliver, and I mean to tap it. With a safe port and rail leading direct to Middlebury, Northundon is going to be bustling. The way to rebuild is through commerce, and we’re not going to get there with cod oil.”
“But what would we do with all of that timber?”
“What indeed?” replied the king.
Oliver waited, but his father did not answer. “I’m your prime minister, Father. Tell me what you have in mind.”
“The Company has a toehold in the Southlands and little more,” said the king. “That place has more pirates in residence than it does citizens loyal to the empire. We could expand our presence there, make it safe, and then push down into the steppes and the lands south of Durban. You are the prime minister. Is that what you’d advise? Or perhaps we’ll need these resources when the Company finally makes a serious expedition to the Westlands.”
Oliver watched his father. The old man had his goatee pinched between his fingers and he was studying the work below.
“Hells,” gasped Oliver. “The Darklands. You mean to colonize the Darklands?”
The king turned and winked at his youngest son.
“Are you testing me, Father?” complained Oliver. “Why are you hiding your plans?”
The king shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to anyone in detail. Your brother Philip hasn’t even sussed out my intentions. You’ve got a lot of me in you, Oliver. When I return to Southundon, I will call Philip and Admiral Brach in for a meeting, and I’ll float the idea to them. Brach will be foaming at the mouth to oversee a new conquest, and Philip will follow along with whatever position I take, as he always does.”
“The Darklands,” muttered Oliver. “You’re doing this because of what I told you?”
His father nodded. “It’s not about your mother. It’s about everything else you said. A primitive people living seasonally along the river. No major settlements outside of this floating city. They have no cannons, no standing army even.”
“They have dragons,” remarked Oliver dryly.
“And you killed four of them with one airship,” reminded the king. “With a full complement, two-dozen airships captained by the best our fleet has to offer, manned with royal marines trained for air-to-air combat? Think of it! If there were a dozen rocket banks on the deck of each airship, if the decks were treated with fire retardant, if the men knew what to expect…”
“It still leaves the storm wall and the sorcerers who called it,” mentioned Oliver.
The king waved a hand dismissively. “If the storm wall can be breached once, it can be done again. Remember, we faced sorcery in the Coldlands, and it gave us little trouble. The denizens of the underworld don’t fly. All we need to do is take the capital, and the rest of the nation will crumble. Not just a tribute, not a small island where the Company maintains a colony, but an entire nation. One decisive battle, and we’ll build a new phase of this empire. Do you see it, son?”
“You’re right,” admitted Oliver, looking back down to where the men worked on expanding Northundon’s harbor. He took a deep breath and released it. “One decisive battle, and we’ll expand the empire.”
“You’re telling me some sorcerer is about to achieve incredible power?” asked Oliver, glancing between Sam and Goldthwaite and frowning.
“We’re saying it’s a possibility,” responded Sam. “In your vision, the shades claimed Lilibet was part of the bargain, right? If she was the final piece, then the bargain is now complete, and whatever end the sorcerer was trying to achieve can come to fruition. The city is freed, which I think means—”
“The city is freed,” interjected Oliver. “Surely that cannot have been the goal of the sorcerer?”
“Agreed,” said Sam.
Oliver waved around them, encompassing the sunlit streets, the sprouting greenery. “While you’ve been in hiding, Northundon has been blooming. It certainly doesn’t look like the underworld has invested in this place.”
“If Lilibet was part of the sacrifice…”
“Maybe we misunderstood,” said Oliver. “I don’t know. You are certain she is dead? Could she have been wounded or… or something else?”
Sam shook her head. “That woman we met in the Darklands is dead, Duke. There is no doubt.”
“It’s been over a moon cycle since we left the Darklands,” he responded. “Northundon has returned to life, but nothing awful has happened. If some sorcerer gained incredible power, why aren’t they using it? How come nothing has changed except for the good? Maybe Lilibet bound these souls to Northundon as part of her escape from whoever did conduct the sacrifice!”
“
Just because we have not noticed it, does not mean nothing is happening,” retorted Sam. “Just because it hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it never will. Maybe I’m wrong, but we’d be foolish not to prepare.”
Oliver clenched his fist by his side and began to pace. The women let him stew, but he could feel their eyes on him.
Finally, he stopped and asked, “What do you suggest we do?”
Sam and Goldthwaite looked at each other.
Sam said, “There’s one way we can be certain whether the bargain was completed or not, and what is at stake.”
“And…” murmured Oliver, getting a nervous tingle.
“We contact Ca-Mi-He,” said Sam calmly. “We won’t attempt to bind the spirit. We won’t attempt to force it to do anything, or even open the shroud enough for it to pour through, but we can communicate with it. I-I have some knowledge of the great spirit, and I think this can work. With Goldthwaite’s help, we can find the answers we need.”
Oliver blinked at her and shook his head.
“It’s the only way, Duke.”
“No,” he retorted. “No. It cannot be the only way.” He glanced at Goldthwaite. “You agree with this?”
The mistress shook her head. “I do not. The connection Samantha has to the spirit will facilitate contact, but it also increases the risk of something going terribly wrong. We should not underestimate the danger—”
“Tens of thousands of souls were sacrificed here!” interrupted Sam. “Think what may happen if someone used that sacrifice to bind the greatest spirit of the underworld. Duke, the trinity promised to drown Enhover in blood. Everything is at risk! Will communication with Ca-Mi-He be easy? Will it be safe? Of course not. Of course it entails danger, but we do not have a choice.”
“No!” cried Oliver. “What you suggest is not some fringe sorcery, Sam. It’s not some gray area. It’s not toeing the line. It’s illegal in both Crown and Church law. Hells, Sam, it should be! If some sorcerer attempted to bind Ca-Mi-He twenty years ago, they may not even be alive now. There haven’t been any reports that hint at some new, awful power loose in the empire. If something happens, we’ll deal with it, but we’re not going to go about creating our own sorcerous calamities.”
