Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  "Help!" Dravus screamed again, but the words came out sounding hollow to him. It was an effect he'd experienced once before; the domain of sound, held by his former employer. Shouting would do nothing for him.

  "I'm here to speak with you," said the woman. "You may call me Faye. We know much about you, Dravus de Luca."

  Dravus hesitated. It would be possible to dart to the side and burst through the window, hurtling himself down towards the ground and then bounding away to find Nemm. Lexari and Wenaru were already on the Zenith, making preparations to leave early in the morning. The palace guards would be torn apart in the fight, and none of the illustrati were likely to throw their lot in with him. Instead of trying again to raise the alarm, Dravus stayed where he was. If the woman had disguised herself as a serving girl and snuck into his room, it would have been easy enough for her to kill him in his sleep.

  He kept his sword pointed towards her. "I don't know what it is you'd wish to discuss."

  "My question," she said. "Do you like the illustrati? Do you think they're fit to rule?"

  "They're just people," said Dravus. "We're just people. People with fame and power, but people all the same. You can't talk about the illustrati as though they're a group."

  "They are people united by their acquisition of fame," said Faye. She had small, unblinking eyes. "Some fall into it in one way or another. Flame was a proficient alchemist who came to the attention of the queen. You had a small moment of heroism. But illustrati are not just marked by the acquisition of fame, but the retention of it. They are seekers of power, consumers of attention. That marks them as distinct from the humble baker, don't you think?"

  "Is that a threat?" asked Dravus. His sword wavered in front of him. "Speaking of my father?"

  "No," said Faye. "I apologize, I know these circumstances are exceptional. I only thought that it might be a profession you could relate to more easily. I might have said fisher or cobbler instead."

  "Then yes," said Dravus. "I can agree that perhaps illustrati are different from normal people." Lexari and Nemm had been like no one he'd met before. And with Wenaru, the thoughts of the testimonies that had been heard at trial were still flitting through his head whenever the name came to mind. "They're still diverse though. Some are heroes and some are villains."

  "They are driven by the same things," said Faye. "And they are not fit to rule."

  "You're behind the assassinations then," said Dravus. "Behind the men who tried to kill us."

  "We knew you less well then," said Faye. "Now we believe that you might be amenable to our cause."

  "And what is that, precisely?" asked Dravus. He had no idea what level of power this woman might have, but it was entirely possible that he could overpower her. The domain of sound was supposed to be a tricky one to fight when the illustrati had a higher standing though. Nemm had said that eardrums could easily be burst, and that was something that none of the bodily domains could fix. Sometimes it seemed as though every domain was Nemm's least favorite one to fight.

  "Precisely?" asked Faye. "We seek to restructure the world in a more just way."

  "The Council," said Dravus. "The Parliament. Were you watching today's trials? Did you think that this was justice?"

  "We have not attained perfection," said Faye. "Yet surely you must admit that Wenaru has received only the lightest of slaps for what he has done?"

  Dravus knew that if he were a better friend, he would have risen to Wenaru's defense, but the trial had left a bad taste in his mouth. "So you seek to depose kings and queens? Illustrati will rise in their place, as senatori or presidents. If the crown is diminished, there will still be illustrati."

  "We have a solution for that," said Faye.

  "A Harbinger artifact?" asked Dravus.

  Faye shrugged.

  "Well, I'm afraid I'll have to decline to enter this conspiracy," said Dravus.

  "I've listened to your conversations," said Faye. Dravus blinked. Domain sense would turn the muffled sounds from behind a wall crystal clear. If this woman had been dressing as a servant, it would have been easy for her to hear all manner of things. "Lexari despises you. Nemm thinks you're a fool. They're both using you, in their own ways. And you disagree with them on fundamental issues which so far lie beneath the surface."

  "I'm still going to have to decline," said Dravus. "Remake the world with some other pawn."

  Faye shrugged. "Some day, we may call on you, and hope that you have changed your mind."

  Dravus nodded. "You know I'm going to have to tell them all of this, right?"

  "Of course," said Faye. "There is little strategic information to be gained from revealing this conversation. Failure was not unanticipated. It's a disappointment, but little else. And of course we may still call on you, once you have changed your mind."

  Dravus was ready to defend against an attack, but Faye simply walked from the room like she had just gotten done changing the sheets on his bed. He followed after her, but by the time he had gotten to the corridor, there was no sign of her. The palace had a dozen hidden doors. If it were possible for her to pretend at being a servant for at least the last few weeks, she would know all of the passageways for easy exit.

  Coming to him was dangerous and daring, but they'd done it anyway. Which conversations had they listened in on that made them think that he was going to be their man? Dravus dismissed the sword and made his way to Nemm's room, trying to think on what to tell her. He wasn't sure that it made sense for them to raise the alarm; the palace was so large that there would be a hundred places to hide, and an illustrati would have little issue with making a quick exit.

  Dravus raised his hand to knock on Nemm's door, and hesitated.

  Chapter 12

  A salty breeze sent the ship away from Meriwall, off on the next great adventure. For all that they were being exiled, the send-off had still been rather grand. The Flower Queen had taken one last tea with them aboard the ship, with Darkheart standing beside her and a number of the more favored members of the court milling about and making conversation. Dravus had been around them enough over the past two weeks. He was ready to see the last of them, the queen included. Through it all, Nemm was not quite flirtatious with him, but she had done her part in keeping the pretense towards romance. The songs and stories that they were leaving behind were much more explicit about these things. Dravus had read one draft of a song which had male and female parts written for it, to be sung as a duet. It was filled with double entendres related to swordplay. In the coming weeks, packet service to the rest of the world would carry that new material to the public that so eagerly awaited it.

  Dravus's eyes were on Laith's Face as the ship took its leave. He hadn't told anyone about his nighttime visitor, and wasn't yet sure whether he would. He'd already let it go too long; every hour that passed without him telling them was another mark against him. There was a series of excuses that had led him to this point. The first excuse, the one which occurred just before he'd been about to knock on the door of Nemm's room, had been that telling them was part of Faye's plan. She had been listening in on their conversations, likely for the entire time that they had been in Meriwall. With all that information at her disposal, with one or more Harbinger artifacts in her possession, with the powers that came from being illustrati, she had decided to come to him the middle of the night to seek his assistance.

  Nemm had said that a good plotter prepared for many contingencies. Faye and her master, the man who had called himself Welling, were known to be good plotters. They would have a contingency in place, in case the conversation had not gone ideally for them. Dravus hadn't hesitated because he'd realized what they had planned, only because he had realized that there probably was a plan. It had seemed to make sense to stop and think before committing to any action, no matter what. If Faye had anticipated that he would go to Nemm, what plan followed from that? Dravus had stood at the door thinking for a good while.

  The first answer that came to Dravus's mind was
that this was an attempt to drive discord between them. If a soldier came to his captain and said that the enemy had sought him out as someone susceptible to turning traitor, Dravus couldn't imagine that the proper reaction would be for the captain to trust the soldier more. The attempt at recruitment would raise suspicions which would ever after be difficult to cast off. This was doubly true given that Faye had eavesdropped on an unknown number of conversations. It didn't take a terribly paranoid mind to think that perhaps he had said some things that had made him a likely traitor. A paranoid mind, like Nemm seemed to possess, might even think that this was part of a plot that a traitor might think up.

  In retrospect, it was obvious that this was an excuse. At first he'd thought that walking back to his room was only a way to buy some time to think. That seemed like an excuse too. Dravus kept thinking back to what Faye had said. Did he like the illustrati? No, not particularly. Did he believe that they were fit to rule? Well, he had only seen Torland thus far, but he suspected that the answer was that they weren't.

  Dravus stared at Laith's Face, and tried his best to forget, but that wasn't quite the proper view for it. Laith had spent enormous resources carving his face into the mountain. Had he been any more fit to rule than the Flower Queen was?

  "Three days to Parance," said Lexari, breaking Dravus's reverie. The illustrati of light was in high spirits, despite their apparent exile from Torland. More and more, Dravus was coming to understand Lexari as a creature of moods. "I always feel refreshed after an adventure. Unless we receive another call to arms, or we have cause to visit the colonies, Meriwall now lays years in our future. The story is at an end, and a new story awaits on the horizon."

  "A new story, but likely with the same players," said Nemm. She came up from the cabin of the ship wearing her blue dress and heavy boots. The only glass showing on her were the bracers she wore and the pins that skewered her hair in place. "We'll have to work hard to make Torland into a satisfying narrative. Some of the work has already been done, to be sure, but it's a story with too many rough edges. Especially if we want to come out looking good."

  Lexari waved his hand. "All in due time. Let's not dwell on Torland; it's behind us. Instead, let us speak of Parance and the Iron Kingdom, and the story that lays ahead of us. I spoke at length with Wenaru last night, and he feels that he might have some insights into the Harbinger artifacts that our mysterious enemy has used."

  Wenaru had been giving Dravus the cold shoulder ever since the dungeon visit. They hadn't had much opportunity to spend time together, given Wenaru's imprisonment and trial. In those moments when they found themselves in each other's company, Dravus felt a sense of unease, if not outright hostility.

  "There does not appear to be a biological component to whatever mechanism gives illustrati their powers," said Wenaru. "I had time to read, in my cell, and was brought a number of books which had been taken from the Iron Kingdom. I cannot vouch for their accuracy; if there were some principle which had been discovered, I doubt that the Iron King would have let it leave the confines of his country. Take what I say with a grain of salt."

  "Get on with it," said Nemm. "We're not going to pillory you over inaccuracies."

  Wenaru pursed his lips. "As we have been made well aware in these past few days, I led many experiments in the course of my service to the Iron King. Before the conclusion of the Peddler's War, I was involved with the study of the effects of twindom on standing. I was secondary to these experiments. The Iron King had a number of philosophers in his employ, and I restricted myself to matters of the body."

  "You're tarrying," said Lexari. "You can describe what was done, and we will not think less of you for it, especially not after the trial laid bare so much."

  "The goal was to find the answer to the second of the Five Questions, as written by Elder Mantis two hundred years ago. How does fame attach to a person?" Wenaru held up a hand. "I'm working my way around to the experimental procedures, give me time. What we know from observation is that standing is singular. The Premiers of Oresant do not have a communal standing, despite the fact that they were almost always referred to in the collective. Instead, their standing varies with their personal fortunes. We know that standing cannot be transferred, or could not be without the aid of an artifact whose function we are ignorant of. People have tried, in the past, to suborn the standing of one another. Yet dressing up as Lexari Sunhawk and claiming his name does not give you his powers."

  Dravus blinked at that. It was one of those obvious things that he'd never really considered. "But why?" asked Dravus.

  Wenaru looked at Dravus like he'd forgotten that he was there. For a moment, Dravus thought that the question would simply be ignored and the stony silence would continue. The need to explain won out over keeping up the grudge. "That's the question," said Wenaru. "That's what the experiments were intended to discover."

  * * *

  Identical twins were rare. The Iron Kingdom was unique among the kingdoms that surrounded the Calypso, in that it kept careful record of births and deaths. This had originally been a matter of public good rather than scientific inquiry, but it was quite useful to the Iron King's thinkers all the same. The records were routinely collected from the parishes and brought to Parance, where the information they contained was organized into forms which were more readable. There were four twin births for every thousand, and identical twins were perhaps one out of those four. Mortality of infants and children meant that it was unlikely for any two children to both survive until the age of ten. Because twins were often born early and underweight, it would be even more unlikely for disease or accident not to claim one or both. Beyond that, there was the usual hesitance that some parents showed at letting their children be tested for domains. Still, the Iron Kingdom had a population of some thirty million people, which meant that it was only a matter of searching.

  Cadoc and Siors came from the highlands of the Iron Kingdom. They had unkempt red hair and pale skin, much like Wenaru; it wasn't uncommon in that part of the country. They were ten years old, which was widely agreed to be the correct age to test for a person's domain. The audience of ten thousand had been prepared for them, and they waited with both trepidation and excitement, no different from the other thirty children that would be tested. The only difference was the the amount of attention they were being given backstage.

  Cadoc went first. He was introduced, and the master of ceremonies began his free-wheeling storytelling with the intent of rapidly increasing the youth's standing to the point where the domain could be chosen. Cadoc began to go through the known domains one by one, touching their purest forms so that he could know one for his own. Once a piece of stone clung to his fingertips, he was given the congratulations of the master of ceremonies and ushered off-stage with a note made in the ledgers. So far, this was nothing unusual.

  When Siors was brought forward by the men in masks, he was introduced as Cadoc. The master of ceremonies took this in stride, and invented a story of how the domain seemed to have been confused, or didn't quite take. For his past, Siors was silent about the deception, as he'd been instructed to be by the men backstage. He went through and touched each item in turn, laying hands on the animals and bringing his fingers close to the flames of the candle. After half an hour had passed — quite a while as these things went — he still hadn't found his domain. The audience was beginning to express some real interest in him now, given what happened to those who were uncooperative, and his standing should have been high enough that he could easily find which domain was his, but he continued to have no response from any of them. In the meantime, in a separate room backstage, his brother Cadoc was displaying his newfound (and presumably short-lived) talents to the king's scholars. For as long as his brother was trotted around, Cadoc's powers held.

  It was known that twins did not share standing between them; this knowledge predated the experiment. However, it was also known that name alone was not enough. There had been innumerable heroes and villains wit
h the same names throughout the ages. While impostors had been unable to steal the standing of the people they were pretending to be, it was entirely possible to pick a name that was already in use, or which had some cultural or historical significance. Prior to the experiment that had been done with the twins, it was entirely possible to believe that Siors should have received his own standing. The important conclusion it demonstrated was that standing relied to some extent on the beliefs of the audience; they saw Siors and were told he was Cadoc, so it was Cadoc that gained power.

  The king's scholars were not yet done with the twins. After a brief period of discussion, it was decided that the experiment needed to be taken further. Siors was selected for elevation, while Cadoc was taken to the dungeons. Siors was stripped of his name, and was to be referred to by his brother's name instead.

  Work was found for Cadoc nee Siors. He was given a position as an assistant to the tax collector, which helped him to see the sights of the Iron Kingdom. At the same time, it also allowed him to be seen by the people of the kingdom. Stories were circulated about Cadoc the young tax collector which played into the normal resentments that people felt towards one of his profession. No mention was ever made of Siors, and so far as a select few people know, the new Cadoc never had a brother. What he felt about these machinations was unknown, but it didn't take a scholar to imagine that he might have had some reservations. He was never told what happened to his brother.