And then he found it. Just for a heartbeat, there was something more. A fusion of everything that surrounded its true essence like a shell on a nut. He sensed the thing within. It existed, the truth of fire. The second the concept of truth struck him, he knew that was how his mind would classify the essence. It was truth. It was distillation. It was that without which the thing did not exist.
His head snapped up. “I felt it. I saw it. The truth of fire.”
Nauana smiled. “Very good. My lord recovers his knowledge quickly. The truth, as you call it, is part of the secret teaching. When you realize that, you have the key. That which defines the truth is mai. The mai is what you use to change the truth, to redefine it. For this first lesson, however, you only need a trickle, and you only need to modify two aspects of this particular flame.”
“Which two?”
“The flame exists because enough mai was used to stabilize an imbalance. Where the flame exists, cold and shadow are held at bay.” She looked into his eyes. “You will touch the mai and rebalance things.”
Jorim found himself nodding matter-of-factly even though his hand trembled and his stomach began to tighten. His first brush with magic, just sensing the truth of flame, was passive, learning to see things in a new way. He’d had that experience countless times before. As a cartographer, he saw the world quite differently from others.
He steeled himself. He did not know if he truly were Tetcomchoa-reborn or not. He did not know if he could use magic—at least not beyond how it would be used as a Mystic cartographer, if he ever became that good. His learning how to use it, however, did not demand that he would use it. The learning itself did no harm; it was only in how it was used that could do harm.
And if the Amentzutl are right about centenco, to refuse to learn could be a disaster.
Jorim calmed his mind and reached out to find the truth of fire again. It took work, but he retraced the steps that had led him there before and found it. Reflected from it, like sunlight from a mirror, he found the mai. In his mind it was soft and resilient, like a porridge that had not hardened, but was not fluid either. When he tried to grasp it, it squirted away from him. So he stopped trying to grab it and, instead—as if it were a living thing—teased it forward.
He wove it through the shadows of his fingers and bound into it the sense of cold he felt from his wet hair against the nape of his neck. He used the mai to strengthen shadow and cold, to embolden them. He brought them forward and they lapped at the flame the way water flows and recedes on a beach. With each successive wave, the cold dark tide rose and the flame shrank.
And finally, it was smothered, instantly plunging the chamber into darkness.
Nauana’s voice filled the room with soft, steady tones. “This, then, is the first lesson. It is easier to restore a balance that has been disturbed through the mai than it is to unbalance something. Balance is the key. As you become stronger, you will be able to use more the mai, but you must beware attempting to unbalance too many things.”
“What happens if I do?”
“Mai is everywhere, even in us. It gives us life.” Her voice became colder. “If you attempt too great an invocation, a balance will be maintained. Mai will be drawn from the nearest source: you. It may kill you. It will exhaust you.”
“How do you know if what you are trying to do is too much?”
“When you fail to waken from the attempt.”
A spark sprang from her fingers and the lamp ignited again. She looked at him solemnly. “Now, my Lord Tetcomchoa, you will restore the balance again. And again. You will do this until you are satisfied you have mastered this invocation, and then you will do it again.”
He smiled. “My sense of sufficiency is not good enough?”
“It is, my lord, but such are the decrees you laid down when you gave us the gift of your knowledge.” Nauana nodded toward the flame. “Begin, please. Centenco is a time when the world is out of balance. Only you, a god, can restore it to the way it must be.”
Chapter Thirteen
28th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Ministry of Harmony, Liankun
Moriande, Nalenyr
Pelut Vniel knelt at a small table. The brush in his right hand hung high over the pristine sheet of rice paper. Ink hung in a pregnant drop at the bristle’s end. He did not know if it would grow fatter and drop, splattering over the paper, ruining it, or if somehow it would remain there, where it should, waiting for him to apply brush to paper in a flash of inspiration.
How like the problem the Prince has presented me.
His face tightened slightly. The Komyr, grandfather through grandsons, had never understood the way the world worked. They were great ones for giving lip service to how valuable the ministries were; they praised how well the ministries worked and urged them to do more. In private—but what in the world was ever truly private?—they railed against sloth and inaction, as if they were bad things.
What they missed was that the bureaucracy was the foundation of the world. Emperor Taichun had seen this when he organized and formalized the ministries to administer his Empire. Urmyr, the most celebrated of his generals, had been placed at their head. He gave them the directives that ordered their lives and set their mission. From the beginning it all had been very clear: the bureaucracy was not a means through which revolutionary ideas and practices could be efficiently spread through the Empire. Quite the opposite: it was the brake on reckless fads that might be a cure for an immediate ill but would prove fatal to society in the long run.
Pelut Vniel needed look no further in the past than to the Viruk Empire and its history to know the consequences of failure. The Viruk had employed the Soth as their bureaucrats, and the Soth functioned perfectly. Since they were a subject people, however, and as much slaves as the humans who supplied muscle to the Viruk Empire, the Viruk ignored their counsel when it came to matters of internal politics. As a result, doctrinal differences split the Viruk population, and the resulting civil war destroyed their homelands and broke the Empire’s power forever.
He studied the drop of ink and found in it a correspondence to the world’s black moon, Gol’dun. Legends cast it as the last resting place for all Viruk evil, and while historical conflicts had proven that to be a lie, every minister knew that if he failed in his duty, another black moon would rise to the heavens to mark the passing of mankind.
And Prince Cyron hastened that outcome.
Pelut Vniel did admire Cyron on one level, for he had managed to motivate the ministers to speed up their work in ways no one else ever had. Of course, outright bribery had been tried in the past with a modicum of success, but the Komyr Dynasty’s expansion of trade required internal distribution of wealth. This was overseen by ministers, and the opportunities to enrich themselves had gone neither unnoticed nor unexploited. Ministers acting in their own best interests had moved quickly, and this had created a great deal of internal strife, both within Nalenyr and the wider bureaucracy.
The haste with which ministers moved to facilitate the expansion of trade created many problems, too—not the least of which was ambition among the lowest ranks and a desire to rise more quickly. Ministers who felt threatened sought to reinforce their own positions by grabbing as much wealth as they could, then bribing subordinates or buying the loyalties of others. This destabilized the bureaucracy and had to be stopped.
What the Komyr had never truly appreciated was that bureaucracy was the true nature of the world. Flocks of birds would fly in formations that mirrored the bureaucracy’s organization. The heavens had countless stars organized into constellations that had their own hierarchy and yet were all ruled by the whim of the sun. Even the Nine Heavens and Hells were ranked, and progression through them was all but impossible. And the gods, with minor spirits beneath them, had arranged supernatural hosts as a
bureaucracy.
That was simply the way things were.
Disasters of epic proportion could be seen in the natural world when this hierarchy was abandoned. When farmers wiped out wolves in a district, rabbits ran wild and destroyed their crops. That was divine retribution for failing to recognize the natural order and attempting to subvert it.
What Cyron had asked him to do was an even more heinous crime against Heaven. Cooperation throughout the bureaucracy was the way things were meant to be. It had always been thus, even after the Empire had been split into the Nine. It had been reinforced since then that only by cooperating could the nature of the Empire be preserved even though local political events might shift the people on the thrones. Whereas the Emperor might remove a provincial governor, now the bureaucracy permitted the removal of a leader who was a threat to stability. It was just part of what the bureaucracy had to do.
Pelut Vniel did see Cyron’s point. This new invasion was overturning the whole of the nature of society. It did threaten everything, and he did fear what would happen if Erumvirine fell and the invaders moved into Nalenyr. Unlike Cyron, though, who feared being overthrown because his dynasty was the product of usurpation, Pelut knew that the bureaucracy was more resilient than the Prince could imagine. While the invaders might have swept into eastern districts, he was certain that ministers were already organizing things in the occupied lands to ensure that life continued as normal.
The Viruk had needed ministers. Men had needed them. Why would not the invaders need them? There was no question they would. In time, they would come to rely upon them and, once again, the way of the world would be restored and life would continue as it had been meant to.
But Prince Cyron threatened the natural order. By ordering Pelut to keep silent, he raised the Naleni bureaucracy above all the others. He was asking Pelut to create a new level of bureaucracy, which was something only the Emperor could do. Cyron was arrogating power and position he had no right to—trying to change the natural order by way of a most unnatural whim.
While Pelut Vniel did acknowledge that he, himself, was certainly the best candidate to be the Grand Minister of a new empire, he knew that the consequences of abiding by Cyron’s request would be swift, disastrous, and inescapable. Cyron would immediately set each nation’s bureaucracy against one another. The invasion would face a fractured enemy. Their advance would be certain, and the demise of each nation would be just as sure. Only by remaining united in the face of the threat could humanity survive.
Cyron missed a key point in his analysis of events. Dynastic revolutions came and went. Hot blood would earn a throne, but in time it would temper even the most vigorous bloodline. The bureaucracy could rein in even the most ambitious. It could thwart alliances or halt armies, all by misplacing dispatches or rerouting supplies. The invaders, unless possessing their own bureaucracy, would need the ministers.
And, in time, they will come to be dependent on us, and we will become their masters.
Only for the briefest of moments did Pelut Vniel feel guilt at suggesting collaboration with an enemy that likely was not human and clearly sought dominion over mankind. Collaboration with such an enemy was no vice. The farmer whose field was overrun with rabbits killed and ate them, preserving his family for a time of no rabbits. So it would be with the bureaucrats. They would save mankind for a time when the enemy would be weak and could be overthrown.
This left him, of course, with the problem of Prince Cyron. Here he had a twofold dilemma. The first was not that great a problem. Getting rid of Cyron was simply a matter of choosing someone to replace him. Countless of the inland lords would be happy to take his place. Because Lord Melcirvon had never been proficient with letters or ciphering, he entrusted all of his confidential correspondence to a clerk who, in turn, made copies of them available to the ministry—in hopes of currying favor. Providing information to the ministries had forever been the means of advancement, and one Pelut much preferred over the buying of position with newfound wealth.
Melcirvon’s letters revealed a rather extensive network of treasonous lords in the interior. All that their success would require was the raising of an army and an opportune moment to strike. Cyron had actually supplied the reason for the former, and Pelut would see to it that a call for troops went to the interior. It would be rebellious troops who would secure the northern Naleni border.
The lords of the interior could actually supply Pelut with the solution to his second problem. Cyron especially, but even his father before him, had encouraged the merchant houses in their trading ventures. As they grew rich, they created newer and bigger ships. The taxes they paid allowed Cyron to create even bigger ships, and to send them off on expeditions, like the one the Stormwolf was engaged in.
It would be tricky to manage, but Pelut could engineer a revolution that would replace Cyron with a trio of lords acting as corulers. They would impose taxes to enrich themselves and their home realms, which would beggar the merchants and slow the economic expansion. They would cancel Cyron’s current shipbuilding programs and discontinue funding any exploration. With a few well-placed hints on devoting oneself to security matters at home, he could also divide the trio into warring factions and they would collapse.
Giving him the opportunity to rise at the head of a ruling council that, unlike its counterpart in Helosunde, would not be foolish.
The brush descended and caressed the paper swiftly. Black ink bled out over the white surface and Pelut began to smile. He lifted the brush again and nodded. In a moment of inspiration, he had stroked the glyph for serenity, which is exactly what his plan would bring.
He lifted the paper from the table and realized, too late, that he had acted in haste. One droplet of ink trailed down, adding a stroke which changed serenity into ambition. Then it continued its waving trail down the page, cutting across another stroke.
Ambition became chaos.
Pelut set the paper back down again, then laid his brush beside it. A superstitious man might have read doom in the omen he’d witnessed, but Pelut Vniel prided himself on being free of superstition. He knew exactly what the drippings meant, and his smile broadened as he nodded.
Haste will be the undoing of all good. He knew Master Urmyr had written that in one of his books. And I must use better ink.
Chapter Fourteen
28th day, Month of the Wolf, Year of the Rat
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Ixyll
The moment I awoke, I knew who I was not. Moraven Tolo I had been, or, rather, he had been a part of me. He was an aspect of who I was, and perhaps a glimmer of who I could have become. He had been useful, and doubtless would yet be useful, but he and I were separate individuals.
I had no sense of how much time had passed, and the place in which I found myself served only to heighten my confusion. I had access to Moraven’s memories, but they had a dreamlike quality to them. I could not be certain which parts of them were true or which might be his dreams. I had, after all, been somnambulant while he controlled my body. Yet, even in that state, I knew time had passed.
But this place—a tomb complex clearly—showed little signs of decay, and all the signs of Imperial construction. Gathering myself, I slowly stood. I wavered as dizziness washed over me, then rested against the wall until the world stopped spinning.
When it again turned normal, I stepped forward to the nearest sarcophagus. A woman’s effigy had been raised on the lid, and the artisan had done an admirable job. I recognized Aracylia Gyrshi and caressed her cold stone cheek. Her name I knew, and her loss I felt as keenly as a fist tight around my heart. I likely could have even picked her voice out of a chorus. I definitely remembered stitching up the wound that gave her the serpentine scar on her brow.
I could not, however, remember who I was.
“Awakened, I see.”
The voice did not surpris
e me, though it should have. A note of the familiar ran through it, too. I looked slowly to the right and found a Soth Gloon perched on another sarcophagus. “Seven eyes do not lie. I am awake. You were once known as Enangia.”
“An old name only whispered by ghosts.” He canted his maggot-white head. “I am Urardsa now. And what shall I call you?”
“Call me the name you know me by.”
“Most recently this is Moraven Tolo.”
I refused to take the bait in his game. He knew who I was, but he would not tell me. Soth logic demanded he withhold that information, and I had neither the patience for his game nor need for the information. Names and identities meant nothing—labels at best, masks hiding doom at the worst.
“Then I shall be Moraven Tolo for a while yet.”
The Gloon fell silent, which is what they preferred to do rather than cackle insanely, as a man might in a similar situation.
“You have been trapped here for how long?”
“Long enough for empires to be forgotten and the world to be made anew.”
I shook my head. Though I did not know who I was, I did know better than to ask a Gloon questions that did not demand specific answers. I thought about the last memories Moraven Tolo had and formulated another question. “Tell me please of the disposition of my companions—their suspected locations and intentions.”
The Gloon’s gold eyes closed. “Your apprentice and the gyanridin are bound northwest on the Spice Route, hoping to find the Sleeping Empress and awaken her to save the Empire. They have no sense of what lurks out there, but one is inventive and the other desires to become a hero, so they will stumble on.”
I arched an eyebrow. “You see the future. How far do their life-strands extend?”
“Far enough for them to wish they did not.” His face tightened. “They will not emerge from their trials unscarred.”
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