Ahead of them, a large doorway was sealed by an unmetal door, guarded by a half dozen Legionaries in their faceless white helmets and segmented armor, blaster rifles at their sides. A centarch stood in front of them, his armor more elaborate, trimmed in his personal colors. Green-white-gray, for Querius Doorbreaker. Maya had never met him, but part of her lessons had been the name and cognomen of every centarch in the Order, along with their heraldry and a little bit about their history.
The Gate chamber was the only place where a centarch could be found doing the work of a mere sentry. The Forge was so heavily fortified that no conventional army could hope to storm it, but anyone who had access to the Gates could bypass all the defenses and walk straight into the heart of the Order. The Council did not want anyone entering or leaving their sanctum without their knowledge.
At the sight of them, the Legionaries tensed, and Querius let his hand drop to his side. Jaedia tipped back her broad hat and drew her haken, and everyone relaxed, the Legionaries returning to their watchful boredom and Querius coming over to the cart, his armor clicking as he moved.
“Suddenstorm,” he said, bowing his head in acknowledgment of a senior. He had an upper-class Republican accent, his voice distorted by his unmetal helm. “I wasn’t told to expect you. I hope there hasn’t been a problem?”
“I’m not sure,” Jaedia said. She stepped down from the cart, gesturing for her agathia to follow. Maya hopped down beside her, feeling small beside Querius’ armored bulk. “But I thought I’d better consult with Basel. Can you send someone to bring my things to my quarters?”
“Certainly.” Querius gestured to one of the Legionaries, and the big door swung wide. “Shall I inform Kyriliarch Baselanthus you’ve arrived?”
“No need. I’m going to see him at once.” Jaedia glanced back at Maya and Marn. “Do you remember how to get to your room?”
“Yes, Centarch,” Maya said, over Marn’s slightly embarrassed shrug. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm. “I’ll make sure he gets there.”
“Good. I’ll send for you when I need you, but it may not be until tomorrow morning. Clean up and get some rest.”
“Yes, Centarch.” She and Jaedia dispensed with Order formality on the road, but under Querius’ watchful eye Maya found herself reverting to the official style.
Jaedia nodded again and strode off. Querius gave the two of them a brief look, his expression unreadable under his helm. Maya towed Marn behind her, through the half-open door of the Gate chamber, and out into the corridors of the Forge.
Maya had never seen the Forge from the outside and had only a vague idea what it looked like. She knew it was carved into a single enormous mountain, a long-dead volcano rising by the side of a huge lake. On the other side of the lake, visible from the balconies when the air was clear, was the city of Skyreach, capital of the Dawn Republic. She’d never been there, but she’d seen the impossibly tall Elder buildings from a distance, towers with weird, gravity-defying curves and bridges a thousand feet in the air. Skyreach and the Forge, the twin hearts of what remained of civilization. The Dawn Republic and the Twilight Order, working together to keep humanity safe from the dhakim and the plaguespawn.
The founders of the Order had built their bastion on an absolutely colossal scale. The tunnels went on for kilometers, boring through the mountain in carefully organized levels, living quarters and storehouses and practice rooms cut directly out of the rock. It had all been done with deiat, of course, construction of a size no mere mason would ever have attempted.
Most of it was abandoned now. Jaedia had said that the fortress had never been full; as the Order’s numbers had dwindled across the centuries, the Forge had grown ever emptier.
That was why Maya and Marn had their own rooms assigned to them, in spite of the fact that they’d spent barely two weeks at the Forge in the last five years. Maya found her way to the right corridor with only a couple of missed turns. They passed Jaedia’s chamber, where gray-robed servants bustled in and out, depositing everything they’d unloaded from the wagon.
Maya’s room was exactly as she’d left it, plus a layer of grime. It wasn’t large, but it was furnished more comfortably than any inn on the road, with a large, soft bed, clean sheets, and a private toilet. A wardrobe stood with its doors open, empty except for a couple of ancient rags at the bottom. There was nothing that marked the room as hers, apart from her name on the door. Maya sighed and sat down on the bed, raising a faint billow of dust.
There was a knock at the door. Maya cleared her throat and said, “Yes?”
A young man in the dark gray of the Forge servants ghosted in. He was several years older than Maya, but he kept his eyes reverentially downcast. Serving at the Forge was a hereditary position, and some of the servant families had been with the Order from the very beginning, more than four hundred years ago. Jaedia sometimes joked that the old families ran the Order just as much as the Council did. Maya always found their deferential attitude unsettling.
“Greetings, Agathios,” the young man said. “I’ve brought your things.” He set down Maya’s pack by the door. “Is there anything else you require?”
“Something to eat,” Maya said at once. “And my clothes probably need cleaning.”
“Of course.” He bowed lower. “Set them out, and I will have it attended to.”
Maya looked down at herself. Well. Might as well take advantage of the place while I’m here. “And can you direct me to the nearest bath?”
It had been a long time since her last visit, but one thing Maya remembered very clearly about the Forge was the baths. Not only was there hot and cold running water—a luxury even in the heart of the Republic, and unheard of in the places Jaedia traveled—but every living section had its own enormous communal bath, with vast pools of steaming-hot water to soak in and frigid ones for a quick dip to firm the muscles.
Baths had always presented a particular challenge for Maya. It was not that she was especially modest about her body—Jaedia was always quick to strip off and dive into any mountain pond or icy stream they encountered, and Maya followed her example, no matter how it seemed to embarrass Marn. The problem was the Thing, glittering in the center of her chest like the hilt of an impaling dagger. Only Kyriliarch Baselanthus, Jaedia, and Marn knew about it, and Jaedia had forced Marn to swear a mighty oath not to say a word to anyone.
Baselanthus, who’d put the Thing there in the first place, had told Maya it had saved her life from a childhood disease, but he’d refused to elaborate beyond that. The less she knew, he’d told her, the better. Maya could understand that, to a point. Implanting arcana in living flesh, even if the arcana in question was clearly of Chosen make, was dangerously close to dhak. But it was inconvenient in the matter of baths. Most of the larger towns had bathhouses, where the people would come to clean up at the end of a day’s sweaty labor, and after a long stretch on the road Maya often wanted nothing more than to join them. But they offered no privacy whatsoever, and so she had to make do with streams and lakes, hurrying to wash off before her teeth started chattering.
Here in the Forge, while the baths were still communal, the place was so empty she could generally have one to herself. After wolfing down the meal the servant brought her—meaty dumplings swimming in onion soup, thick crusty bread, and slices of summerfruit—she’d changed into her spare shift and left the rest of her clothing in a pile by the door, then set out, padding barefoot down the smooth stone halls. The bath wasn’t far, and it was as empty as she’d hoped. There was a space for changing and a stack of big linen towels. Maya took one of these and passed through a doorway blocked with hanging wooden slats that clattered gently as she pushed them aside.
Beyond, the air was saturated with steam. She took a deep, cleansing breath, feeling the tension in her muscles. A waterfall of lukewarm water cascaded down from one wall onto a grating, for bathers to clean off before climbing into the tub, and Maya went and stood under it for a few glorious minutes, letting the tor
rent thunder onto her back and shoulders.
When she felt clean, she climbed into the big pool, which was deep enough to sit in with her head underwater and wonderfully hot. Like everything else in the Forge, it was carved from rock, but the surface was as smooth as fine porcelain under her feet. Maya found a spot on a shelf about halfway along, with only her head and shoulders above water, and settled in to soak with a long, pleased sigh.
Maybe Jaedia’s right, and I should spend more time at the Forge. When she had her cognomen, she’d be able to choose her own path. Maybe that path should involve a lot more places with nice big baths. She smiled, idly, and closed her eyes. Did we have a bath at the farm? She thought they had, a sort of tin-bucket thing. She had a memory of sitting naked on Gyre’s lap as their father poured hot water over both of them, thrashing hysterically because her brother wouldn’t stop tickling her.
Once I’m a centarch, I could go and visit them. The idea made her oddly uncomfortable. Agathia were not permitted to see their families—it might interfere with their training and moral development—but full centarchs could go wherever they wished. She tried to picture herself striding back into the old farm in full regalia, gleaming white unmetal armor and haken hanging at her side. Would they be proud of me? Scared of me?
Gyre hadn’t wanted her to join the Order. She didn’t remember much about the day she’d left—she’d been all of five years old—but she remembered his screams. He was only eight. It was strange to think that all her memories of her big brother, his strong, comforting presence at her side, were of a boy younger than Marn. Gyre would be twenty now. Not a boy at all, but a young man. That was a strange thought. She made an effort to add him to the picture of her triumphant homecoming, but she couldn’t make him fit, couldn’t even guess what he might look like now. Probably turning into a weather-beaten vulpi herder, just like Dad.
Maya opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling through drifts of hanging steam. Her body felt loose, with limbs like boiled noodles. I should get out before I turn into a prune. With an enormous effort of will, she pushed herself across the tub—
And heard the wet slap of footsteps in the anteroom.
Plague it. Maya sank against the side of the pool, heart suddenly beating faster. It’s fine. She just had to edge over and grab her towel from where it sat. Not a problem.
There was a change in the sound of falling water as the new visitor stepped under the shower, and then more footsteps. Maya stood up and hurriedly wrapped herself in the towel just as the stranger entered, pausing in the doorway.
She—it was a young woman, about Maya’s age—definitely a woman—and—
Oh.
Maya had left home at age five, so it had fallen to Jaedia to explain the facts of life to her. Maya had known some of it—she’d lived on a farm, after all—but she remembered listening with a vaguely horrified feeling as Jaedia went through the mechanics of sex and what she could expect from puberty, and taught her the exercises to use if she ever wanted to become fertile. She’d explained how one could find oneself attracted to men, women, both, or neither. It had all seemed very theoretical at the time, and Maya had doubted any of it really applied to her.
And then, one night a few years later, they’d been at a village dance. A pretty girl with yellow-gold hair and silver eyes had smiled at her across a campfire, and Maya had felt her heart lurch and her skin flush and she’d thought, Oh.
Not that she’d had a chance to do anything about it, then or later, except in the privacy of her own bedroll. That sort of entanglement was forbidden for agathia, and while Jaedia might have been willing to bend some rules, Maya had never found occasion to test her on this one. Now she felt the same lurch, that same oh, because the girl standing naked and dripping wet in the doorway was the most beautiful thing Maya had ever seen.
She was taller than Maya, with long green hair that, wet, curled down her neck and over one shoulder. Her skin was a few shades lighter, though not as pale as Jaedia’s, and she had a dusting of freckles across her cheeks that continued down to her shoulders and the upper slopes of her small breasts. Her eyes were hidden behind thick, gold-rimmed spectacles. For a moment Maya thought these were opaque, and that the girl might be blind, but then she pulled them down, blinking, and Maya realized they’d fogged over with steam. Her eyes were a deep navy blue, and they narrowed as she squinted at Maya.
“Sorry,” the girl said, stepping out of the doorway. “Can’t see worth a thaler without these.” She rubbed the lenses against her arm, put them back on, and blinked. “Ah. Hello.”
“Um.” Maya swallowed hard, pulling the towel a little tighter around herself. “Hello.”
The girl stared at her a moment longer, then moved to the bath.
Say something, Maya told herself. Say something say something say something. You’re being weird. Her throat felt thick. You’re nearly a centarch, for the Chosen’s sake, you can talk to a pretty girl in the bath.
At least get her name. Empty as the Forge seemed, there were still hundreds of Order members there at any given time. Finding someone you didn’t know wasn’t difficult.
The girl tested the water with one toe, shivered deliciously in anticipation, and slid into the tub one leg at a time. The thatch of hair between her legs was a darker green, Maya noted, before she furiously dragged her eyes away.
Ask. Her. Name. She’d paused too long, and it would be awkward. Plague that. Ask or you’ll regret it.
“Um,” Maya said. “I—”
“Beq?” Another girl’s voice, coming from the anteroom.
“In here!” the girl in the pool shouted.
In a few moments, two more girls and a younger boy had piled into the bath, sending great waves of warm water sloshing over the side and into the drains. None of them did more than nod at Maya as they passed, chatting and laughing. The beautiful girl, Beq, was laughing with them.
Right, Maya told herself. I got her name, didn’t I? She tugged her towel a bit tighter and beat a hasty retreat.
Beq featured heavily in some very inappropriate dreams that night, and Maya woke up the following morning feeling irritable and unsatisfied. Her clothes, washed, folded, and patched, were waiting in a neat pile outside her door, along with a breakfast tray and a note instructing her to be at Kyriliarch Baselanthus’ office within the hour. She dressed hurriedly, gobbled the bread, jam, and vulpi milk, and set off into the depths of the Forge with only a vague idea where she was going.
Fortunately, before long she ran into a servant who was able to give her directions that got her most of the way. The Council of Kyriliarchs occupied the upper levels of the fortress, where the mountain narrowed, their offices set against the exterior walls to provide windows and balconies. That meant pounding up endless flights of circular stairs until she’d worked up a healthy sweat, and by the time she got to the proper floor the spiraling meant she’d completely lost track of which direction she was supposed to be going.
Up here, at least, there were more people about than in the cavernous, empty lower levels, and the furnishings made the place seem more inhabited. The corridors were still raw stone, but the floors were covered with long rugs, and flowering plants stood at intervals between the sunlamps on the walls, providing a little color. Maya paused to catch her breath, then flagged down a well-dressed middle-aged man making his way toward the stairs.
He was tall, with red-black hair carefully combed and coiffed. When he saw Maya, breathing hard, he raised one elegant eyebrow and gave her an indulgent smile.
“Yes, Agathios?”
Damn. Belatedly, Maya noticed the colors trimming his jacket. Blue-red-purple, that was Nicomidi Thunderclap, a member of the Council. Maya swallowed and bowed, hoping he wouldn’t take offense at being buttonholed like a servant.
“My apologies, Kyriliarch,” she said. “I’m due for a meeting with Kyriliarch Baselanthus, and I seem to be lost.”
“Ah.” Nicomidi gave a quick, humorless smile. “The Forge can be conf
using, if you’re not accustomed to it.” He paused. “You’re Maya, aren’t you? Jaedia’s agathios.”
Maya blinked. While she’d memorized the names of all the centarchs, she hardly expected them to have heard of her. She nodded cautiously.
“I am, Kyriliarch. Have we met? I apologize for not remembering.”
“No apology needed. I know you by… reputation.” He pointed down one of the corridors. “That way, and take the first left. Hurry, now, you wouldn’t want to keep old Basel waiting.”
“My thanks, Kyriliarch.”
Maya bowed again and hurried in the direction he’d indicated. The back of her neck itched, and she was certain he watched her until she turned out of sight. Reputation? What’s that supposed to mean?
Basel’s office door stood open a fraction. Maya slowed as she approached, brushing stray crumbs from her shirt and wishing she’d had time to do something about her hair. She went to knock, then froze at the sound of her mentor’s voice.
“It’s too soon.” Jaedia sounded angrier than Maya had ever heard her. “I won’t stand for it, Basel.”
“It is the Council’s decision to make.” Baselanthus’ voice, scratchy with age, sounded resigned. “If you fight them, it will only make things worse for everyone.”
“You promised me that you’d keep her out of this.”
“I promised you that I would keep her away from it as long as I could,” Baselanthus said. “I have done all that I can.”
“But—”
“Jaedia.” There was a hint of steel in his tone. Then, raising his voice, he said, “Maya, is that you, dear?”
I shouldn’t have heard that. Maya’s heart slammed against her ribs. Her hand came up, automatically, to touch the Thing, but after a few quick breaths she forced it down again.
“Yes, Kyriliarch,” she managed, in an almost normal tone.
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