An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors--A Novel

by Curtis Craddock

  Jean-Claude brought the crutch down on the back of the man’s head. He slumped like a dropped pudding. “Nuisance, am I?” he said between racking breaths. “I’ll give him nuisance.”

  By this time, the landlord-caretaker and his crew had taken note of the ruckus and hurried into the doorway, shock on their faces. Jean-Claude jabbed his finger at the caretaker. “You, señor. This is the second time I have been attacked in your building, and you will have my undying curse if you do not aid me now. I want this man tied up, securely, and somebody fetch my driver.”

  Several very busy minutes later, the bound swordsman had been loaded crossways on the floor of the chaise. Jean-Claude sat over top of him, resting one boot on the back of his neck. His vision still swam as if he were sky sick, but his stitched-up wound had not started bleeding again. Maybe after today he’d be able to let it rest and heal properly.

  To the building’s nervous caretaker, he said, “If anyone comes asking after us, we’ve returned to the citadel.”

  The caretaker gave profuse assurances that he would pass the words on precisely.

  Mario flicked the reins and set the coach in motion. “Is this the surprise you were expecting?”

  Jean-Claude closed his eyes and tried not to feel the carriage jostling. “I had hoped to draw my adversary out, or why else would I have come back?”

  Mario’s eyebrows rose. “Risky.”

  “I was the best bait I had to offer.” Better to be thought a clever madman than a lucky fool. “Once we leave sight of the building, take us around another way and head for the docks.”

  * * *

  Jean-Claude steeled himself against nausea as he limped up the gangway onto the Santa Anna, Mario and their prisoner in tow. Captain Santiago met him on deck, a quizzical expression on his face.

  The captain raised a curious eyebrow. “Señor musketeer, you are truly the last person I expected to see here. You have made your distaste for skyships quite plain.”

  “And so this will be the last place anyone will come to look for me,” Jean-Claude said. “I am in need of a private location to interrogate this man.”

  Santiago scowled. “You know I can’t allow that. This is a royal courier and—”

  “This man was hired by the man who tried to burn your ship out of the sky. I hope to follow his lead back to his employer.”

  Santiago skipped a single beat and then said, “I will have the turret emptied. The noise of repairs in the hold should serve to mask any screams you may elicit.”

  The swordsman squirmed and shouted muffled protests through his gag.

  “Thank you, Captain,” said Jean-Claude, lurching onto the deck. Thank the Builder the ship was not heaving right now, or Jean-Claude would have been joining it.

  “Welcome aboard.”

  Navigating the steep, narrow stairs taxed Jean-Claude’s strength and patience, and climbing back up was going to be worse, but eventually he and Mario, with the help of two burly sailors, bumped and banged the swordsman into the Santa Anna’s belly turret and secured him to a turvy mast.

  Jean-Claude dismissed the sailors, but Mario took Jean-Claude aside and said, “I must stay. If he had managed to kill you, it would have been on my head. Don Angelo ordered me to keep you safe.”

  It was Jean-Claude’s turn to be surprised. “I would not have warranted he prized my life so highly. Did he say why?”

  “For la princesa’s sake.”

  “That is good to know. I thank you.” But did Don Angelo mean for Mario to be a guard dog or a scapegoat?

  Mario’s expression soured. “I have not done a very good job so far. When he finds out I failed to prevent you being attacked—”

  “So don’t tell him. In fact, I recommend you don’t mention this little incident at all. I won’t, and our friend there sure as doomfire won’t, either.”

  Mario looked relieved. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “I’m going to start by talking to him. How it ends is up to him.” Jean-Claude ripped the gag out of the swordsman’s mouth. The man glowered at him—his close-set eyes were pits of hatred—but he held his tongue.

  Jean-Claude sat down across from him on the butt of a cannon. “So, señor … I don’t believe I caught your name.”

  “Nufio,” he muttered.

  “Ah, very good. Señor Nufio, shall I present you with your options, or shall we skip the preliminary threatening and get right down to you telling me what I want to know?”

  “What happens if I answer your questions?”

  “As soon as I verify the veracity of your story, you will be set free on solid ground. If you lie to me, we leave out the part about solid ground. A man proven to be dishonest once is not to be trusted a second time.”

  The swordsman took a moment to mull this over, but only a moment. “He didn’t pay me to die. What do you want to know?”

  “The man with the scar who hired you to kill me; what was his name?”

  “He called himself Thornscar.”

  “And how did you find him?”

  “He found me. He came into the Cog and Crank, dressed rich and hooded like a monk. Said he’d heard of me, had a job for me.”

  “And how did you see his scar if he wore a cowl?”

  “I could see his chin and his cheek. It was a really big scar. The rest was in shadow.”

  “Who told him about you?” That would be the next step in Jean-Claude’s chain of pursuit.

  The swordsman shook his head. “I don’t know. Could’ve been anybody. I have a reputation.”

  And you’re not a big thinker, so you didn’t bother to ask. “And how much did he offer you?” Jean-Claude asked, teasing the man’s money pouch from his belt. The swordsman shot Jean-Claude a look of fury but was wise enough to refrain from arguing the point of theft.

  Jean-Claude opened the purse and found a tidy sum in silver coins, enough to set a wise man up for a year, or a fool for a week. “Impressive. And with such an amount being offered, it did not occur to you that I might be dangerous?”

  “He said you were wounded, crippled.”

  Which he could have learned from anyone who saw the blast. “Was he carrying a weapon?”

  “He had a sword—didn’t look comfortable with it, though, but his bodyguards did.”

  “Bodyguards?” The picture forming in Jean-Claude’s head kept drifting farther and farther from the Thornscar he’d encountered in the ship’s hold. As Isabelle had informed him, the man who’d attacked them en route didn’t even have a knife, much less a sword. This latest incarnation of Thornscar hired others to do his work for him. That spoke of money. And wouldn’t bodyguards be inconvenient for someone who wanted to remain hidden?

  “Two of them. Professional soldiers by their look.”

  “Was Thornscar injured in his left arm?” Where Jean-Claude had thrust his main gauche.

  “Huh? No. He had a bit of a limp, though.”

  Jean-Claude shook his head. Unfortunately, he had no idea if damage done to a reflection would be mirrored on the body, or if it would show up as some sort of phantom pain, or not at all, and he could have acquired a limp anywhere, as Jean-Claude could attest.

  “How were you supposed to pick up the second half of your payment?” Jean-Claude asked. “And don’t try denying it. These arrangements are always half on proof of kill.”

  “He said nail your hat to the Temple door, and he’d find me.”

  “Well then,” Jean-Claude said merrily. “Let’s try it and see what happens.”

  CHAPTER

  Twelve

  Isabelle clung to Marie’s cool, dry, translucent hand like a sailor clinging to a line in a gale. In truth, she did not need to hold her friend at all to get her to follow along, but the mad hope that their mutual torment might soon come to an end was a wind in her face. She had suppressed that hope ever since Kantelvar had presented it. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t. She was a fool to let herself be drawn in, her long-dead dream rekindled. Yet now t
hat the moment was upon her, the pressure seemed ready to erupt into something physical that would fling Marie away from her.

  “Where are we?” Isabelle asked as Kantelvar led them down a long, dusty, deserted corridor somewhere in the bowels of the citadel. “You said we were going to the Temple.” A public place. Instead she’d been guided down what she thought was a shortcut into what turned out to be a warren of abandoned corridors. If she’d known they were going this far out of the way she would have insisted on a bodyguard.

  “We are,” Kantelvar said. “When the citadel was built, it swallowed up much of the old city, including a Temple that had stood here since the days of Rüul. Carlemmo’s father knocked the upper levels flat and built that stupefying edifice in the square to replace it.” He snorted contempt for the gleaming complex that stood across from Isabelle’s guest residence. “But the Temple’s vault remains, and I make use of it from time to time. It will serve our purposes well today.”

  Isabelle stopped and the pall of dust she’d been trailing wafted by her. “There is no reason to do this in such a hidden place.”

  Kantelvar clanked two more steps before stopping and turning. “This is where my equipment is. If you wish, I can have my equipment removed to your quarters, thought that will take time, and it may be difficult to re-create the precise conditions required for the treatment.”

  “What conditions would those be?” Isabelle asked.

  “Silence, stillness, and complete, uninterrupted darkness. We must separate the subject from her shadow. When a Sanguinaire creates a bloodhollow, he leaves a piece of his bloodshadow diffused through the victim’s shadow, like a single drop of ink diluted in a bucket of water. The resident bloodshadow then feeds on the victim’s soul, like a parasite, just enough to keep it alive without destroying the host. Most of the time, the host’s spirit weakens and is ultimately devoured. That is why it is so remarkable that yours has lasted so long and has even thrived. You must have put in an extraordinary amount of work.”

  Isabelle’s chest swelled a little at this praise, but she squeezed it down. Marie wasn’t cured yet. “But Marie has been in the dark before.” Shutting her in the dark was the one sure way to make sure her father was not using her as a spy.

  “For how long? An hour? A night? The bloodshadow can survive that. Indeed, a lifetime of darkness would not be enough to dislodge the barb; darkness only weakens it and leaves it vulnerable to shriving, which is done with a solution of soul ash, moon resin, the pollen of several rare orchids, and the spores of a gloom fungus in a medium of alkahest.”

  “How did you find this cure?” Such a complex potion could not have been hit upon by accident.

  As he so frequently did, Kantelvar took his time answering. “The Risen Saints and the Firstborn Kings had powers that modern sorcerers could only pine for. The saints who possessed what we now call Sanguinaire sorcery could make what they called Satrapae Umbra, Shadow Lords, like bloodhollows except that they retained their own free will when not being directly possessed. It was counted a high honor for a clayborn to be chosen for this role. They served as ambassadors, scouts, and champions for their masters. They could even borrow a portion of their master’s power. And when their term of service was done, or when they became too old, crippled, or weak, it was customary to shrive them of the barb and its burden. The recipe for the shriving agent was never precisely written down, but the gathering of the ingredients was mentioned in some of the Remnants and Ghost Tales.”

  Isabelle frowned. “I’ve never heard of any of that.” How many times had he answered one of her questions with a reference to some ancient work or hidden knowledge she had no way to verify?

  Kantelvar made a metallic snort. “The Temple has enough to do sorting out the Builder’s truth from the Breaker’s heresy without releasing all of its accumulated apocrypha into the world. The Book of Instructions contains only those revelations proved to be true.”

  “Your experiments demonstrate the efficacy of the cure, surely.” Unless he was lying.

  “Two experiments so far, only one successful. More to the point, do you honestly think Sanguinaire society would appreciate it being known that there is an antidote for their favorite poison? No. As degenerate as they have become, they are still the Builder’s chosen and their authority over the clayborn must remain absolute. Now, are you coming?”

  Reluctantly, Isabelle resumed following him. He brought them into a section of the palace made of older stone where the blocks were set tightly but without mortar and the floor was dished from great use.

  “Do you mean that no one should find out about Marie being cured?”

  “If it works, we will claim it is the Builder’s miracle,” Kantelvar said. Another pat answer. Isabelle knew the technique well, for she had often used it to shut down conversations, to defend herself in her father’s house.

  Her father. He was one more link in the chain that had brought her here. “Could you have shriven my father’s bloodshadow?”

  “The red consumption is not the same as being bloodhollow,” Kantelvar said, which was neither yes nor no.

  Isabelle’s stomach quivered with nerves. She’d survived Grand Leon’s audience by being agonizingly honest, Margareta’s by being compassionate and stubborn, but she had no idea how to get around Kantelvar’s relentless obfuscations.

  “I suppose what I’m curious about is why didn’t Father ask you to save him from the red consumption when he first bargained to give me away?” Le Comte des Zephyrs cared for nothing more than his own life.

  Kantelvar’s hump gurgled, which it seemed to do when he was agitated. What kind of bizarre mechanism did he have under there anyway?

  “Because he didn’t have the red consumption at the time,” Kantelvar said.

  Isabelle seized on this. “I remember Hormougant Sleith talking about it with my father, some bargain he’d made.” Right before he’d hollowed out Marie.

  “Sleith … I … yes. Very clever, that was the same bargain.”

  “But that was twelve years ago,” Isabelle said, a welter of new questions boiling up in her head. “How could he have known then that I would be offered to Julio now?” Twelve years ago, Príncipe Alejandro hadn’t even been married to Xaviera, much less been vexed by her infertility. King Carlemmo had been healthy.

  “Your father only agreed that … one of my order would choose your marriage partner. Who that partner would be had not been decided.”

  Isabelle seized on this new revelation. “Who are your order?”

  “A consortium of sorts, dedicated to the preservation of the saint lines.”

  “And by ‘preserve’ you mean ‘breed.’”

  “Yes.”

  Isabelle imagined he was telling the truth, if not all of it. She stewed in irritation. The notion of marriage to a man who apparently had no interest in her turned even more bitter in the context of its being arranged by a clandestine conspiracy for the sole purpose of her being a broodmare, like a damned animal. Bearing children might have been a duty, but it was not the whole breadth of her being. She had her math and her philosophy. She’d been entrusted with the power to unleash or withhold the armies of l’Empire Céleste. She only got to keep her children if she stopped the war. Yes, but turn that logic around.

  “I will not consent to bring children into being in the middle of a war,” she said. “If you want my help you will have to help me convince Julio and Alejandro not to fight.”

  Kantelvar stopped, his hump sloshing. His neck hinges pinged as he turned his emerald gaze upon her. “And will you consent to the project if that miracle can be accomplished?”

  Isabelle felt as if she’d leaned on a solid wall only to have it crumble to dust. His lack of resistance to the idea stunned her. “That follows,” she said, and then took a leap more of hope than faith. “Yes.” If Aragoth was at peace and she was married to Julio, children were naturally part of the plan … even if it wasn’t purely her plan.

  “Done,” Kantel
var said with a voice like a gavel. He turned into yet another dusty side corridor. Isabelle followed, feeling she had missed something vital. A little way along was an iron-banded door set into a niche in the wall. He touched the spiny tip of his staff to the door. There was a spark, the smell of lightning, then a chain-rattling noise before the door groaned inward. Beyond was a cramped stone landing and a narrow spiral stairway curling down into darkness. A dry musty smell wafted up from the depths.

  Isabelle balked at the threshold—this looked far too much like a tomb to her—but if Marie was to have any hope of ever being freed from her curse, it was down these stairs, and Isabelle had not come all this way not to take the final step. She lifted the hem of her skirt and eased onto a narrow, crumbling stone, guiding Marie after her.

  Kantelvar came in behind them. The door boomed shut. Total darkness filled the stairwell and Isabelle had to suppress a shriek. lf she slipped now and tumbled, she might fall forever, or at least far enough to break her neck. But something clicked and the tips of the spines on Kantelvar’s staff glowed brilliant green. The points of light made traceries in the air whenever the staff bobbled. The shadows before Isabelle roiled like steam, but she picked her way down and down, legs aching with the care of placing each foot carefully on the slippery slivers of stone. At the bottom of the stairs, past another landing, another thick door opened with a spark from Kantelvar’s staff and he stiffly bowed her into a large, dark room. She made out two thick columns supporting a tall arch.

  Kantelvar touched his staff to an alchemical lantern high on the wall. It came to life with a soft poomph followed by another and another farther along.

  Revealed to her widening eyes was a room the size of a Temple nave, forested with granite pillars graven with ancient icons of the Risen Saints. The groin-vaulted ceiling was painted, beneath a layer of soot and grime, with fantastic scenes, beginning with the fracturing of the cratons at the breaking of the world and running all the way to the founding of the great city of Om at the inception of the Final Age.