by Scott Hale
Edgar wrinkled his brow. The man had a point. He turned around, even though he knew his personal guard wouldn’t be there. They were supposed to have been outside Audra’s room, but they weren’t, and he hadn’t even realized it until now. Where had they gone? Now that he was thinking about it, Audra’s guards had been missing, too.
“I see,” Paxton, the second guard, said. “They will be rounded up and left to rot in the dungeons, my lord.” He wiggled his moustache, and puffed out his chest proudly. “Allow us to call one from the barracks to see you back to your chambers.”
“I need to speak with Blodworth.” Edgar felt nauseous and filthy. He was covered in sweat and suspicion. His hands were dirty, remnants of the Crossbreed beneath his nails. He could still smell the assassin’s flesh melting from his skull.
Brinton looked at Paxton, his superior, and said, “I’m sorry, my lord, but no one is to see the prisoner.”
“Make an exception.”
“My lord, you know that we cannot. The king and queen forbid the traitor any visitors. Perhaps if you see your father in the morning…?”
“It cannot wait until the morning.”
“If the need is dire, my lord—,” Paxton stepped forward, arms outstretched, offering friendship, “—tell us, and we’ll aide you.”
Edgar rubbed his forehead, and clenched his teeth. A spasm of rage worked its way up his neck. These men meant well, but their well-meaning was getting in his way. He needed to see Alexander Blodworth now, to ask him why he had confided in him that day at the Archivist’s tower. Horace had told him that the exemplar’s understudy was only trying to manipulate him, but why? Knowing this, why shouldn’t he use it to his own advantage? Was that not the spirit of politics? Was that not the future that awaited him when death robbed his older siblings of their duties?
“My lord? Is everything all right, my lord?” Brinton stared at Edgar vacantly, as though when he looked upon him now he no longer saw the man he knew.
“Stand down,” a voice said, strained.
Behind Edgar, there was a rustling of cloth and a cracking of bones. He turned around and saw Amon stepping across the moonlit cobblestones, a triumphant smile fixed upon his face. “He only wants a word, nothing more.”
Without complaint, Brinton and Paxton tipped their heads at the Archivist and let Edgar pass.
“What is this?” Edgar made his way to the vacant building. “What did you just do?”
Archivist Amon slid his hands into his robes. “I can call them back, if you’d like.”
“Why can you call on them at all?”
“Your anger is misplaced.” Amon turned around and started up the steps to his tower. “See me when you’re finished. We’ve a lot to discuss.”
“Like what?” Edgar’s stomach twisted, his heart pounded. He shrank before the Archivist and his glinting eyes. This, this was how it felt to be manipulated.
“Eldrus needs our help.” Amon laughed, and disappeared into the night.
By the time Edgar finally entered the building, it was clear to him Alexander had heard everything, for he was waiting there with a smug look upon his face. It had once been a storehouse for excess goods deemed too valuable to divvy up to the poor. Now, it was a holding cell for visiting celebrities deemed too dangerous to be allowed to indulge in their excesses.
The building was decorated and fitted with all the comforts expected by the privileged. However, it also came with an addition befitting the beasts that stayed there. With the pull of three hidden levers, a part of the floor could be made to give way to a five-foot drop and a bed of spikes that always promised the deepest of sleeps.
“My lord,” Alexander said, arms folded across his chest, as Edgar entered the building. “It’s not much to gander at—” he looked around the room, “—but it sure is homey.”
Edgar pointed to the bed. “Sit.”
“I’ll take the chair, instead.” Alexander sat at the desk covered in burning candles. “No offense, but unlike Vincent, I only enjoy women.”
Edgar slammed the door shut behind him. “Your second assassin has been found.”
Alexander crossed his legs. “Not mine.” There were circles underneath his eyes, and the hints of bruising beneath his collar and cuffs. “I’m glad to see you survived him, though.”
“Glad?” Edgar wished he had a weapon; and then was grateful he didn’t. “Why?”
“Because your father doesn’t care, and your mother cares too much. Because Horace has no creativity, nor does he have a heart. Because Lena has no redeeming qualities, other than the amazing feat of having no redeeming qualities. Because Auster could inspire no one, nor have a thought of his own. Because Audra is too precious, too willing; this world would tear her apart.
“So what is it about you, then? That’s what you were going to ask next.” Alexander grinned. Absently, he picked away at the wax that covered the desk. “Doesn’t hurt to ask. Everyone likes to hear good things about themselves. So what is it about Edgar of Eldrus?”
“This is the first time we’ve met.”
“Oh, no. We’ve met many times before. We’ve met in rumor and whisper, in letters and deeds. Like the Old World, nothing goes unaccounted for. It’s just a bit slower than it used to be.”
I’ve done nothing noteworthy, Edgar thought. Only a series of failed attempts to make this city a better place to live.
“You’re not particularly special, Edgar,” Alexander said. “But you are a summation of all things your family is not. You’re adaptable and willing to do what needs to be done for the good of all. Listen, I’m not asking for friendship, because we’ll turn on each other eventually. That’s just how these things go.”
This wasn’t the conversation Edgar had expected. “So what are you asking for?”
“Nothing.” Alexander stood up and began snuffing out the flames with his fingertips. “I gave you the assassins, whom I was told to let carry out their plot. I gave the Crossbreed, which I was told to forget, to never speak a word of.”
“What?” Edgar motioned for Alexander to stop as his finger hovered over the last candle, the last in the place. “What are you talking about?”
“A long time ago, here in Eldrus there lived a researcher, a philosopher and blasphemer, Victor Mors. He discovered that there are many terrible things waiting in the Membrane of the world. Naturally, this didn’t sit well with Penance at the time, for he also claimed there was no heaven, only hell. So we killed him and stole his work. In his journals, among other things, were whispers of the Crossbreed. I visited your city two years ago, and I gave your Archivist that coveted page. The Mother Abbess was not… happy about that. Fortunately, she didn’t realize it was me, I don’t think.”
Edgar took a breath, the first one he had taken in over a minute. “Why? Why would you give that to him?”
“Because our cities are run by fools. Because no ruler in his or her right mind would gift such a weapon to their enemy, unless they had good reason to. My reason was good. My city is dying. It’s a slow death, but it’s dying all the same, and so is yours. And when we’ve nowhere else to turn, we’ll turn on each other. You’ll win that war, if the Night Terrors don’t stop it, but you’ll lose your people, and I’ll lose my people. And I think you care too much for people in general to let something like that happen.
“So, again, no, I don’t want anything from you, Lord Edgar. But when you’re in a position of power, and soon you will be, I will want something. I’ll want you to listen and consider what I have to say. The Night Terrors continue to massacre both our people, and Geharra… Geharra sits quietly on the other side of the world, undoubtedly gathering its forces, waiting for us to weaken, so that they can land the killing blow.”
Edgar started to back away from Alexander. “Why didn’t you use the Crossbreed on your own people?” He reached behind him for the doorknob.
“The climate is wrong.” Alexander smiled. He was enjoying this. “We tried for years to grow it, but it w
ouldn’t take. The idea was that if Eldrus was successful, then you would allow us to bring some of it home with us. Introduce some order into the Holy Order, if you know what I mean.”
“That’s why you wanted to see Audra.”
“That’s why I wanted to see Audra.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith in me.” Edgar opened the door. The cool night air rushed past his legs and gave him goose bumps.
Alexander laughed and snuffed out the final candle. “I’m not the only one.”
Like all things innocuous, the Archivist’s tower, rustic and inviting in the daylight, became something more sinister in the dark. It loomed unsteadily over Ghostgrave, as though it were a snake that had been petrified in its attack. The tower’s highest window spewed a smoky, crimson light. Rather than dissipate, it wandered across the sky—a sparkling, nebulous cloud like a lonely constellation in search of a lost star.
At night, the tower was known to speak in a sharp, scratchy tongue. The red roots which Amon feasted on were embedded within it.
Even now, as Edgar stood at the tower’s steps, he could hear them spreading up the cobblestones, towards the highest point, as though they meant to ensnare the moon itself and bring it closer, to bask in its otherworldly light.
Edgar gathered himself and entered the tower. He climbed it slowly, the spiraling steps there mimicking his spiraling mind. For all his words, Alexander had told him little; however, it had still been enough to take the man’s request seriously. But he didn’t understand why he had been chosen, when he was the youngest of the royal family and the least likely to be given the responsibility Alexander and, now that he was thinking about him, Amon expected of him. It would have been easy enough with the assassins, putting Edgar into a position of power, and yet Alexander seemed to have gone out of his way to ensure they were caught and killed.
None of it made any god damn sense.
“Please, come in,” he heard Amon say.
Edgar stopped and stood at the top of the stairs, which had come much quicker than he realized. He leaned into Amon’s room. The Archivist was sitting in a chair beside the fireplace, the flames of which were dangerously close to spilling out.
“I trust our friend has his head on a pillow and not on a spike?”
Edgar took a deep breath and entered the Archivist’s chambers. He went to the old man and sat opposite him.
“Amon, what’s going on?”
“Many things.”
Amon turned in his chair, towards a side table. From it, he took a cup of water that had one of his red roots twisting out of it.
“This will be a long night. Drink. The root will calm your nerves. It’s addictive, though. I should know. That’s why I allow it to grow here, and why I chew it constantly. You and your siblings always wanted a bite of it—”
“And you always slapped our hands and said no.”
“Exactly.” He held the cup outward, the red root’s crystalline casing glinting in the firelight.
“Thoughtful of you.” Edgar accepted the offering and downed it in one swig. He didn’t swallow the root, however; he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to.
“I like to think so.” Amon took the cup from Edgar and filled it with more water from the pitcher on the side table. Beside it was Amon’s novel, The Disciples of the Deep. “I feel as though I’ve lost your trust.”
Edgar started to fall forward. He caught himself and shook off the tug of sleep. A momentary haze, a surge of adrenaline: he sat back in his chair, now more awake than when he had entered the tower. “You’ve… whew. You’ve made me a part of something.”
Amon slipped his hand under the cushion of his chair. He rummaged about and then yanked out a foot-long red root that was coiled beneath it. “Yes, I have. I must admit, it all happened more quickly than I expected.”
“Amon, they’ll kill you if they find out what you’ve been doing.”
“What is it I’ve been doing?”
Edgar curled his lip. “Conspiring with the enemy, and you’ve made me a part of it.”
Amon coughed, offended. He gripped his side, wincing at a pain there. “I don’t recall sending you into the subway tunnels. I don’t recall telling you to drug the city.”
“Audra told you?”
“Of course. I gave her the ingredients for the Crossbreed. I showed her the tunnels. Have you seen what she can do with the shadows when she gets angry?”
Edgar’s eyes widened. “The shadows? What are…?”
“This is about you, though.” Amon ignored Edgar’s question. “You’re on the right track, Edgar. You always have been, ever since you were a young boy. You always tried so hard to do the right thing, even when it would lead to terrible consequences. I know you better than you think, and that’s hard to admit when you realize you don’t know me at all. To you, I’m just the old man who played with you when you were young, and kept you out of trouble when you got older. An unremarkable constant in the lives of your brothers and sisters, as well as your own.”
Edgar shook his head. “Amon, what are you saying? You’re a dear friend of the family. Listen, I’m not saying I don’t trust… I just want to know what is going on. I don’t mean to offend you, but what you are saying…”
“You’re right, though.” Again, Amon ignored him. “This city could be so much more than it is. This world could be so much more than it is.”
“And what do you think? Some secret alliance with Penance will make a difference? I guess I don’t know you very well at all. But don’t think you can use my ‘bleeding heart’ to do yours and Blodworth’s dirty work.”
Amon took a bite out of the red root. “I know I said this is about you, but if you wouldn’t mind, may I tell you a little about myself first?”
Edgar took a drink of the water. This time, he noticed a pungent aftertaste that hadn’t been there before. He set down the cup, frustrated, and said, “Go for it.”
Archivist Amon’s eyes reflected some distant light as he whispered, “I look forward to these rare moments of disclosure. I am very old, you see. Older than I look, which I know must be a horrible thing to imagine.”
Edgar shifted impatiently in his chair.
“Stay with me, Edgar. I’m about to tell you a lot of things you will claim are nothing more than ravings of an old man. But where you would be wrong is your calling me an… old man. I’m not an old man. I’m not even a man. This body of mine is nothing more than a costume, and this face, a mask. Don’t blame yourself for not realizing this sooner. I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have if I hadn’t mastered the art of deception.
“For example, the red root in your drink?” Amon shook the foot-long red root in his hand. “That’s not any old plant. It’s a vermillion vein, from the Nameless Forest.”
Disgusted, Edgar kicked over the cup. He shoved his fingers down his throat, but all he could manage was a dry heave.
“To anyone who knows anything about these insidious growths, they would see through my ruse immediately. But I’ve been in Eldrus for a very long time, and I have been cultivating my addiction even longer. I know that I am rambling, but do you know what true power is? It’s being able to take the truth and pass it off as a lie, or vice versa. Doesn’t matter. It’s all the same in the end, as long as the end ends the way you want it to.”
I need to leave, Edgar thought. He’s lost his fucking mind. His stomach began to churn. Now that he knew the truth of the red root, he could feel it starting to take hold of him.
“Sorry.” Amon took another bite of the vermillion vein. “When you’ve lived with a secret as long as I have, it’s hard to finally let it go. It becomes a part of you. If I give it to you, I give you myself, and I can see by the way you’re squirming over there you don’t like what you’re hearing. But you’ve been taking a lot of risks lately, so let me do the same.
“I am not a man. I have never been a man. I was not born, and I’m not sure that I can die. At least, in the way that you one day will. I simp
ly was, and what I was, well, was a whisper, a mouth. A smaller part of a greater whole. An organ, if you will, in the body of God. The Vermillion God, and I was content to be that. It was all I knew. Until, one day, someone spoke to the Vermillion God, and It chose me to answer.
“The Ashcroft family, that was the name of those who had spoken to the Deep. They wanted more from life, and with God’s grace, I gave them more. At the time, our needs were simple. Sacrifices were all we wanted. It wasn’t about the corpses themselves, but the family’s dedication and willingness to indulge in desecration.”
“Shut up.” Edgar held his head. The room began to spin. “Shut the fuck up, Amon. Stop this!”
“We fed them. They fed us. The Ashcroft family, with the Vermillion God’s help, grew more powerful, and so did God, though It didn’t realize it at the time. Bodies for favors, belief for power. Simple terms, even simpler arrangements. The Ashcroft family had done so well for themselves they started to want for less. But that wouldn’t do for me. I had seen them from squalor to supremacy. They wanted less, but I wanted more.”
“What are you talking about?” Edgar put his head between his knees and squeezed. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t respond to that.
Amon pressed on. “Like everything, the family fell apart, which led to the agreement falling apart. The Vermillion God was content to allow this to happen. It was a simple deity at the time, with simple appetites. But as I said, I wanted more. We had come so far. The simpler parts were becoming more than that. The greater whole had developed a lust, too. The Vermillion God, for the first time in eons, let me do what needed to be done.
“I tortured and taunted one of the last of the Ashcroft line. Until my efforts paid off, and in desperation we were released. Released from the self-imprisonment the Vermillion God had made for Itself so long ago. Deities are simple things, you see, very binary in their understanding of the world and arrangements. But we were out, no longer bound to the Ashcroft line or rudimentary sacrifices or, excuse my language, bullshit like that.” Amon rubbed his hands together. “I no longer had to be a whisper or a mouth. A thing without a beginning or an end. Unbound, unshackled from the Vermillion God’s breast, I could be something else instead.
