by Carol Berg
A flash of copper and a flash of enchantment, like an explosion viewed in a mirror glass, blanked out the vision. I had to drop the bloody shackle before all my senses were ripped out, too.
“. . . the merchants left men behind to guard the stalls, and I made assurance that we had some posted everywhere.” Constance’s litany of sorrow continued. “But a broken head like mine only thinks she’s got things right, don’t she? There’s no help for stupid. And now our cleverest boy—”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, trying not to choke on anger. “It was purebloods. Sorcerers. My people killed him. They were after me.”
The stola explained why. Some simply wanted to hide the secret that could bring down the Registry, changing the balance of power in Navronne forever. Some likely wanted to find out if my grandsire had uncovered solid evidence of it or how dual bents worked—perhaps so they could destroy a bent more reliably or use my particular combination to gain advantage in the coming realignment of the world.
But this wasn’t solely a pureblood matter and was certainly not just about me. These villains had profaned the gods’ magic, using it to induce agony for their questioning. Cynical in their evil, they had finished Pleury with the chains so as to blame the death on ordinaries, and then they’d hidden their true identities with enchantment. And a spy had let them in. The spy. The old man. Garibald.
* * *
Pleury had no family that anyone knew. No one wailed or fainted at his loss. Death was too familiar at Caton. Yet all of us at the necropolis mourned. After we laid the boy in the Hallow Ground, and the carters and washwomen and hawkers’ folk had gone back to work, I promised Pleury’s closest friends—Bastien, Constance, Garen and the other runners—to bring down the purebloods who had murdered their friend and expose the ordinaries who aided them. I fixed my gaze on Garibald as I swore on my family’s blood and honor. Though the sexton jutted his chin and ground his teeth, his ruddy skin took on the hue of the dead. Bastien saw it.
The work of the necropolis creaked forward again. I copied Fleure’s portrait for Fallon de Tremayne, as I’d promised, and left it with Constance. When I tried to take Bastien aside to speak of the traitor, Bastien shook me off. “I know what needs doing. When the time is right, he’ll tell me what he knows or he’ll be dead. He won’t know their names, will he—the purebloods who did it—the ones he spied for?”
“No. They would have made sure he could not identify them.”
“I’ll get you to the Tower. I want you to find out who did it.”
“On my family’s name, I will.”
The iron-visaged coroner dispatched his determined runners, even bruised and battered Garen, to glean every scrap of information about Prince Perryn’s movements, the Tower festivities, and any estimates of Prince Bayard’s arrival. He told them that we were worried about the riots starting up again.
Garibald spent the afternoon hauling in two trees to make new barricades for his gates. The veins in his brow nigh on bursting, he hacked off the weakling limbs as if each were a pureblood’s neck. It was me he wanted dead or gone, not Pleury. He had ever warned Bastien of the trouble I’d bring. And so I had.
When a young baron was left by his grieving mother for Garibald’s evening burning, I stole the silk pall from his coffin. I needed a new and different mask. My mother would have mourned her eldest son at hearing this; the Lucian she knew could never have been so base as to steal from the dead. But indeed that Lucian was as dead as the young baron. As dead as Pleury. That Lucian’s life had been based on truth and honor and centuries of discipline grown from a divine trust. And all of it had been a lie.
Nose red, eyes dripping, Constance fitted me, yet again, with dead men’s finery, and sewed the mask, readying it for my enchantments. “You could open a market stall for pureblood masks,” I said, when she brought me the slip of blue silk. “Your stitches are as fine as any tailor’s, and the shaping’s better every time.”
Wordless, she kept her eyes to the stone floor. Did she know of Garibald’s perfidy as yet?
I touched her chin and raised it, hating what I had to say. “No one can know of these preparations, Constance, nor anything of my comings and goings. Especially not your father.”
“Sworn—on Pleury’s soul, it’s sworn.” Thin lips pressed together hard, she hurried away.
No matter what happened on the night’s venture, I would fulfill my own vow, even if I had to come back from the dead or rise from a living tomb to do so. The portraits were all. Something in them would tell me who had murdered my pureblood family, who had murdered this youth of my new family, who wished me dead, and who wished me in a cage, forever in the dark.
CHAPTER 33
“Aperite, porte mordé!” Open, door of death.
The iron door in the Tower foundation swung open, waiting for me to step into the cellar where I’d spent five months buried.
So many years I’d known the meaning of the opening incantation. I’d always thought it a macabre reference to the Tower’s troubled past. But history is a tapestry where every thread is connected to every other. The ancient kings of Ardra and Navronne had dragged their secret prisoners to the Tower cellars. And so, too, had these vainglorious villains of our own time who thought to rival kings, who had built centuries of wealth and hoarded power on a lie.
Outrage at murder and corruption had brought me this far, but not even that made it easy to cross the threshold.
Bastien had seen my fear. Likely my trembling hands told him, or perhaps the fact that I couldn’t swallow so much as a walnut all afternoon. But he hadn’t tried to talk me out of it.
“They’re already after you,” he’d said, as we threaded the alleyways of the Council District in early evening. “Even if none sees you tonight, they know where to find you. But I’ve friends in Cymra who take in strays. They’d keep you till your people tire of looking.”
“I can’t run,” I said. “They won’t tire. Not ever. Only one recondeur has ever eluded them more than a few months. I have to see who I’m up against and find Juli. Then I’ll decide what to do.”
“But you’ll have a care. No use to any if they take you.”
“No one knows about this back way in. And I’ll be fast. An hour at most. All I have to do is touch six paintings. But of course, if I’m not back here by tenth hour . . .”
“Yes, yes,” he growled, “I’ll bury the worthless needlework that illumines nothing, as you ask. But I’ll not run away, either. If I’ve got to haul the First Curator himself in front of Perryn the Weasel to get justice for Pleury, I’ll do it.”
Empty words. He knew it. I knew it. But what else did one say at such a time?
“I still owe you most of four years’ service,” I offered, “pitiful as the stipend was.”
He shrugged and spat. “Maybe I can get the Registry to return my money for defective goods.”
“Maybe.” I grabbed his hand. “But if not, this will make up for it.”
When he opened his fist to find my father’s ruby ring, his jaw dropped in most delightful astonishment. I wished I could linger and tease him about it, as I had with my brothers in that life that was gone. But we’d come to the last turning before the Tower, and I had yet to pass on Demetreo’s warning.
“There’s good reason to run, Bastien. This war’s not over, no matter what Perryn or the chancellor or drunkards say. Demetreo says Bayard won’t accept the will as valid. And his granny, who is the wisest of wise women, sees a doom of mortal danger befalling her people—and likely the rest of us as well—at dawn tomorrow. I swear on my family’s name that if I’m alive, I’ll be with you to help, whatever the dawn brings. Then you can give this back to me. If not . . .”
“Your sister should have it.”
“It’s for you to use it as you need. If Juli walks out of this door today or arrives at Caton on another day, tell her I said to serve you better than I did. I hope Demetreo’s granny is wrong about the dawn. I hope I’m wrong about everyt
hing.”
“This is maudlin shite,” he grumbled. “In and out. Be quick. And come back with something you can tell me.”
I had left him at the turning of the alley. He’d wait there to help with my escape.
Now the cellar yawned in front of me, and the door swung closed behind.
No one pounced. My heart did not stop. I did not start gibbering, though the darkness and the smell of dust and iron gnawed on my soul like rats.
Don’t think. Just move. With as little ripple in the web of the world as I could make, I cast a pale light and slipped through the corridors. Juli was not there. No cell was occupied. With that weight lifted, my feet did not dawdle. The need to know drove me onward to my grandsire’s hidden entry and up the servants’ stair.
The portrait gallery occupied the second level. If Garen’s information was correct, Perryn would arrive within the hour. The curators would receive the king-to-be in the atrium, exchanging gifts and compliments before a short ceremony to honor my grandsire’s life. I should have most of an hour to see what I needed to see. In and out. Easy.
I peeked through the arch into the gallery and mumbled a curse. A Registry servitor was posted not two steps in front of me. And I’d no time to go anywhere but forward.
A pureblood, properly disciplined, should not startle easily. “Servitor. If you please . . .”
The youth swung around. More curious than alarmed, he could be no more than fourteen.
“I require assistance. I’ve just arrived in Palinur and wish to familiarize myself with the curators before I am introduced. I understand their portraits are quite fine. But of course, I’ve no idea which is which. You must walk with me and tell me the names. What are you called?”
“Rigaro, domé.” The boy trailed after me. “Naturally, whatever you need, though I must attend another guest when he arrives—an ordinary. I’m charged to carry his messages.”
“The Prince of Navronne, you mean.”
“Nay, a district constable.”
Unease hollowed my gut. A constable, the man who fetched thieves to the pillory, was scarce more respectable than a dead-hauler. “Such a low ordinary wandering the private reaches of the Tower? Surely our restrictions have not changed so much.”
To my relief, the boy kept his voice low. “He’s to watch for assassins and other nefarious persons, domé.”
“Nefarious persons in the Registry Tower?” I said with a disbelieving air, trying to mask my rising alarm. “Who would come up with such idiot notions?”
The boy glanced over his shoulder. “I was told that Constable Skefil is a low sort who knows these types of criminal and is to make sure none slip inside with the prince’s party. My captain says it’s a curator brought him.”
“I see.” But which curator? And did this constable await a mad portrait artist? The boy likely wouldn’t know either answer, and I could not afford to seem interested. The portraits waited within arm’s reach.
“You will, of course, remain available when he arrives, but I’ve no time to delay. I’m expected below.” My heart surely thumped like a tabor as the youth and I approached the wall of portraits.
The gallery stretched around the entire circumference of the tower and was fronted by a waist-high rail. The grand stair opened onto the gallery level. At the far end of the arc wall where the six man-high portraits hung, a narrower stair climbed to the higher levels of the Tower.
An easel stood in the middle of the space, black ribbons draped over the small work it held—the outdated portrait of my grandsire I had hoped to replace. The curators must be planning to bring the prince up here for their condolence formalities. I’d best be quick.
“This is First Registrar Lares-Damon—Domé, what are you doing?”
“My eyesight is quite poor,” I said, squinting as I lifted my three fingers from the canvas. “I’ve spellwork that allows me to see such works clearly if I do but touch them. My own Master of Archives has assured me that a light touch will not damage the surface.” Lies flowed easily nowadays.
In truth, there was no need to compare Damon’s portrait to the true image hidden inside me. That first touch told all. No alteration had been made to the painting from the day I completed it. Which was not to say there was nothing untoward about the depiction. Valuable moments passed until I figured out what bothered me.
I had placed the diminutive Damon in the courtyard of the Hundred Heroes, the statues that ringed the palace precincts, thinking it an interesting setting for one so unheroic in physical appearance. His face and posture were delineated by pride and discipline; his arm was extended, and his palm open in largesse. But almost undetectable among the mottled patterns of the paving stones beneath his feet my gift had hidden tormented faces . . . a young woman . . . a child . . . a king . . . and countless others. In my own artistic pride, certain that the pleasing depiction shaped truth, I had not even noticed.
Fancy suggested they were those Damon had trampled in his rise to a curator’s seat. Whoever they were, he’d not bothered to have them removed. Perhaps he thought the image gave him authority. I’d no recollection of putting them there, but the painted image was identical to that which lived in me. Truth. Nothing in the portrait hinted that he had ordered my family’s murder.
Pons next. My eagerness to expose her secrets should have shamed me. But of course, it didn’t. Stolid as ever, her gaze cold, she sat in her curator’s chair inside a walled garden, facing a closed gate. Outside the gate a rope swing hung from a walnut branch, the swing tossed and twisted by the wind.
My first glance told me a hand other than mine had altered the painting. The vines on the wall, the tree branches, the long grass . . . none were at all moved by the wind that affected the swing. I’d not made such an error since I was fourteen. The color and texture of the ropes were off here and there, as well, and the closed gate lacked the assurance my hand would have brought to it.
When I touched the canvas, my head near split in two. My bodily eyes recorded one version of the portrait, while my mind insisted that the inner version was the only reality. And the truth . . .
“Lord of Light!” How had I missed the significance of the country scene?
Rigaro glanced up.
“Move on,” I said. The gallery remained empty. No sign of the constable.
One of my uncles had ever insisted that to identify the person who had committed an offense, you had only to look at those who pursued offenders most vigorously. Pons’s true image, created by my bent, shimmered behind my eyes. Pons herself was unchanged, but the true image showed the gate in the wall open, a boy child in the swing, and a fair young man giving the laughing child a push. The young man was clearly an ordinary. My art had portrayed the truth of the scene, but hate had blinded me to its significance. As Pons gazed on man and boy, her eyes were not cold, but empty and sad.
Pons had proclaimed to the Registry that I should be whipped and disgraced for lying with an ordinary, and then commanded her own offense be obliterated. But would she murder to hide her crime? I didn’t believe so. The painting spoke clearly of her own punishment.
“And who is this masterly gentleman?” I said, setting anger aside for later.
I needed no answer. Pluvius stood before the grillwork doors to the Registry Archives, clutching a scroll labeled as the Writ of Balance. It was quite an ordinary pose, properly denoting his historian’s bent, but a good likeness. Every stroke was recognizably my own work, yet something teased at me. I touched the canvas and summoned the true image.
A startling difference! The painted pattern of the grillwork doors was an abstraction of knots and curves and swirls—as were the actual Archive doors. But in the true image—the image magic had created and transferred onto the page last summer—the iron strips had been wrought into the shape of a tree with five branches. Xancheira.
That Pluvius was somehow associated with the Xancheira mystery was not the surprise. He had pressed me for information about my grandsire’s last inves
tigation. At the least, he suspected what the stola had revealed.
But there was another difference. Pluvius’s right hand held the scroll. His left was scarce visible in the convoluted folds of his full sleeve. The glaring dissonance of the enchantment drew me to his left. The true image showed the hand hidden in the sleeve grotesquely withered. That I would repair such an error was reasonable, but it was inconceivable that I—drawing on the power of my magic—could have made it in the first place.
The image inside me was truth. I felt it. I believed it. And I had altered it. Why, in the name of all holies, could I not remember doing so? Unless . . . those times in the cellar . . . the dream shadows forcing me to draw and paint . . .
My mind revolted. This had surely been changed by someone else. I reached for magic.
Stunned, I watched a corner of Pluvius’s robe darken at my touch. No alien hand had broken my connection to the portrait. Should I choose, I could revert it to the truth.
“The next, domé?”
“Yes, yes, move on.”
Three more portraits. It was all I could do to control my shaking. Which was more terrifying? That someone could force a sorcerer to work magic without his consent—contravening a precept as old as Aurellian bloodlines? Or, assuming I had consented, that someone could so effectively obscure my memory of doing so? What else could I not remember from those days in the cellar?
“Boy! Are you my messeng—?”
A bony, gangle-limbed man, standing in the stair arch, bit off his question at the sight of me. His worn cape of unadorned black wool scarce reached his knees. It was not the cloak of a pureblood and was certainly not the cloak of anyone who should be staring boldly at two purebloods in the heart of the Registry. Yet I’d seen the same man here before, in the Curators’ Chamber on the day I was judged to be of aberrant mind. Just as I’d seen him when his long pale hands, ringed in plain copper bands, had dragged me from the fire that burned my house and killed my servants.
“Drop your eyes, ordinary!” I snapped, as I commanded my feet not to run and rage not to burst through my flesh. Copper rings . . . I’d seen flashes of copper in Pleury’s death vision. And this man had worn Harrower orange on the night of the fire. “Tell me your business here or I’ll have the guards gift you a flogging you’ll never forget.”
