by Ian Irvine
Why dinner? Why now? What was going on?
The servants’ bathing chamber, which he normally used, was plain but clean. Why was it unacceptable? He went up to the top level. The hall was wide and the ceiling high, with extravagant cornices made from carved pale-yellow soapstone. Ifoli’s bathing chamber, small but elegantly finished, was clad in venous golden travertine. It smelled faintly of her musky perfume.
Llian felt a trifle abashed at bathing in her personal tub, but as she had said, she was as much part of Snoat’s collection as Llian was.
For how long?
And how long for her? Would Snoat replace her the moment her looks began to fade, or when he found someone whose beauty and self-control were more perfect? Of course he would, but what would he do with her?
I’d sooner burn this place to the ground, and everything in my collection, than allow anyone else to have the least part of it.
Was her fate to be disposed of the moment her perfection faded? It had to be, and Ifoli must know it. So what held her here? Or was she as much a prisoner as he was?
The water was beginning to cool. He ran more hot in – a luxury he had not enjoyed in ages. The complicated hot-water plumbing at Gothryme had failed last year, and Karan could not afford to repair it, since that would have involved demolishing and rebuilding several walls.
How did Ifoli cope? Did she cling to the illusion that her master would take her for his partner? If she did, she was gravely mistaken, for Snoat was a narcissist to the core and cared about nothing except himself. Status and appearance being everything to him, any consort who fell short of perfection would diminish him, and must be replaced.
Finally, when his fingers and toes were prune-like, he drained the tub, scrubbed it clean, wrapped a towel around himself and returned to his room. It was after eight, and a young man, almost as handsome as Ifoli was beautiful, was anxiously waiting to cut his hair.
Llian did not ask his name and the young man did not volunteer it. He trimmed Llian’s hair, shaved his stubble, cleaned up and went out without a word. Immediately a short man and a tall woman entered, each carrying a leather bag.
The woman provided Llian with underwear, a cream linen shirt, black knee britches and a red silk coat, and inspected each garment after he put it on. The shirt proved slightly too small across the shoulders. She took the seams apart and restitched them, her needle moving faster than Llian’s eye could follow.
The old-fashioned buckled shoes, made from olive-grey chacalot hide, weren’t quite wide enough for Llian’s feet. The short man, with the skilful use of a stretcher, had them fitting perfectly within minutes. They went out. Llian sat on the bed but got up again. There were knots in his stomach. Was this going to be his last meal? Did Snoat require everything to be perfect because he intended to dispose of Llian afterwards?
Someone knocked on his door five minutes before the hour of nine. It was the tall redhead who had taken Ifoli’s place while she was working on the drawings.
“It is time,” she said. She inspected Llian, straightened his collar and removed a thread from his left sleeve.
“What’s this dinner all about?” said Llian.
“It’s about Cumulus.”
“Everything is about him,” Llian muttered.
The redhead, whose name he did not know, looked him in the eye, and for a second Llian thought she was going to reveal something. Then she said, “Yes, everything is. Come.”
He followed her out. Thandiwe was waiting outside her own door. She wore silver-grey silk satin, a calf-length gown that clung to her figure but did not shout about it.
“You too?” said Llian.
She nodded stiffly. Her fears surely ran on the same track as Llian’s. The redhead went ahead.
“Take my arm,” whispered Thandiwe. “We’re in this together.”
Llian did so reluctantly; he could only imagine Karan’s reaction to this scene. Where was she now? Was Snoat still hunting her? And Sulien? Had she come to terms with the Whelm, or did she live in terror of them every hour of the day? They were hard, cold slave-drivers who were incapable of kindness. He could not bear to imagine her suffering.
A longcase clock struck nine as the redhead reached the double doors of the gallery. She pushed them open and announced, “Llian, teller of the Tale of the Mirror, with Thandiwe Moorn.”
Thandiwe stiffened; the announcement had made her no more than Llian’s partner. It was not a good start.
They went through and the redhead pulled the doors closed behind them.
The gallery might have been eighty feet by forty, though the ends lay in shadow and all he could make out were a number of widely separated display cases. Directly ahead stood a rosewood table lit by lamplight. It was not a long table, only eight feet by four. Presumably Snoat wanted the dinner to be intimate.
The gallery was above the library, which could be seen through an oval opening in the floor. A broad staircase curved down to the reading room, though it too was unlit.
Above them a square skylight had been opened, for it was a mild evening. There was no moon, but the stars were diamonds scattered on black velvet and a scented breeze wafted in from the perfumed roof garden.
Snoat appeared out of the darkness with Ifoli on his arm. He bowed, then went to one end of the table and Ifoli to the other. He was immaculate in blue and not a hair was out of place; Ifoli was dressed in pale yellow satin, a simple sheath. The table was set with silver and glassware that looked brand new. It might have been designed and made solely for this dinner.
Snoat greeted Thandiwe and Llian as if he were the perfect host and they were honoured guests. He ushered them to their chairs, drew them out and pushed them back in as they sat down. He bowed to Ifoli, who sat, then took his own chair. He looked as if he had gained his heart’s desire. Was that good – or very bad?
A servant came, a bald old fellow with an upright military bearing. He poured green wine into four tall glasses and withdrew. Snoat took up a black baton, pointed it at the lamps, and their light faded until only the glowing wicks could be seen. He raised his glass.
“To the most perfect and vital books ever created on Santhenar,” he said. “To the Great Tales.”
Llian almost choked. So that’s what this was about. But, mindful that he was utterly in Snoat’s power, he put on a teller’s smile and echoed, “To the Great Tales.”
“To the Great Tales,” said Thandiwe, her voice hoarse with longing.
The lust for a Great Tale burned more strongly in her than in anyone Llian had ever known, save himself. What would she not do to get one?
Snoat gave a little flick of the baton, over his shoulder. In the ceiling four long narrow cylinders emitted a golden radiance from their downward-pointing ends. Some kind of lightglass, Llian assumed. The light grew until it illuminated a second table, on which, artlessly arranged, was a series of old, battered books, and one new one which Llian knew instantly, for it was his own.
“The original manuscripts of all twenty-three Great Tales,” said Snoat. “And now they are mine.”
“The perfect collection,” said Ifoli without a trace of irony.
Llian’s fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles throbbed. The stinking mongrel bastard! How dare he flaunt his stolen goods as if he had earned them, deserved them? For all Snoat’s airs, for all his pretence to be a man of culture and discernment, he was nothing but a thief and a murderer. Llian felt an urge to leap onto the table, trample the silverware and smash the glasses, then kick Snoat’s perfect teeth down his throat. He wished the drumming would sound, to give him the excuse.
Thandiwe gave a tiny shake of her head. Pull yourself together. He has the power of life or death over us.
Snoat’s lips twitched. He knew what Llian was thinking, and he was loving it. Llian’s impotent fury was part of the joy of the occasion, another proof of Snoat’s own supreme power and importance.
Llian drained his glass, not tasting the surpassingly good wine until t
he last drop. He felt another overpowering urge – to get drunk, make a boor of himself and spoil Snoat’s perfect dinner. Though that might also be part of the plan – to contrast his own calm and measured character with the behaviour of the people who surrounded him.
Llian wasn’t going to give Snoat the satisfaction.
The aged servant removed the glasses and brought others, and a different wine. It was lemon-yellow, full of tiny rising bubbles and refreshing in a tongue-tingling way. Small courses came one after another, each matched with the perfect wine. It was one of the most memorable meals of Llian’s life, possibly even shading the time old Nadiril had interrogated him at a dinner in Thurkad that had taken all night and until lunchtime of the following day.
Snoat began as the perfect host – charming, considerate, attentive to his guests’ every need – but as the evening wore on he became increasingly distracted by the table containing the twenty-three Great Tales. His glances at it became longer, more frequent and more longing.
Then, when Llian at Snoat’s request was telling a brief tale about the long-disappeared race who had constructed the levels below the Aachim city of Shazmak, he rose abruptly and went to the other table.
Turning one’s back on a teller in mid-tale was so rude that it was beyond Llian’s experience, but he was nothing if not a professional and carried on with barely a pause. Thandiwe did not react apart from a narrowing of the eyes and a thinning of the lips. However, Ifoli, who was listening raptly, let out an audible gasp. She was shocked. No, she was furious!
Llian allowed the tale to reel off in his mind, and continued to tell it, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Why, when she knew everything about Snoat’s life of villainy, had this small discourtesy so shocked Ifoli? Compared to stealing the twenty-three Great Tales, it did not rate.
He puzzled away at the question. Where had Snoat found her? She was highly educated and clearly had an appreciation of tales great and minor. But why this reaction to Snoat insulting a teller?
Telling must mean a great deal to her.
Snoat returned to the table. Llian finished his tale, and the next course was carried in. But soon Snoat was up again, drawing on gloves and opening one manuscript, then another, caressing the cracked leather, and once, Llian was astonished to see, wiping a tear from his eye. He sat down again and had just taken up his fork when Thandiwe tossed her bombshell.
“What are you going to do now, Cumulus?”
The fork halted, halfway to his mouth. “I don’t follow you.”
“The Great Tales are the perfect collection. Only twenty-three have ever been written, they’re the most important creative and historical works on Santhenar, and you have the original manuscripts of all of them. It’s a collection that can never be topped.”
“Yes?” said Snoat, frowning.
“Surely it must make everything else you’ve collected a bit… second-rate?”
“There can be perfect collections of all kinds of things,” he said with a hint of brusqueness.
“I don’t see how. Take emeralds for instance. You have the best known collection but it can never be perfect.”
“Why the hell not?” Snoat’s manicured accent was slipping, revealing… what? A man of low birth who had painstakingly erased his old self?
“A new and better emerald could be found at any time,” said Thandiwe, “or even a new mine full of them, and a better source of emeralds could render your collection ordinary overnight. The same applies to everything else you collect. Whether it’s from nature or from the work of some great artisan, it can always be surpassed. Rendered second-rate. Even made valueless. Only the Great Tales endure, though…”
She trailed off and attacked the delicacies on her plate with gusto. Ifoli was staring at her in astonishment tinged with fear. Llian smiled; he knew what Thandiwe was up to.
“But?” said Snoat when she did not go on. He was showing definite signs of agitation now. “Get on with it!”
“Ah,” said Thandiwe. “I had a second point, didn’t I?” She pretended to consider it while she chewed.
Snoat seethed. Llian tucked in, finally enjoying the beautiful food and the magnificent wine. This might go badly wrong but he was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
“Twenty-three,” Thandiwe said ruminatively. “It’s an ugly number.”
“I don’t see why,” said Snoat.
“Twenty-four, on the other hand, is a remarkable number with many attractive properties. If you had twenty-four Great Tales it’d really be something to boast about.”
“There aren’t twenty-four.”
“There could be, if you allowed me to complete Mendark’s Tale. His was a great life; it would certainly make a Great Tale.”
“It could make a Great Tale,” said Snoat, “but that requires the acclamation of the masters of the College of the Histories.”
“If you sponsored the tale…”
“Any Great Tale acclaimed by corruption would be valueless to me,” he said coldly. “Besides, a Great Tale has to have a great ending. The end to Mendark’s life was unsatisfactory.”
“Who’s to say the tale has ended?” said Thandiwe. “You’re continuing the greatest work of his life, and if it can be completed you’ll change the world. That would be a most satisfactory ending.” She paused, then added softly, “And you would be one of the towering figures in the Histories.”
Though Llian had given Thandiwe the idea in the first place, he had to admire how she had spun it. It was the dream of everyone on Santhenar to be in the Histories, and even more so to be in a Great Tale. A narcissist like Snoat could not be immune to this desire; on the contrary, it could become his most profound motivation.
“You’re a collector to your bones,” she said. “You can’t stop now – you have to make your perfect collection more perfect.”
“Do you think I don’t know what you’re up to?” Snoat grated. The ugly accent was stronger now.
“It benefits us both,” said Thandiwe.
“Yes, it does,” he mused. “There’s more to you than I thought. What do you say, Ifoli? Has Thandiwe saved herself?”
“She has a rare gift,” Ifoli said ambiguously.
“I believe she’ll do after all.”
“Cumulus?” said Ifoli.
He chuckled. “I don’t need two tellers, do I?”
Ifoli’s gaze flicked from Snoat to Llian, and again he saw that she was shocked.
“But Llian wrote, and illuminated, the twenty-third Great Tale,” said Ifoli. “Of all the manuscripts, it’s the most beautiful and the most perfect.”
“And all the more valuable if he’s not around to make another copy,” said Snoat. He poured himself a small goblet of brandy without offering any to anyone else and sniffed it appreciatively.
“Or ever tell the exquisite tale again… after he does my private telling.”
51
WHO WAS MENDARK, ANYWAY?
Two agonising days had passed for Llian, and two sleepless nights, and he had never seen Snoat more cheerful. Only one thing could bring him more pleasure than obtaining an exquisite new piece for his collection, and that was planning the destruction of a treasure he no longer found good enough – to make sure no one else could have it.
Thandiwe was now the Chosen One, the teller with an almost certain Great Tale. Despite what Snoat had said, Llian knew it would be voted a Great Tale. The current masters knew which side their loaf was buttered on, and who did the buttering.
And Llian was the Doomed One. The man whose life would be measured in minutes after he completed Snoat’s private telling. Whenever that would be.
His only distraction was his quest, fruitless though it seemed. Where had the summon stone come from, and where was it now? Had Mendark known? Llian could not recall him ever mentioning it.
Where had Mendark come from, for that matter? He had risen to power towards the end of the ruinous era known as the Clysm, when Santhenar had been devastated by a series of wars bet
ween Charon and Aachim lasting for almost five hundred years. Mendark had been elected Magister of the Council of Santhenar at the unheard-of age of twenty-three, thirty years younger than any Magister before him, and there had been rumours that he’d had unholy aid.
Though Llian had known Mendark since the age of twelve, had travelled halfway across the world with him, owed his career to Mendark and at times had thought of him as a friend, he knew nothing about his early life. He had been a secretive man. A mercurial man too, and his cold rages were legendary. After Mendark set fire to his own library while Llian was trapped in it, he had spent most of the past decade hating the Magister. But had he unwittingly been led astray by the Merdrun? And if he had, did it change anything? Llian would reserve judgement on that.
He was trudging back to his room after another fruitless day when Snoat turned the corner, and he was cock-a-hoop.
“Llian!” he said cheerily. “Come and see what I’ve added to my collection.”
“Another stolen treasure?” Llian said sourly.
“This one walked in through the front door. Well, to be precise, the side window.”
“A book walked?”
“Who said anything about a book? Come!”
Llian followed him into the other wing of the villa. Snoat entered a guarded room that smelled of ointment, passed between a series of screens and there, lying in a bed with her dark skin covered in bandages and bruises, was Tallia. Llian reeled. It was a catastrophe.
Snoat chuckled. “What a prize!”
“How…” said Llian.
“I dare say she’ll tell you all about it.”
“You’re leaving us to talk?”
“I’ve made sure she can work no mancery. And I know you to be singularly inept.” Snoat went out.
Llian carried a chair across to the bed and sat beside it. Tallia had two black eyes, so swollen that she could barely open them.
“Tallia,” he said softly. “It’s me, Llian.”
One eye opened to a slit. The other quivered but remained closed. She raised her left hand, winced and let it flop down again. Her wrist was encircled by a metal band mounted with a pink amethyst and fine silver wires wound around it in five places. Llian recognised Unick’s work: ugly, but presumably effective at preventing her using the Secret Art.
