by Glen Cook
“I’m pleased to hear that.”
“He could get me fired if he wanted. Who’d stand up for me? If he wanted Pinkus’s job, though, three of the Five Families would get in the way as a matter of political principle.”
“So. What will you share with me that you didn’t let Doneto have?”
Hecht glanced around. “Where’s Armand? I don’t like telling you things in front of him. He makes me uncomfortable.”
That irked the old man. “He’s a boy, Piper. He cares about nothing but clothing and baubles.”
“Even so, despite all, he makes me uncomfortable. I don’t apologize for that.” He would not tell the old man that his toy was an agent for both the Grail Emperor and Gordimer the Lion.
Delari did something that seemed trivial, said, “Go ahead. No one will hear what you say but me. If you like, I can add a veil to make it impossible for someone to read your lips.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Hecht told his guardian angel the whole story. Including his suspicions about Sonsa.
The old man said, “That bothers me. The Brotherhood giving up their inflexible rectitude. That’s the problem with the Special Office. They want to conquer the darkness by drowning it with darkness.”
Hecht did not raise the question of the elderly Principatè’s own devotion to powers drawn from the Night.
Delari went on. “I’m equally troubled by the monster on the West Road. Might it be a bogon? Possibly the one you ran into crossing the Ownvidian Knot?”
“I never was close enough to get a feel for it. Principatè Doneto would be the man to ask. He handled the thing in the Knot.”
Principatè Delari shrugged. “I doubt he’d cooperate. His cousin won’t let him.”
When Hecht did not comment, Delari added, “Sublime really believes most people are cattle put on earth to enrich the Church. And the rest of us are here to help make Honario Benedocto’s dreams and schemes come to pass.”
Then he said, “He’s decided not to punish Duke fon Dreasser. Not right now. You haring off gave time for cooler heads to prevail. So to speak.”
“Oh?”
“There was time for word of what happened in the Connec to get here. The Collegium was outraged.
Sublime did that without consulting anyone. He fell into a deep despair. He was counting on Backe and the Bishop of Strang to generate a flood of money. Instead, he’s worse off than ever. His debtors are clamoring to be paid. No one will loan him another copper. Not just because of his poor prospects but because of the bad judgment he’s shown in his efforts to acquire funds.”
“They’d have given him an old-fashioned triumph if his scheme had worked,” Hecht opined. His regard for those who facilitated the Patriarch’s lunacies was low. There was no morality among them at all.
“Probably. Success erases all moral failure and defects. However … We can expect a period of uproar and outrage when the news gets around. Maybe a riot or two. Then life will go on as it always does. You may have noticed that assumption of the Patriarchal throne endows its occupant with considerable insulation.”
“I have noticed.” Hecht chuckled. “The way donning the Imperial vestments insulated the old emperors from everyone but their own families and palace guards.”
Delari raised an eyebrow.
“No. I’m not floating a suggestion.”
“Good. I’m much more interested in that powerful Instrumentality near Alicea. And in what may be afoot in Sonsa. The Sonsans have done well, concealing their troubles from the rest of us. Give them credit for clever.”
Hecht did. The raging capitalists of the Firaldian and Direcian mercantile republics ran rings around more traditional states. They were possessed of an amazing energy.
How much more dangerous might they be were they not ones to waste resources fighting each other over markets and themselves for family supremacy inside the several republics?
Delari said, “An aside. Your man Consent’s conversion. Is it heartfelt? Or a ploy?”
“I don’t think it’s a ploy the way we Chaldareans would see it. Deves don’t suffer that much, here. Has he discovered the verities in the preachings of Aaron and the Founders? Maybe. But I think the passion driving him is his own need to escape the expectations of the Deve Elders. He just wants to be Titus Consent, one part in a machine, peerless at what he does, well rewarded for it — then able to go home to his family at night.”
“You’re friends?”
“No. But we’re around each other a lot. We talk about life. I talk with everyone. Sometimes I learn something. From him. From you. Or even from Pinkus Ghort.”
“I imagine Colonel Ghort is a fountain of low information and possibly a plebeian sort of wisdom.”
“He’s a good man to have at your back.”
If Delari harbored reservations he did not relate them. “The girl’s name. What was it?”
“Vali Dumaine.”
“There’s no important family in Firaldia with that name.”
“There is one in Arnhand. Minor nobility. The current count is in bad odor with Anne of Menand. He wouldn’t make the beast with two backs when she offered the opportunity.”
“That wouldn’t make sense. What would the Brotherhood hope to gain from a minor Arnhander?”
“Consider this, too. The girl doesn’t talk but she understands Firaldian perfectly. Vulgar and High, both.
At her age I doubt she would if she’d been kidnapped from north and west of Salpeno.”
“I’ll make inquiries. When you’re Principatè Muniero Delari of the Collegium you can ask for any damned thing you want. You get it without much question.”
“Naturally.”
“Again, I’m especially intrigued by that monster up there. Except for the thing you ran into crossing the Ownvidian Knot, there hasn’t been anything like that seen since the dawn of history. Not since Era Itutmu came over from Dreanger with his elephants and armies and crew of tame monsters.”
The Kaif of al-Minphet and those who recognized him as the Living Voice of the Founding Family discouraged interest in anything that happened before the Revelations and Conquest. Despite his decades in Dreanger Piper Hecht knew little about the priest-king general who tormented and terrified the young Old Brothen Empire for a generation. Pramans rejected the glories of their pagan ancestors.
“I won’t speculate. That’s your area of expertise.”
“So it is. Once more about the villain from Viscesment, Rudenes Schneidel.”
Hecht told it. “I think Schneidel is another enigma dragged up out of the shadows, like Starkden and Masant al-Seyhan when Calzir went crazy.”
Delari nodded. “An interesting notion. Although I have heard of Schneidel. As a rumor out of the High Athaphile, and that only recently.”
“I don’t know that geography.”
“The High Athaphile is the central mountain range on Artecipea, the big island in the Mother Sea between Firaldia and Direcia, southeast of the Connec. It’s claimed by the Patriarchy, the Empire, and Peter of Navaya by his recognition of Calzir’s claim, since much of Calzir passed to him by right of conquest.
Peter and his Plataduran allies have made inroads. Neither we nor the Emperor can do anything but bark.
We’ve got more immediate problems.”
Hecht knew little about the islands of the western half of the Mother Sea. Vaguely, he recalled having seen Artecipea on a map. “Is that a Praman realm, then?”
“The Kaif of al-Halambra reckons it part of his kaifate. But in name only. He’s occupied elsewhere, too.
Sonsa and Platadura are the leading players there. No one else cares. There isn’t much of value there.”
“Except to sorcerers, apparently.”
“True. It’s a throwback land. The pagan presence is strong. It’s been ages since anyone bothered to slaughter them so the survivors turn to the Church for salvation.”
Piper Hecht enjoyed Principatè Delari’s cynical attitude. But he made a fac
e. His own purported homeland had a long history of murdering the pagans of the Grand Marshes.
Delari ignored that. “We’ll try to dig out the connection between Rudenes Schneidel and the attacks on you.”
“Colonel Ghort plans to send a man to Viscesment.”
“Tell him to be careful. Pagan sorcerers have cruel habits.”
“I know the man he’ll send. He served with us in the Connec. He’ll treasure caution like it’s his secret name.”
“Good. See Consent. Arrange his rebirthing ceremony. We’re coming up on Heron’s Day. That evening would be perfect for it.” Heron had been a fanatic Dainshau religious monitor, fierce in his suppression of the Chaldarean sacrilege — and barely tolerant of the Devedian — before suffering a dramatic, overnight conversion. Heron credited the Apparition of the Well of Atonement for showing him the way.
The Apparitions of the Wells were critical, if minor, entities in the narrow Dainshau pantheon.
“That should do. I’ll let him know.”
Delari smiled a small smile that Hecht would not understand until later. He said, “That’s enough of that.
Come walk with me, Piper.”
Hecht thought they were headed for the baths. He did not mind, after being on the road — though he resented spending the time. Chasing adventure just left him that much farther down the unconquerable mountain of his work as a military bureaucrat.
Delari forged on through the baths and regions beyond, which Hecht had not known existed. Delari took flights of stairs downward and down, into depths known only in rumor even inside the Palace.
Brothens were sure that the Chiaro Palace sat atop catacombs that descended a mile into the earth.
They believed that all the major structures associated with the Patriarchy were connected by tunnels, including those on islands in the Teragi River, the Krois Palace and the Castella dollas Pontellas of the Brotherhood of War.
The Principatès Hecht dealt with regularly never confirmed nor denied the rumors. The Collegium savored the mystery surrounding them. Even the outright lies. They left rivals and enemies unsure.
Hecht asked no questions. If Delari meant to confuse him so he could not find his way again, he would fail. Sha-lug were trained to remember under much more distracted and stressful conditions.
“Just in through here.”
Hecht took three steps, halted, astounded. He faced an empty space as vast as the basilica where the Patriarch celebrated holy days with the Collegium and bishops. The ceiling arched eighty feet above the floor. There were no pillars other than those supporting the balcony on which Hecht stood, twenty feet above the chamber floor. Wooden catwalks crisscrossed the chamber, at the level of the balcony. The vast chamber appeared to have been carved out of limestone bedrock.
The Collegium was supposed to be a conglomeration of powerful sorcerers. Piper Hecht had seen little evidence of that, though the old men of the Church had made a small effort during the Calziran pirate incursion a few years ago. Here, though, he saw proof enough for him.
The hall was round. It was three hundred feet across. It was lighted bright as day by some witch light that made his amulet turn icy cold.
There were a dozen monks and nuns on the floor. The monks belonged to one of the orders sworn to silence. Hecht knew little about nuns.
They moved along narrow aisles between long, wide tables. Delari explained, “This is a relief map of the known world sliced into strips so the geographers can make adjustments when new information comes in.”
When Hecht moved thirty yards to his left the map came together. It had to be the most accurate map ever, at least within a thousand miles of Brothe. “This must have taken ages to put together.”
“I was a boy the first time I saw it. That was sixty-four years ago. I was apprenticed to Cloven Februaran, about to move up to probationary journeyman.” Cloven Februaran was a legendary Collegium sorcerer, renowned as a recluse. So reclusive did he become in later years that it was not commonly known when he died. If he did. He would be over a hundred twenty now.
“The Cloven Februaran?” Hecht murmured. Awed. “The Ninth Unknown?” Despite his withdrawn, secretive nature, Februaran was rumored to have stalked the worst of Brothe by night. Which might have been true. No one knew what the man looked like.
“He was called that sometimes. Because he was the ninth man chosen to manage this project. Each Unknown was handpicked by his predecessor. Each kept his role secret. Well, mostly. I haven’t done that well. You could call me the Eleventh Unknown. I may be the last. I haven’t found a worthy successor. Grade would have done. But neither Clemency nor Concordia were interested in adding another apolitical member to the Collegium. And Sublime is beyond hope.”
Muniero Delari felt unappreciated amongst his own kind. He continued. “New Principals include fewer and fewer scholars. They’re either political animals or cretins who buy their robes. Or both. None of this will matter after I go, anyway. Probably. The end of the world won’t dally once I do.”
Hecht admitted, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Or what’s going on down there.”
“It’s a map of the world. Ever less exact as you stray farther from Brothe. Our priests, legates, and missionaries send news of changes in their areas. Those people down there translate the reports into physical representations. So we track what’s happening in the physical world.”
“Which would be?”
“What everyone is talking about, now. What the First Unknown suspected when he started the project two hundred years ago. The world is turning colder. The wells of power are drying up. Even the Wells of Ihrian have slowed. Sea levels are falling. The ice is advancing. Both of those are happening fast.
“In my lifetime the Mother Sea has fallen nine feet. It’s fallen thirteen since the project began. Beyond Hypraxium and the Antal Land Bridges the Negrine has fallen even more. The inland seas farther east are shrinking, too. While ice piles up in the mountains beyond.” Delari pointed as he spoke.
“A thousand years ago the Old Brothen Empire had a hundred thousand slaves permanently raising and reinforcing the Escarp Gibr al-Tar because the storms on Ocean were throwing up waves that topped it sometimes and threatened a breakthrough. Imagine the disaster that would be.”
The surface of the Mother Sea lay hundreds of feet below that of Ocean. If Ocean broke the Escarp thousands of cities and towns, with millions of people and countless acres of farmland, vineyards, and orchards, would be obliterated. And the water would, no doubt, then overtop the Antal Land Bridges and flood the Negrine basin, too. And the surface level of the Negrine lay a hundred feet below that of the Mother Sea.
It would be the end of civilization.
Delari shrugged. “They succeeded. So now, instead of drowning, civilization appears destined to freeze.
Come.”
The old man shuffled onto the nearest catwalk. From overhead the layout looked more like a map.
Except that it was three-dimensional. Delari said, “The vertical dimension is exaggerated. Otherwise, the contrast wouldn’t be obvious.”
“This is all hugely impressive, sir, but I don’t see the point.”
“Planning was the point, originally. So our people could survive. If we had forward-looking leaders able to see the true long term.”
The progression of change was not obvious to Hecht. The despair harrying the edges of the world required no trained eye, however. The entire north, down to the Shallow Sea, was buried under ice. The Shallow Sea itself showed only scattered pools of open water, suggesting leaks of power from the underwater wells common there and in the Andorayan Sea. The Ormo Strait, despite vicious tidal bores, had become an icy bridge. Elsewhere, wherever there were mountains, there were permanent accumulations of snow. Areas exposed by the dropping sea levels were a sickly gray in color. Some, along the northwest coast, were extensive.
Delari said, “Overall, they’re way behind reports. This represents the situation at the en
d of last winter.”
“Planning, you say?”
“The advancing ice is pushing whole peoples ahead of it. The ice might explain Tsistimed the Golden and the Hu’n-tai At. When their grasslands could no longer support their herds they had to move somewhere else.”
“So you’re trying to predict where problems will pop up in time to do something useful.”
“Yes. Though there doesn’t seem to be much point to the project, now. Sublime isn’t interested in anything but his own delusions. He’ll still be ranting about crusades when the ice comes over the city wall.”
“It can’t happen that fast, can it?”
“No. It won’t get here for generations. Which is good, Sublime being mortal. My hopes aren’t high, though. My predecessors couldn’t interest the Patriarchs much, either.”
“Some of that isn’t natural. Are they markers of some kind?”
“Yes. Supernatural phenomena are part of the landscape. So are power leaks. And anything else somebody wanted to track.”
Hecht looked south of the Mother Sea, at the Realm of Peace. The Praman Conquest. The Principal’s project had not gotten perfect reports out of the Praman world. But the details were better than anyone over there would like.
Changes were smaller there. So far. There were no fields of ice or snow. But the deserts were shrinking because of increased rainfalls.
“Enough for now,” Delari said. “I just wanted you to know this resource is here.”
Hecht knew he had missed something important to the old man. To do with the map? With the Night? Or had he hoped to find Hecht armed with some talent he was unaware of himself?
“We’ll revisit later. You must be behind in your work.”
The Principatè took a stairwell directly to his own apartment. And made the climb without killing himself.
Hecht headed for the Castella dollas Pontellas. Principal Delari still looked mildly disappointed.
***
ANNA BROUGHT THE CHILDREN TO TlTUS CONSENT’S conversion ceremony. Over Hecht’s objections. Pella might behave like the street creature he was. Vali would irritate people by not responding when they told her how pretty she was.
