The Queen of Lies

by Michael J. Bode

  Over the next fortnight of observation, Scholar Dumand exhibited a shocking transformation. Piebald and graying at the temples, with a midsection typical of a Scholar who did not engage in strenuous exercise, he began to regrow hair and slim at a startling rate. By the fourth day, he had recaptured both the figure and appearance of his younger days, when his profession had been that of a sellsword. By the eighth day, he was a young man in peak physical condition.

  Had the process stopped there, Lester Dumand would have made the discovery of the ages. Who among us doddering old magi would not wish to spend our extra centuries in the prime of our respective youths? But Scholar Dumand’s trajectory continued backward toward infancy. He retained his faculties through his teenage body, but as he reentered childhood, his mind lost the capacity for higher reason.

  As he degenerated into infancy, his lungs could not support him, and he perished from asphyxiation on the thirteenth day.

  —ENTRY IN THE UNABRIDGED CODEX HAMARTIA FOR LESTER DUMAND

  DESPITE ITS NAME, the Mage’s Flask wasn’t frequented by anyone respectable and certainly not by anyone from the Lyceum. Even prostitutes were a rarity. Sawdust covered the creaking floor and its many probable bloodstains. The crudely hewn stools wobbled no matter which way you turned them.

  Maddox pounded a glass of firebrandy. It had been two days. He hadn’t shaved or changed his clothes, which reeked of alcohol and sweat.

  The bartender, and possibly owner of the establishment, Cassie, was a plump black woman with a perpetually stoic expression. Despite her size she was surprisingly quick and could clear the counter faster than you’d think possible to beat the shit out of customers who tried to sneak out on their tabs. She polished what was probably the only clean glass in the bar.

  The good news for Maddox was that one way or another he was going to make history. When you mistranscribed the Seal of Vitae, you got your own chapter in the accounts of the magi and an entry in the Codex Hamartia. His name would be a cautionary tale for ambitious young Scholars for centuries to come. People may not have remembered the name of the dean of the Academy when Lester Dumand had inverted the third inner curvatures across the median lineation of his seal, but everyone knew Lester’s story.

  “Hit me with another one, Cassie,” Maddox called from his usual seat.

  She sighed as if she’d been asked to shoulder the weight of the world as she brought a bottle over and filled Maddox’s glass. “Your dad came in here a few nights ago,” she said.

  “And?”

  “He ran out on his bar tab.” She raised her eyebrows, clearly expecting Maddox to pay.

  “It was your mistake for serving him.” Maddox raised his glass. “He’d only come into this shit hole if every other place had thrown him out.”

  “In Bamor a son repays his father’s debt,” Cassie said as she poured him another shot. She went back to polishing her glass. She knew better than to push it. Having an actual mage frequent the establishment was handy, and no one could break up a fight or toss someone out like Maddox.

  His dreary ruminations returned. The best-case scenario would be if his seal killed him in his sleep. His promising career—and all the hard work he had poured into it—had been irrevocably marred with a single impulsive stroke of his stylus. What could he possibly look forward to…a teaching position in the alchemy department? He would kill himself before that ever happened.

  He felt something on the back of his neck, something soft and hot, like breathing.

  Maddox turned slowly and nearly leapt out of his seat. A lanky, unshaven man was looming inches from the back of his neck with a shit-eating grin and blazing green eyes. Before the man could even speak, Maddox dragged him up several feet in the air by the collar of his black jerkin. The man’s arms clutched at the fabric, his boots kicking frantically as the power of the seal suspended him midair.

  “Riley,” Maddox said, regaining his composure. “Do not fucking do that. Ever.”

  Riley was alternating between gasping for breath and laughing his ass off. The guy was certifiably nuts—creepy but without really being scary. Maddox released Riley, and he plopped down to the floor, still gasping and chuckling. “Should’ve seen yer face. Priceless!”

  “Not a good time, Riley,” Maddox said, suppressing the desire to cause bodily injury.

  Riley’s shoulders sank. “You look bummed. T’fuck happened? I were always able to get a smile from you back in the old days.”

  Riley had developed a one-sided kinship with Maddox, a fictional narrative in which they’d been friends rather than passing acquaintances when they were in the Lyceum together. Riley’s unfortunate Amhaven accent had marked him for ridicule early on, and he washed out before he’d even chosen a specialty. Maddox, who generally regarded everyone as inferior, ignored him but never went out of his way to be cruel either. But on a bad day, he sadistically had allowed Riley to cheat off his theurgy exam. The source of Riley’s sudden brilliance was obvious to everyone and had led to Riley’s expulsion. However, in Riley’s mixed-up head, that caper had made them something like blood brothers.

  Maddox rolled his eyes. Riley was like a stupid dog—you couldn’t hate him without feeling guilty. And you could pretty much tell him anything, and he wouldn’t judge. “I tried to inscribe the Seal of Sephariel, and I fucked it up. And I bound it anyway. So I’m not really in much of a laughing mood. And you aren’t that funny.”

  “Whoa!” Riley’s eyes got huge. “You fuckin’ madman! I knew you was gonna be a big shot one day, but holy fuck! Can I see it?” Riley enthusiastically reinvaded Maddox’s personal space.

  “No!” Maddox pushed him back with his seal.

  “So they kicking you out of the school then? That’s what happens if you mess up, innit?” Riley asked, with unseemly enthusiasm.

  “I don’t fucking know!” Maddox shouted, and slammed his hand on the bar. More calmly he continued, “Turnbull wanted me gone yesterday, but Tertius is the dean. As long as he’s around, I think they’ll find something for me to do. Fuck, there’s a backlog of administrative shit, and they need someone halfway competent to do it, providing I don’t spontaneously turn into some putrifacted corpse.”

  “Fuck Turnbull and Tertius!” Riley spat on the floor, which in any other place would have been met with a reprimand from the management. Riley’s hatred of Tertius was understandable; he was the one who had ordered his expulsion, to make him an example for the other students.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Riley whispered.

  “If I say no, are you going to tell me anyway?”

  Riley sat himself next to Maddox and rolled up his sleeve. He had pale, veiny arms, and some of the veins had turned black, which could have come from impurities common to any number of illicit substances. “I been practicin’ a little meself…Got us a school of sorts even. I made this a few nights ago when I was right fucked on dragonfire.”

  Maddox recoiled slightly as Riley revealed a mark on his arm.

  It wasn’t even an attempt at one of the thirteen seals. It was drawn inside a triangle. The lines squiggled like worms, some of them falling outside the edges. The intersects were all wrong as well. The geometry was utter nonsense—and it seemed to be moving. “What…the…fuck?”

  “You know there’re mages who say there was more than thirteen seals. Before the Long Night.”

  “That’s…kind of a seal, Riley.” Maddox winced. “What does it do?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. But it ain’t killed me yet. My point is there’s all kinds of knowledge outside what those old buggers teach in that stupid school. They spend all those years fillin’ your head with rituals and rules so you don’t know what’s actually real anymore. The seals ain’t there to bind the Guides—they’re there to bind you.”

  “That’s deep, Riley.” Maddox remembered that he had a drink and downed it.

  Maddox looked away from Riley’s “seal.” To inscribe something without knowing what it was required a specific type of stup
idity. The seals were specific to the Guides themselves, so how that nonsense even had been bound in the first place made no sense. On the other hand, Riley seemed like his normal self, which was by no means a good thing, but not any worse than usual.

  “Hey.” Riley perked up suddenly. “You should come hang out wit us. I’ve got meself a study group of sorts. Nontraditional students and the like. We could really use someone like you—you’re the smartest guy I know, in fact.”

  “As much as I love an intellectual challenge, I’m going to have to pass on explaining the Principia Magica to a bunch of downriver hedge wizards.” Maddox tapped the rim of his shot glass to get Cassie’s attention.

  “Yeah, well…” Riley looked down. “I understand—you probably don’t need nobody to teach you nothin’. You was always smart like that. But if you change your mind or just want to say hello, we’re squatting in a brown two-story at the end of Langley Pier. You can’t miss it. There’s big red writs of condemnation on the door.”

  Maddox waited for Cassie to pour his shot; her urgency fell somewhere between slow and geological. “Maybe I will,” he said, immediately regretting it.

  “Yes!” Riley beamed as he pumped his fists. “You’ll be my guest of honor, you will. And we’ve got a bedroom set up that’s real nice. Homey like.”

  Maddox paused uncomfortably, unsure if that was an invitation or just some random thing that popped into Riley’s drug-addled brain. “I don’t need to see your bedroom, Riley.”

  Riley stood and brushed his wrinkled jacket. “Well. Gotta be going. I’ve a bit of business to attend to.”

  Maddox raised his eyebrow. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yeah.” He smiled at Cassie and slapped five ducats on the table. “Me boy here—drinks, whatever he wants…on us.” He raised his arms triumphantly and bounded out the front onto the boardwalk outside.

  “I’ve never seen that boy put his own money on my counter.” Cassie walked over to collect the ducats. “You want some of the good shit or the cheap shit so you can pass out on my floor?”

  Maddox pondered the question for a second. “Cheap shit.”

  Cassie thunked a bottle in front of him. “Saves me a trip.”

  SIX

  A Suitable Arrangement

  JESSA

  THRYCEA IS A nation of slaves, yet the Stormlords are masters of deception, and the shackles are subtle. It is true that no one goes hungry in Thrycea; salt-rations are in every public forum open for the taking. Indigence is illegal; one sees many slaves on the streets of Thelassus, but there are no beggars. Those too sick to work are made whole by the ministrations of the Blood Priests and sent back to work.

  Certainly corruption and abuse are rampant (as they are here and elsewhere), but the Stormlords have a dictum, “Might makes right.” If a lord fails to keep his thralls complacent and obedient, he is perceived as weak and replaced by a rival. Only the strongest and smartest survive long enough to hold their positions.

  Barring the miraculous ascension of a compassionate Stormlord to the Coral Throne, it is difficult to see such a system ever changing. Not so for our experiment in democracy. With each generation the will of the Assembly drifts further from the will of the people and the lofty ideals of freedom and welfare for its constituents. I see how readily people are willing to trade their independence for personal security, as if freedom were merely one means to an end.

  It is not with admiration that I describe the workings of our enemy, but resignation and disappointment. It is my hope that democracy will reign eternal, but if we are to see our nations suborned once again to the interests of powerful men, we could do worse than follow our enemy’s example.

  —A TREATISE ON COMPARATIVE POLITICS, BY DORIAN BRAND, WRITTEN IN THE HUNDREDTH YEAR OF THE PROTECTORATE’S FOUNDING BUT STILL WIDELY READ

  JESSA AND SATRYN walked down the circular wooden staircase to the marble foyer of Silverbrook Manor. The curving banister was a single piece of Maenmarth timber polished to a glassy finish.

  Bronze automatons, like men in polished armor, moved about the foyer, tirelessly cleaning the floors and dusting the furniture. Jessa couldn’t begin to hazard how much each of those must have cost as she made her way to the sitting room through the foyer’s eastern set of double doors. The doors parted automatically, triggered by a pressure plate.

  Countess Muriel was an aficionado of clocks. Different mechanical timepieces, in various states of working order, sat in alcoves and adorned the walls. Jessa read that the old nobility of Rivern displayed wealth by craftsmanship and quality rather than art and precious substances.

  Countess Muriel Silverbrook was an elderly but sprightly woman in her seventies. She wore a bold green dress with a hard leather corset like one might wear on a hunt. One hand rested on the armrest of her chair, absently fingering what looked to be a large air-compression crossbow that leaned against it.

  Behind her, two men in black cloaks floated by the wall of books. Invocari. Jessa could see only their pale hands, folded in front of them. They appeared every bit as menacing as people said. The shadowy enforcers were a feature of Rivern that visitors tended to like the least. Mother had dismissed them entirely, which only made Jessa more uneasy.

  “Your Majesty,” Muriel said with a hint of sarcasm. She did not rise.

  “Muriel,” Satryn cooed as she took a seat on a plush couch opposite the countess. “You’re looking well.”

  Muriel made a dismissive wave. “Try not to sound so disappointed.”

  Satryn laughed. “I’m learning that the stories of your wit weren’t an exaggeration.”

  “And you, Satryn, are…much as I imagined.” The countess moved her gaze from Satryn to Jessa. “Please dear, have a seat. You’re making the Invocari twitchy. And your lip appears to be bleeding. Let me call for the healer.” She reached for a tiny bell on the side table.

  “Please don’t waste the Light on my expense. I bit too hard trying to loosen the clasp of a necklace.” Jessa chose a chair off to the side and sat primly, her hands folded.

  “Before we begin,” Muriel said, “can I offer you any refreshment? A Lowland clover tea perhaps?”

  “Do you have anything stronger?” Satryn leaned back, crossing her leg and luxuriously draping her arm over the back of the couch. Jessa half expected her to prop her boots on the mahogany table, but thankfully she abstained.

  “I suppose it’s late enough in the morning.” Muriel nodded knowingly and produced a flask from a concealed pouch in her dress. She poured a generous two fingers of brown liquid into her own glass before passing it to Satryn.

  Jessa watched for Muriel’s reaction when Satryn drank directly from the flask. Long ago the Stormlords had been corsairs, and when they had taken rulership of Thelassus, they imposed many of their uncouth behaviors as etiquette for the ruling class. The older woman gave no indication that she was fazed by it.

  “Now that we’ve survived the pleasantries,” Muriel declared, “I was hoping we might discuss the occasion for this royal visit to my humble estate.”

  “Indeed.” Satryn looked around the library and turned over one of the pillows next to her before addressing Muriel. “So where is he hiding?”

  Muriel smiled. “Torin is at the Lyceum on some important business. Apparently another student is attempting something very dangerous or some such and his attendance is mandatory.”

  “Another student?” Satryn mused archly. Jessa could tell by her mother’s tone that she was less than pleased.

  Muriel said, “My grandnephew is a student of glyphology in his third year. He’s of good pedigree, close enough to Jessa in age, and amenable to the possibility of the arrangement. You see, his parents squandered their fortune in a series of poorly timed business endeavors. They need the prestige as much as they need the money.”

  “Which other prospects have you considered? Perhaps there’s a highborn bastard working in your stables who would be able to attend this meeting on short notice,” Satryn scoffed. “
I come on behalf of the empress to negotiate a peace between the Protectorate of the Free Cities and the Thrycean Dominance, and you offer me…a student with a poor family?”

  “Really?” Muriel sipped her drink. “Many in the Assembly are of the impression that you’re here because you were deposed. It wouldn’t be the first time Amhaven has driven out the Dominance.”

  “A momentary inconvenience,” Satryn explained. “Jessa’s claim is rightful. Out of respect for our sovereignty, I’ve asked my mother to abstain from intervention, something Rothburn’s supporters in the Assembly haven’t done. Amhaven needs a king who can shut down this nonsense. I doubt a student of glyphology possesses the necessary political capital to secure a bloodless succession.”

  Muriel let out a loud uncomfortable sigh then gently began. “Satryn, dear, there’s no delicate way to put this, so I’ll simply say it. There are no other prospects. Of the eligible gentry, few would have an interest in giving up a life in Rivern for the…rustic simplicity of Amhaven. Then there’s the unfortunate history of nobles who have married into the imperial family and met untimely ends. People still talk about Renax.”

  “With the signature of this peace treaty, Amhaven will be a new center of trade. Thrycean trade guilds will flood the rivers with goods from the Mazatar and the Gold Coast, not to mention timber from Maenmarth,” Satryn declared. “Surely someone more pragmatic must realize the benefit to this arrangement. Lord Hale, for instance, has experience in the lumber trade. Have you considered him?”

  “Hale is confirmed bachelor.” Muriel waved her hand limply to dispel the idea from the air. “And while I’m impressed by your due diligence, I’ll assure you that I’ve researched this exhaustively. Those who would seek the prestige of Jessa’s title are too lowborn. Those who would profit by it are too prudent. But I’m sure we can round up some greedy merchants from the Assembly or bastard stableboys, if that’s what you’d prefer.”