The Queen of Lies

by Michael J. Bode

  Maddox yanked at the door with his mind. It rattled as he and Turnbull wrestled with it. For a Master of Five Seals, the giant baby didn’t have much muscle behind his magic. The door burst open.

  “Might want to get that door looked at,” Maddox said. “It sticks a little.”

  “Go with Ohan, Maddox Baeland,” Turnbull called after him, as he stomped down the hallway.

  Three Invocari hovered by the door and followed him like a flock of dark angels. More appeared from alcoves on either side, joining their brethren in formation as he marched off the premises into the afternoon light of Rivern.

  He took one last look at the Lyceum. On the marble steps, ten or twelve black-cloaked figures formed a phalanx in front of the door. His eyes looked to the dome over the drawing room and the seals inscribed over the walls. The sun had just passed behind the observation tower, leaving him in a long shadow. “Fuck it,” he muttered, as he ripped off his gold medallion with its lone seal and chucked it at the steps.

  As Maddox made his way through town, he noticed many stores were closed, and the markets were empty save for a few vegetable stands and silk-wrapped Turisian women peddling protective trinkets. People looked exhausted as they trudged down the pavement. Hand-painted signs advertised evening hours; people were starting to sleep during the day to avoid the nocturnal death.

  A harrowing happened once a decade at most in Rivern. Two deaths within the same year happened once a century. Now the total was five, and people were panicking. The bars seemed to be doing a brisk trade—people were spilling out onto the street by the Wolf & Owl. A bottle of Shyford County bourbon sounded great, but it was a little out of his price range.

  He walked past a sad, rickety cart selling day-old meat pies, the merchant too ashamed of his wares to even make eye contact. Maddox couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything. It was at least three days ago, and his stomach didn’t so much as grumble as he sniffed the stale bread.

  He made his way down to the falls and took the switchback road to the Backwash. The streets were livelier as people went about their daily business. Five deaths in a month wasn’t even news in this part of town, or at least people were more accustomed to taking their chances.

  “Hand job, ser?” A kid who couldn’t have been more than fifteen and looked to be fresh off the farm from some backward corner of the province walked beside him, looking scared and pathetic. “Five ducats for a wank. I haven’t eaten in days, ser. Please…I gots real soft hands.”

  “And I bet you have real sticky fingers—it’s easy to grab a coin purse and run, leaving a man’s trousers around his ankles.”

  “Been caught with your pants down a lot before, ser?” the kid said sarcastically.

  “I grew up here,” Maddox said as he left him behind. The kid yelled some profanity, but with the rush of the waterfall so close, his words disappeared into the mist.

  Even if the offer had been at all interesting to him, five ducats was more than Maddox could afford for a hand job. He had made a small stipend as Tertius’s assistant, but most of that had gone toward his tuition. All his possessions were at the Lyceum in his room, which he was now banned from entering.

  That left him fifteen ducats to his name. He immediately regretted tearing off his Scholar’s emblem—it was real gold, mostly. He had nowhere to sleep. Fuck, I might have to start giving hand jobs. It wouldn’t be such a bad gig, considering the only other thing he was qualified to do was work on Alchemists’ Row.

  Maddox made his way to the wharfs and to the familiar comfort of the Mage’s Flask. It was a special kind of shit-hole establishment: a haven for outcasts, constantly teetering on the brink of financial insolvency, which somehow had lasted over the years because it was too stubborn to die. He swung open the door and stepped inside. His barstool waited for him, like a loyal dog greeting him when he came home.

  Cassie set a bottle of his usual on the counter along with a cracked glass that probably hadn’t been washed since the last time he was here. He took his seat and drank straight from the bottle. He fished two coins out of his pouch and slid them across the bar.

  He pulled out his tool pouch and unbuckled it on the counter. Magus Tertius’s gold-and-ruby tipped stylus stood out in stark contrast to the other plain instruments. There was his original black stylus, a couple of midlevel models he rarely used, an assortment of compasses, some rulers, and half a pencil. The gold stylus was the only thing he had of any real value.

  Maddox picked it up and felt its weight in his hand. He felt the fine inscription with his finger around the grip, the way the back was weighted so it rested more firmly in the back of his hand. The core contained mercury to maintain the momentum of each stroke.

  Absently he began to draw on the bar’s scratched, rough surface. The finish was spotty, and the lumber had turned gray in places, making it a terrible writing surface. He started with a perfect circle then filled it in with lines and geometric forms. It wasn’t an actual seal—just a practice exercise based on common forms to test the stylus.

  “You’re pretty good with that.” A Patrean sailor with a mug of ale looked over at his drawing. The man was older, scruffy, his arms covered in cuneiform glyphs denoting his military record. “You do any tattoo work?”

  Maddox took another shot and pulled up his shirt. “Just these babies.”

  The man got up from his seat, sat next to him, and placed his hand on the golden Seal of Vitae. His rough fingers brushed along the lines of the seal delicately. “I’ve never seen anything like this—is this liquid-gold ink? It’s almost shining.”

  The man’s knee was pressed against Maddox’s thigh. He saw the tenting in the Fodder’s breeches as his own dick responded to the touch. “Maybe we should go somewhere private…”

  Maddox led the man out back to a hidden boardwalk between the Flask and an adjoining warehouse. The sailor had his cock out and ready before they’d even stepped into the alley. Even their dicks look exactly the same. Maddox fell to his knees as he freed his own prick from his trousers. He kissed the tip of the Fodder’s penis, tasting the salty precum in his mouth.

  “You like to suck it, faggot?” The soldier grabbed his dick and slapped Maddox’s cheek with it. “Say, you want to know what a real man tastes like, you little cocksucker?”

  Maddox already was working his own rock-hard prick. “Please. I want to fucking take your manly load in my worthless mouth.”

  “That’s right,” the sailor grunted as he rammed his dick down Maddox’s throat. “All that mouth is good for is serving Patrean dick. I should take you with me—make you my cabin slave and rent you out to my mates. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

  Maddox grunted with approval as he worked the man’s dick, using his tongue to lick the shaft while applying gentle suction. He had to stop, or he’d explode. He took his hands and slid them under the man’s jerkin, feeling the taut, perfect abdomen of a physically superior species.

  “Fuck, mate…” The Fodder gripped Maddox’s brown hair and pressed him down on his cock as he shot his juice into Maddox’s throat. The moment over, he let his hand release.

  Maddox slid off the dick and back onto his heels. He pumped his cock with a few quick strokes and grunted as he blew his load.

  Without a word, the man turned and walked out of the alley, casually adjusting the front of his breeches. He looked twice before exiting to the main thoroughfare and, assuming the coast was clear, headed off in the direction of the docks.

  “Hey! Whatever your name is!” Maddox called after him. “You dropped something.” A handful of coins were scattered on the boardwalk. Maddox saw three ducats, a pair of intricately pressed Karthantean fillers, and half a Thrycean crown.

  He picked up one of the coins, and after the man didn’t return, he gathered them into his coin purse.

  He stood and headed back toward the bar. Riley was standing in the doorway, mouth agape. “Cassie said you was out back.” His voice was quiet with shock. He had stumbl
ed upon the whole sordid encounter and, being Riley, probably had watched it. The subject of Maddox’s sexual proclivities never had come up because Maddox found Riley mildly to extremely revolting.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” Maddox said. “He dropped the money. And I can’t tell Fodders apart, so I don’t have a way to return it.”

  “Then why was his cock in your mouth?”

  “Because I like to suck cock. Do you have a problem with that, Riley?” Maddox secretly hoped he did. Amhaven folk took a dim view on homosexuality, and it would be a quick and easy way to sever the tie of “friendship.”

  “Nah,” he said after a while. “Less competition for the ladies, right? It’s a bit of a relief actually. You bein’ so good-looking and smart and everything.” He punched Maddox in the arm.

  “There’s nothing I could ever do to get rid of you, is there?”

  “Nothing in the world.” Riley bear-hugged him and whispered in his ear, “I accept you for who you are.”

  In a bizarre way, it was touching. The last person to say that to him was Tertius, followed by a lecture on discretion. The mages at the Lyceum were expected to follow a code of morality that precluded most casual sex, but it wasn’t strictly enforced. He still remembered working up the nerve to express his attraction to Torin only to feel the sting of rejection and ridicule.

  Riley pulled away. “Look, I know you’re going through a rough patch. If there’s anythin’ you need—anythin’ at all—just ask.”

  And that was it. Maddox broke down. The raw nerves of his emotions kicked into high gear, and he sobbed, “I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have any money. I don’t have anything.”

  “Shh, shh, shh.” Riley put Maddox’s head on his shoulder. “You have me. You can stay with us. I got everything you’d ever want. Come on…”

  At best Maddox had only ever tolerated Riley. He certainly hadn’t done anything to earn his loyalty or devotion. He was generally a dick to the guy, and Riley never got angry or complained. Stupid, annoying Riley was the only person in all Creation who actually gave a shit about him. And he realized he didn’t deserve even that.

  “Okay.”

  ELEVEN

  Apostasy

  HEATH AND SWORD

  THE WILL AND THE WANDERER

  1.1. In the village of Tarinth, three of every ten were stricken by a virulent pox, and the village elders sent for a priest from the temple at Felice. The Hierophant decreed that Brother Lathan should travel to Tarinth and minister to the ill.

  1.2. Brother Lathan was a luminary of the Third Order who never had set foot outside the Temple since completing his Vow and taking his Name. He yearned to travel Creation and perform the good works of our Father Ohan.

  1.3. Upon arriving in Tarinth, Brother Lathan was dismayed to find all but a handful dead from their affliction. “We have been forsaken,” the village elder declaimed, and Brother Lathan wept for the dead infants who had been burned last in the Rite of Reunification.

  1.4. “What is Ohan’s will in all this?” the villagers cried. “We must know how a god that is just and righteous can allow such misery to befall our innocent children.” And Brother Lathan, who’d never set foot into the world as a priest, found he had no answer.

  1.5. Brother Lathan returned to Felice and secluded himself in prayer and fasting. In his despair he demanded the Father of All give account for his supernal reasons. “Lord of Illumination, I must know whether you are unable or are unwilling to stop the needless suffering of innocent babes.”

  1.6. To wit the Father of All appeared to Brother Lathan in a sphere of all-consuming light. “My reasons are not within your ability to know, but if you truly desire answers, I will give you the power to understand them.”

  1.7. And Brother Lathan understood but found the knowledge did not satisfy him. “I see now, All Father and Lord of Light, the necessity and intention of your design, but knowing your Truth is worse than ten times the pain of grief. You suffer for this more greatly than all of mankind!”

  1.8. “It is my burden to bear alone,” Ohan said. “It is my gift and my mercy that you shall not understand my will. But while I will not give you answers, I will remove your pain.”

  1.9 And the Father of All struck Brother Lathan with his Light, smiting him where he knelt and thereby raising him to Sainthood.

  —EXCERPT FROM THE TRIALS OF FAITH, BOOK THREE, CANTO 16

  THE TEMPLE OF Ohan sat in the center of four large obelisks that stood in the corners of a well-manicured garden filled with circular paths. The structure itself was three stories of marble and glass, adorned with bas-relief suns. Above the main entryway stood the god himself, depicted as a man in his youth holding a baby in his arms. Heath knew the statue wasn’t Ohan’s true form, but he felt justified in admiring it for different reasons.

  Sword was getting a lot of strange looks due to the long weapon slung across his back. The church frowned upon carrying weapons into the sanctuary, but there was no concealing a bastard sword. “I should probably go to confession while I’m here,” Sword said.

  “You couldn’t afford absolution. Murder starts at a hundred ducats for self-defense, and it only goes up from there.” Heath checked the springblades under his sleeves to ensure the mechanisms were ready.

  “That’s it? It’s a little steep, and I’d rather spend it on something practical…like drugs.”

  “If you get that body addicted to anything, I’m not healing you,” Heath warned. During one of his incarnations, Sword had figured out that if Heath removed the toxins from his body, he could start his initial high all over. Thankfully that body had died quickly.

  “This one’s in the early stages already,” Sword scratched his arm. “I feel kinda itchy.”

  The templars in white, lacquered armor guarding the vestibule made no effort to stop Heath as he and Sword made their way into the sanctuary.

  A long luxurious carpet of gold led from the vestibule to the altar, behind which was a massive stained-glass mural of Ohan creating the world from light. All laughable bullshit, of course, but undeniably the work of master artisans. The pews were relatively full of people praying for protection. The dream killings were good for business, Heath noted, as a young cleric hauled a donation cask to the undercroft.

  Heath and Sword followed. In contrast to the white marble and gilded finery of the temple above, the lower level was stark and gray like a dungeon. Narrow corridors and locked doors led them past the morgue, where junior clerics anointed the corpses of the recent dead before shipping them off to the holy incinerator.

  Daphne’s office was a moderate-size cell dominated by a large desk carved from a single piece of lacquered timber. Atop it lay papers and books along with the obligatory statue of Saint Lathan, better known in some circles as the patron saint of not asking questions that can get you killed.

  “The prodigal brother returns.” Daphne smiled warmly as she looked up from her paperwork. She was a middle-aged woman who took very good care of herself. She had dark skin and wore a floor-length white cloak trimmed with spotted fur. It had two long slits for her arms but otherwise completely covered her body. Long gloves covered her arms past the elbows.

  “Daphne,” Heath said, “this is Sword, whom you’ve met before.”

  “The Patrean suits you,” she said to him very politely.

  Heath took a deep breath. He’d been dreading this moment since he’d started the investigation, but there was no way around using his connections. “I need information on the clerk who died from the dream killing. Was she a mage?”

  “I’m doing wonderfully. Thank you so much for asking.” Daphne stonewalled with her characteristic fake grin and deadpan gaze. “And how have you been enjoying your sabbatical? I hear you’ve been quite busy running up your debt with Cordovis. What’s it up to—ten thousand ducats?”

  “I don’t owe Cordovis shit,” Heath said.

  “Then let me at least pay it off so he stops grousing about it.” Daphne
indicated a sheet of parchment on her desk. “The donations this month have been exceptionally generous, and I’d be happy to do it. Just take the money.”

  “I’ll take it if he doesn’t want it.” Sword offered. “I mean…whatever you can spare.”

  “I’m not here for your ducats. I’m working an independent investigation on the harrowings, and I need for you to answer a simple question. Friend to friend.”

  Daphne shrugged. “Yes, the clerk used to be a mage. She had a Hamartia of the Seal of Memory; she couldn’t remember anything for longer than two weeks. That level of confidentiality and discretion will be very hard to replace. Does that help?”

  “Of course you know why I’m here.” Heath slid the picture of Milk Eyes across Daphne’s desk. “What haven’t you told the Invocari about this man?”

  “You won’t find him unless he wants to be found,” Daphne said, glancing at the parchment. “I told the Invocari the same thing when they asked us to go on this wild-goose chase they have you going on.”

  Heath shoved the paper in her face. “Who is he?”

  She rolled her eyes and swatted the paper away. “He’s called the Harbinger. He’s a like vulture circling above a cow as it crawls to its death in the desert. He appears whenever chaos or destruction is imminent. He doesn’t interfere; he just watches. He’s been around as long as we’ve kept records: plagues, wars, upheavals. He’s a symptom, not the cause.”

  “What is he?” Heath demanded.

  Daphne shook her head. “We don’t really know. For lack of a better term, we call him a Traveler, although sometimes the Cantos refer to them as saints; the Prophet James seems to be loosely based on him.”

  Sword scratched his head. “You mean the First Mages? That’s what we used to call them back in the old days, Second Era and whatnot. Mostly they kept to themselves and their own crazy hobbies, like collecting one of every kind of bug or teaching squirrels witchcraft. Last time I saw one was in the Shadow War—when they got off their arses and helped us. The Long Night wouldn’t have ended without their help.”