The Queen of Lies

by Michael J. Bode

  “An apt description of the last three to hold the dubious honor.” Satryn reached for the bottle, and Maddox floated it over to her. “So now that you’ve had your first taste of fine Thrycean rum, you can tell me why you went to such great lengths to raid my liquor cabinet.”

  He kicked off one of his boots. “I accidentally made myself immortal, and the Orthodoxy decided I’m a danger to all Creation. So they’re keeping me here until they can figure out a way to unbind my seal. Lucky you.”

  “You’ve mastered death, and you wish to give it up?” She sounded almost offended by the notion. “If any of what you say is truth, you’re an idiot.”

  “Too smart for my own good.” He kicked off his other boot.

  “Imagine the power you could possess.” Satryn found her thoughts reeling at the prospect. “In the hands of someone with ambition, you’d be unstoppable. I can see why they would fear you, but why would you submit to imprisonment?”

  “Because life is pretty much shit,” Maddox said. “I have no money, no friends, no job. My seal makes me a fucking outcast, and I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity alone. The last people I lived with used my dead body for dog food.”

  “That is well and truly the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard,” Satryn said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “You will insult a Stormlord to her face,” she said, “and yet you’re perfectly willing to accept imprisonment for a crime you haven’t committed. This city has fucked you over for having power, and you’re willing to let them take it from you because they won’t accept you? If they don’t respect you, you must make them. Respect isn’t given easily or willingly.”

  “I want people to respect me, not fear me.”

  “Therein lies your problem,” Satryn said. “People are fearful and mediocre. For all their lip service to success, they despise greatness and work tirelessly to drag their betters into the mire so they can feed off their potential. You can’t see yourself as their equal when you are not.”

  “I met Achelon,” Maddox said. “He was kind of a dick, and I don’t really want to follow in his example.”

  “So you’re both immortal and insane. Splendid…” Her voice trailed off. Whatever his ridiculous story, this young man was clearly unbalanced.

  Maddox smirked. “So seriously why the fuck are you living in the Invocari tower like it’s some kind of hotel? This place isn’t known for its hospitality.”

  “I’m a political prisoner of the Assembly members who supported my usurper Rothburn. My station affords me certain considerations…until they decide what’s to be done with me.” Once she had drunk some rum, she continued, “They claim I arranged the murder of my daughter’s fiancé, Torin Silverbrook.”

  Maddox’s eyes lit up. “Did you?”

  “You knew him.” It dawned on her. “He must have been a friend of yours at the Lyceum. As for my involvement in his murder, it scarcely matters. The Assembly has any number of other reasons to keep me here.”

  “Not a friend.” Maddox drank more rum. “He was kind of a dick too.”

  They stared at each other and the bottle between them. The silence was long and uncomfortable. Her drinking companion was common as dirt, possibly insane, and badly needed to attend to the wretched condition of his toenails.

  They reached for the bottle at the same time. Satryn gestured toward the cabinet. “This might be easier if you grab me my own bottle out of there.”

  SATRYN TEETERED ON the sofa, bracing one hand against the armrest as she waved an imaginary saber in front of her. “Enemies to the starboard! Bring her round and arm the ballistae!”

  The sofa scooted across the floor, bearing its broadside to a coffee table. Maddox stood majestically on the bed, directing the battle wearing only a burned naval jacket and a pair of Satryn’s frilly long underwear, which she had coaxed him into trying on after his second bottle. He was red cheeked and blind drunk but doing his best to reenact the naval battle at the Bleak Atoll.

  She was wasted as well and, strangely, having the time of her life. A trunk of clothing rammed her portside, and she toppled off the couch onto the floor, laughing and gasping for breath. She struggled to stand up and found herself lifted to her feet by an unseen force. She wobbled unsteadily.

  “You’re gonna have to kill me,” Maddox said. “’S’fine. I’ll be back good as new but…no hangover.”

  “That’s quite a gift you got there, rear admiral.” Satryn snickered as she stumbled toward the bed. Sure, he was wiry, but he had a nice cock from what she could see through the sheer fabric of her undergarments. She contemplated just putting it in her mouth and seeing what would happen.

  The sound of the airlock broke her train of thought, however, and she wheeled around, suddenly furious at the intrusion.

  Jessa. So prim and perfect in her Rivern sundress, as if she’d just left a cocktail party on the dart lawn. Her disapproving scowl was like a wet blanket of darkness smothering all life and fun from the universe. Jessa waited patiently for the door to open then stepped through, gazing in confusion at the disarray of the furnishings.

  “You’re drunk.” Not a hello or even a clipped intonation of the word mother. Just a cold accusation.

  “The fuck do you want?” Satryn slurred.

  Something about Jessa’s eyes was different. There was a coldness there, deeper than the usual resentment. Satryn saw a glimmer of murder in them that made her skin crawl. “Nasara has launched a campaign to retake Rivern, even though I gave her no express permission. My warmasters in Weatherly have pledged themselves to her aid despite the fact that their contract is with me. And yet here you are drunk in an Invocari prison with…”

  “Maddox,” he said from atop the bed, suppressing a belch.

  “I made him my rear admiral,” Satryn explained. “It was a field commission. We’ll get him a proper uniform once we’ve sunk Felchior’s fleet and returned to port in Thelassus.” She motioned to the scrambled collection of furniture.

  Jessa balled her fists. “Is this the reason you refused the Assembly’s offer to take up residence in the Thrycean embassy? You’ve embarrassed your only allies with your erratic behavior. They’ll be powerless to offer you any protection.”

  “The embassy is even more of a joke than the Protectorate embassy in Thelassus,” Satryn scoffed, “and that has been turned into a fucking whorehouse. Besides you wanted to see me rot in here. It seems I can’t please you no matter what I do.”

  “Fuck, yes. Catfight!” Maddox shouted, as he flopped backward onto the bed.

  “You have to forgive him,” Satryn casually commented. “He sucks cock. Our living arrangement is temporary.”

  Jessa rolled her eyes; she really had mastered that facial expression. It was a common way for people to convey exasperation, but with Jessa it carried an even more deeply wearied nuance—as if her eyes were going through the motions of something that no longer held any expressive meaning. And then her sigh. “What do I have to do to get you out of this city?”

  “You could take my place as hostage while Nasara liberates Amhaven,” Satryn offered. “They really only need one of us here. You can keep Maddox company. He’s a little rough around the edges “

  “Who is he really?” Jessa asked.

  “A drunk faggot who broke one of the thousands of laws of either the Assembly or Lyceum or Orthodoxy or Invocari. I’ve been here for months and still don’t know who actually runs this city,” Satryn said. “Now do you want something, or can I take a nap now?”

  “I want you to petition the empress for amnesty and return to Thelassus. Your presence here is no longer necessary, and frankly you’ve overstayed your welcome. Muriel has rescinded your sponsorship at my request and—”

  “Listen to you. You even sound like an assemblyman.”

  “I mean it,” Jessa said. “I want you gone from this city, or so help me Ohan, I’ll tell them everything.” She let that last word hang in the air and fill the room like a gentle roll of
thunder.

  Satryn peered at her daughter. There was something more to her tone than her usual insolence. Jessa’s eyes appeared hard and cold. I warned Sireen not to involve her in our plans. The girl is too foolish and sanctimonious to be trusted.

  “Do it.” Satryn waved her hand. “Tell them whatever you think you know. They won’t send me back to Thelassus. They’ll torture me for information until I break or until I’m dead. But if you want someone dead—and I speak from experience—it’s far more satisfying to do the thing yourself than to rely on intermediaries.”

  “I can’t deal with your insanity right now.”

  Satryn repeated in a mockingly nasal accent, “I can’t deal with you right now. You’re even starting to talk like them.”

  Jessa put her hands on her hips, “And what of it, Mother?”

  “You’re in line to be the fucking—-”

  Satryn’s senses exploded.

  The jolt through her body made her shudder. Jessa did the same where she stood. Both women locked eyes, grimacing through the pain as their Heritage flowed into them. Satryn gritted her teeth and held the lightning inside her body. Jessa struggled to do the same. And after a moment, it was over.

  The fog of inebriation lifted. Satryn collected herself. She felt her power growing slightly inside her, and the color drained from her face. There were only three people in the bloodline she could have felt. With the empress she would have felt the burst as she had with her father. It was wishful thinking to believe Nasara, the walking definition of meticulous caution, had fallen to Rothburn’s motley army of Fodders.

  “Maelcolm,” she whispered, a tear falling from her eye. The transfer must have been more painful than she’d first imagined.

  “Uncle Maelcolm—are you sure?” Jessa reached out gently to comfort her mother.

  Satryn flinched. She could stomach, even somewhat respect, being blackmailed by her own flesh and blood; betrayal was a family tradition. But she’d be damned a thousand times over if she accepted Jessa’s pity.

  “Mother…”

  Satryn yelled, “Get the fuck out!”

  Jessa didn’t linger and didn’t look back.

  Satryn waited, completely still, until her daughter exited the airlock. Then she grabbed the nearest chair she could find and hurled it against the glass wall of her cage. The warding runes flared briefly as the chair bounced off the boundary of her arcane prison. She pulled at her hair and wailed in frustration, her voice echoing strangely in the sealed room. The Invocari outside watched with total detachment.

  How her sisters had managed to reach Maelcolm in the Abyss she couldn’t begin to fathom. No one but a few ever returned from that lightless depth, and those few who did spend time among the coelacanth were so drastically changed by the experience they were hardly recognizable. Maelcolm was lost to her twenty years ago, but his passing stirred dark currents of rage.

  Satryn curled up next to Maddox and ran her fingers through his hair as he tried to sleep. He needed a trim.

  Maddox murmured, “If the wards were foolproof, you two wouldn’t have felt the transfer—”

  Satryn gently shushed him by placing her hand over his mouth. “Enough about the damnable wards.”

  Her emotions were raw from the loss of her brother and threatened to cloud her mind. Maelcolm always had been her inner strength, as she had been his outer. He was miles beneath the surface of the ocean, but the weight of his death pressed on her from all sides. They had been born two halves of one soul, and now she carried the burden of both. If she let her sentiment make her careless now, all her scheming would have been for nothing.

  “It’s nothing personal, seal mage…but I was here first.” She sighed as she unloaded all her electricity into his body.

  Death happened quickly, but his body continued to dance to her lightning. He flailed and twitched but eventually went rigid as the smell of smoke and burning flesh rose from his corpse. The skin on his face where she touched him turned black.

  She braced herself for the sound of the airlock opening, the inevitable chill as the Invocari leached the air and warmth from the chamber. They might try to kill her, rather than put her down, but it was a calculated risk.

  Instead there was silence.

  She flung Maddox’s smoldering body to the floor and whipped around to gaze at her captors. A dozen or so were positioned around the cell, watching. The faces of the hovering, shrouded figures were devoid of expression, their hands folded.

  She looked down at Maddox. “Fuck.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Sword of Saint Jeffrey

  HEATH AND SWORD

  ITEM 415: IT is a longsword constructed out of a single piece of Archean alloy, and the simple design is clearly inspired by the Meritisan School, which places it at late Second Era. The weight is minimal, and the edges show no signs of sharpening or wear. The core jewel is heartstone, which suggests it can house some intelligence, but any attempts to communicate can be done only in emotive tones, which are distinctly uncooperative.

  The Hierocracy says it is a holy relic, but I find this claim dubious. There are no markings on the blade, religious, arcane, or otherwise.

  I believe this sword may be an ancient precursor to our own study, if not one of the first true artifacts. Just as the first magi inserted consciousness into clumsy humanoid forms, the creators of the sword may have lacked the utilitarian sensibilities of modern artifice. Inside 415, I believe, is a human soul stripped of memory, retaining only the characteristics its creators wished to preserve.

  Item 415 is a marvel, but why not give it the power of mobility? Why rely on meat that is prone to pain and fatigue to fulfill its design?. A circular (or optimally a spherical) design, for instance, would allow maximum lethality in all directions. Without self-propulsion it is at an extreme tactical disadvantage against aerial assault.

  As with most Dark Magic to emerge from those lost eras, the blade’s original purpose may never be known.

  —NOTES OF MAGUS AURIUS IN THE REPOSITORY MANIFEST

  SWORD SLAMMED MADDOX’S head on a stack of important-looking parchments. If it perturbed Daphne at all, she gave no outward indication. Heath had learned his trade in deception at her feet, so there really was no telling, but the thought gave Sword some sense of satisfaction.

  The abbess folded her hands. “What is this?”

  “The head of Maddox Baeland, Your Worship. Recovered from the body of a revenant. Please enjoy.” Sword bowed and offered an exaggerated flourish of his hand as he stepped backward from the desk.

  “It is his head.” Daphne picked it up delicately and stared into its eyes. “But I’m afraid that particular commission already has been filled. And as for his severed head, I’m already well supplied with that particular item.”

  “What?” Heath asked.

  “His head,” Daphne stated. “I have one already. I don’t really see the need for two. However, if I should ever require more, I have an unlimited supply. You see, I found him myself and have him sequestered in the Invocari tower for study.”

  “This doesn’t add up,” Heath said. “How is he even still alive?”

  “Immortality,” Daphne said.

  “I’m immortal,” Sword said. “You don’t see my heads rolling around.”

  “You wanted out. I don’t have to share any information with you,” Daphne explained. She tossed the head aside and let it roll across the hard stone floor of her office. It bounced against the wall and rolled around, finally settling on its side.

  Sword looked to Heath, whose face was an ocean of serene tranquility. He was masking his emotions, making it impossible for Daphne to read his intent. Heath shrugged. “I’m at a loss, Daphne. I didn’t think you had the stomach for fieldwork anymore.”

  Daphne flashed a tight grin. “I’d wondered the same about you. It seems we were both wrong about that. Was it difficult, watching Sword cut the head off your…friend?”

  Sword interjected, “He cried like a fuck
ing baby, if that makes you happy. Where’s our payment?”

  Daphne chuckled. “You know, when I recruited Heath for the Inquisition, the first question he asked was, ‘What does it pay?’ Most people do it for the cause, or the safety of Creation, or some shred of deeply held personal conviction regarding the work we do. But not Heath. He wanted money. That’s how I knew he’d be willing to do anything. But you, Sword, this isn’t like you.”

  “Nobody ever asked me if I wanted this work,” Sword spat. He didn’t need money, but Heath was the first Inquisitor to actually treat him like a person.

  “Money is simpler,” Heath responded, “but this isn’t the first time someone beat us to the punch. Comes with the profession. I just wanted to let you know that I still value our friendship. Honestly it wasn’t even that dangerous. Maddox had been turned into a revenant by the time we found him. I’d feel guilty accepting payment in any event.”

  Daphne cocked an eyebrow. “What do you want?”

  “I think you’re holding out on better opportunities,” Heath said. “Sword and I have come across some information while working a separate inquiry on behalf of our mutual acquaintances in the tower. I think we should combine our investigations into the harrowings. We could help each other.”

  “Go on…”

  Heath folded his arms. “We’re your best agents. Why aren’t we working this?”

  Sword crossed his arms as well. “Yeah. I’m the only one with the theurgy to kill one of those Harrowers if it comes through.”

  “While I appreciate your enthusiasm, the Inquisition has had five hundred years to prepare for another incursion,” Daphne said. “You’re not the only tools at our disposal.”

  Sword glared at her and pounded his chest. “I am the Sword of Saint Jeffrey. I brought down Vilos of Bamor single-handedly. I lived through the Occultation and witnessed firsthand the fragmentation of reality and the manifestation of Fear. I know more about the Harrowers than any sentient thing in Creation.”