Agents of Artifice p-1

by Ari Marmell

  "Um…" Kallist looked sick.

  "I promise I'm only looking for one thing."

  "And what's that?"

  "That's the second thing I need from you. Picture Hesset, as thoroughly as you can. The details of her face, the way she moves, her posture, the sound of her voice… Everything."

  Kallist smiled broadly in sudden understanding. "Not bad, Jace."

  "Tell me that after it works."

  A few moments' concentration, to ensure that Jace had her face and her voice as accurate as Kallist's memories could make them. A few moments more, and the guards outside saw one of the upper windows of the manor come flying open. Ronia Hesset leaned out, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as though she'd been struck.

  "Get up here!" she shrieked, voice tinged with desperation. "Now!"

  From inside the coat closet, Jace and Kallist listened as boots pounded past them. It would take only minutes, if even that, for the real Hesset to hear the sounds of her soldiers returning, to meet them and order them to resume their posts outside.

  Jace and Kallist darted back into the hall, taking one final look out the window. There in the yard stood a dozen armed men; only half the guards had gone running at their "employer's" call.

  "Think we can take them?" Jace asked.

  "We'd better, since there's going to be twice as many in a few minutes.

  Kallist all but flew through the front door, blades weaving intricate patterns in the air. Jace followed a step behind, casting even as he ran; a trio of small drakes appeared in the air around him, razor-edged claws raised to shred. And like a small but determined tide, the Hesset household guards surged forward to meet them.

  When he and Kallist had limped their way back to the Consortium complex, bleeding from a dozen small wounds, Jace had hoped that would mark the end of his involvement with the Hesset affair.

  It hadn't.

  He sat now to Paldor's right, behind a long table in a room in which he'd never been. A heavy ledger sat open before him, in which he made constant scribblings with a feather quill that never required ink. It didn't matter what he was writing, and in fact he'd long since ceased doing anything more than random doodles. He just had to look like a secretary.

  For the past hour, various Consortium employees who'd dealt with Hesset's mercantile interests marched past them, one by one. Paldor, with his usual jolly expression, asked them a few questions about how things had gone, what they felt about the cooperation between the two organizations, and so forth. Each gave his or her own answers and was dismissed. Jace kept scribbling.

  All he could think, in those moments when he was entirely inside his own mind, rather than partly within someone else's, was Be innocent, be innocent, be innocent.

  His head throbbed and his eyes blurred with exhaustion. Never before had he attempted to read so many minds in even a single day, let alone an hour, and he truly didn't know how much longer he could keep it up. Even though all he sought was innocence or guilt, honesty or deception, the fact that he'd already managed as many as he had was nothing short of astounding. He credited his few training sessions with Tezzeret for teaching him such fortitude.

  Still, Jace was on the verge of asking Paldor if they could continue the hunt tomorrow when he glanced into the mind of a skinny, uptight records-keeper whose name he could not recall, and he found what he sought.

  Jace sighed briefly. He'd known it was inevitable. How else could Hesset have known the Consortium was coming after her, let alone exactly when? But still, he'd hoped.

  In a predetermined signal, Jace ceased writing, lay the quill down beside the ledger, and firmly closed the book.

  Paldor nodded and gestured with a pair of pudgy fingers. Only as a pair of guards clamped his arms in brutal, bone-bruising grips, did the archivist realize he'd been found out-and what must be in store for him at Consortium hands. He shrieked, screamed, begging and blubbering for mercy until his voice faded away down the distant halls.

  Through it all, even as he contemplated many forthcoming hours with the traitor in the complex "discipline chamber," the jovial expression on Paldor's face never faltered.

  "Write down anything you learned from his mind that might prove useful," he said to Jace, raising his ponderous bulk from behind the table. "And then go get yourself a drink. You look like you could use it."

  Jace, who wasn't sure he could ever stomach food or drink again, nodded dully and once again lifted the quill.

  It turned out that stomaching drinks wasn't as difficult as Jace had predicted. In fact, as the tavern turned fuzzy around him, he found rather that stopping might be the more problematic choice.

  He could leave the Consortium, but he'd lose out on what might still prove the greatest opportunities he'd ever been offered. And even if he should ask to leave, they'd never let him go. He'd just sent a man to be tortured and probably murdered because of betrayal, and would almost certainly have to do so again. Jace knew they would never show him any mercy should he try to flee.

  His thoughts turned around in his head like a serpent consuming its tail. But whatever he might consciously decide, in his soul he knew that he would stay, because he feared what might happen otherwise, or what might not.

  And so, if he could not drown the fear, at least he could drown the guilt.

  It took him a few moments to realize that someone was sitting next to him-surprising, even in his inebriated state, given the sheer amount of space that someone occupied.

  "When I said 'Go get a drink,"' Paldor told him, the chair creaking in panic beneath his bulk, "I sort of meant from the dining room back home. We've got a very nice wine cellar there, you know."

  Jace shrugged. "Gonna hafta be clearer 'bout those things, Paldor. What'm I, a mind reader?"

  Paldor chuckled. "It's just as well," the corpulent crook replied. "I really do need to get out occasionally. Reminds me why I hate getting out." With a grunt, he drew a small bag out from the folds of-somewhere-and plunked it down onto the table.

  "Wha's this?" Jace slurred suspiciously.

  "This is the good news, Beleren. A bonus. From Tezzeret, for rooting out the traitor. Tezzeret and I, we don't like traitors."

  Paldor locked eyes with Jace, and even through his growing stupor, the mage felt the sudden urge to recoil. "Now here's the bad news. You do not impress me. You're supposed to be this great and powerful mind-reader, and maybe you are, at that. But you're weak. You're squeamish. The Consortium employs the best, and frankly, I'm not sure you remotely qualify. If your powers weren't so bloody rare, I'd already be looking to replace your sorry ass.

  "So take a few days off. I'll expect you in my office at the start of next week, and we'll see if we can't find you something a bit less distasteful to work on while you build up your intestinal fortitude. But Beleren-if you don't shape up, you're out, mind-reader or no. And make no mistake that when I say 'out,' I don't mean by the damned door."

  Jace never saw Paldor leave, for he was too busy watching the bag as though it were some venomous insect. He didn't want it, not a coin of it. The thought made his gut heave, and threatened to undo a substantial amount of the drunk on which he'd been working so hard. Hell, he didn't even know what to do with it, really. He was living in the Consortium's lodgings, eating their food, and already saving up his monthly fee. He thought briefly of taking the extra money and just running, but he knew damned well it was a foolish notion; he'd be in Paldor's office next week, just as ordered. Maybe by then, he wouldn't even be bothered by it.

  But it would look strange if he didn't do something with the money…

  Emmara Tandris returned home from one of her infrequent outings, arms wrapped around a bag of old adventure tales written in the original Elvish, to find a large crate waiting outside her door. Curious, she lowered the bulky sack to the ground and knelt beside the box.

  A wisp of scent reached her, and she couldn't help but smile. She didn't even need to open the box, now; she could identify, by smell alone, th
e exotic fruits within. She reached out and removed the note that was stuck between two of the slats.

  Couldn't help but remember our last conversation.

  Hope these'll keep you until they're back in season.

  You owe me at least one truly enormous dessert.

  — Berrim

  He'd joined the Consortium, then. There were precious few other ways he could afford this. Emmara stood, grateful for the generous gift, but a part of her couldn't help but wonder what he'd done to earn that sort of wealth.

  She hoped, as the smile fell from her face, that he was all right.

  Jace caught the wooden sword, ignoring the sting as it slapped into his palm. The wood was worn smooth and permeated with old sweat. He glanced across at Kallist and awkwardly adopted a similar stance. He tried, and failed, to ignore the dozen other men and women of the Consortium who had backed away to the room's walls, eager to interrupt their own practice long enough to watch the new guy get his head handed to him.

  "Here beginneth the first lesson," Kallist said pompously, a twinkle in his eye. "You ready?"

  "More than," Jace hissed through gritted teeth. "You're going down, Kallist."

  "Only if I bust a gut laughing at you, Jace."

  "That was the plan, actually."

  It wasn't quite the first time Jace had handled a sword, and he'd wielded both sticks and knives defending himself in his younger years, so at least he didn't come across as ragingly incompetent. In fact, he managed to parry two of Kallist's attacks, the clack of wood on wood echoing through the chamber, before pain and the beginning stages of a truly magnificent bruise blossomed across his left side.

  Several of the observers winced in sympathy as the wood slammed home.

  Kallist stepped in and extended a hand to help Jace back to his feet. "So," he began, demonstrating a grip, then reaching out again to correct Jace's attempt at imitation, "here's why you missed that parry…"

  There passed a few moments of discussion and demonstration (and bored shifting by the gathered audience), followed by another quick exchange of blows, and another ugly bruise for Jace. And again. And again.

  And again.

  But as the second hour of practice wound to a close, and Jace's lungs burned as badly as his sides, fewer and fewer of Kallist's strikes landed. True, he was using only the simplest techniques, and they were running at roughly half speed, but Jace was, at least, learning something.

  Jace stepped in, slashing down with an overhand strike so clumsy it was laughable. Several of the observers snickered, and Kallist raised his practice sword in a contemptuous parry.

  He felt nothing in the path of his blade but air, and it was finally his turn to hit the floor, gasping and clutching his aching stomach.

  He looked up, just in time to see the illusion of Jace's arm and sword fade away, and the real one-which had slammed rather handily into Kallist's unprotected midsection-shimmer into view.

  "Here," Jace said, clutching at his battered ribs with his left hand, "beginneth the first lesson." He dropped the sword, reached out a helping hand.

  With a grunt, and a muttered "I'm just waiting until there are no witnesses to kill you slowly," Kallist took it.

  "Same time tomorrow?" Jace asked him.

  Kallist rubbed his aching stomach and grinned a nasty grin. "You couldn't pay me to miss it."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  From a balcony halfway up one of Ravnica's great spires, Jace stared downward, his eyesight enhanced by a touch of clairvoyance. He leaned casually against the railing and watched for a few moments as crowds of people ran screaming from the columns of fire that heralded the arrival of Baltrice's firecat. Their quarry, one of the bald and blue-skinned vedalken-named, uh, Serien? Sevrien? Something like that-rolled across the cobblestones and came swiftly to his feet, a gleaming shield on one arm, a brutally serrated scimitar in the other hand.

  "Is this what you do with every potential recruit?" Jace asked disdainfully. "I mean, what, you really couldn't think of anything new?"

  Baltrice snarled from beside him, keeping half her focus on the struggle below. "It works, doesn't it?"

  "So do chamber pots," Jace told her, cocking his head as the vedalken took a blast of fire on his shield, then riposted with a devastating slash that almost took one of the cat's legs clean off. "Doesn't mean I don't prefer indoor plumbing."

  The fire-mage glared at him, and Jace wondered if she wouldn't actually have attacked him had her concentration not been required elsewhere.

  He wondered, as he often had, just what it was about him that she hated so much. He didn't worry about it too terribly, since he readily hated her back-but he was curious.

  "And what are your plans?" she asked gruffly, wincing in sympathy as her summoned pet took another nasty wound below.

  "Not sure yet," Jace admitted. "I know I'm supposed to 'test his abilities,' but… I mean, the guy's not even a mage."

  "Wow, you noticed that? You're as smart as Tezzeret said you were."

  "My point," Jace said, ignoring the jibe, "is that it seems like more of a Kallist thing. Why does Paldor want me testing him?"

  "Maybe," Baltrice told him, "figuring that out is another test."

  It wasn't, of course. Baltrice had specific instructions for Beleren; she just hadn't bothered to give them to him.

  She could always claim she had, of course. He was the only mind-reader, after all, so it wasn't as though Paldor could prove otherwise. And he wouldn't dare ask Tezzeret to subject her to one of the artificer's truth elixirs; not Baltrice.

  She grinned after Jace as he shrugged and departed the balcony, ready to invisibly follow

  Sevrien (Serien?) home and conduct his own test. No, a failure here wouldn't cause much in the way of lasting repercussions. But every little disappointment was a black mark in Tezzeret's eyes.

  Her grin faded and the old fear returned to gnawing at her gut as Beleren vanished. Good as she was at her job, there were always plenty of people who could kill, a few even as efficiently as she could.

  But only one, so far as she knew, who could read minds.

  And despite her many years of service, she wondered deep in her soul which of them, should it ever come down to it, Tezzeret would consider the more expendable.

  "… know what I was supposed to do," Jace lamented bitterly, flopped in a thickly upholstered chair in his quarters. "But Paldor certainly didn't seem happy with me, even though he decided to let Sevrien join up."

  Kallist nodded, leaning against a bookcase on the far wall. "What did you do, exactly?"

  Jace shrugged. "Sort of an obstacle course. A bunch of illusions, popping up out of nowhere. Tested reactions, accuracy, that sort of thing."

  "Hmm. You know, Jace," Kallist offered thoughtfully, "there are other illusionists in the Consortium. Maybe you were supposed to do something a little more, well, uniquely you? Read his mind?"

  "Looking for what?"

  "How do I know? Or maybe you were supposed to prod at him. Test his willpower. His pain tolerance. Or see how quickly you could read his mind! That sort of information could be useful to know about an operative, right?"

  "Oh, please, Kallist," Jace scoffed. "What would be the point of that? Of course he couldn't have stood up to me. He can't even wield magic."

  "You know something, Jace?" Kallist said after several long breaths. "If Tezzeret's training you to be a dromad's ass, you're certainly shaping up to be a great student."

  "What? What did I-?" But the door was already slamming behind his friend, before Jace could finish the sentence.

  "You're late, Beleren," Tezzeret snapped without preamble as Jace entered the stone-walled room beneath the streets. "I'm sure you have every reason to think that my time is yours to do with as you will, but believe it or not, the business of running an inter-planar organization actually requires a little attention."

  "Uh…" Jace all but fell back before the sudden tirade. "Sorry," he continued. "I lost track of the time."
/>   "Did you now? And what were you doing that was so important?"

  "Mostly getting chewed out by Paldor, with a side of irritating my best friend." "Ah. And will I be hearing about this chewing out from Paldor?"

  "Probably."

  Tezzeret nodded, motioning Jace to move away from the doorway. "Then we'd best get your practice out of the way before I've any further reason to be angry at you."

  Jace moved in, glancing around at the now-familiar steel walls-once more in their oval configuration-and at the table that had been placed in the room's center. It was a great stone slab, easily the size of a small bed.

  Or perhaps a coffin.

  There were no chairs, and sitting on the floor seemed foolish beside the looming table, so Jace just stood, his posture one of mild confusion.

  Tezzeret rapped an etherium knuckle on the steel slats. The entire wall chimed like the inside of a bell, and before the reverberations had faded, one of the steel walls slid aside, allowing fetid wafts of old sweat and human waste into the chamber. A quartet of guards followed after, carrying a filthy, unconscious man. His body was covered with an array of brutal burns and recent scars, his hair was slicked to his head by sweat and oils, and he was clad only in gray trousers. Jace, with a growing nervousness in his gut, only barely recognized him as the records-keeper who'd sold them out to Ronia Hesset.

  The man he'd turned over to Paldor's mercies, and whom he'd assumed had been killed those many months ago.

  "We kept him alive," Tezzeret answered Jace's unspoken question. "Paldor wanted to be sure we knew everything of value, every secret of ours he'd sold. We thought of having you draw it from his mind, but Paldor seemed to feel you wouldn't take kindly to that. Since he really wanted the chance to punish the man, I let it go; Paldor takes betrayal almost as poorly as I do.

  "But from here on out, you don't escape the hard stuff anymore. Today," Tezzeret said as the guards dropped the insensate form on the table. "We're going to talk about the mind. Touch his thoughts, Beleren."