The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  Now she laughed. “Nine seas? Don’t be absurd. That would be an impossible amount of water.”

  Frederico joined her in laughing. “Said the girl who believes in magick.” Then, he lowered his voice and he heard resolve in it. “I will find you, Amal Y’Zir.”

  Her voice took on playful taunting. “And what then would you do with me?”

  Frederico pondered this. What would he do? Sail the world to make an offer to her father for her hand? Have Pyrus forge papers and establish her in Espira or—bolder still, extend citizenship to her and provide her an estate openly, risk disappointing the populace? He let playfulness enter his own voice. “I can describe several of the things I would do with you, Lady Y’Zir, if you wish it.”

  But the softness of her moans told him she’d already started imagining those things herself.

  Smiling, he joined her.

  * * *

  Frederico pointed to the corner of his bed chamber and watched the servants as they put the harp in place beside its ornate stool. It had been his grandmother’s though she’d never played it. He remembered that it decorated her rooms and towered above him; it seemed much smaller now.

  The Palace Steward waited by the door. “Is everything satisfactory, Lord Czar?”

  Frederico smiled. “It is, Felip. Thank you.”

  A momentary cloud crossed the steward’s face and he looked away. “I am pleased to serve, Lord Czar.”

  Frederico studied the man. He withholds something but does not wish to. He waited until the servants left, then as the steward turned, he called to him. “Hold, Felip. Come in and close the door.”

  Paling, the steward did so and when Frederico pointed towards an armchair near the unlit fireplace, he smoothed his saffron robes and sat carefully. Frederico joined him.

  “Something disturbs you, Felip. I’d know what it is.”

  Dots of sweat appeared above the man’s upper lip and upon his brow. “It would not be proper, Lord Czar, for me to—”

  Frederico chuckled and leaned forward. “It is proper if your Czar asks it of you.”

  Felip took a deep breath. “There are whisperings, Lord Czar, that you are profoundly unwell.”

  Frederico smiled. “Do I seem unwell to you?”

  The steward shook his head. “You seem...happy. The servants comment that they’ve not seen or heard the weeping in a goodly while.”

  Frederico sat back in the chair. “I am happy, Felip. What else have you heard?”

  The old man shifted in his seat, his eyes darting to the left and right. “That Jazrel wasn’t truly assassinated by Lunarists but a suicide. That she spent a night with you during your weeping not long before. That you can be heard speaking in your rooms when no one is present, sometimes late into the night.” Now, with his tongue suddenly loosened, his words came faster, almost jumbled together. “Some say you’ve driven yourself mad with grief and guilt over Jazrel, falling into some kind of grinning mania. Some say you speak into a silver mirror. Some say you are speaking with the moon.”

  Frederico felt the teeth of Felip’s first words as they chewed their truth into him, then the last caught his attention. and he looked up. How I respond is important here, he thought.

  “The staff will always talk,” Frederico said as casually as he could. Then, he chuckled. “You can certainly assure them that I am not speaking with the moon, nor am I mad. I know their words trouble you, but don’t let them—it means nothing. Still, I would have you keep your ears open and bring any other tidbits of gossip my way that you hear.” He leaned even further forward. “And do discourage the staff from that Lunarist nonsense.”

  Felip nodded. “I certainly will, Lord Czar.”

  “Thank you,” Frederico said. I have become grateful for what was once my due. He stood, bowed his head slightly, and when the steward did the same, Frederico did not ring the dismissal bell. Instead, he walked the steward to the door. “Also,” he said, “I want you to extend a private dining invitation to Senator Tannen. Pay his house steward handsomely for knowledge of the senator’s favorite dishes and spirits. Be certain our chefs can accommodate before the invitation is offered.”

  Felip nodded. “Yes, Lord Czar.”

  He locked the door behind the steward and went into the bed chambers. He pulled the lockbox from beneath his bed and spun the cipher into it. He drew out the silver crescent and held it to his ear. “Amal?”

  He heard the harp and then the voice. “I am here, Ghost.”

  “You can teach me now,” he said, seating himself upon the stool.

  He heard the delight in her laugh. “You have it there now?”

  “I do, Lady Y’Zir.”

  For an hour, she talked slowly and quietly to him as he picked notes out upon the strings. It was only later, after she’d left for afternoon lessons—and while he was checking intelligence reports for any news of House Y’Zir—that he realized what the tune was she had carefully walked him through.

  It was the song she played upon the night they first met.

  He smiled and signed papers authorizing three months of expenses and a redoubled effort to find this woman who brought music to him.

  * * *

  They took their dinner in the private dining room and Frederico waited until they were well into their second bottle of kallaberry wine before he asked his favor. The meal had been perfect—broiled salmon drizzled with a white lemon sauce and decorated with asparagus spears across a bed of peppered rice. Crabbed cucumber salad and garlic steamed mushrooms preceded it and Frederico knew that a pear tart followed, once the kallaberry wine ticked their appetites back to life.

  He smiled at the senator. “I have a favor to ask of you. It relates to the matter of my need for an Espiran bride.”

  Frederico saw the hope come alive in Tannen’s eyes. Certainly, the senator had to wonder why he’d been granted this rare dining experience. “Certainly, Lord Czar. Name it. It is no favor—it is my honor.” Smiling, Tannen bowed his head.

  Frederico returned the bow. “I wish to purchase an estate in Espira. On the coast.”

  “I am certain we can find a place suitable for you, Lord Czar. Have you met someone of interest there?”

  Frederico shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not there. It is on behalf of someone else. A Lady Amal Y’Zir. But it would be more proper for the deed to reflect her father’s name—Lord Raj Y’Zir.”

  The senator’s brow wrinkled with thought. “I’m not familiar with those names.”

  “They are from abroad,” Frederico said. “I’m not sure of Lady Y’Zir’s arrival but I will tell you when I know. It will need a good steward—someone reliable and discreet.”

  He watched the governor’s eyes and when the understanding bloomed in them, it was bright. “I understand, Lord Czar.”

  “There will be generous remuneration for Espira,” Frederico said quietly, “and for you of course. I have a hunting manor for you in the Gaming Wood.” He paused. “And once her residency is unquestionable, I will make proposal and settle this matter of an Espiran bride.” He raised his glass and his eyebrows. “What say you, Senator?”

  There was the briefest hesitation before Tannen smiled and raised his own glass. “Espira is ever yours, Lord Czar.”

  “Thank you, Tannen. Because of the sensitive nature of this matter I will arrange my gratuity with care.”

  “I understand completely, Lord Czar.”

  And with that, Frederico clapped and a servant appeared with the steaming pear tart.

  * * *

  Frederico lay in his bed feeling the sweat dry on his skin. “I bought you a house today in Espira,” he told her.

  She giggled. “A ghost house?”

  He smiled. It had become a game between them. “Yes,” he said. “On the coast of my ghostly empire.” Images of palm trees and white sands flashed behind his eyes. “It’s always warm there.”

  “Like home,” she said, “but not an island.”

  “Not an island,�
� he agreed.

  She sighed and the sound of it was like soft hands upon his skin. “I suppose you think you’ll carry me away from my father’s tower in a large white ship after paying him some enormous dowry?”

  “I suppose,” he said.

  “And what if he refuses my hand?”

  Frederico stretched and stifled a yawn. “I do not think he will. But if he did, I would persuade him otherwise.”

  Amal laughed. “You do not know my father.”

  “And he does not know me.”

  She was silent for a moment and when she spoke, the play was gone from her voice. “Who are you truly, Frederico? I call you ‘ghost’ and make light of your empire but I’ve been through the library and I’ve found nothing. Where do you live? Where are these nine seas you sail in search of me? And are you truly as wonderful as you seem or are you just some whispering memory of a Younger God long dead and captured within this bauble I’ve found?”

  He closed his eyes. “If I am wonderful, I think you’ve had a part in making me so. And I could ask the same of you. I’ve spent enough gold searching you out to finance a regional government for two years. I’ve found no island paradise. No silver tower. No record or recollection of the name Y’Zir in any of a thousand places I have searched. Sometimes,” he said, “I wonder if you’re not the ghost.”

  “Maybe we both are,” she offered.

  “Perhaps. If so, then you’ll not mind my ghost house in Espira.”

  She laughed. “And why would I live in Espira rather than with you in your ghost palace?”

  He’d told her little of his wives; truth be told, he’d not thought of them since meeting the girl. And he’d not spoken of Jazrel at all. That loss seemed a private thing to him or at the very least, something to share when their eyes could meet and their hands could touch. “Eventually,” he told her, “you would live here with me. But these matters are...complicated.”

  Amal sighed. “I would imagine so. Being an emperor would be frightfully complex, I should think.”

  “It has its moments.”

  “So does being the daughter of a wizard.”

  Frederico laughed. “I’m certain that it does.”

  “You know I’ve asked my father’s mechoservitor about your empire and your nine seas.”

  “His mechoservitor?”

  “His metal man,” she said. “Surely you have mechanicals in your empire?”

  A metal man? Frederico thought about the handful of mechanicals he’d seen. Just last week, he’d seen a bird made of metal that could fly and recite verse. “A few,” he said. “Mostly small things. Nothing so elaborate as a man.”

  “He is a wealth of knowledge beyond even our library. I see him infrequently as he’s often in the basements about my father’s work.”

  “What did he say?”

  She chuckled. “He made inquiries of where I’d heard such nonsense. I told him I’d read it in a book somewhere but could not remember which.”

  She also hides me from her world, he thought, and he wondered why that impulse was strong within them. Initially, they might think it madness but it would only take a moment to draw out the crescent and prove the truth of it to any who wished to know. Perhaps we know it changes when it becomes more than the two of us.

  When she yawned and stretched, he heard the sound of sheets moving across her skin and heard the pull of sleep in her voice. “Talk me to sleep, Frederico my Czar, and tell me about my house in Espira.”

  Yawning himself, Frederico rolled to his side and began describing the estate with its gardens and butterflies, green pools and white sands.

  When her breathing became slow and steady, he smiled. “Dream sweetly, Amal my love,” he said quietly into the crescent. Then, carefully, he lowered it into its velvet-lined box, closed the lid and pushed it back beneath his bed.

  * * *

  Frederico did not announce his visit to the Ministry of Social Behavior but somehow they expected him and ushered him into the Minister’s office immediately.

  Pyrus was there was well, his anger barely concealed. “This is most irregular, Lord Czar,” he said. Still, he stood and bowed his head.

  “Quite out of the ordinary,” the Minister of Social Behavior agreed, following Pyrus’s lead. He looked more nervous than angry and Frederico noted that.

  “It may have been once,” Frederico replied, “but perhaps you’ve noticed some recent changes in what was once deemed regular and ordinary.” He smiled and went straight to the topic of his visit. “I want to see the Lunar Priestess. I’ve had a month of excuses and I’ll have no more. Broken or not, ill or not, raving or not, I will see her and I will interview her privately.”

  Though it was not his ministry, Pyrus spoke first. Frederico noted this as well. “But—”

  The Czar raised his hand, cutting him off. “Minister Pyrus, is what I ask beyond my right as your Czar?”

  There was fire in his eye but the old man bit his tongue. “Anything you ask, Lord Czar, is within your right.”

  “Very well.” He turned to the Minister of Social Behavior. “Take me to her then.”

  The Minister glanced to Pyrus, then back to Frederico. “Yes, Lord Czar.”

  They climbed wide and sweeping marble stairs and strode down paneled halls decorated with black and red roses of Empire, past portraits of the royal family. In the eastern ward, they climbed the corner tower to the midpoint and paused at a walnut door.

  The Minister inserted a key and turned the lock while Pyrus tried and failed to disguise the anger on his face. Frederico looked to each of them, then looked to the captain of his Crimson Guard. “I will leave when I’m finished. I will ring if I have urgent need of you.”

  The captain saluted. The ministers inclined their heads.

  Frederico opened the door and slipped into the brightly lit room, pulling it closed behind him.

  It was a wide open space with a comfortable bed and a small table, a wardrobe and glass-paned doors that opened onto a caged balcony garden. In the garden, a middle-aged woman with graying red hair sat upon a simple wood chair and hummed at the butterflies that lifted and landed from her naked skin.

  Frederico found himself blushing at her nudity and he turned away from her. “Forgive my intrusion, Lady, he said. “I did not know you were indecent.”

  She laughed. “I am never indecent.” The laughter melted into a smile as she stood. He glanced towards her as she turned to face him and saw continental lines of strength and islands of softness in the curving of her body. He looked away again, a blush rising once more to his cheeks. “You are the Weeping Czar Frederico,” she said.

  He tried not to notice her breasts. “I no longer weep,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “Then it’s begun.” She stopped then took another tentative step closer to him. “They’ve given it to you and you’ve spoken into it.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “It spoke back to you and now you are the Last Weeping Czar.” She smiled sweetly at him.

  There was something compelling and confident in the priestess’s words. Frederico felt something like curiosity rising within. Or perhaps it was fear. He heard traces of it in his voice. “What has begun?”

  She took another step forward. “The Year of the Falling Moon,” she said. “Just as Saint Carnelyin told us.”

  She started humming again, swaying now to the music. Outside, the butterflies danced with her and Frederico blinked at it all and waited for her words to register. Carnelyin. The storyteller with his fanciful journey to the moon. He opened his mouth to protest, to tell her that the moon was the poisoned garden of gods long fled or extinct, but he was suddenly caught by the song she hummed. He knew it. “Where have you heard that song?”

  Her body rippled like a river bathed in light. “He brought it back with him along with the crescent. But you should know this. Your family financed his expedition.”

  Frederico bristled at the nonsense of her words. “There has never been a Czarist Lunar Expedition.
”

  She smiled. “There has, Frederico. It’s the best kept secret of your family and the source of its weeping.” Her voice lowered now. “Soon the time for secrets will be past. The Moon Wizard is awake and the end of an age is upon us.”

  The Moon Wizard. He’d read Carnelyin’s story as a boy—most boys had—but it had been many years. He did not remember reading anything about a Moon Wizard. But he did remember something else. It came to him accompanied with laughter and a playful assertion. “I am Amal Y’Zir,” she had told him one night long ago, “daughter of the Great Blood Wizard, Raj Y’Zir.”

  He looked at the priestess. She still hummed the song—the one he’d slowly learned upon the harp under Amal’s tutelage—and she danced in quiet supplication. “Did Carnelyin name this Moon Wizard?”

  She shook her head. “He did not. And that first, smaller edition of his tale was gathered and burned.” She stopped dancing and their eyes met. “He himself was gathered and burned eventually,” she told him in a sober voice, “when he refused to recast his perilous tale at the behest of his Czar.”

  Frederico shook his head. “He died in retirement in Espira, a man of great honor.”

  “He died in a fire in some basement furnace beneath your palace,” she said. “Branded a traitor for telling the truth.”

  Frederico swallowed. Something in her words held him and demanded that he ask the next question. “What truth did he tell?”

  “Sit with me,” she told him, “and I will share his gospel with you.”

  Frederico looked to the door then back to the woman. They are words, he told himself. Hearing could not hurt him. But already, this woman struck a chord within him that resonated as true as any upon his grandmother’s harp. He’d studied enough of the Lunarists to know they believed a tragic end awaited a faithless world but he’d never cared to know exactly why and what kind of end. It was enough to know that it hung upon mysticism and bordered on madness.

  But now, a hunger for the words rode him and he walked slowly to the chair she pointed to.

  Folding his hands into his lap, he sat. “Teach me about the moon,” he said.