by Cindy Dees
Using a lamp flint, she lit an oil lamp and then a half dozen candles around the spacious room. A mechanical clock took up an entire corner, and it indicated the hour to be a little after six o’clock. She hoped it meant six o’clock in the morning; otherwise, she had slept all night and all day.
She took care of her ablutions and dressed, donning the ceremonial White Heart tabard the high matriarch had given her for formal occasions, a gaudily embroidered silk and velvet affair.
She opened her door, and two guards came to immediate attention. She said politely, “Kadir told me last night that the high proctor would see me first thing this morning.” It wasn’t exactly true, but these two wouldn’t know that. “If you could show me the way to his office, I’d be most grateful. I would hate to keep him waiting.”
They didn’t correct her on it not being morning. Now, to hope that High Proctor Albinus was awake at this early hour.
The guards strode down the hall, and she followed, taking in every detail of the décor. The tapestries depicted a number of scenes of life at a court long lost to the dust of time. Many of them showed a handsome man, human, wearing a crown. In some, he sat in judgment or hosted a feast. In others, he led hunting parties or parades of nobles. And in a few, he was shown wearing mage’s armor at the head of a great army. Hadrian’s time had not been entirely peaceful, apparently.
She was tempted to stop and study the man the mages had expected her sister to marry, but the guards were moving quickly, and she did not want to risk someone stopping them.
One tapestry, however, made her pause whether she willed it or not. Hadrian was depicted as a child in this picture, his distinctive crown identifying him as he knelt at the feet of a … being. The figure stroked the child Hadrian’s hair fondly as a parent might do. The being was armored and cloaked in unrelieved black, but what made him remarkable was the lack of a face inside the hood of his cloak. Instead, a starry night was depicted within it. The Star Lord himself? Ruler of the Outer Planes and Sentinel of the Aether Gates? He was supposed to be one of the twelve greater beings who watched over Haelos, along with the Green Lady and other mythic figures. If she read it right, that tapestry suggested Hadrian was the Star Lord’s son.
She lurched into motion, hurrying to catch up with her guards. As she lengthened her stride to catch the retreating pair, she noticed a man coming toward her down the hall. He was unkempt and wore dusty, torn clothing as if he’d recently returned from hard travels. Most notably, he did not wear the dark blue robes of the mages. He was a big man, bearded and fearsome-looking, but it was the look in his eyes that arrested her attention. An almost feverish light shone in them.
As he drew level with her, glaring at her as if he would incinerate her, she paused, reaching out to rest her hand on his forearm. She was surprised to feel rock-hard muscle beneath her fingers before he jerked away from her. “Are you ill, sir? May I offer you any healing you might need?”
A brief look of confusion passed through the man’s expression, perhaps tinged with suspicion.
She said gently, “I am a healer, sworn to harm none and defend all life. It would be my pleasure to help you.”
She reached for him once more, but the man pulled away just as her guards arrived behind him. They must have doubled back to collect her.
“Move along, prisoner, and quit bothering her. She’s no concern of yours!” one of the guards snapped.
“I stopped him,” Raina explained. “He was not bothering me in the least.” Her guards shooed the man away and continued walking, this time on either side of her.
“I was not aware the mages took prisoners,” she commented mildly.
“Now and again, someone discovers our location. If we’re to keep the secret of our tower, we have to hold them until we can erase their memories of this place.”
Although startled by the revelation, she still managed to ask casually, “I suppose you use ritual magic to erase memories?”
“Aye. We’re no Kothites.”
The capacity of the most powerful Kothites to control and manipulate people’s minds was well known.
She nodded, relieved that she need not worry about the mages wiping her mind clean by merely willing it so. “How long does it take to erase a memory? I would think that’s a relatively simple ritual.”
“Oh, it is,” the chatty guard answered. “But ritual components don’t grow on trees, you know. At least not most of them,” he joked.
Interesting. She was relieved to hear that there were limits to the mages’ resources. She commented, “I imagine you go through quite a few components around here. We go through them like we go through bandages at the Heart.”
“Oh yes—”
“You talk too much,” the other guard interrupted. “The emissary is an outsider and not privy to our business.”
“Elfonse is just angry he didn’t get his way and she’s here!” Chatty snapped back.
Raina took note of the mark under Chatty’s ear. The same as Kadir’s and Justin’s. She couldn’t see the surly guard’s mark, but she would lay odds it was the same one Elfonse, the grumpy proctor, wore.
She thought she’d sensed tension between the factions last night, and this little exchange confirmed it.
“Here we are, Emissary,” Surly announced. “Shall I announce you to the high proctor?”
“Please.”
The guard knocked on the door, and a thin voice bid him to enter. Thank goodness. Albinus was awake.
She listened as the guard made the formal announcement. Albinus cut the fellow off midsentence with, “Yes, yes. I know who the girl is. Let me speak with her before I expire of old age.”
Oh, she was going to like this fellow. Smiling a little, she stepped inside and saw a tiny old man swathed in ornate blue robes that seemed overlarge for his frail frame. His skin was transparent and dry with age, and only a few wisps of silver hair clung to his age-spotted pate, but his eyes danced like a child’s, bright and curious. She curtsied low to him, granting him full diplomatic honors with the gesture.
“Let us dispense with this formality,” he rasped. To the guards, he waved a hand made solely of skin, bones, and veins, dismissing them.
The door closed, and the two of them were alone. She moved closer to the desk that swallowed him and noted that every single inch of the high proctor’s slender arms, face, and neck was covered in faded runes.
“It’s an honor to meet you, High Proctor. I apologize for coming to your study uninvited—”
“Cease, child. I’m pleased that you skipped all the protocols. If you will help me over to the fire, we can sit and have a nice talk.”
He felt as light as a bird as she steadied him. Depositing him in a chair, she sank into the matching seat.
“Well, child, you’ve certainly led us a merry chase these past few years.”
“I’m sorry about that—”
He waved a hand, stopping her. “It is I who owe you the apology. What the Preservators have done to the daughters of Tyrel in the name of rousing the Great Mage is unfortunate at best.”
“On that we are agreed.”
He nodded slowly, as if to himself. At length, he said, “I hear you have been doing well for yourself.”
“If you define doing well as attaining rank in the Heart, then yes, I am doing very well.”
“And if I define doing well as learning what you can do to help us wake the great king, Hadrian, what would you say then?”
Direct, this high proctor. She chose, however, to be obtuse. “Who exactly is this Hadrian? I was taught that the daughters of Tyrel were linked to a being called the Great Mage.”
“Hadrian is the Great Mage’s given name. His title was High Lord King Hadrian of Haelos, and he was also a great mage. In his day, some called him the Human King. A great elven king and a great dwarven king lived in the same era, and the three were often distinguished by race.”
She chose her words carefully. “My studies have revealed that one must
first find where the spirit of Hadrian rests and then find a way to rejoin it to his body.”
“And if his spirit is no longer on this plane?”
She shrugged. “Like I said. You must find it wherever it resides.”
“Interesting. So you recommend travel to other planes of existence for our research?”
“You do control the planar gates, do you not?” she shot back.
Albinus leaned back, studying her intently, his gaze piercing. So, the feeble-old-man thing was an act, after all. His mind was obviously as sharp as it had ever been. At length, he murmured, “You have done your homework on us, haven’t you? I understand you became acquainted with one of our clavigers last fall.”
“I doubt that he would characterize our attacking him, dropping him, and invading his mind to repair it as making his acquaintance.”
Albinus chuckled, a sound of childish delight issuing from ancient lungs. He turned to gaze into the fire, and Raina noticed a small flower marking under his right ear. A fourth order within this bunch? Or was that a mark of leadership?
“Tell me something, High Proctor. I noticed a fine tapestry not far from your door that seems to indicate the Star Lord was Hadrian’s father. Was that a figurative depiction or a literal one?”
“Oh, it’s literal. Hadrian is the Star Lord’s son.”
“So Hadrian is a scion of one of the Twelve of Haelos, then?” The Twelve were mythological beings purported to watch over the continent and its people. Mostly, they were the stuff of hearth tales and bards’ songs, but as she was coming to know, the songs and tales were laced with more truth than she’d ever guessed.
“This is not something we discuss, child.”
And yet, Hadrian was called the Great Mage. All scions were said to be given a portion of their immortal parent’s powers. It would explain why the Mages of Alchizzadon were associated with the planar gates. The Star Lord was said to be the defender of the planes, keeping them separate from one another—
Wait. Were those the Aether Gates?
She’d heard the title in stories before but had never realized exactly which gates the tales referred to. She doubted anyone who told the legends of the Star Lord knew. The Aether Gates were always described as a set of black iron gates that guarded a mythical castle where the greater beings feasted and slumbered. But were they, in fact, the gates keeping the planes apart and at the same time connecting them?
“What can you tell me of the Aether Gates?” she asked.
“Nothing that you have not seen with your own eyes. They align the planes with one another.”
She reeled mentally. The planar gates were the Aether Gates, and they were real. Furthermore, she’d seen one in action last fall in Rahael. “How do the gates connect the planes?”
Albinus studied her for a moment, appearing to weigh some sort of choice in his head, and then he answered frankly, “The story goes that when the separate planes were created, they were identical to this one. The gates allowed travel to and from corresponding identical points between planes. However, as the different creatures who inhabited the planes began to alter them to reflect their essences, the matching points on the planes started not to match so exactly. The tympans were created to realign the travel nexuses and keep planar travel possible, but even those are very old and falling into disrepair.”
She was amused at his choice of words. The tympans—the mechanisms that aligned these nexuses of which he spoke—were not merely old and in disrepair. They had been broken and scattered intentionally.
And although he did not say it, the other planes were probably continuing to diverge from the material plane, too. She was not sorry to hear that travel to other planes was becoming difficult, if not nearly impossible. As long as she and her friends could bring Gawaine’s spirit from the dream realm to this one, she never needed to visit—or fight off an invasion from—another plane as long as she lived.
A silence fell between them, and Albinus said, “Surely you must have questions for me, else why would you have accepted our invitation?”
This time, she chose directness. “Will you fix my friend Justin? Or if not, how do I fix him?”
“I was not aware he was broken.”
“He is part ogre now. That is not his natural state.”
“Young Justin agreed to accept the spirit of an ogre mage into himself. The way I hear it, he wished to learn to cast magic. The least painful and most expeditious way to do that was to give him the spirit of a magic caster.”
“And how exactly did you come into possession of this spirit?” she asked. “I would warn you that I’m asking in my official capacity as a White Heart emissary.”
Albinus’s mouth twitched in humor. “Duly noted … Emissary. An ogre mage of our order volunteered to surrender a portion of his magical energy as his life waned from old age into death. I imagine I shall do the same one day.”
She frowned a little. “The way I understand bottling to work, once a person dies permanently, any magics stored in the bottle pass away beyond the Veil into the spirit realm, also.”
“Which is why we maintain the bodies of those who have volunteered for the procedure in an indefinite stasis.”
She leaned back hard in her seat. “So you know how to put people into stasis? The same kind of stasis your Hadrian exists in? And do you know how to remove people from this state?”
“These matters are private to my order and do not concern you.”
“If you are killing people and stealing their spirits, I assure you it does concern me. Greatly.”
“We kill no one. And we steal nothing.”
She didn’t believe him, not on either count, but she was not in a position to make any further accusations or to call in the Royal Order of the Sun to investigate the matter and take punitive action against the mages.
Albinus offered her tea, and she busied herself making it for both of them at a small cart beside his desk. It took several minutes to steep the tea, and by the time she carried mugs of the hot drink around to him, the elderly proctor had dozed off.
She tiptoed back to the tea cart to set down the mugs, and her glance strayed to his desk. Papers were scattered across it, and rows of ancient-looking books lined the wall behind it. A large leather map book lay on a tall drafting table to her left.
She looked over at the back of Albinus’s head. It lolled to one side, and a gentle snore emanated from the chair. It wasn’t nice to snoop, but how could she not take the opportunity to learn all she could about her nemeses?
She quickly skimmed the papers on his desk and spotted nothing of interest in the administrative correspondence. She headed for the map case next, rolling back the large leather cover, which was as tall as her arm and half again as long.
On top was a map of the entire continent of Haelos, depicted in more detail than she’d ever seen on any map before. Plentiful information about the interior leaped up at her—lakes and rivers and mountain ranges she’d never heard of before. And then she spied a network of stylized ovals drawn across the map. The Aether Gates, perhaps?
Eagerly, she turned the page. And gasped. A map of the planes. The vellum sheet was covered with spherical shapes, each labeled with a name, its interior filled with intricate runic shapes.
Shocked, she realized she’d seen some of those shapes before. The wedge-shaped piece of black nullstone that Lord Goldeneye had given Eben last fall had at least two of these shapes inscribed on it. And Will had drawn a rough shape of a third rune that he’d glimpsed on another nullstone piece the Boki had stolen from the Haelan legion’s armory in Dupree last summer.
Were these the tympan coordinates to each of the planes? Stealthily, she lifted a piece of parchment off Albinus’s desk and dipped his pen in ink. Glancing at him furtively, she quickly copied the circles and runes. Her work wasn’t neat, but she finished the copy, blew it dry, and stuffed it inside her shirt without him waking. Closing the map case carefully, she moved over to the bookcase and browsed th
e titles.
Most were innocuous, various histories and collections of poems or stories, but a few words of note jumped out at her. Preservators. Collectors. Servitors. Magia. Were those the four orders within the Mages of Alchizzadon? She was just reaching for a thin volume on Magia when Albinus stirred and coughed.
Quickly, she jumped back from the books and snatched up the cups of tea. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice how much the drinks had cooled.
“Here we go, High Proctor. Tea for two.” She pretended that he hadn’t dozed off at all and that a few seconds had passed and not many minutes.
Frowning slightly, he took the cup of tea and sipped it.
“What can you tell me of the previous women in my family? Do you and yours follow where they end up when they are released from their duties as Ariannas?”
The eldest daughters in her family were each raised and trained to be brides for Hadrian, should he awaken in their lifetime. When the next Arianna was fully trained and of marriageable age, the previous one was free to leave Tyrel and pursue a life of her own. Or at least that was how the story went.
But knowing the mages, she wouldn’t put it past them to kidnap her ancestors or worse, as the Black Widow had accused them of doing.
“I’m sure they end up doing productive work,” he answered smoothly.
Riiight. “I’m sure you’re correct,” she replied just as smoothly. The mages were doing something to the other Ariannas. The Black Widow’s accusations suddenly seemed a great deal more credible, and for the first time since she’d been given them, Raina was grateful for the sleep gas poisons the widow had insisted she take.
The map stuck to her skin inside her shirt, and she needed to wrap it and figure out a place to hide it before the ink ran and was ruined. She drank down her tea quickly and rose to her feet. “Thanks be to thee for your hospitality, High Proctor. It has been an honor to meet you. I have occupied too much of your precious time and will take my leave now. I hope we may speak again before I leave.”
He patted her hand. “You’re a lovely young woman, and I wish you well in your endeavors.”
