by Will Wight
She didn’t look up from her work, smoothing out the wrinkles in a navy blue walking-jacket. “It’s been almost ten years since I’ve seen my son. I let the servants choose your clothes when you were an infant, and in the years since, I have come to regret that.”
Alsa gave the clothes one last pat, as though to finish them off, and then smiled over at him. “Hurry up and dress; our guests will be joining us for breakfast.”
As soon as the door was shut, Calder stuffed his shirt—along with the key—into the drawer at the base of the wardrobe. He had made it very clear that the drawer was filled with his private possessions, and she had promised to honor his privacy. But he still invested the pocket every morning, just in case.
One never knew when the Imperial Guard might come around, asking questions.
~~~
Last night, Calder had expected one guest this morning—his new tutor.
A few minutes ago, when he found out about the pair of Witnesses, he had expected two.
Now, to his surprise, he found that they had three.
The Witnesses sat together on one side of the table, next to his mother at the head. A pair of Heartlanders, they were also brothers: Artur and Vorus Belfry.
“It is quite common for siblings to join the Witnesses together,” Artur explained, lifting a forkful of fruit salad to his mouth. His shirt strained at the seam from the pressure of his bicep, which was bigger around than Calder’s neck. He must have stood almost seven feet tall, and heavier than three of Calder’s father.
“I am the Chronicler,” Artur went on. “I Read and record Imperial history as I witness it, then I spread that knowledge to others.” He patted his belt, which was packed with candles. All but one were wrapped in brown paper; the one bare cylinder of wax was snow white and half-burnt. “My brother is my Silent One, my guide and bodyguard. He covers his mouth as a symbol of his refusal to speak secrets.”
From size alone, Calder would have expected Artur to be fighting as a Champion in an arena, not recording history. Except that gladiators were almost always descended from the light-haired Izyrian tribes, not citizens of the civilized Aurelian Heartlands.
But his brother...Vorus looked like a sparrow. A sparrow in glasses.
Vorus adjusted his spectacles when he was mentioned, then he tugged his scarf down to take a bite of his muffin. He pulled the scarf back up to chew. The Silent One was taller than Calder, and just as thin. Where Artur looked like he could push a bull up a mountain, Vorus looked as though he would have trouble sliding his plate across the table.
Which of them was supposed to be the bodyguard?
As interesting as the two Witnesses were, they couldn’t hold Calder’s attention compared to their third guest.
Jyrine Tessella was exactly his age, the daughter of a Watchman who had died in the line of duty.
“Her father was a close friend of mine,” Alsa had said during Jyrine’s introduction. “She could never afford an education without his income, and a tutor can teach two students as well as one.”
Calder had certainly not complained. Between her tanned skin and long braid of brown hair, her dangling emerald earrings and her bold smile, she was like the genteel version of those Vandenyan dancers his father admired.
“In a few years, she’ll turn heads,” his father would have said. She was doing a wonderful job of turning Calder’s head already.
He should thank Alsa later. By bringing him a pair of tutors and Jyrine, his mother was actually giving him two gifts: experts to admire his accomplishments, and a beautiful audience.
Artur took a sip of tea gently, as though he were afraid he might crush the cup in his grip. “So, children, let’s get to know one another. You are both familiar with the works of Sadesthenes, yes?”
“Of course,” Jyrine said.
“‘Why do the petty tribes of the earth waste their time on war?’” Calder quoted. “‘Don’t they know that their struggles must end the same way: in a single Empire for all the world?’”
Vorus shook his head, still chewing behind his scarf.
“That’s an impressive quotation from Prion the Fourth,” Alsa said, her eyes on her meal. “He wrote a continent away from Sadesthenes, and a century apart.”
Jyrine’s earrings caught the light as she grinned at Calder. “But other than that, they might as well be the same man! Calder was clearly pointing out the similarity in their views on Imperial conquest. Both of them saw the Emperor’s expansion as a natural part of the universe, decreed by Fate.”
Artur suppressed his own smile, shaking his empty fork in Jyrine’s direction. “That is exactly what Calder meant, I have no doubt.”
Right then, Calder vowed to read more of Sadesthenes.
“We will still cover Sadesthenes, I think, simply to...enhance your familiarity. We can take a look at the foundational works of the other philosophers as well, and you can let us know if one in particular piques your interest.” He speared a slice of apple, moving it to his plate. “And since the philosophies rely so heavily on Imperial history, we will study that at the same time. Of course, that’s more Vorus’ area of expertise than mine, isn’t it?”
Artur returned to his plate, slicing his apple into bite-sized pieces.
Vorus, of course, said nothing.
After a few seconds of crippling silence, Artur chuckled. “Just a little joke, I apologize. We do tease one another.”
His brother looked as though he had never heard of a joke, and would certainly never tell one.
Jyrine leaned forward, both elbows on the table. “History and philosophy are essential, of course, but I’d like to hear more from you. You two have been all over the Empire, haven’t you? You must have stories like no one else!”
“Yes!” Calder piped up, eager to rejoin the conversation. “I’ve heard stories about the Chroniclers and their candles. Is it true that you can store memories?”
Suddenly both Witnesses turned to Calder’s mother, who stared at her son.
“He didn’t hear about it from me,” Alsa said pointedly. “Calder, who told you that?”
His father had, of course, but Calder did what he always did when he wanted to deflect more questions: he smiled. “I’ve always been fascinated by the Witnesses, and I’ve tried to learn everything I could about them. Rumor only, of course, but I’m always hungry to learn more about the Guilds. Mother, didn’t we speak the other day about the possibility of my joining the Witness’ Guild?”
“We did indeed,” she said dryly.
Jyrine’s eyes widened. “It’s true, then? You can store memories in the wax of a candle?”
Artur sighed, glancing at his silent brother. “It is not something we advertise, but it is also not quite a secret. There is no such thing as perfect memory, so we devised an alchemical wax that is particularly sensitive to Intent. It can record a few days’ worth of memories, so that when I burn the candles later, I relive the events exactly as they occurred. Thereby, I ensure the accuracy of my own recollection.”
She placed a hand on Calder’s, excited. “That’s incredible! I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
As she did, Calder noticed a spidery tattoo on her left hand. The line of script, which was nothing like Imperial, began under the nail of each finger and crawled along the back of her hand, joining into one stream that vanished into her left sleeve.
He blushed, tearing his eyes away. “It is, isn’t it? It’s one of the reasons I find the Witnesses so fascinating.”
Under her breath, Alsa grunted.
Jyrine gave her tutors a charming smile. “Will you burn one for us, sometime? I’d love to relive a battle, or a Kameira hunt, or a duel!”
Artur drained the last of his tea. “The realm has been peaceful for the duration of our career. We have only been forced to fight a small number of times, and nothing you might call a battle.”
Suddenly, the Witnesses actually did seem like an interesting career choice. “Fights, you say?”
&nb
sp; Vorus gave them a disapproving look over his glasses, and his brother seemed to agree. “I expected a young boy to be interested in battles and duels, but a young lady ought to have more sense.”
“Oh no, don’t hold back on my account,” Jyrine said, smiling as eagerly as Calder. “Does Vorus do all the fighting, or do you fight back-to-back?”
“Today, I thought we would cover an introduction to philosophy,” Artur said firmly. As one, Jyrine and Calder sighed.
Alsa stood up from the table, waving at a maid to clean her place. “I have to be going. There’s a Guild project that will not wait for me any longer.”
As she walked past him, Alsa ruffled Calder’s hair. “Try not to spend too long on your war stories, will you, Artur?”
The Chronicler drew himself up straight. “Of course not, madam. And my thanks, for serving the Empire as faithfully as you have.”
Alsa waved behind her as she left.
As soon as she was gone, a question leapt from Jyrine’s mouth. “She works for the Blackwatch? What does she do, exactly? I’ve heard such stories!”
“Don’t ask me,” Calder said. “I’ve never heard, except that it involves something called a Whispering Gaunt.”
Artur shivered, and Vorus made a strange sign in the air: he drew a circle with his fingers, roughly parallel with his own face.
“It’s best not to speak of such things,” Artur said.
Like a cat spying a mouse’s tail, Jyrine pounced. “What such things? My father would never tell me either.”
“It’s very difficult to avoid a subject when you don’t know which subject to avoid,” Calder joined in.
Between the two of them, Artur wilted. “What do you know about the Blackwatch?”
“They defend us from the Elders,” Jyrine said.
“They worship Elders and drink human blood,” Calder whispered.
Jyrine pointed at Calder without taking her eyes from Artur. “His version sounds much more colorful.”
“More colorful usually means less correct,” the tutor responded. “It is my job to make sure that you are operating on correct information. And I do happen to know quite a bit about the Blackwatch...”
Both Jyrine and Calder leaned forward even more, scenting weakness.
Then Artur held up a book, a copy of Sadesthenes’ From Rising Sun to Setting Moon. “When we finish this volume, I would be happy to answer one question from each of you. Without violating any Guild secrets, of course.”
Calder slumped in his chair, disappointed, but Jyrine narrowed her eyes. “What if we have more questions?”
The Chronicler grinned. “Fortunately for you, I have more books.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
For a Navigator, Calder wasn’t a very good navigator.
That had been Jerri’s job, more than his: reading the maps and the stars, comparing them to the compass, telling him which direction to go as he steered the ship. She was the pilot, he was just the captain. Without her, he had to rely entirely on Naberius, with occasional input from Andel.
Therefore, he was effectively taking it on faith that they were headed in the right direction.
At the moment, he had focused his entire body and Intent to steering The Testament through the Starlight Spires—mountainous spikes of some silvery metal that stuck up from the water like a porcupine’s quills. At night, the Spires supposedly lit up with spots of white light as though they were covered in stars, but Calder would rather swim through than try and navigate these turns after sundown.
Some of the silver Spires were too close to one another to squeeze through, and others didn’t reach entirely out of the water. Off to port, he saw the sun-bleached remnants of a ship that hadn’t cleared one of the sunken Spires, so the metal spike gouged a chunk out of the hull, leaving the corpse of the vessel impaled forever.
It didn’t look like a Navigator ship, so it was that captain’s own fault for venturing this far into the Aion. Still, it was a grim reminder of what could happen if Calder lost concentration for even a moment.
He couldn’t rely on the Lyathatan to pull them through, either. Alien irritation flowed up through the ship, burning Calder’s mind with its sullen resentment. The Elderspawn was not at all happy that it had to dodge around sunken silver spikes, so it couldn’t spend the day sleeping as it normally did. If Calder called upon the Lyathatan now, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d end up dining with Kelarac on the bottom of the sea.
Dalton Foster stomped up the ladder to the stern deck, cradling a musket in one arm and a bottle in the other. Calder nodded to him without taking his eyes from the closest Silver Spire.
“Duster,” he said pointedly. Foster had a history of forgetting his false name.
The old gunner grunted. “So. It’s been a week.”
Aching pain shot through Calder’s gut, but he kept his expression blank. He’d tried to spend the last week distracting himself with work, and the crew had mostly stayed out of his way. He should have known it was too good to last.
“We probably have another week until we get there,” Calder said, in an attempt to keep the conversation on their voyage. At another time of the year, the trip wouldn’t have taken so long: the coordinates Naberius pointed out on the map was at the very edge of what Navigators called the Deep Aion. It was far enough into the sea that only members of Calder’s Guild could get there, but still only a few days from shore in a straight line.
The ‘straight line’ part was what got people killed. This time of year, a Deepstrider migration ran parallel to the coast, and the Kameira would reduce his ships to matchsticks if he tried to drive straight through them. He’d heard rumors that Lhirin Island had drifted west, so he’d have to spend another few days looping wide enough around the island. He didn’t want his crew to start eating each other, as the last Navigators to land on the nomadic isle had. And he couldn’t move at full speed through the Silver Spires. All in all, it turned a four-day trip into a two-week voyage.
Traveling through the Aion Sea boiled down to nothing more than choosing between one delay, an even worse delay, and a horrible death.
Foster grunted again, looking down at the pair of spectacles hanging against his beard. “I, uh, brought you something.” He held out the bottle.
Calder angled the ship to take them into a relatively clear stretch of water, and then took a hand from the wheel to examine Foster’s gift. It looked like an undersized wine bottle with a white label that read, simply, ‘Batch 419.’
He tugged out the cork and took a swig, expecting the bitter wash of cheap wine. Instead, he was greeted by a wash of fruity flavor that reminded him of peach.
When did we get a vintage like this?
“Alchemical wine?” he asked curiously. After a second, he took another drink. His parents would both have been offended for different reasons: his mother would have argued that he was abusing the wine by drinking it directly from the bottle, and his father would have wanted him to share.
Foster shrugged. “How should I know? I got it from Petal.”
Calder sprayed a mouthful of orange wine onto the deck.
“Not good? Oh well, I’m sure she’s got more. I thought, uh, you might like to hit some targets for a while.”
Foster hefted the musket.
Calder ignored him, focusing on his body. Did he feel a warmth running through his veins? Was it poison? Something worse? Should he have himself locked in the hold?
“Foster...I mean, Duster. What was in that?”
The gunner frowned, confused. “Wine?”
“If Petal put nothing else in that bottle, I’ll give you my share from this job.”
Foster reached into his jacket, pulling out a few rolled up papers that looked as though they’d been torn from a book. “She wouldn’t poison you, you know that.”
In point of fact, he didn’t know that.
He held up the papers, on which he’d drawn targets. “Where do you want me to set these up?”
&nb
sp; Calder adjusted their course to keep them from running into a partially submerged Spire. “I’m a little busy here, Duster. If I stopped to shoot for an hour, we’d all be dead.”
Foster shifted from foot to foot, looking at his handful of targets. “It helped me,” he said at last.
Calder stopped. If anyone understood how he was feeling, it was Foster. He’d had a reputation as a world-class gunsmith, which had earned him quite a fortune among the Empire’s elite. It was once considered quite a distinction to own a Dalton Foster original. Even Naberius bragged about it.
But that was before the Emperor’s death.
Afterwards, until the four Regents and the Imperial Guard restored order, the Capital had spent a few months swallowed in chaos. An opportunist had found Foster, kidnapped his family, and forced him to make a gun. Every day until he’d finished, Foster’s family was tortured.
Not all of them made it.
The survivors, scarred and scared, had abandoned Dalton Foster. His own wife and children. As far as Calder knew, the man hadn’t seen or heard from them for years.
Calder’s lips stretched into a grin.
Foster scowled, crumbling the targets in his fist. “Something funny, Captain?”
He shook his head furiously, still grinning. “No, it’s...I can’t...I can’t stop smiling.”
Out on the deck, a frizzy head poked up through the trap door to the hold. Petal looked at him with beady eyes, and then hurriedly ducked back down.
“Ah,” Dalton said. “So that’s what was in the wine.”
For Petal, it was actually pretty good logic. If Calder wasn’t happy, then slip him some sort of concoction to make him smile. He’d have to watch his food for the next few days; once she found out this batch hadn’t worked, she would try a newer version.
“Thanks for trying, Foster. Some other time, perhaps.” The words might have sounded a little less ridiculous if Calder wasn’t smiling like a painted fool.
Foster nodded and walked off. Calder honestly couldn’t tell if the man was offended or relieved.
A hand clapped him on the back, sending him crashing into the wheel.
