“I sent so many soldiers to their doom . . . all to get to you,” the old man whispered as he swung blindly towards the foot of the bed with his left hand and clenched his fist. He kept his right hand under the sheets. Armand wondered if the High Guard had broken his fingers.
Armand chuckled. He set the lantern on the edge of the bed to bow. “I was spared by a higher power.”
“Yes, the five gods must be laughing. You managed to survive the battle just to spite me. Perhaps it's for the best.”
“Oh?” Armand asked.
“Armand Delacourt Vice.” The old man twisted each syllable like a knife in an open wound. “Who better to render justice? Slay my guilty conscience. Judge me. Execute the sentence. Do it now. Kill me.”
“That was for the emperor to decide, Lucius,” Armand said, smiling as the old man flinched hearing his given name. “In his infinite grace and mercy, he let you live and who am I to question his judgment?”
“Suddenly obeying your superiors now, are you? What do you care for the mighty whims of Emperor Huron II next to the whispers of poor Lady Justice? Are you serving two masters?” The old man chuckled. “No good will come of that. Come closer. I don't see as well as I used to. My eyes.” The man waved his hand in front of his face and grimaced.
Old, weak-eyed fool. Armand set the lantern down and felt the orange glow leave his face. He needed information from this man and while much of the art of creating pliable, fearful witnesses was auditory or tactile, visual cues help set the stage for the torments to come. He had no doubt he could extract Jemmy's location from the broken old man, but the deed would lack subtlety and theater.
He moved closer. The ex-magistrate observed his footsteps creaking on the floorboards with calm serenity. Armand was beginning to regret this crude, thankless task to which his emperor had set him.
A dry chuckle came from the bed. “When the emperor's bully boys came for me, I was quite calm, Armand. Quite calm. Nobody could punish me worse than I had punished myself. I was longing for death to extricate my many sins. The damn emperor denied me that. Have you come to fix his . . . oversight?”
“I was not sent here to kill you.” Armand sighed internally as he heard his own words. An interrogator was not supposed to admit that. Fear of death was a potent motivator. Should I not turn that rationale upside down when the target appears to welcome death?
“Pity. I shall have to goad you into it. Sascha's hands used to glow just like that tiny lantern of yours,” the old man whispered.
Armand startled and the bed post shook slightly. Perhaps Lucius wasn't as weak-eyed as he claimed. Crafty old man.
Lucius smiled and reached towards the lantern, his bony fingers clutching at nothing.
Armand shivered and his mind flashed back to Port Eclare. He saw another set of fingers reaching for him, these wrapped in steel. Blood dripped through the joints as they tried to grab him, snare him in their cold, metal grip.
The old man's merry laugh shattered the vision and Armand squeezed his eyes shut. The interrogation. Focus on the interrogation.
“I can feel the warmth of the flame. Such a vibrant glow. My son glowed like that. Then he melted solid brass with his fingertips. Ah, my boy! I should have been proud. Instead I was afraid . . . of him, of what he was, of what his powers meant.” The old man dropped his hand on the bed. “Now I have nothing left to fear.”
“And Devin the Mage reminded you of your boy?” Armand swallowed and pressed on with the interrogation. “Which began your descent into madness and treachery?”
“Is your view of the world so simple? Because Devin had a passing resemblance to Sascha, in a moment of weakness I pardoned his life? What do you think the guild would have done if we sentenced one of their own to torment and death? My rationale was far more calculating than the doting whims of a father. I think you will ultimately approve of my reasons if not the results.”
“What reasons?” Armand growled. This was not how an interrogation was supposed to proceed. Somehow, the old man had become the interrogator and Armand the prisoner.
“I saved him for the good of the empire.”
Armand slammed his free hand against the baseboard and the wood quivered.
“Do you want to kill me yet?” the old man asked.
“No. That is not an answer, Lucius.” Armand clenched the handle of the lantern. He noticed his whitened knuckles and relaxed his grip.
“Just a mere taunt, a barb, a little hook in your flesh,” the ex-magistrate said, laughing. The breath rattled in his lungs. “How does it feel, Butcher? Shall I twist the hook? I will not long survive the emperor's mercy. Every moment is pain and death stands behind me. The High Guards were . . . brutal. That one of the nobility could sink so low infuriated them. That I supported mages. That I loved mages . . .” His voice broke. “Your precious emperor was there with his men. Towards the end he shoved his torturers aside and finished the job himself. A cruel, vicious man. Much like you.”
Armand almost felt pity for old Lucius despite his lies. Hatred and pain had warped the man's memories. The glorious emperor would never soil himself, never desecrate the spirit of justice like that. The e-magistrate's excessive punishments were the fault of some overzealous High Guards, nothing more. His son deserved the fate of mages and traitors, but for the father to suffer for the crimes of the son?
“The fault is mine,” Armand whispered, “I should have exposed you when I discovered your secret crimes: that you had hidden a mage son. A show trial and a quick noose were all I ever wanted. Not this.”
“Life is a curse,” the man agreed, ripping the flap of his night gown and placing his left hand over his heart. “Fix your mistake, Armand. My life for the life of my son. For all those soldiers dead on the field. Is that not justice?”
“You conflate justice with vengeance. Forget the soldiers, old man. I only care about stopping the mages. The evil, dangerous villains threatening to destroy our society whom you pardon for their crimes.”
“It's still like a dragon coiling around your gut, flaming your insides, isn't it? That smoldering desire to know why I pardoned Devin the Artifice Mage.”
A vision of a laughing monster in the guise of a young man with a sword that spewed rocks and lightning rumbled through Armand's mind. He almost dropped the lantern. It clattered against the bedpost and the oil within sloshed.
“The Artifice Mage,” the old man repeated. “That was what he called himself when he obliterated all those poor army boys, wasn't it? Were you disappointed when I let him escape the full force of the law, Armand? Did you feel cheated? Did I not quench your thirst for the blood of mages?”
Armand composed himself and coughed into his hand. “Merely a loose thread. I have been assigned to recapture the criminal.”
“Liar,” the man said, pulling himself up with one hand, keeping the other under wraps as he sat up in the bed and eased against the headboard. His chest heaved like a bellows with even that minimal exertion. “Perhaps that is what you wish to believe . . . but it has little semblance . . . of the truth. I have heard too many fake testimonies and false witnesses over the years. The truth peals like a silver bell. You sound like tin. Why are you here, Captain Vice?”
You know why or at least you suspect, Armand thought, resisting the urge to even glance at his shiny, new Major's pips. I am here to hunt the man you sheltered. The man whose career you guided into treachery. You know where he is. But you're not ready to reveal that secret. Not the big one. Not yet. We must start with a little secret and work our way up. “Tell me why you pardoned the criminal Devin first,” Armand said, injecting a note of panic into his voice: the sound of a man clutching for a minor victory. It was the voice of a disappointed hunter denied his prey. Let the old man search endlessly for the lie in that sentiment.
Lucius Judicar chuckled. He slapped the mattress with his left hand. “What will you give me if I tell you?” the old man asked. “What can you possibly offer me, Armand?”
A
rmand raised his lantern to hide a smile. Who knew if the crafty old man was just pretending not to see him. “I offer you the truth you say you value so much,” Armand replied. “I shall reveal my mission, express from the lips of Horatio II himself. The real reason why I came here to your sweaty, little bedroom.”
“That is not what I truly want from you,” the old man said, awkwardly re-buttoning his night gown, “but it will do for now. Most would assume I made that ruling out of pity. I did not pity Devin. Had I not seen decades of prisoners young and old alike promising death and ruin with every stare?”
“The artificers, then?” Armand asked. “Did they make you hold a trial and then pardon the criminal, too?”
The old man shook his head. “I did not fear the wrath of the artificers. They had evicted the lad from their ranks after all. I could never determine whether their legal efforts came from a lingering affection for the boy or mere political posturing. Regardless, they exhausted their influence merely to hold the trial. The decision to 'pardon' the youth was my own.”
“Why?”
“The filial resemblance was there, but it was not truly my son I saw in Devin,” the old man sighed. “I saw a younger version of myself. I saw some small part of me thriving within the lad. I had to save it. In pardoning Devin, I pardoned myself. I didn't realize it at the time of course. An epiphany I owe the emperor's minions after hours strapped to your favorite table. Strange how the arrival of death at your side strips a man of his illusions.”
“And how was that supposed to 'save the empire?'” Armand asked, tapping the lantern on the bedpost and spitting. As though the empire needs saving.
“Oh, the empire does indeed need saving, Armand. We are a shattered people.”
Armand smacked his forehead. Did I say that last part out loud? I'm losing control of this conversation. “Please, continue,” he said. “How are we a shattered people?”
“You know how I used to fix my gavel? Simple things. Tuning the springs, oiling the mechanism?”
Armand nodded before he remembered the man's 'eye problem.' If it existed. “Yes,” he said. “The other Black Guards were always moaning about it.”
“I never wanted to be an artificer. Horrible, prickly, princely folk. But I've always enjoyed fixing things. I entered politics to fix things. The empire wasn't perfect, but I thought I could . . . tinker. Fix it bit by bit. Then I came here.”
“A fine, imperial city,” Armand said. “So?”
“I grew up . . . elsewhere. The family had estates in the country. No real crime. No real violence. No mages. No artificers. No discord. It's easy to fix things in the country. Only the machines break down and the people practically manage themselves. Then I came to the city. I saw the artificers . . . and the mages. One builds us up. One tears us down. A dichotomy. Or so I thought. Ah, Devin. Such a frustrating individual.”
“Explain yourself,” Armand demanded.
“I saw potential in that young man. He made me realize that artificers and mages merely represent two polar extremes of our civilization. Not the best and the worst, just opposites. Yet we uphold the one and deride the other. If we could only bring both halves together, think of the wonders we could accomplish. In Devin, I saw the potential to meld the two. The youth was a living bridge to peace. No more fighting. No more discord. He made me dream of a utopian society where the five gods truly smile down upon us and everyone is happy.”
“Truly, a glorious vision,” Armand said. Truly, the old man is insane.
“But young Devin was so impetuous, so volatile.” The old man shook his head. “I could not let him die before he realized this potential. He needed time to mature into my vision. So I gave him that time. My son's fate . . . had little to do with it except reinforce my resolve.”
“If I remember things right, you pickled your resolve in Dragon Rum.”
“Yes. And I fixed the Black Guards. That at least I could do. They will never torture another mage ever again. Jemmy is too merciful, too kind. What do you know of kindness?”
“Enough dawdling. Where is Captain Jemmy? The man hides like a serpent in a crevice. He's not in his office. Not in his house. Nobody knows. A vanishing guard, what a marvel. Where is he? Where are you hiding him?”
“Hiding him?” Lucius clucked. “I had to restrain him from launching into his mission like a one-winged dragon. He is too willful, too reckless, too headstrong.”
“You had no faith in the man to execute his mission?” Armand sneered.
“I would trust him with my life.” The old man shook his head. “I merely berate him as a father berates a rambunctious son. You see something dark and dirty in my words, but compassion is not in your nature, is it? Human warmth is foreign to you.”
Armand opened the lantern wider, filling the room with a bright glow. “Tell me what I want to know and I will be warmth and light itself.”
“Oh, my Sascha,” the old man murmured, “I will be with you soon. Oh Elena, please forgive me. I did not mean to see our boy again without you. Come closer, Armand. I want you to see what has become of justice in the empire while you were gone.”
Lucius Judicar pulled the sheets off his right hand like a man unveiling a prize . . . or a monstrosity. His old gavel was affixed to his right hand. The fingers had been cruelly twisted around the handle and bolted into the meat of his palm. “Wherever I go, I wave my little gavel. They took most of the machinery out. It's just a heavy prop now. I have become the emperor's little joke. My life, my works, a joke. I must place my hopes for the future in my son.” His eyes narrowed. “The one you haven't killed, yet.”
“So the emperor made a mockery of you just as you made a mockery of the law. That is justice after a fashion, eh, Magistrate?” Armand laughed, but his heart wasn't in it.
“Piss on justice! She is a blind, hateful bitch. If there was any justice in the world, Armand, then you would be a dead man twice over.” The magistrate thrashed. “I want to ravage the empire and then piss on the remains. I hope the Artifice Mage burns it to the ground. An empire that would destroy my little boy doesn't have the right to exist.”
“What of your utopian dreams?” Armand asked.
“The day they killed my son, those dream became a nightmare.”
Armand faltered. There was nothing left he could do to this man, nothing more to break or twist or threaten, and they both knew it.
Lucius Judicar smiled. “Bring your little lantern closer.”
Armand walked towards the old man. He stopped when the light touched Lucius's face. His eyelids had been spliced and knitted together so that the painful calluses held them shut. True justice is a thing of beauty. What was the crime for this punishment? This is just . . . spite. Armand turned his face away to retch.
“Surely you've seen worse?” the old man mocked as Armand heaved onto the floor. “Performed more hideous acts with your own hands? Do you see what justice has done to me after all my years of faithful service?” The man waved the gavel in front of his face.
“A trial and a noose,” Armand whispered as though reaching down and dragging the words from his throat. “This wasn't . . . justice. A shield of mages is not a mage himself.”
“Are you questioning the will of your emperor?” Lucius laughed. “For shame, Armand! Go out into the world and find your stupid justice. And find Jemmy. If you do not, they will merely send another man with less brains and may the five gods damn me, less scruples. He's done nothing wrong. He's undercover. On assignment.”
“Tell me.”
“Kill me first.” The old man placed the macabre gavel under his ribs. “Lean down and press this into my diaphragm. With my last, dying breath, I shall whisper Jemmy's location into your ear.”
Armand nodded, dumbstruck. The crippled old man had somehow taken complete control of the evening's interrogation.
“Then put the oil in that lantern to good use. The empire will burn for its crimes. We can start with this house. A blind, suicidal old man fumbling aroun
d at night? Nobody will question their own assumptions of the matter.”
“Nobody?” Armand asked. “What of your wife?” Not that I care. Just another loose end. But where does the damn thread lead if not to a proper noose?
The old man shook his head. “I sent her away days ago. She knows why.”
“Were you not calling for her in the darkness, Lucius?”
“I was afraid she had come back too soon. I am too much of a coward to face death and my wife both. So much easier to kill myself with a partner.” The old man patted Armand's hand.
Armand jerked his fingers away.
Lucius Judicar straightened his back, reached across the bed, and patted the empty pillow beside him. “Goodbye, my darling Elena.” He arranged the sheets around his shoulders and took a deep breath.
He cradled the gavel on his stomach and it rose and fell like a wooden lever. Armand's fingers itched to push it, but for once his stomach clenched at the thought of administering criminal punishment. Lucius Judicar was no longer a criminal under the law nor Armand an agent of justice. Yet the old man had skillfully brought him to this moral precipice.
I can't do a thing and he knows it. To absolve him for his own personal sins is something beyond justice. Armand dropped his hands and sighed. He needs a temple, not a courthouse. The queasy feelings in his stomach refused to abate. Ethics, Armand reassured himself. You're not pitying a known traitor, it's just an awkward ethical dilemma.
The old man's smile widened and a raspy chuckle escaped from his throat. “You can't hide behind her skirts forever, Butcher. Your Lady Justice is a sham. Take responsibility for your emperor's excesses. Strike me with your own two hands, and then watch the empire burn. Yes, watch it burn.”
The eerie, ethereal light of the lantern glistened off the old man's teeth. In that pale, orange gleam, Armand Delacourt Vice saw the destruction of his beloved empire.
Not while I draw breath. He clenched his fist and drove the gavel into the old man.
The Artifice Mage Saga Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 64
