Storm Riders

by Margaret Weis

  “Father Jacob!” The provost called after him in mollifying tones. “As I said, I am familiar with the catalog of the Library of the Forbidden. There are no books on contramagic, if that is what you seek. You would be wasting valuable time.”

  Father Jacob did not look back; he did not reply. Flinging open the door, he stalked out, with Sir Ander following. As he left, he glanced over his shoulder. Montagne and the provost were conferring, their heads together, their voices low. He could not hear what they were saying. The secretary glided past the knight and closed the door.

  Sir Ander caught up with Father Jacob. Neither spoke until they had returned to the reading room in the tower. Father Jacob slammed his hands on the desk.

  “Montagne is an ass, a nincompoop!”

  “He is also a man with something to hide,” said Sir Ander.

  “What do you mean?” Father Jacob asked sharply.

  Sir Ander told him about the exchange of alarmed looks he had seen between Montagne and the provost. “They know much more than they are telling you, and they are afraid you’re going to find out.”

  “You are right, my friend. They prevent me from entering the library,” said Father Jacob in thoughtful tones. “And yet they allow me to study these books which they know contain the saints’ work on contramagic.”

  “Montagne is terrified. He sees the future you foretold coming to pass,” said Sir Ander. “He hopes you can find a way to stop the destruction of magic.”

  “He hopes I can do that without discovering the truth. He is willing to risk disaster to keep this truth secret. This truth, whatever it is, must be terrible.”

  He was silent, speculatively eyeing Sir Ander, who knew exactly what the priest was going to say before he said it.

  “I must enter that library, Ander! These books I am reading now are preliminary works. Descriptions of experiments in contramagic, jottings, notes taken of conversations, a few equations and diagrams, the philosophic ramblings of Saint Charles on the subject. This was the beginning, the steps of a baby learning to walk. That is probably why the saints left these books behind. Their work in contramagic was far more advanced than what I have here.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “Because the Pirate King used contramagic weapons,” said Father Jacob. “History doesn’t tell us so, of course, since we’re not permitted to talk about it. But think back to the old Trundler legends and songs about the Pirate King. One goes this way: ‘The green fire of his baleful glare shot the ships out of the air.’ And another: ‘Green were his eyes and green his fiery gaze and green the grass that covered their graves…’”

  “Maybe the man just had green eyes, Father,” said Sir Ander wryly.

  Father Jacob cast him a baleful look.

  “Let us say you are right—” Sir Ander began.

  “I am right,” said Father Jacob.

  “I’m not sure where Trundler songs lead us, Father. Provost Phillipe claims there are no books on contramagic. Do you think he would lie to you?”

  Father Jacob did not answer immediately. “I respect and admire the provost,” he said at last. “But he, like the grand bishop, would do anything to defend the church.”

  “And what about you, Jacob?” Sir Ander asked, regarding his friend earnestly. “You gave up your family, your inheritance, your country. You almost gave up your life for your faith. This truth might well bring about the church’s destruction.”

  “If the church is built upon a mountain of sand, it will fall anyway. My care must be for the innocent. I need to enter the library.”

  “Very well, Father. But to do so, you will have to fight your way past the warrior monks, undo complex magical warding spells, crack open specially made locks, all without setting off every alarm in the Citadel.”

  “You have a succinct way of summing up the problem, Sir Ander,” said Father Jacob, nodding. “I will give the matter thought.”

  “Jacob, I wasn’t ‘summing up the problem,’” Sir Ander said, exasperated. “I was telling you breaking into the Library of the Forbidden is impossible.”

  “‘With God, all things are possible,’” said Father Jacob.

  Sir Ander gave up. “I’m going to dinner. Are you coming with me or should I bring a tray?”

  Father Jacob stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring intently at the books on the table.

  Sir Ander sighed. “I’ll bring you a tray.”

  26

  Saint Marie envisioned the Citadel of the Voice as a bastion of learning and light in a world of ignorance and darkness. The Citadel was designed to be a place of beauty, soothing for the mind and the spirit, where God’s defenders would come to learn and arm themselves against the followers of Aertheum and those who would harm the innocent. Since her death, I have made it my goal to complete her mission. It is my hope that she would be pleased with what we have built.

  —Saint Dennis, second provost of the Arcanum

  Sir Ander tried to ease his worries by taking an evening stroll on the ramparts. Generally he found pleasure in admiring the stars above and the ripples gliding over the calm surface of the water below. This night he barely glanced at the stars. Father Jacob had taken his dinner on a tray and gone back to work. He had not said anything more about trying to break into the Library of the Forbidden, but Sir Ander knew with certainty that the priest would not give up the dangerous idea.

  The risk was very great and the chance of reward seemed slim, since Father Jacob would be searching for a book with no idea what book he was searching for. Sir Ander did not know how many books were in the library, but given the amount of evil in the world he judged the number must be significant. Father Jacob might need days for his search and he would have minutes, at most, before the monks of Saint Klee used their powerful magicks to subdue and capture him.

  The risk to Sir Ander was also very great and one that could be easily avoided. He could return to the Mother House.

  He smiled to himself. He knew perfectly well he would never leave his friend to undertake this mission on his own. Father Jacob was a genius, a savant, but he was not skilled at burglary. Sir Ander remembered with a shake of his head the night they had removed books from the secret chamber in the abbey. Eager to study his find, Father Jacob would have left a gaping hole in the floor of the catacombs visible to all the world if Sir Ander hadn’t insisted they take time to conceal it.

  He happened to walk beneath one of the many magical lights—a pair of bronze arms with bronze hands cupping a glowing ball of light in their upturned palms—and saw with a start that he wasn’t alone. A monk was coming from the opposite direction.

  “God’s peace be with you, Sir Knight,” said the monk as he walked past.

  “Brother Paul?” Sir Ander exclaimed, stopping him.

  “Sir Ander Martel. Forgive me for not recognizing you, my lord. I am pleased to see you.”

  “What brings you here, Brother?” Sir Ander asked. Unlike the monk, Sir Ander could not say he was pleased to see Brother Paul.

  “As you know, I spent time in the Arcanum after the tragedy at the abbey,” Brother Paul replied. “I have been visiting friends I made among the monks.”

  He blinked his watery eyes, barely visible behind the dark spectacles. The light shining down on him emphasized the pallor of his skin, like the underbelly of a fish. A sudden thought flashed into Sir Ander’s mind, a thought so shocking he lost track of what Brother Paul was saying. Sir Ander ended the conversation abruptly and hurried off, leaving the monk to stare after him.

  Sir Ander hurried to the library, ascending the stairs that led up to the tower two at a time. He was startled to find the door to the reading room unlocked, standing wide open. Father Jacob was pacing up and down in the hallway. The disciplined warrior monks mounting guard over the stairs that led to the Library of the Forbidden were silently keeping him under observation.

  Sir Ander spoke to him several times and finally had to stand directly in the pries
t’s path to force him to take notice. Father Jacob could see by Sir Ander’s expression that he had news. He returned to the cell, followed by Sir Ander, who shut the wrought-iron door with a clang.

  “What is it?” asked Father Jacob.

  “I ran into our friend, Brother Paul, just a few moments ago. Do you know, Father, that he looks exactly like your description of a Bottom Dweller.”

  “Probably because he is one,” said Father Jacob dryly.

  Sir Ander gaped at the priest. “How do you know? And when were you going to tell me?”

  “I thought you knew,” said Father Jacob, raising his eyebrows. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me it wasn’t,” said Sir Ander, exasperated. “When did you figure this out?”

  “Oh, almost immediately. I suspected him at once of being complicit in the attack on the abbey. Brother Paul knew Albert had found the journal of the prince abbot. The mother superior and the nuns knew that, as well, but the women had work enough to do to keep body and soul together. The idea that one of them would want to steal a journal did not make sense. The thief was skilled in the art, leaving no trace behind. Again, to my mind this ruled out the nuns. We are left, therefore, with only Brother Paul.

  “Next, it was Brother Paul who wrote the account of the ‘eyewitness’ to the grand bishop. I asked myself, why would the monk who had discovered the horror in the abbey take time to write such a long and lurid account? Because Brother Paul wanted to convince us that demons sent by the Evil One had been responsible. He overplayed his hand and made a glaring error when he quoted the poor woman who survived, by writing, ‘The demon yelped.’ That gave me the first indication that the attackers were men, not demons.”

  “I follow you so far,” said Sir Ander.

  “Then I made a mistake,” said Father Jacob, sighing and lowering himself into his chair. “I should have immediately gone to interview that sole witness. Instead I decided to investigate the scene. That left the poor woman to the mercy of Brother Paul.”

  “He killed her.”

  “Of course he did. He killed her and threw her body into the Breath, then told us that she had taken her own life. There were many other clues: someone familiar with the library had searched it; Brother Paul’s determination to make us believe that the attackers were demonic; his eagerness to help—”

  “Wait a moment, Father. The Bottom Dwellers took Brother Paul prisoner when they captured Brother Barnaby. They tortured him!”

  “To further convince us of his innocence. And that also gave him the opportunity to question Brother Barnaby. The Bottom Dwellers were growing frustrated by now. Brother Paul knew the books were in the abbey, but he had no idea where. He hoped Brother Barnaby knew, but we didn’t tell Barnaby we had found the books, so that proved to be of no help to him.”

  “You sent Brother Paul to the Arcanum under Seal. After he was questioned, the provost released him. Why didn’t you ask that they keep him here?”

  “I believed him to be involved in the attack, but I couldn’t prove it,” said Father Jacob. “And you must remember, I had no knowledge of the Bottom Dwellers at the time. I didn’t know anything about them until I recovered that helm in Westfirth and cast the Corpse Spell on it. After that came the attack and my head injury. I had no idea he’d been assigned to the staff of the grand bishop. Someone in high office recommended him for that position. Which shows us there is more than one Brother Paul in the church.”

  “That’s not a pleasant thought,” said Sir Ander.

  “A thought to keep one awake at night,” said Father Jacob. “I believe it likely that the Bottom Dwellers have spies and operatives not only in the Church of the Breath in Rosia, but also the church in Freya, and in the halls of power of every nation in the world.”

  Sir Ander was quiet a moment, thinking over all the priest had said. A thought occurred to him. “It was Brother Paul who tried to kill us with the contramagic bomb in the archbishop’s palace.”

  “A mistake on his part. He acted alone, on impulse. He knows that I suspect him. I would guess his superiors were not pleased when they found out he had betrayed himself by such a rash act.”

  “Brother Paul’s here now, Father,” said Sir Ander, chilled. “He’s in the Citadel. I just saw him.”

  “He’s come for the books of the saints,” said Father Jacob.

  “Or to kill you.”

  “Probably both,” said Father Jacob with a shrug. “He’s very energetic, our Brother Paul.”

  “I don’t know how you can be so damn calm about this,” said Sir Ander. “We could go to the Mother House. You would he safe, there.”

  “That is not possible. My work is here.”

  “All right, at the least, I’m going to ask the warrior monks to stand guard over you—” Father Jacob was shaking his head. “Why not?”

  “Any one of them could be a Bottom Dweller.”

  Sir Ander muttered words not generally heard in the walls of the Citadel and flung himself into a chair.

  “So what do we do?”

  “We remain vigilant,” said Father Jacob.

  * * *

  The night passed peacefully. Sir Ander stayed with the priest in the reading room. He tried to read one of the books of the saints, but he was not a crafter and he couldn’t make heads or tails of the theoretical and philosophical discussions. The book did have the effect of putting him to sleep, slumped back in the chair. At the sound of a voice calling Father Jacob’s name, Sir Ander woke from a bad dream with a start.

  Sunlight filled the room. A nun responsible for the daily delivery of mail stood outside the reading room.

  “Father Jacob,” she said again. “I have a letter for you.”

  Father Jacob was on his cot, his hands clasped over his breast, deep in slumber. He didn’t stir.

  “I’ll take it, Sister,” said Sir Ander.

  “Good morning, Sir Ander. This came for Father Jacob and this came for you,” said the sister, delivering two letters.

  Sir Ander recognized the handwriting on his letter and the bee insignia on the wax seal. He slid his letter into an inner pocket and examined the letter for Father Jacob. The envelope was plain, with no return address. Sir Ander didn’t recognize the handwriting, but that wasn’t unusual. Father Jacob had a wide and varied correspondence. Sir Ander tossed the letter on the desk and went out to use the lavatorium.

  He returned to find Father Jacob awake, tousling his hair and gazing at the envelope. The expression on his face brought Sir Ander up short.

  “What’s wrong now?”

  “I know the handwriting,” said Father Jacob in an altered voice.

  He was holding the letter in his hand, his fingers trembling. He took hold of the letter opener, slit the envelope, and drew out the contents. He glanced at it, then let the paper fall to the desk.

  “May I see it?” Sir Ander asked.

  Father Jacob pushed the missive across to him. Sir Ander picked up the letter, which was written on foolscap, folded into quarters. In the center of the sheet was a drawing, crudely and hastily done, of a dog, a retriever, with a pair of crossed arrows above him and a hunting horn below. Beneath that was scrawled:

  Denidus, Soles the 14, noon, Peu de Sable, Capione, Public docks. Someone will come.

  “Denidus, Soles the 14. That’s tomorrow’s date,” said Sir Ander, returning the letter to Father Jacob, who made no move to pick it up. “The writer wants to arrange a meeting. Do you recognize this drawing?”

  “Yes,” said Father Jacob.

  Sir Ander waited expectantly.

  “The drawing is my family crest. This letter is from my brother.”

  Sir Ander stared. “The brother who tried to kill you?”

  “I have only one brother,” said Father Jacob. “Why, after all these years, would Alan want to meet with me…”

  He began to gather up his notes. “Ready the yacht, Sir Ander. We leave for Capione within the hour.”

  “Absolutely not,�
� said Sir Ander. “Alan Northrop is a pirate, a criminal—”

  “Which is why you are coming with me,” said Father Jacob, placing his notes inside one of the books of the saints. He then stuffed the books, one by one, into a leather satchel that fairly bristled with protective magical constructs. “If this were just another boring family reunion, I would go on my own.”

  Sir Ander raised his eyes to heaven. “God, make this stubborn priest listen to me!”

  Father Jacob chuckled. “Last night you wanted to leave the Citadel because staying here wasn’t safe. Now you want to stay here because leaving isn’t safe.”

  “You know what I mean.” Sir Ander was in no mood for levity.

  Father Jacob gave his friend a rare warm smile. “I do, Ander, and I am grateful for your care. If you will go ready the yacht, I will let the provost know we will be away from the Citadel for a short time.”

  “He’ll breathe a sigh of relief,” Sir Ander muttered.

  He descended to the Carriage House and ordered the yacht to be made ready to sail. While he was waiting for the wyverns to be harnessed, he took time to read Cecile’s letter. It was very short and appeared to have been written in haste.

  You will be glad to know your godson has returned safely.

  “Thank God for some good news,” said Sir Ander.

  * * *

  Capione was a port city like Westfirth, although both cities would have taken insult at even that general comparison. The harbor at Capione was located some distance (about five miles) from the city and although the harbor and warehouses and shipyards attendant to it supported the city, Capione preferred to view itself as a resort destination, catering to the upper classes. Noble lords and ladies had been coming to the city since the days of the ancient Sunlit Empire to indulge in the famous mineral baths and view the magnificent Étapes du Père waterfalls and caverns.

  As for the docks and the warehouses, Capione saw itself as a duchess forced to maintain ties with the younger sister who had run off to marry a merchant. The wealthy merchant—commerce—paid the duchess’s upkeep, but no one in Capione mentioned that. She continued to look down her nose at him.