The Liar's Knot

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The Liar's Knot Page 54

by M. A. Carrick


  The labyrinth that had once been carved into the surface of the Point.

  The path of it wound around her, a looping, serpentine curve, glowing faintly to Ren’s aža-spun sight. When she crouched, though, she felt nothing but stone beneath her fingers.

  ::What is it?:: Alsius demanded. ::What do you see? Oh, why couldn’t you lay this cloth closer to the numinat!::

  Ren stepped outside the chalked lines and dragged the fabric over, even though it wouldn’t do any practical good. “The aža’s showing me something. A labyrinth. I’m going to walk it.”

  ::A labyr—What, in the numinat?:: Despite his worry, a familiar speculative note entered Alsius’s voice. ::I’ve always wondered about those. Whether they might not be some folk version of numinatria, like the old Ganllechyn stitch-witches. Might it lead you to Vargo?::

  Until Tanaquis arrived, trying was Ren’s only option. “If this works, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Should I leave the cloth out? I don’t know if you’ll be able to use it to talk to Tanaquis, or if you’ll want to.”

  He fretted for a moment with his two front limbs. ::No, I suspect it won’t work. We have theories about that line between—Oh, that doesn’t matter right now. It will only make her wonder. Put it away. We’ll be able to talk without it once you return with Vargo.::

  Ren was grateful for his determined certainty. Even without ash, she was going into something unknown, and probably dangerous.

  Assuming this even worked.

  He skittered off the cloth, and she unpinned it and tucked it away. Then, with a silent prayer to the Faces and the Masks—and to Ažerais herself—Ren began to walk the labyrinth’s path.

  Inward and outward, sweeping close to the center, then spiraling away again. She fixed her gaze on the radiant line ahead of her, thinking about Vargo. About the connection between them. A silvery thread that Vargo himself had spun when he rescued her spirit, and Ren had strengthened when he collapsed in the battle.

  One final turn, and the path brought her to the center, where in an ordinary labyrinth there would have been a bowl of purifying water.

  She lifted her gaze, and found someone kneeling in front of her.

  The Aerie, Duskgate, Old Island: Canilun 15

  The call for a general muster came while Grey was in the middle of requisitioning new dress vigils, replacing the ones “unavoidably destroyed” the night of the Traementis ball.

  Trying, at least. Cauvis had been an immovable rock long before the Tricat medallion started infecting Nadežra. “We’ll continue this later,” Grey told the quartermaster on his way out of his office. “Or perhaps Commander Cercel will speak to you instead.”

  The threat didn’t make a dent in Cauvis’s resolve. “I’ll tell her what I told you. New formal uniforms are issued in Apilun. You’ll have to wait until then.”

  Grey left before he strangled someone. Cauvis. Himself. The former would be a pleasure, but the latter might be a greater relief from the building tension.

  In the days since Cercel rescued Grey, nothing had come down from High Commander Dimiterro’s office—not a reprimand, not even an inquiry. Cercel tried to wave it off by saying Ghiscolo must have realized he overstepped the bounds of his office, but Grey doubted she believed that any more than he did.

  The main hall of the Aerie was still filling as Grey found Cercel’s section in the crowd. The other captains under her were already there with their lieutenants and constables, including Grey’s own people.

  “What’s going on?” Grey murmured to Ranieri. Many of the faces throughout the room reflected his confusion.

  Not the commanders, though. Every one of them wore the stoic mask of those following orders whether they liked them or not.

  Cercel overheard him. Her jaw was set so hard, he feared she would crack a tooth. “The high commander will tell you soon enough, Serrado.”

  When everyone had assembled, Dimiterro descended to the staircase landing, from which he could survey the whole room. He waited until absolute silence had fallen; then his voice boomed out.

  “Men and women of the Vigil. In the last year, Nadežra has seen all too much upheaval. Not just the usual crimes and disturbances, but actions from an organized group of malcontents, who will be satisfied with nothing less than the overthrow of the Cinquerat itself. They have raided our prisons, attacked our nobles, and even attempted to bomb the Great Amphitheatre.”

  The Anduske, then. New instructions for how the Vigil was to deal with them? The influence of the Sessat medallion seemed to have overtaken Ghiscolo quite rapidly, hardening his easygoing manner into a relentless impulse toward order.

  I should have gone after him when I had the chance.

  Grey’s hands, linked behind his back, balled into fists. But whether it was Ghiscolo he wanted to strike or the phantom in his own mind, he couldn’t say.

  Dimiterro was elaborating on the villainy of the Anduske and the importance of stopping them. Right on schedule, he pivoted to his new point—but the instructions weren’t what Grey expected.

  “In order to deal with this threat,” Dimiterro said, “His Mercy Ghiscolo Acrenix formed a new organization, the Ordo Apis. But they are a small group, and cannot address the problem all on their own. Because of this, their charter has been amended. Effective immediately, they have the right to commandeer and direct Vigil resources, whether those be weapons, information, or personnel. If you receive orders from a member of that group, you are to obey them quickly, eagerly, and to the best of your ability.”

  Grey’s stomach dropped. Dimiterro didn’t look in his direction, but he felt the weight of that attention all the same, and he saw the invisible hand that moved the high commander. Cercel had pointed out the boundary Ghiscolo was crossing… so Ghiscolo had redrawn the map.

  This is what they do. Nadežra will never be free as long as they wield the Tyrant’s power. Anger burned through Grey with all the pain of the curse that had trapped him, of the numinat the stingers had used against him, of the memories and fears and depths of despair he’d been forced to relive. There was no line between the Rook’s fury and his own.

  He wasn’t the only one reacting. The hall filled with murmurs of discontent, and a few of Grey’s fellow captains even raised their voices in protest above the silence of their commanders. Too few, though. In the faces around him, Grey saw shock—but the sort of shock that would ebb into reluctant compliance. Although the stingers weren’t a part of them, the order had come from above; it would be obeyed.

  Before he realized he was moving, Grey slammed his fist down on a nearby desk, the sharp sound echoing through the open hall, and stepped into the empty space under Dimiterro’s landing.

  “Becoming a hawk was never easy for me.” Grey spoke loudly over the grumbling of his fellows. “Not as a constable, and not as I worked my way up to captain. But I took that as a challenge to work harder—because I believe that the Vigil has a purpose. To serve the people of Nadežra.”

  His gaze swept the room, catching the eyes of constables, lieutenants, captains. Commander Cercel. “Last Epytny, the stingers took me during my patrol and tortured me for information I didn’t have. They spit on our purpose. And handing the Vigil over to them spits on every person who wears our emblem. So as long as this order stands, I won’t wear it.”

  In one swift move, Grey shed his hawk-marked coat, then laid it gently over the nearest desk, making certain the collar with his captain’s hexagram pin was on the topmost fold.

  Dimiterro’s voice cracked like a whip. “Captain Serrado. If you think you can walk away from your duties and come back to them whenever you like, you are very much mistaken.”

  “And if you think I’m going to bend my head while you gut what the Vigil should stand for, you’re the one who’s mistaken.” The fury surged, but Grey forced his voice to remain clear and hard. “Caerulet may have the authority to create his secret police, and he may have the authority to tie the hawks to their wrists. But I’m not going to he
lp him.”

  “Neither am I!”

  Ranieri’s voice cut through the room, high with tension. Grey pivoted and saw him removing his coat. “I was there when the stingers took Captain Serrado. They had him tied to a chair inside a torture numinat. That isn’t right.”

  Pavlin’s coat joined Grey’s. Dverli’s and Tarknias’s followed, and even Levinci laid his down, his shoulders hunched against the glares of his fellows.

  “Guess we know our friends from our enemies now,” Ecchino said, mild enough to mask the threat under his tone, but loud enough to be heard.

  “This isn’t about friendship,” Levinci said. “It’s about keeping cuckoos out of our nest.”

  “No.” Cercel stepped forward, shrugging her coat off. Her hand trembled as she set it atop the growing pile, but her expression remained resolute. “It’s about holding the Vigil to a higher standard, instead of letting it be dragged down into Cinquerat politics.”

  Her words were a sluice gate, opening the way for the flood. Those removing their coats were still a minority, and in some cases their friends grabbed at the fabric, trying to argue them out of it… but Grey’s unit was no longer the only one with defections. Although Mettore’s corruption and Ghiscolo’s brutality had wormed deeply into the Vigil, not everyone was tainted. He even saw two other captains quitting, Atsarin and Calivaris. Both of them Cercel’s people.

  Dimiterro didn’t hurl threats or try to stop the rush. He just waited until the last coat hit the floor, then spoke in a voice ugly with rage. “Get out. Get the fuck out of my sight. You’re spineless traitors, the lot of you.”

  Far from spineless. It took courage for them all to walk out of the Aerie, past their former fellows who snarled curses or even spat on them as they went. Then they were outside in the plaza, breathing the chill air of fall, and Grey tried not to shake as he looked around and saw what he had done.

  Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t him the defectors flocked to. He might have started it, but he was still Vraszenian, and only a captain. Cercel was the one swarmed with questions, ex-hawks demanding to know what now. They seemed to think this was a simple protest, leverage to make something change—that after the problem was fixed, they would go back.

  Maybe they would. But he wasn’t going to.

  The huddle around Grey was smaller. Levinci departed immediately, arms wrapped around himself as though he already regretted shedding his coat. Grey sent the rest home with a promise to call on them tomorrow. He might have set aside his command, but they were still his people.

  When Pavlin would have followed, Grey stopped him. “Are you and Tess back together?” He should get a message to Ren, but Grey Serrado, formerly captain, didn’t have any reason to notify Alta Renata of his change in circumstances. Showing up at Traementis Manor in his shirtsleeves would only invite gossip.

  And doing it in the hood might invite problems.

  “I—I don’t know if we’re together, but—” Pavlin glanced up at the looming bulk of the Aerie and grimaced. “She was making me a new patrol coat, better tailored. I guess there’s no point now.”

  Perfect. Grey wouldn’t have to come up with a reason to send Pavlin. “Go to her. Nothing else you can do here, and if she passes the news to her mistress, Alta Renata might be inclined to offer her support.”

  Pavlin saluted by reflex, then stopped, wincing. Grey clapped him on the shoulder and offered him a weary grin. “No formalities, Pavlin. We’re past that now.”

  His former constable nodded and ran off, and Grey turned to find Cercel approaching. The word popped out of his mouth before he could stop it: “Commander.”

  Her own grin was wry. “Not anymore, thanks to you. No, don’t apologize—you did the right thing. I’ve tried to push back against the problems in the Vigil, but…”

  There was no need to finish that sentence. They both knew how little one person could do.

  Cercel shook herself, as if casting off an unwanted cloak. “Join me for a drink?”

  “I’d be honored, Meda Cercel.”

  The use of her gentry title made her snort. “Call me Agniet. Come on; I know a good place in Suncross.”

  Temple of the Illius Praeteri, Ažerais’s Dream

  For half an instant, Ren’s heart leapt—but the figure in front of her wasn’t Vargo.

  It was a Vraszenian woman, a szorsa, her hair woven into a crown with thinner braids cascading from it like water. She knelt in front of Ren, shuffling her cards, while all around her stretched the lines of a numinat.

  Not the one Tanaquis and Vargo had inscribed. Something different, with boxes marked for secondary foci, connected by radiating lines to the center and the containing circle. Where the szorsa knelt was the central focus.

  Ren glanced down and saw she was still dressed in Renata’s clothing, presumably with Renata’s makeup on her face. Ignoring that, she spoke in Vraszenian. “For interrupting I beg your pardon, szorsa. I seek someone. Can you help me?”

  The szorsa startled, blinking up at Ren as though she were the apparition. Her clothing was strange: her blouse buttoned at both shoulders, a style Ren had only seen in plays meant to depict Vraszenian history, and its high collar was embroidered in the colors of all the clans. “I knew not that any Seterins spoke our tongue, or followed our Lady’s path. Should you not be flying off into your Lumen?”

  Ren grimaced. “What you see is a mask. I am—” Her tongue stuck for a moment, thinking of all the time she’d spent masquerading to Alinka, to Idusza, passing herself off as something she wasn’t. But this szorsa didn’t need to know her tangled history. “Vraszenian. And not dead… I hope.”

  “You walk the dream waking. Is it that time again already?” The woman glanced up at a sky of stone lit by flickers of phosphor and ripples of sourceless light. “No, our Lady still sleeps. What brings you here? If kin you seek in the dream, it is the kanina you should be dancing.”

  Her frown was kind, like a mother scolding her child. Softly, she added, “You would not wish for your čekani and dlakani to be trapped here.”

  The other two parts of Ren’s soul. She swallowed and said, “Not kin, but a friend. I cannot leave him. For my sake he came here—in the flesh, as I have done. I thought to find him here. This figure you sit in—know you what it is?”

  The szorsa glanced at it and shuddered. “An echo of the past that is yet to be. Something to the dream has come that, like pattern, sees past, present, and future.”

  Tricat. One of Tanaquis’s first observations about the connection between numinatria and pattern had been that the three rows of a full pattern echoed Tricat’s association with time.

  “You seek guidance.” The szorsa’s voice prodded her from her thoughts. The phrase was as old as Vraszan—one Ren knew well.

  She dug in her pocket and found a decira. The szorsa’s offering bowl sat in front of her knees, catching the reflected light from above; Ren knelt and placed the coin in the half for the Face, Ir Entrelke. “May I see the Face and not the Mask.”

  The shuffling of cards and murmuring of prayers followed, a gentle and familiar lullaby. But instead of the three-card line Ren expected, or even a nine-card spread, the szorsa began dealing her cards in an unfamiliar pattern: six in a circle, with a seventh at the center.

  “What is this layout?” Ren asked.

  The szorsa’s fingers paused on the first card, at the base of the circle. “You have never before seen a wheel?” She clicked her tongue. “Rarely is it used, since the clan cards fell out of favor… but it is the best guide for understanding your place in the world. Other patterns are paths or tapestries. The wheel represents the wagon that carries you. See.”

  She turned it over. Sisters Victorious: the card of courage. “The position of the Horse reveals what you have, and who stands beside you,” she said. “For your sake your friend came here; for his sake you follow him. Both of you are brave, and this courage you will need to face what lies ahead.”

  Ren tucked her legs tailor-styl
e under herself and leaned forward. The last time a szorsa had patterned her, it was a woman working for Vargo at the Talon and Trick, with no discernible gift. Who was this stranger, reading for her now—other than the spirit of a szorsa long dead and gone?

  The szorsa’s hand moved sunwise to the next card. “The Rat position shows what stands in your way, and who stands against you.”

  Ah—one card for each clan. First the Meszaros; now the Stretsko, with The Mask of Ashes. The szorsa said, “You seek more than your friend—but what you seek is a danger to you. A thing your enemies have also. A source of destruction, tearing things apart.”

  Like the zlyzen had torn Leato apart, and Vargo during the battle at the amphitheatre. Charred and blackened wood showed through the mask’s grey surface, calling to mind her nightmares. Ren shivered.

  The card for the Anoškin was Jump at the Sun. A leap of faith. “The Owl for the wisdom you must remember. Without risk, there is no gain. When the time comes, you must do the thing you fear, the thing you believe you cannot.”

  Story of my life, Ren thought with mordant humor.

  Most of the myths about Ažerais’s children said they were born in pairs of twins, meaning Varadi came next. “The Spider for the question you must ask.”

  Ren had wondered before if Vargo had Varadi blood. From what she knew of his past, even he couldn’t say for sure; she had the impression he’d acquired Peabody—the original Peabody—as a kind of talisman. Would the unanswered question be about Vargo himself?

  Warp and Weft said otherwise. For the first time, the szorsa lifted her eyes from the cards and met Ren’s gaze steadily. “The card of union. You know what it will mean, if you take back what you seek. Some threads bind us to those we love; others bind us to danger and harm. Are you prepared for what this joining brings?”

 

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