“Right.”
“Go.” Eslingen said, drawing his sword, and he charged for the mine entrance. Rathe pounded after him, practically treading on his heels, knife in one hand, pistol in the other. He heard the snap of shots, and then the angry shout of the leader reminding his people they were out of range. Then they’d reached the entrance and plunged into the darkness. Rathe collapsed against the nearest wall, catching his breath, and peered out into the yard.
Outside, the guards stopped abruptly, unwilling to go in after them. And not unreasonably, Rathe thought, when all they have to do is wait for reinforcements. The mage-light seemed to stop a few yards in front of the entrance, casting almost no light into the mine itself. Rathe blinked, dazzled by the contrast, and wondered if there were magistical reasons to keep the mage-fire out of the mine itself. Everything felt ordinary enough, from the mud under his feet to the solid rock at his back, and he shrugged the thought away, looking at Eslingen. “Now what?” he asked, and hoped that, from all his soldiering, the other man might have some cache of ideas for handling what could rapidly become a siege situation. Before he could answer, however, both men caught sight of a light behind them, and Eslingen whirled, leveling his pistol by reflex.
“Easy,” Rathe said, recognizing the footsteps. Denizard’s dark lantern clicked open, throwing a fan of light across the rocky floor.
Denizard and b’Estorr stood behind the wedge of light. In the shadows, it was hard to see their expressions, but Rathe thought they looked sober, and the air teemed with the chill currents of b’Estorr’s ghosts. He felt the hair on the nape of his neck rise and said, “Were you able to do anything?”
Denizard half nodded, half shrugged. “Oh, polluting the workings was no problem. But if Timenard has taken as much gold as I think he has, and if all that gold has been processed into aurichalcum…” She shook her head. “b’Estorr’s right, it’s too much just to be politics, but what in all hells would require that much gold?”
“Istre?” Rathe turned to the other magist.
“I don’t know. I don’t even want to hazard a guess. But whatever it is, Nico, whatever he’s using it for or making with it, it will give him incredible power.”
“This is all very interesting,” Eslingen began from his place by the entrance, and stopped abruptly. They could all hear it now, a sudden confusion of voices and the sound of horses’ hooves first on stones and the hard-packed ground of the yard, and then echoing on the bridge over the stream. Rathe swore again, and moved up to stand across the entrance from the soldier, peering cautiously out into the yard. The mage-light had changed, strengthened, was enough to throw shadows now, and Timenard, an oddly foreshortened figure on a magnificent sorrel horse, had reined in at the center of the yard, seemingly oblivious to the way the horse sidled and danced beneath him. It was truly a gorgeous creature, enough to draw Rathe’s eye even under these circumstances, and he heard Eslingen give a soft whistle of admiration. The mage-light seemed to gleam from its pale coat and the brighter strands of its mane and tail, turning them to gold. Behind him, a child cried out, and then another, and half a dozen guards appeared at the head of the path, dragging four of the children. They fought back hysterically, shrieking at the tops of their lungs, but the guards dragged them inexorably over the bridge.
“Shut up,” Timenard said, almost conversationally, and they were instantly silent. He had not looked back, but Rathe could feel the focus of his attention change, center on the mine and the dark entrance. He was sure Timenard couldn’t see them, no one looking out from the waxing mage-light could see into that darkness, but the magist’s eyes were fixed on the spot where he and Eslingen stood.
“And is this how you repay maseigne’s hospitality?” Timenard went on. “We have very strict notions of correct behavior for guests here in the Ile’nord, you know. I strongly suggest you come out of there right now. Or these children will die for your rudeness.” His tone had not changed in the slightest, as though he considered bad manners worthy of a capital punishment. Rathe scowled, torn between anger and a sudden deep fear, and he saw Eslingen stir.
“Oh, right,” the soldier muttered, his eyes roving over the magist and the guards. “And how’s he going to do that? I don’t see any weapons on him, and his people have their hands full with the kids…”
His voice trailed off, less confident than the words, and b’Estorr took a step forward. “He can do it,” he said. “Dis Aidones, can’t you feel it? He can certainly do it.”
Denizard nodded, wordless, her face pale. The lantern trembled in her hand; she looked down at it, frowning, and braced her free hand against the rock of the wall.
Rathe could feel it himself now, a shifting in the air like the presence of b’Estorr’s ghosts, or the tingle of an oncoming storm—and most of all like the clock-night, the unnatural, uncanny wrongness of it. He could feel the ghosts shy back from it, a cold current nipping his ankles before retreating toward the mine, and tasted dust and heat and something strangely metallic, like lightning gathering. The mage-light was stronger than ever, clustering into motes of light that swarmed like insects around Timenard and his horse, and Rathe was abruptly certain that the magist could do exactly what he’d threatened. He stepped fully into the entrance where the reflection of the light could reach him, and lifted a hand. “Timenard! Killing the children won’t do you any good at this point. And you need them—”
Timenard made a dismissive gesture and the motes of light seemed to follow, a streak of pale gold in the thick air. “There are others, others more easily obtained than these. My work is too close to completion to be so easily thwarted, and I don’t intend to argue with you. Come out now, all of you, or these children die. It’s a simple equation.”
He crooked his fingers, and the motes of light swerved and clustered, gathering around his hand. Rathe could hear a faint drone, a humming just at the edge of audibility, like the echo of a swarm of bees. “And what happens to us?” he called, struggling to find the words that might delay the magist, stave off whatever powers he called for even a moment longer. “Our deaths for theirs—I don’t know—”
He broke off at the sound of hoofbeats from the Mailhac road. The guards swung, startled, and the biggest of the children wrenched himself half away before the man holding him could grab him again. Rathe swore under his breath, seeing that, and Eslingen cocked his pistol.
“It could be Coindarel,” he began, and in the same instant de Mailhac and a good dozen of her household swept into the clearing. She was hardly dressed for riding, a battered traveling cloak thrown on over the silk dress she had worn to dinner, the embroidered skirt hiked awkwardly up so that she could ride astride, showing practical boots over delicate fancywork stockings.
“What in all hells have you brought down on us, magist?” she shouted. “There’s a royal regiment on the Mailhac road, and the woods are full of your damned children.”
Timenard ignored her, his eyes still fixed on the mine entrance, but Rathe heard the humming fade, felt the unnatural pressure ease a little. De Mailhac lifted her face to the skies, her hair tumbling unbound over her shoulders. “You stupid, ambitious bastard, you’ve finished us. We’ve lost, and all we have left is barely enough time to get away from here and over the Chadroni border.”
Timenard sighed then, and swung in his saddle to face her, his voice still bizarrely calm. “Why should we flee? Why on earth should we flee? This royal regiment will arrive too late, maseigne, a week ago they would have been too late. My work is too far advanced now, they cannot keep me from its completion. Now. I’ll need your men to help me rid the mine of these intruders.” He turned back to the entrance, raised his voice again. “I’m reluctant to shed your blood in the mine itself, but I will do it. And I will kill these children.”
De Mailhac swung herself down from her horse, skirts flying, and started across the yard toward Timenard. She carried a sword, Rathe saw, incongruous over the bright green silk, and there was a small pistol jammed
into her sash. Clearly she intended to fight, and Rathe wondered if there was any way they could make use of that.
“We’ve lost our chance to influence the queen’s choice, can’t you see that?” she demanded. “We’re discovered, and we’ve no hope of further gain—of any gain at all. Unless we flee, and now, we’ll take Belvis down with us.”
Timenard ignored her, lifted his hand, fingers crooked, and the air thickened again, the light coalescing into a swarm. Rathe swore under his breath, glanced wildly at the magists behind him.
“Isn’t there something you can do?”
Denizard shook her head, and b’Estorr said, “I’m a necromancer, I don’t even know what he’s calling—”
“Timenard!” de Mailhac demanded. “We have to protect Belvis.”
“Belvis is expendable,” Timenard said, impatiently, as though to an importunate child. “Leave me alone, woman.”
With an inarticulate cry of anger, de Mailhac drew her sword. Timenard flung his hand back, not even bothering to turn, and the swarming light shot from his fingers, struck the landame with a soundless snap. Her arm hung in the air, her whole figure tensed, frozen in mid-motion. Only her eyes still moved, burning with fury and fear. Not dead, then, Rathe thought, trying to make sense of what he’d seen, not a mortal blow after all, though who knows what it would have done to the kids—
Timenard sighed then, the motion of his shoulders obvious beneath his heavy robe, and swung himself down from his horse. As his feet touched the ground, the horse shimmered as though the air around it was warped by a furnace’s heat. The strands of its mane and tail seemed to fuse, become a solid sheet, and then its neck curled down and its hind legs buckled. For a confused instant, Rathe thought it was reaching for nonexistent grass or trying to sit, but its head curled further, its neck bending impossibly until its nose was tucked under its belly. The strong outlines of its muscles were blurring, too, fading, its forelegs curling under, and its color ran like water, shifting from sorrel to true gold and then to something beyond gold, an unearthly, shadowless luster. The last ghost of the horse-shape fused and vanished, and in its place stood a set of nested spheres, impaled on a yard-long axis. Rathe shook his head, trying to deny what stood before him. He had seen the great orrery at the university, both as a boy and at the ceremony that had confirmed the true time, and he recognized the form of the thing. But where the university’s orrery had been brass, solid and secure in its mechanical connections, this was delicate as filigree, the shapes of the rings and the planets outlined with a peculiar iridescence. It had to be made of aurichalcum—of pure aurichalcum, he corrected himself. Even the coin aurichalcum b’Estorr had shown him had lacked that unearthly color.
“Sweet Sofia,” Denizard murmured, and made a warding gesture. b’Estorr took a step forward, towards the entrance, towards the orrery, then stopped, shaking his head. Denizard closed a hand around his arm, her fingers white-knuckled, but the necromancer didn’t seem to feel her grip.
Rathe looked at them. “What is it? An orrery like that—what can it do?”
“Entirely too much,” Denizard said, grimly.
b’Estorr nodded. “Something that size, with that much aurichalcum—made purely of aurichalcum…” He took a breath. “Instead of drawing its influence from the stars, it could, conceivably, reverse the process. Affect the stars themselves.”
“It can’t do that,” Eslingen said, but the protest was automatic. “That’s impossible.”
“Not anymore,” Denizard answered.
“I think we’ve seen it,” b’Estorr said.
“The clocks?” Rathe asked, and the necromancer nodded.
“To forge something like that, something that powerful—we’re lucky all it did was throw off all the clocks in Astreiant.”
Timenard stooped, lifted the orrery in his gloved hands. It was huge, the largest sphere as large as his torso, but he carried it easily. The iridescence played briefly over his fingers, and faded. “You, in the mine. I hold here the power to reorder the world, to compel the stars themselves to change and to change the world with them, to bring down the powers that are now and set up new powers in their place. You yourselves are commoners all—surely you can see this can only be to your good. Who has been blamed for the disappearances of these children? Leaguers and commoners. Unfair, but the way of the world. I give you a new chance, a new choice. Come out of there and join me. I can give you a better world than the one you live in.”
The words were like a spell, an almost palpable temptation. Rathe shook himself, made himself look past the magist toward the mine road and de Mailhac’s people huddled in confusion. Coindarel was on his way, but even if he arrived in time, what could he do against the power of the orrery? The mage-light was fading again, replaced by the dimmer light of dawn, and against it the orrery glowed even brighter than before. Pure aurichalcum, Rathe thought, the words running through his mind like a tune he could not forget. Unpolluted by anything else, the purest form of gold.
“Come now,” Timenard called again, “come out and join me.”
Rathe could feel the words tugging at him, a subtle pressure against his knees, as though he stood in an invisible stream. Eslingen took a step forward, then shook himself, scowling, and took two steps back, deeper into the shadows.
“You see what I can offer you,” Timenard crooned. “What I can make you. A better, more just world.”
Rathe shook his head, took a step sideways and stumbled, almost tripped by the invisible current. “More just?” he called, hoping to create some delay until he, any of them, could think of something that might stop the magist. “Whose justice? Yours? And what about the law?”
“The law was set up by nobles to keep commoners like yourself in their places. Don’t be a fool.”
“I won’t,” Rathe said, but in spite of himself the current drew him forward. “I won’t see a world that sets one man up over all others.”
“You will have no choice,” Timenard answered, and touched the orrery’s outermost sphere. The air rang, as though with the aftereffects of music, though there had been no sound. Rathe took another step, and was suddenly aware of the pistol in his hand. It was loaded, and the ball was lead, he thought, lead which was the antithesis of gold to begin with, and which had been sitting in contact with the impure compound of gunpowder. He lifted it, bracing himself against the invisible current of Timenard’s will, and took careful aim, not at the magist but at the orrery itself. He held his breath, and pulled the trigger. The priming powder caught, and then, half a heartbeat later, the pistol fired, the sound shockingly loud, shockingly profane, in the close air. The orrery seemed to sob aloud, a weirdly soundless groan that shook the ground under their feet. Rathe stumbled forward, going to his knees in the muddy ground. Behind him Eslingen cursed and leveled his own pistol, bracing himself against the nearest timber.
“Timenard—”
Behind him, b’Estorr cried, “No, don’t, the gold’s unstable.”
Eslingen hesitated, and in the same moment they saw de Mailhac shake herself, as though the noise, the attack on the orrery, had freed her from her trance. She lunged blindly forward, continuing the move she had begun minutes before. Timenard tried to turn away, his eyes suddenly wide, mouth opening in the beginning of a horrified shout. Her sword pierced the orrery’s spheres, dissolving as it thrust, and the orrery screamed again, a wail of tortured metal. And then de Mailhac’s bare hand touched the axis. Timenard cried out then, his voice lost in the sudden yelling, and fire flashed beneath de Mailhac’s hand. Light surged with it, so that for a moment the two stood locked, their shadows and the orrery’s black at the heart of a ball of fire hotter than any furnace. The smoke came then, crashing back over the ball of light like an ocean wave, and then it, too, was gone. Where it had been, where Timenard and de Mailhac had been, there was nothing except pale ash and a handful of dull, twisted wires.
There was a moment of utter silence, even the children too stunned to cry out. Ra
the’s ears were ringing, and he could see the same shock on Eslingen’s face, pale beneath the dark hair. The mage-light was fading fast now, overtaken by the paler light of dawn, and Rathe shook himself hard.
“Give me your pistol,” he said to Eslingen, but it was b’Estorr who handed him a weapon. Rathe cocked it quickly and stepped out into the yard, leveling the pistol at the nearest guard. Eslingen moved up to join him, his own pistol drawn, and the magists followed.
“Stand away from the children,” Rathe ordered, and was glad to hear that his own voice was relatively calm. De Mailhac’s people were still in shock, he saw, some already looking behind them toward the road; the guard leader glanced at them, and then at the spot where Timenard had stood. Rathe could see the indecision on his face, and pointed the pistol directly at him.
“Stand away,” he said again. “Put down your arms, all of you, or I will fire.”
Before the man could respond, hoofbeats sounded again on the track from Mailhac. Rathe heard Eslingen laugh softly, and one of de Mailhac’s servants tugged injudiciously at her horse’s reins, making the animal snort and sidle. Almost in the same instant, the first of Coindarel’s regiment swept into view, the prince-marshal himself narrowly in the lead. Timenard’s guard leader looked over his shoulder, his expression unchanging, but slowly lowered his musket. His men copied him, stepping away from the children they had been holding. Coindarel gestured to his men, who fanned out, surrounding both the mine guards and de Mailhac’s party, and a white-haired sergeant swung down off his horse, holding out his hands to the children. There was another small figure at Coindarel’s saddlebow, Rathe saw, and an instant later realized it was Asheri. He allowed himself a long breath of relief, and Coindarel edged his horse up to the mine, half bowing in the saddle.
“My Philip, I never expected to see you under these circumstances,” he said.
He had to be curious about the explosion, Rathe thought, but wasn’t about to ask any commoner directly. He stilled a laugh, recognizing the hysteria in it.
Point of Hopes p-1 Page 48
