That night he took the lizard’s cage from the boy’s room. In the darkness, as he lay there, unable to sleep from the pain, the boy heard his master screaming and cursing, and then crying... pleading with the lizard in the cage.
* * *
A gray-haired woman visited them sometimes. Her blue lips and red robe trimmed in gold marked her as a Rukh of high rank. The boy had heard stories of them, how they created marvelous artifacts in their spiral towers and made even the Viceroy and his Queen dance with their intrigues. They gave gifts to rulers and their cities, like the gas-burning lamps that lit Axa by night or the pistols young noblemen used in matters of honor, but they saved the finest marvels for themselves, and visited the most terrible punishments on any that tried to steal their secrets. She came with two hooded underlings, Rukh of a lower rank, who attended her every whim and did not speak.
The Rukh woman and Master Martyce greeted each other as old friends, and the boy made them a steaming pot of tea. To his surprise, his master introduced him with pride to the woman, who was called Gelera.
“My apprentice. He has a good command of old Vash for his age. A year ago he was an unlettered painter’s boy.”
Gelera nodded, looking the boy up and down. “Not bad, but if he were Rukh, he would have mastered twice as many tongues by now.”
“Bah, be glad you aren’t, boy. The Rukh don’t take apprentices, they buy new members as slaves, and they never earn their freedom, even when they command power to rival the peerage, as Gelera does. Their lips are blue because they all must drink the essence of Esma from an early age.”
“It sharpens the mind,” Gelera said.
“And builds an appetite only the Rukh can sate.”
Gelera frowned at this, and for a moment the boy was afraid, but as she and his master talked it became clear they had been friends a long time, and the little barbs in the weave of their speech were ornaments of their friendship. She called his master Eresti barbarian, and he called her Nahala savage, and they laughed. He called her Rukh spider and she called him mad mumbler, and they laughed harder. The boy listened to them talk as he cleaned and served them spice cakes and more tea. He could understand little, but he knew the subjects were heavy: the politics of men and gods, the Viceroy’s latest foolishness or the predations of the Erestia Trade Company. Then Gelera went too far.
“The schemers will scheme as they always do. I should know, I am one. What interests me more are matters of the heart. Tell me, Martyce—how fares your beloved?”
The boy’s master grimaced, and the boy once again feared a fight, dreading what forces a Rukh and a Master Speaker would unleash in this little cottage. But his master stood up without a word and withdrew to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Gelera sighed. “Love will be the death of him. Boy, do me a favor. Do not end up like your master. Speakers think that because a thing can be done, it must be. The worst prey on the weak, and even good ones like Martyce desire things beyond human reach. Power is far worse a need than essence of Esma. Listen close—I will tell you the greatest secret of the Rukh.”
The boy shivered, and he fought an urge to clamp his hands over his ears. He had seen the etchings of thieves hung by their own entrails from the spiral towers.
“Do not be afraid. This is freely given, though lesser secrets would merit the harshest penalties. Our greatest secret is this: we observe, we test, and we record what we see. Our power is not in ourselves, but only what we learn. We have shared this secret for years, yet none have arisen to challenge us. They do not care for our knowledge, only what it can do.”
Gelera stood and bid the boy farewell. In the new silence of the main room, he could hear the soft sound of his master weeping through the door.
* * *
When he found time, he read all he could on his mother’s god.
Balan was a Nahala deity, but the Nahal did not worship him like their other gods. It had taken rebellious highborn Eresti like his mother, with their foolish colonists’ notions of ancient Nahala wisdom, to found Balan’s cult. In the Nahala scriptures he appeared as a confounder and trickster, but very different from Lar, the Eresti child-god whose tricks mocked the powerful and serious. Balan promised secrets and knowledge rarely delivered, and never without price. In one version of the Ahalema he led an errant prince to true wisdom, but in another he deceived the foolish prince and betrayed him to his doom. In some stories, the truth he delivered was worse than the cruelest deception.
The boy’s father had been Nahala, yet he had served with valor in the colonial army at the cost of his life. His mother had been Eresti, yet she had sacrificed her highborn life, her family, and all else for an enigmatic Nahala god. These were the sorts of paradoxes sacred to Balan. In temple iconography he was rendered as a pious little monk with a bald head, but the boy could see cruelty in his graven smirk and a love for chaos in his eyes. Among old women in the markets, ‘Balan’s smile’ meant misfortune that was almost perfect in its reversal of expectations.
The more he read, the more the boy despaired of learning anything—and yet his new life gave him a kind of mad hope. All sorts of doors might open for a Master Speaker, even the doorless walls of Balan’s temple. If he could not understand, at least he might have power. Let the Rukh watch and learn; he would act.
He gazed into the flames for hours, listening to their crackling voice. He tried to speak the word for fire, but nothing came. Remembering the lizard’s words, he gritted his teeth, pictured the temple’s faceless walls and his rage at being shut out, and plunged his hand into the fire, and left it there until the pain overcame him.
* * *
He awoke in his bed, his hand numb beneath wrappings and herbal paste, but the fire’s hunger, its anger as it consumed air and oil and flesh and was not calmed, stayed with him. He spoke, and through dry mumbling lips the word emerged like a wave of scorching heat.
“You were very foolish,” Master Martyce said. “Still, I was beginning to wonder what was taking you so long.”
He held up his own hand, showing the scarred flesh on one finger.
* * *
He could never say when a new word would come. It did not depend on feelings only, or on learning, but a mix of both. It was like his old master had said of painting—a spark of talent was wasted without work, yet work would be wasted on those without the spark. Thoughts of his former master often made him sad. Old Master Eneas had not been a patient man, or even very kind, but his love for his art was plain to see in everything he did. Beauty had ruled his world, not the unforgiving laws of truth and power. His love had been open and full of life, while Martyce’s was a painful secret. Yet it promised so much more.
The boy spent nights naked on the roof, lashed with rain water, but he did not learn the word for water until later, reading Ordal of Nemla’s Mysteries of the Deep, when he had felt it filling his chest and coughed it out like a lungful of brine.
Other words were not so obvious. Each morning he observed a seed he had planted in a little pot, thinking to learn the word for plant. Instead, he watched the seed sprout and grow as his own worn-out shoes became too small for his feet, and the word that came to him was grow.
Sometimes he would concentrate on the locked door to his master’s study, thinking of the doorless walls of the temple, but the word he wanted most did not come.
* * *
When he had learned a few more words, Master Martyce called him to demonstrate.
“Very good,” Martyce said when the boy finished. “You have truly progressed. Do not rush to learn as many words as you can, though. Words aren’t everything, and a Speaker with the largest vocabulary is powerless before one with a true understanding of a few words and a good grasp of sign and syntax. Observe....”
The master spoke the word for fire again, but as he did he made a sign with his hands, tracing a motion through the air that, in the boy’s mind, created the instant impression of a fire sparking to life. When he opened his han
d, Martyce held a little crackling flame in his palm.
“I have many candles in my study, boy,” Martyce said. “Your job is to light them.”
After hours of wiggling his fingers, remembering the feel of the fire, and consulting tome after tome, the boy began to see, and he let his fingers join and complement the crackling roar of the word fire. With delirious glee he beheld the tiny flame guttering at the tip of his finger.
“Good. Sign and word are stronger than word alone. But do not get lost in your little flame—for all its truth, it is no better than flint or phosphor. The true tongue is good for much more; written glyphs and conjured spirits and things we will not speak of here. There is much you are not ready for.
* * *
The boy conjured gentle breezes to cool his master and fetched him water with the power of word and sign. With practice and control, he learned to use the wind to turn a single page, to make a flame dance and leap from finger to finger, to coax sprout from seed without causing it to wither. His master showed him other books, which were kept locked in strongboxes—books by Speakers on their art. Some were incomprehensible ravings, filled with references to houses of the gods and seasons of the otherworld. Others brought a formal rigor to their art, with charts and measurements of effects and the equation of symbols and ideas to numbers and obscure geometry. Some, which the master did not share, were written in glyphs and could not be opened without consequence. Most of what the boy read felt worthless, but now and then he saw something that made sense, a glimmer of wisdom.
“We are a mistrustful breed,” Master Martyce said. “Most Speakers trust only their master and their apprentices, and some not even those. You have heard of Arag, to the north of Erestia? It is ruled by Speakers, and they say there is no more cruel and inhospitable nation. We are fortunate that all its strength is turned inward, like a body feeding on itself. A funny thing about truth is how personal it is—we speak the only true language, yet each of us learns it in a different way, and no one can directly teach it. We fear, in another, that truth we love in ourselves, and so we cannot work together, cannot build, or lead, or love each other.”
“Balan’s smile,” said the boy.
“Yes. We give Balan much cause to smile. Come, there is one more thing I will show you today.”
Master Martyce led the boy into his chamber, where he had never been admitted before. There were other books here, glyph-books secured with lock and key—their bindings shaped like guardian demons. One volume made a faint humming sound, and another seemed to be whispering quietly. A third made the boy’s eyes hurt when he looked at it directly. The gray lizard was here, too, sitting motionless in its cage. The boy tried to ignore it and prayed that it stayed silent.
Thankfully, Martyce also ignored the lizard. Instead, he retrieved a little glass box from a shelf above his bed. Within was a dark brown lump of bone.
“What is it?”
“The boundaries between our world and the other were once far looser, and many creatures seeped forth to dwell here. There are few left, but their bones, even their ancient remnants preserved in rock, hold essence of their power. They say the Rukh have invented all manner of wonders fueled by them, but we Speakers crave them most of all. No power of word or glyph alone can match what comes from even a small sliver of it. In Arag it is worn in crowns and scepters, and in Old Vash a small shank commanded a price of one hundred slaves.”
Martyce placed it back on the shelf.
“That is quite enough for today. I need new feather quills cut and the pot washed, and I want all done by hand. Never rely on only your words.”
* * *
The boy worked, and learned, and was in all ways an obedient apprentice, but now thoughts of greater power consumed his mind, and he could not stop thinking of the little lump of bone. He could see it in his dreams—a little corner of the web of fate extruded into the waking world. If he could seize it, he could blast the doors of Balan’s temple wide, and maybe... he did not even dare himself to think... he would be an orphan no more.
One day, Martyce ordered him to fetch his best waistcoat and clean his wig. His master shaved the few-days’ growth of gray beard that he usually ignored and retrieved a fine mahogany cane the boy had never seen him carry.
“In Axa, all Speakers serve at the Viceroy’s pleasure, boy. You’d best remember that. Otherwise we’re like to endure inquisitions and drownings, like in Nemla. Today I have the good fortune to be called to service.”
Nothing on Martyce’s face suggested good fortune.
“I do not know how long I will be. You are to keep my house clean, to practice, and to read only those books I have specified. You may hear voices from my chamber. You must pay them no heed, even if they cry for help or threaten your death. Good day.”
* * *
The boy tried for one day to follow his Master’s orders, then the pull of the closed chamber door became too much and he spent hours contemplating it, wracking his brain for the word of opening. He read any book that might offer insight—Geovestus’ Nature of Locks, St. Inver’s Narrative of my Imprisonment and Freedom through the Light of Iores. Nothing came to him. He listened at the door, and sometimes thought he heard a faint whispering, too low to make out, but it was no help to him.
Martyce might return at any moment, and there might never be another chance. He wondered if he were being tested again—if Martyce wanted him to open the door, as he had wanted him to burn himself to learn the fire word; or if the reverse were true, and Martyce was watching now, testing his loyalty. There was no way to know. There was only the door and what it kept from him.
After two days of nothing but pain and frustration, he collapsed, crying and beating his fists on the rough wood planks. In his mind he was back where the Orphan Master had found him, pounding his tiny fists against the seamless, maze-etched outer walls of Balan’s temple. Then something surfaced in his wordless cries, emerging as the sound of rattling keys and creaking hinges. The lock did not budge to the word alone, but he practiced the sign until he had this as well, and when he turned both on the door it clicked open as if to answer in the true tongue.
He paused at the racks of forbidden books, some of them whispering for him by name, but he could not hope to control any power he’d find within. Instead, he fixed his eyes on the little glass box with its knuckle of ancient bone. He could discern no hinge or seam in the box, and when he spoke the word for Open and made the sign it did not even stir.
“That is a Vash heartbox. You’ll never open it.”
The boy jumped when he heard the voice, spinning around to see only the gray lizard in its cage. “Leave me alone,” he said.
“There is still one lock you can open here, though. And if you do, I can give you what you seek.”
“Martyce has you in there for a reason. You’re probably some sort of demon, waiting to feast on my soul the minute I open the cage.”
There was a little tinkling sound from the lizard. It took the boy a minute to realize it was laughter. “I am no demon. Martyce’s only fear in imprisoning me was that I would leave him. For mortal beings, you are remarkably ill-suited to grasp when a thing has run its course. Time does not mean the same thing to me, but still I have spent far too long in this cage. Take pity on me, let me out, and I will give you what you seek.”
The boy hesitated, remembering the beatings his master had given him; the fury in his unearthly yellow eyes. He had already assured himself of Martyce’s enmity for breaking into the study, though. His name would be written in the Book of Lies, and all Speakers would know him as a betrayer of the only bond they trusted. One more betrayal would not matter.
Focusing on the cage and its lock, he spoke the word and made the sign. The lock was a simple, flimsy thing, but it was bound tight with Martyce’s wards, with all the strength of his lost love. The boy would never have been able to break them, but he did not have to. Martyce had focused every ward on the being in the cage. When the lock snapped open, a great,
despairing howl shook the foundations of the house. It was the sound of years of pain, loneliness and jealousy, and it rang out like an alarm bell.
Breathless, the boy waited, and when no further sounds came, he looked up at the cage, only to see it empty.
“You promised me the box,” he said.
“Of course.” The voice behind him was Martyce’s. The boy whirled to see his little master standing there, a sly smile on his much younger face. He was no taller, but he stood straight, with none of his accustomed weariness. The yellow glare that made his eyes fierce and predatory was now only a flicker in the iris.
“Even after all that has passed, I still know him best as I first loved him,” said the thing that wore Martyce’s shape. It picked up the box. The boy could see a faint red light where its fingers touched the glass. After a moment, the panes of the glass box dissolved as if melted into air, and the bone fragment fell into the boy’s waiting hands.
“Only the right heartbeat will open the box,” not-Martyce said. “Thank you for releasing me. Perhaps one day you will see me again.”
It winked before it left the room. The boy did not hear the door open, but when he stopped trembling and searched the house, whatever had lived in the cage was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
That day as the sun went down he stood once again at the Heart of Balan. The pearl tracery of the labyrinth in the building’s smooth walls caught the day’s last glimmers of light. Further up the street, the lectors of Iores sang their lament to the setting sun. The bone was surprisingly light in his hand, and he wondered briefly what sort of creature it had come from.
He looked to his left and right, but no one was approaching. He took a deep breath and held it in, exhaling slowly. He held the knuckle of ancient bone tightly in one hand, then made the sign and spoke the word of opening. It thundered out of him with a force almost greater than he could stand, trembling through his body like lightning. He was thrown to the ground by the force of his word. In his hand, the bone unraveled in loops of thick, blue smoke that rose against the wind. Nothing remained in his palm.
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