Shadows of Ivory

by T L Greylock

  The warden heaved himself up from his chair and ventured around the desk. “You are clearly a woman of good taste. May I offer you a glass of wine? I have a very fine vintage I’ve been waiting for the right occasion to open.”

  The spark flared and Manon forced herself to snuff it out. “I don’t think you understand. I will see Julian Barca now.”

  The warden’s wide face showed a hint of annoyance. “You could see him, but he won’t be coherent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’ll be up to his eyeballs in the dread, is what I mean,” the warden spat out, the mask of chivalry slipping. “Won’t know your face or name.”

  Manon nearly let the spark out, but the guard who had taken her to see the warden cleared his throat. “Sir, prisoner Barca isn’t scheduled for dosing for another hour.”

  The warden turned his glare onto the guard, who, to his credit, seemed as unaffected by his superior’s ire as Manon—and any other woman, she imagined—had been by his attempts at being charming.

  “Visitors for all high-level prisoners must be approved in advance,” he growled. “And none have been cleared for prisoner Barca.” He turned away from Manon and made to return to his berth behind the desk. “But,” he said, swinging his ample girth back around, “you might be able to,” he paused to look Manon up and down, “convince me.”

  The Archduke could have chosen to make her visit easier. He could have given notice of her impending arrival. He could have made all the arrangements. But that would necessitate connecting himself to this visit, which he certainly would not do. And besides, Manon was quite sure he wanted to make this as difficult as possible. Without blinking, Manon reached into the leather bag hanging from her shoulder and withdrew a velvet pouch, pulled out a dozen large gold coins, and tossed them at the warden. The Archduke had furnished her with funds to use as she needed. This was needed.

  He caught one—barely—the rest clinking loudly against their brothers and sisters as he fumbled them against his chest and they dropped to the floor. The guard looked away. A familiar habit, Manon guessed.

  A discreet man would have understood the value of the coins on sight. A subtle man would have let them remain where they fell, perhaps even offer a slight bow. The warden, neither discreet nor subtle, proceeded to scramble under his desk and collect every last coin with all the grace of a pig rooting for scraps in the mud. But in the end his lust for gold proved greater than his lust for flesh and he graced Manon with a final leer before directing the guard to lead her away.

  The guard took Manon from the dim chamber and escorted her back to the main entrance and the central shaft that stretched to the top of the vast tower. A network of staircases, cages on winches, and platforms with simple rope pulleys crisscrossed the shaft and climbed its sheer walls, providing access to all levels of the tower. The guard led Manon up a particularly treacherous stairway that leaned at an odd angle away from the stone wall, then on to a platform hardly large enough for the two of them. It wobbled reassuringly as Manon boarded.

  “Might want to hold on to something, my lady,” the guard said. After removing a locking device, he began to haul them skyward, hand over hand on a well-worn rope. As he worked, sweat forming on his hairline, he glanced at Manon with an apologetic smile. “It’s not very elegant, my lady, all these ladders and pulleys. But it serves a purpose. There’s a reason why this tower is still in use.”

  “Yes,” Manon murmured, having quickly discerned why the patchwork infrastructure in the Hibarium would never be replaced with more efficient methods. “Hard to escape when your chosen route is as likely to send you to your death as deliver you to freedom.”

  The guard nodded. “And we move them,” he said, pride burning away some of his sheepishness. “Just yesterday, this platform led to an entirely different level.” He paused in his work long enough to tap the side of his skull with a finger. “Memorizing them does you no good.” The platform shuddered beneath Manon’s feet, the rope creaking with a certain degree of weariness, and the guard returned to hauling with both hands, this time with a new sense of urgency, Manon saw. She peered over the edge of the platform. The shaft opened up beneath her, darkness upon still more darkness. She wondered how many bodies lay at the bottom and if her father had ever considered becoming one of them.

  They reached their destination, coming to a shaky halt at one of the highest levels of the tower. Manon looked down at the gap between the platform and the safety of the solid rock landing beyond.

  “Faulty rigging, my lady,” the guard said, pointing up. “Doesn’t always align properly. Let me go first, then I’ll help you.” He made to step across the gap, but Manon stopped him with a forceful hand on his shoulder.

  “You probably ought to set the lock, don’t you think?”

  Flushing crimson, the guard replaced the mechanism that would prevent the platform from plunging down the moment he let go. Manon hardly had to stretch her long legs to bridge the gap, and she was sure to set the platform swinging—just enough to make the guard clutch the rope with both hands.

  “And I’m no lady,” she said.

  The guard hurried after her. “Just to your right, my lady. His cell is at the end of the row.”

  Manon’s steps carried her the distance swiftly, but she paused before they could take her within the line of sight of the prisoner in the last cell.

  “I see he has a window.”

  Light filtered between the bars of the cell, dust floating in shafts of hazy gold. It was not very different, Manon thought, from the way the light flooded across the terrace at the house on Isle de Gaustin, finding its way between the trunks of the peach trees as the sun rose. They had come for her father between those trees, breaking the morning glow. Manon had dropped her porcelain cup of tea as she rose up, heedless of the painted shards coming to rest at her feet. He had told her not to worry, told her that even as they struck him across the shoulders and sent him to his knees, even still as they lashed out at him once with a short whip, drawing blood through his white shirt, and dragged him from the garden. All before Manon could say a word. She had been left with tea steaming on the stones beneath her feet, the golden light of morning reforming in their wake.

  “Manon.”

  ***

  “You have grown.”

  Julian Barca studied Manon from behind the bars of his cell, his mane of dark hair made all the starker by the glowing light behind him. His silhouetted form made it difficult to make out his face, but the voice was just as she had heard it in her dreams for four years—that is, the voice was whatever Julian Barca wanted it to be.

  That had always been his gift, the thing that set him apart from other men. He had an eager mind and a quick wit; he was bold, decisive, restless, eager to make his mark upon the world. And though he was skilled in many ways of achieving his ends, it was his voice that had carried him so far in life. Not his words. He was no great smith of language, no. But his voice alone could convince a steadfast soldier to sell himself to the enemy, a devoted priestess to turn her back on her god, or a loving father to abandon his children—if that was what Julian Barca wanted.

  In that moment, Manon did not know what Julian Barca wanted.

  “That is generally what happens, father, when four years see a girl become a woman.” She hoped he would not recognize her dismissive response for what it really was—a defensive posture.

  “Ah, but you were never truly a girl, were you Manon.” Her father tilted his head, studying her. Still she could not make out his features clearly. “There was always something old within you.”

  Manon turned to the guard. He was hovering within earshot while attempting to appear deaf. “Leave us.” For a moment she thought he might refuse, but then he shrugged and retreated around the bend of the curved hall leading to her father’s cell. No doubt he would be straining to catch what he could, eager to report back to his comrades what was said between the prisoner and the daughter who had not visited once in fo
ur years—but he was out of sight and the other cells were empty and Manon could at least pretend what came next would be a private conversation.

  “You’ve caused quite a stir, I’m sure,” Julian said. “They’ll still be talking about your visit in a month’s time.”

  “You always did appreciate a good story, father, and a good show.”

  Julian Barca’s silhouette shrugged. “People hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see. Give them what they expect and they will give you the world in return.”

  “Grand words for a man who tried to take the world and ended up here for his troubles,” Manon said.

  “No reward without risk.”

  The cool response set Manon’s spark blazing.

  “Is there no repentance in you? Do you feel no remorse for what you have done?”

  Silence. Her father was still a shadow haloed by blazing sun. He would have liked that image, if only he could see it. Then again, he probably knew exactly how he appeared in that moment.

  “You left your wife and children penniless. Does this not shame you? You roamed in search of treasure you could not find, forsaking all investment for the future, spending money you never had. Had you no thought for anyone but yourself?”

  More silence.

  “Once I thought you the greatest of men, but I learned you are nothing more than a selfish coward. You deserve to rot in here.”

  Julian Barca said not a word.

  Manon clenched her fists, all too aware that he had the upper hand. He had always had the upper hand. She stared into his shadowed face, desperately in search of traction, willing him to break.

  He spoke. But he did not break.

  “Such a tirade deserves a final flourish. A grand exit. You should be striding away from me, your shoulders straight as stone, your head held high, the resolute tread of your footsteps telling me I’ll never see you again. And yet here you are.” Her father stepped closer to the bars in the very same moment a cloud passed between the sun and his window, dispelling the golden light. He could not have timed it better if he had been setting the stage to reveal an ancient treasure to the Archduke himself. Manon could not look away from the blue-eyed gaze that suddenly pierced her. “You had better tell me what you want, daughter.”

  There were so many questions she could choose to ask, so many things that needed telling. For a long moment, Manon longed to find the words that would bring her father back to her, the father who had made her laugh, who had shared his secrets, who had commanded every room he ever walked in to—most of all, the father who had told her not to worry and made her believe it.

  “Come, tell me your dreams, Manon.”

  He waited. Oh, he was good at waiting. And even though he was the next to speak, the words seemed another kind of waiting.

  “Very well, I’ll tell you my dream for you first, and then you can tell me what brings you here.” He shifted slightly and leaned one shoulder against the bars of his cell. “I dream of you, raising up our family name so that it is spoken in the Varadome once more, so that the people of Arconia thrill to hear it.” His voice was deadly earnest, all fierce growl and smooth persuasion. “Manon Barca, she who discovered the lost city of Dumoduo, she who found the fabled lighthouse of Bellonis or brought home the golden pillars from the temple of the nine gods of Hasheptsyl. Those are dreams worthy of a Barca, worthy of you, and you could take that future for yourself.”

  Manon wanted to laugh. “With what funds, father? You speak absurdities. Or did you forget that you left Barca Company nearly bankrupt? Our coffers are empty. Our last ship is seized. I won’t have the coin to pay the next rent on the home I grew up in. And you want me to waste away on your hollow, unreachable dreams of glory. Just as it was before they put you in here. Nothing has changed.” Manon stepped close to the bars that separated them but found she did not have the fury to speak more.

  “Why are you here?”

  Julian Barca sounded tired, but there was something in his face that did not match his voice.

  She ought to have disguised the question. Folded it into another conversation, covered it with a cloak of deceit, poked and prodded and found out what she needed to know without having to ask for it outright. Eska de Caraval could have done it. The Archduke was the master of such methods.

  But not Manon. She had only one method.

  “Your medicinal rest is nearly upon you, father. Do you enjoy that? Being drugged with the dread until you don’t know your own name? Until you hallucinate all manner of horrors? How long will it take you to find yourself again? A day? A week?”

  The cords and muscles in Julian Barca’s neck tightened and there was something that might have been fear in his eyes. No, not fear, Manon realized. A revulsion for the weakness he knew she could see.

  “Tell me what I want to know, father, and I will see that you are spared.” Manon gave a small shrug. “This time at least. I won’t be here when they come with your next dose.” She took a deep breath. “You know where two of the six celestial reliquaries of the Alescu dynasty are. Tell me where to find them.”

  “Perhaps you have the will to run my company after all,” Julian murmured. “I had thought that little pet project of mine to be a fairly well-kept secret.” He straightened and released the bars. The sun was emerging behind him once more, the gold armor returning to envelope him. “Well, you said it yourself, Manon. I’m a selfish coward.” He smiled at her. “Unfortunately, your information is incorrect. I only know where one of the Alescuan reliquaries is. You might enjoy a visit to the Onyx Coast. The Ulgorian era stone circle at Pontevellio is quite awe-inspiring.”

  Relief coursed through Manon and she felt the knot in her stomach loosen. She managed a nod, not trusting herself to speak, then turned and retreated from the cell and the golden light, her legs heavy and ungainly beneath her.

  “And Manon?” Her father’s voice was not that of a man who feared the dread or the isolation that would follow. It was the voice of a man who held the world in his grasp. And it was terrifying.

  Manon fought the urge to look back and forced herself to continue walking, her gaze fixed on the empty hall in front of her.

  “Tell Victor I know everything.”

  She nearly stumbled, but somehow she kept her feet, kept walking. Behind her there was only silence.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Knowledge is my greatest treasure.”

  The Regatta Master of Lake Delo hadn’t bothered to change from his dressing gown.

  As a result, Eska spent a good deal of their initial conversation trying not to look too closely at the tattoos on his chest. They were words mostly, but reading them would have required staring.

  The Tortoise had scampered away when the Regatta Master had announced he’d be joining them in the courtyard, leaving Eska alone amid the jets of water.

  “I apologize for the intrusion,” she began when the Regatta Master appeared from an arched doorway fitted with a shutter-like door.

  “No apologies necessary. I returned home unexpectedly only shortly before sunrise. The Tortoise can be forgiven for assuming my absence.” He stood just inside the arc of the fountain, framed by mist turned to rainbows by the sun. Diamond studs, sparkling jealously alongside the water, lined the rim of his left ear.

  He made no attempt to conceal his assessment of Eska, his gaze sliding the length of her.

  “And I had thought my companion from the night before last beautiful.”

  Eska laughed. “You would flatter me before knowing who I am or what I am doing here?”

  The Regatta Master shrugged. “You may think I merely flatter if you like, but you yourself announced your purpose here, so we’re halfway to quite the intimate relationship, I should think.”

  “Ah, then you think to shock me. I assure you, that is not as easy as you might imagine.” Eska let her own gaze drift to his chest and then down to where the sash tying the sheer gown in place was barely doing its job.

  “Oh, I ca
n imagine a great deal.” He smiled then, a dazzling smile to match the diamonds in his ear. But it was also unexpectedly genuine, and it was for that reason Eska felt herself smiling in return.

  She began to speak, but, as though sensing that her mind was turning to other matters, the Regatta Master cut her off.

  “I’m famished. And I never do business on an empty stomach. Can I offer you some refreshment?”

  Some refreshment turned out to be an elaborate spread of cheeses, olives, spiced nuts, fruit, pickled things, cold meat and a very fine bottle of wine. All of which he gathered himself, disappearing briefly behind a different shuttered door, then reappearing some moments later on a large balcony opposite the one onto which he had first emerged. After setting a laden tray down on a small table, he called down to Eska.

  “Well? Better find your way up here.”

  Amused and marginally perplexed, Eska entered the house via the second door he had used and, after only two wrong turnings, found a set of stairs. These she climbed to a beautifully decorated chamber, part library, part office, part garden. Warmed by the sun streaming through windows and the three sets of doors to the terrace, now all flung open, Eska walked on earth-toned tiles past tall ferns and between gauzy white curtains billowing gently in the breeze and out onto the terrace.

  Eska waited while he poured the wine into blue crystal glasses. After handing her one, he made as though to touch his glass to hers, but then pulled back.

  “I never drink with anyone whose name I don’t know,” he said.

  “Eska.” That was enough for the time being.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Just Eska?” But he wasn’t really prying, she could see. The dazzling smile flashed once more. “Very mysterious.”

  “And yours?”

  “Should I be insulted you don’t know it?”