The Daemon Prism, page 38
Xanthe’s new clock ticked away an hour. One of her admirers had given it to her. Xanthe marveled that its hands could mark the sun’s progress, and she was forever comparing it with the ancient sundial in the palace gardens. Xanthe did not lack admirable qualities. Many would say we two lunatics made a fine pair. But she would never speak to me of star patterns, or theories of nature, or her favorite books. She would never labor for two years with an embittered blind man just to ensure she could never use her power for ill….
I had never feared death. My own life had ever seemed but an accident of nature, as like to end abruptly as to continue into interminable aging. On any other day, I would have welcomed one as much as the other. But something had changed in me. To end here, so far away from those evenings when Anne would read to me at Pradoverde, those times when I would think blindness not so wretched and her pity not so terrible if they induced her to share the books she treasured with me. Her voice had revealed a soul as deep as the roots of the mountains….
I drew Anne’s pendant from my boot and pressed it to my forehead. It burnt, as if left lying in the sun all day. Hosten was nowhere near here, and even at his usual post he’d not noticed the small things I’d worked. To reveal the secrets of Anne’s gift, all I had to do was speak its key, the Aljyssian word for illumination. “Luminesque.”
In the space of the word, I was returned to Castelle Escalon, walking its sprawling expanse while fearful eyes turned away, hurrying to my apartment where I could breathe in the light before plunging yet again into the fearsome web of murder and mystery. A heavy doom had shadowed those days, as it did this night. But Anne was there … so afraid, so alone … shattered by a bellowing anger through the aether.
But another voice offered her comfort and kindness, though that person, too, was alone and troubled. Are you injured? In danger? There’s been no one, ever. Trust me. One word …
And all her fear was consumed in curiosity … and sadness. She had wept for her lonely comforter.
Before I could think what it was I experienced, my mind was assaulted by the garish lights and noise of feasting … singers, mourners, a journey feast with Queen Eugenie presiding. Interminable. Boring. And Anne was there, too … disgusted, horrified at the leering suitor thrust into her face.
But someone had challenged her to a game … and disbelieving, desperate for some sign of truth, she played: You detest jolly pipe music, she said, excited at the simplicity of the impossible.
Exactly so, said her companion. Now you. Come, test me….
With the words, a wave swept through her. She named it pleasure, relief, and a deep and resonant joy … feelings not her own, yet vigorous enough to leave her smiling.
Gods … it was me! I had been so focused on her, so fascinated at that bright mind, at her quick acceptance, at the depths of her talent, I’d not realized what she had sensed from me—what she had sparked in me. Had I ever before experienced a deep and resonant joy? Passion, yes, for the glory of magic. Satisfaction, yes, in my relationship with Portier and the tasks we pursued together. But circumstance had forced me to push Portier away. And magic and riddle solving had but laid a blanket over my emptiness. Nothing had ever so transformed my life as had Anne de Vernase.
In wonder, I let the nireal’s enchantment play out.
Our talks of star patterns and night-blooming plants.
Our fight to win the night’s battle at Mont Voilline.
The moment she had opened herself to me completely, gifting me her power for magic, allowing me to wield it for the rightful end we pursued. Absolute trust. Uncompromising faith.
In sharing her experience of our joinings, she allowed me to see myself through her eyes. All these things had occurred in the aether. All was truth. And I had been too blind to see it … long before I was blind.
I am your reflection, she had said when she came to Pradoverde and gave me the nireal, offering all of herself. My outward appearance is nothing like what lurks inside me. I don’t despise you. I don’t pity you. I know you. I see you, and everything I see, I value.
And I had never believed her until now.
I hung the pendant around my neck and tucked it inside my shirt. Closing my eyes to Xanthe’s room and the sordid deceptions that must go on there, I reached deep into the aether. Anne couldn’t hear me speak, but I felt the pulse of her life. I would recognize her at a distance as vast as that to the moon. And I clung to that ferocious presence, allowing the river of feeling and voice, magic and dream, to sweep over, under, and through me, until a woman’s giggles and a man’s heavy breathing pulled me out.
CHAPTER 30
36 DUON, NIGHT
“I know it’s bold to ask you to examine my inner room, Regent Iaccar, but while I lay so ill, I sensed a vile presence hovering about me.” Xanthe’s peppery manner could become Nessia’s honey whenever she chose. “I’ll not trust him to keep me safe. I’ve had the most terrible thought. What if the poisoner was his tool?”
“Your trust shames me, lady, especially after my appalling temper of late. Certainly Dante is capable of any wickedness. I’ve seen how he uses women, and you are so innocent … so lovely….” Jacard’s voice had dropped an entire register. I could easily imagine why.
Had I not known Xanthe, her seduction might have had me panting. Had I not known Jacard, his humility might have deceived me. He had once fooled Anne.
“On the table beside the window, you’ll find honeyed wine,” said Xanthe. “Pour me a cup—and one for you, if you wish—while I change out of this stifling gown. He says I look best in Sabrian garb, but I’ve had something new made. You can judge.”
Soft lamplight bloomed beyond the statue that hid me. One cup was poured. And then a second. I bared my teeth and held motionless. Xanthe could not enspell Jacard with the Stones’ magic. But her own would do well enough. And the spell of vigor she’d had me put on the wine would ensure no flagging energy on Jacard’s part.
“You’ve been right all along. I’ve indulged him too much,” Xanthe called from the bedchamber. “He’s been getting ever more demanding, and says he will teach me only what he chooses!”
“Insolent.”
“I am mistress of Rhymus and Orythmus, and I’ve given him his sight, and he treats me like a performing monkey. The burnings were his idea to make your subjects fear him. I was not allowed to succor his victims or even to show my sympathy! I was so hoping—Well, ’tis not at all what I imagined those long terrible years imprisoned.” Her voice quavered. “Now, lord, tell me what you think.”
“Stars and Stones, lady! You are”—he was hoarse—“the loveliest…. That gown. I’ve not seen the like ever, here or in all of Sabria or in any artwork or vision or fancy.”
“I was saving it for my favorite. Come sit beside me, Iaccar. Is the wine not splendid as well?”
“Splendid. Yes.”
“You’re more generous with my folly than I’ve any right to expect. This evening has been so pleasant that I hate its ending. A thousand years of loneliness, and I just entering womanhood …”
Jacard was hooked in less time than a trout in a bucket.
More giggles. Their breathless exchanges deteriorated rapidly into elaborate sighs, much rustling of clothing, and increasingly urgent moans.
“… not so shy as ladies in this day. I would view all of your manly strength, lord …”
Xanthe was very serious about her diversionary tactics. I focused my mind on my plan for the Stones.
“… ah, slowly, sweet lord. Come, let’s chase the frights from my bed … more comfort …”
They carried the lamp with them. The door snicked shut. The bolts shot. The Stones remained behind, their quiet secrets seductive beyond Xanthe’s charms. It was difficult to delay even the brief interval I’d told myself was necessary.
When I could contain myself no longer, I crept out of my niche. A colorful pile of silks lay on the floor, topped by an intricately tooled leather belt complete with silver dagger. A lone candle, banded in silver, was left standing on the low table beside the couch, along with a wheel of thread and a familiar cup and plate of blue porcelain. Beside it lay the two neck chains with the objects of my desire held captive in their cages of silver. Smiling, I set up the cup and plate at the opposite end of the table from the candle. I would begin with Tychemus alone—to understand its properties so I might better interpret the mystery of the three together.
I placed Jacard’s Stone on the plate, aligning one face with the candle flame. Then I fetched my staff from its place beside the door and knelt. The Stone of Reason was like to its fellows. Irregular. Multifaceted. Similar in size, shape, depth of color, and clarity.
I closed my eyes, held my hand in proximity, and dived into the aether. Again, much like the other two. A magical void, surrounded by a corona of attached spellwork. I sorted through the dangling threads—a sensation akin to running my fingers through the fringe on a wool rug. The hundreds of spells displayed the characteristic leanness of Tyregious’s spellcasting. Some were instantly recognizable from my work with Xanthe’s Stones, while some …
I paused and sorted through a cluster of spells that dealt with substitutions—replacing a subject’s spoken words, redirecting a person’s attention from one idea to another—in search of a spell thread that had felt quite different from the rest. Bulky and awkward, as if the bit of fringe yarn was made of thick rope, rather than fine, combed wool, and was clotted with burrs, insects, and broken glass, its distinction was curious. I grasped the thing and began to disentangle its making….
Jacard! I’d recognize his clumsy signature anywhere, but the structure itself, the more complex design and intelligence behind the formulaic magic, was more like Kajetan’s work.
I probed deeper. Behind a confusing screen of circular word replacements and unlikely scenarios lay a simple filtering spell—an encompassing layer that would be triggered by any spellwork that incorporated names scribed in fresh blood. Whenever Jacard bound such a spell using Tychemus, his own name—and the personhood that name must forever represent—would be replaced with that of his uncle.
I blinked and sat back on my heels. Names writ in blood … it seemed aimed at Jacard’s great working. But Jacard’s name would not appear on the cavern wall. It was insignificant to the work. He was neither the revenant nor the unfortunate human vessel provided for it, but only the practitioner. So there must be some additional aspect of the rite I hadn’t guessed. Perhaps Kajetan wanted something done that Jacard had refused. Thus their arguments …
I’d no time to sort out possibilities just now. So I left the consideration hanging and examined the facets of the Stone. Within moments I had identified the squaring, the doubling, and the skewing facets. A beam of yellow-green fire led me into the seeing face.
As before, the names in my thoughts seemed to shape what I saw. The candle that guided me into the vision was one of those on the cavern walls at the heart of Sirpuhi. As Xanthe had described, two naked victims were bound to the wall of blood-writ words, another robust young Mancibarran writhing in terror and lust, and on his left Portier, head drooping, limbs flaccid, drool sliding from his slack mouth. Above them, monstrous in the roiling gray smoke, leered Kajetan, eyes sunken and black, mouth gaping, gray tongue licking his colorless lips … hungry. Every touch of his smoky fingers evoked a silent shudder from Portier.
Jacard could not be thinking to install his uncle’s soul in Portier. Portier’s body was weak, wasted. He’d been cut repeatedly in hatchwork patterns—systematically bled with a ten-or twelve-bladed scarificator. And de Gautier’s cruelty at Voilline had already left one of his legs a ruin. Why offer the revenant a crippled vessel? Even if Jacard and Kajetan believed in Portier’s kind of immortality, surely rebirth was centered in the soul that passed beyond the Veil, not the mortal shell left here to rot. The younger, healthy male must be the chosen vessel.
Jacard tossed his blood-soaked brush aside and stepped up beside Portier, exposing the words he’d just painted on the wall. Vosi Portier de Savin-Duplais au recivien, Matthei Pistor. From Portier to the vessel, Matthei the miller. But he’d also scribed a second line: Vosi Jacard de Viole au recivien, Matthei Pistor.
Before I could comprehend what the addition meant, Jacard grasped the caged Seeing Stones—all three, blazing green—and laid his hand on Portier’s head….
A consuming brilliance erased the vision and left the seeing face blank.
Head swirling, I took up breathing again.
From Portier to the miller. From Jacard to the miller. What had Jacard said as I watched the beginnings of his last attempt? If this works, you shall be worthy to walk with divinity….
Both souls to be transferred! First from Portier, who was half dead, incapable of resistance, and then Jacard’s own.
Diabolical! My mewling adept would inherit a fine body and Portier’s gift of rebirth. He could easily assert dominance over the remnants of a weakened Portier from the beginning. Save for one problem: Jacard’s name was writ in blood. I stared at Tychemus and considered Kajetan’s crafty little spell. The rite might not work as Jacard believed….
Giggles and moans floated through the dark air. How much time had passed? I needed to move on. The other two Stones waited. Beyondjacard’s scheme and his dead uncle’s nasty twist lay the answer to their riddle and my own need to understand the most profound magic I had ever seen. The three were meant to be joined, and I could not escape the conclusion that all the wondrous spells Tyregious had attached to them were peripheral to their true purpose.
Quickly, I placed Rhymus and Orythmus on the blue plate. A gleaming protrusion on Rhymus slid exactly into a V-shaped notch adjacent to the Stone of Command’s seeing face. Turning Tychemus with its seeing face upward as well, I found the orientation that would fit the Stone of Reason into a wedge-shaped gap between facets of the other two. I pushed them together.
The edges flashed and sparked, until the three appeared a seamless whole. Emerald light swelled and then receded, as if the great prism were a living heart with but one pulse left in it.
Though tempted to seek further enlightenment in the seeing face right away, I held discipline and examined the joined Stones. As with the individual prisms, the conjoined three exhibited no magical structure of their own. Nor did they disturb the aether in the slightest. How was that possible? Unless …
If a man poured a bucket of water into the stream at Pradoverde, he might see ripples, splashes, or momentary diversions in the flow. But the water itself would be indistinguishable from the river. Perhaps the Stones did not alter my perception of the aether because their energies were of the same substance as that flow where I perceived emotion, magic, and dream.
Had time and secrecy not bound me, I would have laughed aloud at such a notion. And yet years of study and, indeed, the entirety of my life, shaped and driven by magic, provided me no other answer. As nature directed water to manifest itself as liquid, as ice, and as vapor so fine as to float in the air, perhaps it directed this mystical substance to manifest itself as both solid matter and as the energies Anne and I sensed and touched. It would explain my certainty of the truth the Stones revealed in their visions. Lies were instantly detectable in the aether.
Drunk with revelation and possibility, I looked closer, only to slam into another wall of impossibility. The wizard’s myriad spell threads were no longer in evidence. No spells at all were in evidence. What Tyregious had shaped for the three individually was astonishing, glorious, intricate magic. How could the three together be nothing? I ought to heave the thing from the Xanthe’s balcony, just to see—
My left hand—my good hand, which grasped the conjoined Stone—spasmed with pain, as if Hosten had speared it to the table with his dagger.
All right. Not that. Night’s daughter! I stretched and clenched my fingers until the spasm eased.
Tyregious had told Xanthe that his little demonstration showed all there was to know about the Stones. The candle had dwindled, yet not so much that I could not use it to test the great prism. One by one, I peered into its facets. My seeing passed through the deep and richly colored glass but discovered no image of the candle flame. I stretched Xanthe’s thread to check the candle’s position. Turned the Stone. Checked again. Peered again. Nothing but glass and color. I was flummoxed.
Before examining the conjoined seeing face, I took a moment to prepare. My glimpses of truth in the individual Stones had each been fed by my own concerns. Assuming the three showed anything, I wanted nothing in me to influence what it might be, lest I miss some aspect of importance. I blocked out the sounds from the other room. Buried guilts, desires, and worries about Portier and Anne, and the terrors of blindness, necromancy, and unhealed wounds in the Eternal Veil. I went cold. Immersed myself in nothing. Became Dante, the agente confide who could not be moved by grief or joy.
Then, empty and impervious to compulsion, I knelt up and peered through the seamless seeing face. The candle appeared as flame only, a distant smudge of yellow in a world of rich-hued emerald light. Focusing entirely on the sea of green in front of me, I abandoned the world and opened myself fully to the aether….
“Through millennia have I waited for you, Dante, Master Mage of Sabria, son of Raghinne, child of the dark.”
I knew him before he rounded the angled glass corner, his long stride eating the distance between us. Cool, dry air moved through halls of glass, carrying scents of ash and rosemary, shifting his gold and gray hair and his ankle-length coat, offering glimpses of the sword belted at his waist.
His smile-that-was-not-quite approved of my arrival. For I was there, too. My every sense told me I walked in a green gloom bound by angled glass.
“Who are you?” I said. “Mage or god or … other?”
I had experienced strangeness beyond comprehension in my life, yet this surpassed all. Overwhelming wonder might have paralyzed me entire, had I not come empty.
