The Order of Merlin, page 8
The flat stone wall beneath the archway turned to a hazy gray, then silver run through with lines, which eventually formed into gritty streets with a city landscape in the background. A few bits of trash swirled near a stone wall, but otherwise, there was no sign of anything living or dead beyond the portal.
"This doesn't look like Invictus' notes, but it doesn't look terrible either," said Pi, tilting her head as she stared through the archway.
"Do we know where we're going?"
"No, but that's not a problem in the Eternal City."
They clasped hands and walked through. Contact wasn't necessary for traversing the realms, but if something went wrong during the transition, they didn't want to lose each other. A tingle traveled over Aurie's body as if she'd been dipped in mint, but without the vertigo of the stationary obsidian portals.
The archway leading into Invictus' quarters remained for two heartbeats after they stepped through and then winked out of existence, leaving them in the middle of the Eternal City. The smell of industry was pervasive. An oily puddle reflected the muted gray skies, and the buildings and streets looked like they’d been sucked dry of color. Aurie shivered even though she wasn't cold.
"Where to?"
Her sister shrugged and started walking forward.
"Try to think about finding Priyanka."
"And that's supposed to help?"
"There are no directions in the Eternal City. You get from one place to another through intention. I'm surprised Zayn didn't tell you that."
"We didn't spend a lot of our time talking about that," said Aurie.
The truth was both of them were deep in their own problems and the few times they got to spend together, using their mouths for speaking really hadn't come up. Aurie hadn't thought much about seeing Zayn, as there was no guarantee he was with Priyanka, but her cheeks and midsection warmed at the thought of reunion.
For someone who was a member of the Academy of the Subtle Arts, a trained assassin and skilled practitioner of magic, Zayn had a kind heart and kinder eyes. His rich brown skin was cool with jewel undertones as if he was blushing constantly. But she reminded herself that as strong as their attraction had been, she knew little about him, except that he performed an important role for Priyanka and had become her assistant in the ways of her Hall.
At first the Eternal City made Aurie miss the bright colors of her world, but as her eyes adjusted, she realized its colors were more subtle, like looking at the oil glistening in a puddle and seeing the kaleidoscope of colors swirling like faraway galaxies. In the distance, neon signs with strange pictographs buzzed their message into the world. A few times, dark things moved high in the sky, but never came lower for a look even though she knew they'd been spotted.
About fifteen minutes after they walked through the portal, Pi clucked her tongue and nodded behind them. The message was clear: they were being followed.
Aurie risked a glance backwards to see a group of bulky humanoids with powerful bodies, olive green skin, and ridged foreheads. They wore dark clothing smudged with grease and dirt and marched with the intent of violence. Dolgants. The worker class of the Eternal City.
"We should deal with this," she told her sister.
They faced off as the five dolgants approached, talking amongst themselves in a language that sounded like growling dogs. Two of them wore what looked like brass knuckles dipped in broken glass.
Before they could close the distance, Aurie said, "Watch your step, your shoes are coated with industrial-grade grease."
The mendancy, liar magic, made the dolgants bristle, raising fists and weapons as a threat, as the spell took hold of their footwear. A lunge from the lead dolgant ended ungracefully as his foot went out from under, spilling him onto his back and nearly toppling the one next to him. Further movements were hampered by the slick shoes, but if the hulking creatures grabbed ahold, then a little wobbling wouldn't keep them from getting their heads smashed in.
A dolgant with a truncheon took mincing, comical steps forward, raising his weapon high. Pi countered his approach with a force blast that knocked them over like bowling pins. The five dolgants interfered with each other as they struggled to regain their feet.
"Aren't you worried we'll attract attention?" asked Aurie, who had used the minimum faez she thought necessary for the mendancy.
"I'm counting on it."
They continued their stroll, finding the dolgants had lost interest in assaulting them. Shortly after, the character of the streets changed from run-down noir to gangster chic. Neon signs, which were distant before, dotted the street they'd entered. There were more dolgants as well as gray-skinned maetrie milling about like disaffected teenagers.
Aurie's experience with the maetrie was mostly limited to the owner of the Glass Cabaret. She'd thought them all slender and elegant, but with a persuasive darkness that haunted their souls. The city elves on the street looked like common criminals: faces marred with scars, the ambivalent gazes turned mean. A body that looked like a maetrie lay prone near an alleyway, glittering bugs that looked like broken glass crawling over his flesh, while other maetrie played games only a few feet away.
At first Aurie thought the sudden reaction that rippled down the street was meant for them, but as the maetrie disappeared into the buildings or faded deeper into the alleyways, she realized they were afraid of someone or something approaching from the opposite direction.
"We should get off the street," said Aurie, but her sister was already moving towards the alley where the dead body lay. She stepped over the corpse, noting the little glass bugs taking tiny bites out of the gray-skinned maetrie's body.
She heard the hoofbeats first. They sounded like a hammer driving a nail into someone's palm, and her heart reacted appropriately. Aurie was going to slide deeper into the alleyway, but Pi grabbed her upper arm.
"I want to see who this is. We might not be far."
"Far from where?"
"I don't know, that's why I want to see," said Pi.
Aurie trusted her sister's judgement normally, but her experience with the maetrie was limited. When a carriage turned onto the street, Aurie didn't know what she was looking at. The carriage looked like an ebony skull, and it moved on its own without horses or other draft animals—that she could see, anyway—pulling it. As it grew closer, she saw a black cloud hovering around the yoke and sensed hunger in it.
The carriage slowed as it passed their location. They hadn't bothered to hide. Dark green curtains in the skull's eyes rustled slightly, but never opened. The vehicle returned to its previous pace, leaving them behind.
"What was that?"
"Dunno, but I'm pretty sure we're headed the right direction," said Pi.
The skyscrapers that had been in the distance seemed much closer after the carriage had passed, as if the streets had adjusted themselves for its passenger, and they were getting to follow in the wake.
A few blocks later, a knot of maetrie near a glowing neon sign brought Aurie's heart rate up. Unlike the last area, these maetrie reacted to their appearance immediately. Whatever had been going on a moment before wasn't as important as their arrival.
"Oh, balls," said Pi, "I guess we're not avoiding a fight."
It looked that way to Aurie too. The maetrie were pulling up their sleeves and producing weapons in their fists. As they approached, their collective auras hit her like a wave of disorientation. One maetrie didn't bother her, but a dozen was overwhelming.
"You okay?" asked Pi, forehead hunched with concern.
"I'll be fine." She paused. "But you do the talking."
The maetrie surrounded them, violence in their eyes.
"We're headed to the Golden Ossuary," said Pi, turning slowly in a circle. Aurie was having trouble concentrating. Being around so many of them was like sucking up a big hit of nitrous at the dentist. Her head throbbed and the world was distant. Vision narrowed.
A few of them spoke, but Aurie didn't understand a word. Pi repeated her comment, eliciting no more reaction than if she'd told them their grocery list.
"I think we're going to have to fight," Pi said under her breath. "Can you manage?"
"I will."
Aurie prepared to use her true name to knock a path through the circle. But the maetrie aura was making it hard to think. She'd mustered the will to act when Pi touched her shoulder. The maetrie were no longer focused on them. Aurie expected to see another carriage, but instead a group of riders sauntered down the street.
Pi leaned over and shoved the vyklyk into her hand, which seemed to dispel the lingering effects that the maetrie aura had on her. Aurie was able to concentrate on the approaching group.
The maetrie riding the mounts seemed like performers of some kind. They wore little. A few scraps of colorful clothing that covered up their chests and groins. Some wore half-masks, homages to creatures that Aurie didn't have the shared history to understand.
The maetrie weren't the strangest part.
Their horse-like mounts were nothing like the fleshy creatures from her realm. They seemed to have more in common with the glass insects that had been feasting on the dead body a ways back. They looked like stained glass windows that had been ground up and reformed into a horse shape. Not all their surface was angled and sharp—a few places were bulbous and round, glowing with an inner light as if they carried lava lamps in their bellies. Aurie could imagine them haunting misty swamps, their glows looking like forgotten apparitions at a distance.
The maetrie that rode the beasts sat on dark mats, which seemed sensible, because Aurie was certain if she tried to pet one, she'd come away with a bloody hand from the shards of glass. There were six mounts and about a dozen of the strangely attired maetrie. The ones that had surrounded them stepped back and the flood of headiness receded, leaving Aurie in control of her thoughts again. The passing maetrie glanced their way, but otherwise kept moving, except for a smallish rider with a mask that trailed shadowy fog behind, who approached in an arrogant saunter.
"This isn't a place for mages," said the maetrie sourly.
The others that had surrounded them previously faded back to the buildings.
"We're headed to the Golden Ossuary," said Aurie, finding herself more in control of her thoughts than before.
"Why? No one is there."
Before she could answer, the other riders spoke to the maetrie woman, who responded with a nod. They seemed to accept her answer and continued on without her.
"We have business with the Diamond Court," said Pi.
"You are fools," said the maetrie. "They see humans as playthings. You won't be allowed to leave."
Pi produced the multicolored gemstone, which brought an inbreath of surprise from the rider.
"How did you come by a vyklyk?"
"Where is the court if not at the Ossuary?" asked Pi. "Is that where you're headed?"
"The Rasakupol. It is not far. There you will find your court, and many others."
"What is that place?" asked Aurie.
The maetrie flattened her lips. "Go back to your realm. Forget whatever it is you think you're doing. It is not for the likes of you."
"Tell us what it is," said Pi. "So we might be prepared."
"It is not the what that matters, but the why," said the maetrie as she slowly gained speed, forcing them to catch up.
"Why?" asked Aurie.
"Do you know the maetrie word oxyvain? No? It means to win by all means necessary. That is what you will find in that cursed place."
"Then why are you going?" asked Aurie, yelling as she was falling behind.
The flat look of disappointment was unmistakable. The rider kicked her mount and sped forward, catching up to the others, who were hazy in the distance. Black smoke trailed behind her mask, and the quick-moving mount sounded like broken glass being ground to sand in a barrel.
"Oxyvain," said her sister as if she were tasting the word. "If you're not cheating, you're not trying."
If they'd been in a normal realm, reaching the end of the block should have brought more worn stone streets as they could see nothing taller than a five-story building for a long ways. But as they reached the spot where they'd last seen the riders and their strange mounts, an enormous building was found blocking their way.
The structure reminded Aurie of the Glitterdome with its dome-like shape, but only if it'd been made of the bones of giants and the rib cages of dragons. Golden light trickled through the gaps in the building as if a hoard of treasure lay within. Further along the curve, carriages deposited well-dressed maetrie to stroll into the building. The vehicles varied in outlandishness, the ebony skull that had passed them earlier serving as the midpoint of strange, with one made of pulsating hearts stretching the willingness to believe, and the ironness of her stomach.
"I guess this is the Rasakupol," said Aurie. "Do you really think we'll find Priyanka?"
"I trust Radoslav, but on the other hand, I don’t think we should tell anyone what we're doing. Be as vague as possible," said Pi.
"Shouldn't be a problem since I barely know what we're doing," said Aurie.
The entrance where the carriages stopped to let their passengers out looked like the golden throat of a dead dragon. A hulking maetrie the size of a small mountain with golden lines running down the side of his neck stood guard at the entrance. He held out his hand as they approached, bristling with menace, until Pi produced the vyklyk.
The long bony throat led them deeper into the structure. Pressure built up in Aurie's ears then popped as the golden light at the end faded, leaving the interior visible as they stepped out.
"Oh, shit," said Pi, "it's a racetrack."
Chapter Twelve
The interior of the Rasakupol looked like a cross between a horse racing and motocross track, except the surfaces were made of slick and curved bone. The oval depression at the center of the dome was ringed with seats holding the kinds of maetrie that'd nearly assaulted them, but Pi knew that wasn't where they needed to be.
High above the seats and track, because height meant status no matter the race, there was a platform where the well-dressed maetrie that had been seen getting out of the carriages were headed. Pi found her legs didn't want to move at first. Whatever purpose the beetle over her heart had, it would probably come to fruition up there with the nobility of the courts, and leave her with a new round of complications.
A glance to her sister's upturned face, lips squeezed with apprehension, was the salve she needed to continue. Without Priyanka's help, they were unlikely to be able to free Aurie from the truth bond or track down Andromeda.
"I'm feeling underdressed," said Aurie as a couple of maetrie in glittering gold gowns sauntered up the ramp to the exclusive area.
"I think they're the version of wearing the band T-shirt at the concert," said Pi. "Besides, I like that outfit."
Her sister was wearing a dark brown ensemble with voluminous sleeves and an overlapping front that looked like a martial arts Gi. Aurie tended more towards their mother, with almond-shaped eyes, strong cheekbones, and a prominent nose. She had a regal manner even when she wasn't trying to act condescending, which she could wield like a hammer if necessary, but her arrogance was nothing like the maetrie's.
As they ascended the ramp, the vyklyk stone provided their introduction, and Pi realized that she did not like the maetrie, even though she'd worked for Radoslav for many years. They were a harsh race, keen on endless conflict. Radoslav had been born for that purpose, a matchless warrior who had escaped to the city of sorcery to keep from being used further. And that was all the difference. Choice. He had made his choice, choosing exile over further genocide. It was why Pi trusted Radoslav enough to carry the beetle into the depths of the maetrie world for him.
The others, high-born maetrie who ruled over each other in the Eternal City, they had made their choice too. Pi saw them for that decision.
When they reached the platform, many eyes turned their direction. Pi felt like the country bumpkin who'd mistakenly wandered into Buckingham Palace. She saw members of the three courts: Ruby, Jade, and of course Diamond, since it was their party.
"Pythia Silverthorne," said a maetrie off to her right in a jet-black three-piece suit with a black tie. "Here I was, thinking this event would be a dull affair, and here we have the fucking traitor's mageling in our midst."
When she first saw who was speaking, she had a brief worry that the beetle was meant for him, but remembered Radoslav's feelings for his family.
"Slyvan. I'm surprised they let you show your face here after what happened," said Pi, "but I guess they need something to scare the younglings into behaving."
The last time Pi had seen Slyvan it had been at the Jade Court, after an attempted assassination of Lady Kikala to draw Radoslav back to the maetrie realm. Lady Amethyte, the Ruby Queen, failed in her attempt to eliminate a rival, and former lover, but clearly that kind of intrigue was expected. Pi thought his appearance normal as if this were the Great Houses of the Old Empires of Earth.
Slyvan stood before Aurie in a wide stance, his gaze flitting between them. He was all angles. Cheekbones like daggers, hips narrow as the center of an hourglass. The only thing he was missing in her eyes was a lit cigarette dangling from his lower lip.
"Why'd Raddie send a babysitter with his mageling?"
"I don't work for him."
Aurie shot her a covert glance. She sensed the animosity. Pi made a "hold" gesture.
A light of understanding filled Slyvan's black eyes. "Oh, that's right. Your little headmaster came back, not that it'll do the lot of you any good. You're a doomed race. I'm just sorry ol' Raddie ain't gonna survive much longer."
Drawn by the bait, Aurie spoke before Pi could motion for silence. "Why do you say that? What do you know?"
Slyvan chuckled and left them to speak to a heavyset maetrie wearing a pinstriped suit and a top hat made of black glass that was holding court across the platform. Pi was surprised by Slyvan's comment even though she knew she shouldn't be. If their realm was due to be overrun by a demonic horde, the realm closest would want to know about the danger so they could close any passages between.
