Authors: Auston Habershaw
Here, behind the ancient ivy-Âclad walls of the Old City, the cobbles were more even and the willow trees that lined the carriage lanes provided much needed shade from the sun. The stench of the press of humanity in Crosstown had given way to clean, cool breezes and the sound of birds twittering from the flower-Âdraped windowsills of stately town houses. Here also, though, were columns of Defenders, marching through the streets on maneuvers. All it would take would be one cry from one person who recognized him, and Tyvian was as good as captured and petrified. He took a deep breathâÂthe high stakes games were the ones he was always best at. That didn't make them any safer, though.
Beside him, Hool grimly put on a just-Âpurchased broad-Âbrimmed hat of green with a white ribbon to match her dress. It was clear she was thinking about throwing it under the nearest coach. “Why do we need new clothes?”
Tyvian pointed across the street to the stately facade of a building a full story taller than its neighbors. It had a colonnade front of gray stone and broad steps of the same material leading up to a heavy door worked with elaborate wrought-Âiron devices of arcane and ancient description. “Because we are going in there to see my brother and, very possibly, start a fight. Are you ready?”
“Is your brother like you?”
“No. He's an archmage and a paragon of the community.”
Hool frowned. “That's too bad. I would like to punch somebody who is like you right now.”
Tyvian smiled and offered her his arm. She didn't take it, and instead stomped along behind him, glowering at his back.
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CHAPTER 12
THE FAMULI CLUB
T
echnically, Saldor was a swamp. All around it, for miles in every direction, marshy ground and muddy waters clung to the roots of ancient trees, producing little other than frogs, mosquitoes, and disease. It was, by all conventional measures, a terrible place to build a city.
It was, however, an excellent place to place a magical citadel, sitting as it was at the conjunction of three massive ley lines. Sorcerers had made the place their home for millenniaâÂlong before even the Arcanostrum had been constructedâÂand powerful sorcerers had a way of drawing Âpeople to themselves, even unintentionally. Over the ages, the magi of the Arcanostrum transmuted the swampland into solid ground, piece by piece. The city grew in stages, starting with everything inside the perfectly circular walls of the Old City, and then with all the other appendages that had been pasted on in the centuries since.
In the modern era, however, the Arcanostrum was no longer the driving force behind this ever-Âincreasing rate of growth. That distinction lay at the feet of the Saldorian Exchange. Money, not magic, was what made SaldorâÂand by extension the WestâÂturn.
The exchange was a massive, many-Âcolumned building a full third of a mile longâÂa soaring edifice of marble and mageglass, gilded with all the gold filigree and fluttering angel sculptures avarice could afford. It lay in the exact heart of the Foreign District, which lay at the southern edge of the Old City, just within the city's ancient walls and a hop, skip, and jump from the docks that saw so much of the world's material wealth dragged across it.
Each and every morning ships sailing from Ihyn, Illin, Eretheria, Akral, Rhond, and even Eddon pulled into Saldor's harbor and unloaded goods along the piers. Gold, spices, steel, furs, timber, livestock, jewels, karfan, winesâÂif it had a value, it would be drawn toward the exchange and the Grand Bazaar with all the inexorable strength of gravity itself. Even Freegate, sluicegate as it was to the vast territories of the North, saw its gold drain south toward Saldor, not north toward itself. If Freegate was an artery of commerce, Saldor was the heart through which the lifeblood flowed.
At this time of dayâÂmid-Âmorning, judging by the sunâÂTyvian knew the floor of the exchange would be bustling with the frenetic activity of every merchant or shipping agent with two silvers to rub together and a grand, get-Ârich-Âquick scheme. The exchange made mulch of such persons on a daily basis, and from the steaming wreckage of their burgeoning shipping empires and wild-Âeyed efforts to corner the market, a whole new batch of gold-Âmad traders was fertilized and grew to maturity in order to be cut down in their turn.
Tyvian had no intention of going there. The floor of the exchange was for fools. Instead, he and Hool were aimed at the place where the truly powerful of Saldor made and maintained their stupendous wealthâÂthe Famuli Club.
The Venerable Society of Famuli had existed for a little over four centuries, dating back to the time when magi were more like cloistered monks and the wealthy merchant families of Saldor wanted a way to curry influence with them. It had begun as a charitable organizationâÂraising money for Arcanostrum magi for their housing, their clothing, their food, and their research. Over the centuries, it morphed into a kind of social club for magi and their families. The original building had been burned down immediately after the Queens' Wars almost four hundred years ago. The only part that remained was the door.
Tyvian stopped before it and thrust his elbow out at Hool. “Take it.”
Hool glared at his arm. “Why?”
“We are about to enter a nest of predators, Hool. They are going to look fat and old or young and stupid, but these Âpeople are among the most powerful Âpeople in the world, do you understand?”
Hool slipped her shrouded hand lightly between Tyvian's arm and his body. “What's the arm have to do with it?”
“I'm about to make an impression.” Tyvian smiled, and then threw open the door.
With Hool on his arm, he blasted past the doorman before the fellow could quite unlimber his lips to form a protest. The entryway was all dark wood paneling and deep carpets. An ecclesial hush seemed to hang over the place. Expensive portraits in gilded frames eyed them as they passed by, and here and there a suit of antiquated plate armor was propped up on a stand or a bust of this or that fellow from who-Âknew-Âwhen. There were even a few tapestries. The doorman toddled after them, attempting to gain their attention with a few meek “Excuse me's.”
At the foot of the stairs to the main floors, the fellow caught Hool by the hand. “My lady!” he said, breathless. “This club is for members only!”
Hool glowered at the short man in the powdered wig until he seemed to wither beneath its heat. “Let. Go.”
The man let go and then bowed deeplyâÂa kind of apology. Tyvian said nothing. Up they went.
The second floor was sitting rooms and smoking parlors. Fat men in expensive clothes lounged in leather armchairs so deep it seemed a corkscrew and a lever would be needed to pry them out again. The smell of good Rhondian tobacco was embedded in the tapestries and the carpets beneath their feet; the rumble of avuncular conversation drifted through open parlor doors. There were coldfires in the hearths, their unnatural blue flame pulling the summertime heat from the rooms, allowing a soft draft to blow in from the open windows.
Tyvian and Hool marched in like they owned the place. Heads swiveled in their direction and then locked on, following the sight of Hool's show-Âstopping shroud as much as trying to puzzle who the fellow sporting the mageglass rapier and the rakish grin might be. Tyvian smiled to a few old fellows he remembered from his youthâÂmen who might as well have been sitting in these same seats for the last fifteen years, for as little they'd changed. If they recognized him, he couldn't tell. They nodded politely, tapping the ash out of their pipes into levitating ashtrays, and probably started calculating how Tyvian's appearance might affect the markets.
“Remember faces, remember scents,” Tyvian hissed under his breath, knowing full well that Hool could hear him perfectly.
“Why?” Hool asked. She was eyeing a levitating tray silver tray that was following them.
Tyvian turned to it. “A bottle of Haubert '26, pleaseâÂunopened.” The tray whisked away. Then he said to Hool, “I'm shaking some trees and seeing what falls out. I'm the target, you're the observerâÂgot it?”
Hool nodded. “This is going to end with you jumping out a window, isn't it?”
Tyvian smiled, and then they were headed to the third floor. He figured he had maybe five minutes before every person in the club knew a stranger was hereâÂa stranger who looked alarmingly like Xahlven Reldamar, only shorter and with ginger hair. Within ten minutes the mirror men would be all over him. The only question was who would bring them and how.
The third floor was mostly open, with cavernous, vaulted ceilings. Fifteen-Âfoot mageglass windows that ran from the carpet nearly to the chandeliers covered one wall, affording club members a panoramic view of the Foreign District and the Saldorian Exchange itself, which stood only two hundred yards or so to the southeast. The wide floor of the hall was filled with men and women deep in hushed, hurried conference. The energy in the room, even in the early afternoon, was intense and frenetic. Most of those present had the look of someone chased by a wolf, and having been chased by wolves before, Tyvian knew the look well.
These Âpeople, when they looked up, did not, of course, look out the windows at the exchange, but rather at the opposite wall, where stood a series of mirrors of similar height and dimensions as the windows that faced them. These mirrors were uncommonly dark, as though reflecting something dimmed and distant. Words and symbols floated up from the depths of each mirror, reflecting prices of certain commodities as they were traded on the floor of the exchange or reporting on deals struck between major trading companies, firms, or individuals. At the end of the room, beside an open window, stood a basin of pure lodestoneâÂDweomeric energy mixed with base earth to form a solid. From this basin darted courier djinns, each bearing a message for the club member's representatives on the floor of the exchange.
“What is going on here?” Hool asked in a very poor stage whisper.
Tyvian scanned the crowd for someone he recognized. “These Âpeople are attempting to remain wealthy at the expense of others.”
“They are stealing things?”
“Not exactly.”
Hool snorted, apparently abandoning any attempt to understand the activity in the room. “The blue-Âhaired man from last night is here. He is getting closer.”
Apparently, Gethrey was no longer the kind of man to sleep past noon. He was wearing a hat decked out to appear like a sailing ship in a storm, its sails billowing in an invisible wind. His blue hair formed the waves. “Hool,” Tyvian whispered, “stay long enough to meet him, then make some excuse and make yourself inconspicuous. We'll meet up later.”
“Where?”
“The waterfront. Somewhere.”
Gethrey was beside him, shaking his hand. “Tyvian! I must say I'm flatteredâÂdidn't think you'd take me up on the invitation!”
ÂPeople were beginning to take note of them. Rumor from downstairs had trickled up and interrupted some of the action on the trading floor. Tyvian caught a glimpse of a few Âpeople whispering about him. He saw a woman give him the kind of physical inspection usually reserved for horses at market. He saw two or three young dandies grin. He saw five or six older fellows frown deeply.
Five minutes before trouble. Maybe six.
Tyvian smiled at Gethrey. “Good to see the old place again, is all. Tell me, is Xahlven in?”
Gethrey grimaced. “He's . . .” He looked left and right and then let his eyes travel upward.
“I see.”
“Feel free to waitâÂI'm sure he'll be back soon. Can I get you and your lovely companion some refreshment?”
“No,” Hool said.
Gethrey blinked and produced a half laugh, but when Hool didn't join him, he stopped. “Tyvian? Your lady companion is being rather . . . well . . . rather rude.” He bowed to Hool. “I don't believe I've made your acquaintance, madamâÂyou are?”
Hool favored him with a withering glare. “You smell funny. I am going to go stand somewhere else.”
Gethrey's mouth fell open as Hool walked away. “I . . . well . . . I . . . did she just . . .”
Tyvian put an arm around Gethrey. He could feel Gethrey's shoulder through his coatâÂit was bony, thinâÂthe shoulder of a man who had slacked off in his fencing. “Walk with me, my friend.”
Gethrey recovered himself, smiled, and put his arm around Tyvian's shoulders as well. “Where are we going?”
“Across the hall, to the open window over there. I believe my coming has been expected.” Tyvian began to guide them both through the crowd. A few Âpeople came up to Gethrey to say hello; Tyvian found himself smiling and shaking hands with various dandies and kissing the knuckles of giddy dandizettes.
If trouble was going to come, there was no way to avoid itâÂhe didn't even
want
to avoid itâÂhe only hoped Hool would get a good look or whiff of what happened and how. Hool had disentangled herself from the press of polite society by simply pushing Âpeople out of the way. There were a rash of “Oh my”s and “Can you believe that”s in her wake, but none of it slowed her a pace. Tyvian could see her standing at the other end of the hallâÂshe was a full head taller than the other women present, her hat serving as a marker in the crowd.
Then they were at the window. Tyvian was shaking hands with a portly fellow with more beard than face. “I remember saying to my wife this onceâÂâyou know that Tyvian Reldamar,' I said, âI can't imagine he's half so bad as the Lord Defender says.' You know Trevard, don't you? He and I are like siblings, understand? No sense of humor, has Trevard. Comes from upbringingâÂhis fatherâ”
Tyvian extricated his hand. “I'm sorryâÂwould you excuse me for a moment?”
The man, his anecdote interrupted, underwent a kind of conversational collapse. Disjointed syllables tumbled from his mouth. “Well . . . ah . . . yes . . . but . . . um . . .”
Tyvian jumped out the open window.
He would have preferred to do it when no one was looking, but it probably only served to enhance his reputation among those who seemed to believe him some kind of folk hero. Were the fact of it not so annoying, the whole situation would have been hilariously funny.
In any event, he had been “jumping” out of this particular window since he was old enough to enter the club. Just outside was a cornice that was just within reach if you got a good jump from the sill. Then it was simply a matter of pulling oneself up onto the roof and walking.
Most members of the Famuli Club assumed the club had but three floors. They were wrong. There was a fourth floorâÂa secret floor. It was a domed chamber at the center of the club's roof, invisible from the street thanks to the simple architecture of the building. From other tall buildings, it just looked like a dome with windows that would pour sunlight down into a central rotunda, but it was not. The only Âpeople permitted to access the fourth floor were staff-Âbearing magi. Tyvian had no idea how
they
got up hereâÂhe had always climbed on the roof and slipped the catch on one of the windows to get in.
Today, though, the window stood open already. Tyvian found himself grinning despite himself. “Xahlven. Of course.”
T
he Secret Exchange had existed on the fourth floor of the club for almost forty years. What appeared to be a small dome was actually Astrally expanded into a vast domed space of white and black tile and alabaster walls some fifty yards across. Rather than mirrors reflecting the action on the floor of the mundane commodities exchange down the street, here was a flat, five-Âsided reflecting pool at the dome's exact center filled with silvery, utterly still water. About its edge were a number of magi, their staves in hand, peering into its depths and muttering things to invisible scribes or self-Âwriting pens that floated beside them. Numerous anygates were situated around the borders of the room, each flanked by golems carved from white marble and gilded in mageglass and silver. Tyvian knew most of those anygates would have their output within or very near the Saldorian Exchange itself, should a mage find it necessary to go there in person.