City of Night (37 page)

Fisher had helped, in this. A better man would have hesitated to take advantage of her pain, her guilt, and her fear. But she needed to be quit of this, and he needed to be certain that she was. That he left her with guilt and desolation was insignificant in comparison; he wanted her to remain
alive
.

Rath had intended to visit the Order of Knowledge with the candelabra that Jewel had given into his keeping. Because of the destination, he had made the effort to shave his face, dye his hair, and mute the white of his scars. He had also dressed in a way that suggested moderate wealth, but not in a way that suggested power.

Jewel’s visit did not change his destination, but he went quickly, and his mind was no longer on the candelabra that would, at one time, have been a marvel. A lucky find, even in the undercity. It had been many, many months since he had felt the thrill of discovery, and he knew that the time for that had passed.

The time for much had passed, was passing, even as he walked. Old Rath, he was called, and although he had done much to lessen the visual impact of age, he felt it keenly in the summer air. The streets that he walked were crowded, but that was not unexpected at this time of day; he nodded and smiled at those he passed, occasionally taking care to lift his hat. The crowds dispersed as he approached the footbridge that led to the Isle and vanished by the time he’d paid its onerous tolls.

He crossed the bridge, and made his way to the Order of Knowledge.

 

Sigurne looked particularly frail when she met him. He retrieved a chair for her and held it while she sat, before taking one of his own. The room, with its large and perfectly waxed great table, was otherwise empty; light flooded in through the bank of windows that took up most of the surrounding walls.

“I almost dread these meetings,” she told him softly. Her hands lay across her chair’s armrests, and he could see the way her fingers curled slightly into the wood.

“I know. I have other business here,” he added, “but this would not wait.”

“What, then, have you come to tell me? Have you come to return more daggers?”

“No. I’ve been careful of late, and have spent more time socializing than fighting.”

She raised a brow, but did not ask.

“It is almost time, I think,” Rath told her quietly, “to play the only card I hold. I wished, however, to ask you if, in your researches, you have come across any descriptions or depictions of Lord Cordufar’s mistress.”

She raised a brow. “The current Lord Cordufar?”

“His father,” Rath replied. “I have briefly seen the current Lord’s mistress.”

She stiffened. “You believe they are the same woman.” It was not a question. “Why?”

He seldom rehearsed speech. Today, he had, in the silence of his walk. But those words, whatever they had been, deserted him; he grimaced as they fled. “I have an acquaintance,” he said at last.

“You have many. What makes this particular acquaintance significant?”

He straightened, words teetering on the edge of his lips as he tried to find a way to steer them between truth and lie. “Three dreams,” he finally said.

“Three.”

He nodded.

She did not tell him that this was impossible. He appreciated the tact. “I will assume that these three were consecutive.”

“Yes.” He hesitated. With Sigurne’s conversational guidance, it was difficult to say too little, and entirely too easy to say too much. She understood that he habitually lied, that he hid, almost unconsciously, most of what he knew. He therefore read her expression with care, and found information wanting. Still, old habits were difficult to break. “It is not the first time in our history that men and women of unknown significance have been visited with the dreaming Wyrd.”

Her expression shifted slightly, but it did not sharpen, and he was not entirely certain—yet—that he had said too much, or spoken too clumsily. “As you say. Let us assume that these three dreams are indeed such a Wyrd. Fate,” she added, a hint of bitterness in the word, “has seldom taken care to be kind. Tell me of the dreams.”

“The element the three dreams had in common was, if I interpret them correctly, Lord Cordufar’s mistress; the dreams offered no name, of course, but the description is exact. I no longer believe she is human.”

Sigurne nodded.

“Sigurne, what happens if what we are facing is not, in fact, a rogue mage? All of our plans, and all of our investigations, have assumed that we are dealing, at base, with another Ice Mage. But if Cordufar’s mistress has been here for two consecutive generations, the man—or woman—who summoned her must have been barely out of childhood when he did so.”

Sigurne closed her eyes. “Or she is not leashed.”

“Or, as you say, she is no longer enslaved.” Rath set his hands upon his legs, palms down.

“I will be careful, in the future, to wish wisely. I dreaded word of another demon, and the return of another quenched blade.”

He waited for a moment; because she looked so weary, he felt a sharp hesitance to add to the burden he’d placed on her shoulders.

But she was the head of the Magi. Fragile, even delicate, yes, but there was steel in her that time could not touch. “There is more.”

Sigurne lifted a hand. She rose, as she often did when she was troubled, and she walked the length of the room, passing the table to come to the windows which overlooked the quiet City. There she stood, framed in light, and exposed by it.

He waited; he did not speak until she turned to face him. “The news you have already brought me,” she whispered, “is dark enough, Ararath. It is far, far worse than the daggers.”

“My pardon, Sigurne,” he replied.

“No. I will not grant what you have no need to ask of me. It is I who should ask yours. If I desired a life free of trouble, I would not now occupy the position I hold. Tell me,” she added.

“Gods,” he replied.

She closed her eyes.

 

In the silence, Ararath of Handernesse accepted death. He had accepted it in theory, when Jewel had first begged him to leave his pursuit of the demons, although she did not know what she asked. He had accepted it in the troubling conversation with Haval. But accepting the unknown, accepting the risk—and calling it certainty—was not the same as choosing. As knowing.

Is this what Jewel always felt?
he wondered, as he watched Sigurne’s veined lids, her closed eyes, the way her hands trembled.

He would have left her, but knew that she would not allow it. Frail or no, she would hear what he had to say. And in truth? He required it. He required the knowledge, the certainty that she could offer.

“There are two,” he continued, “and I do not understand the second.”

“The first?”

“The first I understand well,” he replied. “The god we do not name. To see his hand in the work of demons is not a stretch,” he added, “If the demons are free.”

She nodded.

“But the nature of his influence is not clear to me. In all three of the dreams, darkness figures prominently, but—and the dreams, even of prophecy, cannot be said to be literal—the darkness is devouring the City.”

Sigurne said softly “That is not possible.”

“As you say,” was the quiet reply. A minute passed in a silence so still words would have shattered it. Rath waited until that stillness had eased before he chose to continue. “In the second and third dream, however, another god—my informant believed it to be a god, and my informant’s instincts are seldom wrong, although they are frequently fractured—appears, and it is a god, in aspect and description, that I cannot name. I admit that I have done little research,” he added. “I came directly to you upon receipt of this information.”

“Tell me of this second god.”

“He had no name. He did not name himself, and my informant likewise could not name him. However, he told my informant that this fight, in the end, was his fight.” He hesitated. He was weary of subterfuge.

But he was not yet willing to expose Jewel’s talent- born gifts to this woman. Not even to this woman, whom he trusted. He had all but said he would send Jewel—as a messenger—to Amarais. To House Terafin. But he could not bring himself to speak of her abilities; not directly.

“What aspect did he choose?”

“Ah. He had no fixed form. The first time she saw him, he was a giant beast; a giant antlered beast. But in both cases? Forest figured prominently.”

Her frown was a frown that could be found on the countenance of any member of the Order of Knowledge, and it lessened the pain and fatigue. He had presented her with a riddle.

“Hunters?” she finally asked, and the way she asked caused Rath to raise a brow.

“In the first dream, yes, if I am not mistaken. They were not seen in the vision, but horns were heard, and dogs. You have some suspicion of who he must be?”

“I have, but, Ararath, what I know makes
no sense
.” She turned back to the window that framed the street.

“How so?”

“The Hunter God is worshiped in one of the Western Kingdoms, the Kingdom of Breodanir. He is worshiped nowhere else,” she added, “But he is considered the god of the hunt, and it is not in the interests of the members of the Order to question his existence while they work there. One of his aspects, the most feared, is that of a giant beast; it is said he causes the deaths of his Hunters annually.”

“You have members in the Western Kingdoms?”

“We have members anywhere that it is relatively safe for them to study. Not all of those members, by any means, are mage-born.”

“And they do not believe that the Hunter God is a god?”

“He has no mortal children,” she replied. “Not even in Breodanir, the kingdom in which the whole of his worship resides. The term hunter-born, which is used with frequency, refers merely to the sons of the ruling nobles. None of the hunter-born are golden-eyed; they are not, in any way that we have been able to determine, born
of
the god they worship.”

“They do not put the golden-eyed to death there, as they do in the Dominion?”

“No. They accept the existence of our gods, and in general, the worship of our gods in Breodanir is similar to their worship in the Empire. The mother-born work in the Mother’s temples in the King’s City, and possibly elsewhere in the Kingdom, and they are treated with both respect and understanding of their divine nature. It is because the true gods are accepted, and even worshiped, that Breodanir has long been a puzzle to us. It is seldom that a country accepts the existence of true gods while venerating, by their side, a god that cannot exist.”

He frowned. “So. A god that doesn’t exist offers the key to the defeat of the plans of the god we do not name.”

“I will confer with my colleagues,” she replied. “It may be that some part of the mystery will be unraveled by those who have made Breodanir their study.”

Rath stood, then. “Sigurne,” he said softly, grasping, at last, at straws. Seeking a way out, a way to survive. “Will you not take this to the Kings?”

“I would take it,” she replied, “had I access to your informant, and some way of ascertaining the truth of Wyrd you have claimed on their behalf.” She raised a hand to her eyes for a moment, and then lowered it. “I could go to Duvari. The political caution that must be exercised with The Ten would not trouble him.”

Rath flinched at the use of the name. He did not, however, argue.

“But if I go to Duvari, he will demand the name of your informant. If you are not ready to surrender it, you will no longer be free. And if you are ready, and you pass this information to the head of the Astari, your informant will almost certainly not be unencumbered again.” She hesitated. “Ararath.”

“I think it likely you could sway the Kings by belief alone, given your position and your reputation.”

“About the demons, yes. But in order to reach Cordufar, we would have to cross The Darias in the Council, and without proof—as you have long known—that is not an option to us.

“And not even I would be able to claim, by belief alone, that the gods are literally involved.” She rose. “It is not, however, by belief alone that I would operate in that realm. Remember, I am on the Isle.”

“You will speak with the Exalted?”

“I will,” she said softly, tiredly. “If it concerns the gods, who better than the children of the three to consult? But there is much that involves the gods that the gods will not divulge. I will speak,” she said quietly, “with the Son of Cormaris.” She walked toward the door, and then turned back.

Voice gentle, she added, “But if, indeed, the god we do not name is involved, it is my belief that the gods would know, and they would bespeak their mortal sons and daughters. If this were the case, word would have already reached the Kings.”

“And you do not think it has.”

“The Kings have not approached the Order of Knowledge with this information.” She lifted a hand before he could speak. “Nor would they hesitate, Ararath. The Magi are part of the first line of defense against those that serve the unnamed god; they are part of the first line of defense, hampered as they are, against the demons.

“But I will speak, now, with the Exalted of Cormaris, should he choose to grant me audience. If it will ease you, accompany me.”

“I am hardly dressed in an appropriate manner to speak with the Exalted.”

“No,” she replied, “You are not. But I will cede, for the moment, a robe for your use. It will be of lesser quality than the jacket you now wear, but it will mark your presence as one who aids me in my journeys. Come.”

 

When a robe had been found—and the search had raised brows and caused some dire, and thankfully largely inaudible muttering—Rath slid it over his clothing. The outer halls of the first floor of the Order of Knowledge were decorated in a way that suggested wealth and its obvious extension, power. There were, therefore, mirrors into which he might look, adjusting the fall of shoulders and the drape of hood, both of which were large, even considering the jacket he wore beneath its folds.