undying legion 01 - unbound man (39 page)

The sound of the door being thrown back pulled him from his thoughts. Fas and Narvi entered the room, the former glancing about with a look of intense satisfaction. But it was Narvi’s expression that caught Arandras’s eye. The wide grin he’d had when he left was gone, replaced with something altogether thinner, almost forced.

“What’s this, still working?” Fas said with a broad smile. “Finding a golem army not enough for one day, eh?”

“We haven’t quite found them yet,” Bannard said.

Fas brushed the protestation aside. “You’ve done well, all of you,” he said. He picked up the lid from the work table and peered at the markings. “This is where they are, is it?”

“We believe so,” Narvi said, his attempted cheer belied by the flatness of his tone, though nobody but Arandras seemed to notice.

“And where is that, exactly?”

Bannard pointed to the map. “Somewhere around Tienette Lake.”

“We think,” Halli added.

Fas studied the indicated section of the map. “You’ve made a record of these numbers, of course?”

“Of course,” Senisha said. “We made copies for each of us, so if anyone spots something —”

“Good, good.” Fas looked from Bannard to Senisha, Halli to Gord. “You’ve done well,” he repeated. “More than enough for one day. Go and enjoy yourselves. But,” he held a finger to his lips, “not a word outside this house, you understand? Of course you do.”

The others began packing up, ordering the piles of maps and finding markers for their books. Arandras stood, stretching the cramped muscles of his neck and back. Senisha glanced in his direction, but turned away as she noticed Fas heading toward him.

“Arandras,” Fas said, one thick hand wrapped around the neck of the urn, the other toying with its lid. “A word, if you please.”

Arandras studied the man through narrowed eyes.
This doesn’t sound good.
“Of course.”

“A golem army, eh?” Fas said, the urn’s lid snaking through and around the man’s meaty fingers. “Who’d have thought when you arrived that we’d be discussing golems a few days later?”

“Who, indeed?” Arandras said, watching the lid as it appeared and disappeared from view.

Fas caught his gaze and smiled. “These are yours, I believe,” he said, offering the urn and its lid to Arandras.

“So they are.” Arandras took the proffered items. The room was empty now save for the two of them and Narvi, who stood a couple of paces away, refusing to meet Arandras’s eyes.

“We owe you a debt of gratitude,” Fas said.

“More than just gratitude, I should think,” Arandras said, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
Damn. So much for avoiding confrontation.

But Fas only smiled again. “Quite so.” A fat pouch jingled in his hand. “Perhaps this will go some way toward making up for the delay in finding your mysterious letter writer.”

Delay? You’ve scarcely even tried.
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” Arandras said. “What’s lacking is time and attention —”

“Which, alas, are now in shorter supply than ever,” Fas said, setting the pouch down and leaning uncomfortably close. “The entire resources of this schoolhouse are now committed to the pursuit of these golems. Once we’ve retrieved them, we’ll be happy to pick up your matter again, but you’ll understand that I can’t guarantee when that will be.”

Oh, I understand all right.
The Quill would pick it up again when it became convenient, and not a moment before. “I’m not one of your
resources,
Damasus. As far as I’m concerned, I’m still here to find that man.”

“Of course, you’re welcome to continue your search as long as you wish,” Fas said. “But not, I regret to say, from here.”

Arandras blinked. “Excuse me?”

Fas gave an exaggerated sigh. “You used to be Quill,” he said. “You understand.”

An unpleasant suspicion began to form. “Understand what?”

“That in a search for relics of this magnitude, we can’t permit the presence of… well, outsiders.”

“But the urn —”

“Remains yours.” Fas shrugged. “We have all we need from it now.”

You treacherous bastard.
“I brought this to you,” Arandras hissed. “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation but for me.”

“And we’re grateful.” Fas nudged the bulging pouch and it gave a heavy clink. “Take it. With the Dreamer’s blessing, we’ll have the golems in hand within the month. You’ll barely notice the wait.”

“No. No way in the hundred hells.” Once the golems were located, any last leverage Arandras might have had would be gone. He’d find himself cast aside, with nothing left to rely on but the Quill’s honour and goodwill.

Which, truth be told, was exactly where he was now.

Narvi looked up, meeting his eyes at last, his expression both pained and pleading. “Arandras…”

Arandras shoved the pouch away. “Gatherer take your coin. I should never have come to you. Trusting the Quill,” he spat the word, “like a damn simpleton. Weeper’s tears, what was I thinking? The hells with you all.” Face flushed, he barged past Fas and made for the door.

“I’m sorry, Arandras,” Narvi called from somewhere behind him. “I couldn’t… it wasn’t my choice. I’m sorry.”

But it was too damn late for apologies. Too late by far.

Chapter 15

To bind is simply to impose order upon an otherwise disordered object. There is nothing strange or undesirable in this. Generals bind armies, mothers bind children, and administrators bind cities every day.

—
Forms of Sorcery
(author unknown)

“Overseer Clade?”

The knock on his door was soft but insistent. Clade set Yevin’s papers down with a sigh. “What?”

“Message for you, Overseer.” The heavy door muffled the servant’s voice, but not enough to conceal his anxiety. “Sorry to disturb you, but I was told you wanted all messages tonight delivered directly.”

Clade opened the door and plucked the note from the servant’s hand. “Thank you,” he said, closing the door on the man’s nervous face.

The note was from Terrel. He opened it and held it to the lamp’s light.

Shops checked. No sign of item. Request support to investigate groups. T.

“Request support?” Clade tossed the note aside. The man had the hide of an ox. Did he think Clade had a battle squad ready to go?
I’m hiring him, for the gods’ sakes!

Anger stirred within, threatening to break out. Clade raised hurried walls, smothering the unwelcome emotion and pressing it into a cage. His outburst with Terrel had won the man’s grudging cooperation, but it had been a lapse all the same. Control was essential.
Surrender that, and none of the rest matters anyway.

It was a central tenet of sorcery: above all else, the success of a binding depended on the qualities of the substance in which it was grounded. A grand timber chest, crafted from the trunk of some great oak or eucalypt, could sustain a binding far beyond anything wrought upon an old, half-rotten branch. Clean water from a mountain stream offered far greater potential than a tannery’s polluted runoff. Yet purity was not the sole consideration. Order mattered, too. Estelle had explained it to him once as the difference between a calm, green lagoon and the clear but choppy surface of a windy hillside lake. Despite its impurities, the still water of the lagoon would prove more amenable to the waterbinder’s craft.

Clade had found it a strange distinction at the time, foreign to his then-limited experience of sorcery. Yet the more he read about the great works of the Valdori, and the more he practised his own small arts of woodbinding, the more he had come to believe that in fact it was order, more than any other consideration, which most determined an object’s capacity for spellcraft.

Which, if true, held critical implications for his own endeavour.

Shortly before departing Zeanes, Clade had found reports, deep in the Oculus archives, of renegades who had fled the Oculus in centuries past. Seeking to free themselves of their heart-bond, they had attempted to place it on another: a beggar, usually, or a peasant child. The results were disastrous. Those pursuing the rogue sorcerers had found not free men and women but cripples and lackwits, picking over the bones of their dead comrades. Some survivors had lost limbs; others could no longer command the limbs they had. Few, it was said, could even remember their names.

Vagrants and urchins.
It was hard to imagine a worse choice of recipient. Even among the Oculus, candidates were permitted to attempt the binding only after years of training to learn the required discipline; and for every four who survived the attempt, one did not. Unschooled children and vagabonds would never have stood a chance.

Yet success was not solely about the binding’s target. It couldn’t be. To join the Oculus and receive the binding directly from the hand of Azador was one thing. But to lift the binding from one spirit and place it on another — that was something else entirely. Any constraint that applied to the target must surely apply to the source as well. If he, Clade, were disarrayed when he attempted the transfer, no amount of order in the recipient would matter.

Even if that recipient was a golem.

So keep yourself in check.
Clade breathed deeply, willing his mind to calm. The anger brooded in its cage, not yet gone but no longer threatening to break free.
Terrel is not worth my rage. Only Azador merits that. I will show it to him the day I gain my freedom.

His fear of exposure, at least, had passed as soon as he’d stopped to think. Anything the god might have seen through the locuses carried by Terrel and his men could be explained by the account he’d given Estelle.
I’d hoped to wait until I had everything in place. Surprise you.
Foolish as it had been to give Terrel the locuses at the time, it now served to make Clade appear unexpectedly credible.
For once, Garrett’s idiocy works to my advantage. About time.

A pile of unread correspondence lay on the floor a pace in from the door; some addressed to Garrett and some to Clade himself; all of it Oculus business and therefore unimportant. Terrel’s note rested atop the pile where he had thrown it. Clade picked it up, smoothing the paper against a chair arm, and read it again.

Groups.
Groups meant the Quill and the Bel Hennese. Maybe the Three Rivers Trading Company, too, or other traders, local or foreign. There were numerous smaller bands scattered throughout the city also, little clubs of two or three half-rate sorcerers, as well as a variety of individuals who held no loyalties to anyone but themselves. Terrel could look those up himself.
But the big groups…
Clade grimaced. Even with the full backing of the Oculus, gaining entry to a Quill schoolhouse or a Bel Hennese circle would be all but impossible.
There’s still my Quill researcher, if I can find something specific to ask for. But even then —

The bells of the Kefiran temple rang out across the road, the unexpected sound disrupting his thoughts. He crossed to the window and peered down at the dark street. A line of candles bordered the front of the temple, their tiny flames winking in and out like upside-down stars, the faint sound of sung prayer drifting up from the street.
Of course. The Night of the Sea.
The line began to snake behind the temple, the song diminishing as the lights passed out of sight one by one. Clade slowed his breath, straining after the half-familiar, half-exotic music.
Like stillness wrought into song, it quiets all it touches.

The last candle disappeared. Someone had doused the streetlamps closest to the temple, making the street before it a puddle of gloom. From this angle he could just make out a faint glow around the temple’s side. He gazed after it a moment; then he turned, striding from the room to the wide timber staircase in the centre of the Oculus building.

He emerged atop the roof in the cool night air. A soft breeze caught his hair, bringing with it the scent of burnt offerings and the sound of Kefiran harmonies. He leaned on the rough stone balustrade, gazing out at the shadowy dome and its small belfry, now silent.

“It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?” A shadow at the end of the gallery resolved into Sera’s round form. Her voice was hushed. “So peaceful. It’s like they’re singing the whole city to sleep.”

Firelight blazed behind the temple, spilling orange light over the neighbouring buildings for the span of a heartbeat before dying back down. An altar being lit, perhaps. “I didn’t know you were familiar with Kefiran rituals.”

“Oh.” Sera shuffled her feet. “I’m not, really. I just like the song.”

Clade nodded, though the gesture was lost in the dark. “You’re half right,” he said. “It’s the Night of the Sea. The song is the prayer of one lost amid the waves. With his words he begs the All-God for calm, and with his music he beseeches the sea to be still.”

Sera settled her forearms on the balustrade beside him and looked out at the street, her posture mimicking his own. “Do you follow the Kefiran ways now?”

“Me? No. I don’t think they’d have me.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve obviously never heard me sing.”

She laughed. “Some other path, then?”

“No.” He shifted his weight against the balustrade, stretching his shoulders. “Maybe there are gods and maybe there aren’t. But even if there are, why in the hundred hells would anyone want to attract their attention?” A life had space for only one absolute. “There’s not a single god out there that doesn’t care more about itself than anything else.”

“There’s Azador.”

“Yes, there’s Azador,” Clade said. “And what do you suppose Azador wants?”

“I thought I was done with tests,” Sera said, playful. “I’m a bound sorcerer now, Clade. Remember?”

Of course she was. As if Clade could forget it.

“I can still remember the day you told us,” she said. “Do you want me to recite it for you? Because I can. ‘Azador grieves for the fallen Empire. Azador longs for its restoration. That is the purpose for which the Oculus exists.’” She sighed. “That’s why people seek gods, isn’t it? To find purpose. But we don’t need any of that. We’ve got Azador.”