The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle) (39 page)

Thus far, Rian had been perfectly well-behaved, and the cloud-serpent had done its best to bring him books on the topics he requested.  The miserably small stack on his desk only proved the Council right.

Geraad had gone through every possible iteration of necromantic keywords he could think of—which, granted, was not much.  Only every fourth or fifth guess made the cloud-serpent speed off to select a tome, and what he found in those tomes was minimal.  The majority held only passing mentions to necromancy, or to accused necromancers who had either been found innocent or executed, and so far the only book with actual information on necromantic practices sat open before him:
A Treatise On the Use of Physical Foci In the Practice of Medical Magic.

In the Council meeting, he had heard the Archmagi talk about the disappearance of all the necromantic tomes.  Had it happened less than a century ago, it would have troubled him.  As it was, he found it frustrating to realize that there was no way he could learn about this necromancer, this Morshoc, from a safe distance.  Even the
Treatise
was useless; an archaic soliloquy about experiments long-past, it described scarification, bone reinforcement, bezoars, implantation of crystal grains to aid arcane channeling, facial reconstruction, use of leeches in limb-reattachment, and various other bizarre and ghastly procedures that Geraad imagined must have been outlawed.  Comments on necromancy were minimal, except to note that certain procedures were not to be confused with that dark art.

Frustrated, Geraad flipped to the index in the back, trying to find some other keyword to test.  He knew he should be researching spirits more than necromancy—after all, the Council wanted to understand the thing inside Cob—but Cob was not a threat to him.  Morshoc bore a spirit too, but any malevolence contained within that entity could only flavor that of the necromancer himself.

Words and names blurred as he skimmed down the endless list.  Useless, all useless.  No connections at all…

Rivent, Morshoc.  113, 123, 216.

He blinked, then stared at the words.  A name swam up from the depths of his memory:
Artificer Archmagus Morshoc Rivent, 84-93 IR.  Architect of the Citadel at Valent.

All Silent Circle neophytes were required to take courses on the history of the Circle, from its founding during the Great War of Empires to the destruction of the Citadel at Darakus and the rise of the Citadel at Valent.  The Citadel at Darakus had fallen from the sky in the year 81 IR, its thirty-six flight-cores sabotaged by unknown agents, and on impact it had shattered like an egg, all the wealth of wards that held it together detonating to pulverize the towns that had flourished in its shadow and leave a ten-mile-wide crater of melted bedrock and arcane debris.  Until then, it had been the height of arcane technology: a flying city of magic overseeing all the northern lands and peoples.  An arrogant undertaking, in retrospect.

Five years later, the Citadel at Valent had been raised as an artificial volcano—a vast Artificing, Summoning and Warding project led by the Artificer Archmagus Morshoc Rivent, who had planned and choreographed the entire working.  From a single mage-made magma pocket, the workers had uplifted a new mountain on the plains of northeast Trivestes, then cooled and carved it into the black towers in which the Silent Circle dwelt to this day.

Geraad flipped to the indicated pages, astounded that Archmagus Rivent could have any connection to necromancy.  The name had to be coincidence; it was not common, but certainly not unique among Heartlanders, and Archmagus Rivent had been dead for seventy-eight years.

Page 113, in the bone reinforcement section:
‘…including Morshoc Rivent’s recent study on infused silver implantation within the distal phalanges of the damaged hand to return channeling capabilities…’

Page 123, in the crystal grains section:
‘…fierce objection by Morshoc Rivent, due to acknowledged similarities with human experimentation by haelhene slavers…’

Page 216, in the leech section: ‘
Current studies include those of Allaron Arganthus on the properties of Nazazcar breeds, and those of Morshoc Rivent on their potential in preparing subjects for bioartificing experimentation.’

Flipping to the front, Geraad checked the date of the book.  77 IR, several years before Rivent’s rise to the Archmagus chair.

This is ridiculous
, he thought. 
I can’t possibly accuse one of the most honored Archmagi in the Circle’s history of being a necromancer—especially when he’s dead.  It was just a different time, with different studies permitted.  Anyway, what kind of lunatic would use the same name twice?

But the idea of a necromantic mole within the Circle disturbed him—even more so because Warder Farcry had admitted the possibility.  “Artificer Archmagus Morshoc Rivent,” he told the cloud-serpent, which glimmered acknowledgment then flew off into the stacks.

Some time later, it returned, followed by a host of its fellows, each carrying a new book.  Geraad sighed and started weeding through them.

What he found did not ease his nerves.

The vast majority were textbooks—the same books he had slogged through during his introductory courses.  A few were compilations of theses or tomes like the
Treatise
that collected many contemporary works into one volume.  But there were no biographies, no memoirs, nothing with more than a basic or academic level of information.

The last one to float over was one of the large books of portraiture that the Citadel kept of its Council Archmagi.  The cloud-serpent helpfully opened it to Rivent’s portrait: a Riddishman with limp brown hair and a hard face, surrounded by constructs and masonry tools, his hands and forearms sheathed in dangerous-looking woven metal gauntlets.  It was a portrait Geraad had seen many times, but despite the size of the book, it could not show enough detail to tell Geraad if that was a scar in Rivent’s right brow or just a trick of the eye.

“Take all of these away,” Geraad said, “and bring back…Citadel at Valent construction records.”

He leaned back as the cloud-serpents swept away the books, then tried to relax as he awaited their return.  Surely it was just paranoia that caused him to question the work of the Citadel’s architect.  The only connection between that Artificer and the necromancer was the necromancer’s undoubtedly fake name.

But when the cloud-serpents returned, all they brought were textbooks.

Geraad stared at them in frustration.  No more information than what he had learned in that introductory class.  For a monumental undertaking that had required the skills of all that decade’s great mages, there should be articles, studies, logbooks, treatises—entire theses on the magic involved.  Many of the associated mages would have earned their Master rank for their work on the project.

“Master Artificer, Warder and Summoner journals circa 86 IR,” he told the cloud-serpents.

They glimmered in thought, but did not move.

He frowned.  “Magus Artificer, Warder and Summoner journals circa 86 IR,” he tried, going down a rank.  Again, they glimmered but stayed.  “Adept Artificer, Warder and Summoner journals circa 86 IR?  Journeyman journals circa 86 IR?  Apprentice journals circa 86 IR?”

Their fins and frills wafted delicately in an unfelt breeze, but the serpents made no move.

“Loss log for Master journal collection.”

One cloud-serpent zipped off, returning shortly with one of the library’s many logbooks.  At Geraad’s prompting, it flipped the pages to a long list of names and dates—Masters’ journals, their year of cataloging and their year and method of loss.

Every Master’s journal for the Citadel-raising time-period had disappeared or been destroyed between 93 and 95 IR—the two years after Rivent’s death in office.  When Geraad investigated the other ranks, the story was the same.

Looking further, he found that the majority of losses between 93 and 103 IR had been from the Citadel-raising collection, despite all safeguards put upon it.  All of the original blueprints had vanished in 93, all of the copies between 93 and 96, and all of the subsequent and painstaking tower-remapping efforts throughout the next century had vanished within two to three years of their archiving.  If they existed in any mages’ personal collections, the loss log did not say.

He rechecked the loss logs for the necromancy tomes.  There was no pre-Valent information due to the utter destruction of the Citadel at Darakus, and he did not know how much of Darakus’ collection had survived to be imported.  However, almost no necromancy books made it onto Valent’s shelves, and the ones that did vanished during the same time-frame as the Citadel journals.

A chill ran down Geraad’s back.  Someone had cleaned up after Rivent, and kept cleaning up for nearly a hundred years.

The most recent attempt to map the towers had been a year ago, and rather to his surprise, the cloud-serpents found the blueprints.  When they unfurled them, though, the painstaking floor-by-floor drawings sent a new fear through him.

They were as complete as they could be; he did not doubt that.  Every hall, every suite, every staircase was documented.  But the walls were thick and uneven, and only thickened the further down the towers one went, until in places they took up as much space as the rooms did.

Just practical architecture
, he told himself. 
Buildings need to be stable or they won’t stay up.

But in those thick walls, he imagined hollow spaces.  Staircases, chambers, hidden halls.  Passageways from one place to another, sealed behind black rock that radiated so much ambient magic that most scryers could only bear to work their art in the heights, where the emanations grew thin.

He requested the maps of the Sea Tower and spread them on the desk with the heels of his hands, fingers twitching slightly as he sought his suite among them.  It was mid-tower, the walls around it thick, and he stared at them, wondering if the minds he felt flutter by from day to day were really in the hall outside and the other suites around him, or secretly behind him.

In the walls.

Waiting.

Paranoia, Geraad.  Just paranoia.  Take a deep breath.  Fold up the map.  Bring it to the Council if you feel you must, but know that they will laugh at you.  This is all coincidence.  There is nothing wrong.

“Warder Geraad Iskaen?” said a voice behind him.

He flinched and half-turned in his seat to see a tall, fair man at his shoulder, with three more behind him in nondescript robes but all with the distinct long features of Wynds.  His heart leapt in his throat, and he opened his mouth to protest or scream, but the closest man flicked a hand at his face, releasing a puff of powder.

Geraad tried to recoil but could not help but inhale some, swallow some, and recognized the taste.  Samarlit, powdered and concentrated.  Immediately the world smeared with dreamy colors.  His bones became water, and as he slid down in sudden weariness he heard a hiss, then a man's yelp.

“
Get the—  Pike it, there it goes,” said a voice.  “Well, it's not essential.  We have what the boss wants.”

Hands gripped him, and he felt himself hoisted like a drunkard, but there was nothing he could do but hang between the men.  As they started to move, he heard a shivering sound of question from the library cloud-serpent, then felt someone tug on the summoner ring he wore.  He tried to speak, to command it—the only tool left at his disposal—but his body would not obey his mind.

As the ring slid free, he lapsed into darkness.

*****

Shivering on the metal lattice above the Great Library's lowest balcony, Rian watched the men bundle Geraad into a multi-seat palanquin, then give their orders to the bearer constructs.  The students and servants at the teashop that shared the balcony glanced over in curiosity but seemed to write it off as nothing strange.  The kidnappers had evaded Geraad's Council-appointed guards by coming down several levels within the library, and as the palanquin moved out, the goblin whimpered.  He did not want to descend among the frightening people, did not want to chase the huge constructs or the bad men.

But they had his friend.

He pulled himself one bar forward, then stopped.  Another bar, then stopped.  The constructs were slowly but inexorably moving away, leaving him alone, but he could not make himself go faster.

Then a dark bird landed beside him.

He shied away, registering its empty eye-socket, its missing left claw.  It cocked its head at him—a trellingil, white-banded and dainty for a raptor—and gaped its beak wide.

"
White King
," came the necromancer's hollow voice.

Blinding wings unfurled inside Rian, jerking him forward.  He whimpered and wrapped all his digits around the bars, but his left hand disobeyed him, reaching out to touch the breast of the trellingil.  For a moment, energy sizzled between goblin and bird, making the trellingil's feathers puff and filling Rian's head with whispers.

Then the force released him and he sat back on his haunches, dazed, fingers tingling.

The trellingil blinked its one eye, shook its wings and opened its beak again.  "
Interesting.  We shall see how well they hide.
"

With that, it took to the air to pursue the kidnappers' palanquin.