The Queen of Lies (36 page)

Sword rubbed his neck. “Do you think Loran can get us into the tower?”

“We don’t know he’s Invocari…officially anyway,” Heath said. “I don’t want to kick that hornets’ nest by naming one of their secret police. Plus if Maddox is in the tower, it means they’ve got a channel of communication open with Daphne somewhere higher up. She has a lot of influence there.”

“We could tell them what the Harbinger said about the city being destroyed…and the fact that Daphne doesn’t seem to be doing fuck at all about it,” Sword suggested. He was really just spit-balling ideas at this point. The tower was one of the most secure places in city and possibly Creation itself. And since Invocari could float, there weren’t any secret escape routes through the tunnels.

“That’s hearsay at this point,” he said. “Even if we swore in front of the Veritas, there’s no proof the Harbinger
wasn’t lying. And if they question her, she’ll just stonewall. We need actual proof she’s concealing information.”

Sword took another hit off the pipe. “You want to take her down.”

“We need to get on the visitor list first.” Heath smiled. His eyes twinkled with a glimmer of a scheme falling into place.

“You have a way in, you cheeky bastard.”

“Not exactly, but there may be another way onto that list,” Heath explained. “The imperial’s daughter is still a free woman, right?”

Sword grinned, and they shared a toast.

M
ADDOX AWOKE, STRAPPED
to a sturdy wooden chair, in a dark chamber lit by a single shaft of light. He and Daphne were illuminated, but he made out shadowy forms moving in the darkness. He blinked against the brightness of the light.

“The fuck?” Maddox looked at his bonds: solid bands of starmetal clasped by a locking mechanism.

“Your fellow inmate killed you,” Daphne said, making notes in her ledger. She reached for his wrist and checked for a pulse.

“Uh…where am I?”

“Shh. I need to sense your health.”

“I’m fine,” Maddox said irritably. “Why am I bound in an Inquisition torture chair?”

“If it were a torture chair, you’d be much less comfortable.” She smiled. “The bindings are just a standard precaution. The last time my agents encountered your body, they had to cut the head off a revenant.”

“Yeah…that was Gran’s work.”

Daphne referred to her notes. “Yes. The old woman? Do you know anything else about her?”

“She’s fucking nuts. Can you pretty please let me out of this chair now?”

“Does the name Pytheria sound familiar at all?”

“Of course. She was dean of the Lyceum a hundred years ago and…” His jaw went slack. “No fucking way. They burned her alive.”

Daphne made another notation and shrugged. “That’s the official story anyway. The Lyceum doesn’t have a long history of honesty and cooperation with the Orthodoxy. Especially in those days, they preferred to handle matters internally. It would be fine if security at the Asylum were on par with the Invocari, but—”

“Fuck,” Maddox said.

Daphne turned to another page in her book. “It isn’t our main concern. We found notebooks of yours that detailed some rather unbelievable events. What do you have to say about those?”

Maddox looked down at his restraints then up at Daphne. “Are you interrogating me? Is this an interrogation? Because you told me you’d take care of me. I was going to be your white knight.”

Daphne patted his knee. “If this were an interrogation, you would know. First I would cut out your eyes—just a precaution to keep you from using seal magic. Keep in mind I can grow them back anytime I want to with Ohan’s Light. Then I would remove fingernails, burn your chest—standard things before I moved to more inventive techniques.

“In fact I could do any number of awful, painful things to you and wipe them away, only to do them again and again and again until you’re broken and begging for the release of death. Again we’re just having a conversation, and you’ve been completely honest with me at every point, so I see no need for that to change. Now what’s really in those notebooks?”

Maddox sighed. “Drawings of my dreams. Seal partials. But it’s not finished—those idiots won’t get anything out of it. Even if Gran is Dean Emeritus Pytheria, there isn’t enough theurgy among them to finish the seal, let alone bind it.”

“It’s incomplete,” Daphne said to herself as she made more notes. “How close were you to finishing the…you called it the Grand Design?”

“Let me out of this fucking chair,” Maddox said.

“How close?”

“I didn’t get a chance to get it on paper. There’s no fucking way they’ll be able to fill in the blanks. Trust me on this. It doesn’t follow the standard geometries. If you could even say they existed.”

Daphne made another note. “You know the seal?”

“Yeah, but it’s too powerful to ever use. I spoke to Achelon. Only a fucking idiot would attain that mess. You say you have the Veritas? I’ll never, ever inscribe the Seal of the Grand Design. Now…let me out of this chair before I rip it apart.”

“Thank you for your candor.” Daphne made the last notation in her book.

“Luther”—Daphne indicated the chair—“release our guest.”

Luther stepped out of the shadows. He was young, short, but well built enough that his athletic definition was clearly visible beneath his silk shirt and blue satin vest. He smiled broadly as he stepped toward Maddox and undid the restraints on his arms.

Luther had lips that begged to be kissed.
If you want to get secrets out of me, put me in a room alone with him for two hours
, Maddox thought.

“He thinks I’m attractive.” Luther said, mildly amused.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Luther.”

Luther smiled. “I could leave you in this chair and have my way with your body.”

“What the fuck is this?” Maddox asked, suddenly nervous.

“I’m a Binder,” Luther explained. “Don’t worry—if you knew what sort of filth went through everyone’s mind, you’d have no reason to feel embarrassed. It’s just noise to us really.”

“Get the fuck away from me!” Maddox pushed hard with his seal, causing the air in front of him to ripple with force. But Luther didn’t move.

“I’m not really here,” Luther said. “Neither is she. This place isn’t even real. It’s a construct. You have some experience with those, from what I understand.”

“This is a dream?”

“It’s my dream,” Luther explained. “I don’t really look like this. But…I know what you like.”

“Get on with it,” Daphne said, as she rose from her chair then vanished into darkness.

If this was a dream, Maddox had power here. He summoned his strength and willed the chair away. He now stood eye to eye with Luther. “This kind of theurgy is unsanctioned. It’s fucking illegal! How are you working for the Inquisition?”

“We’ll use any tool at our disposal,” Luther said.

Maddox sneered. “I grew up around wizards who could tell whether I was lying. It’s not mind reading, but it’s damn close. So I’m not intimidated that you know all my dark little secrets. I’m not hiding anything from you or her.”

“I know”—he frowned—“but I’m here to make sure your secrets stay buried. What you know is too dangerous for anyone ever to attain. Achelon nearly destroyed the world once, and there’s no guarantee that you won’t one day decide to draw that seal. We can’t kill you, so the only thing we can do is make it so you can’t ever use that knowledge.”

“A quelling.” Maddox gasped. He’d read about them in the old texts: the removal of all emotion. It was a punishment reserved for the most dangerous, for whom death was too merciful.

“Now this might hurt a little…” Luther cautioned.

Maddox’s vision exploded into a kaleidoscope of red agony. His fury and rage poured from his skin, burning like fire and twisting into sharp, angular lines that lashed indiscriminately at the endless void around him. And he felt it dissipate in the darkness. His strongest feelings burned so hot they threatened to consume him.

He cried out with a howl of rage, but the sound was growing weaker. The flames that filled his vision were getting smaller. A lifetime of stored resentment toward his father, the world, himself—all that drove him seemed weaker and less significant.

He was getting colder even as the fire still burned around him. The layer beneath anger was fear, and he dreaded it before he even felt it. He was never safe, never protected—he had no one he could trust. Every time he trusted, he was betrayed. Even now.

And the rage burned hotter than before.

His thoughts were a single speck in a turbulent red sea of unfolding emotion. He needed to find clarity. He needed to find an escape.

Maddox tumbled hard onto white marble flagstones, gasping for breath.

He sucked in the cool evening air and stared into a starry sky above. In the distance he heard the roar of a cheering crowd. The moon loomed huge and full. He made out the twinkling lights on its surface with his naked eye. This close the lights almost looked like cities.

He was standing on top of a circular tower. A woman was draped over the parapet, staring wistfully into the sky as the wind brushed back her long black hair. She held a bottle of Archean brandy. He saw telescopes and astronomical instruments like they had at the observation tower at the Lyceum, but this place was larger and infinitely higher.

The woman turned and smiled; her eyes were thin and almond shaped. “Hey, there. You come up to watch the game? It’s Maceria versus Archea.”

Maddox struggled to his feet. His body ached. He made his way to the edge of the tower. Below was a city bathed in light. Domes and spires glowed with pulsing geometric patterns. Across a lake he saw a vast arena, lit up like daylight, where thousands of people were sitting in bleachers. Above the arena, massive semitransparent images of men in armor charging across a field telegraphed the events on the field. A scoreboard displayed large Archean numerals: fifteen to twenty-two.

“Where am I?”

“This is Archea,” the woman said, “but I have no idea where
you
are.”

“Another vision?” Maddox said, peering down over the edge of the tower. It was at least a thousand feet in the air. Beyond the edge of the city, he saw nothing but sky and stars.

She nodded sagely. “Makes sense.”

“But I didn’t take any drugs…”

“Why would you need to?” The woman cocked her head at him. “You have no idea what you are, do you?”

“Achelon called me an Architect,” Maddox said.

“Which is what exactly?”

“Dunno. A powerful wizard who shapes the fates of nations?” he said casually. “Something too dangerous to exist.”

She extended her hand and pointed at the sky. “You see that little star next to the Eye of Ohan? The white one they call the Tear?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We think it was our home…or at least our neighborhood. We called it Lakinea, and it’s made of billions of suns and trillions planets, but they’re so far away that it just looks like another point of light.”

“A star?” Maddox chuckled. “It’s not the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.”

“We’re not completely sure if it really is home, but it’s plausible at least…and it’s academic. There’s nothing there to go back to.”

“You’re one of the First Mages,” Maddox said.

“
Ding ding ding
! They called me the Stargazer. It was my job to map out where we were in the universe.”

“I have so many questions,” Maddox said, “about everything.”

“Better make it fast. I don’t think this vision will persist much longer.” She looked down at the arena below. A fanfare of trumpets and horns erupted as the crowd let loose an ecstatic howl. The score changed: nineteen to twenty-two.

“What am I? What is an Architect?” Maddox asked.

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” she said. “Architects make the rules. In this whole wonky paradigm the Guides created for us, the Architects have the most direct line through dreaming. They help decide what is and isn’t possible. Not just for people or nations but reality itself.”

“The laws of fucking magic?”

“Those laws preserve some sense of normalcy in this crazy, broken universe—the guarantee that one moment follows another. The persistence of things you observe still being there when you look away. The certainty that all matter and substance won’t blow away in a puff of smoke. It can get seriously crazy.”

“The story of my life,” Maddox moaned. “Every time I find out I can do something cool, it turns out to suck or be fucking useless.”

“Not many people can say they save the world every day in their sleep,” she offered.

“It’s not really that great a place.” He sighed. “I’m kind of over it to be honest.”

“Sorry you feel that way.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Not really a convenient thing to realize a few months into immortality.”

“Can a seal be unbound?”