In the Shadow of Lightning

9

Demir returned to the Hyacinth in the early morning. He’d been up all night trying to piece together the rest of his mother’s spy network within the Foreign Legion – dozens of contacts, of which only seven proved viable – and he’d done it all while lugging around an injured, frightened falcon. It wasn’t his best work, and by the time he slipped through the back door of his hotel he was exhausted and frustrated. He went directly up the back stairwell to the roof, where there was a flat section set back from the vision of the street below.

The mews here was a large one, nearly as big as a stateroom – a massive cage divided into sections for multiple birds, and with its own equipment closet. It was long-abandoned, seemingly untouched since his own falcon died when he was twelve. He took the injured bird with him into the biggest of the cages and gently let it find a perch before removing the makeshift hood. It shuddered, looking around and giving a loud, piercing screech.

The falcon leapt from one perch to another, favoring its left wing, trembling slightly. It shied away from the sound from the street below, and Demir wondered if he should erect a baffle along that side of the roof to stop some of the racket. It was a project for another day – or one of the hotel staff.

Demir sank down to the floor of the mews, watching the falcon adjust to its new surroundings, and took a deep breath. He’d pored over the morning newspapers on his ride back to the hotel. Every piece of news he came across seemed to read in a completely different light – a minor increase in the price of cindersand made his heart skip a beat; the closing of a major quarry in Purnia caused his jaw to clench; a Stavri cindersand warehouse burning down, all contents ruined, left him feeling genuinely ill.

Yesterday all of those things would have been discarded as unrelated incidents – nothing major to worry about. Today they were obvious symptoms of a greater disease. The world was running out of cindersand. Without intervention, common sorcery would die out.

Just to settle himself down he’d spent the final leg of his journey reading a page 3 story about monsters being spotted in the provinces. That kind of lunatic rubbish usually put him in a better mood, but it had only caused his thoughts to grow darker. How could he solve the world’s problems when the average person believed in ghosts and swamp crawlers and tree men? The effort required to face the road ahead seemed insurmountable.

“Best I can do for you right now,” Demir said to the falcon, looking around at the mews. “I’ll send someone up to tend to that bloody wing, and I bet the kitchen has a hare or two. For now, though, I have something of my own I need to deal with.”

He left the poor animal in the mews and headed down to the hotel garden, purposefully avoiding his own staff – and the problems they’d present him with. He could let Breenen take care of all those, at least for the moment.

The hotel garden was a massive enclosed area the size of a regular city block, lined on all sides by hallways on the main floor and hotel rooms above those. It was a peaceful spot, keeping out the worst of the city noise, filled with trees, the beds layered with winter flowers. On the far side of the garden was an old glassworks – a small furnace room left over from when the hotel used to keep a siliceer on staff, well before Demir was born. He made a mental note to have it fixed, just in case he managed to find Thessa.

The old glassworks was not his destination, however. The only other building in the garden was a mausoleum. It was a beautiful construction of rare white Purnian marble with thick veins of purple running through it, decorated with the likenesses of the founders of the Grappo dynasty, their carved faces looking severe in the stone. On the surface the mausoleum was not very big – just a decorative obelisk with a heavy, worn wooden door. Most hotel visitors walked right past it, more interested in the rest of the massive garden.

The heavy door opened on oiled hinges, revealing a dark pit that Demir lit by turning a screw beneath a gas lantern just inside. White-and-purple marble stairs descended sharply into the ground. Demir proceeded slowly, lighting every lantern, as if dispelling the darkness within the crypt would dispel the same within his mind. The narrow stairway opened into a larger, vaulted room deep beneath the garden; a long chamber bigger than a hotel suite and lined with the marble busts of every guild-family matriarch and patriarch going back thirty generations.

Adriana Grappo’s ashes were contained in an urn near the far end of the crypt. The pedestal above the ashes was empty, as her bust had not yet been completed. Demir gazed at that empty spot with a frown, wrestling with something deeply unsatisfying about seeing her remains without her likeness to gaze upon. Of course, the likeness would not be the mother he remembered – the sculptor would produce a likeness of a young Adriana, taken from a portrait of her in her early twenties. He knew he would struggle with that too.

“Hi, Mother,” he said to the empty room. To his surprise, it felt good to say it. But there was no answer. There never would be, and he felt a pain deep within his chest. “You really screwed me over, didn’t you? I could have handled the hotel and the clients and sponsoring the Ironhorns – but a phoenix channel? The weight of saving the Empire on my shoulders? You should have said something earlier. You should have prepared me. We saw each other just a few months ago. You could have told me then.”

He wrestled with his thoughts, feeling them pulled this way and that. He was being unfair and he knew it. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to protect you. I was selfish, and a fool, and I’ve spent a third of my life hiding from the person you raised me to be.” He turned away abruptly, walking back to the stairs and pausing there for several minutes before he was able to return to her urn.

“I hated you so much after Holikan,” he said, hearing the anger in his own words. “I hated the way you had raised me; the tutors and the schedules and the expectations. I hated that my childhood was years shorter than those of my friends because you saw my potential and sought to cultivate it. I was a prodigy at what I did, but the pressure you put on me made me brittle. I wasn’t prepared for a disaster like Holikan. It was my fault – my responsibility – but you were culpable.

“I don’t think I can blame you any longer, though. You just did what you thought was best. I know how much you loved me. Love is in short supply among the guild-families, and I wish I had told you that I loved you back while you were still alive. I wish I’d forgiven you.” He paused, staring at the empty pedestal. “I forgive you, Mother. You made mistakes, but you also put a lot of good in me. You made sure that I cared about people and ideals, and not just godglass and money. You made sure I was the type of person who would save a glassdamned bird from a war zone, even though it was a waste of my time. You made me different from the rest of these guild-families, and if there’s anything that redeems me it’ll be that. I can’t promise I’ll make you proud. But I will try.”

He knelt and touched the urn briefly before turning his gaze toward the marble bust immediately to the right of the empty pedestal. It was of a young man with a strong jaw, high forehead, and flat ears. He looked nothing like Demir, oddly enough, until you peered into the eyes. Even in marble they were clever, and the cocky smile on the man’s lips looked like the sculptor had taken it from Demir’s mirror.

Demir ran his hand over the familiar contours of the man’s face, like he’d done hundreds of times as a child. “Take care of her, Dad,” he said, and turned and left the crypt.

He emerged into the afternoon sun and took a moment to stare up into the sky, composing himself until the pain in his chest began to recede and he could breathe deeply without difficulty. He felt … a little more complete. Like he’d taken a step he didn’t know he needed to take. He shook it out of his head, forcing himself to return to the greater world.

There was a lump caught in his throat, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get it down. How was he possibly going to do this? To find Thessa? To make a phoenix channel? To protect all his new responsibilities? His mother’s note had said not to trust even Breenen with knowledge of the phoenix channel. Did he really have to do all this alone?

A sound suddenly reached him, echoing from inside the hotel. He tilted his head, listening carefully until it repeated again, then again. It was his name, and he recognized the voice that was shouting it. He was sprinting for the garden door before he could stop himself, flying down the hallways.

“Demir!” the voice demanded. “Where is Demir?”

He reached the top of the stairs to find the biggest man he’d ever seen standing just inside the front door. He was six and a half feet tall and half as wide, with the light skin of a northern provincial and the thick accent to match. He wore a fine embroidered jacket of crimson and purple that made Demir’s whole wardrobe look drab. His face was enormous, as big around as a barrel, small eyes and mouth buried in flesh like a bucketful of bread dough. His brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail that went down below his shoulders.

Demir could pick out the newest members of the hotel staff by which ones were staring with absolute awe and fear. Baby Montego, world champion cudgelist, one of the few people who could make a glassdancer piss themselves in fear.

“Baby!” Demir yelled. He took the stairs two at a time and sprinted across the lobby.

“Demir, what are you … Do not do that!”

Demir leapt into the giant’s embrace, wrapping his arms around the thick neck and squeezing as hard as humanly possible. Montego gave a long-suffering sigh and Demir felt a hesitant pat on the back.

He dropped to the floor, took a step back, and gave his best friend a long and thoughtful look. “Baby, you have gotten really glassdamned fat.”

“I have broken stronger men for smaller insults,” Montego grumbled.

“Then you should stop looking like a milk-fat, overgrown toddler,” Demir shot back. He turned to call toward the concierge’s office, “Breenen, have the suite next to mine made up for Montego. Make sure he gets every service and comfort.”

“I am here on the matter of your mother’s death,” Montego replied, shaking a newspaper at Demir. “I will not be babied.”

“Then I shall not have our carpenter construct an enormous crib. Tell me how you got here so quickly.”

“My yacht had just returned to port when Capric’s message arrived. I bought every spare horse and carriage between here and Yavlli so I could travel without interruption. Speak, Demir! Tell me what has happened.”

“In private.” Demir grabbed Montego by the sleeve, dragging him toward the stairs. They were soon inside his office, where he closed the door and allowed himself to collapse onto one of the sofas. For the first time in two days, he felt all of the public masks he wore fall away and he was able to be himself – raw and unguarded – around another person. At that moment he made the conscious decision to tell Montego everything. To piss with Mother’s warning. If he couldn’t trust Montego with the world, he might as well hang himself now.

The giant cudgelist remained near the door, staring at Demir. “You look awful.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not joking, Demir. I haven’t seen you look this out of sorts since Holikan. This isn’t just your mother’s death. Something has happened. You will tell me now.”

“Mother is dead. I have returned. I now have to save a young woman so that she can help me save the world.”

“I think I’d like the longer version.”

Demir took a deep breath, resisting the urge to reach for a glass of whiskey or a piece of mind-numbing dazeglass. “Then you shall have it.” He recounted the events of the last two days in detail, leaving nothing out, talking until his throat was dry and his head pounded. Montego sat on the sofa opposite of him, leaning on a silver-headed cane, a look of focus on his comically broad face. When people saw Montego they rarely looked past his size or his cudgeling record, but Demir knew that beneath that heavy brow was a mind not unlike his own. Montego was sometimes quiet, sometimes gregarious, but always brilliant.

Demir finished his tale with a sigh, throwing his arms wide. “It’s too much, Baby. I can’t do it.”

“Slow down,” Montego responded, holding up a massive hand. “You do not trust the Assembly’s investigation?”

“Of course not.”

“Kizzie was a good choice. I’m glad you brought her in.”

“Will that be awkward for you?”

“Your mother is dead,” Montego replied seriously. “She funded my first fight. She adopted me. I want Kizzie to continue the hunt for her killers. Awkwardness has no place in whatever happens next.”

“Well said.”

Montego made a few thoughtful sounds. “We shall let her work that angle. You do believe Kastora about the cindersand?”

“No reason not to.”

“I haven’t worn godglass for years,” Montego snorted. “Makes the glassrot scales on my legs itch. I suppose I would miss it, at least for those around me.” He grimaced. “The consequences of its absence would be … drastic.”

Demir chuckled. “Your talent for understatement will never cease to amaze me.”

“And your talent for despair will never cease to amaze me. Don’t try to hide it, I can see it in your face. You’re wearing the same expression you wore that month you’d convinced yourself you were in love with that Nasuud princess.”

“You don’t think I should despair? Kastora was clear on one thing: we need this Thessa woman if we’re going to remake his phoenix channel, and she’s disappeared.” Demir finally did cross the room and pour them each a finger of whiskey. He brought one glass to Montego, then lifted his own, noting that it was the glass he’d destroyed the other day when he thought he saw someone outside his window. A glassdancer could force glass back together again, but he’d done a sloppy job of it, leaving the cup warped and ruined.

Montego sipped his whiskey and shook his head. “No, I don’t think you should despair. Clearly there are enemies to be rooted out. Clearly there is an economic disaster on the horizon. Clearly … Look at me. Demir, look at me!”

Demir forced himself to meet Montego’s beady eyes.

“Clearly,” Montego continued, “this will be a difficult road. But you are Demir Grappo. I am Baby Montego. I have returned and I will not leave again until the world is set right. I swear it.”

Demir swallowed hard, only to realize that the lump in the back of his throat was gone. He felt lighter, almost giddy, the darkness that had covered him retreating before Montego’s unflinching gaze. “Your optimism,” he said, his voice cracking, “is foolhardy.”

“And your despair is pointless. We have work to do, Demir. You are a glassdancer and the finest mind of our generation. You were a provincial governor at fourteen! You negotiated a massive trade agreement between the Nasuud and the Balkani, ending centuries of enmity, and your province got rich on the deal!”

Demir felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward at the memory. “I was the finest mind of our generation.”

“I believe you still are. You’re just out of practice.”

Demir wanted to fight him. Every fiber of his being protested against his own abilities, convinced that he could not possibly accomplish this task in front of him. His whole psyche felt on wobbly ground, waiting to crack and crumble like it had at Holikan. But Montego hadn’t been with him that horrible day. The cudgelist was a firm foundation upon which to get his mental footing, his confident optimism battering down Demir’s most powerful doubts.

He took a shaky breath, pulling himself together, restoring his public masks so that the hotel staff wouldn’t see how he truly felt. “Fine. We’ll do it your way, you big, dumb optimist. But when I fail, I’m going to blame it on you.”

Montego slapped his thigh and bellowed out a laugh. “Hah! I knew I’d bring you around. Remember, Demir, you can’t conquer your enemies until you conquer yourself.”

“One of Mother’s sayings,” Demir said, cocking an eyebrow. That specter he felt last night – the niggling, hesitant memory of his old self – seemed to pace around in the back of his head, coaxed out by Montego’s presence. Perhaps he really could do this. He closed his eyes, forcing out all the chaos until he could focus on what was immediately before him. “Fine. We can do this. Breenen is taking care of the hotel. Capric is helping me set up a number of business deals to buoy the Grappo coffers. I still have the responsibilities of the patriarch, but you and I must cast our net wide if we’re to find Thessa.”

“Where do we look first?”

Demir had been asking himself the same question all night. “She would have gone either north or south from Grent, giving the fighting a wide berth to enter the city.”

“I’ll go looking in person,” Montego offered.

“You’re not tired from your journey?”

“Bah! My friend needs me. What is sleep before such an obligation? I shall leave immediately to begin my search for Thessa.”

“And I’ll find out if one of the guild-families snatched her up.” Demir could feel his confidence growing, the strength returning to his mind and body. “Thank you for coming, Montego.”

Montego cracked a smile at Demir’s use of his given name. “I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t. But you’re hesitating again. Do not hesitate, Demir. Act!” He leapt to his feet and threw open the office door. “Breenen!” he bellowed. “I need new horses for my carriage. I must fly!” With that, he disappeared.

Demir did not allow himself the time for doubt – he began to write letters immediately, preparing queries for his mother’s spies, his own contacts, and old acquaintances that might be able to help. He was careful in his wording, never inquiring directly after Thessa, making sure not to tip his hand to anyone who might prove untrustworthy.

He’d been at it for some time when a porter appeared in the doorway. “Sir, you have a delivery from Idrian Sepulki. The soldiers guarding it said you wanted to receive the delivery yourself.”

Demir sealed several of his letters and gave them to a bellhop. He followed the porter down to one of the rear delivery doors of the hotel, where he shooed everyone out of the room before prying open what looked like a standard military musket crate. Inside were the burnt-out remains of Kastora’s phoenix channel.

It was Demir’s first good look at the prototype, and he circled it for several minutes as he tried to work out what it had looked like before the fire. The outer shell – a chamber with thin tin walls, stuffed with cork insulation – was mostly burned away. Inside that, cracked and broken, was a two-foot-long piece of cinderite decorated with omniglass rings.

Demir had rarely seen a piece of cinderite this big, and the clear omniglass with which it was encircled was almost as uncommon. Omniglass was an expensive, finicky sorcerous material that enhanced other godglasses, probably used in this case to accentuate the energy-conversion process Kastora hoped to capture.

To re-create the prototype, Demir would need both the materials and someone skilled enough to put them all together without ruining it. His and Montego’s energy would go toward the latter, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t acquire the former while they worked. He found a porter waiting for him outside. “Have this taken up to my rooms,” he told the young man, “and then take Breenen a message. I want him to locate every large piece of cinderite – in both private and public collections – within fifty miles.”