Sworn in Steel

Chapter Thirty-one

I hadn’t had a chance to case Heron’s ken on my prior visit, and there wasn’t time for it now. A quick circuit showed a building designed as much for security as aesthetics: There were plenty of windows, but all of the accessible ones were narrow, more reminiscent of glass-filled loopholes meant for archers than for letting in light or air. Higher up, the few wider windows and balcony doors were fitted with elaborate gates of iron scrollwork, and those sat over equally ornate carved wooden screens. As for the doors at ground level, all were beautifully and solidly built, with locks that looked to be a study in intricacy, if their delicately acid-etched casings were any indication.

I didn’t relish the notion of trying a new lock on the spur of the moment, especially with my head still pounding and my breath coming in gasps. While every lock may be ultimately pickable, that doesn’t mean every lock maker goes about his business in the same way. Just as each lock master has a personality, so do his locks; back in Ildrecca, I could have told you that the mechanism from the Iron Hand shop always turned in a clockwise direction, while a Dorynian lock used a double-turn system, and that Kettlemaker often as not installed a false pin that, if stroked incorrectly, could freeze up the rest of the mechanism. But here, in el-Qaddice, on the padishah’s grounds? I had no idea how simple or elaborate any given lock might be, let alone the particular traits of the device or its maker. And while I could likely feel and analyze my way through all but the worst of the tumbles I’d find here, the thought of being spotted by a member of the Opal Guard-or worse-while working my spiders didn’t exactly excite me.

So instead, I decided to go with a tried-and-true method from my youth: I knocked on the front door.

Despite everything I’d gone through tonight, it still wasn’t as late as I might have liked. That meant the steward wasn’t yawning and rubbing his eyes when he answered the door, but he still opened it readily enough. We were on a royal estate, surrounded by walls and guards and Angels knew what else-who would expect a gig rush here? Certainly not him.

The pommel of my dagger caught him in the temple the moment the door had swung to, sending his woven skullcap flying.

He staggered, and I followed up with another strike, this time to the back of his head. At the same time, I reached out with my free hand and directed his fall; I couldn’t have him blocking the doorway, after all. He hit the floor at the same time as his cap.

It wasn’t the most elegant of entries, I admit, but the most effective methods sometimes aren’t. Far more Kin make a quick hawk with an expertly applied bludgeon or fist than those who take the time to slide a lock or cut a purse. As much as some Lighters may like to see us as smiling, capable rogues, the truth is most Kin are little better than back-alley thugs at heart. And even though I like to see myself as standing above the rest of my cousins, I have to admit to having washed my fair share of blood off coins before spending them over the years. Sometimes it’s just more expedient to spill a bit of claret.

I pulled the steward the rest of the way into the entry and closed the door behind me. Then I crouched there, listening, running my hands over him even as he groggily tried to push them away. A ring of keys came off his belt, and a small whistle from around his neck. The belt itself I removed and cinched around his wrists, making them fast behind his back. Then I sat him up in the shadows beside the door and gave his face a few light slaps to get his attention.

I held up my dagger. “How many besides you?” I said.

He looked at the blade vaguely, clearly still having trouble focusing. “None,” he slurred.

“If you stick with that answer and I find anyone else, they die.”

“Two.”

I nodded. “Where?”

“Upstairs.”

I unwound his sash, tied a knot in one end, and stuffed it in his mouth. The rest went around his head twice and became a gag. “Stay,” I said. It would have been nice if he’d passed out completely, but I wasn’t about to beat him until he lost consciousness; there are lines and there are lines, and not all of them need to be crossed simply for the sake of convenience.

I retraced the steps from my previous meeting, first finding the library and then finding the key to it on the steward’s ring. The house was clearly settled in for the night, with only a handful of tapers burning against the master’s eventual return. A rhythmic creaking from the floor above told me what the other two servants were up to. I returned to the front door to retrieve the steward.

He was trying to regain his feet but having a hard time of it, given his sallow complexion and sweating brow.

“Easy,” I said, steadying him. “I wouldn’t recommend vomiting when you have a gag in your mouth. Good way to choke to death.”

He thought about it and nodded weakly. I led him back down to the library, veering only to retrieve a taper on the way. Once inside, I set him in the middle of the floor and then locked the oak doors behind us.

“Your life depends on your silence,” I said, turning around. “No kicking, no knocking things over, no noise of any sort, and you get to live. Make a sound, though, and I guarantee that, even if they break the doors down, they’ll only find one man breathing. Understand?”

The steward glared and nodded.

I straightened and looked at the shelves.

“I don’t suppose you know where your master keeps his books on degans, do you?” I said.

This time, all I got was the glare.

“I thought not.”

I began in the section Heron had pulled Simonis Chionates from, finding the work itself without much effort. A quick leafing through the pages showed both a well-marked and well-used text, with marginalia in at least two hands. More interestingly, beside it I found what appeared to be an earlier, draft version of the text, all in the same hand as the later work. The original notes and the finished work? One hell of a scholarly coup, but given that neither of them seemed to relate to Ivory Degan or the original practices of the Order, they didn’t do me much good. I moved on.

The surrounding books were a mixture of general imperial histories, diaries of people who had done business with degans, two folios filled with fading letters, a handful of fighting manuals-including Gambogi, which I remembered Degan disparaging once-a dog-eared copy of Usserius’s opus On the Nature of Imperial Divinity, and what could only be described as a hodgepodge of fanciful tales and lays bound in one volume. The last was titled The Adventures, Heroic Deeds, and Perilous Dangers faced by the Most Noble Order of the Degans and attributed solely to “A. Gentleman,” which, glancing at the text, seemed to be an insult to any gentleman worthy of the title.

It was far less than I’d hoped for and, after spending a good hour paging through the pile, clearly not Heron’s only sources on the Order. For someone who’d proclaimed a lifetime’s interest in collecting, let alone his fascination with a specific topic, the books before me constituted more of an embarrassment than a reason to crow. Maybe I’d been spoiled by the tomes that passed through Baldezar’s hands, or even the ones that came out of his workshop back in Ildrecca, but Heron had spoken too knowingly about the degans for me to think this was the extent of his knowledge. From what I could see, Ivory was barely mentioned, let alone the early Order.

No, there had to be more, and not just because I wanted there to be.

I glanced over at the steward. He’d drifted off into unconsciousness, brought on no doubt in part by the drubbing I’d given him. Even if he were awake, though, I knew better than to expect help from that quarter.

Instead, I began searching the surrounding shelves and cases, paging through volumes, looking for any other tomes or folios that might pertain to my quest. Just because Simonis was in one area didn’t mean Heron couldn’t have degan-related material in another spot; like locks, libraries have their own personalities.

As good as that theory was, though, it didn’t result in my finding any more books on the degans, obvious or otherwise. Sooner than I’d like, I was back before the shelf with Simonis and “A. Gentleman.”

I looked around the room, wondering briefly if Heron was the kind to keep a written catalog of all his books. Probably not: He was just arrogant enough to carry it around in his head. And while getting in here had been easier than I’d hoped, I didn’t have any illusions about being able to lay hands on the secretary, let alone persuading him to tell me where he kept his materials on the degans. He didn’t seem the kind to break very easily.

Still, appearances can be deceiving, and it wasn’t as if I had a lot of other options. I couldn’t see myself being invited back for coffee and a bite anytime soon. As for repeating tonight’s performance-well, a smart Draw Latch doesn’t crack the same ken twice, especially when that ken lies inside the domain of a royal prince. People like that tend to have enough resources to make a second attempt fatal.

Which meant I got to wait. I wasn’t in the mood to wait.

I entertained myself by searching the research table for hidden drawers and compartments, just in case I was wrong about Heron’s arrogance. I wasn’t. From there, I poked about the back of the shelves that held the degan folios, then the more likely bits of molding and joints along the walls. Nothing.

If there was something hidden in Heron’s library, I decided, both Christiana and I had something to learn from the man.

After checking to make sure the steward was still breathing, I found myself before Heron’s “memory” wall, staring at the flowers and the fan and the sword. On a whim, I pulled a chair over, climbed up, and gently lifted the fan off its mounting pins.

It was big, even for a funerary fan, and required both hands to lift. This close, I could see an impressive amount of gold leaf and even a few precious stones through the dark gauze that covered the body of the fan. The ribs were polished ebony, held open by a rod extending across the back.

The wall behind the fan was smooth and blank: no keys, no careful catalog of books, no conveniently hidden compartment containing centuries-old papers. Just plain white plaster and the trailing wisps of freshly broken cobwebs.

Well, it had been a long shot anyhow.

It was while I was shifting the fan back into place that the mourning cloth slipped off, raising a small cloud of dust even as it drifted to the floor. I turned my head and sneezed, both out of respect for the fan, and because I didn’t want to send myself toppling backward from my perch. The chair still teetered a bit, and the fan wobbled treacherously in my hands, but neither of us ended up falling. Relieved, I turned back to finish the remounting, and gasped.

Exquisite didn’t even begin to describe what I saw before me. The calligraphy alone was a work of art, with each symbol, each accent, a study in technique: effortless and stylistically perfect at once. The painted cephta seemed to shimmer, the finely powdered pearl that had been mixed with the pigments catching and reflecting the lantern light behind me, making the writing come alive on the silk. It was as if the story of the woman before me wanted to step off the fan and dance its way across my eyes, rather than simply be read.

The artwork was just as stunning: each figure, each mountain, each vista crafted with the fewest possible brushstrokes, but each clearly visible for what it was. As was traditional, the predominant color was black, but here and there, small hints of color had been added to underscore particular memories and moments: the blue-green edge of the sea, the pink of an almond tree in bloom, the sandy brown of a peregrine falcon’s belly in flight.

It was a life laid out not just to be remembered and mourned, but to be glorified. To be reveled in. To be loved.

But as stunning as the calligraphy and the art and the devotion apparent in the fan were, they weren’t what had caused me to catch my breath; that had been caused by the name written in fine golden symbols across the top of the fan: Simonis Chionates. The same name that had belonged to the woman who’d penned the two-hundred-year-old history on the shelf behind me. The woman who had inspired a secretary’s interest in the degans.

And the woman who, scanning the details of the life stretched out before me, had been married to a man named Heronestes Karkappadolis. A man who was depicted on the fan wielding an ivory-handled sword, and who stood with a whole host of other men and women with metal-chased weapons.

A man who was recognizable to me, even in two hundred year old drapes, even in miniature.

A man who was a degan. Ivory Degan.

Heron.

The library doors swung open to admit Heron, trailed by a pair of men in iridescent white-enameled armor. The two had their swords out-shining, curving things that, pretty as they might be, were nonetheless clearly designed to see use.

Opal Guardsmen, if I had to guess.

All three paused when they spotted me sitting in the chair directly below the fan, the steward trussed up at my feet, the sword from the wall lying unsheathed across my lap. I held Simonis’s book open in my hand.

Heron took in the scene at a glance and held up his hand before the guardsmen could take another step.

“Leave us,” he said.

The guardsmen hesitated, exchanging a doubtful look behind his back.

“With respect, master, we-”

“There’s been a misunderstanding,” said Heron, his eyes meeting mine. “This man and I had an appointment. I forgot.”

Another shared look. “I’m no expert on etiquette, but that doesn’t explain the binding and gagging of your man there. Are you sure you don’t-”

“Take my man with you,” said Heron. “Untie him. And if he says anything to you. .” Here the secretary dropped his gaze to meet that of his steward’s. “. . anything at all, kill him. Am I understood?”

Both the guardsmen and the steward nodded. A minute later the door closed behind them, and Heron and I were alone.

He’d clearly had a long night, and was none the happier for it. Hair disheveled, face drawn, ash and sweat and someone’s blood smeared into his robes. He looked as if he’d come off a small battlefield, or out of one big damn tavern brawl.

“I expect you have questions,” he said.

“I’ve got a hell of a lot more than that.”

“Yes, well.” He stepped farther into the room. “Can I at least ask you to put my sword down?”

“Don’t tell me you’re worried I’ll use it.”

“Let’s just say I find the image of you holding it. . aesthetically displeasing.”

“And if I refuse?”

Heron sighed. “Do you really want me to take it away from you?”

I leaned the sword against the chair. “Better?”

“And now the book, if you please.”

“Which one? The original draft, in your wife’s hand, with your suggestions in the margins,” I said, reaching behind me and pulling out the earlier edition, fronted by thin laurel wood boards and leather bindings, “or the finished version”-I raised the one I’d been holding when he walked in-“with her handwritten dedication to you below the frontispiece?”

I’d spent enough time around Baldezar back in Ildrecca to develop a basic appreciation of the forger’s art: evaluating the age of a document, distinguishing between real signs of wear and the tricks a Jarkman can use to prematurely age a piece, recognizing the natural flow of a person’s hand versus the hesitancy of a forger’s later additions. Simonis’s hand was identical in both books-a tight, efficient script, favoring a rigidity of form. Classical, if you will. The other hand, by comparison, was relaxed and flowing, favoring the abbreviations and blurring of figures favored by scribes, or secretaries. And, in this case, identical to the writing on some of Heron’s other papers I’d found among the shelves.

Heron’s gaze went from the books to the fan over my head, then returned to me. There was a carefully banked fire in his eyes now. “You will put both of them down.”

I closed the volumes and settled them in my lap. “Ivory Degan?” I said.

He bowed at the waist. “I used to be, yes.”

“The same one who founded the Order of the Degans?”

“Once; now I’m simply Heron.”

Even though I’d been half expecting the answer, I still wasn’t sure what to make of it; wasn’t even sure if I fully believed it. What do you say to someone who’s managed to pull off what even the emperor hasn’t been able to do?

I decided to start with “How is that possible?”

“I resigned from the Order and surrendered my name.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do.”

We stared at each other for a long moment. I wondered, belatedly, if I was going to be allowed to walk out of here, given what I knew.

“Are you like him?” I said.

“Who?”

“The emperor.”

“You mean have I been reincarnated?” Heron chuckled and shook his head. “No. Nothing so simple.”

“Then tell me how,” I said. “Explain to me how a man-how a degan-can live for over two hundred years, while Stephen Dorminikos, with the resources of the empire and a troop of Paragons at his disposal, had to fragment his soul and turn himself into three recurring people.”

“Easy,” said Ivory, folding his hands before himself. “Dorminikos wanted to keep his soul; I was willing to give mine up.”

“Give up your. .” I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because. . it’s your soul,” I said. “Paragons need one to cast Imperial magic; the emperors need parts of one to be reincarnated; people need one-”

“So the Angels can weigh your life?” he said.

“Well, yes,” I said. “Or, at least, so people think they will. I’m not so sure anymore.” Ever since I’d found out that the emperor had lied about the Angels choosing him to be the perpetual ruler of the Dorminikan Empire, and that they in turn hadn’t seen fit to exact any kind of retribution, my use for the Angels had dropped even lower-not that it had been all that high to begin with.

“And you think a man can’t live without a soul?” said Ivory.

It sounded too much like a question that could lead someplace I wouldn’t like, so instead of answering, I said, “I think you’re spouting theology instead of answers.”

A tired smile played across Ivory’s face. “It’s all one and the same in some ways, isn’t it? But you’re not interested in that: You want to know how I can be here, two hundred and eleven years after I helped create the Order of the Degans.”

“It’s a good place to start.”

“The answer’s simple enough: the Oath.”

“Which one?” I said.

I admit it: I smiled when Ivory took an unconscious step back in surprise. “What do you mean?” he said, too late to cover for his error.

I stood. “I mean,” I said, stepping forward, “which Oath? The original one you crafted for the Order, or the Oath the degans used to use for their clients before you walked away. Or did you make a different promise? To the emperor, maybe, or a Paragon somewhere? Some Oath of service in exchange for a couple centuries’ worth of life?” I was halfway across the library now, Ivory standing straight and stern at the other end. Even from here, I could make out the uncertainty dancing in the corners of his eyes. He hid it well-after spending two hundred years as an Imperial living in Djan, I’d expect no less-but they were still there if you knew how to look. And looking had been, and still was, part of my job.

“I’m told you got disenchanted with things,” I said, running with the theories now, putting the few pieces I had together to make up new pictures, new accusations. All to push him. Four lifetimes was a long time to sit on something, after all. “But was that even it? Maybe it wasn’t theology; maybe it was politics. Maybe your Order was too much of a threat to the emperor. .” A thought occurred. “Or to his White Sashes. They’re sworn to protect the emperor, too, after all.” I stopped two paces before Ivory, the better to be able to look up into his eyes. “Did they complain about you? Did your new club step over some kind of line?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have no idea-”

“I know people,” I said. “And I especially know people with power: how they don’t like to have up-and-comers threaten their tidy little arrangements. You don’t put as much effort into building something like the degans as you did and then simply walk away; you don’t swear to protect someone like the emperor and then abandon him. Something pushed you out.”

“Put the books down and leave.”

“Was it the emperor or his Sashes?” I said, ignoring the offer. “The Paragons maybe? We’re talking souls here, after all. Did they promise you a long life, or did they threaten you with something worse?”

Ivory’s eyes flicked away from my face, to the wall behind me, and then back.

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, pointing at the fan. “Or did they threaten her?”

He was a degan, all right: I didn’t even see him move before his fist connected with my face. The punch sent me sprawling on the floor, my limbs splayed, the books skidding away on the wooden floor. An instant later, he was bent over me, a fistful of my doublet in one hand, pulling me up.

“You dare!” he hissed through clenched teeth, his other arm drawing back for another blow.

“I dare,” I said, laying the steel of my wrist knife across the artery on the inside of his thigh. “More than you know.” I’d used my reaction to his punch as an excuse to flick the blade down into my palm and keep it there.

Ivory froze, brow knit, fist raised. “You think I can’t kill you before your cut is finished?”

“I know you can,” I said. “But now I also know you can die; otherwise, you wouldn’t have stopped for my steel.”

Ivory grunted and lowered his arm. “Maybe I just don’t want to ruin these pants.”

I admit, I’ve had my life saved by less over the years. Still, out loud I said, “Either way, I think it’s time we stopped dancing and started talking.” And I withdrew my knife.

To my relief, Ivory didn’t kill me; instead, he hoisted me to my feet and then approached the chair. Carefully, he retrieved the books and replaced them on the shelves: Simonis’s book among the other degan materials, and the wooden-fronted draft with the old codexes on imperial philosophy, where it blended in nicely. It wasn’t until I’d seen the fan and put all the pieces together that I knew a book entitled Promises Through Time might have been more than it appeared.

“You’re here with someone from the Order, aren’t you?” said Ivory, still facing the bookcase. “They hired you to track me down so I wouldn’t see them coming.”

“I wasn’t hired,” I said. “And I’m not so much here with someone as for someone.” When Ivory glanced over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, I added, “It’s complicated.”

“But a degan?”

“I’d say yes; he’d say otherwise.”

Now Ivory did turn all the way around. “The one who killed Iron?”

I hesitated, not wanting to talk out of turn, not sure how Degan would feel about me spilling his deeds to. . what? A living legend? A fallen exemplar? How would he consider Ivory, anyhow?

“If there’s anyone who can commiserate with your friend,” said Ivory, “it’s me. I felled five brothers and sisters before I was done. I won’t judge his actions.”

He had a point. And it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be seeing each other before long, if I had any say in it. The man before me was more than Degan could have hoped for when it came to information about the laws and purposes of his Order.

“Bronze Degan,” I said.

Ivory’s eyes widened for a fraction of an instant; then his face was passive again. He turned back to the bookshelf. “I assume he had his reasons.”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“No, it isn’t. Good for you.” Ivory pulled a codex from high up on the wall-higher than I was likely to reach without climbing shelves or using a library stool-and began flipping absently through the pages. I could hear the dry creak of the vellum and the whisper of his fingers on the pages from here. “And he wants to see me why?”

“Same answer.”

“But it has something to do with his killing Iron and leaving the Order, yes?”

Instead of answering, I wandered back over to the chair and looked down at Ivory’s long sword. Despite all the elegance of the chiseled cross guard, it was a straightforward thing: a tapered, double-edged blade meant to be used with one or two hands, a sword equally as elegant in its use as my own, but from an earlier era. A weapon more for the battlefield than the street.

I reached down to run my finger along the ridges of the tulip’s leaves.

“Don’t,” said Ivory, not turning around.

I withdrew my hand and instead moved around to place them against the back of the chair. “How does a degan become a clerk?” I said.

“A better question would be, how does a clerk become a degan?” He shrugged. “I was educated in both the pen and the sword when I was young, along with any number of other things. I’ve lived by most of them at one point or another.”

“You’ve certainly had the time.” I said. “Remind me how that’s possible again?”

Ivory let out a slow breath. He kept his eyes on the page before him rather than looking at me. “You asked earlier why the emperor didn’t follow the path I have,” he said. “The answer’s simple: The option wasn’t available. When Dorminikos was trying to become immortal, reincarnation was the best his Paragons could manage. But that didn’t mean they stopped examining magic and the soul; didn’t stop trying to push the boundaries of what you call Imperial magic. A little over two centuries ago, a couple of them figured out a way to. . well, I won’t say a way to become immortal: rather, a way to not die easily.”

“And it involves removing your soul?” I said.

“It involved many things, most of which His Divinity, the emperor, chose not to do, out of either faith or fear. Questions of theology aside, no one was sure how that kind of magic would effect someone whose soul had already been shattered, let alone reborn as many times as his. Given what the man had already done to himself to rule forever, he decided it wasn’t worth the risk.”

“But you did.”

“Eventually, yes.”

“Why?”

“Because, at that point, I was sworn to serve him with my life and my soul. It seemed an easy choice at the time.”

My life and my soul: I’d heard that expression before. I felt my eyes go wide. “A White Sash?” I said, straightening up. “Are you telling me you used to be a Sash?”

Ivory’s head snapped up, a genuine look of shock on his face. “What? No, of course not!”

“Good,” I said, letting myself lean back down on the chair. “Because if-”

“I wasn’t a White,” said Ivory haughtily. “I was a Paragon.”