The First Week
I: Impressions
It was only the first week of my time at the Saloy University that I met Lyman. I was still feeling dizzied by my new surroundings. The bazaars started their noisemaking before the sun even rose, and I was cursed to be lodging directly above one. My residence was one of those Saloy utarmonds, elevated bridgehouses over large thoroughfares that adjoined two towering tenements on opposing sides of the road. It was a marvel to see from the outside, floating in the air like a great gray whale. It didn’t feel so marvelous on the inside. Just a bunch of dark and cold stone, with chipping mortar to cut yourself on.
So I made a point of staying away from that place as much as possible. Ideally I would be at my studies, but the first week dragged at an agonizing pace as we waited for the august latecomers to trickle into the city. The professors went to great effort to fill our lecture times instead with endless irrelevant prolegomena. I braved the fraught voyage here because the brightest minds on the planet taught at this place, but it was like the administration had cuffed their staff and insisted they don’t teach a drip of content until every chancellor’s chubby child had at last leapt from his yacht and unpacked his seventeen pieces of luggage.
Since it seemed there were no long nights in the library waiting for me just yet, and since the other students I had spoken with thus far were—to a man—the incredibly boring younger brothers of heirs to enormous fortunes, I took to walking. Up and down the Josy road and her thousand tributaries, from before dawn to long past sunset, I would never fail to discover new curiosities and delights. You could buy anything in this city. And that was why we had taken it, no? Each and every day, dozens of carts laden with prizes from the depths of the continent would stream through the Southwest Gate. Raw lumps of metal, fine tableware and pottery, blades of every kind, fabrics dyed bright like wildflowers. All the wealth of the great chieftains, boxed into crates and loaded onto ships for our people to have their turn to enjoy. And out through the Southeast Gate those same carts would depart, filled to the brim with dull cuirasses, dented helmets, wicked polearms, and barrel after barrel of guncotton. The continentals were getting a poor deal if you ask me.
The city was inundated past total saturation with the treasures of the continent. You could walk into any old curio and purchase a masterwork for a song. The rugs! The Saloy love rugs. But they make them more than they procure them. Men of culture all agree the homegrown specimens are better than the ones coming through the Gate. But it’s fiendishly hard to get them to sell a genuine to you. If I could somehow leave this city with one of those rugs in my trunk we’ll be rich. The fine lords and ladies will trample each other to buy it off me.
Where was I? Lyman. Lyman also liked taking walks. We spied each other’s ghastly white faces across the Josy road several times. We stuck out like buoys in the bazaar, for in those days most of the colonials didn’t seem to venture too far from the Inner City. After the fourth or fifth sighting I worked up the nerve to cross the road and shake his hand.
“Why is it we are always traveling in opposite directions?” he greeted me jocularly. He was wearing a starched black overcoat with lapels and his shirt had a high collar that brushed against his jaw, which was the fashion back home. I had already taken to wearing a loose beige linen tunic like everyone else in the city, and I found it quite agreeable in the suffocating tropical heat.
“Why is it you’re always wearing that ridiculous coat?” I riposted with a laugh. “You must be dying under there!”
Lyman (though I did not know that was his name at the time) let his smile drop. He did not find the teasing funny. I’ve discovered that I let my shoulders droop and bow inward to make myself look small and unthreatening when people are unhappy with me. Like a dog facing his alpha.
“I don’t know why I feel compelled to explain myself to a youth I just met on the street,” said Lyman. “But I’ll have you know I have a condition of sorts. I don’t feel the heat or the cold. It can come in handy in places like this, though they had to cut off a frostbitten toe of mine when I was a child because I ran barefoot through a snowy forest to catch a rabbit.”
“That’s just terrible!” said I, seizing the opportunity. Maybe I could yet recover from putting my foot in my mouth. “Doesn’t the human body need to maintain a certain temperature? Won’t you collapse if you exert yourself too much in this heat?”
“Of course I will,” Lyman said. “I have. Several times already, on this road. I was quite attuned to the climate back in Yamos so I knew where my limits lie. But here, I am still getting the hang of things. In fact I think it’s about time for me to head back.” He was visibly panting, but not a single bead of sweat graced his pale brow. Like a dog, indeed.
“I don’t mean to overstep,” I said carefully as we turned back the way he came. “But would you not be able to extend your range by taking off the coat? Let your walks take you deeper?”
He paused on the road, his bottom lip jutting out in thought. Then he unbuttoned the overcoat and slung it over his shoulder, his leg crooked like a perfect portrait of a dandy. The waistcoat stayed on, of course. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “I could do without the weight.” He continued walking back, looking straight ahead like I wasn’t there.
“I’m Tane,” I said, offering my hand to shake his. He stopped again, looking surprised I had kept walking with him. He took my hand gingerly. I could feel his soft palms. An aristocrat, for sure.
“Tane…?”
Ah yes. Aristocrats preferred last names. “Tane Kimmey. I’m a first year at Saloy University.”
Lyman smiled unsteadily. “Pleasure to meet you Mr. Kimmey. I’m Lyman Lyne. I’m here on assignment.”
The walking started again. “What kind of assignment?” I asked.
He stopped again. It was as if he could not walk and talk at the same time. “State business.”
I supposed that was all I was going to get out of him so I turned the topic to Saloy as we continued back to his residence. I spoke on all my observations from my first week. You know, the stuff about the carts and the polearms and the rugs and the utarmonds, everything I wrote about above. Lyman confessed that he was also brand new to the city, just trying to get his bearings. He didn’t seem to really want to be here. I couldn’t understand it at the time, but I felt there was an unspoken magnetism between us. He was at least two decades my senior, and certainly lacking in some savoir faire. And he seemed perpetually distracted. But I could sense a mystery about him, and a clever mind I wished to understand. I did not at this juncture realize just how much mystery he courted on the daily, how clever his mind really was. But I’m going to borrow a habit from Lyman and not tell you what I mean quite yet.
II: An Assignment
I walked him the rest of the way home and discovered to my dismay that he lived in one of those palatial compounds that the really successful merchants tend to build, with courtyards coming out of your ears.
“Whatever service you render the state must be quite lucrative,” I muttered as his servants rushed him indoors, stripping him of all unnecessary clothes and fanning him with fronds. They were probably the poor bastards that had to drag him back after one of his fainting spells. What could his occupation possibly be that warranted all of this? Was he trading grain futures?
As I slouched back toward my more meager accommodations, one of the servants tugged at my sleeve. I jumped in fright, wondering if I was being robbed.
“My master would like to inform you that he wishes you to visit here at 5 o’clock for dinner,” he said in very heavily accented Yamosh. I had to ask the fellow to repeat himself before I fully understood.
“Oh!” I said with genuine surprise. “Tell him I will be sure to attend.”
“My master would like to impress upon you that punctuality is quite important to him. If you are not ten minutes early—”
“Then you are ten minutes late,” I interrupted, rolling my eyes. “Yes, spare me the schoolboy admonitions. I’ll be there.”
“He would like to discuss an employment opportunity.” Then the servant abruptly walked off without waiting for my reply. I felt mightily confused. Had he not heard me correctly when I explained I was a student? I wasn’t exactly on the prowl for a job, my main goal was to stay afloat under the school’s strict academic requirements for those lacking a wealthy benefactor guaranteeing their continued enrollment.
Wealthy benefactor… thought I, pondering his many courtyards. Maybe I ought to cozy up to this man to the best of my ability. Maybe he was my ticket to graduating with a cushy government post like his own.
You can be sure on the following day I was there fifteen minutes early, in my best Yamosh getup, bleached shirt with a scratchy collar and cravat and all. That same servant from before opened the small gate in the outer wall and ushered me inside, insisting I remove my boots before I crossed the threshold. Then he demanded I remove my stockings as well. That wasn’t very Yamosh of him. Maybe the servants were rubbing off on him.
I shuffled carefully into what I assumed was the dining hall, a bit self-conscious of my ungroomed toenails. I wish I had been warned this was a no shoes and stockings type of dinner. Lyman was already seated at the enormous table for twenty, his napkin tucked into the neck hem of his linen tunic. He was wearing one of those too? I suddenly felt entirely ridiculous in my outfit. I wanted to run back out into the street and tear it all off. It would have been less embarrassing to come in barechested.
I shuffled sideways to occlude him behind one of the square pillars in the cavernous hall, and composed myself. Several long and deep breaths. I summoned my spine of steel and lashed my shoulders to it, never shall they droop again. Then I strode forward with all the fake confidence I could muster.
“Mr. Lyne! It is—”
“Call me Lyman. What were you doing over there?”
I stopped, the confidence evaporating. I turned to follow his gaze. The pillar. “Over there? I wasn’t—I was—”
“Sit down.” I mutely obeyed him, shoulders drooping. He had completely conquered me with barely any effort. His strange affect on the Josy had largely evaporated, giving way to something more commanding, if still a bit eccentric. He was an alpha dog.
The servants brought out platters of food. It was in the local style, big flat plates of aromatic mash that you would scoop up with rice and flatbreads. We ate with our hands in total silence. The servants lurked. They didn’t stand straightbacked with their hands clasped just so like the ones in Yamos. They skulked around in pairs, whispering together like scheming courtiers. Was this how all Saloy servants treated their master? Or was Lyman curating a certain atmosphere?
Lyman daintily wiped his face with his napkin. “Delicious. I do love the shma.”
“Excuse me?”
He gestured to the food. “Shma. The dish we’re eating. I suppose you’re wondering what I meant about the job.”
I set my piece of flatbread down. He already had me off balance again, flustered like a damsel. It was humiliating. I opened my mouth to say something but he had already continued talking.
“I have a man I’m trying to find. A local. He’s very important to my work. The issue is, I’m a bit of a fish on dry land here. I had no connections in the city. Now, I have but one: you. How is your Samrii?”
“I—I can’t say,” I stammered, unprepared for this chance to speak without interruption. “I practiced like hell before I came here but there’s only so much one can wring from a book. I’ve been testing it on the peddlers and I suppose they mostly seem to understand me. I don’t always understand them, though.”
“It’ll have to do,” said Lyman. “Ideally you won’t have to speak much anyway. You’re my thread to the university. When I need to reach someone there, I shall tug on you and—”
“But you said your man is a local,” said I. It felt good to be the interruptor for once. “Why would he be at the university? I suppose he’s a professor,” I thought aloud. “Then why don’t you just flash your papers and ask the dean?”
“He’s not a professor. He’s a… a potentate.”
“A potentate?”
“A big man in town. I don’t know, if we were in Yamos we’d call him a lord or some such, but I am told those titles are frowned upon here. He is an individual of great influence.”
“What manner of influence?” Upon reflection, I should have just nodded silently.
Lyman scoffed and leaned forward. “What do you mean ‘what manner of influence’? Influence is fungible. It’s capital. You make your wishes known and people such as yourself jump to fulfill them.”
I felt indignant. “On the contrary, a commander may have great influence over his soldiers, but not me. I am no soldier.” Perhaps I had a chance to gain some upper hand here by arguing the point, its irrelevance notwithstanding.
“Oh? So you claim that if the commander of the Yamosh garrison in Saloy walked in through that door and barked an order at you, you would just sit there? Glower at him for acting uppity?”
“Well—I suppose—”
“You’d take him seriously. If you could possibly make him happy, he might be your ticket out of here. A job at a desk instead of a lifelong stevedore. I’ve met many a boy like you before. Your kind is the most susceptible to influence of anyone.”
I sat silent. My kind? Perhaps it was best not to spar with a sharp tongue like his without some preparation beforehand.
“Ah, but this is what I like about you,” he continued. “You understand when it is time to be silent. Who to flatter with your sublime quietude. There is much wisdom in that.”
I was almost quivering with rage. He had to be mocking me. It was a very easy thing to do from his little palace, surrounded by his servants, seated at a table bigger than my entire room. It took no bravery. He may consciously possess all the power, but what he lacked was a single drop of noblesse oblige. I didn’t have to sit here and take this. I could storm out and never speak with him again. But, as lousy of a benefactor he was, he would probably make an even worse enemy.
“Mr. Kimmey, you must understand me. Potentates do not stay potent for long without understanding where the locus of power lies, and coming to drink from it. Like an elephant instinctually knows her way to the oasis. And right now, it is at your university.”
That wasn’t what I expected to hear. All I could think to respond with was “Why?”.
“It is not for me to say. But you can be sure that he will come, if he hasn’t already. And if he has already, he will come back. He is clever. They tell me he is no savage.”
“How will I know your special and clever potentate from an average one?”
“His name is Jurthignya. Let me write it down for you in case you need to spell it, it is written different than it sounds.”
The servant who had approached me yesterday materialized without being called for, bearing a pen and paper and a wax sealed letter. Lyman scribbled on the paper, furrowed his brow, crossed it out, and then wrote it down again more deliberately, before handing me the paper along with the letter. The crossed out version was spelled different than the final one. That did not inspire confidence.
“Should you locate him, you will hand him this letter, and insist he sees Lyman Lyne for dinner that night or the next. I will clear my schedule for him. Do not take no for an answer. Do not unseal the letter. Practice the specific Samrii you’ll need ahead of time. You can be sure that you will be compensated well for your efforts, Mr. Kimmey. And there may be further opportunities down the line if you prove yourself reliable.”
I nodded, folding up the paper and placing it with the letter in my jacket pocket. It should not matter to me how personable or rude I found him, for I had not accepted this dinner in search of pleasant company. We stood from our seats and he walked me to the entrance to the dining hall.
“I think this shall be the beginning of an incredibly productive partnership,” Lyman said, offering his hand. I summoned my most winning smile and took it.
“I hope so.” As I turned to depart my eyes fell, catching a glimpse of his bare feet upon the threshold. Ten perfectly intact toes.
III: Office Hours
I lay awake for quite some time that night, turning the letter over in my hands as it bathed in the moonlight from my single small window. The wax seal was an imprint of some sort of coat of arms. I wondered if it was Lyman’s personal heraldry or identified the specific state apparatus he represented. I couldn’t stand serving a cause that I could not name. It was my curiosity and my ability to know more than others that had gotten me this far, but now I was walking blindly. I abruptly stopped fiddling with the letter, holding it frozen in the air. With the moonbeam striking the letter just so, the envelope was almost translucent. I could faintly make out writing, but it was scrambled by overlapping with the lines on the folded paper behind it.
A smile crept across my face. A plan was forming in my mind how to maximize my leverage in this situation, but it was going to require me to stop dozing off in class.
The next morning, aroused at dawn as always by a stampede of screaming chickens being driven to their stall, I dressed and quickly made my way to the campus. It was an ancient and severe complex, all looming stone minarets and echoing domed halls. Multiple professors had chosen to pass the first week rambling on about the history of the university itself instead of teaching their own syllabus. I had already heard it repeated several times that this place had been founded over a thousand years ago, though only small sections of it were still the original construction. I didn’t find that very believable. A thousand years ago our ancestors lacked a written language and wore animal pelts. But the continentals were already teaching each other geometry? Not likely.
I arrived at my first class for the day, Linguisticks, about an hour early. Professor Abdayn was already seated at the long desk at the front of the lecture hall, scribbling away at a paper. There was nobody else there. An ideal opportunity to place my plan into motion.
“Pardon me, sir,” said I. He glared up at me over his spectacles. “I’m one of your first years. I was hoping for a brief moment to ask you some questions.”
Abdayn sighed. “Yes, alright. What is it?”
“I was thinking about last week’s lecture. You said that your specialty is the study of scripts that require certain spectacles to be worn to make the writing legible.”
“Yes, I did say that.” He was impatiently glancing at his unfinished sentence.
“I was wondering, sir, how closely must you collaborate with Opticks to manufacture them? Rather, how closely related is the system of writing and the physical design of the spectacles?”
“Incredibly closely related. Inextricably.”
“Those spectacles you’re wearing right now, they enhance your ability to read Samrii, then?” He took them off his nose and squinted at them, as if he had forgotten they were there.
“Well, yes. Most professors you see wearing these things have the plain lenses we have the first-years manufacturing. But these are specifically suited for my notation language.” He looked up at me. “What is your name, son?”
“Tane Kimmey, sir.”
“Well, Kimmey, it is quite rare that someone correctly guesses my spectacles’ optickal properties. Actually, it’s unheard of, for a first-year. What gave it away?”
I spread my hands. “Nothing gave it away. They look like normal spectacles to me, sir. I just wondered if a linguist were wearing some that they might have to do with his field.”
“Well it’s an impressive act of deduction nonetheless. Was that your only question?”
“I was wondering the extent to which it enhances your reading beyond a normal pair. Can you read things with them on that you would not be able to otherwise? Words written upside down? Backwards? Through a page?”
“Well I wouldn’t go through the bother of having them made if they didn’t do that sort of thing. Look.” He flipped the page he was writing on over so he was looking at its blank backside. The writing on the other side was upside down, backwards, and occluded. “Look,” he said again, eagerly. “I swear I don’t have this memorized: ‘The morphology of maritime scripts tended to follow a similar evolution through the fourth and fifth centuries, dropping umlauts in favor of digrams.’ See?” He flipped the page back over to show me.
“Incredible!” I exclaimed. “What if it were folded, and in an envelope? Would you still be able to read it?”
He looked up from his paper, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Young man, are you trying to read someone’s mail without them knowing?”
My eyes widened. “Of course not!” I said, too loudly. “Well, er, not yet. I was hoping I might serve in the intelligence services when I graduate. And I thought a pair of spectacles that could snoop on mail would be invaluable.”
“They would be,” said Abdayn, his suspicion appearing to recede. “But I’ll tell you something more important to understand than anything you’ll ever learn in a year here: if something seems obvious to you, then greater minds than you have noticed it too. If some clear advantage seems unexploited, some clear defect unresolved, you can be sure there is a reason for it. Consider your own ignorance before you conclude the world has gone mad.”
“So there’s a reason that mail-reading spectacles aren’t in wide use?”
“There are many. The principal one being that it’s easier and cheaper to just heat an iron and pry the wax seal off rather than going through the trouble of manufacturing the spectacles. In the intelligence service in particular, another issue is that the letters they would want to spy on are often written in code to begin with, and in foreign languages of course.”
That last part seemed irrelevant. “Why would foreign languages be an obstacle?”
“Because you only have one language per pair of spectacles, and the optician manufacturing them needs to be intimately familiar with the linguistickal properties of the script he’s targeting. Say you wanted to snoop on letters being received by the Llywylian Queen. It’s not enough to have an agent who knows Llywl. You need an agent who can read Llywl wearing Llywl-specific spectacles manufactured by an optician who does not only read Llywl, but has such an academic grasp of it that he can explain the etymology of every word the spectacles would need to be able to discern.”
“Oh.” My initial enthusiasm had rotted to disappointment. I could not summon to mind the etymology of any Samrii word. Except… maybe I didn’t need to manufacture the spectacles. After all, there was a perfect pair of them right in front of me. “That sounds fascinating!”
“Is that so?” he replied, failing to hide his enthusiasm. “Linguisticks is an under-appreciated field. I’m always looking for more pupils who want to specialize in it.”
“Well, it’s only the second week,” I said coyly. “But I’d love to learn more about it. Beyond just the lecture material.”
“Stop by my office in the Thuli building this evening and I can give you some reading to accelerate your learning. Learning a second language is a good place to begin.”
“Yes, I’ve been practicing my Samrii for months now.”
“That is good to hear,” he said in Samrii, his accent vanishing as he dropped back into his native tongue.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“But your pronunciation needs work,” he said in Yamosh, turning back to his notes and waving me away. With his eyes finally off of me I walked to my seat, beaming with victory.
IV: The Elephant’s Visit
I was slumped over on the bench in the last minutes of the final class of the day. My least favorite. Ethicks. The blackboard on my lap had doodles of swords and lightning bolts on it.
“… but it was Lisel Muhar’s teaching that gives us our canonical phrasing for the First Imperative: Shta ghulyid datu mossaned idn Lag. Can anyone give me a translation?”
I raised my hand. Professor Diryam seemed surprised to have a student actually attempt it, but he called on me. “We mustn’t use God’s power against him,” I said.
“Close. Usually in Yamosh we render it: Man shall not exercise God’s gifts to obsolete Him. It is a prohibition on using magick to empower one’s body beyond what is natural, so we can be reminded of our utter dependence on the source.”
I was a bit singleminded at the moment. “But doesn’t that rule out opticks, then? You’re improving your eyesight, after all. Textiles as well.”
Diryam grunted at the interruption. “Please Tane, raise your hand. And no, spectacles are not an enchantment of the body. It would be incorrect to use optickal principles to modify the lens of a cornea.”
I raised my hand. He sighed. “Yes?”
“Then why does the university teach medicine and biology? Are these not concerned with the human body? Are they not improperly lengthening our lives, making us closer to immortal?”
“Bandages and salves are not going to make you immortal,” said Diryam. The class burst into laughter. I turned red. That was a deliberate mischaracterization of what I had said! But this congress of apes certainly loved to hoot and stomp at a know-it-all getting humbled. “That’s enough for today.” The students leapt to their feet and began streaming down the tiers, chatting with each other. I made a beeline for the exit pointing toward the Thuli building, but I made the mistake of making eye contact with Diryam, who waved me over.
“Tane, I just want you to know I really appreciate your participation.”
“But?”
“I have some advice for you. You can get your questions answered quicker and more decisively by simply letting the material take its course. If you have an objection to something, consider that it’s a deliberate tension we pose to resolve in a later discussion.”
I thought about retorting that it sounded like a way to pad out the material, and also that it was a bit misleading to call it a discussion if I was meant to shut up and listen—but I remembered I wanted to get to Thuli as soon as possible. “Of course, I should have realized. Thank you, professor!” He smiled after me as I ran to the door.
Among the dim and hostile buildings on campus, Thuli was perhaps the dimmest. Being the good student I was, I always had several candles rolling around in my bag, but even upon lighting one I felt like the corridor was overcome by a dark mist. I reminded myself that this was where you got exiled for the crime of specializing in linguisticks, lest I actually catch an interest in it. I came to a heavy oak door with a brass nameplate that shone spectacularly by my candlelight. A. ABDAYN: LINGUISTICKS. I gave it a knock. The professor opened it almost immediately, those spectacles still clinging to his hook nose.
“Ah, Kimmey! Come in.” I squeezed through the small crack, as the door was blocked from fully opening by a looming bookshelf. Unlike the windowless hallway, his office let in some natural light, though it was partially blocked by yet more bookshelves. He had already lit a dozen candles. How did this building not burn down every other year?
The only chair in the office was behind a writing desk, so I settled onto a very squat stool, perhaps for sitting upon while rearranging books on the bottom shelf. “I must thank you for your thoughtfulness and hospitality in having me here,” I said, setting my bag on my lap. It felt like I was on the privy.
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine! I have been thinking about what you were saying this morning about a career in the intelligence services. I think you are quite wise to pursue a linguistickal route, with how much need there is for agents with language fluency. And codebreaking too, a linguistickal exercise! That’s an agent’s bread-and-butter.” He was detaching a hooked ladder from the doorway-bookshelf and dragging it over to the window-bookshelf. “I have some books that I’m sure will light a fire in you.”
“To be frank, I can’t stop thinking about those spectacles,” I said carefully. “They’re the first genuine magickal artifact I’ve ever seen in my life, and in such an unassuming package.” Abdayn paused the dragging as he passed me, looking deflated.
“You are aware that we don’t manufacture these?” he said in a defeated sigh, sliding them from his nose. “That would be Opticks.”
“Of course! But they would not be able to manufacture them without you, no?”
“Right!” he beamed. “Do you want to try them on?”
I couldn’t contain my glee any longer, but that was alright. As far as the professor could tell, I was just really enthusiastic about linguisticks. I leapt to my feet and accepted the proffered spectacles. It was too easy. All he needed to do was turn his back to get my books…
The door abruptly opened, crashing into the doorway-bookshelf. It wobbled. I backed away from it.
“What the hell?” came a voice from the hall in Samrii. “What happened to your door?” A face poked in through the narrow opening, inspecting the obstructionist bookshelf. It was Yossar, one of the two mononymous brothers that managed the faculty and grounds. “Abdul, you need to come out to the yard,” he barked. His expression soured further when he noticed me.
Professor Abdayn didn’t stop dragging the ladder. “Surely it can wait. I have a student here.”
“Abdul, I am not tjatuy. The riwed is here.” I wasn’t sure what those words meant. Were they proper nouns?
Abdayn stopped his dragging and leaned the ladder against the wall. “This berbor knows Samrii, isht davil nirobd!” he hissed, stomping toward the door. “Apologies, Kimmey,” he said in Yamosh, plucking the spectacles from my grasp. “Something has come up. This will have to wait for another day.” My heart sank. What could possibly be so urgent?
I hoped the two men would depart and leave me alone in his office to snoop around, but Yossar stuck his head back in after Abdayn had exited and ordered me out. I obediently put out the candles under his watch, lit my own, and stepped back out into the corridor. When the door shut again it was once again my lonely candle against the suffocating dark. Yossar’s muscular form loomed over my shoulder, gently indicating I should get lost.
I made my way out but took a sharp turn the moment I exited the building, passing out of sight behind a wall before Yossar could follow. I was not going home empty handed.
The sun had completely set, but the blue wake of her passing still lingered. I snuffed out my candle and began creeping along the outer wall of Thuli, toward the yard I suspected Yossar had been referring to. Once I had reached the northwest corner I sprawled out flat at the top of a slope, looking down into the central court. Sure enough, I could see a huddle of robed silhouettes. A dozen and a half faculty members, encircling a single richly dressed figure that was pacing in a circle, gesticulating as he addressed them. Though I strained my ears and held my breath I could only catch faint sounds that would not resolve into words. I fought the urge to crawl closer. It was too risky.
Soon enough the faculty dispersed all at once, leaving behind a few stragglers queueing to have words with the speaker. The deference they showed him, his body language, it all felt like I had found my potentate. You’d never seen a fellow so potent! I could also spy Abdayn stomping up the stairway back to Thuli. There was no chance he could see me in my hiding place, but I stayed completely still as he passed nonetheless. Finally the stragglers went their way as well, leaving the man alone. He started up the same stairs toward me. My heart rate climbed ever higher. I hadn’t read the letter yet! But still, this would probably be my only chance for weeks to meet the man. If Lyman found out I had let him go, he’d be livid. I circled back around the building to intercept him.
The light had truly gone at this point, so I could not pick out anything particular about his face, but I could tell he was wearing layers of lavish robes as well as a headpiece set with jewels that sparkled when they caught the firelight of the lamps. He stopped as I approached him.
“What is it,” he growled. “I answered all of your questions. Simply do your mishral and we will not have iftr.”
“Jurthignya-sagr, yes?” I called out. He grunted.
“Yes? Who is this?”
“So sorry,” said I, reciting the Samrii I had practiced that morning. “I am here on behalf of one Lyman Lyne. He wishes to humbly invite you to his residence on Yida road for supper tomorrow evening. This letter should answer your questions.” I pressed it into his hands. “You will not want to miss this opportunity.” Then I walked speedily away, my heart pounding out of my chest. I had faced the elephant. I had also lost my only chance of gaining the upper hand. Now Lyman held all of our cards.
V: Heart of Hearts
I tapped my fingernails nervously on the enormous cedar table. I still didn’t understand why Lyman had insisted I be here, nor why he wished me to dress yet again in my formal Yamosh outfit. He was in his Yamosh clothing as well, even including the coat. It seemed an odd thing to be wearing at the table. He was writing something on a little palm-sized pad, completely ignoring me. The servant that had played the go-between for us was standing just behind him, staring disconcertingly at me.
I finally broke down. “What’s the plan?” He looked up at me. “Why am I here? Just tell me something!”
“How good of a liar would you say you are, Mr. Kimmey?” he asked casually, tucking the pad into his coat. I frowned. Was he accusing me of something?
“I suppose I’m an honest man,” I replied carefully. “I don’t have much practice lying.”
“Well it is eminently clear to me that you are indeed a bad liar because you’re clearly lying right now about being a bad liar.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that.
“Omar, go man the door. It’s about time our friend arrives.” The servant strode away. “I must be frank,” Lyman began, fiddling with his pen. “Your best efforts to scrub out the smell of poverty have been only partly successful. I don’t know why you think you ought to play the part of a gentleman here. Isn’t the draw of a colony supposed to be a fresh start?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not here for a fresh start. There wasn’t ever one waiting here for me.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Well,” I started, but caught myself. “Why should I tell you? What difference does it make? You’re not being particularly forthcoming with me either.”
“I have a good reason,” he said with a humorless smile. “I seriously doubt you do. In fact, I’m feeling increasingly sure I know exactly why and the only reason you’re concealing it is because you’re embarrassed.”
“Oh? Then tell me,” I growled. “But if you’re wrong, I’m leaving. I’m not staking my life on an arrogant dunce’s instincts.”
Lyman laughed. “Are there ants in your collar? Relax. Not everything is a battle of wits.”
“So you decline the challenge?”
“Ah, no. I shall say it. You’re hoping to pass for a humble country noble, but you’re really the lowest of the low. Your father is probably some convict or soldier that raped your mother and then went on his merry way. It was just you and her against the world, no siblings, no family. At times you’ve begged, or you’ve stolen, but at some point you discovered the honored tradition of patronage. Convincing the town priest that you will become a man of the cloth so he takes you in from the rain and teaches you read. Misleading a provincial banker that you will be the son he never had and inherit his firm when he passes, only to leave in a year once he’s taught you how to balance accounts. I don’t know who paid for your trip all the way out here to the edge of civilization, but they too are probably laboring under some misapprehension that you are a guileless generational intellect that requires the finest education so you can return and lift them up with you. But you are not loyal to your patrons. You are transactional. You pay them back the bare minimum required so they won’t send the police after you, nothing more.”
There were tears welling up in my eyes. “My father did not rape my mother,” I hissed. “He died of consumption when I was a child.”
“Ah, that’s probably what she tells you. Blunts the pain.” I started to rise, ready to lunge across the table and strike him in the face for saying that, but he was also standing, looking over my shoulder. I spun to see the stocky figure of our visitor in the doorway. He was wearing the same fine silk robes and jeweled turban from yesterday. His skin was dark and ruddy, and his eyes were strangely yellowed, but his gaze was fierce and penetrating. “Ah, Jurthignya-sagr, your presence is very welcome,” Lyman said in incredibly precise Samrii. He walked up and grasped the man’s hand warmly. “Please, have a seat.”
“What is this all about?” the man said, brandishing the letter. “This is undignified gazlab!” He shook it in Lyman’s face.
“Come break bread with me and we can discuss it.”
“I shall not share a meal with your kind!” He was becoming increasingly agitated. “I came here to deliver a message of my own. Stay out of Saloy business. Do not send your errand-boys to approach me again!” He turned with a huff to depart. Lyman and Omar exchanged a meaningful nod.
Suddenly Omar seized Jurthignya and rammed him against the wall. “What is this!” he cried. Several other servants rushed over to help restrain him as he threw wild punches. Lyman stalked over to the table and snatched up the wine bottle that had been set there. He picked up the corkscrew and drove it into the cork, tugging at it.
“We could’ve had a nice meal,” Lyman said in Yamosh, grunting with exertion. “You can only blame yourself for this!” The cork came free. He walked over to the man, thrashing under five servants. Suddenly the man’s hand came free, brandishing a pistol. The shot went off less than a meter from Lyman’s chest, filling the room with smoke. I heard it strike something, but Lyman kept approaching. He tore the pistol from his hand and shoved the neck of the bottle between his teeth. In a moment, his thrashing ceased and he slumped against the wall.
“Did you just poison him?” I cried, my frozen shock wearing off. “Are you hit?”
“Relax,” Lyman said dismissively. “He’s only sleeping.” The servants lowered him to the ground and Lyman shed his coat and knelt over him. He ripped open the man’s robes and traced over his chest with his fingers. What in the bloody hell was happening?
“Sir,” said Omar urgently. “This is not Jurthignya.”
Lyman paused. “What? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“There was no chance. But I do not know who this man is.”
Lyman sighed and sat back on his heels. “Mr. Kimmey, you gave this letter to this man, no?”
“I—,” I paused, squinting at his face. “I don’t know. It was dark. But he responded to the name!”
“This is incredible. Incredible!” Suddenly Lyman threw the bottle against the wall, shattering it with a crash. “We’ve just drugged him, and now we have to figure out how to clean this mess up.” One of the female servants was crying and babbling from across the room. Omar stood up and began to comfort her. She must have not been looped in on the plan to assault a guest and then throw a tantrum. “Omar, shut her up,” Lyman ordered. “Please! I can’t think.”
“Sir, she says she knows this man. He’s one of Jurthignya’s closest advisors. He is well known in the harbor district.”
Lyman seemed to come back alive. “Is that so?” He went back to feeling his chest. And then he turned, wearing a disconcerting grin. “Mr. Kimmey, come over here and feel this. Omar, send everyone away.”
I tip-toed toward the body, trying to avoid a glass shard embedding itself in my bare feet. I squatted down next to the body. Lyman grabbed my hand and placed it on his left pectoral muscle. Then he grabbed my other hand and placed it on the right. Two heartbeats, out of sync with one another. I snatched my hands away, like from a snake. “What the hell?”
“That’s what we’re looking for, Kimmey,” Lyman said with his eerie smile. “That’s leverage.”
“What?”
“I sent you after Jurthignya because I heard an interesting rumor. That he had an extra heart inserted so that he might survive to an older age. And maybe so an assassination attempt would fail, should they only hit one of his hearts.”
I was at a loss for words. “What does any of that matter?”
“I’m no scholar of Saloy religion, but I hear this sort of thing is a heresy of the greatest degree.”
“The First Imperative,” I whispered reverently. “They’re modifying themselves.”
“Exactly. Should this rumor be turned into substantiated proof, he would immediately lose all credibility and his life would be forfeit. Or it would, except they’re not allowed to carry out executions on their own authority any more. And I don’t think Yamosh common law has a section on organs. But maybe they’ll just lynch him. Regardless, this is leverage.”
“But that’s not your man,” I said.
“No,” Lyman said, stroking his chin. “But it’s the second best thing. I bet he tried it out on his lieutenants before doing it himself. And leverage over an advisor is almost as good a prize. We can at least use it to figure out why he was skulking about the university grounds last night.”
My eyes fell on his ten toes, splayed next to the man’s prostrate body.“Doesn’t Omar take issue with that?” I said, pointing to his feet. “You’re a heretic as well.”
Lyman looked confused, peering at his own feet. “Oh!” he laughed. “That was a story I invented so you would stop asking about this,” he said, kicking the jacket. It rattled and rang, like it was made of metal. “But you wouldn’t give up and made me take it off that first day anyway.” I crawled over to it and flipped it over. It was deceptively heavy. There was a perfectly round bullet hole in the lapel.
“A bullet-proof overcoat?”
“Everything-proof! It has magick-hardened steel plates sewn into it. I was wearing it around out of an abundance of caution, I hear the Saloy like to rob colonists who look lost, which I always do.”
“Sir!” Omar yelled from the other room. Lyman looked up at the kitchen doorway that Omar had herded the servants through. They were stampeding back toward the body, brandishing knives and skewers from the kitchen. Lyman flew to his feet and tripped on the threshold, falling backward into the courtyard and cracking his head against the cobblestones.
I dove out of the way as the servants leapt onto the unconscious man, making quick work of him with their improvised weapons. Then they dragged him out into the courtyard, leaving a smear of blood behind that gently mixed with the pool of wine and glass. They kicked and spat on his body and then impaled him against the courtyard’s lone tree in a seated position. His eyeless head lolled to the side. The fiery vengeance that animated the mob suddenly departed, and they calmly returned their tools to the kitchen and began sweeping the dining hall.
I was once again uselessly frozen in shock, staring at them in utter confusion as they stacked up the plates at the table. Lyman rolled over, groaning. “Imbeciles. Superstitious idiots,” he croaked. “My word is the law around here, not God’s!” he yelled. I slowly walked over, trying to avoid looking at the desecrated corpse, and helped Lyman to his feet. “There sits your hard work, Mr. Kimmey,” said Lyman, pointing at the body with one hand while the other clutched his bleeding head. “Now we really have a mess on our hands.”
“Terribly sorry, I think you have a mess on your hands Lyman,” I replied. “I’m not involving myself with this. You can mail my payment.” I propped him against the doorway, walked to the courtyard gate, and began pulling on my stockings.
“Ah, there’s the old transactionality,” Lyman laughed and coughed, supporting himself against the wall. “Tane Kimmey is a great help up until you actually need him.”
I paused, gritting my teeth. He was right, of course. He had been right, about everything. I pulled the stocking back off and walked over to him.
“What do you even need from me? You have servants to bury the body and check the city’s pulse.”
Lyman grinned, his teeth red with blood. “Now that he’s dead, the nice professors might be able to tell you what he wanted from them.”