Authors: Scott Lynch
“Sweet Venaportha,” said Locke. “You
really
intend for us to go out there, and you
genuinely
wish us to succeed?”
“Absolutely,” said Stragos.
“And the poison,” said Jean, “you’ll just put enough antidote in our hands to allow
us to roam the Sea of Brass, as we will?”
“Hardly. You’ll need to call at Tal Verrar once every two months. My alchemist tells
me that sixty-two to sixty-five days is really as far as you should push it.”
“Now, wait just a damn minute,” said Locke. “It’s not enough that we’ll be clueless
sailors masquerading as hardened pirates, trusting another man to make us look competent.
Or that we’re going to be out risking gods know what at sea, with our plans for Requin
postponed. Now you expect us to be tied to Mother’s apron strings every two months?”
“It’s two or three weeks to the Ghostwinds, and the same time back. You’ll have ample
time to do your business each trip, for however many months it takes. How closely
you wish to shave your schedule is, of course, your own concern. Surely you see that
it has to be this way.”
“No,” Locke laughed, “frankly, I don’t!”
“I’ll want progress reports. I may have new orders and information for you. You may
have new requests or suggestions. It makes a great deal of sense to stay in regular
contact.”
“And what if we chance across one of those patches of … damn, Jean, what are they
called? No wind whatsoever?”
“Doldrums,” said Jean.
“Exactly,” said Locke. “Even
we
know that you can’t presume a constant speed with wind and sails; you get what the
gods send you. We could be stuck on a flat ocean fifty miles from Tal Verrar, on day
sixty-three, dying for no reason at all.”
“Remotely possible, but unlikely. I’m well aware that there’s a great element of risk
in the task I’m handing you; the possibility of a vast return compels me to play the
odds. Now … speak no more of this for the time being. Here’s what I’ve brought you
out to see.”
There was a golden ripple on the black water ahead, and faint golden lines that seemed
to sway in the air above it. As they drew closer, Locke saw that a wide, dark shape
covered the artificial river completely, from one bank to the other. A building of
some sort … and the golden lines appeared to be cracks in curtains that hung down
to the water. The boat reached this barrier and pushed through with little trouble;
Locke shoved heavy damp canvas away from his face, and as it fell aside the boat burst
into broad daylight.
They were inside a walled and roofed garden, at least forty feet high, filled with
willow, witchwood, olive, citrus, and amberthorn trees. Black, brown, and gray trunks
stood in ranks beside one another, their vinetangled branches reaching up in vast
constellations of bright leaves that entwined above the river like a roof beneath
the roof.
As for the roof itself, it was scintillant, sky blue and bright as noon, with wisps
of white clouds drifting past half-visible between the branches. The sun burned painfully
bright on Locke’s right as he turned around to stare straight ahead, and it sent rays
of golden light down through the silhouetted leaves … though surely it was still the
middle of the night outside.
“This is alchemy, or sorcery, or both,” said Jean.
“Some alchemy,” said Stragos in a soft, enthusiastic voice. “The ceiling is glass,
the clouds are smoke, the sun is a burning vessel of alchemical oils and mirrors.”
“Bright enough to keep this forest alive under a roof? Damn,” said Locke.
“It may indeed be bright enough, Lamora,” said the archon, “but if you’ll look closely,
you’ll see that nothing under this roof besides ourselves is
alive
.”
As Locke and Jean glanced around in disbelief, Stragos steered the boat up against
one of the garden’s riverbanks. The waterway narrowed here to a mere ten feet, to
allow room for the trees and vines and bushes on either side. Stragos reached out
to grasp a trunk and halt the boat, and he pointed into the air as he spoke.
“A clockwork garden for my clockwork river. There’s not a real plant in here. It’s
wood and clay and wire and silk; paint and dye and alchemy. All of it engineered to
my design; it took the artificers and their assistants six years to construct it all.
My little glen of mechanisms.”
Incredulously, Locke realized that the archon was telling the truth. Other than the
movement of white smoke clouds far overhead, the place was unnaturally still, almost
eerie. And the air in the enclosed garden was inert, smelling of stale water and canvas.
It should have been bursting with forest scents, with the rich odors of dirt and flowering
and decay.
“Do I still strike you as a man farting in an enclosed room, Lamora? In here, I
do
command the wind.…”
Stragos raised his right arm high above his head, and a rustling noise filled the
artificial garden. A current of air plucked at Locke’s scalp, and steadily rose until
there was a firm breeze against his face. The leaves and branches around them swayed
gently.
“And the rain,” cried Stragos. His voice echoed off the water and was lost in the
depths of the suddenly lively forest. A moment later a faint warm mist began to descend,
a ticklish haze of water that swirled in ghostly curves throughout the imaginary greenery
and enveloped their boat. Then drops began to fall with a soft pitter-patter, rippling
the surface of the clockwork river. Locke and Jean huddled beneath their coats as
Stragos laughed.
“I can do more,” said Stragos. “Perhaps I can even call up a storm!” A stronger breath
of air began to beat the rain and mist against them; the little river churned as a
countercurrent surged from somewhere ahead of them. Little whitecaps burst beneath
the boat as though the water were boiling; Stragos clung to his chosen tree trunk
with both hands as the boat rocked nauseatingly. The raindrops grew heavier and harder;
Locke had to shield his eyes to see. Clouds of thick dark mist boiled overhead, dimming
the artificial sun. The forest had come to life, flailing at the misty air with branches
and leaves as though the faux greenery was at war with unseen ghosts.
“But only after a fashion,” said Stragos, and without any apparent further signals
from him the rain faded away. Gradually, the flailing of the forest died down to a
soft rustling, and then to stillness; the surging currents of the river beneath them
subsided, and in minutes the mechanical garden was restored to relative peace. Fingers
of fading mist swirled around the trees, the sun peeked out from behind the thinning
“clouds,” and the enclosure echoed with the not-unpleasant sound of water dripping
from a thousand branches and fronds and trunks.
Locke shook himself and pushed his wet hair back out of his eyes. “It’s … it’s gods-damned
singular, Archon. I’ll give it that. I’ve never even imagined anything like this.”
“A bottled garden with bottled weather,” mused Jean.
“Why?” Locke asked the question for both of them.
“As a reminder.” Stragos released his hold on the tree trunk and let the boat drift
gently into the middle of the stream once again. “Of what the hands and minds of human
beings can achieve. Of what
this
city, alone in all the world, is capable of producing. I told you my Mon Magisteria
was a repository of artificial things. Think of them as the fruits of order … order
I must secure and safeguard.”
“How the hell does interfering with Tal Verrar’s ocean commerce secure and safeguard
order?”
“Short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. There is something latent in this city that
will flower, Lamora. Something that will
bloom
. Can you imagine the wonders the Therin Throne might have produced, given centuries
of peace, had it not been shattered into all our warring, scrabbling city-states?
Something is preparing to emerge out of all our misfortune at last, and it will be
here
. The alchemists and artificers of Tal Verrar are peerless, and the scholars of the
Therin Collegium are just a few days away.… It
must
be here!”
“Maxilan, darling.” Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. “I knew you were driven,
but I had no idea you could
smolder
. Come, take me now! Jean won’t mind; he’ll avert his eyes like a gentleman.”
“Mock me as you will, Lamora, but hear the words I speak.
Comprehend
, damn you. What you just witnessed,” said Stragos, “required sixty men and women
to achieve. Spotters watching for my signals. Alchemists to tend the smoke-pots, and
hidden crews to work the bellows and fans that produce the wind. There were several
dozen merely pulling strings, as it were; the branches of my artificial trees are
threaded with metal wire, like puppets, so that they may shake more convincingly.
A small army of trained workers, straining to produce a five-minute spectacle for
three men in a boat. And even that was not possible with the art and artifice of previous
centuries.
“What more might we achieve, given time? What if thirty people could produce the same
result? Or ten? Or one? What if better devices could give stronger winds, more driving
rain, a harder current? What if our mechanisms of control grew so subtle and so powerful
that they ceased to be a spectacle at all? What if we could harness them to change
anything, control anything, even ourselves? Our bodies? Our
souls
? We cower in the ruins of the Eldren world, and cower in the shadow of the Magi of
Karthain. But common men and women could equal their power. Given centuries, given
the good grace of the gods, common men and women could
eclipse
their power.”
“And all of these grandiose notions,” said Jean, “somehow require the two of us to
go out and pretend to be pirates on your behalf?”
“Tal Verrar will never be strong so long as its fate is vouchsafed by those who would
squeeze gold from it like milk from a cow, then flee for the horizons at the first
sign of danger. I
need
more power, and to speak plainly, I must seize or trick it out of my enemies, with
the will of the people behind me. Your mission, if successful, would turn a key in
the lock of a door that bars the way to greater things.” Stragos chuckled and spread
his hands. “You are thieves. I am offering you a chance to help steal history itself.”
“Which is of little comfort,” said Locke, “compared to money in a countinghouse and
a roof over one’s head.”
“You hate the magi of Karthain,” said Stragos flatly.
“I suppose I do,” said Locke.
“The last emperor of the Therin Throne tried to fight them with magic; sorcery against
sorcery. He died for his failure. Karthain can never be conquered by the arts it commands;
they have ensured that no power in our world will ever have sorcerers numerous or
powerful enough to match them. They must be fought with this.” He set down his oar
and spread his hands. “Machines. Artifice. Alchemy and engineering—the fruits of the
mind.”
“All of this,” said Locke, “this whole ridiculous scheme … a more powerful Tal Verrar,
conquering this corner of the world … all to hurt Karthain? I can’t say I find the
idea unpleasant, but why? What did they do to you, to make you imagine this?”
“Do either of you know,” said Stragos, “of the ancient art of illusionism? Have you
ever read about it in books of history?”
“A little,” said Locke. “Not very much.”
“Once upon a time the performance of illusions—imaginary magic, not real sorcery at
all, just clever tricks—was widespread, popular, and lucrative. Commoners paid to
see it on street corners; nobles of the Therin Throne paid to see it in their courts.
But that culture is dead. The art no longer exists, except as trifles for cardsharps.
The Bondsmagi haunt our city-states like wolves, ready to crush the slightest hint
of competition. No sensible person would ever stand up in public and declare themselves
to be capable of magic. Fear killed the entire tradition, hundreds of years ago.
“The Bondsmagi distort our world with their very presence. They rule us in many ways
that have nothing to do with politics; the fact that we can hire them to do our bidding
is immaterial. That little guild
looms
over everything we plan, everything we dream. Fear of the magi poisons our
people to the very marrow of their ambitions. It prevents them from imagining a larger
destiny … from the hope of reforging the empire we once had. I know that you consider
what I’ve done to you unforgivable. But believe it or not, I admire you for standing
up to the Bondsmagi. They turned you over to me as a means of punishment. Instead,
I ask you to help me strike at them.”
“Grand abstracts,” said Jean. “You make it sound like this is some sort of incredible
privilege for us, being pressed into service without our consent.”
“I don’t need an excuse to hate the Bondsmagi,” said Locke. “Not to hate them, nor
to fight them. I’ve taunted them to their faces, more or less. Jean and I both. But
you have to be some kind of madman, to think they’ll ever let you build anything openly
powerful enough to knock them down.”
“I don’t expect to live to see it,” said Stragos. “I only expect to plant the seed.
Look at the world around you, Lamora. Examine the clues they’ve given us. Alchemy
is revered in every corner of our world, is it not? It lights our rooms, salves our
injuries, preserves our food … enhances our cider.” He favored Locke and Jean with
a self-satisfied smile. “Alchemy is a low-grade form of magic, but the Bondsmagi have
never once tried to curtail or control it.”
“Because they just don’t give a damn,” said Locke.
“Wrong,” said Stragos. “Because it’s so necessary to so many things. It would be like
trying to deny us the right to water, or fire. It would push us
too far
. No matter the cost, no matter the carnage, it would force us to fight back against
them for the sake of our very existence. And they know it. Their power has limits.
Someday, we’ll surpass those limits, if we’re only given a chance.”