Engine of Lies ebook Read online

  “What?”

  “To shield his fragile wife—her person, her mind, all she possesses—is a man’s most sacred responsibility.”

  René and I gaped at him. He looked quite serious.

  “You will, of course, be constrained in your activities. You will not leave the Fortress except in my company.”

  “Jean, you can’t—”

  His voice was crisp with command. “And you will forego other dangerous activities, including jumping through the fire on your own.”

  I shot out of my chair. “Don’t you dare do that to me. I’ll damn well learn to fight. I’m not going to sit at home and knit while you’re out adventuring, you louse, you…”

  His eyes creased into a smile. I stopped. “I’ve been had.”

  René said, “Huh?”

  I said, “How do you make a warlock do something she doesn’t want to do? Order her not to.”

  We walked together to the practice room, with Jean chuckling.

  “Protect me, my foot,” I said. “I saved your life, remember?”

  “How could I forget? You are not helpless, my love. We would all be ill served if I treated you so, but the freedom to act on your own also permits you to put yourself at risk. Knowing you will, and I cannot prevent it, frightens me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Jean. I’ll try harder.”

  “Thank you.”

  René said, “If you can’t order a warlock around, how’s she going to handle that bit about ‘love, honour, and obey’?”

  “Burn it,” I said. “I forgot about that.”

  Jean threw back his head and hooted. He was still laughing when I flamed him.

  The townsfolk began gathering on the causeway at dawn. When the guards opened the gate, they flooded in, rushing to good vantage points on the stairs. By ten o’clock, they packed the unmoving stairs, the open space inside the curtain wall, the ramparts, and the terraces. Only the cordoned-off paths the Frost Maiden would travel remained clear.

  We watched the jostling for position from the echoing emptiness of the ballroom. “I’m surprised,” I said, “there’s no one in here.”

  “I locked them out,” Beorn said. He was, for the first time I had ever seen, immaculate. His mane and beard were trimmed, brushed, and braided. Boots gleamed, opals burned, rubies flashed and glowed. The massive accoutrements of the Fire Office—the ring, the silver and opal belt—fit as if made for him. He stood with his hands on his hips, glowering at the mob. “Wouldn’t do for them to overhear.”

  “You need not worry on that score,” Jean said. Like Beorn, he wore black silk trimmed with Fire Guild emblems. With a marble countenance, he turned away and strolled along the row of windows. Flames danced around the phoenix embroidered on the back of his robes. “It is time.”

  “Yeah,” Beorn said. “Come on, Lucinda, let’s go.” He held the door for me, and the two of us walked out onto the terrace. Heads turned to watch us.

  “Now listen up, you,” he bellowed. Clapping my hands over my ears did not block his thunderous voice. “The Frost Maiden is our guest, so you’d best not embarrass the Fire Guild. No catcalls, no sneers, no jeers, no nothing. Treat her like you’d treat the Earth Mother. If you don’t, I’ll know who you are. Got that?”

  As one, the crowd roared, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.”

  We rode down the moving staircase without talking. Beorn chewed the end of his moustache. I couldn’t fault him for nerves—she’d been Frost Maiden for more than a century; he’d been Fire Warlock less than a week. My own palms were damp, but if I wiped them on my dress, I would ruin the velvet skirt. I clasped them behind my back and straightened my spine. Raised my chin.

  Beorn said, “I’m glad one of us can be nonchalant about this.”

  “What gave you that idea? I’m only here because you insisted I come along.”

  “It’s good to have a hostess along when greeting a female visitor.”

  “Why’d you appoint me hostess?”

  “You’re the highest-ranking fire witch, and the only one she’s friendly with.”

  “Friendly? That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

  “She at least talked to you. She’s never said boo to me. Not that I wanted her to.”

  We walked through the tunnel between the gatehouses and out onto the causeway. Water pooled before us. We both flinched and stepped backwards. The Frost Maiden, in dry and shimmering gossamer blue silk, stepped out of the pool, which shrank and vanished behind her.

  We made our reverences, welcoming her to the Fortress. She returned them with a rigid and shallow curtsey. I stiffened.

  “Thank you, Warlock Arturos, Warlock Locksmith,” she said. Her gaze left us—it had settled on me for no longer than an instant—and travelled up the Fortress behind us. “Warlock Quicksilver is waiting inside, along with the rest of the Fire Guild?”

  “We’d’ve had a riot if we tried to keep them out,” Beorn said.

  “I daresay it will be highly entertaining,” she said. “Shall we go, then?”

  Be damned if I would let on entering the Fortress still made me nervous. I gritted my teeth and stepped under the portcullis. She sailed alongside as if she had done it all her life. Beorn glowered at me over her head.

  He gave her a running commentary as we rode the moving stairs. She said little; I said less. I eyed her; she looked straight ahead, taking no notice of me. She reminded me, as before, of my stepsister, Claire, but Claire was never so cold. The slight she had given my curtsey rankled. We could never be close friends, but the last time we had met, we had at least not been enemies—or so I had thought then.

  We left her alone with Jean in the reception room and retreated to the ballroom. I couldn’t stay still. I left Beorn waiting by the doors and circled the room, casting about for something to take my mind off the Frost Maiden.

  The only subject that came to mind was Claire. She had been my best friend, once, but I didn’t want to see her. The glamour spell she used scared me.

  On his deathbed, Father exacted a promise that, as the older and more capable sister, I would help Claire whenever she needed me. When George Barnes brought word, months ago, that she had gone to Gastòn, I had done nothing, even though the news made me go cold. What, in God’s name, had Mother Janet been thinking, to let a beautiful girl go to the city by herself? Unscrupulous men of all classes congregated in the cities, preying on naïve women. If she gave her consent to being lured to her ruin, there wasn’t anything family, friends, or the law could do about it.

  I had reasoned I could not leave the Fortress without the Warlock’s permission until I had completed my one year’s service. Later, the siege had given me a better excuse. Now I had no justification, and still had done nothing.

  Listening to my guilty conscience did not improve my mood.

  Beorn was staring at the ceiling and gave no indication he noticed my approach. I stared past him at the gilt-covered double doors and chewed on my lip. My little candle flame could slide under the door. They would be so focused on their conversation they wouldn’t notice.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Beorn said, without lowering his gaze. “You’d annoy Jean, and you wouldn’t get past their defences anyway.”

  “You’re eavesdropping, aren’t you?” Not even Jean could shut out the Fire Warlock. But he had a right to listen in; I didn’t.

  “I was. I’m listening to the crowd now. They’re getting restless.” He lowered his head and looked at me. “I listened long enough to discover there are some things even I don’t want to know. I have to say, I’m glad you thawed her out. I couldn’t take some of the things she’s said nearly as well as Jean did.”

  “Thawed her out? You believe she has changed?”

  “Yeah. As far as apologies go, she’s doing a right good job of it.”

  “So wh
y was she so cold when she got here?”

  “Nerves?”

  “Her?”

  He shrugged. “Beats me. I haven’t got her figured out yet.”

  He went back to staring at the ceiling. I returned to circling the ballroom. The opposite of love, the philosophers say, is indifference, not hate; love and hate are two sides of the same coin. They had loved once, and been enemies before my grandparents were born. I couldn’t compete with that history. In some way, she still mattered to him.

  My actions had moved the Frost Maiden to apologise. Some dark corner in my heart said I should have left well enough alone.

  When they finally emerged, two hours later, she was as cool as spring water. Jean swayed.

  We would have turned towards the outer doors, but she stopped us. “Please, if I may, I would have a word alone with the Locksmith.”

  “Sure,” Beorn said, “if she’s willing.” I shrugged. The Frost Maiden and I retreated to the reception room.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said. “This is not the best time or place for this question, but I beg you to humour me.”

  I wiped my hands on my skirt. “Go ahead, Your Wisdom.”

  “When Warlock Quicksilver introduced you to the other Officeholders, he proposed a use for your talent, but you had only begun your training, and did not know if it was possible. That was months ago. Can you do as he asks?”

  Did she mean releasing the lock on the Fire Office? “I don’t know, Your Wisdom.”

  Not a trace of warmth showed in her expression or voice. “You do not know?”

  I crabbed sideways into the door. “We haven’t looked, Your Wisdom.”

  The Locksmith’s Warning

  The Frost Maiden gave me an incredulous stare. Her voice rose. “You, a fire witch, have not looked?”

  My stomach turned a flip. It had not occurred to me, but now that she raised the question, I found it hard to believe, myself.

  “We didn’t have time, Your Wisdom,” I stammered. “I was still learning about locks before the war, and then he was too busy. Besides, he said it would be years before I was ready.”

  “Of course,” the Frost Maiden said, her voice again cool and detached. “Lack of time, not lack of courage or ability.”

  The chill her question had elicited disappeared in a surge of heat. How I got through the next few minutes without embarrassing the Fire Guild, I do not know. We rejoined Jean and Beorn, and made our curtsies and bows on the terrace, in full view of the crowd, but all I saw and heard was a red haze and my own pounding pulse.

  The Frost Maiden vanished in a pool of water, and Jean let Beorn steer him away to lie down and rest. I flounced into the ballroom to stomp back and forth across the long mirrored inner wall, hoping to regain my composure in solitude.

  How dare she accuse me of incompetence? Or cowardice? Me, a warlock. A member of a tribe renowned for our rash, reckless, foolhardy… Scratch that. Renowned for our courage and resolve. Releasing that abomination of a lock on the Water Office had taken both, and it had nearly killed me. Why did she insult me, after what I had done for her?

  Maybe she had a point. I was a sorry excuse for a fire witch, if I wasn’t curious enough to see if I could unlock the Fire Office.

  I stopped and leaned my burning face against the cool mirror. Hadn’t I learned yet not to lie to a warlock, including myself? The truth was, I didn’t want to know. The lock I had released on the Water Office was a secondary lock. The intact one holding it together must be stronger than the one I already released. The one on the Fire Office, the bedrock of Frankland’s defences, would be stronger yet. Of course I was afraid. What sane person wouldn’t be?

  I would show the Frost Maiden I wasn’t a coward. I would read that frostbitten lock. If I could. Jean tried for decades and failed. I still had a lot to learn about lock theory. It might be years before I could read it, if ever.

  I pushed away from the mirror and smiled at my reflection. If I couldn’t read it, I could stop worrying for a while. At least long enough to enjoy my honeymoon.

  Beorn leaned against the parapet, waiting for me to step out onto the terrace. “What did she say,” he asked, “that pissed you off so much?”

  “Was it that obvious?”

  “Not to them.” He waved at the last of the dispersing onlookers. “But I know you better than they do.”

  I recounted our conversation, and he gave a low whistle. “You sure you’re a member of the Fire Guild? Any other fire witch would’ve flamed her for that.”

  I glared at him. “If you recall, the previous Fire Warlock warned us never even to think such a thing. The Fire Office wouldn’t like it.”

  “Just saying. You’ve got as much self-control as most of the rest of us, put together. And she’s got a lot of nerve saying that here, of all places.”

  “But if she knows the Fire Office won’t let me hurt her…” I shrugged. “She’s right about one thing, though. I should see if I can read that lock.”

  “I’d been thinking that, too, but I didn’t want to bring it up yet. I wanted to let you two have your fun while you can.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “What do you mean, ‘while we can’?”

  “Sorry. Forget I said that.”

  “Forget it, my foot. It scares you, too? Have you had a vision?”

  “Not about that. Just a feeling.”

  “Liar.” I searched his face. “You’re worried. Aren’t you? Have you foreseen…?” My face burned. “I’m sorry. I’ve been so happy about Jean. I’d forgotten you’ve foreseen René as Fire Warlock. That means…”

  “It means I’m gone.” He grinned. “Unless we find another high-ranking fire witch to fall in love with me and get me out of the Office. Not likely. But that’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “What? How can you be so calm, talking about…about your…?”

  “My own death? God knows I’m not eager, but look, Lucinda, I come from a family with a long history in the Fire Guild. I grew up wanting to be the Fire Warlock. Failing to pass muster scared me more than a fiery end. I’ve never had any delusions I’d last any longer than average. René will be at least twenty-five, maybe thirty before it lands on him, so that gives me ten or fifteen years, and that’s respectable. Unless…”

  Unless someone else held the Fire Office in between. I refused to consider who that someone else might be.

  He said, “I wouldn’t mind much if I could be sure I’ll do a decent job while I hold the Office. I’m scared of going down in the history books as the Fire Warlock who let civil war tear the country apart.”

  “You said something about that once, but we’ve had uprisings before without serious damage.”

  “Yeah, but so far they’ve always been isolated. Some duke or baron abused his power, and the Fire Warlock and the king bullied both the lord and his subjects back in line. Even with the bad blood between the four guilds, and between the Fire Warlock and the king, they worked together well enough to keep the peace.”

  “As long as the kings took the Great Oath, they did.”

  “Right. There’s powerful magic behind the bit about being ‘king for all the people of Frankland.’ Things started going to pot after they weaselled out of that. Now the king’s not even giving lip service to the idea commoners should get a fair shake.”

  I nodded. Long ago, to say someone was as fair as the king was a high compliment. Now, that line was good only for a sure laugh in the comedies put on by traveling players. “Maybe things will be better now the Fire and Water Guilds can work together.”

  “You think? Maybe if you can work another miracle and thaw out the whole frostbitten ice—”

  “Watch your language.”

  “Sorry. Thaw out the whole damned Water Guild. Her wishy-washy, wiseacre flunkies always cold shoulder me and act like the
y don’t care that the Water Office is busted.” He tugged at his beard. “The only way I see to keep the country from going up in flames is to push ahead with fixing the Fire Office, and it’s more urgent than Jean realises.”

  “Doesn’t he have a pretty good grasp on the mood of the country, even if he isn’t a seer?”

  “He does, and he’s right; things aren’t that bad. Yet. If they keep on at the same rate, we might have several decades. But something’s going to happen that makes things worse fast. I just don’t know what or when.”

  The conversation with Beorn was still fresh in my mind at breakfast the next morning. “Jean, are all the problems in Frankland’s justice system caused by the broken Water Office? Or are some the fault of the witches and wizards running the courts and handing out the verdicts? They’re such cold fish, acting as if they don’t care that commoners get stomped on when someone outranking them is at fault.”

  Jean shook his head. “You are mistaken, my dear. A water wizard cannot help but be aware of the anger and fear his guild inspires. He cultivates a cold demeanour to distance himself from the pain the penalties cause. If he took every unjust decision to heart he would drop dead at a young age.”

  “Isn’t there any way to work around the flaws in the Water Office?”

  He grimaced. “You are not aware of the lengths the Water Guild already goes to, to mitigate its shortcomings.”

  “Oh? Tell me about them.”

  “I cannot, my love. They are Water Guild secrets.”

  I frowned at him. “But you know.”

  “If you become Fire Warlock someday, you will learn of them also. I cannot tell you.” He scowled past my left shoulder and didn’t respond to further questions.

  He shook off his preoccupation after breakfast, giving his full attention to the task before us. We followed Beorn through the fire in the Fortress kitchen into an octagonal room with sofas surrounding a central fire pit. Sunlight and frigid air streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows in each wall. He flicked his wand, and the windows swung shut. I walked to the window in the north wall to admire the desolate beauty of Storm King’s caldera.