The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

XVIII

In the Garden of the Seeker

In which the enemy emerges

“Lady Nensela, my lady, I welcome you,” said the priest, who held out a hand to Nensela as she approached him in the garden of the Seeker’s temple.

Nensela reached him in three strides. She tented her fingertips together and touched them to her lips, then pointed her hands to the priest, extending a kiss. The priest returned her homage, for as a Seeker’s Own she was regarded as holy, a living Voice of the Seeker.

The priest received her warmly, clasping an arm around her shoulders, inviting her to walk with him. In the early light of the morning they leisurely paced the garden, stopping every so often for the priest to point out the newest blooms.

They stopped when they came to a sacred spring. Its waters did not heal, as a naiad spring would, but at certain times it would reveal visions of the past or future. One did not have to be a seer to see the visions; a priest could do so, or anyone the Seeker saw fit to give a revelation to.

For now the waters bubbled and frothed, a sign that a vision was not immediately forthcoming. The commencement of a vision was always heralded by the absolute stillness of the waters.

The spring, ringed by a careful arrangement of stones, dominated its particular section of the garden. The stones were encircled by vines, which had yet to come into their flowering season.

Nensela idly wondered aloud if she would be in Kyanopolis to see the flowers bloom.

At so out-of-character a remark the priest turned to her, with a small smile.

“Your concerns are mine, daughter of the Seeker.”

“New knowledge plays escort to new doubts concerning our potential success in the war to come. If I said to you a progeny of the Abyssal Serpent is involved in this matter, what would you say?”

The priest stood still and listened as she repeated to him the words of the giant. She spoke to him of Lady Aelia’s advice, Cingetissa’s discovery, and brought forth the starsilk purse with the keystone.

“The Seeker be with us,” the priest breathed when she finished. He sat down hard on a bench surrounding a pomegranate tree. Neither the fruit nor the flowers of the tree were in bloom yet.

In silence Nensela stood beside him, not eager to rush him. Had she not chosen him because he was deliberate and methodical? As well, he possessed a breadth and depth of knowledge she wasn’t used to seeing in lesser-lived people. Before becoming a priest he had traveled the world, even leaving the empire. Nensela trusted his words would be useful.

After a while he rose again and they resumed their walk. “Make the Fire Lords your priority, my lady. Do you know the Salamandra do not acknowledge the Dark Ages as such?”

Nensela arched an eyebrow. Oh? She did not think of the ‘Dark Ages’ as such, either; no Ta-Setian did. To her people, the time after Cataclysms were simply chaos periods. Of course, it was only natural for mortals to have cultural memory gaps. With a shudder, she thought of the post-Fourth Cataclysm chaos era.

The era was the first of its kind Nensela ever lived through, and she thoroughly loathed the experience. True, the Seeker warned her of its coming. Dutifully—and frantically—Nensela gathered all the scrolls she or her copyists could find, from poets to inventors. More, she endowed what would later become a museum with all of the artworks and artifacts she could acquire.

Yet, still, the Fourth Cataclysm hit hard.

And chaos reigned after, for nearly three centuries.

Bitterly, Nensela lamented her people’s failure to expand beyond their borders before the Third Cataclysm. They would not conquer the Karnassus Gate until afterward.

Damn King Nasakhma and his insularity!

At least she helped end his policies, when she came of age. No such policies held back the Salamandra, who were extant long before the Third Cataclysm.

“And they remember all that concerned them in those times,” the priest pointed out. “Including the Scouring, although they call it something else. Their sorcerers survived unscathed. Why this is so is a mystery. Nevertheless, the point is, when an echomancer or lorekeeper needs to fill in gaps in knowledge, your people are not the only ones we seek: the Salamandra also serve. Lady Aelia’s advice is sound, do not take it lightly.”

Nensela nodded her agreement, for the priest justified her faith in his insight. The Fire Lords were now on her task list.

Now they came to a wild cherry tree, whose profusion of fragrant white blossoms provided a spot of color. Nensela plucked a sprig and brought it to her nose. Savoring its perfume, she allowed herself a moment to think of other, more pleasant memories the scent brought to mind.

“And the abyssal?” she prompted, tucking the sprig behind her ear. “Will they know about it as well? How does one protect oneself against an infernal Erebossan when in its realm?”

The priest frowned. “Understand this is purely speculation, but I’d wager the only protection, such as it is, is the intention of the infernal. If our enemies are in their service, they may well be allowed to come and go so long as they faithfully serve their master. And so long as they are useful.”

He pointed out that during his stay with the Salamandra, they spoke of creatures he had never heard of, and knew of multiple defenses against exotic monsters.

“Perhaps the Salamandra see our abyssal as merely a kind of monster,” the priest mused. “Salamandra are not like any people I have met.”

“Does the Seeker not have a way? Have neither the Seeker nor Her Allies pursued anyone as far as an abyssal’s stronghold? Or at least to Erebossa?”

The priest smiled. “To put someone in it, sure, not take them out. Besides, what can threaten a god? For a mortal—or an immortal born of man and woman—a god’s aid is likely necessary to enter an infernal stronghold and return again.”

Nensela smiled in spite of herself. “Entering Erebossa in general has a similar requirement, so your hypothesis has merit. Let us hypothesize further: What is the significance of an abyssal’s involvement? Especially given what the giants and their lackeys say when cornered. Whose children are they? And who are the servants? Whose motes do they take us to be?”

“Let’s go by the children we do know about: the dryads are daughters of the Huntress. The naiads are daughters of the Restorer. Sea dragons are sons of the Sea Lord. Who is left? The Reaper, who has no children whom we know of.”

A jolt went through Nensela, and suddenly all of her senses heightened: never, not once in all her life had she ever noticed the Reaper’s lack of progeny. However, while the idea wasn’t impossible, the giants were wildly incongruent in that context.

All of the Children were appointed defined tasks: the dryads governed wild lands, and the sea dragons governed the sea. The naiads kept springs which healed any sickness or injury. The roles of the Children were congruent with the domains of their celestial parents. The giants; however, did not appear agriculturally inclined.

Yet. Their current actions did not preclude past designs. The Reaper may have meant for the giants to cultivate the land, but perhaps a transgression obliged Him to banish them from the Palace of Land and Sea. In that case, jealousy might underlie their attack on the farmers; jealousy over their Father favoring humans over them.

A base motive, one she hadn’t considered. If the priest had guessed correctly, the farmers would always be in danger—a disquieting thought.

Until now, Nensela had assumed the farmers were targeted for strategic purposes: to sow and cultivate fear. The giants would naturally move on to military targets and have straightforward battles once they finished terrorizing civilians. But if the farmers were the prime targets, then that would change everything.

“Let’s work with your idea,” she said after a while. “If the giants belong to the Reaper, we have then answered the question of whose children are they. People, apparently, are the motes—” Nensela cut herself off.

Motes. No small thing, for people to be reduced to the status of insignificant specks. For the giants to designate people in those terms—if that is what they meant—it suggested they were indifferent to the human lives they smashed and destroyed. Smashed, and destroyed, on the way to battle a force they did consider important: the servants, who were to fall somehow.

On Thuraia, the most logical hypothesis for the identity of the servants were the other Children. But how could this be? A sea dragon never threatened a naiad, not even when it pleased the Sea Lord’s sons to come on land. A naiad never threatened a dryad. Dryads never made war against either sea dragons or naiads.

Did the Children have to play nicely? Would their divine parents intervene if they fought? Nensela started to shake her head in amusement at the thought, then she stopped. If the Children went to war with each other, their Parents may be provoked into appearing once again in the Palace of Land and Sea.

Blood quickened in her veins. Now she saw why an Erebossi would be involved in this matter. The priest studied her face.

“You’ve come to a conclusion?”

“Only a glimmer,” she cautioned. When she finished telling him, he stroked his chin as he thought it over.

“However, one matter gives me grounds for doubt,” she added. “The War of Fire, Rain, and Thunder. The Huntress never intervened in the dryad war against the Salamandra, even though the sylphs created the Second Cataclysm to end it. That was four thousand years ago.”

“An event followed by the Second Dark Age. For us mortals. But the Salamandra do not claim to have ever experienced a dark age…” He allowed his voice to trail off suggestively. “More to the point, have you considered the Salamandra do not claim to be the children of any god?”

Ah. Definitely she must find the Salamandra. For now, she sent the priest a kiss in a farewell homage.

“May the Seeker be good to you,” she said as she took her leave.

A send-off she gave to all mortals she feared she would never see again.

The day started well enough. The three of them entered Kyanopolis proper together, but while Lady Nensela needed to visit the priest, Edana needed to settle her affairs at her shop, and Bessa intended to make good on her offer to help. Before they left that morning, Edana alerted her secretary to have the candidates meet them at the shop, so that she might meet and test them.

Their carriage was escorted by Edana’s guards, six strapping men sporting the most forbidding glares money could buy. Four of Lady Nensela’s guards completed their entourage.

This time, Bessa paid attention as they entered the city gates. The city was carved out of the sides of Mount Adamant, with different tiers that went up, up, up along paved roads kept as level as possible.

They went past a necropolis, in which the nearest tombs displayed the most prominent dead, who in their living years had made their mark on the city in some fashion or another.

Once in the city proper, the roads and doors began to sport patterns stamped into them. A custom from the Dracan era of the city, Lady Nensla explained when Bessa asked about them.

The houses fascinated her. What was with the arrangement of stairs zigzagging over stucco façades, leading either to walkways or directly to doors? She counted multiple stories, with several structures having six or seven. Stairs led up to flat roofs, which in turn featured walkways connecting one building to the next.

Curiously, only women walked along these rooftop paths. Some paused to chat with each other, others held baskets on their arms, suggesting they were on errands. The men; however, strolled about only on the grounds, apparently reserving the heights for the women.

“These are townhouses,” Edana explained. “I never saw anything like that before I came here. This is the Adamantean Quarter.”

The Adamanteans were the original inhabitants of the region. They lived there before even the conquest of the Draca, the empire that ruled Kyanopolis before the coming of the Pelasgians, and later the Rasena Valentians.

“Are the Adamanteans still around?” Bessa asked. “Or were they wiped out the Dracans?”

To which Lady Nensela replied, “Most of my staff are Adamantean; the others are Dracan. My Adamanteans chose to remain settled, unlike their nomadic brethren. When their tribes come to the cities in the summer, I hire them to work in my orchards.”

When they passed beyond the Adamantean Quarter they came to the Dracan Quarter. Lady Nensela served as a wry tour guide.

“Many call this quarter the Old City, for it is the last remnant of the Dracan settlement. What I’d like to know is their name for this city. Pelasgians named it for Kyane, because of her springs nearby. Did the Dracans do similar? Unfortunately for me the Dracans were a strange people, and they wrote nothing of interest concerning themselves. Just shopping receipts, can you imagine?”

In the Old Quarter, homes bore carvings of symbols or people in the walls. Homages to Dracan god-kings, mortal kings who fancied themselves descendants of the gods, and ruled by such rights. Finally, they began their ascent of the mountain, and started into more Rasena Valentian settings.

Bessa began counting tiers. The carriage didn’t stop until they reached a promontory on the fourth tier. The promontory overlooked the bay, and the goings on in the harbor and the city below.

A shop stood here. Two stories tall, the cool sea green of its stucco façade echoed the Viridian. Above the door post, a large sign swayed in the gentle breeze. A silhouette of a hammer and anvil occupied the lower right-hand corner of the sign, and the lower left-hand bore a symbol of two naiads standing back to back. In the center, in gilded text, bold words proclaimed, “ATREUS & NURIEL: FINE GOODS.”

Bessa gasped, “Your shop!”

Edana blushed, beaming with pride.

“Fanuco’s at noon—and keep your guards about you,” Nensela decreed, before speeding away.

The door flew open, revealing a young woman, about sixteen or so. Like Edana, her hair was a rich auburn, though she held hers back with a verdigris-colored fillet. The ribbon was fringed with enameled green beads that clinked as she bounced with nervous excitement. Keziah, Edana’s secretary.

Edana introduced them, and Keziah’s green eyes rounded as she squealed in delight.

“So this is Bessa! The one in the necklace.”

Bessa smiled at her. “I am indeed.”

This admission won her a half-hug from Keziah, who confessed she always hoped Edana would somehow reunite with Bessa. She clapped her hands in triumph that this hope had come to pass.

“May I say, she’s missed you so much. I always thought of you as her long-lost twin. It didn’t seem right that you were apart.”

Bessa and Edana nodded vigorously in their agreement.

Edana fingered Keziah’s fillet and smiled. “Looking married already?”

Keziah blushed. “There’s no harm in it, is there? My mother made this for me, in preparation for this time. This will do until the wedding, right?”

Clear in her mind’s eye, Bessa saw Aunt Sorcha. Often Edana’s mother wore a diadem of embroidered almond blossoms, edged with pearls she had caught in her youth. The center of the diadem featured a sun-and-moon clasp, enameled in gold and blue. Now it dawned on Bessa that this was not a personal style of Aunt Sorcha’s.

“It’s pretty on you. Congratulations.” Edana kissed Keziah’s cheek and hugged her.

Bessa sighed wistfully, for like her and Edana, Keziah must also do without her parents on such an important milestone.

Keziah composed herself, and quickly gave Edana a summary of the candidates and why she thought they were suitable. As she spoke, it became clear that Keziah had put some thought into the matter. More, it was obvious that Edana’s good opinion mattered to Keziah, and that Keziah was determined to do right by her.

As Bessa listened she looked around the shop, admiring Edana’s ingenious arrangements in displaying her wares.

Marble tables punctuated an inviting arrangement of sofas and chairs. Vases or boxes accessorized the end tables, each made with either gold or silver, electrum or orichalcum. Seasonal flowers filled the vases.

The low table in front of the couch provided the setting for the fancy tableware, including the silver platter of plump domes of scrumptious-looking cheesecakes. Cakes just large enough that one must slice them. A cunning excuse to show off the flatware, which won a smile of approval from Bessa.

Recessed shelves in the walls displayed dish sets, jewelry boxes, and so on. Periodically, said Edana, she rotated out the items to showcase the newest or most expensive ones. One item she always kept on display: a silver, jewel-studded stephane crown. Clients never felt they were spending too much so long as they spent less than the cost of the high-arched headpiece, with the accompanying shimmersilk veil, she said. A tried and true tactic.

“I use that one, too,” Bessa noted.

The shop’s setup revealed to Bessa how Edana managed to avoid the stigma of being a merchant or a peddler. Rasena Valentians looked down on anyone who worked, anyone who did not have land of their own to generate income. Slaves often managed businesses, which assured the low status of managers.

Peddlers were also suspect, for they visited homes in the day, when the man of the house was out. On countless bathhouse visits in Falcon’s Hollow, Bessa would listen as other women read aloud steamy stories featuring seductive male peddlers. Therefore, Bessa assumed Edana traded on her femaleness, as men wouldn’t feel threatened by her visiting their wives.

Cleverly enough, Edana sidestepped the matter entirely be never going out and about like a peddler, nor drumming up business via a market stall. Instead she made use of a shrewd location for her shop, a central walkway heavy with foot traffic. In her window a placard announced, “appointments available upon request,” giving her silver boutique an air of exclusivity.

Undoubtedly, a huge factor in her ability to execute that maneuver lay with the brilliance of her smiths and Edana’s own good tastes, Bessa supposed. She offered beautiful, elegant, yet practical goods.

Keziah led them to Edana’s office. Two desks, one on the far right and one on the far left, were at slanted angles to a balcony that overlooked the bay. The arrangement allowed Edana, her partner, and any guests a good view. The open door allowed the soft sea breeze to waft in from the bay.

Marble topped both desks, but Bessa immediately identified Edana’s by the motif of gold lotuses and peacocks in her desk set. Back-to-back naiads made up Atreus’s set.

An elegant glowlight power scepter on Edana’s desk fascinated Bessa. The scepter was cleverly disguised as a caryatid, in this case a naiad supporting a platform, on top of which rested an extinguished glowlight. To light the orb, one must remove the platform, putting the glowlight in direct contact with the naiad’s hands.

A smaller pedestal held a glass globe of water, which served to magnify words or objects. No doubt Edana used it to examine engravings.

“Hello, thank you for coming. My name is Edana Nuriel.”

Startled, Bessa looked up from the desk to see Edana standing in a corner before three men and two women, who sat quietly arrayed on benches in a corner of the room. Edana gave them a little overview of her business and her customers.

Divide and conquer, as Bessa advised, and thus Edana sent four candidates into the waiting room so she could interview one at a time. Bessa remained for moral support, observing the interviews in silence. Occasionally she asked a penetrating question of her own.

When the last one joined the others in the waiting room, Bessa and Edana conferred for a moment about their impressions. They found they agreed on which of the candidates seemed the strongest. Still, there was one other matter.

For this next part, Bessa took command. Keziah brought in the candidates, and Bessa passed an envelope to her. When the candidates seated themselves comfortably, Bessa gave them a scenario she designed to encapsulate a number of dilemmas at once: an appraisal for a client.

In the scenario, the appraisal determined an expensive possession was far less valuable than the client believed, based on parameters Edana supplied. The finding was guaranteed to offend the hypothetical client, a high-ranking big-to-do in Kyanopolis who would be outraged to know someone had made a fool of him.

Gamely, the candidates asked judicious, pertinent questions, which Edana answered.

Bessa gestured for Keziah to pass out parchments to the candidates, then she and Edana promptly left the room. All of the parchments bore strips of wax, each one in different colors: ochre, blue, malachite, yellow, and last, vermilion. Only Keziah would know which name went with which color; a detail she would place in a sealed note.

As Bessa explained the night before, her test was designed to evaluate integrity, diplomacy, clarity of expression, helpfulness, and discretion. The candidates needed to show they could explain a complex matter in a way the uninitiated could understand, but without being condescending.

Further, they needed to demonstrate they understood a client’s feelings and needs—and awareness that they were also protecting Edana’s reputation, and that of her smiths. Thus, she would eliminate anyone who danced around the facts or attempted to obfuscate them.

Edana took Bessa to the courtyard she utilized as a workshop, and introduced Bessa to the smiths working there. They proudly showed Bessa the pieces they were working on, and Bessa oohed and aahed as she openly coveted several items.

She lingered over a fine tableware set, featuring pomegranates patterned in low-relief around the edges and center of the dishes.

As they left the courtyard Bessa said, “Grandmother would love this for the dining room. Pomegranates are part of the patterns on the walls.”

Edana looked askance at her. “At this point, shouldn’t you be looking to outfit your own dining room? I didn’t notice if you included dishes in your bridal gear.”

The question brought her up short. Most of the goods Bessa packed for her upcoming nuptials were linens and utensils. Unusual for her, she took little interest in shopping for her future household. Instead, she accepted whatever her aunts or her grandmother brought to her.

The trouble was, she knew what she liked, but she had no idea what he liked, and she felt a home should reflect both her and Lysander’s preferences.

Aunt Kalyna had heartily scoffed at this notion, pointing out that Bessa would be mistress of the domain. Aside from his office, her husband would properly leave outfitting the home to her.

Having ‘set her straight,’ Aunt Kalyna thereafter made a point of including Bessa in the shopping trips with her cousin Dacia, to commission items for their new households.

Bessa smiled fondly at the memory, especially the conversation she’d overheard where her aunts conferred with each other about her ‘strange attitude.’ Being raised by a widow made Bessa bereft of an example of proper wifely behavior, they concluded. Obviously, her aunts must take matters in hand.

At the time Bessa was amused, and a tad annoyed. Now she decided to look upon her aunts’ actions as a sign of their love for her. A love she must savor more than ever, especially now that she was to live amongst the strangers in Lysander’s household.

“You’re right,” Bessa said slowly. “Consider me your next client.”

“Perhaps my apartment will give you ideas for your house,” Edana said shyly.

Bessa almost tripped over a display, and caught herself just in time. “You keep an apartment?” she whispered, as if speaking of a scandal.

Edana was already headed for the back stairs. She winked, and Bessa followed Edana, not sure she had heard her properly. Maybe Edana meant the apartment where Keziah lived? Where Keziah had lived with her brother, and was soon to vacate herself? Surely she couldn’t mean she was living there?

People their age, living independently? It was Just Not Done. Everyone stayed home until married, unless, maybe, they were men embarking on a political career. Marriage was generally around the corner for them. But of course, Edana was an orphan. It dawned on Bessa then that Edana had been unusually fortunate for an orphan with no family.

Bessa frowned. The emperor had some sort of program for orphaned girls, but until now she had never given it any thought. She wanted to kick herself now. At least Edana had made a point of helping other orphans.

So preoccupied was she with digesting this shocking aspect of Edana’s life, that her climb up the stairs was more like sleepwalking. Later, Bessa concluded this was why Edana’s desperate gambit worked: only Edana’s sure, purposeful stride would have registered to anyone listening for it.

When Edana reached her door she flipped open a key folded into a ring she wore on her left hand. She opened the door.

Edana stopped short. Her back stiffened.

Bessa’s head jerked up when she heard a voice rasp,

“Don’t scream, or he dies.”