Chapter 9 - Thero

“Something they don’t tell you about plumbing the depths of knowledge: sometimes, you drown.”

- Lady Malak di Brija’s inaugural lecture, Introduction to Primal Secrets

An old man that Thero met back in the camps - he’d never had the wherewithal to call them by their official Iscerian designation, the Centers of Enculturation for the Crown - had told him to try to stay positive. He had died of gangrene, something rather hard to be positive about, and he spent the last week of his life in dreadful agony, but Thero had always tried to follow his advice.

For instance: the squad he’d assembled to storm the catacombs was comprised entirely of green recruits and backstabbers, but he felt confident nonetheless that he could keep their blades pointed at Undertow instead of at him.

After Lieutenant Moraine had filled him in on the particulars - namely, that Undertow had made a compact with the remnants of Ninth Company, and had been secretly ferrying them and their friends into the city by boat - Thero had known better than to wait.

A division made up of his own kinsmen. Disenfranchised men and women from Nascyia, conscripted into King Thaban’s army, only to be segregated into their own regiment of the ‘savage Reachers’.

Ninth Company, however, fell sway to the same rhetoric of violence that everyone who’s had their home taken from them - looking out at a world that rejected them - would. Their tribes, their families, their names were gone, and the Iscerian army wasn’t exactly offering them much in the way of camaraderie.

What recourse was left to them but bloodshed?

Thero had understood that desire, once. He’d seen it in his father, in his brothers and sisters in the camps after the wars were over. After their world had been hemmed in by ink and paper by mapmakers and assessors, by the armies of teachers and priests who built the camps that had been the death of his peoples’ freedom.

But he’d been nauseated by the stories he’d heard about Ninth Company since. About what their commanding officer ordered them to do, and how far they took his orders. The orders of the man who earned the title ‘the Butcher of Pelagious’, after his followers’ greatest atrocity. How trite, the reaping of thousands of civilian lives all reduced to an epithet, a nom de guerre.

The Butcher. Saryn Corvane. The first criminal tried by the Equineal Justices at the end of the war, and the first inmate of the Interstitial prison - where he resided to this day. Considered by many to be the most infamous rogue to have fought in the Four-Throne War.

But even six years later, Corvane’s cause still lived. Back home, there were many among Thero’s people who spoke the Butcher’s name with reverence. He who ought to have united the tribes, those elders still said, thrown off their chains, cut down those who had dared to despoil Nascyia and wipe out her history. A lesson for the imperials this time, one learned in blood.

When Thero had first heard the imperial word ‘martyr’ in school, Corvane was the man who came to mind.

Hence the urgency. In the eyes of the imperials, a Nascyian plot in the city now would be a confirmation of every judgment, every slur, every instance of hate his people deserved. In short, a disastrous setback to Thero’s entire vision.

He couldn’t well stand up before the Justices and plead his case for a fifth throne if Equinox was held hostage by partisans that looked just like him. Those two realities would be too complex for the imperials to hold in their minds at the same time.

Which brought him back to the situation at hand. Namely, that haste was the order of the hour, and in his speed he’d been forced to do a little bit of pulling rank and threat-dangling over some questionable people to line them up to fight smugglers.

Moraine had first tried to resist on the grounds of legitimacy. The catacombs had been sealed centuries ago, she’d argued. The Albian Edict had been put in place for a reason, she said, to make sure that each Zone was protected by a separate contingent of men at arms - and no such remit had ever been given for the undercity.

Her objection had a simple rebuttal. The Edict was, as were several of Equinox’s laws, suspended in times of emergency. A potentially major threat to civic well being in the form of an unknown number of hardened troops certainly qualified, especially when they had access from one of Equinox’s more capable organized crime cabals.

Admittedly, it had been a harder sell to the rank and file without giving them too many specifics. Thankfully, once he’d mentioned to Moraine that he was having lunch with Lothar Seburg - First Actuary of the City - at the Financial Office in a few days, she became far more eager to beat them into line and get a squad formed to launch an assault on Undertow’s operation.

Vitalius, Pisana, Gerburg, and Aurelia were arguably the least corrupt of the lot - they were new to Portside, and Moraine hadn’t specifically requested them, which meant at least they weren’t in the lieutenant’s pocket - so they’d been the first four Thero had picked.

Unfortunately, because of them being new, they had perhaps a month’s experience between the four of them. From the gossip he’d heard, Gerburg had been the one who had fallen off a pier and into the bay while chasing a cutpurse. The only reason the fool hadn’t drowned in his armor was that he’d fallen into the shallows.

Still, it was four more bodies than he had with him an hour ago, so it was a start.

Ageric, Foy, and Narses, on the other hand, were Moraine’s creatures. All three were a part of her take, and would fight anyone she asked… including a nosy bureaucrat. Unfortunately, if Thero denied them to her, she would have fought the requisition even more - maybe even sent for a Justice, which would take time and create the exact sort of scandal he was trying to avoid.

Knowing someone’s secrets was good leverage, but only up to a point. It wouldn’t matter if her side operation became divisional knowledge if she had her throat cut or was crushed in a tunnel somewhere, and she would never go without her people.

All told, they numbered nine. Nine would have to be enough.

Well, ten if he included Qirax. As always, his Focus had returned to his side before their squad headed out. The bundle of scales and claws was, as ever, napping. Being a willing implement for Thero’s kyneid Workings tended to tire the little guy out faster than usual, and he’d used a few Secrets already tonight.

Finding one of the access tunnels hadn’t been too difficult. Thero had made a study of the old maps of Equinox when he’d first gotten here, a task made easier after he’d helped out a scribe at the Royal Archive retrieve some rather incriminating letters. Neither had navigating the catacombs themselves; they’d come across a few bodies and sprung traps, evidence that they were heading the right way.

The scarred stranger had left quite a mess behind him.

The rumbling of stone and sounds of ringing steel had been the last thing they’d needed to find their quarry. By the time Thero and the Thronekeepers arrived, they’d found yet another battlefield, though this one had more rubble and no dead to speak of. It looked like a killing corridor, but they didn’t trigger anything on the way in. He spotted scorch marks and what looked like fragments of freshly grown rock - a mazeid’s handiwork.

Veclere was here, of that he had no doubt. The pertinent question he found himself asking was how much of a challenge the other Latent would pose if they caught up with him. It took a lot out of a person, to use so many Workings in quick succession, and by the looks of this place, the other man wouldn’t be fighting fresh.

Thero looked to the end of the corridor, at a kind of gate that would be right at home in the Seat. With Undertow safely burrowed away, the mazeid could afford to wait them out. Who knew how many stashes and secret tunnels Veclere could have set up?

Not to mention, there was no sign of the scarred man. He’d been captured by Undertow, most likely. This might end up becoming a rescue mission, assuming they got there in time.

“No way we’re getting through that, not unless you want us to go topside and get a ram,” Moraine said - her third not-so-subtle attempt to get him to turn back their little expedition. A few glances at the others told him the sentiment was a shared one.

“Wait.” Thero stood under the light of their torches, doing a few swift calculations. He looked around the space, gaze landing on a length of mostly intact stone that had fallen to the floor, nearly a foot wide and the better part of five feet long.

“Keeper, this is a waste of time,” Moraine tried to pull him aside, but he ignored her. What he read in her face was not mutiny, but concern. That was good.

Fear for her own life meant she wasn’t about to stab him in the back. She saw the same thing he’d known she would: they were too far underground already. A backstab here might result in a pitched fight down here with too few numbers to guarantee survival.

Besides, if she made a move now, she’d have to silence the four greens. He was sure that her cronies would do it if she asked, but Moraine was smarter than that. When she stuck the knife into him, it would be in such a way that the evidence wouldn’t get back to her immediately.

Which meant, for now, that he was still in command.

“Right there,” he pointed out the section he’d seen to the squad. “Narses, Vitalius, you think you can lift that? No, not you Gerburg, go watch the far tunnel for movement.”

In the end it took four of them straining to carry it, which gave Thero a rough idea of its weight. It would do just fine for his purposes.

“Now, point the end at the door. Keep it as steady as you can. Lieutenant, not to tell you your business, but now would be a prudent time to stack up near the door.” He hesitated. “Perhaps not too near the door. Three paces back ought to do it.”

They settled in at least five paces away. Probably for the best.

The kyneid nudged the mass in his keffiyeh. Qirax clambered out of his travel nest to take a position on his left shoulder, the lizard’s face staring out at the scene to take it all in. His forked tongue flickered out once, twice, before his low-lidded eyes swiveled to Thero to give him a glare of open rebellion.

“Don’t you start, now,” he muttered to his companion. “I’ll give you extra greens when we get home. You know the ones.” Qirax did enjoy the occasional grub, but for the most part his lizard preferred a kymically infused paste of ground up plants and herbs - the richer the better. The mage had spent the better part of a week’s stipend on the last shipment.

It was a symbiotic relationship, really. Qirax lived in luxury, eating the best food from across the continent, got a combined twelve to fourteen hours of sleep, and was carried around everywhere.

Being a Focus to the occasional Working was a pretty good price in exchange. Honestly, Thero had suspected for years that his scaly friend got the better end of the bargain.

“Whenever you’re ready,” came the grunt from Narses.

“Right, of course. After I begin, release the stone, unless you’d like to lose a hand.” Thero let his mind quiet, allowing the distractions of the present moment to wash away as he concentrated on the trio of relevant entities: the stone spear, the center of the gate, and the space between them.

He very consciously did not focus on the Thronekeepers. It wouldn’t help his tenuous authority if he sent one of them crashing into a wall by accident.

When he invoked his magic, it was not in Low Alterian, Naxa, or any other language he’d ever consciously learned. The first words, Lingua Prima, as the imperials had called it, defied description. According to everything he’d studied about the Latent Art, it was the raw material from which all Secrets - and subsequently, all Workings - were derived.

Everyone, no matter how learned, had the potential to discover the first principles. But just like with Secrets, no two practitioners spoke it exactly the same way.

To Moraine and the rest gathered here, Thero would have said something utterly unintelligible. A series of noises and syllables beyond their conscious mind’s ability to interpret. But to him, the language that would bind the Working was entirely sensible.

The Secret of Directed Force was one of the more complex Motion Workings he’d mastered. In effect, it did two things at once. The first was that the spear was no longer bound by gravity in the traditional sense. When the four Thronekeepers saw that the kyneid had spoken, they let go of the stone as though it had burned them.

When it fell, however, it did not fall towards the earth but hurtle at full speed towards its new point of impact: right for the middle of the gate.

The second part of the Secret was the more strenuous part: the spear did not simply move as might a tree, or a person. As it moved, it sped up at a prodigious rate, far faster than any mundane object in free fall. Thero had not just changed the orientation of its gravity, but also multiplied the force being brought to bear on it.

When the makeshift ram struck the door, it fell as though from the heavens themselves. Inertia took care of the rest, and the gate exploded into shards.

As the portal was blasted open - ruins of each door hanging off of its hinges - Thero leaned forward to put his hands on his knees. His mouth had gone dry, and his eyes began to run. He could even feel his dinner threatening to come back up.

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One look at Qirax told him the lizard wasn’t doing much better. He’d learned after the first week after bonding with his Focus that a perimastyx, when tired, began to darken the coloration of its scales to absorb as much sunlight as possible.

On a normal day, his friend’s hide was a brilliant coat of sunny yellow and sandy brown, flecked with striations of copper and gold. After the several Workings he’d already done since the Justice session, his scales were closer to a drab walnut.

He couldn’t push Qirax too much further tonight if he wanted a well-rested Focus tomorrow.

Thankfully, they had the brave men and women of Equinox on their side. Only the finest of the Thronekeepers. The four that hadn’t been carrying the ram had stacked up right as he asked, and the moment the gate was down everyone was moving. Moraine had them in a wedge formation, shields out and in front to protect from enemy counterattacks.

(There was probably a technical term for the method of their advance, but he’d never cared to commit such tactics to memory. There were only so many variations of banging on one another with pieces of sharpened metal he could stand to remember, not when there were so many more interesting ways to trick the world into believing you had power.)

“ON BEHALF OF THE THRONE,” Aurelia cried as the guards charged through the breach, “LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND SURRENDER!”

There was a lengthy pause after that announcement. She then promptly stumbled and fell, a piece of sharpened wood buried in her thigh.

Even in his state, Thero had seen the projectile going wide above the formation before suddenly splitting in midair, becoming a barrage of flying death that struck from dozens of angles. Most of the formation seemed to handle it alright - some scrapes and cuts - but by the way she was limping, Aurelia looked out of action.

Forcing the worst of the bile down, the kyneid pushed himself to his full height. He had no doubt he’d just seen another Working - likely the Secret of Sudden Severance. There were other Secrets that could achieve the same, but to split a bolt mid-flight spoke to a specific degree of mastery in the Primality of Mass.

No, Veclere was still very much in play. Which meant the Thronekeepers would need a Latent of their own if they were going to walk out of here alive. Thero took a step forward, putting himself just behind the shield-line so he could see into the space on the other side of the door.

It was a nightmare. What had once likely been a large, open-concept room had turned into a shifting morass of trenches and walls. He could see at least half a dozen armed fighters, all behind cover - which meant there were probably at least that many behind some false wall. Directly in front of Moraine, the floor suddenly gave away, hidden panels eroding into dust to reveal a chasm at least fifteen paces deep. Meanwhile, the walls themselves were growing roots and tendrils of stone, all angrily seeking intruders.

If he didn’t intervene, the Thronekeepers were going to be slaughtered.

The next Secret to pass Thero’s lips was one he’d already used, back in the Hall of Justice: Impelled Velocity. The world slowed down around him.

He excluded Qirax from the Working this time, setting the uromastyx down on the ground nearby to recover. That meant he’d be taking the brunt of the Working’s cost on his own body, without the use of a Focus. If he wasn’t careful, the process would burn right through him and he’d pass out.

Then be cut to pieces, presumably. He was still trying to stay positive though, so he had to imagine it would be a quick death.

In other words, this was a damned fool thing to do. It was one of the first lessons any aspiring practitioner was taught in a school of repute. But he didn’t have a lot of options, and it wasn’t as though could ask only so much of Qirax right now, and better to have a little something extra just in case things got worse.

He’d pushed himself like this before, tested his limits. Thero knew he had about a minute of real-time before the Working threatened unconsciousness, perhaps slightly less.

The kyneid was already moving, weaving through the ranks of his armed escort and into Undertow’s headquarters. He took the first chasm at a running jump, his limbs surging with Latent power, and landed cleanly on the other side. A quick glance downward saw a great many spikes adorning the walls and floor of the cavity.

(Thero could not help but find the whole set-up slightly excessive. Spikes in pits - behind a killing floor and a reinforced door, to say nothing of the half-score traps they had passed on their journey down here - was overkill. Then again, this would be Undertow’s second engagement this evening, so perhaps redundant defenses were not such a terrible idea.)

Only to have to spin out of the way of two branches of stone, the first arcing in a wide sweep to take out his legs while a second launched out to catch him at center mass. No sharp protrusions here; the one-two combo had been meant to shove him back towards the pit.

No, thank you. Were he not graced by his Working, that would certainly have worked. As it was, Thero saw a path through the obstacle and took it: he timed his step over the first arc while also leaning backwards to avoid the follow-up hit.

Dancing around the barrier, Thero came face to face with the first members of Undertow. Most of them wore lighter armor - quicker on the move, didn’t make nearly as much noise as his esteemed constabularies - and carried heavy arbalests. Those looked like military-grade launchers, with crank winches and piercing bolts. They would punch through anything short of a full set of knightly plate armour at near a hundred paces.

And they were just waiting for the Thronekeepers to get caught trying to traverse Veclere’s pit trap. They would be flat-footed in an enclosed space, unable to dodge.

In other words, target practice.

Not if he could form a rebuttal, and in fact he had quite a dissertation on that very topic. All Thero needed to do was overcrank one mechanism here, cut a few strings there, and what would have been a deadly sniper nest turned into three street roughs all cursing and fumbling with broken contraptions.

His heart was galloping in his ears, each thud reverberating through his body with thunderous force. He could already feel the Working beginning to take its toll. He was, after all, accelerating the localized Primality of Motion in a field roughly half an inch from his body. That kind of thing tended to strain one’s well-being if done for too long.

He needed to focus. The whole point of this had been to get to Veclere. Thero’s head wheeled around, looking -

Up, naturally. Though not a characteristic shared by all Latents, Thero remembered belatedly his classes on applied quasi-reality and the breaking of thermodynamic barriers before choosing his specialization. He’d barely passed the course - Professor Albiate had not been particularly fond of him - but one thing he’d remembered about mazeids: they needed to see what they were creating or destroying, otherwise they risked wasting their energy.

Sure enough, overlooking the spacious chamber and its myriad defenses was a single turret embedded into the farthest walls of the cavern. And there, perched in a window, was a man who Thero recognized from his profile on the gang leader.

Even at that distance, Thero could tell that Veclere was almost insultingly handsome. No criminal who spent most of his days underground or ferrying goods all day had any right to have such fine skin or startling eyes. The man was sweating, but even that appeared as more of a glow.

He reminded himself for the third time that he needed to stay positive.

The kyneid darted forward. In this state, he would appear as little more than a blur, but he was still quite visible to the enemy. They wouldn’t catch him, but he could still trip and fall on a wire or trap he couldn’t see.

Case in point: his ankle grazed something light, and a panel on the side wall was sliding open to reveal a ballista that unleashed its payload where he would have been. Quick action got him out of the way just in time to avoid getting impaled by another bolt the size of his forearm.

That had gotten Veclere’s attention. Thero saw the other Latent’s expression morph from a polite half-smile to a mask of blank concentration. The mazeid’s gaze was following his movements now, and Thero could see him speaking to himself - preparing another Working.

More spears erupted from the ground, in groups of two and three. The groupings would come from opposite directions, one right after another.

Veclere was trying to anticipate his path, get him to go the wrong way. A single misstep, and he would not have to worry about running out the clock on Impelled Velocity.

There was an opening, at the base of the tower, and he could see a spiral stair within. He could - no, that was a trap. The mazeid would certainly have contingencies there. Even if he did not, this whole dance rested on Thero not going where Veclere dictated.

He couldn’t climb the turret the normal way. So what did that leave him? A few stacked crates - was that a body lying there? - near the base of the structure. Then there were the features in the cliff wall to the left side of the turret. If he squinted his eyes, he could just make out a line…

Yes, it could work. If he executed this maneuver correctly, he would catch Veclere completely off-guard. It would also be extremely painful.

Thero braced himself, then he jumped.

The first part was perfect; he landed atop the tallest of the crates, already several paces off of the ground. He couldn’t think now, he just had to use his tremendous momentum to keep going.

So Thero went soaring through the air, colliding into the cliff face.

However, he’d aimed not straight at the rock, but at one of the naturally occurring outcroppings in the cliff. He felt both feet land on solid ground, and put out his arm reflexively to stop him crashing headfirst into the stone and pulping his brains.

Instead, he felt the bones in his left wrist grind and snap as the speed he’d built up came from behind him, slamming his entire body into the cliff mercilessly.

Thankfully, he’d taken the jump at an angle. If he hadn’t, he would have been flattened. As it was, the worst that happened was that the kyneid bounced off of the protrusions. He scrambled to catch his balance, adrenaline and the rush from his Working dispelling the worst of the pain.

He’d pay that debt later. Right now, he had one more step to take.

The turret’s window was just above him and to the right. No man could have made such a leap without the aid of magic - but he still had energy to burn, and this fight only ended one way.

Pushing off after a single step got him through the open window, a leap he’d intended to turn into a flying tackle. Instead, he flew straight into Veclere. The two Latents tumbled to the ground together in a mess of limbs.

Veclere swore - something in Valmontese - and was already trying to kick out at him, but Thero rolled out of the way. He continued with the motion, reaching for the other man’s ankle with his good arm to keep the mazeid from getting up and running away. He had no intention of giving the man any more room for Workings.

A snarl preceded a punch to Thero’s ribs, shattering what remained of his concentration. In that moment, his Working slid away, the toll of the Secret catching up to him at last.

His body shook. His vision flickered. He tried to rise, but this time Veclere was ready. He felt hands around his shoulders, shoving him right back down. The other man put his weight into the hold, pushing on Thero until his face was on the floor.

The stone was cool on his cheek; a comfort. His fingers spasmed, then loosened.

“That was a bold move, my friend,” The mazeid’s voice sounded so very far away. Something about the way he spoke reminded Thero of Uncle, of the calming tones he would use to coax the pigs into the pasture before he bared the knife.

“You must be Thero Varglass. I have read about your exploits, but to see you up close. What a wonder…” Veclere said something else, but Thero could no longer make it out.

He was already starting to fade. He’d held on too long. Impelled Velocity had run its course, and now he was feeling the full weight of the backlash. Try as he might, Thero could not get his eyes to focus. Everything was going fuzzy.

He had maybe seconds before he blacked out. Then it would all be over.

“... only thing left to bargain with…”

Another voice. That one didn’t sound like Uncle. It was Mother this time, telling him and his brothers stories about the cloud-snakes on the water. Ani and Berah had stayed up with him, had pleaded with Mother until she relented. It had been like that since the twins were old enough

“... you need to know…”

He heard nothing else.

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Thero awoke to the scents of ink, paper, and blood.

That, and a series of dull but unmistakable aches all throughout his body. His wrist throbbed, as did his shoulders and chest. He groaned as he opened his eyes a crack, only for them to be flooded by light. He closed them immediately.

Where was he?

Everything that had happened - the breach, their charge, his Working - all came back at once. He was still in the catacombs. That was torchlight he’d seen just now. He could hear the low drone of conversation not too far away.

Oh, and he was still alive. So far, exceeding expectations.

A familiar croaking noise immediately next to him was the only warning he got before a thick tongue ran up the side of his face, wiping away a layer of dust and sweat. Then again, and one more time.

It took some effort to smile, but he did it anyway. He was still breathing, and Qirax was by his side. As far as he was concerned, that was all the victory he needed right now.

“Keeper Varglass?” That was Lieutenant Moraine. He heard her boots approach, scuff the stone.

Despite his earlier conclusions, there was a not-insignificant part of him that was surprised she hadn’t taken the opportunity to drive a knife in his ribs while he’d been out. It would have been difficult to cover up, but having one’s blackmailer directly at their mercy less than a day after delivering the aforementioned threats was something of a godsend.

“Glad to see you awake, sir. There have been some… developments.”

She was being polite again. Somehow, that worried him more than anything she’d said since meeting her at the fire site.

He braved the light and pushed himself up - not before making the mistake of putting his weight on his left hand and promptly collapsing back down. Well done.

He’d been sitting propped in a chair, in what appeared to be an office of some kind. There was a desk across the room, several bookshelves with historical volumes he recognized, and a few other pieces of comfort furniture. Qirax was curled on the chair’s arm, the lizard cooing as he crawled over to climb up Thero’s good arm.

The Thronekeeper officer stood a few feet away, arms folded behind her back. There was blood on her uniform, but it didn’t look like hers. She wore a carefully neutral expression.

“We won, sir. Undertow is routed - Veclere escaped, but the rest are dead or in handcuffs downstairs. I’ve sent a runner up to the surface for reinforcements - figured you’d want to get more people down here to go through… all of this.”

No guesses how Moraine felt about this turn of events. Assuming she had indeed called for more hands, he would not be shocked to find a few ledgers of the smugglers’ accounts missing before they were ever logged with the city.

It took a moment for the first part of what she’d said to sink in. They’d won? But how -

The light cough by the door was what prompted Thero to realize that the lieutenant was not alone. On the far side of the office, Thero spotted two more figures.

The first was a hulk of a man, covered in all manner of wounds. He was sitting down in a chair opposite Thero, and by the looks of the bandages on his body someone had done a fairly shoddy job at patching him up. He was quite fair skinned; a mountaineer, a Helkorite. A sheathed highblade rested against the wall next to him, as did a small pouch. His face was more deformity than feature, save for a pair of flinty eyes that bored right back into his.

This would be the scarred stranger from the tavern. The man looked like he’d just fought an army and lost. How was he even still awake?

The second was a second woman standing by the door, also muscular around the shoulders but of a more olive complexion. Her curls spoke of midlander heritage, one of the many mixed-blood backgrounds so populous throughout southern Isceria and most of Medeus. Her cloth was poor, but did not match the way she was standing; relaxed, confident. She had a hawkish nose and a dusting of freckles on her face, but other than that she looked like most any laborer.

Except for the crescent of naked steel in her hands, and the visible steadiness of her grip.

And in the farthest recesses of the room, Thero made out a body lying at the edge of a rug. An older woman, another Helkorite. His mouth fell open, for he recognized her.

He would be a very poor Keeper of Chambers indeed if he did not make a study of every outstanding warrant issued by the Hall of Justice. Specifically, warrants issued against war criminals still at large.

“Good, you’re awake,” said the woman with the knife. “Now maybe we can talk about the bounty on Maugrim Nameless.”