Green Bridge, June 5th
Merrily thrust boldly at Cyrus’s unarmored chest, the tip of her sword lancing toward him like all the fury that Hell hath not. He parried lightly in the economical Quarte of an experienced swordsman and struck back, using his superior weight to close the distance between them and force her backward. She deflected him contemptuously in Sixte and stepped to his right, bringing the basket of her sword up and toward his forehead in a quick, controlled punch. He ducked under it, reversing their positions, and kicked backward at the inside of her knee. Merrily didn’t resist the blow, but instead used his force to roll herself out of it, coming to her feet facing him again. She teased her blade to his right, daring him to overcorrect; instead, he called her bluff and lunged directly at her.
To his surprise, Merrily dove forward past him, brushing aside his blade in a delicate Prime, and used her off hand to push against his back. He found himself tripping over her extended leg and fell heavily on his chest. He rolled aside, but her blade was at his throat.
She’d known which way he would roll.
Cyrus looked up at his opponent. Merrily’s lithe frame and broad shoulders were tensed with power, ready to slice his throat at the slightest wrong twitch. Her eyes blazed with anger and her chest heaved with raw emotion—but the blade at his throat might have been held by a statue.
He laid down his own dull practice sword and reached up one gloved hand. Taking her blade delicately between thumb and forefinger, he drew it away from his throat and stood up. Her grip was surprisingly stubborn.
“I yield,” he said calmly. Merrily lowered her practice blade.
Around them, in the training yard at Peacock Hall, other pairs carried on sparring. The warm air of an early June afternoon was filled with the clangs of iron on iron, and the rows of apple trees along one side of the yard produced an incongruously sweet scent. Only a few students and instructors looked his way—and they tried to pretend they didn’t. Lately, a great many people at Peacock Hall tried to pretend that Cyrus Stoat was invisible.
Merrily didn’t pretend. She might want to kill him, by all appearances—but he was still real to her.
“You pass,” he announced dryly. “Congratulations. All that now stands between you and your fourth year at the College of Applied History is my written final exam. Also, Mrs. Hunter, I’d take it as a personal kindness if you’d recall that it’s poor form to kill your sponsor on the practice grounds.”
Merrily tucked her practice rapier into the leather sleeve at her belt, and the look of uncontrolled rage drained away from her green eyes. She brushed from her face a lock of brown hair that had escaped its imprisoning bun.
“You’re still slow,” she remarked. “Is the leg giving you trouble?” Merrily’s eyes looked hollow, and there were dark circles beneath them.
“I’m not slow,” he retorted defensively. “But you’re fast. I’ve honestly never seen anyone improve as quickly as you have this year; you’re becoming a fencer fit for Robert of Gorham’s rapier. Have you been seeing a tutor in swordplay?”
She shook her head. “You are slow. It must be difficult, learning how to use your leg again after… well. After what happened. But you’re slow. Even Greensmith would beat you right now, and he’s dreadful with Sabre.”
“I need more time,” he muttered to himself, looking around the yard. There were his students and colleagues, doing just what they should do. Miss Maliss sparring with Professor Glibgrub; Mr. Hornhugger with Professor Crisby. The apple trees in blossom. And here was his right leg, magically reappeared from whatever midden-heap the surgeons had tossed it in two years ago. Its existence had tormented his mind for five months, since that night at Weisseberg; he couldn’t so much as walk to the loo without being reminded that absolutely nothing made sense anymore. He’d even considered having the damned thing amputated again, just to set the world right.
He glanced up to see Merrily watching him closely. “Well,” he continued unconvincingly, returning to the present. “Top marks for swordplay this year, Merrily. But don’t get complacent—I think you’ll find my exam more than enough challenge for your mind, even if I’ve become too old and feeble to exercise your body.”
She cocked her head at him curiously.
“What?” he asked.
“You called me Merrily,” she said, bemusedly. “Right here, inside Triad.”
He shook his head in disgust. “It comes with the madness, Mrs. Hunter,” he explained, as they both walked toward the arched gateway out of the yard. “When the roof of rational objectivity has rotted away, all manner of little niceties slip through the cracks in the rotten floorboards of cognition. Soon enough I’ll be calling you Daisy and trying to ride you.”
She gave him a look that he hoped was pity.
“What ever happened to that rapier?” he inquired. “The one you stole from Robert Franco after he—”
“It’s tucked away,” she interrupted. He gave up on prying; Merrily had grown even better at evasion than at swordplay.
The clang and clash of students taking their practical examinations in close combat produced a steady clatter around them. Nearby, Hornhugger twisted his practice blade skillfully beneath Professor Crisby’s blade, flinging it out of her hands and through the air toward Merrily and Cyrus. Without a moment’s hesitation, Cyrus reached out his hand and grasped the hilt of the airborne weapon before it could strike his student. Merrily looked up at the blade in surprise, and then at Cyrus.
He winked at her. “I’m only slow on my feet,” he explained with a sudden, roguish smile. Then he extended the blade, hilt-first, back to Crisby. Hornhugger glared ferociously at him—or was it at Merrily? Cyrus couldn’t tell. Didn’t matter; he was mad. He’d slipped into some mad otherworld that was different than everyone else’s world. It was a world in which he had two legs.
“Well done, Hornhugger,” he remarked loftily as he drifted past. “But you’ve left your pants unbuttoned. Good lord—what is that peeking out of them?” Gerald Hornhugger looked down swiftly—an instinctive reaction that no male human can resist—and Crisby took the opportunity to punch him in the nose. Hornhugger collapsed; Crisby gave him a swift kick in the ribs for good measure, then picked up his fallen practice sword.
“B-minus, Gerald,” declared Cyrus grandly. “Better luck next time.”
✽✽✽
He returned to his apartment. He stared at the wall. He looked at the stack of exam books he’d hand out tomorrow. He stared again at the wall. He started to go see Veridia. No; Veridia didn’t want to see him. He started to go see Rolly. No; Rolly was murdered, and Cyrus Stoat had failed to solve his murder, and next week Obilly Smallhat would be tried, convicted, and hanged by the neck until dead. He considered going to see Vicod, but concluded that with his present run of luck, he’d find Vicod had transformed into a frog. Instead, he stared at the wall.
Gmork brought him supper. He gave the supper back to the goblin and drank a cup of tea in its place. He sent Gmork home to the little den he and his fellows still shared beneath the old Snugg warehouse.
“Tomorrow I shall go and see Gregory,” he announced to the Hexastrid he’d rescued from Rolly’s office. The plant, true to its idiom, said nothing in return. “I shall go and see Gregory before they dismember him, and demand he put my leg back the way it was,” he continued confidently. “And you’ll see then, sir—that will fix everything. Everything will be better. Veridia will love me, and I’ll see Marius again, and Wigglus, and Rolly, and everything will be alright again.” He sat on the bed and wept, and then smiled.
Tomorrow everything would be alright again. He lay down and stared at the wall.
✽✽✽
At first light, Cyrus walked purposefully across the square to William Hall. He paid his respects to the Billy on duty in the jail cells and made his way down to see Obilly Smallhat. The Billies had given up trying to keep him out; it didn’t really matter anymore, and Queen Anne had discretely instructed that Cyrus be left to his own devices. A small mercy to both the goblin and the man, it was felt. Captain Vigg didn’t call on him anymore.
Smallhat’s cell in the basement was just a few feet away from the new home of the Traitor of the North. Cyrus was surprised to see a trio of figures standing in the dim light outside the cell, speaking with its occupant. He recognized them immediately—Miss Borson, Mr. Hogman, and the strange man Brutus. Cyrus shrugged, greeting them only with his eyes. If they wanted to comfort their prophet in his last days, that was their own time wasted. Bear looked back sorrowfully, but none of the three spoke to him.
The ashes of that bridge had already stopped smoking.
Gregory couldn’t fix anything. Cyrus wouldn’t ask Gregory to fix anything. If he did, it would only make everything worse.
He looked in at Smallhat. The goblin was seated in a wooden chair at a small table, with an oil lamp providing light. The tabletop held a rack of lead pencils, a short, neat stack of papers, and several books. Smallhat himself was reading from one of the sheets of paper, which he carefully placed on top of the short stack when he saw Cyrus. The remains of a hearty meal were near at hand.
“Good morning, Mr. Smallhat,” Cyrus greeted him.
“Good morning, Professor Stoat,” replied the prisoner cheerfully. “I’m glad to see you. I’ve finished the decryption.”
Cyrus nodded. “Just in time,” he observed, and then instantly regretted it. “Sorry,” he added.
The goblin shook his head and smiled. “It’s alright, Professor. Don’t be sorry. I know what’s coming. I’ve been glad for this work to do while I wait. The lawyer you hired for me has delayed things as long as he can, but now that I’m finished with Rolly’s notes I’d just as soon get it over with.”
Smallhat stood up and brought the stack of papers to the door, reaching up to push them through the low slot into Cyrus’s hands. Cyrus looked down at the papers. The formulas and notes were no more intelligible to his eyes after being decrypted twice through two different schemes, but Herberta and Professor Hypote seemed to comprehend them. At any rate, the symbols and numbers apparently held meaning enough to produce widened eyes and confused gasps.
“Thank you,” said Cyrus. And then he repeated, “thank you. You didn’t have to help me with this. I would have understood if you’d said no.”
“He was my friend too,” replied Smallhat. “And Professor—before you give those papers to Herberta and Professor Hypote, you should know that Rolly left a note for you. It was encrypted in the very last pages. It seems he was in a bit of a rush when he wrote it, but I’ve cleaned it up for you.”
Cyrus flipped to the bottom of the stack and read.
> My dear Cyrus,
>
> It seems I am dead. If this were a good Thom Verasee novel, I would leave you a note with some brilliant clue to lead you to my murderer. Unfortunately, the future is a cipher unknown to me; I have neither the scheme nor the key. I cannot tell you anything about my death. I trust you are clever enough to find a brilliant clue all on your own. If not, then you must make up for it by living a life so brilliant as to make the solution to my death unnecessary.
>
> Professor Pie and I have been unable to complete the calculations in the transcriptions that Miss Snipe gave us. The sums balance, but they are incomplete; the smallest do not reconcile with the greatest. Wherever Snipe got those formulas, there must be more there that can help us understand. The ancients were confident that their machines worked, but the sums we have do not produce the results they describe. Pie is trying to reach Carelon with his copy of our research; I begged him to stay, but he is terrified. Ash will lead him to the answer, if it is correct, and you as well.
>
> It may be that you will find my trust in the Advocates and faith in their goddess puzzling. If you have received these notes, then they will have told you something of their creed. Do not mistrust them, Cyrus. They are not the Ecclesia, but something far better and wiser and more real. Have faith in your senses and your reason, and Ash will lead you to the Bright Path. The feyess Sheria can tell you more, if you will listen. I regret that I cannot be there to see your face when you finally understand; that will be the finest joke of all.
>
> Beware the Metal God. Its promises are real, but its wisdom is false. In the end, your own choice is the only one that matters.
>
> Now it is time for me to meet you and Vicod at the Purse. This letter has grown maudlin, and I shall end it now. I expect you will never read these words; I stand a greater chance of personally visiting Professor Tentimes’ new star than dying dramatically for my craft and faith. Ah well. Raise a glass, my friend.
>
> Yours, truly,
>
> R. Gorp
Cyrus carefully put the sheet of paper in this pocket and wiped his eyes. He looked in at Obilly Smallhat, who returned his gaze sympathetically. Tears were in his own eyes.
“I’ll come see you again before the end, Obilly,” Cyrus said.
“Thank you, Cyrus,” answered the goblin.
✽✽✽
He left William Hall without looking back. A thin miasma of coal smoke drifted in from the shoreside workshops, casting an ominous taint over the bright, warm June morning. In the broad square between Bastings and Triad, a large stage was being constructed in one corner. Already, a heavy block was placed in the center of the platform. The stage was for Queen Anne’s coronation in two weeks; the block, he assumed, was for a pair of executions. He wondered if they’d combine the events into one big festival.
Crossing the square, Cyrus passed under the tall arch of the Triad gates. He went to his office and carefully copied out Smallhat’s decryption of Rolly’s final message. He tucked the copy in his shirt pocket and left the original next to a pile of old rubbings from the Ghorpol Ossa expedition, brushing aside the cold, thin rod of black metal that had come back from the expedition in his pocket. Then he retrieved his exam books, rotated the Hexastrid slightly to better catch the sun, and made his way to the lecture hall on the ground floor. He did not bother to lock the door.
His second- and third-year students were gathered already, fully occupying the steeply raked rows. The smell of anxious humanity in the room was palpable. He looked them over as he walked in. They were a fine group, he concluded. Above average; bright, even. Next semester they’d break into small groups with individual professors, and then in their fifth year move on to independent field study. This was the last time he would have them all in one place.
His gaze fell on a small knot of students speaking together in one corner. Hunter, Greensmith, Le Hen, Maliss, Hornhugger; the core of the group’s thinkers. He had guided them, but they had done the work. Even Hornhugger, irritating as he was, had a bright spark. Perhaps that was why he quarreled so with Merrily. Cyrus would miss having them quarrel together in his lecture hall.
Dean Snoring and Professor Glibgrub passed by in the hallway outside. They glanced in, but seeing him they looked away quickly. This time last year, they’d have come in to say a few friendly words on the latest crop of rising students and wish the exam-takers luck.
I am a freak, Cyrus thought. His chest grew tight, and his breathing short. I am an anomaly. I have no business being. They want me gone.
“You have three and a half hours,” he announced, handing out the stacks of thinly bound exam books. “Points added for style and persuasiveness; points off for poor penmanship, amateurish grammar, and substantively wrong arguments. The third essay tests both your knowledge and your moral quality. I expect the best of both from each of you.”
He looked over at the tall pendulum clock in one corner. The students quickly took their seats.
“Begin,” he announced.
He stared at the wall. Three and a half hours passed slowly for Cyrus, and very quickly for everyone else.
✽✽✽
Over the rooftops of Farley Island and the river beyond, the sunset was magnificent. Cyrus stared pensively at it, his forearms resting on the stone parapet of the rooftop astronomy deck at Redbun. Far below and behind him, the river channel that separated Farley Island from the mainland city to the east also separated him from the worst of the new smokes and smells—but the haze of coal smoke over the city was plainly visible. Oddly, the thin smoke seemed to elevate the beauty of the clear air beyond the walls and the orange orb of the sun, lowering beneath the western forests.
Why do I find the sunset beautiful? he asked himself. What purpose of mine, as a thinking animal, does that serve? It’s just the nearest star, burning away while we spin helplessly about it; but it is beautiful. Why? The conventional answer—that the idea of beauty had developed to reinforce man’s social behaviors and mitigate his most violent tendencies—was somehow unsatisfying. Cyrus glanced around at the assortment of telescopes and other instruments set up on the deserted observation deck, and wondered if the astronomers had worked out an answer.
Robert Franco had an answer. The attraction of beauty was a consequence of Man’s eternal soul, and its desire to return to God. In the unsullied world of nature, he’d said once at a lecture, we see a dim reflection of the glory of Heaven. At the time, Cyrus had written a sharply worded rebuttal on the dangers of magical thinking.
He felt his leg, wondering if he would wake up soon.
Anyway—Franco was gone. There was no point anymore in debunking his views on history and religion. Beatrice Snugg’s dying thrust with her poisoned knife, two years ago, had sent Franco on from this world to find out in person if he was right or wrong. And if the body had never been found—neither had Robert Franco ever been seen again. His bones lay in some sewer or ditch, gnawed by rats; the only justice in this world for a fanatic and a murderer. What God did with him was God’s business.
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The sound of steps behind him drew Cyrus back from his reverie. He turned to see a man and a goblin there. The man was Professor Hypote, and the goblin Herberta.
“I’m afraid this is the last secret sunset rooftop rendezvous,” announced Cyrus wryly. “I prefer a dark alley or a sewer, but you mathematicians have such strange work habits.”
They walked close to him. “You have the last pages, then?” asked Hypote, with no preamble.
“I do,” confirmed Cyrus. He withdrew them from a shirt pocket, reaching awkwardly under his breastplate. Hypote took the papers eagerly, glanced at them, and handed them to Herberta.
“We’ll start working on these tonight,” Hypote said. “I expect it will take us several weeks to integrate the new elements.”
Cyrus looked down. “They’re incomplete,” he muttered.
“What?” demanded Hypote.
“Rolly said they were incomplete. He left me a note.” He pulled out his copy of Obilly’s decryption and read.
> Professor Pie and I have been unable to complete the calculations in the transcriptions that Miss Snipe gave us. The sums balance, but they are incomplete; the smallest do not reconcile with the greatest. Wherever Snipe got those formulas, there must be more there that can help us understand. The ancients were confident that their machines worked, but the sums we have do not produce the results they describe.
He left out the parts about Pie’s flight to Carelon and the putative goddess.
“The smallest do not reconcile with the greatest,” muttered Hypote. He turned to Herberta, and a look passed between them.
“Does that mean something to you?” queried Cyrus.
“Something,” confirmed Herberta. “But maybe not everything. The formulas describe… how things work. Matter, energy, and… something else. We don’t know what to call the something else, but in the formulas it binds the other two. I think Mr. Gorp was talking about how they all come together. The formulas for how the three phases work on things that we can see and touch are very different than formulas for very small things—things so small, we can’t ever see them.”
“We thought the last pages would reconcile the two systems,” added Hypote.
“What machines was he talking about?” asked Cyrus.
“It’s a theory we have,” explained Hypote. “Some of the pages don’t just contain formulas in the abstract—they also show how the mathematics would be applied to a physical instrument. Like a very complicated printing press, but motivated by pure energy, not kinetic force.”
“Could you build this device?” asked Cyrus tensely. This would certainly explain Snugg’s interest in the formulas.
Herberta shook her head. “It’s impossible. Even if we could translate Rolly’s notes into diagrams and work with metal at tiny scales, we haven’t any source of energy that could make its parts work as they’re meant to.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Cyrus responded automatically. “Just very, very improbable.” Automatically? He wondered where the thought had come from.
They looked out in silence at the setting sun over the forests beyond the river. The world felt tenuous and flimsy.
“Perhaps these last pages will bring us closer,” said Professor Hypote eventually. “Thank you for trusting us, Professor Stoat. This work will create a revolution in Natural Mathematics when we publish. Mr. Gorp and Professor Pie will be included as authors, of course.” He and Herberta turned and walked toward the stairway.
Cyrus nodded, and went back to looking out over Green Bridge. The sun dipped below the horizon and the lonely rooftop began to grow chilly in the dusk. The lane below emptied of students and professors. Cyrus drew his cloak tightly around him, but felt no desire to leave.
There was a step behind him.
He turned. A figure stood by the stair; female, by the hips and chest. She was slim, with broad, strong shoulders. A hint of dark hair peeked out from the hood. She wore leather pants, a chest-piece of boiled leather, and a cloak and hood. A mask covered her lower face.
“You, again,” stated Cyrus flatly. The woman did not answer, but instead drew a rapier from her belt, holding it lightly. She dropped into a fencer’s crouch.
“Don’t you want to deliver a monologue first?” he asked casually. “Reveal your motivations and master plan before you kill me? I’ve heard it makes the whole business much more satisfying. Erotic, even. All the best villains do it.” She advanced slowly, her eyes on his hands. Professional. He unbuttoned his own cloak and let it fall to the rooftop, placing his right hand on the hilt of his old steel broadsword. Cyrus knew, intimately, just how badly mismatched his old heavy blade would be to a light rapier. That lesson had cost him a leg, two years ago.
“Did you kill Rolland Gorp?” he tried, drawing the broadsword.
She said nothing. The distance between them continued to shrink, until she was nearly in range for a lunge. He held the thick steel sword before him, point down slightly, and crouched.
Fine, he thought. Maybe this is how I die. It would be a mercy; like the man who visited the Metal God looking for wisdom and came back mad.
She flicked the rapier at him. An opening statement. He tapped it aside lightly and pointed the broadsword at her chest, arm extended. She feinted toward his right shoulder, and he refused to acknowledge it, dropping down to parry her real thrust and answer with a riposte.
The debate began in earnest.
His opponent was younger, lighter, and faster. Her thrusts were quick and aggressive, and she used her body to move him around the space on the rooftop. But Cyrus had nearly thirty years of hard-won experience in the rough and tumble of Applied History, and he was a dirtier fighter than most. When she got too close, he kicked; when she dashed past him, he thwacked her back. Occasionally he permitted a blow to glance off his steel breastplate just to close the space and use his superior weight to bully her backward.
She forced him up against one of the larger telescopes, pushing the rapier close to his neck; he fell back, spinning the heavy instrument on its stand to strike her head from behind. But she followed up with a quick strike as she fell forward, nearly pinning his shoulder. He rolled out of the way just in time.
As they fought, Cyrus began to detect a familiar rhythm to his attacker’s thrusts and blows. She had been trained, clearly, and trained by someone with a familiar style. She began a sequence of lightning-fast thrusts and feints, forcing him into a defensive retreat that left his right arm weary from rapid parries. He had been attacked in this way before.
It was two years ago, on another rooftop. And he’d lost.
His retreat across the platform quickened, and he knew he was losing control of the duel. There was a smaller telescope somewhere behind him; but where? Not wanting to trip over it, he angled away from the stair, toward the parapet at the roof’s edge. The flurry of thrusts continued without mercy, but suddenly Cyrus found he knew where they were going. His parries became more efficient, and his retreat slowed. The unfamiliarity of his leg disappeared. His body remembered how to move.
He parried a lunge and riposted at his attacker with the tip of his heavier sword. She dove forward past him, brushing aside his blade in a delicate Prime, and used her off hand to push against his back. He found himself tripping over her extended leg and fell heavily on his chest. He rolled aside; her blade struck the stone rooftop.
She had not known where he would roll.
“Merrily!” he shouted, rolling to his feet. “Stop!”
But she did not stop. She rushed at him. He thrust her rapier aside with his broadsword, but she plowed into him, striking his body in a tackle that pushed him backward toward the edge of the roof. He struggled, but his balance was gone. In a panic, he let go of his sword, gripped her by the shoulders, and threw her behind him.
She tumbled over the stone wall at the edge of the platform.
He fell heavily against the stone, twisting around to extend his arm downward. His hand grasped something soft; it was the cloth that covered her lower face. The rest of the woman plunged downward, falling back-first into the open space. The rapier drifted away from her. Cyrus looked full into her face, seeing the fear, anger, and the hopeless knowledge that she was already dead.
It wasn’t Merrily.
It was Kelestine Maliss.
The woman’s body faded down into the darkness below him; slowly. Too slowly. But her descent was inevitable. Cyrus forced himself to watch her fall all the way down, and then faintly he saw her strike the cobblestones.
Two human figures on the street below, their features indecipherable, quickly picked up the sad, limp form that had been Maliss and carried it away at a fast trot.
Cyrus sat down with his back against the stone wall of the parapet and wept. He howled, and screamed, and his face was soaked with tears. His breath came in gasps, and he tore at his hair. It went on and on.
After the storm of weeping had passed, and his breath came in a ragged rhythm, he stood up painfully. It was night, and the astronomers would be here soon. He retrieved his sword and cloak, and slipped away down the stairs.
✽✽✽
In Cyrus’s office was a bottle of strong whiskey that he kept handy for medical and personal emergencies. He fished it out of the desk and, not bothering to find a cup, simply took a long pull from the bottle. Then he took another, and another.
The door opened. Vicod Rayth came in.
“I’ve killed Maliss,” Cyrus announced without waiting for a greeting.
Vicod stood as still as a tree.
“I know,” he said.
“Were you one of the people on the street?” asked Cyrus, his words slurred.
“No,” answered the black-skinned professor. “My office window faces Redbun. I saw the whole thing. You’re lucky, from a certain perspective, that Dean Snoring put me up with the graduate students and junior faculty. Otherwise you’d be without a friendly witness. Cyrus, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Maliss well, but I knew she was intelligent. It is the College’s great loss.”
Cyrus started to take another pull from the bottle, but Vicod took it firmly from his grasp.
“You’ll want a few wits left, Cyrus,” he said gently. “I’ve brought you an important visitor.” With that, he left, taking the bottle with him.
After he disappeared through the door to Cyrus’s office, a woman came in. She was tall, with long black hair that emerged from under a hood. She wore a simple black dress, but she wore it with a sense of confidence and purpose that suggested it might be a suit of plate armor.
The woman flipped back her hood and revealed Anne Linsey Gray, Queen of Uelland. Her head was unadorned, and her black hair was loose. Cyrus, stunned, stood up so hastily he knocked over his chair. Queen Anne waved him down, seating herself in one of the two austere wooden chairs before his desk. He retrieved his own chair and sat down across from her.
“Professor Rayth told me about Miss Maliss,” she said softly. Her bright, emerald eyes held genuine empathy. “I am truly sorry, Professor. No one should have to kill his own student.”
Cyrus looked down. Tears threatened again.
“Thank you,” he managed.
“I confess, Professor, that I am not here to comfort you. Quite the opposite, and I’ve come at a bad time. But you and I need to speak plainly—now.”
“I am at your disposal, Queen,” he replied, straightening up in his chair.
She looked at him shrewdly. “I’m going to have a crown put on my head in two weeks.”
“Congratulations, Your Majesty,” he replied. “The design complements your character perfectly. Mrs. Snugg did a superlative job at improving on the current version. I’m certain history will remember it as Queen Anne’s Crown or somesuch.”
She regarded him coolly.
“I didn’t come here to be flattered by you, Professor Stoat, though I thank you. I came here because I do not want my reign to begin with a miscarriage of justice.”
He sat back in his chair. “I presume you’re referring to the impending trial and execution of Obilly Smallhat, not the impending trial and execution of Gregory, the Traitor of the North.”
“I’m referring to them both,” she answered. “There is popular demand in Green Bridge for both Smallhat and Gregory to die. I cannot ignore popular demand, because my legitimacy as Queen currently depends on it.”
He smiled. “Beatrice Snugg trained you well, madame. I’m afraid that is the sad reality of monarchy. There are no absolute rulers; there are only rulers with larger or narrower foundations in the opinion of the people who count.”
“There are,” she replied, “a great many ‘people who count.’ The northern nobility are a hollow shell. It’s the merchants, the burghers, the landowners, the farmers, and the tradesmen that I need; their support is the only reason I can be taken seriously. Roosterfoot will be in the hands of the Republic any day, if it isn’t already. I rely more than ever on the good graces of men and women who want me to be their Queen—and also on their tax payments, unless Uelland is to be a permanent debt slave to Snugg and Company. If the people who count decide that a goblin and a priest must die, I must weigh it.”
“But you think one or both them are innocent,” he surmised shrewdly. “And you don’t want the suffering and death of an innocent on your hands.”
“Are they innocent?” she asked.
He made a tent with his hands on his tabletop. “Gregory is undoubtedly guilty of treason; he freely admits it and hasn’t sued for mercy. The only relevant question is whether killing him will create more friends than enemies, on balance. The Advocates have grown in number, but they’re hardly popular. Thanks to Wildrick’s haranguing, I suspect most people you’d find on the street would celebrate his death.”
“But he has performed a miracle.” She nodded at his two legs, visible beneath the table.
Cyrus rubbed his face. Of course she’d bring that up.
“Madame,” he began, now feeling quite sober, “I have built my life, my career, and my view of the world on the foundation of logic. For a leg to grow back two years after it was severed has no logical explanation. Something happened in Weisseberg that I cannot explain. Any excuse my mind can summon shrivels in the light of the briefest consideration. It is factually correct that I had no right leg for two years, and now I do have a leg; that no human in recorded history before me has ever regenerated a leg; and that Gregory did… something… immediately before the leg returned. Logically, there is no escaping the conclusion that these things must be related. But for his intervention, I would still have just one leg.
“There is an old saw in the study of human societies: Any piece of technology that seems normal to us today would appear as magic to a sufficiently primitive person. A pendulum clock; a printing press; the written word; even an oil lantern would be magical to a human tribe who had not yet discovered fire. We want desperately to understand the world we perceive, and when we encounter a thing that we cannot explain we find a story to explain it anyway. Magic is the usual answer, or that species of magic that we call ‘religion’; but you and I know that there is nothing magical or divine about a clock. It is merely complicated. What happened to me is extremely complicated, and I cannot explain it. But that does not mean it was magical, or an act of God.
“None of this changes the fact that Gregory admits to aiding an invading enemy, and that his actions contributed to many deaths in the village and environs of Hog Hurst. He is certainly not the only priest of the Ecclesia who is guilty, but he is the one that people have chosen as the focus of their blame—so they don’t have to kill all the rest of them. Whatever he calls himself now, and whatever he did in Weisseberg, the priest must die.”
There was a long silence in the room. Queen Anne looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.
“And the goblin?”
“He’s innocent,” said Cyrus firmly.
“There’s a witness that saw him go into the room before the murder and then come out. And he fled the city after reporting it.”
“I know you’re smarter than that, madame,” answered Cyrus sharply. “There’s no witness to the murder itself. Filtch may be old and feeble, but he’s covering for someone. Any juror who hears his story should be left with enough doubt to bake a doubt cake, if cakes were made of doubt. Or, at least, he should unless there were a Billy whispering in his ear what the correct outcome must be. As for the flight: Smallhat was and is in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by mostly suspicious—and sometimes hostile—people of an entirely different species, who view him as ugly and alien. You can hardly blame him for wanting to get back to his own kind. But most importantly, he has no motive whatsoever for the murder. Rolly was one of his only human friends.”
“Sometimes we kill the people we love,” she said softly.
“What’s wrong with you!” he shouted suddenly, forgetting caution entirely and rising to his feet. “Why are you so driven to hang this grayskin? You came here to ask me if you’d be perverting justice, and my answer is yes. Yes! It is wrong! There are no practicalities or exigencies that will make it right. Kill one innocent for political expedience, Queen, and you will be no better than your husband, or than Hobb the Wise. Is this not what you expected to hear from me?”
She looked up at him gravely. He sat down again.
“Some of the people who count the most need very much for this matter to be resolved,” she replied.
Cyrus scowled. “Snugg. Nicola Snugg wants him dead.”
Queen Anne made no move and said nothing.
“Why? She doesn’t need the political cover. She’s already seized the coal mines in the Gray Kingdom. With Simon gone, the goblins are in total disarray. Nobody up there is going to stop her from wiping out the goblins if they make an issue of it, and nobody down here is going to stop buying the coal. Why would she need Obilly Smallhat convicted of a murder?”
Queen Anne rose to her feet, and Cyrus automatically stood up in response.
“If you find out, I hope you’ll tell me,” she answered coolly. “The Crown’s debts to Snugg & Co. are substantial. We cannot afford to alienate our most significant creditor.” She paused, half-turning away from him toward the door. “Perhaps you should ask Miss Snipe,” she added.
“Veridia doesn’t want to see me,” he replied bitterly.
“Try, Professor,” the Queen insisted. “Miss Snipe and Mrs. Snugg are leaving Green Bridge tomorrow and will be gone for quite some time. Tonight may be your only chance.”
“What? Why? Where are they going?”
The Queen turned to face him again.
“They’re going to Devi Valley,” she answered. And then she left.
✽✽✽
The coach creaked and rattled alarmingly as it hurtled through the night. The light of the streetlamps showed streets mostly deserted, and he had given the driver something extra to take chances. Cyrus, swaying and jolting in the cramped box, paid no attention to the discomfort. His mind raced, swirled, and doubled back on itself. He was going to face a dragon, and all he had to fight with were his own sorrow and regret.
He forced himself to face it. He loved Veridia. He loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone; more than he loved himself. And yet he had done all the wrong things. He’d left when he shouldn’t have. He’d been proud when he should have been humble. He’d shouted when he should have listened. He enumerated the library of sins in his mind, cataloging them and calling them what they were. There was no escaping his actions.
“Choices, Cyrus Stoat,” she’d said that night. “Choices and consequences—you can’t go back and undo either.”
The coach arrived at the Snugg factor house. He got out, and it pulled away into the night.
The warehouse was awash with light and action. A long line of wagons stood on the street before it, and men and women were loading supplies and equipment. Mercenaries were assembling in their units, wearing the Snugg livery and outfitted with firearms and heavy field packs. A row of very large crates, each bearing the mark of a serpent in the shape of an ‘S’, was lined up farther down the street. The contents of these could not be seen, but judging by the movements of one that dangled from a loading crane, they were heavy.
Cyrus approached the stairs at the corner of the warehouse, leading to Veridia’s small apartment on the upper floor. An armed guard stopped him.
“You’re not with the crews,” the man said. “Move back.”
“I need to see Veridia Snipe,” replied Cyrus insistently. “I’m Cyrus Stoat.”
“That’s too bad,” said the guard. “I know everyone who’s allowed to see Miss Snipe, but I don’t know you. So—unless you’ve got a crew boss who wants to talk to me, or you want a bayonet up your—”
“Let him through,” came a woman’s voice from above. He looked up. It was Veridia. His heart stopped briefly, and then started up again.
She stood on the stairs, looking down at him. In the crook of her left arm was a bundle of blankets that wiggled slightly, and in her right hand she held a sheaf of papers. By the light of the lamps on the landing above, he could see that she was dressed in her dark business suit, and her hair was pinned back. She did not descend farther from where she stood, ten feet above him. Two dim figures could be seen on the landing above her, looking down as well; clerks from her office, perhaps.
Cyrus walked to the base of the steps and looked up.
Follow the Bright Path, he thought in the fey-speech. Where did the thought come from? But once again, he caught a glimpse of that bright thread—and instead of disappearing, it remained. His world split and fragmented, and he saw the multitude of branching choices and outcomes. Far off in the distance of five dimensions, there was a version of the world where Veridia loved him, and Merrily and Jonathan were happy, and he and Vicod sang every night, and the world around him was happy and peaceful and free. In the background there was presence, a spirit that lifted and magnified him and the people around him and filled them with joy and music. He found it was a world he desired more than anything he had ever imagined.
But first he had to make this world right.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Veridia, I’m so sorry. I love you.”
The workers and mercenaries nearby stopped what they were doing and looked at him curiously. He ignored them.
“I should never have left,” he plowed on. “There are many, many things I should never have done, and many more I should have but never did. I can’t change that. But I love you, and I love Marius, and I always have. I don’t know when exactly I started, but I’ve never stopped. Everything around me is gray and ugly without you, and everything I do is just another way to try to forget that I’ve lost you. You’re beautiful, and you’re smarter than me, and you work harder, but none of those are the reason I love you. I love you because you’re Veridia Snipe, and that is who I love.”
“This is really not a good time—” she began.
“Veridia, I need you to help me,” he interrupted her. “Everything I’ve done since Ghorpol Ossa has been wrong. All those stupid and wrong things I did—I need you to forget about them for fifteen minutes and talk to me as if it were still September, before I made every mistake a man can possibly make. There’s a life in the balance, Veridia, and it’s not my life. You can help me save the life of someone who doesn’t deserve to die, and who could turn out to be a great and beautiful person. Help me—please.”
He saw the path clearly. A bright, golden thread ran through all the Veridias and all the Cyruses and all the Merrilys and Jonathans and Obilly Smallhats…
“No,” she said.
The path vanished.
“No?” he asked, dumbfounded. How could that be the answer?
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s too late, Cyrus. You made your choices, and I made mine. You can’t turn back the clock. Our lives go on, but they go on apart. I don’t have time now to have the rest of this conversation, but you can fill in the holes. Go, now.”
She turned and walked back up the stairs, joining the figures at the top. They went inside her office. The guard shooed him away.
He walked slowly into the night.
✽✽✽
Merrily found him sitting on the street against a brick wall. He didn’t weep; he didn’t have any more tears. He simply stared at the flickering lamp on the other side of the street, waiting for it to go out.
She came to him out of the darkness, wearing a cloak and hood against the cool June night. Slung over one shoulder was her hunting bow, and a quiver of arrows was on her back. She wore tight leather breeches and a hardened leather vest. Her brown hair was tied back in a bun.
She crouched down and looked at him closely. He stared back at her with hollow, empty eyes.
They looked at each other for a long minute. Then she extended her hand to him.
“I know who killed Rolland Gorp,” she said.