Umber

For the past several evenings Klavicus had been too busy to speak long with Mahlanda when she arrived; twice he had been out entirely and had not returned by the time she left. A meal was always waiting for her, however, and often he scribbled notes on what she was currently copying, usually exposition on errors in the texts. Tonight he was in, but slouched in front of the chasm of air watching scenes dancing on currents that shifted too rapidly for her to follow. As he failed to immediately acknowledge her arrival she took a book to the table with her and ate alone, and it was a measure of his preoccupation that he didn’t warn her of dire consequences if she spilled anything on the pages. There was a small covered dish on the table containing a light grey powder; even at casual inspection it was clearly not a condiment, but she left her curiosity until later.

The chapter she was reading, a tale of the last paladins Rose and Kain and how they met their ends, was absorbing, and it was later than she intended when she rose from the table. Klavicus had finished with whatever he was observing and was straightening up his library. She noticed that it was in more than the usual disarray, but as it was not an activity requiring tremendous concentration she joined him.

“How is the situation in Tyr?” he asked.

“Slowly stabilizing, I think. There are a few difficulties still.” She watched him sorting and organizing. “Can I help with that?”

“Distraction will suffice. I didn’t expect to be doing this, this evening.” She curled up in a nearby chair. “I heard rumors of a threat to your organization.”

“Senator Turax,” she wrinkled her nose in distaste, “called for an investigation into Kalak’s death in full council chambers. He wants to unseat King Tithian – presumably so he can have his slaves back.”

“How did Tithian respond?”

“He ended the council meeting and summoned your earthen champions,” Klavicus frowned at the phrase, but said nothing, “and appointed them official investigators into Kalak’s assassination.”

“Meaning ‘find suitable scapegoats,’” he observed, “since it’s clearly not in Tithian’s best interest for the truth to come out.”

“Senator Turax mentioned the Veiled Alliance by name.” She looked unhappy. “I think the king would have permitted them to sell one or more of us out.”

“Strategically, it would have been a sound maneuver if no other presented itself,” he mused, “although giving credence to rumors of shadow organizations of doubtful existence is not without its own perils.”

“I’m glad they didn’t make the choice.” She pulled her knee up to her chest reflectively. “I don’t think they have any contacts other than me.”

“What option did they pursue?”

“They had the embroidery from the female assassin’s robe, and with some effort recovered the head of that strange metallic entity that aided them in the arena. They thought to tie these to some center of power other than Tithian – a remote dragon king, perhaps, or Urik, as Zane suggested. Reign hoped to implicate Master Singh, I think, but met with some opposition from several of her companions.”

“Sintha Singh? What would she do that for?”

“Ah,” Mahlanda hesitated, “there was some friction there, I understand.”

Klavicus looked over at her and raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“You’ve heard about the craftsmen growing agitated over perceived acts of profiteering by the various merchant houses.”

“Not so ‘perceived,’ from what I’ve observed,” he remarked dryly.

“Yes, well – ” she coughed and then went hurriedly on, hoping to avoid another symphony of kazoo music. “The craftsmen’s elected representative, Councilor Turloff, decided he was tired of discussing the matter in council and getting nowhere, so he took it upon himself to assemble a crowd and drive a cart in front of the entrance to Master Singh’s emporium.”

He returned to putting books on the shelves. “I presume Singh had objections to that.”

“He directed a trio of his mercenaries to interrupt Turloff’s harangue by pulling him off the cart. The mob was getting unruly, and the young people were heading over to intervene when an old beggar approached Zane and asked for a ceramic piece. Zane was suspicious, which may have saved his life. At least he was something like ready when the ‘old man’ revealed himself to be an assassin, with three equally unpleasant and determined companions.”

“Singh’s people, preemptively preventing negotiations?”

“I don’t think so. We’re still looking into what happened there. Maybe one of the agricultural houses, or the remains of the traitorous templars – there are never a shortage of candidates for treachery, are there?”

Klavicus grunted his assent. “But it seems they survived to grow irritated with Singh.”

“Yes. They stopped short of killing their assailants, although Reign sorely wanted to. One was enough to interrogate, she urged, but Kerac disapproved of the wanton killing. And it proved a dangerous decision – when Po leaned down to tend the wounds of the sham beggar who had approached Zane initially, he proved not to be unconscious at all. He stabbed Po, seized his weapon, and ran, though Regan struck him down before he could make good his escape. By then Zane had advanced toward the conflict between craftsman and merchant, and managed to largely defuse the hostility of the mob. Sugar Primrose and Saphira joined them and convinced the merchant and his guards to stand down as well.”

He tapped the shelf he was standing before. “I’m puzzled. If the psions and bard managed to generate all of this good will, why did their warrior woman want to implicate him in the plot to murder Kalak?”

Mahlanda sighed. “You know the merchant houses. Master Singh refused to admit to profiteering. He said only that additional supplies would be ‘found.’ Po and Reign in particular took that as some sort of almost personal affront. Po demanded to see the warehouse where supplies were stored.”

“Singh, naturally, refused. It is his property, and they have no authority.”

“Yes, so Reign threatened him.”

The Preserver unleashed a hearty laugh. “The merchant houses depend for their livelihood on their ability to safeguard caravans in the desert against wild animals, the Jura Dai, other merchants – most of them have military resources to rival some kingdoms. What did she hope to achieve?”

“As you say – if she thought she could cow him into submission, she was mistaken. Eighteen guards appeared the moment Master Singh raised so much as a finger. And even then she refused to stand down. Regan intervened to keep the merchant from ordering Reign shot where she stood, but he withdrew his cooperation and closed his store then and there.”

“The heads of the merchant houses will stab each other in the kidneys as soon as look at each other – until one of them is affronted by an outsider.” Klavicus shook his head. “This will have serious and lingering effects on Tyr’s welfare if it isn’t addressed.”

“I believe,” Mahlanda’s voice grew smaller, “there was talk of burning down one of Singh’s warehouses to teach the others a lesson.”

“Destroying an entire building full of potential war material in the process. How clever,” he snarled. He paced back and forth impatiently. “Thugs the same as everyone else. Perhaps the Galeb Duhr was wrong after all. Perhaps my pessimism is warranted.” He stood over her and she flinched at the expression on his face, and the sudden softness of his voice was more frightening than his rage. “Do you know what I would do, if I were one of those merchants?”

She shook her head numbly, not sure she wanted to know.

“I would become very conciliatory. I would apologize profusely for my thoughtless behavior. In atonement I would not only offer to provide whatever material the military effort required at substantially less than even a reasonable profit, I would insist on inspecting and delivering it personally.” His eyes hardened. “And every weapon would have a flaw in it, every piece of armor a weakness. Beneath a layer of succulent foodstuffs the rest would be rotten and maggot-infested.”

“But that would certainly cause Tyr to lose the war!” she exclaimed.

“And what do you think that matters?” he demanded. “Compared to a merchant lord’s pride? He’d rather die. To a certainty he’d happily let others die. Perhaps the warrior woman and the paladin missed their real calling.”

She cast her gaze down to the ground. “It’s true. But what can we do?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Hope that someone in Skarp’s ex-brood with a golden tongue and more sense than ego tries to broker a rapprochement before it’s too late? There’s certainly nothing anyone else can do about it – in the merchants’ baroque system of what passes for manners and morals, only the offenders can make amends. But we have wandered far astray,” he added. “If Sintha Singh was not the sickly gazelle tossed to Turax to keep him from savaging the stronger herd of conspirators, who was?”

“The youths came across Puram of Urik fomenting unrest among the Dispossessed.”

“So the old devil didn’t have the sense to leave town,” Klavicus remarked. “An odd choice of rabble to rouse. But perhaps he had no one else left.”

“King Tithian has only just quelled the waves of looting and pillaging among the former slaves. If the Dispossessed started up – ”

“He might lose control of the political situation altogether, yes. And that would suit Urik just fine. How did they deal with Puram?”

“Po started challenging him from the midst of the crowd. The others joined in, accusing him of distorting the truth, asking the origin of his peculiar accent. When he realized the sentiment of the crowd was turning against him, he attacked.”

“He’s no weakling,” the daimon observed. “How did they fare?”

“I understand it was a difficult struggle. But they were lucky – in a sudden frenzy they managed to fell him before he could teleport away. Reign had her certain triumph this time – she drove her sword through his heart.”

“A dead Urikite and two equally dead strangers – a neat wrapping around a conspiracy. Too neat, someone of a suspicious mind might say.”

“But plausible enough that even if Senator Turax doesn’t believe it, he’ll have to proceed more cautiously now than hurling unfounded accusations in open council,” Mahlanda countered. “And the Dispossessed who witnessed the youths’ struggle with Puram think they’re heroes – they even put together a unit to assist in Tyr’s defense. King Tithian has more legitimacy from that quarter now than ever.”

“For what it’s worth,” Klavicus said. “Pity the young people couldn’t have handled the merchants with similar skill.” The books were largely back in their proper places, and he reached for a cloak hanging on a nearby peg. “I have business to attend to now, but feel free as always to work as long as you like.”

“Before you go,” she said, “I had a question.” She pointed to the powder-filled dish on the dining table. “What is that?”

Without so much as a glance at her he replied, “Preserver Rennick.”

“Rennick?” she gasped. He was – had been – a resident of Tyr, as close to a friend as Mahlanda generally came. “How? Who killed him?”

“I did.”

She backed away heedlessly, knocking over one of the bone panels, her eyes wide and terrified as he pursued her at a leisurely pace, an ancient tome still in his hand.

“You spoke to him of this place.” His voice was flat, his expression dispassionate.

“I – ” her face flushed as she retreated.

“He followed you to the portal – unless you told him where it was.”

She shook her head violently. “I swear,” she whispered, “I didn’t – ”

“Then he came through while you weren’t looking. He came while I was out. When I returned he was ransacking my books, deciding which I was and wasn’t entitled to keep. I warned you, you wouldn’t like it if you failed to be circumspect.”

She had found the portal and tried to back into it, but nothing happened. It was dead. She stared up at the daimon, and his enormous power was suddenly a too-intimate reality. What had she been thinking, putting herself so completely at his mercy? There was nothing for it now, though, but to face him down or die. Or perhaps to do both. “So you killed him.”

“He threatened me.”

“Threatened?” A hysterical laugh escaped her. “He couldn’t possibly have been a threat to you. He was just a man – who liked to know things…”

“I knew of Rennick,” Klavicus said sternly. “He was a man who liked other people to know that he knew things. Did you give a thought to what the outcome of that would be? First he’d be on a pyre. Then you. Then me.” He waved the book under her nose. “Followed by these. Then everything would be lost.”

“You keep saying you’re immortal,” she challenged him recklessly. “What difference would it make to you?”

“Must die and can die are very two different states of affairs. And if my library were utterly destroyed, I’m not sure what eternity would be worth.”

“So you killed him. Was his life worth so little?” She gestured toward the alcove, wishing she could keep her hand from trembling. “Compared to those?”

“Those are your lives,” he replied. “Whatever you tiny mortals have of immortality is there. For as long as they last.” In a low, mournful tone he murmured,

A life poured into words – apparent waste
intended to Preserve the thing consumed.
For who, in that unthinkable future
when I am dead, will read? The printed page
was just a scant millennia’s brief wonder…*

“Those volumes are full of men and women who are better than anyone alive today. Perhaps your ignorance is an excuse – certainly the Dragon has done all he can to foster it – but if those exemplars of a different way of life are lost you mortals may find yourself on a path to savagery from which there is no returning.

“And that I, of all beings, should be called on to safeguard that heritage…” He laughed and spread his arms, growing in height until he stood eighteen feet tall, and Mahlanda shielded her face as flames erupted along his body. “I am a balor of the Abyss!” he cried. “In times before whole cities burned to ash in my conflagrations. And I laughed, and moved on, for was I not the embodiment of waste and destruction? Did I not glory in it?”

She closed her eyes and fell to her knees before him, awaiting a death that now seemed inevitable. Instead hands gripped her elbows and pulled her to her feet, and when she opened her eyes the flames were gone, the being a more normal height, the face tired and disappointed. “But destruction is commonplace now, and waste the way of things, and I have chosen to be nothing but a small flame of knowledge in the desolation. Too easily blown out in a chance wind,” his gaze hardened again, “I will do whatever I must to preserve that flame.”

Mahlanda’s thoughts whirled in desperate confusion, but he gave her no time to calm herself or order them.

“Decide, once and for all,” he said. “Whether to learn in silence or speak in ignorance. Whether I mean you no harm or will strike out in a rage or in treachery. Whether to stay or to go. I’m too old – and too busy – to endure endless fearful delirium.” Behind her the portal activated again. “Decide.”

*adapted from John Updike