A. Hartley - Will Power

“If you say the word,” I answered with a dry and knowing grin, “they’ll jump back into line like their tails are on fire and you have the only bucket of water in the world.”

“I don’t know, Will,” she said, “but I hope so.”

She sat down again and stared at the tabletop as if her mind was miles away.

“I wish Mithos and Orgos were here,” I said suddenly. It was the first time I had said it, and I was rather surprised by it. It was as if my private anxiety had been skulking through the jungle of my head for days, always a few feet from the path I was on, and had chosen this moment to ambush me.

“I think they are still alive,” she said, looking at me in that compassionate but penetrating fashion of hers which always made me feel like she’d walked in on me as I was getting out of the bath.

“Based on what?” I demanded. I hadn’t intended to sound hostile, but I did not want to be patronized by groundless hopes.

“I just feel it,” she said. “Or rather, I do not feel they have died.”

“Why would you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I wouldn’t,” she said. “But we have been together a long time and I think their passing might register in me somehow.”

Her eyes held mine throughout this curious speech. I hesitated only a second.

“That is the stuff of stories, Lisha,” I said. “Brothers, friends, twins, parents, and daughters all die daily, and their loved ones are none the wiser till some grim-faced messenger arrives at the door. I’d love to think we were all connected by some sort of spiritual bond, some connection, but I have seen no evidence for it, and plenty to the contrary. I don’t believe it.”

“You are right not to,” she said. “I don’t believe it either. I merely hope that it might be true. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but I feel it nonetheless.”

I shrugged, unconvinced, and began feeling depressed as a result. She smiled a little, as if this endeared me to her or reminded her of something she liked in me. Though she was the one talking fancifully and I was the cynical realist, she managed to make me feel, as usual, like a child. I smiled again and she clasped my hand impulsively.

“I am glad you got here,” she said. “I needed to hear a voice of skepticism in this curious place. But now you must go back. I cannot come with you, and I feel that some of our answers still lie in the city. I will move in what limited way I can and gather information from the few safe sources available to me, but I have no wish to be hounded to earth and executed as a goblin spy.”

“Where should I begin?”

“With the prophecy, I suppose, though how you will go about that without putting yourself in danger, I do not know. Beware of trying to sour the city for Garnet and Renthrette too quickly. They may turn against you.”

“Again.”

“Quite. In fact,” she added, “now that I think of it, it might be better if you don’t tell them I’m here.”

“You want me to lie to them?” I said, pleased by the idea.

“No,” she insisted. “I just want you to keep what you know of my presence to yourself. For now.”

I grinned. One day I would get some real mileage out of this, her trusting me over them. Still, it was unlike her to mislead her friends.

“I just think it might be for the best,” she added. “For them, I mean. We’ll tell them soon.”

“We don’t need to,” I said.

She ignored that.

“Be careful, and bring me word through Rose,” she said. “I will send her to the bridgehead gate two days from now and every day thereafter. If I can, I will come in the coach; otherwise, you should give her any letters for me that you have. I think she can be trusted, and I do not think she can read. Leave no writings in your quarters as long as you are in the palace. I hear the general practice of being a courtier involves a good deal of spying just to see who is on the way up and who on the way down and out. I have no doubt that servants are paid to bring stray letters to their masters. Don’t get caught up in the factions of court life, Will. There are too many daggers in such places, and you can’t protect yourself from all angles.”

“It’s a good thing we know who the enemy is,” I remarked.

“Indeed,” she said.

I spent the night on the floor of Lisha’s room and left as close to first light as I could manage. I journeyed back to Phasdreille by means of the same carriage in which I had left, but Rose, alas, did not make the return trip with me. I arrived at about nine o’clock, passing the barbican sentries with a nod which they returned with the smiles of men who thought they knew what I’d been up to all night, and made straight for the palace and my room.

My sword had come back from the smith, but instead of the notched blade having been reforged, they had just cut the end off and then ground down what remained. It was now less a short sword than long knife. I was irritated enough to have a word with the nearest guard, who pointed me to the armory next door. I marched in like I owned the place, slammed the sword down on the counter, and asked what the hell that was supposed to be.

“It’s a fine sword,” said the duty officer.

“It was a fine sword,” I said, “before you idiots chopped three inches off the end. Now it’s a bread knife. Can’t you make it like it was?”

“Longer, you mean?” said the officer, blankly. “How?”

“I don’t know; I’m not the smith. Melt it down, add more steel, and beat it out again,” I suggested. “Isn’t that how these things work?”

The officer looked confused, but he went back into the forge. When he didn’t come back after a couple of minutes, I went in after him. I noticed two things right away. The first was that, though the smithy was large, with several furnaces and anvils set up, there was only one person working, and all the other hearths were cold. In fact, they looked like they hadn’t been used for ages. The second thing I noticed was the way that the smith in his leather apron studied the sword with the same blank look the duty officer had given me. These people were clueless.

“I could weld a setting for some diamonds to the hilt,” said the smith, sauntering over, “or I can give you a new one.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback and rather pleased. “Fine. Yes. I’ll take a new one.”

Since I seemed to be the only person in the city who didn’t go about with a wheelbarrow full of diamonds, it seemed the smart choice.

He turned to a door and opened it. Briefly I saw beyond him and noticed rack upon rack of swords and other weapons. He drew one out, seemingly at random, and brought it to me.

It was, if anything, finer than the one I had broken, with a filigree patterning in the steel where it had been folded and reforged many times. I swashed it about in a professional sort of way, which seemed to satisfy the smith.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

So I was feeling pretty good about myself as I made for the library. Things had gone without a hitch thus far. I was beginning to feel as smooth as a greased otter when I got to the side door of the library and found it closed and guarded. I paused in the long morning shadows of the colonnade that ran along the sides of the square and considered my next move, while trying to look like I was out on a morning stroll. Not that anyone round here ever went on strolls. It was all lolling about spouting poetry or charging into battle. A good stroll would probably do them good.

None of which helped me. I needed to get into the library because I felt sure that it was there that I could learn the most about the prophecy. But that wasn’t all. My curiosity had been piqued about the fire which had evacuated the building on my last visit but left no noticeable damage anywhere. I had paced around the entire building, focusing particularly on the great dome itself, but there were no signs of cracking, no scorching of brick, no shattering of window glass, no blackening of stone. If there had been a fire, it had been a bloody small one. Perhaps I had just felt the heat from another incinerator, in which case Aliana either had no idea what was going on in the library or she was trying to keep their little book-burning project under wraps. If I got inside again, the first thing I would do was look over that room with the great brass doors.