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  Then there were the Orders of the Empire: guilds, elite military Orders, wizardry unions, and other specialized clans that vied to force their own agendas and ascendancy in power on the Emperor’s Will. Each had its own combination of gods they worshiped and unique pacts with other Orders, allegiances and enmities. Membership in the orders transcended castes, at least in theory. Any caste could be a member of any Order by application, but the vagaries and secrecy in the selection process were such that each Order had effective control over the makeup of its membership. The Orders were diverse—but only so far as their strength and power were supported.

  None of which accounted for the rather public and often bloody conflicts of the vaunted Forums—one for the Estate Lords and the other the “voice of the common elf”—whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Soen shook his head and smiled. By the Emperor’s Will, it all works perfectly.

  The Inquisitor came to the end of the Vira Rhonas and stepped onto the Gods’ Bridge. It was one of the oldest bridges of the nine crossing the Jolnar and led to the oldest part of the city, the Isle of the Gods. It was not a terribly impressive island, as such; it sat as a rocky spit of ground between two branches of the River Jolnar that obligingly flowed around it. Still, as legend would have it, it was the place where Rhonas drove his spear into the ground and declared this spot to be where he would found his Empire. The first temples were built here. There were newer and more spacious temples in the districts beyond Tsujen’s Wall, but the temples on this sliver of land were still the most revered by the Rhonasians. Soen crossed the bridge and passed among the ancient buildings. The Occuran made their home here, a privilege granted them by the Emperor just short of one hundred years ago, but now their favor was waning, and Soen wondered just how long it would be before the Imperial Will got around to evicting the Occuran as neighbors to the gods and just what the Occuran would do about it.

  Soen crossed the small island and came to the North Bridge. On the other side of the river rose the squat, angular walls of the Old Keep. They were designed in a time before the Aether, when war was waged as it should be: with hand on steel. It was the oldest structure in the city and the home of his own Order.

  Soen took in a deep breath. Ministries, Orders, Estates . . . by the Emperor’s Will, all worked perfectly because it was the Emperor’s will that it be so. To say otherwise was treason. To think otherwise was disloyal. To be otherwise was unacceptable.

  So the perfection was maintained not in practice but in perception. The knowledge that the current Emperor ascended to the throne by murdering the previous Emperor as he was distracted by his lust for the wife of a recently assassinated Guild Master was not “working toward the Imperial Will.” Indeed, that the entire history of the Rhonas Empire was filled with such unpleasant, vicious, horrifying events was also seen as “not working toward the Imperial Will.” This concern for the solidarity, security, and loyalty of the greatest elven nation in all history extended itself down through every ministry, Order, and Estate as well. Anything unpleasant need not be true if it is not known. So their own histories were constantly rewritten for the sake of “working toward the Imperial Will.”

  Each part of the body politic played a vital role but, to Soen, none so important as the role his own Order played nor so dangerous.

  The Iblisi alone existed to know the truth . . . and it was their task to make sure that no one discovered it.

  CHAPTER 17

  The Keeper

  THE OLD KEEP was a misnomer; it was more of a fortress than a keep proper. The angular path of its massive outer walls combined with those of matching trenches designed to both stop the enemy and inflict as much damage on them as possible. It was the oldest remaining structure in the city, said by many to have been built by the hand of the first emperor, Rhon Sah-Tseu himself. The Keep’s antiquity was apparent at a single glance, for it lacked the grace and fine, curving lines of the more recent structures of the Empire. To the critical elven eye it was vaguely offensive as a brutish, massive, and graceless pile of carefully fitted stones that was an unpleasant reminder of dark origins best forgotten.

  Soen never failed to smile at the irony of the thought each time he crossed the courtyard of the Keep, for now the building itself fulfilled that same function which its visage inspired. Within its walls, Soen knew, were kept all the “unpleasant reminders” of their dark origins safely hidden from view.

  The Inquisitor stepped through the dark archway of an angular tower and with rapid steps made his way down a worn circular staircase. Under any other circumstances he would have already been removing the ceremonial trappings of his official robes. There were books, scrolls, maps, and tapestries in the Forbidden Grotto that were calling to him. He longed to lose the present in the writings of the past but he had one final duty to perform before he could comfortably claim some time for himself.

  So, he turned off the staircase—how marvelous to have to use stairs, he thought—and made his way down the long central corridor. Several of his fellow Inquisitors passed him, though none acknowledged him in any way. It was just another sign in a long and seemingly endless series of signs that his presence here was considered unearned and unwelcome. It was of no real concern to him if they didn’t want him here. He didn’t want to be here either.

  The corridor opened into a large antechamber, but waiting was not Soen’s intention. He turned at once to the black doors of oiled wood and pulled them open.

  “Ah, Inquisitor Soen Tjen-rei.” The raspy, alto voice came from the far end of the chamber, dark as the polished slate of the floor over which it rolled.

  “Keeper Ch’drei,” Soen replied, bowing deeply. “I have come to report on the proceedings of today’s audience between the Emperor and . . .”

  “No.” Ch’drei held up her pale hand. “Close the doors behind you. There are too many ears who prey on my words.”

  Soen stopped speaking at once. He was a trained observer and knew when it was time to talk, when it was time to listen. “You learn more when you stop speaking” was a motto that had served him well.

  He quietly closed the heavy doors, then turned back to face into the hall again. The room did not have the vaulted ceilings so prized in later architecture. Like the fortress surrounding it, the Keeper’s Hall was oppressive, its ceiling hanging low overhead and supported by thick, squat pillars. The walls of the room were dark so that the glowing light from the globe sconces on each pillar was swallowed up in the blackness. At the end of the hall, opposite the entrance doors, sat the throne of the Keeper atop three steps of a dais. Three steps were all it could afford without forcing the Keeper to strike her head on the low ceiling whenever she stood.

  On that throne, Ch’drei pressed the long fingers of her hands together. The Keeper was old, even among elves. The skin of her face and long forehead looked almost transparent. It sagged in places and seemed to have been pulled too tightly in others. The mane of her hair seemed to float around her skull like a fine mist. Her lips were drawn back in her age, exposing her teeth in what might too easily have been mistaken for a grin. She stooped over as she sat on the Throne of the Oracle, her body curling forward around her arching spine. She looked frail, but Soen knew better. The Keeper’s featureless eyes were still shining and as black as a grave. Soen knew that there were those who had thought it was time for the Keeper to . . . well, relinquish her position in favor of younger, more dynamic individuals such as they themselves presented. Those who had sought the Keeper’s forced retirement were no longer available to testify regarding how they were stopped in their assassination plots; they had simply disappeared.

  “Soen, my son,” Ch’drei said with bored detachment, “you are a most talented servant of the Iblisi Mandate and demonstrably a loyal servant of the Imperial Will.”

  She is not interested in my report on the court, Soen thought. Something has changed.

  The Keeper shifted slightly in her throne. The words needed to be said, and so she was sayin
g them although both Ch’drei and Soen were fully aware that they were only preliminary and without substance. “Indeed, your abilities have brought your name to be whispered with both glory and honor in the ears of many of the Orders even here in the capital of the world.”

  In change there is danger, Soen thought, and profit. Which will it be this time?

  “The Keeper is most generous in her words,” Soen replied evenly.

  A hint of a smile pulled at the corner of the old elf woman’s lips. “I can afford to be generous with words, my son, but the position of our Order among the powers that rule requires more circumspect frugality.”

  “And may I dare presume that I might assist the Order in some meaningful way?”

  “Can you leave within the hour?”

  Soen’s heart jumped, but he maintained his outward calm. “I serve at the pleasure of the Keeper—I can leave at your word.”

  Ch’drei nodded, then straightened slightly. “The Myrdin-dai have asked for the assistance of the Iblisi—more particularly, your assistance.”

  “They asked for me?”

  “By name,” Ch’drei replied. “Had you not been at court, they would have demanded that you go with them at once.” The old woman reached out with her bent hand, gesturing him closer. “Come, my boy, I’ll bandy niceties with the primping fools of the other Orders but let’s have some plain talk between us.”

  Soen smiled, the points of his ears quivering as he shook his head. “Who among us ever has ‘plain talk’?”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Ch’drei spat the words with disdain, “If I were fifty years younger, I’d throw this at you, and you’d be dropping dead before you could utter another word!”

  “That,” Soen said as he casually walked the length of the hall, “is the Baton Seal of the Iblisi Keeper, and you shouldn’t be throwing it at anyone.”

  “I’ll throw it at whomever I please,” Ch’drei said, her featureless eyes squinting at him. “I’m especially fond of hitting insolent young boys with it.”

  “I have heard that the Keeper might have found better uses for insolent, young boys,” Soen said with a lightness in his words.

  “Perhaps,” Ch’drei said through a dark chuckle; then she paused. “Soen, the Myrdin-dai have a problem on the Icaran Frontier. They need it silenced, and they want you to do it for them.”

  The Icaran Frontier! The farthest western reaches of the Empire and about as far from the Imperial Court as one might hope to be assigned. Even if it were only briefly . . .

  “What is the problem?”

  “Something happened in the folds,” Ch’drei spoke softly. “The Myrdin-dai have been basking in the glory of their handling of the folds in this last war against the dwarves. They’ve even gone so far as to make something of a public spectacle of themselves, using this as an opportunity to rub the noses of the Occuran in their success. Now something has happened in the folds of the frontier that has them worried—worried enough that they insist that you, the favored Iblisi of the Emperor himself, take care of it discreetly. They want it silenced, and they want it done by someone close to the Emperor. And they’re willing to promise anything and pay anything to make it happen quickly. You’re to be given complete access to the folds controlled by the Myrdin-dai throughout the Empire to serve this purpose. You’ll be given a commission and seal specifically for this purpose.”

  “Generous of them to provide transport,” Soen considered, “especially since it will allow them to follow my movements.”

  “Who trusts anyone anymore?”

  “And they would not tell you what actually happened in the folds?” Soen asked.

  “They didn’t even try to lie to me,” Ch’drei said with a shrug. “That was the most insulting—that they didn’t even bother to make something up for me. I tell you, elves today have no respect for their elders.”

  Soen drew in a deep breath and nodded, his own black eyes looking at the Keeper from under his heavy brows. “So it is in the service of the Emperor’s Will that the Keeper of the Iblisi is commissioning me to travel the Myrdin-dai folds to the Icaran Frontier to silence an unspecified matter that is currently distressing a companion Order of the Empire?”

  “Oh, what nonsense!”

  Both Ch’drei and Soen laughed heartily.

  “I too soon forget why I like you, Soen,” Ch’drei said through her grinning smile. “You have such a charmingly dry sense of humor. No, of course that isn’t why I’m sending you. I wouldn’t mind currying a little favor with the Myrdin-dai right now, but, no, that’s not why you’re going.”

  Peril or profit? Which will it be?

  “The Myrdin-dai were not my only urgent audience today. Their rivals, the Occuran, visited me this morning,” Ch’drei said, her voice softening. “Something has gone very wrong with the Aether Wells of the Icaran Frontier.”

  “Twin trouble in the Western Provinces?”

  “Yes. It has caused disturbance patterns resonating all through the Aether links throughout the Empire. The Occuran tell me the Aether Wells have failed on the frontier.”

  Soen raised his eyebrows. “Failed?”

  “Yes . . . failed.”

  Soen straightened to stand upright, considering the implications of what he had just heard. “It’s been a long time since a well failed. Some of these Fourth Estate lords go to the frontier without knowing what is required to survive. Still, I don’t see why you need me to . . .”

  “It wasn’t just one well that failed, Soen,” Ch’drei said. “This wasn’t just some mistake made by a careless House Lord. The Aether in the entire region collapsus, and a number of Houses in the Province have fallen completely.”

  “Fallen?” Soen’s left brow rose in surprise. “One House falling is a potential catastrophe . . . but the fall of multiple Houses at once is unimaginable.”

  “The warding glyphs that link the Wells are meant to prevent such a cascading failure—severing the connection to the collapsus Well before any damage is done,” Soen mused. “How could they fail in multiple Wells at once?

  “According to the Occuran, the Wells all across the Western Provinces not only collapsus completely but inverted for a time, but we do not know enough,” the Keeper continued. “Communication from the Frontier has failed both from the Occuran and the Myrdin-dai, but from the little we know as many as a dozen Houses could have fallen—and that could be an optimistic number. The glyphs must have worked eventually or the entire Empire would have gone dark.”

  “What about containment?” Soen asked, his mind still racing through the possibilities.

  “Again, we don’t know—and that is why you must depart at once. You have to discover the cause of this and secure its truth. If knowledge of any vulnerability to the system of Aether Wells were to become commonly known . . .”

  “I agree,” Soen mused with a frown, “but if even a dozen or so Houses have fallen, the number of slaves released from their Devotions alone . . .”

  “I’m only interested in the cause of this collapse—not a few ‘bolters.’ If any slaves have something to do with this, then, of course, hunt them down.”

  “And the problems of the Occuran and the Myrdin-dai are related?”

  Ch’drei shrugged. “Beyond doubt—but that is for you to discover.”

  Soen nodded. “How do you want the rest of the slaves handled?”

  “If they can be usefully enthralled again, then ship them here for new Devotions; otherwise kill the broken ones,” Ch’drei said though she was not really interested. “I’ll leave that to your discretion. It is good policy, makes us a profit on the resale of the slaves, and maintains our rather ruthless image.”

  “I’ll need a Quorum.”

  “You may take two Codexia of your choice.”

  “Qinsei and Phang, then, if the choice is mine,” Soen nodded as he thought. “And the four Assesia?”

  “I should think that Yarou, Shonoc and Wreth would be honored by the task. Perhaps you could also take young Ju
kung as your fourth?”

  Soen smiled once more. He knew Jukung was a spy for Ch’drei. This assignment was important enough that the Keeper wanted a second set of eyes to report to her.

  Who trusts anyone anymore . . .

  “So the Myrdin-dai provide the transport and means to allow us to solve a mystery for their rivals, the Occuran,” Soen chuckled. “We garner favor with both and neither is the wiser.”

  “Everyone profits,” Ch’drei smiled. “Especially us.”

  “Thank you, Keeper.” Soen bowed. “I am honored to serve with such a Quorum . . . and may I add my personal thanks as it will be good to serve under an open sky again.”

  “Do not thank me so quickly,” Ch’drei returned. “You do not know what awaits you in the Western Provinces—and many a truth has left its Inquisitor buried beneath that same open sky.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Tracks

  THE EVENING HAD DEEPENED into a purple twilight around the horizon by the time Assesia Jukung joined the rest of the Quorum in the courtyard of the Keep. The globe-torches mounted on the inner walls of the Keep had just flickered to life in the gathering night, illuminating the ancient flagstones beneath their feet. Above the walls to the east, the towering subatria of the Imperial City shone in the night with a soft incandescence, the Cloud Palace itself shining above them all.

  Soen saw none of its beauty; his eyes were focused on the Quorum that had formed before him. Each of them was clothed in much the same manner as himself, in a dull reddish-brown hooded robe with a black sash closure at the waist. They also, he was pleased to note, appeared prepared for an extended absence as all were shouldering backpacks bulging with their field goods.

  Each also held the unique staff of their Order—the Matei—which was simultaneously the tool of their protection, the symbol of their office, and the means by which they measured out their often final, deadly judgments regarding the lives of those whom fate caused to cross their path. Just over six feet in length, the smooth wood of the staff had a polished steel cap with a diamond-edged spike at one end. The upper third of the staff was carved with intricate patterns and ended with an ornate headpiece representing the Eye of Qin—symbol of the god worshiped by their Order—fitted with a large crystal. Soen noted with satisfaction that within each one the power of the Aether shone; their staffs were fully charged for the journey ahead.