Matabar. Book II. Chapter 139. Sparks and Star Notes (Patreon)

Ardan pulled the Black House signal medallion from his pocket and pressed a small stud hidden in one of the crowns of the two-headed phoenix, the Empire’s principal symbol. The Empire’s borders touched every ocean.

Nothing happened.

He frowned and was about to press it again when the medallion suddenly burned him. The little metal disk was slowly heating up, so Ardi quickly flung it to the ground. And just in time: the very next moment, the metal glowed white-hot, then melted away entirely like ice cream in the heat, revealing a small… pigeon on the scorched earth. Flickering with blue flame, the magical bird gave itself a shake, spread its wings, and shot arrow-straight into the sky and soon vanished from sight.

Well…

This was more or less what Ardan had expected, but Lieutenant Shosa could at least have warned him that it needed to be used with care. Now that Ardi knew what to expect, however, he used his staff to activate the second medallion issued to him before the mission. He simply laid the disk on the ground and pushed the stud down with the base of his staff.

The same thing happened again. The fiery pigeon looked a little larger and more substantial, but it too vanished from sight in exactly the same way, and just as quickly.

“Will it take long?” Zalessky asked, watching the magical birds vanish into the sky.

“If nothing goes wrong and they aren’t intercepted, it’ll take several days for the first and about a week for the second,” Ardan replied. He had a fair idea of just what spells Aversky (may the Eternal Angels rest his soul), Dagdag, and the eggheads had managed to cram into those single-use medallions for emergency communication.

Ardi didn’t point out that even if the spell reached its recipient, it would still contain no information beyond the mere fact that a signal had been sent. Lieutenant Shosa and the Black House would understand that the alarm had been triggered, but nothing more.

The trouble was, this sort of Star pigeon post came with so many flaws that a whole grimoire could barely sketch them, let alone explain them in detail.

Which hadn’t kept people from using variants of this very seal ever since the wars between Galess and Ectassus.

“What’s on your mind, Corporal?” Zalessky’s lone eye narrowed.

Ardan shrugged.

They were still standing amid the ruins of the mercenary camp. Magister Tikhonov was inspecting the generators, trying to extract the Ertalain crystals from them. The crystals might come in handy. Rita and Bors were going through the bodies, shelters, and tents, taking everything they could carry without weighing themselves down too much for the trip back.

Cartridges, grenades, whatever revolvers and rifles had survived, a few pieces of jewelry, and anything else they could sell. Ardan’s civilized side, schooled in Evergale, wanted to call what the hunters were doing looting, but…

Even apart from the fact that he had grown up in Ergar’s care among the forest beasts, Ard had helped the cowboys on Polskih’s farm and later served as a corporal in the Second Chancery. He could say with absolute conviction that whatever was won in battle belonged to the victors. That was exactly why it didn’t bother Ard in the least that the Peacock’s grimoire now lay in his backpack and Belsky’s staff rested in the case Tess had sewn.

The grimoire, though, would still have to be deciphered. If both he and the Peacock had been a little less spent, Ard could also have pulled the encryption method from his opponent’s memory. But he’d had to set priorities.

“Six days,” Zalessky drawled yet again. “Even if we never stop for the night…”

“Which could get you killed!” Magister Tikhonov immediately reminded them; he had clearly heard their entire conversation. “It’s far more dangerous in the Park at night than during the day, so—”

“I know,” Zalessky cut him off rather sharply, then caught himself at once. “Sorry, Lamp. Sorry… my nerves are shot to hell. Same as everyone else’s.”

“Y-yes, of course, s-sorry,” Evlampiy mumbled, immediately abashed, and went back to fussing over the generators.

Zalessky impatiently tapped his boot against the scorched, torn-up earth. The snow and ice had already vanished, and the lava that had spilled onto the grass had disappeared as well. All exactly as the laws of Ley-balance dictated: spells created by Star Magic gradually returned to the Ley-lines, giving their energy back to the Paarlax Field.

The damage those spells had done remained: furrows gouged into the soil, toppled trees, burned tents. But now the camp looked as though some invisible force had destroyed it, leaving behind not the faintest hint of the cataclysm’s true origin.

“Any idea how we can get to Second Station faster than the five days it took us to get here, Corporal?”

Ardan looked at Zalessky, then turned his head west. Somewhere out there, among the forests of the Azure Coast, the Wolf of Blazing Darkness waited for his call: Ragrazrar. Perhaps, if not today then tomorrow, Ardan could recover enough to muster his strength as a Speaker and call the wolf. But there was another catch, too. More than one, in fact.

The biggest problem was that the Northern National Park of Natural Anomalies was foreign territory for the Wolf of Blazing Darkness. Here, among dozens of other predatory Anomalies, he would be a rival predator: an intruder come to lay claim to hunting grounds that belonged to others. So all Ardan would accomplish by calling him would be to draw hunters from every corner of the park, all eager to finish off the outsider.

Not to mention that Ragrazrar would carry no one but Ard on his back. And what could Ardan alone do against three Blue mages and a hundred and fifty mercenaries and bandits?

Then again, of course, the very same question could be asked of the five of them, only with a slightly different twist.

“No,” Ardan answered.

Zalessky gave a dejected shake of his head.

“But are you sure that’s what happened?” Zalessky frowned at him. “That someone really did buy them, as you put it?”

The Peacock’s Memories

Ard waved a hand and let Sidogib Montov’s memory continue. That, it turned out, was his real name.

Sidogib sat in the very same hotel where, not long before, Taisia Shpritz had blown a midlevel Exchange Street clerk’s monthly pay. The roulette and Sevens tables still clattered away. People reveled, tossing chips and cards onto the felt and occasionally drooling on it.

Ley-lights glittered overhead, while the power-generation bay hummed softly in the distance. Sidogib kept glancing toward it with undisguised skepticism. At thirty-eight, Mr Montov considered himself a military engineer.

Most of his work involved modifying two-part military spells composed of fire and earth. The work paid reasonably well. The Army had even purchased his research a couple of times for substantial sums. Over a career spanning more than ten years, he had managed to secure several government contracts worth nearly fifteen hundred exes in all.

Unfortunately, the last of those contracts proved to be his last. In every sense of the word, too. Not that Sidogib found that particularly amusing. Mr Montov had made the mistake of becoming a regular at the Black Lotus, where a stunning native of Skaldavin kept him company. But her company cost a great deal. Sidogib had also let himself mistake paid affection for the real thing, so he did everything he could to win the beautiful woman’s favor away from the brothel.

All of this led Mr Montov to steal part of the money the Treasury had earmarked for his research. Men in black cloaks detained Montov. After a brief closed-door trial, he was offered two choices.

Either return everything he’d stolen to the Treasury, plus ten times that sum from his own savings, or go to the Island.

Ardan waved a hand and brought Sidogib’s memory to a halt. What was this Island, anyway? But the fragments clustered around the main memory yielded no clear answer. Shreds of fear, fragments of panic, and an entire ocean of deep hatred and resentment. Sidogib was so afraid of the Island that his legs shook, yet Ardi never managed to find out what that perfectly ordinary word was hiding.

Sidogib had to part with a full two-thirds of his grimoire collection, as well as his spare staff, his arithmometer, his entire alchemical rig, and even the rights to land he’d purchased in a small satellite town. Now a former military engineer, Sidogib was left with one grimoire, a pair of household Ertalain crystals, a little apartment on Krivovodny Canal, and a broken heart.

A woman who worked at the Black Lotus drove the final nail into the coffin of Mr Montov’s pride and self-confidence. He invited her to the Pelican yet again, but when they met and he couldn’t give her a gift, she stood up and left without even waiting for dinner. Only then did Sidogib understand: she hadn’t been keeping him company because she liked him, or even because she was dazzled by the cloak and Star epaulets. She had done it because every time they met, he gave her earrings, bracelets, and sometimes even just money. He always tucked the gift into a pretty envelope, then fastened the envelope to the stem of a flower chosen to match.

Now, as Mr Montov stood before the mirror and hid the gray at his temples beneath a foul-smelling black substance that looked like fuel oil, he reflected on the course his life had taken. Yes, he’d avoided the Island, but the Black House would see to it that no one ever dealt with him again. Even the thickheaded idiots, those Magical Boxing fanatics, wouldn’t hire him.

Montov had only two choices left. He could leave the Empire and try his luck abroad, where everyone except perhaps the people of the Islands and the Sands would always regard him as a “filthy nonhuman sympathizer.” Or he could go to the Dead Lands. Fortunately, Sidogib had the address of a friend who had studied at the Grand in his youth and gone looking for thrills in Larand.

That same friend put Mr Montov in touch with a Hunter who suggested a less risky alternative. At First Station, near the border of the Northern National Park, expeditions set out fairly often, and the people joining them were willing to pay a hundred exes to improve their chances of success and, most important, survival.

A hundred exes… not much, but still better than nothing.

That was exactly what Mr Montov was thinking as he sat in a corner of the casino, watching the people enjoy themselves.

“Ready?” A nondescript man slipped out of the crowd of revelers, seemingly by chance. Average height, average build, and an utterly unremarkable face.

At first, Sidogib even suspected the nondescript appearance was an illusion and that the man in front of him was really a skilled Star mage. But the detection seal he used to check for such things remained silent. That meant either Sidogib was wrong or the man who had been in touch with him over the past few days was, at the very least, a Yellow mage.

“Of course,” Sidogib replied. He picked up his staff and hat, then followed Onton, whose name sounded as if someone had made a mistake while writing “Anton” on his birth certificate.

“Then let’s go.”

They crossed the hall. Before long, a waiter opened a concealed door for them in the wall paneling, and Mr Montov found himself in a small room containing nothing but a single table and several small sofas upholstered in cherry-red fabric.

Unless you counted the three other mages in Blue cloaks and several others whose type Sidogib knew too well. During his year at Second Station, Sidogib had become familiar enough with Hunters to tell those adrenaline-junkie bastards from ordinary bastards. The people at the table were the ordinary kind.

“All right.” Onton smoothed his short mustache and closed the door behind Sidogib. “Now that everyone’s here, let’s discuss the details.”

“Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” one of the gentlemen gathered around the table boomed, his voice marked by a distinctive Ngian accent. “The money is quite good, Mr Onton. But the Eternal Angels cannot be bought, and a dead man sleeps no better on a mattress stuffed with exes than on the ground.”

“And he sleeps no better with a belly full of lead,” the man beside him chimed in. He too had an accent, though his was Tazidahian.

During that same year at Second Station, Mr Montov had learned not only to recognize Hunters on sight, but also to understand life on the frontier. Outcasts from all three countries drifted into the Park and the steppes. Slipping across the border along smugglers’ trails, Ngians, Tazidahians, and sometimes even Fatians formed gangs with Imperials.

They looted Firstborn settlements and clashed constantly with the marshals, but tried to keep their heads down so they wouldn’t draw the attention of the Army or the Black House. As a result, the largest gangs numbered no more than fifteen men.

That made it all the stranger to see another dozen bandits crammed into the room alongside his colleagues in Blue cloaks. Or mercenaries. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

Sidogib figured there was no line at all.

“All right, gentlemen, gentlemen.” A big, heavyset, gray-haired man rose to his feet. His face was as tanned and tough as his leather jacket, and his jaw was so square it literally formed a right angle on either side of his chin. “Let’s agree they’re promising us enough crispers to last three lifetimes.”

“That’s just it, Square: they’re only promising,” one of the bandits snorted. “I can’t pay a whore when I’m dead.”

“Yeah.”

“Husk’s got it right.”

“Mr Onton, if we’re being honest, you’re selling us a load of shit and telling us it smells like roses.”

“We’re wasting our breath.”

“I’d rather go straight to the marshals or the Cloaks, bare-assed with my cock in my hand, than deal with all this.”

Sidogib kept silent, like the other mages. Mr Onton was equally silent. Once the bandits had aired their complaints and exhausted their supply of obscenities, Onton slowly slipped a hand into his inside pocket and, just as slowly, pulled out several large sheets rolled together.

They were sheets of official stamped paper edged in green, and a silvered two-headed phoenix gleamed on them.

All at once, silence settled over the table.

“Treasury notes,” Square said, drawing the words out, his voice catching.

“That’s right, Mr Gorokhov,” Mr Onton confirmed, his voice betraying nothing. “One-year Treasury notes with a face value of one thousand exes apiece. There are exactly thirty-five of them here. Enough for every one of you and every one of your men to make his wildest dreams come true.”

For the first time, Sidogib saw the bandits’ eyes kindle with a greed so desperate they nearly drooled like hungry yard dogs.

“And what’s to stop us,” the bandit they called Husk rasped softly, “from sticking a blade in that talkative throat of yours right here and now, Mr Onton, taking the notes, and getting out?”

“Nothing,” Mr Onton readily admitted. He smoothed his mustache once more and immediately added, “But where would you go, Mr Tokarev? I suppose your associates could go back to their hometowns, the places they fled when the law got too close. Deserters, bandits, murderers… your men won’t be welcome in Ngia or Tazidah, or even Fatia. That’s assuming you can cross the border. More likely, you won’t even get that far. You’ll simply cut one another’s throats over those very papers, each little gang turning on itself.”

“Watch your tongue, capon.” One of the bandits narrowed his eyes.

“Looks like Mr Onton’s taking too many liberties.”

“Maybe we should vent that extra steam through another hole in his gut?”

As Ardan had learned from Arkar, capon was the term for a man who had been through something truly horrific as a child, something he had agreed to endure in exchange for exes. Among society’s outcasts, it was a vicious insult, far too grave to settle with a mere fistfight, but Mr Onton did not so much as raise an eyebrow.

Sidogib had no idea what the bandit meant by calling a man of Mr Onton’s bearing a “capon.” At times, it was almost impossible to understand the way bastards who lived outside the law spoke. Whatever else he was, Mr Montov did not consider himself a criminal.

“So I’m offering you a simple deal, gentlemen.” Mr Onton picked up exactly where they had cut him off. “You’ll do what’s required of you, and I’ll cash these notes for you. Notes that no bank on the western continent will accept from you, since you’re wanted in several countries.”

The bandits fell quiet. Mr Onton had calculated everything just right. The bastards were looking at an entire fortune, neatly arranged in a stack of government securities, but even if they got their hands on the papers, they would not be able to cash them. That was precisely why Sidogib was certain Mr Onton was not a man to underestimate.

“Plant explosives in the Park, then destroy Second Station, break into the ingredient vault here at First Station, and detonate a bomb?” Square asked, seeking confirmation. “It sounds so insane, Mr Onton, that I’d think I’d gotten drunk and was having a fever dream. But I’m sure you didn’t spend six months gathering us from all across the steppe just to feed us some nonsense.”

“Exactly.” Mr Onton nodded. “You’re right. I didn’t spend six months of my life, as you put it, just to feed you nonsense. Instead, I brought you this.” Onton nodded toward the stack of promissory notes. “Your bright future, along with a detailed plan that a trusted associate of mine will deliver.”

One of the Blue mages stood. In the dim light, Sidogib couldn’t make out his features, only his outline and the prosthetic that replaced his left leg.

“You probably think we’re idiots, Galessian.” The bandit with the Ngian accent brought his fist down on the table. “I know what you want to do. Is that why you need Agrib and me?”

“Yeah,” Agrib agreed.

“You want to make it look like our countries attacked the Station?”

“Have you gentlemen suddenly become patriots?” Mr Onton arched an eyebrow. “What I’m trying to accomplish shouldn’t concern you. The organization I represent shouldn’t concern you either. All you should care about is the money lying on this table right now. It’s already as good as yours.”

“And what guarantee do we have that you’ll keep your word and we won’t all wind up in the ground?”

“You’ll have the promissory notes.” Mr Onton shrugged. “You won’t be able to cash them, and I won’t be able to take them away from you. That means we’ll be working closely together. Almost symbiotically, I’d say.”

Ardan waved a hand. He stepped closer to Mr Onton and leaned in, peering into his eyes. They glimmered. Far brighter than should have been possible in the meeting room’s dim light.

Mr Montov was mistaken. His employer really was hiding behind an illusion. But no ordinary one. Onton had used a sophisticated glamour drawn from the art of Aean’Hane. And since Ardi was deep within someone else’s memory, he had no way whatsoever to peer beneath the veil.

Sleeping Spirits.

Could the Puppeteers truly have been involved in all this after all, just not in the role the Black House and Miss Taisia Shpritz had assigned them?!

“And don’t forget the most important thing,” Mr Onton added, already rising from his seat. “I need Senior Magister Varvara Ostrozhskaya not only to survive but also to be delivered to me at the appointed place and time. As for everyone else, you may do whatever you please.”

“What about the Army and the Cloaks?” Brick asked, a note of fear in his voice.

“Don’t worry about them.” Mr Onton straightened his jacket. “We’ll make sure they’re too late. Once it all begins, you’ll have two weeks. Plenty of time to carry out your plan and vanish into the steppe. As soon as you detonate the charge in the ingredient vault and hand Miss Ostrozhskaya over to me, our deal will be done, and then and there I’ll personally exchange your promissory notes for exes. Now, gentlemen, I’ll be going.”

Mr Onton bowed theatrically, tipped his hat, and disappeared through the doors.

Present Day

“…that they really had been bought, as you put it?”

Ardan grimaced and nodded.

“Yes, Mr Zalessky,” he answered, his tone bleak. “To plant a charge in the Park. Don’t ask me where; I have no idea. Then destroy Second Station. I don’t know why, either. And finally, to blow up the ingredient vault at First Station and, as though that weren’t enough, abduct Senior Magister Ostrozhskaya.”

Magister Tikhonov banged his head on the generator lid, and somehow, for a moment, he reminded Ardan of the late Montov, may the Eternal Angels judge him justly.

“Of everything on that list, Ostrozhskaya worries me least,” Zalessky ground out. “But by the Light, why the hell do they need to blow up the vault?”

“Got i—”

“We have to hurry!” Magister Tikhonov shouted without warning, drawing everyone’s attention. “We have to reach First Station as soon as possible! We have to prevent this! It’s a catastrophe! It’s… it’s… it’s…”

Evlampiy clutched his chest, gasping, and collapsed to his knees. Zalessky and Ardan rushed to Evlampiy’s side (though Ard, truth be told, did more hobbling than running) and helped him back to his feet.

“What are you talking about, Lamp?”

“We have to . . . have to . . . catastrophe . . . there’ll be a catastrophe . . . you don’t understand . . . catastrophe . . .”

The sharp crack of a slap rang out.

“Sorry, Lamp,” Zalessky said at once. “But you need to calm down . . . Have you calmed down?”

Evlampiy rubbed his smarting cheek and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Then explain to us what you’re talking about.”

Rita and Bors came running toward them when they heard the shouting. Both raised their rifles to their shoulders and looked warily from side to side.

“There are almost a hundred kilos of ingredients in the vault right now,” Evlampiy said, visibly short of breath and still clutching his chest. “It’s spring. Mating season. Any anomaly with a nervous system is keyed up to a fever pitch. And if two charges are detonated, one in the Park and the other in the vault . . . Just imagine the magnitude of the Ley-Distur—or rather, the Paarlax Field. Yes, the effect on the Paarlax Field. Anomalies behave like animals, after all. They’ll think other hunters are attacking their packs. During mating season, no less. Their instincts will kick in. And they’ll sense the danger as coming from one place.”

“Second Station,” Rita said, pronouncing it one syllable at a time.

Evlampiy nodded.

“The anomalies, especially the predators, will rush toward what they think is a fight. Out of the Park. And the Ley-wiring on the Avenue and the Streets won’t stop them. They’ll want blood. And their senses will lead them straight to the vault where the blast went off.”

“Fuck,” Bors said, summing it up in a word.

“How many predators are we talking about, Lamp?” Zalessky asked, his voice almost trembling.

“You don’t understand, Drab.” Evlampiy shook his head and met Zalessky’s gaze. “I’m not talking about specific anomalies. I mean all of them. It’s like a chain reaction. Once a few of them bolt, the rest will panic, and the panic will keep spreading. I don’t know . . . dozens . . . hundreds of the most dangerous anomalies will race south. They’ll wipe out First Station, then Yellik, and then . . .”

Evlampiy fell silent.

But he didn’t need to continue. Anomalies driven mad by bloodlust and fear, leaving the confines of the Northern National Park and scattering across the entire steppe? The rail lines under construction, the small towns and settlements, the farms and mining operations, and, if the Army failed to stop them, eventually even the major cities: all of it would be at risk. Even if the Army did manage to stop them, it would have to leave part of the front exposed. Worse, its losses could number in the tens of thousands.

Would the Ngians and Fatians choose to exploit the chaos this attack would create in the Empire’s north? What choice would the Empire itself have if its people came to believe the tragedy in the north had been engineered by people wearing Ngian and Tazidahian uniforms?

Ardan didn’t know the answers to those questions. Probably no one did. But that didn’t make it any easier.

“Shiiiit,” Rita drawled.

Ardan couldn’t have said it better.

***

The campfire crackled. Merry and serene. Sparks flew into the night sky, leaving behind threads of fading light so fine they were barely visible. Ardi listened to their joyful sound, like grasshoppers stirring in the still-tender spring grass. He followed their brief, bright paths with his eyes, each spark holding a single moment and nothing more. In those sounds and images, Ardan heard a tiny shard of a Name, and that Name was only one part of another, far vaster and more fearsome. He caught the sparks in his palm, then blew on them, lifting them higher and higher until they unfurled into a broad canvas of stars.

“Amazing!” Magister Tikhonov cried with almost childlike delight, so loudly that he woke Bors.

“What?! Where?!” Bors roared. He’d whipped out both revolvers and was aiming them into the darkness of the forest, one in each hand.

“Everything’s all right, Mr Bors,” Ardi said quickly.

Bors grumbled something in annoyance, closed his eyes, and settled back onto the makeshift pillow he’d fashioned from his own rolled-up jacket. He still didn’t put the revolvers back in their holsters.

Once again, they made camp for the night. They unwound coils of Ley-wiring connected to the blank; Ard set up a basic signal shield, and Zalessky set up the watch rotation.

As usual, Ardan took the first watch, while Evlampiy still couldn’t get to sleep.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Evlampiy stood and got tangled for a moment in his now-too-loose pants. “The art of the Aean’Hane…”

Ardi looked Evlampiy over, taking in the changes. Over the past ten days, nervous strain, sleepless nights, herbal brews, and mile after mile on foot had stripped a good deal of excess weight from him. His features had sharpened; the soft puffiness was gone, replaced by sharply defined cheekbones. Even his sausage fingers had become longer and slimmer. Though hardly long or elegant, they were at least perfectly ordinary.

Ardan was no judge of male beauty, and since meeting Cassara, he wasn’t sure he could judge female beauty either. But Evlampiy’s claim that he’d looked different before no longer seemed like a hollow attempt to reassure himself.

“Partly,” Ardan replied, somewhat evasively. He continued to watch Evlampiy wander through the star map, pieced together from campfire sparks frozen in the dark. “The Aean’Hane use whole Names, but Speakers use only their Shards.”

“Names and Shards…” Evlampiy drew out the words. “I wonder if there’s some way to express that using the formulas of Star Magic.”

Ardi shrugged. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t considered it, but he had almost no time for anything as it was. Taking on that kind of research on top of everything else would be outright madness. The Empire had spent century after century studying the Aean’Hane. After meeting Captain Aloaeiol, Ardi suspected that the mutants themselves had never been the goal, either for the Empire in general or for Ivan Kornosskiy in particular, but were instead a byproduct of some highly specific research. Yet the Empire had failed to make any progress at all. Even Nicholas the Stranger had uncovered nothing beyond a hypothesis linking the Aean’Hane to Star Magic.

“Remarkable, Ard, remarkable.” Magister Tikhonov beamed with open delight, as if he were back in his own study rather than in the middle of the Park at night, pursuing a whole gang of bandits. “So the stories about the Witch’s Gaze aren’t made up either? That’s exactly how you got the details of the conspiracy out of… as you put it… Mr Montov?”

“That’s right,” Ardi said.

At the moment, he couldn’t see the slightest reason to hide anything. The five of them had to find a way, if not to stop whatever “Onton” and his henchmen were planning altogether, then at least to delay it until the cavalry arrived, in every sense of the word.

“The Paarlax Field is a remarkable thing.”

Ardi jerked.

“I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

“The Paarlax Field,” Magister Tikhonov repeated. “Suppose the field is indivisible and constant, and our bodies compensate for the fact that this same field makes electrical signal transmission impossible. It follows that the mind, like the nervous system, depends entirely on the Ley-energy the body has accumulated.”

Evlampiy tried to stroke the Forest Cat constellation as it rubbed its coat of fluffy stars against his knee.

“And if the Aean’Hane and the Speakers control the Paarlax Field directly, then it follows that the Witch’s Gaze is no more than a manifestation of this phenomenon. I would venture to suggest, Ard, that what you enter is not another person’s mind at all, but their Ley.”

“I will drink your Ley, Speaker!”

“I will take all of your Ley, and my name will be sung through the ages!”

Ardan cleared his throat.

“Magister Tikhonov, do you realize that’s a rather revolutionary hypothesis?” he asked hoarsely.

“Perhaps.” Evlampiy waved the question away without paying Ard the slightest attention and kept walking among the stars. “I’ve spent the last twenty years, Ard, asking what dragons really are. So I had to learn a little about the Aean’Hane as well. What little can be found on the subject, at least. In our small circle of believers in children’s tales about winged embodiments of magic, one remarkably persistent theory holds that dragons are Aean’Hane by nature.”

“But how did you…”

“Only someone versed in the art of Oan’Ane…”

“Aean’Hane,” Ardan corrected him without thinking.

Mart gave him a look that said plainly, “Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Exactly.”

…

“But you…”

“Would you really believe me if I promised not to tell anyone?”

Ardi looked into Mart’s eyes. As deeply as he could. All he saw there was burning, earnest curiosity, free of malice and greed.

Borskov was a researcher, not the sort of man to break his word for personal gain.

“I’ll belie—”

“Damn it.” Mart turned away and shook his head. “I’ve only ever read about things like this in books… Is that the Witch’s Gaze?”

Ardi understood now why Mart had been so interested in Ard’s unusual abilities and how he knew so much about Aean’Hane art in general. Like Magister Tikhonov, he had devoted a substantial part of his career as a Star archaeologist to searching for dragons. Everything that had seemed a little strange to Ardan now fell easily into place.

“When we get back to the Metropolis, I’ll be sure to show you my notes, Ard.” Magister Tikhonov finally stepped away from the three-dimensional star map, and Ardi took the hint and set the Sparks free.

With those same fine threads trailing behind them, they dissolved into the darkness in a single instant.

“Magic…” Evlampiy drawled, dreamy as ever.

Evlampiy returned to the fire and held his hands out to the flames.

“I’d forgotten how easily I used to get cold before I put on weight.” He shivered, pulling his jacket closed and drawing his cloak tighter around himself. “You know, Ard, sometimes I like to imagine what the world looked like in the Prehistoric age. Back when higher elves, iron dwarves, and red-skinned orcs lived among all the Firstborn beneath the stars.”

Ardi looked at Evlampiy’s dreamy expression. Evlampiy was talking about an age with no surviving record beyond the Firstborn’s own legends and the exceedingly rare artifacts left by the higher elves.

“Dragons, Fae, the ancestors of the Firstborn.” Evlampiy closed his eyes and broke into a smile. “A world of real magic, Ard. Cruel at times. Sometimes even horrifying and bloody. But somehow… wonderfull. Yes, I suppose so. No better word for it. Now then.” He sighed and looked up at the sky. “Have you ever seen a tank, Ard?”

Ardan shuddered. Before he could answer, Evlampiy gave a bitter snort.

“I see that you have… Oh, forgive me. That came out a little awkward.” Evlampiy picked up a small twig from the ground and began twirling it between his fingers. “Sometimes I regret being born so late, Ard. Then, of course, I think of my wife, my children, Mom and Dad, and it gets easier. But sometimes, when I look at the stars from my office window, I feel so melancholy.”

Ardan said nothing. He kept the Witch’s Gaze in check, so Evlampiy was simply sharing what had been weighing on him. Trying, as Milar put it, to ease the hardened places in his aging soul. And despite all his efforts, Ardi still didn’t know how to offer support or show sympathy in conversations like this.

“You can see the lights of the Metropolis back there, behind the house.” Evlampiy sighed, and his shoulders sagged a little lower. “Skyscrapers, Underground Tramway Lines, and now an airport! A real, honest-to-goodness airport! Have you heard it opens next fall, with the first civilian airships bound for Larand and then Azure City? All the way across the Empire.”

“I’ve heard.” Ardi nodded.

“Straight through the sky.” Evlampiy swept the twig through the air, mimicking an airship’s motion. “Anyone who says they never dreamed of flying as a child is lying. But for some reason, Ard, the thought of crossing the sky inside an iron-skinned, gas-filled cigar doesn’t thrill me in the least. And those military versions with gliders hitched beneath them? Believe me, Ard. It may take ten years, perhaps even a quarter century, but the Star scholars and our non-Star colleagues will find a way for gliders to fly on their own.”

Ardi gave him a sidelong look.

“You’ve already figured it all out, haven’t you, Ard?” Evlampiy didn’t even pretend he hadn’t understood the unspoken question. “The Empire is searching for the Winged-Horned, just as it’s searching for dragons, to answer the most important question of all.”

“How to conquer the sky.”

Evlampiy nodded.

“Maybe it began with a childhood dream, and later, perhaps, became a way to help heal the wounds Ectassus left behind. But now—” Evlampiy snapped the twig and shook his head. “Now it’s because flight makes it far easier for the Empire to cross borders, slip past trenches, and drop bombs on its enemies’ heads. And that’s only for now: the bombs are still just artillery shells. Now imagine the power of the Airship when it’s carrying dozens of gliders. What sort of monstrous bombs could be hung beneath it?”

Magister Tikhonov discreetly wiped tears from the corners of his eyes.

“I wish I could see a dragon, Ard, if only for a moment. Just to know that true magic might still be alive somewhere, even if it’s hidden from everyone. Maybe humanity’s ambitions haven’t tainted it yet. Maybe that twisted word, ‘power,’ hasn’t soiled it. Eternal Angels, Ard, how can anyone truly want power over another human being? I can’t wrap my head around it.” Evlampiy drew his knees up and rested his chin on them. “To see a dragon . . . and talk to it. They must have some way to communicate, right? What could a creature that has lived for thousands of years tell us? Maybe if we found them, we could learn how to prevent the thing we’ve all feared since that damned Congress.”

Magister Tikhonov smiled again. This time, though, his smile was far sadder than before.

“And then I realize that if they’ve been hiding from everyone for thousands of years, they must have a very compelling reason. And then there’s what you told me . . . what terrible things people are willing to do for personal gain. How easily they mistreat the weak. They’ll stroll into someone else’s garden and pick a plum. But the moment they catch petty thieves in their own garden reaching for that very same plum, they’ll empty a revolver into them, then march to the sheriff’s Administration building and file a complaint for good measure. Completely forgetting that just yesterday they were the ones picking fruit in someone else’s garden. Simply because they knew for certain they’d get away with it.” Evlampiy was clearly thinking back to some experience of his own, but Ardi didn’t pry. “So let my dream stay a dream, Ard. You know, a photograph would be enough for me. Even one taken from a distance. Not a fake like the ones they love to peddle on Sleepless Street, but a real one. Sometimes simply knowing magic exists is enough, even if you can’t touch it yourself. Just knowing. And somehow, life gets easier after that.”

Ardan opened his mouth, then closed it again at once. Something clicked into place in his mind, and one thing became clear.

“You . . .”

“Yes,” was Evlampiy’s only answer. “Three days before Anatoliy’s death. When Botnik’s team returned. They brought something from somewhere. At first I couldn’t even believe what I saw. I spent several evenings examining it with instruments and alchemical tests, but there can be no doubt. Botnik found traces of the Winged-Horned. But I won’t tell you a thing. I won’t tell anyone. Ever. And of course, Ard, you can break my will and use the Witch’s Gaze, but . . .” This time, Magister Tikhonov’s smile was gentler, almost happy. “. . . somehow I know you won’t. Maybe because I can see that your heart is too kind for that. Or maybe because it seems to me that a shard of ancient magic wouldn’t want to harm other shards like itself, even ones that were a little different.”

Ardan stared at Magister Evlampiy Tikhonov, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. He stared and silently vowed to himself that never again, not once in his life, would he judge anyone by the first impression they made.

Evlampiy was indecisive and cowardly, a middle-aged man utterly unable to stand up for himself. Yet suddenly he had proved more unyielding than a century-old oak. Evlampiy seemed to have no idea he had that kind of strength.

“But, Magister, if other countries—”

“That’s our main problem, Ard.” Ard had never seen Evlampiy cut anyone off so quickly before. “Nobody trusts anyone else, Ard, and sadly, we have good reason not to. What if another country unlocks the secrets of the sky? What if another country is the first to solve the problem of long-distance communication? What if another country gets hold of a new generation of strategic magic?”

Tikhonov had been parodying a dry, generic bureaucratic tone. Then he went on in his own voice:

“Perfectly reasonable questions. But you’d be better off saying, ‘If no country does it, then…’ and from there you could go on forever. Though, of course…” Evlampiy’s smile slowly faded. “…though, of course, skyscrapers won’t get any shorter because of that. And airships won’t disappear. And clattering spring carriages and cabs won’t come rolling back to replace automobiles. No one will ever tell themselves, ‘Enough. I have all I need.’ And one day, what’s written in pulp sci-fi books that bored housewives buy by the ton will become our own terrible reality. No, Ard. I was definitely born too late. Back then, long ago, the world must have been so vast. Beyond every hill, beyond every river and stand of trees, something wondrous lay hidden. Dangerous, yes. But wondrous. And now… now all we do is wait for someone to invent an ingenious new way to kill every last one of us. And yes, you’d be right to remind me of the History of Star Magic course and tell me it’s always been this way. But I desperately want to romanticize the distant past. And dragons, of course.”

Ardi realized something else.

“You don’t like war magic.”

“Can’t stand it.” Evlampiy made no attempt to deny the obvious. He turned to Ard with a snort. “Neither can you, Ard.”

It probably shouldn’t have surprised him that a man like Magister Evlampiy Tikhonov was so perceptive.

“Oh, forgive me, Ard, for bending your ear so shamelessly,” Evlampiy said, catching himself. “It’s just… everything’s just been piling up… Yes, forgive me. I’m usually more restrained. And… I suppose I’ll try to fall asleep.”

Evlampiy stood and went over to his sleeping bag. He pulled the waterproof, cotton-padded bag around himself and squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

Ardi was left with the merry crackle of the fire for company. Sometimes he found himself wondering about such things too. For instance, would people still light fires in the distant future? Or would everything around them finally turn into a conductor of dead Ley?

“A shitty song, Cassara.”

“Sorry, Yonatan.”

And sure enough…

***

At last, they reached the clearing where the Second Station had once stood. But now there was nothing here.

“Fuck,” Rita ground out through clenched teeth, helpless with rage.