Matabar. Book II. Chapter 154. Ohrazzak (Patreon)

The narrow streets of Azure City twisted and wound between the houses; in places, Ardan could have stretched out his arms and touched the walls on both sides at once. The paving stones winked underfoot, polished smooth over centuries by the soles of countless generations. Overhead, laundry dried on lines stretched between the balconies of houses facing one another. Now and then, it stirred lazily in the light morning breeze like multicolored flags on masts in the bay.

The smells of fresh baking and strong coffee drifted from wide-open windows. Somewhere overhead, neighbors shouted back and forth about the morning’s news. Every so often, cats drowsy from the heat darted aside, seeking relief in the shade beneath steps and in doorways.

Ardi and Tess strolled along the little streets, savoring the morning cool before the sun reached full strength and turned the city into a red-hot furnace.

“…and we’re still going to have to tackle the kitchen when we get home,” Tess said with a long-suffering sigh. She walked arm in arm with her husband, peering into shop windows now and then. “The dump’s been waiting ages for that junk the previous tenants left us. I know you don’t much like this sort of thing, but I saw a perfectly decent set of kitchen cabinets in a catalog. Light wood. With neat little doors and shiny brass handles. Very pretty.”

“All right, Tess.” Ardan nodded as he walked around a dog dozing in the middle of the street. “Let’s just pick something… built to last, okay?”

They exchanged a glance and both blushed a little, remembering the time Ard had to repair the countertop and Tess had to sweep spilled flour off the floor.

“Practical and pretty aren’t mutually exclusive.” Tess raised a finger to make her point, sparks of mischief dancing in her eyes. “And we absolutely need a new icebox. Bigger than our old one, with more room inside. Ours barely keeps anything cold. The milk goes sour the very next day, and the butter meets the Eternal Angels right there on the shelf. Pretty soon I’ll start dreaming about that smell.”

“Agreed. We really do need an icebox,” Ardi conceded.

“And it would be nice to replace the stove,” Tess went on, adding to her wish list. “One with burners that light without a fuss. By the time you’ve cooked porridge on ours, you’ve either grown old and gray or learned to swear in half the world’s languages. And we’re always getting more dishes, so we need to put up a small cupboard or a glass-fronted cabinet.”

“Tess.” Ardan smiled and shook his head. “If we buy everything you’re listing now, we’ll have to either throw the bed out of the bedroom or look for a roomier apartment. Our kitchen’s the size of your dressing room, and even that’s an exaggeration.”

“Come on, Ardi!” Tess gave him a playful jab in the side with her fist. “I’m not suggesting we buy everything all at once. The icebox and stove first, since we need those most. Then the cupboard, once we’ve saved up a little. Or we could get a bigger apartment!”

Ardi nearly stumbled, but then he saw the mischievous spark in his wife’s eyes.

“Why don’t we move straight to the Mansionhills, Tess?” he asked, playing along with the joke he hadn’t caught at first.

“Why go to the Mansionhills, Ardi, when they’re selling entire floors of skyscrapers in New City?” Tess shook her head. “Or we could demand that His Imperial Majesty give us a couple of bedrooms in the Palace. Either way, get used to the idea of spending money, dear husband.”

Tess could barely keep a straight face as she imitated the ladies on pompous gentlemen’s arms. At times, those couples packed the city’s streets so tightly you could hardly squeeze past.

“I’ve long since gotten used to the idea of spending money, thanks to you,” Ardi teased. She answered with another playful jab.

“For your information.” Tess lifted her chin. “I earn half that money myself. So I have every right to dream of a pretty little cupboard.”

“You do, you do,” Ardan agreed, raising both hands in mock surrender.

They stopped, exchanged a glance, and burst out laughing together. Their laughter was so loud and full-throated that the cats scurrying past scattered in every direction, hissing indignantly at Ardi and Tess, those fine gentlefolk who had disturbed their peace.

“Tess, have you written to your mother in Shamtur?” Ardi asked after catching his breath. “You were planning to, weren’t you?”

“I have. Just recently.” Tess nodded. “Three whole pages. I told her about the flight, about the sea, about the palm trees. And about what a wonderful son-in-law she has.”

“You could have skipped that last part,” Ardi said with a sigh.

“Not a chance.” Tess shook her head stubbornly. “Yes, I know she... it’s not that she dislikes you personally, Ardi. It’s just... I think your papers gets under her skin. And your last name, too... She could probably take one or the other in stride. But both together. Still, that’s her problem. Don’t get me wrong, I love her, but I’m the one who has to live my life, not her. She’ll have to get used to the idea that we’ll be spending two weeks at my father’s house for my sister’s wedding.”

Ardan winced inwardly. Right... Tess’s younger sister was getting married... in Shamtur... lovely.

They chatted idly about life at home as they came out onto a small square in front of an old church. Its squat bell tower had darkened with age. A shell-shaped stone fountain burbled in the middle of the square. Pigeons strutted self-importantly around it, cooing. An open-top tour bus was parked at the curb: a carriage with several rows of wooden benches and a hefty diesel engine beneath the hood.

About ten passengers were already seated. Ardan and Tess climbed the steps and immediately spotted several familiar faces from the Airship. The same heavyset gentleman with the double chin had settled onto the front bench with his pretty brunette companion. The elegant blonde sat near the middle, wearing the same earrings she’d worn aboard the Airship. She fanned herself as she gazed at the church, looking bored.

“I just hope no one decides to ask me to sing again,” Tess whispered to her husband. “I’m already starting to feel like a traveling entertainer. Maybe I should start performing on street corners? Just think, Ardi: all that singing, and we could finally afford a little cabinet...”

Tess wiggled her eyebrows, nearly sending Ard into another fit of laughter.

“Then pretend you don’t know what they’re talking about,” Ardi suggested in a low voice. “Say you’re not Tess Egobar at all, but her twin sister, who can’t sing a note.”

“A twin?” Tess asked in a conspiratorial tone. “And what’s my poor sister’s name?”

“Ness,” Ardan said without batting an eye. “Ness Egobar. Deaf in one ear and utterly tone-deaf.”

“Ardi.” Tess pinched his side. “I’ve got some very bad news for you: you’re absolutely hopeless at choosing aliases.”

The tour guide met them at the bus entrance. A little younger than Ard, he wore a neat uniform jacket and had a worn leather folder tucked under his arm. He took their fare and gave them two cardboard tickets with the route number stamped on them. Then his gaze strayed to the staff in Ard’s hands.

“Excuse me.” The guide gave a slight frown as he studied Ard. “Are you a mage? Where are your insignia, then? The law is strict: every mage must wear a cloak with Stars so everyone knows who they’re dealing with.”

Ardan didn’t want to attract any unnecessary attention from the other passengers, so he stepped a little closer. He turned to block their view, then calmly drew his Black House credentials from an inside pocket and opened them right in front of the guide’s face.

The guide went pale.

Then he flushed all the way to his hairline. Then he went pale again, and his Adam’s apple gave a sudden jerk. He hurriedly handed Ard the tickets back, his hands all but shaking. He motioned them toward the benches, clearly flustered.

“Yes, yes, of course, my apologies, sir, ma’am, I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just doing my job...” he mumbled in a rush. “Please, climb aboard and take any available seats. We’re just about to leave.”

“It’s all right,” Ardi reassured him, tucking the document back into his pocket. “You did exactly the right thing. No need to apologize.”

“Th-thank you, sir.” The guide forced the words out, then hastily looked away.

Completely unruffled, Ardi took Tess’s arm and walked with her to an empty bench at the very back of the bus, well away from any familiar faces.

“Now he’ll keep looking back at you for half the trip,” Tess murmured.

“Let him.” Ardan shrugged. “At least you can be sure he won’t ask you to sing. He’ll be afraid to mess with an Investigator’s wife.”

“You see?” Tess narrowed her eyes playfully. “My mother’s badly mistaken. Sometimes even your work is good for our marriage.”

When the passengers had all finally settled into their seats, the guide took his place at the front beside a small polished copper megaphone. The engine began to hum softly, and the bus pulled smoothly out of the Square.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Our sightseeing tour will take us to the ruined tower of the great mage Aean’Hane!” the guide began, back in good spirits after his earlier embarrassment. “But before we reach the main destination of our trip, let me tell you a little about Azure City itself. I’m proud to say it has a very, very interesting history. Few visitors know this, but our beautiful city, awash in flowers, wasn’t founded by merchants or fishermen at all. Azure City was built by real, honest-to-goodness pirates. Sea raiders.”

The passengers began whispering, curious and a little excited, their voices rippling through the bus. Even the blonde with the earrings stilled her fan.

“And is it true, young man,” the heavyset gentleman asked, turning toward the guide, “that the pirates here terrorized the entire southern coast?”

“Absolutely, sir,” the guide said eagerly. “You see, our Azure Sea lies deep in the heart of the continent and isn’t connected to the open waters of the ocean. It saw almost no large-scale trade back then, and, I must admit, it still sees almost none today. But for sea raiders, these secluded shores, notched with coves, were a godsend. Here, in bays hidden from outsiders, they set up their bases and secret storehouses for their plunder. And they used the Salt rivers, which connect our sea to the Great Water, to sail out to the open coast and plunder everything they could reach. The southern coast all the way to the farthest Islands, the northern coast all the way to the shores of forbidding Tazidahian.”

“And no one could stop them?” The blonde raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“For a long time, no one could, miss,” the guide conceded, a little abashed. “These waters are treacherous, full of shoals and hidden currents. The pirates knew them like the backs of their hands. Piracy only came to an end once the Empire grew strong and built up a proper navy. And even then, to be honest, it wasn’t force that did it, but cunning. And the promise of pay in exes. Rather than hang the most experienced and skillful pirates from the yardarms, they simply enticed them into service with promises of pay and rank. Some were made instructors to teach cabin boys seamanship. Others, believe it or not, were even commissioned as officers in the Imperial Navy.”

“Clever,” the heavyset gentleman grunted approvingly. “Good business.”

“And do any descendants of those pirates still live around here?” the brunette asked, perking up.

“Of course they do, miss.” The guide smiled. “Half of Azure City’s old families trace their ancestry back to those very pirates. Many are even proud of it. They hang antique sabers and portraits of dashing sea dogs in their living rooms. It’s considered something of an honor here… That’s exactly why our city has kept its own distinct spirit to this day. The romance of a free life at sea, you might say. And a touch of admiration for the daring and audacity of days gone by. It’s also what gave birth to jazz here, by the way. Free, passionate music unlike anything else. The music of free people.”

Tess brightened at the mention of jazz and leaned close to Ardi’s ear.

“Hear that, Ardi?” she whispered. “According to the locals, the descendants of pirates invented jazz. Not Firstborn half-bloods. Funny, really.

“I wonder, if you went somewhere in the Tai borderlands, would they start telling you that fishermen invented jazz?”

“But come to think of it,” Tess went on thoughtfully, “when I perform ‘The Cat,’ it feels as if something inside me breaks loose from its chain. Maybe I have a drop of pirate blood in me too?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Ardi teased. “Though I suspect you’re just fed up with being asked for the same song yet again.”

“Board them!” Tess let out a soft snort of laughter. “Why not? It has a nice ring to it. I like it. Tess Egobar, terror of the concert halls. We could even put that on the poster.”

“No saber, though,” Ardan warned as seriously as he could. “Or you’ll scare off the audience.”

They laughed again.

The bus gradually emerged from the city’s narrow, winding streets into open country. Outside, picturesque hills and valleys rolled past, the kind Ardi had only ever seen in geography textbook illustrations. The road snaked between gentle slopes covered in silvery olive groves and vineyards.

The vines stretched in neat green ranks all the way to the horizon, alternating with plots where southern crops he didn’t recognize ripened under the hot sun. Dark, pointed cypresses rose here and there like frozen green candles some invisible giant’s hand had stuck into the earth. A few white farmhouses stood in the lowlands and hollows under faded red tile roofs, surrounded by gardens and outbuildings.

Out here, far from the city, the air felt fresher. It carried the scent of sun-warmed grass, wildflowers, and the dusty road, along with a distant, barely perceptible breath of the sea. The sun climbed higher and higher, flooding the countryside with rich golden light.

“You know,” Tess said quietly as she watched the hills drift past, “I really do like it here. I barely believed we’d get away. It always seemed like something was bound to get in the way. Concerts, or something else...”

“But here we are,” Ardi said gently.

“Here we are,” Tess echoed. She smiled. “And I want to remember every day. So later, in winter, when the capital is cold, damp, and gray, I can close my eyes and remember this sun. And these hills. And the two of us riding in this funny bus with no roof.”

“And especially our fellow passengers.” Ardan snorted as he studied the pompous gentleman and the ladies from Baliero.

Tess smiled.

“Do you remember what you were like when we first met?” She turned to him, a playful spark flashing in her eyes. “You were sullen, silent. Every question got a three-word answer. Back then, I thought you were such a wild matabar.”

“And I thought you were such a noisy singer,” Ardi replied, matching her tone.

“Noisy?” Tess protested in mock outrage. “Well, excuse me!”

“Noisy and impossible.” Ardan nodded, his expression perfectly serious. “Impossibly beautiful and impossibly wonderful.”

Tess went still. She leaned gently against his shoulder and stayed quiet for a while, smiling to herself. When she spoke again, her voice was a little lower.

“Ardi, be honest with me. Are you glad the Aean’Hane tower is inside the Firstborn reservation?”

Ardi didn’t answer immediately. He looked over the side of the bus and watched in silence as the vineyards and olive groves drifted past.

“I don’t know, Tess,” he said softly at last. “It’s a complicated question.”

“Complicated?” She studied him. “Why is it complicated?”

“Let’s talk about it later, okay?” Ardi gently squeezed her hand. “Not here.”

Tess gave his hand a light squeeze in return.

***

After about forty unhurried minutes on the road, the first houses came into view ahead, amid the green of the hills.

They looked almost exactly like the familiar buildings of Azure City. The same warm ochre and terracotta walls, the same red-tiled roofs, the same wrought-iron balconies twined with flowering vines. And without the broad stone arch spanning the road at the very entrance to the little town, no visitor would ever have guessed there was any special boundary here.

The arch bore an inscription in two languages: the Galessian everyone knew and another rendered in a flowing yet angular cursive script like interwoven branches. It read: “Reservation of the Azure Province.”

“Ardi.” Tess nodded toward the arch. “Whose language is that underneath?”

“The Western Elves use that script,” Ardan explained, studying the angular symbols he’d known since childhood. “But I think there’s a mistake in it...”

“Beautiful.” Tess gazed admiringly at the fine, interwoven lines. “Like branches twining together. Can you write like that too?”

“A little,” Ardi said evasively.

“Do you have some kind of word limit today?” Tess drawled with mock reproach. “Or are you just saving your energy for later, so you can launch into a long tirade about how none of the Ley-engineering at the dig or the hotel would pass a single inspection?”

“You’re the one who spent several hours grilling me about why I’m not too fond of airships,” Ardan reminded her. The bus rolled beneath the ancient arch with its engine humming softly, leaving the familiar world behind.

They passed through the entrance and drove along perfectly ordinary streets. Now and then, little trams rattled and lurched toward them. Old cars with coughing engines shared the streets with slow-moving wagons drawn by placid draft horses. It was all exactly like any other sleepy provincial town in the vast Empire.

Only the people here were different.

Wherever Ard looked, he saw Firstborn. Massive, broad-shouldered orcs strode along the sidewalks with a purposeful, rolling gait. Their skin was greenish, sometimes brown, and in the rarest cases almost black. Lithe elves with pointed ears talked in low voices by the shops and under café awnings. Short-legged dwarves with full beards went about their business with quick little steps. A couple of times, Ardi spotted nimble, big-eared goblins darting back and forth through the crowd. And at the door of one workshop, much to his surprise, he made out a mighty ogre with impossibly broad shoulders. Unmistakably one of Lieutenant Boad’s own kind. Ardi still hadn’t managed to pry the details of Boad’s life out of Arkar.

And all of them, every last one, were dressed exactly like the residents of Azure City itself. Light summer shirts, calico dresses, straw hats, and canvas shoes.

“You know, Ardi.” Tess smiled, looking around with undisguised curiosity. “Right now I feel like you and I have been transported back to the Metropolis, and we’re rolling down the streets of New City.”

“A bit, yeah,” Ardan agreed.

“Only it feels freer here, I guess,” Tess added thoughtfully. “In New City, the Firstborn mostly huddle in corners, like outsiders. Here they feel at home.”

“Well, Tess, they are at home here,” Ardi replied quietly. He finished the thought in his head but left it unsaid so he wouldn’t spoil his wife’s mood.

There really were a great many Firstborn in New City; Tess was right about that. But they hadn’t settled there out of any great desire to live among towers of artificial stone, metal, and glass. The reason was far more mundane. New City had simply proved better suited to their needs than the cramped old district of Old Town. The sidewalks there were narrow, the doorways low, the rooms so tiny that a tall orc sometimes couldn’t turn around, let alone an ogre.

Not to mention that some of the underground utilities could fail altogether under the weight of ogres or giants, long before they would normally need replacing.

“Right,” Tess agreed. “Maybe I’ve just gotten too used to Bruce.”

The bus passed through the little town and approached what had once been a well-kept city park, now enclosed by a tall plank fence. They stopped at the checkpoint blocking the entrance. Several orcs in crisp uniforms climbed the steps briskly and came aboard.

“Your documents, please,” the largest of them rumbled.

To their credit, the orcs were friendly and courteous. They chatted quietly with the passengers, nodded, and sometimes even made good-natured jokes. All the while, they took their time checking the cards and papers. The heavyset man in the front seat even exchanged a few words with one of them, and they both laughed heartily at a joke.

But when Ard’s turn came, one of the orcs held out a broad, greenish palm and took his identification. In an instant, the orc’s expression hardened. He had barely glanced at the document before his upper lip slowly lifted, almost reluctantly, revealing the wet gleam along the edges of his sharp fangs.

He leveled a hard stare at Ard, then looked down at the paper again. Something like cold disgust flickered in the orc’s small, deep-set eyes.

“Ohrazzzak,” the orc said through clenched teeth, his voice low but surprisingly clear.

Without another glance at Ard, he flung the document straight into Ard’s lap with a careless, almost backhanded sweep of his hand, then turned to the next passenger.

Ardan calmly picked up the ID from his lap and slipped it back into his inside pocket without a wasted motion. Meanwhile, the orcs finished their inspection and climbed briskly down from the bus. The worn-out engine droned again, and the bus rolled slowly through the now-open gates onto the excavation grounds.

“Ardi.” Tess watched the orcs go, puzzled. “What did he just say? What does ‘ohrazzzak’ mean?”

“In the language of the Steppe Orcs, it means ‘unclean blood,’” Ardan replied, his voice flat.

Tess jolted upright on the bench as though launched by a hidden spring. Her face instantly flushed bright red. She lunged forward, looking ready to leap up, call after the retreating orcs, and make a scene loud enough to rattle the windowpanes. Not that the bus had any windowpanes. But Ardi had no doubt that they would have rattled just the same.

“Don’t.” Ardan caught Tess’s hand, holding her back gently but firmly. “Please, Tess, let it go.”

“What do you mean, ‘don’t’?” Tess reluctantly lowered herself back onto the bench, but lightning still flashed in her eyes, and her voice shook and cracked with barely restrained outrage. “Ardi, how can that be okay? They have absolutely no right to insult you! You have the same rights as any other citizen of the Empire! Oh, Eternal Angels, you’re an Investigator of the Black House, for crying out loud!”

“And what do you think I should do?” Ardi asked quietly. “Take out my papers, bark at him, demand an apology? You think any of that would change what goes on in his head?” He lightly touched a finger to his temple. “He’s just another… I don’t know… follower of the Conclave. They’re like the Tavsers, Tess. Would you try to explain equal rights for humans and Firstborn to a Tavser?”

“But you can’t just keep quiet either!” Tess shot back.

“Maybe.” Ardan gave a quick shrug. “If someone else wants to make a scene over it, let them. I’ve got no one to prove myself to and nothing to prove, Tess. And I’m certainly not about to explain anything to people who buy into the ideas of the Conclave and the Tavsers. Let them work out among themselves who’s right. You and our friends are enough for me.”

The anger in her flushed face slowly gave way to something else entirely. Almost reluctantly, she turned her head to look at Ardan sitting beside her.

“This is…” she said quietly, her voice sinking. “This is just like back then. Like that time they searched you in the Metropolis. After we got back from our trip to Shamtur. That guard at the station looked at you just like that, too. Like you’d already wronged him somehow just by existing.”

Ardan shrugged again, as calmly as before.

“I’m used to it, Tess,” he said quietly, without bitterness. “Believe me, I got used to it a long, long time ago. To humans, I’m a Firstborn. A nonhuman, a savage. But to the Firstborn, it’s the other way around: I’m human. An outsider who’s diluted their ancient, noble stock with my thin blood. Or whatever it is the Conclave tells them… And yet both sides agree that I’m a little less of a person than they are. Something not quite real.”

She studied the retreating orcs for a long moment.

“I think I understand better now why you and Arkar hit it off so fast,” she said quietly.

She squeezed his hand in both of hers, tight, so tight, then pressed her shoulder against his and fell silent.

“Still, it’s better in the Metropolis,” Tess added a few minutes later.

Ardi didn’t explain that things were exactly the same in the Metropolis. There were simply so many people around that such details got lost in the bustle as everyone went about their daily business. Tess didn’t notice those sidelong looks, and Ardan was in no hurry to point them out. And honestly, his height aside, most people took him for a human, especially when he hid his fangs (which he did all the time). A slightly unusual one, admittedly.

“Everything’s fine,” Ardan repeated. “Honestly.”

But Tess didn’t seem to believe him. They were already on their way again.

The excavation site spread across a broad stretch of what had once been the Park. Neat pits and trenches, each marked off with rope, lay in every direction. Wooden platforms, walkways, and short ladders covered the ground. Workers bustled between them with wheelbarrows, shovels, picks, and soft brushes.

Scholars in dirt-stained pale linen suits and wide-brimmed hats bent over the digs. They took painstaking measurements with folding rulers, sketched in thick notebooks, and, with almost reverent care, cleaned centuries of dust from stones and potsherds brought up from the depths. Massive scaffolding towered above this anthill of activity, tightly enclosing something enormous, ancient, and majestic that jutted from the very center of the vast excavation.

A stone tower.

Or rather, just its topmost tier, all that remained aboveground. The dizzying depth of the surrounding pits suggested that the rest of the tower lay buried beneath thick layers of earth.

The bus came to a stop, swaying gently. The tour guide rose from his seat and picked up his copper megaphone again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, here we are at our destination!” he announced grandly. “You see before you the legendary tower of the great Aean’Hane, one of the mightiest elven mages of the age of Ectassus. According to an ancient legend, Aean’Hane accomplished an unprecedented feat. He vanquished a mighty spirit of winter in a fair duel and took its true Name, gaining power over the cold winds. Afterward, Aean’Hane sealed himself inside his tall tower, renounced the world and its vanities, and devoted the rest of his long life to faithfully serving the Winter Queen, whom he revered above all other gods and spirits.”

Ardan listened to the guide’s tale, which seemed to fit together so neatly. He leaned in close to Tess’s ear.

“Actually, it happened a little differently,” he whispered, all but mouthing the words so only Tess could hear. “That Aean’Hane never defeated any mighty spirit in a fair fight. He simply stole a lesser winter spirit’s true Name by trickery. And he did it for one reason only: to use someone else’s Name to ask for the hand of one of the Winter Queen’s own daughters. The Queen was furious at such insolence from someone who, elf or not, was still a mere mortal. As punishment for his presumption, she locked him in this very tower until the end of time. And that’s the whole story behind his great feat.”

Tess covered her mouth with her hand and laughed softly so she wouldn’t attract the guide’s attention.

“So instead of a great hero, he was a failed suitor?” she asked in a whisper.

“Exactly.” Ardi gave a wry smile. “And funniest of all, if you believe Atta’nha’s books, that legend about the feat and the winter spirit was his own invention.”

“Poor thing.” Tess could barely keep from laughing. “Locked away for hundreds of years, inventing fairy tales.”

The bus brought the now-quiet group to one of the specially equipped platforms at the very foot of the colossal tower. The scholars escorting them led them out. One was an older, good-natured man with a weather-beaten face and intelligent, attentive eyes. He went from person to person, handing out hard hats and small flashlights powered by tiny, faintly glowing Ertalain crystals as he ran through the safety rules.

“It’s quite dark inside the tower, ladies and gentlemen, and some parts are very dangerous,” the scholar explained. “We’ve put in supports to shore up the structure, of course, but I still urge you all to stay together. And don’t touch anything unless you really need to. Unless, of course, what you need is a fine of fifty exes or, the Light forbid, a meeting with the Eternal Angels. And watch your step very, very carefully. Parts of the floor have caved in. Is everyone ready? Then please follow me.”

“Is the archaeology department at the Mages’ Guild really that short on funding?” Tess raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. “They’re basically funding their own work through tours.”

Ardi recalled what Magister Evlampiy Tikhonov, may the Eternal Angels treat him justly, had said about Mart Borskov.

“More likely the whole local budget went to one very… peculiar archaeologist,” Ardan rasped softly.

The group moved in single file toward the tower’s entrance, an archway gaping black in the cracked stonework. Ardan stooped beneath the low lintel and stepped over the high threshold. At that instant, he felt something stir within him.

Damp stone walls hemmed him in. It was cooler here than out beneath the scorching sun. The air was heavy with the smell of a thousand years, of stone dust, dampness, and something else. Something elusive and unsettling, yet vaguely familiar.

Just a few minutes later, Ardi made sure neither the scholar nor their young guide could see him, then slid his open palm along the wall’s rough, cold surface. Suddenly he could have sworn the ancient stone beneath his fingers answered his touch, ever so faintly. As if it were breathing.

Then he recognized the feeling.

He had felt it before, in Atta’nha’s hut.

“Oh, by the Light.” Tess shivered and moved closer, slipping her arm through her husband’s. “It’s so cold in here. And eerie. Like someone’s watching us from the dark.”

“You’re not imagining it,” Ardan said quietly. “There really is something here. Old. Very old.”

“Are you just trying to scare me now, Ardi-wizard?” Tess shivered. “Or…”

“Don’t worry.” He covered her hand with his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Even if something of Aean’Hane’s Art remains here, it’s asleep. It’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And I doubt it’s interested in us.”

“You mean the Art?”

“That’s… hard to explain.”

“Ardi.”

“What?”

“Has anyone ever told you what an unbelievable… bore you can be sometimes?”

Ardan pretended to give it some thought.

“A certain red-haired singer reminds me of that from time to time.”

“Oh, really?” Tess feigned surprise. “Introduce me to her sometime. I want to give her flowers. A modest token of thanks.”

Ardan put an arm lightly around his wife. He couldn’t explain what he sensed. Somewhere deep inside these colossal walls, a shard of someone else’s Art still smoldered. The passing millennia had worn it thin, weathered it almost out of existence, yet it was still “alive.” It glowed faintly between the tightly fitted stones, like the last crimson embers beneath a thick layer of gray ash that had gone cold long ago.

The group advanced slowly and cautiously through half-ruined halls and crumbling corridors. Their flashlight beams trembled ahead of them.

Their guide walked ahead, talking eagerly in a hushed voice. Every so often he gestured toward the faded remnants of ancient frescoes on the walls, the unusual patterns skillfully carved into the stone, or the dark openings in the floor. Through those openings they could just make out the lower tiers far below, still unexcavated and shrouded in darkness. His voice reverberated off the high vaulted ceilings and faded away somewhere in the tower’s pitch-black depths.

“Mr Guide,” someone in the group asked, “do they really still find artifacts in here?”

“Artifacts have turned up, but only a few,” the guide replied. “Scholars mostly come away with household items, tools, fragments of devices we don’t quite understand. Apparently they dug up a whole chest of scrolls on the lower tier last week. Well, not scrolls exactly… paper dust and the knobs that capped the scroll rods. That’s how they knew the chest had held scrolls… And another curious thing: Aean’Hane was fascinated by mirrors. We’ve found mounts for enormous mirrors throughout the tower. Some as tall as a human… sorry, an elf. If you’re wondering why he needed so many, that’s still a mystery.”

Ardan tensed at the mention of mirrors.

Tess walked at his side, never letting go of his hand as she looked around with curiosity and a hint of apprehension. Now and then she tightened her grip. The others had grown noticeably quieter, too, subdued by the tower’s oppressive air. There was a strange solemnity to this abandoned place. It still remembered the days of the war between Ectassus and Galess.

Ardan and his companions walked slowly through a spacious hall that had clearly once been used for formal receptions or ceremonies. On a sudden impulse, he stopped beside one of the far walls.

The surviving mounting holes and a pale rectangle on the age-darkened stone showed that something large had hung there ages ago. Perhaps a mirror, or perhaps something else.

Ardi knew as little about the History of Magic as he did about Star Jurisprudence. He had no idea what, exactly, had drawn him to this particular section of wall. So a second later, he…

“Speaker…” a disembodied voice breathed, barely audible. “Blood… of Aror…”