Torian

In the end, I asked Darej to bring us a couple of extra buckets of water and the soft, scented soap necessary in a society where cutting one’s hair was tantamount to being a criminal, and keeping that hair in hundreds of tiny braids was de rigueur. I’d needed the distraction of washing Zal’s hair while he scrubbed himself ruthlessly, because his report of the encounter with the clerk made me decidedly nervous.

“Why do you think he had such an odd reaction? Was it guilt? Shock? Hostility?” I asked as I massaged Zal’s scalp.

“I expect it was nothing more than— Shite, that feels good.”

“Mmmm.” I decided not to mention that I was releasing a trickle of energy through my fingertips to compensate for reduced chrysocite chip exposure. He’d left his cloak behind at my suggestion, and I didn’t want him to suffer for it.

“When you run into someone in a place you don’t expect, sometimes it takes a moment to recognize them, even if they’re somebody you’ve known for years. And Natin and I haven’t seen one another since before I left on my first circuit.”

“If you say so.”

But I couldn’t shake that feeling of wrongness as we both dressed in clean clothing and ate our meal far too quickly than its excellence deserved. The stew was thick and hearty, the bread fresh, and the dulaberry tart that Darej delivered with a shy smile was better than anything I’d ever tasted. But then, food in the Lab was formulated for maximum nutritional value with minimum effort as nobody in the Lab considered cooking an efficient use of their time, and our food on the trail had been limited by what I could gather and Zal could hunt.

Jocosa had promised us what she’d called a more worthy meal for our supper, but every time I thought about supper, I couldn’t avoid thinking about what had to happen before we arrived at that point.

This audience with the Trine, their assessment, their verdict was the fulcrum on which my life balanced. Zal accepted that my abilities were the result of science, not magic, although the concept of science still gave him pause. I had seen the look on his face when I’d heated the bath water, evidently still struggling to fit technology into his world view, a worldview that didn’t even have a printing press.

Zal had weeks of getting to know me, and if he could still doubt, I stood no chance with strangers. I vowed silently not to reveal any but ordinary abilities to the Trine.

My conflict alert pinged again. Definition: ordinary; refine parameters.

Ah. That was a problem, wasn’t it? I still wasn’t entirely sure what constituted ordinary, particularly for a Moon-born. Would the Trine have that information at their disposal? If so, I would be at even more of a disadvantage.

Look what had happened when I’d tried to soothe myself with a song. Just as Zal had done, the Cock & Bull’s staff and customers had reacted as though they’d never heard anyone sing before. They’d been… entranced.

If all they’d ever heard was tuneless Earth temple chanting, an ancient folk-pop ballad might well seem like magic to them.

And I didn’t want to think about what could happen if my fucking involuntary seduction modules were activated by an unfortunately worded question.

“Ready?” Zal asked, startling me out of my spiraling thoughts.

“Yes.” I tucked my pack with its incriminating tech in the clothespress at the foot of the bed.

When I straightened, Zal was swinging his pack onto his shoulder, although his cloak still hung from its peg. Alarm sparked along my circuits.

“Zal. I think you should leave your pack here, too.”

“Nay, love. I can’t. The Trine will need to see my shattered Stone. It’s evidence.”

“I suppose.”

I pulled on my leather gloves, donned my cloak, and pulled the hood up. The moment we stepped outside the inn, the sun beating down from above and the heat rising from the paving stones made sweat prickle along my hairline and dampen my armpits.

As I kept pace with Zal, I took a moment to wish irritably that in all their tinkering, the Infomancers had bothered to give me a better temperature regulation module.

When we reached the House of Mages, I stumbled to a stop, my chin lifting up and up until I had to clap a hand on my hood to keep it from falling onto my shoulders.

The building was enormous. Made of bricks the color of the earth, it was easily taller than the walls surrounding the city. Broad stone steps led up to massive wooden double doors with heavy wrought-iron hinges, guards in the mage’s red and gold stationed on either side. Its soaring walls were pierced with so many windows that I questioned its structural integrity.

But then, solar power manipulators would need to arrange as much light as possible to work their magic and could probably keep their headquarters stable with it too.

Instead of heading up the steps, though, Zal led me down around the side to a low structure that joined the House of Mages to the next building along.

“Where are we going?” I asked, hurrying to keep up.

“We’re to enter here at the vestibule. It links the House of Mages to the Library where the Scribe has offices.”

I studied the connected building with interest. So this was the Library, the only one on the planet. It was built of the same brick as the House of Mages but wasn’t as tall—maybe three stories to the House’s six—but it seemed to stretch on forever. Both of them were a far cry from the buildings in Corvel-on-Byrne or Market Spinney, or even the Cock & Bull.

It made me wonder who’d constructed these edifices, what they’d been paid, and how they’d been treated during the process. On the other hand, perhaps both had been erected by magic. I couldn’t discount it out of hand.

“Where do the other Trine members keep offices?”

“The Speaker’s chambers are on the top two floors of the House.”

“That seems like… a lot.”

Zal smiled down at me, although I could detect the strain around his eye. “It includes meeting spaces that are impressive enough to awe the Seigneurs when they come to negotiate. The Speaker’s assistants all have offices there too. The Speaker alone can’t handle administration for the lot of us.”

“I suppose not.”

“The Scale… Well, those offices aren’t as grand. They have one in Capitol Hall, where the College meets, and where the tribunal holds court. But here in the House, their offices are down below, where the cells are.”

I shivered despite my over-warm cloak. “Cells. You mean like the gaol in Corvel-on-Byrne?”

“A bit more well-built than that, but if you’re incarcerating a Sun Mage, you can’t very well give them access to sunlight.” He laid a hand on my shoulder, his light, firm grip comforting. “The central gaol is a bit less gloomy. That’s where any prisoners who aren’t mages are held.”

“I see.” I swallowed thickly. If the Trine ruled against me, I’d technically be a mage. Would they lock me in one of those lightless underground cubicles? I wouldn’t last a week before emergency shutdown, and total system failure would follow in short order if I couldn’t recharge.

“All we need do is follow the plan and all will be well. Come.” Zal’s voice was gentle, his smile soft and knowing, as if he could detect my worry. He tucked his hand under my elbow. “The Trine appreciates punctuality. We don’t want to be late.”

He led me into the vestibule. The room was cheerful enough, considering the door was flanked by diamond-paned windows easily my height. The floors were polished wood and a long table stood opposite the entrance, with smaller interior doors to either side.

Two A-3 guards in mage livery flanked the table, but the person sitting behind the desk was J-4 like Zal. Skin, hair, and eye color were as far as the similarities went, however. Whereas Zal, even when he was at his imposing Sun Mage best, was clearly kind and approachable, this person could have been carved of stone.

“Name and business?” they asked.

“Zal. Audience with the Trine,” Zal said.

The J-4 consulted a slate. “The guards will escort you.”

The two guards stepped away from the table. One of them opened the door on the House side and stepped through while the other stood back, not looking at us but clearly waiting for us to enter. When we did, he followed, closing the door with a hollow boom. I wasn’t certain whether it was the finality of that sound or the guard’s presence at my back that made the hair on my nape stand up.

Zal seemed mostly unconcerned, though striding along behind the lead guard as though this was business as usual, and perhaps it was. I mentally cursed the Infomancers for their tunnel-vision focus on genetics to the neglect of cultural observation. If they’d spent less time on germline editing and more on societal monitoring, I’d have more data at my disposal now.

On the other hand, maybe they had, and it was stored behind one of those maddening blocks. I really needed to run a complete diagnostic, but since that required Lab facilities, it would always be impossible.

The guard halted outside a door in a narrow corridor near the rear of the building. “In here.”

This got a reaction from Zal. “Our audience is with the Trine. Surely the Speaker’s offices—”

“Our orders are to bring you here.” The guard shrugged, clearly uninterested. “Busy time.”

Zal frowned, but nodded. “Very well.”

The second guard held out a hand. “We’ll need that pack.”

Zal clutched at its straps. “No. This holds evidence important to our audience.”

“The pack or you’re on the street,” the second guard said, tone implacable.

“I said—”

“It’s all right, Uhtrig,” a plummy voice called from beyond the second guard’s shoulder. “The pack can stay, but you both may go.”

Both guards pivoted smartly and marched away like automatons, revealing a tall J-4 with a round face, dimpled hands folded across her middle. Her gray-shot black braids were coiled over her ears, reminiscent of one of the more ridiculous hairdos from one of the films I’d recited to Zal during our journey.

While the citizens of Corvel-on-Byrne, Market Spinney, and even those I’d seen in the capital, wore clothing that favored practicality, clearly this woman had no plans to go anywhere more rough and daunting than the nearest staircase. Her brocade robe glinted with gilt thread and trailed on the floor behind her. The bells of her sleeves reached nearly to her feet, where curly-toed slippers peeped from under her hem.

Zal inclined his head, a polite obeisance, but not so deep I’d call it a bow. “Speaker.”

“Zal. I was surprised to hear of your request. I apologize that we must conduct our meeting in such quarters, but”—she shrugged—“Judgment Day. What else need I say?”

“I appreciate you making the time for us.”

“Hmmm.” She tilted her head. “Us. Yes, that is the crux of the matter, isn’t it?”

Zal chuckled weakly. “Perhaps not. But we’ve a tale to tell the Trine, if you’re ready for us.”

“Please.” She gestured to the door, clearly not planning to open it herself. With both guards dismissed, it fell to Zal to do the honors before stepping aside to allow her to enter first.

Zal gripped my shoulder and gave me a tight smile. “Not long now. Everything will be… okay.”

I smiled a little shakily at his evident attempt to ease my nerves. “Thank you.”

Our plan was to minimize details about the Infomancers’ planetary interference as much as possible, and not mention Edric at all. In theory, that was fine for me—I never wanted to mention Edric again. In practice, I wasn’t certain if I’d be able to hold up my end of the bargain. If one of the Trine should ask me a question that I wasn’t free to answer—or not to answer with words I chose myself—I might condemn us both.

The room we entered was narrow, and though not especially long, the closeness of the walls made it seem endless. A table sat across the far end, and two J-4s were seated there on either side of a third empty chair. The wall to our left was stone, blank and dark. The one on the right was pierced with three tall, narrow windows, but since they faced north, they let in little light. Most of the illumination in the room came from three fist-sized lumps of chrysocite arranged before each place at the table.

Obeila swept forward and took the center chair, arranging the folds of her robe to her satisfaction before beckoning to us. “Please. Approach. We are eager to hear your tale.”

The way she couched that—your tale—raised my hackles. It was as though she had already decided that what we were about to tell them was fiction. But Zal strode forward confidently, so I hurried to keep pace.

He stopped about two meters from the table, and as there were no other chairs, we had no choice but to stand. He inclined his head to the austere J-4 to Obeila’s right. “Scale.”

So that was Gerd. Zal had called him remote and intimidating, hard but fair. Hard I could certainly see—his jaw might have been carved by a Cubist sculptor, and his eyes were like chips of obsidian. His skin was darker than Zal’s or Obeila’s, and his braids were drawn tightly back from his face, pulling the skin at his temples taut.

Gerd returned Zal’s greeting with a barely perceptible dip of his square chin.

Zal turned to the third person with another nod. “Scribe.”

If Gerd was all uncompromising angles, and Obeila was soft, deceptively yielding curves, Brylun was one giant question mark.

Their eyebrows were quirked over wide eyes, their lips slightly parted, their narrow frame leaning forward just slightly. Avid. That’s what Brylun was. Their braids flopped messily over their shoulders, some spilling across the slate at their elbow and onto the table in front of Obeila.

Obeila brushed Brylun’s braids aside and replaced them with her folded hands. “Now. Let us begin.”

Zal turned to me. “Torian?”

As we’d agreed, I reached up and lowered my hood.

While Obeila blinked, and Gerd did nothing, Brylun sucked in a breath and murmured, “So. It’s true.”