The Queen's Adept E-Book

Rodolfo Martínez

• Herausgeber: Sportula Ediciones
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The People's Covenant and God's Hammer have raged a Cold War that has lasted for over twenty years. A war without armies, where battles are fought in the dark and information is the most dangerous weapon. In this world —which sometimes seems the Middle Ages, sometimes the Renaissance and sometimes the Nineteenth Century— lives Yáxtor Brandan, empirical adept at the service of the Queen of Alboné. A relentless, amoral and unscrupulous character, Yáxtor fights to recover his own past as he tries to prevent a new player in the espionage game to end the world, as he knows it. A fascinating fast-moving and complex plot, full of tension and surprises and excellently paced; a main character for whom it should be impossible to feel the slightest sympathy, and yet somehow we do, even as his cruelty disturbs us more and more -an extremely difficult feat to pull off so successfully; powerful secondary actors, who either leave you with a sense of uneasiness with regard to their motivations and loyalties, or make you want to shout out -as people did in the early days of cinema- "Look out, don't trust him!"; and a pervading atmosphere of tragedy, especially in a final unexpected and shocking, yet on reflection almost inevitable, scene. In short, a totally addictive and highly original novel set in a world that is at once both strangely familiar and disturbingly alien. —Steve Redwood, author of Fisher of Devils.

Leseprobe

THE QUEEN’S ADEPT

(The Queen’s Adept – 1)

Rodolfo Martínez

© 2017, Sportula, for this edition

© 2009, Rodolfo Martínez

© 2012-2017, Rodolfo Martínez for the English version

First published 2009 in Spanish by Sportula as El adepto de la Reina

English version: Rodolfo Martínez

Revised by: Jordi Balcells and Steve Redwood

First English Edition: May, 2012

Second English Edition: June, 2012

Third English Edition: May 2017

Cover: © 2017, Sportula

Maps: Rodolfo Martínez

SPORTULA

www.sportula.es

[email protected]

CONTENTS

Prologue

Part One: Messengers

Part Two: Ghosts

Part Three: Spectres

Epilogue

Appendices

Glossary Of Places And Alliances

Chronology Of Érvinder

Maps

Érvinder

The People’s Covenant

Acknowledgments

About The Author

NOTE ON THE ACUTE ACCENTS

Throughout the text, you will find certain words (characters and places, mostly) marked with an acute accent on one of their vowels. In this case, the acute accent only marks the stress within the word, and does not modify the sound of a letter.

 “Do you lose as gracefully as you win?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never lost”

Lorenzo Semple Jr.: Never Say Never Again

PROLOGUE

It is always the uninvited guest who revives the party… or just busts it.

—Qérlex Targerian

Night fell on the city in an abrupt way, almost by treachery, but no one cared. Torches and bonfires had been lit for some time, and celebrations had begun hours earlier. Outside, darkness might quickly become mistress of the world, but no one in the city noticed.

They also did not notice the foreigner who left the party towards the coast. They all had things to do at the time, and probably the foreigner too. A secret rendezvous? Business? A lover? Nobody cared.

He wore a short grey tunic and was half wrapped in a cloak of the same colour. Compared with the colour orgy of the bacchantes, he was like a furtive shadow.

He soon left the city walls behind and entered with a firm step the olive grove that went on to die almost at the seashore. He paused a moment beside a rock and looked for something in a hollow there. While checking with his hands that everything was where it should be, he glanced back at the distant city lights.

He hoisted a bag on to his shoulders, went on his way and soon he reached the top of a cliff, where he could still hear the nearby tide snoring.

Someone came out of the shadows.

“You’re late,” a voice said.

The man stopped, and his hand touched the hilt of the dagger at his waist.

“Or you’ve come too soon,” he replied. His voice had a cold, sharp quality, as if words were a nuisance he had to get rid of as soon as possible.

The newcomer shrugged.

“The changing of the guard will be within the hour,” he said. “We must hurry.”

The other nodded and took off his cloak and tunic. He took something from the bag, a dark cloth which he then deployed and began to put on. The material clung to his body as if it were part of him, and when he was fully clothed no part of his body was distinguishable in the gloom apart from his head and the hard glitter of his eyes.

He put the bag on his back.

“I’m ready,” he said.

His companion nodded and handed him a mask. While contemplating how it was placed over the other man’s mouth, he said, reluctantly:

“For the Queen.”

The man seemed to find the words amusing, but there was no mockery in his voice when he answered:

“For the Queen.”

He took a breath, looked back one last time and walked to the edge of the cliff. A few feet away, his walk quickly turned into a run that led him nowhere. With his last step he pushed up and forward, and suddenly his body became a projectile fired into the sky. For a moment it seemed he would take flight, as the legendary Ítastos had done from the maze of War Island. Then, the world caught him with a relentless grip and he began to descend.

A few seconds later, the sea opened to receive him.

The guard never knew what killed him. He had approached the edge of the seafront, perhaps as a way to break the tedium of the watch. With his torch held high, he looked at the dark surface of the sea and could not help but notice, with a frown, the strange trail of bubbles coming in his direction.

He half turned, perhaps to call one of his companions, but he stopped when he heard the unmistakable splash of something coming out of the water.

And what came out was a dark and fluid shape that fell on him before he could do anything. He felt a slippery but relentless hand at his throat and, suddenly, everything he was began to fade away through the cold wound in his side, where a dagger had made its way.

His murderer kept him still until he was sure he was dead. Only then did he take the body to the edge of the seafront and, silently, let the sea take care of it. He checked the time by the position of the moon, little more than a sliver of silver that would disappear in a couple of days, picked up the torch the guard had dropped on the ground and waved it in the air twice; first to the left, then to the right. A point of distant light answered him with the same signal.

He left the torch between two rocks and began to walk, in absolute silence, along the seafront. He did not have much time, but it would be enough.

They noticed the absence of the guard as he was finishing his work.

He placed a charge under the waterline of the last ship and activated it with the proper unpronounceable word. Then he put the mask over his mouth again and dived once more.

The military port was beginning to awaken, and they would probably soon find out what had happened to the guard, but by then it would be too late. Under the water, he had no problem leaving the port limits. He surfaced once, took a quick look at what was happening, and then dived again.

He swam with his arms at his sides; his whole body turned into a giant fin that quickly drove him where he wanted to go. Soon he reached a small beach on the outskirts of the city. There was a group of bacchantes there, dancing around the bonfires, drunk from themselves and from the wine out of half a dozen amphorae lying in the sand.

He swam to the edge of the beach, where a group of rocks concealed the light of bonfires. The same man he had met on the cliff was waiting there.

Once out of the water, he took off his strange costume and mask. The other man kept it all in a bundle, and he began to get dressed with the dry clothes he had brought: a cheerfully coloured tunic and a cape trimmed in red. He quickly put them on and, while the other man threw the pack onto his back, he finished tying his shoes.

“Was there any problem?”

He looked at the distant port, where torches looked like crazy points of light ranging from side to side.

“Nothing important,” he said.

“You should get out of here soon.”

“I still have something to do before I leave.”

The other man smiled grimly.

“As you wish.”

Without another word, he left the rocks and joined the party on the beach, while his companion began to walk inland.

An unknown woman handed him a jar and he took a long swig of a wine too sweet for his taste. Then he joined the sprawling dance by the fires.

He was dancing when the explosions began, but he continued as if nothing had happened, like most of his companions, too drunk to realize what was happening. For them, the distant explosions and the burning light of the ships were just another part of the party.

There were some who realized what was happening and left the beach, however. Though nothing they could do would be of any help.

The main battle fleet of Painé had just become a pile of burning timbers that no longer served anyone.

He arrived at his villa just before dawn.

He threw the cape down on the floor and splashed his face with the water from the bucket the slaves had prepared. In the kitchen he found some bread and cold chicken and ate it all sitting by the fire while he lazily smoked a long briar pipe.

With hunger satisfied and a clear head, he went into the bedroom.

She was waiting for him there, asleep, and her body, as drawn by the sheets close to her skin, was a promise of another hunger yet to be satiated. He took off his tunic in silence and with two feline movements got into the bed.

The woman awoke soon enough and looked at him for a moment with her dark eyes.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

He shrugged and smiled almost reluctantly.

“There was much to celebrate,” he said.

She ran a hand full of rings over his crotch and felt and explored, as if to make sure everything was intact and in place.

“Too tired?” she asked again.

He shook his head and touched the woman’s belly. She moaned and her mouth took hold of him with a desire too fierce to be genuine.

They had barely started the erotic game when he realized they were not alone in the room. Nothing in his face or his body indicated he had realized, however, and he continued as if nothing else mattered.

But his senses were alert to everything that went on around him and he quickly perceived the stealthy footsteps behind him.

Only one man? Did they believe one man would be enough to kill him? He almost felt insulted.

He continued enjoying the woman, and when he perceived his attacker was about to strike, he turned so that her body received the bite of steel and not his. Before the murderer realized his mistake, he was already out of bed with a sheet in his hand and a fierce smile on his face.

It ended quickly. The murderer was no match for him. He was still trying to get the dagger from her body when the sheet wrapped around his throat.

Then he was dead.

Alone in the room, with no company other than the two bodies, the man sat and thought.

His contact had been right. He should have left when he finished his work. The hierarchs of the city had probably decided quickly enough he had been the one behind the attack that night. Or maybe they preferred to be sure and had sent murderers to take out anyone they found suspicious.

In any case, he could not stay in the city anymore. He had to leave, and he must do it discreetly.

He glanced at the body of his attacker. It could serve. The disguise would not withstand a thorough inspection, but no doubt it would be enough to sneak out of the city.

As he removed his clothes, he heard a groan from the bed. The woman was still alive.

He approached her and realized she would not last long. She had a punctured lung, a wound too serious for her scarce and not very powerful messengers to repair. She was still conscious, and looked as if she did not understand what had happened.

“I hope you have been paid enough for your services,” he said, with a voice that had not the slightest emotion. “No doubt you deserve it.”

Then he began to get dressed in his attacker’s garments. A touch of ash stained his face and obscured his features.

He crouched on the floor and searched until he found what he was seeking. A piece of floorboard tilted up with a slight pressure and he began to pull out what he had kept there. He made a bundle of it all and threw it over his back.

He looked out from the balcony: it was almost dawn. By noon, he would be very far away.

He smiled, a leopard devouring its prey and just enjoying its flavour, and quietly left the house.

Nobody saw him. Nobody stopped him.

They soon discovered he was not at home, and that none of the bodies in the bedroom were his. They searched for weeks, but never found him.

They knew the name he had given when he had rented the mansion, but it would turn out to be false. They never knew his real name or where he came from.

He was Yáxtor Brandan, empirical adept on the service of Her Majesty, the Queen of Alboné.

PART ONE

MESSENGERS

No matter how it may seem, the situation in which two wary enemies continually look over each other’s shoulder and do nothing for fear of what the other one can do in return is the most stable of all. And, indeed, it is the most beneficial one for both sides.

In the name of security and brandishing the threat from the other side (which is always about to materialize) they can create a dynamic that eventually ends up sustaining itself.

This situation may continue for an indefinite time, if each side plays its cards carefully… provided, of course, that a third party does not appear.

—Glaxton Dishrel

The airship from Wáhrang reached Lambodonas at the end of the afternoon, as usual. It lazily crossed the sky, stopped in front of the Tower and, before the clock’s longest hand (a device installed ten years before and still considered a foreign and unreliable object by most Lambodonians) had gone halfway round, the vessel was fixed and its passengers were ready to disembark.

The inevitable inspection arrived shortly afterwards. Inquisitive adepts were as careful as they were discreet and it did not take long for the passengers to have free passage to the city under the Tower.

One of the travellers came from northern Wáhrang, near the border with the steppe. His face and all visible parts of his body were completely covered with arcane characters which, if one knew the language, revealed his lineage. Much of his body was tattooed in that way and it seemed very likely that at the end of his life there would not be an inch of his skin free of tattoos.

He remained silent, almost sullen, waiting to be inspected by the adepts. That did not surprise anyone. Wáhranger from the North were notoriously laconic and words tended to be, for them, something too precious to waste on small talk.

The adept searched him thoroughly, but in an almost bored way, and then let him go. He picked up the little luggage he had (a bag that had seen better days), got off with the other passengers, and headed towards the city.

Unlike other places, Lambodonas seemed to awaken at the fall of night. The largest city in the People’s Covenant, as their inhabitants claimed, had an intense and hectic nightlife. Public baths were part of it, maybe the most shocking part for foreigners. They were scattered throughout the city and offered a complete and cheap service, both to natives and to outsiders. In some cases, the basic services were supplemented by other pleasures.

The Wáhranger went into one of them and asked for a private cabin. The slave in reception looked at him almost haughtily, as if he were too polite to say out loud what he thought. The customer opened his bag and took out two coins that tinkled with the familiar singsong of silver. The slave accepted them with a nod, and, although the expression of his face softened, it was clear he still thought the client was out of his element and that it was a pity some things could be bought only with money.

He led the Wáhranger to a private cabin, reluctantly explained the operation of the bathtub and then left him alone. He did not think about him for the rest of the night.

And, somewhat later, he would not be able to articulate any coherent thought.

Alone, the Wáhranger took his bath and let the hot water open the pores of his body. With his eyes closed and a relaxed posture, he floated in peace for a long time. He was aware of what was happening around him, of the distant murmur of conversation in the bathroom (those damn Alboneers seemed unable to close their mouths, it seemed) but he barely listened.

When he felt the water begin to cool, he sat in the bathtub.

He looked around and listened. Then he nodded, as if he was answering a question he had just asked himself. He stood completely, raised his arms, closed his eyes and muttered an unpronounceable word.

He felt a tingling all over his body and watched how the tattoos began to dissolve on his skin, creating tiny streams that fattened each other just to find his legs and slide down into the bathtub.

Soon, his skin was free of any tattoos. He opened his eyes.

He could hardly stand. He was exhausted. But he knew his strength would suffice for what he had to do.

He left the bathtub with the movements of an old man and sat on the bench by the wall. He looked at the tinted water, which seemed to be humming a song.

He felt empty. And in some ways he was. Almost all his messengers had left his body and were now in the bathtub, along with those that had been asleep in his tattoos.

He knew he did not have much time. Such a concentration of active messengers would soon alert someone and they would come to him.

But not before he did what he had to.

He inhaled, held the air in his chest and then let it out slowly, while three unpronounceable words were articulated in his mouth.

Madness broke out and he was its first victim.

When the militia arrived, there was not much to do but count the dead and help survivors be as comfortable as possible. They would spend the rest of their lives immersed in their own nightmares and, in a short time, most of them would be taken to the Final House by their relatives.

It was not hard to find the place where the bomb had exploded. The Wáhranger’s body was a limp mass of meat with a face that seemed hardly human. The militia captain gave orders to set aside the body for further investigation and then he tried to bring some order into the chaos around him.

What he did not find out until sometime later was that the adepts would find something in the corpse that same night, while they were dissecting it.

The Tower had once been the home of the monarchs. Later, as a prison, it housed many a curious tenant. Thirty years ago, it had become the terminal for Lambodonas’ arriving and departing airships.

And during all that time, the empirical adepts had lived in it; under it, in fact, far below the surface.

The world had been changing around them, but they had done the minimum necessary to adapt themselves to the times and not become obsolete. The maze of rooms and catacombs that were underneath the Tower was almost as it was the day the first hundred empirical adepts, using almost all of their blood and their messengers, had built it with the sheer force of their wills.

As always, they moved in darkness, they lived in anonymity. They only responded to the Queen and the Regent, and very few outside an exclusive circle knew about them, beyond the fact that they existed.

In one of the larger rooms in the catacombs a meeting had been convened. True to tradition, it was the spokesman who was the last to enter. If anyone was surprised by the fact the Supreme Adept himself took that role that night, nobody said anything.

Well settled in his later years, with a body that had once been strong and now was just fat, the Supreme Adept did not lose a single detail of what was happening around him as he entered the room. His face was partially covered with a brown beard, quite outdated in a time when a clean-shaven face was the custom, and his brow always seemed on the verge of frowning, but it never quite got there.

He crossed the room and was about to sit down when he realized they were not all there. He began a gesture toward his bailiff pointing it out, but stopped when he saw someone coming at that time.

He smiled to himself, though his face did not change expression. Brandan, of course. Who else would come after the spokesman to an emergency meeting?

The newcomer made the gesture of apology and, without stopping to see how it was received, took his seat. He received some reproachful looks from his peers, which he ignored completely, and tried to find a comfortable position in his chair.

Only then did the Supreme Adept sit. He took the papyrus roll from his desk and broke the wax seal on it. He read the Queen’s order and nodded.

Then he looked up and uttered the empirical oath. The rest of the men in the room repeated with him:

“I do not know much. I know two plus two may be four. I know I was born. I know I will die. I know my blood is at the service of the Queen.”

Then each one of them proceeded to break the seals on the rolls they had on their tables. The Supreme Adept took a sip of wine and told himself that, yet again, they had mixed it wrong.

Mentally he shrugged his shoulders.

“This afternoon, a man detonated a Madness Bomb in one of the baths of the city,” he said. “A fanatic, surely, at the service of some absurd ideal that requires faith without proof. We thought so at first. During the dissection of the corpse, however, we discovered some interesting things.”

He looked again at the roll with the royal seal.

“We believe the bomb came on the sly, inert in his body tattoos. He was a northern Wáhranger, or was posing as one. Then in the bathroom, he woke up the messengers from his tattoos and used most of those in his own body so that the bomb reached critical mass.”

He saw Brandan’s pursed lips.

“He was himself a messenger, of another kind. The bomb was only a crazy way to get our attention. A bit drastic, you will agree with me, but certainly effective. The real message was in his body, in the messengers from his viscera. It was activated as we opened the body.”

He took another scroll from the table, opened it and read aloud:

“’We have a Bad News Bomb. We know how to use it and we will in a month from now. There will be no more contacts.’”

With a quiet gesture, he crumpled the papyrus and put it on the table.

“As you see,” he said, “they do not waste time: direct and to the point. There is no need to tell you that if someone uses a Bad News Bomb in Lambodonas, Alboné will be paralyzed. Who knows for how long?”

“How do we know they really have it?” one of the adepts, a couple of positions to the right of Brandan, asked.

“What we do know is that someone has stolen a bunch of them from a Western arsenal. What a coincidence,” he emphasized that word almost reluctantly, “for us to find that out only today. We suspect we are not the only ones that have received a message like this. It is possible that most of the People’s Covenant countries have received a messenger as unique as ours. And who knows if the same thing has happened in God’s Hammer as well.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It is hard to know what happens there. We must act as if the threat was real. We are working against the clock. You have your instructions.”

Without hesitation, he stood up and walked towards the exit. He realized Brandan’s eyes were following him. Most likely he was not very satisfied with his assignment.

In fact, the Supreme Adept was counting on it.

The name, recalled the Supreme Adept, had started as a joke in the Western Confederacy, and had ended up becoming the official name.

“After all, it is the custom,” someone said, probably a worker in a break from work. “We always blame the messenger bearing bad news.”

The Bad News Bomb. The invention to end all wars forever. It had been used only once, at the end of the Hammer War, when Wáhrang had been broken but Honoi still held out stubbornly, making its enemies pay with blood for every inch of conquered land.

They released only one, in Kyono-jo. One ridiculous tiny bomb. It had destroyed all the messengers in the Imperial City and its effects lasted two days.

The consequence was that the delicate infrastructure web supported by messengers in Kyono-jo, just like in any other civilized city, collapsed almost immediately. It had taken months to rebuild.

And the messengers had been inactive only two days, the Supreme Adept said to himself. Only two days. Two days had been enough to cause unprecedented chaos and humiliate the proudest eastern country.

A bomb that was ridiculous compared to those the Westerners (and Khynainians, if what the spies said was true) had developed later. A toy, said his artifices. A toy bomb.

One of the current devices would kill all the messengers in Lambodonas and its surroundings, and its effects would last for months. At that time, the city would become a barren place that would kill the messengers that entered the perimeter and, with them, would disappear much of what Alboneers called civilization.

They would be helpless.

Alone in his cell, he read again the message from the Queen.

They had to stop that threat at any price. Anything else was expendable.

The Supreme Adept suddenly realized he was not alone. Someone had slipped into the threshold of his cell and patiently waited until his presence was perceived.

“Come in, Brandan,” he said.

The curtain was pushed aside and his former student crossed the threshold. His face seemed devoid of expression, but the Supreme Adept knew his body language (after all, I made him what he is now, he said to himself) and realized he was once more on the verge of insubordination.

He took a breath and pointed to a seat opposite him. Yáxtor Brandan sat with an economy of movement that, despite the time that had elapsed, still left the Supreme Adept breathless.

“Yes?” he asked.

Brandan waved the scroll that had been placed on his table. The Supreme Adept noticed the seal was intact.

“This is rubbish,” Brandan said.

“You do not seem to have read it.”

“I do not need to. I know what time of year it is. And I have seen the other adepts’ faces. I have seen how they reacted to their assignments. The tasks that remain to be allocated must be garbage.”

“Why don’t you open it and check it?”

Brandan hesitated. Then he broke the seal and unrolled the papyrus.

“Desk job. Collecting. Coordinating. Supporting others,” he murmured as he read its contents quickly. “Rubbish, as I said.”

The Supreme Adept shrugged.

“You know the rules. Seven months of fieldwork. Seven months of deskwork. That is the way things are.”

Brandan crumpled the papyrus and threw it on the ground.

“Rubbish,” he repeated. There was hardly any emotion in his voice. “You need me out there. Now, more than ever. The Queen needs me out there.”

“Maybe. But rules are rules. And I cannot break them.”

“I can,” he said, getting up and leaving the room.

I hope so, Yáxtor, the Supreme Adept thought as he watched him go.

He turned to the left and with a gesture and an unpronounceable word activated the messengers from the communications mirror.

“Laboratory,” he said.

A wrinkled, placid face took the place of his reflection, bowed his head and seemed annoyed.

“Orston,” he said. “I hope it is not anything trivial. I’m pretty busy.”

“When are you not, Qérlex? Yáxtor Brandan will see you soon, surely. He will say he has procurement orders. He may even show them to you.”

“And they’ll be false, of course.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. What we do not know cannot hurt us.”

“Curious words from an empirical adept,” Qérlex murmured. “Almost bordering on heresy.”

“Heresy only exists in the presence of faith. We do not believe. We know or we do not know, but do not believe.”

“Yeah, yeah, spare me the chat. You want me to give the boy whatever he asks.”

“No. I have never said that. I want you to check his orders. And if they look right, act accordingly.”

“What if they don’t?”

“I suspect they will”.

Qérlex twisted mouth.

“Yes,” he said after a while. “I suspect so, too.”

Of course, the only one who truly understands a field operative is another field operative, even if he is from the other side. That, however, is not always beneficial. Talking to your own reflection can lead you to discover things about yourself you wished you had kept in the dark.

—Fléiter Praghem

Like any big city, Lambodonas was full of places that did not exist: brothels and gambling houses, of course, sometimes difficult to differentiate from each other. There were also less safe places, where the challenge to the law was more than simply ignoring an already obsolete statute that, though enacted by legislators, nobody actually complied with. Everyone knew it was a matter of time before gambling and prostitution were on the right side of the law and only the city guards (for whom the existence of certain crimes was a matter of sheer survival) paid any attention to those things.

Other places were more sinister. Like its predecessors, they did not exist, and their nonexistence was, so to speak, more secret.

Fléiter Praghem, leaning on his cane as always, watched with distant interest the outcome of a battle between a menialbody and a Khynainian and wondered if it would take much longer. He raised his glass and let a slave fill it while the fighting (the butchery, actually) came to the end. The Khynainian, a human wreck, collapsed on the floor while the menialbody, an orange skin mass that did not seem to understand where it was, remained completely motionless.

The ringmaster announced the winner. The bets were claimed and paid. The sand was cleaned. They prepared for a new battle.

Boring, Praghem said to himself. As boring as those damned Alboneers, with their haughty pose of civilization and their darkest desires barely hidden beneath the surface.

He wondered again why he had not chosen another destination: maybe in the city-states of Ashgramor, or among the decadent and insufferable people of Quitán. Or even in the open city of Jarsarén, full of pilgrims, followers, cenobites, acolytes, blessed ones and aspiring saints. Or, for that matter, he could be somewhere in Khynai, trying to remain inconspicuous among the believers of the One God.

He got his answer when he saw Yáxtor Brandan enter the amphitheatre. The steel blue eyes of the empirical adept swept the crowd as if it were not there and eventually found Praghem, as he knew they would.

He squeezed the cane, smiled and raised the glass in his direction, in a mock toast. Brandan’s mouth smiled but his eyes did not. Praghem had only seen joy in the eyes of the adept once, and he preferred not to think about it.

Brandan came quickly to his side.

“A good night?”

Praghem shrugged.

“Boring. And I don’t think the next show’s going to improve things.” He glanced toward the sand and nodded. “This place would gain a lot from an urban guard raid, really.”

“We can fix that.”

“I’m sure you can. Also I’m sure,” he said, finishing his drink and leaving the glass on a shelf next to him, “you’ve not come to see me about this cheap circus. How about we go somewhere we can talk in peace?”

“I know the perfect place,” Brandan said.

“Sure you do. But I’d be dead before I let you take me to your maze. No, I know where we can go.”

Brandan nodded, as Praghem had known he would do from the moment he saw him enter.

Good food, good drink and good feminine company… or something like that. The menialbodies were, in any case, quite convincing.

Praghem was absentmindedly caressing the breast of one of them with one hand while with the other he pecked a bite here and there from the tray in front of his couch. The long fingers of the menialbody were playing with expertise and indifference with his penis, and Praghem’s face was completely occupied by an expression of placidity that seemed in no hurry to disappear.

Opposite him, Brandan was half resting on his couch and drinking his wine with indifference.

“Won’t you ask for one?” Praghem asked.

Brandan shook his head.

“Not in Alboné.”

Praghem grinned and gave a little hop when he noticed the menialbody nails in his scrotum.

“Do you fear the Queen will find out?” he asked.

Brandan shrugged.

“I see. Today you’re not in the mood for trivia. Not that I blame you, but you should always find time for some things.”

“Not in Alboné,” Brandan said again.

“What’s that, your family motto? A little further to the right, my dear. Yes, peeeeerfect.”

“You have lost something.”

“We lose a lot of things. It’s our specialty, my boy, you know. But I guess you mean the cluster of Bad News Bombs that mysteriously disappeared from the arsenal at Elm Site.”

Brandan nodded.

“Yeah, I heard what happened this afternoon. It was an effective way to attract your attention, no doubt.” Brandan did not seem surprised that Praghem was aware of everything. After all, it was his job. “And I’m sure in the coming days we’ll discover you have not been the only one to receive a… I was going to say ‘blackmail letter’, but they are not really asking for anything, right? They just said what they had and when they were going to use it. Anyway, I don’t think you’ve been the only one to receive such an original message. After all, there were bombs enough in the cluster to crush a few cities.”

“What happened, Fléiter?”

“Ah, Yáxtor, damn it, someone blundered, what else… Yes, now with your mouth, perfect. Somebody screwed up, as I said. But no matter, Washorya bureaucrats have already covered their backs, tallied their balances and decided it is best to do nothing… Oh, yes, yes...”

Brandan took another drink and watched with indifference the work the menialbody was doing with its mouth on the penis of Praghem. Fléiter gasped for a moment, breathed out in what seemed an unsuccessful attempt to cough, and his body suddenly relaxed.

“Thank you, my dear.”

The menialbody, its eyes focused in a vacuum, its face as expressionless as it had been throughout the process, proceeded to clean Praghem’s genitals while he settled himself on the couch and smiled at Brandan.

“This place is the best one,” Fléiter said. “They know how to teach their menialbodies. I have to congratulate the trainer.”

“Not now.”

“Yes, of course, later. Now, let’s get down to business. What do you want to know?”

“Anything you can tell me.”

“But tell me one thing first. Why didn’t you come to me through the official channels?”

“We prefer to leave the paperwork on the sidelines.”

“I see. So, you’re acting rogue. That’s not going to please your superiors.”

“Only if they find out.”

“They won’t hear of it from me.”

“I know.”

The menialbody finished its work, replaced Praghem’s tunic and stood up. It began to walk toward the door and, in doing so, passed by Brandan. He extended a hand. The menialbody stopped. Brandan smiled and Praghem looked away.

There was a crack and when he looked again, the menialbody was a piece of flesh on the ground that was beginning to fall apart at an alarming speed. Brandan was still smiling. His eyes were not.

“And now we are sure they would not find out from her either,” he said.

“It seems so.”

Yáxtor was not real, Praghem said to himself. It was something he thought sometimes, when he contemplated the fast, cold and remorseless way the adept acted if he deemed it necessary. It was like the damn character from a story, as if the very Arteg Praghem, the hero who had starred in the stories of his childhood, had been reincarnated.

“Now tell me everything you know, Fléiter.”

He blinked and muttered a curse. He did not like anyone to catch him off guard and Yáxtor least of all.

“Not even going to say I owe you?” he asked to gain time.

“Is it necessary?”

“Actually, it isn’t.” He shrugged his shoulders. “All right, by the seven demons of the Tile, why not? After all, we’re in this together whether we like it or not. And if they threaten you, they are threatening the Western Confederacy as well, in a way. So let’s go ahead. But I’ll take another drink first. I think I need it.”

In fact, Praghem said, there was not much to tell.

The best-kept secret in the Confederacy was the Bad News Bomb. Not its existence, of course, that was made public at the end of the Hammer War. But its exact location and, above all, its state of research, was something that simply was not discussed.

Few knew where the workshop was. And of those, only the artifices who worked there were aware of what they were really doing, and they never went out. The militia in charge of security did not have the slightest idea where they were. They brought them and took them away in total darkness.

“We even had half a dozen other similar workshops, all with the same security measures, only they were nothing more than scenery.”

If a soldier came to find out where he was, all he could say was it was a secret workshop; one of many more.

“All this was in theory, of course.”

The reality was that someone had to know what they did, where they were and what state of development the research was at. And, when more than one person knows something, everybody else knows, sooner or later.

“After all, that’s the bottom of our business, don’t you think, Yáxtor?”

Details of what had occurred were not clear. An order to request a relief detachment for the workshop had been sent. And then… nothing, total silence.

“All communication attempts proved futile. Messengers activated the mirrors, but on the other side there did not seem to be anyone. As for the other methods… everything worked smoothly. Simply, no one answered.”

When they finally decided to send a scouting party, what they found was quite… weird, to say the least. The guards were dead and all the artifices were gone. As for the warehouses, they all were intact except one.

“They took the latest model. They knew very well what they were looking for or they put the screws on the artifices. Anyway, they took only the most recent bombs, those developed last year, leaving everything else behind.”

And that was all.

“No, it is not,” Brandan said. He had listened to the story in silence, merely nodding from time to time, as he drank one glass of wine after another. “You said everything happened during a changing of the guard. What about them?”

“Well, dead, right?”

Brandan shook his head.

“No. There were no soldiers among the dead,” he said.

“How the hell do you know?”

Brandan put his glass on the table.

“I have been trained to read other men, Fléiter, you know. And often what is silenced is more revealing than what is said. Your rescue team found the men guarding the place dead. And there was no sign of artifices. But what happened to the relief?”

“They were not there.”

“And where were they?”

Praghem took a deep breath and released the air slowly. He looked at his cane, leaning on a table not far from his couch. He took it and, for several seconds, he amused himself by stroking its surface, worn by several generations of use.

“In their quarters,” he said at last, still staring at the cane. The silver handle reflected the light for a moment and Praghem smiled mockingly at his own image. “Would you believe it? They were in the damn barracks. They had not moved from there. Relay orders never arrived. They were intercepted.”

Brandan clenched his jaw. He took out his briar pipe from a fold in his robe and calmly loaded it, ignoring the gesture of displeasure of Praghem, who was tapping his chin thoughtfully with the cane handle.

“But there is something that does not fit, right?” Brandan asked, after the first puff of smoke.

“Of course there’s something that doesn’t fit,” Praghem said, startled. He placed the cane on his legs and took a deep breath. “There always is, you know that. All the men were at their posts… except one. The officer in charge of transmitting the relay order has disappeared. We have been looking for him ever since.”

Brandan nodded.

“And this officer is…?”

Praghem seemed suddenly a hunted animal.

“Yáxtor, my friend, I don’t mind sharing information with you, you know. We work for the same cause, after all. We scratch each other’s back, so to speak, but what you ask…”

Brandan lay on the couch and blew a couple of puffs of smoke toward the ceiling.

“You are looking for him in the wrong place,” he said, gazing lazily at the forms the smoke was creating. “You will look everywhere and you will not find him. He is already dead.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“That is what I would do. He is the only weak link in the chain. So logically, he must disappear. I do not think you will find his body.”

Praghem nodded reluctantly.

“You’re right, cursed be the Tile and its geyser. Actually, I have thought exactly the same since I found out what had happened. I just didn’t dare to say it aloud.”

Brandan launched a new series of smoke rings toward the ceiling. He waited a few seconds and then went through them with a couple of smaller rings.

“Tell me what you know about him,” he finally said.

Praghem gave up. He had been spying for the Western Confederacy service for twenty years, and in all that time he had been half the world over and had a pretty good idea of what there was in the other half. But he had never met anyone like Yáxtor Brandan and sensed he never would.

Fortunately, he thought sometimes.

“All right. He is Major Chanandler Trib’ni. Or he was, if you’re right. He was in the military since the end of the war, although he didn’t see much action. At that time, he was little more than an inexperienced Lieutenant. In any case, he had an impeccable record. A bureaucrat, really, but I guess you also need them in the army. His service was average: some things here and there, but nothing of importance. Nothing that would give us the slightest clue he could be a traitor or a sleeper from the other side. Of course, if they gave us clues, our work would not be so much fun, right?”

Brandan did not respond.

“He was appointed to Wáhrang, to the western part of Barlénder. He requested a temporary transfer home four months ago and they gave it to him. As I said, he was a bureaucrat, but…” He hesitated a moment. “It’s true he was in the right place to stop the relay going out, but it’s impossible he knew the location of the workshop.”

“Perhaps he did not know,” Brandan said as he sat up and emptied his pipe. “Maybe he just had to get rid of certain orders when someone told him. He was just a small cog in the wheel, probably.”

He put his pipe in his robe and inspected his glass. There was still enough for a drink and he drank it down at once.

“I suppose you have detailed information on where he lived in Wáhrang, on his relationships, his friends, his relatives…”

“Yes, but there isn’t a great deal. He was a quiet type. He went about his own business and didn’t relate too much to others.” Fléiter took a deep breath and released the air slowly. “He had a daughter,” he added.

He pretended not to see the gleam in Brandan’s eyes when he heard that.

“Tell me more,” the adept said.

Even today we still do not really know how the messengers work. We know they exist and that menialbodies accumulate them or produce them (we are not even sure which), and we know they enter our fluids and we can use them, in an unconscious way, to work for us; to heal our wounds and to protect us from some diseases.

We also know we can manipulate our own messengers and our environment’s to do other things using the unpronounceable words.

But what are unpronounceable words? And who does really pronounce them? Is it our mouth or the messengers in it? Why do we know them? When we create a specific configuration of messengers for a specific task, how do we know the unpronounceable word that activates and organizes them to respond to our will?

And what are the messengers themselves? Until recently we were unable even to see them. And even today we only know they exist and they are infinitesimally small. They obey our orders, but we still do not know exactly how and, more importantly, why.

We do know something, though. They are not part of us. They steal into our bodies, but we do not produce them. We can use them, but not create them.

From there, from our own ignorance, maybe we can get a start. To go where? Towards slightly less ignorance, perhaps.

—Qérlex Targerian

He knew his apprentices’ fear was feigned and they whispered behind his back. He also knew they liked him and, more important, they respected him. So the rest could be ignored, so long as no one mentioned it.

That fiction staggered every time Yáxtor Brandan appeared in the workshop. It was enough for him to begin to tinker here and there and make a few humorous comments for the masks to be on the verge of collapse.

So when he saw Yáxtor coming toward him, he pretended not to see him and continued his work. The next two days would be very hard, he thought, until things returned to normal.

“Qérlex,” Brandan said, as he stopped a few feet behind him. “Your den seems strangely ordered this morning.”

Undeterred, Qérlex Targerian went on with what he was doing and did not turn round until the last gear was in place. Only then did he allow himself to cast a glance at Brandan over his glasses.

“Well,” he said. “I was sure you were dead; or almost.”

“‘Almost’ does not count. You should know that.”

“What brings you here?”

Brandan put his hand to his chin and stroked it in a thoughtful gesture.

“Let’s see,” he said. “What could it be? I cannot think of anything.”

“Great. Me neither. So, why don’t you get out and leave me alone?”

Instead of answering, Brandan handed him a sealed roll. Qérlex took it and broke the seal. The paper seemed to be in order and the seal appeared to be authentic. With a sneer, he crumpled the papyrus and threw it into a brazier.

“I guess you need the products from my shop to save your miserable life again. And, as usual, if you return me some of them in good condition it will be by mistake.”

Brandan smiled and Qérlex could see something few men had seen: a glow of distant amusement in his steel-coloured eyes. The artifex was aware of the legends that circulated in the Order about the young adept, and he had never questioned them. After all, he knew his history well enough and knew what had happened to him five years ago. In fact, he was one of those responsible (not the main one, he told himself often, but responsible in the end) for that transformation.

But he knew Brandan felt safe in his shop. Almost like home. And the exchange of taunts, the continued neglect of his creations, the careless way he touched them, was his way of making that clear.

So he signalled the adept to follow him and left that part of the workshop, and went toward his private space.

It was a huge room, almost as big as the rest of the workshop, and it was packed full. Half-built devices occupied most of the tables; junk that nobody knew what it was for was piled on the shelves, and dozens of plans were scattered everywhere.

“This is something I’ve been working on,” he said as he entered. “I think it can help. Where did I leave…? Ah, yes.”

He handed him what looked like a metal bracelet in the form of a coiled serpent.

“It suits me,” Brandan said. “I confess I did not know what to wear tonight.”

Qérlex mumbled and whispered an unpronounceable word.

“The metal has memory and recovers its original shape with the right word,” he said while the bracelet was transforming into a stylish cylinder, and what had been the head of the snake became a butt.

“Ah, I see,” Brandan said. “A projectile launcher, very innovative. I think there is a barbarian in the South that still does not have one.”

“Not like this one, I assure you.”

Qérlex rummaged through one of the shelves until he found a small metal box. He opened it and took out one of the balls inside. He fitted it into the breach of the launcher and went to the back of the room, where there was a shooting test dummy.

Brandan watched him without knowing what the other man wanted to prove. Qérlex half turned and smiled as if he had remembered a great joke.

His finger twitched around a small trigger and the projectile launcher spat. The dummy’s face was turned into something unrecognizable by the impact.

“What the …?” Brandan said.

“Ah, so you don’t know everything, right?” Qérlex said as he turned and handed him the launcher.

Brandan took it in his hands and turned it, studying the mechanism. After a while, comprehension dawned.

“Of course,” he said. “The trigger activates the hammer. And it is the blow on the projectile which generates the word of ignition.”

“Well, you’re not entirely stupid, I admit.”

“Interesting,” said Brandan, while turning the launcher. “Very interesting.”

“Sure it is. It can save your life, too. It’s totally undetectable. And the best part is the shooting cannot be detected, either. You don’t need to say the word that triggers the projectile messengers. And indeed, ungrateful boy, the hammer does not pronounce the word, but writes it.”

“Have you…?”

“Yes, I have. My bullets don’t need sound to be activated and therefore no one can detect an unpronounceable word being spoken. If you use this launcher with discretion, no one will catch you. And the best part is that if someone steals your ammo he cannot use it in another launcher. Is it good enough for you?”

Brandan, impressed despite himself, nodded. Qérlex grabbed the gun, said the word of rest and it became again a harmless serpent-shaped bracelet.

“It can be used with a standard charger. And, of course, in a pinch you can use traditional ammunition, voice-activated.”

He held out the bracelet, a pair of boxes of shells, and a charger.

“Enough?” he asked later.

“Actually…”

No, Qérlex had not expected it would be.

In the next half hour, the two of them toured the artifex’s private room and Qérlex explained to the adept some of the things he was working on. Some of them had not yet passed from blueprint to reality, others were half-made and a few had not been tested yet. Of the remainder, Brandan scorned most with a snarl and a sneer.

There were some he found interesting, though.

“Well?” Qérlex asked Brandan when the latter was satisfied and stopped asking what was that or the other. “What are you going to do now? What terrible threat are you going to save the civilized world from?”

Brandan smiled again and was not aware of how relaxed he felt as he took out his pipe and proceeded to fill it with snuff.

“Don’t you read mail shots?”

“Why? Is that any use?”

“Probably not.”

“So…”

But Brandan did not respond and continued to smoke as if the artifex had not asked him anything.

“I suppose we are but ghosts,” he murmured after a while. “Pesky ghosts that occasionally invade the real world and do not let you work in peace.”

Qérlex shrugged.

“It’s one way to look at it.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

He left soon after that without telling the artifex why he needed everything he had picked up. Not that Qérlex would have needed to be told, of course. He was aware of everything going on there, if only through his apprentices’ murmurs.

A Bad News Bomb, several of them, if what was rumoured was true.

It was the most stupid and dangerous of inventions. Developed by Westerners, who else? So in love with their own ingenuity and innovation and always willing to try anything without considering the consequences.

Consequences like the end of the world, as they knew it.

Mentally, he prayed for the success of Brandan’s mission. Although, deep down, he knew even that was only a postponement. Once you have created something you cannot uncreate it and it will not disappear by itself.

It was a matter of time before everything ceased to be what it had been.

At least, let it happen after my death, he said to himself. But he was not very optimistic.

The communications mirror was activated and the Supreme Adept gave the messengers on his side the order to wake.

The sulky face of Qérlex materialized on the polished surface.

“The boy has been here, Orston.”

“Did he have an order?”

“Of course he did, do you think he’s stupid? A very good faked one, indeed.”

“Well, that has always been one of his natural talents.”

“Almost everything has always been one of his natural talents. Do not give me platitudes, Orston.”

The Supreme Adept’s eyes narrowed. Qérlex was not pretending to be a cantankerous tyrant, as he did with his apprentices. He was really upset.

“Is there anything more?”

“Nothing good, since you ask me. Our stupid western cousins have developed a weapon that no one should ever have created. As if that’s not enough, they have been robbed like yokels. Yes, I know that sooner or later it would have happened. Once you develop something, it is a matter of time before everyone gets it. But meanwhile, we are in a big mess.”

“Who’s saying truisms now, old friend?”

“To the ignorance pit with you, Orston. I say what I want and when I want! I have known you since you were only an acolyte who was startled every time someone said an unpronounceable word. I have not had the dubious honour of changing your diapers, but I know you enough not to be impressed.”

“As you say.”

“That’s right. As I say.”

He fell silent, and the Supreme Adept wondered what his former teacher was actually trying to say. He soon found out.

“We are living on borrowed time,” said the artifex finally.

“Just like everyone else.”

“You know what I mean.”

“What…?” He stopped suddenly. “All right, so our days are numbered. We cannot do much about that. We will have to try for these days to last as long as possible. It is our job, after all.”

“For the Queen,” Qérlex whispered as if it were an obscenity.

“For the Queen,” the Supreme Adept repeated mechanically. “For her and the civilization she represents, if that is not enough for you.”

“Well, there are worse things to fight for, I suppose. Although my opinion is not impartial, as you know.”

“What do you want from me, Qérlex?

The old man seemed surprised.

“From you? Nothing, really, I’m fine where I am. I don’t know how much longer that will be true.”

“We will disable the threat.”

“I’m not as optimistic as you, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt. For a while, anyway.”

“That’s all we have.”

“We are born. We die. We are damn parentheses. And in between… Bah, I digress.”

“For a while now.”

Qérlex did not even seem offended by the insult. He frowned and shook his head.

“What have we done, Orston?” he suddenly asked.

“What we had to.”

“Yes, but what have we done to the kid?”

The Supreme Adept raised an eyebrow. So that was it. He should have guessed.

“We made him what he is now,” he said. “And, as usual, we did what we had to do. That’s all.”

“He is a bloody bomb. And someday he will explode in our faces.”

“He is our best weapon, Qérlex. And you should know better than anyone that good weapons are always dangerous.”

“He is a mask. And below…”

“Enough!” For the first time since the conversation had started, the Supreme Adept was about to lose patience. “We did what we needed to do. Every one of us did. And we agreed to pay the price, whatever that was.”

“Only, for now, he is the only one who is paying.”

“I have got work to do, Qérlex. As you have. If you do not wish to tell me anything else, I suggest the two of us resume our tasks.”

“Of course, how thoughtless of me.”

He opened his mouth to utter the word that would deactivate the mirror. Suddenly he smiled and said:

“The Transition will be completed within a month, right? It will be a delicate moment.”

He wrinkled his lips and the word left his mouth.

Alone in his office, the Supreme Adept let out a curse.

The world we see is not at all the world that exists. And indeed, the day we understand that is the day we become adults.

Some are lucky enough to find out soon.

Others are even luckier and they never discover it.

—The Queen of Alboné, in her twenty-seventh embodiment