Knowledge Aforethought, page 8
“I don’t get it,” I said.
Mary looked at our blank expressions and huffed. “Does no one do proper research anymore? No, they just expect the journalist or the writers to do if for them!”
“So, Charlotte, this Eye is—“
“Would you just listen to me?!” Mary snapped, her face turning an amusing shade of red. She then pointed to a paragraph of writing just below the drawing. “The Eye of Carteria is a legend said to have existed at the beginning of the Elsewhere. It supposedly helped the shaping of Elsewhere into what it is, separating the magical realms from the mortal realms. It took the dreams of people about what magic was like and shaped it into a world where magic could run free. In essence, the sorcerer who owned the Eye created the biggest and baddest prison in existence. To contain not just magical beings, but beings like Life and Death themselves, or dragons who are older than dirt and more powerful than just about—”
Death raised a hand and Mary halted, scowling. “The important piece of information is that the Eye is a powerful artefact. It contains and it separates. The power that this artefact holds is immense and it cannot be utilised by someone who does not have will to match its potential. Many people in the past have tried to wield the Eye with poor result.”
“Why?” Machiavelli asked. Death, Charlotte, and Mary blinked at him, as though he had said something ridiculous.
“Why what?” Charlotte asked.
“Why would you want to wield it? I mean, what would that do?” Machiavelli asked. He inclined his head to Death. “Besides kill you, that is.”
Mary huffed and folded her arms. “If a person managed to successfully wield the Eye of Carteria, then they would have power over Elsewhere. And magical beings.”
“For an author, you’re not terribly informative,” I huffed back at Mary. Her eyes widened in fury and she jabbed her finger at a piece of the scroll, farther down the page than the drawing.
“You’ve already experienced something like what the Eye can do,” Mary snapped, perhaps far too loudly for the other patrons of the tavern. “Your soul was cleaved from your person. You were separated at a level so essential, so basic, that even Death himself cannot undo this mistake. Imagine if you could do that to anyone. If you could separate a dragon’s magic from them and then contain it. Use it. Or if you could contain the greatest threats to the world. If you could cleave and contain anything.”
Silence fell at the table. Machiavelli made a considering noise in his throat, then sipped at the wine still in his glass. “An interesting question. I know many who would gladly take such power and use it for their own purposes, rather than what it was intended to do. The question is, what are you planning to do with it?”
Charlotte’s expression hardened. She shifted in her seat, reaching towards a weapon that was probably hidden in her belt. “You presume to ask me such a question?”
Machiavelli raised his brows. “I presume to ask. Why? Because you have gotten me involved in this situation.” Charlotte opened her mouth to complain and Machiavelli replied by holding up his hand for silence. “Yes, I am fully aware that you were given no choice in my involvement. But the fact of the matter is that I am now involved. And it seems to me that I should know what your intentions are for such a dangerous artefact. I am not going to help release some sort of demon upon the earth.”
“She’s not a demon!” Mary protested. Charlotte rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Actually, I think Niccolo has a point,” I said, straightening. “I know more than a few beings whose power would be really, really devastating if used at someone’s whim. Like him.” I jerked my thumb towards Death who simply shrugged.
“Such artefacts are powerful, yes. Dangerous, yes. But Life and I chose to enter the realm of Elsewhere. We are not contained by such puny objects,” Death said. He smiled into his own drink, looking back at me with a smug expression. I didn’t return the smile.
“Do you know my purpose in life?” Charlotte asked.
“Oh, goodie! The story! Can I tell it?” Mary asked, clapping her hands and looking around with an expression of glee.
“No,” Charlotte snapped. “If you wish to call yourself The Author, no matter that it is supremely ridiculous, fine. But every time you tell this story you twist everything I’ve done into something… else.”
Mary shrugged, looking unconcerned by the accusation. “It is my job. I take the kernel of truth at the centre of anyone’s story and bring it to the front. It is not my fault if people don’t like the result.”
“Enough!” Charlotte growled. “I will tell my own story.”
She turned to Machiavelli, leaning forwards and wrapping her hands around the empty glass. I had a feeling that this was more for a way to control her hands than anything else. “I was ostracised from birth by being what I am. There was nothing I could do. The giants would not have me for being weak and the humans would not have me for being strong. I was powerful, yes, but not powerful enough to gather attention or respect. Just enough to be considered an oddity. So I decided that I would gather power. I went searching for things that could grant me power. I learned how to wield the greatsword on the way. I faced ogres and wyverns and furious immortals. I fought my way through the human lands and through Elsewhere. And I came upon several artefacts. Eventually, though, I discovered that respect was anything but forthcoming. There was no awe, no admiration. Only fear. Then, I kil—never mind…It doesn’t matter. Just know that I learned there are consequences for our actions. Terrible consequences. I would never be anything but an oddity. Or feared. I decided I would rather have people look at me strangely than with fear. So I packed up the artefacts and took them to the Library at Sazhem. I’ve been hunting down the worst things this realm has to offer ever since. Making sure that they can never escape into the world. Never be the cause of more fear. More consequences.”
Once again, silence descended. Charlotte’s story was full of holes, but I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Someone close to her, or even an innocent stranger, had died and if it wasn’t directly her fault, it was her fault by indirect means. It was something I had seen before and, given my line of work, would see again. Normally, I would have felt a surge of pity for her and would have trusted her to do what needed to be done then and there. But things were far from normal for me. I required answers.
I looked at Mary, at The Author, and asked: “Which will history see her as: the villain, or the hero?”
Mary scoffed. “Neither. If she does her job right, you won’t see her at all. That’s why she took the name Unkillable. You can’t kill something that no one remembers.”
“Stupid scribe,” Charlotte muttered, but didn’t argue.
“A touching story,” Machiavelli said drily. “Just the sort to tug on our heartstrings and try to make us believe that you really are working for the greater good. I still don’t trust you.”
This time, Charlotte bared her teeth at Machiavelli. “Then don’t. I enlisted Cal’s help, not yours. Feel free to go back to your writing and scheming, tiny human.”
I opened my mouth to argue and was, again, interrupted. Death let out another hum, his dark and empty eyes looking at something beyond what any of us could see. I felt a shadow passing over my mind and wondered if that was to do with my missing soul or if it was the hint of fear I couldn’t feel anymore.
“How interesting that you particular people should be drawn together at this particular time. A human, made immortal. A half-giantess. A scribe, out of her own time. And a normal, fragile human with a gift of thought. Immortal, scion, adventurer, philosopher. All brought together to help one another retrieve one of the most powerful artefacts this realm has seen, then to supposedly help me in my troubles. Which then begs the question: who, in their right mind, would help Death? There is perhaps something more going on here. Something you are not seeing.”
Death looked at each of us, focusing on us for a few interminable seconds before moving on. Once, that lingering gaze would have struck quivering terror right through me. Now, I frowned and sighed.
“A little dramatic, don’t you think?” I asked. “If there is something else going on here, Time is the one you should be asking. He brought us here. Well, he brought me. And if he brought me here, then he did it on purpose. Okay, fine, he probably has ulterior motives. I really don’t care; I just want to get back home and get my soul. So I’ll go help Charlotte and Mary in their ‘righteous’ quest for the Eye. Then we need to make sure you get to your appointment on time. Got it?”
Death held out his hands in mock surrender. “Very well. But there is just one problem: I have thought about this a great deal and have come up with no answers. Life and I have no appointment. I wish you luck.”
With a blink of light so faint that I doubted anyone else in the tavern saw it, Death vanished. This wasn’t the dramatic scene of before, when he used his power to leech the life and energy from the party, but something different. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. I let out a huff and grumbled into my empty glass.
“Death is… more eccentric than I would have thought,” Machiavelli said, staring at the spot where Death had sat.
“Yeah, well, you should meet Life. Of the two of them, she scares me more. Death may be unexpected, but at least he’s sane. She’s…different. Unpredictable. And what did he mean by he never made an appointment?!” The last I asked more to myself than anybody, but the others seemed to feel free to offer their own opinions.
“Maybe Death is correct,” Machiavelli said. “Perhaps there is something else going on. Perhaps you were brought here as a means to a different end than the one you thought. Time does not seem the most stable entity, based on how you’ve described him.”
I nodded, considering. “That is true.”
“I say we continue with the plan,” Charlotte said. “Help me retrieve the Eye.”
“Then maybe we’ll have enough pieces to figure out what’s going on,” Mary added, rolling up the documents she had spread out on the table and putting them back in her belt purse.
I took in a deep breath through my nose, then let it out slowly. It was a breathing technique that I had learned while doing yoga in the human realms. It used to work wonders for me, back when I was just about to become vice president of marketing in the PR firm where I worked. Now, it just served to fuel me with oxygen. “Alright. But I think we should go in a different direction after we get you that amulet. Instead of hoping that Death will help us figure out what I need to do to fix things with Life, I think we should talk to her instead.”
“You just said that Life is incredibly unstable,” Machiavelli pointed out. Mary agreed, soberly nodding, though I swore I saw a gleam of interest in her eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. “I did. And she is. But the way my day is going, I’m up for a little unstable.”
“Good,” Charlotte said. “Then we rob the Medici at dawn.”
Machiavelli choked on his drink.
Time and Again
“This is an incredibly stupid idea,” I said under my breath as our ragtag group wandered through the darkened streets of Florence. Machiavelli was walking closest to me and gave me a glance, a glint in his eye that could have been either knowing or accusing.
“I thought you were separated from strong emotions. Would not such an opinion indicate strong emotion?” he breathed back. I shrugged, then shook my head as Charlotte—obviously in the lead, however reckless that might prove to be—strode through the narrow streets as though she owned them. Few would bother standing against her.
“It’s not exactly separated,” I said, tugging at the fit of my shirt. As soon as we started off on this thieving venture, it felt too tight, too much like a costume. Like I was a pretender. “It’s more like everything I’m feeling, everything I am, is behind a thin veil. It is there; I know what it is and that it exists, but it doesn’t affect me like it should. I can even ignore it, if I don’t think about it. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t need to be able to feel emotion to know that this is an incredibly stupid idea.”
“And yet here you are,” Machiavelli said. He paused as a sleepy city guardsman walked past, nodding in acknowledgement to us. It was nearing dawn and we were lucky that the city hadn’t yet started to stir. But our window of opportunity was waning. If we were going to stop and think about things, then it had to be before we started on this venture. Otherwise, we would never be able to get past the Medici again. We hadn’t bothered with the planning or thinking, just leapt right into things. Hence the incredibly stupid idea.
“And yet here I am,” I agreed. I took a deep breath and considered the two women leading us into danger. Charlotte strode sure and strong, her sword slung across her back as though she did not care that anyone knew she would be the one to beat, the dangerous one. Mary, on the other hand, was more subtle. She wore the clothing of a typical, average woman in that time. The only oddity was that her belt contained a bag of charcoal and another with paper. Her steps were careful, sure to pass only on solid stone rather than the mortar between. Her eyes watched and took in the details surrounding us. Of the two, Charlotte would be more likely to kill. Mary would simply tear someone apart from the inside out.
“I wonder why it is that you are here,” Machiavelli said quietly. I paused a moment, some strange feeling tugging at me from behind the veil. I focused and finally identified it by the sharp tang it left in my mouth. Uncertainty.
“To get their help in figuring out this whole situation with Life and Death,” I said, swallowing away that uncertainty. It vanished back behind that veil as though I had never known what it was. That in itself was disconcerting. So I didn’t have access to my emotions or whatever you wanted to call it. That didn’t mean I was incapable of rational thought…did it?
“I wonder,” Machiavelli said. At that, Mary turned around and shushed us.
We fell into silence and listened to the city start to wake up around us. False dawn was here and it was time for another day to start. Everyone would be going about their business, be that baking breads or preparing cloth. The vampires, though, would probably be just heading towards their beds. Yes, some few of them went out during the day to maintain the appearance of normality, but vampires were, on the whole, nocturnal. Their vaults would be vulnerable. Any humans hired to guard the vaults would likely be changing shift at that moment. Without modern technology like security cameras, motion sensors and the like, breaking into the Medici vault should have been as simple as slipping in, getting past the guards, and finding the artefact.
Of course, it wasn’t really that simple.
Annoyed by our whispering, Mary hurried Machiavelli and I to the Medici palazzo. The courtyard was empty and calm. Charlotte put her ear to the door, as though she could hear something through the heavy wood. A thought occurred to me.
“Question,” I whispered, raising my hand. All three of my companions turned towards me with alarm. “Why would the vault be here and not in their bank?”
“Hello! Magical artefact,” Mary hissed. “Not something you’d leave lying about in a human bank.”
I shrugged and hoped more than believed that to be true. The truth was, it was far easier to break into the palazzo than the bank. The consequences, though, would be much more dire.
Charlotte waved her hand in some sort of “all clear” then, hands hovering near her weapons and her feet stepping carefully so she didn’t make noise on the stones, moved towards a door that led to the side of the palazzo. It was a servant’s entrance, which didn’t really make sense to me. The front would surely be the better way in. At this time of morning, the servants would be stirring, preparing the household for the day. Even stupid, modern me knew that.
That thought itched in my ear when before the severing of my soul it probably would have been something I’d thought of before now. At this point, I was on uncertain terrain with myself. I would have to trust that the others around me knew what they were doing so I could figure out how to sort out what I was thinking and not feeling. As we passed through the door leading to the servant’s entrance, it occurred to me that trying to figure out my existential crisis on the fly while breaking into a nest of vampires was perhaps not the best idea.
So, I repeated once more, just as I was passing inside the palazzo, “This is an incredibly stupid idea.”
No one chastised me for breathing the words out loud. Charlotte did take an almost audibly deep breath before continuing on into the depths of the stone building. That was not exactly encouraging.
There were fewer people about than I had expected. Perhaps because everybody was off doing work somewhere else in the household or in the city. Or, perhaps because the passages that we walked through fairly stank of that rancid vampire magic. They did not possess huge amounts of magic—the vampire royalty was accordingly better suited for magic than their subjects—but what they did possess was for enthralling. The aftereffect was something like a pastry that had gone off and smelled like burnt treacle. The passages we followed became narrower, more cobwebbed, and the smell of burnt treacle became stronger.
Until it stopped altogether.
Charlotte stepped into an open chamber with vaulted ceilings that seemed impossibly high. The palazzo could not be that large. I realised belatedly that we had been slowly descending into the depths of the earth. Each passage we took had been sloped down, lowering into the next passage, each step deceptive until you reached this enormous chamber and realised the depth of your mistake.
And it was a mistake.
The room was not, as I had expected, guarded by one or two soldiers, it was guarded by a single person. The female vampire, the future queen of the vampires that I had dealt with before and also threatened to kill—though thankfully she wouldn’t know that for many hundreds of years. Alsatia. She lounged on a chair with elaborate embroidery as though she had nothing better to do with her time. As though she was expecting us.
