Sailing to Sarantium (14 page)

'I decided,' said Zoticus,'I might do better. Far better. Create
birds that had their own power of speech. And thought. And that
these, the fruits of long study and labour and . . . some danger,
would be my conduits to fame in the world.'

'What happened?'

'You don't remember? No, you wouldn't. Apius, under the influence of
his Eastern Patriarch, began blinding alchemists and cheiromancers,
even simple astrologers for a while. The clerics of the sun god have
always feared any other avenues to power or understanding in the
world. It became evident that arriving in the City with birds that
had souls and spoke their own minds was a swift path to blinding if
not death.' The tone was wry.

'So you stayed here?'

'I stayed. After ... some extended travels. Mostly in autumn, as it
happened. This season makes me restless even now. I did learn on
those journeys how to do what I wanted. As you can see. I never did
get to Sarantium. A mild regret. I'm too old now.'

Crispin, hearing the alchemist's words in his mind again, realized
something. The clerics of the sun god. 'You aren't a Jaddite, are
you?'

Zoticus smiled, and shook his head.

'Odd,' said Crispin dryly, 'you don't look Kindath.'

Zoticus laughed. There came that sound again, from towards the fire.
A log, almost certainly. 'I have been told I do,' he said. 'But no,
why would I exchange one fallacy for another?'

Crispin nodded. This was not a surprise, all things considered.
'Pagan?'

'I honour the old gods, yes. And their philosophers. And believe with
them that it is a mistake to attempt to circumscribe the infinite
range of divinity into one-or even two or three-images, however
potent they might be on a dome or a disk.'

Crispin sat down on the stool opposite the other man. He sipped from
his cup again. Pagans were not all that rare in Batiara among the
Antae-which might well explain why Zoticus had lingered safely in
this countryside-but this was still an extraordinarily frank
conversation to be having. 'I'd imagine,' he said, 'that the Jaddite
teachers-or the Kindath, from what little I know-would simply say
that all modes of divinity may be encompassed in one if the one is
powerful enough.'

'They would,' Zoticus agreed equably. 'Or two for the pure
Heladikians, three with the Kindath moons and sun. They would all be
wrong, to my mind, but that is what they'd say. Are we about to
debate the nature of the divine, Caius Crispus? We'll need more than
a mint infusion in that case.'

Crispin almost laughed. 'And more time. I leave in two days and have
a great deal to attend to.'

'Of course you do. And an old man's philosophizing can hardly appeal
just now, if ever. I have marked your map with the hostelries I
understand to be acceptable, and those to be particularly avoided. My
last travels were twenty years and more ago, but I do have my
sources. Let me also give you two names in the City. Both may be
trusted, I suspect, though not with everything you know or do.'

His expression was direct. Crispin thought of a young queen in a
candlelit room, and wondered. He said nothing. Zoticus crossed to the
table, took a sheet of parchment and wrote upon it. He folded the
parchment twice and handed it to Crispin.

'Be careful around the last of this month and the first day of the
next. It would be wise not to travel those days, if you can arrange
to be staying at an Imperial Inn. Sauradia will be a ... changed
place.' Crispin looked his inquiry.

'The Day of the Dead. Not a prudent time for strangers to be abroad
in that province. Once you are in Trakesia you'll be safer. Until you
get to the City itself and have to explain why you aren't Martinian.
That ought to be amusing.'

'Oh, very,' said Crispin. He had been avoiding thinking about that.
Time enough. It was a long journey by land. He unfolded the paper,
read the names.

The first is a doctor,' said Zoticus. 'Always useful. The second is
my daughter.'

'Your what?' Crispin blinked.

'Daughter. Seed of my loins. Girl child.' Zoticus laughed. 'One of
them. I told you: I did travel a fair bit in my youth.'

They heard a barking from the yard. From farther within the house a
long-faced, slope-shouldered servant appeared and made his unhurried
way to the door and out. He silenced the dogs. They heard voices
outside. A moment later he reappeared, carrying two jars.

'Silavin came, master. He says his swine is recovered. He brought
honey. Promises a ham.'

'Splendid!' said Zoticus. 'Store the honey in the cellar.'

'We have thirty jars there, master,' said the servant lugubriously.

'Thirty? So many? Oh dear. Well... our friend here will take two back
for Carissa and Martinian.'

That still leaves twenty-six,' said the glum-faced servant.

'At least,' agreed Zoticus. 'We shall have a sweet winter. The fire
is all right, Clovis, you may go.'

Clovis withdrew through the inner doorway-Crispin caught a glimpse of
a hallway and a kitchen at the end before the door closed again.

'Your daughter lives in Sarantium?' he asked.

'One of them. Yes. She's a prostitute.'

Crispin blinked again.

Zoticus looked wry. 'Well. Not quite. A dancer. Much the same, if I
understand the theatre there. I don't really know. I've never seen
her. She writes me, at times. Knows her letters.'

Crispin looked at the name on the paper again. Shirin. There was a
street name, as well. He glanced up. Trakesian?'

'Her mother was. I was travelling, as I say. Some of my children
write to me.'

'Some?'

'Many are indifferent to their poor father, struggling in his aged
loneliness among the barbarians.'

The eyes were amused, the tone a long way from what the words
implied. Crispin, out of habit, resisted an impulse to laugh, then
stopped fighting it.

'You had an adventurous past.'

'Middling so. In truth, I find more excitement now in my studies.
Women were a great distraction. I am mostly freed of that now, thank
the high gods. I actually believe I have a proper understanding of
some of the philosophers now, and that is an adventure of the spirit.
You will take one of the birds? As my gift to you?'

Crispin put his drink down abruptly, spilling some on the table. He
snatched at the map to keep it dry. 'What? Why would you-?'

'Martinian is a dear friend. You are his colleague, his almost-son.
You are going a long way to a dangerous place. If you are careful to
keep it private, one of the birds will be of assistance. They can
see, and hear. And offer companionship, if nothing else.' The
alchemist hesitated. 'It... pleases me to think one of my creations
will go with you to Sarantium, after all.'

'Oh, splendid. I am to walk the arcades of the City conversing with a
companionable jewelled falcon? You want me blinded in your stead?'

Zoticus smiled faintly. 'Not a choice gift, were that so. No.
Discretion will be called for, but there are other ways of speaking
with them. With whichever of them you can hear inwardly. You have no
training. It is not certain, Caius Crispus. Nothing is in my art, I
fear. But if you can hear one of the birds, it may become yours. In
the act of hearing, a transference can be achieved. We will know soon
enough.' His voice changed. 'All of you, shape a thought for our
guest.'

'Don't be absurd!' snapped an owl screwed onto a perch by the front
door.

'A fatuous notion!' said the yellow-eyed falcon on the high back of
Zoticus's chair. Crispin could imagine it glaring at him.

'Quite so,' said a hawk Crispin hadn't noticed, from the far side of
the room. 'The very idea is indecent.' He remembered this jaded
voice. From twenty-five years ago. They sounded utterly identical,
all of them. He shivered, unable to help himself. The hawk added,
'This is a petty thief. Unworthy of being addressed. I refuse to
dignify him so.'

'That is enough! It is commanded,' said Zoticus. His voice remained
soft but there was iron in it. 'Speak to him, within. Do it now.'

For the first time Crispin had a sense that this was a man to be
feared. There was a change in the alchemist's hard-worn, craggy
features when he spoke this way, a look, a manner that
suggested-inescapably-that he had seen and done dark things in his
day. And he had made these birds. These crafted things that could see
and hear. And speak to him. It came to Crispin, in a rush, exactly
what was being proposed. He discovered that his hands were clenched
together.

It was silent in the room. Unsure of what to do, Crispin eyed the
alchemist and waited.

He heard something. Or thought he did.

Zoticus calmly sipped his drink. 'And so? Anything?' His voice was
mild again.

There had been no actual sound.

Crispin said, wonderingly, fighting a chill fear, 'I thought . . .
well, I believe I did hear... something.'

'Which was?'

'I think ... it sounded as if someone said, Mice and blood.'

There came a shriek of purest outrage from the table by the fire.

'No! No, no, no! By the chewed bones of a water rat, I am not going
with him! Throw me in the fire! I'd rather die!'

Linon, of course. The small brown and dark grey sparrow, not the hawk
or owl or the imperious yellow-eyed falcon, or even one of the
oracular-looking ravens on the untidy bookshelf.

'You aren't even properly alive, Linon, don't be dramatic. A little
travel again will be good for you. Teach you manners, perhaps.'

'Manners? He sloughs me off to a stranger after all these years and
speaks of manners?'

Crispin swallowed and, genuinely afraid of what underlay this
exercise, he sent a thought, without speaking: ‘
I did not
ask for this. Shall I refuse the gift?'

'Pah! Imbecile.'

Which did, at least, confirm something.

He looked at the alchemist. 'Do you . . . did you hear what it said
to me?'

Zoticus shook his head. His expression was odd. 'It feels strangely,
I confess. I've only done this once before and it was different
then.'

'I'm . . . honoured, I think. I mean, of course I am. But I'm still
confused. This was not asked for.'

'Go ahead. Humiliate me!'

'I daresay,' said Zoticus. He didn't smile now. Nor did he seem to
have heard the bird. He toyed with his earthenware cup. From the
chairback, the falcon's harsh eyes seemed fixed on Crispin,
malevolent and glittering. 'You could hardly ask for what you do not
comprehend. Nor steal it, like another apple.'

'Unkind,' Crispin said, controlling his own quick anger.

Zoticus drew a breath. 'It was. Forgive me.'

'We can undo this, can we not? I have no desire to become enmeshed in
the half-world. Do the cheiromancers of Sarantium all have creatures
like this? I am a mosaicist. That is all I want to be. It is all I
want to do, when I get there. If they let me live.'

It was almost all. He had a message to convey if he could. He had
undertaken as much.

'I know this. Forgive me. And no, the charlatans at the Imperial
Court, or those casting maledictions on chariot racers for the
Hippodrome mob cannot do this. I am more or less certain of it.'

'None of them? Not a single one? You, alone, of Jad's mortal children
on earth can . . . make creatures such as these birds? If you can do
it-'

'-why can no one else? Of course. The obvious question.'

'And the obvious answer is?' Sarcasm, an old friend, never far away
of late.

'That it is possible someone has learned this, but unlikely, and I do
not believe it has happened this way. I have discovered . . . what I
believe to be the only access to a certain kind of power. Found in my
travels, in a ... profoundly guarded place and at some risk.'

Crispin crossed his arms. 'I see. A scroll of chants and pentagrams?
Boiled blood of a hanged thief and running around a tree seven times
by double moonlight? And if you do the least thing wrong you turn
into a frog?'

Zoticus ignored this. He simply looked at Crispin from beneath thick,
level brows, saying nothing. After a moment, Crispin began to feel
ashamed. He might be unsettled here, this staggering imposition of
magic might be unlooked-for and frightening, but it was an offered
gift, generous beyond words, and the implications of what the
alchemist had actually achieved here . ..

'If you can do this... if these birds are thinking and speaking with
their own ... will.. . you ought to be the most celebrated man of our
age!'

'Fame? A lasting name to echo gloriously down the ages? That would be
pleasant, I suppose, a comfort in old age, but no, it couldn't happen
... think about it.'

'I am.Why not?'

'Power tends to be co-opted by greater power. This magic isn't
particularly ... intimidating. No half-world-spawned fireballs or
death spells. No walking through walls or flying over them,
invisible. Merely fabricated birds with... souls and voices. A small
thing, but how could I defend myself, or them, if it was known they
were here?'

'But why should-?'

'How would the Patriarch in Rhodias, or even the clerics in the
sanctuary you are rebuilding outside Varena, take to the idea of
pagan magic vesting a soul in crafted birds? Would they burn me or
stone me, do you think? A difficult doctrinal decision, that. Or the
queen? Would Gisel, rising above piety, not see merit in the idea of
hidden birds listening to her enemies? Or the Emperor in Sarantium:
Valerius II has the most sophisticated network of spies in the
history of the Empire, east or west, they say. What would be my
chances of dwelling here in peace, or even surviving, if word of
these birds went out?' Zoticus shook his head. 'No, I have had years
to ponder this. Some kinds of achievement or knowledge seem destined
to emerge and then disappear, unknown.'