Nor is There Singing-School But Studying

There was a strange feeling in Rufio’s soul. Not some movement of instinct or conscience, but a reverberation of the Nephilic words he had said, repeating after Petrus. He had not understood the incantation, chanting it phonetically, but its meaning had been etched on him: his mind was bound to Valens, now. He looked through is own eyes out from a high tower of the imperial palace, just below where the carrier pigeons were kept, and at the same time through Valens’ blur-streaked sight in a dark tunnel below the Strait of Aureliopolis.

He strained to maintain focus, scanning the strait for any sign of movement from Chrysos as the rest of the monster-hunters traversed a passage below the waters, to survey the opposite shore. After High Prefect Petrus had shown the others the passage’s entrance underneath the palace, and shown Rufio the window that now served as his vantage point, he had sat down at a desk in the same room, to write out official correspondences.

“Why are you doing that?” Rufio asked the High Prefect.

“Hm?”

“You have your metal birds, right? Yet you're up here, where they keep the flesh-and-blood pigeons, writing out messages on strips of parchment the same height as a pigeon’s–”

“Papyrus.”

“What?”

“Parchment is a thin sheet of calfskin. Papyrus is a reed that grows in the rivers of Kamut, whose fibers can be made to adhere together into a sheet. But, the semantics of writing media aside, I have very few of the automata, and they’ll need further testing before I count them as reliable. These are insurance, redundant copies of a particularly important message I’ve already sent with an automaton.” He sighed. “When my uncle held the throne, I had a psychic tether straight to an emissary in the Western Patriarch’s court. We could have planned this ecumenical council in the course of an afternoon. I did manage to find a man I could trust and put him on a ship to Urba Rhatia a little over two weeks ago, but it will be at least another week until he makes landfall, and I suspect this matter will not be fully resolved by the time he arrives.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Manage what?”
“You used to have a great many imperial agents– officers, diplomats, spies– tethered to you, mind-to-mind. My head is swimming, right now, just being connected to Valens. I don’t know how I’m supposed to watch the strait from up here, with the morning sun beating down on me, while he trudges through a dark tunnel. It’s hard to make out one shadow in the water, when my vision is at the same time full of underground shadows. Four eyes, I think, is two eyes too many.”

“You can block it out. With a little practice, you’ll have complete control over what information you send, and what you receive.”

“How much practice is ‘a little’? Aren’t all the Celestial Disciplines infamously difficult?”

“Forming the spell, initially, is difficult. Since I helped you with that, controlling its effects should be easy, once you get a feel for it.”

“If I control it well enough, will I be able to sense other connections like it, running to or from people around me? Like you did, with that Hojuzite.”

“That’s a separate spell. I was right about that, by the way: we found a slave-woman of his secreted away in an inn at the foot of the acropolis. From the state she was in, I suspect the man of Hojuz who came to testify against the prophet’s emissary had such an unhealthy appearance because he, too, had been subjected to such a bond and drained of vital essence, and had not since fully recovered. I really must find a moment to speak to him further.”

“Can you teach me that spell?”

“I certainly can, and it is one of the easier Lunar spells, but it is still a Lunar spell. Memorizing the incantation is one thing, but you will have to practice both the spoken incantation and the mental focus a great deal before you can perform it quickly and consistently. For an Elemental spell, you need only pull yourself into the broadly correct emotional state when you make the Sign with your hand– a choleric mood for Fire, a melancholic one for Earth, and so forth– but the Celestial Disciplines are touchier things. Solar requires engagement from a part of the human mind that women, it has generally been observed, often have a great deal of trouble consciously tapping into, and I am exceptional among the less fair sex in that Lunar has come naturally to me, even before I was made sexless. But we can try; I’ll be in my study most of the afternoon, reviewing some proposed tax reforms, but I think the diversion of walking you through a spell at the same time would make that duty more bearable. And it would be a good foundation for you, if you wish to explore the Celestial Disciplines further. There is a Solar spell that, broadly, reveals the nature of things in themselves; the one you ask after is its Lunar counterpart, which reveals the nature of relationships between things. Master both those spells, and you will know the key principles of all three Celestial Disciplines.”

“That’s… well, it’s an exciting prospect, but it might be going off the path set for me. Really, this monster-hunting business with your uncle is a temporary trade; my main goal in coming to Aureliopolis was to work on the iconography for the new cathedral.”

“Then by all means, slay a monster or two, then bury yourself in your art. Training your mind for the Celestial Disciplines will require both strong stimuli and tranquil meditation; I can think of no better combination of trades to compliment the process. But do stay awhile in Aureliopolis, even after all the monsters hereabouts are dead and all the churches filled with icons; I am long-lived, but not immortal. In fact, I fear my… imposed condition may be impacting my health. The physicians I have consulted did not all arrive at the same conclusion, but some believe I will not outlive ordinary men by nearly as long as I might otherwise. I might have as long as a century left to live, or as little as a decade. I have much knowledge I would like to pass on, before I die.”

Absorbed in thought for his last few words, Petrus did not seem to hear the footsteps ascending to this high place, and a young woman in a dress streaked with green and the imperial purple entered. An immediate family member of Alexios, if she did not wear that forbidden color out of a death wish, and about of an age with Rufio. He could be confident of that, this time, as there was no Nephilic quality to her dark eyes; she was, at absolute oldest, a year or two his senior. Behind her, mailed head to toe, plodded the same shieldmaiden of Thule who had cast doubt on the claims of the Hojuzite prophet’s emissary.

“Please don’t frighten the new eunuch, Petrus.”

Rufio shot this imperial princess a look that totally lacked the decorum befitting her station. Then, he felt his chin.

“Ah.” She flushed. “Forgive me. You must have traveled far. For a man to shave his face bare is… well… not the fashion, in the Rhatian Empire.”

“Well, you’ll have to forgive a Rhatian for not having proper Rhatian sensibilities.” Tact was rarely something Rufio struggled with, but somehow, he found it hard to choke down a pointed question about what the women of Aureliopolis did and didn’t shave. “But don’t pay me any mind, I’m just one of… the monster-hunters.” He had been about to introduce himself as one of Valens’ retainers, but as far as he knew, Petrus and Alexios were the only two people at court who knew the “blind” monster-hunter’s identity, at least in certain terms.

The shieldmaiden leaned on the head of her long axe. “Ah, you’re the one screwing the High Prefect’s cousin.”

All three other heads in the room turned to look at her.

“Sigrid,” the princess said, a sleeve concealing her mouth, “do try to learn some discretion. Perhaps it was a mistake to teach the guards more Aponephilic than ‘let them pass’, ‘seize them’, and ‘take them to the torturer’.”

The Thulean bowed her head, and stood back at attention.

“But yes, though I did not recognize you at sight, I did take the liberty of learning a few things about you, Lucius Rufinus of Catonium. The walls in the palace apartments are thinner than dear Atia seemed to realize.”

Winter had not yet passed to spring, and though there was no snow on the ground this close to the Inmost Sea, Rufio marveled at how hot his face suddenly felt.

Petrus had already returned to his writing. “So, Princess Thekla, did you climb all these steps just to tease whomever you happened to find, or did you have business with the birdkeepers?”

“I was impatient to know if any birds had been received from that young Aplakis gentleman. I understand my brother’s concern, about finding me a suitable match: I might not be an old spinster yet, as the common folk measure such things, but among princesses, I have waited far longer than is seemly. That said, I really do think a scion that young should be more interested in my niece. Suitors who stand to strengthen our dynasty’s position will not always be so cherubic. My greater age and, let’s face it, more level temperament make me the better match for someone… who can grow a full beard, especially should it have some gray in it.”

“You thought I was up here with my uncle, didn’t you? I don’t know what he got up to when he was more… cherubic, if that word could describe him even in his youth… but it’s entirely possible the man has an illegitimate great-great-grandchild your age.”

Rufio tried to imagine Valens as a full-cheeked, baby-faced youth.

Then a voice pierced the thought: “I looked nothing like that.”

Rufio’s attention snapped back to the dark tunnel Valen walked; now, he was ascending a staircase, and light shone dimly from above. “You’re nearly across?”

“You should see me on some hill or cliff across the strait any moment. Any sign of Chrysos?”

“I might’ve spotted him earlier, but if it was him, he’s been laying in the same spot at the bottom of the strait, or moving only very slowly, for the last hour. Wait…”

An enormous shadow darted through the waters of the strait, approaching the far shore. Faintly, Rufio made out a steel-clad figure emerging from the top of a jagged cliff, and Chrysos breached the surface to ram his bony head into the sandstone face.

Focusing on the scene through Valens’ eyes, he saw the back of Hadrian’s tunic– they had not expected danger, merely scouting the far coastline of the strait, and Valens’ cuirass was the only substantial piece of armor any of them wore. Valens reached out, took it by the collar, and wrenched the historian-adventurer back the moment before he tumbled over the edge.

As Valens tumbled back with Hadrian, a Motive Stone on a fish-shaped handle slid from under his cuirass. He snapped it up quickly, shoved it into Hadrian’s hands, and beckoned him down the staircase and into the underground passage.

Lingering atop the cliff as the other two monster-hunters climbed down, Valens watched the giant fish swim in a wide figure-eight. Hadrian and Atia retreated into shadow, and Valens considered whether to flee back through the passage, or continue watching the monster– Rufio followed the logic of this consideration as though it were his own thought, though he recognized it as coming from outside his own head.

With sudden vehemence, Chrysos turned and shot for the cliff again, this time ramming it below the waterline. The angle, Valens realized, was exactly in-line with where Hadrian and Atia stood on the staircase.

“The key!” Valens shouted, “Toss the key back up to me!”

Hadrian’s toss fell short, but Valens stuck out a hand far enough to keep the Motive Stone from hitting a stone step.

Instantly, Chrysos backed away from the cliff, then built up speed and breached the surface, and Valens and Rufio both could swear they saw hate in its glassy eyes. It fell back to the sea, but its attention was now distinctly turned upward, its head regularly coming above-water.

Valens held the Motive Stone key high, and walked first paces along the shoreline, first left, then right. Always, the fish eyed him, and when he took a few steps back so that the cliff blocked him from its view, they could see through Rufio’s eyes across the strait that it still followed his motions, even when it could not possibly see what he was doing.

“Whatever attraction this thing had to metal is more complex than we thought. Any thoughts, Rufio?”

“Monsters seem to interact with the world in terms of archetypes and principles, as much as in material terms, right? Perhaps it doesn’t smell metal, so much as sense value. It may have the power to know that key is something we hold to have worth, that it can grant whoever possesses it many things his heart might desire, and wish to devour it on that basis. In any case, we know it attracts the beast like nothing else, and we can set our trap wherever we please, with it for bait.”