A Secret Atlas Read online

  The old man’s brows furrowed. “Do they suspect how it changed him?”

  “I think they saw nothing beyond the withered arm. They say they tried to find the place where he was hurt, but there were rains, the stream flooded, and all signs were gone. Still, the site was a mile upstream and they credit the gods with the miracle that he did not drown. They really did not want to speak of any of it, and only told me what had happened after they learned what I am.”

  “They alone would associate with you once your status was revealed?”

  Moraven nodded. “Hardly a surprise.”

  “No, memories of the Time of Black Ice remain sharp, even in the minds of those who did not live through them.” Jatan beckoned for more wyrlu and his hand quaked as Moraven refilled his cup. “In some ways, I bear my Master anger. He rode with his best warriors to join Empress Cyrsa in the Turasynd Campaign. It was even his idea to take the Imperial treasury in the wagons and travel northwest, along the Spice Route, to draw the barbarians away from civilized lands. He and the others went off to die, but me he left behind to protect Nalenyr. I do not think he knew what they would unleash.”

  Moraven nodded slowly. The Empire’s best warriors had traveled with the Empress to prevent the barbarians of the Turca Wastes from destroying the Empire. Warriors of sufficient skill—such as he, Master Jatan, and Virisken Soshir—could reach the state of jaedunto. Their skill connected them with jaedun—the magic that flowed like a river through everything. When they fought, especially against other jaecai, excess magic leaked out. Many were the circles outside villages where duels were fought to contain the magic, and odd were the effects therein. Snow might never melt despite the hottest summer, or rain might always fall there without a cloud in the sky. Men bred horses and dogs in those circles, hoping the wild magic would create a superior beast; but they always did it in the dead of the night, lest their neighbors learned they were playing with magic.

  The Turasynd, living in the northern desert, cared little about the consequences of magic. It could do little harm to their barren homeland, and great good if it made their herds fertile or crops bountiful. When their population grew too big, a shaman bound the tribes together and invaded the Empire. The Empress lured them north and west, away from the centers of civilization, then engaged them in a grand battle the likes of which had never been seen before or since.

  Jatan’s eyes focused distantly. “The wild magic came in towering clouds that cloaked the sky and hid the sun. Snows came—foul black snow carried on savage winds that could peel the flesh from man and beast. Better that death, though, than what would happen if the magic in those storms touched you. The boy traded a withered arm perhaps for the ability to breathe water, or to need no breath at all, but that’s because the magic is weak now.”

  He glanced at Geias. “Back then, villages vanished in blizzards and glaciers scraped the earth down to bedrock. There are yet places in the mountains where you can see a village made of ice—houses, people, wagons, animals, all there, frozen in place as they were when a storm caught them.”

  Moraven nodded. “I’ve seen it, Master, though much is melted now. The wild magic does gather and play sometimes, but seldom in the Nine. It’s just in the Wastes now—Dolosan and Ixyll, or so I am told.”

  “But fear of it remains—and that, Geias, is why you study hard.” Jatan coughed once more, but did not drink. “Back in the days of Empire, men grew careless. We studied swordsmanship to reach jaedunto, but others wanted the magic faster. Prince Nelesquin and his vanyesh studied xingna to master it, to master jaedun. Once they had the magic, they found ways to use it to enhance their skills. They sought the simple way, and it was their folly that caused the Cataclysm.”

  Moraven nodded, more out of respect for his Master than belief. Master Jatan had been one of the few jaecai left in the Nine—the Nine Principalities the Empress had divided the Empire into for safekeeping. He had been instrumental in convincing the Naleni Prince that the vanyesh had to be destroyed. Moreover, the study of magic had to be eliminated. In his view, the Imperial warriors could have contained their magic and prevented the Cataclysm, but the undisciplined vanyesh could not.

  But this is because Prince Nelesquin and your Master hated each other. You are my Master, but I see how their hatred has tainted you.

  In the wake of the Cataclysm, with magic storms raging, years of no summer and countless people dying of starvation or worse, the system of schools for teaching various skills was reinforced. The common folk distrusted magic, but were assured that anyone who had learned enough to access it could be trusted. And it was true that few achieved such mastery. Even now, with the population approaching pre-Cataclysm levels, this remained constant. Still, the fear had power, and were it not for Dunos and his family, Moraven would have traveled the last two days to Moriande alone.

  The school system—at least the martial schools—had also begun the xidantzu tradition. The best warriors were to travel the Nine and even beyond, fighting injustice and cruelty, without regard to nationality or politics. No lord could command them and, while many good students ended up in garrisons and militias, the very best relished their freedom. The creation of the xidantzu meant no lord could gather an army akin to that of the Empress, so the chances of a pitched battle triggering another Cataclysm became miniscule.

  “It is folly, Moraven, that caused me to ask for this audience.”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “What happened to the boy could happen to the Nine.” Jatan sat forward and a pillow slipped down to prop him up. “As you have said, the wild magic has retreated. And, for some, so has the fear of what caused it. There are those who go into the Wastes. They seek weapons of antiquity, looting graves new and old, searching for those things that will build them an army.”

  Moraven frowned. Weapons and relics of those who had skill would not confer that skill on others—though they might be steeped in the magic of the one who had used them. They would, however, allow one to be more easily trained. He had asked after Macyl’s sword because the blade itself had been in that family for generations and was very powerful. Macyl had worked hard to attain his skill and had not allowed the blade to bring him along faster than he could have gone otherwise, but he was rare.

  “Master, have you seen evidence of these relics in Moriande?”

  “A few, sold as curiosities and antiques, but they were very fine specimens. One or two bore signs of having been on the Turasynd Campaign.” His eyes sharpened. “It is supposed that somewhere, out in Ixyll, there is the battlefield where so many died. The weapons there would be full of magic and might make someone think he could be Emperor again.”

  Moraven arched an eyebrow. “Not Prince Cyron. His older brother might have striven for such, but the gods had other plans for him. Prince Pyrust?”

  “Pyrust, of course. Deseirion wishes to consolidate the conquest of Helosunde, then take Nalenyr. There are others, though, who might wish a new dynasty in Moriande.” Jatan shrugged. “I wish only that the graves of my comrades and Master lie undisturbed, but I am too old to venture into the Wastes to ensure this. So I wish you to do it in my stead.”

  “Go to Ixyll?” Dread poured through Moraven. Ixyll had ever been a distant land warped by the wild magic. He believed nothing he heard of it, but also endeavored to hear little. If he ever thought of it unbidden, he exiled his thoughts to far Ixyll itself and felt well rid of them.

  “Will you do this for me, Moraven Tolo?”

  “Master, I would lay siege to the Nine Hells for you. I shall leave immediately.”

  Jatan raised an empty hand, then extended his cup once more. “If you leave now, you will not see me during the Festival. Nor will we finish your fine wyrlu. This duty I charge you with is grave, but even the men involved in it will celebrate the Festival. So shall you.”

  “My Master is most kind.”

  “No, Moraven, far from it.” He raised the cup, then sipped. “I am sending you to save the world. Enjoy the
Festival and remember the world at its best. It will not make you work harder, but it may bring you comfort when the task becomes impossible.”

  Chapter Four

  36th day, Month of the Bat, Year of the Dog

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  736th year since the Cataclysm

  Anturasikun, Moriande

  Nalenyr

  His Imperial Highness Prince Cyron patiently awaited Qiro Anturasi’s pleasure. The Prince had arrived at the cartographer’s tower with only a small retinue of his Keru bodyguard. They, in accord with a decree handed down by his father, waited inside the base of the tower but outside the gates that led to the core. Anturasikun was a labyrinth of public and private spaces, but few were allowed into the private chambers and workshop. Though the Keru had sworn their lives in Cyron’s service, even they would not be allowed past the golden gates.

  It did not matter that the tower had been fashioned by the nation’s greatest builders and decorated by the most celebrated artists, or that the halls housed wonders from around the world. It was a prison. Cyron’s father had explained to him, twenty years earlier, why Qiro Anturasi could not be allowed out of the tower. His skill at mapmaking and his knowledge of the world made him more valuable to Nalenyr than all the Nine Principalities’ known treasures. Locked in Qiro’s head were the worldly details that allowed Nalenyr to prosper, so he, himself, had to be shut away.

  To lose him would be to lose everything. When the Empress had divided the Empire into the Nine Principalities, she installed the late Emperor’s wives and their families to rule each one. She made ambition counteract ambition and brought the most ambitious of the Princes with her on the Turasynd Campaign. While Nalenyr had not begun as the most powerful or prosperous of the Nine, the reopening of trade with the world filled its coffers. With that gold Cyron could buy troops to hold the lords of Deseirion at bay.

  Qiro has given us everything, and yet we take from him freedom. It had seemed then to the Prince as if this were the ultimate cruelty, but he soon grew to understand its necessity. Qiro Anturasi’s genius lay at the heart of his personality, and with it came an inability to tolerate stupidity or insubordination. This made Qiro abrupt, abrasive, and unpredictable. It even makes him think he can keep a prince waiting.

  Cyron laughed, because he knew he would wait. And wait.

  Waiting was part of life and Cyron cultivated patience, for it was unlikely to get one killed. His brother, Crown Prince Araylis, had been impatient to see the Desei forced back out of Helosunde and had paid for his impatience with his life. Reports had come back that Prince Pyrust—the man who led the Desei and who had even come south to celebrate the Festival in Moriande—had been the one who killed his brother. Though that act had won Cyron the throne, he felt disinclined to thank Pyrust, since Pyrust himself would be more than happy to kill all the Komyr and take the throne of Nalenyr for himself.

  And then Qiro would find himself well matched in temperament and obstinacy.

  Qiro had sent a request to the court to be allowed to leave the tower during the anniversary Festival and his own birthday celebration. The request seemed reasonable and Cyron would have been happy to grant it, save for the influx of people from the world over who had come, ostensibly, to rejoice in the dynasty’s longevity. His Master of Shadows had complained of the influx of spies during Festival, and Cyron could not chance exposing Qiro to kidnappers or assassins.

  Cyron found it highly unlikely that the Desei had traveled south with any intent to kill Qiro—or anyone else for that matter—but he would not have put it past Pyrust to make use of an opportunity. He could have dreamed up any number of plots that he seeks to put in play. To limit their ability to cause trouble, he’d made room for Pyrust’s entourage in Shirikun, at the city’s northern edge.

  Likewise the people from Erumvirine to the south had been housed in Quunkun, and the envoys from the Five Princes nations had taken up residence in the towers corresponding to their patron deity. Kojaikun—the tower of the Dog—served as no one’s official residence since Helosunde was still subject to Deseirion conquest and Helosunde’s Council of Ministers had yet to select a prince. Cyron still allowed his Keru warriors to station an honor guard there. It made the Keru happy and would discomfit Prince Pyrust.

  Most of the preparations had been carried out by protocol ministers and their attendants, with the Prince only nominally overseeing things. The honor guard had been posted by direct order, since the bureaucrats and astrologers had deemed it improper. They explained to him about occlusions in the heavens and Kojai’s power waning, but he had little tolerance for their explanations and overruled them.

  The bureaucrats sought to placate heaven, hell, and earth, while the Prince focused far more on earth. The conflict between Deseirion and Helosunde had less to do with constellations and gods than Helosunde’s first prince having been born of a woman from Deseirion. She had urged her son to take her home province as the first step to becoming the new Emperor, and war had simmered on that border long before Pyrust and his father had successfully invaded. But for Naleni support of the Helosundian mercenaries, the Desei consolidation of their conquest would have been completed long since.

  Politically it made good sense to placate the Helosundians, since their province served as a buffer between Deseirion and Nalenyr. But Cyron also just liked annoying Pyrust. He hoped his northern neighbor’s discomfort would manifest in more of the prophetic dreams the Desei prince believed in, distracting him from any true deviltry.

  A protocol minister could have delivered a refusal of Qiro’s request, but the Prince overruled that as well. First, Cyron was aware that the minister likely would never make it to Qiro’s presence, and certainly would wilt beneath the heat of the cartographer’s reaction. More importantly, however, the Prince felt that, as Qiro’s jailer, it was up to him to deliver the rejection personally.

  The doors in the small rotunda where the Prince waited cracked open, and a small, bent man shuffled through them. His face lit up with a smile, and he raised his head as much as his twisted back would allow. “Highness, nine thousand pardons for keeping you waiting.”

  The Prince bowed deeply and respectfully. “You honor me, Ulan, by fetching me yourself. Your work is far too important for you to be dispatched on such a trivial task.” Cyron purposely refrained from using the imperial “we,” though his rank all but demanded it. As it was, Ulan would natter on about how familiar the Prince was with him, and Qiro would see the deference as befitting his status.

  Ulan blew a long wisp of white hair from his face. “The pleasure is mine, Highness. My brother said whichever of us produced the cleanest chart of Tirat would have this honor, and I was not outdone.”

  “You could only have been outdone, Ulan, had your brother set pen to paper, and he still would have been hard-pressed to win.”

  “You mustn’t say that, Highness.” The old man shook his head. “But here I am telling you what you can and cannot do.”

  “In the House of the Anturasi, many take orders.”

  “They do, they do.”

  The old man turned and waved the Prince through the doors, then closed them and shuffled along the corridor, which led around and up to the fifth-floor workshop. The Prince walked ahead of Ulan, letting his right hand trail along a wrought-iron railing as he mounted the ramp and moved into the workshop’s light. Though he had visited the Anturasi workshop many times, the sight never failed to impress him.

  The ramp emerged in the center of a circular room a hundred feet in diameter. Aside from a curtained wedge chopped out of the northern point, copy desks and drafting tables, cabinets with large flat drawers and shelves packed with scrolled charts dominated the room. Pillars supported the vaulted ceiling and, around the walls, high windows allowed illumination. For fear of fire, the Principality provided magical lighting for evening work, and ghostly blue light had often been seen glowing from the tower a
fter sunset.

  Dozens of Anturasi worked at the desks. The youngest—grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all of them sprung from Ulan’s loins—fetched paper and refilled inkwells, sharpened nibs and carefully powdered finished maps. Those a bit older copied city maps or diagrams of fortifications—anything that would help them develop the skills they needed to draft the truly important work. The adults, led by Ulan, worked at the largest tables, making nautical charts of incredible accuracy. As travelers returned from voyages and provided details, maps were revised so the next purchaser would have the most up-to-date information possible.

  This controlled chaos was filled with the scrape of pen on paper, the click of knife on quill, the occasional crash of an inkwell smashing, and the even less frequent oath. The Anturasi worked quickly, precisely, and as quietly as possible—as all three traits were the only way to insulate themselves from Qiro’s wrath.

  Qiro’s domain, in contrast to the rest of the workshop, lay out of sight beyond the blue curtains hung from ceiling to floor. Prince Cyron made for the opening and, slipping through, smiled. A second curtain—white—ten feet distant, guaranteed that the secrets within would not be seen by accident. He made certain the curtains behind him were drawn tightly shut before he opened the others.

  He could not suppress a gasp. A segment of the curved wall had been whitewashed and on it a map of the known world had been drawn twenty feet high and forty wide. The Nine Principalities lay at the heart of the thing, as befitting their place in the world. The Turca Wastes capped them to the north, and the vast Eastern Sea formed the eastern boundary. The provinces and wastelands were drawn in to the west, with the eastern coast of far Aefret forming the western boundary. Above it, sketched in with the faintest of detail, lay the mythical lands of Etrusia.

  Before the Time of Black Ice, the Empire had traded with the peoples of Etrusia via a land route, but the Cataclysm that had broken the world had closed that path. Qiro’s expedition fifty years earlier had gotten further than any other, but still showed the way was closed. Cyron and he had discussed the possibility of trying the land route again, but the successes at ocean exploration had made doing so a low priority.