NeoExodus - The Shield of Ignorance: Chapter 1
“Who
passed away?” Riss Al’adon asked. She didn’t pay the black sash tied around her
colleague Paray’s waist another glance.
Her
attention remained on the circular obsidian tablet on her desk. Markings had
been engraved in it, presumably the usual cosmological stuff the ancients
ascribed so much significance to. If so, where were the familiar celestial
bodies?
Riss
had brought rubbings of the tablet to scholars all over the floating city of
Anidem. She’d seen more of the sky, above and below, than she had in years. As
a member of the Sihr caste, Riss expected answers when she asked questions. Her
power came from knowledge, and all the Dominion bent to give it to her.
To
no avail. No one in Anidem knew more about the tablet than Riss.
She
supposed she shouldn't be surprised. She thought herself the city's
second-greatest authority in arcane archeology, and if she could consult with
the greatest she would not have been so desperate to puzzle out the tablet.
Gradually,
she realized that Paray remained standing opposite her desk. Riss looked above
her colleague’s white robes, gold equipage and—of course—that damnable black
mourning sash, up and up, for Paray was a tall woman, coltish still at
twenty-five but coming into the elegance that was her birthright. In that
respect she was a better representative of their Sihr caste than Riss, who,
shorter and darker, could have passed for a commoner. Paray’s upper lip poked
above her high collar, looking darker than its natural brown as it contrasted
the white silk. Her expression looked darker still.
Riss
raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You
know the answer to that question.” Paray had hidden the rawness around her eyes
with subtle cosmetics, but she couldn’t hide it in her voice.
“Oh.”
Riss rubbed the back of her neck. “You’ve given up as well.”
“It
has been eight weeks without word.”
“Until
the day we invent a written calendar, you will always have your place.” Riss
supposed Paray flinched at that, and rightly so, but Riss’s gaze had returned
to the tablet. Riss took a deep breath and exhaled her tension. “Speaking of
which, does this look like a record of time to you?”
“Riss,
you have to stop.” Paray reached across the desk to touch the sleeve of Riss’s
robe.
Riss
opened her mouth to snap at her.
Stopped.
Always
careful about touching, was Paray. Always conscious of formality, propriety.
Born to the Sihr caste but without a dram of magical talent, she clung
desperately to the forms of the function she could not perform. Her garb, her
diction, and her movements were always impeccable. Above all, she did not
touch. Even though that taboo came from the spells most Sihr could discharge
with their hands, or perhaps especially because it did, Paray obeyed it
stringently. The brush of her fingers on Riss’s arm was like an embrace, or
perhaps a grapple, from someone else.
“She’s
my mentor.” Riss’s voice softened. Gently, she touched Paray’s hand and waited
for her to remove it. “And your mother.”
Paray
did not remove her hand. She squeezed. “That is why I believe Mother is gone.
She would have sent word if she could.”
Her
mother, Hadassi Al’meram, was the head of their department. She had taught Riss
everything she knew, and Paray everything she was capable of learning. If there
was a finer scholar in the Dominion, Riss did not know her.
Eight
weeks ago Hadassi led an expedition into the Wildlands of Bal, seeking a city
claimed by the jungle. Those she left behind had heard nothing since.
Riss
refused to trade her red Sihr sash for mourning black. In the face of death,
all the Dominion’s castes were equally attired—but they were not equally
equipped to avoid it. Riss didn’t believe Hadassi would die in a place like
that.
Until
today, Paray had agreed.
“Even
if Hadassi is dead,” Riss said, “there is still hope if her body can be
recovered. She had a strong spirit.” Priests of the Sanguine Covenant could
sometimes reverse death, given an intact body, a powerful soul, and a generous
donation.
Paray
looked down. “They have searched for her. They cannot even find the ruin she
was looking for.”
“The
Reis Confederacy has no reason to find a Dominion mage. I have little faith in
their motivation and less in their skill.” Riss lifted her colleague’s chin and
summoned a grin more confident than she felt. “I have skill and reason both.”
The tips of Paray’s mouth quirked above her robe’s high collar, but she forced
the smile from her face. “You speak of reason. These past weeks, when hope and
reason could coexist, you gave me the former. But neither persists beyond life,
and I would not have yours end, too.”
“You
think I have taken leave of my reason?” Riss jerked her hand away.
The
trace of a smile vanished from Paray's face. “I think you are not allowing it
to rule you.”
“Scholar
Tehya would agree.”
Kynon
Tehya, a prymidian, was the only other remaining member of their department. He
had eyes on Hadassi’s seat, but no grasp. It would go to Riss when it was
confirmed vacated. Paray had the blood and the knowledge; Kynon, the knowledge
and the power; but in Riss were mixed all three, and more of all of them.
Of
course, it would not be vacated any time soon.
Paray’s
hands fidgeted. “Kynon has little to say to me.”
“Little
is not nothing.”
“This
is not a departmental fight! I have lost my mother. I don’t want to lose you,
too. Is that so much?”
“If
I were missing, and there were any chance I could be found, or even that what I
was looking for could be found, would she even think to do ought but come after
me?”
“No.”
“Then
neither can I.”
“It
would be Mother’s responsibility as your instructor. It is not your
responsibility as her student.”
“It’s
my responsibility as her friend.” Riss held her hand out to Paray. “And yours.”
Paray
took neither the hand nor the words. “Instead of asking what she would do, have you considered what she would want?”
“Of
course I have.” Riss touched the obsidian tablet. “The find this led her to was
important enough for her to risk her life for.”
“But
not ours,” Paray said. Hadassi had refused to let her senior students accompany
her to Bal. “Even if my fear won’t sway you, maybe this will:
“The
department needs you, Riss. Now more than ever. I am a theorist, but I do not
have the gift. Kynon has the gift, but his grasp of theory is unsound. With
Mother missing you are the only one of us who has both.”
“All
the more reason for me to bring Hadassi back,” Riss said.
Paray
massaged the bridge of her nose. “Will you at least admit that you do not have
to do this?”
“Yes.”
Paray
blinked in surprise.
“You’re
right,” Riss said. “This is not something I must do.” Riss’s equipage jangled
as she drew herself up to her full height, less impressive than Paray’s but
still the stature of a Sihr. “It’s something I choose to do. As Hadassi’s
student, as her friend, as yours, as a member of this department. And above
all, because I am the only one who can.”
“Riss...”
Paray’s hands dropped to her heart. A little smile crept onto her face. “Please
be careful.”
Riss
tapped one of the wands at her belt. “When am I not?”
***
As
a girl, Riss had played in Anidem’s hanging gardens, climbing over open air
where none of the other children dared. More than once she’d dangled from a
vine thinner than her fingers while Paray wailed for her to climb back up. Riss
had never listened. She lost her taste for such games as she grew, not because
her dignity as a Sihr demanded it, but because she learned to fly and they
ceased to be dangerous.
Striding
through the gardens now, she couldn’t help but remember. It made her smile. She
knew it shouldn’t.
Riss
had never fallen.
Paray
had been wrong.
Fear is the only thing I have to shy from, she told herself as she came to a stop under a tree—one
that could never have grown naturally in Anidem’s hot, thin, dry air. Watered
and shaped by clever gardening, sorcery, or both, it formed a living gazebo
over the platform where Kynon Tehya waited for her.
He
stood by the railing, his big crimson hands clasped behind his back. He wore
traditional prymidian robes, complete with uncovered head and a ponytail of
coarse black hair hung down his back. His attire was faintly scandalous in the
Dominion, where the sun and tradition alike demanded full wrappings, but that
was the least of the reasons Riss disliked him.
“Scholar
Al’adon.” He didn’t turn to address her.
Riss
inclined her head, determined to show politeness for once, if only to show up
her rival. “Scholar Tehya.”
“You
have come to request funding for an expedition to the Wildlands of Bal,” Kynon
said.
“You’re
well informed.”
“You’re
predictable.”
“I
should say rather determined,” Riss said. She joined Kynon at the railing. A
thousand feet below, dunes gleamed in the desert sun. “Have you reconsidered?”
“I
have not.” Kynon glanced at her. Apart from his crimson skin he might have
passed for a large human, but his features were subtly off—oversharp bones
beneath rubbery flesh.
“Then
we are at an impasse,” Riss said.
“Are
we?” He chuckled. “It seems to me that you have nothing I want. Only you are at an impasse, Scholar Al’adon.”
“Do
you want me to go to the Seven Scholars with my plea? I could have your hands
pried off the department’s purse strings. They might just decide to take a hand
as well, if they were to conclude you had misused the contents of the purse.”
“Scholar
Al’meram left me charge of our finances,” Kynon snapped. He mean Hadassi, of
course, not Paray. “You know that.”This fact was a more important reason Riss
disliked Kynon. “Is that why you don’t want her found?”
“I
told her not go, just as I tell you.”
Riss
expelled her anger with her breath. She needed this man’s aid. Even if she won
an appeal to the Seven Scholars who controlled Anidem’s university, it would
take months. Hadassi might not have months.“What is it about this expedition
that frightens you so much?” Riss said.
“The
disappearance without a trace of the head of our department is not reason
enough?”
“No,”
Riss said, “because you warned Hadassi off as well.”
Kynon
clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Riss
leaned sideways over the railing so she could meet his eyes, dark and deepset.
“If you know something, tell me.”
“Know?”
He tugged at his beard. “That tablet you’ve had your hands on these months,
have you seen its like before?”
“No.
Neither had Hadassi.”
“Mm.
And did you note the depth and angle of the incisions?”
“Deep,”
Riss said. “Angular, cut almost straight into the stone.”
“Yes...”
Kynon straightened up and beckoned Riss follow. “There’s something you must
see.”
It
rankled to obey him, but she needed to know.
She
followed him through the gardens, under the boughs of magically shaped trees
and archways decorated with looping designs in gold and lapis, and finally the
wide blue dome of his study. He strode to one of the glass cases within and
spread his hands on it.
Riss
peered around his broad frame to a block of obsidian. It was about the same
size as the tablet on her desk. Instead of having an elaborate pattern flecked
with the remains of gold inlay, this one was unmarked but for roughly chipped
fissures. “Tell me, have you ever tried sculpture?” Kynon said.
“My
work and my hobbies are one.”
“Some
would say that is unhealthy.”
“Some
would say you should get to your point,” Riss said, “but allow me to preempt
you. You weren’t able to duplicate the carvings.”
“The
most expensive sculptor in Anidem was not able to duplicate the carvings,”
Kynon said. “He said it was within the realm of natural craft, if the craftsman
were very strong, very skilled, and very lucky.
Absent any of those, obsidian will chip. What’s more, the angle of the incision
used, though possible, was uncomfortable for a human wrist.”
“It
was carved with magic?”
“Or
by inhuman hands.”
Riss
waved at Kynon’s, overlarge for his frame and covered with crimson skin.
The
prymidian drew them into his sleeves. “If my people dwelt in Bal two thousand
years ago, it would be news to me.”
“Why
two thousand years?”
“The
humans of Bal do not carve that way,” Kynon said. “The enuka do not carve at
all.”
“You
believe this is a relic of the First Ones.”
“I
believe,” Kynon said, “there are some things better left undiscovered.
Ignorance can be a shield.”
Riss
hesitated. Prymidians valued knowledge no less than the Sihr of the Dominion.
Kynon had not come by his position or the respect of his peers—prymidian and
human alike—by embracing ignorance. She knew he wouldn’t say so lightly.
Yet...
Riss
set her jaw. “It is not a shield I intend to hide behind.”
Kynon
sighed. “You are young. Too young yet to have tasted failure.”
“Do
not patronize me, Scholar Tehya,” Riss said. “I am old enough to know there is
no wisdom in ignorance. If I am wrong, on my head be it.”
“There
are worse things to lose than a head.”
“Including
self-respect—which I would sacrifice if I did not try.”
“Then
try, Scholar Al’adon,” Kynon said. “I can’t stop you.”
She
raised an eyebrow. “You agree to the expedition?”
Kynon
shook his head. “No. You’ll drag no more students to their deaths, nor even
servants. If you go to Bal, you go alone.”
Riss
took a long, deep breath of Anidem air. The atmosphere was thin so high above
the ground, but it was rich with the scent of sand and spices and sweat. Men
and beasts and stranger things flowed around her, giving her just enough
distance to keep with propriety without impeding their progress. Silk awnings
broke up the sun shining on her face. Wind whistled up through elaborate grates
in the ground, showing the wide-open skies below. Merchants and mummers called to her—her
motionlessness an invitation. It was not an invitation to the thieves, though;
none were bold enough to approach a member of the Sihr caste. Ahead shone the
silver of the Nexus Gateway to Awenasa, capital of the Reis Confederacy. Hints
of jungle air from a thousand miles away teased her nose.
Riss
closed her eyes and smiled.
She
missed her city already, and she hadn’t even left yet.
She
would soon, though.
“Alone.”
She laughed. She ought to thank Kynon. Riss never liked being responsible for
anyone but herself.
Paray
might have said Riss never liked being responsible at all.
She
laughed again.
She
opened her eyes and swept one more gaze over the grand bazaar of Anidem, then
another over her equipage. One gold chain from it could have bought her half
the bazaar, but when she planned to go into danger, she would not have sold it
for the world. With defensive spells woven into every piece of her equipage, no
thief would dare chance her pocket.
Riss
almost pitied anything that made itself her enemy.
Hadassi’s defenses were stronger still.
Her
laughter died. She rubbed her temple. As true as that reminder might be,
something about it felt wrong. Alien.
Had
Kynon planted a magical suggestion in her head? Riss chanted a spell against
enchantment just in case, but her doubts remained.
Perhaps
they were her own, and she just wasn’t used to having them.
They
would not stop her.
She
swept forward into the Nexus Gateway.
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