Chapter 368: Truth About Cael

The upper east ward had a cleaner air than where they had left the markets, but it wasn’t a calmer world.

Buildings were older, people walked slower, voices trailed off more often. By the time Lucian, Istra and Sera came to the archive house, Lucian had already counted three tails in the dark between the levels and lost the last two during the climb.

It didn’t look like a temple or a court. It looked like a stone hall with a sealed entrance. Narrow windows, thick door that could hold more than simple weather and another pale plate besides it with no identifying markings of welcome. Istra set her hand against the plate. ’If they refuse us here, we leave now. No argument on the threshold.’

Sera frowned over her shoulder. ’And if they take us in?’

’Then we take what we came for and get out whilst we have better chances of not becoming scenery for stronger parties,’ Istra answered

The plate gleamed once and the entrance opened a little on it’s own. A man with silver accents on his collar blocked them. ’Istra. You bring trouble to a quiet house.’

She looked back at him. ’I bring a man seeking one file on a set subject in all of the things you keep here.

’One of those things being a man who thinks this place owes him something because he stirred up the lower houses.’

’Yes,’ said the young man.

’And do you believe that a house that wishes to record the truths of passage should hide them because of a vote taken in anger?’

Lucian didn’t take his eyes off him. ’If the house has any truths fit to stay, I believe they belong to anyone who has a mind to take them by right and not deception.

’Must be a very polite entrance you keep as a way in for common people,’ said Sera as she muttered to herself.

He studied the threshold for a moment before stepping back. ’One chamber. One extract. You don’t look through open archives. Or stay in this house too long to be found.’

Istra gave the man back a single nod. ’Terms accepted.’

He led the way through another door then down a hall that smelled of the wind and dust and steel and ancient, delicate papers. Metal doors ran along both halls but only the one at the end had a set of symbols on the plate that Lucian couldn’t make out. The man opened a smaller door ahead of them that led to a chamber with a table and a single block of sealed framework set against the far wall.

’Cael’s public departure is known,’ the man said as he worked the locking mechanisms on the framework. ’What is worth your trouble in coming here is the reasoning behind the Lords leaving that seat untouched when he fell.’

Lucian remained motionless. ’Tell me.’

The framework released a deep click and a long, thin piece of crystal was set upon the table and activated by the man’s fingertip. A record in short lines of pale light and a written history along the same script ran across the table top to land just beneath the frame.

The man’s voice followed as the record player spun open and a new block of text and short, locked marking appeared in its space. ’Lord Cael did not die upon the field or in a trial by fire. The conflict ended with his withdrawal from the board after an uneven vote between the Lords on the subject of infinity and their refusal to define his use of it either by law or his hand alone.’

Sera arched an eyebrow. ’So they fought.’

’Negotiated,’ corrected the man, ’until Cael took himself out rather than risk the Lords making themselves a claimant to his assets simply because his death had made it easy to do so. He locked up a substantial part of his own framework and left the place empty without announcement. The Lords chose the emptiness of his seat as a way to keep itself unspoiled as property by not having it exist as such. It may have been a decision of wisdom or vanity but it does not appear to have been a selfish one from the way the records have been stored in a different house.’

’I knew it in fragments but I never saw it put together like that,’ Istra mused.

Lucian was already pushing forward the questions in his grip on the table edge after reading what had been recorded of the last days of his old mentor. ’And the framework underneath him?’

’I’ve never dealt with a direct heir so I can’t say what a living link would mean for this situation, but it could just as easily have been a continuation of the same principles if the vote on his person had taken another turn.

Sera looked up from where she had set her attention on the record. ’Meaning?’

Lucian looked away from the still spinning script and out across the streets. ’They thought he was gone. They thought he was dead. That nothing that could take root and outgrow the existing laws and structures was still breathing in this city. But they were wrong. Either about every single person that had anything remotely similar to where Cael was or in where Lucian himself stood within it.’

’You knew this already,’ the archivist said.

’I do now,’ Lucian told him.

’This knowledge doesn’t change what you believe of me,’ Lucian answered.

’No. But it confirms it,’ the man replied.

Cael’s presence within Lucian’s head was a distant thing at the moment as he studied the man who’d led them here. He believed that Cael had been right in what he did but not entirely for the reasons that Cael himself described. ’He has the whole picture correctly. Just not the reasons.’

’I take it you’re satisfied,’ the archivist said as he closed off the framework with a deliberate set of fingers on its edges.

Istra inclined her head towards the door. ’We are. Thank you for your time.’

But something had changed in the outer hall. The slow thudding of a number of footfalls grew closer. The man’s expression tightened. ’You were followed.’

__PROTECTED_FOREIGN_QUOTE__ Sera murmured

Lucian already had a hand on the door. ’Out the way we came or another way to the streets?’ ’Side stair down to the mid bridge. After that you’re your own problem.’

Lucian, Istra and Sera took the nearest route available along the sides. Behind them the archivist swore sharply as the pursuing party reached the door to his house. But it wasn’t quick enough. When they came tearing into the chamber after them, Istra, Sera and Lucian were in the middle of the mid bridge surrounded by bright, open spans and the lights of passing traffic.

’Can you believe these people?’ Sera muttered.

’Those people,’ Istra said, ’are after more than a man. They want the argument that killed him settled between them. Either because it has potential to be used or because they know what Lucian is.’

’It should have been left to gather dust,’ Sera said.

’I’ve seen how things work in situations like this and it never ends until one side has enough of their own to outweigh the other. The only thing that was ever going to give Lucian an advantage in this was the agreement that Cael wanted in place in the first place. Cael left his post voluntarily so the Lords could be spared the trouble of hunting the strongest mind alive and using every resource they controlled to put him in another form of prison.’ Istra’s voice was low. ’Now, because of one body of people, that argument is coming due soon enough to make the decision harder.’

’It was enough to get the city’s head around something they couldn’t already understand before we were nearly spotted inside its walls,’ Lucian said.

’And now that it’s come to the surface,’ Sera said as she peered ahead of them, ’what’s our plan?’

Istra looked where Lucian was already scanning the cityscape. ’We find ourselves ground to gain a moment to make a choice before the next offer is made.’ She indicated another crossing lower than the level of the one they were on. ’I imagine we’ll have to avoid the open bridges. Everyone inside the city is going to know we’re here and now they know exactly why as well.’

The bright span of the bridge behind them closed and disappeared as the trio left its span and turned off the main roads into Varn Thal.