Promise of Blood

chapter 6



Adamat hired a carriage to take him to Adopest University. It should not have been a long trip, but it seemed that the entire population of Adopest was heading toward the middle of the city, while the university was located on the outskirts. By the time they reached Kirkamshire, the tide of humanity had turned to a trickle. The university town was eerily quiet.

They’d all gone to see the execution. Tamas must have sent his fastest riders to the outskirts of the city to give everyone the chance to come see Manhouch’s death. A risky move. The people would welcome it. Adamat welcomed it. He only hoped that they hadn’t traded an idiot for a tyrant.

A distant buzz caught his ear as he walked the deserted university grounds. Adamat imagined it to be the roar of a million voices as the people watched the king’s death. Looting would start soon, when people trickled away from the execution and realized everyone had left their doors unlocked, their shops untended. The riots would follow as brother turned against brother. Kresimir willing, he’d be back home before then.

He passed between the solarium and the library, his footsteps echoing in the empty courtyard, and up the steps of the main administration building. The mighty oak doors, banded with iron, were unlocked. Inside he passed by many office doors. He paused at a painting of the current vice-chancellor. Prime Lektor had been ugly, even in his youth, with a purple birthmark obstructing a third of his face. It was said he was an unrivaled scholar. Adamat continued on past the vice-chancellor’s office to the next door down.

It was a small door, propped open with a wedge of wood, and it could very well have been a janitor’s closet for all its bareness. From the hall Adamat could hear the scratching of an old-fashioned quill.

Adamat knocked twice on the open door. A young-looking man sat behind a plain desk in the corner of a cramped room. One might expect clutter in the office of the assistant to the vice-chancellor, but every scrap of paper, every book and scroll, was in its place and every surface dusted daily. Adamat smiled. Some things never changed.

“Adamat,” Uskan said. He set his pen in its holder and blew on the ink before setting the paper to one side. “A pleasant surprise.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Uskan,” Adamat said, “and not watching the execution.”

A shadow flickered across Uskan’s face as he rounded his desk and came forward to clasp Adamat’s hand. “One of my understudies has a very creative pen. I told her to write down everything for posterity.” Uskan made a disgusted face. “I have work to do. What need do I have for bloody spectacle?”

Adamat examined Uskan. His friend did indeed look young, far younger than forty-five years. He had the pinched face of a man who squints a lot, reading by too little light. “It’s the spectacle of the century,” Adamat said.

“Of the millennia,” Uskan said. He returned to his desk and offered Adamat the only other chair in the room. “Never in the history of the Nine, since their founding by Kresimir and his brothers, has a king been dethroned. Not once. I don’t even… I don’t even know what to say.” He brushed the worried look from his face like a mote of unwanted dust. “How is Faye?”

“Out of town with the children, thankfully.”

“A stroke of luck.”

“Yes.”

Uskan perked up. “How’s the printing press working? I’ve been knee-deep in work for so long I haven’t even thought to send you a letter. Must be exciting to see it work. The first steam-powered press in all of Adro!”

“You hadn’t heard?” Adamat grimaced.

Uskan shook his head.

“It exploded.”

Uskan’s mouth fell open. “No.”

“Killed an apprentice and destroyed half the building. I’d stepped out for a cup of tea and when I came back…” Adamat mimicked an explosion with his hands. “No more Adamat and Friends Publishing.”

“Surely you were insured.”

“Of course. They refused to pay. I sued for damages. They found it cheaper to bribe the magistrate than to cover all my expenses.”

Uskan’s mouth kept working silently. “I can’t believe it. That had all the makings of fame and fortune. You’d be a wealthy man now if that had succeeded. Why, I’ve just read in the papers that eleven bookstores have opened in Adopest alone in the last six months. Reading is becoming very fashionable. Poetry, novels, history. The industry is booming!”

“Don’t rub it in.”

Uskan cringed. “Adamat. I’m so sorry.”

Adamat waved a hand. “Things happen. It was nearly a year ago. Besides, I’m not here to talk about my troubles. I’m working.”

“An investigation? At least you have that to fall back on.”

“Yes.”

“Anything I can do to help,” Uskan said.

“I hope it won’t be a bother. I need to know about something called ‘Kresimir’s Broken Promise,’ or ‘Kresimir’s Promise.’”

Uskan leaned back and frowned at the ceiling. “It sounds…” he said after a few moments. “Something on the edge of my memory. But I do not recall. Not everyone has your gift.” He stood up. “Let’s go look.”

They left the administration building and crossed to the library. Someone had thought to lock the ancient doors of the big building, but Uskan had his keys.

The vestibule was little more than a place to hang coats and wipe your shoes. Beyond that was one wide, open room with three tiered levels. Staircases and ladders seemed to be everywhere, with tables for research haphazardly placed at the end of bookshelves or beneath windows.

“I hope you have some idea of where to start,” Adamat said. It was easy to forget how big the library really was—Adamat hadn’t been there for decades. “Else this will take all day.”

Uskan headed confidently to their right and up the nearest flight of stairs. “I think I do,” he said. “Though it might take a while. We’ve had some major additions to our collection lately and I’ve not spent as much time in the library as I want. Still, can’t complain about new books. The industry is booming, but books are still expensive.” He glanced at Adamat. “A steam-powered printing press would have begun to change that.”

Adamat rolled his eyes. Uskan meant well, but he spoke as if the explosion had been Adamat’s fault.

Uskan counted rows of shelves before turning down one with purpose. He grabbed a sliding ladder and pushed it along in front of him. His voice echoed in the empty space above them. “It used to be Jileman University got all the good library grants. In fact, the Public Archives in Adopest is twice the size of our collection. Why didn’t you go there first?”

Adamat paused to run his fingers along a leather book spine. He liked libraries. They were dry and dusty, with the smell of papers, the smell he associated most with knowledge. To an inspector, knowledge was paramount. “Because the city center is a zoo right now. Execution, remember?”

Uskan turned to blink at him. “Oh, right.” He resumed pushing the ladder. “If we don’t have luck here, go to the Archives. They’re quite well organized. Some very talented librarians down there. Cross-reference ‘theology’ and ‘history.’ At least, that’s where I’m going to look first.” Uskan halted the rolling ladder and climbed up it. The heavy iron rattled as he climbed, and Adamat put a hand out to steady it.

“I try not to reference theology at all.”

Uskan’s dry chuckle drifted down from ten feet up. “Who does these days?” A pause. “Now, that’s strange.”

“What?”

The ladder rattled as Uskan came back down. “The books are missing. Someone must have checked them out. Only faculty are allowed to take books out of the library, and our school of theology is in shambles right now. It consists of three brothers who spend half the year on sabbatical in warmer climate. Hardly anyone studies theology anymore. It’s all about mathematics and science. Kresimir, our physics and chemistry departments have quadrupled in size since I started here.” He glanced back up the ladder to the empty spots on the bookshelf. “I distinctly remember… no matter, let’s look somewhere else.”

Adamat followed his friend up to the third floor. The books he thought to find there were also missing. They looked in two more places before Uskan leaned against a bookshelf and wiped his brow. “Someone must be doing a theology dissertation,” he said. “Damned theology students always take the books. We don’t get many these days, but when we do, they think they own the place because their grandfathers gave this grant or that back in the day.”

Adamat wondered how much to tell him about his investigation. The words had little danger on their own, but Adamat wanted as few people as possible to know the nature of his investigation. No sense risking being branded a traitor before Tamas was in full power.

“Do you have any books from the Bleakening? I’ve heard there is an abundance of writing on Kresimir from that time.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“A newspaper I read in early spring, three years ago.”

“Bah, the newspapers will print any rubbish. It was a very religious time, certainly, but the Bleakening was a dark ages bereft of knowledge. Kresimir and his siblings had disappeared. The new monarchies were locked in a struggle with the Predeii—an ancient caste of powerful Privileged. Not much of anything survives from that period. The vice-chancellor once told me that if we had half the knowledge about sorcery and science that we did during Kresimir’s Time—most of which was lost during the Bleakening—we’d be living in a golden age for noble and peasant alike.”

“Well, try referencing theology, history, and sorcery.”

“I’ll make a librarian of you yet,” Uskan said.

“What do you know about sorcery?” Adamat asked.

“Sorcerous philosophy is a bit of a hobby of mine, though I have no talent for sorcery myself. My grandfather was a Privileged. A healer, actually.” Uskan paused here and gave Adamat an expectant look.

“Yes?” Adamat prompted.

Uskan scowled. “A healer. They’re the rarest of Privileged. Even schoolboys with an introductory class on sorcery know that. It’s said the human body is so complex that only one of every hundred Privileged has more than the most rudimentary healing capabilities.”

“Rare, then?”

“Very rare, Adamat. Lord, with your penchant for details one would think you’d know about this sort of thing. Don’t you know anything about sorcery?”

“Not really,” Adamat admitted. He lived in a world of city streets, citizens, and criminals. He didn’t have time for sorcery and frankly, it was a foreign thing. He came across the odd Knack here and there, but stronger stuff was the realm of the cabals, and an inspector had no business with any of that. What he knew came from a few hours of schooling when he was a boy.

“You’re a Knacked,” Uskan said, “so you have the third eye, correct?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure what that has to do with anything…”

“So you can see the auras of all things when you open your sight and look into what Privileged call the Else?”

Nowadays Adamat rarely opened his third eye. It was an uncomfortable feeling at best, but he remembered the glow that surrounded everything in that sight, as if the world had been painted in vibrant pastels. “Yes.”

“A Privileged manipulates the Else,” Uskan said. “Each of a Privileged’s fingers is attached to one of the elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air, and Aether.”

“But fire isn’t an element,” Adamat said. “It’s the result of combustion.”

Uskan sniffed. “Bear with me. This explanation is recognized as imperfect in the light of discoveries of the last hundred years, but it’s the best we have. Now, each finger corresponds to an element and to a Privileged’s strength with that element, the thumb being the strongest digit. A Privileged uses his strong hand—most often his right—to call upon the auras of that which he wants to manipulate in the Else. He uses his off hand to direct those auras once they have been pulled into our world.”

“So how does a powder mage’s magic work?”

“Bugger if I know. Privileged hate powder mages, and the cabals have always discouraged a study of them.”

“Why such a strong hate?” Adamat had heard most Privileged were allergic to gunpowder.

“Fear,” Uskan said. “Most Privileged’s spells have a range of less than a half mile. Powder mages can shoot from over twice that. The cabals have never liked being at a disadvantage. I’ve also been told that whereas all things, living or dead or elemental, have auras in the Else, gunpowder does not, and that makes Privileged nervous. Ah, here we are.”

Uskan paused in front of a bookcase. He ran his finger along several spines before taking them out and piling them into Adamat’s arms. Dust rose as the books thumped against each other. “Only one missing,” Uskan said. “I know just where it is, too. The vice-chancellor’s office.”

“Can we get it?”

“The vice-chancellor is away, summoned to Adopest early this morning with some urgency. I don’t have a key to his office. We’ll have to wait until he gets back.”

They retired to one of the tables with their stacks of books and set to their research. Adamat sat down and flipped open the first book. He frowned. “Uskan?”

“Hmm?” Uskan looked over. He leapt to his feet and rounded the table, moving faster than Adamat had ever seen him. “What is this? Who the pit did this?”

The first several pages of the book had been removed, and dozens after that had whole sections of the text blacked out, as if someone had dipped their finger in ink and smudged it along the page. Uskan mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief and began pacing behind Adamat.

“These books are invaluable,” he said. “Who would do such a thing?”

Adamat leaned forward and squinted at the ripped line of the paper. He judged the book in his hands. It was made with vellum, thicker than today’s paper and four times as tough. The ripped edge was slightly blackened.

“A Privileged,” Adamat said.

“How can you tell?”

Adamat pointed to the ripped edge. “Do you know of anything besides sorcery that could make a burn like that without damaging the rest of the book?”

Uskan resumed pacing. “A Privileged! Kresimir damn them. They should know the value of books!”

“I think they do,” Adamat said. “Else they would have burned the whole thing. Let’s take a look at the rest here.” He reached for the next book, and then the next. Of the eleven they’d removed from the shelf, seven had passages smudged or had pages ripped out. By the time they finished the stack, Uskan was fuming.

“Wait till the vice-chancellor finds out! He’ll head straight down to Skyline and beat those Privileged senseless, he’ll—”

“Tamas has executed the entire cabal.”

Uskan froze. His nostrils flared in and out, his lips bunched in a fierce frown. “I suppose there will be no redress for this, then.”

Adamat shook his head. “Let’s take a look at what we have.”

They spent some time with the books and they found eight different places where smudged writing could have been references to Kresimir’s Promise. Yet the passages were indecipherable.

“That last book,” Adamat said. “The one in the vice-chancellor’s office…?”

“Yes,” Uskan said absently, scratching his head. “ ‘In Service of the King.’ It outlines the duties of the royal cabals in their protection of the kings of the Nine. A very famous work.”

Adamat smoothed the front of his coat. “Let’s see if he left his door unlocked.”

Uskan returned the books and chased Adamat out into the courtyard of the library. “He won’t have left it unlocked,” he said. “Let’s just wait until he gets back. The vice-chancellor is a private sort of man.”

“I’m on an investigation,” Adamat said as he entered the main administration building.

“That doesn’t mean you have the right to look through other people’s studies,” Uskan said. “Besides, the door will be locked.” He smiled triumphantly at Adamat when the doorknob rattled but did not turn in Adamat’s hand.

“No matter,” Adamat said. He crouched down and removed the tiny set of lockpicks he kept in one boot. Uskan’s eyes grew wide.

“What? No, you can’t do that!”

“When did you say the vice-chancellor will be back?”

“Not until late,” Uskan said. “I…” He realized his mistake at once as Adamat began fiddling with the lock. Uskan huffed and slumped against the wall. “I should have told you, ‘Any minute,’” he muttered.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Adamat said.

“Yes, I am. And I won’t be able to lie to the vice-chancellor when he asks if someone’s been in his office.”

“Come, now. He won’t know.”

“Of course he will, how can…”

The lock clicked and Adamat pushed the door open gently. The office inside was more representative of what one might expect from a university type. Books and papers were everywhere. There were plates of half-eaten food on chairs, tables, even the floor. The entire room was walled by bookshelves twice as tall as a man, and those were overflowing, sagging with the weight of too many books stacked haphazardly upon each other.

“Don’t move anything,” Uskan said. “He knows exactly where he left every item. He’ll know if…” Uskan fell silent at a look from Adamat. “Here, let me find the book,” he said sullenly.

Adamat stayed at the edge of the paper-and-ink jungle that was the vice-chancellor’s office while Uskan looked for the missing book with the natural grace of a secretary. Papers were lifted, plates and books shifted, but everything was returned to its exact place.

Adamat stood on his toes and surveyed the room. “Is this it?” Adamat asked, pointing to the center of the vice-chancellor’s desk.

Uskan pulled his head out from beneath the vice-chancellor’s chair. “Oh. Yes.”

Adamat stepped gingerly through the room. He lifted the book carefully and began to leaf through it. Uskan came up beside him.

“No damaged pages,” Adamat reported. He scanned the pages, flipping through, looking for just two words to stand out. He found his prize in the book’s afterword, on the last page.

Adamat read aloud: “And they will guard Kresimir’s Promise with their lives, for if it is broken, all the Nine might perish.” He scanned the page, and then the page after, and then the page before. There were no other references. He scowled at the pages. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Uskan’s finger stabbed the middle of the book, right at the spine.

“What?”

“More pages missing,” Uskan said. “Half the afterword.” His voice trembled with rage.

Adamat looked closer. Sure enough, the pages had been torn clean from the book. The binding was different on this volume, making it difficult to tell that the pages were missing at all. He sighed. “Where can I find another copy of this book?”

Uskan shook his head. “Maybe the Public Archives. I think Nopeth University has a copy, too.”

“I’m not sitting in a coach for the better part of a month just to ‘maybe’ find a book at Nopeth University,” Adamat said. He snapped the book shut and returned it to the vice-chancellor’s desk. “I’ll have to check the Public Archives.”

“The riots,” Uskan protested as Adamat made his way to the door.

Adamat paused.

“They’ll have it locked up,” Uskan said. “The Archives contain tax records, family histories, even safe-deposit boxes. They have guards, Adamat.”

That was only a problem if they caught him. “Thanks for your help,” Adamat said. “Let me know if you find anything else.”