The words came from him. Here, in front of everyone. His heartbeats were deafening. His head felt wrapped in thunder. The scholars craned their necks to see who among them had spoken, and were startled—even astonished—to see the soft-spoken, dreamy-eyed junior librarian cutting his way through the crowd. He was astonished himself, and stepped forth with a sense of unreality. Eril-Fane had heard him and was looking back, inquiring. Lazlo had lost track of his feet and legs. He might have been floating for all he could tell, but he supposed it more likely he was walking and just couldn’t feel it. This boldness, such as it was, went against everything in him, but this was it, his last chance: act now, or lose his dream forever. He forced himself forward.
“My name is Lazlo Strange,” he called out, and the full complement of Tizerkane warriors turned their heads as one to look at him. Their vivid faces showed their surprise—not because Lazlo had called out, but because he had called out in Unseen, and unlike Thyon, he didn’t treat it like a common thing, but the rare and precious gem it was. The words, in the reverent tones of his rough voice, sounded like a magic spell. “Might I beg a moment of your time?” he asked, still in their tongue, and he must not have looked crazed—though it had to be a near thing; he felt crazed—because Eril-Fane eased his spectral around to face him, and, with a nod, signaled him to approach.
“Who is that?” Lazlo heard the queen ask, her voice waspish. “What is he saying?”
Thyon stepped forward, his eyes darting between Lazlo and Eril-Fane. “Sir,” he said quickly, his veneer of smoothness slipping. “You needn’t trouble yourself. He’s only a librarian.”
Eril-Fane’s brow creased. “Only?” he asked.
If Thyon had indeed read The Complete Works of Lazlo Strange, then he must know that in Weep of old, the keepers of books had been the keepers of wisdom, and not servants as they were in Zosma. Realizing that his slight had missed its mark, he hurried to say, “I only mean that he lacks the sort of expertise you’re looking for.”
“I see,” said Eril-Fane, turning his attention back to Lazlo. And then, in his own tongue, with what seemed to Lazlo’s untrained ear to be slow and careful enunciation, he inquired, “And what can I do for you, young man?”
Lazlo’s grasp of the spoken language was tenuous, but he managed to answer, in uncertain grammar, “I want to come with you. Please, let me be of service.”
Eril-Fane’s surprise showed. “And why did you not come to me before?”
“I . . . wasn’t permitted, sir,” Lazlo said.
“I see,” said Eril-Fane once more, and Lazlo thought he detected displeasure in his tone. “Tell me, how did you learn our language?”
Haltingly, Lazlo did. “I . . . I built a key with old trade documents. It was a place to start. Then there were letters, books.” What could he say? How could he convey the hours—hundreds of hours—spent bent over ledgers, his eyes swimming in the dim light of a dull glave while his mind traced the arabesques and coils of an alphabet that looked like music sounded? How could he explain that it had fit his mind as nothing else ever had, like numbers to a mathematician, or air to a flute? He couldn’t. He only said, “It’s taken me seven years.”
Eril-Fane took all this in, casting a mild sideward glance at Thyon Nero, who was stiff with alarm, and if he was comparing the alchemist’s superficial knowledge with Lazlo’s deeper understanding, he didn’t call it out.
“And why have you learned it?” he asked Lazlo, who stumbled through a reply. He wasn’t sure exactly what he said, but he tried to say: “Because your city is my fascination. I can still taste its true name, and I know magic is real, because I felt it that day, and all I’ve ever wanted is to go and find it.”
“Find magic? Or my city?”
“Your city,” said Lazlo. “Both. Though magic . . .” He groped for words, and ended up shifting in frustration back to Common Tongue. “I fear that magic must be dark,” he said, “to have done such a thing as erase a name. That has been my only experience of it. Well,” he added, “until the white bird.”
“What?” The Godslayer grew suddenly serious. “What white bird?”
“The . . . the ghost eagle,” said Lazlo. “Is it not yours? It arrived with you, so I thought it must be.”
“She’s here?” Eril-Fane asked, intent. He searched the sky, the line of the rooftops. “When did you see her? Where?”
Her? Lazlo pointed beyond the palace. “When you were first coming up the road,” he said. “It—she—seemed to be following. She vanished right before my eyes.”
“Please, Strange,” Thyon cut in, pained. “What are you on about? Vanishing birds?” He laughed, as one would at a child with a silly notion, but it rang terribly false. “Now I really must insist you leave our guest in peace. Step back now, and you might yet keep your position.”
Lazlo faced him. The alchemist’s hand rested—casually—on the hilt of his sword, but there was nothing casual in the malice that burned in his gaze. It wasn’t only malice, but fear, and Lazlo understood two things: He would not keep his position, not after such insolence as this. And he could not be permitted to leave, either, not with the secret he carried. In putting himself forward, he had risked everything. It was all suddenly very clear. A weird, bright courage sang in him as he turned back to Eril-Fane.
“Sir,” he said. “It’s true that I am unqualified in engineering and the sciences. But I can be of use to you. No one would work harder, I promise you. I could be your secretary, handle contracts for the delegates, write letters, keep accounts. Anything. Or I’ll take care of the spectrals. Carry water. Whatever you need. I . . . I . . .” He wasn’t fully in possession of himself. His words were spilling out. His mind was racing. Who am I? he asked himself. What do I have to offer? And before he could bite it back, he heard himself say, “I can tell stories. I know a lot of stories,” before faltering into a painful silence.
I know a lot of stories.
Had he really just said that? Thyon Nero laughed. Eril-Fane didn’t. He exchanged a look with his second-in-command, the tall, straight woman by his side. Lazlo couldn’t read it. He saw that she was beautiful, in a very different way than the women of Zosma were beautiful. She was unpainted and unsmiling. There were lines around her eyes from laughter, and around her mouth from grief. She didn’t speak, but something passed between the two. These seconds were the longest of Lazlo’s life, and the heaviest with fate. If they left him behind, would he even last the day? What would Nero do to him, and when?
Then Eril-Fane cleared his throat. “It’s been a very long time since we heard new stories,” he said. “And I could indeed use a secretary. Gather your things. You’ll come with us now.”
Lazlo’s throat trapped his breath. His knees felt turned to water. What had been holding him up all this time? Whatever it was, it let go, and it was all he could do not to stumble. Everyone was watching. Everyone was listening. The shocked hush was threaded with murmurs.
“I have nothing to gather,” he breathed. It was true, but even if he’d had a palace full of possessions, he couldn’t have gone to fetch them now, for fear of returning to find the Tizerkane gone, and his chance, and his dream—and his life—with them.
“Well then, up with you,” said Eril-Fane, and a spectral was led forward.
A spectral. For him. “This is Lixxa,” said the warrior, putting the reins into Lazlo’s hand as though he might know what to do with them. He’d never even ridden a horse, let alone a creature like this. He stood there looking at the reins, and the stirrup, and the faces of the Tizerkane regarding him with curiosity. He was used to hiding behind books or in the shadows. It was midsummer, midmorning, in the full light of day. There were no books to hide behind, and no shadows—only Lazlo Strange in his worn gray robes, with his nose that had been broken by fairy tales, looking like the hero of no story ever told.