saltwater and its rich mana-that Jace hoped to make his home.
The first halfway acceptable option they found was a fourth-story flat, decently sized for the price, albeit in need of a fierce cleaning. It boasted three rooms, a number of tiny windows, and walls a hue so drab that it couldn't even muster up the enthusiasm to qualify as gray. Jace negotiated the landlord down to a rent that wouldn't eat through his reserves too quickly-without using any magic, thank you very much-and then he and Kallist ensconced themselves within like it was a fortress. Jace ventured out only under cover of an illusory disguise, acquiring what supplies they considered absolutely vital. They didn't want to show themselves on the streets until they were certain the Consortium hadn't somehow followed them here.
So Jace gathered foodstuffs; a few bits of cheap furniture to suffice until they could acquire better; and new clothes, since nothing either of them owned was of sufficiently low quality to blend in with the other citizens of Lurias. Jace chose the garish bright hues of the middle classes-mostly in blues, of course-while Kallist instead adopted the drab and colorless garb of the lower.
And then there was nothing to do but wait and talk. For days.
'… isn't going to work,' Kallist was insisting one morning, over a breakfast of cold eggs, warm juice, and cheap meat. 'I'm not prepared to live like this, Jace. Not indefinitely.'
'You think I am?' the other replied around a mouthful of egg. 'It's just for a little while, until it's safe to find someplace a little more… more…' he floundered, shrugging.
'More like a home, and less like a refuse pit?' Kallist finished bitterly.
'Something like that.' 'And how,' Kallist continued, getting up from the table, 'do we plan to afford said palace?'
Jace could only roll his eyes and pour himself another glass. It was an argument they'd had at least five times over the past two days, and he was already well and truly sick of it.
'I told you,' he began, in the tone of a man who doesn't expect to be listened to this time, either. 'I'm a mage. I'll tote crates or stand at a vendor's stall when my other choice is starving, but not a moment before. My savings-'
'Aren't going to last nearly as long as you think, damn it. Even if you do stay in ratholes like this, which I, for one, have no intention of.'
'Oh, so you're making plans for my gold now?' Jace challenged.
'Since I seem to have lost the means by which I was making my own, yes, I think so.'
For long moments, they glared at one another over the table.
'Jace,' Kallist said finally, voice much calmer, 'why are you fighting me on this? We both know that you'd have no problem making money-without 'lowering yourself to menial labor.'
'In a district like this? I don't think so.'
'Not everyone here is poor. There are more than a few merchants, bankers, and politicians who could spare a few gold coins in exchange for their secrets staying secret.'
Jace found himself staring intently at the fruit juice-he didn't even know what kind, he realized, and he'd already drunk a glass and a half-in his hand. 'That's, uh, not exactly the best way to lie low, you know,' he hedged.
'You're an illusionist,' Kallist deadpanned. 'I'm sure if you try really hard, you can think of some way to keep your identity secret.'
'Any major use of magic like that risks drawing attention, Kallist.' But the twitch in Jace's voice told the both of them it wasn't his only concern.
Silence again, for a couple of minutes. Jace actually squirmed in his seat, knowing how well his answer was going to go over. 'I can't,' he said finally, slowly, raising his gaze to meet Kallist's own. 'Kallist, I… I can't go back to being what I was before the Consortium. If I do, everything I went through with Tezzeret was meaningless, and I can't accept that. I can't. I'm sorry.'
Kallist's mouth moved, but no sound emerged. Jace, who had more than once seen his friend's expression just before driving his broadsword into someone's torso, felt a sudden urge to back away from the table.
And then he lunged, not at Jace, but at the old used overcoat they'd purchased for him, hanging on an equally old, equally used coat rack. Without so much as a word, he was at the door.
'Have you decided it's safe to be out and about on the streets?' Jace asked him.
'A lot safer for you than if I stayed here,' Kallist barked. The slam of the door cut off any retort Jace might have chosen to make.
At the terminus of a long hallway that led literally nowhere, a sheet of fire appeared from the aether. Though blindingly bright it emitted no heat, for it didn't exist entirely within the bounds of any particular plane. It parted in the center, a curtain drawn back on the stage of reality, and Baltrice stepped through from the Blind Eternities. She was striding down the long passage before the flames had fully faded, her boots echoing on the floor.
Every surface here was metallic and cold, every angle severe. Through windows of mesh, she saw humanoid servants and clockwork golems tending to cables as thick as oaks, pulleys strong enough to heft an elephant, creaking brass platforms the size of cottages. The halls echoed with the constant sounds of movement, the hum of machinery, the crackle of magic, the tromping feet of guards. Doors rotated in and out of existence; entire rooms rose and fell, giant elevators that provided access to a number of levels.
There were no signs, no hints of how one might find one's way around. Here, in the cold mechanical heart of the Infinite Consortium, those who belonged knew where they were going-and those who did not had far greater worries than becoming lost.
Baltrice knew where she was going. This hall, that staircase, this catwalk above a seemingly bottomless pit of machinery, that elevator that shuddered slightly as it moved not merely up but sideways, rotating as it went… And there she was, staring down a long hallway at a deceptively mundane door.
Standing before it was a figure clad entirely in armor of brass plates, covered with ornate etchings and fluting. Even Baltrice, arguably the master's closest associate, had never learned if this were some humanoid garbed in plate, a mystic construct in vaguely human form, or-just possibly-a simple decorative sculpture. She knew only that it stood outside Tezzeret's door, day and night, leaning slightly on an impossibly broad-bladed sword that no normal man could have lifted, let alone wielded.
The door slid open at her approach, rising into the ceiling with a series of clicks and clanks, and she stood at last within Tezzeret's inner sanctum.
The room was perfectly circular, its center occupied by a metallic ring-shaped desk. Its surface sprouted a vast array of glass rods and imbedded stones, all pulsing with mana, all controlling who-knew-what. A thick metal pylon rose from the hollow at the heart of the metal ring. This, she knew, was the support for Tezzeret's chair. She looked up, past four separate levels of additional controls and pipes and iron frames, to the chair's uppermost height. There, she could just make out a dark form seated in the ugly contraption, inhaling the mana-infused steam that flowed from the highest tubes. Even from here, she could see his entire body shudder in ecstasy at the touch of the vapors-all except the etherium hand clenched on the arm of the chair, which somehow remained still even as the shoulder and torso above it quivered like an angry serpent.
Patiently, though patience was not normally among her virtues, Baltrice waited. Eventually the flow of steam subsided, a single hiss fading from the symphony of sounds that permeated the chamber. A second, louder susurrus swiftly took its place, as the pylon began to rotate, the chair to descend-and in mere moments, Tezzeret sat before her, ensconced in his mechanical throne, a god who had deigned to descend from his clockwork heaven. His hair lay plastered to his forehead and cheeks by the lingering condensation.
'Welcome back,' he told her, slicking back his hair with his left hand. 'I believe the Infinity Globes are almost perfected. Just a few more tweaks, and I should never again have to worry about being trapped like Bolas's barbarians almost…' He stopped cold at her expression. 'You bring bad news.' It was not a question.
Baltrice nodded once. 'Of Jace Beleren.'
Tezzeret frowned. 'Did Beleren fail at his assigned task?'
Trying hard to keep all traces of gloating out of her voice, Baltrice said, 'It's a bit worse than that, boss.'
Tezzeret sat, utterly still; even his breathing seemed to have ceased. And then Baltrice heard the sound of rending metal, saw one of the desk's levers snap off in the grip of the artificer's etherium hand.
'What,' Tezzeret whispered softly, 'has he done to me now?'
