The Wise Man's Fear

smudged and darkened.

“That’s supposed to be shadow, I think,” Nina said, pointing to the area under his hand. “It was more obvious on the pot. I had to use charcoal for that. I couldn’t get it right with paint.”

I nodded again. This was Haliax. The leader of the Chandrian. When I’d seen him he had been surrounded by an unnatural shadow. The fires around him had been strangely dimmed, and the cowl of his cloak had been black as the bottom of a well.

I finished unrolling the paper, revealing a third figure, larger than the other two. He wore armor and an open- faced helmet. On his chest was a bright insignia that looked like an autumn leaf, red on the outside brightening to orange near the middle, with a straight black stem.

The skin of his face was tan, but the hand he held poised upright was a bright red. His other hand was hidden by a large, round object that Nina had somehow managed to color a metallic bronze. I guessed it was his shield.

“He’s the worst,” Nina said, her voice subdued.

I looked down at her. Her face looked somber, and I guessed she’d taken my silence the wrong way. “You shouldn’t say that,” I said. “You’ve done a wonderful job.”

Nina gave a faint smile. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “He was hard to do. I got the copper pretty okay here.” She touched his shield. “But this red,” her finger brushed his upraised hand, “is supposed to be blood. He’s got blood all over his hand.” She tapped his chest. “And this was brighter, like something burning.”

I recognized him then. It wasn’t a leaf on his chest. It was a tower wrapped in flame. His bloody, outstretched hand wasn’t demonstrating something. It was making a gesture of rebuke toward Haliax and the rest. He was holding up his hand to stop them. This man was one of the Amyr. One of the Ciridae.

The young girl shivered and pulled her cloak around herself. “I don’t like looking at him even now,” she said. “They were all awful to look at. But he was the worst. I can’t get faces right, but his was terrible grim. He looked so angry. He looked like he was ready to burn down the whole world.”

“If this is one side,” I asked, “Do you remember the rest of it?”

“Not like this. I remember there was a woman with no clothes on, and a broken sword, and a fire. . . .” She looked thoughtful, then shook her head again. “Like I told you, I only saw it for a quick second when Jimmy showed me. I think an angel helped me remember this piece in a dream so I could paint it down and bring it to you.”

“Nina,” I said. “This is really amazing. You really have no idea how incredible this is.”

Her face lit up again with a smile. “I’m glad of that. I’ve had a world of trouble making it.”

“Where did you get the parchment?” I asked, noticing it for the first time. It was actual vellum, high-quality stuff. Far better than anything I could afford.

“I practiced on some boards at first,” she said. “But I knew that wasn’t going to work. Plus I knew I’d have to hide it. So I snuck into the church and cut some pages out of their book,” she said the last without the faintest hint of self-consciousness.

“You cut this out of the Book of the Path?” I asked, somewhat aghast. I’m not particularly religious, but I do have a vestigial sense of propriety. And after so many hours in the Archives, the thought of cutting pages out of a book was horrifying to me.

Nina nodded easily. “It seemed the best thing, since an angel gave me the dream. And they can’t lock the church up properly at night, since you tore off the front of the building, and killed that demon.” She reached over and brushed at the paper with a finger. “It hain’t that hard. All you need to do is take a knife and scrape at it a bit and all the words come off.” She pointed. “I was careful never to scrape off Tehlu’s name though. Or Andan’s, or any of the other angels,” she added piously.

I looked at it more closely and saw it was true. She’d painted the Amyr so the words Andan and Ordal rested directly on top of his shoulders, one on each side. Almost as if she were hoping the names would weigh him down, or trap him.

“Plus you said I shouldn’t tell anyone what I saw,” Nina said. “And painting is like telling with pictures instead of words. So I figured it would be safer to use pages from Tehlu’s book, because no demon would ever look at a page of that book. Especially one with Tehlu’s name still writ all over it.” She looked up at me proudly.

“That was cleverly done,” I said approvingly.

The belling tower began to ring the hour, and Nina’s expression flared into sudden panic. “Oh no!” she said pitifully. “I should have been back at the docks by now. My mum’s going to give me a birching!”

I laughed. Partly because I was utterly amazed by this unexpected piece of luck. And partly at the thought of a young girl brave enough to defy the Chandrian, but still terrified of making her mother angry. Such is the way of the world.

“Nina, you’ve done me a wonderful favor. If you ever need anything, or if you have another dream, you can find me at an inn called Anker’s. I play music there.”

Her eyes went wide. “Is it magic music?”

I laughed again. “Some people think so.”

She looked around nervously. “I really have to go!” she said, then waved and took off running toward the river, the wind blowing her hood back as she went.

I carefully rerolled the piece of paper and tucked it back into the hollow piece of horn. My mind spun with what I had just learned. I thought of what I’d heard Haliax say to Cinder all those years ago: Who keeps you safe from the Amyr, the Singers, the Sithe?

After my months of searching, I was fairly certain the Archives held nothing more than faerie stories about the Chandrian. Nobody considered them more real than shamble-men or faeries.

But everyone knew about the Amyr. They were the bright knights of the Aturan Empire. They were the strong hand of the church for two hundred years. They were the subject of a hundred stories and songs.

I knew my history. The Amyr had been founded by the Tehlin Church in the early days of the Aturan Empire.

But the pottery Nina had seen had been much older than that.

I knew my history. The Amyr had been condemned and disbanded by the church before the empire fell.

But I knew the Chandrian were still afraid of them today.

It seemed like there was more to the story.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX All This Knowing

Days passed, and I invited Wil and Sim across the river to celebrate our successful campaign against Ambrose.

Given my taste for sounten, I was not much of a drinker, but Wil and Sim were kind enough to demonstrate the fine points of the art. We visited several different taverns, just for variety, but eventually we ended up back at the Eolian. I preferred it because of the music, Simmon because of the women, and Wilem because it served scutten.

I was moderately well-buttered when I was called up onto the stage, but it takes more than a little drink to make me fumble-fingered. Just to prove I was not drunk, I made my way through “Whither With He With the Withee,” a song that’s difficult enough to articulate when sober as a stone.

The audience loved it, and showed its appreciation in the appropriate way. And, since I was not drinking sounten that night, much of the evening is lost to living memory.

The three of us walked the long road back from the Eolian. There was a crispness to the air that spoke of winter, but the three of us were young and warmed from the inside by many drinks. A breeze pushed my cloak back and I took a full, happy breath.

Then a sudden panic seized me. “Where’s my lute?” I asked more loudly than I’d intended.

“You left it with Stanchion at the Eolian,” Wilem said. “He was afraid you would trip over it and break your neck.”

Simmon had stopped in the middle of the road. I bumped into him, lost my balance, and tumbled to the