Impyrium Read online

  “Is that witchfire?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Burke. “There are no gas lamps in the capital. Our rulers like to remind us that magic reigns supreme. The lamps burn a different color in each district. Useful if you get lost. Red means we’re in the Magistrate District. There’s the Bank of Rowan.”

  He pointed across a crowded plaza where a copper-domed building flew a trio of whipping flags. Behind it was a towering white structure with nine needlelike spires that pierced the pale blue sky.

  “The Grand Temple,” said Hob to himself. He’d seen photographs, but they failed to convey its true scale.

  His gaze traveled past it to the horizon where he spied a low, solitary cloud that hung motionless over the sea. He squinted. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Mr. Burke chuckled. “The Sacred Isle itself. You’re lucky it’s a clear day or you wouldn’t be able to see it from here.”

  “I can hardly see it now.”

  “That mist is always present, even during hurricanes. The Faeregines like their privacy.”

  The carriage rattled onward, parting crowds and stopping only when streetcars trundled past. Government buildings gave way to fancy shops and elegant stone residences with little balconies and gardens. The higher they climbed, the larger the houses until they reached a neighborhood where towering mansions loomed behind gated wall with posted guards.

  “Who lives there?” asked Hob.

  Mr. Burke peered out. “Nobles from Houses Minor and their little armies of maids, soldiers, and domanocti.”

  “Domanocti?”

  “Night servants. Imps and other such spirits that make bargains with spellcasters.”

  Devils, thought Hob. He’d been so awed by Impyria’s splendor he’d momentarily forgotten what it was. The ancient city must be riddled with dark sorcery. His eyes fell upon a well-dressed girl of eight or nine walking in a park with a tutor or governess. Was she a witch? A necromancer-in-training?

  The carriage made a sharp turn. Mr. Burke glanced behind to see if they were being followed. “You’ll learn more about domanocti during orientation.”

  Mr. Burke had mentioned orientation during their journey. Hob was not altogether happy about the idea.

  “I could learn on the job,” he said.

  Mr. Burke sighed. “Everyone who joins the Fellowship undergoes training. How else would you learn to be of use? How else would we learn where to place you?”

  “I thought I’d be working directly with you.”

  “Not until you’ve been trained properly,” said Mr. Burke firmly. “You’re bright, but you’re also rough around the edges. You must learn how to behave in polite society and interact with mehrùn. Ms. Marlowe will teach you these things.”

  Hob looked out the window. They were now in a seedier section of the capital, one where alley shops advertised homunculi and poisonous herbs, magical trinkets and spellwork. His gaze fell upon a woman crouching in a doorway. She looked up as the carriage passed, revealing a gaunt face covered with blue sigils. Her eyes locked with his. Hob looked away.

  “I guess I’m just homesick,” he muttered.

  “Perfectly natural,” said Mr. Burke. “I know this is all new and bizarre, but you’ll settle in soon enough. Your father did.”

  Hob turned. “So he went through orientation too?” He’d asked about his father several times aboard the Transcontinental, but Mr. Burke’s answers were frustratingly vague. When pressed, the man offered only a sad smile and promised Hob would learn everything when the time was right. But now he seemed more inclined to talk.

  “Of course he went through orientation,” replied Mr. Burke. “Ulrich was older than you, though. Sixteen, I think. Fresh off a boat with no education and an accent so thick we never thought he’d pass for anything but what he was—a runaway serf from Novaslo. But he proved us wrong. Not for the last time.”

  “He was good, then,” said Hob.

  Mr. Burke reflected a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever stumbled across a finer human being,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m not talking about decency, though Ulrich had an admirable character. No, Ulrich was a fundamentally superior person—tougher and smarter than the rest. I used to joke he was some kind of Workshop experiment. Best recruit I ever had. You have some big shoes to fill, young man.”

  And I’ll fill them, thought Hob, his pride kindling.

  At last, the carriage stopped at a narrow brick building tucked between two warehouses on the waterfront. As Mr. Burke paid the driver, Hob climbed out, inhaling frigid gusts that smelled of brine, fish, and coal smoke. Some dockworkers came over to fetch their baggage.

  Hob followed the men inside the brick building, where a girl in her late teens was filing paperwork. Her skin was darker than Hob’s.

  “Welcome back,” she said to Mr. Burke. Hob had never heard such a languorous accent. Was she from the tropics? She smiled at Hob and offered to take his coat.

  “I’m Sou-Sou. And you are?”

  He tried desperately to sound older. “I’m Hob.”

  She draped his coat over her arm. “You need anything you let me know, okay? I remember my first days.”

  When she laughed, Hob felt lightheaded. Dusk didn’t have girls who looked or sounded anything like this. Bree Roule now seemed plain as a peeled turnip. Sou-Sou handed several folders to Mr. Burke and led them to the door behind her desk.

  “Ms. Marlowe’s expecting you.”

  Hob was sorry to leave her company, but he followed Mr. Burke up a flight of stairs that led to a row of offices overlooking the warehouse floor. Below, dozens of workers were unloading crates stamped Impyrial Imports.

  Ms. Marlowe awaited them in a tidy office with a small fire burning in its grate. She was a petite woman with a straight back and reserved demeanor whose silver hair was worn in a tight bun. She welcomed them without ceremony and directed them to a pair of cushioned chairs beneath a painting of fishermen. Hob watched in silence as she made three cups of tea, her movements brisk and precise.

  “Ms. Marlowe,” said Mr. Burke. “Allow me to present Mr. Hobson Smythe.”

  Setting the tea tray before them, she extended a fragile hand to Hob before appraising him like a collector. She spoke almost as if he was not in the room.

  “So, this is Ulrich’s son,” she said. “A good face. Pleasing but not a distraction. Proud but trustworthy. Many possibilities, but we’ll have to fix that nose. Is there a brain behind that face?”

  “Indeed there is,” said Mr. Burke. “He placed first in Provinces.”

  The woman grunted. “Did you have a placement in mind?”

  “Military, I think. The lad’s a natural.”

  Ms. Marlowe frowned, her eyes wandering over Hob. “We’ve soldiers aplenty. If he’s as bright as you say, I’d rather use polish than a whetstone.”

  Mr. Burke cocked an eyebrow. “Servant?”

  She nodded. “We may have an interesting opportunity.”

  “I don’t want to be a servant,” Hob blurted out. He had not left his family and traveled thousands of miles just to black someone’s shoes.

  Mr. Burke laughed. “It’s a compliment, lad. Only top recruits train as servants. They’re our best sources of intelligence. With any luck, you’ll serve in a Great House.”

  “Perhaps the greatest,” said Ms. Marlowe quietly. “But a good servant is obedient. Are you capable of obedience? I’m having doubts. Your father was headstrong.”

  Hob lifted his chin. “I can do anything you ask of me.”

  The lady blew on her tea. “Well, you don’t lack for confidence. Let’s get you settled.”

  Setting down her cup, Ms. Marlowe pressed a buzzer and Sou-Sou entered. “Escort Mr. Smythe to Brother Marcos’s classroom. He’ll join the blue cohort.”

  With a parting glance at Mr. Burke, Hob followed Sou-Sou out the door and down several flights of stairs. She chatted pleasantly throughout, asking about his homeland and journey.

  “You rode a Transcontinental? I
envy you.” She laughed. “I came here on a smuggler’s boat, half buried under cod.”

  She led him into a storage closet where she accessed a secret door behind some crates. Beyond was a small elevator. Sou-Sou unlatched its grate.

  “Sorry for all the bother. We get raided now and again.”

  The elevator’s cramped, rattling descent reminded Hob of his countless trips down into the mines. But miners rode in silence. Sou-Sou was talkative.

  “Edmund must think highly of you. He’s not ordinarily a recruiter.”

  “What is he?”

  “A visionary,” she replied. “And I’d do anything for Ms. Marlowe. I’ve only been here six years, but you wouldn’t believe how much we’ve accomplished under their leadership. We’re going to change the world, Hob.”

  “Is that why you came here?” he asked. “To change the world?”

  She gazed solemnly at him. “It’s why we all come.”

  The elevator came to a halt. Sou-Sou opened the grate to reveal an intersection of stone passageways, slick with moisture and exuding a pervasive odor.

  “Impyria’s original sewers,” Sou-Sou explained. “Haven’t been used in two thousand years but you’d never know it by the smell. Don’t worry—we won’t be down here long.”

  Hob pinched his nose and followed her along a curving ledge for several hundred yards until they reached a recessed doorway. When Sou-Sou pressed a buzzer, a red light flashed. She looked up, presumably so some hidden watcher could see her face. The door’s bolt shot back.

  Inside was another elevator. The ride up was even longer than their descent.

  “Where are we?” asked Hob.

  “Under the Market District,” replied Sou-Sou. “The sewers let us travel between locations without being seen.”

  “How old is the Fellowship?”

  “Depends on who you ask. Some would say our roots go back to Babylon.”

  “What’s Babylon?”

  A pitying smile. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  The elevator opened onto a dim closet filled with mops and brooms. Hob followed her out of the closet and down a long hallway that smelled of floor wax and fresh paint. The doors they passed were closed and buzzed with muffled voices. Stopping at one, Sou-Sou knocked and poked her head in.

  “We have a new addition.”

  Hob followed her inside, where a mixed group of teenagers sat around large wooden tables. They turned in near unison, offered looks of noncommittal curiosity that always greets newcomers. Hob’s gaze drifted from them to the compact, thirtyish man standing before a blackboard.

  “Brother Marcos, this is Hobson Smythe,” said Sou-Sou. “He’s only just arrived.”

  The teacher bowed, a gesture Hob found amusing. Muir didn’t observe such formalities in Dusk. The only people Duskers ever bowed to were visiting officials, and only because it was the law. Even those bows came with wry looks. But Hob nodded and continued to look around the room. Some kind of model hung by wires from the ceiling, painted spheres arranged around a yellow orb.

  As Sou-Sou took her leave, Brother Marcos gestured to an empty spot at the nearest table. “Have a seat, Mr. Smythe. Please tell us something about yourself.”

  Hob kept his descriptions brief, his manner guarded. He wasn’t about to bare his soul to a roomful of strangers. Apparently, there was one other person from the Northwest, for a straw-haired boy said “Finally!” when Hob said he was from the Sentries. When a girl asked if he was skänder, Hob said he was half.

  “What’s the other half?” she asked bluntly.

  “Something else.”

  Brother Marcos cut in. “Our skin, our hair, our homelands, our accents—these are just trappings. We’re all brothers and sisters. Hob, we can best help you if you tell us something of your education?” His tone became delicate. “Can you read Impyrian?” Brother Marcos gave a you’re-in-a-safe-place smile and made a middling gesture with his hand.

  “Yes,” Hob answered. “I can do calculus too.”

  His new classmates stared, some with interest, others with dubious sneers. Brother Marcos merely laughed.

  “You must have done well at Provinces.”

  Hob shrugged. One advantage to being self-taught was that you didn’t to go through silly classroom introductions. This was a waste of time. As Brother Marcos went to a cupboard and fetched a thick book along with paper and pens that he set on the table. Hob glanced at the book’s black cover: The Big Lie by someone named Pablo Antola.

  “Interesting you should mention calculus,” said Brother Marcos. “Do you know who invented it?”

  “No,” said Hob. Several boys snickered.

  Brother Marcos turned on them. “We do not mock ignorance here. We were all ignorant at one time. It is our duty to educate our fellow human beings. Mr. Gabriel, can you illuminate Mr. Smythe instead of making him feel unwelcome?”

  A skinny black boy in his midteens glanced sheepishly at the floor before standing. “I might be wrong, but I think calculus was invented by a human named Isaac Newton.”

  Brother Marcos smiled. “Correct, Mr. Gabriel. Please create a timeline on the board and mark Isaac Newton’s era. We’ll use Mr. Smythe’s arrival as an opportunity to review for next week’s test.”

  The boy went to the blackboard and chalked a long horizontal line. He then made a prominent tick mark that he labeled Cataclysm before making a smaller tick several inches to its left. Apparently, this Isaac Newton’s era occurred before the Cataclysm. But that’s not what made Hob stare. According to the boy’s timeline, the era following the Cataclysm was merely a fraction of man’s recorded history.

  Brother Marcos clapped. “Good. Please introduce yourself.”

  The boy wiped chalk from his hands. “I’m Badu Gabriel from Castelia, a city in Lebrim.”

  “And Lebrim’s Pre-Cataclysm name?” said Brother Marcos.

  Badu’s grin flashed white against his blue-black skin. “Portugal.”

  “Excellent,” said Brother Marcos. “Can you show Mr. Smythe where Portugal is on the Origins Map?”

  Badu dragged over a large map propped on an easel by the door. Turning it to face Hob, he pointed to a coastal swath of land across the ocean. Hob studied the map intently, digesting it with a mixture of disbelief and excitement. He got up and came over for a closer look.

  “What is this?” he said.

  “You are looking at our world before the Cataclysm,” said Brother Marcos. “No Faeregines, no Great Houses. No Impyrium. Nonmagical humans ruled everything you see.”

  If Hob had not beheld a lost city buried beneath the Sentries, he would have concluded Brother Marcos was insane. But he had—Hob had stood upon a building in what Mr. Burke said was Vancouver.

  Hob found the city on the Origins Map. It looked to be hundreds of miles south of where Dusk was today. On this map, the mountains ran mostly north and south; there were no Sentries. But some coastlines and contours were recognizable. It looked like a giant hammer had shattered these continents and set their pieces adrift to form the world familiar to Hob. Apparently many lands were now below sea level.

  He continued searching for landmarks. He tried to locate Impyria and the Sacred Isle. Normally, they were at the center of a map. But not in this world. There was no Impyria or Sacred Isle—just a tiny dot marked Rowan near the eastern boundary between two countries called the United States and Canada.

  No one interrupted him. One girl even brought him a chair. Hob sat down, vaguely aware that his legs were trembling. He now noticed little stars penciled next to a number of cities. Perhaps their existence had been verified.

  Brother Marcos spoke up behind him. “It’s much to absorb,” he said gently. “If you thought we were crazy, it would not surprise or offend anyone here. We’ve all been through it. But the story you’re about to hear is true. I’ll ask Miss Dauphine to get us started.”

  A tall, heavy-lidded girl rose from her seat and introduced herself as Eloise Dauphine. She was from Tarynia
, which used to be part of a country called Brazil. Hob had to listen closely for she spoke with an accent he had never heard before.

  “Civilization goes back well over ten thousand years,” she said. “Before the Cataclysm, nonmagical humans ruled the world. They built great cities, crafted sky ships, and split matter into its smallest components. They did not did not need magic, only their intelligence and will. Magical humans lived among them, but hid their natures and studied witchcraft in secret.”

  Hob was confused. “Are ‘nonmagical humans’ the same as muir?”

  “We try not to use words like mehrùn and muir in this class,” Brother Marcos explained. “They are insulting and inaccurate. Did you know their very origins are daemonic?”

  Hob shook his head.

  “It’s true,” said Brother Marcos. “They were simply words that daemonia used to distinguish between humans that could summon them and those that could not. Over the centuries, their meaning has been corrupted. Today, the law classifies muir as lesser beings, as a subhuman species distinct from mehrùn. But this is not so. We are all humans.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Hob. “What changed?”

  Brother Marcos invited a young man from Ferropolis to continue.

  “Three thousand years ago, a spirit named Astaroth rose to power. He recovered a powerful book and used its magic to cause mankind’s cities and technologies—even our memories—to fade. This sorcery had less effect upon magical humans. They remembered who they were and salvaged knowledge lost to others. They rose up against the demonic kingdoms that had replaced the nations you see on that map. Three champions defeated Astaroth, but not before he brought about terrible earthquakes that shook the world to its foundations.”

  Hob knew that last part. “Our priest tells that story on Imbolc. How Mina, David Menlo, and the Hound slew Astaroth atop the Witchpeaks. Trumpets and glory and all that.”

  “Trumpets and glory.” The teacher sighed. “Alas, those three might have been heroes. When they destroyed Astaroth, they acquired the very book that might have restored mankind’s memories, even the cities and craft that Astaroth had stolen.”

  Brother Marcos’s face darkened. His voice trembled with anger. “But these ‘heroes’ failed us. They let us languish in ignorance. Their successors pretended our past did not exist and suppressed all evidence to the contrary. They even pretend to be a different race. Nonsense! If that were true, how can mehrùn be born to muir parents? Why would the authorities test every human child to see if they can perform magic?”