16. Cain
16
CAIN
Cain found himself in what looked like a child’s room. Everything looked normal—there was a small bed, a shelf full of books, and a dresser with some drawers. But then, sitting on the edge of the bed was a dried-up cadaver wrapped in bandages. The bandages constrained the cadaver’s arms to its body. Its legs were also tied together. Cain couldn’t tell the body’s age or gender. The only thing he could say for sure was that it was dead. Its withered lips surrounded a mouth that was torn at the sides, revealing teeth.
He tried hard not to be alarmed. He sensed this was not a space any ordinary mortal could understand, and there was no reason to understand it. Cain tried not to pay too much attention to the body but instead looked at the small shelf above the drawers. The books were mostly adventure stories featuring heroes of the Empire. Cain rarely read such books, but he recognized most of the titles of the books here. Among the smaller volumes, there was one larger book. The Sorcerer of Mersia. He had never heard of it, but he knew Mersia as the steppe country that was rumored to have been destroyed in a single night. Just as he stretched out his hand to it, Arienne’s voice came from nowhere.
“This is not a real room. I imagined it using the memories of my childhood bedroom back home… You are inside my mind.”
The window by the shelf looked out into the pastures of Arland, but the open bedroom door looked out into darkness. The darkness trailed into the room like smoke as Arienne walked through the door, but was sucked out through the cracks of the door as she closed it behind her. She pointed at herself. “This isn’t really me either. The real me is outside, sitting in the room at Lucretia’s. This is me as I think of myself.”
“I am physically here but you aren’t?” Cain asked.
Arienne shook her head. “I haven’t attempted it, but I don’t think I can go inside myself.”
It was an imaginary space, created with logic that was beyond Cain’s own understanding. He had no idea what was possible and what wasn’t. Cain eyed the cadaver at the bed.
Arienne explained. “That man… Well, that’s a Power generator. His name is Eldred.”
Cain waited for her to continue.
“I stole him from the Academy.”
“Why?”
“He asked me to. He promised me he would help me escape and teach me sorcery.”
“Do Power generators normally speak and use sorcery?”
“Eldred is special. He can’t cast spells, though. At least, not in this room. Probably.”
Cain widened his eyes at Arienne. “Probably?”
“If he could, he would have done something by now.”
The mouth on Eldred’s face grew wider. The smile was reminiscent of another smile, one that had been carved onto the murdered woman’s face at Lucretia’s last year. But it also reminded him of the grin on the killer’s face when Cain had confronted him.
Cain had never liked sorcery. When people came across something too difficult to comprehend, they would place the blame on a broken Power generator or some hidden sorcerer, choosing to ignore facts that were right in front of them. Cain considered such attitudes lazy, but still, sorcerers and sorcery existed in this world. If this was a room of Arienne’s imaginings, anything could happen in here. The walls could collapse and monsters could appear, and none of that would be out of place. Cain hated the powerlessness it made him feel.
“Why did you bring me in here?”
Arienne looked taken aback by his tone and hesitated. Cain asked again, more gently this time. Arienne relaxed her shoulders.
“Because Eldred knows what that Power generator you found might be used for.”
“Couldn’t you just tell me what he said instead?”
“You’re not the only one who wants to share burdensome secrets with others.”
This was understandable. Cain nodded and turned to Eldred. He wanted to hear what he had to say and leave this place as quickly as possible.
Eldred spoke. “Then I shall tell you.” He let out a long sigh, a small cloud of dust escaping from his lips with the sound. “You must be aware that the Empire uses something called the Circuit of Destiny?”
Cain nodded. He had heard of it. Something to do with predicting the future using Power generators. It had greatly contributed to the Empire conquering the world, but such things were beyond Cain’s interests. Until now.
“It is perhaps the greatest of the Empire’s treasures. The last testament to their ingenuity, before they devolved into the current sorry state where a sorcerer is only taught to barely light a candle.” Eldred glanced at Arienne with his desiccated eyes. “They are going to smuggle that generator into the Senate and connect it to the Circuit.”
“To do what?” said Arienne. “Isn’t it made of scores of Power generators? A single Class Four generator can’t control all of that.”
“Precisely,” replied Eldred. “There are three hundred and twenty-seven Power generators in the Circuit that are at least Class Three.”
Arienne looked surprised. “How do you know that so well?”
“I just do.”
Cain watched them closely. Arienne seemed to distrust Eldred. She must’ve been fooled by him once or twice already. Maybe he had even tricked her into stealing him away from the Academy. Eldred, on the other hand, was enjoying this lack of trust. He relished the power that came from keeping secrets.
Cain spoke up. “He knows because… Eldred was probably the sorcerer-engineer in charge of maintaining the Circuit of Destiny.”
Eldred’s shriveled eyelids trembled a bit.
“This one isn’t completely empty in the head,” Eldred mocked. “But he’s wrong.”
“Then you were part of the Circuit,” Cain said immediately.
Arienne looked back and forth between them in surprise.
Eldred’s grimace widened. “That’s not what’s important now. Think harder. If the Circuit can’t be controlled, what can they do with it instead?”
Arienne said, “With over three hundred Power generators? They can’t do anything except… overload the Circuit to make it explode? But that would mean the whole city would…” She gasped, her eyes darting to Cain.
Not meeting her gaze, Cain considered all he had learned in the days since Fienna’s murder. He thought of Gladdis, who was being investigated for treason by the Ministry. Of the Power generator, stolen by the rebels. Of the silent man who went in and out of the house the generator was hidden in. Of this so-called princess of Arland. Of the Circuit of Destiny. Where did Fienna fit into all this? Was it a coincidence that he had encountered Arienne and Eldred?
“Not an unlikely plan, if inelegant. But there is another possibility,” said Eldred. “Have you ever heard of the Star of Mersia?”
Everybody has, Cain thought. Mersia had declared independence and was devastated by the Empire as an example to the world. The Powered weapon used then was called the Star of Mersia. A weapon of absolute power, one that no one knew anything about, but at the same time one that everyone feared, whether they believed in its existence or not. Eldred did not wait for Cain’s answer, as his expression made it clear that Cain had heard of this infamous weapon.
“An overload of the Circuit may take out the Capital. But in Mersia, nothing lives, not a blade of grass, not even worms. There are just ashes, dust, and dead things. So shall the Imperial heartland be, if the Star shines on it. For the Circuit of Destiny does not simply predict the future; it creates destinies. The Star of Mersia is one of the ways the Circuit can be used. A way the Empire will never use again.”
Cain didn’t understand. “What do you mean, never use again?”
“Well, you see, they weren’t trying to use it that way in the first place. The Star of Mersia did not happen because the Empire wanted it.” Eldred paused, as if savoring their shock. “In fact, Mersia had always been a faithful lapdog of the Empire. They had never declared independence.”
Arienne said, “But then who brought Mersia to ruin, and why?”
Eldred’s grimace returned.
“Indeed.”
Since exiting the room in her mind, neither Cain nor Arienne had spoken. She sat on the edge of the bed. Her leather travel sack, packed and ready, leaned patiently against the bed as well. Cain sat next to it, on the floor, ignoring the chairs.
Eldred could be lying; the thought had crossed Cain’s mind. But what else could be happening here? It sounded like a fantastical piece of propaganda concocted by the Ministry of Intelligence, of provincial rebels plotting to destroy the Empire and all it stood for. But that only made it feel more real somehow.
“Should we… tell the patrollers at least?” said Arienne finally, a look of disbelief still on her face.
Cain was supposed to meet Septima of the Ministry at midnight. It would make more sense to tell her instead of the patrollers. But was that the right thing to do?
To many people, the Empire was the world itself. It just ex isted, the way the earth existed or the ocean. What was about to happen would be like an earthquake or a tidal wave. But different. An artificial calamity. If that were so, the Empire also was not like the mountains or the rivers, for it was also artificial, built and maintained by the hands of people as well. Before the Empire conquered them, the Imperial provinces never would have imagined their kings or parliaments falling either.
“I will try to speak to the one orchestrating this. To hear what they have to say.”
“You know who it is?”
Cain sighed. “I have a feeling.”
Gladdis. Maybe there was someone behind her, but Gladdis for now.
“I’ll leave the Capital as planned,” said Arienne, “and maybe I’ll learn more when I’m in Arland. Maybe if I met that princess…”
Cain nodded. Even if she never got to meet the princess, someone outside the Capital needed to know what was going on, or about to happen.
Arienne added sheepishly, “I’m on the run… I wouldn’t be of any help to you. And even if I wasn’t, I don’t know how to do anything that could help in this situation.”
She got off the bed. Cain looked up at her.
“Do you think if the Capital is destroyed, Arland will be free?” he asked.
“Maybe the whole world will be free. But what would it matter?” Arienne answered in a soft voice. “Hundreds of thousands would have died in the Capital alone. We’ve both lived here for a long time. Everyone we know would be dead. Maybe it’s silly of me to say such things when I’m trying to leave everything behind, but…”
Well, not everyone would die, thought Cain. But many would, and the survivors would lose their homes and their work. Old Agatha, Lukan, Lucretia, even the shop clerk in the square who spoke awkward Imperial so confidently. And everyone who had come to Fienna’s funeral, the people she took such care of… The pressure gripped his heart again, but in that moment of distress, pieces fell into place in his mind. Fienna, too, must have known about all this. She must have felt the same thing Cain was feeling right now.
And he finally understood why Fienna had been murdered.