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.Beneath it’s still molten.Still very hot.’‘Is that why we are so hot in these lower places?’ Feyn asks, indicating the cave around us.‘Exactly.These cells are underground, and we’re surrounded by molten spume rock.’I start to imagine the burning, sluggish flow oozing past beyond the damp walls of black stone.‘So once we’re out, how do we get over the river?’ Charn asks.‘This brittle crust,’ I say to Nereith.‘How brittle is it?’33I returned from our family-vacation-cum-manhunt more restless than when I left.Jai was back at military school and Rynn had been tasked with bodyguard duty for an important official on a Borderland visit, so there was nobody to greet me on my return.Not that I minded; I do alone very well.Ledo had told me about a particularly elusive apothecary called Ekan who was undercutting his business with cheap potions.I’d asked Keren to track the man down while I was away, and upon my return I found a message from him.He had something.I sent him one back, requesting to meet him later that turn.While I waited for his reply I had time on my hands, so I wandered the Caracassa mansions restlessly, eager to be getting on with something.The matter of Jai’s upcoming graduation filled me with unease, so I traced familiar routes, seeking old reminders, finding comfort in reminiscence.In time, inevitably, I came to the central atrium of the mansion, and to the greatest sculpture that Rynn’s grandfather ever produced.His greatest sculpture, and his greatest mistake.It was a circular courtyard, dominated by the enormous monument in the centre.The sculpture rose out of a round pool, from which stone channels led to ornamental fountains.Lush fungal gardens were arranged around the atrium, a profusion of yellow, purple, green and pink.I found I could identify them all, from the tiny sprays of puffballs to the different species of dwarf mycora, with their many-branched stems and flat caps spreading high overhead.The discovery pleased me.Must have picked up their names from Reitha.I was getting to be quite the amateur naturalist.There were people here, lounging beneath the arbours or walking slowly.Others sat on the elaborately wrought balconies that ringed the chamber, to provide a better view of Venya Ethken Asta’s masterpiece.The chamber echoed with the quiet susurrus of voices.I traipsed idly along, enjoying the feel of the place.Paths were pleasantly lit by lamps.Powerful lanterns hung in the upper reaches of the chamber, their shinestones glowing, magnified manifold through glass shaped by master artisans.Light, like heat, could be controlled: by coloured panes, by angles, by the arts of the chthonomancers that ignited the shinestones and made them burn like miniature suns.It was as important to architects and designers as wood or stone or metal.I found my favourite spot to contemplate the sculpture.It was a bizarre piece, shapeless and organic in form.Many types of stone and ore were fused together to create patterns which led the eye.Here, a bright red cluster of prismatic vanadinite; there, a long vein of blue-green chrysocolla.Bubbles of botryoidal malachite warred with scratches of silver and frills of celestine.And in among them, rarer minerals, raised from the depths of the earth where only the Craggens could go.At first sight it was ugly and chaotic, but its form had a mesmerising quality that drew viewers in.It was easy to become lost in the swirls and jags and curves.There was a puzzle there, a challenge hard to resist.It meant something different to everybody, but to me it meant more than to most.Here were the shackles that bound the man I loved.Rynn was in Bond to Clan Caracassa just as I was.His grandfather, Asta, had borrowed the money from Caracassa to create this colossal piece for an eminent merchant; but when the patron was bankrupted by the machinations of the Eskaran markets, Asta found himself impoverished, all his money tied up in a half-finished sculpture that no one wanted.Caracassa claimed the lifedebt for three generations, and his first task was to finish the sculpture he began.Rynn was the last of his debt.I was only Bonded for the tenure of my lifetime.Had things been different, our son would have been born free.But that wasn’t how it worked out in the end.‘Beautiful,’ came a silken voice by my left shoulder.‘Disgusting,’ said another on my right.I turned with a smile.Liss and Casta, the twins.As opposite as day and night.They had both changed the colour of their skin since I had last seen them.Now Liss was as pale as her brother Ledo, ghostly and wan; but Casta was a deep grey-black, like coal.‘We missed you,’ Liss said, and kissed me on the lips.‘I missed you too,’ I replied, turning to receive Casta’s kiss.‘Both of you.’Liss was all in white, thin layers of gauzy fabrics drifting around her, shredded at the hems.She had contrived to look tattered, despite having spent a small fortune on the outfit.Casta wore black and red, and her hair was like magma [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Beneath it’s still molten.Still very hot.’‘Is that why we are so hot in these lower places?’ Feyn asks, indicating the cave around us.‘Exactly.These cells are underground, and we’re surrounded by molten spume rock.’I start to imagine the burning, sluggish flow oozing past beyond the damp walls of black stone.‘So once we’re out, how do we get over the river?’ Charn asks.‘This brittle crust,’ I say to Nereith.‘How brittle is it?’33I returned from our family-vacation-cum-manhunt more restless than when I left.Jai was back at military school and Rynn had been tasked with bodyguard duty for an important official on a Borderland visit, so there was nobody to greet me on my return.Not that I minded; I do alone very well.Ledo had told me about a particularly elusive apothecary called Ekan who was undercutting his business with cheap potions.I’d asked Keren to track the man down while I was away, and upon my return I found a message from him.He had something.I sent him one back, requesting to meet him later that turn.While I waited for his reply I had time on my hands, so I wandered the Caracassa mansions restlessly, eager to be getting on with something.The matter of Jai’s upcoming graduation filled me with unease, so I traced familiar routes, seeking old reminders, finding comfort in reminiscence.In time, inevitably, I came to the central atrium of the mansion, and to the greatest sculpture that Rynn’s grandfather ever produced.His greatest sculpture, and his greatest mistake.It was a circular courtyard, dominated by the enormous monument in the centre.The sculpture rose out of a round pool, from which stone channels led to ornamental fountains.Lush fungal gardens were arranged around the atrium, a profusion of yellow, purple, green and pink.I found I could identify them all, from the tiny sprays of puffballs to the different species of dwarf mycora, with their many-branched stems and flat caps spreading high overhead.The discovery pleased me.Must have picked up their names from Reitha.I was getting to be quite the amateur naturalist.There were people here, lounging beneath the arbours or walking slowly.Others sat on the elaborately wrought balconies that ringed the chamber, to provide a better view of Venya Ethken Asta’s masterpiece.The chamber echoed with the quiet susurrus of voices.I traipsed idly along, enjoying the feel of the place.Paths were pleasantly lit by lamps.Powerful lanterns hung in the upper reaches of the chamber, their shinestones glowing, magnified manifold through glass shaped by master artisans.Light, like heat, could be controlled: by coloured panes, by angles, by the arts of the chthonomancers that ignited the shinestones and made them burn like miniature suns.It was as important to architects and designers as wood or stone or metal.I found my favourite spot to contemplate the sculpture.It was a bizarre piece, shapeless and organic in form.Many types of stone and ore were fused together to create patterns which led the eye.Here, a bright red cluster of prismatic vanadinite; there, a long vein of blue-green chrysocolla.Bubbles of botryoidal malachite warred with scratches of silver and frills of celestine.And in among them, rarer minerals, raised from the depths of the earth where only the Craggens could go.At first sight it was ugly and chaotic, but its form had a mesmerising quality that drew viewers in.It was easy to become lost in the swirls and jags and curves.There was a puzzle there, a challenge hard to resist.It meant something different to everybody, but to me it meant more than to most.Here were the shackles that bound the man I loved.Rynn was in Bond to Clan Caracassa just as I was.His grandfather, Asta, had borrowed the money from Caracassa to create this colossal piece for an eminent merchant; but when the patron was bankrupted by the machinations of the Eskaran markets, Asta found himself impoverished, all his money tied up in a half-finished sculpture that no one wanted.Caracassa claimed the lifedebt for three generations, and his first task was to finish the sculpture he began.Rynn was the last of his debt.I was only Bonded for the tenure of my lifetime.Had things been different, our son would have been born free.But that wasn’t how it worked out in the end.‘Beautiful,’ came a silken voice by my left shoulder.‘Disgusting,’ said another on my right.I turned with a smile.Liss and Casta, the twins.As opposite as day and night.They had both changed the colour of their skin since I had last seen them.Now Liss was as pale as her brother Ledo, ghostly and wan; but Casta was a deep grey-black, like coal.‘We missed you,’ Liss said, and kissed me on the lips.‘I missed you too,’ I replied, turning to receive Casta’s kiss.‘Both of you.’Liss was all in white, thin layers of gauzy fabrics drifting around her, shredded at the hems.She had contrived to look tattered, despite having spent a small fortune on the outfit.Casta wore black and red, and her hair was like magma [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]