Faces from the Past

PROLOGUE

Endings are just beginnings.

—Marlev Shaspa

The Royal Entourage toured the streets of Lambodonas. People cheered and applauded at the passing of the Queen’s carriage, where a slender teenager waved her hand to the multitude. In front of her in the carriage was Qérlex Targerian, Supreme Empirical Adept and Master of Artifexes. He didn’t seem very comfortable.

Two men were flanking the carriage. Arstin Penjándel, captain of the Royal Entourage, kept wondering what he was doing there. He was young and handsome but he didn’t feel that way, just worried and anxious. At the other side of the carriage, Yáxtor Brandan grinned enigmatically and reviewed his mission parameters.

They reached the dock several minutes later. The Regent was already there, waiting, and behind him several courtiers and high government officials wore their finery and chatted with each other. Among them, Asima Sterd, Supreme Healing Adept, tried to look cheerful while the Master Archivist of the Empirical Adepts told her something.

The latter was a rather colourful man in a wheelchair and with a patch over one of his eyes. Old and wrinkled, he gesticulated with the energy of a younger man.

The Queen left the Royal Carriage with Qérlex Targerian by her side. Yáxtor and Arstin were behind them and the young captain seemed quite nervous.

Easy, captain, whispered Yáxtor. Everything is under control.

Arstin tried not to frown.

I don’t like it, he replied also in a whisper. There are too many people. Too many. And there are too many places suitable for a sniper. All those open spaces…

Relax. The Empirical Adepts have taken care of everything. The Queen is safe.

Arstin nodded, though Yáxtor realized he was far from convinced.

The Queen stopped a couple of paces from her Regent, who bowed. He was a broad, big man of imposing looks and a brown beard. He didn’t seem happy, but that wasn’t unusual —Orston Velhas almost never seemed happy.

You are at charge or everything until our return, Orston, said the Queen. We hope we will find the country intact when we get back.

Orston Velhas ignored the punch in the monarch’s words and said:

I will do my best, Your Majesty.

We know you will, Orston, said the Queen with a smile. And now, please, give the order of departure.

The Regent bowed once more, turned around and called the Docks Master while the Queen approached the courtiers and officials. A weird glow appeared in her eyes when she saw Asima, but neither she nor the Supreme Healing Adept said a word.

While Orston Velhas instructed the Docks Master, the Queen began to chat with one of her courtiers. Arstin was behind her, his hand on the handle of his sword.

Yáxtor looked at the people in the tribune. Everyone who was someone in Alboné was there, of course. Arstin’s anxiety was perfectly understandable; it would have been a golden occasion for a terrorist, but Yáxtor knew his colleagues from the Empirical Adepts had the situation under control. No incident would occur that day, he was positive.

His gaze met Shércroft. The old archivist was looking intensely at him and Yáxtor wondered why. Suddenly, a lost memory burst into his mind and he saw himself in the archives while Shércroft told him it was a good moment to stop Painé’s fleet. Yáxtor shook his head and smiled without realizing it.

He looked again at Shércroft and his smile became warmer, as if he was looking at a long-lost friend. The archivist smiled back at him and Yáxtor noticed the surprise in his eyes. Obviously, Shércroft hadn’t expected that behaviour.

The Docks Master said something to Orston Velhas and the Regent nodded. Then the Queen and those with her went to the big airship over the docks. Yáxtor hurried after them with a last smile and a nod in Shércroft’s direction.

The main airship and its convoy broke moorings and departed, and during the entire operation, the old man remained as motionless as a statue. Alarmed by his silence, Asima looked down and asked him what was wrong.

Wrong? Maybe nothing, my dear, he answered. He seemed absentminded. Yes, I hope nothing is wrong.

Then what’s the fuss?

Didn’t you notice? The boy.

Asima frowned. What boy? Ah, of course; for Shércroft, Yáxtor was still a teenager under his wing, not the harsh, callous murderer he was now.

Yáxtor?

He remembers, said the old man. He remembers me.

Of course he…

Shércroft shook his head.

Don’t play tricks with me. You know what I mean. He remembers me. Me, not an old archivist, a distant acquaintance. Me, understand? What that implies…

Asima didn’t say a word. There was no need, her eyes were telling Shércroft everything that her mouth wasn’t.

Alone in his cabin, Yáxtor smoked his pipe and looked through the round window at the landscape behind him. The airship sailed east at maximum speed, high above the clouds, and it was like sliding through a child’s fantasy.

Seeing Shércroft had been… unexpected, to say the least. It shouldn’t have. His path and the old archivist’s had crossed several times during those last years, after all.

Though that wasn’t entirely true. Until now Shércroft had been a distant acquaintance, a face Yáxtor recognized but one that didn’t mean a thing to him. And that morning everything had changed.

He should have seen it coming.

When he had recovered his stolen memories six months ago, the very first images that had run through his head had been related to his wife and son. To their lives, to all the moments he had shared with them… and, above all, to their deaths.

He had regained those memories carefully, slowly. He had seen Ámber smiling for the first time, her green eyes fixed on his, her hands on his chin, her lips on his mouth. He had seen himself, holding his new-born son. He had seen several meat slices roasting in the fireplace. He had seen Ámber swinging, hanging from her own guts. In his memory, he had tried to take her down, had slipped and fell. He had howled his pain on the floor, like a rabid wounded animal. He had savoured the emotions that accompanied the memories; all of them, no matter how painful.

But, after recalling the experience, he had told himself that he didn’t feel different at all. He was the same man he had always been. Recovering his memories hadn’t changed a thing.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

In the past few weeks, the rest of his lost memories had been flooding his mind like roaring water from a broken dam. Totally out of control, they had burst inside him, populating his mind and looking for a place to stay. It had been an… interesting time, full of shocks and surprises, of madness and unexpected emotions, until the memories began, little by little, to find their places and slipped to the back of his mind.

During the last two days he had been dreaming of Ámber. It was always the same dream: she went to a well and filled a jar with water. Then she looked at him, smiled and said:

My monster, my child, my love.

Seeing Shércroft that morning had been the proverbial straw, as if everything fell suddenly into place once and for all. It had been a funny sensation, rather anticlimactic, just a faint ‘click’ instead of a huge blast.

Yes, he was the man he had always been. But he was something more. Much more, in fact. Nothing had changed, and, at the same time, nothing was the same anymore.

I am what I am, what I’ve always been. But I am someone entirely different.

Both things couldn’t be true. But they were.

Shércroft, how could he have forgotten the old man. His days in the archives with him while the archivist taught him to see, to establish links and patterns, to deduce, to perceive all that was hidden in the shadows.

And the walks on the streets of Lambodonas at night, the Agrúnder Embassy party, the plot, the danger…

Nothing was the same anymore. But things were beginning to be as they should, as they always should have been if his memories hadn’t been erased by the Queen’s orders.

Yes, Shércroft and Ámber. But not only them; in fact, they were just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many people, so many faces lost in the shadows, so many untold stories. And they were coming to the light and demanding that he pay attention to them, put them again in his life, from which they shouldn’t have been erased.

Yes, so many faces. Where to begin?

Shércroft? Or maybe before him?

Yes, before Shércroft. A few years before. When he was nothing more than a boy who knew nothing of the world. Arrogant and full of himself, convinced that nobody had anything to teach him.

He was such an idiot.

Yes, those years. When he used to wander Lambodonas in the evening and…

Part One

ENDRA

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is that we change, that we can change. Once the foundations of what we are going to be are established, we only change to be more like ourselves; we polish ourselves, we refine ourselves, but we are not very different from a menialbody trapped by the will of its master in a concrete and precise form. We may vary it within certain limits, but not where it really matters.

For a time, we are like the cub of an unknown animal in a dark room that no one can see. Nobody, not even ourselves, knows if it is predator or prey, a reptile or a mammal. Until we open the door and turn on the light it doesn’t take shape.

And, once taken, it doesn’t change anymore.

—Próxtor Brandan

What are you looking at?

The young acolyte of the Empirical Adepts just shrugged and didn’t say anything. The woman raised an eyebrow and turned back to her meagre garden. The opening of her skirt gave a generous glimpse of a long and well-shaped leg.

Suddenly she stood up straight and looked again at the acolyte. He was fourteen, maybe fifteen, years old, and he was looking at her as if he were in a museum admiring a nice picture.

Do you like what you see?

The boy nodded. The woman smiled despite herself.

So you like to come and see the lower classes sweating and working. Surely it’s a novelty for you.

The acolyte was about to say something, but he shrugged again instead.

Well, I’d love to continue this fascinating conversation, but I have things to do.

Again, she leaned forward and took the spade. Suddenly, she mumbled a curse and straightened up once more.

You got a name, at least.

Yáxtor Brandan.

His voice was not an adult one, but it was no longer a child’s. It had sounded sullen, as if his name were an annoying thing he didn’t like to share with anyone.

Well, the woman said. You talk and you have a name, besides being interested in my legs. That’s better than nothing.

He hesitated a moment. Then he smiled, as if he was making a joke to himself.

If you want to see something better, come tonight, she said.

The acolyte looked at her, undecided, not knowing how to take the offer.

And who will I come to see? he asked.

Me, of course.

The young man bit his lip. He looked at the woman for a few seconds and then suddenly turned away and began to walk down the street.

The woman stared at him for a moment. Finally, she shrugged and continued working.

Don’t you trust me? asked Belysh.

It depends, answered Asima, looking at the documents on her desk. Have you done something I don’t know? Maybe something you think would make me not trust you?

Of course I haven’t.

Then why do you waste my time with such a stupid question?

Belysh bit her lip and, taking advantage that Asima didn’t see her, squeezed her gown over her thighs. She knew very well that her mistress never lowered her guard even if she seemed absorbed in her daily tasks and that she didn’t miss a thing in the behaviour of her pupil.

It’s been months since my last assignment, she answered at last, carefully choosing every word. She knew Asima didn’t like to talk about those things in her office, but Belysh had no alternative. I’m positive I can help you and take over some new tasks.

What she was trying to say was that she was aware that Asima was deeply involved in something and that it was time to include Belysh in it. The Supreme Healing Adept stopped reading, leaned back, interlaced her fingers and looked at Belysh for a while before asking:

Have you any spare time I have not been informed about?

I beg your pardon?

Asima stretched her arm, took from the table what seemed to be a thin tablet of blackboard, and whispered an unpronounceable word The surface of the tablet was soon covered by data and graphics, which she began to examine as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

Let’s see, muttered the Supreme Adept. "In the mornings you teach anatomy for basic and medium levels and supervise the advanced levels in their practicing. In the afternoons you have the autopsy turn and the forensics training grade. I guess in the evenings you prepare the next day’s classes. Am I forgetting something? Yes, of course, the terminal patients’ night watch.

Hmmm… Do you think four hours of sleep every night will be enough next year? If so, there is a group of Analytical Adepts that have begun a new research project about the sequels of…

Stop mocking me! cried Belysh. She regretted that burst almost immediately. She looked down, clenched her teeth and said: I am sorry. She mustered her courage again and faced the inscrutable gaze of her mistress. But I… I know I can do more; I can be more useful. You didn’t enlist me just to do nothing. Let me help you.

A thick and sharp silence felt on the room. Belysh held as best she could the weird spark from the eyes of the Supreme Adept. She didn’t seem uptight, but relaxed, and that scared the living daylights out of Belysh.

I don’t know what your expectations were, Belysh, said Asima. Her tone was quiet, but there was such an authority and sense of responsibility in it that Belysh felt her words as if they were the final nails in her coffin. "I don’t remember promising you a life of adventures and thrills. I think I would recall such a promise.

First thing’s first, my dear: you are a Healing Adept and I am counting on you to be aware of it no matter what you do. Your work is important for our House. If you don’t believe it is… well, forgive me for thinking of you as a person that would understand it better than anyone.

I’m… I am sorry, stammered Belysh. She needed all her restraint to avoid calling Asima ‘mistress’.

It was very unlikely that someone would have filled Asima’s office with messengers for picking the conversations she had with several Healing Adepts throughout the day, but better safe than sorry. The Supreme Healing Adept had recruited her for her caution, among other things.

I know what it means to be a Healing Adept, she said. We live to serve. We serve for others to live, she concluded, reciting the last part of the Healing Vow. I just wanted you to know… . She carefully chose her next words. I am here for anything you need.

"I know. But assignments aren’t so many that we can’t deal with them. If those days come, I am sure you will prefer to have enough time at that moment.

Calmness, my dear, is something you must nurture and treasure. I don’t mean you relax so much that you forget your purpose, but enjoy it while you can, at least.

Belysh nodded and put her hand on her chest. Any external observer would have seen it as a sign of calmness, peacefulness. For them both it meant that Belysh had understood what Asima really wanted to say: there were no new assignments in the organization and she should go on with her daily routine until further notice.

Belysh stood up, bowed as a farewell and went out. Though she was not entirely convinced. Something disturbing was hammering in the back of her head.

Yáxtor had been wandering the city aimlessly for several weeks. He would step out of the Tower at lunch time and let his feet decide his path. In the afternoon, he stopped wherever he was at the time and ate the meal he had taken from the kitchen. Then, with calm and dedication, he explored the place his steps led him to.

Later, after returning to the Tower and performing the exercises in the yard, he trained himself to recall not only the place he had visited, but the route he had followed to reach it

Gradually, he was drawing a chaotic and confusing map of Lambodonas, building in his mind a maze to which only he had the key.

He should not have been there, in a capital that, as the summer progressed, seemed more and more a sleeping giant caught in the torpor of an endless siesta. He should have returned to the family lands in the north along the mountains, and spent the summer there until the following year. But something, a sudden impulse which even now he couldn’t explain, had led him to write Maklén and tell the old man he was going to spend part of the summer in Lambodonas, if not all of it.

Ítur Brin, his closest friend among the acolytes, almost the only one, had muttered jealously:

You’ll have the city all to yourself. I wish I could stay with you.

Yáxtor, with indifference, replied:

Do it.

Ítur had uttered a curse.

You know I can’t. Summer is the busiest time of the year and my parents need all hands they can get for the harvest. They can’t afford to hire another labourer.

Ítur sounded resentful. It was clear that he considered it unfair that his friend could idle away his time as an unoccupied gentleman while he had to break his back in the sun. Well, Yáxtor said to himself, it was not his fault.

And he also preferred to be alone.

During those weeks he hadn’t given a thought to where he went. Neither did he try to pass unnoticed. He was an acolyte of the Empirical Adepts, after all. Nobody would try to hurt him; nobody would risk facing the fury of the most formidable agents at the service of the Queen by harming one of their own.

And, that afternoon...

He had found himself in a decrepit neighbourhood; roads in a deplorable condition, half broken street lights and peeling —and in many cases, half-collapsed— walls. It was near the river, south of the city and, until that day, he had never been there.

He had met few people and those who did cross his path looked at him with surprise.

Then he saw the woman.

Her house was almost a complete wreck. The fence was a ruined skeleton and the garden a tangled mess in which she had managed to clear a little piece.

Without knowing why, he had been watching her as she worked. She was older than him, but not by much. Twenty, perhaps, he thought. No more. Tall, slender and wiry, her face was concentrated in a thoughtful expression that transformed her features into something fascinating.

He should have continued walking, but instead he had kept looking at her like a fool until she noticed his presence.

Idiot, he said to himself now, lying in the dorm.

If you want to see something better, come tonight.

Nonsense.

He was alone in the dormitory. Very few acolytes gave up the freedom of summer. Only those who had no other place to go, in fact. Yáxtor was unusual among them, an eccentric who decided to stay voluntarily.

If you want to see something better, come tonight.

He stood up and left the bedroom. As he walked, the outline of a plan was taking shape in his head.

Belysh couldn’t forget her conversation with Asima. She couldn’t help thinking that, though the organization had no new assignments, the Supreme Healing Adept had her nose in something.

She put the paper sheets aside. Lying on her back with her hands on her nape and helped by her messengers, she began to review every detail of the meeting. She shouldn’t have recorded the conversation, but something Asima had said or done impelled her to do it. Once she finished her analysis, she would order her messengers to erase the data.

It was hard to access the information provided by the messengers without a translation device. She wasn’t Asima. The skills of the Supreme Healing Adept when it came to the handling of messengers were amazing. Hers were just adequate. It took her several hours to analyse the images the messengers sent to her optic nerves.

Had she not been searching for something, she wouldn’t have seen it.

Her mistress… She had to stop thinking of Asima that way or she would sever her own tongue. That was what she was, of course. Asima was the person that had guided her, instructed her, taught her and opened her eyes to a world she had never thought existed. However, once she accepted this existence, she felt that it was inevitable.

It was a nameless organization. Belysh didn’t know who the other members were, how deep its roots went, or even if it existed outside the Healing Houses. But she was sure that it had been around for a long time; that maybe it predated the coronation in Lambodonas of the first Queen.

She focused on the image that had drawn her attention. A medical report conveniently buried among half a dozen more. Why was the Supreme Adept interested in the results of a routine check of a group of students from the Tower?

Brandan… She savoured the surname. She didn’t know much about that family, but she was sure she had read about them before, maybe in some history book when she was younger. If she wasn’t mistaken, they were members of the lesser nobility, so there was nothing extraordinary in the fact that the young boy was an acolyte of the Empirical Adepts. But…

Who are you, Yáxtor Brandan? Why is Asima interested in you?

She suddenly stood up. After a while, a mischievous smile appeared on her face.

I’m going to find out.

I need civilian clothes. Lower class. And a way to camouflage my rapier.

The adept in the cloakroom looked at him for a moment.

Do you have permission from your tutor for this?

I just talked to him, Yáxtor said.

It was true, but their conversation had had nothing to do with that subject. The adept shrugged and let the boy in.

These should be fine; I think they’re the right size, he said after a while, holding out a bundle of clothes. And this will surely go well with your sword.

He offered the boy something halfway between a cane and a club. Yáxtor took it in his hands, turned it over and gazed at it with interest.

He sent his messengers to the object and explored it carefully. He nodded and his mouth formed the proper unpronounceable word.

The club opened and he could see there was a cavity more than big enough for his rapier to fit inside.

This will do, he said. Thank you.

Unlike grown-ups, children don’t need an excuse to dress up and pretend they are someone else. An adult will use his work, a party or a celebration as an excuse to stop being himself and become the person he would like to be or even the one he is afraid he could be someday. For a child, the very concept of identity is changing and fluid, like a suit you can wear or not at your convenience.

When do we lose that ability? When do we take shelter behind just one personality and pretend we aren’t aware of the other people we are?

—The Queen of Alboné in her thirty-fourth embodiment.

She wasn’t alone.

She was speaking with a man. He seemed interested in entering the house and she was trying to decide whether to allow him in or not.

Yáxtor stopped across the street, pretending not to be at all interested in what was happening in front of him. The woman, still talking with her possible client, recognized him, and suddenly, she ended the conversation.

I don’t think I can tonight, she said.

The man muttered something, hesitated for a moment and finally left. Only when he had disappeared around the corner did she approach the street and give a sign to Yáxtor.

You’ve come, she said.

He nodded silently.

The woman looked at him as if she was weighing up some questionable goods. She smiled suddenly.

Come in.

Without waiting to see what Yáxtor would do, she turned and went back inside. After a moment’s hesitation, he followed her.

Sometimes, the best way to go unnoticed is not by using a disguise, but by just going ahead and behaving naturally.

Of course, going to the Tower at that time of night as a Healing Adept wouldn’t go unnoticed, but Belysh was counting on it. When the guards let her in with a sly smile, she knew she had gotten away with it.

Yes, she was going to see Llúrich, physical instructor of the adepts. Yes, she was going to lie with him. Those who saw her would notice her when she entered and when she left; but they would give the lovebirds some privacy. And, while her lover slept soundly after sex, Belysh would take advantage of that to disguise herself as an Empirical Adept and go to the archives room, which should be empty at that hour of the night.

It wasn’t the first time she had visited Llúrich, so her presence wouldn’t arouse suspicion, just jocular gossip and bawdy comments. She had met Llúrich nine months ago during an arranged visit of a group of Empirical Adepts acolytes who were to get used to the Healing House operations.

Two months later, Belysh gave Llúrich what he wanted, partly because he was a good mate but mainly because she knew he could be useful in the