The journey from the Winter Palace was a descent. From the river of music and light, the Lodge courier led him through the frozen, sleeping streets of Moscow, past the dark shapes of merchant houses and the skeletal branches of ice-coated linden trees. Their destination was a fur trader’s shop, its windows shuttered, the air around it thick with the smell of cured hides and cold stone. The courier knocked once, a precise rhythm against the heavy oak door. It opened into darkness.
They did not enter the shop. Instead, they went down a narrow flight of stairs hidden behind a stack of bundled pelts. The air grew colder, losing the scent of the city and taking on the clean, sterile smell of deep earth and old secrets. The passage was lit by simple, enclosed lanterns, their light too weak to cast real shadows. After thirty seconds of descent, they reached a single iron door. Sineus placed his palm against its surface. A low hum vibrated through the metal, a silent question asked of his very blood and bone. The lock clicked open. He had been granted entry.
He stepped through alone, the door closing behind him. He was in the archive, a circular chamber lined from floor to ceiling with thousands of wooden boards, each one a captured memory. The air was still and dry, smelling of beeswax and ancient vellum. In the center of the room, Pyotr Orlov sat at a heavy wooden workbench, his back to the door. He was a thin, elderly man, his simple brown cassock worn smooth at the elbows. He did not turn.
Sineus approached the bench and placed a small glass phial upon its surface. Inside, a single, shimmering filament of light pulsed with a faint, captured energy. It was the excised memory of the French agent’s mission, a severed thread of purpose now contained and inert. The operation was complete, but the duty was not. Not until the memory was archived.
Pyotr finally looked up, his pale blue eyes magnified by simple spectacles. His fingers, long and delicate, were permanently stained with the black ink of his craft. He picked up the phial, his touch gentle, as if handling a butterfly’s wing.
— Another one for the library, — Pyotr murmured, his voice a dry rustle of paper. He set the phial aside and picked up a silver-rimmed monocle with a lens of polished obsidian, an Oculus Speculum. He fitted it to his eye and peered at the captured memory-thread. The lens allowed him to see the script of the memory itself, to read the quality of the cut.
Sineus stood in silence, a perfect soldier awaiting inspection. He knew what Pyotr would see. The excision had been flawless, a single, clean cut with no fraying, no psychic residue. The memory’s integrity was 100%. It was a testament to his skill, his control. It was the only testament he cared for.
Pyotr removed the Oculus Speculum and set it down carefully. He gave a slow, weary nod. He took a fresh linden wood board, its surface coated in a smooth, white layer of gesso. From a velvet-lined case, he produced a silver stylus.
— A clean cut, as always, — Pyotr said. He uncorked the phial, and the severed thread of memory drifted out, hovering over the board. With the tip of the stylus, he gently touched the filament and began to guide it, transcribing its complex energy into a spiraling pattern on the gesso. The work was slow, requiring absolute concentration. The memory of a man’s entire purpose was being painted into a prison of wood and chalk.
Sineus watched the process, his mind calm. This was order. This was the preservation of the Empire. A flawed piece was removed, the whole made stronger. It was simple. It was necessary.
— But duty without choice is slavery, Sineus, — Pyotr said without looking up, his hand never wavering. The silver stylus continued its slow, circular path, the shimmering line of the memory sinking into the white surface.
The words were an unwelcome noise, a disruption to the clean logic of the work. Sineus felt a flicker of irritation. Duty was not slavery. Duty was a shield against the chaos of choice. It was a perfect, straight line through a tangled world. He had given himself to that line, and in return, he had been given purpose. It was a bargain he had made long ago.
— True honor is a choice forged under fire, — the old man continued, his voice soft but firm. — Not the unthinking swing of a blade, no matter how sharp.
Sineus’s gaze remained fixed on the Memory Icon. He saw Pyotr’s words as the sentimentality of an old man who worked with the ghosts of the past but no longer faced the threats of the present. Honor was mission success. It was a threat neutralized. It was the quiet hum of the lock granting him entry into this room. The rest was philosophy, and philosophy did not stop armies. His adherence to his function was total.
The last of the shimmering thread sank into the board. Pyotr lifted the stylus, the transcription complete. The agent’s memory was now just a complex, silent pattern, indistinguishable from the thousands of others that lined the walls. The archivist blew gently on the surface to set the memory, then placed the finished icon into an empty slot on the rack. The mission was officially closed. The agent was forgotten.
Footsteps echoed from the passage. Both men turned as the iron door opened and another Lodge courier entered. This one was breathing hard, his face flushed from the cold and haste. He carried a leather dispatch case, its seal marked with the insignia of the western front command.
— Urgent, from Smolensk, — the courier said, his voice tight. He handed the case to Pyotr.
Pyotr took the case, his brow furrowed with concern. He broke the wax seal, the snap echoing in the silent chamber. He pulled out a single sheet of vellum and began to read. Sineus watched his mentor’s face. He saw the old man’s eyes widen. He saw the color drain from his cheeks, leaving his skin the color of old parchment. Pyotr’s hand, the one that had been so steady just moments before, began to tremble.
The air in the sanctum grew heavy, thick with a sudden, unspoken dread. The scent of beeswax was sharp and cloying.
A new kind of war had found them in the dark.
