The Hammer and the Blade

by Paul S. Kemp

  They walked gingerly across the glass, treading on stars, noting constellations and planets in reflection. Nix found it surreal.

  "Maybe this is what it would be like to travel night's vault," he said.

  Egil only grunted.

  The glass covered acres. They ranged far on it, though always keeping a good distance between themselves and Rakon. They discovered that other roads like the one they'd traveled cut through the ring of ruins and reached the glass from other directions.

  "Like the cardinal points," Egil said. The priest seemed winded.

  "Aye. And all leading here. Curious." Nix looked over at his friend. "You all right?"

  "I'm all right. Just winded."

  "Had enough, then?" Nix asked.

  "Aye," Egil said. The priest stumbled and nearly fell as they walked back.

  "Mind the smooth surface there," Nix chided with a chuckle.

  They returned to the fire, and enjoyed more coffee with Baras, Jyme, and the other guards. The eunuch emerged from the carriage and took station outside its door, arms crossed over his chest.

  Rakon remained on the glass, and as the night deepened, the sorcerer's voice carried across the mirror of stars, incanting in the Language of Creation. Flashes of green light accompanied his spellcasting. The guards seemed untroubled by the sorcery and fell asleep in their tents, while the eunuch stood forebodingly outside the carriage. Egil and Nix sat around the fire while Rakon continued his exploration of the glass sea.

  "What do you think he's doing?" Nix asked.

  "I don't care," Egil said, worrying at his arm.

  "I do," Nix said, and stood. "Let's go see."

  Egil considered, sighed, stood, and joined his friend.

  They picked their way through the moonlit ruins until they reached one of the highest parts that ringed the glass expanse. Both of them were skilled climbers, and even without gear they reached the peak.

  Nix spotted Rakon out on the glass, walking among the reflected moon and stars. The sorcerer incanted a spell, touched a hand to the glass, and thin veins of green light snaked out from his touch and wormed deeply into the translucent surface of the glass before fading out.

  "Look like feelers almost," Egil said. He was still breathing heavily.

  Rakon rose, moved off twenty paces, and repeated the process. Again jagged lines of sickly green lit up the subsurface of the glass sea.

  "He's searching for something," Nix said. "Something under the glass."

  "Gods," Egil said. His voice sounded tense.

  "I know, it's–"

  "Not that," Egil said, putting a hand on Nix's shoulder and turning him around. "That."

  Behind them, lit eerily in the green light of the Mages' Moon, the ruins-dotted ground outside the ring that bordered the sea of glass crawled with so many Vwynn it looked as if the landscape itself was undulating. They prowled through the ruins, lithe, inhuman forms picking their way through the megaliths, their slit eyes always on the circular border of ruins that encircled the mirror. There were thousands of them, a horde of fangs and teeth and scales.

  "Gods," Nix echoed.

  "Indeed," Egil said. "Why do they wait, I wonder?"

  "Rakon said this was a holy place," Nix said. "Maybe they fear it?"

  "They don't seem the religious type."

  Nix chuckled. "Neither do you, and yet your head wears the eye of a god."

  "A dead god," Egil said.

  "Your words, not mine. I'll not blaspheme in this place. That many Vwynn is going to make leaving here a complicated affair."

  "Aye. I need to get down, Nix."

  "Well enough."

  They picked their way back down the mountain of stones, Egil struggling far more than Nix would have expected.

  "What's wrong with you?" Nix asked, when they reached the bottom. "Egil?"

  He took his friend by the arm and recoiled at the febrile heat he felt.

  Egil opened his mouth to speak, but instead sagged to the ground.

  "Egil!" Nix said.

  The priest's eyes rolled in his head and he sagged. Nix caught him to prevent a hard fall, and lowered the priest's limp weight to the ground.

  "Baras!" he called. "Up! Everyone up!"

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nix rolled Egil over onto his back. The priest's eyes were closed, his breathing rapid and shallow. He looked pale. Nix cursed. How had he missed it before? The stumbles, the breathing.

  "Are you sick? Wounded? What?"

  No answer. He tried to imagine his life without Egil and couldn't, no more than he could imagine it without Mamabird.

  Baras, Jyme, and the other guards rushed over, blades drawn.

  "What is it?" Baras asked. "Oh, shite."

  "What happened?" Jyme asked.

  Nix gently tapped his friend's face.

  "Egil? Egil?"

  Egil's eyelids fluttered open. Glassy eyes fixed on Nix and the priest smiled.

  "Bit," the priest said, and tried to lift his left arm. "Like Derg."

  "Shite, shite, shite," Nix said, and pushed up the sleeves of Egil's cloak and shirt. His forearm was black, as big around as Nix's calf. The guards gasped.

  "Why didn't you say something? Godsdammit, Egil!" The priest must have been bitten by the same Vwynn that bit Derg. "We could've used the jasper on you."

  He felt the eyes of Baras and the guards on him but he didn't care. If he'd had to choose between one of them and Egil, it would've been no choice at all.

  The big priest raised his right arm and patted Nix on the shoulder, the gesture sloppy, fading. "That peasant needed the coin more than us."

  At first Nix did not understand Egil's point, and then he remembered the wagon driver outside of the Slick Tunnel, the silver pieces Nix had given him.

  Grace, Egil had said. Alms.

  "You fakking idiot. You godsdamned idiot. You're not even a real priest!"

  Egil smiled, closed his eyes. "Do you think I'll see Gretta and Misa?"

  Nix could not bring himself to reply. He sat over his friend, head bowed, mind racing. He had nothing left in his bag of tricks. For once, it'd come up empty. He'd come up empty.

  "Maybe we should move him to the fire?" Jyme offered.

  "The fire won't help, you fakkin' whoreson," Nix spat. But maybe the sorcerer could. "Get Rakon, Baras!"

  "What?" Baras asked.

  "Rakon!" Nix shouted. "Get over here right now!"

  The sorcerer was still out on the glass, but not too far from them.

  "Gods, mind your tongue, Nix," Baras whispered.

  "Fak that and fak you! Rakon! Get over here! Now!"

  "My lord!" Baras shouted. "We need assistance!"

  Rakon left off what he'd been doing on the glass and made his way to the gathered men. His face looked drawn, strained. He stared down at Egil.

  "He's wounded?" Rakon asked.

  "He's poisoned," Nix said. "Same as your man, Derg. I used the enspelled jasper on your man and I don't have another. What can you do?"

  Rakon looked taken aback by Nix's directness. "What can I do?"

  "Am I unclear? What can you do to help him?"

  For a time, Rakon did not answer. Again those turning gears behind his eyes.

  "You won't like what I can do."

  "Try me."

  "There's a price."

  "Name it."

  "He's nearly gone. For him to live, someone else must die."

  "A transference," Nix said. He'd heard of such magic.

  "Yes," Rakon said. "A transference. One life for another."

  The guards shifted from foot to foot. Jyme cursed softly.

  Rakon looked meaningfully back to the campsite, a question in his raised eyebrows.

  Nix, too, looked back to the campsite, licked his thin lips.

  Rakon put a voice to Nix's thoughts.

  "Derg may not live anyway. He's not as strong as the priest. You may have given him the jasper too late. Were he the object of the transference…"

&nb
sp; Rakon trailed off, the dark possibility dangling before Nix.

  "What are we talking about here?" Baras asked.

  Rakon continued. "If you'd have known, if you'd have been asked to choose, you'd have chosen Egil."

  "Of course I'd have chosen Egil," Nix said.

  But Egil hadn't chosen Egil. That was the rub. The priest had known what he was doing and had made his decision. That's why he'd asked Nix if he had another stone.

  Alms. Grace.

  Maybe Egil was a real priest, after all.

  But Nix wasn't. He tried to reconcile what he wanted to do with what he knew he should do.

  "Nix…" Baras said, perhaps understanding at last.

  "I already told you to shut up, Baras," Nix said. "Just keep your mouth shut. You have nothing to say here."

  "These are the choices life forces us to make," Rakon said, though Nix wasn't entirely sure whether he was talking to Nix or to himself. "We do what we must for the ends we desire. It's why I put a spellworm in your guts. It's why you'd kill Derg."

  "I won't allow Derg to be murdered for the priest," Baras said.

  The other guards nodded, murmured agreement.

  "Wait, is that what you're saying, Nix?" Jyme asked.

  "You'd do exactly as I command," Rakon said to Baras.

  "My lord!" Baras said, appalled.

  "I haven't said anything," Nix said. "But you couldn't stop me if I wanted to do it. All of you couldn't stop me."

  "It's wrong, Nix," Baras said.

  Nix looked up and glared at him. "I know it's wrong! But Egil dying is wrong! I won't have it, Baras! I need another option–"

  An idea struck him, a divine bolt of inspiration perhaps. He jumped to his feet and whirled on Rakon.

  "You said someone has to die? What about one of those things, one of the Vwynn? You said they were the descendants of the people who lived here once. That means they'll work for the transference, yeah?"

  Rakon raised his eyebrows, nodded after a long pause. "Yes. But then–"

  "I'll get one," Nix said.

  "Get one?" Baras asked. "What do you mean?"

  "Fakking follow along, Baras," Nix snapped. "There are thousands of them just beyond these ruins."

  "Thousands?" Jyme asked.

  "No," Rakon said.

  "No?" Nix rose and went nose to nose with the sorcerer. The spellworm roiled his guts. Not even Baras tried to move him away. "I'm going to get one. I'll bring it back and you'll cast your transference."

  "You're going to go get one of those things?" Jyme asked, incredulous.

  "I forbid it," Rakon said. "You can enter Abn Thuset's tomb alone, retrieve the horn alone. I don't need the priest."

  "I need him," Nix said.

  "Stop him, Baras," Rakon ordered.

  Baras made no move toward Nix. "He seems determined, my lord."

  "I'll kill him if I have to," Nix said to Rakon. He looked at Baras. "I'll kill you, Baras. No offense."

  Jyme put a hand on Baras's shoulder, restraining him. "Not your fight."

  "I'm telling you that you cannot leave," Rakon said.

  "And I'm telling you to fak yourself. I'm leaving."

  With that, Nix turned and walked toward the road. He'd take it back through the mountain of ruins, capture one of the Vwynn from the thousands lurking outside, and bring it back.

  "Stop," Rakon said.

  Nix's legs felt leaden almost immediately. He lifted one, then another. He tasted bile, felt nausea rising. He fought it, sought the hidey-hole he'd made for himself.

  I'm Nix Fall of Dur Follin.

  He thought of his days prowling the Heap, and took a step.

  I'm Nix Fall of Dur Follin's Warrens.

  He thought of Mamabird and took another.

  He felt as if he was dragging boulders, but he kept walking. He reached the road. Vomit rushed up his throat and he puked in a spray before him.

  "I… will… keep… going."

  "My lord," Baras said.

  "Shut up, Baras," Rakon snapped. "It'll stop you, Nix."

  "It… might… kill… me," Nix said.

  He thought of the old man he'd stabbed for bread and took another step. "But… it… damned… well… won't… stop… me!"

  "I cannot have it, Nix. My sisters."

  "My brother," Nix spat in answer. "Now loosen the compulsion or kill me, sorcerer. If Egil dies, I will not enter the tomb. I promise you that. I'll die first. And then so will your sisters. And even though they want you dead, I know you don't want them dead."

  He glared at Rakon, wobbly on his numb legs, his hands slack and heavy at his sides.

  The sorcerer stared at him, eyes narrowed. The guards looked on wide-eyed, gazes moving from Rakon to Nix, Nix to Rakon.

  "Loosen it!" Nix demanded. "Or everything you've done will go for nothing."

  Rakon's thin lips tightened, the gears turning between his snake eyes.

  "Let him go," Jyme said. "Gods. He's owed the chance."

  Rakon glared at Jyme, then at Nix.

  "My lord," Baras said, "if any of us can get one of those things and bring it back, it's him."

  Rakon stared at Baras, then at Nix. "Go, then," he said, and the sorcerer's willingness to release him loosened the pressure holding Nix in place. His body recovered immediately from the nausea and pain.

  "You're still bound to me, Nix," Rakon said. "This is a just a temporary loosening of the compulsion. You bring one back – alive – and I'll kill it to save your priest."

  Nix nodded at Baras and Jyme, turned and started to head off.

  "Wait!" Baras called. "I'll help you. Least I can do for… everything."

  Nix shook his head. "You'd be in my way, Baras. Nothing personal."

  With that, Nix put the hilt of his falchion in one hand and the hilt of his punch dagger in the other and headed off. The ruined tumble of stones bordered the road closely to either side, almost a tunnel cutting through the ruins that circumscribed the sea of glass. He hugged the deeper darkness to one side of the road.

  Ahead, the ring of ruins ended, opened onto the wider expanse of stones and rubble that littered the plains beyond. He felt exposed the moment he crept out of the tunnel and into the moonlit ruins. Crouched low, he darted to his right and sheltered behind a megalith. There, he listened.

  He heard movement out in the darkness, first from one direction, then from another: the scrabble of a claw over stone, the low growl of a Vwynn, the crunch of weight on the rocks. In his mind's eye, he saw the thousands of Vwynn he and Egil had seen from their perch atop the ruins. Thinking of their numbers accelerated his heart, but he pushed the fear down. He needed only one.

  The wind blew from east to west, a steady breeze that whined over the rubble. He put his face into it and prowled the darkness, moving in silence, hugging the jagged hummocks of stone, all eyes and ears. He didn't have long to wait before he encountered the Vwynn.

  Movement ahead froze him: a low growl, a curious chuffing. He licked his lips and moved forward in a crouch, hands tight and aching around his blade hilts. Lurking in the shadows of a towering pyramidal stone, he crept toward the sound until he saw the source – two Vwynn, idling at the base of a low hillock of jumbled stones.

  He watched the scaled, inhuman demons for a time, fascinated and disgusted. The slits of their nostrils pulsed wetly with each breath and they seemed to communicate in a guttural, clicking tongue. They kept their eyes on the ring of ruins, beyond which was the caravan and the sea of glass.

  He circled wide around. He spotted more Vwynn within easy earshot, dozens of them, some in groups of five and six, others perched singly and in pairs atop megaliths, their silhouettes dark and sharp in Minnear's light. All of them eyed the ruins, a demonic congregation of the faithful.

  He would have to quick. They'd be upon him fast if they heard anything.

  He stalked back to the original pair he'd spotted, went around to the opposite side of the hillock and belly-crawled up it. When he reached the t
op and glanced down, he saw that they remained where they'd been. He waited for the wind to put a dark cloud in front of Minnear. When it did and the darkness deepened, he rose, tensed, and leaped down.