by James Evans
Krant, his eyes wet with tears from the pain of his snapped ribs and the humiliation of being robbed in broad daylight, said nothing. Clinging to his servant for support, he staggered the short distance to the inn and collapsed onto a bench in the courtyard. Gavelis handed the horse to the stable boy then helped Krant inside and up to their room.
Later, bathed and fed and with his wounds bound and dressed, Krant sat on the bed while Gavelis busied himself around the room.
“Your intervention, Gavelis, was very much appreciated,” said Krant, wincing and gasping at the pain in his chest, “and you have my thanks.”
“You are most welcome, sir, but I blame myself. I think we must journey together from now on to prevent further mishap.”
“That sounds like a very good idea, Gavelis,” said Krant, lying back on the bed and closing his eyes as the wine dulled the pain in his chest, “and then you can tell me all about that little toy you have and how it works.”
Gavelis said nothing and seconds later Krant began to snore.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MARRINEK PUSHED OPEN the apothecary’s door and walked in to the small shop. It was crowded with shelves of drawers and jars and it smelt of a dozen different herbs and spices.
A tall, thin woman of indeterminate age sat at a counter at the back of the shop, reading a small book. As Marrinek approached, she closed the book and stood up.
“Good morning, sir, how can I help you today?” She spoke quietly in a voice that seemed strangely educated and out-of-place amongst the grim and crowded streets of the Narrows. Marrinek looked at her, unable to gauge her age, and decided that she was definitely a woman of talent.
“I have a problem of a somewhat delicate nature,” he said, leaning on Bone Dancer, “and I hope you will be able to give me something for it.”
She took a deep breath and settled her expression into one of polite and neutral interest.
“Take a seat,” she said, pointing at a stool beside the counter, “and tell me all. There are certainly things I can offer if you are having difficulties in the bedroom.”
“The bedroom?” Marrinek was briefly confused, “Ah, no, not that sort of ‘delicate’ problem. It’s more, well, maybe I should just tell you.”
He sat down on the stool, leant Bone Dancer against the counter and then turned to face the apothecary.
“Can I trust you to be discreet?”
“Of course. Everything you say here will be in complete confidence, unless I think you’re planning an evil act or have committed some heinous crime, in which case I’ll incapacitate you and summon the Watch.” She smiled, all innocent, as she said it but Marrinek didn’t doubt her sincerity.
“It’s nothing like that,” he said, hoping to reassure her, “well, not quite. I’m not really sure how to put this but I was, er, well. I was arrested and imprisoned - falsely, I promise - and they fed me something in my food to suppress my talent.”
The apothecary looked at him, peering closely at his eyes.
“When did you last take the drug?”
“About a week ago, maybe nine days. I’m fine most of the time but then, every now and again, I try to focus a little power and the nausea returns. Sometimes it’s so bad I can’t stand and I see spots before my eyes.”
“You don’t know what it was you were fed?”
Marrinek shook his head.
“Sorry, no. Does that make a difference?”
The apothecary sucked at her teeth.
“Maybe. Don’t know. It would be better to know for sure. How long were you forced to take this substance?”
“About two years, give or take.”
“Two years? That’s a long time to take a drug like this. Some of these substances can have permanent effects on the body or the mind. Have you been able to use your talent since you stopped taking the drugs?”
“Yes,” said Marrinek, now severely worried, “but sometimes it just doesn’t happen the way I expect it to.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said the apothecary, shaking her head, “if you can still access your talent then the damage probably isn’t permanent.”
She looked at him for a long moment then leant over the counter to pull up his eyelid.
“Look down at the floor,” she instructed.
Marrinek looked at the floor as the apothecary inspected first one eye then the other.
“Focus your talent, draw as much power as you can then release it.”
Marrinek took a deep breath and did as she said, drawing and holding as much power as she could.
“Whoa, I felt that,” she said quietly, and now when Marrinek looked at her he could see fear in her eyes, “who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said shaking his head, “please, can you help me?”
He released the power and looked at her hopefully, fearing that she might give him more bad news. She stood there for a long moment, then shook her head.
“I don’t think I can,” she said, then held up her hand as Marrinek opened his mouth, “no, listen. I don’t think you need any help, I think you’ll be fine, you just have to give it time. If we knew what you’d been fed then we might have options. I could give you Hensleaf to counter Redstar or Baron’s Mixture if you’d taken Foxbane. I have a dozen other things that would counteract various inhibiting substances but without knowing what you’ve taken we would be gambling and the odds would not be good. Take the wrong counter and you’d probably be worse off.”
She shook her head again.
“I’m sorry, but sometimes the best thing I can offer is a reassuring word. Modern medicine has its limits and this is one of them.”
This wasn’t the answer Marrinek had hoped for and he didn’t even try to hide his disappointment.
“So there’s nothing I can do? I just have to live with this? For how long?”
She shrugged.
“Don’t know. Sleep, exercise, eat well. Look after yourself, in other words. Exercise your talent. You’ll probably find that the bouts of nausea become less severe and with longer gaps between attacks but it might take weeks or months for them to disappear completely.”
Marrinek stood up and took a deep breath.
“Thanks. I suppose I should be grateful that it isn’t worse. What do I owe you?”
The apothecary shook her head.
“I only charge for prescriptions and you, whoever you are, don’t need anything I sell.”
“Again, thank you.”
He bowed then turned to leave, collecting Bone Dancer on his way, and stepped back onto the street, heading for the Jewel.
“So why can’t we just force things to change? Why do we use charms?” said Floost, frowning at Marrinek from where she sat cross-legged on the floor of their suite at the Jewel.
“You can,” said Marrinek, “the use of charms is entirely optional. The problem is that the whole process becomes vastly less efficient to the point where you achieve ten or a hundred or maybe even ten thousand times as much with a charm as you could without one. So you pull more power, and more, until either you achieve your aim or you burn out your ability. Or worse.”
He paused briefly to let that settle in.
“Burnout would be a major topic if you were being formally trained but you’re strong and I haven’t time to go into the details.” The twins looked at him, clearly unconvinced and unhappy. Marrinek sighed.
“You have to be careful. If you pull too much power, too quickly, you can burn out your abilities. It happens sometimes, if people lose control or try to do too much without a charm. Effects range from immediate death to coma to simply destroying one’s mind or ability to focus power.”
The twins stared, looks of horror on their faces.
“And that’s why we use charms. They’re very efficient, so you use less power and avoid the risk of burnout. You don’t have to use charms, if you don’t want to, it’s just much, much safer.”
Marrinek held up his fist.
“Think about the
other disciplines. You’ve seen masons at work?”
The twins nodded. The city was alive with masons working stone to construct, repair or extend walls or buildings. The Duke’s programme of building and fortification was vast and ongoing and a constant stream of men and material flowed into the city to keep it going.
“It’s the same for them. The quality and type of the tools used make a big difference to the speed and quality of the work. Masons have small chisels for fine lettering and big heavy cold chisels for breaking rocks. They could use the lettering chisels to break rocks but it would take days instead of minutes. It’s the same for us. You could force enough power into something to change it without using a charm but it’s much easier to use a charm that’s appropriate to the task.”
“But we could do it, if we wanted to?” pressed Darek, leaning forward.
“Theoretically, yes, but for all normal applications it just isn’t practical. It will almost always be faster - and safer - to find a charm, or make one from scratch, than to work without one. The exception is Flow but that’s a subject for another day.”
Marrinek pulled out the flame charm.
“The next question is ‘how do we make a charm without tools?’ and it’s a good one. The simple answer is that, in general, you don’t, because it’s just not necessary and it takes too long.”
“But if it was necessary, how would you do it?” said Floost.
Marrinek paused to think.
“Right. Let’s imagine you’ve got a piece of wood that you want to harden, like Bone Dancer. The best way is to find a tool, like Chisel or Twig from the tool roll, and use it carefully to focus power into the wood, causing the structure to alter so that the wood becomes a lot harder. If you don’t have a tool - pass me that length of oak - it can be done but it takes a lot longer and you have to focus a lot more power.”
Marrinek put down the flame charm and held the piece of oak in both hands.
“Watch the power.”
He focussed, drawing power until he had enough to begin altering the wood. After a few minutes, he stopped.
“What did you see?”
Floost said, “The power was just flowing into the wood, like a river falling into a cave. Did that harden the whole piece?”
Marrinek smiled and shook his head.
“Not even close. That was a lot of power and all it did was harden the last inch or so.” He rapped the foot-long piece of wood on the floor.
“Now let’s see what happens when I use a tool instead.”
He pulled Chisel from the roll and held it over the oak, focussing power. This time he moved the tool quickly over the surface of the wood, directing power into the oak through the charm. He stopped when he had worked the length of the piece several times with the tool and held it up for the twins to see.
“That’s done the whole piece, although if I spent more time on it I could make it harder still. This is why we use tools.”
He tossed the oak to Floost and picked up the fire charm, making it glow gently.
“Find a piece of wood, Darek. We will practise sensing the flow of power.”
The twins groaned but Marrinek just raised his eyebrows and looked down his nose at them.
“Begin. Tell me if you sense the power.”
For an hour they practised but without success. Finally, Marrinek called a halt.
“We will practise this again tomorrow but now I want you to try to light the fire charm.”
The twins sat up, their interest renewed at the suggestion of practical activity.
“To produce a flame, you must pull power and focus it into the charm. This simple exercise will teach you the rudiments of power manipulation. Once mastered, you can proceed to learn ever finer degrees of control, and once you reach a certain point you can begin to learn more complicated and demanding applications. Everything, though, comes down to focus and control; you must learn to feel the power and direct it. Without focus your will draw no power and achieve no effect and without control the power you draw won’t do what you want it to do.”
Marrinek held up the fire charm, focussed, and produced a small flame.
“To do this I focus a small amount of power. If I want a larger flame,” the flame grew as he spoke until it was six inches tall and bright enough to cast shadows, even in the daylight, “or a brighter light I focus more power. If I want a big flame and bright light I change the way I focus the power, and if I want heat without light I change again.”
He extinguished the flame and handed the charm to Darek.
“Clear your mind. Close your eyes and picture a blank, empty space in your mind. Breathe deeply and slowly. You too Floost - this is an exercise you can practise without having a charm.”
Darek sat cross-legged on the floor next to Floost, the charm held out in front of him, breathing deeply with his eyes closed. Floost copied him. Marrinek kept talking in a slow, low, comforting voice.
“Breathe evenly, be calm and at peace. You remember what the flow of power felt like when I focussed on the charm? Empty your mind and picture the fire charm in your hand. Feel the fire charm, remember the feel of power flowing into the charm, feel a trickle of power flowing again into the charm.”
When the clock on the nearby guild house struck midday Marrinek held up his hand.
“That’s enough. Floost, you take the charm and try.”
For another hour they repeated the exercises, Marrinek talking quietly, the twins trying to feel the power flowing into the charm.
“Right, we’ll stop there,” he said eventually, “I will buy another fire charm today so that you can both practise at the same time.”
He stood up and stretched, easing his sore muscles.
“We’re going out. I need to speak to Madame Duval and we need to make some arrangements. Tidy your things away, you’re coming with me today.”
While the twins tidied the room Marrinek transferred some of the coins he had taken from Hitton to his purse then packed the rest into his bag. Carrying them all was a risk but so was leaving them in the room and at least while carrying them he wouldn’t have to worry. When the twins had finished their chores Marrinek held up a small piece of metal.
“This,” he said, “is tungsten, sometimes known as power stone.” He handed the nugget to the twins.
“It’s heavy,” said Floost.
“Heavier than gold and almost as valuable. Easier to obtain, almost, but prized for its ability to hold power, to store vast quantities in fact, and then to release it very rapidly. Like the lead I added to Bone Dancer, but much more effective. With this you could power a charm so that even an untalented person could use it. You could work it into a building to power a lamp or into a fireplace to provide heat. With the right charm and a power net this metal can do almost anything you can imagine.”
He placed it on the table and pulled out the small nugget of gold, setting it down alongside the tungsten.
“Not as dense as tungsten but still an excellent reservoir of power. The reason gold coins are so rare is that it is too valuable to use as mere currency. Most gold that comes out of the earth ends up in weapons like Bone Dancer or other, more exotic tools.”
He put both nuggets into his purse.
“And here’s the clever bit. Copper can be used to pull power from the atmosphere. If you attach a net of copper wire to a nugget of heavy metal - lead, gold or tungsten, for example - it will siphon power into the metal where it remains until you pull it out again. The bigger the net, the more power it draws. Very useful.”
Marrinek stood up and checked his dagger, then picked up the shock cannon, Drake and stuffed it into his pocket. He slung his pack over his shoulder.
“Right, let’s get going. In public, you need to behave like respectful apprentices, so walk just behind me and if I call for you or tell you to do something you do it right away. No messing around.”
He opened the door and led them out onto the hallway then down through the inn. The lunchtime tr
ade was in full flow and the common room was filling with hungry and thirsty people. Outside, the street was busy with the usual mix of people and market stalls and animals. Floost and Darek fell-in behind Marrinek, bouncing along at his heels as he made his way through the crowd. Progress was rapid; Marrinek’s unusual height, the staff he carried and the bizarre way that he wore his hair marked him as a foreigner and even in this cosmopolitan trading city the crowds often parted ahead of him.
As they drew close to the House of Duval he stopped and turned to speak to the twins, drawing them under the overhanging roof of a tailor’s shop.
“Keep your eyes open while we are here. Make a note of everyone who comes and goes, their class and clothes, wealth and bearing. Madame Duval will help us while her interests align with ours but she isn’t a friend.”
The twins nodded
“Is it safe?” asked Floost uncertainly.
“Yes, mostly,” said Marrinek, already turning to head back onto the street, “insofar as anywhere is safe.”
He led them onto Eastside Bath and along the street to Madame Duval’s.
Shad ushered them into the hallway and closed the door carefully behind them. The house was quiet - no music floated down the stairs, there was no laughter from above, not even the floorboards creaked - and even the sounds of the street were dulled as Shad barred the door.
“Madame Duval is in the back room,” said Shad, leading the way down the hall and through the door at the end. He stopped outside another door at the end of a short corridor lined with oak panels, quiet and dark. He knocked twice, then opened the door and ushered Marrinek in.
“You two stay out here,” said Marrinek, gesturing at a pair of tall chairs, “and keep out of trouble. Read something and practice your exercises.” Then he stepped through the doorway and left them alone. Shad looked them over, then retreated back to his chair in the hallway.
In the back room, Madame Duval sat on a small mat in the middle of the floor, her eyes closed. She opened them and looked up as Marrinek raised an eyebrow.
