Iron and Blood

by Auston Habershaw

  “What is that little man doing to your hand?” Hool asked, her hackles raised.

  Artus threw up his hands. “Does anybody care about Jaevis almost stabbing me?”

  Tyvian sighed. “Artus: we know Jaevis didn’t stab you in the head, and the important parts of your story are over. In fact, I’ll tell you how it ended: just before Jaevis killed you, the city watchmen found you, Jaevis backed off—­not wanting to make an enemy of the Watch—­and you got brought here where I had to pay them an exorbitant sum of money—­which, by the way, you owe me.”

  Tyvian turned to the gnoll. “Hool, this ‘little man’ is an Artificer who is trying to remove the ring from my finger so that I can more effectively help you recover your pups from the clutches of Hendrieux and, probably, Banric Sahand.” He looked at the Dohas. “You, sir, had better keep up whatever it is you’re doing because if you stop again, so help me, I will feed you to the gnoll. There! Is everybody clear, now?”

  Hool grumbled to herself and lay down on the floor, one eye trained on Dohas, who immediately began work again. Artus sat there open-­mouthed. “How’d you know how the story ended?”

  Tyvian rolled his eyes. “Hann save me.”

  Dohas put his ink brush away. “It is ready now.”

  Tyvian regarded his rune-­covered hand. “Ready for what, exactly?”

  “I will enact the spell. We will need space; it will hurt a great deal and I am uncertain exactly what will happen.”

  “You’re really taking off the ring?” Artus asked, pulling himself out of bed.

  “Yes,” Tyvian said, and looked at the Artificer. “Let’s go out on the terrace.”

  They walked through the flat, toward the open-­air terrace overlooking the length of Top Street to the south. It was snowing lightly, coating the oak planks in a thin layer of silver dust that seemed to glow in the dark. Tyvian opened the glass door and went outside, shivering against the cold. Dohas followed, as did Artus.

  Tyvian stuck out his hand, taking a deep breath and blowing it out in a cloud of condensation. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “But if you take off the ring, won’t you be a bad person again?” Artus hugged himself against the winter air, the snowflakes resting lightly on his eyelashes.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Artus—­I’ll be the same person I’ve always been, just without something biting me every time I—­”

  “But you would have killed me. You would have left me to Hool. You would have—­”

  Tyvian cut him off. “I also saved your life, remember? I picked you out of that burning spirit engine and saved your life. I saved your damned life last night, too! I didn’t have to do that, did I? Doesn’t that count for something? I’ve also fed you, dragged you along to Freegate, put up with your incessant questions, and—­”

  “You threw me out!” Artus snarled, pushing Tyvian’s sore shoulder. The smuggler fell back a pace, wincing in pain. “You left me to rot on the streets again! If you didn’t have that ring, I bet you’d’ve let me die on your doorstep rather than shell out your precious money!”

  “Dammit, Artus, I—­” The door to the terrace slammed behind the boy as he stormed inside. Tyvian’s mind raced. What if he left? What if Artus ran away, just when he most needed him?

  “The spell must be done now, before the ink fades,” Dohas cautioned. The Artificer cast off his robes, revealing his wiry, taut body to the winter air. His skin was covered with tattoos, all drawn in flowing, arabesque patterns and glowing with power. Tyvian could feel the hair on his arms standing up—­the leathery Kalsaari monk was drawing in power through his tattoos even as they spoke.

  Tyvian pushed thoughts of Artus away—­this was more important. This first, then deal with Artus later. The ring throbbed dully against his finger, hurting him, no doubt, for not going to the boy. He sneered at it. “You’ve pinched your last, trinket.” He nodded to Dohas. “Do it.”

  The skinny monk drew himself to his full height and chanted in a reedy voice, increasing his volume gradually until he was shrieking at the top of his lungs. Then, just as Tyvian began to wonder what the neighbors might think about the noise, Dohas slammed both his hands atop Tyvian’s outstretched one.

  There was a rush of hot air and an ear-­splitting bang—­had the Artificer not been clutching Tyvian’s hand with both of his, he would have fallen over from the force of it. Then came the pain—­white hot, blinding. It fell upon Tyvian’s entire body at once, as though his bones were growing barbed thorns in unison. He screamed . . . and screamed and screamed. It seemed to last forever; his entire life flashing by in an instant. He saw the face of every person he had stolen from, conned, cheated, or killed. All of them cried out his name, each voice piercing him to the quick, burning his mind like hot needles thrust through his eyes.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the pain stopped. The cold rushed back to embrace his body; he was on his knees on the terrace, his right hand cradled in his lap. He blinked the tears away from his eyes and looked down.

  The ring sat where it always had, as black and hard as an iron manacle.

  Dohas was also on his knees, his body smoldering with the heat of the ritual. “It . . . it . . . cannot be done . . .”

  Tyvian struggled to his feet. “What? What did you say?”

  “It is not fused to your body.” The Artificer’s eyes were closed, his body shivering. “It does not meld itself to flesh or bone or blood.”

  Tyvian’s heart seemed to stop. “What does it attach to, then?”

  “It is fused with your soul, Tyvian Reldamar.” Dohas opened his eyes, meeting Tyvian’s gaze. “You and the ring are one.”

  “I can still cut it off,” Tyvian said, half asking.

  The Artificer nodded. “At the price of fracturing your own self. This is an artifact beyond my arts.”

  Tyvian grabbed the wiry monk by the necklace and hoisted him to his feet. “I don’t accept it! Your order is among the finest in the world at this sort of thing, and you’re telling me you don’t know how to remove it? Someone must! Someone else among the Artificers, perhaps? Surely you aren’t the best they can offer!”

  Dohas’s voice never wavered. “I have never seen nor heard of anything fashioned by mortals that can do what this ring does. My order and my Arts can offer you nothing.”

  “Who can?”

  “I will not name them; they are creatures of legend, not to be trafficked with by mortals.”

  “Tell me!”

  “No. For your sake, no.”

  Tyvian clenched his teeth to keep from screaming in the old Kalsaari’s face. He wanted to throw the worthless charlatan off the roof, to beat him bloody, to hear him apologize for his utter failure. Instead, he only dragged Dohas inside and threw him at the feet of Hool, who was waiting for them. “Tie him up. Get him out of my sight.”

  Hool put a foot on the Artificer’s chest, but thrust a thick finger in Tyvian’s face. “You go talk to Artus now. You have made him very upset because you are stupid.”

  “I am not in the mood.” Tyvian scowled at the gnoll. To think that this beast presumed to order him about in his own home!

  Hool bared her teeth. This close, they looked like they were as long as Tyvian’s fingers. “You go and talk to him or I will make you.”

  Tyvian sighed. “Sometimes, Hool, you remind me of a nanny I once had.”

  “Good,” Hool announced, and threw Dohas over her shoulder. The Kalsaari appeared to be frozen with terror at the gnoll’s proximity. Tyvian hardly blamed him.

  “You . . .” Dohas hissed, “You leave me for the Defenders?”

  Tyvian groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Spare me the blubbering—­I have quite enough of it on my hands already.”

  The Artificer, though, didn’t look like he was going to beg. His eyes hardened instead. “The Yldd. They are known as the Yldd.”
<
br />   “The . . . the creatures of myth who can help me?” Tyvian blinked. “Wait, why tell me? Why do me the favor?”

  Dohas grinned mirthlessly. “I have done you no favor, Tyvian Reldamar. No favor at all.”

  Hool carried him away, muttering to herself about wizards and nonsense. Tyvian sighed and left to speak with Artus.

  Tyvian found the boy dragging a knife across the bedsheets in his bedroom. He couldn’t help but notice there were tears in his eyes. Feathers were floating through the room, and Tyvian spied a set of fine goose-­down pillows that had been savagely murdered not moments before. Tyvian knew he should have felt angry—­he wanted to be angry—­but he found himself only standing there and watching. Eventually, Artus noticed him in the doorway. “What? What’re you gonna do about it, huh?”

  “Nothing.” Tyvian held up his right hand. The ring gleamed dully in the lamplight.

  Artus straightened. “You didn’t take it off?”

  “The Artificer failed. Why are you destroying my bed?”

  Artus jutted out his lower lip. “ ’Cause you’re a jerk and you deserve it. You gonna kick me out?”

  “Are you going to leave?” Tyvian asked. The question hung in the air. Both of them looked at the floor.

  “I should leave,” Artus said, sitting on the ruined bed.

  “I should throw you out.”

  Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Tyvian sat in a chair Artus hadn’t gotten around to destroying. Artus looked at him. “What’s this? What’s going on?”

  Tyvian didn’t say anything. He didn’t know how to put it; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know how to put it. “How . . . how would you like another job?”

  “What, carrying your stuff again? No thanks.”

  “No, this time you’d be working on your own. I’d be relying on you to complete a very dangerous task; my life would be in your hands.”

  Artus leaned back on the bed. “How much?”

  Tyvian almost said, The forty marks you owe me for buying you off the Watch, but didn’t. He sighed. “Name your price.”

  “Five hundred.”

  Tyvian coughed. “I’ll give it to you, boy—­you aren’t shy.”

  “Take it or leave it, jerk.” Artus smiled.

  Tyvian found himself smiling back. “Fine—­it’s a deal. You’ll need some equipment before I give you instructions, though. Go in the back of my closet—­you’ll find a chest there with a bottle of perfume. Bring it out here.”

  Artus frowned. “I’m not gonna have to wear perfume, am I?”

  “It’s not really perfume.”

  Artus went into the walk-­in closet and started rummaging around. “Well, what’s it do, then?”

  “It makes you look like me.”

  Artus’s head popped out of the closet like a rabbit from a hole. “What?”

  Tyvian smiled. “After you find it, I need to teach you how to use a seekwand.”

  Artus came out with the perfume bottle in one hand, holding it up to the light. “Who am I going to find?”

  Tyvian produced a handkerchief from inside his shirt and threw it on the end table under the lamp. The monogram read TR. Artus looked at it, face blank with incomprehension. Tyvian rolled his eyes. “I forgot you can’t read—­me, Artus. You’re going to find me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  CAGE FOR A SMUGGLER

  Tyvian shifted from side to side among the plush cushions of Carlo’s coach, his hands clenched into fists on his knees.

  “Now who’s nervous?” Carlo snickered. “I told you she accepted the deal.”

  Tyvian scowled at the Verisi. “She’s going to double-­cross us, Carlo. You must know that.”

  Carlo shook his head. “No, no—­not for that she won’t.” He pointed at the drugged form of Myreon Alafarr, who was leaning against a wall of the coach, snoring through an open mouth.

  Tyvian snorted. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “If you are so certain, then why are you going?” Carlo asked, pulling out his crystal eye and polishing it.

  “A calculated risk, Carlo. Besides, I have a backup plan.”

  “Oh?” Carlo chuckled. “Do tell!”

  Tyvian produced a pair of thunder-­orbs from up his sleeve. “Courtesy of Hacklar Jaevis. Not the most elegant of emergency plans, but certainly effective.”

  Carlo shook his head, replacing his eye. “Great gods, Tyvian, you are losing your flair for the sophisticated, I’m afraid.”

  “And you are losing your keen wit. That was a wholly pedestrian insult.”

  “What happened to your face, anyway—­you look like you’ve been kicked by a horse.”

  Tyvian scowled and made a conscious effort not to touch his sore nose. The swelling had gone down, but he knew his eyes were still black and blue and his cheeks puffy. “Are we critiquing each other’s appearance now? Shall I inquire how your quest to become the world’s first spherical man is going?”

  Carlo shrugged. Then, peering through the wall of the coach, he banged on the ceiling. “Here! This is the place!”

  Tyvian climbed out and saw that they had crossed the city to the Cloth Market. Here, concentric circles of colorful awnings spread out from the broad and ornate stone fountain at the market’s center, which frothed with magically heated water. In this fountain—­the Bathsfont—­local launderers washed their clients’ clothing by the ton every day. It was late afternoon and a light snow was falling from a quiet gray sky, muffling the sounds of clothiers and seamstresses haggling price underneath heated canvas. They were situated at the market’s southern edge, and a variety of porters, couriers, and laborers lounged about the entrances to several taverns, watching them.

  Carlo emerged from the coach as well and nodded happily to the bystanders. “There, you see, Tyvian? Very public, very safe.”

  In the distance Tyvian heard the moan of a spirit engine pulling into the depot. Right on time. So long as Artus was in position . . .

  Tyvian frowned and resisted the urge to scan the streets for the boy. He knew Artus would have no trouble tailing the coach through the city, particularly with the seekwand, but he still felt the need to double-­check. He was relying a great deal on that boy to come through with his end of the plan, and it made him uncomfortable. He never liked relying on ­people whom he couldn’t entirely control, and Artus, as an adolescent, was permanently in that category. Suspicious, he allowed himself a brief look around but saw nothing. That was either good or very, very bad.

  Carlo clapped his hands and his two coachmen dragged the snoring Myreon out of the coach and put her in a wheelbarrow, which they then piled high with bolts of linen to conceal her. When they were ready, he motioned for Tyvian to follow him. “Right this way.”

  The Cloth Market was a good choice for a public meeting regarding an illicit transaction, as it was simultaneously crowded and private at the same time. Once within its winding, steam-­choked maze of awnings, clotheslines, and pavilions, one could seldom see more than a few yards ahead while, at the same time, being no more than a few feet from dozens of other ­people. The smell of clean, pressed cotton and the freshness of the falling snow was invigorating to Tyvian, as were the vibrant wares being hawked by effete Akrallian tailors, swarthy Rhondian cobblers, and burly Galaspin furriers. He took a moment to inspect some particularly impressive leather gloves before Carlo hastened him on with a scowl. Tyvian permitted himself a smile; some of his anxiety regarding the upcoming meeting faded. You know what is going to happen, he told himself. Just relax.

  “Here,” Carlo said, stopping before a pavilion of brilliant yellow and white stripes. Tyvian looked up and saw the black-­and-­gold pennant of the Kalsaari Empire hanging limply from its central pole.

  Tyvian bowed and gestured at the tent flap. “After you, Master diCarlo.”

  Carlo shook his head. “
You’re paranoid.” He flipped the tent flap open and stepped inside. Tyvian followed.

  Inside, the tent was heated by a brazier of glowing hearthstones set to one side of the hexagonal pavilion as well as four armed mark-­slaves. The floor was thickly carpeted with hand-­woven rugs, and there were four piles of cushions that Tyvian had come to identify as the Kalsaari equivalent to chairs. Two of these piles were occupied already. One held the slavemaster, Fariq, dressed in his official bloodred robes with jeweled turban and sporting the same nonsmile as he had when they first met, the night before. The other supported a man wearing an ankle-­length skirt of sorts but no shirt. He looked withered, sandy, and old—­like a piece of fruit left in the desert sun too long. His head was shaved bald and was covered with tattoos—­another Artificer, virtually identical to the one tied up in Tyvian’s living room. What a coincidence . . .

  Fariq stood and bowed low. “Many stupendous welcomes, most intelligent and magnanimous sirs. The most gracious Hanim offers her apologies for her lack of attendance, but assures you that I, the humble Fariq, may execute our dealings with faith and efficiency. Please sit.”

  Carlo sat, but Tyvian did not. “Ah, Frumar—­excellent. I was hoping we would meet again.”

  Fariq’s pointed beard twitched slightly at the mangling of his name. “I am, likewise, most pleased. To business?”

  Carlo opened his mouth to speak, but Tyvian cut him off. “That’s what I like about you, Famak—­no small talk. Let’s to brass tacks, then. I imagine this man on your right is the Artificer I requested to see?”

  Fariq nodded. “He is.”

  “Does he speak for himself?”

  The Artificer was staring at Tyvian, no visible expression on his weathered face. Fariq answered for him. “My infinite apologies, sir. He does not deign to speak to Westerners.”

  Tyvian snorted. “Puts a bit of a crimp in our deal, doesn’t it?”

  Fariq shook his head rapidly. “No, no—­of course not! He will speak to my humble person, and I will of course relay his words with accuracy.”