by Ken Scholes
Beyond that, what did it matter? There were two kings on the field, both having kin-clave with the fallen city. And both men were competent-albeit different-leaders.
You’ve seen what you came to see. Go home now. Return to your boat and your nets and your quiet life.
He turned away from the blasted plain below him, recovered his reins, and then turned back.
“There’s nothing here that I can do,” Petronus said out loud. “It’s not my place.”
But in his heart he knew it was a lie.
Jin Li Tam
Jin Li Tam knew they were close when the boy stopped. The magicks had not only enhanced her speed and her strength, but also her sight and her sense of smell. The trade-off was the buzzing in her ears and the shifting headache. Her father had seen to it that she was trained in all manner of subterfuge, including the use of stealth magick even though it was considered unseemly for a noble to use the Elder Ways.
She looked at the boy when he stopped, and what she saw raised the fine hair on her forearms. Alternating waves of anger and relief washed his face, and he kept looking behind them, pulling at the string.
“We’re nearly there,” she said in a low voice. “Keep moving.”
Then he d Smannt›id the unexpected. His hand snaked out, catching the magick pouch that dangled from her neck and tugging it so hard that the cord snapped. With his other hand, he snapped the silk thread that bound him to her. She reached out to grab him, but he was already running back toward the camp.
Cursing beneath her breath, Jin Li Tam followed him. She knew that she could catch him easily, but the sky above proclaimed the cusp of morning and every minute she spent going in the wrong direction was a minute closer to being caught. But she couldn’t leave the boy knowing what Sethbert’s state of mind was. She moved quickly after him.
She overtook him and caught his shoulder, spinning him around and to the ground. She pounced on him. “I don’t know what you’re playing at,” she whispered, “but nothing good awaits you there.”
He struggled against her, his mouth working and his eyes rolling.
I should’ve drugged him and carried him, she thought. He’s less well than I thought.
“I think,” a new voice said low in her ear, “that you should release the boy now and stand up slowly.” She felt the cold steel tip of a knife pressed in against her ribs, near the back of her heart.
She released the boy and did as she was told. Shadow hands grabbed the boy and pulled him to his feet. More hands gripped her and held her away from him.
A shadow face leaned in to hers. She could make out the blond stubble on the chin and could smell the roast pork on his breath. A single blue eye took form just inches from her own eye.
Another whisper cut the night, drifting across the forest. “What do you have there, Deryk?”
Jin stayed quiet.
“A woman and a boy.” The blue eye blinked. “She’s magicked, too.”
Another shadow slipped into the clearing. Jin Li Tam carefully looked around. She could see the patches in the soft forest loam where their boots were-or at least had been. She could pick out the faintest breeze as they shifted around her. But the magicks held, and unless they were inches apart, she could not see them. Still, standard Academy tactics suggested a half-squad loosely surrounded her.
She looked at the boy. He seemed unafraid. The pouch he’d taken from her was nowhere to be seen, and she wondered if he’d hidden it in his shirt. If so, they’d find it soon enough.
“The boy looks familiar to me,” the voice said again. “Aren’t you the lad we brought down from the ridge? The one with the wago S wir tn?”
The boy nodded.
The voice moved now across the clearing to Jin’s side. Hands fumbled with the hood of her cloak. “And who do we have here?”
Another eye appeared near her face-this one brown and speckled with green. It widened and he gasped. “Well this is a surprise.” A smile formed in the shadow.
“You’d do well to release us now and go about your business,” Jin Li Tam said, her voice barely above a whisper.
The scout captain laughed. “I don’t think you’ll convince us of that, Lady Tam… no matter how persuasive your courtesan ways may be.”
Jin Li Tam relaxed the muscles in her shoulders and in her arms; she willed her legs to unlock. “I can be very persuasive.”
The sky was purpling now, and she knew that when the sun rose, what little of the scout magicks that remained would be half as effective. There was no time for preferred strategies in the face of this present crisis.
“I’m sure you can-”
She dropped before he could finish his sentence, and as she fell to her knees, she flicked her wrist and felt the small knife’s handle fall into the palm of her hand. Pitching forward, she ran the knife once around the back of his boot as she rolled toward the boy. As she came up, her hand wove the air, the blade slipping in and out of cloth as she cut where the magicked scouts should be if they were following their own field guides. The howls told her she was not far from the mark.
The one behind her-the one whose knife had pressed into her back-growled and lunged forward, knocking her over. And then she was all knees and elbows, whipping the cloak around his knife hand as she brought her own blade up to the side of his throat.
“Be still,” she said. “You don’t have to die here today.”
But he moved and she didn’t give it a second thought. Father trained his daughters very well indeed. Pulling herself into a crouch, she looked around the clearing. She could smell the blood and she could see the wet patches of black on the gray shadows that lay groaning and thrashing on the ground.
The boy was gone now. She could hear him running full on for the Entrolusian camp, and she knew that she could catch him. But what would she do when she did? The look on his face spoke to more than just having left something valuable behind. It spoke of compelling need, of resolution, of a decision being made.
She would let him run. But she would also do what she could to protect him right here, right now. It didn’t matter that the injured scouts had recognized her-she would be under Rudolfo’s offered protection in a matter of hours. But they had also recognized the boy. And for whatever reason, the boy was returning to Sethbert’s care.
One by one, speaking quiet words of reassurance to the hamstrung scouts, she moved from man to man and cut each throat with careful, practiced precision.
She wiped the blood from her knife onto a twitching, silk-clad corpse and stood, facing west. Then she ran, and the thought came to her again, unbidden but true:
Father trained his daughters very well indeed.
Chapter 7
Rudolfo
It took less than two hours for the apprentice to teach Isaak his trade. When Rudolfo returned to his tent, the metal man sat at the table, sifting through the pouch of tools and scrolls, and the man was gone.
“Do you know enough?” Rudolfo asked.
Isaak looked up. “Yes, Lord.”
“Do you want to kill him yourself?”
Isaak’s eyelids fluttered, his metal ears tilted and bent. He shook his head. “No, Lord.”
Rudolfo nodded and shot Gregoric a look. Gregoric returned the nod grimly and left in silence.
The bird had returned in less than an hour. His question had gone unanswered. Sethbert’s reply had been terse: Return to me the man you took. Surrender the servitor that destroyed Windwir.
He’d had an hour to ponder the why. Ambition? Greed? Fear? The Androfrancines could have ruled the world with their magicks and mechanicals, yet they hid in their city, sent out their archeologists and scholars to dig and to learn, to understand the present through the past… and to protect that past for the future. In the end, he found it didn’t matter so much why the City States and their mad Overseer had ended that work. What mattered was that it never happen again.
“Are you okay, Isaak?”
“I grieve, Lord. And I rage.�
�
“Aye. Me, too.”
A scout cleared his voice outside. “Lord Rudolfo?”
He looked up. “Yes?”
“A woman met the forward scouts west of Sethbert’s camp, Lord. She came magicked and asking for your protection under the Providence of Kin-Clave.”
He smiled but there was no satisfaction in it. Maybe later, when all of this unpleasantness had passed. “Very well. Prepare her for travel.”
“Lord?”
“She is to be escorted to the seventh manor. You leave within the hour. The metal man goes with her. Select and magick a half-squad to assist you.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“And fetch me my raven.” Rudolfo fell back into the cushions, exhaustion washing over him.
“Lord Rudolfo?” The metal man struggled to his feet, his damaged leg sparking. “Am I leaving you?”
“Yes, Isaak, for a bit.” He rubbed his eyes. “I wish for you to start that work we spoke of. When I am finished here, I will bring you help.”
“Is there anything I can do here, Lord?”
He doesn’t wish to go, Rudolfo realized. But he was too tired to find words of explanation. And the metal man brought something out in him-something like compassion. He couldn’t bear to tell him that he was simply too dangerous a weapon to have on the battlefield. Rudolfo rubbed his eyes again and yawned. “Pack your tools, Isaak. You’re leaving soon.”
The metal man packed, then swung the heavy pouch over his shoulder. Rudolfo climbed to his feet.
“The woman you will be traveling with is Jin Li Tam of House Li Tam. I would have you bear a message to her.”
Isaak said nothing, waiting.
“Tell her she chose well and that I will come to her when I am finished here.”
“Yes, Lord.”
Rudolfo followed Isaak out of the tent. His raven awaited, its feathers g [itsn="lossy and dark as a wooded midnight. He took it from the scout’s steady hands.
“When you reach the seventh manor,” he told his scout, “tell my steward there that Isaak-the metal man-bears my grace.”
The scout nodded once and left. Isaak looked at Rudolfo. His mouth opened and closed; no words came out.
Rudolfo held the raven close, stroking its back with his finger. “I will see you soon, Isaak. Start your work. I’ll send the others when I’ve freed them. You’ve a library to rebuild.”
“Thank you,” the metal man finally said.
Rudolfo nodded. The scout and the metal man left. Gregoric returned, wiping the apprentice’s blood from his hands.
“Sethbert wants his man back,” Rudolfo said.
“I’ve already seen to it, Lord.”
Somewhere on the edge of camp, Rudolfo thought, a stolen pony ambled its way home bearing a cloth-wrapped burden. “Very well. Magick the rest of your Gypsy Scouts.”
“I’ve seen to that as well, Lord.”
He looked at Gregoric and felt a pride that burned brighter than his grief or his rage. “You’re a good man.”
Rudolfo pulled a thread from the sleeve of his rainbow robe. This time, no other message. This time, no question. He tied the scarlet thread of war to the foot of his darkest angel. When he finished, he whispered no words and he did not fling his messenger at the sky. It leaped from his hands on its own and sped away like a black arrow. He watched it fly until he realized Gregoric had spoken.
“Gregoric?” he asked.
“You should rest, Lord,” the chief of his Gypsy Scouts said again. “We can handle this first battle without you.”
“Yes, I should,” Rudolfo said. But he knew there would be time enough for rest-perhaps even a lifetime of rest-after he won the war.
Neb
The Entrolusian camp was as at second alarm when Neb slipped back into his tent. He’d run when the woman attacked the scouts, but he’d seen enough to know she was not the typical noble. The magicks had concealed most of her movement, but it was as if a violent wind had rolle [winow d across the clearing. Over his shoulder, he heard men shouting and falling, and a part of him wanted to go back and make sure the woman truly was okay. But she seemed the sort to take care of herself and that meant he needed to get as far away from her as he could. Now that he knew what must be done, he couldn’t afford to let her take him away from Sethbert, no matter how good her intentions might be.
The genocide of the Androfrancine Order hung upon the Overseer’s head and Neb meant to hold him to justice for it. He hid the pouch of stolen magicks. He’d seen the lady use them-the casting seemed easy enough.
He pretended to wake up when the serving woman entered with fresh clothing and a platter of breakfast. She placed the clothing at the foot of his cot and the food on the table, then curtsied at the door. She looked like she wanted to say something, and Neb watched her. Finally, she spoke. “I’ve just come from the officers’ mess. Word is that Rudolfo’s war-raven arrived this morning. There was a raid last night. An Androfrancine was taken right from his tent as he slept. The Overseer’s Lady, Jin Li Tam, was taken as well. And a half-squad of our scouts were butchered west of camp. These are dangerous days, boy. I’d stay close to the tent if I were you.”
He nodded. After she left, he wondered about the Androfrancine. He’d seen glimpses of him-he wore the robes of an apprentice, colored in the drab brown of the Office for Mechanical Study. He wondered if he’d been taken or if he’d left. And the thought of the dead scouts made his stomach sink. At least he was confident she’d gotten away from them. When he’d run, he’d not looked back but he’d also not had any doubt in her ability to protect herself.
Not only was she one of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen-tall, with copper hair that threw back the sunlight and piercing blue eyes and alabaster skin, lightly freckled in the waning second summer. But now it seemed she was also the most lethal.
Neb moved to the table and ate a breakfast of eggs and rice, chased with a crisp apple cider and a wedge of cheddar cheese. While he ate, he plotted the assassination of the man who killed his father.
He’d never really thought about killing anyone before. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He had thought about it once about two years ago, but it was a brief thought. He’d been thirteen then and the Gray Guard had come to the school to make their annual round for recruits.
He was a big man, a captain named Grymlis, standing tall and broad in his dress gray cap, cloak, trousers and jacket-offset starkly by the black shirt. The blue thread of inquiry woven together with the white thread of kin-clave formed the jacket and trouser piping. The long, slender sword flashed silver as he whipped it in the air.
The orphans fell back, gasping, and the tip of the sword hung in the air, pointed at one of the larger boys. “What about you?”
The boy’s mouth opened and closed.
“Could you kill a man?”
The boy shot a frightened look to Headmaster Tobel, where he stood near Arch-Scholar Demtras and a few of the teachers. “I’m not… I’m-”
But the Gray Guard captain growled and whipped the sword again. “P’Andro Whym said that one death is a burning library of knowledge and experience,” the captain said. “P’Andro Whym said that to take another’s life is a graver error than ignorance.” He laughed, whipping the sword around, his eyes passing over the assembled boys. “But remember this, boys: He also said that above all things, guard knowledge that it might protect you on the path of change.” The sword whipped past Neb close enough that he’d felt the wind from it.
“And in early days of the Laughing Madness,” the guard said, quoting the Whymer Bible, “there were soldiers that came to P’Andro Whym in his shattered crystal garden dome and inquired of him-”
— What must we do? We do not read, nor do we cipher, and yet we are compelled to protect knowledge that light might remain in the minds of men. The words unrolled in Neb’s mind, words from the Eighteenth Gospel. And P’Andro Whym looked upon them and wept at their devotion to truth and said unto them-
&
nbsp; “-Walk with my seekers, clothed in the ash of yesterday’s world, and guard ye what is found. Guard ye the founders. Raise up men who would do the same.”
The sword whipped again. This time it pointed to Neb. “What of you, boy? Would you kill for the truth? Would you kill to keep the light alive?”
Neb didn’t hesitate. “I’d die for it, sir.”
The old captain leaned in, and Neb saw the hardness in his eyes. He leaned in close enough that his bushy white beard brushed Neb’s chin. “I’ve done one but not the other,” the old guard said. “But I’d daresay the killing is harder than the dying.”
That night, Neb lay awake and thought about the old soldier. He wondered how many men that captain had killed, whether or not Neb could do it if he ever had to. He’d fallen asleep unsure and hadn’t thought about it again until now-two years later.
There were practical considerations. So far, he’d only thought about the magicks. Under the magicks, he could steal a knife or maybe even a sword. Then it was simply a matter of getting past Sethbert’s honor guard.
But then there w [t tthat he might die for justice. Until a few days ago, he’d not been able to personally claim any real injustice. Certainly, he’d spent many quieter moments wondering what his life would be like if he’d had a mother and a father-or at least, a father that he didn’t address as Brother Hebda. But it was hardly unjust-he was well cared for, educated, clothed and challenged by the best of the Androfrancine Order-a life that was only available to the Orphans of P’Andro Whym. The sons and daughters of nobility attended University in most instances, sometimes even Academy, but they never got past the first corner of the Great Library. Neb and his friends had even walked past the mechoservitor cells, heard them buzzing and clicking in the third basement.
The murder of his father, of Windwir-and, he realized, the murder of the Androfrancine Order-were injustices so massive that his heart could not contain them. It staggered his mind.
