Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  The light coming in from the room above vanished as the guard shut the door behind us. More shone up from below, but it was faint. I could sense my night vision coming to life as we descended.

  A small taper burned in a sconce at the bottom—not enough to blind me, but enough to hurt. I averted my eyes as Raaz opened another door, this time not even bothering with a key.

  The room beyond was long and low, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling extending off into the darkness on either side. It felt more like a tunnel than a room. Between the columns, deep alcoves had been built into the walls, easily the height of a man and four to five times as wide. A wine vault, if I had to guess, except without the wine.

  A pair of clay oil lanterns sat on the stone floor. They were already lit. Otherwise, the space was empty. I blinked in the light and lingered in the doorway, letting my eyes burn and adjust.

  “Please, come in,” said Raaz, this time in Imperial.

  Fowler entered, looked around the space, and nodded. I came through.

  “You have to understand,” said Raaz as he stepped forward, putting himself between the far wall and the lamps, casting two shadows. “Jelem is . . . not a favored person in Djan, and especially not in el-Qaddice. Since you’re delivering something of his, we have to be careful. To be found in possession of messages or packages from one cast out as Jelem has been is dangerous indeed. We have to be careful.”

  “We?” said Fowler, placing her hand on the hilt of her long knife. I didn’t discourage her. “I don’t see any ‘we’ here beyond us.”

  “I say this so that you understand what I do next is a precaution, and not a slight against you, O Sheikh of the Kin.”

  My hand went to my own blade now. “What precautions?” I said, peering into the darkness on either side. The amber of my night vision was, at best, a washed-out gold hovering on the edges of things in this light, but it was still enough to see that dark space beyond the lamps were empty. “When people start making speeches about ‘precautions’ and ‘slights,’ I get worried. For that matter, I don’t much like it when the people I’m supposed to meet aren’t where I’m supposed to meet them. Those kinds of things usually mean blood.” I turned back to Raaz and cleared a hand-span of steel. “Where are your elders, Mouth? Where are your magi?”

  Raaz’s eyes narrowed in the dimness. “I said nothing of magi.”

  “No, but others did, and I’m not about to think for a moment that you’d go through all this just so I could talk to a couple of tribal elders.”

  Raaz looked from me to Fowler and back again. Then he nodded. “Jelem said you were sly. Yes, you are going to speak to members of the Majim—two of them. Both are sympathetic to Jelem’s plight.”

  “And what plight is that, exactly?” This was starting to sound a hell of a lot more complex than a simple banishment.

  “I cannot say. You have to understand that you’re dealing with Djanese politics now, and that you’re not of our tribe or clan. While Jelem spoke well of you, we cannot trust you fully in this—there is no blood or bond between us. Hence, our precautions.”

  “And yet, despite this . . . gap . . . between us, your masters are willing to help me get into the Old City. Isn’t that just as hazardous?”

  Raaz let loose a soft laugh. “There are hazards and there are hazards, O Sheikh. What others see as an obstacle, the Majim see as an inconvenience. But don’t assume you will get what you want: My masters have only agreed to speak with you. They will hear you and they will make their decision based on many things, not just your needs. Or theirs.”

  I took a deep breath, let it out. The place smelled of damp and dust and mold, and at least two of those things seemed out of place in Djan. I knew exactly how they must feel.

  “All right,” I said, sliding my sword home. “Take you precautions and let’s get on with this.”

  “As you wish.”

  Raaz turned to face the wall and spread his arms wide, causing his two shadows to look as if they were linking hands, speaking softly as he did. It wasn’t Djanese, but I recognized it—if you could call having heard the same rhythms and sounds pass Jelem’s lips “recognition.”

  As we watched, Raaz’s two shadows began to shift and change. One seemed to grow shorter and broader, while the other took on a more willowy shape. The lamps flickered, making the shadows dance, adding to the sense of change. One—the leaner form on the right—was clearly a woman’s silhouette, with long flowing hair and sharp shoulders. The other shadow had grown a bulge on top I recognized as a turban, as well as a thickness around the neck that could have signified a beard.

  They were moving independently of the Mouth now, but still following the general flow of his movements. When his arm fell, their arms fell, but at their own pace, and each stopped in a different position: one on a hip, the other folded in at the side. When he swayed left, they moved left—only one stepped, and the other leaned.

  The lamps flickered again. This time, the light’s movement didn’t affect the shadows at all. It was clear that someone else was casting the shadows now—someone not remotely near this room.

  Fowler leaned in next to me. “Has Jelem ever . . . ?”

  “Not that I’ve seen,” I said.

  “Huh,” she said.

  Raaz cast a dirty look over his shoulder while still murmuring the incantations. We shut up.

  A minute or two later, Raaz stopped speaking. He dropped his arms, bowed to the shadows, and then turned to us.

  “May I present . . . well, the people you wished to speak to, I suppose,” he said, flashing the hint of a grin. “You will understand if I don’t use names, O Sheikh of the Dark Paths.”

  “For your sake, or mine?”

  “Let us say ‘both’ for now; it sounds more caring, yes?”

  I smiled despite myself and turned to the shadows.

  They were completely distinct now—two independent silhouettes on a wall where different shadows should be. One—the man—waved jauntily, while the woman’s shape seemed to cross her arms and wait. She might have been only a shadow, but I could see impatience writ large in the outline of her body language.

  I looked down, curious, and saw that each patch of darkness still extended from the base of Raaz’s feet to the wall. He followed my gaze and nodded.

  “Yes, I’m still casting them,” he said. “Just as they are casting shadows of me where they are.”

  “Can they hear me?”

  “Once you join your shadow to theirs, they will.”

  “What?”

  “You will have to step into the light and cast your own self upon the wall,” said Raaz. “After your shadow crosses theirs, you’ll be able to speak.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Fowler. She was staring at the two shapes on the wall, frowning. She shook her head. I could almost read her thoughts: We didn’t know this Mouth well enough, didn’t know what his glimmer would do to me once I stepped into its path.

  I turned back around.

  The man’s shadow had put a hand on either side of his head and was now waggling them back and forth, his fingers extended.

  Somehow it didn’t feel like a trap.

  I still wasn’t sure how I was supposed to hand over the package like this—or even if I could—but I knew I had to at least make contact with them. Jelem had said they’d be willing to help me once I got into the Old City, but I needed more than that now: I needed them to help get us into the Old City to begin with or, barring that, then pull some strings when it came to the audition. Assuming they had the clout to do either.

  I looked from the shadows to Raaz. “So I just . . . ?”

  “Step into the light, yes. I would recommend you keep your arms beside you until your shadow is distinct and the same relative size as the other two.”

  “Better contact?” I said as I took a step forward.

  “No. Because if your shadow is too large, you might rip a hole in their physical bodies.”

  “What?” I said, stopping.<
br />
  “I jest. Yes, better communication.”

  Raaz chuckled as I turned back around. He was Jelem’s cousin, all right.

  I took a step, another. The light wavered again, the oil-fed flames dancing in the dark.

  “Do they do that often?” I said as I came even with the lamps.

  “Do what?” said Raaz.

  “The lamps. Is the flickering going to be a problem when I try to make contact?”

  “Flickering?” said Raaz in a tone that made me stop. “The lamps are still; have been kept still since . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Something was wrong.

  My hand was still going for my rapier when I saw the figure run out of the darkness and leap into the space between myself and the wall. He was little more than a silhouette himself, dressed in deep blue-black robes, his face covered by a closely wrapped cloth. About the only thing I could make out for certain as he sailed through the air was the short, curved blade that he extended toward the wall midleap. I heard the scrape of metal on stone, saw his shadow pass over the woman’s and the man’s, and then he was landing and rolling into the darkness on the other side of the pool of light.

  I was moving to go after him, my own sword clear now, when I heard a scream behind me. I glanced back and froze. One of the shadows, the woman, was teetering over, her head clearly separating from her neck as she did so. The other was pulling back a hand that, while it might look like a closed fist, I knew was now missing its fingers, if not more.

  As for Raaz, he was clutching at his own neck with one hand, gagging and choking, even as he reached out for the lamps with the other. The fingers of the hand he extended were black and seemed to be smoking. Or dissolving.

  I leapt back and kicked at one lamp with my foot, slashed down on the other with my rapier. I connected with both, and the room went dark.

  Then someone else yelled.

  Fowler.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I dropped into a crouch, sword across my body. Best to stay low until my night vision reawakened. Damn me for getting so close to those lamps, anyhow.

  “Fowler?” I said.

  No answer. I could still hear Raaz gagging, but it sounded less strained now. I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. Hell, I didn’t even know if putting out the lights had helped or hurt him, but there was nothing for it now. Besides, I knew it would help me—assuming I lasted that long.

  I let my gaze flick around the space, looking for the first hints of amber, the first sign that I had my edge back. Whoever had come leaping out of the darkness had been good, a true deep file . . . Blade? Arm? Nighthawk? If I had to guess, I’d go with Blade, or whatever passed for an assassin in Djan, but that was almost beside the point. No matter what he called himself, his timing had been perfect: I’d been too far from the wall to interfere, but close enough to get in the way of any glimmer Raaz might have launched. That kind of luck didn’t happen by accident.

  That wasn’t what had me worried, though.

  What had me on edge, had me holding my breath while I waited for my night vision to awaken, was the fact that I hadn’t seen the Blade before he moved. I’d peered into the shadows, studied the darkness about us before stepping fully into the light, and noticed nothing. That didn’t happen—not to me, not in this much darkness.

  And even if I had missed him somehow, that still didn’t explain the lamps and their flickering. A flickering only I had seen. Me. The one with the night vision.

  I had no idea what that might mean, but I’d be damned if I was going to pretend I wasn’t scared shitless by it.

  The broken lamp was the first thing to pull itself out of the darkness—jagged pieces of clay, edged in reddish gold, lying in a filmy pool of oil. The other lamp came next, on its side a short ways away, followed by a section of wall. An arch followed, then Raaz—no longer gagging, but still on the floor, still breathing roughly—then the rest of the room, all overlaid by the amber sketches and highlights of my night vision.

  Fowler was lying where she had stood, her long knife halfway out of its scabbard. I couldn’t see any blood, couldn’t spot any wound, but that didn’t mean a thing. I resisted the urge to call out, to go to her and check for breath or pulse. Going to see if she lived could get me killed.

  Instead, I turned my attention to the wine cellar around us.

  Empty.

  I let my breath out slowly. The nearest niche was a good fifteen feet away, nothing but open space between it and I. Even if the Blade was hiding there, I’d have time to react, time to see him. Whatever glimmer he’d used to help him hide from the lantern’s light hadn’t seemed to affect my night vision. I might not have been able to see him earlier, but now it was darker than night. Now it was my turn.

  I looked around the space again to be sure, then shifted and rose slowly out of my crouch.

  And almost lost my life in the process.

  I caught the blur of movement out of the corner of my eye just in time to drop my head even as I brought up my rapier. Metal hissed on metal. I felt the breeze of the deflected blade skim through the air above me. Then a shoulder I couldn’t see connected with my own and shoved.

  I slashed the air before me as I staggered back, found nothing. I struck a guard, my body low, sword angled before me and out.

  I looked around, eyes wide. Raaz, Fowler, the walls, the extinguished lamps: all there, all visible to my night vision. So where the hell was the person who’d just missed taking off the top of my head?

  I took a step back, felt for and found the wall behind me in the darkness. It was usually a tactic for other people—for the ones who couldn’t see what I could see. Now, though, it felt reassuring to have the stone at my back.

  Another blur, this time from a bit farther away. I saw the arc of the cut, saw a hint of . . . something . . . behind it, moving toward me. It was enough to catch the blade on my own—one, two, three times—enough to keep me breathing for the moment. Not enough to counterthrust or kill, though.

  I shifted left and drew my fighting dagger from the back of my sword belt. My hand, I noticed, was shaking.

  Raaz coughed. Groaned.

  “Raaz!” I yelled. “What the hell is—”

  “No talking,” he croaked, barely getting the words out. “Listen!”

  Good advice, considering I heard, more than saw, the next attack coming. The double scuff of a gathering step on the gritty stone floor, an amber bluish blur, and then I was deflecting a slash that still managed to carve a long, thin line in my forearm.

  No way in hell I could last, not like this.

  I peered out into the midnight-veiled cellar around me, trying to do something I’d never had any trouble doing before: trying to see someone with my night vision. It was unnerving. Every wall, every stone, every person was visible—except the one that mattered.

  Was my vision failing? Had the magical flare Shadow set off in front of my eyes almost five months ago done that much damage? Had the flickering flames been a sign, an indication that something was wrong, that something had been done to me?

  Dammit, Sebastian—why the hell did you have to die before you were able to tell me about the gift you gave me?

  I shifted my footing, heard it echoed a moment later.

  Listen, Raaz had said. But what if I wasn’t the only one listening?

  Another step by myself, this time echoed by two. Were they closer or farther away?

  A low, gasping mutter to my right interrupted by a cough. Raaz, speaking in a tongue I recognized but didn’t know. Speaking magic. Shit.

  “No light!” I said, even as I used my voice to cover my movement. Two sloping paces right, one step forward. In the amber-edged darkness, someone I couldn’t see shifted position as well.

  Right now, I realized, we were even. Whoever was out there couldn’t see me: Rather, he’d been trained to fight blind, using his opponent’s sounds to direct his actions. That’s why the attacks were so wide, why he relied on cuts and slashes—the
bigger the movement, the more area you covered. As for me, while I had never fought blind, I could at least see the terrain, could catch the movement of his blade as it came in. My guess was that he’d never faced someone like me, had never had his supposed-to-be-blind target parry and riposte and react in time to foil his plans. And I sure as hell had never faced someone I couldn’t see, especially in the dark.

  But if Raaz spoke up some light . . . then it would all be different. Then I would become both blind and visible at once. Then I wouldn’t be able to see the Blade through the burning and flashing in my eyes, and he’d be able to stroll up and slit my throat, no matter how easy it was for everyone else in the room to see him.

  So, no light—not until it was over.

  Which needed to happen soon.

  I took a soft step left. Someone moved with me. Shit—I couldn’t be any quieter than that.

  “You are unexpected,” said a soft voice out of the darkness. A woman. “A challenge.”

  I adjusted my rapier so the point was in line with the sound of her voice.

  “You can talk,” she said. Djanese, but with an accent I didn’t know. “I won’t kill you as you speak. It would be . . . unsporting.”

  “But that won’t stop you from figuring out where I am in the meantime,” I said.

  “I offer you the same advantage with my own voice.” More to my left now. I adjusted. “Although,” she added, “I don’t think you need it.”

  “Maybe I’m just that good.” Ha.

  “And maybe you can see in the night.”

  I froze, almost dropping my dagger in my surprise. How . . . ?

  “And yet,” she continued, “you’re not Djanese, which means you can’t be of the despot’s chosen. Can’t be a Lion.” A brief pause, complete silence. “So, then, what are you?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. In all the years since Sebastian had taken me deep into the Balsturan Forest and performed the rite that gave me his night vision, I’d considered myself unique. No rumors or tales about a similar ability had ever reached me, no claims to have heard about anyone who could push aside the night. And I’d been listening—first as a Prig and a Draw Latch on the street, and then as a Nose, I’d been keeping my ears open and my secret close. Aside from Christiana and Degan, there was no one living who knew what I could do. Jelem might suspect—but then, he’d suspect his own mother of faking his own birth—and Fowler might have guessed that my late-night luck was too good to be coincidence, but neither had said anything outright.