Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  “Excuse me?”

  I stripped off his sword, held it out to him. “Promise or not, this is yours. Hell, I can’t think of anything that would be more yours than this blade. It’s everything that you are, everything you’ve been, for two hundred years. You can’t just throw it away because of one mistake.”

  Degan took a step back, a step away. “It wasn’t a mistake, it was a choice. A choice that opened the door for the Order to fall in upon itself. I knew what I was doing even before I took your Oath. I knew the risks, and I chose to take them. My price for that choice is setting aside what I was.”

  “Like hell,” I said. “Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. Even Steel says the Order’s ready to turn on itself over the emperor, that it’s only a matter of time before the blood starts flowing again.”

  “If you’re going to believe Steel, then—”

  “I’m not finished.” I stepped forward, Degan retreating from his old blade as if it might burn him. “Yes, you killed Iron, but you did it because you thought it would save the empire you swore to protect. Hell, maybe even part of you thought it would help the Order—I don’t know. The point is, you don’t have to give up your soul over it. Ivory still has his blade, and he dusted more degans than you; I’ll bet Steel is still carrying his around as well.” I took another step. Degan shifted, almost skittish, but decided to hold his ground. “You don’t have to surrender who you were just because you can’t be that person anymore. You don’t have to give up this”—rattling the sword—“just because you can’t be a degan.”

  Degan stared down at me, at his sword. Somewhere over the city, I heard what I thought was a desert owl call.

  “It’s not that easy,” he said.

  “It’s never that easy,” I said. “I ought to know.” And I pushed his sword up against his chest.

  Degan stiffened. I saw his pupils grow even wider in the darkness, felt his breath quicken under the pressure of the blade. Sweat appeared on his upper lip. His hands remained poised in the air, hovering to either side of his sword, trembling. I pushed harder. He gasped.

  Then, suddenly, he stepped away. “No,” he said, letting his hands drop. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t help the Order if I’m a degan.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I can’t take that sword from you. Now let’s go.”

  “That’s not an answer,” I said as he resumed walking.

  “Imagine that.”

  Muttering, I returned Degan’s sword to my back. I didn’t quite cringe as the weight settled on me, but I didn’t exactly relish the sensation, either. There’s something about having another person’s immortal soul riding across your kidneys that distracts you in ways you never thought possible.

  The square before the Dog Gate felt strange when Degan and I arrived a short while later. Oh, it still stank like shit, and a few mongrels wandered about the edges, but the roving packs were missing, as were the yips and barks and snarls of their challenges and submission.

  “Problem?” said Degan as I stopped short of entering the small piazza.

  “Maybe.”

  I’d been stopped at the gate by a cheri-bashi and the four guardsmen he commanded when I’d left the grounds earlier. The man who was supposed to be watching the gate, the sergeant had informed me as he read Heron’s letter (twice), had gone missing, and there were rumors of some sort of disturbance on the grounds. No sign had been found of either the man or the reported problem, but they’d strengthened the guard on all the gates nonetheless. Since I had Heron’s pass, I hadn’t worried about getting back in; but now, squinting out at the empty square and the circle of torchlight near the unmanned gate, I had a sneaking suspicion that gaining access to the grounds wasn’t going to be our main worry.

  That suspicion became a certainty when I saw a low, crouched figure come slouching up on the other side of the gate. It pushed on the iron with its snout, opening wide a gap I hadn’t noticed until now, and trotted out into the piazza. It was one of the alley dogs, and it had a bloody, bootless foot in its mouth.

  “No, make that definitely,” I said as the dog vanished down a side street. “We definitely have a problem.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  There were four of them. It was hard to tell because of the work the hounds had done on the guards’ bodies, but it looked as if they had all died from a bare handful of sword strokes. Quick, efficient work. Degan barely paused to glance down before he was moving out of the circle of torchlight. After a quick glance inside the guardroom to make sure it was still empty, I followed.

  The hounds snarled and showed red teeth as we passed, but otherwise ignored us.

  I didn’t bother asking who had carved up the guards; we both knew the answer to that one.

  Dawn was three hours away, if that.

  “How did Steel know to come here?” said Degan as we moved deeper into the darkness.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The last time I saw him was . . .” Oh. Of course. That explained it.

  “Was what?”

  “Was at the play,” I said.

  “I don’t see how—”

  “I caught him staring up at the padishah’s box at one point. Ivory was on the balcony near him.”

  Degan grimaced. “That would do it. Steel would only need a glimpse of Ivory, even at a distance, to mark him. Then it would just be a matter of following him back from the amphitheater and biding his time.”

  “And given the events at the play, Ivory would have been too distracted to notice he was being shadowed,” I muttered. Thanks to me.

  Degan started walking faster.

  I steered us off the patchwork trail of marble stepping-stones and took us overland. It was similar to the path Aribah and I had taken to Ivory’s residence, but not identical.

  I led Degan around a large reflecting pool, then up over a small rise, and halted. I was half-surprised and half-pleased to see the side of Ivory’s house below us. There was light coming through two of the lower windows toward the back of the house. The rest was dark.

  “That’s it?” said Degan.

  “That’s it.”

  Degan started down the slope.

  “One thing,” I said.

  Degan paused but didn’t look back. “Yes?”

  “There were five guards at the gate when I left earlier tonight.”

  “And only four when we returned,” said Degan. “Meaning Steel may have forced the fifth to act as a guide.”

  “That’d be my guess.”

  Degan drew his sword and continued down. I did the same.

  Sure enough, we found the fifth guard lying on the walkway outside Ivory’s front door. The door itself stood ajar. There was a smear of blood along the lower edge.

  Degan didn’t hesitate: He pushed the door open and stepped in, head tilted to the side, sword angled up and out to catch any cuts someone might throw from hiding. I came after, my own blade low, so as not to stab him should he need to retreat. We both had to step over the body of the steward lying just inside the doorway. The left third of his face had been sheared away by a blow that had continued down and into his neck and chest. His blood made the rug squelch underneath our boots.

  “Where?” said Degan, his voice tight as he peered into the darkness. Compared to the starlit expanse of the grounds, the hallway seemed oppressive, even to me.

  “My guess is the study,” I said. “Near the back of the house.” Where we’d seen the lights.

  Degan was moving down the hallway before I’d finished speaking, his footfalls alternately muted by the rugs and amplified by the bare floor between. I swore and hustled after, the mosaics on the walls to either side little more than a blur of amber and shadows in my night vision.

  “Right!” I called as Degan reached the intersection ahead of me. Any semblance of secrecy was gone anyhow. “Then your first left.”

  Degan made the turn
, guiding himself as much by instinct as half shadows at this point, I guessed. I followed an instant later, and immediately averted my eyes. Already, there was a glow coming from around the next corner. I slowed my pace out of habit, heard Degan pushing on ahead.

  To hell with it.

  I redoubled my step, keeping my gaze to whatever shadowy corners and crevices I could find in the corridor. I’d hoped to creep up on Wolf, to catch him unawares, to maybe be able to fucking see before crossing blades with him, but Degan clearly had other ideas. Not that I expected to be much use once the two of them cleared steel, but there was always something I could do: maybe bleed on Wolf excessively, say, or get my ribs stuck around his sword.

  I took the second corner fast. Ahead, I could see light spilling out of Ivory’s study, forming a brilliant golden red pool in my night vision. Eyes burning, I put my head down and ran.

  No sounds of steel on steel came to me as I covered the last few feet and ran through the doors. Instead, I was met by a profound silence—a silence broken only by my own shoes skidding on the floor as I tried to avoid running into Degan from behind. He had stopped just inside the room and stood, staring.

  Even with blurring, watering eyes, I could see that the place was a mess. Books and papers had been knocked from the shelves, and the large reading table at the far end of the room was tipped over. Three spent candles lay in pools of hardened wax on the floor; two more stood, burning feebly, on an empty shelf. The smell of burning wick and freshly raised dust filled the space—so much so that it took me a moment to notice the darker, earthier scent that ran underneath.

  But I didn’t need to smell the blood to know it was there: I could see the smeared trail that led from a spot near Degan’s feet, across the floor and over papers, to the form that sat slouched beneath the now-empty space on the display wall between the widower’s fan and the vase of dried flowers.

  Ivory was here, but both his sword and the man who had used us to find him were gone.

  Degan was across the room in an instant. I moved more warily, as if Wolf might somehow slip out from between the spines of a book or rise from the crackling vellum and paper scattered underfoot. The bastard had been two steps ahead of me from the start and I wasn’t about to lower my guard just because the room was empty.

  There wasn’t much doubt as to Ivory’s condition. Between the missing right hand, the gash in his head deep enough to let notched bone show through, and the pool of thick, dark blood that had gathered in his lap, not only did I know he was dead; I also knew there was no way the old man could have made it to his current position on his own. Wolf had dragged the body over and propped him against the wall for us to find. A message left for me and Degan.

  “How long ago, do you think—”

  “He’s alive,” said Degan as he knelt down beside Ivory.

  “He’s what?” I said, now hurrying across the room as well. “How?”

  “Degans are hard to kill.”

  I moved closer. Sure enough, I saw Ivory’s lids flicker briefly. Degan wiped gently at Ivory’s eyes with the cuff of his shirt, smearing the worst of the blood away. With the red gone, Ivory’s eyes opened more fully. When they landed on Degan, he smiled, causing a fresh well of blood to run from his mouth.

  It was then that I realized Wolf had cut out his tongue.

  Bastard.

  “Sorry I’m late,” said Degan softly.

  Ivory lifted his good hand and laid it on Degan’s arm. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, only to have it turn into a choking gurgle. Degan quickly leaned the wounded man to the side and held his head while he vomited up the blood that had been draining down his throat. It was dark and thick.

  “Why his tongue?” I asked as Ivory coughed.

  “I don’t know,” whispered Degan. “To keep him from speaking healing spells? I don’t know.”

  When Ivory was done, Degan gently righted his friend again. The older degan’s color made some of the centuries-old parchment on the floor seem rich and luminous by comparison. His eyes were closed now.

  “Ivory,” said Degan, gently.

  Ivory’s lids fluttered but didn’t truly open. I was close enough now to hear the bubbling hiss that came with each breath of the dying man, telling me that at least one lung had been punctured.

  How the hell was this old bastard still alive?

  Degan cleared his throat. Despite that, his voice was still thick as he said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask: Your sword. Does Steel have it?”

  The old degan went rigid, and I couldn’t help thinking he’d decided to die rather than to admit to the loss. But then a slow breath escaped his lips, and he nodded.

  Degan’s jaw clenched. He looked up at me, and I saw despair there: deep and dark. Despair over not just the sword, or even Ivory, but over what had become of his Order, and what was to become of it. What he was afraid he had started when he killed Iron, and had finished when he’d led Steel to Ivory.

  Only it hadn’t been Degan, or not wholly him. I’d played more than my fair part in this as well, hunting after my own form of redemption, wanting it so badly that I’d let myself get played by Wolf, and then falling in line with his plans with hardly any resistance. Wanting to play the clever Nose one last time, to show that I could still scheme and con my way out from under a setup. Wanting to go to Djan so I could pretend I wasn’t a Gray Prince, only to have the title follow me here.

  To be as much a cause of Ivory’s death as anything else.

  I turned my eyes away from the dying degan and instead looked over the room again. At the empty and disheveled shelves, at the books and documents strewn about, at the trail of blood that marred the otherwise pristine carpet of paper and parchment and vellum on the floor. Most had been pushed aside as Wolf dragged Ivory to the wall, but a few pages had fallen back after Ivory’s passage. Their edges were now heavy with red, the old rust-colored ink fading into the background as the paper drank its fill.

  I wondered whether the pages could be saved, whether trying to clean them off would help, or only cause more damage. Baldezar would know, but the old scribe wasn’t here. Then again, if he were, I expect the dry bone of a man would already be cataloging and sorting, cooing to himself and the books, ecstatic at not only the wealth scattered at his feet, but also the fact that most of them had somehow avoided getting damaged in the melee that had taken place. Looking at the clean pages and intact bindings, it was almost as if . . .

  I turned back around. “What about the laws?” I said.

  Degan blinked. Ivory didn’t stir.

  “What do you mean?” said Degan.

  “The laws of your Order,” I said, stepping closer. “The rites and rituals and whatever the hell else Ivory took with him when he left. Did Steel get those?”

  Degan stared at me. “He has Ivory’s sword, Drothe. I’m not worried about finding a damn clause that might—”

  “Neither am I.” I knelt down on the other side of Ivory and took the old degan’s jaw gingerly in my hands. I turned his face to me.

  “Ivory,” I said. “Ivory.” A faint gurgle and a wavering of one lid. Not good enough.

  Degan bristled. “Drothe, what the hell—?”

  “Look at this room,” I said. “These books and scrolls and papers didn’t get knocked down during the fight—they were pulled down afterward. After Wolf already had the sword. Which means he was looking for something else.”

  “But if he has the sword, he already has the Oath,” said Degan.

  “Then maybe he wanted something more. Maybe there’s a law or ritual that lets him use the Oath differently, or extend it, or something. I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t think of any other reason for him to tear this place apart, let alone remove Ivory’s writing hand and carve out his tongue.”

  “Remove his . . .” Degan looked down at Ivory, then out over the disaster that was the library. As I watched, I could see worry creep into his eyes.

  He looked back down at Ivory. “Ask,”
he said.

  I leaned in closer to the dying degan, tilting his head to put my mouth near his ear. “Ivory,” I said. “What about your laws?”

  Ivory’s eyes snapped open, so sharp that I almost recoiled under their gaze. Suddenly, he was all here, and I could only guess what it was costing him.

  “The laws,” I said. “Did Wol—did Steel get them, too?”

  The skin around Ivory’s eyes crinkled in a dark grin. I felt his head shake weakly in my hand.

  “Are they still here?”

  The slightest pressure of his chin in my palm. The ghost of a nod.

  “Where?”

  His eyes slipped off me and up, to the left.

  Ivory turned his gaze up to his widower’s fan. “Himomif.” It came out of his ruined mouth sounding more like a wet croak than a word, but I knew what he meant.

  “Simonis?” I said, saying his wife’s name for him. “Does she have the laws?”

  Ivory smiled.

  I looked at Degan. “It’s hidden in her history,” I said, already turning toward the shelf that had held her books. “Likely written in—”

  Ivory’s left hand grabbed at my ankle, stopping me. I looked down to find him glaring from me to the wall and back. I followed his gaze.

  “The fan?” I said, staring up at the large, crepe-covered arc. I’d taken a close look at it the night I’d figured out Ivory’s secret, but seen nothing concerning any laws, or even the Order itself.

  Still, who was I to argue?

  I righted Ivory’s reading chair, stood on it, and drew the covering away from the fan. The details were both fine and intricate, so much so that I found myself leaning forward, afraid I might overbalance the chair.

  And still, even with that, I almost missed it.

  It was a small thing, in the second to the last depiction of Simonis. She was more outline than image in that: the dark curve of a woman’s form, highlighted by a mirroring slash of white for her gown, bent over a kneeling desk in her study. Three lines of red for the ribbon in her hair, echoed by three dots of carmine for the cephta on the page before her, a pale line of gold leaf for a reed pen. A scribe at work, deep in the throes of her knowledge and craft: an image that clearly held a special place in Ivory’s heart if it was one of the last ones he’d had depicted of her. An image that centered on his wife, with each detail becoming less defined as the eye drew away from her—save for the pale row of tiny books on the wall behind her.