by Jeff Grubb
Then suddenly the energy from Mishra’s stone went out, and it was as if those within the room were suddenly plunged into the dark, so great was the magnitude of difference in the light. Tawnos blinked and started toward where he knew Urza lay. Someone heavy and burly, Mishra, he realized later, slammed into him, brushing past him and out the door.
Kayla was at Urza’s side already, crying as she knelt next to his prostrate form. Urza’s eyes were open, but showed only the whites, and his breath was shallow and frothy. Still clenched in his hand was his Mightstone, a rainbow of colors leaking between his fingers.
“The temple amulets,” said Tawnos to Kayla. “The ones Urza made. Do you have one here? Perhaps we can…”
Kayla was nodding but neither had time to finish his or her thoughts. The stone clenched in Urza’s hand began to pulse more, to flash through the spectrum, and into ranges that Tawnos felt more than saw. Slowly, Urza’s other hand raised, and grasped the stone, and his breathing became more regular. His eyes closed, and when they opened again, they were normal.
No, they were not normal, Tawnos realized. They were filled with emotion. Filled with rage.
Urza got up. Kayla tried to restrain him, to tell him that he should rest until the temple priests arrived, but he brought up an arm to ward her off. He brought it up too hard and too fast, for he knocked Kayla with it. She sprawled backward, and Tawnos rose with his superior, putting a hand out to Urza’s shoulder.
Urza batted the offered hand away. “Where is he?” he snarled. His hair was a tangle, and Urza looked more like a madman than an artificer.
Tawnos said nothing, but looked at the door. Urza was striding toward it at once. Kayla shouted after him, but he did not look back.
Kayla was sobbing now, her tears staining the sheet gathered in front of her. “I tried,” she said, then took a deep breath, “I tried to do the best thing for my country, Tawnos.”
Tawnos could not think of anything to say, but there were more shouts in the hallway. Tawnos helped Kayla to her feet. “Get something on, and bring guards,” he said, and was out of the doorway as well.
There was a great clamor toward the guest wing, and Tawnos thought that Urza had found his brother all too quickly. There were shouts and screams and an unearthly flickering of light. He ran for the wing, hoping to prevent any fatalities.
Instead of Urza and Mishra he found Ashnod. She was wielding the staff that she had been working on earlier. Now its eyes glowed with the eldritch nature of power stones, and lightning coursed along the wires that had been spun along the skull. There were several of the guards down along the hallway, most of them clutching their heads and moaning.
Ashnod was swinging the staff back and forth, the gold-lit skull trailing a shadow of color. She was unharmed as yet, but sweat cascaded down her neck and shoulders.
The leader of the guards was preparing a massed attack, but Tawnos put a hand on his shoulder, and indicated that he wanted to try to disarm the woman first.
Tawnos stepped into full view, hands raised and empty. Ashnod paused for a moment, then barked, “I want to leave now. Is there a problem?”
Tawnos tried to smile, conscious that he looked as insincere as he felt. “There has been a bit of an incident,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay for a while.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Ashnod, and brought her staff up, the skull-head oozing golden fire.
The blow hit Tawnos square in the stomach, and he could feel the pain rush from that center to the extremities. His stomach heaved and he felt the bilious rise of vomit in his throat. Still he remained on his feet, and grasped at his cloak, trying to find something that would break the effect of the staff’s energies.
His hand closed around the coiled wooden snake that he had in his pocket. He pulled it out, thumbing the winding latch open as he did so. Stars danced in front of his eyes, but he had a good enough idea of Ashnod’s position to throw the snake at her.
The wooden serpent flew through the air, uncoiling, rattling, and hissing as it did so. Ashnod shouted something and raised the staff higher against this new attack.
Tawnos was moving the moment that Ashnod spared her attention from him. Charging forward, he tackled her, hard, in the midsection. The staff pinwheeled away in one direction while the wooden snake scuttered in the other. Ashnod went down in a heap, and the guards were there immediately, their short pikes pointed at her.
Tawnos kept his footing, and towered over her, gasping for breath. Ashnod raised her now empty hands in surrender.
“Well, it turns out the baby duck has teeth,” she said, slowly getting to her feet, the guards surrounding her. “There are new surprises every day.”
Tawnos felt that the entire weight of the Kingdom of Yotia now rested on his shoulders, and he did not like it one bit.
Four months had passed since the fateful argument, and in that time there was no sign of Mishra. He had vanished from the palace, and the Fallaji, the dragon engine, and his war machine had vanished from the gates soon after midnight.
The Fallaji had been prepared for their departure; of that Tawnos had no doubt. Mounted scouts were dispatched that evening up and down the river, but there was no sign of them. Urza had to wait for morning to dispatch the ornithopters, and that was when the scouts had discovered that a ferry barge upriver had been seized and sunk on the far bank.
The assumption was that Mishra and his engines had fled west into the trans-Mardun territories that bordered on Fallaji territory. Then from the east came a report that a collection of brass helmets and Fallaji gear had been found by a farmer, indicating that Mishra’s forcers were making instead for the Kher Ridges. Soon after a horseman arrived from the Sword Marches, declaring that a great metallic beast had been spotted, there, moving only at night and heading north.
Military units were shunted first one way, then another in response to each new rumor. To make matters worse, Urza took to the field with one of the ornithopter flights and moved continually from one sighting to the next.
It had been four months, and Urza had still not returned to Kroog nor sent any message to his wife the queen. Tawnos received numerous orders for new developments and changes to the ornithopter design and instructions for coordinating the production of a line of avenger-style automatons. But these messages were always technical in nature, without a hint of curiosity about Tawnos’s own well-being, nor that of Urza’s wife, nor the situation in the capital.
The last was deteriorating quickly. A rumor had spread that the Chief Artificer’s evil brother was hiding among the Fallaji traders still in the city, plotting an insurrection. The resulting riots killed seventeen Fallaji, including, Tawnos had heard, one of the musicians who had played at the banquet. Those with ties to the desert fled the city and other Yotian cities as quickly as possible. This created another rumor that the first rumor had been planted by Mishra so he and his men could escape in the confusion.
The resulting violence overmatched the capabilities of the temples to cope, as resources earmarked for study and supplies were suddenly diverted to the homeless and the wounded. The priests clamored for more of the magical talismans Urza had created early in his career there, but the artificer was not present to create them.
Tawnos heard that people were now beginning to doubt their leaders. If Urza was so wise, ran the common tale, why could he not find his own brother in his wife’s own land? Either Urza was not as smart as the people had thought, which was unsettling, or Mishra was much smarter, which was even more troubling. Now rumors of invasion of the Sword Marches or of the trans-Mardun territories were regular fare in the inns and taverns, and many of the merchants spoke of relocating to the coastal provinces for the duration of the hostilities.
Indeed, there was some confusion among the common folk about what exactly had happened at the end of the conference. The general story was that Urza and his brother came to blows, but the nature of the argument was not clear. Some said it was about the S
word Marches. Another story was that Urza had accused Mishra of stealing his ideas and making his dragon engines. No, it was the other way around, others said; Urza had stolen the idea of the ornithopters from his brother. There were a few comments about Kayla herself, but those were only voiced by low individuals in shadowy bars and were given no credence. Or at least Tawnos hoped that was the case.
The confused mood of the city was matched by that in the palace. The Captain of the Guard was frantic, as his orders were regularly countermanded by those of Urza from the field. The seneschal, who had warmly welcomed the Fallaji, was now frantically trying to prove he was as tough as the old warlord himself had been.
The queen kept to her quarters, and would see a select number of people, using the matron as a last line of defense against intruders. She would speak to the seneschal, the Captain of the Guard, and Tawnos, and not to anyone else. Unfortunately for the remnants of the privy council, most of her commands were along the lines of, “Do as you see fit,” superseded only by, “What would Urza want?”
And to make matters worse, the matron had informed Tawnos (through numerous allusions and euphemisms) that Her Majesty was “in the family way.” Indeed, when Tawnos spoke with the queen, she seemed more haggard and tired than usual. Tawnos sent Urza a gently worded dispatch detailing Kayla’s condition but received in return only a list of corrections to the armature of the avengers.
Tawnos could not understand the coldness of Urza’s response until he did the math. Given the phases of the Mist Moon and the advancement of Kayla’s pregnancy, she would have had to have conceived sometime during the week of the meetings with the Fallaji, probably toward the end of that week, before Urza left the city.
Urza had departed hot on the heels of Mishra. Tawnos did not like to consider what that might mean, but he had no doubt Urza realized it at once.
And last there was the problem of Ashnod, still held as a hostage in the guest wing of the palace. All attempts to contact the Fallaji to negotiate her release had failed. A number of people wanted her executed for crimes that remained as fuzzy as the explanation of what happened between Urza and Mishra. The staff with its sickening energies had been a surprise to Tawnos, and the guards had stripped her room of anything with which she might be able to make a weapon. The staff remained in Tawnos’s care. The device itself was a beautiful creation, and he sought permission from the queen to speak with Ashnod about it. At least, that was the excuse that he gave Kayla.
“Where did you get the knowledge that helped you build the staff?” he asked at one point. “Was it an old text? A scholar? A wanderer from another land?”
Ashnod remained perched on the windowsill, the morning sun shining resplendently on her hair. She said nothing.
“It will be easier if you talk,” said Tawnos. “Keeping silence isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
Ashnod’s head snapped around to regard Tawnos. Then she smiled and said, “I’ve got a joke. Care to hear it?”
Tawnos looked puzzled.
“Matron and the queen are talking. Matron says, ‘Whatever else you say about that Mishra, at least he dresses well.’ And the queen says, ‘Yes, and quickly, too.’ Whatayathink?”
“That’s not funny!” sputtered Tawnos. “You know, there are temple inquisitors who have put themselves at our disposal just to wring your secrets out of you.”
“But you’re keeping them at bay,” said Ashnod, sliding off her perch. “And why is that, Baby Duck?”
Tawnos bristled but kept his voice calm. “Because they might…damage…you. Any knowledge you have might be lost.”
“I might choose to die with my secrets rather than betray Master Mishra,” sighed Ashnod. “You are so naive, and so kind. No wonder you’re the queen’s favorite.”
“What do you know—” said Tawnos, defensive again.
Ashnod waved her hand. “There’s not a lot to do here, so I listen: to the guards, the chambermaids, the people outside the window. I think you’re keeping me around because you need someone to talk to. Mama Duck, Urza is gone, and poor Kayla is wrapped up in blaming herself. That’s why you’re here.”
Tawnos did not reply but kept his head on his chest, regarding the table. A long silence spread out between the two.
Finally Ashnod sat down at the table across from Urza’s apprentice. “The way I see it, it’s a question of approach,” she said at last. Her tone was calm, almost conversational.
“What is?” Tawnos responded.
Ashnod sighed and shook her head. “The staff! Wasn’t that what we were talking about?”
“Among other things,” said Tawnos, the hurt still in his voice.
“Don’t be like that,” snapped Ashnod. “Look. Have you worked in a slaughterhouse?”
Tawnos blinked. “I worked as a fisherman once.”
“Completely different,” said Ashnod. “Fish are low creatures, barely worth the spine they have. If you work at sawing up carcasses, you notice how the joints fit, how the nerves are arrayed, and how the skin peels back.”
“I’ve dissected creatures,” said Tawnos. “Birds, for example, to study their wings for the ornithopters.”
“But never one that was still alive when you cut into it, correct?” asked Ashnod. Tawnos did not respond, but his face gave away his answer. Ashnod continued, “As I said, there’s a difference of approach. You and Mama Duck Urza don’t want to get your hands dirty, to deal with the blood and skin and muscle and nerves and fluids. You’d never have stumbled on the idea of frying an opponent’s nerves with something like my staff.”
“I don’t know if that’s a responsible goal,” said Tawnos.
“Beside the point,” said Ashnod sharply, slapping the tabletop with her palm. Tawnos saw the fire in her eyes again, the inventing fire. “You’re looking at the bird wing and thinking about how to duplicate it. I’m looking at the bird wing and thinking about how to incorporate it, how to make it function again. If I were building ornithopters, I would have used roc wings. I’d have kept them alive with their own blood and nutrients and tethered them to the housing.”
“That’s impossible!” said Tawnos.
“A girl can dream,” said Ashnod and smiled again. “But I think that’s what they did with the dragon engine. The original builders, I mean. They didn’t try to duplicate a dragon with metal and cable, like the old Thran would. Rather they started with a dragon and built outward until the machinery replaced the dragon entirely.”
The fire blazed in the scarlet woman’s eyes again. “You can’t be afraid of living things, or dead things for that matter,” she said. “Living tissue is one more set of tools we can use. If we only get past our backward concept that it’s somehow inviolate, we can truly make progress.”
She looked at Tawnos and shrugged. “That’s what I think, at least. Mishra might disagree. I think the answer is within the body, not outside it.”
The discussion had taken a disturbing turn for Tawnos. In an effort to divert it into other channels, he said, “Where do you think Mishra is now? Is there a special hiding place he has?”
Ashnod shook her head. “He doesn’t need to hide right now. He has his brother right where he wants him, running all over the place looking for him.”
“Was that his plan?” asked Tawnos.
Ashnod paused a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t particularly know that Mishra had a plan. He is very good at setting things up, but then he throws caution to the winds and spins the wheel of fate.”
“Madness,” muttered Tawnos.
“Or divine inspiration,” countered Ashnod.
“So he didn’t let you in on his plans,” continued Tawnos.
“If he did, would I be here, living in all this luxury?” Ashnod waved her hands at the bare walls of her quarters. “No. And it’s not that he’s secretive, though he is. I really don’t think he had an exact plan when he came to Kroog, but I do know he’d be happy with the result.”
Tawnos sighed. “I wish I c
ould believe you.”
Ashnod frowned, then spread her hands. “Look, I’ll give you this one free of charge. Mishra is not one to let an opportunity pass, and with Urza ’thoptering all over creation, this is an opportunity for Mish to hurt his brother and hurt him bad. And the qadir is such a hothead that he’ll declare a full jihad at the drop of a brass hat. So something is coming.”
“But you don’t know what or where,” said Tawnos. Ashnod shrugged.
“One more thing, then,” she said. “You wondered how I got the staff in here?”
Tawnos said, “I assumed our guards were lax during the festivities.”
Ashnod smiled; it was a dazzling smile. “The black thunderwood staff I walked in with. You saw it on the first day; who could deny a woman her walking staff? The skull was smuggled in. But the gold wire was sewn into the hem of my bodice, and the power stones were brought in among my jewelry.”
Tawnos looked at the tabletop. He had watched her assemble the weapon without realizing it. “There’s a point to this?”
“Only this,” said Ashnod. “All the components came together at the right moment to produce the staff. That’s what’s going to happen, regardless of what it is. Everything will come together at once, and…” She motioned with her hands. “Boom!”
Tawnos stood up. “You’ve given me something to think about. Several things, in fact.”
Ashnod rose with him. “Yes, and one of the things will probably be, ‘Can I trust her?’ The answer is, ‘No you can’t, but you should at least listen.’ Okay?”
Tawnos nodded and turned toward the door. Ashnod called out his name, and he turned back toward her.
Ashnod leaned forward and kissed the apprentice. Tawnos started as if prodded by a dagger thrust.
Ashnod ignored the reaction. “That’s thanks. Thanks for not turning me over to the temples. And thanks for coming and talking to me. You’re a good duck.” And she smiled.
Outside, in the hall, Tawnos rubbed his cheek where Ashnod had kissed him. The skin was still warm.
“Urza,” muttered his apprentice, “wherever you are, you’d better get back here soon.”
