Solineus

by L. James Rice

  He clung tight and swung his legs over the edge; flickers later he stood crouched at the base. He unslung Morik’s shield form his shoulder and hid behind it, then drew the Brother, a click as it unseated in the sheath, but he pulled it slow and steady without a noise after. The Twin whispered in his head, nervous? Maybe ready for a fight but sensing nothing? Hard as hell to read a sword’s mind. In his head he chuckled at his own foolishness before skulking toward the lantern. He crouched low, shield covering damned near every bit of him, while expecting the twang of a string any flicker.

  He stared over the shield and into the black where men would be as he moved into the lantern’s light. Slow. Easy. If they were there, they’d have pulled triggers by now… or they waited for everyone to come down from on high. He grabbed the lantern’s wire handle and lifted, pointing its beam to where last he’d heard screams and groans.

  Emptiness.

  He stood and walked with confidence, flicking the light everywhere he might imagine an enemy, knowing Helmveliners couched arbalests in wait of a target, but as he drew close all he saw was a couple packs and streaks of blood from men being drug away. He whistled twice, and within a couple wicks they followed the blood trail until they came to a fork in the tunnel, where their stream led away from the blood trail.

  Solineus asked, “Track and kill them?”

  Morik scoffed, his only answer as he turned and trotted down the bank of the stream. The stars were in the sky by the time they climbed from the cave and were reunited with horses and the guards left behind. They sheltered in a three-walled building to catch a couple candles of sleep and come morning they’d ride like the hells to stay alive.

  12

  A Ruined People

  Mend your heart or mend your mind,

  turn the table and spin in kind.

  The string a hair,

  a noose tied corpse fly,

  buzzing buzzing circling arc

  until the thousand eyes fall.

  Flat. Dead. Separated head.

  — Tomes of the Touched

  “ T he good news is, with the woman gone with her piece of the stone, she won’t be able to tell folks where we are.” Solineus gnawed on jerked goat between scratching at healing scabs and bruises. He wished for a fire to warm his sleep chilled bones, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

  “We should send a pigeon to Molikîn, Sînhôlar the Ironwing will want to know what has happened.”

  “Aye. And you should return Hîmr’s Coin for safe keeping.”

  “Me? What, by the Five Earls, will you be doing?”

  “I’ll be heading west.” He pulled the coin from his cloak and handed it to Morik.

  The man turned it in his hands before concealing it in an inner pocket. He reached into his pack and pulled out Tanzarêu’s maps. “My ass will appreciate your leaving me, but I hope someday your path leads you back to Shuntiskâ.” He stretched the map of the Foundations and lay it on the ground, pointed. “There are no red-domed cities in the Foundations, which means your road is a long one. Beyond the Foundations are the Ilû-Strono Plains, no proper cities there in the land of the Ilu, the lion people.”

  “Ilu-Silvstro? I’ve heard of them.”

  “That’s one of the big tribes. Tread gently into their lands, they can gut a bison with their bare hands… and their women are big as you are and stronger. But if you manage to become their pain in the ass friend, you should find passage to the cities of the Helebôm in this region.”

  “What do you know of the Helebôm?”

  “Nothing but what I’ve heard. They rule the port cities and host trade with the known world, even Luxuns.”

  “I’ve met Luxuns… good people.”

  Morik perked. “Their hair and skin are as people say?”

  Solineus laughed. “Aye, it is.”

  A wistful looked crossed his face. “I’ve never seen the great waters, maybe someday, but I do love my mountains. Anyways, if your domed city is further west than the Helebôm you’ll be needing something seaworthy.”

  Solineus stared at the map. “Any Teks I need worry about?”

  “If you hit this here—”he pointed to a river with cliff-marks on either side“—you’ve found the Orstân Rift, beyond is held by the Hundred Nations. Your bigger worry will be getting out of the Foundations alive if the Dark Waters look for you. They’ll expect you to deliver word of the stone to the Foundations, so I’d avoid the homes of kings. And no griffon cloak.”

  “What if I leave the mountains?”

  Morik shook his head. “Teks to the north, and not gentle ones like you’ve known.” He grinned and tugged his beard. “South? That’ll take you out of your way and you’re as apt to get eaten as make it alive. Best to stay in the Foundations. I know a smith here, in Holvin Dô-ar.” He tapped a hammer-and-fire symbol maybe a hundred horizons from the walking-well where they sat and traced the roads he should travel. “emêsu was born on the face of Shuntiskâ and raised in Molikîn. I trust her to keep you and your secrets safe.”

  Solineus knew the man well enough to recognize the cogs in his head aligning. “This emêsu might get me west?”

  “Maybe… I will bypass Shînvedorn, make way to Elimmor. I’ll send pigeons out every which way saying you’re continuing to deliver the rubs to the kings, that might ease my path some. When you reach Holvin Dô-ar you sit tight until I reach Molikîn. I’ll send word that Hîmr’s Coin is with the Ironwing. With this known, emêsu and the Forges of Holvin have trade in all directions, she might see you safe and sound once no one hunts you. I’d give that some time to make sure word spread.” He rolled the maps and held them out. “You’ll need these more than I.”

  Solineus took the maps. The plan sounded slow for his taste, but he’d get nowhere dead. He had a small pouch of coins, but doubted they see him far. “I’ll need dâguts to travel… I know, I’m a pain in the coin purse friend.”

  Morik laughed as he reached into his pack and handed Solineus a pouch of coins. “Keep that hidden, let any cutpurse steal the one at your waist first. And don’t ever tell me how much is in there, getting technical like, it’s the Ironwing’s treasury anyhow. Still, it might make me cry.”

  Solineus laughed as he stood and hugged the barrel-chested man, thumping his back with a laugh. “Until we meet again in Shînvedorn.”

  They saddled the horses and stowed their gear in a matter of wicks, and it was Solineus who departed first. Leaving friends behind, both living and dead, was becoming a bad habit, but he took the advice he’d given Ivin what seemed an eternity ago: He looked forward, not back.

  Mountains. Mountains. Mountains. More godsdamned mountains.

  He chuckled and patted his gelding’s neck, then grumbled. “I should’ve grabbed a shield.” But that’d mean turning around. Heels met ribs and they broke into a trot to ease the temptation to turn.

  By midday he found a road he figured was named Pozdonu, if reading Tanzarêu’s map right. From here he anticipated the route to Holvin Dô-ar to be straightforward enough, except there was nothing straight about it. A hundred horizons as the pigeon flies took twenty-days by the time the roads twisted and climbed.

  The city sat near the eastern border of the Kingdom of Kâmar, with Ôshô to the south and east, and Tûrûrôt to the northeast, although borders flexed here and there depending on which passerby he spoke to.

  One thing for certain, even if he tried to get lost, all he’d have to do is ask to have his path corrected; Holvin Dô-ar was renowned for its smithy. The people of Kâmar were friendly and within a sentence asked what a foreigner was doing, so he’d crafted his story around a commission from the Mountain Lord of Shuntiskâ. If he’d thought about it long, he might’ve concocted some other tale, but once he’d spoken the words they stuck in his head.

  Folks jabbered high praise for the craftsmen and their hammers, but not once did a soul prepare him for what he’d see on his arrival.

  He rounded his thousandth turn in the past two weeks and ro
de from beneath the evergreen branches of a copse of firs to find a city clinging to the side of a mountain. He jerked his reins to stop and stare: Half of the city, maybe more, lay in rubble sloughed from the side of the mountain in a heap of crumbled towers and walls. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands died in such a calamity. It took flickers for the trees amid the rubble to register; this was no recent disaster, it’d happened decades before, maybe even further in time. The original road, too, was gone, but a newer road circled the rubble and rose to a gatehouse that’d been added to a section of collapsed wall.

  The impression was one of riding to ancient ruins, maybe a part of a civilization the Touched would blabber about in confusions of time and place, but his arrival at the gates opened his eyes to reality; three guards stood watch in armor fashioned from plates, articulated at the joints, and buffed to a blue-gray shine. He’d never seen its like and wondered how ordinary weapons would penetrate such gear without finding the slit of the helmet’s visor.

  A guard removed his helm to reveal a youthful, shaved face with squinting eyes. “Your business?”

  “I seek the smith, emêsu of the Helmveline, with a commission from Mountain Lord Morik of Shuntiskâ.”

  “What sort of commission?”

  No one bothered to ask this before, but his tongue worked with a wit faster than his brain. “A shield.”

  The guard strolled to his side, staring up at him, glanced at his horse and gear, then circled him. “Ikoruv hilts?”

  Not a question he expected, the leather must’ve slipped. “Yes.”

  The guard raised a hand into a fist and the portcullis ground open. “Welcome to Holvin Dô-ar.”

  Solineus smiled with a nod. “Appreciate it. Is there an inn I might find a bed at?”

  The man’s look was stone-eyed. “Inn? No. Head for the Sun Forge.”

  “Where’s that?”

  A blink. “Straight ahead.”

  Solineus gave a curt nod and nudged his mount to walk through the gates. To his left, east, the city disappeared from a cliff, but straight ahead and west buildings still stood. The clop of steel-shod hooves echoed; the city was damned near empty, though he’d learned that Kingdomer towns and cities were often like Istinjoln: Busier beneath the surface. A few folks skittered like bugs from one building to another, but they didn’t hold his attention.

  A squat building fashioned from white marble stood in front of him, broad and with one set of double doors for an entrance; a dozen or more chimneys at its edges puffed gray smoke into the blue sky, but a golden dome rose from its middle, and from there billowed a white smoke, or perhaps steam, it was difficult to tell.

  He dismounted and flipped his reins over a weathered hitching post out front. The doors stood wide open on a pleasant sunny day, and he didn’t see a soul until he stepped through. The woman’s back was to him as she perused a wall full of books, her hair in a long black braid that stretched to her calves. He cleared his throat.

  “Your name?”

  “Solineus Mikjehemlut of the Clan Emudar.”

  That mouthful got the attention he expected. He hoped she wasn’t a member of the Dark Water Cult. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

  “And I’d appreciate it if you kept it quiet.”

  She smiled before covering her mouth. “What brings a barbarian to Holvin Dô-ar?”

  “emêsu of Molikîn.”

  Her brows arched. “Ah! Of course. I must ask, first, do you have Hîmr’s Coin with you?”

  He laughed. “It was lost, I fear. But I have a rub if you’d like to see.”

  “I would!” The shock on her face when he pulled the vellum from his cloak suggested she didn’t quite trust him. And the fact he placed it in her hands paled her face. “The Storm-Eye be praised… it’s like I’m touching history.”

  “Stare at it all you like, but first get me to emêsu.”

  She giggled. “Of course.”

  The building was huge, and he followed through several halls, into blazing hot rooms with raging fires, enquiring after the smith until they found her in her study deep in the back of the building. She answered the door wearing a heavy leather apron which sported a hundred charred blotches, her hair a silver-gray and pulled into a tight tail. Her visage was of a pissy old woman with a vinegar-scowl attitude.

  “Markîk’s curse, what do you want?”

  His guide’s voice was smug and self-pleased. “This is Solineus Mikjehemlut… of the Clan?”

  “Emudar.”

  “Yes, Emudar.”

  The smith’s scowl went flat, and her eyes flicked to meet his. “What, by the Five Earls, would you want with me?”

  “Morik of Shuntiskâ said you might be able to assist me.”

  “Inside. You close the door and be off.”

  He stepped inside and she gestured to a chair. The room was piled full of stuff surrounding a single bed. Books, slat-crates filled with slags of metal, four tables, a dozen chairs (all but the one in which he took a seat covered in clothing tossed at random) and a statue of a black cat. Except it turned out the cat was alive and fond of his lap. It leaped onto his legs and curled with a purr the flicker his ass hit the wicker.

  “You’re a blazing hot ingot, and this here city has rules.”

  “I’ve no idea what you mean.”

  She stared at him as if to judge, then shoved junk from a second chair on to the floor so she could sit. “The Sun Forge sits in Holvin Dô-ar, and Holvin Dô-ar sits in the Kingdom of Kâmar, but smiths from the breadth of the Foundations come here to learn and create. This means no ingots heated by the politics of kings.”

  He cocked his head, figuring what the hells she spoke of. “The Sun Forge is neutral ground.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I am unwelcome? Because I claimed Hîmr’s Coin?”

  “Any man must have a claim to be welcome to the Sun Forge. You, more so than most.”

  “A claim?”

  “A reason to visit.”

  He unsheathed the Sister and held out the blade. “Is this reason?”

  The woman blanched, her fingers reaching out before pulling back. “Spirit-blade?”

  “Indeed.”

  She exhaled a deep breath. “While fascinating… No, you must either be a recognized smith or have something you wish made.”

  He chuckled. “Morik claims I need a shield.”

  She grinned. “You may have a shield forged anywhere.”

  “Morik claimed I can trust you… can I?” She nodded with a palm up gesture. “He carries the coin back to Molikîn as I speak, but the Dark Waters believe I have it. He figured I’d be safe here for a time, until he can spread word that the Ironwing holds the coin. Tell me what I need to find the good graces of the Sun Forge.”

  “Pigeons spoke of the barbarian hero carrying the coin through the Foundations?”

  “A ruse.”

  She nodded, sighed again. “If you need a shield, you need a shield. It just can’t be an ordinary shield to be made anywhere.”

  “A friend of mine has a shield which can stop Latcu arrows.”

  She blinked then stared long and hard. “That… that is a feat.” She scratched her head. “This I cannot do. How many dâguts do you have?”

  He tossed her his pouch of coins and she didn’t bother to look inside; her breath puffed. “The Sun Forge doesn’t come with silver and a few specks of gold. Even if I worked free… the Forge demands its pay.”

  “How much?”

  “Much.”

  “More than the Ironwing would owe the man who brought him Hîmr’s Coin? Send him a pigeon with your price.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “You’ve met the Ironwing in person?”

  “Twice, at the Third Throne.”

  Her smile meant she was impressed. “ Tûmoshu melor. In the young tongue, a Singing Shield. The Ironwing can afford it, and the Sun Forge won’t refuse this profit. If his pigeon returns a treasury note. ”

  “It will.” He hope
d his confidence would pay off as he locked eyes with the woman and petted the cat.

  “I will put in the necessary reacquisitions, and if the Ironwing sees fit… a week maybe to receive the treasury writ… in a month we might start work on your Singing Shield.”

  Whatever the hells that is. “I would be honored.”

  She laughed. “As you should be. I must be back to work… but I’ll have the girl prepare a room for your stay, and later we will visit the pigeon-master.”

  She stood and opened the door but glanced back. “Tongs has taken a liking to you.”

  He assumed this was the cat’s name. “Indeed. A fine feline, but he won’t let me get up.” She laughed as the door closed behind her, but he wasn’t lying; Tong hissed when he tried to stand, then purred as soon as he relaxed. He rubbed the cat’s head between the ears. “You do realize I outweigh you about ten to one? And I’m wearing armor?” He snorted as the cat closed its eyes for a doze and kneaded his cloak. What the hells, he didn’t have no place to go anyhow. “Fought my way thousands of horizons just be beaten by a five-brick pussy cat.” He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes; maybe a nap was what he needed anyhow.

  13

  Forge the Sun

  The terror in the error,

  the weather carrying the feather,

  dead weight, the dead wait, float what for,

  in the forbidden necromantic lore?

  Can’t say, won’t say, shouldn’t say,

  but I did! Did I? Not yet.

  Bloated noses above the waves,

  not dead. No, no, alive and hungry.

  — Tomes of the Touched

  “ Y ou know of infused ore?”

  With King Sînhôlar’s treasury writ deposited with the Sun Forge, Solineus’ status at the Sun Forge earned him an education. It didn’t hurt that emêsu and every smith who caught word of the Twins wanted to test their ability to cut a variety of alloys. “I know the words. Something to do with the Elements altering the metal.”

  “Indeed. What is Ikoruv?”