The Iron Ring

by Auston Habershaw

Tyvian tried again. “The ley errs slightly toward Lumenal energy when taking steps in sevens, because the Lumen has an affinity with that number.”

  “What’s the Lumen?”

  “Gods, boy, how much schooling have you had anyway?”

  Artus snorted. “I can’t read, remember?”

  Tyvian rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Of course—­how foolish of me to expect so much. Fine then, let’s put it this way: the world—­the very stuff of existence itself—­is comprised of five energies. They are the Lumen and the Ether, the Dweomer and the Fey, and lastly the Astral, which binds them all together. These energies manifest in different quantities in different places—­in a bright place there is more of the Lumen, for instance, or in a cold one there is more of the Dweomer, and so on and so forth. How these energies are distributed is called the ‘ley’ of a place.”

  Artus slurped his soup. “Could you use smaller words?”

  Tyvian closed his eyes and tried to restrain his urge to scream. He wasn’t sure if this conversation could get any more painful than if the ring were actively torturing him. “Look, all that really matters is that each of those five ‘govern,’ or at least affect, everything you can think of. All of this energy tends to flow and change with the seasons, the time, and so on, but congregate in great metaphysical pathways, called ley lines, which is largely how ships navigate at sea and have played an important role in where cites have been founded and, probably, how the geography of the world itself has been formed. Understand?”

  Artus licked his lips, trying to take in both what Tyvian said and the ring of greasy broth that had formed around his mouth. “So what’s this got to do with walking seven steps and such?”

  Tyvian threw up his hands. “It affects the ley by . . . look, it just does, Artus. It’s maaagic.” Tyvian twiddled his fingers like he was casting a spell.

  Artus brightened. “So it’s white magic.”

  Tyvian groaned. “The terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ magic imply some kind of moral governor over the energy itself, which is erroneous. The Ether is no more evil than the Lumen is good. I need only point out the instances in which deceiving someone with the Ether actually does them a favor, whereas telling them the truth with the Lumen would destroy them. Morality has nothing to do with sorcery whatsoever, no matter what you learned in church.”

  “ ’Ere you are, love.” The serving woman returned, grinning, and plopped a chipped mug and a wooden plate in front of Tyvian. The “roast” was a dark, greasy hunk of unidentifiable meat ­coupled with some mushy potatoes in a black gravy. The woman took a pair of coppers for her trouble and melted back into the crowd.

  Tyvian was transfixed by the meat. “It seems I should have had the stew. She didn’t even leave any flatware.”

  Artus shrugged. “Just use your hands.”

  Tyvian curled his lips at the suggestion and pushed the plate away. “I am going to kill Hendrieux slowly for this.”

  “What? Everybody uses their hands.”

  Tyvian snorted. “Your definition of ‘everybody’ seems to leave out the intelligent, cultured, clean, and polite.”

  Artus leaned back and crossed his arms. “You’re an ass.”

  Tyvian put up three fingers, one at a time. “An ass who saved you from a burning spirit engine, who refrained from killing you when you came at him with a knife, and who is paying you ten gold marks when you get to Freegate, so shut the hell up.”

  They both fell quiet and Tyvian took the respite from Artus to examine the iron ring affixed to his finger for the hundredth time. There were no sigils or runes inscribed along its surface, no visible marks of enchantment, not even any jewels or studs around which to focus magical energy. It was a featureless iron band—­as fascinating a talismanic work as it was enraging. The material, if it were iron, would indicate an association with the Dweomer, though without a mage-­compass he couldn’t tell for certain. Dweomeric energy would make sense, though, if its purpose was to make him adhere to certain rules of behavior. How it was able to know which rules he would be constrained to obey, though, was something he couldn’t figure out. Conventionally they would have to be inscribed upon the ring itself, but Tyvian could see nothing. Even presuming the writing was along the inside of band, there was hardly enough surface area to accommodate much Dweomeric lettering. He supposed somebody could have used Astral enchantments to artificially expand the area on the inside of the ring, but that was an enchantment of such complexity Tyvian felt it hard to believe a single ring could contain such power, especially when ­coupled with the behavior-­triggered effects and the enchantment to keep it on his hand.

  “Does it hurt?” Artus asked, watching Tyvian’s hand.

  “Not just now. Insulting you isn’t on its list of things I shouldn’t do, apparently.”

  Artus licked his lips. “If it hadn’t stopped you, you woulda killed me, right?”

  Tyvian didn’t smile when he answered. “Yes, Artus. I would have.”

  He looked Artus in the eye. The boy was trying to look nonchalant, but his face was too tight and too controlled. He was afraid. “I ought notta attacked you. Sorry.”

  Tyvian nodded. “Apology accepted.”

  “You gonna apologize to me?”

  “I can’t imagine for what.”

  Artus’s eyes flashed and his face flushed. He opened his mouth, probably, Tyvian assumed, to call him an ass again, but he didn’t get it out.

  At that moment there was a commotion up on deck. Tyvian stood to see what was happening, and through the smoky gloom he spotted a pair of men supporting a pale woman between them. She had been half dragged, half carried in from outside, where the sun had just set, and was panting as though she had been sprinting. “Monster!” she gasped. “Monster coming!”

  It was then that Tyvian could hear the screams of injured men coming from somewhere above. Around him the locals began hasty speculations. Nurlings? Trolls? It was the wrong season, some insisted, while others called for the tavernkeeper to bring weapons.

  In moments the tavernkeeper was distributing cudgels and quarterstaffs he had taken from the back room, and half-­drunk men were charging into the night to drive off the invader, whatever it was. Tyvian watched the excitement with a dispassionate eye, hoping the mob would keep any inhuman beasts from assaulting his person, but also incredulous that any such group of toothless yokels could ever constitute a competent fighting force.

  “Should we go help?” Artus asked.

  Tyvian snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. This has nothing to do with us.”

  No sooner had Tyvian spoken those words than a distressingly familiar gnoll appeared in the doorframe . . .

  . . . and it was looking straight at him.

  The galley was still as the patrons gaped at the gnoll’s muscular bulk. Snow blown in from outside played about its feet and glazed its golden-­furred shoulders; its copper eyes glittered in the guttering lamplight. About its waist was fashioned a crude lanyard from which hung an assortment of dead rabbits, but it was otherwise unclothed and unarmed. Unarmed, that was, if one didn’t count the white fangs it no doubt concealed inside its snout.

  It leveled a thick, hairy paw at Tyvian and pointed. For the second time, the smuggler’s insides twisted at the thought of the beast possessing such humanlike hands. Everybody in the tavern followed the beast’s gesture, and found Tyvian and Artus on their feet, faces pale.

  “It wants them travelers!” The tavernkeeper yelled.

  What happened next, Tyvian had to admit, was a credit to Galaspiner hospitality. Two men advanced on the gnoll, stools in hand, aiming to brain the creature before it went another step. Tyvian, who had seen the beast in action before, knew what was going to happen. The gnoll dropped a shoulder and rammed one man to the floor while blocking the other man’s blow with the precise sweep of a massive forearm. It then followed up this block with
a punch to the guts that folded the man in half and dropped him, weeping for air.

  Threatening travelers might have encouraged a pair of men to attack, but the casual pummeling of two of their own was enough to raise the whole place against the intruder. Angry drunks with bottles, bar stools, clubs, knives, and even fists descended on the beast, their courage bolstered by their liberal intake of beer in the hours before.

  The battle did not go well for the forces of humanity.

  The gnoll, possessing an agility that belied its massive size, felled men as easily as one might whack the heads off daisies. Its broad, sloping shoulders absorbed blows that might have killed lesser beings with little apparent distress, and its counterattacks never failed to remove a man from the melee permanently. It didn’t use its teeth, but then it didn’t need to—­the creature possessed a skill in hand-­to-­hand combat that no pack of drunken country Galaspiners could ever match. If they came at it with weapons, it took their weapons away. If they threw things, it dodged. If they jumped on its back, they found themselves hurtling through the air.

  Artus snatched up a half-­empty beer mug and moved to join the defense, but Tyvian caught his arm. “Artus, back door, now!”

  “But it’ll kill them!”

  Tyvian winced as the ring bit down on his hand like an iron vice. He hissed through clenched teeth, “Better them than us.”

  A man with a bloody face flew at the two of them, causing Tyvian to dive to the floor. The unfortunate victim smashed chin-­first into their table, knocking it over and spilling stew, roast, and hearthcider in every direction. When his limp body at last came to rest in a sprawling heap, Tyvian could see that the man wasn’t likely to get up anytime soon, and even then probably not without some medical attention. Tyvian scowled at him. “Idiot. Trying to fistfight a gnoll, indeed.”

  “YAAAAAAA!!!!” Tyvian heard Artus yell, and looked up to see the boy charging into the fray, which had moved away from the door and was halfway across the room toward Tyvian. In between its devastating attacks, he noted that the gnoll was still casting significant glances in his direction.

  Tyvian grimaced and, hoping Artus’s sacrifice would give him a good head start, beat a hasty retreat.

  He had barely made it up the back stairs to the deck of the river-­inn and slammed the door behind him when he was doubled over by a white-­hot flash of searing pain. He fell to a crouch and beat his hand against the planks. “Stop . . . it . . . stop . . . it . . . you . . . son of a bitch!”

  The pain did not stop, but Tyvian managed to stand anyway and ran, blindly, along the slick, snow-­dusted decks of the Wandering Fountain. With every step, he felt as if more of his hand began to blister and burn away, but he ran anyway. His mind raged, I will not be controlled. I will NOT be controlled!

  He tripped on a rope and rolled down a flight of stairs, hand and arm clutched to his chest, his breathing ragged. Barely aware of where he was, he screamed down at his hand. “KROTH’S TEETH! What do you want me to do? You want me to go back there and die? What would that accomplish?”

  Face a mask of determination, Tyvian rolled to his knees and shuffled back up the stairs and onto the deck. His vision was blurred with tears as the ring seemed to brand his very bones with its infernal heat, the pain throbbing from his fingertips to his shoulders. He dared not look down, convinced that all that remained of his right hand was bones and ash.

  Ahead, dimly, he thought he saw a stable. Yes! A horse! If he could just climb atop one and spur it on, it would take him away. With any luck, the gnoll would be too injured from the fight to follow. Determination revitalized, he staggered to his feet and across the deck, vision tunneling so that all he could see was the door to the stable in front of him. The ring blazed on, punishing him, but with each step, Tyvian felt the pain fade. He was beating it! He laughed, thinking of that prig, Eddereon. “Your ring’s no match for me! I knew it! I knew it!”

  He reached the door, the pain almost all gone. He pulled it open, stepped inside . . .

  . . . and found himself in the back hall of the galley again.

  “What? Kroth!” Tyvian whipped the door back open and looked out. There, in the growing moonlight, he could see his footsteps silhouetted clearly in the snow. They staggered from side to side along the river-­inn’s decks, but ultimately went in a circle.

  He glared down at the ring. His hand was completely unharmed. “You sneaky bastard.”

  There was a thunderous crash from the galley, and Tyvian heard Artus yell in pain. The ring pinched him.

  Tyvian, scowling, shook his head. “Well, since I have no choice . . .”

  Artus was the only human left in the room who wasn’t unconscious or too injured to move. His mouth was bleeding and his left eye was swollen shut, but he wasn’t down yet. His knife lay on the floor halfway between him and the hulking mass of fur and teeth that was the gnoll. The two of them circled around it, but neither advanced.

  What little Artus knew about fighting he had learned as a child with his older brothers and then, later, as a matter of survival in the alleys and slums of Ayventry. In both cases the winners were usually the bigger and meaner parties, unless the little guy used a cheap shot. In the case of the gnoll versus himself, Artus had little doubt who was the bigger and meaner fighter. It only remained to be seen if he, Artus, could get in that cheap shot. Trouble with cheap shots, though, was that if they didn’t win the fight immediately, you’d better be able to run away real fast.

  Somehow Artus doubted he would outrun the gnoll.

  Tyvian, it seemed, was long gone. Artus wanted to say he didn’t care, but he couldn’t, quite. The smuggler was an ass, true, but he was educated, refined, quick-­witted, wealthy, dangerous . . . in short, he was pretty much the most interesting person Artus knew and the only one who seemed the least bit interested in talking to him. He had hoped—­

  “Ooof!” The gnoll’s front paws hit Artus in the chest. He found himself on his back on the floor, the mighty beast on top of him. Artus lay, open-­mouthed—­the creature must have covered the five paces between them in one leap.

  “Get off of him!” Artus craned his neck and saw Tyvian standing there, knife drawn. “He’s not the one you want.”

  The gnoll turned its copper eyes from the vanquished Artus to look at Tyvian. Then it spoke. “Put away your knife.” Its voice was surprisingly soft and smooth, but with a heavy cadence that indicated it was used to being obeyed.

  Tyvian blinked, but that was all the indication of surprise he gave. “If you were in my position, would that seem like a wise idea?”

  The gnoll pondered this, then said, “This is not your pup.”

  “You mean Artus? Hann, no! Why does everyone keep saying that? Surely there isn’t much of a resemblance.” Artus could see Tyvian’s weight shift to the balls of his feet. He might have been speaking casually, but the smuggler was ready for a fight at any moment.

  The gnoll got off Artus’s chest and picked him up by the collar. “Take him.” Artus was unceremoniously tossed across the room.

  Tyvian didn’t look at him, but asked, “Are you all right?”

  Artus spat blood. “No.”

  The gnoll pointed at Tyvian. “You will help me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Around them, various patrons of the Wandering Fountain began to return to their senses, moaning and coughing. The gnoll’s triangular ears swiveled to record this. It spoke in a thunderous semigrowl. “All of you will leave now! This is my place!”

  Tyvian smiled and nodded. “We’d be delighted to.”

  The gnoll glared at him. “Not you. You will come with me.”

  “Not a chance.”

  The tavernkeeper crawled out from under a table, his left leg bent at an unnatural angle. “Help! Help! Beast!”

  The gnoll trotted over, grabbed the man by the front of his shirt, and
heaved him through the exit like a sack. It then looked back to Tyvian. “Then I go with you.”

  Tyvian scowled. “Why on earth would I let you do that?”

  The gnoll looked around at the patrons stumbling to their feet, their eyes bleached with stark terror. “I SAID LEAVE!” It roared. Within a few seconds the room was empty.

  “They’ll go get help, you know,” Tyvian said. “There are more ­people in the inn than just those here.”

  The beast snorted. “Not anymore. I threw them all in the water before I came down.”

  Tyvian smiled again. “Ah, naturally. Well, they will come back, and next time they’ll have weapons. I can’t really think of a particularly good reason to associate myself with you in that case, can you?”

  The gnoll fixed Tyvian with its predatory glare again. “You need help to kill the man who tricked you and got you caught by the wizards. I am strong and fast and better than this pup.” It gestured at Artus, who was only now managing to stand up. “I can track stupid humans across miles and miles, and if you won’t let me go with you, I will eat your face.”

  Tyvian, for the first time Artus had met him, seemed at a loss for words. Then he cleared his throat and said, “For a monster, you are remarkably convincing.”

  The gnoll held up the tavernkeeper’s apron and jingled it. “I also have lots of money.”

  Artus and Tyvian exchanged glances. Artus asked, “How far is it to Freegate, again?”

  Tyvian looked back at the gnoll. “Right, then—­you’re in. Off we go.”

  After looting the empty river-­inn of supplies, a tent, and some other essentials, the strange trio of smuggler, boy, and gnoll slipped through the dark of the winter night until they found an empty barn in which to take shelter. The gnoll wanted to continue on, but Tyvian managed to convince it (he had no idea how) that to rest a few hours would be wiser.

  Artus found a lamp somewhere and lit it with a flint. Tyvian would have preferred an actual fire, but the risk of discovery was too great. Besides, the hearthcider he had drank in the Wandering Fountain was actually working—­he didn’t feel cold at all, despite crouching on the hay-­strewn floor of a uninsulated and empty barn on a winter night.