The Iron Ring

by Auston Habershaw

  More applause, this time healthier. Sahand grinned at them. Tell them what they want to hear, and they eat it up—­how well old Lyrelle taught me that one. . .

  The Chairman brought the League to order. “We proceed to another matter directly pertaining to our Esteemed Colleague from Dellor’s activities in the Freegate area.” He nodded to the old woman—­Sahand’s other supporter. “We recognize Our Esteemed Colleague from Kalsaar.”

  The woman appeared ancient beyond reckoning, her white gloved hands clutching a gnarled walking stick. She tottered down to the center of the room besides the Well. “As you all know, I and my Esteemed Colleague from Galaspin,” she motioned to the red-­haired man, “have become involved in supporting the efforts of our Esteemed Colleague from Dellor for some time now. There is a new development entering into our operations in Freegate that may require our attention. His name is Tyvian Reldamar.”

  There was a wave of ruffled cloaks and shifting feet among the assembly. Sahand, though, didn’t move, his gaze fixed on the old woman’s wizened face. “I heard that Reldamar was dead.”

  The old woman shrugged. “An exaggeration. I have it from a very reliable source that he is alive and well and back in town.”

  The red-­haired young man’s voice was calm. “Why would this be a problem? Reldamar is no enemy of ours, and though he might know of our existence, he has no way of finding us.”

  The old woman looked at the Chairman, “By your leave, darling?” When the Chairman nodded, she turned to Sahand and the other man. “Tyvian Reldamar has brought a Defender of the Balance to Freegate . . .”

  An outburst of dismay and anxiety from the League deafened all conversation for several seconds. A variety of suggested curses and plagues were shouted, as well as admonitions of caution hollered at the top of the lungs. Several members walked out of the hall then and there.

  “So what?” Sahand said once the Chairman had restored order. “Reldamar is no friend of the Arcanostrum—­he probably has the fool in casterlocks and plans to sell him to the highest bidder.”

  The old woman tapped her cane on the floor. “I hadn’t finished, my duck. Had everyone listened a second longer before butting in, you all would also have learned that Reldamar has been given the Iron Ring.”

  The League, officers included, did all but gasp at this, and the red-­haired young man reflexively reached up to stroke a beard that he didn’t currently have. Sahand looked at them and rolled his eyes. “You are referring, I take it, to that trinket occasionally affixed to scoundrels that tortures them into being nice to ­people? This is your ‘complication and opportunity’?”

  The old woman grimaced at him. “The Iron Ring is an artifact of profound power. The magecraft used to construct it is—­”

  “Of academic interest and little overall importance to myself, my holdings, or my aims,” Sahand finished for her.

  “We forget, occasionally, just how concerned Our Esteemed Colleague from Dellor is with the practical.” The Chairman smiled. “Perhaps if Our Esteemed Colleague from Kalsaar could explain more clearly the practical applications of Reldamar’s appearance and the possible interest we may have in his ring.”

  The old woman curtsied with the help of her walking stick. “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now, the reason why we are interested in the Iron Ring is because it operates in a fashion that is beyond our current understanding of talismancy. Clearly the power it is able to exercise upon its ‘host,’ if you will, far exceeds that which could conventionally be held inside an item as small as a ring. If we could understand how this works, we could greatly improve the standing of the League. Now . . .” The old woman looked at Sahand with a bemused smirk. “ . . . before you fidget yourself right out of that impressive cape, my duck, let me explain why you should be interested in Mr. Reldamar and his new ring. It seems that one Zazlar Hendrieux recently staged an ambush for his former partner, Mr. Reldamar, aboard a spirit engine bound for Freegate a bit more than a week ago. It was this ambush that placed the ring on his finger and put the Mage Defender in his custody.”

  Sahand stiffened. He could connect the dots as well as anyone. “You expect this will lead back to me.”

  The Chairman nodded gently, along with the rest of the officers. “Ordinarily we wouldn’t be able to ascertain such intelligence for one of our members, but given your . . . reticence . . . to maintain your anonymity among us, we could not help but notice a certain confluence of events that might lead to some interference with your activities. Reldamar has a score to settle with one of your underlings, a ring that forces him to behave nobly, and an operative of the Defenders by his side. He is dangerous to you.”

  “No,” Sahand corrected, “He is dangerous to Hendrieux. He won’t touch me—­I’ll see to it.”

  The old woman chuckled softly. “We wouldn’t dream of it, my duck. I propose you let us handle Reldamar. We wouldn’t want to distract you from your very important work. We merely thought it would be important to keep you in the loop. Your success in your endeavor is a success for the League as a whole.”

  Sahand tried not to let his lip curl. “Yes. Of course. I’ll leave you to it, then. As you point out, I have very important work to attend to.”

  The Chairman bowed ceremoniously. “Our Esteemed Colleague from Dellor is excused, of course.”

  Snorting at the audacity of the Chairman “excusing” him to leave, Sahand spun on his heel and marched out of the Black Hall, the crowd parting for him again, just as though they weren’t there.

  The space outside the hall was ill-­defined—­a nebulous darkness without clear dimension. A few strides into the blackness and a fixed idea of where one wanted to be would bring the departing sorcerer exactly to that place. In this instance, Sahand had his own tent in mind, and a hundred other tasks lined up that needed his attention. It was no surprise, then, that he didn’t see the young woman until she grabbed his arm.

  At the touch, Sahand pivoted on instinct, pulling his assailant so that she was facing him. His free hand seized her by the neck and yanked her head down across his body and into his knee in one savage motion. The woman fell on the floor, blood spurting from a cut lip.

  To her credit, she collected herself quickly, wiping her mouth on her black robe. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace.”

  Sahand squinted at her. She was Shrouded, of course—­no telling who she was by sight. The Shroud, though, was familiar to him. She had been a vocal supporter of his in the League early on. He made no move to help her up. “What do you want?”

  The woman rolled slowly to all fours, but had some trouble rising from there. An old woman, then. She was lucky he hadn’t landed that knee solidly—­he might have broken her neck. As it stood, he reflected, a broken neck might be in her future anyway. “I . . . I had a question about the Daer Trondor power sink.”

  Sahand felt his face stiffen, and knew that was a mistake. The old woman watched him with young eyes. “What about it?”

  Slowly, the Shrouded old woman got herself into a squat and, grunting like a birthing sow, drew herself to her full height. Her breath came in labored gasps. “If you can release the power there, how do you intend to control it? That ancient old sink has been pooling all five energies without being tapped for . . . gods . . . for centuries at least, if not millennia. If you can tap it, it will be like breaking a dam . . .”

  Sahand frowned. “Such power is required to produce the Elixir. I’ve explained this before.”

  “Yes . . . but it’s just . . .” The woman opened her mouth, then closed it. “Yes. I suppose you’re right. I was only . . . I was hoping I could help.”

  Sahand watched her eyes and how they blinked. This was not a woman who was seeking to help. This was a woman who was afraid. Deathly afraid.

  He appropriated a smile, but it was not a natural expression for him. The woman backed away a pace. “Your help, madam, is not required.”


  She curtsied—­it was the flawless curtsey of a noblewoman, probably Eretherian. “As Your Grace commands.”

  Sahand nodded and backed into the shadows. Soon, the darkness fell and the woman vanished from view.

  He was back in his tent in moments, the darkness and stillness of that half-­place still clinging to his garments as he stood before a roaring fire he had left burning in a brazier for just this reason.

  “Gallo?” he called, and the massive warrior appeared, his ruined face betraying not the least curiosity of where his lord had been. “Tighten security, just in case. Tyvian Reldamar is alive and he may come after Hendrieux. If that happens, I want our operations here secure.”

  “Telling Hendrieux?” Gallo rasped.

  Sahand frowned. “No. Their feud has nothing to do with me, and I want it to stay that way. Understood?”

  Gallo bowed.

  “One more thing,” Sahand added. “We’re going to need to visit that necromancer, Arkald.” He reached down and wiped some of the old woman’s blood off his knee and held it up in the firelight. “I have somebody I need to find.”

  Gallo bowed again, this time more deeply. “I will prepare an expedition immediately.”

  “No,” Sahand shook his head. “I will go alone. This shouldn’t take long.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HOME AT LAST

  Tyvian laid back in the saffron-­scented bathwater, a glass of white Dorthian ’22 cradled loosely in his left hand, as the rain beat a steady rhythm upon the skylights overhead. He tried to relax but he couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes.

  The ring finger on his right hand—­the ring’s finger—­ached slightly, as though he had jammed it against a wall or some such, though he knew very well he had done no such thing. He tried to block the pain out but it was no good. The blasted thing wouldn’t let him unwind.

  He had hoped to recover himself inside his sumptuously appointed domicile. His servant specters—­invisible Dweomeric constructs that maintained his house—­had prepared his bath exactly to his specifications and were, even now, roasting pheasants he had preserved in his stasis box a year ago. The scent of rosemary and braised game bird wafted through the rooms of the flat, blending with the pleasant smell of the bath to create a perfectly luxurious environment . . . and that Kroth-­spawned ring was ruining everything.

  He knew the ring was trying to encourage a feeling of guilt in him for casting off Artus. He had to applaud the cleverness of its attempt—­no sharp, searing pain, but just this dull, constant ache. Had he felt guilt with any regularity, Tyvian thought he might have been able to confirm beyond doubt that the sensation caused by the ring was a close amalgam of the feeling created by the emotion itself. As it stood, the ring only made him angry and frustrated. He had nearly been killed, had spent almost two weeks in the muddy, frozen wilderness, and now that he was finally somewhere civilized, he wasn’t permitted the relaxation he so richly deserved.

  He wanted to ask the ring what it was hoping to accomplish with this “guilt” charade, but didn’t. He had slipped into speaking with the thing before and immediately recognized how insane it made him appear. The ring was not intelligent, it was merely sophisticated. No enchantment, no matter how advanced, was capable of truly simulating human intelligence.

  Tyvian took a sip of wine, then placed his glass on a levitating silver tray beside him and, for the fifth time since getting in the bath, attempted to wriggle the ring off of his oiled and soapy finger. Pull as he might, and no matter how much he scraped or scratched at the flesh around his finger, the ring didn’t budge. It didn’t even rotate. He recalled the scar tissue built up around Eddereon’s ring finger, and shuddered as he considered the implications.

  “You drive men mad, don’t you?” He said to the little iron-­black circlet, and then grimaced. Don’t talk to it! It isn’t bloody alive, stupid!

  “Bring my clothes,” Tyvian announced to the specters. They carried off the wine and returned with the outfit he had selected for the evening—­a fine silk shirt of gleaming white with a flaring collar, a long maroon coat with green embroidery along the sleeves depicting cliff serpents in flight, matching breeches, a broad black belt inlaid with silver studs, and supple suede boots. This, along with a variety of jeweled rings—­a sapphire to compliment his eyes, a sliver flower to play off the belt and draw attention away from the iron ring—­and he was ready.

  “Set the table for dinner. Bring the prisoner from the secure room.” He took a deep breath. Dinner with Myreon Alafarr was certainly going to be interesting.

  Myreon woke up thanks to the painful aches of an empty stomach. She lay quietly in the dark, wondering what kind of ­people Reldamar usually kept in so comfortable a cell. She came to the conclusion that it was probably for actual guests. Though it was really a cell, few but actual trained magi would have been able to recognize it as such, and Myreon thought it appropriate to Reldamar’s personality that he wouldn’t trust even those he invited into his own home.

  Every cell, however, had its weakness, and Myreon hadn’t earned her mage’s staff from the Arcanostrum for nothing. The only thing stopping her were those infernal casterlocks. With them in place, there was almost no sorcery of note she could work. After trying a few forms of purely verbal magic and failing utterly, she settled upon wiggling as much feeling back into her fingertips as she could until sleep, again, tugged at her eyelids. As she drifted off, the same thing kept running through her head—­a lesson taught to her by none other than Lyrelle Reldamar shortly before Myreon had earned her first mark: Your fate lies in your fingers.

  Two hours later Myreon was awakened again by the specters and dragged by the elbows to the dining room. Dinner was served, it seemed.

  At the other end of a fabulously ornate table made entirely of mageglass, Tyvian Reldamar sat in a high-­backed chair of white birch. Another, similar chair sat at the opposite end of the table. Everything was set for dinner, and the smell of the food instantly set Myreon’s mouth watering. The specters pulled out the empty chair for her, and she sat down.

  Reldamar grinned at the mage. “My goodness, Myreon—­you look awful.”

  Myreon had long grown tired of verbal jousting with the smuggler over her days of captivity, so she only nodded. “Am I supposed to eat like a dog?” She held up her casterlocks. “Or are you just going to torture me by making me watch.”

  Reldamar clutched his heart in feigned pain. “Gods, what kind of monster do you think I am? There are two whole pheasants there, my dear. Do you really think I would eat all of them?”

  Reldamar produced a key from his coat pocket and supplied it to one of the specters, which dutifully unlocked the steel cylinder that had been affixed to the Defender’s hands for days. When the cylinder had been removed, Myreon could see that her hands were a mixture of pale white and raw, bleeding red. Gingerly she closed each of them into a fist and extended them again, clenching her teeth against the incredible pain caused by old cramps and muscular atrophy.

  “Please eat your fill, Magus.” Reldamar said, and Myreon’s plate was supplied with a full half pheasant, some vegetables, and her glass was filled with white wine.

  Myreon knew that stuffing her face would engender jibes from the smuggler, but she didn’t care. She dove into her food, eschewing silverware both thanks to her hunger and the fact that her hands were too weak to clutch a fork and knife with any amount of dexterity. She made a point to play this angle up—­she wanted Reldamar to think her hands weaker than they were. It was the only possible way she would get out of this.

  To her surprise, Reldamar remained silent, his sharp blue eyes following her every move. After she had downed her second glass of wine in a few swift gulps, the smuggler took a bite of his own food. “If I had been told I would be dining with Myreon Alafarr in my own home at the end of this month, I would have been overcome with incredulity. Yet, he
re we are.” He held up his glass. “To vanquished foes.”

  Myreon only glared at him for a moment and then returned to her meal. There were a half-­dozen invocations she could think of that would blast Reldamar through the wall or sear his flesh from his bones, but none of them were going to be cast with her hands in the state they were in. They would take days to recover, and Reldamar knew it as well as she. The smuggler wouldn’t have released her hands otherwise.

  She looked out of the floor-­length windows that lined the side of the dining room. They overlooked the remainder of Freegate, which lay far beneath Reldamar’s Top Street penthouse. The city was black and obscured by a misty layer of smoke and fog, with only the tallest steeples and towers piercing its gloom. It was raining steadily, the lights of a few streetlamps flickering in the dark. Myreon cleared her throat. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

  Reldamar finished chewing a dainty portion of meat before answering. “I have use for you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Since when have you been any good at telling when I’m lying? By my count, you have believed at least seven lies I have told you during the course of our . . . let us call it our ‘professional relationship.’ ”

  “I can only count five.” Myreon frowned.

  “Thank you, Magus, for proving my point.” Reldamar held up his glass in salute.

  “You’re changing the subject. You haven’t killed me and there is no reason for it. Every moment you keep me alive jeopardizes you. If I escaped, if I managed to get a message to someone, if anything went wrong, I could tell the Defenders where you are, where you live, whom you associate with in Freegate—­”

  “Now, Myreon,” Reldamar interrupted, wagging a finger at her, “what makes you think you will escape?”

  “Not my point. My point is that you are not stupid enough to take the risk.”