Redemption's Blade

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  “Now, my dear lady of Forinth, what meagre service might such a plenipotentiary be seeking in our humble establishment?” he trilled. “Doubtless your enthusiasm for the bounty of our municipality has led you to an infringement of some inconvenient local ordnance and you require a modicum of clerking to extricate yourself?” Without any obvious transition he was seated at the little desk, dipping a pen in the inkwell. “Perhaps a warrant of good character, or an affidavit of payment for your creditors?”

  “No—” Celestaine started.

  “Of course, and forgive me for suggesting that a Forinthi might find our rather procedural society unintuitive, most noncosmopolitan of me. I understand your hesitancy, of course, but you have doubtless come to Cinquetann’s pre-eminent chirurgeons because of some discomfort, perhaps as the dolorous consequence of a moment’s abandon?”

  Celestaine, her words swept away in the flood, just goggled at him, until the long-faced man clarified, “Got the clap, or up the duff.”

  The loquacious Cheriveni rolled his eyes. “I generally find a little circuity of language allows me to anticipate a multitude of needs on the part of my client.”

  “Nothing like that,” Celestaine snapped, because surely this wasn’t the man she was here to see. “I’m looking for Doctor Catt.”

  “Serendipitously, you have located him, and he is entirely devoted to your service. The sour fellow pointedly not eating his lunch is my perspicacious colleague Doctor Fisher.”

  Doctor Fisher grunted and made a big rattling show of tidying shelves.

  “I understand you’re a collector,” Celestaine said.

  The difference in Doctor Catt’s manner was remarkable. His hands, which had been clasped piously before him, now settled on the countertop, fingers twitching as though he was already imagining holding some new acquisition. Some of the bonhomie fell away, although the man was still patently very pleased with himself. “Selling, I take it? And you’ve come straight to the source rather than traffic with my agents. High commendable. Something of the enemy’s, perhaps? On your person, or…?” He flicked one of the lenses down. “Or perhaps a certain caution conspires to your leaving this treasure somewhere safe until a transaction has been formulated…?”

  “Catty,” Fisher said, in a terrible stage whisper, “the sword.”

  Catt’s attention slid down to Celestaine’s waist and the roughly-bundled weapon belted there. His magnified gaze widened and he said, “Huff,” rather than the polysyllabic utterance he’d no doubt intended. “Well I suppose we’d better remove to the back room to engage in some civilized negotiation.”

  “FIRST OFF,” CELESTAINE said, “I’m not selling, not exactly, but possibly I’m buying, depending.”

  There was hardly any more space in the back than the front, but there was a lot less cheap tat. This was plainly where Doctor Catt preferred to spend his time, and he had ensconced himself in a high upholstered armchair, the feet of which were carved into bird claws that occasionally flexed their wooden talons and rucked up the rug. Around them was an esoteric collection of artefacts on shelves and little tables: some of gold and gems, others just pots and bones and bits of wood, but everything obviously of value to the proprietors of Catt & Fisher.

  “You set out your armies with a very broad front,” their host observed. “And I’d venture to suggest you’re no quotidian veteran looking for a post-martial nest egg.”

  “She’s Celestaine of Fernreame. She’s a Slayer,” came Fisher’s gravelly voice from the shopfront. “Who else’d have that blade? Close the deal, Catt.”

  “I’m not selling my sword,” she started, but then blinked. “I will trade my sword—this sword, that killed the Kinslayer—in return for something that can do what I need.” She waited for the rush of avarice, but Catt just leant forwards in his big old chair, all keen interest.

  So she told him: the Aethani, everything. Saying it here, in this cluttered Cheriveni back room, she felt the weight of the task on her. To restore a whole race! Surely just to give Amkulyah back his wings would require the benevolence of the vanished gods. All the Aethani? Catt would laugh her out of his shop.

  And yet he didn’t laugh, though that smile hadn’t gone anywhere. He took the lenses off and fiddled with them, his gaze far away for a moment. “Entirely creditable charity,” he said at last. “Noble intent. Such benevolence.”

  “Have you anything that will do it? Or even help?” She glanced about the room. What she needed could be right here, catalogued on some shelf or other, lying idle in the hands of this collector. “This is the sword that took the Kinslayer’s hand. Wanderer himself gave it to me. If you can do what I ask, it’s yours. And more—if being owned by me has any virtue, you can have all that’s mine.” She knew she was going too far, but he hadn’t just laughed her ambition to scorn. His expression admitted that she could actually achieve what she had set her sights on.

  “Alas, alas, my little collection here lacks artefacts of such puissance,” he said at last. “For pure healing—well—perhaps the Orb of Nine Blessings from the Sanctuary of Imrath, except the Kinslayer destroyed the latter, and the former was lost long before. Or there was the Head of Lucanfre, that knew how to cure any ailment or injury, but the Gracious One spoke through it, they say. It was mute when we lost the gods, and then the enemy flensed it and turned the skull into a goblet. And it’s not as though he made any healing regalia. You know how he was.”

  Celestaine nodded bitterly.

  “You’re sure I couldn’t persuade you to part with that most potent sword?” Catt pressed hopefully.

  She shook her head. “I can give you a… glove or something, if you want the provenance.”

  He shook his head mildly. “Potence only, not provenance.”

  “We like things that do stuff,” Fisher put in from the doorway. “What about artefacts of making and unmaking?”

  Catt raised an eyebrow. “Oh, now, that’s a notion worthy of consideration.” At Celestaine’s slightly frustrated look, he shrugged. “Much of what the Kinslayer did—the big things, breeding his monsters or opening doors to otherworlds, or for that matter twisting and shaping whole races, in his years beneath the earth before the war started—most of what he achieved was by his own innate power; but he had an eye for trinkets and toys that would let him gain more purchase to corrupt and remake the world. Some things he found, others he made during the war. Believe me, there are all sorts of indications that what he had in mind for the world after the war would make the war itself look like a good-natured scrap between adolescents. The Aethani are unfortunate casualties, of course, but I rather think we’d all have gone the same way in the end. So, you know, well done you.”

  “Artefacts of making,” Celestaine prompted.

  “What do you think, Fishy?” Catt looked past her to his associate. “Is there anything still out there? So much was lost in the war, destroyed by one side to keep it from the other or some such foolishness. If only people would have a care for the future. My dear Forinthi lady, did you ever see the Rosen Diadem?”

  “Of course.” It had been the crown of Forinth. “The Kinslayer destroyed it.”

  “The diadem, but not the Rose-Stone it contained; that, he kept.” Catt’s voice turned dreamy. “The Queens of Forinth could cure nineteen different ailments purely by touch—fair fit to put us out of business, hm, Fishy? There was a stone of power. And then there was the Merit-Knife, made of a single razor-edged sapphire.” His hands described a narrow shape in the air. “Lost when the Warden of the Frostclaw Clans fell at Touremal. The hilt I actually have over there, but it has little magic left in it. The blade passed into the hands of the enemy. And there was the Verdigris Agate, that the Kinslayer’s people unearthed from the mounds at Blaze Howe. I could go on.”

  Celestaine had no doubt he could. “How does this help?”

  “Because all these things were puissant in their way, but not enough to truly reshape the world the way you want. But what is less well known i
s that, towards the end of the war, the Kinslayer mastered them, bent the power within them to his will, and had them set into his crown. It was to be the world-crown, the symbol of his dominion over all the lands, all the people. He never got the chance to wear it; you saw to that, thank all the absent gods. But what rumour we’ve been able to parse says it was fashioned, or that its manufacture was almost complete. And though all the ancient relics of making and unmaking may be lost beyond trace or trail, if anything in this latter age has the power to work what you need, then perhaps the Kinslayer’s crown is it.”

  Celestaine considered this for a few heartbeats. “Forgive me for saying so, Doctor Catt, but this is a thing that you know of, and yet it’s not here in this room?”

  Fisher chuckled, like stones grinding against each other. “How quick she gets to know you.”

  Catt spread his hands beneficently. “My dear, perhaps one day. But if it exists at all, then word places the thing in Bleakmairn, and I hear the war is still rather present tense thataways. My agents value their own skin more than the meagre stipends I can afford to pay them. And probably it isn’t there at all, or there never was such a thing made. War stories grow in the telling, or at least the ones people are happy to tell do.” He took a deep breath to expand on his subject, and then the whole building seemed to jump at a thunderous bang. Celestaine heard the precise musical sound of the shop bell as it was ripped from its mount to rebound from the wall behind the counter.

  Fisher had turned, apparently unflappable even in the face of a renewal of hostilities. “We’re closed,” he snapped.

  “Need to see your Catt doctor,” a deep Yorughan voice growled. Celestaine was on her feet already, jolted up by the sound, but now she pushed past Fisher urgently. Nedlam stood amidst the shelves, hunched under the ceiling beams and filling all available space in the front room.

  “You know what Heno said, about them getting their stones together to come and kill us?” she said, with the rhythm of a joke awaiting a punchline. “It’s only gone and happened.”

  Chapter Five

  NEDLAM WAS READY to knock down every wall in Cinquetann, deep in her fighting-head, as Celestaine thought of it. She looked capable of it, too, and probably there was a quite a large band of Cheriveni militia within eyeshot and crapping themselves. She was also not the best raconteur, especially under threat, and so Celestaine was having a hard time working out what had happened.

  “A bunch of the locals came and just… took Heno?”

  “All sorts, a whole bunch!” Nedlam spat out. “I wanted to fight them, but he said you wouldn’t want that and then they were all over us. They had magic, C’leste, and while he was trying to talk, they got him. I said we should’ve just whacked them the moment they showed!”

  “Wait, wait, got him how?” Celestaine was very aware of Catt and Fisher’s curious scrutiny from behind the shop counter. “They killed him?” A stab of guilt and worry, more than she’d ever thought she’d feel for a minion of the enemy, but then Heno was Heno. And he was even trying to do the right thing.

  “Don’t think so. Took him off, though, a bunch of them.”

  “And where’s Amkulyah?”

  “Kul went after them,” Nedlam said. “Fast, that one. I was fighting by then. Tried to get me as well. Hit me in the head. Heno’d have told them that won’t help.” Her scalp and coxcomb were crusted with brown blood, and Celestaine reckoned someone must have gone for her with a bill hook.

  She took a deep breath, because a lot of her just wanted to go with Nedlam and start kicking doors in at random until she found Heno, and that wouldn’t accomplish anything. Nedlam’s studded club was streaked with glistening red, she saw. “Ned, you were fighting. Did you kill anyone?”

  Nedlam frowned, thinking back through the fight. “I reckon so. Two, three, maybe. Stopped them trying to grab me.”

  Her heart sank; that only made things worse. A tiny, mad part of her told her it was all right, because they were in the office of a Cheriveni notary and surely that would make everything fine. “Who came, Ned? Were they in the uniforms, the blue?”

  “Uniforms, yes,” Nedlam confirmed, and then frowned. “Not all of them, not that uniform. Not like them out there with one leg and a stick. They had like…” Her huge hands described something vague in the air. “Like a big stick with balls.”

  “Like a what?”

  “I don’t suppose you mean the Redecina?” Doctor Catt enquired. Celestaine and Nedlam looked at him blankly.

  “Thing like this,” Fisher said, emerging from the back room holding a short gold rod. As he held it up, a scattering of gleaming orbs danced about its length, then guttered and died.

  “Could have been a picture on it, up front on their robes,” Nedlam considered. Her eyes narrowed. “Why’ve you got it, then?”

  To his credit, Doctor Catt did not back away as she loomed over the counter, although he was almost lost in her shadow. “That little trinket came from the Hospice, a little souvenir with no power to do anything but amuse. The original Redecina was lost when the Hospice was levelled, of course. It’s the symbol of the Gracious One here in Cinquetann, His healing wand.”

  “So, what?” Celestaine demanded of him. “These were followers of the Gracious One?”

  “Priests,” Fisher put in. Catt added, “To wear the Redicine surplice was the privilege of clergy, it’s true.”

  “I thought the clergy all died,” Celestaine demanded. “And aren’t they all healing and bandages anyway? They took my… my companion! Why?” She became aware she was shouting, and tried to calm herself, then exploded with, “What in bloody fire is going on?”

  The two Cheriveni regarded her sombrely and she threw up her hands. “I know, I know, not your problem, and sure as death nobody round here’s going to lift a finger for a Forinthi and a couple of Yoggs, right?”

  “Well, actually,” said Doctor Catt primly, and Fisher gave out an exasperated snort and stomped off into the back room.

  “He hates it when my benevolent side rises to the ascendant,” Catt confided in them. “To answer your multifarious queries: no, they didn’t all die; no, they’re not so much concerned with the good works the Gracious One was formerly associated with; I can make some educated guesses as to why, and, whilst it is not in any way my problem, a certain sense of civic pride is outraged at this treatment of a visitor to our fair township; and I know what this is about and where they’ll have taken your friend.”

  “What’ll they do to him?” Nedlam demanded, going almost nose to nose with the little Cheriveni.

  “Well, unfortunately, they are likely to want to engage in some ceremonial bloodletting, especially with a former servant of the enemy,” Catt said brightly. “However they will require some time of preparation before such a precipitate step. Where was your temporary accommodation, if I might enquire?”

  “Some inn,” Celestaine said. And then remembered, “There was a picture above the door, man in white robes with his arms out.”

  “The Mendicant,” Catt identified sadly. “Mistress Frame, the proprietor, is one of the pious. No doubt she took your arrival as prophetic and sent straight away for the Underprior.” He ducked into the back room and Nedlam growled, obviously anticipating escape. Instead, they heard the doctor clattering about and demanding Fisher find him various things.

  “Underprior,” Celestaine echoed flatly. Everything she heard sounded worse and worse.

  “Well, quite,” Catt’s voice drifted to them. “Not the most auspicious title in the history of nomenclature. When the Hospice fell, you see, most of the priesthood chose to die with it. They put their bodies in the way of the hammers and the spells, so that others from the town could evacuate as many of their charges as possible. Even the Lightbearer, our resident Guardian. Courageous fellows all.” His tone strongly suggested it was a courage he could admire, but wouldn’t emulate. “But during the occupation, rumours began to circulate. Obviously everyone was very hush about who did what against
the Kinslayer, mostly because being found out meant a quick trip to the excruciation pits. The suggestion was that some of the Gracious One’s priesthood had survived the fire and collapse, and one in particular—a churchman of some stature who still had some magical might to throw around, despite the gods’ silence. Not healing might, though. Not with the Gracious One cut from us all and the Redecina gone or broken. Was your friend a magus, by the way?”

  “Yes,” Celestaine confirmed.

  “That rather cements my hypothesis, then.” Catt reappeared, wearing a robe of silver-grey embroidered with ravens, a purple jewel at his throat and a hawk-headed walking stick in his hand. “The Underprior went after the magic and the magicians of the Kinslayer over other targets, and often at great risk.”

  Celestaine wanted to ask why, but she found she already knew. “Because he was cut off from his god? And thought that would help?”

  “Imagine if the power to heal the world was just a wound away,” Catt suggested. “How deep would you cut into how many throats, if you thought that just one more would let you help so many people?” He eyed Nedlam. “And there was a war on. We didn’t like your people much, back then.”

  “And now?” Nedlam growled.

  “I, my dear creature, am egalitarianism personified. Alas, many of my compatriots may not share my cosmopolitan leanings.”

  “So where are they?” Celestaine demanded of him.

  “Why, just next door, in a way,” Catt told her. “Just look outside and you can see the Hospice, or what’s left of it. There are cellars, they say; cellars and tunnels, and a sacred cave. So, what do you say: shall we go meet the neighbours?”

  THERE WERE INDEED militia lurking a safe distance outside Catt and Fisher’s premises, but Catt sauntered over to them and had a word. Despite the fact that Nedlam had apparently left the Mendicant’s interior spattered with the blood of at least three cultists, this was apparently satisfactory. He met Celestaine’s sharp gaze and shrugged. “Firstly, I convinced them that we were engaged about a vital evidence-gathering errand which would, when concluded, throw an entirely contrary light on matters.” He paused to draw breath. “Secondly, the magistrate is my cousin and they know she’d give me a licence to vivisect kittens if I asked nicely enough. Either way, we have a little time in hand.” Celestaine’s gaze hadn’t got any less sharp, and he cocked his head at her. “What?”