The Iron Wyrm Affair: Bannon and Clare: Book 1

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Blast and bother. Other words, less polite, rose as well. Her pulse and respiration did not change, but she tasted a faint tang of adrenalin before sorcerous training clamped tight on such functions to free her from some of flesh’s more … distracting … reactions.

  “I say, whatever is the matter?” Archibald Clare’s blue eyes were wide open now, and he looked interested. Almost, dare she think it, intrigued. It did nothing for his long, almost ugly features. His cloth was serviceable, though hardly elegant – one could infer that a mentath had other priorities than fashion, even if he had an eye for quality and the means to purchase such. But at least he was cleaner than he had been, and had arrived in the hansom in nine and a half minutes precisely. Now they were on Sarpesson Street, threading through amusement-seekers and those whom a little rain would not deter from their nightly appointments.

  The disturbance peaked, and a not-quite-seen starburst of gunpowder igniting flashed through the ordered lattices of her consciousness.

  The clockhorse screamed as his reins were jerked, and the hansom yawed alarmingly. Archibald Clare’s hand dashed for the door handle, but Emma was already moving. Her arms closed around the tall, fragile man, and she shouted a Word that exploded the cab away from them both. Shards and splinters, driven outwards, peppered the street surface. The glass of the cab’s tiny windows broke with a high, sweet tinkle, grinding into crystalline dust.

  Shouts. Screams. Pounding footsteps. Emma struggled upright, shaking her skirts with numb hands. The horse had gone avast, rearing and plunging, throwing tiny metal slivers and dribs of oil as well as stray crackling sparks of sorcery, but the traces were tangled and it stood little chance of running loose. The driver was gone, and she snapped a quick glance at the overhanging rooftops before the unhealthy canine shapes resolved out of thinning rain, slinking low as gaslamp gleam painted their slick, heaving sides.

  Sootdogs. Oh, how unpleasant. The one that had leapt on the hansom’s roof had most likely taken the driver, and Emma cursed aloud now as it landed with a thump, its shining hide running with vapour.

  “Most unusual!” Archibald Clare yelled. He had gained his feet as well, and his eyes were alight now. The mournfulness had vanished. He had also produced a queerly barrelled pistol, which would be of no use against the dog-shaped sorcerous things now gathering. “Quite diverting!”

  The star sapphire on her right third finger warmed. A globe-shield shimmered into being, and to the roil of smouldering wood, gunpowder and fear was added another scent: the smoke-gloss of sorcery. One of the sootdogs leapt, crashing into the shield, and the shock sent Emma to her knees, holding grimly. Both her hands were outstretched now, and her tongue occupied in chanting.

  Sarpesson Street was neither deserted nor crowded at this late hour. The people gathering to watch the outcome of a hansom crash pushed against those onlookers alert enough to note that something entirely different was occurring, and the resultant chaos was merely noise to be shunted aside as her concentration narrowed.

  Where is Mikal?

  She had no time to wonder further. The sootdogs hunched and wove closer, snarling. Their packed-cinder sides heaved and black tongues lolled between obsidian-chip teeth; they could strip a large adult male to bone in under a minute. There were the onlookers to think of as well, and Clare behind and to her right, laughing as he sighted down the odd little pistol’s chunky nose. Only he was not pointing it at the dogs, thank God. He was aiming for the rooftop.

  You idiot. The chant filled her mouth. She could spare no words to tell him not to fire, that Mikal was—

  The lead dog crashed against the shield. Emma’s body jerked as the impact tore through her, but she held steady, the sapphire now a ringing blue flame. Her voice rose, a clear contralto, and she assayed the difficult rill of notes that would split her focus and make another Major Work possible.

  That was part of what made a Prime – the ability to concentrate completely on multiple channellings of ætheric force. One’s capacity could not be infinite, just like the charge of force carried and renewed every Tideturn.

  But one did not need infinite capacity. One needs only slightly more capacity than the problem at hand calls for, as her third-form Sophological Studies professor had often intoned.

  Mikal arrived.

  His dark green coat fluttered as he landed in the midst of the dogs, a Shield’s fury glimmering to Sight, bright spatters and spangles invisible to normal vision. The sorcery-made things cringed, snapping; his blades tore through their insubstantial hides. The charmsilver laid along the knives’ flats, as well as the will to strike, would be of far more use than Mr Clare’s pistol.

  Which spoke, behind her, the ball tearing through the shield from a direction the protection wasn’t meant to hold. The fabric of the shield collapsed, and Emma had just enough time to deflect the backlash, tearing a hole in the brick-faced fabric of the street and exploding the clockhorse into gobbets of metal and rags of flesh, before one of the dogs turned with stomach-churning speed and launched itself at her – and the man she had been charged to protect.

  She shrieked another Word through the chant’s descant, her hand snapping out again, fingers contorted in a gesture definitely not acceptable in polite company. The ray of ætheric force smashed through brick dust, destroying even more of the road’s surface, and crunched into the sootdog.

  Emma bolted to her feet, snapping her hand back, and the line of force followed as the dog crumpled, whining and shattering into fragments. She could not hold the forcewhip for very long, but if more of the dogs came—

  The last one died under Mikal’s flashing knives. He muttered something in his native tongue, whirled on his heel, and stalked toward his Prima. That normally meant the battle was finished.

  Yet Emma’s mind was not eased. She half turned, chant dying on her lips and her gaze roving, searching. Heard the mutter of the crowd, dangerously frightened. Sorcerous force pulsed and bled from her fingers, a fountain of crimson sparks popping against the rainy air. For a moment the mood of the crowd threatened to distract her, but she closed it away and concentrated, seeking the source of the disturbance.

  Sorcerous traces glowed, faint and fading, as the man who had fired the initial shot – most likely to mark them for the dogs – fled. He had some sort of defence laid on him, meant to keep him from a sorcerer’s notice.

  Perhaps from a sorcerer, but not from a Prime. Not from me, oh no. The dead see all. Her Discipline was of the Black, and it was moments like these when she would be glad of its practicality – if she could spare the attention.

  Time spun outwards, dilating, as she followed him over rooftops and down into a stinking alley, refuse piled high on each side, running with the taste of fear and blood in his mouth. Something had injured him.

  Mikal? But then why did he not kill the man—

  The world jolted underneath her, a stunning blow to her shoulder, a great spiked roil of pain through her chest. Mikal screamed, but she was breathless. Sorcerous force spilled free, uncontained, and other screams rose.

  She could possibly injure someone.

  Emma came back to herself, clutching at her shoulder. Hot blood welled between her fingers, and the green silk would be ruined. Not to mention her gloves.

  At least they had shot her, and not the mentath.

  Oh, damn. The pain crested again, became a giant animal with its teeth in her flesh.

  Mikal caught her. His mouth moved soundlessly, and Emma sought with desperate fury to contain the force thundering through her. Backlash could cause yet more damage, to the street and to onlookers, if she let it loose.

  A Prime’s uncontrolled force was nothing to be trifled with.

  It was the traditional function of a Shield to handle such overflow, but if he had only wounded the fellow on the roof she could not trust that he was not part of—

  “Let it GO!” Mikal roared, and the ætheric bonds between them flamed into painful life. She fought it, seeking to contain what
she could, and her skull exploded with pain.

  She knew no more.

  Chapter Two

  Dreadful Aesthetics

  This part of Whitehall was full of heavy graceless furniture, all the more shocking for the quality of its materials. Clare was no great arbiter of taste – fashion was largely useless frippery, unless it fuelled the deductions he could make about his fellow man – but he thought Miss Bannon would wince internally at the clutter here. One did not have to follow fashion to have a decent set of aesthetics.

  So much of aesthetics was merely pain avoidance for those with any sensibilities.

  Lord Cedric Grayson, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, let out a heavy sigh, lowering his wide bulk into an overstuffed leather chair, perhaps custom-commissioned for his size. He had always been large and ruddy, and good dinners at his clubs had long ago begun to blur his outlines. Clare lifted his glass goblet, carefully. He did not like sherry even at the best of times.

  Still, this was … intriguing.

  “So far, you are the only mentath we’ve recovered.” Grayson’s great grizzled head dropped a trifle, as if he did not believe it himself. “Miss Bannon is extraordinary.”

  “She is also severely wounded.” Clare sniffed slightly. And cheap sherry, as well, when Cedric could afford far better. It was obscene. But then, Grayson had always been a false economiser, even at Yton. Penny wise, pound foolish, as Mrs Ginn would sniff. “So. Someone is killing mentaths.”

  “Yes. Mostly registered ones, so far.” The Chancellor’s wide horseface was pale, and his greying hair slightly mussed from the pressure of a wig. It was late for them to be in Chambers, but if someone was stalking and killing registered mentaths, the entire Cabinet would be having a royal fit.

  In more ways than one. Her Majesty’s mentaths, rigorously trained and schooled at public expense, were extraordinarily useful in many areas of the Empire. Britannia rests on the backs of sorcery and genius, the saying went, and it was largely true. From calculating interest and odds to deducing and anticipating economic fluctuations, not to mention the ability to see the patterns behind military tactics, a mentath’s work was varied and quite useful.

  A registered mentath could take his pick of clients and cases. One unstable enough to be unregistered was less lucky. “Since I am not one of that august company at this date, perhaps I was not meant to be assassinated.” Clare set the glass down and steepled his fingers. “I am not altogether certain I was the target of this attempt, either.”

  “Dear God, man.” Grayson was wise enough not to ask what Clare based his statement on. This, in Clare’s opinion, raised him above average intelligence. Of course, Grayson had not achieved his present position by being completely thickheaded, even if he was at heart a penny-pinching little pettifogger. “You’re not suggesting Miss Bannon was the target?”

  Clare’s fingers moved, tapping against each other restlessly, precisely once. “I am uncertain. The attack was sorcerous and physical.” For a moment his faculties strained at the corners of his memory of events.

  He supposed he was lucky. Another mentath, confronted with the illogic of sorcery, might retreat into a comforting abstract structure, a dream of rationality meant to keep irrationality out. Fortunately, Archibald Clare was willing to admit to illogic – if only so far as the oddities of a complex structure he did not understand yet.

  A mentath could not, strictly speaking, go mad. But he could retreat, and that retreat would make him unstable, rob him of experiential data and send him careening down a path of irrelevance and increasing isolation. The end of that road was a comfortable room in a well-appointed madhouse, if one was registered – and the poorhouse if one was not.

  “If war is declared on sorcerers too …” Grayson shook his heavy, sweating head. Clear drops stood out on his forehead, and he gazed at Clare’s sherry glass. His bloodshot blue eyes blinked once, sadly. “Her Majesty is most vexed.”

  Another pair of extraordinarily interesting statements. “Perhaps you should start at the beginning. We have some time while Miss Bannon is treated.”

  “It is exceedingly difficult to keep Miss Bannon down for any length of time.” Grayson rubbed at his face with one meaty paw. “At any moment she will come stalking through that door in high dudgeon. Suffice to say there have been four of Her Majesty’s registered geniuses recently lost to foul play.”

  “Four? How interesting.” Clare settled more deeply into his chair, steepling his fingers before his long nose.

  Grayson took a bracing gulp of sherry. “Interesting? Disturbing is the proper word. Tomlinson was the first to come to Miss Bannon’s attention, found dead without a scratch in his parlour. Apoplexy was suspected; the attending forensic sorcerer had all but declared it. Miss Bannon had been summoned, as Crown representative, since Tomlinson had some rather ticklish matters to do research for, cryptography or the like. Well, Miss Bannon arrived, took one look at the mess, and accused the original sorcerer of incompetence, saying he had smeared traces and she could not rule out a bit of nastiness instead of disease. There was a scene.”

  “Indeed,” Clare murmured. He found that exceedingly easy to believe. Miss Bannon did not seem the manner of woman to forgive incompetence of any stripe.

  “Then there was Masters the Elder, and Peter Smythe on Rockway – Smythe had just arrived from Indus, a rather ticklish situation resolved there, I’m told. The most current is Throckmorton. Masters was shot on Picksadowne, Smythe stabbed in an alley off Nightmarket, and Throckmorton, poor chap, burned to death at his Grace Street address.”

  “And …?” Clare controlled his impatience. Why did they give him information so slowly?

  “Miss Bannon found the fire at Throckmorton’s sorcerous in origin. She is convinced the cases are connected. After Masters’s misfortune, at Miss Bannon’s insistence sorcerers were hastily sent to stand guard over every registered mentath. Smythe’s sorcerer has disappeared. Throckmorton’s … well, you’ll see.”

  This was proving more and more diverting. Clare’s eyebrow rose. “I will?”

  “He’s in Bedlam. No doubt you will wish to examine him.”

  “No doubt.” The obvious question, however, was one he was interested in Grayson answering. “Why was I brought here? There must be other unregistereds eager for the chance to work.”

  “Well, you have been quite useful in Her Majesty’s service. There’s no doubt of that.” Grayson paused, delicately. “There is the little matter of your registration. Not that I blamed you for it, quite a rum deal, that. Bring this matter to a satisfactory close, and … who can say?”

  Ah. There was the sweet in the poison. Clare considered this. “I gather Miss Bannon is just as insubordinate and intransigent as myself. And just as expendable in this current situation.” He did not think Miss Bannon would be expendable, precisely.

  But he did wish to see Cedric’s reaction.

  Grayson actually had the grace to flush. And cough. He kept glancing at Clare’s sherry as if he longed to take a draught himself.

  I thought he was more enamoured of port. Perhaps his tastes have changed. Clare shelved the idea, warmed to his theme. “Furthermore, the registered mentaths have been whisked to safety or are presumably at great risk, so time is of the essence and the need desperate – otherwise I would still be rotting at home, given the nature of my … mistakes. I further gather there have been corresponding deaths among those, like myself, so unfortunate as to be unregistered for one reason or another.”

  Grayson’s flush deepened. Clare admitted he was enjoying himself. No, that was not quite correct. He was enjoying himself immensely. “How many?” he enquired.

  “Well. That is, ahem.” Grayson cleared his throat. “Let me be frank, Archibald.”

  Now the game truly begins. Clare brought all his faculties to bear, his concentration narrowing. “Please do be, Cedric.”

  “You are the only remaining unregistered mentath-class genius remaining alive in Londinium. The oth
ers … their bodies were savaged. Certain parts are … missing.”

  Archibald’s fingers tightened, pressing against each other. “Ah.” Most interesting indeed.

  Chapter Three

  Theory and Practice

  Her eyes opened slowly, and out of the candlelit gloom Mikal’s face appeared. His mouth was set. For a single vertiginous instant memory rose to choke her; she was convinced she was in the round room under Crawford’s country estate, the walls dripping wet stone and her head aching, the Shield murmuring Easy, Prima, he shall not harm you again. The slumped, torn rag of the body in the corner, the sorcerer who had been her gaoler throttled to death and mutilated; the smell of death and the restraints at her wrists easing as Mikal worked them loose.

  Emma’s heart leapt into her throat and commenced pounding with most unbecoming intensity.

  She returned to the present with a violent start, disarranging the damp handkerchief on her forehead; a draught of violet and lavender scent unsettled her stomach even further. Mikal’s hands descended on her shoulders; he pushed her back on to the divan. “Lie still.” It was amazing, how he could speak through tight-clenched teeth. “The mentath is with Lord Grayson, he is safe enough. You, on the other hand, took a lead ball to the shoulder.”

  It mattered little. If she was still alive and Mikal was alive and conscious, her shoulder was a small problem already solved. Furthermore, she was not trapped in the small room that featured in her nightmares.

  The relief was, as usual, indescribable. A mere month ago she had emerged from that stone-walled room, the torn and rotting bodies of her former Shields strewn in the hall like so much rubbish, and had not wept. Even after her nightmares, she did not.

  The tears would not come. And that, she reminded herself, was what truly made her Prime. The capacity to split her focus was only a symptom.

  “Was that what it was?” She peeled the handkerchief from her forehead. It was one of her own, and doused with vitae. That accounted for the violet-lavender. Her stomach twisted again.