Cold Iron (Masters & Mages)

by Miles Cameron

  ‘Blessed Sophia protect us,’ Kurvenos said.

  He came into the room, and there were two men in armour behind him – heavy white armour, with big swords. The armoured men looked like faceless insects.

  Aranthur could feel the saar in their armour. He’d never seen anything like them.

  Their swords were four feet long, and their helmets were closed so that they appeared to be steel automata. One put his sword through the corpse – more sparks.

  The other put his sword to Aranthur’s throat.

  The point was icy cold.

  ‘He’s clean,’ said the armoured figure.

  Aranthur was disarmed; he didn’t resist. The armoured figure threw his sword across the room.

  ‘It’s gone,’ Kurvenos said. ‘It left through the chimney. All clear.’

  The sword was lowered away from Aranthur, and he sank a little further down the wall.

  The armoured figure sheathed his sword, took a baton from his belt, and spoke to it.

  ‘All clear,’ he said. ‘There is a Black Bird – a kotsyphas – free in the City. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Black Bird,’ said the stick. ‘We hear you.’

  Aranthur slipped further to the floor.

  ‘He’s dying,’ Kati said somewhere.

  ‘Yes he is,’ Master Kurvenos said. ‘Sihr poisoned.’ He took the stick from one of the armoured men. ‘Get me Magos Sittar, and be quick.’

  Aranthur woke in a strange bed with strange blankets, and he had no idea how he’d come to be naked, or alone, or where he was. His heart pounded, and he tried to move, and he couldn’t. He examined himself and found a compulsion – a heavy compulsion cast by an expert, a Magos or Magas – and the working was layered, complicated, and sat on him like a bright red skein of heavy yarn. He tried to follow it; he tried to imagine …

  Kotsyphas. He thought the words and the memory flooded him. The fight. The terror.

  He wasn’t dead. At least, he didn’t seem to be dead.

  He awoke the second time to light. He lay in the chains of his compulsion and tried to look around, as much as the orbits of his eyes and his peripheral vision would let him. The ceiling above him was ancient, with a lofty ceiling supported by myriad fluted arches and beautiful beams. The beam ends had gilded roses carved into them.

  ‘And you were supposed to bring me quaveh this morning,’ a woman’s voice said.

  Mistress Altaria Benvenutu stood over him. She waved a hand and the compulsion was cancelled, its not inconsiderable power neatly collected by her waving hand and balled up, collected, and stored. She did it so casually …

  ‘Take your time. Do not sit up suddenly,’ she said.

  He was in the Temple of Sophia, the chapel in the library, in the middle of the pentacle used for the most devout and advanced casting. It was a place that was strictly forbidden to first year Students.

  ‘What …?’

  His mouth tasted like rotten fish and snoring and a lot of sandpaper.

  She nodded. ‘Your head will hurt for some time. Unfortunately, you have started the magikal equivalent of a riot and we need information.’

  ‘How?’ he began.

  She leant over him. ‘I’m sorry, Syr Timos, but I will ask all the questions, and you will answer them. What do you know about the spirit in your room?’

  Aranthur was having trouble assembling complex thoughts.

  ‘We found it when we went up the stairs.’ He heard himself answering in great detail. His mouth was moving without his volition.

  ‘Why did you go to Katia ai Faryd’s room before you went to your own?’

  ‘I look for any excuse to visit her,’ he heard himself saying. ‘I thought that since we were both to be your students, she would look on me more favourably …’

  The Master of Arts laughed mirthlessly. ‘Enough of that, please. She followed you up to your room?’

  ‘Yes, with a poker, which proved as well, because—’

  ‘Stop,’ the Master of Arts said. ‘As you see, he is innocent.’

  A male voice, outside the range of his vision, said, ‘Tell us who the master is.’

  Except that the intonation suggested that it was The Master.

  ‘Dariush!’ the Master of Arts said.

  Aranthur found himself compelled to answer.

  ‘Everyone is a master but me,’ he heard himself say pettishly. ‘I make leather for a master leather-worker and I study with a Master of Arts and there are Sword Masters and ship’s masters. I think my father is a master farmer, although I’ve never heard anyone accord him the title – someone must be a master farmer, don’t you think?’

  ‘Stop,’ the voice said. ‘Damn, damn. I thought we had one, alive.’

  ‘The two children you are taking into this project are the very two targeted by the kotsyphas. I don’t like it,’ This was another voice, also a woman. ‘I don’t like that this happened at all. Nor that it might be related to what is coming out of the East.’

  ‘I don’t like laying truth compulsions on unco-operative sentients,’ the Master of Arts said. ‘Our likes and dislikes have nothing to do with it.’

  Aranthur attempted to turn his head. The pain was blinding.

  ‘But an attack? By sorcery? Inside the Academy?’ the voice called Dariush asked.

  ‘He can hear every word you say,’ the Master of Arts responded. ‘But I’ll say this much: this was clearly done to send a message. Even if the two children had not interrupted the kotsyphas, the Western student was murdered for power and to leave a clear message.’

  A hand was laid on his head. The Master of Arts said words in Ellene and he was gone.

  The third time Aranthur woke he was in his own room. It took him time to realise where he was, because he was disoriented, and because he wasn’t in his own bed. He was in Arnaud’s bed.

  Arnaud, who was dead. Murdered by a malign spirit, which was apparently called a kotsyphas.

  He moved his head very gradually, and there was no pain. In fact, he felt wonderful – well rested and alert. His left hand was normal in colour and size. He sat up. Somewhere close by, someone was playing a tamboura.

  Almost instantly, Kati appeared through the bed hangings. She flushed.

  ‘I promised the Magistra I’d look after you,’ she said. She set a steaming cup of chai by his head.

  ‘You are blushing,’ Aranthur whispered. His mouth felt as if it was full of resin.

  Kati smiled. ‘Where I come from, women do not spend time with men, alone.’ She pushed him back. ‘But you look harmless to me. Drink that. Does your head hurt?’

  ‘Not at all. Oh, thanks, Kati.’ He realised he was naked; paused.

  ‘Good, because there is a man here to see you, who insisted that he could come in and showed me …’ She paused. The tamboura poured out a storm of notes. ‘I thought you were dead.’ She kissed him on the forehead. ‘I’m glad you are not.’

  Aranthur smiled. ‘Thanks!’

  She stepped back.

  The man behind her was Tiy Drako. He tucked the long neck of the instrument through his sash.

  ‘Surprise,’ the slim young man said. He flashed his brilliant smile at Kati. ‘May I have him all to myself?’

  Kati nodded. ‘I have to be going anyway. Aranthur, you are commanded to speak to this man by the Magistra. You should return to her office again tomorrow.’

  Aranthur nodded.

  She leant over, took his hand, and kissed him again on the forehead.

  ‘Get better,’ she said. I … miss … you.’

  She looked at Drako with apparent disapproval and he glared at her, as if they knew each other. She shrugged and withdrew. He heard her close the door.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ Aranthur said. It was, too. He was still puzzled at Kati’s reaction. ‘Do you know her?’

  Drako winced. ‘Just met her today. Listen, Timos, I have told you a pack of lies. Time to come clean, and all that. Very embarrassing.’ He grinned like a guilty urchin
.

  Aranthur assembled information quickly, even when waking up.

  ‘You are not really an acolyte,’ he said.

  Drako nodded. ‘Although, of my many impersonations, that one was more … rewarding than most. No. I work for the Emperor.’

  ‘The Emperor?’ Aranthur asked. ‘Not … the Watch? Or the Assembly?’

  In fact, he realised that he had only the haziest idea of how the Emperor governed.

  ‘Let’s not go into details. I am here to answer a few things, get a promise from you, and tell you a story.’ Drako shrugged, and sat back, and played a few notes of a stirring march. ‘But I’ll tell you this for nothing. The Assembly votes taxes. Only the Seventeen – the inner council of the aristos – has any power over the City or the Watch. And the army swears fealty only to the Emperor.’

  ‘So you are with the army?’

  ‘No,’ Drako said with his actor’s smile.

  ‘What about Kati?’ Aranthur asked, changing the subject. His head hurt.

  ‘She got a different story. See, I’m going to be very honest with you.’ Drako smiled.

  Aranthur laughed. ‘Really?’ He thought of Drako as a mountebank. Like the tarot card – the evil jester. Zanni, the trickster.

  ‘Hear me out.’ Drako waved a hand. ‘Ready?’

  Aranthur sat back and sipped his chai. ‘I’m ready.’

  Drako sat on a stool, crossed his legs and clasped his hands over one knee.

  ‘Here we go.’ He looked out of the curtains for a moment. ‘Actually, it is very difficult to know where to begin. Let’s start simply. The man that the routiers killed, whose horse you are still riding, was a diplomat. I’ll go a step further.’ He paused for a long time. ‘I simply hate telling the truth. It’s almost painful.’ He paused. ‘He was an important man – possibly a double agent – and those bravos should never have been able to kill him. They must have taken him by surprise, in all the looting. I’ve checked up – our man was leaving Volta, probably trying to stay ahead of the rebellion there. And somehow, by sheer bad luck, he was trapped by a dozen drunken mercenaries and killed.’

  ‘If you know who he was, I should give all his things to his family,’ Aranthur said. ‘I can’t really afford to keep the horses anyway.’

  Drako laughed. ‘Well, we can discuss that. I don’t think his mistress would care, and his wife is glad he’s dead, and neither of them need a horse.’ He shrugged. ‘And to be straight with you, nothing I am telling you can go anywhere, even to Kati, even to your friends, and certainly not to the woman that our victim abandoned his family for.’ He held up his hands. ‘Please let me tell this my own way.’

  Aranthur nodded. ‘I get the feeling you’re telling yourself as much as you’re telling me.’

  Drako fingered his short beard. ‘You may be on to something there. Let’s go on. This man was killed. The routiers took his three horses and baggage, and I freely confess I searched them all.’

  Aranthur scratched his unshaven chin. ‘You cut the bottom out of the cannone’s case?’

  Drako nodded. ‘Yes. I was desperate. I still am. That man should have been carrying … something very incriminating. Supremely dangerous.’ He looked serious, all his pretension drained for a moment. ‘And deadly.’

  ‘You are revealing very little,’ Aranthur said. ‘There was a man, whose name I’m not allowed to know, although I have his case, his coat of arms, and his initials, so I can probably find out. The mercenaries killed him. And I have his things.’

  Drako nodded. ‘Admirably put. Please do not go looking for his name. I’ll tell it to you.’

  There was a long pause, and Drako almost shuddered.

  ‘He was Syr Xenia di Brusias. There, is that better?’

  Aranthur shrugged.

  ‘And anyway I have searched them all again, just so you know.’ He sighed. ‘It’s possible he had already passed on his package. If so, then his treason is worse, and the damage he’s done …’ Drako frowned.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Aranthur was more annoyed than anything.

  ‘Because the powers that were behind … him … just tried to kill you with sorcery in the midst of my city, and got past the wards of the Academy to do it,’ Drako said. ‘Because what was a matter for spies is becoming a matter for armies. Ever wonder where all the refugees are coming from, Timos?’

  ‘Er …’ Aranthur paused. ‘The East?’

  ‘Well, that’s true enough. Ever wonder why?’

  Aranthur frowned. ‘No.’

  ‘Because they are stupid foreigners and who cares why they move around?’ Drako said bitterly.

  Aranthur shook his head. ‘No!’ Then he slumped. ‘Possibly. They just … are.’

  Drako slouched back. ‘There is a series of wars to the east. It is as if a curtain of war is moving towards us, and has been for years. Now the storm front is beginning to trouble the Sultan Beik across the water. Lightning just struck here, in this room.’

  ‘What does that have to do with the man and whatever he carried?’

  Drako tugged at his beard. ‘I don’t know. Or rather, I have no proof.’

  He went to the window and brought back Aranthur’s talisman of kuria crystal.

  ‘Tell me what happened in the Revolution,’ he said.

  ‘Is this for my History exam?’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Humour me.’

  Aranthur settled himself against his pillows.

  ‘Well … The First Empire was founded on aristocratic principles, and the families that produced the best warlords, men who could both fight and use magik, were the aristocrats.’

  ‘My ancestors, so watch yourself here,’ Drako said. But he smiled.

  Aranthur nodded. ‘About a thousand years ago, the empire collapsed. Barbarians came – Souli and Alva and others, from the east and north. They took much of the farmland.’ He smiled. ‘Arnauts like myself.’

  ‘Actually,’ Drako said, ‘my patur says that there were as many Arnauts in the Imperial army as attacking from the outside, and the Imperial generals were all Alva. But that’s my dissertation, not yours.’

  ‘Interesting. In the end an aristocrat from the City rallied the troops and made himself emperor. He conquered the barbarians, made peace with the other islands in the archipelago, and formed a very close alliance with the Sultan of Atti across the water.’

  ‘The Diplomatic Revolution,’ Drako said. ‘Peace with Atti, the foundation of our prosperity.’

  ‘My History Master says that the Articles Against Practice were more important than the Revolution itself.’

  Drako smiled. ‘What an idealist. How many priests died in the year after the articles?’ he wondered aloud. ‘We’ll never tell. Go on.’

  ‘Having established freedom of worship, the Founder set about eliminating the basis of aristocracy.’

  ‘Not quite. The Founder wanted everyone to be an aristocrat.’ Drako smiled. ‘And the new emperor was as important as Tirase.’

  ‘Everyone tells me that,’ Aranthur said stubbornly. ‘But Tirase repealed all the laws that required aristocratic birth to attend the Academy or perform magik or serve on a jury or as a Pennon in the army. He could just have left those laws in place and announced that everyone was an aristocrat.’

  ‘Leaving aside that there was no Academy and every family trained its casters their own way, I accept what you say. I suspect it was pragmatism, but let’s move on. Tirase re-established the empire based on more democratic principles. He created the Great Assembly and a system of elected representatives. He made it possible for everyone to use magik.’

  ‘Yes. Everyone could use magik. And everyone could serve on juries and help choose the Councils, and so on.’ Aranthur shrugged. ‘It’s not my favourite subject. The masters argue endlessly over details.’

  Drako smiled. ‘When you are a spy, you find that nothing matters more than details. Nonetheless, Tirase gave power to everyone. Political, military, and magikal.’ He nodded. ‘How did he do it?’ />
  Aranthur scratched his stubble. ‘The Academy.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Drako paused. ‘I hadn’t actually thought that, until you said it. Of course, the Academy is the basis of the democratisation of magik power.’ He whistled. ‘And political power, too. Well, well, out of the mouths of babes. But aside from that obvious facet, which I had overlooked …’

  ‘I assume you mean crystals, since mine is swaying in your hand. Anyone with a crystal – almost anyone – can focus saar. At least a little.’

  ‘Enough to change the world, by lighting fires, purifying water, and arranging fertility,’ Drako said. ‘Ever consider what was the most amazing aspect of the Founder’s Revolution?’

  ‘I’ve been told repeatedly that it’s amazing that the emperor would defy convention to raise the peasantry,’ Aranthur said.

  Drako smiled grimly. ‘I don’t find that amazing. Any leader who needs immediate allies against his lords will turn to the people. It’s happened before. But this revolution swept the world.’ He nodded. ‘Hardly a drop of blood was spilt, and yet housewives in Zhou were lighting their own fires. Innkeepers had pure water. Farmers could dig wells to good water every time, fewer cows died, and women could decide when and how many babies they had.’ He paused. ‘Everywhere we’ve ever been on this great world, Tirase’s reforms swept through.’

  Aranthur nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now, if you train at the Academy, or at the Imperial Court in Zhou, you don’t need a talisman to cast,’ Drako continued. ‘Right?’

  ‘It’s still easier,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Right. How long have you been using crystal?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Four years.’

  Drako looked at the kuria crystal in his hand.

  ‘And the price?’ he asked.

  ‘Goes up and up.’ Aranthur stiffened. ‘And?’

  Drako stood and began to move restlessly.

  ‘What if I told you that there were forces that never wanted power to be democratised?’ he asked.

  Aranthur sighed with young world-weariness.

  ‘I’m surprised that it was ever democratised in the first place,’ he said. ‘Of course there must have been push-back.’