Call Your Steel

by G. D. Penman

  Metharia was the Chosen who watched over the Glasslands, a wider field than his own duty, but far more sparsely populated and ultimately easier to oversee. It was closer to enemy territory though. She was more likely to see combat against other Chosen. He was almost jealous. She was completely hairless, as all the Chosen were thanks to the vigorous rub-down with bitter vasca oil that formed part of their initiation. The starlight shone off the pale skin of her scalp, she had a strong nose and out here in the dark her pupils dominated her small eyes. Kaius was always uneasy in the city, seeing colours so vividly, hidden even in people’s eyes. Things were simpler out here.

  She gave him a nod of greeting when his face emerged. Then she released speed and her blurred lines snapped into sharp shadows. She intoned, “Negrath's blessings upon you brother.”

  He remembered his part well enough, “May his might shield you sister.”

  She nodded again, satisfied that formality had been appeased, and her stance relaxed, "How have you been Brother Kaius? Are you enjoying your posting?”

  “It is well Sister Metharia, the sifters are simple enough folk, a few executions were enough to keep the fear of us in them. How do you like the Glasslands? Have you seen any incursions?”

  She shook her head, city born folk always wanted to say everything with body language, they were too used to the lights, “I've seen a few of them on the far-side of our borders but they are just going about their business as I do the same. No trouble from the glass miners, all too scared to so much as twitch in case they break something and lose their money.”

  Kaius forced his face into a smile, it felt sordid to do it in front of someone else, “It is well that they did not test you, I recall you were adored by the Master of Steel when we were children.”

  She chuckled, “I think at least part of that was due to him being a perverted old man, but the extra attention certainly improved my forms.”

  There was a lull in the conversation as they tried to think of some other common ground after so many years apart, eventually Metharia pressed on to business, “You've been out here for three years now. Two years longer than the usual tour. I don't know who you made angry before you left but it seems to have lapsed. I am to take your posting for the rest of this year. The Marked have requested that you return to the city for a new duty.”

  Kaius flinched but bowed to her dutifully, “My thanks to you for relieving me of my burdens.”

  He could hear her roll her eyes more than he could see it but she said, “Yes, you are very welcome. Just remember me out here and let me know how the Trials go when you get the chance.”

  This gave him pause, “The Trials are this year?”

  She leaned in towards him as if to prevent her voice from carrying and said, “Why do you think they are calling you back? I bet you are being entered.”

  He knew that modesty required some deflection of that thought but to his surprise it absorbed him. What would become of him if he fought in the Trials? Would he be Marked if he was victorious and lose his moments of freedom out here in the dark? He half stuttered thanks to her again then turned to face the city directly. A great white beacon in the perpetual void of the sky.

  He remembered himself before he called steel and turned back to Metharia who viewed him with a cocked brow, hard to make out with no eyebrow hair, “My thanks to you and fair well Sister Metharia. I will send news of the Trials when I can.”

  She watched him fade away across the glass and ash. When he passed over the first dunes and out of sight she called her own steel and returned to her final patrol of the Glasslands. They would have to care for themselves until Kaius replacement was dispatched.

  Chapter 2: The Halls of Steel and Bone

  The city first loomed over Kaius then crept up further still until it dominated both the land and the sky. Soon after he was Chosen, as part of his education, Kaius had travelled through all of the domains of Negrath and far to the south he had seen mountains. Standing at the base of a mountain was the closest experience he had to coming to the Ivory City. The central spire stretched up into the sky, the summit's light shrouded by the clouds. The lesser spires of varying heights, interlinked by beautifully graven balconies and bridges, were home to the city's noble families from which the next Beloved would be selected by Negrath in a few more generations.

  The remaining buildings grew up around the base of the spires, constructed from simple stone and wooden planks like any other city. The gates were little more than cracks in the exterior walls and as Kaius walked through he could see the honeycombed structure inside the great bones the city was built from. In the places where spires had been broken over the centuries each air-pocket was turned into a minute vertical slum with a tangle of rope ladders allowing anyone access when the six foot deep cells were empty. It was to the central spire that Kaius walked through packed street markets of screaming vendors and quiet alleys that a man not Chosen by the Eater would have done well to avoid if he meant to keep his silver in his purse and his blood in his veins.

  At the end of some alleys there were more furtive vendors with crates and cages of chattering insects, not bred for meat like those in the main-street markets but for their venomous stings and the interesting effects that the stings had on the human brain. Some still tried to peddle the smoking herbs that addicts had indulged in all those years ago when Kaius had been training in the city but they were out of fashion with the nobility, the font of all wealth in the city.

  As he passed by the smoke vendors his armour reacted to protect him from what was ultimately a poison, the steel softened and shifted within his visor, it blocked his mouth and nose until he had walked clear. He had forgotten that it was one of the minor annoyances of city life after so long away. The press of so many people and the heat of them all would have been disconcerting but it was the light that he could not adapt to, his eyes were narrowed, his face showed weakness and confusion at every turn, which was of course why he had not released steel before he entered the city. The Chosen had to be infallible for their judgements to be trusted.

  In a few hours he would be used to the cacophony, but by then he would be safely insulated within the Spire of the Beloved. It took nearly that long to walk from the city's walls to the spire, even with its base being nearly a mile wide. Some of that was backtracking and moving through check-points and giving meaningful looks to some noble families' house guards. The city was dense, with sedimentary layers of civilisation pressing down the old and uplifting the new, mixing and mingling in strange ways but always, ultimately controlled by the Beloved.

  The Spire itself stood open and unguarded, the Chosen dwelt inside, as did their masters the Marked. If anyone was fool enough to attack the stronghold of the Beloved they would find themselves facing men capable of annihilating armies alone, not even considering the raw power of the Beloved himself. A power that made the city a beacon of light in the great darkness.

  Kaius made it to the top of the first flight of stairs before he was challenged and politely released his steel. The Marked wore the same cut of robes as the Chosen, albeit all in black and, having been elevated from their ranks, were equally hairless. The Marked that met Kaius was one that he had known all through his life, Atius, the Master of Bone. Neither the Chosen or Marked needed to eat or drink to survive but some never lost the urge and over the years small indulgences quickly added up.

  Atius was a tall man to begin with and the years piled on more and more weight until he was more of a wall than a man. Unfit as he was there had been some debate over his suitability to teach the Forms of Bone but a few lessons under his crushing mass and absolute precision silenced every critic. Kaius had been amazed at the looming giant's graceful movements. He had drilled the need for perfection into every student but he only praised the ones he saw it in. His gentle disapproval had stung more than the salted canes that the other masters used to instil discipline.

  He rocked back on his heels and smiled broadly now at Kaius, once a fav
ourite pupil, “So you are finally back to finish your studies, eh Boy? Well you are too late. Too late I say. I have more promising students now. They will all be Chosen soon enough and have the good sense to stay here and learn from their betters.”

  He paused for breath but before Kaius could form a reply he started off again, “Fine, fine. I will teach you. But only for as long as you are Chosen. Do you hear me? When Valerius ascends you after you crush your way through the Trials it would be unseemly. For now though, you are always welcome to return to the Halls of Bone and prepare, although I imagine that it will be the Trial of Steel that you truly need to concern yourself with.”

  Kaius was staggered for a moment then he broke into laughter. Atius could deliver news like a hammer-blow or with such grace you didn't even know you were being wounded and this time his gusto had carried Kaius along with him.

  Kaius finally spoke, “I may bring myself to study under you again before the Trials, thank you for informing me that I had been elected to represent the city.”

  Atius slapped his gut and pulled a face of mock indignation, “Informing you? Boy, who do you think campaigned with the Beloved on your behalf? Who do you think told him you could rip through the braggart Chosen of Vulkas without breaking sweat? Who do you think told him you would be the greatest addition to the ranks of the Marked in his hundred years of life?”

  Kaius had been slowly considering these things as he came to the city, his family had been of no significance and he had not heard from them since the mid-point of his training, they would not have been romancing the Marked and bribing the nobility to support his ascension. Besides, they were mushroom farmers, not the most politically potent of groups. His natural talent in the Forms of Bone, polished by painstaking repetition in his grandmother's garden and recognised by a travelling merchant, was the greatest thing that had happened to them in generations. His acceptance to Halls of Bone had been the talk of their village. Perhaps it still was, he did not know them now. He had taken too long to give his thanks but when he opened his mouth to do so Atius cut him off, “Well it wasn't me you ungrateful runt. I was shocked enough to shit myself when Valerius mentioned you. Didn't even think he knew your name.”

  With a drawl Malius joined the conversation, “I'm still not convinced that he does.”

  Malius sidled from a doorway at the centre of the balcony, he was shorter than Atius, thinner too, but neither of these things were particularly distinctive. He had an angular nose and a sallow face, and though he had been Marked at around the same time as Atius he looked considerably older, perhaps in part due to the stressful first few decades when the previous Master of Steel was still in the position he coveted.

  It had been a tense period of scheming and backstabbing, culminating in the Beloved's favour wavering, a contrived insult and a short but brutal duel as Malius proved his superiority. The killing blow had been struck with such called strength that windows shattered in the buildings all around the arena. That was in the same year that Kaius was born.

  He looked at Kaius appraisingly and said, “It was me, obviously. The Beloved wanted to know who among his Chosen had not gone soft from city living, who had some cleverness to them and who fought differently from the rest of us. And after extending your tour year after year for just such an eventuality, I put your name forward.”

  Kaius had wondered why he was twice left out in the dark instead of recalled but he had never questioned an order in his career and wasn't likely to start with an order that he liked. “My thanks to you for this opportunity Master.”

  Malius sneered, “Don't thank me. Win. If you live you will join our ranks and perhaps give this useless lump a kick in the blubbery rear. If you lose, I have not offended anyone of consequence by putting you forward.”

  Atius took the jibes in good humour, still happy to see an old student, “This one will do us proud Brother Malius, just wait and see.”

  Malius kept his eyes fixed on Kaius, perhaps hoping he would flinch as he once had. Malius was always quick with the cane, even conducting faux duels with his students using one.

  “He still looks sharp enough I suppose,” he stepped closer to Kaius, “You were out there for a very long time. All alone. Would you like for me to arrange someone for you? A girl? A boy? After three years I would be needing a few of each I imagine. Shall I send them to your quarters to wait for you? I have some very pretty students this year. All so willing to please.”

  Kaius smiled in a manner he hoped was polite, not strained and replied, “Not tonight, thank you. I believe I will attempt to follow in the footsteps of our Beloved and rest a night in a warm bed.”

  Malius face showed a flicker of uncertainty then he shrugged, “As you wish. Just remember that the offer still stands for as long as you are in the Trials. And perhaps longer if you should be Marked. We can come to arrangements should the need arise.”

  Atius jovial expression had tightened during what should have been a private conversation but was all to clear to his sharpened hearing. He muttered, “Sleep well little Kaius. I will see you at heat-rise, if you have maintained your sobriety.”

  Malius smiled beatifically revealing his missing front tooth, “Come and see me at the War Spire when you are done dancing around. We can go through your forms and your itinerary for the next few cycles. You can look over our fresh faced new recruits at your leisure.”

  Kaius was impressed with his own politeness in bowing to the Master of Steel and walking calmly off to his cloistered room without calling speed.

  The room that technically belonged to Kaius had been maintained by servants in his absence but he had never lived here. It had seemed strange to him that people who did not need sleep or food were given quarters at all, but after so long he realised that for most of the Chosen this was a place that belonged to them, just like his morning Forms belonged to him, and while they did not need rest, they still craved comfort.

  His room had never been decorated or furnished beyond the simple wooden bed, chair and desk that had been for his use as a child. He knew that he could walk into many fine craftsmen's workshops or even just a simple merchant's shop and ask for anything that he might want and the Beloved would finance it, probably without even realising that there had been a cost involved. Many of the Chosen, kept in the usual cycle of one year out in the provinces, one year in the city, had elaborately painted murals on their walls depicting their greatest triumphs so that bragging slipped more casually into the conversation. Kaius would not be entertaining guests here.

  He took off his robes for the first time since he was given them and crouching by a drain he used a pitcher full of cold water, probably intended for drinking, to clean the ash from the crevasses of his body. He folded himself up in the bed meant for a child, feet pressed flat against the foot-board, bald crown pressed against the headboard and eyelids pressed together just as firmly. He slept until he the heat rose in the east, he did not dream.

  A new set of robes were laid out on his desk by the door when Kaius awoke and he was surprised that movement so close had not woken him. Back during his training any movement in the room would have had him on his feet and reaching for his wooden sword. He set the thought aside, he would simply stop sleeping again if it left him so vulnerable.

  He walked through the early heat as the crackling galvanic lanterns built into near enough every ivory building burst into blue life ahead of him, flooding the city with garish colour again. Seeing it all unfiltered by his armour was even more dazzling but his face was fixed in the impassive mask that was expected of him now, and it would remain so until he was off the city streets.

  Perhaps it was politeness in the cramped conditions but he noticed that people walked differently in the city, arms tucked in close, taking careful steps, it made him and the travelling merchants stand out.

  He nodded acknowledgement to a group of guardsmen dressed in shocking blue doublets of some noble house Kaius had never learned the name of and it seemed to inflate the eg
os of the young men. They strutted along like chickens.

  He arrived at the Halls of Bone much quicker than he had intended to. His understanding of time had centred on his morning Forms for so long that without them he was having trouble keeping track. The Halls of Bone were once a spire but during some war or another the upper section had been sheared off at a sharp angle. The broken remains of the upper spire were still scattered through the surrounding quarter of the city, dragged around and then buried under the weight of progress.

  Inside there was housing for anyone that could prove their knowledge of the Forms of Bone, in theory, had Kaius not been Chosen, he could have travelled to any city in the world and found lodgings among similarly trained men and women. Of course most students stayed close to home and those that didn't would find themselves frequently challenged to prove their mastery.

  Knowing what he did now about the purpose of the Forms, he wondered why anyone was allowed to continue their study past the point it was clear they were not going to be Chosen. Some nobles pursued it as an art form, some commoners, if they had managed to pick up enough to wrangle their way in, would act as travelling entertainers, fighting the strongest men in villages and settlements across the provinces.

  The forms taught the body the movements it would need to protect itself when the mind could not keep up with events. In any fight where speed was called there was a point, usually early on where you moved faster than the speed of thought. Then all strategy and cunning was cast into the wind and you had to trust in your Forms to win. A moment of uncertainty or doubt would be enough to kill.