Dead Man's Steel

by Luke Scull

  The captain went to Cole’s backpack and opened it. He removed the scroll and examined it with a deep frown. ‘It’s blank,’ he said. ‘Do you take me for a horse’s arse?’

  ‘It’s magically encrypted,’ Cole explained. ‘Here. I have a writ from the White Lady of Thelassa herself explaining the situation. If you’ll just loosen these bonds...’

  Grumbling, the guard captain drew a dagger from his belt and sliced through the rope binding Cole’s wrists. He flexed his hands, forcing the blood back into them, and then reached into a pocket, relieved to find that the writ was where he’d left it.

  ‘Here,’ said Cole, thrusting the writ at the guard captain. The officer scanned it, his eyebrows rising slightly.

  ‘You’d better come with me to the palace,’ he said finally. ‘The king and his Companions haven’t been themselves of late, but if this signature is indeed that of the Magelord of Thelassa, they must be told. The girl stays here.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ Cole said, ignoring the slightly hurt look that passed across Charmaine’s face. He glanced at her and hesitated. ‘Did we... back at the Folly...’

  ‘No,’ she said, a little angrily. ‘We didn’t.’

  I knew it. I knew I couldn’t betray Sasha. Not even after my drink was poisoned and I didn’t know what in the hells was going on.

  ‘Don’t take it personally,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m keeping a promise to a girl I love.’

  Charmaine’s voice was flatly matter-of-fact. ‘That’s funny. I remember you being as desperate as a dog on heat. You just couldn’t keep it up once we got down to action. You were too drunk.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Cole. He turned back to the guard captain and cleared his throat. ‘Shall we go now?’

  The Thin Line

  ✥

  SASHA FINISHED EMPTYING her stomach and stumbled away from the chamber pot, wiping drool from her chin with the back of her hand. She blinked a few times, attempting to chase away the demons of purple and gold that her hashka-fried brain summoned up and then shredded in an endless mind-bending cycle that had become as familiar to her as an old boot.

  ‘You asked me for...?’ she slurred, stumbling into Fergus’s offices in the uppermost part of the Consult chambers. He was sitting at his desk, poking at a soft lump of spongy material with a pair of scissors. It’s the whale’s brain, she realized through the fog that clouded her mind. Not an unwelcome fog; it helped shield her from the true depths of her revulsion.

  ‘Ah, Sasha,’ said Fergus with a small smile. Snip snip went the scissors and she froze in panic. He placed them in a drawer under the desk and beckoned her closer. ‘I require your help. I understand you have quite the aptitude for operations. You used to be a key part of a rebel group opposed to Salazar, if I am not mistaken.’

  Sasha squinted at Fergus. He seemed to split into two people before they merged again to become one. ‘What does it matter to you?’ she asked, willing herself to think clearly, to shake off the effects of the drug commonly referred to as moon dust because of the lunacy it provoked. This was a dangerous man.

  ‘I require someone to organize the next round of Harvesting.’

  ‘Harvesting?’ Sasha echoed, hating every syllable of the word, knowing it would lead to an even darker place than the one she currently found herself in.

  Fergus gave a sharp nod. ‘The Mistress has lost many handmaidens since the war with Dorminia. Their numbers must be replenished. You are familiar with the Unlife chambers, are you not? There are five throughout the city. There is no need to be quite so conservative with our production of new Unborn. Not in these desperate times.’

  ‘You want me to kidnap more women and steal their babies?’ Sasha asked, utterly aghast. The wild bursts of colour crawling across her vision formed horns above the man opposite her. ‘I won’t do it,’ she spat. Literally spat, saliva slobbering out to cover Fergus’s face. ‘You’re evil.’

  Fergus reached into his coat and withdrew a handkerchief. He carefully wiped away the spit, displayed no signs of consternation at her outburst. ‘To men of progress, evil does not exist,’ he stated. ‘It is a manifestly false concept. When there are no gods to judge, who can say what is right or wrong? There are animals in the wild that kill and eat their young. Are they evil?’

  ‘That’s not—’ Sasha began, but Fergus continued over her, delivering his lecture with such utter conviction that a shred of doubt began to creep in.

  ‘Is it good to practise restraint and leave the city under-prepared in the face of our immortal foes? What then of all the children who will die should the Fade breach the barrier? Many more so than my programme calls for. Many thousands more.’

  ‘You can’t just kidnap people and steal their children!’ Sasha was screaming now. Other members of the Consult turned to stare but she ignored them, focused her anger on the man seated before her.

  ‘Those were the Mistress’s words, when I first proposed my plans many years ago,’ Fergus said. He smiled that small, self-satisfied smile of his. ‘Eventually she saw the merit in what I proposed. For you see, there is no good and evil. There is only necessity. The mother of invention and the keystone of survival.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Sasha whispered. ‘I’m not doing it.’

  Unperturbed, Fergus nodded and then reached into his desk drawer again. ‘Talking of necessity, perhaps this will change your mind.’ His eyes glittered as he lowered the bag to his desk. He pulled it open a little, revealing the silvery contents.

  Sasha swallowed, her throat suddenly as dry as the vast deserts of the Sun Lands to the south. Her hands shook. Hating herself, she reached towards the bag.

  ‘There will be more waiting for you when you bring me a plan to increase our output of Unborn by a further half,’ Fergus said. ‘I will give you until midday. My staff will provide all the necessary details.’

  Sasha squeezed her eyes shut. She had been a hopeless junkie ever since her first taste of the silver powder at Garrett’s estate as a teenager. At first it had helped ease the pain. Soon it had become a vice she found impossible to resist. It had been easy enough to get her hands on whatever she needed: her unsuspecting foster father rarely questioned how she spent his coin and her Shard colleague, Vicard, had kept her well supplied until his death at the Wailing Rift.

  There is no good or evil.

  Who was going to judge her? Her parents? They were dead. Her foster father? Garrett was dead. The other Shards, her sister Ambryl? All dead. She was utterly alone.

  Utterly alone except for one person. And if anyone had ever known the difference between good and evil, it was Cole.

  She grabbed the bag of hashka and hurled it at Fergus. It struck him on the nose and the powder exploded all over him, covering him head to toe. He didn’t react, just sat there stunned, as though a calculation he had been confident would be proven correct had turned out to be terribly wrong.

  Before anyone could react, there was a loud series of explosions from the throne room, where the White Lady and Thanates had been locked in furious discussion since the Caress had docked in Thelassa.

  Sasha hurried through the Consult chambers, dodging around men and women dashing in the same direction, all heading for the stairs leading to the lower levels. Sasha joined the stampede, trying not to trip and break an ankle in her hurry. She doubted the White Lady would be as accommodating with her healing magic a second time.

  Sasha was among the first to reach the throne room and therefore had the perfect view of the disaster about to unfold. Thanates was pinned to the ceiling, the White Lady directly beneath him, silver fire dancing around her hands. Somehow the ivory throne atop the dais had been torn in half. Most of the statuary leading to the throne was also destroyed, as though one of the mages had taken shelter from a magical assault behind the assorted depictions of beasts from ages past. Judging by the precarious state of Thanates, Sasha expected that was exactly what had happened.

  ‘I warned you,’ the White Lady was shrieking now. ‘When I
accepted your truce and allowed you into my city, I warned you not to speak of him!’

  ‘Release me, Alassa,’ Thanates commanded. ‘Do not throw away your city because you cannot control your pain.’

  ‘Throw away my city?’ the White Lady sneered. ‘I am my city! I am the light in the darkness! I am the last guardian!’

  ‘You need me,’ Thanates grated.

  ‘I’ve never needed any man!’

  Sasha watched the back and forth between the two wizards, while all around her the Consult cowered in fear and the Unborn awaited instruction from their furious mistress. Sasha thought of Fergus still seated at his desk covered in hashka and wanted to laugh. Then she realized how badly she needed another hit, and understood that her only line of supply was probably cut off forever now, and wanted to cry.

  She wondered how Cole was faring down in the Shattered Realms. No doubt he would soon make his triumphant return, army in tow and bursting with a dozen stories about his latest escapades. What would she tell him when he asked about her contribution to the city’s defence? Oh, I went on a failed voyage to the Celestial Isles, then lounged around the palace getting doped up to my eyeballs.

  ‘Five hundred years,’ the White Lady was snarling now. ‘Five hundred years and you still know how to push me past the edge of fury, Thanates. I will end you now!’

  ‘Kill me and your hopes of saving your city die with me,’ the Dalashran snapped back.

  Do they actually want to kill each other? It seemed to Sasha that if one of the mages truly wanted their former lover dead, it would have happened long ago. Even now, with the Magelord clearly in a dominant position, she seemed to seek out further lines of argument with Thanates rather than finishing him off.

  The White Lady’s purple eyes narrowed, her platinum hair dancing behind her. Once more Sasha was awed by this woman’s beauty. A terrible beauty, intoxicating to behold.

  ‘I will end you now,’ the White Lady repeated.

  Whether or not she meant those words would forever be a matter of conjecture, as at that moment there was a great tearing sound and a hole seemed to open in the centre of the throne room. The air wavered, shifting and distorting to show another throne room on the other side. This one was much different to the White Lady’s. Jade statues of strange creatures lined a scarlet carpet leading up to a great golden throne. Bronze-skinned men dressed in golden armour formed a guard of honour. There was a flicker of movement as someone, or something, stepped into the magical doorway—

  ‘A Portal?’ the White Lady whispered in utter fury. ‘Here? Who dares?’

  A moment later she received her answer.

  The man who emerged into the throne room was tall, thin and extravagantly dressed in flowing golden robes. A magnificent crown studded with emeralds sat perched atop his head, while black hair streaked with grey reached down to his shoulders. He too was bronze-skinned and dark-eyed. The impressive beard and moustache he wore down to his chest were braided in a complex pattern, a fashion unfamiliar to Sasha. The man – a king? – bowed slightly to the White Lady, crossing his hands in front of his waist as he did so. It was clearly not a gesture of subservience but rather a mark of respect between equals.

  ‘Hiakara?’ the White Lady snarled. ‘You broke the agreement. To Portal into the city of another Magelord is forbidden.’

  ‘There was no time for a more formal visit,’ said the foreign Magelord. He spoke with a strange accent, as though the language didn’t come naturally to him. ‘I had to Portal.’

  ‘You wish to offer us aid? I thought you cared not for the west.’

  Hiakara shook his head. ‘It is not that I do not care, queen of Thelassa. The Jade Isles has its own problems and you and these invaders are a world away.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  Hiakara’s voice grew grave. ‘There is another threat, one for which I feel responsible. The gholam has been activated. A thief broke into the imperial treasury and stole the key.’

  ‘The gholam?’ exclaimed the White Lady. She sounded aghast. ‘I thought the imperial treasury impenetrable.’

  ‘As did I. The thief used a strange flavour of magic to gain access. Somehow the defences were not triggered.’

  ‘Do you know the identity of this thief?’

  ‘We do not. I sent one of my agents to hunt them down. Her mission was not a success.’

  ‘The gholam,’ the White Lady repeated, rising dread in her voice. ‘One of the three god-weapons. Even our magic could not harm it. Do we have any idea where the thief or the key may be found?’

  Hiakara shook his head. ‘In the absence of a living target, the gholam will always seek out the bearer of the key. In doing so it will kill anything in its path.’

  The White Lady’s obvious discomfort was more terrifying to Sasha than her earlier rage had been. ‘Thank you for the warning, Hiakara. You will not change your mind about sending aid?’

  The eastern Magelord shook his head again. ‘I cannot. But I wish you luck, queen of Thelassa. From a purely selfish perspective, I hope you stop these invaders before they can threaten the Confederation. As I said – we have our own troubles to deal with.’ Hiakara seemed for the first time to notice Thanates pinned to the ceiling. He raised a hand slightly in a gesture of acknowledgement. ‘Once-king of Dalashra,’ he said.

  ‘Wizard-Emperor,’ said Thanates, from his corner of the ceiling.

  Hiakara turned, and in a flurry of golden robes he stepped back through the rift he had opened. It pulsed a few times and then contracted, growing smaller until, with a popping noise, it disappeared completely. The White Lady’s throne room was restored to normalcy; or at least as close to normalcy as it ever was.

  There came a thud. Thanates picked himself up off the floor and dusted off his tattered coat, a deep frown creasing his scarred and eyeless brow.

  For a long while the Magelord of Thelassa stood silent and unmoving. Then the White Lady turned her back on the Consult. ‘Leave me,’ she commanded, her voice shockingly subdued. ‘I need to be alone.’

  The Rag King

  ✥

  ‘THE MISTRESS TRUSTED you to deliver her letter to me personally. She does not trust easily. I am impressed.’

  Zatore stared at Cole over the small rosewood table in her study in the Royal Palace of Carhein and raised an eyebrow in approval. The Rag King’s advisor took a sip from the glass of wine she was holding and Cole couldn’t help but notice the soft shape of her lips. Zatore was just the right side of mature, with long black hair touched by only a hint of grey and the olive skin of Espanda complemented by a green dress that accentuated the fullness of her figure.

  Cole raised his own glass of water and swallowed a mouthful. He’d decided to pass on the wine after his latest adventure.

  I won’t leave myself open to being poisoned ever again.

  ‘You needn’t be impressed,’ he replied modestly. ‘The truth is, I’m nothing without my birthright.’ He nodded over at Magebane, which was currently in the possession of the captain of the palace guard – a stern-faced man who hardly seemed to blink. He was stationed by the door to Zatore’s chambers.

  ‘You understand why I had Eric confiscate your dagger?’ Zatore said, with a gracious smile. ‘I can take no risks. Your reputation precedes you.’

  Cole nodded solemnly. ‘I can’t say I blame you. I’m just glad to have finally met someone in this country who respects me.’

  Zatore smiled again. Her shoulders were bare and the figure-hugging dress she wore didn’t leave a great deal to the imagination.

  Focus, Cole. Focus. He was here on a mission of vital importance. He couldn’t afford to get sidetracked, not this time. The future of the Trine, of humanity itself, might depend on his success.

  ‘I studied under the Magelord of Thelassa for twenty years,’ Zatore mused. ‘She took a new apprentice after me, I believe. Brianna, perhaps.’

  Cole nodded. ‘A fine figure of a woman.’ Though not as fine as yours – Damn it, focu
s Cole! ‘She died helping to overthrow the tyrant Salazar,’ he continued. ‘She sacrificed herself to disrupt his magic.’

  Sasha had become very emotional telling him the story of Brianna’s death while they were sitting atop the Tower of Stars. It sounded like she had admired the woman a great deal.

  ‘Sacrifice,’ Zatore repeated in her husky voice. ‘It is sometimes necessary.’

  ‘I know all about sacrifice,’ Cole said darkly. He stared around the lushly decorated study. The guards had brought him straight to the king’s advisor and he hadn’t had the opportunity to scout the rest of the palace, but if it was as opulent as Zatore’s chambers then Tarbonne was doing a good deal better for itself than Dorminia. Even before all the recent trouble in the Trine.

  ‘Indeed?’ Zatore rose from her chair and moved across the table to place a delicate hand on his arm. ‘Tell me what you know about sacrifice.’

  Cole glanced down in mild alarm at the uncomfortable stirring in his breeches and cleared his throat. ‘The truth is I’m always getting myself into trouble doing what I think is best. I spent years trying to be a hero and lost everything dear to me. I’ve hardly slept in months.’

  Though that has little to do with lack of opportunity and everything to do with the divine hunger devouring me from within.

  ‘You do look unwell,’ Zatore observed, stroking his arm. ‘You are so very pale, and your hair is thin for one so young.’

  ‘Lack of sunlight,’ Cole answered quickly. ‘It’s grim up north.’ A sensation other than the obvious was making him uncomfortable. There was something disturbing about the way Zatore was looking at him. She was regarding him with an intensity that seemed almost... hungry. ‘Perhaps we should deliver the White Lady’s message to the king now?’ he suggested.

  ‘Patience, Davarus Cole.’ Zatore moved around him, twisting like a serpent to stand behind his chair and stare over his shoulder at the blank parchment resting in the centre of the table. It was covered in a soft glow. ‘The Mistress encrypted the message and it will take some time for my own magic to decipher its words. Whatever she wishes to say, it is highly sensitive. Perhaps she feared her message would fall into the hands of these inhuman invaders from across the ocean you speak of.’