Rivyn snapped the blade and nail free from the girl’s neck, then released her, tossing his sword to his once-opponent. She caught it, nodded, and drew the blade across her skin. The true queen’s blood was upon it already. The forge would take but a moment.
Rivyn tilted his head, then turned and walked to the nearest window. He climbed onto the ledge and looked below. An easy jump, and from there only a few steps to escape the palace. He breathed in the cool night air with new lungs and cast his gaze once more toward the horizon. His sight was clear, his eyes sharp. Sharper than they’d been in any body since his first. As sharp, even, as the blade that rested in his palm. One day, he would put it to use. One day, he would draw blood and forge himself a new path.
But for now, he simply leapt.
The Charter
Ashley McConnell
“My lord, goodmen, and goodwife,” the man at the podium said, leaning forward to glare at his audience. That audience, consisting of the two masters Vettazen and Firaloy, and the three apprentices sitting at the end of the bench against the wall, shifted uneasily.
My lord? Jazen thought, glancing over at Adri-nes. The man had definitely nodded in Adri’s direction when he said it. Adri, for his part, leaned back, as if the bench actually had something to lean against, and returned only a polite, noncommittal smile. He, Meleas, and Jazen were not supposed to be important enough to acknowledge here.
“My lord the Chancellor has received your petition and has been pleased to send me today to review it. But I must tell you I am not inclined to recommend that he support it.”
“And why might that be?” Vettazen, seated at the far end of the high table, asked mildly. “Ser Immatus, the petition is entirely in order. In form and content it is entirely unexceptional. It follows several such petitions point by point, each of which were approved without challenge or …” she paused delicately, “review.” Next to her, Firaloy nodded in emphatic agreement. “We seek to study magic, to organize those with the gifts, to better understand them.”
Immatus tore his attention away from Adri with difficulty. “Oh. Well, it is simplicity itself, Goodwife. In form I must agree, your petition for establishment of a Guild of your own is entirely unexceptional. But in content? No. I cannot agree. It is filled with nonsense, errors obvious to the merest child!
“My lord, Gentles, you are applying for a Guild Charter to study magic.”
“Yes?” Vettazen encouraged. “As I said.” You idiot, she did not add, though Jazen could hear the words in her tone.
Apparently Immatus could not. “But there is no need to study magic. We know the origins and source of all magic in the world. We have always known. Magic is demonic. It comes from the Yaan Maat. We do not need to study magic, we need to destroy it, whenever and wherever we find it, just as we destroyed the Yaan Maat. We do not need a Guild for that.”
It sounded very firm and definitive, which made Immatus’s yelp of surprise even funnier when one of the workmen at the other end of the room knocked over a scaffold holding up several buckets of plaster. Everyone jumped, in fact, and Vettazen closed her eyes and murmured something that goodwives probably shouldn’t say in the hearing of imperial courtiers. Jazen smothered a laugh and got up to help the workmen try to limit the spread of the plaster on the stone floor.
No one else joined him. He didn’t expect them to; it was the kind of work he was used to, and he doubted any of the rest of them had ever worked with their hands before. Well, Meleas, perhaps, but if it didn’t involve animals, Meleas had no interest in it. Sweeping up dry plaster didn’t involve animals.
On the other end of the room, Immatus was valiantly trying to regain both his composure and his control of the conversation, but Vettazen had taken advantage of the interruption. “Ser Immatus, is this recommendation the result of your own researches? Are you familiar with the studies of magic in foreign lands? Have you seen magic done?”
Immatus snorted. “I should hope I have not, Goodwife! Nor, may I say, have you, unless you are confessing to being possessed by a demon! As for magic in foreign lands, it is clear to the meanest intelligence that if the Yaan Maat could invade our own empire of Miralat, they could equally do so elsewhere. Any magic anywhere in the world is the work of those demons. And the Yaan Maat have been defeated.” From around his neck, he pulled out a red velvet bag, opened it, and shook the contents out on the table. Pieces of what looked like ivory—shards and scraps, a couple almost the size of Jazen’s palm—poured out on the table before him. Vettazen leaned forward and reached out for one of the larger pieces, but Immatus spread his hand over them protectively, preventing her. “Yes, Goodwife, these are mataals. Broken, all of them. This is all that remains of the Yaan Maat.” He swept them back into the bag and tucked it under his tunic. “I carry these to honor my own family who fought and died in those wars. I know whereof I speak.”
More than two hundred years before, the Yaan Maat had appeared in what was now the Empire of Miralat. They had possessed the Emperor, all his Court, wreaked devastation across the land. They had brought magic the likes of which no human had ever seen, power like that of the sun itself. Wide stretches of the Empire were still called the Burned Lands, the Waste. More than a million had died before humanity had discovered the link between the carved white plaques and the demons—and how to destroy them—before the current Emperor’s great-grandsire had taken the throne away from the usurpers.
“This is exactly why we need to study magic. That is how your mataals were broken! By human magic!”
Immatus glared at her. “There is no human magic, Goodwife.”
There was a little silence. Then Vettazen said, “Lord Lasvennat has been very interested in our work.” Lasvennat was high in the councils of the Emperor, Jazen knew.
Immatus swallowed. “Lord Lasvennat is not the only voice on the Council, and the Chancellor agrees with me.”
Adri-nes cleared his throat.
Jazen glanced back to see Vettazen’s lips press together, hard, her head quivering in a “No.”
Immatus didn’t see it. “My lord?” he said. Jazen could almost hear the oil oozing from his lips. “Did you wish to add something?”
Adri coughed, glanced at Vettazen, and said, “Why, no. Just clearing my throat, Ser.”
“I had the great pleasure of speaking to your lord father just the other day,” Immatus went on. “He is looking forward to seeing you again soon.”
“Is he,” Adri said. He turned then and looked straight at Vettazen. “When my teachers give me leave, I will be very glad to visit him.”
Oh ho, Jazen thought. But Adri could go home again; presumably so might Meleas, although he’d never heard the blond boy talk about his family. If Adri’s father, someone who had influence at Court and in the Chamberlain’s office, spoke against the petition for a charter, where would he, Jazen, go?
He couldn’t go back to Smattac, the village he’d abandoned to follow Vettazen and her little party to Mirlacca. Back in Smattac he was nothing more than a bastard forge boy, indentured for life to bellows and hammer, ever afraid someone might see something, accuse him of something. He wasn’t even safe here, because truly, magic was demonic, and no one here really knew what kinds of things happened around him. He sneezed as the plaster puffed up in a cloud.
“Your teachers?” Immatus was saying incredulously. “My lord, you had the best tutors in the Empire! There is nothing these … gentles … can teach an heir to one of the Great Houses of Miralat!”
“Seventh heir,” Adri said mildly. He would not call Firaloy and Vettazen his “masters,” not before Immatus.
But that is what they were, Jazen thought. Just as he, Adri and Meleas were their apprentices. He had accepted that as soon as he had understood what these strange visitors to Belzec’s forge in Smattac were all about.
Meleas was very good with animals of all kinds, true; Adri tried to write spells, but cheerfully claimed to have absolutely no magic of his own whatsoever; but as for Jaz
en—Jazen thought Immatus was right. Magic was demonic. He had seen the demons himself, in the forge of Smattac—the little red figures walking along the molten metal, dancing in the blazing coals. They even flared up in his own footsteps when he was tired and angry and discouraged. He knew demons were real. And all you could do with demons was destroy them.
“That will be enough,” said Vettazen. Beside her, the other proto-Master of the Guild-to-be, her lifemate Firaloy, nodded. Adri slipped back into the role of an apprentice.
“I will return, if you please, in one week, to see if you have anything to add to your petition.” It was clear Immatus, who was gathering together his scrolls and sheets of vellum, thought this unlikely. Firaloy and Vettazen were talking quietly to each other. The three young men glanced at each other and, coming to silent consensus that they were free to leave, got up.
As soon as they were outside the building and around the corner, headed toward the stables, Adri stopped and the veneer of a nobleman fell away as he sagged against the wall. He looked as if he wasn’t sure he could stand on his own two feet. “I hate them,” he said passionately.
“Who?” Meleas asked, as always the voice of reason itself.
“Courtiers. That evil little toe-sucker wants to gain credit with my father by telling him I spoke to him about returning home.” Adri waved an impatient hand. “I’m a seventh son. I’m not needed for anything, my father didn’t even have enough titles to give to all of us. I am nobody, but they refuse to see it.”
Meleas snorted, but didn’t pursue the argument.
“And I will not allow that little toady to quash that petition and prevent us from forming a Guild. Or make me a puppet in his Court games.” For a moment Adri looked like a noble, again. Then he let loose a great sigh and was once again a man who had not reached his eighteenth year, one who felt helpless in the hands of other people and their machinations.
Jazen could sympathize. And yet—
“Why is it so important, this Charter?” he asked hesitantly. It was the kind of question that marked him as a country fool, he knew. So far the others had been patient with him, but there were times when he could feel them being patient with him, too.
This was one of those times.
“If we have a Charter for a Guild, of Exorcists or Sorcerers or whatever they plan to call it,” Adri said, waving away the details, “then the Masters can assess fees from every member.”
Jazen swallowed. “I cannot pay fees.”
“None of us can, yet,” Meleas assured him hastily. “But if we gain a reputation for knowing about magic, for being able to deal with demons for instance, we can charge for it, and some of that money will come back to the Guild. And in exchange, we get certain rights and are free of some taxes. We can set standards so people will know the value of what they pay for and discipline those who would cheat others, like false hedge witches and fortunetellers. It will make magic respectable.”
Jazen blinked. Magic—respectable? “But how can demons be respectable?”
“That’s the rub. If Immatus is right and all magic comes from the Yaan Maat, we might as well all just march into a bonfire and have done with it. But our masters say it isn’t.”
“And that’s likely what Immatus hates most,” Adri said dryly. “He probably gets some kickback from the taxes on kindling and stakes.”
“Oh,” Jazen said. The other two, heads together, headed back into the main building.
He wasn’t sure yet that Adri-nes and Meleas were friends, exactly. He had never had friends in Smattac; people didn’t make friends with clanless bastards.
But there were times, over the past month or so, that he’d begun to feel almost accepted. And now, in an odd way, perhaps he had something in common with them, if the masters thought he had a place here too. He was still nobody, but at least within these walls he was included in Adri’s class of nobody. Although Adri’s definition of “nobody” included more silk tunics than Jazen’s did.
But if there was no Charter, and no Guild, then what?
Now that he knew where the metalworkers’ quarter was, he had a chance to find work, if this Charter wasn’t approved. He wasn’t sure what Meleas would do—something with animals, doubtless—but clearly Adri-nes would simply go home again. It just didn’t sound as if “home” was the bright comfortable place it ought to be, for a seventh son.
Ever since he had left Smattac, Jazen had carried in his pouch the iyiza he’d stolen from Belzec. It was a thick bundle of sheets of metal, tied together with wire. Each sheet was near half a finger-joint thick, half as long as his hand, and there were at least a dozen of them. It was heavy, even heavier than it looked. Belzec had never tried to make anything from the iyiza, but Jazen could. And today, perhaps—
He stopped by the kitchen house to beg bread and cheese and an apple from the cook. “Sit and eat here,” she said briskly. “And before you go wherever you’re going, get me some water.” She glanced at the sky and sighed. “After it changes back.”
Jazen nodded and sat down. It was nearly noon, and the fountains would change soon. Every day, as a reminder of the battles with the Yaan Maat, the fountains of Mirlacca ran with blood—human blood, they said, although he did not know how they could tell. He had been shocked, the first day he had seen it. Now he, like the rest of the city, had accepted the phenomena with resignation and eventually, indifference.
“Jazen! There you are. I have something for you.” Adri, still looking upset, slid onto the kitchen bench beside him and filched a piece of bread.
Jazen, mouth full, lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s a working,” Adri said, with the slightly embarrassed look he always had when he talked about what he did. He had no magic of his own, he insisted, but he read everything the masters had and haunted shops looking for old books. Exploring Mirlacca with Adri was an exercise in strained eyes and sneezing. And Adri was always doing what he called “workings,” attempts to create spells. The first time he had spoken of it before the masters Jazen had been shocked speechless. Such talk would have had him burned in Smattac as a demon, but instead it was the reason the … lord’s son … was one of their community.
Was it only a month since they had told him, with straight faces, that Firaloy and Vettazen were only collecting stories and tales about magic and the Yaan Maat?
And Jazen had believed them?
“I know you work with metal,” Adri was saying. “Try this, with the herbs, and, um, a drop of two of your blood. When you quench.”
Jazen laughed. “Only a drop or two?”
Adri smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know if it would work, but it might make something … useful.”
Jazen nodded and thrust the paper into his pouch, where it crumpled against the iyiza. Did Adri know what he wanted to do with the bundle of metal?
“Well, perhaps I’ll go see.”
Adri smiled and shrugged again, staring at the fireplace on the opposite wall. “Will you let me know?” There was a trace of yearning in his voice.
“I will.” Jazen got up and walked away, leaving the lord’s son behind him.
* * *
He had marked this place on his first solo trip into the depths of the city. It was a small shop, with a forge in the courtyard in the back where customers were not welcome, but something about it drew him. The sign over the door showed an anvil and a hammer; the shop could have been for anything made of metal. This time he went inside. Bells rang as he stepped through the door, startling him. The interior was lit by half a dozen lamps backed with reflectors, making it brighter than the overcast sky outside.
An array of knives were displayed on the inner counter, under the watchful eye of an old man. A stack of cups was arranged beside them. A set of spoons of varying sizes occupied a shallow basin. A boar spear and a war axe were propped casually behind the counter. It was an interesting, varied array of goods. There were no horseshoes anywhere.
Jazen was pulled to the knives as if drawn by chains.
Two of the knives were long, double-edged, fullered, with jeweled hilts. He gave them no more than a cursory glance and studied the rest: a blocky, heavy chopping knife, almost but not quite a cleaver; a plain-looking single-edged blade with an interesting curve to the back and a pattern like water across the metal; some meat cutters the cook would no doubt like, next to a slender blade the like of which he had never seen before. “What is this?” he asked the old man.
“It’s a filleting knife.”
Jazen’s hand hovered over the plain blade. “May I?” he asked.
The old man snorted. “Aye. It’s for sale, if you’ve the coin.”
Jazen picked it up, sighted along the blade, ran a thumbnail along the edge, and put it back. He picked up the chopper, swung it experimentally, looked at the edge and tested it against his arm. “If I had the coin,” he said, “I’d buy this one.”
The old man studied him. “Why?”
“It’s the best one here.”
“You’re mad. Those are real jewels, and that layered blade is worth—”
Jazen shook his head. “I don’t care about jewels. I care about metal. Those blades are warped. And your layered blade—” he pointed inquiringly at the watered-edge knife, and when the old man nodded, continued “—hasn’t been tempered very well. The edge is soft. I don’t know how you got that pattern—I like it—but as a knife, no. This one, it’s heavy, but it’s meant to cut. Branches, bone. You could trim a carcass with this, use it to clean the hide. It’s a good working tool. It’s sharp. It’s not brittle. I like it best.”
The old man laughed. “You’ve worked metal, boy. Who’s your master?”
Jazen swallowed. “I have no—I mean, I am with Firaloy sr’Islit and his goodwife, but they aren’t metalsmiths.”
“Don’t know them.” And, since they weren’t metalsmiths, the old man didn’t care. “But you’ve been to the forge. I can see it in your hands. You have the scars from fire and blade and hammer. Where?”
Guilds & Glaives Page 19
