The Tally Master

by J. M. Ney-Grimm

  Gael could imagine the interior of that furnace, the rough ore melting, the slag floating to the top. Then the slag tap would slide open, allowing the slag to run off. Next, the secret tap would open, diverting precious copper to a bowl dug in the earth and hidden by a flagstone. And last, the oxhide tap would open, the rest of the copper running into the oxhide mold.

  A day later, Nathiar would visit the mines surreptitiously, lift the concealed flagstone, and remove his stolen biscuit ingot. Dastard!

  That was why the copper teamster knew the copper vein to be rich – narrow though it was – while Nathiar had stated it was poor.

  From the tools and materials present, Nathiar must intend on forging something. But how? With neither furnace nor anvil nor hammers present, how could he forge anything at all?

  Gael’s borrowed strength – fueled by outrage and surprise – ebbed suddenly, and he fell to one knee. His innards twinged painfully at the jolt. A vision of himself, storming into Nathiar’s quarters with accusations and wrath, pulled him to his feet again. But assailing Nathiar’s door with a barrage of knocks and demanding entry required more resilience than he possessed right now. As did descending to the rooms over his tally room.

  Feeling as slow as the flow of half-melted slag, he forced himself through the archway between the sacks of tin pebbles and the biscuit ingot of copper, following the short passage toward the archway at its farther end.

  He lurched by a closed door on his right, and another – ajar – on his left. Within it loomed an old-fashioned bed cupboard like those the Hamish folk once slept in.

  Tiamar be thanked! The furniture in this bastan’s chamber had not been cleared as had the rest of the apartment. He wouldn’t have to lie on the cold stone floor.

  A chest in the corner disgorged a sheepskin. Gael grabbed it, stumbled over to the bed cupboard, and swung open its double doors. The pallet cushion was bare leather – no sheets, no pillows – but Gael didn’t care. He crawled in, closed the doors, and extinguished his rush light. Spreading the sheepskin over him, he fell headlong into sleep.

  * * *

  Gael awoke to splinters of brilliant light – amber edged with gold – darting through the cracks where the cupboard doors touched their frame. Groggily, he reached for his pillow to dive under it, but no pillow met his searching fingers. Pulling at his sheepskin covering, seeking darkness, he froze.

  Was it energea – dangerous gold and orange – producing these coruscating scintillas?

  He sat up abruptly, stopping himself again just before he banged the doors of this cupboard open.

  An energea-wielding intruder could only be the magus. Was Gael fit for a confrontation – potentially a lethal one – with his old enemy? Seven years ago, he was Nathiar’s equal in magery. Now? Nathiar had brandished his energea all seven of those intervening years, while Gael had eschewed his own.

  No. Confrontation would not be his best course. Especially because he really wanted to know what in hells Nathiar was doing, before he accused the magus of . . . Exactly. He needed to know what precisely his accusation should consist of, beyond stealing copper and tin from the regenen’s mines. Subtlety, not belligerence, would be the better part.

  Sitting upright in the gold-spattered darkness, he checked his physical condition. The bruises on his torso remained tender to the touch, but his innards felt less delicate. Apparently he’d continued to heal in his sleep as Keir had promised. What of his legs? Would they bear him?

  He eased the cupboard doors open.

  The darting glints of light became a flood of it, flaring and dimming in an irregular flicker, and accompanied by a crackling hiss and the scent of heated bronze. What in the north?

  He set his feet on the stone floor and stood. His legs felt fine, so long as he didn’t crouch. He stifled a groan as he aborted that particular test. Right. Standing, sneaking, no clever positions requiring crouching with the idea that he might stay better hidden that way. Noiselessness and stillness must suffice.

  He crept through the room’s door, still ajar, and along the passage toward the receiving room. Pressing himself against the wall, he peered around the corner.

  A silhouetted troll stood facing the outer wall with its window casements shuttered and leather-muffled. It was Nathiar. Even from the side and back, Gael recognized the magus’ stance, arms upraised in a flamboyant angle, fingers spread wide, the littlest flared forward, and his head flung back.

  The light flowed from a sword hovering in midair, its metal not molten, but glowing cherry-red, flaring to amber as Nathiar twitched his fingers, dimming as the magus stilled his gestures.

  So, it was heated bronze, not dangerous energea, that had awakened Gael, but Nathiar was performing magery.

  Gael allowed his breath to sigh out, very softly, and then to flow back in, equally gently. His inner sight bloomed, and he stood amazed. A living heart node glowed green within the sword’s hilt – or what would become its hilt when the metal was riveted between carefully carved and smoothed wood. Silver traceries through the blade – living arcs – pulsed with the heart node’s rhythm.

  Was Nathiar creating a cursed sword to match the cursed gong lying at this very moment in Gael’s storeroom? Why would he do such a thing? And how had he known it was possible without ever seeing the prize dragged from Olluvarde? For Nathiar had not seen it, Gael was sure.

  Gael studied the array within the sword, trying to understand its configuration, to compare it to his memory of the gong’s configuration. Their shapes were so different, the one circular, the other linear. Were the differences in their energea lattices due to that? Or was there some other difference? He thought he perceived some other discrepancy, but could not identify it.

  He allowed his attention to move to the energetic manipulation performed by Nathiar, for the magus was doing more than merely suspending the sword in midair. Each time the light flared and the metal hissed, a lance of energea bolted from Nathiar’s fingers – safe energea, aqua blue – to touch down along the blade’s edge, sometimes right at the edge, sometimes a short ways in.

  Ah, this Gael recognized and understood. It also explained why Nathiar had not bothered with hammer and anvil. He was hardening the edge with blows of energea, rather than blows with a physical tool. Which made sense. Gael suspected the magus would make a poor smith, while his control of magery was superb. Clearly, given that he must have shaped the blade in midair as well, without any mold.

  Gael returned his scrutiny to the weapon’s energetic lattice. The heart node throbbed rhythmically, pulsing silver sparks along the arcs toward their scrolling ends where they glittered. Ah . . . but there were no arcs flowing into the heart node, only those flowing out. What could that mean?

  For the answer, Gael suspected he would have to ask Nathiar. But he definitely had better questions now than heretofore.

  * * *

  THIRD DAY

  Conversations

  Chapter 12

  Daylight seeping in through the cracks around the bed cupboard doors woke Gael sometime after dawn. His mouth felt fuzzy, and the rest of him had that rumpled, grimy sensation that sleeping in one’s clothes always engendered. For a moment, he expected to see last year’s brown leaves beneath him and this year’s leaves – green and on their tree boughs – above him, as he had while wandering in the wilderness before he came to Belzetarn. He caught his hand reaching for Morza’s faithful canine head before he remembered where he lay: in a bastan’s chamber at the top of Belzetarn’s tower after witnessing the magus performing illicit magery.

  Swallowing hard, he pushed the painful memory of the landseer down and opened the cupboard doors. The lone window in the room – glass-paned, narrow, and unshuttered – looked north over the lake, so the light flooding through it was cool and diffuse.

  Gael surveyed the bastan’s room: stark stone walls, naked stone floor, the chest he’d delved into for the sheepskin, a lidded chamber pot beside the chest, and the cupboard bed in which he’d slept
. He hoped these bare bones had been clad with better amenities when last a servant had occupied the space. If his bastan were living here – not that he possessed a bastan, but if he had – and he could have, if he’d wished to – he’d have insisted there be floor matting, wall hangings, a comfortable chair, perhaps a footstool. The unadorned room was very austere.

  With effort, Gael recalled his thoughts from an unlikely might-have-been to the present. What would his next step be?

  He’d watched Nathiar complete his magery on the energea-imbued sword last night. The magus had allowed the metal to cool enough that it no longer glowed, and then tidied up after himself by cool blue mage-light. When the magus turned to depart, Gael had considered detaining him then. He’d wanted answers.

  But the middle of the night was rarely a good time for sensible doings.

  Just as he’d taught Keir to continue on a fresh sheet of parchment, when he ran out of working room at the bottom of the old sheet, so he’d also insisted on adequate sleep, early rising, and an end to the day’s labors well before the evening meal. Regular habits ensured error-free work and kept the worst symptoms of the truldemagar at bay. The more challenging a task, the more important that it be tackled in the morning, after a good night’s rest.

  Tackling Belzetarn’s magus . . . would be a very challenging task indeed.

  And so Gael had let him depart unimpeded.

  Now, in the clear light of morning, he felt grateful for his self-restraint. In fact, looking back on his evening decision to check the hidey-hole in the latrine, and then his choice to climb nearly all the way to the tower’s upper battlements, he wondered at himself. What had he been thinking? Obviously, he hadn’t been thinking at all. Fatigue and injury had clouded his judgment.

  But now that he was here . . . ? Now that he knew what he knew . . . ? What now?

  He looked down at himself, assessing what he saw.

  His shirt sleeves and caputum were badly creased and sweat-stained. His robe looked fine; suede rarely wrinkled. He’d love a thorough wash with basin and ewer, but they wouldn’t be forthcoming. At least there was a chamberpot. And he would finger comb his hair.

  More important than his superficial appearance: how were his injuries?

  He probed his ribs and breastbone gently. Tender still, but not badly so.

  He stood up. His legs felt fine, ready for as much stair climbing as he might demand. Even better, his gut didn’t twinge at all with the change of position, and he felt no need to guard it with careful movement. No doubt leaping or hopping or falling would be a bad idea, but simple walking no longer posed a risk, even should he put a foot wrong.

  So. Chamberpot. Finger comb hair. And then he would go confront the magus.

  * * *

  As Gael opened the door onto the antechamber shared by the apartment of the magus and that of the secretarius (were he in residence there), a scullion emerged from Nathiar’s quarters. Carrying an empty tray, the boy took two casual steps toward the Cliff Stair and then stopped dead, eyes wide, at the sight of Gael. Unsurprising, given that Gael had never before spent a night (or even a day) in his official chambers.

  “S-secretarius,” the boy stammered.

  “Are you tower staff under the castellanum?” asked Gael, “Or one of Nathiar’s?”

  “T-tower, sir.” The boy bobbed a bow.

  “Could you fetch me a basin and a ewer of water?”

  “Y-yes, sir! Right away, Secretarius!”

  The boy started to scurry away.

  “Will you have to go far?” asked Gael. “All the way to the well in the yard?”

  “N-no, sir. Th-the castellanum insists that service be prompt. I’ll go to the closet on the next level down. And there are cisterns that supply water up here. S-sir.” The boy looked scared.

  “What’s your name, son?” Gael made his voice gentle. He hadn’t meant to alarm the boy so.

  “Alton, s-sir.”

  “Well, Alton, there’s no need to be afraid. Are there more than merely basins and ewers in the castellanum’s supply closets? Could you fetch me a tooth twig and powder and jar in addition?”

  “Of course, sir!” Alton looked surprised. Apparently the closets near the tower’s top held almost anything an important troll might desire. Gael wouldn’t know, since the chambers he occupied were considerably lower.

  “What of a fresh shirt? Fresh socks and caputum?”

  “I’ll get them right away, sir,” gasped the boy.

  Well, those were welcome words. “Are you on an urgent errand for the magus? Or someone else important?”

  “N-no, sir. I mean, yes, sir.” Alton didn’t seem to be sure if he were on his feet or on his head.

  “Don’t neglect your other duties to administer to my needs,” said Gael.

  Alton swallowed, then lifted his chin. “The magus is the only one who needs water so early, sir. I’d never neglect anything for any reason, sir,” he said earnestly. “I’d be honored to bring you whatever you need. Sir.”

  Gael nodded. He wanted to get Alton in trouble no more than he’d wanted to startle the boy.

  “I’ll await you just inside the door,” he said. “Knock when you return.”

  “Yes, sir.” Alton’s stride was brisk rather than fearful as he hastened toward the stairs.

  Back in the apartment of the secretarius, Gael scrutinized the receiving room. He’d prefer that the scullion not see the evidence of Nathiar’s illicit doings. He could simply relieve the boy of his burdens in the vestibule, but it would be more natural to allow him to carry the items through to the bastan’s room.

  Gael bundled the smithing tools and gloves into the quenching bucket and carried them to the small room on the opposite side of the passage from the bastan’s chamber. It was empty. He left the bucket in a corner and then, returning to the receiving room, covered the biscuit ingot of copper with the leather apron, tucking in the strings so that it looked like a plain piece of hide. Did the ingot seem smaller than it had been? Just as he was checking the sacks of tin pebbles to be sure their openings were rolled well closed, Alton’s knock sounded on the front door.

  Gael cast a swift look around – yes, the sacks and the concealed ingot were unremarkable – and went to open the door.

  Alton’s eyes widened again when Gael ushered him into the bastan’s chamber to set down his loaded tray on the chest.

  “You slept here, sir?”

  Gael smiled. “Lord Carbraes urged me to reconsider occupying these rooms, but I haven’t decided if I will, which is why they possess no furnishings. The bastan’s bed was infinitely more comfortable than the floor, I assure you.”

  Alton giggled, then flushed and looked at the floor. “I didn’t mean –”

  “I intended you to laugh, Alton,” said Gael. “You were not disrespectful.”

  “Oh, good,” gasped Alton.

  “Is the castellanum very strict?”

  “Oh, no, sir. I mean, yes, sir.” Alton pulled himself together with effort. “That is, he’s strict, but he’s fair.”

  “Then why are you scared?” asked Gael. “You have done nothing wrong.”

  Alton just stared at him, saying nothing.

  “Is it because you do not know me? You’ve never served me before and don’t know what to expect?”

  Alton nodded, eyes round.

  “Have there been others who were unkind to you? Who hurt you?”

  “The – the brigenen of the First Cohort. Sir.”

  That was Dreben. Gael’s lips compressed, but he stayed silent. Anything he might say would only alarm Alton more.

  “The castellanum won’t let any of us boys wait on the First anymore,” added Alton. “They have to manage for themselves. Lord Theron said to tell him if anyone else ever slapped us or threatened us, and he’d take care of him.” Alton’s shoulders had relaxed, and admiration shone in his face. “The castellanum protects us boys.”

  Gael was glad to hear it. He might dislike Theron – he did d
islike Theron – but he was relieved that the castellanum took care of the trolls under his authority.

  “Well, I am not like the brigenen,” he said. “Do you believe me, Alton?”

  The boy stood a little straighter. “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent.” Gael nodded. “So. I will perform my ablutions and change my dress and then depart. Do you have a way to enter later to clear away your tray and the chamberpot?”

  “I’ll ask the steward for a key, sir.”

  “And will there be trouble about it?”

  “No, sir. The scullions sweep all the chambers regular.”

  Gael had noticed that no dust had accumulated on the floors or in the corners.

  “Then I will thank you and bid you depart upon your own business,” said Gael.

  “Won’t you need anything else, sir? I can check back again, just in case,” suggested Alton.

  Gael’s lip twitched. “You may check back, but do not be surprised if I am not present. My errand here is nearly complete.”

  * * *

  Neat and clean, Gael presented himself at Nathiar’s door with a smart rap on the wood. He’d recovered the anger he initially felt upon seeing the magus’ stolen supplies, but it was a cold anger, no longer heated.

  Nathiar himself answered Gael’s knock. He looked remarkably fresh, given his late night and strenuous magery, his muddy green eyes without the typical redness in their whites, his thick lips firmly closed. He wore a robe of orange suede embroidered with purple arabesques and dotted with bronze rose-rivets. His silver hair hung in its usual multiple braids.

  His brows rose when he saw Gael. “W-e-e-l-l,” he drawled. “Fancy meeting the secretarius just outside his proper chambers. Have you decided to occupy your official residence after all?” His voice was deep and mellifluous.

  “May I come in?” answered Gael.

  Nathiar’s brows lifted still higher. “Sabel’s gifts! To what do I owe this honor?”

  Gael said nothing, and Nathiar ushered him inside.