Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey

by Steve Windsor

  She smiled for the first time. “The kitchen. You’re hungry.”

  He was about to deny it, more out of contrariness than anything else, but it was true. Besides the apple in the garden, he hadn’t eaten anything that day.

  The cook stood chopping parsley at a table in the center of the kitchen. She was an old woman with a face as brown and worn as a walnut. A fire burned on the hearth, pots bubbled, and kettles steamed. Iron pans and ladles hung from brackets on the wall, and a row of windows looked out onto an herb garden.

  “Didja catch him?” said the cook, intent on her parsley and not turning her head.

  “Him?” echoed Liss. She looked at Ronan. He had the distinct impression she already knew his name.

  “My name’s Ronan,” he said. “Ronan of Aum.”

  “Sit, then—Ronan of Aum. His name,” she said, turning to the cook, “is—”

  “I know, I know,” said the old woman. “I haven’t gone deaf in my old age, though you think me feeble, with all your coddling, trying to do the cooking and whatnot. You’ll be the death of me, girl.”

  Liss smiled.

  Ronan sat down to soup, fresh bread, cheese, and a mug of red wine—tired, bemused, and not sure what to think. If anything, there was a pathetic humor in it all, in the fact that the revered Knife of the Guild could not defend himself against a handful of children. That the Knife could not even rob a house guarded by two women. But who would believe that? Certainly not the Silentman. He shook his head.

  “What’s that, then?” said the cook. “Don’t like my soup?”

  “No, no,” he said. “It’s good.”

  “Hush, Sanna,” said Liss. “Leave him to his food. There’ll be time enough to bother him later.”

  “Shaking his head like that,” said the old woman, “with a face long enough for a horse. Who is he now, besides a name? Has he come to rob the house or is he another half-wit like young whatsisname, mooning about and eating all the cakes?”

  “Hush.”

  “That’s no way to eat the food. He’ll sicken with that frown on him, no matter how good the fare. Why, what you’ll get from this hearth is better than what even the regent sups on. Him and all his gold plates and—”

  “Sanna.”

  The old woman shut her mouth, but began to clatter pots and pans about in the sink. Liss gazed at Ronan. He noticed that her eyes, even though he had thought them gray, seemed to shade blue or green at times, depending on how the light fell. He pushed his plate away, the bread uneaten. A sniff came from the vicinity of the sink.

  “Why did you come here?” she asked.

  “I think you already know,” he said.

  He was tired. None of it mattered anymore. Loyalty to the Guild. Serving the Silentman. Whether or not he could find the boy and prove his own innocence. The islands of Flessoray waiting for him. All the memories uneasy in his mind. The girl from Vomaro—how old would she be now?—surely graying and gone fat with bearing children. They could go to the shadows, every one of them, for all he cared. Besides, he hated the city. He always had. Sleep would be nice. That was what death would be. A dreamless sleep with no end.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But I’d like to hear it from you.”

  Ronan shrugged, not caring anymore. “I work for the Thieves Guild. A job came through several days ago to recover the ring of Arodilac Bridd. You have the ring. Simple as that.”

  “Ooh, the Guild,” broke in the cook. “I always thought if they were foolish enough to break in, they’d come for that sea-jade figurine in the drawing room—nice piece. Fetch a better price than that ring. I’m more inclined to a string of pearls myself. Pity the oysters are always so stubborn about giving ‘em up, the grumpy little beggars. Here.” She banged down a plate of cakes in front of him. They were tiny and sprinkled with chopped almonds. “Eat.”

  “Surely there’s more to it than that,” said Liss. She took a cake, as if to encourage him, and ate it in three neat bites.

  Again, he shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter if you know. I’m already ruined.” He bit into a cake—apple—and almost found the strength to smile. “Nimman Botrell hired the Guild to recover the ring. He doesn’t approve of you as wife of the next regent of Hearne. And that ring isn’t just any old ring, it’s—”

  “The regent,” said the old woman. “Doesn’t approve of my Liss! Why, I’ll give him what for, the wretched man! I hear he doesn’t like fish at all.”

  “Of course,” said Liss, ignoring the cook. “Of course it isn’t just an old ring. Why else do you think I made him give it to me? I knew it wouldn’t be long before you came looking for the thing. The tide always brings me what I need.”

  He almost choked on his apple cake.

  “What? Me? Arodilac said that he gave you the ring impulsively. He climbed the wall, fell in love . . .”

  Her eyes were unblinking and remote. He could not look away. The gray of them deepened to blue and then receded back to gray, like the surf of the sea washing up and away on a shore. Something ancient and serene gazed out at him, as patient as the tide. She blinked, once, and released him.

  “Men can be impulsive. Particularly for love of a girl.” She frowned, as if puzzled by the idea.

  “It’s an unusual ring.”

  He looked down, unwilling to meet her gaze. Somehow, he knew it would be better—much better—to tell her what he knew, rather than have it taken from him in some other way.

  “It’s his family’s ring, passed from father to heir. It holds the key to the wards of the Bridd castle in Hull.”

  She waited patiently, displaying no interest in plundering the wealth of the Bridds, saying nothing. He took an apple cake and fumbled it to bits in his hands. It was the last part, of course. The regent didn’t care about his nephew. Only a fool would believe that. But a ring that could open up the secret ways into the regent’s castle—now that was something to care about. Why did she want him?

  “The ring also . . .” Ronan trailed off in to silence. The tide turned within her eyes—gray to blue and back again. Infinitely patient. Water, wearing away the stone. The moon sailing over the sea to its dark, unseen horizon. Endless and inexorable.

  “It holds the keys to wards in the regent’s castle. Spells that guard his castle. Here, in Hearne.” There. He’d said it. Now he could leave. Leave and tell the Silentman of his failure, and then wait for death, however it would be meted out.

  She reached for the last apple cake, broke it in half and offered him a piece. She smiled and she was only a girl again. Behind them, scrubbing potatoes in the sink, the cook broke into wordless song.

  “For a thief, you’re an honest man.”

  “An honest dead man, mistress,” he said. His voice was dull.

  Ronan’s thoughts drifted. He could creep out of the city at night. Over the south wall where it angled near that hostelry with the conveniently high roof. And then disappear. Forever. It would have to be north. The Guild never went there. There was nothing to steal except ice and snow and, farther north, the treasures of giants—and no one stole from them, even the Guild. Or perhaps he could go east, past Mizra and into the wastes.

  “You needn’t run,” she said, frowning.

  “You can read thoughts as well?”

  “It’s evident from your face.” And she slid something across the table toward him. A ring. A gold ring fashioned in the shape of a hawk.

  “Take it,” she said.

  “You’d just give it to me?” He reached out for the ring.

  “No, of course not,” she said. “Why else did the tide bring you here? You’ll do something for me in return.”

  His hand hovered over the ring. “And that is?”

  “In seven days’ time, a ball is to be held at the regent’s castle in honor of the Autumn Fair. I wish to attend, uninvited though I will be.”

  She smiled placidly, as if talking of a visit planned to the dressmaker’s. “I’m afraid my good Cypmann Galnes has not n
oble enough blood to be asked to such an affair, else I’d lean on his graces. You will bring me into the castle, unseen, and shall keep me unseen through the evening. I’ve heard of your particular skills. In return, you may take the ring back to the boy.” Her hand flicked in dismissal. “If I have you, then I have no need of the ring. I never intended to use it. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?” He gaped at her.

  “Yes.” Liss smiled at him. A girl with gray eyes. Her eyes were gray now.

  “You don’t just walk into the regent’s castle!” said Ronan. “Do you know what you’re asking? Particularly on a night as that. In all of Hearne, there isn’t a more impossible place to enter unwanted.”

  “There is another place more perilous in this city,” she said. The color of her eyes was shifting again. Gray washing into blue.

  “Where?” He spoke without thinking.

  “This house.”

  And it was back again. Someone—something—ancient looking through her eyes, examining him and weighing who he was. The ring was strangely cold in his hand, as if it had taken none of the warmth of her body. He knew he would not be able to deny her, even though what she asked might prove beyond him. The sea surged within her eyes and she sat before him, a wisp of a girl with her hands folded on the table. He suddenly realized he feared her more than the Silentman himself.

  “You aren’t Liss Galnes, are you,” he said.

  The girl said nothing.

  “Sakes, dearie,” said the cook, turning from the sink with her hands covered in suds. “Liss Galnes died near three years ago now. Caught the influenza and withered up like the flower she was. Just like her mother before her. Inconvenient for her, but timely for my mistress. She needed a place, like a hermit crab needs herself a new shell every now and again.”

  “Who are you?” His voice sounded hollow. “And how is it that Cypmann Galnes still calls this place home?”

  But they said nothing to that. The girl and the old woman merely looked at him, the one with beady, black eyes and the other with eyes like the shifting sea.

  CHAPTER THIRTY: TREATIES AND FOUL MOODS

  “Enter!” barked Botrell.

  The regent was sitting on the end of his bed and contemplating the floor. It didn’t seem to be shimmering in such a sickening fashion anymore. He was in a filthy mood, for he had stayed up late with the envoy from the court of Oruso Oran IX in Damarkan. Who would have guessed that blue-eyed icicle would have had such a capacity for wine? But he’d shown him. The man had been scarcely coherent by the time his attendants had carried him off to his rooms.

  The court chamberlain peeked in through the door.

  “The Lord Captain of Hearne requests an audience, my lord.”

  “Tell him to come back another day! Next month!”

  The chamberlain vanished for a moment and then reappeared.

  “He says the matter is urgent and cannot wait another day. He says it involves the security of your people and Hearne and, consequently, the safety of your own lordship. He apologizes most humbly for bothering you in your bedchamber.”

  “Tell him to come back next year!”

  The door closed and then reopened almost in the same instant.

  “He says—”

  “Good morning, my lord regent,” drawled Owain Gawinn. He pushed past the chamberlain and stood smiling.

  “Gawinn,” gritted Botrell. “It’s early. Don’t you have a city to watch over? Aren’t there soldiers to drill and horses to be galloped about?”

  “Fear not, my lord. I watch over Hearne with a jealous and unsleeping eye. So have the Gawinns always served the regents of Hearne, and so do I. A danger has arisen, my lord. It requires your attention, even though, as you’ve pointed out, the hour is early. Nearly noon, isn’t?”

  There was ice in his voice and in his smile. Botrell stirred uneasily on the edge of his bed. When he was honest with himself, he had to admit that the Lord Captain of Hearne made him nervous. The man was much too serious about his job.

  “Have the old scholars in the university uncovered something dangerous? Pirates threatening our sea trade again? Is the Thieves Guild overstepping their bounds?”

  “Nothing like that,” said Owain. “The university ruins contain nothing more dangerous than rats, in my estimation. The last pirate to plague our coast died on my sword three years ago. And the Guild? Bah! If you gave me a free hand with them, I’d hang the lot—but, as ever, I defer to your notion that they somehow encourage trade.”

  “Then what do you speak of?”

  “I have reports of strange killings to the east of us. Isolated farms wiped out. Entire villages decimated. All in the last month.”

  “Old news,” said the regent, yawning. “None of our business. The duchies can look after their own.”

  “The massacres happened in three different duchies as well as in northeastern Harth. Twice in Vo, thrice in Vomaro, once each in Harth and Dolan, and now just five or so days ago again in Vo. All the duchies have been in contact with me, as well as Damarkan’s envoy. That was one of the reasons Damarkan sent their man north. According to the old treaty drawn up after the Midsummer War—a treaty, no doubt, you are conversant with, as it outlines the balance of power between Hearne and the duchies of Tormay—when danger threatens multiple duchies, leadership in such a situation is deferred to the regency in Hearne.”

  “The treaty says that?” Botrell was reasonably sure he had read the old document. Years ago, true, but he would have remembered such a ridiculous and imprudent provision. His head hurt.

  “It does.”

  “Probably just bandits. Unfortunate, but merely part of life.”

  “No,” said Owain. “Bandits steal, even if they sometimes will kill. Whoever is doing these killings isn’t interested in gold. Nothing is ever stolen. Except for life. So I ask your permission, my lord, to scout in the east where the massacres happened. It would do us well to learn what we can of this new enemy. Besides the obligations of the treaty, who knows but there might come a day when the killers are within our walls?”

  “I suppose there have been no witnesses,” said Botrell, mentally cursing whichever addled ancestor had seen fit to sign such a treaty. An expedition of the sort Owain was intending would cost much gold.

  “There is one. A girl of perhaps eight or nine years. She was found by a passing trader at the site of the last massacre in Vo.”

  “Aha! So she saw those involved!”

  “Doubtlessly. However, the terror she has been through has struck her mute. She responds to little that is said to her. The only noise she makes is when she screams in her nightmares. I have hopes of her speaking someday—”

  “Hmmph.”

  “—but for now she is in the care of my good lady. What do you say, my lord? Do I have your permission to undertake my duties? I’m confident that you, as ever, are eager to see our laws fulfilled.”

  Owain took a little of the sting out of his words by smiling, but it was a wintry smile at best. That was all he could manage for the regent. There was silence in the room. Both men thought their thoughts, one smiling and the other scowling, both despising the other.

  “Oh, all right!” burst out Botrell. “Hunt and be damned! Just get out of my sight!”

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Owain, bowing. “As ever, you are a wise and able ruler.”

  “Just remember to leave someone behind to guard the city,” said Botrell nastily.

  “To be sure,” said the other, and then he was gone.

  “Chamberlain!” shouted the regent. “Bring me some wine!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: A MEMORY OF WOLVES

  In the town of Andolan, near the castle, was a small church. It was a tumbledown building made of stone, weathered by the years and grown over with gray-green lichen. The church was older than the castle, even older than the walls of Andolan themselves. It had been built before Dolan Callas ever rode north to the Mearh Dun, when there had been only a hamlet where the town o
f Andolan now stood. The church was dedicated to the nearly forgotten sleeping god and was watched over by one old priest. He spent most of his days feeding the town cats who regarded the churchyard as their home. He also mumbled his way through mostly unattended vespers once a week and pottered about in the cemetery behind the church, tending the roses and weeding around the headstones.

  It was midmorning when Levoreth walked around the side of the church. A rose bush grew at the back of the cemetery, where the oldest gravestones stood near the town wall. The bush had vines as thick as tree branches. They gripped the stones of the wall and climbed upward until they spilled over the top in scarlet blooms. Bees buzzed amidst the growth, and the air was heavy with perfume. The priest, armed with a rusty pair of shears, tottered around the perimeter of the bush, poking at some vines that curled out toward the nearest headstones. It was there, at the back of the cemetery, that the members of the Callas family were buried.

  “Here,” said Levoreth. “Let me get that for you.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” said the priest, startled at the girl’s appearance but happy to relinquish the shears. He blinked in admiration as she clipped the vines back.

  “Eh,” he said, mopping his brow, “Thought it might be the shears, but perhaps it’s just my arms.” He blinked at her some more. “Why, it’s Lady Levoreth. I haven’t set eyes on your pretty face in nigh on five years.”

  “Two years,” said Levoreth. “You remember? I sat up with you for midwinter compline the evening the great snows started falling. No one else came.”

  “Ah,” he said. “The great snows. What a winter that was. My poor cats refused to leave the church, even after they’d caught all the mice. Not that I blame them, with the wolves coming down out of the mountains. It was a wonder we didn’t have them wandering about the streets.”

  “Aye,” she said. “It’s a wonder.” She stepped back and looked up at the rosebush. “This old vine certainly has seen better days.” A sparrow rustled its way through the leaves and trilled a burst of song down at her.

  “That it has,” said the old man. “That it has. Like us all.” He sighed in contentment, sat down on a fallen headstone, and glanced about the cemetery. Sunlight lay on the headstones, on the mossed-over paths that ambled between the graves, the crooked back of the church hiding the cemetery from the rest of the town.