A Fray of Furies, page 6
part #2 of The Waking Worlds Series
“I don’t feel anything,” he’d told the oily proprietor, panning the simple band over the magical merchandise.
“It’s a ring, isn’t it?” the man had grumped, watching his property like a hawk. “You have to put it on.”
“If this turns me green,” he’d promised, “you’re going to need him,” he’d crooked a thumb at the bullnecked guard, “and everything else in here to pry me off your throat.”
The merchant had sneered but not stopped him ramming it on.
He’d waited, sweating, for it to do something. Outside, the cobbles had sizzled in the sweltering Oaragh sun.
“How warm, exactly?” he’d scowled.
“Here,” the merchant had proffered a box. A trio of urns had languished on crushed velvet. “Two of these,” the man had explained, “are about as magical as my marriage bed. The third will make your balls drop off. You tell me which is which.”
The man had smiled nastily, pushing the box toward him.
Glaring, he’d panned gingerly over the collection.
“This one,” he’d said, surprise coloring his tone.
“Exactly right,” the merchant had preened greedily.
“How much?” He’d been careful to hide his interest.
“Fifteen-score.”
“Three hundred and sixty golds?” he’d gasped, reaching to remove it immediately. “Are you sun-addled?”
“That’s an antique you’ve got there,” the seller had argued. “No one knows how to make those anymore.”
“Who’d bother?” he’d returned, wrestling with the ring. “It’s obvious no one could ever afford the damn things to begin with.”
“I’ll have you know princes use to wear those.”
“Sell me a prince then,” he’d scoffed. “Night sky knows, it’s bound to be cheaper.”
“My family’s business was built on that ring!” The vendor had growled. “It’s been passed down from father to son since before my great-grandfather’s time!”
“Been returned that often has it?” he’d strained. “Did you have to refund the poor rubes or just pry it from their...”
He’d given up his efforts to glare at the ring, “Why isn’t this sand-spawned thing coming off?”
“What?! Give me that!”
They’d tried oil. They’d tried soap. A jeweler from down the street had been called to consult. The man had tried to coax it off with waxed thread. They’d succeeded only in purpling his finger, the string sawing through on the silver edge again and again.
The clever vendor had finally concluded (rather than cutting his price or his prize) he’d cut off the offending finger.
The loud lock of the shop’s door had as much as announced it.
The guard had screamed, suddenly stapled to the sturdy portal through the palm. The butcher’s cleaver – that had appeared in the vendor’s grip as if by magic – was wrestled away.
“Now,” he’d proposed, pinning the oily man, “let’s talk reduction.”
Wild eyes had followed the keen blade.
“If you’re completely, absolutely, positively sure this thing won’t cost me my hand, I’ll pay your fifteen-score right now.”
“You will?” the vendor had gasped.
“Of course,” he’d promised. “But I think we should reckon in my loss, in the event you’re wrong. You wouldn’t want me coming back here, would you?”
He’d hiked up the man’s sleeve, pinning the spindly arm to the counter.
“How much do you reckon a hand’s worth?” he’d wondered.
“You’re a thief,” the merchant had accused, showing a bit of spine. “You’ll not keep yours long in any event.”
“But I’m an excellent thief,” he’d countered. “So let’s reckon the use of my hand over the next two decades, at least. That’s playing it safe, of course: picking pockets and petty burglary. That’s about ten golds a year. Forty golds per long-year…” he’d pretended puzzlement. “I’m running out of fingers. Lend me a hand…?”
The cleaver had dipped from digit to digit.
“Forty … hmm … hmm … hmm… two hundred!”
Eyes had bulged wider with every finger threatened.
“Yes, yes!” the vendor had agreed, pouring sweat. “A hundred and sixty! It’s yours!”
“Ah,” he’d forestalled. “But we’ve yet to reckon the change to my lifestyle. How will being handless affect my love life?”
He’d begun slowly shaving the vendor’s hairy knuckles.
“And my purse? A prize whore goes for two silvers a turn. And I’d never kick a lady out on a dark night. So that’s a sickle a romp – roughly six sickles each moon – call it six more suns per year. Over twenty years… Are you paying attention?”
“Forty!” the vendor had growled, caught between calculation and cowardice. “You can have the damn thing for forty golds!”
“Mm,” he’d wondered. “Can a man with no hand even make a binding bargain? Where would you spit? You’d have to rethink so many things....” the cleaver had bobbed from joint to joint in thought. “Picking your nose, wiping your ass, diddling yourself–”
“Stop!” the merchant had pleaded, finally breaking down. “Ten! You can have the ring for ten!”
Abandoning his friendly façade, he’d leaned close, murder reflecting off the cleaver’s bright edge.
“Am I robbing you?” he’d demanded.
The vendor had shaken his head, shedding tears.
“Say the words,” he’d pressed.
“You’re not robbing me,” the man had blubbered.
“Good.”
And the cleaver had thunked down, biting only wood. The merchant had fainted, dead away.
The guard, still spiked to the door, had watched him count ten golds onto the counter.
“Why bother?” the man had frowned through clenched teeth.
“I’m a master thief,” he’d answered, turning toward the back door. “Not some hick highwayman.”
That was a long time ago now. He’d been saddled with the ring ever since. Nothing physical kept it on his finger. It simply refused to part with him.
Magic, pah!
But it had an annoying habit of saving his life.
It was a blemish on his record that he’d once killed so many of Prince Watik’s men. The strong room he’d rappelled into had turned out to be the guard barracks – a neat trick by the prince. He’d lost count of the number of throwing knives he’d sent winging away.
Just as things had begun to calm, a final guard had burst in, leveling a crossbow.
With a dozen paces between them and no cover, he’d prayed to find just one more knife up his sleeve…
The guard had toppled, firing a bolt into the ceiling.
Only then had he registered the unfamiliar hilt studding the man’s ribs. Even stranger on closer inspection: solid silver, beautifully balanced and patterned all over. Much too flashy.
Definitely not one of his.
He’d yelped at having it dissolve in his hand. The metallic dust had clung to him, crawling across his skin, circling his finger...
The band would not wake into a blade for anything less than mortal peril. And it was exceedingly strict with its definition.
Where his own steel had failed to stymie the dead mage – that night in Seven Deep – the silver had scorched it like a bonfire. If not for that, he would most assuredly have died.
And there had been something else.
The dead mage had recognized the blade. Had called it a ‘key’. The context had convinced him it was somehow connected to the ‘map’ he’d been there to steal. The ‘map’ in question being the ancient writings of some long dead head-priest. Supposedly it was a roadmap to peace. Or at least, that’s what the leader of the modernists, Cyrus, believed.
And good luck to them.
He would not tell them his ring was somehow wrapped up in their religious war. They had enough strings tied to him. And they had evinced a ruthless willingness to yank on those when it suited their purpose.
“We’re here.”
Up ahead, Neever unlocked and swung open a thick door.
“Master Jiminy,” Cyrus greeted.
The elderly healer had never looked particularly hale. The liver-spotted pate and clinging follicles were familiar. But the ancient frame was stooped and the piercing eyes nestled in bone-deep bruises. The gnarled hands were steady enough, flitting among the assembled beakers, burners and alembics.
“Cyrus,” he returned. “Read any good books lately?”
The leader of the modernist movement coughed appreciatively. He’d been tightlipped about the scroll retrieved from Seven Deep.
“Why’ve you cut off my medicine, priest?” he demanded, preamble done. “Are you angling for company in the here-after?”
The bent healer smirked, “I sincerely doubt you and I are headed to the same place.”
“Small mercies,” he observed. “My medicine?”
Ignoring him, the old man shuffled about his experiment, giving a pinch here or a swivel there.
“Our previous collaboration has borne fruit,” the man nodded.
He followed the gesture to a haphazard pile of books. None appeared to be manufactured from tattooed and peeled human skin.
“Transcribed it, have you?” he surmised.
“The original is too volatile to leave lying around.”
Not to mention macabre.
“Congratulations, I suppose. Best of luck, bending your emperor’s ear with a book. Yay, tolerance. Down with expansionism and all that. Now. My medicine?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“I’m not the one playing at religious reform.”
“It is not a game. All our lives depend on it.”
“I’m interested in my life. Which you are holding hostage.”
“Your life?” the priest straightened, facing him. He was struck by how weak and wasted the man had become. “I will not live to see the culmination of my works.” Glaring, the man turned back to the bubbling beakers. “But, with my help, perhaps you will.”
He’d lived in Tellar long enough to recognize their pagan prayers, even if he did not understand the words. It woke a violet glow from the crystal Cyrus had produced.
The band of heat around his finger gave belated warning.
At the crystal’s touch, the foremost beaker roiled, its tarry contents speckled through by storm light.
His elixir.
No wonder the experts had been unable to replicate it. It required an unobtainable ingredient: magic.
Crap…
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take two barrels full and be on my way.”
He’d need at least that much to make it beyond the empire’s borders. He’d not find a high alchemist willing to dabble in the mystic arts elsewise.
The priest wheezed as though he’d run a race, “I’m afraid it is not that simple.”
“I don’t see the complication.”
“Alchemy and streaming do not make for comfortable bedfellows. This potion,” the priest explained as he decanted it, “begins to unbind almost as soon as it is concocted. By this time tomorrow, it will be no more than a foul-tasting digestive.”
He considered this.
“Then you’d better start running the moment you touch down beyond the veil, priest,” he advised. “I’ll be on your trail in less than a moon.”
“Jiminy…” Neever interjected, sounding scandalized.
Cyrus waved him to silence, “It is not my trail I’m setting you on, Master Thief.”
The old man gathered up his staff of office, crutching over.
“There’s good reason why the writings of Juris Arbiter were locked in Seven Deep. Without proof of authenticity, it would be divisive. Letting it see the light of day, naked as it is, could preempt the war I’m trying to prevent. I need conclusive evidence that it is the unspoiled account of the Prime himself. Armored in certainty, it would be beyond reproach. The High Archon himself would have to accept it into the doctrine. It would change the way the Empire operates.
“You,” the priest grinned, “will get me this proof.”
He stared, aghast. There were so many things wrong with that statement... He’d start with the most glaring: “How will I do this when I’m dead?”
“I have taught another how to prepare your potion,” the ancient shuffled nearer, elixir in hand. “They will travel with you.”
“I am not a historian,” he argued. “I’m not a theologian.”
“Lucky for you, Neever is both.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“It may be,” the priest mused, “that some of this proof is already in the possession of others. Others who will not readily give it up. And since I already have a master thief in my quiver…”
In your pocket, you mean. Bastard.
“And who,” he scathed, “will I be robbing this time?”
“Aha!” the healer exclaimed. “A most excellent question! You see, as I translated more of Arbiter’s exploits, I was struck by the strangest sense of similitude. Like I’d read the account somewhere before. It took me a while to put my finger on exactly where…”
The finger in question was crooked at Neever, who hurried over with a bound book. The volume was duly placed in his hands.
“‘The Recollected Adventures of Eris Bolk – Master Swordsman’,” he read out.
Neever, who was no slouch at reading body language, lingered within arm’s reach. As well he might.
“You sent me,” he accused tonelessly, “into Seven Deep after a collection of children’s tales?”
Cyrus’s goddess was going to be seeing him ahead of schedule.
“You sent me,” he seethed, “to my near death for a text I could have picked up for a couple of coppers at the book market?”
“What? No!” The priest dismissed. “But there is a certain overlap that proves Juris Arbiter’s – Eris Bolk’s – legend continued on outside the Empire. With these overlaps as our guide, we can use the one, to prove the other.”
He glared at the two of them. But, really, what choice did he have? Cyrus thrust his dose of elixir toward him.
“Your health,” the priest toasted.
* * *
“My chief, I have something you should see.”
Protocol called for the chief to exit first. Then the elders and so forth. But temptation started an exodus right on the sifter’s heels.
Kassika was lifted from her seat by dint of displaced thigh as the two fat weavers scurried after. Reeling, she was swept along.
Had she really just risen to her second-mother’s bait? Sworn a blood oath in front of the tribe? Ancestors forfend! All her erstwhile certainty had fled at sight of the sifter. She was remembering she’d played these games of turn and turnabout with her second-mother before. And proven, each time, she didn’t have the head for them.
If she couldn’t beat it with her fists, Bellem liked to joke, she couldn’t beat it. She’d be more amused if she didn’t prove his point for him, every time he said it.
She blinked in the light of day.
Bellem bumped her shoulder, concern writ large on his face.
“How did it go?”
She showed him her bleeding palm, “I think I lost.”
He was as sharp as her second-mother’s knife.
“Ancestors forfend!” he echoed, appalled.
“It seemed the thing to do at the time,” she tried nonchalantly.
He buried his face in his hands, “I should have gone sooner.”
“Gone where?” she wondered, hooking his belt to keep him moving. Strange, but his distress made her own seem smaller.
“To the sifter, of course,” he mewled between his fingers.
“You’re the one Raylat sent to fetch the sifter?”
He dropped his hands, “No. Did she say she’d sent someone?”
He frowned hugely. He was a great worrier over little things.
“If not you,” she groused, “why didn’t I see you in there?” She hadn’t realized how much she’d been depending on his support.
“The sifter tasked me with this,” he explained.
She looked up.
The tribesmen and woman were parting around a fenced paddock, emptied of its ponies. Several Hunt-hounds had been tethered to the thick uprights. An untrained eye might easily mistake them for pets, with their comically coarse ruffs and spiraling tails. They looked a little like confused sheep.
They’d been bred to track and hunt krin.
Great coils of rope lay beside each one.
“You did this?” she started.
“I helped.”
Her father and the elders finally arrived. By then the sifter had finished organizing the hounds and their handlers, dispatching pairs to opposing points of the corral. He motioned the delegation to the center, where someone had hammered an enormous stake. Behind them trailed two Hunters bearing a stretcher. She could guess what was on it, cocooned in a maroon quilt.
“Sifter wants you,” Bellem hissed.
“Ancestors,” she swore, noting the wise man’s beckoning. She ducked beneath the fence. Clutching her side, she hitched her way to the waiting group, slowing beneath their austere attention.
“Here please, Kassika,” the sifter bid.
She stepped up beside the travois, where one of the Hunters was winkling the unconscious krin loose of its wrap.
“Is this the man you claim is krin?”
Dutifully, she looked. Its skin had been wiped down, its hair hacked short at the nape. These, and a breechclout, were the least of the changes: a midnight design circled its chest. Flames, edged in angry red flesh. The tattoo swirled around an old patch of burn scar before disappearing beneath its armpits. A massive undertaking, to mark so much skin in a single night.
“It is,” she confirmed, her palm a pulsing burn.
At the sifter’s gesture, the other Hunter stepped forward, his arms spilling great loops of chain.
She watched as the krin was tethered to the stake, only now noting the double-layered length of rawhide collaring its throat.
“What am I seeing, Sifter?” her father grumbled, startling her.
