Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) Read online

  He rose and poured cool water into his basin then splashed it over his face and balding, close-cropped head, finishing with an invigorating fingertip rub all over his scalp. He patted himself dry with a small cloth and gave his head a bracing, wide-eyed shake. Perhaps today he would find something useful, and it wouldn’t do to be half asleep when the moment came. His commission was open ended, but despite Shawnash’kote’s savory baked goods, he had no desire to extend his stay one day longer than necessary—not with such a life-changing reward awaiting his success back home.

  Nondescript raiment in place, Vela padded down the inn’s stairs and exited onto the bright, dusty street. The energy exuded by the street sellers as they called invitingly reminded him of home. Not his current home, but the small townhouse his mendre had owned when he was a child. The golden dust, kicked up by the fierce winds off the Sea of Galahara, had always given Chigulan a magical air in his young mind. Everyone from his peppa to the dairy merchant down on the corner had been heroes in his eyes, capable of amazing feats of cleverness and strength.

  Now I know there is no such thing as a hero. Vela dropped a ducat in the baker’s hand and accepted a thin, conical breadpaper full of small, spiral licorice rolls. There are only those who succeed and those they have to use to do it.

  He munched his way from Yewakma’s hospitality district—such as it was—to the market proper. His rickety stool awaited him by the side of Hawak’s lime cart, and he flipped the gap-toothed Shawnash a ducat as he settled onto it.

  “Always a pleasure, Kyres.” Hawak bobbed his head in thanks.

  “Only a matter of time,” Vela replied in his best Akrestan accent. “That fool nephew of mine, he can’t be much later than this, or he won’t survive my taking it out of his hide.”

  “Eh, youth. What can we do, old men like us? We had our fool’s years and survived.” The lime merchant bent over his cart and rearranged his fruit. It must have made a more appealing heap, for he quickly sold half a dozen to a raggedy man bearing a bamboo cane.

  Vela let his eyes trail after the man as he merged with the passing crowd. He wasn’t nearly as old as he appeared at first glance, barely more than a boy, in fact. The deep recesses of his brain triggered a warning. Was the young man, clearly a true Akrestoi with those ratty blond braids, stealthing about just as he was?

  “Need to stretch the legs.” Vela rose and rolled his shoulders.

  “You just sat. That bad knee of yours?” Hawak inquired.

  “Aye,” he replied absently, stepping into the flow of foot traffic.

  His target limped his way through the center of town and eventually headed into a dingy slice of urban decay near the smelting houses. Vela hesitated at the corner of what looked like a dim, dead-end street, pretending to clean his boot heel on the broken edge of a low piss-vase filled with dark, round mintpebbles. The limper had little company on his street, but he didn’t look back. Leaving more distance between them, Vela strolled after him.

  He expected the young man to enter one of the tiny townhouses that crowded the edges of the street, but instead, his target settled in a small booth with a low green awning bearing a mortar and pestle in faded yellow stitching. He looked directly at Vela with resigned proprietary interest, so Vela met his eyes and nodded then moved past. He managed to find a needle’s eye of an alley, a slender strip of wooden tunnel that slid between two townhouses and led out of the dead-end street. He wedged himself into its shadows and bared his teeth in silent frustration.

  “What’s down this way?” Vela’s native language caught his ear, but he didn’t recognize the man’s tenor voice. Fear stiffened his spine.

  Another man laughingly replied, “More Waarden dirt, I expect. You have strange inclinations for a merchant’s son, Turlo. All this poking around in the dirty corners of the city while your father trades at the docks. Do you fancy yourself a repenter for your past lives?”

  Vela peeked around the corner. The explorer, in pale, oiled curls and blue silk, stood arms akimbo and grinned up at the tenement houses surrounding the dead end. His companion stood several paces off in a silk outfit of similar cut but darker hue, his arms in the air, questioning his friend’s sanity. The Waarden glanced at the pair with disinterest.

  Vela shifted back until his right eye barely saw around the wall’s edge. It didn’t matter where the pretty young men were from. If they discovered him while innocently exploring a foreign city, he’d have to dispose of them.

  Turlo’s eye fell on the green awning. He sauntered over and asked in broken Waarden to see some product, and the seated young man produced a small box with a variety of artfully displayed glass vials. A brief conversation followed, too faint for Vela to catch, but Turlo’s friend only gave an exaggerated sigh and stared at a pot of wilting flowers as if they had offended him.

  Without asking permission, Turlo uncorked one vial and took a proprietary sniff. A flash of anger crossed the apothecary’s face, but he swiftly masked it with a bland smile. “Eh, Ferrar!” Turlo called. His companion lolled his head in Turlo’s direction. “Father was right. This is bathwater compared to what your uncle makes for the cetechupes.”

  Ferrar swatted his hand through the air, a gesture that would serve equally well as a mimed slap to Turlo’s head and an indication of impatience to depart. “Then leave it. This city makes me want to scour my lungs with sossa blossoms.”

  After Ferrar stalked off, Turlo tossed a few coins onto the table and pointed to one of the bottles. Purchase in hand, he hurried to catch up.

  Vela took a deep breath and released the tension in his gut. Those pompous, entitled man-boys could have ruined everything. He amused himself with the thought of tracking them down and making it clear that visiting a foreign empire was a terrible time to lose control of their tongues.

  No sooner had he decided to slip out the far end of the closed street and return to his stool by Hawak’s cart than a sudden light appeared in midair an arm’s length away. His first instinct was to duck and cover—he’d attended several den duels in Nunaa in order to familiarize himself with the appearance and capabilities of Waarden magics. But the light had a different appearance than any elemental spell he’d seen. He froze, not even daring to breathe. His palm clasped the hilt of the dagger concealed in his wide belt, its blade forged of a forbidden substance that could cost him his head. Backward savages. They might as well be living in caves for all their superstitions. His thought clashed with a tightly reined fear of discovery.

  The light widened to a thin ring that lit the shadowy outdoor hallway, and through it a girl of around sixteen summers stepped into the world, facing away from him. She wore a dark, heavy cloak—too heavy for Yemawka’s warmth—and didn’t look back as she glided into the end of the close street. As the ring of light faded, a puff of cold air followed her and momentarily raised the hairs on Vela’s arm.

  Singer.

  He slid to the mouth of the wooden alley, squatted, and fished a bit of silvered glass from a pocket. Holding it near his eye, he watched the girl’s reflection as she crossed directly to the young man under the green awning. Vela’s gaze lifted to the faded symbol embroidered on the green awning: the mortar and pestle of an apothecary.

  His front teeth gently closed against the tip of his tongue, nipping it thoughtfully as he studied the scene before him. Mixing magics and the furthest apart, at that. What does a vaunted Singer want with an outcast potioneer?

  The Singer doffed her cloak and sat with the potioneer, murmuring and occasionally jotting things down in a small journal. By the time she finally rose to leave, Vela’s backside was complaining of its uncomfortable position on the dirt and stones of the alley floor. Pressing his shoulders against the warm wood of the tunnel wall, he slid to a standing position and retreated further into the shadows. I’ll have to ask her about her business later. Right now, I’m more interested in how far she can take me toward my reward.

  As the Singer entered the wooden alley, Vela pretended to be passin
g through it in the opposite direction. They both stopped short at the sight of each other, and Vela held up his hands harmlessly. He pressed against one wall and gestured for the Singer to pass by first.

  But she remained still. Her head tipped in contemplation as she stared at the side of his chest. He looked down as well and saw the outline of the hidden item pressing through his shirt.

  “Is that a heart flask?” Her voice held notes of scholarly enquiry. “I’ve only seen those in the trading markets of the Raq lands. Isn’t it from—”

  Well, now I have to take her. One hand slipped his blade free of its slender sheath, while the other latched around her throat and pressed her against the other wall. His steel kissed her neck, and the whites of her eyes went luminous in the dimness.

  “What… do you want?” Her words rasped past his grip.

  “I wouldn’t say no to some more of those delicious licorice rolls back at the markets. But right now, I want you to take out those of crystals of yours, right there in your pocket, and sing. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, her clenched jaw bobbing against his hand.

  “And if you sing anything other than what I want you to sing, or if you try to escape me, I will hurt you. I don’t want to. I very much want you intact. So if you listen to me and do as I say, we will both get what we want.”

  “I take you somewhere, and you let me go?”

  An easy smile crossed his face. “Now we’re thinking alike.” His hand slipped to her shoulder, and he pulled her from the wall, turned her, and pushed her deeper into the shadows of the wooden tunnel.

  He felt her body trembling as she pulled a pair of rosy crystals from the deep pocket on her white tabard. She turned her head a fraction in his direction. “Where shall I sing you?”

  His hand tightened on her shoulder. “East.”

  Pleasure Is Our Toy

  “Bayan, you’re on in two taps. Blow that dust out and get ready!” The scantily clad balance artist slapped Bayan on the arm as she dashed past, barefoot, holding her weighted shoes in one hand.

  Fresh hay, sweat, and the warm aroma of the performers’ favorite drink, quinsa, filled Bayan’s nose as he shifted from foot to foot behind the dark green curtain separating him from the multitiered oval arena and its demanding audience. He tugged downward on the bottom of his close-fitting velvet vest, and his thumbs brushed the cool smoothness of the hollow-centered coins lining its lower hem. Then his fingers found the beaded necklace that lay delicately across his collarbones, laden with squared-off stones, and rubbed the large black bead that hung lowest. Head bowed, he ran through the effects he planned to create.

  First, the mountains to the left and the sea to the right. Then the storm, then the armada. Raise the sea witch. Zoom to the commander’s ship. She pulls it apart, his crew drowns, he curses her, and I end with her weeping on the sand, out of reach of the waves. He took a deep breath, let his cheeks balloon outward, and exhaled.

  Cresconio’s voice boomed from beyond the curtain, introducing him as the exotic magician Bayan the Wanderer. Better than “exile.” The crowd clapped and cheered in anticipation, and Bayan adjusted his costume one last time before stepping forth, arms raised in acknowledgment of their acclaim. The irony of his position struck him along with the volume of the audience—if the Corona allowed its own magic casters to perform publicly, the circus’s most popular acts, including Bayan’s, would hold no appeal. But such men hid in their secret enclaves, and their deeds were composed of more rumor that fact.

  The warm, dry breezes from off the Chamerta Plains spun down across the rows of waiting patrons. Despite its size, Cresconio’s circus arena didn’t rise nearly as high as the arenas at the Duelist academy. Spreading wider and lower and in concentric rings around two central stages and their connecting balustrade, the entertainment venue gave everyone a view of various acts all throughout the show.

  Bayan’s curtain purled as he strode onto the central balustrade, front and center before the eyes of thousands of waiting fans. Dozens of young girls in the nearest rows screamed his name and fluttered their hands like so many manic butterflies. As befitted the romantic side of Coronàl culture, Bayan turned toward them, paused for a moment to meet their collective gaze, and gave them a deep, ardent bow. They shrieked all the louder, and he dashed off a smile and gave them a final wave as he stepped forward to the center of the raised balustrade.

  Despite his practiced confidence, Bayan kept running over his new routine in his mind, for that night he would unveil his most daring performance yet. He’d been working with Cresconio on it for over fifty days, timing his spells to match the cadence of Cresconio’s storytelling. He’d overcome the difficulty of magically constructing the physical appearances of the stories’ settings over a year ago, and since that time, his reputation for stunning visual storytelling effects had spread far and wide. As a result, he had to constantly outdo himself. With this new performance, he would attempt to tell two parts of the same story, one in each arena, at the same time. A task worthy of a hexmage, indeed.

  Bayan closed his eyes and raised his arms again, waiting for the inevitable hush of anticipation that flowed from the closest seats up to the cheap, rickety benches in the dim distance of twilight. As the silence descended, stagehands extinguished all the lamps, plunging the audience into darkness. Bayan smiled. In Bayan’s first week of training, Cresconio had taught him the importance of proper lighting—the dramatic angles and shadows that lit or obscured, giving the story not only its substance but its tone. Cresconio was a firm believer in telling the audience what to think and how to think it.

  The darkness surged around him. He pressed his mind against its comforting closeness. With his eyes closed, Bayan felt at home in the crowded dark. He let the dark moment stretch out and heard absolutely no restless rustling from the audience. They were entirely his. They trusted him implicitly, expected pure amazement, and would not leave until they got it.

  I am the god of stories, and they worship at my stage. So let them be fulfilled.

  Bayan split his focus in two. In the left arena, he brought forth a half-ring of distant blue mountains, curling against the arena’s far curve. The rest of its sand vanished into turbulent, blue-gray waves capped with foam. The air above them formed low, scudding clouds. To his right, he crafted what had been one of the most difficult hexes to make for any performance, ever—copying a description Cresconio found in an ancient book of myths: a golden city, descending in terraces from the foot of a cliff to the marge of a turquoise lake turned fiery by sunrise.

  From his position at the announcing horn below the balustrade, Cresconio began his sonorous monologue, introducing both scenes. The myth was universally popular with Corona citizens due to their love of tragic romance, but the tale was as foreign to Bayan as Waarden history had once been. Small figures moved about on the illusory city’s streets, and boats docked at its narrow wooden piers. Domes and towers caught the rising light, and streamers of turquoise and orange waved from of rooftops and crenellations.

  Bayan drew dozens of miniature watercraft atop the sea and set his armada in motion. Their wedge formation plowed through the tossing waves toward the distant mountains, which he magnified to indicate the ships’ progress. In his city, the sun spun higher in the sky. He expanded the view until the audience zoomed straight into the largest dome near the water’s edge.

  Murmurs of appreciation rippled around the edges of his concentration as the crowd watched the legendary general Bermudo dy Chixal, victor of a thousand demon battles, demand that Queen Ranguela give him enough men to defend the Northern Crescent from the Red Hound’s approaching armada. The loudest voices in the audience pretended they had never heard the story before, offering doubtful commentary on the armada’s chances of survival.

  On the left, the sea witch Erramela rose, ensconced in her eelskin saddle on the back of her leviathan, and challenged the Red Hound in his proud vessel, the Honor of Achaya. On the right, Queen Ranguela, imperi
ous and not a little put out at the general’s rejection of her marriage proposal, refused him any aid whatsoever and had him bodily thrown from court.

  The audience booed and hissed at Ranguela, forever doomed to appear in Coronàl history books as a narrow-minded, selfish, spiteful woman who only avoided ruining her queendom by sheer luck. In all his time within the Corona’s borders, Bayan had never met nor heard of any girl who bore the name Ranguela. Surprised they didn’t exile her. But then she was technically in charge.

  The great general, humiliated and infuriated, grew large, towering over the entire audience, his head rising up into the night sky. As Cresconio’s voice detailed dy Chixal’s solo journey to the distant shores of the Northern Crescent to surely die in solitary defense of his cold-hearted queen’s lands, Bayan created various northern Corona landmarks and rolled them past the giant, stalking figure. Only some of those ancient monuments and geographical features still stood, and Bayan had had to rely heavily on classic paintings to get some of his details right. That had meant a journey to Balear, capital city of Valio Avilacha, to the great Altatura Museum. Because Cresconio expected Bayan’s upcoming performance to be the biggest draw his traveling circus had ever had, he not only took Bayan to the museum himself but he allowed Sabella and Ordomiro, Bayan’s closest friends, to accompany them.

  Sabella. A tiny pocket within Bayan’s consciousness warmed. But now was not the time to dwell on what she meant to him, despite his fond memories of Kiwani, his hexmate. He tucked it away for later as he directed the giant general to stalk right past him. Next, he brought the Red Hound to the point in the tale where he offered his life to Fastamar, God of Storms, to complete the curse upon Erramela. Lightning flashed over dy Chixal’s head as he struggled to climb the last mountain before the seashore. And the Red Hound died, arms outflung, head thrown back, his wild blond hair waving in the wind, as he toppled from the prow of his boat into Erramela’s waiting claws. His men let up a wail of despair and turned their boats for home.