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

  The First Singer sat back again and sighed. “I suppose that makes it my fault, then, that your classmates despise you so. I’m sorry for that necessary deception.”

  “This was my idea. I came to you.”

  Liselot held her hands out helplessly. “And I agreed. You are my responsibility, as are all the singers in the temple. Sanaala is far more my responsibility than yours. I insist that you stop blaming yourself for what happened, Tala. We simply don’t have the time.”

  Tala shifted on the smooth, golden wood. It wasn’t the first time she and Liselot had clashed over who should take the blame for the death of the youngest coterie member, and it wouldn’t be the last. But she was right. Tala really couldn’t afford to mourn or question herself. Unfortunately, her mind continued to do both, even as she performed her duties. “Where am I going?”

  “The Kheerzaal. The Minister of Information needs an update.”

  She slid a small wooden carving across her desktop, and Tala picked it up. Its surface bore the image of three stylized daisies, each with varying numbers of petals in different colors. “All six passed. He’ll be pleased.”

  Tala cast her portal to Philo’s office, but when she stood before the Minister of Information, his expression was anything but pleased. He let the carving clatter to his broad ebony desktop and heaved an angry sigh through his nose. Tala waited in silence, clutching her black crystals. The powerful eunuch stood quietly behind his desk, but his body language shouted of agitation. His high, curly salmon wig fairly trembled with tension. “Do you understand, my dear, the fix the Academy continues to put me in? Do you see the flip side of the ducat of their extraordinary success?”

  Tala blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry, Minister. I don’t. Is there something I can pass on to the First Singer for you?”

  The eunuch heaved a sigh and paced to the window, where he clasped his beringed hands behind his back and peered down on the damp stone walkways of the Kheerzaal. “Unfortunately, Liselot is not in a position to aid in relieving this situation. In fact, the exact problem is that no one is in a position to fix this. None of us realized what would happen when so many of the Academy’s duelists embraced savantism. No one could see it coming, not even me. And ultimately, the fault is mine. Here I am, in a fix of my own making, and despite all of my experience, I cannot see a way to free myself of it. I fear we are in for a catastrophic clash with a thousand years of tradition.”

  Tala gasped in surprise. “It’s that bad? What’s going on? Do I need to inform the Hexmates?”

  The large man spun, graceful in his elaborate silks. “No, silly girl. Even they are helpless.”

  “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I should not have snapped at you. It isn’t your fault.” He leaned against the edge of his desk. His plump hands offered her the weighty issue. “You see, savantism makes our duelists stronger than ever. Even though less than half of the students on campus are savants, there are still over a hundred of them because of the emperor’s waves. He swamped the Academy with over two hundred new students in a single year, and almost all of them are still training on campus. I get letters from duel dens every day, demanding to know when the next Talent Tournament will be, if it will be anywhere near them, and when they will get their promised quota of new duelists. Do you see the problem? We are training our Duelists Savant for much longer than most students remain on campus. Duelists in dens around the empire are retiring or getting potioneered following injury, and no one is replacing them. Their numbers are noticeably declining. I have no one to replace them with because Academy rules state that students must remain on campus until they top out. And none of the savants are topping out. Absolutely none of them.” He threw his hands into the air. “We’ve made an entire generation of hexmages, and not only can we not tell anyone outside the Academy about it, but the empire is going to murder us for not telling them what we’re doing, and they’ll probably try to murder the hexmages once they figure it out. This was a colossally idiotic plan. Why did I ever think this was going to work?” Philo beat his fists against his pink forehead.

  Tala held very still in the face of the minister’s tantrum. “What can we do?”

  Philo flung his hands wide and let out a frustrated mew. “My dear girl, I will let you have my fortune in its entirety, down to the very last pinky ring I possess, if you can answer your own question. This problem has been walking down the road for two years. Nothing can divert it now. I fear our only option is to try to spin prejudice into greed. If the duel dens are anything like the instructors on campus, they will want hexmages left and right. It’s not them I’m worried about. Duelists, deep down, are very practical people.”

  Tala’s crystals had grown slick with the sweat of her nervous palms. She brushed their smooth facets against her tabard. “Then who? The emperor?”

  Philo gave her a look full of defeat. “Exactly. The emperor and those noble families who support him. Their number dwindles every holiday or so, it seems, but the emperor won’t run out of support anytime soon. Akkeraad boasts more noble houses than I have pearls studding my wigs. The traditionalists who stand against our dissident factions wield great power, and they have the law on their side. If any of them were to hear the slightest whisper of our institutionalized savantism, we might as well lop off our own heads and hand them over.”

  Tala’s mouth tightened. “Then you think of a way to fix this, minister. I know how long it can take to change tradition. But if we wait that long, the Hexmates will be dead of old age before anyone can accept what they’ve done. You and I know what they have sacrificed to achieve what they’ve become. We just need a way to tell that story to everyone else. Right?”

  The minister nodded, a distracted look on his face. “Telling stories,” he mused. He stood up abruptly and fixed Tala with a piercing look. “Thank you, my dear. I may be able to work with that idea.”

  “But… How?”

  Philo smiled beatifically and ushered her to the distant end of the room, which had been set aside for portaling. “It’s my job, remember, to pull together whispers and spider webs. I will set to work at once on blunting the inevitable blow. I pray it will be enough to spare our lives, if not our jobs.”

  Tala nodded and sang a portal home. As she stepped into the First Singer’s office again, Liselot looked up from where she was singing a small mist to moisten a cluster of mossy plants. “And how is the Minister of Information today?”

  Tala grasped her crystals to shut the portal behind her and shook her head with uncertainty. “He’s as well as any of us, which apparently means that the emperor could order our deaths at any moment.”

  A Good Performance

  Humidity wasn’t the only thing making the foreign diplomat sweat in the royal gardens. Emperor Baltanarmo rested on the cool stone bench beside the slender man in the layered white silks and graying blond braids. Zahira had been right about him all along. “I’m afraid our hospitality has run its course, Senyer Sarantis. The time has come for you to return to Karkhedon. You shall carry with you our fulsome thanks for your contributions to our industry and economy, and the people of the Corona look forward to doing business with Karkhedon in the future.”

  Sarantis’s damp features struggled with outrage, pleading, and despair before he pressed his lips together, closed his eyes, and attempted to sound rational. “My dear Senyecho, great and honorable Baltanarmo, you have ever shown me kindness and hospitality. Have I given offense unawares?”

  Baltanarmo shook his head and smiled. “Of course not. Such a thing could not be possible from such an esteemed personage as yourself. I simply wish to exercise due caution for your safety. We are suffering some small internal conflict near Enchamanca, and I would be most embarrassed if you were to suffer as a result. I shall have my cetechupes escort you as far as the border so that you may be assured of my concern and care.”

  Sarantis blinked several times. Baltanarmo gave him time to f
ormulate his next protestation. It mattered not what the steel merchant said. One way or another, his face would never be seen in court again.

  But Sarantis either knew more or guessed more than Baltanarmo expected. His eyes widened, and his brows lowered. “Your consort has more sway than I’d assumed. I once thought her to be an ally, you know, carrying my voice to your ear.”

  A peacock called in the distance. Baltanarmo breathed in, letting the desire to backhand the man pass. “My Zahira does not ally with the likes of you. You misjudge her and do insult to her reputation. She has ever been loyal to my family and to no other.”

  Sarantis bobbed his head in apology and offered his open palms in a gesture of harmlessness. “I beg forgiveness. The subtlety of your Coronàl ways can still cause a misstep even after years of learning.”

  Baltanarmo clapped his hands onto his silk-clad knees and stood abruptly. His lower lip protruded too far, as it often did when he was perturbed, but he couldn’t help it. The man was a heinous toad. “I shall send servants to pack for you. A wagon will be waiting in the courtyard.”

  Sarantis stood as well, mouth ajar in consternation. “But Senyecho, I must have enough time to send to Karkhedon for escorts to meet me at your border.”

  The peacock called again. Baltanarmo’s voice was a mere whisper. “Do you presume to tell me how to order the business of my empire?”

  Only then did Sarantis seem to grasp the tenuousness of his situation. “I assure you, I presume nothing of the sort.” Baltanarmo strode away, and Sarantis’s silk soles pattered as the man caught up with him. “Perhaps my most excellent lord has forgotten,” he panted, “the usefulness of my information regarding the Kheerzaal. I’m sure that, given time, my humble mind could serve as an endless font of relevant detail. I beg my lord to extend me only a little more time, before—”

  Baltanarmo snapped a hand into the air, and Sarantis blessedly stopped talking, though he trailed after the emperor like a lost duckling until they passed through the Alchazzar’s garden entrance. He scraped the odious man off onto a gaggle of servants and waved them all away.

  He ordered a wagon brought to the courtyard then gave special instructions to the driver and assigned him a pair of cetechupes. An hour later, he stood on his balcony and observed Sarantis, looking disheveled and harried, mounting the wagon bench while gasping servants loaded a score of large trunks into the back. As the driver clucked to his four fine bays, the Karkhedonian ambassador’s shoulders slumped. He didn’t look up or wave as the wagon pulled onto the wide boulevard fronting the Alchazzar. Baltanarmo brushed his palms against one another in a firm manner, discarding the man from his mind.

  The next morning, as the emperor sat at table with his most trusted commanders, enjoying a breakfast of spicy eggs and brined ham in grape leaves, his correspondence servant approached bearing a silver tray. Baltanarmo waved her over and took the letter from her tray as she bowed. The table conversation stilled as he perused the message.

  He finished and let a broad smile show. “Good news, Senyecho?” asked Marton Ly Ronardo, seated to his right.

  Baltanarmo folded the note and tucked it under his golden plate. “It seems Isos Sarantis has changed his mind about remaining within our borders. He finds his new accommodation dreadfully unsatisfactory, I’m afraid, and demands that we free him at once.”

  Ly Ronardo affected a courtesan’s expression of delicate shock, employing four of his fingers as a fan to hide his mouth, and turned so the others could appreciate his humor. “But, great lord, if we let him go, he might tell someone we weren’t very nice to him. That would ruin all our pretty plans!”

  Laughter ringed the table, and Baltanarmo smiled tolerantly. “Are you ready to depart, Ly Ronardo?”

  Ly Ronardo snapped a crisp bow from the waist, nearly staining his voluminous neck bow with sampacho dipping sauce. “My soldiers await your command.”

  “And how do they feel about the theater?”

  The commander’s eyebrows flickered with confused interest. “My lads all enjoy a good performance,” he answered gamely.

  Baltanarmo grinned at the younger man, one of the few he could legitimately call a friend. “Then you won’t find your orders tiresome. A special contact will meet you in the parade grounds at midmorning to assist in your mission. Make sure you listen carefully to her minder’s instructions. I shouldn’t care for anyone to be left behind.”

  The puzzled look in Ly Ronardo’s eyes didn’t delay his acquiescence. “As you command, Senyecho.”

  Baltanarmo sat back and patted his full stomach. Marton would rather die than disappoint him. Solid commanders like him were worth their weight in rubies. Still, no one at the table could touch Zahira’s sort of loyalty. An ache twisted his heart, and he prayed that she would return to him soon.

  Congress with the Crows

  Iulan sat on the down-filled cushion atop his platform in the middle of the corn field and scratched his unruly salt-and-pepper hair. The hexbird at his feet gave a quick hop then squawked once. “Aye, shut it, Griogair. Ye’ll be getting yer meal when it’s time, and none before. Why don’t ye get it yerself? Ye’ve become too reliant on wee mortal me.”

  The hexbird thrust his beak upward, affronted by the very suggestion that he should do his own work. He ruffled his feathers then preened his wings until they were smooth again.

  Iulan was not fooled. “Aye, beastie. Ye know I’m right, and I know ye know it. Ye canna hide the truth from an anima caster.”

  Griogair glared at him with a dark, beady eye.

  Iulan shook his head. “Nae, tisna my fault ye chose a mortal form. Doona look at me with that beady bird eye of yours. If ye doona like me inside yer tiny bird brain, then choose again. Ye’ll have no complaint from me. Aye, then ye’d be somewhere else, and I’d not have tae put up with yer great stupid attitude. Better all around, I say.”

  The bird turned its tail toward Iulan, flared its fathers in insult, then took to the air, cawing angrily. Iulan smiled. Griogair would be back. He always came back.

  The sun climbed higher in the sky, warming Iulan’s cheeks and legs. Spring was slow to arrive in the northern province of Aeolis, but when it did come, Iulan embraced it with fervor. Who would have thought that an old Treinfhir like me would have found a home within the borders of the empire, without horsekillers and suchlike coming tae kill me? All thanks tae Aleida.

  Duelist Aleida, perhaps wanting to see more of the world after the lengthy underground slumber she had endured at the hands of Ignaas witten Oost, had insisted on accompanying Iulan back to his Tuathi clan. Iulan’s people had been overjoyed to see him, but a different sort of joy had lit in the eyes of Murchadh, Iulan’s oldest son, and it had been reflected in equal measure in Aleida’s.

  Though she had already been assigned to a duel den in a border town in Aeolis, far to the north, Aleida somehow managed to wrangle plenty of portal time from the Singers, ostensibly to continue checking that Iulan was adjusting to being back home.

  Iulan didn’t blame her for throwing herself back into life, not after what that bastard witten Oost had forced her to endure. Murchadh and Aleida’s wedding had taken place before Dark Yule.

  Iulan’s clansmen had not understood his desire to move his family across the border into the lands of their ancient enemies, but they did comprehend his gratitude to Aleida and her friends. They voted that he and his family could move into Waarden lands if they so chose, and so they had.

  Unfortunately, the weather in Aeolis was far colder than the soft winter rains that soaked the rolling hills of his clan’s lands west of Balanganam. While Iulan’s wife, Caith, began weaving imported horse hair and selling it to the locals, Iulan became a sun worshiper. His official title was Guardian of the Crops. The villagers had been distinctly uncomfortable with his anima magic until he’d offered to keep the dark clouds of swiftjays and starlings at bay when they tried to descend on newly planted crops. Iulan’s first spring guarding the crops that ringed Katacha had
been such an enormous success that the farmers bought Iulan and his family a house and promised to pay for its rent from the extra crop income every year. That had pleased Caith, to be sure, as they still had two mouths at home to feed. Suddenly, Iulan had not felt like a burden against Aleida’s importance within the community. And he was the Guardian of the Crops.

  A few small clusters of swiftjays dared to veer in over the fields within Iulan’s range of sight, but he mentally informed them of tasty swaths of wild insects to the south of town, and they dutifully flapped away to stuff themselves on swamp bugs.

  Eventually, Griogair returned. Iulan pulled a large chunk of bread from a pouch and let his open palm rest on the planks behind him. A sudden pressure, then the bread lifted from his hand. “Be welcome. While ye were out, did ye have a word with that bloody amassment of crows from the fir forests north of town? They have the tendency to forget me words as quickly as possible.”

  The hexbird squawked and walked around to the front of the platform. Instead of meeting Iulan’s eye, he pointed his beak out across the field, surveying his personal territory.

  Iulan nodded. “Ye have me thanks, then. Tis likely ye will always have better congress with the crows than I will.”

  Griogair croaked again.

  Iulan leaned back onto his hands and surveyed the patchwork of pale green shoots that spread out like a quilt before him. He heaved a great sigh of contentment. “Did I tell ye me son’s wife is gotten with a bairn?”

  The bird hopped closer and bobbed his beak.

  Iulan nodded as well. “Aye, and ye would know before me. Ye should have said. I had tae wait for the official announcement yesternight. She said she’d already begun training tae bind her savantism tae maternal instinct. Ye know what I say tae that? I say, woe be tae any man who comes between that woman and her family. I may be this empire’s only anima caster, but I tell ye this, bird. If there should be any power I fear, that would be Aleida should something happen tae her family. And did ye see her beads today? She’s put all new ones on. They’re all rosy and pinkish-like, noo. I tell ye, the woman’s embracing motherhood in a way nae ordinary woman can. I love the lass, but I doona like anything so much as staying out of her way.”