Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) Page 8

  A cluster of dark dots blotted out the brightness on the eastern horizon. Iulan gave his feathered companion a flick with his finger, startling the creature. “Look lively, now, bird. Here come the Eastern Spruce Clan of the Lowland Swallows.” Iulan hopped to his feet and directed his attention eastward. “Tis time tae do battle for the crops of Katacha.”

  Yl Senyecho’s Solution

  Young children ran alongside the circus caravan, calling and waving up to Bayan and Sabella. “Ay, senyer, where are your reins?” a brave lad shouted, pointing to the pair of glossy black mares pulling Bayan’s wagon.

  Bayan raised his hands and turned them back to front. “I’m Bayan the Wanderer. I don’t need reins. The horses know where I want to go.”

  Sabella nudged his ribs, although she kept her eyes forward. “Quit dancing atop Cresconio’s decision to let you lead the caravan this time. We all know you’ve coveted it ever since you joined us.”

  Bayan made tossing motions toward the young children, and small shiny pennies appeared midair, tumbling to the dusty ground. They squealed with delight and scrambled after them. “Of course I always wanted to ride first. There’s no dust up here, and the view has far less horse arse in it.”

  Ordomiro’s heavy hand clapped down on Bayan’s shoulder from beneath the covered wagon bed. “That’s my opportunistic lad. You’ll make a proper Coronàle yet.” His other hand reached forward, offering a shallow platter laden with freshly sliced citrics and strawberries.

  Sabella picked up a piece of fruit with each hand and began nibbling. “Bayan’s been creating money for the urchins again. I’ve half a mind to report him to Cresconio this time.”

  “Half a mind, eh? That’s a good quarter more than last time. Another two years, Bayan, and I think she might finally have the whole set.” Ordomiro cheerfully commandeered a handful of slices with his sturdy, square fingers, forced the platter into Bayan’s hands, and began munching.

  Bayan shot him a distracted glance as he handed the platter to Sabella. “Oi, don’t disturb the anima caster while he’s driving.”

  Ordomiro snorted around his food. “As if you could, swampcaster.”

  Bayan smiled at the genial insult. It seemed that his homeland of Balanganam was the only place left in the world where adults were expected to be polite to each other at all times. “You touch your food with those hands, ink fingers?”

  Ordomiro’s juicy fingers mussed Bayan’s crown tail from behind. “Short staff.”

  “Sabella is perfectly fond of my staff, thank you very much, willow worm.”

  “Ho, the blackard foreigner touches on manly matters, does he? I see which way his boots are pointing. Sabella, my dark angel. Honor me tonight with the presence of your skin.”

  Bayan nearly choked on the first bite of his citric slice. Two years ago, I was faced with the prospect of eternal virginity as a servant of the empire. Now I’m bedding a magic goddess, and my friend casually asks to share her skin! “I know you Corona types are more lyrical than us backward imperials, but honestly, I didn’t really hear that much romance in your request. If I were Sabella, I’d be quite affronted.”

  Sabella threw back her head and emitted a full belly laugh. One hand squeezed Bayan’s forearm comfortingly. Then she turned to give Ordomiro a coy look. “You need my skin? What would you do with it if I lent it to you for the night?”

  Ordomiro’s squatted and rested his forearms against the bench, leaning forward to speak over the rumble of the wheels. “I have a new idea. What if I draw my magical symbols on the skin of an elemental caster, using the same herbal ink I use to cast the elemental spells myself? What do you think will happen?”

  Bayan heard the eager anticipation in Ordomiro’s voice and found it contagious. Memories of breaking into the Periorion and discovering the ancient book of duelism flooded his mind.

  Sabella turned to Ordomiro. “I suppose, cazan, that means I’m all yours tonight.” Her heavy lashes fluttered down, then her eyes rose to Bayan’s again. “Bayan can watch if he wants to.”

  Enchalla, their destination city, came into view around the curve of a terraced hillside, rife with the ripe blue-green heads of bechisi maize. The scents of rich earth and perfumed flowers rode thick upon the breeze, and Bayan inhaled deeply. Though it was barely spring by the imperial calendar, Corona crops in the valio were well on their way to maturity. Still a farm boy at heart. I’ll never get tired of the beauty of growing things.

  Bayan directed the mares to circle outside the city walls until they reached the broad, tamped earth area the city council had promised for Cresconio’s use for the next ten days. The wagons pulled out of their orderly train and scattered to their prearranged locations, and the crew began unloading and setting up camp with practiced ease. Bayan stood for a moment before dismounting and took a good look around. His curiosity had risen, seemingly on its own, and he sought an explanation. Had something caught his eye? He perused the area with more focus.

  More terraced hills surrounded the walled town, their low, rounded mounds clustering together as far as the eye could see. Some bore stripes of deep blue-green, others the vivid purple flowers of the ascanilla blossom, the forward maiden’s proposal flower. Still others, on the opposite side of the town, bore tall hops trellises, sturdy enough to be seen without magical vision enhancement.

  “Well, at least the beer’s good here.” Ordomiro’s slapped Bayan’s shoulder and hopped off the wagon.

  Bayan nodded absentmindedly. He still hadn’t spotted what had tugged at his mind. He closed his eyes to focus on his other senses. Sounds magnified, creaking leather and wood, thumps, conversation and barked commands, the snap of canvas, the whickering of tired horses. A warm, humid breeze brushed across his skin and riffled through his sticky hair, bearing earthen scents. It also brought a mineral tang—a sharp, familiar, deathly important smell.

  He jerked his head and looked to the left. Just beyond the nearest terraced hill, he could just make out the dark stippling in the air: the rising smoke of one of the Corona’s numerous steel manufactories. His gut clenched. Though steel posed no threat now, he would never forget the terrifying panic of being impaled by a steel weapon, his magic completely out of his reach.

  Shortly after his exile, Bayan had discovered how to delve objects and determine their elemental makeup. With steel prevalent in the Corona, he’d wasted no time in sieving Ordomiro’s dagger for its contents. The answer to the age-old question of why steel disrupted focused elemental magic was as simple as it was stunning: the carbon in Corona steel came from hog bones. Anima and Earth, representing two halves of the same magic, were bonded into a single substance and couldn’t exist near a duelist who had cut himself off from one of the magics without ruining his attempts to use the other.

  “Bayan. Any moment now.”

  His awareness expanded again, letting in more of the world than that distant smoke over the rise. The terracing, the town, the circus. Sabella. “Sorry. Coming.” He hopped down from the wagon with a lift of wind magic and caught up with her and Ordomiro as they approached a half circle of tent-laden wagons. Together, the three of them were the personal tent setup team for the entire circus. As the other circus folk left their wagons to take care of other tasks, Bayan, Sabella, and Ordomiro unleashed their magic at the folded tents in the wagon beds, pulling them like cordwood, snapping them open, lining them up in midair, and driving their stakes deep into the earth.

  Row after row of tents slammed themselves into the earth in orderly fashion. After as much practice as they got from the circus’s constant motion around the Corona, Bayan and his friends finished soon and with little effort. Sabella always insisted on setting up her own tent all by herself. She danced the golden silk structure into place in the middle of the center row, the place of highest honor.

  The three finished off Ordomiro’s fruit snack and refreshed themselves with a little wine. Sabella said, “Valio Ouachasta has had some riots recently. I hope we don’t see trouble.
”

  Ordomiro’s snorted. He gulped his wine noisily. “There’s always trouble. That’s why we’re here, after all, isn’t it? We are Yl Senyecho’s solution.”

  Sabella sent him a sympathetic look. “I meant that I need to focus during my performance, just as the both of you do. The other acts wouldn’t be so affected. But we, we are what everyone comes to see. We are the heart of the circus.” She gestured behind her with her cup. “You may note who has the golden tent.”

  A small squirm of discomfort wiggled once in Bayan’s gut. Though he could not deny that the magical acts were by far the biggest draws in Cresconio’s circus—in any circus anywhere—his mind still rankled at the idea of magic users considering themselves inherently superior to villagers. And yet, I still refer to them as villagers, don’t I? I think there’s a line here somewhere, but I’m honestly not sure which side of it I’m on.

  Sabella continued, “I don’t understand why they can’t be happy as they are. They are the industrial heart of the Corona. They’re the only ones allowed to create steel, and the whole Corona uses their fine metalwork. It’s everywhere. The Karkhedonian ambassador may be our biggest importer of raw materials, but if Ouachasta didn’t work the ores in their smelteries, the Corona would be as backward as the Waarden. Don’t they realize how much we need them to keep doing what they do?”

  Bayan couldn’t keep silent. “But none who live in a steel-making valio can use magic in their work. The bakers in that town right there can’t use magic to make sure their bread and cake bake evenly, but just over those hills, in the next valio, bakers can use all the magic they can afford. I understand about not being able to use magic to make the steel, but I don’t really follow why everyone else in the valio is banned from using it. It’s not as if steel were contagious. Right?”

  Ordomiro let out a heavy sigh and downed the rest of his wine. “All I care is that I please my audience, please the ladies, and please my money pouch on coin day. Other than that, I keep my chin out of everyone’s politics as much as possible.” He thumped his glass down and stalked off.

  Bayan watched him go, then turned to Sabella. “Did I say something wrong?”

  Her green eyes were wide and serious. “Bayan, Ordomiro was born here in Valio Ouachasta. If he hadn’t run away to join the circus before his father could apprentice him, he would never have been allowed to use his magic. Because Cresconio bases his circus in Valio Sejueno, we are all free to perform no matter where we travel, but Ordomiro knows there are others who cannot leave their valios, those whose gifts wither and die within their souls, never freed. At the same time, he feels duty bound to Cresconio for his freedom. Please don’t press him. He’s conflicted enough as it is.”

  Bayan felt his lower jaw sag. He’d known Ordomiro for nearly two years, and the man had never spoken once about his origins. Bayan had experience with painful secrets. His sympathy and guilt blended for having accidentally stepped on Ordomiro’s. “I’ll go catch him and apologize.”

  But the inkmage was fast and had melded into the crowds drifting out from the walled city before Bayan could catch up to him. Bayan sped up, weaving amongst the townsfolk and dashing children, but he dared not use his magic to try to find Ordomiro in the middle of a strange crowd, especially one to which Yl Senyecho had given a pacifying distraction to prevent a riot.

  Feeling more naked then he was comfortable with outside Sabella’s tent, Bayan did his best to keep an eye on the back of Ordomiro’s light-brown head as the man bobbed through the foot traffic that swarmed past the city’s gate shops. His task was made easier by the fact that the majority of the Corona’s citizens were some shade of blond, and by contrast, Ordomiro’s darker hair stood out. With his short stature and black hair, Bayan stood out like a wagon full of pearl turtles, and he drew his fair share of curious looks as he made his way down the broad avenue.

  He lost sight of Ordomiro for a moment, then spotted him again near a brightly colored canvas awning. He followed the man to one of Enchalla’s main roundabouts, where, amidst constant wagon and carriage traffic and hundreds of pedestrians, the man briefly turned. Bayan’s guts clenched in surprise. It wasn’t Ordomiro.

  Ay, Bhattara. What are the odds of two brown-haired men wandering the same street? Bayan leapt out of the way of a rattletrap wagon and stood on the curb of the inner circle of the roundabout, watching the traffic flash and rumble around him. Dozens of curious faces briefly studied him and then moved on. None of those approaching from the street he’d just been on were Ordomiro, either. I’ve well and truly lost him. I guess my apology can wait until tonight.

  Bayan waited for a lull in the wheeled traffic, then dashed back the direction he had come, hands jammed into his rumpled pockets in defeat. With more time to look around on his return to the city gates, Bayan surmised that the broad avenue held more merchants selling perishables because of its proximity to the trade route. One large emporium on the opposite side of the avenue seemed to sell only steel products. Men and women alike exited its open courtyard, bearing everything from kitchen implements to small hardware trinkets. Bayan shuddered at the implications of such a shop in the same city as a Waarden duel den.

  Someone’s upper arm pressed against his for a long moment, drawing Bayan out of his reverie as he stood still on the wooden walkway. Out of habit, Bayan looked upward, but the man by his side was only a fraction taller than he was and seemed older than Bayan by a dozen or so years. The shaggy blond man offered him a tentative, craggy smile. “You’re with the circus.” It wasn’t a question. Bayan nodded. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  The tension in the other man’s voice was cable thick and just as taut. Wary, Bayan replied, “I’m just a storyteller.”

  The man paused beside him for a moment then inclined his head toward an open doorway, but Bayan had no intention of following him into any enclosed spaces. He balked. The man noticed his hesitation and turned. “You’re not a Coronàle, are you? Some foreign type from far away? I thought so. We want you to know something.” He stepped close, keeping his gaze across the street as though studying the shops there, and whispered under the noise of the avenue. “You’re in danger.”

  Alarmed, Bayan willed Lifeseeker to form a detection sphere around him and followed it up by hexing Earth and Wood as well. If anything tried to rush him, whether body or weapon, he’d sense it. Nothing moved in his direction, though, and the stranger kept very still. He asked, “What danger would that be? Are you threatening me?”

  The shaggy head wagged in the negative. “Not you. Not only you. You are Yl Senyecho’s tools. You know this?”

  Bayan gave a cautious nod. “I think so. I know some. The steel valios are not happy, so Yl Senyecho sends us.”

  A bitter grimace rippled across the man’s full lips. “You see the cantina across the street? The one with the dancing girls outside the door? Come back after your performance tonight. Meet me in the very back room. I think you’ll have a different perspective by then. Or at least the willingness to acquire one. I will tell you what no one wants to hear.” With a graceful turn, the man spun and entered the shop, leaving Bayan on the broad wooden walkway.

  Not wanting to draw any more attention than he was already getting, Bayan marched back into the flow of traffic, letting his feet carry him toward the city walls while his mind churned, processing what the stranger had said… and what he hadn’t said. Ordomiro keeps telling me that Lys Coronàles love their intrigue. How subtly they play.

  By the time he reached the edge of the circus camp, the evening performance was due to begin soon. Bayan ducked into his tent and draped his outlandish costume over his sturdy frame. Distracted with his heavy thoughts, he waved Wind around his buttons and buckles, fastening them with only half a thought. Once he reached the main arena, he, Sabella, and Ordomiro peeked around the curtain at the sold-out crowd.

  Though the evening was warm, Sabella clutched a light but voluminous silk wrap over her minimal costume. She pressed her lithe fram
e against Bayan and studied the audience, the frown between her brows making her heavy eye makeup seem funereal. “I don’t like it. Don’t you feel it? Something in the way they’re moving.”

  Bayan shot a concerned glance at Ordomiro, but his friend showed no concern. “You think there will be trouble tonight?”

  Sabella met his eyes with a serious gaze. “Don’t you?”

  He blinked. “Did you watch me in town? I didn’t notice you behind me.”

  Her frown deepened. “What are you talking about? I didn’t follow you today. I thought you caught up with Ordomiro, and you two were talking.”

  Bayan stilled for a moment, then tugged on Sabella’s arm, drawing her aside from the curtain. He lowered his voice to a bare murmur. “A man accosted me on the street today. He said there would be something to see tonight, and that I should meet him afterward. What do you think that means?”

  Her painted eyebrows rose. “You? Why you?”

  “I think he likes my smile.”

  “It is very charming.”

  Out on the parapets, Cresconio’s booming voice announced Ordomiro’s act, but the inkmage didn’t immediately step through the curtain. Sabella pressed a hand against Bayan’s arm. “I’ll watch Ordomiro’s performance tonight.”

  An unexpected stab of jealousy tweaked Bayan’s heart. “You’re really excited about getting all inked up tonight, aren’t you?”

  “I mean it, Bayan. I need to watch.” She stepped away from him, and Ordomiro strode through the curtain, raising his arms to the applause of the audience.

  Bayan sighed out his frustration then settled back atop a beribboned barrel to wait his turn.