by Anna Eluvae
"He's still alive," said Wenaru. He sighed with relief. "It's easy to knock a man out, but hard to make sure he'll be able to return to consciousness. I'm going to bring him out of it."
"He's going to wake up?" asked Dravus.
"Restricting bloodflow is a short-term solution," Wenaru replied. "If you want a person to come out the other side without brain damage, anyway. There's also the issue of bedsores, given that he can't properly move."
"Wait," said Nemm. She turned to Dravus. "I meant to run this by you earlier, but you were the one to kill Cerulean Bane. He snuck up on me, got a lucky hit in, left me sprawling on the ground, and you defended me from the killing blow. You saw me helpless, and that's what gave you the courage and fortitude to fight."
Dravus frowned. "Why?"
"It's a better story," said Nemm. "It sets up a romance between the two of us that people will find compelling, and it makes the both of us come out looking better. People like when I'm vulnerable. People will want to see you as strong, brave, and willing to fight against the odds."
"Fair enough," said Dravus. His mind had tripped itself on the word 'romance'.
"You don't need to relay any of this to Wealdwood, just don't contradict it," said Nemm.
"Lexari is okay with this deception?" asked Dravus.
"It's true enough," said Nemm. "There's a chance - albeit a low one - that I would have died without your help. And without your intervention, it's possible that Cerulean would have been able to slip back into the water. Is this going to be a problem for you?"
"No," said Dravus, and it wasn't. If he could have turned back time, that was how the fight would have gone, with him standing firm above Nemm, knife in hand against her aggressor, facing down impossible odds and winning. Besides that, Nemm had already spent the last night writing letters to the bards and others, so if he was uncomfortable with the mild deception, it was likely too late to do anything about it.
Wenaru worked his domain. Wealdwood stirred slowly, ineffectually strained against his bonds with his disconnected muscles. He froze when he saw Nemm and Wenaru. He tried to say something around his gag before realizing it was there. Wenaru nodded, and left for Lexari's room.
"Lightscour is going to watch you," said Nemm. "Give him any trouble, and I'll kill you without hesitation."
"Can I speak with him?" asked Dravus.
"You have a dozen books that you need to read," said Nemm. "Etiquette, history, dossiers, all manner of things you'll need to be passable at court. And I don't see what you would hope to get out of it. He's said everything that he knows."
"He's answered every question that you've asked him," said Dravus. "That's not the same thing."
Nemm shrugged. "I'm too tired to argue." She stepped forward and slashed at the gag in one quick motion. Wealdwood spit it to the side, and Nemm grabbed him by the jaw. "I'm going to take a nap." Somehow she made that sound foreboding. "Lightscour has my full authorization to kill you if he thinks that's in his best interests. If you scream and wake me up, I'll jam a dagger through your eye and go straight back to bed." She turned to Dravus. "Speaking of which, I'm taking your room for the day. Don't wake me unless it's urgent." She placed one of her daggers in his hand, left the room without waiting for a response.
"Release me," said Wealdwood, as soon as Nemm was gone.
"No," replied Dravus. "Besides, you're not moving anywhere anytime soon. The bonds aren't doing much. If you had your strength, I'd bet that you could simply snap them."
"I could make a wooden pod and float away from the ship," said Wealdwood. "I could find someone to repair the damage the Red Angel has done." He tried to turn his head and failed. "Help me."
"No," said Dravus. "I want to know about your master."
"I've said already," Wealdwood replied. "He was always in shadows, with a hood that hid his face."
"But not his hands," said Dravus. "Those were visible, because you could see the ring he wore. What were his hands like? What color was his skin? How old was he? Did he have calluses?"
"White skin," Wealdwood replied. "Wrinkles. Thin fingers. He wasn't tanned at all, I don't think he was a worker."
"You said that you were surprised to see him in Genthric," said Dravus. "Where did you first make the arrangements?"
"Please let me go," said Wealdwood. "Help me to escape, escape with me, and we can expose -"
Dravus shook his head. "All I want are answers," he said. "Something that I can bring to Lexari to help him solve this mystery."
"You want to be his lapdog?" asked Wealdwood. "What do you even know about the Sunhawk? About the Red Angel? About the depravities of the Queen of Glass?"
"Where did you first make the arrangements?" asked Dravus again.
Wealdwood's face fell. "Do you understand what Wenaru Mottram is? How many thousands of innocent lives he took?"
Dravus shifted in his seat. The truth was, he didn't know much about the people he was traveling with beyond what he'd heard in the stories, and those couldn't be trusted. "I want to know about this mysterious man," said Dravus. "They're planning to let you go, but if I tell them that you're hiding something ..." Dravus shrugged, and hoped that it came off with the same nonchalance that Nemm had affected.
"They'll kill me," whispered Wealdwood. "Not in front of you, but all it will take is a touch from Wenaru to weaken my heart, and the next time that I get into combat, the strain will make something pop, that will be it for me. They've done it before." He tried to turn his head again, and again failed. Wealdwood's eyes moved to Dravus, and he licked his lips. "I first met him in the Iron Kingdom, in the city of Larance. I was running low on coin, and forced to work at making boats, but fame is fleeting and I knew I wouldn't last for long doing that. The Knight of the Woods reduced to a simple carpenter, and I could feel the legends fading away, even after the scandal I'd run from. This man came to me one night and made me an offer. A return to fame, and fortunes beyond my imagining, and all I had to do was sink the Zenith." Wealdwood paused. "I refused. Even seeing his ring, and feeling its unmistakable signature of power, I refused him. He began to tell me stories of Lexari. They were stories that I already knew, of Whitespear striding onto fields of battle, or fighting in narrow castle corridors, of forest ambushes where the Brightshield defended merchant convoys against well-armed bandits. You're familiar with the legends?"
"Familiar enough," said Dravus. He didn't have an exhaustive knowledge, as he'd always tried to avoid the stories, but he had picked many of them up all the same. It was difficult not to, when that was all some people wanted to talk about.
"Lexari planned out his most famous fights. He worked in collusion with his villains," said Wealdwood. His brow was furrowed. "How else would so many of the battles have ended with his opponent slinking off to return another day? The man has a reputation for being soft, for letting people go, but to hear my benefactor tell it, this was all part of the plan. If two people fight, it raises the reputation of both. But it went further than that. Those well-armed bandits? My benefactor spoke with some of the men, decades after the fact. They had been paid, paid to attack, and paid to fall back. That was how Lexari forged his legend, and it's only because he's so good with his lies that he hasn't been unmasked. People revere him now. They don't want to think the worst of him. But look at the company he keeps, no offense."
"It all sounded true to you," said Dravus. "And so you agreed that you would kill him."
"No," said Wealdwood. "We were never meant to kill him. Think for a moment. There was a gaping flaw in the plan if our intent was to kill Lexari." He paused, and a slow smile spread across his face, as though it was amusing. "He can simply fly away. And as our benefactor said, that's what he would do. He would watch his crew flounder from the air. He would watch Cerulean Bane choke Nemm out. And he would leave Mottram to sink to his death. We weren't trying to kill him, only weaken him." His face fell. "Cerulean Bane is truly dead?"
"Yes," replied Dravus. He rubbed at his chin. "So the
plan was to weaken him, and then what?"
"We never knew," said Wealdwood. "Our part in it would have been done then. I met with our benefactor three times in total. The first was when he introduced himself, the second was when he paired me with Cerulean, and the third was in Genthric, when he changed our plans. Cerulean ... we spent time chasing down the Zenith. We became friends. I used to joke with him about his name. It didn't make any sense - Blue Bane? He's the bane of things that are blue? Or is he a bane that's blue? A bane of what?" Wealdwood closed his eyes. "And now he's dead."
"He's trying to gain your sympathy," said Wenaru. He stood just outside the door, frowning slightly. "Have you learned anything interesting?"
"No," said Dravus. "Just pieces of the puzzle." There was no gentle way to ask whether any of the accusations against Lexari could possibly have been true, even if Wenaru would have known. Nor was there a gentle way of asking Wenaru whether he could sabotage someone's heart. "I was hoping that I would find some small detail that would illuminate matters."
"Nemm wanted me to have a talk with you in private when I found the time," said Wenaru. He walked over to the prisoner and touched him briefly on the chest, knocking him out cold. "Lexari will want you in better fighting shape, which means making some modifications."
Dravus frowned. Matters of the flesh, he'd heard it called. The domain of flesh was associated with death so often that it was hard to remember that it was also used for other things, if you were rich enough. There was a taboo that surrounded the bodily domains, one which encompassed the changes they could make to a person.
"Your consent is important to me," said Wenaru. "If you don't want me to make you stronger, just say so, and that will be that."
"No," said Dravus. "I do. I've just heard … I've heard stories about it going wrong for people."
"It can be dangerous, if you're just starting out," said Wenaru with a nod. He took off the green apron, and began to unbutton his shirt. "But I'm no amateur." He pulled his shirt to the side.
Wenaru Mottram was a short man, half a head shorter than Dravus, and to look at him you might think that he was small and bookish. Beneath his loose clothing he was hiding a body that would put Korata's sons to shame. There wasn't an ounce of fat anywhere. As Dravus watched, unable to look away, the muscles strained and twisted, like a crossbow being drawn.
"There was a time, after I left the Iron King's service, when I kept myself deflated and weak. It was a penance, I thought." He touched his abdomen. "It was Lexari who showed me that I didn't have to reject my domain." He looked up at Dravus, and began buttoning back up. "Of course, it doesn't do to show it. I heal so many people with every place that we visit, and I know half of them would turn away if I looked like the monster they thought I was." He gave a nervous laugh.
"And the side effects," said Dravus slowly.
"There are none, if it's properly done," said Wenaru. "It's the freshly minted illustrati of flesh that are the problem there. They pack more and more muscle on as quickly as possible, leaving stretch marks on their biceps and legs, warping everything out of proportion, until bone or connective tissue give way. Or they offer their services to some nobleman, who isn't willing to put in the work to keep the physique that they've purchased, and a year down the road there are ugly rumors of a man with sagging skin that once held impressive brawn. Sometimes the illustrati won't know enough, and work on domain intuition alone, which can have bad results, and occasionally ruin something in a way that can't be fixed. Change the muscle, and you have to change everything else, and that means giving it some time." He nodded to himself. "We go in cycles, let the body rest. Remove any fat, pack on muscle, prevent the skin from stretching too much or outright splitting, make sure that you're not losing blood-"
"Losing blood?" asked Dravus.
"Not actually losing blood," Wenaru explained quickly. "But for every ten pounds of muscle you gain, you need an extra pint of blood, so the effect can be similar."
"Can I think on it?" asked Dravus.
Wenaru's smile was strained. "Certainly, certainly. But it's better to start soon, given the number of cycles we'll need to do. It's not painful at all. I can understand though, if the concept is foreign, or unfamiliar to you, how you might hesitate, I don't blame you for that at all - do we need to speak candidly?" He saw Dravus's look. "You've heard rumors about me, stories, tall tales, and if you're going to be with us it might be better to clear the air." He laughed slightly. "People hear about something like a crate of teeth or a headless child, and their imagination runs wild, and it would be so much better to simply explain things."
"You've been kind to me since the moment I got here," said Dravus. "But if someone asks me about your past, I don't think it would be good for me to shrug and say that I never cared enough to ask. So if you don't mind," he looked to Wealdwood. "Is he going to be okay?"
"Just fine," said Wenaru. His hands fidgeted.
"Then yes," said Dravus. "I think it's better for me to know."
* * *
Wenaru was ten years old when he got his turn in front of the audience.
He stepped out onto the stage with a light shove from one of the masked attendants, and then there were ten thousand people staring at him. The master of ceremonies began to speak, the domain of sound making his voice boom out across the open air, and the words that came out were all about Wenaru Mottram, something between an introduction and a promotion. It was late in the evening, and Wenaru was far from the first, and so the master of ceremonies was working against the natural inattention of his audience.
"Let me tell you about Wenaru Mottram!" the master of ceremonies screamed. "When he was only a baby, a stray spark from a fireplace lit the thatched roof on fire! Baby Wenaru was trapped inside the house, about to burn alive! But he turned to the fire, and he commanded it with his first words, striking a deal - that the fire could forever find a home in his hair, if only it let him live!"
One of the attendants pushed Wenaru forward, towards where the dozens of objects arranged on a table. There was one for every domain, some in small jars, some simply sitting there, and a series of cages that held the animals. He had instruction beforehand, but being the focus of attention was making him feel sick. The attendant leaned down and whispered in his ear.
"Find which one is yours, don't waste our time."
Wenaru reached out and touched them one by one as the master of ceremonies droned on. He was telling a story about how young Wenaru, at the age of five, stared down a grizzly bear. The stories were obviously untrue, but enough that the audience might be able to overcome their apathy for a moment. Ten thousand people, focused all on a single small boy, was supposed to be enough to allow his domain to be found.
He didn't know enough to know what it was supposed to be like, when you found your domain. If you had the temporary fame of the crowd you were supposed to simply know, but as Wenaru touched the blocks of metal that comprised the metallic domains, he grew worried. Children were supposed to stay as long as it took, and the audience was often blamed for a failure. Too much time, and someone would be grabbed at random by the attendants and publicly whipped for a few minutes before being returned back to the crowd. The master of ceremonies aside, this was one of the things that helped to focus attention.
Wenaru touched every domain for long enough to be sure. Glass, sand, ash, and a candle that served triple duty as smoke, heat, and fire. He went through the animals quickly, reaching into their cages to touch them and see their reactions to him. The cat looked up at him with a blank expression, and the dog seemed interested only in a piece of meat that sat on the table, and none of the others were anything more than put upon by the contact or simply non-responsive. It was none of the base elementals, or the derived elementals, none of the ephemerals, nor the animal domains, nothing manufactured, or organic - and that left only the six bodily domains, which everyone saved for last. They were set off to the side, clustered together. Hair, bile, skin, bone, blood, and flesh.
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Yet even before he touched the quivering chunk of meat, he knew it for his domain. He was flesh, the temporary attentions allowed him to feel it beneath his skin, a whole part of himself that he'd never really given much thought to before. So it was no surprise to him that he could make the chunk of meat move slightly beneath his touch. He was happy to show the attendant, happy that he hadn't had to go through all of them a second time, and happy that no one had to be whipped. The attendant had nodded, marked something on a sheet of paper, and led him away.
He never saw his family again.
He shared an enormous building in the country with a hundred other children and twenty teachers. He cried often, early on, but less as time passed and life in the school assumed a sense of normalcy. The full meaning of the school wasn't fully apparent to him, as nothing was ever explained to the children, but gradually Wenaru came to understand. The Iron King was famous for many things, but his cannons were chief among them. He could make them quickly, much faster than any forge, and he had used that ability to extend his empire around the world. At the school he was doing something different; taking the raw ingredient of childhood and forging something useful.