Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy)

by J. S. Morin

  “Expert Kyrus, I do not take kindly to being kept waiting,” the client at the door said.

  He was a rotund man with a beard that ran down both sides of his face and up through a mustache, but skipped the chin. Speaking to his apparent years, the facial hair and what remained atop his head had gone well and truly grey. He was dressed expensively, and a carriage waited behind him on the street, its door ajar with a footman beside.

  “Lord Derrel, my apologies. I know your daughter’s wedding invitations were a rush job. I stayed up the night finishing them. I will fetch them directly.”

  Kyrus disappeared back inside briefly. He returned shortly with a carefully tied bundle, which he handed to Lord Derrel, along with a rolled parchment.

  “There you are, Your Lordship, eight hundred-odd invitations and the copy of the guest list you provided. I beg your pardon for my appearance and lateness in arising this morning.”

  “Well, Expert Kyrus, you made good your promise. Expert Juren could do no better than a week, so I was leery of your boast of two days, but I needed those invitations quickly. When you did not answer my knock, I suspected you had failed your commission. Thank you.” Lord Derrel inclined his head in acknowledgment and reached into his vest pocket. “Your payment, and perhaps a bit extra.” He winked at Kyrus.

  “Would you like to untie the bundle and have a look, to make sure you are satisfied?” Kyrus asked.

  “No, no. No time for that now,” Lord Derrel said as he turned back toward his carriage. “I must arrange for these to be delivered. With just over a month to the wedding, far-flung guests will have barely enough time to make arrangements to attend. If I find they are not in proper order, you shall hear of it, though,” he said, then chuckled.

  Kyrus locked the door as soon as Lord Derrel had departed. That one job had earned him thirty-five hundred eckles, plus whatever tip his lordship had alluded to. He could afford to close up shop for a week and not notice the loss, so he planned to enjoy the day, especially since the morning had not gotten off to a promising start, what with waking to an impatient client nearly staving in his door, but there was time enough to rehabilitate it.

  Continuing to try to rub the sleep from his eyes, Kyrus headed back upstairs. He washed up properly and changed into fresh clothes. He levitated a comb through his hair a few times, but shaved in the more conventional manner, as he was still not confident enough of his new power to trust it with a blade near his throat. He would have skipped the shaving entirely, but Abbiley had expressed a preference for his appearance without the beard.

  He regarded his reflection in the mirror and saw his clean-shaven face staring back at him with red-rimmed eyes. The late nights were taking something of a toll on him. With clients calling at what most folk would consider reasonable hours, he could ill afford to be lying abed until noon or later each day. Sooner or later, he would have to either choose to alter the way he ran Davin’s old scrivener’s shop or to find a more secluded place to practice his magic—maybe move to a new building that had a cellar, or maybe somewhere in the caves along the beach south of town. However, the former would require saving up enough coin to purchase a new building and the latter seemed rather inconvenient. He sighed and resolved to think more on it later. For the time being, he would save his hobbies for after dark.

  Though he looked a bit bedraggled, he felt much better after having gotten himself sorted out and more a suitable sight to be out in public. He hefted the large purse that Lord Derrel had given him, which he had set down on the bedside table. It felt heavy and substantial in his hand, more money than he had ever made from a single job. Even copying an entire book usually pocketed him less, but Lord Derrel had been desperate to have his daughter’s wedding arrangements settled quickly. Kyrus was no fool and realized when Derrel had approached him that his daughter must have been expecting a child. Kyrus had priced the job accordingly and trusted in his magic to help him do the job speedily enough.

  The arrangement worked out to the satisfaction of both, even if Kyrus might seem to have taken advantage of the desperate nobleman. But Lord Derrel had coin to spare and needed to protect his reputation. Kyrus, on the other hand, had reputation to spare and needed the money. Kyrus could not help but wonder how much better a businessman he could become once he knew a wider array of magics to help him deliver otherwise impossible results.

  That thought prompted Kyrus to wonder when he would learn any new spells. His counterpart in the other world had spent much time on the road of late, and his two magical companions had seemingly been less interested in showing off their magic than they had in just getting to their capital city. Kyrus hoped that now that Brannis was back in a city of magic, he would have ample opportunity to see new spells. Perhaps he could find a way to more explicitly convey his desire to Brannis.

  “Hello? Sir Knight? Brannis? If you can hear me, go find a magic show to watch, or a good book of spells to read or something,” Kyrus spoke aloud.

  He was not sure if Brannis was aware of him the way he was aware of Brannis, but he supposed it could not hurt to ask.

  Kyrus made his way back downstairs in slightly less haste than on his previous trip. He looked around the work room and saw the quills lying about, along with half-emptied ink pots.

  I ought to get that put away, in case anyone stops by. They should wonder what kind of establishment I run if I have a dozen quills and ink pots everywhere.

  He started to walk over to tidy up—“tidy” being a relative term, given all the other books and papers lying about—but stopped himself short.

  No one will be coming today, and if they do, they shall find the shop closed.

  Resolving to worry about the mess later—and after all, he would just be back at work and needing them again later on—he turned for the door. Locking the shop behind him, he headed off to see Abbiley, whistling a happy, off-key melody as he went.

  As he passed the cobbler’s shop, he acquired an admirer. This admirer had been waiting all morning for him to leave his shop, watching the door and biding his time. As the admirer fell into step several paces back, Kyrus walked on, in ignorance.

  * * * * * * * *

  Kyrus sauntered down the streets of Acardia, in no particular rush. He knew that Abbiley would have work to do and that he would be interrupting her, so he decided to take his time in getting to her studio. She had stopped by his shop often enough during the middle of the day, though, that he was nearly certain she could afford at least a part of the afternoon in leisure.

  As he passed near Greuder’s, he caught a whiff of the midday pastries and veered off on a new course. He realized that he had not eaten yet, and his stomach took over navigation and steered him toward spiced crescents. The noontime rush had dissipated along with noontime, and there was no line waiting to get in. Kyrus slipped inside and took a table.

  “Good morning, Greuder,” he called out, smiling.

  The dining area was not quite empty, but most of the patrons seemed closer to finishing their meals than beginning them. Kyrus recognized most, but there was no one that he knew well enough that he felt obliged to strike up a conversation.

  “Well, well, Expert Kyrus. You seldom come here for luncheon, and you would be late even if you were of the habit. Clock tower’s bell not loud enough for you?” Greuder said, raising his voice to be heard across the room from behind the counter where he was beginning to clean up after the day’s baking.

  “Oh, I had a late night of it, working on a rush job. Took the early hours off and decide to push ‘morning’ back until after midday. Seemed sensible, since I would much prefer a few spiced crescents over a bowl of stew,” Kyrus said.

  “Well, then, I fear you have made a grave error. I have only five of them little morsels left, and I had promised them to the alley cats. The little dears have been waiting quietly out there all morning, and I could not bear to disappoint them. Now if you had come in at a respectable hour …”

  “Oh, Greuder, if you have five left,
I shall purchase them and promise to share them with the cats. I might go so far as to pitch in a little extra so you might find them a saucer of milk to wash it down with.” Kyrus winked.

  Greuder, of course, had made no such promise for the last of the spiced crescents, feline or otherwise, and Kyrus was soon slaking his hunger on the finest breakfast to be had at two hours past noon. Despite being in no rush, he gulped down the sweet pastries as if he had not eaten all day—which he had not.

  “So, Mr. Expert.” Greuder sat down across from him as the last of the other patrons departed. “You have yet to stop smiling since you arrived. I know how wonderful my spiced crescents are. I actually know precisely how wonderful they are, but they are not that wonderful. Out with it, Kyrus. Have you found yourself a girl, or have they just gone ahead and made you High Overlord of All Scriveners this time?”

  “Is it that plain to see?” Kyrus asked, trying his best to look sheepish but falling short of the mark.

  “Aye, it is. Do tell.”

  “Well, it seems that I have a rather unique and remarkable gift, and my fellows in the Scrivener’s Guild—”

  Greuder cut him short with a cleaning towel to the head, which got them both laughing.

  “No, really, boy. Who is she? You intend to keep it secret?”

  “Not hardly.” Kyrus grinned. “I doubt I could had I wanted to, given how transparent I apparently am. Do you know Abbiley Tillman?”

  “You mean old Geremy’s girl, the painter?” Greuder asked.

  “I suppose so. I had never known her father, but she is a painter,” Kyrus replied.

  He knew that Abbiley was orphaned and that she had a younger brother she helped to raise, but he knew little of her parents. He could think of no delicate way of asking about them, and he was unsure whether she would want to be asked. Kyrus saw his own family infrequently enough, but he felt reassured in the knowledge that they were safely at home on their farm, just a half-day’s ride to the west.

  Kyrus had always been the odd piece in the family puzzle. His parents loved him and raised him the same as his brothers and sisters, but farm life had never caught hold of him. His mother taught them all to read and do simple ciphering—the sorts of things they would find useful in buying supplies and selling goods at market one day when they were in charge of running the farm. With Kyrus, however, he wanted more of the “book learning” and less of animal husbandry and crop rotation. He took care of his chores—at least as much as any young boy would—but never was interested in his older brothers’ rough sports, which even his sisters found more interesting than did he.

  When Kyrus had been shipped off to Expert Davin to become a scribe, he and his family knew it was right for him. They were never going to make a proper farmer of him, so they let him find his fortune in city life. He visited on occasion and took comfort in knowing he was always welcome. He had not severed ties with them so much as taken a different direction.

  With Abbiley, she had lost her parents some years ago, though Kyrus did not quite know how. He briefly considered asking Greuder about them, but he somehow did not feel right about it. He would hear about them from Abbiley when he felt comfortable enough asking her.

  “Well, she always seemed like a nice girl. You be good to her, Kyrus, you hear me? Else there will be no more seat for you in my bakery.” Greuder winked at Kyrus, possibly only half-joking.

  “I will. I promise,” Kyrus replied, and he meant it.

  * * * * * * * *

  “It is beautiful,” Kyrus remarked, looking at the first painting Abbiley showed him.

  After Greuder’s, he could not help but head right over to Abbiley’s studio, where she worked mostly on commission, painting portraits. The rest of her works were done in her ample free time, portraits being a service of infrequent and unpredictable demand. The one she was showing him was a painting of the Katamic Sea during a storm.

  “How did you manage to paint this without getting the canvas ruined in the storm?”

  “I painted it from memory. I see the Katamic often enough that I know its look, and then I just painted it the way I saw the storm change it. I actually ran in as soon as the heavy rains blew in.” She laughed. “That whole painting would have been naught but a blur if I had kept it out in that downpour.”

  The painting was mostly greys and dark blues, showing the Katamic at its angriest. Waves broke against the rocky point north of the city, where the lighthouse sat, overlooking the harbor. Kyrus remembered the storm, some two years earlier, and had spent much of the night with Ash curled up in his lap, terrified. Halfway through the storm, the wind had blown in the shutters on one of the windows, and he and Davin had scrambled to find a way to secure it again. They had lost a lot of the papers they had been working on to the windblown rain that came in, and they did not see Ash until the following morning, when they found him hidden in the back of one of the pantry cupboards.

  “It is amazing. You would swear this was a window, overlooking the storm,” Kyrus commented.

  He could make out the brush strokes when he looked closely enough, but from a step or two back, it looked so real he would have expected to get his hand wet touching it. He certainly would not have wished to trade places with the lighthouse keeper than night.

  Abbiley set the painting back down against the wall, next to the rest of her works. She had no gallery to show them off, so simply kept them propped against the walls when they were finished. She had nearly a dozen of them. On occasion, someone would purchase one, supplying Abbiley and her brother with a bit of extra income, but these were the ones that still awaited a buyer—if they were ever to have one.

  Kyrus walked over to another and knelt by it. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “That is Neelan, my brother. I painted it years ago. It does not look so much like him as it used to.”

  The painting showed a lad of perhaps eight years, perched on a stool with his hands folded in his lap. He looked stiff and sullen, his posture too straight to appear relaxed, and no smile on his serious little face.

  “It looks as if he was an unwilling subject.” Kyrus smiled.

  “You know not the half of it. I was still practicing at portraits, hoping to be skilled enough at it to feed us. It was all I could do to keep the rascal in one spot. At one point. I threatened to bring the cooper over from next door and nail him to that stool.” Abbiley laughed. “I have yet to get him back onto that stool, though nowadays I would say I do not need the practice as I once did.”

  “So where is your brother? I would much like to meet him.”

  “Oh, someday you will, to be sure. He may have grown since that portrait, but only in size. I cannot keep him under one roof. When he was little, I could make him behave, but now he is bigger than I am, and less afeared of a whipping if he causes trouble,” Abbiley said.

  “So what does he do all day while you work?” Kyrus asked, genuinely curious.

  “‘Odd jobs,’ he says. Helping haul crates and unload fishing boats down at the piers, helping foreign merchants set up carts and stalls in the market, making deliveries, that sort of thing. He brings in coins, but I wonder where they really come from. I doubt he does half what he claims.”

  “Have you any worry of him getting mixed up with lawless sorts?”

  “Oh, plenty of worries, but he is not a bad boy. I think he just feels like he ought to help put food on our table rather than just eating it.”

  “Have you thought of finding him an apprenticeship? I think a lot of boys just need someone to keep them on a narrow path, and a good tradesman should be able to manage that.”

  Kyrus hoped he was not overstepping his bounds. Abbiley had been raising the boy for years, and he had never even met him.

  “Oh, to be certain, but he is a willful one. I expect they will make a merchant out of him one of these days, though I am not sure what type he would be,” she said with a wink.

  Kyrus let the matter drop and wandered among the rest of the paintings. There
was a vase of flowers depicted in one—the sort of things one would expect any younger painter to try a hand at. There were more landscapes, which seemed to be Abbiley’s specialty—a shame since it did not pay as well as portrait painting.

  “Is this one a self-portrait?” Kyrus asked, pointing to the last painting, near the far corner of the studio.

  It was a remarkable likeness of Abbiley: the eyes were the same deep blue, the cheeks had the pretty little dimples as she smiled, the hair the right color, but styled somewhat differently, though Kyrus knew little enough of women’s fashion that he could not put a name to the difference. Her hair was shorter than in the painting; that much he could say with certainty. The style of the painting itself was somewhat crude in comparison to the rest. The brush strokes were a bit more noticeable and the colors perhaps a bit more vibrant and less realistic.

  “No, though you are not the first to have thought so. That there is my mum. It is the first one I painted that was worth keeping. She was the one who taught me to paint, and she sat for a portrait for me. I was about eleven when I painted that,” Abbiley said.

  “Your mother was quite beautiful. The resemblance is remarkable,” Kyrus said, still looking at the painting.

  He thus did not notice the blush that flushed Abbiley’s cheeks a bright red.

  * * * * * * * *

  Abbiley closed up the studio early that day, and she and Kyrus wandered down to the marketplace. Folks were gathering in larger numbers than usual, as a large merchant-explorer vessel had returned from an expedition to the faraway ports to the south and east, bringing exotic wares back with them. Few had the spare coin to spend on the luxuries they brought, but just seeing the new and different goods they had in their rented shops and carts was enough to draw crowds.

  Kyrus and Abbiley held hands as they negotiated the flow of citizens and carts, lest they get separated. Kyrus was not normally one to go down to the marketplace in the middle of the day, but even he could tell that there were more people on the streets than was usual.