The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  “I think things were fine between you. There was nothing to forgive,” said Ardovani boldly, although in Ilona’s opinion he had no basis for the statement. “I didn’t know him for very long, only the voyage. I suppose it was only last year that I met him for the first time. I admit, he was not a happy man when you popped up out of the hold, but he seemed proud of you, and of what you achieved.”

  The tears came again, and she scrubbed at her face. She nodded. “His father hates women, but his sister is strong. I admire her. I admire them all. I wanted so much to be like them. I wanted to be with them, away from my awful mother. I could not. I was always on the outside.”

  “You’re not on the outside now.” Ardovani grasped both her shoulders this time. He looked into her eyes. “You are a soldier, and an important part of this expedition.” His gesture was spoiled when his gun slipped off his shoulder. He smiled apologetically as he fumbled for it. The physical contact broken between them, he stepped back.

  She wished he would hold her properly. She needed it. “Until I freeze to death.”

  “That won’t happen,” he said.

  “So sure of yourself. We could all die here.”

  “I won’t allow it to happen to you. I am not a powerful man, Ilona, but I do have talents. I put them all at your service. I couldn’t bear it... I mean, such a beautiful... It would be...” He came to an embarrassed halt and looked at the ground.

  She smiled at him. “That’s sweet, really.”

  By the colour of his cheeks sweet was more than he hoped for, but less than he wanted. He looked lost. At that moment, he was behaving more like Vols. His confidence was foundering. Ilona was so not unworldly as to be unaware why.

  Ardovani suddenly switched topic. “And how are you, Tyn Rulsy?” he said to the Tyn, with something approaching his usual agreeableness. “Are you not in danger? I know the water clans must return to their home springs often, or they are in danger of death. I assume that, as you wear a collar, you are not a free Tyn?”

  Rulsy stared at him from the depths of her parka for a long few seconds. She was like a tiny mummy, or a hideous doll. She blew a raspberry at him.

  “Are you always so free with questions, goodmagister?” she said. “I am Tyn, but I still like manners. Rudely probing! Tsk.”

  Ardovani bobbed his head nervously. Ilona smiled to herself. She could not imagine him reacting that way a few weeks ago. He was in trouble. He recovered quickly, however.

  “I am sorry,” said Ardovani with a bow. “There are no Greater Tyn outside the isles. When I came to Karsa from Cullosanti, I had never seen your kind before. I apologise for my curiosity.”

  Rulsy grinned wolfishly. “S’alright. I tease you. I get sick of the puppy eyes you make at the mistress here all the time,” she said, putting on a lovestruck expression that, on her wrinkled, ancient child’s face, was disturbing.

  Ardovani’s blush deepened.

  Rulsy jumped off the rock and patted his arm with an earth-brown hand. “I am Water Tyn. Most Greater Tyn are Water Tyn,” she shrugged. “Probably all now, not so many Tyn left any more. But I am also Ocean Tyn, of the Sea Clans. I go anywhere, where there are currents to feed me.” She waved her hand around vaguely at the ocean. “I am freer, but I am weaker. Ocean currents are spread thin, magic on them thin too. River Tyn clans get lot of strength from their rivers, but they less free. It is the bargain we make with the Earth.”

  “What about the Free Tyn?” asked Ilona, curious despite herself.

  “Don’t ask about them,” Rulsy said warningly. “Never about them.” She walked off, then turned back. “Not too many questions now, goodmagister,” she said. “I have a bucket full of geas on me. Upset me, and I’ll sing them all to you in your sleep, then you be bound too.” She winked, and descended the side of the knoll.

  “You know, from behind, she looks just like a child,” said Ardovani. “It gives me the terrors when she turns around, especially at night.”

  Ilona smiled through her sadness. “What, a magister? A big brave magician like you, scared of a Tyn?”

  “We should all be scared of them,” said Ardovani, watching Rulsy as she disappeared from sight. “If only half of what I have read about them is true, they are exceptionally dangerous. On the continent, we call you Karsans mad for living on the Isles. We say King Brannon was deluded.”

  “Well, we say we are as brave as King Brannon. You don’t want to know what we say about you people on the other side of the neck.”

  “I have been in the fortunate position of hearing some of it,” said Ardovani. He watched Tyn Rulsy go below. “Be careful of her. Where did she come from? She wasn’t in the Morfaan storehouse when Shrane opened the gate. I don’t recall her arriving at the sledges.”

  “She just seemed to be there,” said Ilona. She frowned. “She’s never been anything but kind to me.”

  “Even so, be careful,” said Ardovani. “Anyway, I came up here to fetch you. The inventory is nearly done. Antoninan wants to be off.” Ardovani looked to the northwest, the way they had come. Far, far away in the cold blue skies, a thin column of steam rose up high, flattening itself out against some invisible boundary. “I’ll leave you alone for a bit, but you best come soon. I’ll see you down there.”

  He was already leaving as Bannord’s head emerged over the edge of the rock. Ilona saw Ardovani wanted to stay with her when he saw the marine arrive, but he had no good excuse.

  “First Lieutenant,” he said.

  “Magister,” said Bannord with a cocky grin. Unlike Ardovani, Bannord had no problem being around pretty girls. Nevertheless, there was a little strain in his smile when he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the departing magister, so slight it was only just noticeable. Ilona was annoyed at his jealousy. She was grieving, couldn’t he see that? Although a more wanton part of her was flattered.

  “What did he want?” asked Bannord.

  “He wanted to see how I was feeling, and he wanted to fetch me for the meeting.”

  “Well, so do I. I trust you are alright? You Kressinds are a tough bunch.”

  “I am fine, thank you,” she said, though she was not.

  He glanced sideways at her gun, propped up against Trassan’s grave, and frowned.

  “You shouldn’t leave that lying about like that,” he said.

  “I am not on duty, lieutenant.”

  “Even so... If you get it too cold, it won’t work. There’s plenty out here beside those iron monsters that would love to kill us. This is unknown country, goodlady, so pick it up.”

  She sighed at him.

  “And less of that, soldier,” he said.

  “I’m not on duty,” she repeated. She picked up the gun anyway, and shouldered it.

  Bannord slapped his gloved hands together and made a face. “We’re all on duty, all of the time out here, my goodlady,” he said. “Now, you’re wanted in camp, so double march. Enough of this mournfulness.” Bannord’s beard was growing in. She preferred it that way, it added to his massive physical presence. He was so much more of a man than Ardovani, who was fine featured and aesthetic in appearance and tastes. Ardovani could do things Bannord could not, feats of magic and engineering that were as practical as they were amazing, and the weapon he carried was the most powerful device she had ever seen. But she still felt safer with Bannord. His smell calmed her. His presence enveloped her in a cocoon that kept her warm.

  “Ardovani told me to take my time,” she said.

  “I’m ordering you not to.”

  “You’re an arse. Sir.”

  “Don’t I know it. Now get a move on.”

  “Do you know,” she said, still not moving, “a beard suits you.”

  “Do you think? I had one for years; I only shaved it off for the voyage.” He stroked his moustaches and ran his hand down onto his beard. “I feel like me again, if that makes sense. You’re changing the subject. Down the hill, marine. Chop chop.”

  They left the knoll, their feet skidd
ing on the short, steep slope of rock as they descended.

  By the grave, the flowers danced in the wind.

  TYN GELVEN WAS the only other Tyn in the party, and Rulsy knew he was about to leave her behind. She could smell the magic he was gathering from up on the knoll, and sought him out before he set it free. Once out of sight of Ilona and Ardovani, she hurried. No Tyn wished to reveal their urgency to a human being, it undermined the stolid impression people had of them. Managing how they were perceived was all that kept them alive, but Tyn Rulsy was so concerned that she would be left alone without others of her kind that she risked being observed and ran like a serving girl late to attend her mistress.

  She ran into a pocket of the world where time went slow. Sounds died. The wind dropped. It was like she had run onto a stage set, or a museum display; some dusty space decorated to appear as the Sotherwinter.

  Within it, Tyn Gelven was preparing to depart. A heavy cloud of Tyn magic, invisible to most mortal eyes but clearer to Tyn Rulsy than the light of the sun, surrounded the old Tyn. He had removed the colourful scarf he wore over his iron collar to prevent it scorching, for the collar already was heating in opposition to his magic. As he paced and gestured, looking for all the world like an old man wrestling with a moral dilemma, his form skipped and blurred, and there appeared bright shafts of white light that stabbed out from his body, hinting at a greater being within his wrinkled skin. Then he was only an old, worn out half-man again, and could not possibly have ever been anything else. Only the collar retained its shape through his strange distortions, growing hotter all the while.

  “You’ll burn yourself!” said Rulsy.

  Tyn Gelven stopped pacing, and ran a flat, labourer’s finger around the inside of the collar. About his neck was a perfectly circular track of smooth skin, evidence of previous magical workings.

  “Ah, that I might,” he said. “Could happen.” He used the secret speech of the Tyn. To humans it sounded as a rhythmic babble. Unintelligible by the Tyn’s design, beneath the glamour was a language of words like any other.

  “You could...” Tyn Rulsy paused. “You could take it off.”

  “Only the Wild Tyn or the Free Tyn dare do such a thing. One lot’s mad and faded into sprites, the other lot’s wickeder than the lowest demon. I don’t want to behave like either.”

  “That’s not true!” said Rulsy. “The oldest and wisest of the Greater Tyn can. I heard tell the Morthrocksey Tyn did it to make the ship. You’re old and wise, Tyn Gelven. You can do it.”

  “Maybe I can,” he shrugged. “But I won’t.”

  “How will you go then?”

  “Aha, you are right when you say I’m an old Tyn. I’ve seen a few things. Don’t need to take my collar off to do what I’m going to do.”

  “You’ll walk the Road of Fire?” Rulsy said breathlessly.

  “Aye, I’ll walk the Road of Fire, it’s been a while but it’s still there, you can be sure of that.” Gelven’s eyes gleamed.

  Rulsy’s mouth widened. “You can do that?”

  “I forget how young you are, sometimes. Yes, I can.”

  “The Road of Fire is unsafe. That’s what mother told me.”

  “Well, there’s safe and safe. Is it without risk, well I’d have to say no. Is it free of Draathis? The answer right there is yes. The old road’s only good for travelling to points on this sphere. It’s no world gate, but it’ll suit my purposes. Draathis can’t walk there. Not yet, anyway. It’ll get me back to the ship.”

  “I never saw the road,” she said miserably. “Best I can manage is a bit of glamour, or a tiny hop from here to there, like I did from the ship. I never saw anything, I never lived in the light, just this drabness. Being born, then the fire and the iron,” she lifted up her parka’s skirt and let it drop. “That’s what I got, I a few years of glory. So little I don’t remember.”

  “Better than none, my dear. It’s best you don’t remember too much. Our children were unkind to us.”

  “You shouldn’t do it,” said Rulsy. “There’s all that iron in that ship. It’s not good for us. If you have to walk the road at all, you could just go home, back to the refuge of the Isles. You’ll live.”

  “One never walks the road,” he said, “one always has to run, and I’m running with magic burning off me right into the belly of an iron beast. But to go home now and leave these poor things to their fate, would you really do that? They are your friends.”

  “We are two beings born of light, rooted in earth and water forevermore,” said Rulsy sadly. “Broken. Why help them, when the way we are is their fault?”

  “Come now, it’s not their fault, not most of it anyway,” smiled Gelven, “and if they’re so bad, why help Goodlady Ilona?”

  Rulsy pulled a face. “She’s different. I like her. It’s not the same.”

  “It is the same, and they’re all different, not only her,” he said. “People are complicated creatures. The worst of them have some good in them. They’re like us in that regard, but better and worse at the same time.”

  “So you are going.”

  “I am.”

  “Take me with you,” she said in a small voice. “It’s cold here. I don’t like it.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Please!”

  “Tyn Rulsy! You left the ship to follow the goodlady, you know your heart’s not in your pleading,” he sniffed. “Only got it in me to take myself. My, if you saw me fifty centuries ago, I could lead an army down the Road of Fire, then out through a world gate and conquer the sphere beyond.” He waved his hand across the sky. “But that was then, and things are different now.” Gelven took her hand into his own and patted it. Their leathery, dry skin rasped together.

  “It’s not fair.”

  “There, there, Tyn Rulsy,” he said. “We’re here for good reasons, as the elders always say. It won’t forever be like this.”

  “It will be worse.”

  “Doubtlessly,” he said with a sad smile. “Things can always be worse. I prefer to dwell on the now and what is, not the might be or the what was. Dwelling on the what was brings despair, and that’s killed more of our people than any Draathis ever did. Dwelling on the might be leads you further from the path. You don’t want to be a Free Tyn now, do you?”

  She shuddered. “Ugh, no.”

  “Well then. Fight your way out of the hell of today before you worry about the one of tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe one day, perhaps a day like this where everything you care for is in danger and there is no light on the horizon, maybe the One will return, and he will forgive us.”

  Rulsy was dismayed. Tyn did not name the One ever. Not unless they thought they were close to death.

  “Don’t go!” she said.

  He stood up straight. “Now, young lady, tell Ilona and the rest that I have gone to carry a message to the Ishmalani captain. They never had the eye of the One at the start, but they won it. They are good people. He will do what is right. I will inform him that these folk here still live. Best I go. Old sins cannot be undone, but new sins can be avoided. I will not have the deaths of any of them on my conscience if it can be helped.”

  “Not even that fatty Persin? He made all this happen. He brought the Iron Children back,” said Rulsy.

  “Not even him. We lost the right to judge folks a long time ago, Tyn Rulsy. Don’t forget that, or you’ll make mistakes. You’d think our kind can err no more. If only that were the case.”

  “Wait at least until they have talked. How will you know where they are going? You won’t help anyone.”

  “They will head for Sea Drays Bay. They have no other choice.”

  “The bay is blocked!”

  “Still they’ll go. I don’t need to be a seer to foretell that.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Oh you know I do.” He held up his hands to calm her. “I would stay if I could. The road comes when it will, not when I will it. Not now, not like it was in the old days.” He clos
ed his eyes and sniffed the air. “Righty-ho. It has to be now or not at all.” He snapped his fingers. Time slowed further. Light ran like treacle, sweet and soft and gentle. Nothing else seemed to change, but Tyn Gelven stepped out of that place and into another, like a paper shape pushed through a slit in a card.

  Time ran back to its normal speed with such force Tyn Rulsy fell backward, plopping onto her behind with a squeak.

  “Not fair,” she said. The magic faded. The human world intruded again. The wind blew cold. The dogs were howling. In the camp, men were leaving behind their tasks and making their way to the tent for a meeting that would decide whether they lived or died, ignorant of the great magic worked in their midst.

  Tyn Rulsy picked herself up and grumbled her way to the centre of the camp.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Question of Priorities

  THE CAMP WAS hardly worthy of the name. In the books on polar exploration Ilona had read, a camp meant a well-ordered collection of tents, stacks of equipment, areas for dogs and wood-sided cabins with canvas roofs. There were maps in some of the works she’d studied. They were all very organised. Their camp was chaos, a collection of boxes and sleds scattered at random around a single tent.

  Snow patches turned a vibrant orange in the last light of day. It was by then past midnight, and the sun was finally setting. When it dipped below the horizon it would stay there only briefly before rising again.