The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  “If we send men ahead to cut more blocks from the snow pans, we can speed the process even more,” said Bannord. “That’s not a half-bad idea.”

  “My family are engineers,” said Ilona. “Antoninan, what do you think?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “It is a good idea, goodlady,” said Persin approvingly. “A very good idea.”

  “We shall do it,” said Antoninan. He curled his lip. “Ordinarily, I have problems with too much snow, not too little. A pox on variety. But never let it be said that Eustache Antoninan avoids a challenge. Never!”

  THEY WORKED HARD throughout the day. Antoninan sent ahead two parties of five men to cut blocks from the snow pans, while the rest of them set about unloading the sleds and preparing the cargo for carrying across the naked stone. When the first sled was unloaded it was taken, along with its dogs, down to the first snow pan. The ground proved to be hard going, broken up by boulders and jagged lumps of peat that crumbled underfoot without warning. Carrying the sleds was a job of six men, and still they stumbled. Soon they were cursing and sweating profusely. The air was cold, but the sun beat down on them.

  “Remove your parkas!” Antoninan ordered. “If they become wet, they will freeze if the temperature drops, and you will die!”

  They had little time to rest. Thirst plagued them all.

  To the good, the snow in the scattered pans cut well, and if a few blocks crumbled in the hands of the men, they were in the minority. The ease of slicing and moving the snow encouraged the party to extend the roads further out across the stone field than intended. Taking the sleds across the rock was hard, and by the end of morning, the sleds and the cargo had been moved only the mile and a half to the first snow pan. However, minutes after the runners kissed the snow and the dogs had been harnessed again, the sleds had covered five hundred yards of snow pan and ice road. The elation of seeing the sleds move easily across the ice there was out of all proportion with the distance gained. The party at the second pan had made fine progress in laying a track of snow out over the rock, and so more ground was covered. They proceeded quickly thereafter, relying on the ice roads more than carrying the gear.

  By the time the sun headed for its brief rest, the party had covered half of the distance over the bare ground. A band of solid white enticed them in the distance. The column of steam following them had drawn nearer, but they were all exhausted and had to stop, none more so than the dogs who had to endure the sun’s heat radiating from the stone.

  The party had taken to bivouacking during the nights, not wishing to spend travelling time erecting their tents. Dark was so short and the weather fair, so there seemed little point anyway. They crawled into their sleeping bags still dressed in their clothes and lit no fires to avoid giving away their position. That evening was no different.

  Ilona camped at a distance from the men, with Tyn Rulsy as a chaperone; a concession to society’s morals more than a real precaution. The party’s situation was such that even the lustiest appetites were frozen. All they wished to do was sleep.

  Ilona awoke to the sound of stifled sobs. Rulsy was not in her sleeping bag, and she cast about for her. Both moons were in the sky, though the sun was already announcing his intention to rise. It was no task to spot the Tyn sat upon a rock facing toward the coming day. The Twin’s vastness bit out a black circle from the blue of false dawn, but even it could not deny the sun. The ground rumbled, an earthquake this time. A moment later came a roar of tumbling ice from the distant shore.

  Ilona approached Rulsy carefully, clearing her throat when near.

  “There is no need to announce yourself, goodmaid,” said the Tyn. “I can hear a mouse’s sigh a hundred miles away, if I wants. Certainly I hears you.”

  “You are crying.”

  “I am crying.”

  “I did not know Tyn cried,” Ilona said, and sat next to Rulsy. The stone had lost the heat it had hoarded during the long day. The sky sucked all warmth from the world, but paid for it in stars.

  “You don’t know nothing about us,” said Rulsy.

  “I suppose we don’t,” said Ilona.

  “Tyn Gelven is dead,” said Rulsy. “If you’re wondering why I am all sad.” She thrust her wizened face into her drawn up knees and let out a hitching sob.

  Ilona lifted her hand and gingerly put her arm around the creature’s shoulders. Tyn Rulsy was very small and fine boned, so when she nestled into Ilona’s side, it felt like she held a bird. Like a bird, the Tyn was incredibly warm. Ilona’s skin tingled at the contact.

  “He was so old, so much older than me,” said Tyn Rulsy. “He knew so much, and now he’s gone.”

  “How can you know?” Ilona asked.

  “A soul as old and strong as his makes a ripple when it goes. He went for you. He went and died because he thought you were worth it. I hope you are happy.”

  Ilona had no reply. Rulsy was silent. The ice groaned in the north, but at night it seemed quieter, quiet enough that the sound of the small things eking out a living between snow, grass and rock was audible.

  “It’s not fair,” said Rulsy. “When I was young, really, really young, it was all different. Now look at the world, look at me. I know how you see me, what that magister with the sad lovely eyes says about me. I am hideous.” She shrank smaller. “Once, I was so beautiful. The world was so beautiful.”

  “Tullian doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Then why say it?” snapped Rulsy. “You people, you is so careless with your words and your thoughts and all the things you do. You don’t see it changes things. You are always changing things. You changed me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Course you don’t,” muttered Rulsy. “None of you do. All be over soon anyway, all this. The Draathis have won, worse luck.”

  “The iron monsters. Draathis,” she repeated it slowly, testing the foreign syllables on her tongue.

  Rulsy snorted. “Draathis ain’t no more monsters than you are. Things what don’t know their place. Slaves got above their station, but they are mean. They won’t ever stop. They’ll walk and walk through snow and rock and water to get at you, and they will. Then when they have you, they’ll kill and kill until every last one of you people is dead, and every last one of mine. Then that’ll be that, and this world will be theirs.”

  A hiss came from Rulsy’s neck. Ilona brushed her hand against the iron collar the Tyn wore.

  “Rulsy! Your collar is burning hot.”

  “Won’t be the first time I’ve said too much,” Rulsy said. “Close to breaking my geas, I am. Tempted to do it and all.”

  “What would happen, if you... you know, you did break your geas?”

  Rulsy looked up at Ilona, her black button eyes shone with the reflected light of the night sky. “Then this thing you see beside you, it will become all I am, and all I ever was, and the thing I was, the thing I really am, will be no more, and will never have been.” She looked dead ahead. “Geas aren’t there for fun, or for perverseness. It’s magic, like the collar. Keeps us in our shapes, stops us changing any more. Don’t know why we bother. It’s all over. It’s—”

  She whimpered. Smoke rose from her neck.

  “Stop talking!” said Ilona shaking her by the shoulders. “Please, I don’t want you to be hurt. You’ve been so good to me.”

  “Don’t really matter what you want any more, goodmaid, don’t matter at all. We’re all dead.”

  Rulsy pulled away and slid off the stone to the floor. “Best get back to bed, goodmaid.” Her tone changed, as if she had not shed a tear. “We’s got a day lumping sleds coming, and we best be quick about it.” She glanced back at the nearing column of steam, already lit up by the coming dawn.

  Rulsy would say no more, but allowed Ilona to take her hand as they walked back to their camp.

  Ilona took a little solace in that.

  THREE KNOCKS CLANGED against the iron door of the Prince Alfra’s aft hold. Volozeranetz nodded tersely. A sa
ilor spun the wheel on the door and opened it with great care.

  “Password,” said the sailor.

  “For the love of the One,” said Heffi, pushing his way in. “If you don’t know who I am or whose side I’m on by now, we’re all in trouble.”

  Four Ishmalani, including First Mariner Volozeranetz, Boatswain Drentz and Helmsman Tolpoleznaen waited in the hold along with Trassan’s clerk Godelwind; Toberan and Dellion, the sole marines in fighting condition; Ollens, Trassan’s chief engineer, and the Tyn cook, Charvolay. They were all grave and afraid.

  “Everyone’s here,” said Heffi unnecessarily, but he had to say something, and made a show of counting heads. “Good.” He leaned back against the door. “This is outrageous, skulking around in my own ship like a stowaway. As you may have guessed, I have called you here to propose we do something about it, and very soon.”

  Heffi paused and listened carefully. Iron sang with shifts in temperature. The glimmer engine rumbled loudly. Wheels chopped through the ocean, the screw shaft whined in its housing. While through the water and the iron came the dreadful grinding and howling of the ice. There was no danger they would be overheard, even if they shouted.

  “I’ll keep this brief, before Croutier’s thugs notice we’re gone.” He paused. “I have some bad news. Goodfellow Kressind is dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Tyn Gelven,” said Heffi. “Before he passed.”

  “I thought he’d sink the ship,” said Godelwind nervously.

  “The passing of Gelven could have,” said Charvolay. “He was a great Tyn, ancient. There was a power in him, even in these diminished times. His loss is a sorry one for our people.”

  “Well, if anything good came out of it, it’s this; Croutier is now extremely wary of the surviving Tyn. He’s been a damn sight less cocky since.” Heffi sighed. “The rest of it is not so good. Vols Iapetus is also dead. But many of the rest are alive, and on their way to Sea Drays Bay. If we do not turn back, we condemn them to death, and probably ourselves.”

  “What do you mean?” said Godelwind.

  “Don’t be a fool, landsman,” growled Tolpoleznaen.

  “In two days, maybe three, we’ll rendezvous with the rest of Persin’s expedition,” said Heffi. “I know for a fact that Persin himself is not on board either of his remaining vessels.”

  “Where is he then? Is he dead too?” said Godelwind.

  “He is with the others. They have made common cause. If Persin were instead here or on board his other vessels, I’d rate our chances of survival good, but I would not trust these mercenary bastards with a sack of grain meant for their starving mothers. Croutier is well aware that Persin may be alive, but he does not care. His plan is to kill us, take the ship, and make up some lying story about how we all died in the south so they can sell it back to Vand.”

  “How can you be sure?” said Godelwind. “Surely he’s a reasonable man? We can deal with him.”

  “Heffi knows for sure because that’s what he’d do in Croutier’s place,” said Tolpoleznaen.

  “They can’t get away with that,” said Godelwind.

  “Watch him,” growled Tolpoleznaen. “The south breeds strange stories that are too easily believed. Verenetz’s story was believed for years, and what falsehood that proved to be, from the lips of a follower of the One no less. If Croutier says we all perished in the city and they found the ship abandoned, who is going to say otherwise? The bodies might never be found. Can’t use scrying magic on the ship, far too much iron.”

  “Right,” said Heffi. He tugged at the gold rings on his fingers. “And even if he is found out and condemned to drowning, we shall all still be dead. We live for the moment because Croutier’s group has no sailors among them, or not many at any rate. Not enough to sail this ship, and no engineers who can fathom out the systems. We’re useful. As soon as we are not, off to the One we Ishmalani shall go, helped on our way by a sellsword’s bullet, and the rest of the expedition will be spending their afterlife with the Drowned King.”

  “I’ve heard of this Croutier,” said the Drentz. “He’s a blackguard. Done some awful things up in the north. The Oczerks have a large bounty on his head.”

  Tolpoleznaen grinned. “The One shows us the way to profit. We should keep him alive, and deliver him up to them to boil until he’s dead, like they do with his kind of whoreson. We’d be richer, and happier for a fitting vengeance.”

  “I’d say yes, my friend,” said Heffi, squeezing Tolpoleznaen’s shoulder. “But the more complications we have, the less likely we are to succeed. I suggest the simplest plan of all.”

  He looked them all in the eye, one after the other.

  “We kill them all.”

  “I agree,” said Toberan. “Say the word.”

  “It’s just you, Toberan,” said Godelwind. “Dellion’s still sick. Kolskwin’s blind.”

  “I’m better,” said Dellion. He was whey faced and thin from whatever ailed him. He wasn’t believed.

  “And aren’t most of you Ishmalani pacifists?” said Godelwind.

  “If you hadn’t been skulking in Goodfellow Kressind’s cabin when they attacked, you would have seen the Ishmalani fight as hard as any islesman,” said Toberan.

  “I saw only dead men, and a ship in our enemy’s hands. You can’t kill them all yourself. And you don’t have your gun. None of us have any weapons. Croutier’s got them.”

  Heffi stroked his beard. “As much I enjoy lecturing non-believers on their misconceptions about our creed, I don’t have time. We are permitted to fight to defend ourselves. Firearms are forbidden us, this is true, but any rule, even one of the Rule of Twenty, may be suspended by the grace of the One should our lives be in danger. We are going to have to fight. Even you, Godelwind. And you Tyn Charvolay.”

  Charvolay shrugged. “Not the first time I kill, not the last.”

  “What about the Iron Whisperers?”

  Charvolay waggled his head in thought. “Might do, might not. Working close with iron changes them. They have many geas on them to protect them against iron’s poison. Spilling blood is often one.”

  “Bah, it’s only two Tyn,” said Tolpoleznaen.

  “Discount us, would you?” said Charvolay. “Do not. Gelven is dead because of him. There will be a reckoning for that.”

  Heffi nodded. “Tyn on our side, especially roused, would be good. Can anyone get to Kororsind?”

  “Croutier’s got him under lock and key,” said Drentz. “I’m not surprised. An alchemist on the loose can do a lot of damage on a ship like this.”

  “That’s why we need him,” said Heffi. “If not a mage, a magister; if not a magister, give me an alchemist.” He spoke a saying gathering popularity in Karsa at that time.

  “Can we count on everyone else?” asked Toberan. “Is there any danger someone on the crew will turn on us for reward?” He looked pointedly at Godelwind.

  “Unlikely, but not impossible,” said Heffi. “I would move cautiously if we had more time. We do not have time. Our friends on the ice do not either. I can see profit for us nevertheless. If we rescue Persin, there will be money in it. The One would approve.”

  “Now you are singing to my tune,” said Tolpoleznaen.

  “It will convince the others,” said Heffi. “We move to the signal of the fog whistle, given three times, not later than three days hence. Go to your crew mates. Get them organised. Croutier has only twenty-two men; there are nearly a hundred of us. With the favour of the One, and a little sea luck, we’ll take back the ship without much loss of life.”

  The men nodded, and made pledges to do that.

  “Now go, before we are missed! Except you Tyn Charvolay. I have an idea that I want you to put to the Iron Whisperers, and I think you’re best placed to speak with Kororsind.”

  The others left one at a time, staging their departures at random intervals to avoid rousing suspicion. When they had gone, Charvolay gave a wicked smile of pointed teeth that shone as
brightly as his silver jewellery.

  “I’m all ears,” he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Sisters’ Barrens

  THE SOUTHERN QUARTER was the largest of the four lands of Farthia, and the poorest. The triple volcano of the Three Sisters ruled. Their regular eruptions rendered a wide swathe of the land uninhabitable eastwards well into Ostria, and extending southwards almost as far as the canyon of the River Olb. The plains were riven with cracks that opened up without warning. Long black lava flows, wrinkled as a dracon’s skin and black as burned rubber, extended tongues from every flank of the mountains. Seasonal flooding carved the soft ash covering the landscape into treacherous gullies yards deep.

  The Sisters’ most violent eruptions were visible in distant Perus, and troubled the weather for seasons afterwards. Such outpourings came seldomly, but the mountains were never quiet. Always fires glowed around the summits. The Earth’s destructive industry lit the night skies for leagues, and when the Twin drew near they were at their most violent.

  Arkadian Vand watched the landscape slide by. He had travelled the South Farthian road many times, but though the look of the land was familiar its landmarks rarely remained constant for long. The influence of the volcanoes extended far beyond their soaring cones. Their tantrums shook the ground, remaking it with a frustrated artist’s energy.

  No major outpouring from the mountains had troubled the Sisters’ Barrens for two years, and the land, though deadly, was fertile with volcanic ash. For the moment large stretches were patched with vibrant green. Broken-down farmhouses occasionally interrupted the view. Sometimes, Vand saw people farming there. Only the desperate or foolhardy attempted to settle in the Sisters’ Barrens. A crop might as easily be swallowed by an ash fall or dragged down overnight into a crevasse as provide abundance. Earthquakes tumbled all but the stoutest buildings. When the mountains spoke, great curls of ash fell from the sky. Molten rock bubbled from sudden fissures, turning grassland to roaring infernos. There were no woodlands. Trees had little chance to grow there. Those that did lived short lives, their charcoaled corpses standing as warnings to other seeds.