The Brass God

by K. M. McKinley

  “Very minor,” he said. “Nothing like them, certainly nothing like you. Barely gentry.”

  “That explains why our paths have never crossed.”

  “The wrong circles,” he agreed. “I’m far too lowly to have met you socially.”

  “So the career...?”

  “Like most officers, I’m afraid my captaincy was purchased. A useful way of disposing of a middle son. But I like soldiering, and I’m good at it, so don’t worry if the drowned come. They have not sent you some milk-blooded aristocrat. I can actually fight.” He said it fiercely. He had defended his position before. The reputation of bought commission officers was poor. He paused before he continued. “I understand Guis came to see you.”

  She couldn’t stop her face hardening. “A cold-hearted bastard that one.”

  “I would never have heard him described so,” said Qurion. “In our adventures, it was he who always scolded me for my free and easy morals.”

  “Those who maintain the higher moral ground are often there by circumstance rather than choice. He bedded me then rejected me. I liked him, a little too much.” She surprised herself with her frankness, but could not arrest her mouth. “I believe he was worried what his friends might say. I am not a beauty. He was weak.”

  “Yes well, Guis is far from perfect, though he affects superiority. He and I parted on bad terms last I saw him, now he is missing,” said Qurion.

  “And you thought I might know where he is? I don’t.” She tore a strip of bread from the loaf unnecessarily hard, and stuffed it into her mouth. “And I don’t care either.”

  “I am sorry,” he said. His natural confidence seemed a little dented to her. “I had to ask. He and I are close. We were close,” he added. “I am not so sure now.”

  She shrugged.

  There followed an uncomfortable silence.

  “Tell me about this device?”

  “My orrery? You want to change the subject.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Well,” she said, speaking through a full mouth and waving her knife up at the bronze and brass spheres on their iron arms. “These balls represent the worlds around our own. That one there,” she jabbed her knife toward a middling-sized object, “is our Earth.”

  “I see. The Red and White moons are there, and that must be the Twin. I take it the machinery replicates their orbits?”

  She swallowed and nodded. “I had it turned off when I left for Perus. The engine is a direct glimmer device, very expensive to run. However, now I am back, I think I will turn it back on again.”

  “It is a fine astronomical instrument.”

  “I used it to prove my theories. I don’t need it on any more, but I would like to see it move again.”

  “Your theories about motion, the attractive force and the Twin?”

  “It’s about more than that,” she said, stuffing more food into her mouth. After picking at her food for weeks, she was suddenly enormously hungry.

  “And what is that?”

  “The end of the world,” she said with a wild grin. “I discerned in the planets’ movements a coincidence in our histories between the fall of civilisations—the Morfaan’s, the Maceriyan Resplendency and possibly more—and the drawing near of the Twin. Although it draws near then away from us, so causing, in conjunction with the moons, the Great Tides, its orbit is ultimately erratic. With each passage it comes nearer. It comes to its closest approach once every four millennia, then everything goes to shit. You have felt the increased incidence of earthquakes and so forth—the weather, the disruption of the tides?”

  “There is the talk of the gods’ return also,” said Qurion.

  “Maceriyan hysteria, but perhaps it is connected,” she said. “Who knows what adverse effects the proximity of the Twin has upon the human mind? Who knows indeed, what is coming to our world?”

  “You seem pleased.”

  “I am pleased my theory is correct, that is all. Although the exact nature of the destruction eludes me.”

  “Well then,” said Qurion setting his tea aside and taking up the beer again. “We had better discuss the plans for reinforcing the castle, hadn’t we?” He unrolled his drawings. She obligingly moved aside her breakfast and brushed away the crumbs. “There is no harm in being prepared for the worst.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Sniffer

  THERE WAS TEA that nobody drank. Vand looked over the cooling pot at Veridy on the other side of the table.

  “Don’t you have anything to say to me?” said Veridy. Her eyes and nose were again red from weeping.

  “There is no news. I have Magister Hissenwar working constantly to locate the Prince Alfra. As soon as I have notice, I will let you know. The slightest thing, I swear.”

  “I am not upset for lack of news, father!” she said exasperatedly.

  “Then why are you upset?”

  “Because of you,” she said harshly. “You behave as if nothing has happened. You go on with your plots and your plans.” She pointed at a half-rolled blueprint of a new ship, bigger than the Prince Alfra. “We do not even know if Trassan lives or is dead, and already you are planning a new vessel!”

  “I am planning lots of things.” Vand looked at her in bemusement. “What do you expect me to do? I have interests that must be taken care of. If Persin returns with the contents of the city, then I will be disadvantaged.”

  “Interests!” she shouted, and stood suddenly. “I should be your interest! Trassan, who was a like son to you, should be your interest! Not all this...” she flung her arm out. “Cold iron! You are dead inside, you show no emotion at his loss, none whatsoever. You are inhuman! I hate you!”

  She broke from the room in floods of tears, leaving Vand to sit sadly alone. He laced his fingers in his lap and sighed. She was young, and didn’t understand men well enough to see that he grieved in his own way.

  A stab of vindictiveness pricked at him. Perhaps if he revealed Trassan’s infidelities to her, then she would forget him. He could wheel in the woman Trassan used as an occasional mistress behind Veridy’s back, or the doxy he bedded at his sister Katriona’s revel.

  Vand stopped his train of thought dead. Maybe she was right. If he was thinking how to hurt his daughter to get her to shut up, he had lost something. Maybe ambition had got the better of him.

  It was a thought quickly disregarded. The matter of the pilot for his machine was ever on his mind. The Sniffer had not appeared as Filden had promised when Vand had spoken the name. He was going to have to dig him out. He rang the silver bell on his desk. His assistant Kasagalio came in, his air of self-importance as deliberately projected as it always was.

  “Where’s Filden?” Vand snapped.

  “He is out, Goodman Vand,” said Kasagalio. “He said not to expect him here until the morning.”

  “Morning’s too late. You’ll have to do. I want you to get down to Tyntown and hunt out this Free Tyn for me.” Vand tossed the scrap of paper given him by Filden across the desk. It was wrinkled, and the ink smeared from the many times Vand had crumpled it up and smoothed it out again.

  Kasagalio was horrified.

  “You... You want me... You want me to go to Tyntown?”

  “Yes. Yes I do Kasagalio, I want you to go to Tyntown, just like I said,” said Vand, with undisguised contempt. “So go to Tyntown. Don’t be a coward. You don’t want to test me today. His name is on paper.”

  “The what?”

  “His bloody name, you stammering ninny.” He pointed to the paper.

  Kasagalio plucked it up as if it were unclean. He frowned as he read it.

  “Say it,” said Vand.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “If you don’t say it, apparently you can’t find him. Tyn magic. Say it.”

  Kasagalio blanched.

  “Say it!”

  “The sn-sniffer?”

  “Yes, I know,” said Vand, though Kasagalio reacted only with fear to his request, and not puzzlement. “Da
mned odd name. Go and find him.”

  “Sir. Please, there is a very good man who would be far better suited than I to—”

  “I don’t want a very good man to go and find him, I want you to go and find him,” roared Vand. “That’s why I gods-damned asked you to bloody go, you gods-damned fool!” Vand wasn’t good at grief, but anger came easily to him. All the annoyances and pain of the last few weeks burst from him at great volume, and in a shower of spittle.

  Kasagalio wavered.

  “Out!” roared Vand. “Find the Sniffer, find him now!”

  Kasagalio pranced out of the room. The door slammed behind him.

  “I am surrounded by idiots!” Vand muttered to himself. He smoothed his hair and sat himself down.

  The door burst open again, and in came Kasagalio. He was white as a sheet.

  “He is here!” he shrieked girlishly. “He’s in there right now!”

  “Who?” snapped Vand.

  “The Sniffer!”

  Vand frowned. “Maybe Filden wasn’t talking rot after all. Show him in then.”

  Kasagalio turned and looked out of the door. “He’s gone!” he said, equally shrilly.

  “I’m right here, your worships.”

  Vand and Kasagalio faced the corner of the room. Vand had a pair of chairs there, either side of an Ocerzerkiyan shaque board set up like he was about to play, though he rarely did. The chairs were in full sunlight, but one was occupied by an indistinct shape, like it was hidden in shadow.

  Not a small shape, as Kasagalio would remember that night over two bottles of fortified Gallonian wine. Short, yes. But broad across the chest, somewhat powerful arms, with a large, misshapen head topped with wiry grey hair like a sort of hideous turnip. People laughed at Kasagalio when he described the Sniffer that way, but it was the only way he could think of it. Like when a farmer pulls a humorously shaped vegetable from the earth, only this wasn’t funny. It should have been, it was so mismatched and comical like a lot of Tyn, but it wasn’t a thing of humour. Unexpected, a shock. It shouldn’t be, it was just a... a... “A vegetable?” one of his friends said and laughed. But it was horrible, he insisted.

  It was when he started talking like that that Kasagalio thought he might be going insane.

  The Sniffer’s nose was long, emerging first into the light from the broiling dark birthing him. He had a richly rounded mouth as wide as a shark’s and full of small, square teeth. A baby’s teeth, thought Kasagalio, but yellow with age and hiding behind a smile that dripped with poisonous guile. Then he popped out from the shadows all at once. The way the Tyn landed on the carpet suggested he was heavy. His over-large hands pulled first a fine cane, then a large carpet bag out of the dark behind him, and he stood there complete. The darkness fizzed out of existence, leaving the whole of him available for scrutiny. He was lopsided, hunched, repellent to human sight. Disproportionately long arms reached far lower down the leg than a human’s would. He wore a velvet frock coat of Quireadan red, a rich and autumnal shade. Breeches, rings, shoes with fashionable heels and three buckles; all the trappings of a goodfellow about town, cut and refashioned to his unnatural proportions, right down to the long lace collars that almost, but not quite, hid the brown scar where he had once worn an iron collar.

  All was filthy, his clothes as seamed with dirt and scuffed and stained as the skin of his hands and face.

  Kasagalio almost died of fright when the Tyn addressed him directly. Its eyes glinted with cruel mischief.

  “I hear your master is looking for me, Dosion Kasagalio.”

  Kasagalio pointed sideways at Vand.

  “Well, you found me.” He did a mocking bow, throwing out his long arms wide to balance himself. “You’ve found old Sniffer.”

  “Tyn,” said Vand, attracting the thing’s attention. “Why come now, why not come earlier when I said your name before?”

  The Tyn shrugged and waddled over to Vand’s desk in a manner that suggested a deformity of the bones or joints. It stopped where Vand could see it and leaned on its cane. “I come when I please, and arrive where I will,” it said. Faint amusement bubbled under its every word, as if it found the world ridiculous.

  “Kasagalio, leave us,” said Vand.

  “He must stay, he was the one who summoned me.” The Sniffer smiled evilly at him. Kasagalio mewled with fear.

  “Release my servant. It is me you will deal with.”

  “Is it now?” said the Tyn. Its tone was mild enough, but menace clung to it. Vand’s perceptions stretched, and a persistent ringing started in his ears. Reality seemed affronted by the being before him.

  “Release him, or you will get no work from me.”

  The Tyn shrugged. “I know what you want, Goodman Vand.” It licked its lips with a pointed, bright pink tongue. “And I know what you want, Dosion.”

  Kasagalio went paler, though further whitening seemed impossible.

  “Leave him be,” said Vand.

  “Very well,” said the Sniffer. “I release you for a glass warm milk from a goat milked this morning. Add in a drop of red wine while the milk rotates away from the sun. You may not stir it with any metal, only bone. Bring it here. If you do this well, you will never see me again. If you do not, well...” It let insinuation bite at Kasagalio’s nerves. “I know you now, Dosion Kasagalio.”

  Vand’s secretary stood staring at the creature in shock.

  “Go on then, get out!” said Vand. His voice caught. This thing disturbed him.

  Kasagalio almost fell from the room, banging the door shut behind him in his haste to be away. He was shouting down to the kitchen for the things the creature demanded before he was out of his office.

  “So,” said the Sniffer. “Here I am, like you wanted. I can find what you seek, but it’s a rare thing you need.”

  “What is it I want?” Vand challenged him.

  The Sniffer snickered. “Don’t trust old Sniffer, eh? There are greater powers in this world than soul dust and steam, engineer. I know alright. Close by the Three Sisters, in the old cities of the young masters, you have found a machine. Human blood it needs to walk and make war, and a human heart to drive the blood, and a human mind to pump the heart. A child, that’s what you need, a child of a very special sort.” It leaned forward and snatched an apple from the bowl on Vand’s desk with its long, thief’s fingers. “This blood and the child it runs within is of an old sort bred by the young masters, much diluted now. The bearers are one in a million. But it exists still. If you wants it, I can find it.”

  “It will make the machine work?”

  The Sniffer wagged a finger at Vand. It popped the apple whole into its mouth, and did not speak until it had finished crunching it to nothing and swallowed it down. “Answers to questions are finding as well, in their way. Separate price for those.”

  “Name it then,” said Vand. “I won’t employ you to find this child for me if it won’t work.”

  “Them apples,” said the Sniffer. “The whole bowl. I’m hungry.”

  Vand lifted both hands to indicate the Sniffer should take them. The Tyn waggled his fingers and surveyed them, making a show of selecting the best, before plucking one up almost too fast to see. This second apple it consumed like the first, crunching it up whole.

  “Well,” it said, when it had finished. It hooked its cane over the back of its chair and folded its horrible hands over its little round belly. “The machine is a thing of war, made by the young masters, the Morfaan as you call them. I don’t know anything about machines. That’s why the young masters were made by my brothers and sisters, but I do know the truth, and the truth is it won’t work without the child. If you do it right, it will walk again, and the rewards you receive shall be just.”

  “I will be rich?”

  “Your company will flourish. You will be more famous than ever before.”

  A smile broke through Vand’s unease.

  “Steady there, Goodman Vand!” said the Tyn, its eyes widening and a hand coming u
p. “You better hear the price first.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing too esoteric,” said the Tyn. It took a third apple, which it swallowed whole, like a dracon wolfing down a stone to work in its stomach. “I want a night with your daughter.”

  Vand’s smile vanished.

  “Get out,” Vand said.

  The Tyn moved his hand like a fish swimming through the sea, becoming momentarily absorbed by it. “Careful now, I could exact a higher price for that request. You want rid of me, you have to do it properly.” It dropped its hand into its lap. “No harm will come to her, body or mind. One night I need, for purposes of my own, which I will not speak of, and nor shall she. She will be richer, live longer, and be wiser than if she does not stay the night at my side. This I swear. There is the matter of the child. Be aware if you do not employ me, then you shall never find what you seek, and the toy of the young masters will never move for any man.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I can’t lie,” said the Sniffer. “Geas, you see. There are other constraints on a Tyn than an iron collar.” It tapped its neck. “The mightiest take both, I took the one over the other,” it said. “I can deceive, and I do, but the deception is always due to poor interpretation on the part of the deceived. Any word out of this mouth of mine is the truth, especially where it concerns the future. It’s what I don’t say that you want to watch.” It gave a hideous grin. “What will win out, Goodman Vand? Riches and fame throughout the Kingdoms, or paternal duty?”

  Vand sat, impossible calculations running through his sharp mind. The ship had failed. Persin was breathing down his neck. Already he’d taken a big risk with the Guiders, and blood followed blood, as they said. He was getting deeper into it. For the briefest moment, he had a flash of insight into what sort of monster his ambition was making him, but ambition was all he had. After the explosion at Thrusea, and now the probable loss of the ship, his fortune was stretched thin.

  The glint of Morfaan silver caught his eye. Unreadable still.

  He could not afford another failure.

  “Very well,” he said stiffly. “One night, and one night only.” He felt filthy inside as he said it, as if he’d drunk a quart of engine oil.